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cavycapers

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  1. cavycapers
    Honestly, I have just looked on the Bristol Hippodrome ticket website, and I could weep. The Russian State Ballet of Siberia have almost sold out the four nights that they are booked there next week, when not even Alina Cojocaru dancing Juliet in the ENB's lovely production of R &J could achieve this last autumn. I can hardly believe that the Hippodrome insists on bringing back this ragtag of a company every January. I can only suppose that they know nothing about ballet. The ghastly sets, lighting, and costumes should be clue enough, but it is the mucking about of the corps, who possibly imagine they can't be seen, that is inexcusable. I think one expects that if a major theatre like the Hippodrome has booked a production, it will be of a reasonable standard. Some poor souls have paid nearly £60 a ticket to see this. Phew, that feels better
  2. cavycapers
    I received my Royal Ballet diary as usual on Christmas day, and was very surprised to recognise three of the pictures as having been used in previous recent diaries, particularly the one for week beginning 9th May, of Akane Takada in Live Fire Exercise, which was used last year. Surely the Royal Ballet has a HUGE selection of photos to choose from, and can find original ones to use each year?
  3. cavycapers
    Yes, ditto to all the above, but sometimes it is the most unexpected things that give you great pleasure. So,I would like to mention that hard working little troupe, the Vienna State Ballet, who tour the provinces endlessly, doing Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, choreographed by Daryl Raizal, cheeky and sexy, with more than a nod to Ballanchine, as part of their 35th Anniversary Gala show. Great fun.
  4. cavycapers
    How on earth did TJ get made-up, dressed and warmed up in time?
  5. cavycapers
    How fantastic to see Les Noces again, in the second programme. I went along to ROH in 2012, to see Birthday Offering and A Month in the Country and expected, in my ignorance, to have to tolerate Les Noces, also on the bill. My goodness, it blew everything else away, it was all I could think of for days afterwards. That pile of little faces!
  6. cavycapers
    this thread has made me laugh! Reminds me of a couple of times when flimsy covering of lower regions has been very distracting! One is the fabulous Elite Synchopations that the BRB did a couple of years ago, where the all in one leotards they were wearing left very little to the imagine anatomically speaking when you were sat on the front row, as I and my elderly mother were, and two was the very lovely Romeo and Juliet in the Round at the Royal Albert Hall the year before last. I was sat on the front row of the stalls, and Mr Deane, obviously very keen to use all the extra corps he had hired for the production, had hem standing around the edge of the arena for a lot of the production as townspeople, or whatever, so basically, I had a very poor view from my low down position of Rojo and Acosta, but a marvellous view of twenty little male bottoms in tights so thin I could see the labels on their dance belts! C'mon wardrobe, it's not nice.
  7. cavycapers
    And how lovely he was, smiley and relaxed.
  8. cavycapers
    There is usually a full length ballet on on boxing Day on BBC2. BRB's delightful Cinderella being one of my favourites a couple of years ago. Does anyone know if we are to have one this year? It's the only thing I want to see all over Christmas.
  9. cavycapers
    The problem is that on anything other than BBC4, production teams would not be able to sell their ideas for ballet programmes to the controllers of the mainstream channels without a name like DB, because programmes about ballet are still such a niche market unfortunately. I don't think that Darcey is being used so much because she is a judge on Strictly, but because of her prominence as one of the greatest British ballerinas of all time. The first programme she did, about the ten best ballet moments, was way before Strictly. I also think that Tamara Rojo is such a wonderful ambassador for ballet. She speaks so intelligently and eloquently on the subject whenever she is interviewed, and English is not even her first language! I often think about the 'Agony and Ecstacy' programmes made a few years ago, about the ENB, and whilst I loved them and found them fascinating, I sometimes wish I hadn't seen them, as I am still so aware of them when I watch the ENB perform, and remember the scenes, for instance, where Wayne Eagling had not even finished the choreography by the first performance. There is a bit of me still likes to believe in the magic, and I'm not sure that those programmes ultimately did the ENB any favours.
  10. cavycapers
    Oh dear so much Bussell bashing. I hope we can agree that is the failure of the TV production teams and not poor old Darcey herself. I think she is a gracious ambassador for ballet. Should she turn down these programmes and deprive us of the few ballet related things on TV?
  11. cavycapers
    Oh please let ENB be able to hang on to this lovely young man, Cesar Corrales, where his lovely exuberant dancing and acting can be nurtured, and not let him be poached and swallowed up in another company.
  12. cavycapers
    Darcey B has done a fantastic job of promoting ballet on tv. I'm sure that at least a few people after watching Strictly will have YouTubed her dancing. I came to ballet very late (all those years in the wilderness!) It was Darcey's lovely programme about her top ten ballet moments that inspired me. I watched it so often, I wore it out! I love anything by David Bintley too. What an inspiring man he is.
  13. cavycapers
    I too think Cesar Corrales is a massive find for ENB. His acting skills match his phenomenal dancing talent. And he is only 19. His Mercutio was the highlight of the R and Js I saw. I only hope he doesn't get poached!
  14. cavycapers
    That's a shame - not about Bufala, whom I'm sure will be great, but because Cesar Corrales has been the real unexpected 'treat' of this run!
  15. cavycapers
    I think my original intention in starting this thread was in thinking about the "white" ballets, where you have a line up of 24 swans, wilis, shades, etc, and though it may have happened before, it was the first time I had seen it, and I was so pleased to see that Tamara Rojo had had the guts to put a black ballerina into a line up of corps where you are aiming for them all to look exactly the same. It doesn't matter so much for the male corps members. I think it is a bit disingenuous to say that one doesn't notice, one just thinks what wonderful dancers they are. The point is that you do notice, but that it is great, and with any luck, this will happen more and more in the future so that it will become the norm, not the exception. Interestingly, I looked at Misty Copeland's autobiography again, and her experience of being in the corps, and where she complains at being fed up of having to apply ivory foundation to whiten her skin, she never says whether she chose to do this, or it was a requirement of the management!
  16. cavycapers
    I bet Cesar Corrales is going to make a wicked pirate! He even looks like one. Such amazing comic acting as Mercutio.
  17. cavycapers
    Thank you so much, Naomi N. How excited am I now to see Osiel Guneo and Brooklyn Mack?! I have booked tickets immediately for Corsaire, not a ballet I like particularly, and was not going to bother with, but now can't wait. Alina Cojocaru, Osiel Guneo, Laurretta Somerscales, Junor Souza, Isaac Hernandez and Cesar Corrales all on the same bill! What a treat.
  18. cavycapers
    The companies I always avoid are The Russian State Ballet and Opera (rolling around in a sheet on the stage does not constitute the morning pas de deux in ROMEO and JULIET, and they always make me think of those restaurants that do both Chinese and Indian food), and The Rusian State ballet of Siberia, whose SWAN LAKE at the Bristol Hippodrome I shall never forget for the reason that I was sat up in the gods and could see very clearly that whilst the principles were doing their very best, the corps de ballet was mucking about at the back of the stage, chatting and pushing each other over. I will go and see any ballet that comes to a theatre local to me, indeed I go and see the local dancing schools' performances, and will enjoy anything, so long as they are trying their best, but I cannot forgive not trying.
  19. cavycapers
    Wow, what was I thinking! I shall return the tickets I have just booked for the Royal Ballet's Giselle immediately and spend the money on this 'renowned' company of 'superb artistry' instead
  20. cavycapers
    11.30pm coach back for me arrive back home 3.00am, have to wander around town in the early morning to get to my car. Those coach rides are miserable too, never been so cold, smell of full toilets and lots of tinny music spilling out of headphones. Normally I would book 3 diff cast for Giselle, say, but this time I am going once, and shall watch another performance in the comfort of my local cinema! A good tip to relieve the misery at not much more money, is to book a Premier Inn for an overnight. I personally go for the Hanger Lanne one, one can be there in half an hour from leaving the ROH, and booked far enough ahead, it is only £35 for one or two people in a double!
  21. cavycapers
    That's very interesting. I assumed that I enjoyed the production more as the week went on because I was getting used to it! The parts that irritated me on the first night enchanted me later. Interesting to know that there may have been other forces at work. Whilst I don't think I'll ever love acts one and two as much as the Macmillan, I think I maybe even prefer act three. Juliet, Paris and Lord and Lady Capulet's dance; the dreamy wedding sequence; Romeo hearing the news of Juliet's death from Benvolio, and flinging himself backwards into his arms (3 times!) in his grief. It does make me wonder why, though, in the morning bedroom pas de deux, Juliet is on the bed but Romeo enters the bedroom, even thouh they have presumably had their wedding night together. It always makes me think he'd nipped out for a pee!
  22. cavycapers
    What a huge ask of anyone to have to dance Romeo at the last moment. Full credit to Max Westwell and Lauretta Somerscales, as you would not have had any idea from watching them that they had not been intended to partner each other. Do diff Rs and Js rehearse with each other, I wonder, in case of such an eventuality?
  23. cavycapers
    I was surprised to see that Max was due to dance R when I got to the theatre in Bristol on Friday night, as I was expecting Junor Souza, but I thought he was an extremely touching Romeo. The thing that surprises me though, is in a situation like this, why do they replace just one part of the partnership? Wouldn't it make more sense to swap the couples, ie for Max Westwell to have danced with Alison McWhinney (with whom he has presumably rehearsed) and for Lauretta Somerscales and Junor Souza to have taken their slot later in the run, when he might have been recovered?
  24. cavycapers
    Good point,nycitybird. I too would love to see Osipova again as Giselle, and really hope she will be recovered by then, but am nervous about booking tickets just to see her. I wonder if we can presume that the RB expect her to be better by then if she is still in the casting?
  25. cavycapers
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