li tai po

The programme for this afternoon's Ballet Gala was Giselle Act 2 pas de deux - Anastasia Zaklinskaya, Olzhas Tarlanov Duet from Carmen (Roland Petit) - Gaukhar Ussina, Rustem Seitbekov Gypsy Dance from Don Quixote Duet from Notre Dame de Paris (Roland Petit) - Aigerim Beketayeva, Bakhtiyar Adamzhan Duet from Sounds of Time (Aktoty Raimkulova, Ksenia Zvereva) - Anel Rustemova, Olzhas Tarlanov Harlequinade pas de deux - Zhulia Adepkhan, Serik Nakyspekov ***** Tamir solo (Kuat Shildebayev, A. Sadikova) - Gumar Sultanbek Duet from Scheherazade - Anastasia Zaklinskaya, Serik Nakyspekov Le Corsaire - Anel Rustemova, Erkin Rakhmatullayev (Ali), Daler Zaparov (Conrad) Paradise Lost (John Williams, Ksenia Zvereva) - Gaukhar Ussina, Zhanibek Imankulov Drum Dance from La Bayadere Grand Pas from Don Quixote - Aigerim Beketayevam Bakhtiyar Adamzhan

I think Altynai's daughter, Anastasia Zaklinskaya, will be dancing Zobeide in Scheherazade. I do not know which version of Don Carlos they will perform.

Alison, you ask me about the "ghost" Tatiana and I can only express my interpretation of what was going on. In the opening quartet of the opera, Madame Larina is chatting with the Nurse, as they listen to the two girls singing. Madame Larina becomes nostalgic as she recalls the English romantic novelist Richardson (she mentions his name in the Russian text and refers specifically to his novel, Grandison). Apparently Richardson was all the rage in late 18th century Russia. Larina says, "Not that I read his books, but my cousin kept on to me about him". History repeats itself with Tatiana, who unlike her mother has her head in a book and actually reads the material. She tells her mother, "the account of the torments suffered by these true lovers moves me". Richardson's novels are epistolary - the whole novel takes the form of a long series of letters. The main characters report all their actions and feelings in letters, they do not confront each other directly. The first two novels, Pamela and Clarissa, featured an innocent heroine threatened by a villainous rake. Richardson was pilloried by Fielding for his caricature villains - so he wrote a third novel, Grandison, featuring an honourable nobleman. Pushkin is of course also parodying the Richardson craze. Tatiana's letter scene and Onegin's letter in the final scene reflect the epistolary nature of Richardson, where characters express their feelings by letter. The reference to Grandison suggests hopes for an honourable hero, which are dashed by the unfeeling behaviour of Onegin. I think Madame Larina was reliving her girlhood dreams through Tatiana. History repeats itself. So she reverted to her adolescence, when she too had heard about Richardson and imagined writing romantic letters. Later on, she was overwhelmed by the grandeur of the St. Petersburg palace, achieved by her daughter, which was far beyond the country estate she herself had managed - beyond her wildest dreams for her daughter. In the final scene, when Madame Larina realised that Onegin had been no Grandison to her daughter but rather a Mr B., she burnt his letter in disgust. Well you did ask !! I may be completely wrong about it all.

Forthcoming broadcasts (times are Kazakh times - currently 5 hours ahead of UK time) 8 April, 19.00 - The Nutcracker 10 April, 19.00 - Carmen 11 April, 18.00 - Ballet Gala 12 April, 18.00 - Don Carlos 15 April, 19.00 - Chopiniana, Scheherazade - I am told this will be The National Ballet of Kazakhstan - and not the Abay Kazakh Ballet Company from Almaty, which brought them to the Coliseum in November 16 April, 19.00 - Abay (Opera by Kazakh composers, Akhmet Zhubanov and Latif Hamidi, 1944). I watched most of the opera, Eugene Onegin, on Sunday - and there were absolutely no problems with streaming.

Dutch National Ballet will be streaming performances from its back catalogue, changing the programme once a week. Ratmansky's production of Don Quixote is available now, with Wayne Eagling's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King and Ted Brandsen's version of Coppelia following in the next two weeks. Ted Brandsen's Coppelia is particularly interesting, because he has choreographed his own version, without reference to Petipa and following the original sequence of Delibes' score. Although he made the ballet in 2009, it was very imaginative in its portrayal of Coppelia in the early days of artificial intelligence. Turning back to Don Quixote, the cast is Kitri - Anna Tsygankova Basilio - Matthew Golding Don Quixote - Peter De Jong Sancho Panza - Karel De Rooij Gamache - Dario Mealli Lorenzo - Altin Kaftira Mercedes - Natalia Hoffmann Espada - Moises Martin Cintas Piccilia - Maiko Tsutsumi Juanita - Nadia Yanowsky Cupid - Maia Makhateli The Queen of the Dryads - Sasha Mukhamedov It can be seen here https://www.operaballet.nl/online/ballet/streaming?utm_source=facebook-hnb&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=don-quichot&utm_content=hnb-3-4-2020

I gather that Kazakhstan has been having some difficulties with its internet capacity. However, they are showing Spartacus now (Saturday 4 April, UK 1.30 pm) (the familiar Grigorovich/Virsaladze version from the Bolshoi) and I am watching it without difficulty.

My apologies - it is WEDNESDAY 1 April.

Whilst the theatres in Kazakhstan are closed and the capital Astana is in lock-down, Kazakh TV has a schedule of broadcasting opera and ballet performances online, but they are only shown once, not available for repeated viewing. Kazakhstan is 6 hours ahead of the UK, but will be five hours ahead, after the clocks go forward in the UK tonight. The National Ballet Company performs at the Astana Opera House and was founded about ten years ago. Seven years ago, it moved into the brand new theatre and school complex in Astana. Astana, a new city, is the capital of Kazakhstan - and was renamed Nursultan last year, in honour of President Nursultan Nazabayev, when he retired. Most Kazakhs still refer to it as Astana. The old capital was Almaty. There are three ballet companies in Kazakhstan. The National Ballet Company, which has been directed by Altynai Asylmuratova for the last seven years, has yet to appear in the UK. The Astana Ballet has a more contemporary repertoire and appeared at the Linbury Theatre last September. The Abay Kazakh State Ballet Theatre is a more traditional ballet company based in Almaty and appeared at the Coliseum last November. I have just watched a transmission of Giselle by the National Ballet Company, featuring as Giselle the daughter of Alytnai Asylmuratova and her husband Konstantin Zaklinsky. There are opera and ballet transmissions. The next ballet transmission is La Bayadere on Tuesday, 1 April at 19.00 hours (14.00 hours UK time). The link is here https://tengrinews.kz/tv/#

Dear Fonty You ask about the significance of the final nocturne movement. Robbins created the ballet for New York City Ballet in 1969 and mounted it on the Royal Ballet in 1970. Rudolf Nureyev was the first cast brown boy in London, although the role was not created for him. He chose to dance the ballet many times. He enjoyed dancing a ballet where he was part of a community, rather than the superstar. 1970 was the height of the Soviet Union and Rudolf was an exile. He could not return to Russia and he thought he would never see his homeland again. We used to say that when he touched the stage, he was touching the Russian soil he would never feel under his feet again. The cast watch the airplane returning to Russia without him. Fanciful maybe, but Rudolf loved the ballet and was always very intense in the final movement. When I saw Alex Campbell touch the stage on the first night, it brought tears to my eyes.

Thank you, Geoff, for daring to voice your disappointment about the inadequate pianist for Dances at a Gathering. You summed it up concisely "constant wrong notes, lousy technique, leaden phasing and a basic sense of panicky incompetence, at several points seeming to be just about to break down completely. The look on the page turner's face said it completely". Every night I have wanted to boo, but well-mannered dancers applaud him on to the stage. Playing continuously for 70 minutes is a big ask, but then so is dancing Odette/Odile or Rudolf in Mayerling. The Royal Ballet casts dancers who are capable of performing those roles. Anthony Twiner was the first Royal Ballet pianist to perform this work; he played for every single performance in the 1970s, including the last revival in November 1976. On at least one occasion he played the entire work at both matinee and evening performances. Although Philip Gammon had played for the premiere of A Month in the Country in February 1976, he was not given the chance for DAAG in the final revival of November 1976. He finally got to play for DAAG in 2008 and is on written record as saying that he had waited 30 years for the opportunity. Philip played from memory without a score in front of him. He sat in splendid isolation in the pit, without a page turner. Then at the fourth or fifth performance, he made a mistake. The green girl had just completed her waltz with the three boys who aren't interested and we were waiting for the brown boy's Etude solo, when Philip struck up the scherzo. Tamara Rojo came running on and we were into the ten minutes of the scherzo. While Philip was playing, Lynn Otto, the stage manager, came into the pit and whispered in his ear. At the end of the scherzo, Philip went back to the Etude solo and then on to the final nocturne. It later transpired that Tamara Rojo had been over-enthusiastic in the wings. She had started running on early, Philip had seen her and immediately jumped into the scherzo. This is an indication of how closely Philip watched the dancers for his timing and delicate phrasing. What a class-act, consummate professional Philip Gammon was!

Dances at a Gathering was created on New York City Ballet in 1969, but it soon crossed the pond, with the Royal Ballet's first performance on 19 October 1970. This was the opening performance of the new season, which was a difficult time for the Royal Ballet. Frederick Ashton has been forced to retire as director in the summer and Kenneth MacMillan was the incoming director, with the difficult task of replacing Fred. The touring company had been dissolved and merged into the main company. The ballet was first presented in a double bill preceding Ashton's The Creatures if Prometheus, marking the 200th anniversary of Beethoven's birth and performed by dancers of the newly disbanded touring company. There was an edge in the company that autumn. It is almost deja vu, because Dances at a Gathering eclipsed The Creatures of Prometheus, which soon disappeared from the repertoire. DAAG clocked up about 70 performances in just six seasons, including performances on tour to New York and the London Coliseum. It was last seen in 1976. I did not think I would ever see the ballet again, but it returned for a further 13 performances in 2008 and 2009. Now it was presented in a rather different version, the so-called "American text" mounted under the auspices of the Jerome Robbins Rights Trust. The "original cast" made such an impact, with Antoinette Sibley, Laura Connor, Ann Jenner, Monica Mason, Lynn Seymour, Rudolf Nureyev, Anthony Dowell, David Wall, Michael Coleman and Jonathan Kelly. Broadly speaking, they are followed (in the same order) by Marianela Nunez, Francesca Hayward, Fumi Kaneko, Yasmine Naghdi, Laura Morera, Alexander Campbell, Federico Bonelli, William Bracewell, Luca Acri and Valentino Zucchetti. So how does the "American text" we see today differ from the original version mounted and rehearsed by Jerome Robbins in 1970? The flexibility about which dancers appeared in which movement has gone and all the entrances and exits are fixed to the ten individual colours. Three of the boys' colours have changed - salmon to brick, gold to purple and mauve to blue. The costumes, although still credited to Joe Eula, have been simplified with decorative elements such as pleats and tassels reduced or eliminated. The running order of movements 14 and 15 has been reversed. The waltz scene for the green girl neglected by three boys walking past originally preceded the grand etude pas de deux, now danced by Marianela Nunez and Alex Campbell. Zoe Anderson has written an informative note in the programme, even though she is too young to have seen any of the "original" performances. She writes: The dances have an improvisatory quality. Insisting on community, Robbins was consciously reacting against 1960s ideas of alienation. Anthony Dowell remembers, "Almost until the end of rehearsals, nobody knew exactly which pieces they would be dancing in performance. Four or five principals learn everything and then Robbins finally allots the roles". That is how the Royal Ballet presented DAAG in the 1970s. As a member of the audience, one could never be sure who would dance the next movement - it changed from performance to performance. The programme listed the ten dancers and their colours, but provided no further information, as today. I took to making notes during the performance, to keep a record. Here is an illustration of how Robbins maintained the spontaneous and improvisatory nature of the ballet. I hope it will be interesting to read how the "American text" has changed some aspects of the ballet. Rudolf Nureyev always danced the brown boy, often with Anthony Dowell in green. Nureyev danced all the current entrances of the brown boy, but also appeared in movements 7 and 8. There are some well-known pictures of Nureyev posing with Dowell and Wall for the "photographs" in movement 7, although the brown boy no longer appears in these movements. Lynn Seymour was an unforgettable green girl in the flirtatious Etude solo (movement 12) and the scene with the three walking boys (now movement 15). On 15 May 1973, she also appeared as the third girl in movement 8 (now Francesca Hayward) and as one of the three girls in Tristesse. On 18 December 1976, Seymour danced in movements 8, 10 and 15 as before, but Monica Mason took on the Etude solo (movement 12). Lynn danced the big Scherzo pas de deux with David Wall (movement 17 - now Nunez and Bonelli). On 25 March 1974, Dowell danced the brown boy, but returned for the pas de deux (movement 3), now danced by Bonelli. He did not dance movement 6 (Eagling), but appeared in movements 7 and 8. He danced movement 11 and reappeared for the grand waltz (movement 13 - which no longer features the brown boy). He did not dance the Etude pas de deux (now movement 15 - Coleman) or the Etude solo (movement 16 - Wall), but danced the big Scherzo pas de deux in movement 17 (now taken by Bonelli). Also on 25 March 1974, Monica Mason in apricot danced the humorous pas de deux with Michael Coleman (movement 9 - now Naghdi and Acri). She danced movement 2 (Hayward), movement 4 (Naghdi), movement 12 (Morera) and Naghdi's entrances in movement 17. So the "American text" is simpler and less spontaneous than the original version. The original was performed so frequently that the dancers lived their roles and were flexible enough to perform their changing entrances and exits with conviction and confidence.

The Cellist suffers from following one of the great ballet masterpieces of the 20th century. Dances at a Gathering stretches its performers with its constantly changing atmosphere; it is strong on relationships and has some very inventive choreography. Had The Cellist preceded another new work, it might have stood up better. For the record, here is a note of who danced what Marianela Nunez (pink) Francesca Hayward (mauve) Yasmine Naghdi (apricot) Laura Morera (green) Fumi Kaneko (blue) Alexander Campbell (brown) Federico Bonelli (purple) William Bracewell (green) Luca Acri (brick) Valentino Zucchetti (blue) 1. Mazurka Op. 63 No. 3 - Alexander Campbell 2. Waltz Op 69 No. 2 - Francesca Hayward, William Bracewell 3. Mazurka Op 33 No 3 - Marianela Nunez, Federico Bonelli 4. Mazurka Op 6 No 4 - Yasmine Naghdi 5. Mazurka Op 7 No 5 - Federico Bonelli 6. Mazurka Op 7 No 4 - Fumi Kaneko, Marianela Nunez, Alexander Campbell 7. Mazurka Op 24 No 2 - Fumi Kaneko, Marianela Nunez, Federico Bonelli, William Bracewell, Valentino Zucchetti 8. Mazurka Op 6 No 2 - Fumi Kaneko, Marianela Nunez, Francesca Hayward, Federico Bonelli, William Bracewell, Valentino Zucchetti 9. Waltz Op 42 - Yasmine Naghdi, Luca Acri 10. Waltz Op 34 No 2 - Fumi Kaneko, Marianela Nunez, Francesca Hayward, William Bracewell 11. Mazurka Op 56 No 2 - Federico Bonelli, Alexander Campbell 12. Etude Op 25 No 4 - Laura Morera 13. Waltz Op 34 No 1 - Fumi Kaneko, Yasmine Naghdi, Francesca Hayward, Federico Bonelli, William Bracewell, Valentino Zucchetti 14. Etude Op 25 No 5 - Marianela Nunez, Alexander Campbell 15. Waltz Op 70 No 2 - Laura Morera, Luca Acri, Federico Bonelli, William Bracewell 16. Etude Op 10 No 2 - Alexander Campbell 17. Scherzo Op 20 No 1 - Francesca Hayward; Yasmine Naghdi, William Bracewell, Valentino Zucchetti; Marianela Nunez, Federico Bonelli 18. Nocturne Op 15 No 1 - Ensemble

I am fascinated by the plan to set Raymonda during the Crimean War. A couple of years ago, I spent an absorbing holiday on the Crimean Peninsula, which is literally dripping with history, although the Russian authorities are more interested in the summer palace of Nicholas and Alexandra, the Second World War siege of Sebastopol and subsequent liberation of Crimea and the detailed trappings of the Yalta Conference, not to mention Chekhov's summer dacha not far from Yalta. One wonders how Abderachman and his crew will fit into a Crimean Raymonda. The Crimean war began with skirmishes between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. France and Britain entered the war to prevent the complete defeat of the Ottomans. So maybe Abderachman will be an Ottoman. During the 15th century, the Ottomans ran their slave trade in the Black Sea basin from the Crimean maritime city of Feodosia, a trade which extended far into Europe. The Crimean tatars, who are also Islamic by religion, were much depleted during the Soviet period and now constitute only 12% of the Crimean population. They play a major role in the history of the Crimean peninsula and the Khan's sixteenth century palace at Bakhchisarai is a major tourist attraction, with its well-preserved harem. The weeping fountain, with water seeping down its stonework, inspired Pushkin to write his poem, the Fountain of Bakhchisarai (1823) and later on the Soviet ballet (1934), which contrasts the Polish and Tartar cultures and highlights the jealousies of life in the harem. Maybe Abderachman will emerge from the Tatars. The Russians massively downplay the nineteenth century Crimean war, apart from a three-D panorama of the siege of Sebastopol, opened in 1905 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the siege. We hunted high and low for the memorial marking the Charge of the Light Brigade (1854). Eventually a taxi driver pointed us in the right direction. We climbed over a fence and walked up through a vineyard. The memorial was hidden within the vines. It was re-dedicated in 2004 by the Duke of Edinburgh and descendants of the original cavalrymen (at a time when it was Ukrainian territory) - but has since been somewhat abandoned. We detected not a single mention of Florence Nightingale anywhere in Crimea, although her statue is prominent in London, adjacent to the massive Crimean War Memorial in Waterloo Place, Pall Mall.

I have found my programme for the ballet gala performance at the Royal Opera House on Saturday, 13 January 1973, which was "A celebration to mark the entry of the United Kingdom into the European Community". The programme featured the Royal Ballet with guests from 6 of the other 8 countries in the EEC. Only Luxembourg and Ireland were omitted. The programme was as follows: The fairies from the prologue to The Sleeping Beauty: Ria Peri, Laura Connor, Alfreda Thorogood, Georgina Parkinson, Anita Young, Lesley Collier, Vergie Derman The Moor's Pavane (Jose Limon) (Royal Danish Ballet) - Vivi Flindt, Toni Lander, Henning Kronstam, Bruce Marks Coppelia Act III pas de deux (Henrique Martinez) (La Scala, Milan) - Carla Fracci, Paolo Bortoluzzi Twilight (Hans Van Manen) (Dutch National Ballet) - Alexandra Radius, Han Ebbelaar The Lady and the Fool pas de deux (John Cranko) - Svetlana Beriosova, Donald MacLeary Bhakti pas de deux (Maurice Bejart) (Ballet of the 20th Century) - Angele Albrecht, Daniel Lommel Le Corsaire pas de deux - Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev Symphonic Variations (Frederick Ashton) - Merle Park, David Wall, Jennifer Penney, Laura Connor, Michael Coleman, Gary Sherwood The Taming of the Shrew Act I pas de deux (John Cranko) (Stuttgart Ballet) - Marcia Haydee, Ricard Cragun Pavane (Kenneth MacMillan) (world premiere) - Antoinette Sibley, Anthony Dowell Swan Lake Act III pas de deux (Ballet of the Paris Opera) - Noelle Pontois, Cyril Atanassoff Side Show (Kenneth MacMillan) - Lynn Seymour, Rudolf Nureyev Grand Defile

The heritage of LFB/ENB - memories - where do I begin? First of all three full-length ballets, which are probably lost, but all of which were so colourful and vivid Vaslav Orlikowsky's Peer Gynt (Grieg) Vladimir Bourmeister's The Snow Maiden (Tchaikovsky) Barry Moreland's The Prodigal Son in Ragtime (Scott Joplin) The Prodigal Son in Ragtime hit the Royal Festival Hall in the summer season of 1974 and was a popular success and a sell-out in New York The Prodigal Son left home as a teenager, travelled through the first world war, the twenties, the thirties, the second world war and finally returned to his old dad. Around the same time, we were booking for a triple bill at the Royal Opera House with a new MacMillan ballet, as yet unnamed. This turned out to be Elite Syncopations and I am sure MacMillan took his cue from Barry Moreland's work. The irony is that Prodigal Son in Ragtime was dropped from the repertoire in 1977, whereas Elite goes on from strength to strength. There were Diaghilev ballets in the repertoire, long before the Kirov started bringing them to London - Scheherazade, Polovtsian Dances, Massine's Parade to Satie music and Picasso's cubist designs, Petrouchka with the original Alexander Benois designs (and with the melancholic performance of Alain Dubrueil) - and of course Massine's The Three-Cornered Hat, also with the original Picasso designs. Samsova and Prokovsky even included the Soviet showstopper Spring Waters in Fokine programmes. Other memorable one-act ballets, which I would love to see again - Balanchine's Night Shadow, staged by John Taras - which ended with the sleepwalking ballerina remarkably carrying the dead poet (male principal) on stage in her arms John Taras' Piege de Lumiere - another Samsova/Prokovsky performance - in which the butterflies flew to close to the flame and the male sacrificed himself to save the female Denis Nahat's Mendelssohn Symphony - using the Italian Symphony - with the unforgettable sunny Patricia Merrin pirouetting across the stage in bright yellow Antony Tudor's chilling Echoing of Trumpets (1963) - to Martinu's Sixth Symphony - the same music which MacMillan later used for his one-act Anastasia in Berlin, subsequently to become the Anastasia Act III we know today. Tudor followed Martinu's programme closely and set the ballet to reflect the destruction of the village Lidice during World War II. Anyone familiar with Anastasia Act III will recall instantly the echoing trumpets as the symphony begins. In 1989 LFB mounted the one-act version of Anastasia and presented it in the same programme as Echoing of Trumpets !! My number one priority, for revival and preservation, is Jack Carter's The Witch Boy, which clocked up 359 performances. The great John Gilpin was unforgettable in this role, but I have memories of a much later revival in the 1980s with Koen Onzia. Maybe my memory plays me false, because according to the listing it was last seen in 1976. This dramatic ballet must be saved for posterity. It was not possible for the Gala to celebrate all the wonderful dancers - but John Gilpin contributed so much to the success of the early years and was artistic director for six years. He died at the tragically early age of 53. Paul Clarke was a very talented dancer, who contributed so much in his short period with LFB and Barry Moreland created Prodigal Son in Ragtime for him. He had a heart attack at the age of 28, whilst recovering from anaesthetic at the dentist. His photo always caught my eye, when I climbed the stairs at Jay Mews to the studio. I hope his photo is still on display in the new building.

I have just read this thread and have picked up the earlier discussion about the story. The ear of corn has been fully explained, but no mention has been made of the butterfly. In Act I Swanilda leaves the stage whilst Franz is flirting with Coppelia. When she returns, she is chasing a butterfly. Franz captures it (the moment when they are both grovelling on their knees). He pins it in his lapel and upsets Swanilda with his cruelty. The TV performance from 2000 was supposed to be with Miyako Yoshida, but she was injured and Leanne Benjamin (who was also dancing in the run) replaced her at a day's notice. The key acting role of Dr Coppelius was played by Luke Heydon, who had already retired from the company, but was invited back for this important role. Amongst the cast were Laura Morera and Jonathan Howells as soloist peasants, Marianela Nunez and Mara Galeazzi amongst Swanilda's friends and Bennet Gartside and Edward Watson in the corps. In Act 3, Philip Mosley is already the innkeeper in 2000 and a rather lanky Christopher Saunders is the duke. Sian Murphy is one of the hours and Sam Raine is amongst the girls in the "Work" movement, brandishing a sickle. A young James Wilkie is amongst the Royal Ballet School students. Act 3 ends with a grand divertissement, the Festival of the Bell, for which Delibes wrote eight movements. It begins with what Delibes called the Waltz of the Hours (although there are only 8 of them - the music strikes sixteen times and the 8 hours go round the clock twice), followed by solos for Aurora (Dawn) and Prayer. Delibes entitled the fourth movement "Work, or the Spinner". It features eight girls, either harvesting or spinning. The fifth movement is the betrothal dance for the six wedding couples. At this point Petipa had a problem, because he wanted to conclude with the de rigeur classical pas de deux, but Delibes' score did not allow for this. So he brings in the seventh movement {"Peace") for the adage of the pas de deux, then returns to the sixth movement ("War, or Discord") for Franz' boisterous variation. Running out of music, Petipa interpolates music from elsewhere for Swanilda's variation. The musical score and ballet end with the rousing Galop Finale, into which Petipa cleverly incorporates the coda of the pas de deux, as well as the final ensemble.

As a footnote, the climax of the Nimrod variation always reminds me of the end of MacMillan's Song of the Earth. MacMillan had been refused permission by the Board to create a ballet to a well-known classic of the concert repertoire, which could not be improved on stage. He mounted the ballet in Stuttgart in 1966 and swiftly proved the critics wrong. Ashton followed MacMillan's lead in 1968 by presenting a key classic of the British concert repertoire on stage. The Nimrod variation reflects a deep conversation between Elgar and Jaeger and continues the ongoing dialogue of Lady Elgar's support throughout Elgar's own self-doubt and lack of confidence. As the three dancers rush forward at the end of Nimrod with arms outstretched and overlapping, but not intertwined, I am always reminded of the final bars of MacMillan's ballet. The Elgars and Nimrod are perhaps reaching out towards the immortality and infinity of a successful musical masterpiece. Was Ashton referring to the shattering conclusion of Song of the Earth - either consciously or sub-consciously?

Isabel McMeekan and the legendary Deanne Bergsma were also guest coaches for Enigma Variations.

Sorry about the double post above, which I am technically incapable of editing, but which proves I am old enough to have seen Margot on stage. My script should have ended: I will leave others to comment on individual performances, but I thought Frankie Hayward came close to capturing the essence of Margot in her magical performance of Ondine - it brought tears to my eyes.

That's very exciting to hear about Nocturne. Ashton created this ballet in 1936, with Margot playing A Flower Girl, rejected by the Young Man, who goes off with the Rich Girl. Ashton used Delius' orchestral nocturne, Paris - The Song of a Great City. I think the ballet is now lost; it was last seen at the Royal Opera House in 1947. Margot danced the solo at the 1970 Ashton Gala, with Michael Somes looming in the background in silhouette as the Spectator, a role created by Ashton himself. I hope that the Spectator will loom behind Beatriz Stix-Brunell. Romany Pajdak danced the Bride's solo from The Wise Virgins at the recent London Ballet Circle event. She had previously danced it in Westminster Abbey at the commemoration service to dedicate the memorial tablet to the Founders of the Royal Ballet. This ballet was created in April 1940 and last performed in 1944; it was never seen at the Royal Opera House. William Walton arranged the score from J.S. Bach's cantatas. Ashton recreated this solo on Margot for the 1970 Gala. Cyril Beaumont wrote that The Wise Virgins had been built around a single figure, that of the Bride, who, despite the quiet mood of serenity and resignation which distinguished the character, yet contrived to dominate the whole. Quiet authority was one of the great qualities of Margot's dancing. Lynn Wake at the London Ballet Circle event selected, for an extract from The Firebird, the moment when the Firebird casts the spell over the entire company. She argued that Margot's calm domination here illustrated how over many years she led the company from the front on and offstage, justifying her title of prima ballerina assoluta. Part of the excitement of Saturday's gala will be the occasion itself and the memories, not so much the repertoire and cast. I attended the 80th birthday gala for Ashton in 1985, which also took place without advance notice of the programme. The first half concluded with the end of Cinderella Act I. When the mice came on pulling the carriage, there were Margot and Fred, elegant and imperious, in a glamorous ball gown and full evening dress. It brought the house down.

The Piazza Restaurant/Bar appears to have succumbed to pressure and released some tables for the audience. The entrance to the restaurant/bar is now half way along the left-hand terrace. For the interval of Andrea Chenier, the audience section was packed; all seats and tables taken and about 30 people standing with their backs along the glass of the Level 5 Restaurant - standing room only. Beyond the entrance to the Piazza Restaurant/Bar, two couples from the street were drinking wine and we all looked across the potted palms at rows of empty tables and chairs. Two waiters stood forlornly at the entrance to the bar, waiting for customers.

Alex Beard fronts an article in the new edition of the Friends Magazine, entitled "Our greatest challenge". The article headlines four key statistics: 40% of tickets were £45 or less 174 Opera performances 208 Ballet performances 8,000 children attended a Schools Matinee The total number of Opera and Ballet performances is 382, so it must include performances taking place outside the main house. By implication this calls into question the statistic that 40% of tickets were £45 or less, since this will almost certainly also include performances taking place outside the main house. I wonder what percentage of tickets in the main house were £45 or less.