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jm365

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Everything posted by jm365

  1. jm365
    When I first started going to the ROH in the sixties, after the coming of Nureyev, my memory is that one often clapped the first entry of the ballerina and the principal male dancer and then waited till the end, on the whole, for any more applause.
  2. jm365
    I thought people might be interested to know of an event organised by the Art Fund in which Hynd and Page will appear. It's on Tuesday 10th May, at 2.30 p.m., in the Boxted and Hartest Institute, Hartest, Suffolk. Cost £15. I don't think it is restricted to members of the Art Fund. A bit more detail can be found on the Art Fund website.
  3. jm365
    Mr Worldly Wise was such a waste of Irek Mukhamedov's talents.
  4. jm365
    Looking at the topic in a slightly different way - memorable performances of male dancers who one doesn't necessarily think of as dancers - I would include Mark Morris in Dido and Aeneas; Maurice Bejart in Notre Faust; Robert Helpmann and Frederick Ashton in Cinderella. Otherwise I'm right up there with Jorge Donn, Nureyev in the early days, Valdimir Vasiliev. And nowadays I'm also right up there with the fans of Muntagirov - my new 'must-see' artist.
  5. jm365
    I do feel there has been a remarkable lack of publicity for this visit. I happen to be going - but only because a friend who lives in that part of the world alerted me to it.
  6. jm365
    I have been many times to St Petersburg, starting when it was still Leningrad. I've only been a couple of times to Moscow. It is definitely worth going with a group for your first visit, because the guided tour of the 'sights' at least helps you to place everything and all the necessary documentation is dealt with for you. Getting an independent travel visa is a nightmare. If you deal with the Russian Embassy in London, be prepared for a long, long queue. You have to wait in line on the street for the heavily secured gate to open - and the last time I went, admittedly a few years ago - the gate was manned by a leftover from the Soviet era (when I first encountered him) with attitude to match. The gates shut at whatever time is scheduled, whether or not the queue has all got through. You put your application in and then have to go back and repeat the whole procedure to pick up the visa. But once you are in Russia, the experience is absolutely wonderful. I do speak some Russian and can read Cyrillic, so that definitely made things easier. I also agree with trog that the boat trip to Peterbhof is well worth doing - as is the boat trip on the canals in St. Petersburg.
  7. jm365
    Oh good! I hope they had as great an experience as I did.
  8. jm365
    as I believe last night was the 'official' premiere of the Nunez/Muntagirov partnership in Giselle, does anyone know if any of the critics were there?
  9. jm365
    In the 'horrible wigs' stakes, I think a high place should go to the corps wigs in Marguerite and Armand.
  10. jm365
    Thanks, John. I posted before I had read the Jan Parry piece!
  11. jm365
    Whose version of Bolero was it? Not Bejart's, I assume, from the photo of Ruzimatov .
  12. jm365
    Not tomorrow - but I shall be on the train to Birmingham on Thursday with high hopes.
  13. jm365
    Yes, I agree that ballet on tv is nowhere near as great an experience as seeing a ballet in the theatre - but it's better than nothing! Everyone on this forum is already a ballet fan, and is willing to make an effort - sometimes a great effort, as I read - to get to live performances. However, elsewhere in other threads people have wondered how to get more awareness of what ballet has to offer and for this purpose, ballet on television is probably the best way available. And it's the only place where many people who can't get to a theatre can have a chance to see ballet.
  14. jm365
    I have just received an e-mail from English National Ballet which contains a link to a 1948 British Council film, where Helpmann 'explains' ballet steps while dancers prepare and then rehearse and dance a short ballet by Andree Howard. Lead dancers are Alexander Grant and Gerd Larsen, and among the supporting men is Peter Wright. It is the most wonderful chance to see how much technique has changed!
  15. jm365
    I got Vera too - am tempted to try again!!
  16. jm365
    Just one more contribution to the use of the Two Pigeons music: I went to the Ordination Ceremony for Cormac Rigby (formerly a Radio 3 announcer) many years ago in Westminser Cathedral. He was a ballet lover, and chose it to be played at one point in his ceremony. It sounded wonderful in that rather unusual context.
  17. jm365
    Shorts off - scandalous! Oh yes indeed it could well have been criticised in the Soviet Union. I remember going to some of the earliest Bolshoi visits to London in the sixties and most of the men still wore what we called 'modesty pants'.
  18. jm365
    Just to be absolutely correct - Dancer was the first series, Ballerina the second. And - here we go again - the rights situation of both series is incredibly complicated. At the time they were made, they were both very expensive series and to save money, the minimum rights were secured to ensure they could be made at all. This meant that they could be transmitted once only. It is heartbreaking now to think they probably cannot be shown again on the BBC. Edited to add: I also watched the Darcey programme and found it much more interesting than I had expected. I notice that the director was Ross McGibbon - formerly of the RB and a most experienced ballet director. I suspect he had a considerable input into content. Although a named presenter such as Darcey, Peter Schaufuss (Dancer) and Natalia Makarova (Ballerina) will have contributions to make and opinions that will be listened to, the producer has quite as many, and will also shape the final programme.
  19. jm365
    The King Dances Along with many other posters: Muntagirov in everything! Especially Fille Mal Gardee. Revival of Two Pigeons
  20. jm365
    I have lost count of the number of times I have said on this forum that repeating programmes is not as easy as some people think. There are rights to be cleared - and quite a lot of the ballet programmes we would all like to see again were co-productions and therefore the BBC does not own the programmes after an initial showing plus, sometimes, a single repeat. Sometimes the co-producers have gone out of business and no-one is clear who now owns the rights to show the programmes. I am as keen as anyone to encourage repeats of those wonderful early recordings - but it is truly not just a matter of getting them out of storage!
  21. jm365
    John Gilpin married Princess Antoinette of Monaco - and died of a heart attack tragically soon after the wedding.
  22. jm365
    I can assure everyone that there were no obvious empty seats. Had there not been this thread, I would have had no idea that the event was not sold out. And in addition to Peter Wright's amazing memory and stories of his early years, I was most impressed by Monica Mason's excellent debut - as she referred to it - as an interviewer. She had the lightest of touches in keeping Sir Peter on the right lines and brought the session to a gracious end exactly on time.
  23. jm365
    Darcey Busselll certainly had trouble in Sylvia.
  24. jm365
    As a matter of interest - how are people informed that a performance has been cancelled? Not everyone is on Twitter; rather more have e-mail. If the illness is known about some time before, are people contacted personally? Or do you have to potentially spend the money getting to the ROH, including train, hotel etc., only to find the whole performance is off? It's a different matter if it's just a change of cast.
  25. jm365
    No, I don't remember ever going to a Fonteyn performance and finding she was not dancing. But does any other vintage ballet.coer remember the running gag of some of the early Bolshoi performances when the pre-perofrmance announcement nearly always said such and such a role 'will be danced by Kokhlov' - he must have been the perfect sub. One never knew if the absent dancer had been taken out for reasons of injury etc. or just at the whim of the touring management.
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