David

All praise to Scottish Ballet for reviving MacMillan's Fairy's Kiss and great that it is returning to the Royal Opera House where it surely belongs. Despite the fact that tickets are limited to 2 per booking it is already virtually sold out there so I'm all the happier that I've booked a family outing to see it in Edinburgh! Hopefully the Royal Ballet will take it up while they still have the likes of Jonathan Cope who performed it in the 1986 revival among their numbers. As with Song of the Earth, the Company has been up-staged but hopefully, as with Song of the Earth, they will have the sense to take the opportunity to bring it into their repertoire! My one sadness is that I shan't be able to see Scottish Ballet at the Royal Opera House this time round but hopefully the door has been opened and there will be other opportunities. And incidentally, it is a d.... sight cheaper (tickets/rail fares/hotels) to see it in Edinburgh that it would be to catch it in London!!!!! PS. I see the two performances at the Royal Opera House are being filmed - does anyone know what for? The BBC perhaps?

Opus Arte will release Anastasia on 1st September. The initial listing is up on Amazon: Product description: "The Royal Ballet recorded at the Royal Opera House in London. Natalia Osipova performs the title role with the supporting the cast including Marianela Nuñez, Federico Bonelli, Edward Watson, Thiago Soares and Christina Arestis, with Simon Hewett conducting the Royal Opera House Orchestra. "

I have a ticket as below that I can't use and am happy to pass on to a good home. If interested, please pm me an address and I'll pop it in the post: 3rd October (Tuesday @ 7.30pm) - Birmingham Hippodrome - Birmingham Royal Ballet - Aladdin Stalls K24

Hello Julia - so glad this ticket has found a new home. Have sent a pm with my address & look forward to hearing from you.

I have a ticket as below that I can't use and am happy to pass on to a good home. Send me a stamped addressed envelope and I'll pop it in the post: 27th Sept (Wednesday @ 7.30pm) - Birmingham Hippodrome - Birmingham Royal Ballet - Elite Syncopations; Concerto; Still Life at the Penguin Café Stalls K24

Unfortunately I can't get London Live but it is available on DVD. The reviews are polarised so I'm undecided whether to splurge!

I caught this show several times, just for the pleasure of seeing Robert Fairchild on the London stage but I haven't seen it since Ashley Day took over the Jerry Mulligan role. I haven't seen any subsequent reviews and I'm wondering now if anyone has seen him in the role?

It's worth noting that there are a number of really excellent clips on YouTube including the trailer of the Broadway show, an AinP medley live at the Royal Variety Performance 2016 and, my favourite, An AinP live on the Late Show, all with RF & LC. Treasured memories of an unique experience!

Thank you Bruce - as always very informative - but also rather sad. Issues regarding ticket prices, repertoire and venues could surely be resolved in the light of experience if the will was there? Your comparison with the RB is telling. Apart from the cinema relays the RB, via Opus Arte, produce more DVDs than the rest of the ballet world put together, they tour widely and their repertoire choreographers and and dancers are widely available. The Company has a sense of mission. In contrast the NYCB seem little concerned to spread the word re their choreographers and work. Their recent disk - their Balanchine programme in Paris - was v welcome (it includes Robert Fairchild's sister dancing Sonatine by the way), but apart from Jewels hardly any of the work of the american choreographers is available on disk unless you include crossover musicals! Just seen your post while I was typing Aileen. It's a shame if you're right that companies have given up on us. I particularly enjoyed the visit by the Ballet Nacional de Cuba back in 2010 at the Coliseum though I guess that must have been heavily subsided. -

I'm curious - Is there a reason why the NYCB does not tour to the UK - they seem able to slip over to Paris with ease! The RB tours around the world but apart from the Russian companies we don't seem to see many other major companies here. And yet there are quite a few companies I'm sure would be welcome.

According to the ROH shop it's definitely on the release schedule for later in the year but they don't have a release date as yet. The Ballet du Capitole item I referred to in my previous post is an Opus Arte release and is due for release on 30th June. It comprises three disks so I guess that has been keeping them pretty busy!

Just seen the following. The third is listed as a new release but I'm assuming it must be a re-issue. I don't know the others - should I be excited? 1. Mikael Karlsson; Alexander Ekman: Midsummer Night’s Dream "Chorographical prodigy Alexander Ekman created his Midsummer Night’s Dream in April 2015 for the Royal Swedish Ballet at the Stockholm Opera. It is a powerful, contemporary piece that explores the energy and the mysteries conjured up by the summer solstice in the Scandinavian tradition. A vast and ambitious project, Midsummer Night’s Dream is danced by the Royal Swedish Ballet and set to a music by Mikael Karlsson. Swedish star pop singer Anna von Hausswolff sings throughout this one-of-a-kind production." 2. Shostakovich: The Golden Age "This modern and visionary work, set to music by Dmitri Shostakovich, was created in 1930. Its central theme was the highly battle and subsequent triumph of the proletariat against the decadent bourgeoisie, set in Europe during the Roaring Twenties. Surprisingly, the score by Dmitri Shostakovich raised political controversies, possibly because it took inspiration from European dance forms (and was openly inspired by jazz music) and consequently, the ballet vanished from the theatres until 1982, when Yuri Grigorovich restaged it with sets by Simon Virsaladze and a completely new libretto mainly revolving around the love story between Rita, a cabaret dancer, and Boris, a young idealist. The conflict in the original production was also recast as a clash between fishermen – the morally superior workers – and society’s criminal elements. Bringing back The Golden Age in Autumn 2016, a few months prior to Yuri Grigorovich’s 90th birthday, was a highly symbolic choice for the Bolshoi Ballet: this work, the last Grigorovich would ever choreograph for his company, hadn’t been staged for almost 10 years. A rare and refined ballet, which ran the risk of falling into oblivion twice, is danced by the new generation of the Bolshoi Ballet, including Nina Kaptsova and Mikhail Lobukhin." 3. Pugni: The Pharaoh’s Daughter (La Fille Du Pharaon) "BelAir Classiques present Petipa’s extravaganza, The Pharaoh’s Daughter, in a stunning production by Pierre Lacotte. Recreating the spectacular sumptuousness of the original, the ballet tells the tale of a young Englishman who dreams he elopes with a Pharaoh’s daughter. Despite a desert storm, a lion hunt and an attempted suicide, the couple finally wins the Pharaoh’s blessing of their marriage. From its creation in 1862, Petipa’s grandiose ballet was a sensational success; its stupendous costumes and striking scenery, its exotica, romanticism and drama appealing to audiences as much as the virtuoso choreography. The Bolshoi Ballet and the two soloists Svetlana Zakharova and Sergueï Filin are at their best in spite of the difficulty of Pierre Lacotte’s choreography." 4. Amar: Pixel "Pixel is a stunning contemporary dance performance for 11 dancers in a virtual and living visual environment. A work on illusion combining energy and poetry, fiction and technical achievement, minimal music and hip-hop. It opens a dialogue between the synthetic world of digital projection and the real bodies of dancers. Pixel is a contemporary cross-cultural dance extravaganza which will be popular among younger viewers, in particular." 5. Ballet du Capitole: Trois ballets de Kader Belarbi Le Corsaire, La Bete et la Belle, La Reine Morte "Three masterworks by Kader Belarbi shine in these stunning Ballet du Capitole productions. Hailed by Le Figaro as ‘simply magnificent: a miracle in two acts’, Le Corsaire is a bold reinvention of a 19th-century classic. La Bête et la Belle – a compelling reimagining of the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast – had its place affirmed among the best of modern ballets by Belarbi’s much-lauded production for Théâtre du Capitole. La Reine morte, based on Montherlant’s play of the same name and set to an enchanting score by Tchaikovsky, tells the tragic story of King Peter I of Portugal’s devotion to his beloved Inês."

I'm assuming that some members here will probably know more than they feel able to reveal but generally speaking, before we all jump to conclusions, I think we should wait until more information emerges.

I assume they ensured he was performance fit before billing him? I'm sure we will hear the cause in due course.

I see Sergei Polunin has decided to withdraw from his two performances in Marguerite and Armand on 5th and 10th June. So much for the expectations I was building up for the 2017/18 season!

And according to Stephanie, his wife! She would later record contemptuously: “Who was Mary Vetsera? One of many! He spent his last night with his friend, Vienna’s Grande Cocotte.” - by whom she meant Mizzy with whom she claimed he had spent the night before travelling to Mayerling.

Speculation has been rife regarding the 13th Jan 1889, the date that she underlined in red in her diary. Gerd Holler, a doctor, a Mayerling enthusiast and key proponent of the pregnancy theory, was convinced that it was the day on which her pregnancy was confirmed. Fifteen days later, Mary and Rudolf went to Mayerling. Two days later they were both dead. Holler believed that her death was due to a failed abortion leading to a haemorrhage which could not be stemmed, followed by Rudolph’s suicide – just one of countless hypotheses, boosted by unsubstantiated reports/rumours of attendances by midwives on 28th Jan and 29th Jan, according to Holler’s theory to insert and, 24hrs later to remove a catheter in the uterus. There is nothing in her recently published letters to her family to support all this and that particular speculation seems pretty much discredited, along with theories of political assassination and so on.

Thank you Johnpw. I'll certainly check that out.

I so agree - particularly in his use of the Faust Symphony in the final stages. Liszt was a contemporary of and knew the Empress Elizabeth - in fact I'm sure I read somewhere he wrote a piece for her? I've been meaning to check if it was the song that the actress Katharina Schratt sings in the ballet but haven't got round to it. Does anybody know please?

But also Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier on 30/12 and 2/1. The performance that Hayward and Campbell are dancing Clara and the Nutcracker with Lamb and McRae on 5th Dec is the one scheduled for live cinema relay (the date shown at the side on the website is obviously wrong!). I understand that Opus Arte are issuing a DVD at some stage tho I am not sure whether it is to be the 2016 or the 2017 performance. Whatever the reason I shall still want to see Hayward and Campbell again in both roles!

Yep - together, my grammar and I stand corrected!

I think it's easy to forget that Mary was a teenager, presumably sophisticated in many ways because of her station in life but, as her letters show, quite naive - she said for example that her final wish was to be buried with her Rudolph. That wasn't going to happen! She told her chambermaid on Jan 13th 1889 "I no longer belong to myself alone, but only to him. From now on I must do everything he asks of me." Rudolph was nearly twice her age, very experienced, indeed had had an affair with her mother when she was only five years old. We talk about her as his partner in death etc but I see her very much as a victim.

Thank you Bluebird for tipping us off re the cast postings so quickly.

It’s all very speculative. What appears to be beyond dispute is that his physical and mental health had deteriorated alarmingly, primarily because of his sexual excesses and their consequences, so much so that Stephanie sought an audience with the Emperor to express her concern. He was in great pain, increasingly resorting to drugs, mainly injections of morphia supplemented with ether and alcohol, and he was morbidly depressed, preoccupied with thoughts of death and afraid, both of the hideous diseased future that lay ahead, and of dying alone. It was Mary’s ill fortune to be the chosen one in his solution to that particular worry!

Sorry LinMMM - I don't think that one would run. It says a great deal for the integrity of the medical and legal authorities at the time that they refused to collude with the Imperial wish to invent explanations, for example that it was Mary who had killed the Crown Prince and then herself. They reported that the room was sealed thus precluding any possibility of an outside agency and that Mary was carefully laid out making it clear that she had died before Rudolf.