James

9 hours ago, RHowarth said:

I think she and Jonathan Cope had their natural hair, with added glitter, when they were filmed in the early 2000s?

Yes, you are right. I have the dvd issued in 2001.

I think that’s Rosalind Eyre. 

The signature on the upper photo is Gerd Larsen, I think.

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:

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. 

On 16/10/2020 at 17:19, bangorballetboy said:

Thanks @MJW @bridiem.  Assume that is for Friends then, as my date is earlier.

I am “only” a Friend+ and I have an earlier date.

6 minutes ago, alison said:

Are you saying that this Act IV is Ashton's (which I've rarely seen)?  I recall Jane S saying that that began with Odette leading the swans on, which certainly didn't happen here.  This seems to me more like an adaptation of the "in the round" choreography to me.

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. 

1 hour ago, bridiem said:

Ashton's Act IV is sublimely beautiful, stunning, transcendent. It absolutely takes my breath away.

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.

The Argentinian newspaper La Nacion has reported the death, in Vienna, of the Argentine-born ballerina Irina Borowska on 25^th 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.

On 15/01/2020 at 19:26, Don Q Fan said:

I saw a very pleasant performance of Swan Lake this afternoon at the Liverpool Empire. I got tickets for my favourite seats at half price in the sale so for £17 inc fees I had a lovely afternoon!  The company now uses a projected back- screen instead of scenery and I thought this worked well, although the flying swans were a bit amateurish and distracting.  Anyone who knows the Liverpool Empire will know it has a pretty large stage, but somehow RSBS managed to make the stage look too small for them?!  I felt the dancers were a bit tight for space at times when all they needed to do was pull the red curtain type side drapes (see pic below) they had at the sides back into the wings a bit and they would have had another 2 meters to play with.  Or maybe they keep it tight so they dance to the same spec at every theatre seeing as they are touring to a large number of venues? 

Odette/Odile was very competently danced by Anastasiia Belonogova - she had very expressive arms and a rock solid technique when it came to the full set of fouettes and more in Act 3.  Her Prince Siegfried was danced by Francisco Gimenez and he was very nice, even if he did land rather heavily from his jumps.  Rothbart wasn't quite menacing enough for me but well enough danced by Egor Oskoin.  They have a Benno in this production and this was nicely danced by Marcello Pelizzoni.  I must single out the Act4 black swans for praise, my goodness they were SO precise in their moves and timing, dancing as one and when the "block" of dancers moved across the stage they kept their lines perfectly, not one put a foot wrong.  Dare I say they were as good as the Mariinsky for precision this afternoon, amazing to watch them.  In general all the swans kept very straight lines and moved pretty much together and the 4 cygnets did their dance really well.  I particularly enjoyed the Spanish Dance in Act 3 and Odile's fouettes were just fabulous she hardly moved off the spot and knocked them out at speed as the orchestra really played fast!  The ending to this Swan Lake is a bit sad as Siegfried jumps into the lake with Rothbart, leaving Odette all alone at the lakeside. Ahhh.  It was a pity that the house was not full but it is fuller this evening, however they got plenty of applause and, in true Russian style, really milked every last clap out of the audience throughout the show LOL!  The costumes were very pleasant and colourful and Odile's sparkling black tutu and red tiara were beautiful.

The orchestra was only small but played really nicely, and at times (Act 3) really fast, under the baton of Anatoliy  Chepurnoy who also had a sense of humour - he conducted the audience's applause when he came on at the start 🙂   His long frock coat had some black diamante on it which I thought was a nice touch!  I like that this production combines Acts 1 and 2 into one half and Acts 3 and 4 into the second half with only one interval so total run time was 2.20.  There are loads more performances in the Tour around the UK throughout this winter/spring so catch them if you can I would say.  A few curtain call pics.

Ensemble

Egor Osokin, Anastasiia Belonogova, Anatoliy Chepurnoy and Francisco Gimenez

Anastasiia Belonogova

Anastasiia Belonogova and Francisco Gimenez

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.

On 10/11/2019 at 00:55, alison said:

2) I thought were siblings, probably of Florimund, since we see no signs of Aurora having any?

 

3) Isn't it Cinderella and her Prince, rather than Goldilocks?  (I miss the Cinderella divertissement  )

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.

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2 hours ago, alison said:

What a shame we didn't record the original casting for all the performances.  I'm now totally lost as to who I booked for in what - and whether or not it's still the same.

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

According to the website, Vasiliev is replaced by Denis Rodkin on 1st August, not by Mikhail Lobukhin.

1 hour ago, Saodan said:

Tomorrow's performance has been opened to Student Standby. This time tickets are £5 rather than the usual £10. Desperate to fill up opening night? It's worked at least. 

 

I would love to know who danced Justine and Henry at the rehearsal if anyone was there.

Justine was danced by Romany Pajdak and Henry by Valentino Zucchetti.

On 03/01/2019 at 11:47, bangorballetboy said:

It's what's done at every single West End theatre.  I noted that in the Geilgud Theatre this morning there were two A4 pieces of paper blu-tacked to the box office confirming a cast change for tonight.

Do you mean to say that they have a box office INSIDE the theatre building? What a novel idea! 🙃

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.

21 hours ago, Jane S said:

Tim Matiakis was rather good - also much younger than most who take these roles?

 

Avis has already done the Macmillan sister,  hasn't he?

 

My dream casting would be Gartside/Yanowsky...

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...

18 hours ago, loveclassics said:

This business of the SPF standing on a piece of fabric has come up on this forum before (or maybe the older version of ballet.co).  It was included in the RB production of the 80s but was later dropped as not being authentic.  Apparently it comes from a misinterpretation of a poster design and was never actually danced in any prior production.

 

Linda

This, I think, is the photograph in question.

On 05/11/2018 at 14:47, FLOSS said:

As far as the costumes are concerned you need to remember that Ratmansky has asked his designer to create an impression of what the original designs were like. The expectation at the time when La Bayadere was first staged was that ballerinas wore ballerina appropriate costume which were not affected by the idea that setting a ballet in ancient Egypt or somewhere in central India ought to result in their costumes reflecting the time or place in which the action was set. No leading ballerina would have expected to be required to lower herself by wearing costumes similar to those worm by specialist character dancers .To require that of the ballerinas would have been seen as the gravest insult They would all have been mortally offended if it had been suggested that their costumes should do more than subtly allude to when and where a ballet was set. The inappropriateness of ballerina's costumes exercised Fokine a great deal. You really should read his manifesto it will give you an insight into what was deemed appropriate in ballet design at the time that these ballets were created. We have to remember that as ballet goers we still live in a world in which Fokine's views on ballet aesthetics continue to have considerable influence on what we see or expect to see on stage in many twentieth century ballets. in  !877 harem pants would have seemed perfectly indecent and I doubt that they would have been deemed respectable enough for the Imperial stage even at the point at which the ballet was notated which assume was soon after Petipa was forced to retire. I think that harem pants probably entered the world of ballet design with the Ballet Russes and Scheherazade which is another piece of Russian orientalism. Interestingly it seems to owe a debt to Le Corsaire in places.

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?”

5 hours ago, jmb said:

Think of the opium dreams in ballet. Are any if them dreampt by good, upstanding Europeans? No they are not. At least as far as I know. 

 

Isn't The Pharoah's Daughter the opium dream of the British explorer Lord Wilson?

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.

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. 

2 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

Possibly because of ballet's history of expressing itself through mime, making words superfluous and even distracting? Thinking about use of choirs in music specifically written for ballet, I can't recall any which aren't wordless. (Someone will no doubt correct me!)

 

 

Howard Goodall's Requiem, Eternal Light, was written for Ballet Rambert. I saw it at Snape Maltings, and very beautiful it was, too.

9 hours ago, MAB said:

 

He's not of age, it's his 21st remember, so presumably about to become king and I assume his mother is regent, or perhaps like George III his father is in some way incompetent.  On the other hand the title usually goes to the son on his father's death as with baby Henry VI.  Like Tom Stoppard I've always had a problem with why 30 year old Hamlet wasn't king instead of Claudius.

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.