MAB

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.

What was it Johnson said about London?????

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.

Any views on Cojocaru in Month in the Country?

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.

I agree about the M & A film, I've found it disappointing compared to the many live performances of it that I saw them give, Actually M & A was my first experience of the partnership in January 1965 and the atmosphere they created was electric. For me the only film that gets anywhere near to capturing their magic is the incomplete studio version of Giselle.

I found Rojo and Polunin the only convincing couple I'd seen as Marguerite and Armand, and that included Guillem and Le Riche who I thought should have surpassed all.

No. The only convincing couple ever to have danced the role were Fonteyn and Nureyev. Can someone explain to me why this ballet was revived against Fred Ashton's wishes?

His Dictionary of Ballet is one of the books I refer to all the time.

Me too, in fact my copy is falling apart, sorry that one of the last significant critics is gone.

I'm probably going to upset some people by saying this but I wonder whether ENB needs to contract in size (say, down to 50 from 64 dancers) and bring in freelance dancers for productions requiring a large corps eg Swan Lake, Rite of Spring. I question whether there is sufficient work to keep 64 dancers occupied for enough of the year but others may disagree with me on this.

And which fourteen dancers would you like to see sacked?

In my office we send out embargoed press releases so that the press have our response to major pronouncements in advance. Saves them the trouble of having to ring us and saves us the trouble of a switchboard jammed with calls from journalists.

In the wider scheme of things I don't understand why ENB have released in this fashion, after all this news isn't of interest to the wider public anyway.

A trial is a very good example and these things work when something that serious is involved. I work in a press office and although the organization I work for places embargoes on many press releases, these are constantly being breached by both press and politicians.

Out of interest, if the new incumbent is unsuitable, will you still offer congratulations?

The internet is one thing but email is something else and I've been sent a copy of the press release that had clearly done the rounds before it got to me. I will play by the rules and not reveal the name here. I will however be forwarding it to everyone I know personally in the ballet world that is interested in ENB.

I have just returned from reading the full discussion over on Dancing Times and found it very enlightening. The initial support from the start of the comments was from the AD of Cork Ballet and a UK ballet critic together with supporters of ENB, then something odd seemed to happen with what appeared to be a text book exercise in trolling when several people with exactly the same writing style claimed to be members of ENB and all these people (or more probably one person) were scathing about Wayne Eagling without explaining exactly why and the debate became somewhat vigorous.

Personally I don't have a problem with the tone of the comments as I know many people are passionate about ballet and I think that the pro Wayne people have a strong case for thinking something is amiss where the ENB board is concerned: Dance Europe seems to think so too.

I was told the new director's name would be released after the Easter break, in other words this week.

Well, someone told me yesterday whom it is to be (apparently) and I not sure I believe them.

There is only one name doing the rounds and I share your disbelief, not that the rumour is inaccurate but that anyone would take on such an inexperienced person to run a major company.

Capybara, you have beaten me to it as I just received an e-mail alerting me to the petition and have already signed it.

By the way any one signing does so anonymously because although you have to give your name and email to sign it, your name is not published on the site, just added to the total number. That means that any dancers and staff within ENB that also support Wayne Eagling and want him reinstated can do so without worrying about repercussions.

It isn't just Dancing Times that is featuring the Wayne Eagling story. Check out the editorial in the current issue of Dance Europe. They seem very interested in the selection process for Eagling's successor too; apparently the brief window of time given to apply is highly unusual.

If anyone is still more interested in the fate of ENB than poster's user names, you may care to know that I've received a reply from the Arts Council after writing to them yesterday. It was a cop out - my concerns weren't even addressed and they wrote at length about the confidentiality of candidates for Wayne Eagling's job, which was odd because at no point in my letter did I mention possible successors at all.

I won't comment further on what I thought of that "considered" reply (or the Arts Council) as I would almost certainly get censored.

Hello, MAB: good to see another "blast from the past". Oddly enough, only a few days ago I was driving through the area where you (used to?) live, and thought "we haven't heard from MAB in ages", and now here you are.

Thanks Alison, nice to be remembered and no, I haven't moved.

Since reading the Dancing Times letter, I've been inspired to send a letter in a similar vein to the Arts Council: it was not anonymous.