li tai po

The beautiful Samira Saidi is appearing tonight (? her debut) as the indomitable Archduchess Sophie, a worthy successor to Ursula Hageli. I have such fond memories of her years as a ballerina. I believe she is Teo Dubreuil's mother.

Not strictly ballet - but related to music in Kherson https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/16/russian-troops-kill-ukrainian-musician-yuriy-kerpatenko-for-refusing-role-in-kherson-concert

Many Russian ballet companies import high quality pointe shoes from the West, which are purchased with valuable foreign currency. The Russian authorities have banned further imports of ballet shoes. Vladimir Urin, the director of the Bolshoi Theatre, appealed for the ban to be lifted at a special meeting of the Russian State Duma dedicated to "import substitution in culture", but his appeal was denied. https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/culture/1665691654-russian-ballerinas-left-without-pointe-shoes-due-to-sanctions

Cancel culture hits Sergei Polunin in Moscow The Sergei Polunin controversy rumbles on. Following his unscheduled performance in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, of a solo to a song dedicated to the Russian soldiers who died in Ukraine, which provoked a strong audience reaction, the authorities in Uzbekistan refused to pay him and apparently made a formal diplomatic complaint to Moscow. Polunin is a native of Kherson and supports the annexation of Kherson oblast into Russia. He was scheduled to perform his patriotic solo at the party in Red Square to celebrate the annexation, but his performance was cancelled a few hours before the event, "because the concept of the event had changed". Polunin has stated that the ban came from the Russian Foreign Ministry and accused them of caving in to diplomatic pressure from the Uzbeks. In an emotional statement on social media, he described the episode as "A knife in the heart from his own". https://www.perild.com/2022/10/02/dancer-polunin-russian-foreign-ministry-caved-in-front-of-uzbekistan/

Bruce, Thank you for the link to Ratmansky's interview, which I found both moving and uplifting. He explains that his new ballet for PNB is Wartime Elegy, drawing on Ukrainian art and music. He uses the art of Ukrainian folk artist, Maria Prymachenko (1909-1997), whose special gift and talent captivated Picasso. Many of her surviving works are in the Ivankiv Museum, which was bombed on 26 February, in what appeared to be a deliberate attack on Ukrainian culture. Some of her works were lost, but others were rescued from the burning building. Ratmansky also talks of his ballet to Prokofiev's one-act ballet score, On the Dnieper, which he made for American Ballet Theatre in 2009. [The original was choreographed in 1932 by fellow Ukrainian, Serge Lifar]. I was lucky enough to catch this delightful ballet in Amsterdam (Dutch National Ballet). It had an exquisite setting of cherry blossom busting forth in Spring, as a background to the love triangle, arising when a soldier returns home to his village from the war.

https://www.reuters.com/world/russian-ballet-dancer-censured-pro-war-performance-uzbekistan-2022-09-28/ https://www.gramilano.com/2022/10/ten-leading-bolshoi-dancers-suspended/

The Queen attended the Royal Opera House on 4 August 2000, the very day of the Queen Mother's 100th birthday. Both the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret were great ballet fans and the Queen Mother chose to spend her birthday by attending a ballet performance privately with her two daughters. It was a late decision; they sat in the Royal Box and there had been a bit of a kerfuffle as the ROH reseated the original occupants elsewhere in the house. The performance was a Fokine programme by the Kirov Ballet - Petrushka, Le Spectre de la Rose, Polovtsian Dances and Scheherazade (with Lopatkina and Ruzimatov). Gergiev flew in from Rome to conduct Scheherazade without a rehearsal. He conducted at a furious pace and the dancers were struggling to keep up with him - indeed they still remember the breakneck speed to this day. Afterwards, Gergiev conducted Happy Birthday from the pit. I remember seeing a wide-eyed Diana Vishneva, peeking from the wings during Scheherazade towards the Royal Box.

I would like to pick up JM Hopton's welcome comments above about further Rudolf repertoire which might be represented in a repeat gala. JM Hopton's short list omits two key roles - The Nutcracker and Romeo - both of which were relatively early examples of Rudolf's production and choreography. The Nutcracker was not performed by the Royal Ballet between 1946 and 1968, but Rudolf's seminal production in 1968 lingers long in the memory. He had such imagination - turning the arrival at the Kingdom of the Sweets into Clara's nightmare (with the family menacing her as bats) and transforming the mirlitons into a gently satirical pastorale. The choreography of the pas de deux (mainly by Rudolf) was unforgettable, particularly the famous pose in which Merle Park rests her whole body on Rudolf's extended leg. Fortunately the production is preserved on film with Rudolf and Merle. Romeo and Juliet was choreographed by Rudolf on the English National Ballet in the mid 70s. Rudolf danced every performance in the first three week run, either as Romeo or Mercutio - a role which he regarded as equally significant. Rudolf's choreographic style was to create five steps, where others might provide one. Vadim Muntagirov has danced both the Nureyev and MacMillan versions and he commented in his interview on how difficult and exhausting is the Rudolf version. The musical number known as Masks in the MacMillan version, performed by the three young friends outside the Capulet house before they sneak into the ball, is known in the Rudolf version as the "Mab Dance" and given to Mercutio and his band of revellers. In his choreography, Rudolf attempted to replicate the highly problematic speech of Mercutio about Queen Mab, the queen of the fairies. Shakespeare scholars argue about what it means and why it is inserted here. Mercutio describes how Queen Mab tantalises courtiers, priests, soldiers and even "when maids lie on their backs, presses them and learns them first to bear". All of this detail is replicated in Rudolf's choreography, although its meaning is apparently forgotten by those who rehearse the ballet these days. Do seek out a video of Rudolf's version and marvel at his close attention to the Shakespearean text.

The Corsair pas de deux may be standard gala fare these days, but it was unknown in the west until Rudolf danced it at the Royal Opera House with Margot in 1962. The complete Corsaire was not seen in the west until the Kirov Ballet brought it to the Royal Opera House in 1988. Rudolf brought spectacular virtuosity to the Corsaire pas de deux in 1962, at a time when male dancers in the west had not achieved that level of athleticism. Partnering was a greater part of their role in those days and Rudolf's performance lit up the audience and indicated the possibilities of the male virtuoso dancer - so this pas de deux was an iconic moment in Rudolf's London career and very appropriate for inclusion in this gala..

The Nureyev Gala brought back memories of the different facets of Rudolf the performer. The repertoire was very relevant to Rudolf's career in London and well curated. Most of the dancers were excellent. Cesar brought out the cheeky humour of Rudolf in Laurencia and Corsaire, Vadim was virtuoso and elegant in The Sleeping Beauty, Alexandr Trusch was intense and dramatic as Neumeier's Don Juan with a meltingly fragile Alina as the Lady in White, Gabriele displayed fast and precise footwork in Flower Festival. The big drawback was the stage. The current production at Drury Lane has moved the wings towards the centre stage, making a fairly narrow performing area. Worse still, instead of placing the orchestra in the pit, they were behind the dancers, providing constant visual distraction from the dancers and compelling them forward into an even smaller performing area. This was a mad decision. It forced the men to make compromises with their manège, reducing three leaps to two, or in the case of Vadim circling the stage three times instead of once!

I see that Sergei Polunin has posted a new video on you tube, entitled Beware All Hallows Eve. He is bare chested and prominently flaunting his Putin tattoos. He does seem to be addicted to publicity and controversy.

I understand that the final edition has now been published, although I have not yet received my hard copy. I also have a digital subscription, but unfortunately Exact Editions have already removed The Dancing Times from their platform, including the archive of 67 years.

I see that they are performing Giselle at the Koninklijk Theatre in Carré on Monday 22 August and Tuesday 23 August. The top price is 69 euros and the cheapest tickets are 29 euros (plus a 1.5 euro transaction fee). When I looked this morning, I estimated that the 7 performances at the Coliseum were just under 20% sold in total.

I remember "Dowell's mum" very well. I once sat next to her in the old box office in Floral Street, where the Indian restaurant is now. She was in an absolute fury, because they would not sell her the seat behind the conductor. "They know very well that Anthony will not give a good performance, if I am not there", she fumed. A friend of mine sat next to her in the Stalls Circle for The Sleeping Beauty and she closed her eyes during the Rose Adagio. "Are you feeling unwell?", he asked. "No", she said, "but if I do not will the ballerina to hold her balances, she will fall off point". Just before Christmas, Anthony Dowell came out of the stage door, clocked her and scurried hastily towards the underground station. She chased him purposefully. "Anthony, I have your Christmas present".

The old amphitheatre was remodelled in 1964, but the Royal Ballet gave a season at Drury Lane Theatre, whilst the ROH was closed. I was fortunate enough to see Kenneth MacMillan's Symphony with Lynn Seymour and Donald MacLeary, Helpmann's Hamlet with the unforgettable Christopher Gable, Antoinette Sibley and Monica Mason (as Hamlet's mother) and Cranko's The Lady and the Fool with the elegant Svetlana Beriosova, Ronald Hynd and Stanley Holden (and David Drew as Signor Midas, the host). About 30 years later, I met Christopher Gable, then Director of Northern Ballet, at a business meeting and asked him to autograph my programme. He was very surprised that anyone remembered him. The programme cost one shilling (5p) - which makes the current programme price of £8 seem rather expensive.

Dear Emeralds Following your reply, I have revisited page 174 of John Percival's 1983 biography of John Cranko, "Theatre in my Blood", which sets out the facts. Your suggestion of ROH Board refusal in the 1960s is indeed correct, but It is not accurate to suggest that the ROH Board "refused for the Royal Ballet to acquire John Cranko's Onegin despite its success with audiences and popularity among dancers". Onegin was premiered by the Stuttgart Ballet on 13 April 1965. Prior to that, John Cranko's "idea had been to use an arrangement of the music from the opera, and there was talk of his creating the ballet at Covent Garden for Fonteyn and Nureyev, but the Board of Directors there would not hear of using opera music in that way and, as it turned out, neither would Dr Schaefer at Stuttgart. However, Kurt-Heinz Stolze undertook to arrange a new score from mainly unfamiliar pieces by the same composer, using not a single bar from the opera". This of course set a precedent for MacMillan's Manon. Incidentally Tchaikovsky's opera was notably absent from the Covent Garden Opera repertoire in the decades after the war and only reached the stage in 1971 in a new production under Sir Georg Solti, with Ileana Cotrubas and Victor Braun, sung in English in those days. That beautiful production was designed by Julia Trevelyan Oman, midway between Enigma Variations and A Month in the Country. I, for one, lament the loss of those sensitive and atmospheric designs.

Emeralds, I am afraid that your account above of the ROH Board refusing permission for the Royal Ballet to acquire John Cranko's Onegin because of its similarity to the opera Eugene Onegin is entirely spurious. Onegin made a big impact when the Stuttgart Ballet brought it to the ROH in 1974. The Royal Ballet, directed by Cranko's great friend Kenneth MacMillan, announced that Onegin would join its repertoire in February 1977, casts were announced and tickets were on sale. The upcoming calendar as late as the January 1977 edition of The Dancing Times shows the first night of Onegin was planned for Wednesday, 16 February 1977, with Merle Park, Lesley Collier, Anthony Dowell and Wayne Eagling. Marcia Haydee and Richard Cragun were due to replace Park and Dowell at the performance on Saturday, 19 February. Then disaster struck. The fire department at Westminster City Council pronounced that the sets did not meet fire safety requirements. The designs were adjusted to meet the required standards, but designer Jurgen Rose refused to allow his designs to be modified. The Royal Ballet substituted a production of Cranko's full-length The Taming of the Shrew and remarkably the curtain went up on Wednesday, 16 February 1977, with Merle Park, Lesley Collier, David Wall and Wayne Eagling in the leading roles. The entire substitution had taken place within weeks - an amazing challenge of production and rehearsal. It was not until 2001 that Ross Stretton brought Onegin into the repertoire of the Royal Ballet. On a similar topic, I saw a performance of the ballet Onegin at the ROH in 2004, with its Act III polonaise drawn from Tchaikovsky's opera Cherevichki. Just one day later I heard the same music again, as I attended a performance of Cherevichki at the Garsington Opera Festival.

I read somewhere that the Scottish Ballet version omits Katharina Schratt's song. This seems a pity to me, as this is one of the highlights in an evening of dramatic irony. Kenneth MacMillan noted that many operas have a ballet divertissement and he wanted to move in the opposite direction by inserting a song divertissement into a ballet. Her song is about taking leave of a beloved and reflecting that in life there are more departures than reunions. The refrain "Leb wohl, ich scheide" - "Farewell, I am leaving" is prophetic of the impending finale of the ballet. Katharina Schratt is the mistress of Emperor Franz Josef and her position is sufficiently official that the Empress Elisabeth presents the Emperor with a portrait of Schratt on his birthday. Throughout the song, Countess Larisch is flirting on the side with Rudolf - but in contrast to Katharina Schratt, her position is officially frowned up and suppressed. Sauce for the goose, but not sauce for the gander.

Dawnstar - I am very long in the tooth, so I enjoy your fresh look at everything very much - keep posting. What a joy this Ashton programme has been. I have seen all 5 shows to date and I recall booking for Serenade/Petrushka/New Ashton Ballet back in 1976. An Ashton premiere was always a cause of anticipation and excitement and this turned out to be A Month in the Country. I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of Bracewell and Muntagirov in Month. I found Bracewell too full of angst, as if he had wandered out of Mayerling. Muntagirov breathed happiness in each of his pas de deux, enjoying his flirtation with Katia and relishing every moment of passion with Natalia Petrovna. As they embraced at the end of the pas de deux, it was as if time stood still and neither they nor I wanted the idyll to end, I wanted that snapshot of bliss to go on forever - imprinted as it was on their faces. Then there is the wonderful Gary Avis, proving that less is more. He stands calm and controlled, but his eyes blaze with jealousy and hatred. How he relishes dismissing Beliaev, with just a couple of gestures and a steely glare.

Deanne Bergsma had an unforgettable presence on stage, so stylish and elegant. Her face was often mysterious, almost hypnotic, in the way she drew your attention. I cannot watch Enigma Variations without remembering her as Lady Mary Lygon. After she retired from the Royal Ballet, she came back in 1992 as Tadzio's mother, "the Lady of the Pearls", in Death in Venice. It was a joy to encounter her elegance and sophistication once more, soft yet commanding. https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/from-left-to-right-ballet-dancers-monica-mason-keith-rosson-news-photo/1293625

On a related topic, why are evenings of modern choreography so brief? Not long ago, ENB presented La Sylphide and Song of the Earth in a double bill, full of classical dancing. The recent Forsythe programme presented only two ballets, barely one hour of dancing and we were in and out of the theatre in 90 minutes. With no live orchestra either, I felt distinctly short changed. It is standard for ballet companies, not least the Royal Ballet, to perform a double Swan Lake on a Saturday. The ladies of the corps de ballet seem to have the stamina to get through this challenge. Apparently 54 minutes is sufficient for a complete evening of Crystal Pite's new ballet. Why can't the Royal Ballet provide the audience and its own dancers with the opportunity of a full evening of dance? Maybe they could complement the group dance of Crystal Pite with excellent principal and soloist performances in Dances at a Gathering.

Crystal Pite's existing Flight Pattern is set to music from Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. The new full-length ballet will be extended to set the entire Gorecki work, which according to wikipedia lasts about 54 minutes. Seven performances are programmed between 18 October and 3 November. The Royal Ballet season has attracted much criticism above for its limited range, encompassing only 8 shows in the main house. This morning the English National Opera has announced its 2022-23 season, with only 9 productions across the whole year. Announced for 27 April to 6 May, is Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, six performances sung in Polish, in an "unprecedented" staged production of Gorecki's beloved work. Hardly unprecedented, when the Royal Ballet are performing it on stage barely six months earlier. Given that both seasons are very limited in their breadth of repertoire, this appears to be a disappointing and poorly planned duplication.

Ivan's talk is inspirational and I recommend everyone to watch it. He talks about the political situation, his own family, the artistic situation in Ukraine, some of his many career achievements and his plans for the future. it is indeed affecting, but also reflects his deep thinking and determined leadership. He speaks with passion about a full-length Ukrainian ballet, The Forest Song, which has never been seen in the UK - I don't think it has been performed outside Ukraine. As he speaks of this ballet at 35.08 in the recording, you can clearly hear the birds singing at dusk outside in Ivan's garden.

Dawnstar - you wrote on another thread on Thursday that you have not been to many ballet galas. I was looking out to see what you thought of yesterday's gala and I am delighted to read how much you enjoyed it. Not every gala is like this one; sometimes they can be a little repetitious. The artistic programming of this wonderful gala was exceptional.

You can see Gabriele Frola undertaking the same jumps in this short clip of Diana and Actaeon from a previous Ivan Putrov gala. The jumps occur about 1 minute in.