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James

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Everything posted by James

  1. James
    Yes, you are right. I have the dvd issued in 2001.
  2. James
    I think that’s Rosalind Eyre.
  3. James
    The signature on the upper photo is Gerd Larsen, I think.
  4. James
    I think it is a pity that Ninette de Valois decided to change the Breadcrumb Fairy (Miettes qui tombent) to the nebulous Fairy of the Woodland Glade. As a result we have lost some of the original choreography with the fairy miming the traditional sprinkling of crumbs over the baby's cradle. The current RB version is much less characterful. In his book, Wrights & Wrongs, Sir Peter describes Pauline Clayden performing this variation, talking all the way through it. "I am scattering breadcrumbs here, I'm scattering breadcrumbs up there, down here and everywhere". I am assuming this was before the so-called "Messel" version. So far as I know, only the Mariinsky perform this solo as writ. Here is Olesya Novikova in the Mariinsky's reconstructed version:
  5. James
    It is by Tchaikovsky, Jeannette. It is an English Gigue originally intended for the Act 2 divertissements, but cut at an early stage, it seems. It existed only in a piano arrangement (it is not in the published full score) but was orchestrated by John Lanchbery and can be heard in the HMV recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra made in 1982.
  6. James
    I am “only” a Friend+ and I have an earlier date.
  7. James
    It was Irmgard who said in an earlier post that it was Ashton’s Act IV. And yes, in Ashton’s setting, as I recall it, Odette leads her swan maidens off, before returning to the Prince. The rest of the duet is danced by them alone on the stage.
  8. James
    The “reconciliation” duet didn’t look like Ashton’s at all to me - at least not how I remember it from the choreography that Ashton gifted to Natalia Makarova for her 1989(?) production for LFB. As Jeannette has pointed out, some changes have definitely been made along the way. I do think, though, that the musical choices made for Act IV (adopted by Scarlett for his 2018 RB production) are preferable to the 1895 version.
  9. James
    The Argentinian newspaper La Nacion has reported the death, in Vienna, of the Argentine-born ballerina Irina Borowska on 25th Februray. I am sure this name will be familiar to any members of this forum who followed London’s Festival Ballet in the early 60s. Irina Borowska danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo before joining LFB in about 1960. She left, I think, in 1966 when she married the Austrian dancer Karl Musil, who had been a regular guest with the company. I saw her as Odette in Act II of Swan Lake in 1962 – my very first visit to the ballet as a 9 year old. It is hard to imagine that there has ever been a more glamorous ballerina.
  10. James
    I am glad you enjoyed the Siberians, Don Q Fan. I have seen this company a number of times in recent years, and I am fairly certain that the dancers you saw as Odette/Odile and Siegfried are actually Anna Fedosova and Yury Kudryavtsev. Unfortunately, the company can be notoriously inaccurate in their cast sheets, if that's what you were going by.
  11. James
    2) Florestan is supposedly the "crown prince" (named after his father) and he is partnered by his and Aurora's younger sisters. I know - it doesn't make any sense as they are completely absent from Act 1, but they are an invention, I think, of Frederick Ashton's, for the 1946 Ninette de Valois production. Although de Valois drew fairly heavily on the 1921 Diaghilev production, the pas de quatre - in the Petipa original for the Gold, Silver, Sapphire and Diamond fairies - was, in 1921 a pas de quatre for a quartet of commedia dell-arte characters. 3) I believe this character is indeed Goldilocks, but not the one who had the close encounter with the three bears. She is the heroine of another fairy tale by the same Madame d'Aulnoy who was the source of the Bluebird and Florine story. In the original French she is La belle au cheveux d'or.
  12. James
    I am getting a banner reading: Website Alert: Purchases are currently unavailable while we resolve a technical issue. Our apologies for any inconvenience.
  13. James
    Alison, I think this may be the original casting (E & O E) Spartacus:- 29 July: Rodkin/ Sevenard/ Lantratov/ Zakharova 30 July: Tsvirko/ Nikulina/ Ovcharenko/ Smirnova 31 July: Lobukhin/ Vinogradova/ Belyakov/ Stepanova 1 August: Vasiliev/ Denisova/ Skvortsov/ Shipulina 9 August: Rodkin/ Sevenard/ Belyakov/ Zakharova 10 August, mat: Tsvirko/ Nikulina/ Skvortsov/ Krysanova 10 August, eve: Vasiliev/ Denisova/ Lantratov/ Smirnova Swan Lake:- 2 August: Smirnova/ Chudin 3 August, mat: Kovalyova/Tissi 3 August, eve: Zakharova/ Belyakov 5 August: Stepanova/ Ovcharenko 6 August: Nikulina/ Chudin 12 August: Stepanova/ Ovcharenko 13 August: Marchenkova/ Belyakov 14 August: Kovalyova/ Tissi The Bright Stream:- 7 August: Zhhiganshina/ Vasiliev/ Skvortsov/ Krysanova 8 August: Nikulina/ Lobukhin/ Lantratov/ Shipulina Don Quixote:- 15 August: Shrainer/ Vasiliev 16 August: Krysanova/ Lantratov 17 August, mat: Sevenard/ Tsvirko 17 August, eve: Stepanova/ Rodkin
  14. James
    According to the website, Vasiliev is replaced by Denis Rodkin on 1st August, not by Mikhail Lobukhin.
  15. James
    Justine was danced by Romany Pajdak and Henry by Valentino Zucchetti.
  16. James
    Do you mean to say that they have a box office INSIDE the theatre building? What a novel idea! 🙃
  17. James
    Jonathan Cope didn't wear a white wig when I saw this production in 2001. His wig may have been glittered, but it was certainly dark.
  18. James
    Gary Avis has danced the Helpmann sister a number of times. I saw him in June 2010, with Phiip Mosley as the Ashton sister. Personally, I think it would be a mistake to cast former principals in these roles - it was not a great success when it was tried before. Benet Gartside would be brilliant alongside Gary Avis. Sorry, back to Nutcracker...
  19. James
    This, I think, is the photograph in question.
  20. James
    FLOSS, it would appear that they were not quite so prim in 1877 as you have suggested. According to her memoirs, Ekaterina Vazem did indeed wear “harem pants” in the first production of La Bayadere. I hope it is in order to quote a couple of sentences:- “In the third scene the bayadere Nikiya performs a dance with a basket of flowers in a comparatively slow tempo. For this number they made me an oriental costume with flimsy trousers and bracelets on my legs. Petipa first composed this dance out of batteries – so called cabrioles – the throwing forward of one leg to meet the other. I pointed out to him that such steps were here in complete disagreement with the music and the costume. How, in fact, could one perform cabrioles in wide pants?”
  21. James
    Isn't The Pharoah's Daughter the opium dream of the British explorer Lord Wilson?
  22. James
    From the recording with Merle Park as Larisch, it is an ordinary pack of cards. It would make sense for the concealed card to be the Ace of Hearts as, apparently, that can signify a love letter as well as the start of a love affair. An early reviewer read the momentary expression of horror on Park's face as meaning that Mary's third card signified death - the Ace of Spades perhaps.
  23. James
    At today’s Friends’ rehearsal, poor Gary Avis gave a speech before curtain up asking us to consider leaving money to the ROH in our wills. Seems as if they do need us regulars after all - but only once we are dead.
  24. James
    Howard Goodall's Requiem, Eternal Light, was written for Ballet Rambert. I saw it at Snape Maltings, and very beautiful it was, too.
  25. James
    I was thinking that the Queen (or the Princess as she is called in both the 1877 and 1895 librettos) is a ruling monarch who has lost her consort. That would mean that her son would not become king until her death. The uneasy relationship between the widowed Queen Victoria and her son Edward springs to mind. So far as Hamlet is concerned, at that time, kings of Denmark were elected. Claudius is a usurper, who has, as Hamlet says in Act V of the play, “popped in between the election and my hopes”. Tom Stoppard probably did his A Level Eng Lit slightly longer ago than me.
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