Scheherezade

AI on the march!

I do agree with this. A little clarity would be helpful but with McGregor there seems to be too little information, as here, or way too much, which fudges any hope of clarity through over-intellectualism.

Last brief thoughts on the portrayal of Mercedes which, though danced impeccably on each and every occasion, was thought by many, myself included, to be a tad underpowered in the sass and fire department. I didn’t see Magri’s Mercedes, which may well have ticked that box, and whilst Mendizabel topped my list of those that I did see, I do wonder what Meaghan Grace Hinkis might have made of Mercedes had the original castings remained in place. She has never been my go-to dancer but she was, iirc, convincingly animated and sassy in Like Water for Chocolate. Street dancer sassy? I’m not sure. Maybe next time …

Echoing what @JohnS has said upthread, I unreservedly agree with your comment regarding how lucky we are to have dancers who can shift seamlessly between such divergent styles. Similarly to @JohnS, I also feel that this was not what @Bruce Wall was saying. I would go further and say that what I understood @Bruce Wall to be saying was entirely the opposite, since his comments began with a statement that the company had come home to its natural milieu for the first time this season and his references to the dazzling diversity of the dance world were not, to my mind, intended to relate to diversity within either company but meant to highlight what he sees as insurmountable differences in the style and technique of each, limiting their respective ability to perform the now-inherent repertoire of the other. As again has been said above, please do post your views @AnnabelCharles. I certainly enjoyed reading why you respond to the works of Wayne McGregor and without the freedom to hold and express individual and divergent opinions (and I do feel that this must encompass negative as well as positive opinions) how else are we to inform and refine our initial impressions?

Sorry Bruce, I can’t agree that the works of McGregor are the natural milieu of the RB or that the company is defined by the limited and increasingly repetitive vocabulary expressed in those works. On both an emotional and an artistic level, other companies - Ballet Black being a very fine and particularly current example - have, for me, come up with a far more immediate, accessible and satisfying formula for narrative dance to strike a chord for our time. McGregor has his own company to mark out and populate with his stylised language of abstracted partnering and propulsive contractions. To reduce the extraordinary talents of the highly trained, classical dancers currently within the RB to little more than meaningless contortions is, to me, a crime against dance. To some of us, an increasingly irrelevant product and one that should at best be seen occasionally and should in no way replace what should, by definition, be the prevailing focus of a classical ballet company, namely classical ballet. Sorry once again, Bruce, and I appreciate your passionate defence of all things McGregor but we will have to differ on this one.

I liked Leo Dixon’s Espada too but I do always find him particularly watchable.

Well I think we can agree he’d have no trouble with Espada’s cape swirling.

I loved his Hamlet too. And I’d say there’s a good chance of a Bracewell Rudolf next time round. In a totally different way, I think Corrales could make an interesting Rudolf too.

His mesmerising Hamlet in the Ashton Undiscovered programme in the Linbury a couple of years back, with Francesca Hayward as a luminous Ophelia, was like a calling card for Rudolf but he wasn’t cast in the last run. Although we did have Vadim’s mind-blowing performance to make up for it.

I saw this earlier and wondered briefly whether the RB might have moved on from its baffling aversion to its 20th century back catalogue. No such luck. Which begs the question of why give every appearance of enthusiasm for works that it has absolutely no intention of reviving?

Gorgeous voice! Looking forward to hearing him on Friday.

With me too, Sim. As is - at the risk of being controversial - the misuse of plural personal pronouns for a single individual. Like scraping a nail along a blackboard.

I read and loved this too, JohnS.

Ditto. Two extremely powerful pieces in very different ways: the first through beauty and lyricism (and this despite the use of spoken word, which has never been my natural go-to medium for dance works); the second through conflict and strength. I loved the music in both pieces, and the eloquence of the choreography, so poignantly and powerfully interpreted by this company which, for me, goes from strength to strength. Isabela Coracy, along with the rest of the company, brought the house down at the end of the evening, and deservedly so, in what was an object lesson in how to make choreography and dance relevant to the issues that touch us today. Fabulous!

Hi annamk, I have messaged you.

I hope everyone enjoys this evening’s performance. I missed Osipova (in both senses) this run since she pulled out of the performance with Sambe that I was due to see and I can’t make tonight as I’m at Ballet Black’s Pioneers. Which I am equally looking forward to. I would have loved to have been there tonight though.

Yes, she’s the free spirit that this piece requires.

There has been undisputed evidence set out in posts regarding ticket sales for Don Q. I don’t think it’s too great a leap of the imagination to apply the same reasoning here. Beyond that, it’s clear that we are falling into two camps here: on the one hand the apologists for the ROH management and marketing team and the highly paid consultants whose conclusions would appear to have been unreservedly adopted, and their critics on the other. We are all entitled to our views, and I am more than happy that you do not accept mine without question - would that the powers that be at the ROH exhibited the same questioning spirit! - but I do find the repeated pattern of a serial, last minute ticket sale frenzy somewhat unlikely, to say the least.

Well I’ll certainly be at a distance when I see it a week on Friday so hoping for the best - or the best that can be hoped for with the current staging preferences.

The way this season‘s massed banks of unsold tickets disappear, again en masse, as part of the great giveaway (sorry, selective discounts).

Not all that surprising to us any more, though …

Yes, I noticed that too! Well, how could you not notice it? As a whole, I'd sum it all up as somewhat extraordinary and totally charming.

I loved this, Sebastian: the musicality, the wit and, my goodness, those lifts and throws! Thank you so much for posting.

I felt the same. The others seem to have been a little underpowered: too careful, too polite; lacking that element of hot-headed abandon that I would expect from a street dancer.

I don’t think that anyone who saw those early Osipova/Vasiliev Don Qs will ever forget them. Theirs was the first Don Q that my daughter had seen and she remains convinced that she will be eternally disappointed with all subsequent performances. Mixed reactions to the Saturday lunchtime Mercedes ... I have felt somewhat lukewarm to each Mercedes that I have seen this time round and, re-running the comparison theme, wonder to what extent that is down to the memory of Laura Morera’s firecracker performance in previous runs.