MAB

Baroque and Renaissance music are my great loves, but my CD collection is pretty wide, my favourite recording artists are Emma Kirkby and Andreas Scholl. In opera my preference is anything written before 1800 with Handel the supreme favourite, but I adore Puccini too and a couple of months ago made the pilgrimage to his former home in Lucca which was a wonderful experience. Being Irish I've a great love for the Chieftains, my favourite piece by them is 'Women of Ireland', the haunting theme of the film Barry Lyndon. Anjuli_Bai, Mozart wasn't the only composer to die in poverty, though by far the greatest; I like your idea of an annual requiem for him very much.

Last night the Floral Hall was being stripped of its fixtures and fittings before the audience had even left the building. A deep carpet in an unattractive puke-green colour has made an appearance in the amphi bar and corridor, not very good quality as bits were coming off all over it. Wonder who foots the bill for all this?

I thought they were still doing tours of the building, if they are the shop would be a nice earner. Do the profits from all this go to ROH or LOCOG do you know?

Mats Ek's Swan Lake featured a nude female Rothbart, so yes.

Not seen Wenlock and Mandeville?

Of the people I know that go to the ROH, and I lnow a fair number, not one of them would be likely to buy a piece of Olympic tat. This is one of those decisions that seem to defy logic.

John Taras, Christopher Bruce and (I think) Alan Carter.

Would like ENB to revive, Piège de Lumière, Swan Song, Witch Boy and Onegin,

Must be around forty years since they last did Job, though you sometimes see Satan's solo at Gala's etc. Very interesting work but I wonder if many people know this rather obscure biblical story today.

Absolutely no slur intended at all, but the fact that the majority of posts on the site concern the RB, leads me to view the site as RB fan based. I've been watching the RB since 1964 and have witnessed peaks and troughs; sadly the company doesn't currently occupy a peak. As to the pros and cons of guest artists, some companies are in more need of them than others and right now the RB is one of those that need them most.

If Rojo returns as guest then she's not entirely leaving and I imagine she won't break her dancing links to the company entirely. I appreciate that this is basically the fan site of the Royal Ballet, but perhaps it's time to recognize the actual limited ability of so many of the dancers compared with other companies. There is talent there to be sure, though some of it unacknowledged, but on the whole the company is in the doldrums. Perhaps the presence of a dancer like Osipov will act as some sort of spur.

Being a 'gold plated disaster' didn't stop Isadora making a return though did it?

Check out the date, it was written three years ago. I posted it because it gives a good idea of the rep the company dances, including it seems, M & A.

Have found this on the web http://www.passportmagazine.ru/article/1504/ The reference to Marguerite and Armand may be a clue as to why Polunin found the company attractive.

I imagine if they have Petit's works in the rep, they must have upped their game as Petit and his team wouldn't have allowed a sub standard co. to dance his works and I know that Neumeier and Frank Andersen have also worked with them. I'm told the company started to flourish under the directorship of Mikhail Lavrovsky, two directors back I think, but the momentum has been kept going. Tatyana Chernobrovkina, their leading dancer, is superb and stands comparison with anyone at the Bolshoi or Kirov and I imagine she would make the perfect partner for Polunin. Svetlana Tsoi, another dream of a dancer, used to be with them as did Gennady Yanin before he transferred to the Bolshoi. I have fond memories of the theatre, not just their ballet performances but opera too; after all I bet few people have seen Rachmaninov's Aleko and Rimsky-Korsakov's Mozart & Salieri on a double bill, the conductor was of real international standard as well.

Re Four Seasons, if I remember rightly Winter was a pas de trois (Donald McLeary), Spring a pas de quatre (with Collier, Eagling, Coleman & Ashmole), Summer a pas de deux (with Mason?) and Autumn another pas de trois where the two males were Dowell and Sleep. It did get a revival but the original set and costumes were dumped for something considered inferior, perhaps that dampened enthusiasm for the work. I never saw Olympiad so maybe it wasn't that good, but I would challenge some of the opinions of the time. In particular I remember a MacMillan ballet with a date for a title that was dedicated to Ninette de Valois and was danced at Sadlers Wells. It was largely condemned because the costumes had the same pointillist design as the set, making the dancers appear to merge into the back cloth. I remember the choreography being good though, a pity the designs weren't altered as it deserved to be reassessed. Does any ballet fall by the wayside completely though? I thought the choreologists preserved everything.

Doesn't Michael Billington write wonderful reviews? Wish we had a ballet critic half as good.

Yes, Images of Love and I'd love to see MacMillan's Four Seasons again also he once choreographed a ballet called Olympiad, it was one of the very few of his that I didn't see, so can't say if it was good or not, but the RB have missed a trick by not trying for a revival of it for 2012.

Rumour has it his guest fee was substantial, but then I suppose his entourage from Imperial College need their wages paid too.

Point taken, but it is a very different place since Dr Johnson's day.

Anything by the 'Bloomsbury Set', a load of tedious tosh in my view.

Perhaps they are basing their opinions as much on the play as the ballet because in the play Beliaev is a catalyst, not really a romantic figure at all and if I remember correctly the central figure of the drama is not Natalia Petrovna but Rakitin. The play is about the ennui of the Russian countryside with Beliaev the newcomer piquing everyone’s interest. Ashton took the play only as a basis and gave it a far more romantic spin than it had ever had before, but the play - and the ballet in its initial performances, were full of nuance and subtlety and the more melodramatic interpretations of successive casts has taken the work far away from what appeared to be the choreographer’s intentions when the work was first shown.

Best I've seen since Seymour.

Lenin in Zurich, but I had no trouble getting through other books by Solzhenitsin.

ENB has an exceptionally strong ballet staff that has wrought wonders since Wayne Eagling assembled them, hopefully Mr Martin is an addition to that team and not a replacement. Perhaps Mr Zee could enlighten us as to exactly what previous experience JM has had as a ballet master, I sincerely hope it is more than his new boss has had as an artistic director.