Lindsay

I'm not sure which of you deleted a comment of mine and locked the thread without even having the courtesy to send me a private message explaining what you were doing and why. I am not just a "drive-by" commentator trying so start a fight, having been a member of this board (and its predecessor) although only an occasional poster for many years. I deliberately phrased the comment in the least inflammatory way possible despite it being an issue I feel extremely strongly about but you have left the other, less thoughtfully worded, comments on that thread extant. If you had contacted me privately this could have been discussed in private.

Well today the Royal Ballet has taken on two RBS students - one who is British and came the whole way through both Lower and Upper schools and one non-British who has spent three years in the Upper School. In my view this is as it should be - nationality should not be a factor. The school producing dancers in a "style" to suit the company should be. Hopefully that is something which will happen more consistently under the new RB director.

Even by ballet standards much of the costuming and staging here is laughably ridiculous. Surely putting the King of the North in an 1980s style shaggy blonde wig and headband and having him doing high kicks is a deliberate attempt to recreate the welding scene from Flashdance? Much giggling from the stalls last night.

Ian that's a very interesting point about th benefits of having a director/dramaturg working alongside the choreographer to control the overall narrative and look of the piece. Do you know whether this has have ever been done at the RB? I don't recall ever reading about Ashton or Macmillan taking such an approach but I'm sure there are people here with a much more detailed knowledge of the history.

Haha yes I did - thank you

In thinking and reading a bit further about Carbon Life I came across Clement Crisp's review which includes the quite astoundingly snobbish phrase: "The public that enjoys the urgent racket of rock and rap is not going to sit happily through the generalities of Covent Garden’s repertory." If only he could have warned me earlier that listening to anything other than Tchaikovsky was going to destroy my attention span and ability to appreciate the sacred classics! The man truly drips with content for the hoi polloi who lack his "refined" sensibilities. It is quite possible to have eclectic tastes and go nightclubbing, to gigs, to art films, to classical concerts and to the ballet (thought I concede that Nutcracker is probably pushing it a bit far for the average Mark Ronson fan......)

I'm pretty sure that Brian was in Infra

Having a bit of time on my hands at work this week, I thought I would have a first stab at a review of last night’s performance of the triple bill. These are early thoughts and probably raise more questions than they answer but for what it’s worth, here it is: I am a lover of Ligeti and was extremely disappointed with the piano playing for Polyphonia. No disrespect to Robert Clark (who did a decent job with the Rachmaninoff for Sweet Violets) but it’s simply not good enough to have your inhouse pianist tackle fiendishly difficult and very specialist contemporary piano repertoire such as this. Désordre in particular (the opening variation) has never sounded to me more orderly and careful – completely missing the point of what this music is all about. That said, Polyphonia is a very accomplished ballet and there was some beautifully clean technique on display – particularly from Sarah Lamb who really does come into her own in this type of work. It would be stunning if the music could match up to the dancing; I saw this in NY some years ago when the pianist was a on a different level which probably goes some way to explaining my disappointment on this occasion. Sweet Violets had some interesting choreography and good performances (especially from Laura Morera who really is an outstanding actress) but overall if felt like a bit of an immature effort. Melodramatic in the same way that if you ask hormonal teenage drama students to improvise a scene you inevitably end up with four rapes and a murder. I’m afraid that the portentous wanderings around the stage of the spectral Jack character just made me giggle. Like JaneL I thought it amateurish to have so many prolonged blackouts and in fact I felt that Scarlett’s compulsion to create confined spaces by walling off small sections of the stage suggested this work might have been more appropriate for the Linbury than the main house. He was clearly onto something with the idea of an artist looking at a society fascinated by violence and murder but a ballet focussed on individual psychodrama is difficult to project into a large space (I know Mayerling does it but that has the benefit of lush, high society crowd scenes too so the audience is not being continually asked to “connect” to the feelings of one character on a big stage). So this one didn’t quite work for me but (having enjoyed Asphodel) I would like to see more of Scarlett’s work nevertheless. As for Carbon Life, I’m not quite sure what I felt about that but given that McGregor’s stated intention is to raise questions and make the audience consider their reactions it was certainly effective on that level. The gig-style lighting and sound created an alienation from the red plush/gold proscenium environment of the opera house which was in itself thought-provoking. I read some of the reviews afterwards (I never read them before seeing a performance) and was struck by the gaping chasm of expectations when classical ballet critics try to review something like this. I wonder what those members of the audience more familiar with music than dance would make of Alistair Macaulay talking about Ed Watson’s alignment problems? It seemed to me that this approach was wholly misplaced as this work should really be seen as an overall experience (almost like a music video?) rather than a forensic analysis of individual performances. There is something troubling as well as interesting in the music video dynamic, as it does seem to turn the dancers into pawns rather than agents (with the exception of Stephen McRae who must have missed McGregor’s briefing on performance style and as usual seemed never more than 10 seconds away from a quick tap-dance and some jazz hands). While dancers as faceless bodies can be used to make interesting points and the very high standards of technique at the Royal can serve this end well, I’m not sure McGregor got his point across in this instance. As you can probably tell I need to marinade my thoughts on this one for a bit longer… Ps. Where was Boy George????

Anjuli, I take your point about the anonymity of dancers compared to footballers, but I think the advertising agency are professionally correct to assume that the names of the Arsenal players are what will attract people to the product. It's good that ENB/the dancers receive some consequential publicity (and hopefully payment!) from this but in reality for the target audience for the product it wouldn't make much difference if they had used Sylvie Guillem and Polina Semionova or first year performing arts students in tutus.

Thanks Bruce for the excellent interview. It's fantastic to see a dancer who is still dancing (particularly a woman) answer questions which go beyond the usual inanities. I truly could not care less and am sick of hearing how they prepare their pointe shoes, what gets them out of bed on a Monday morning or what they do to wind down after a show - so often we see the same questions for dancers in their late 20s or 30s that you might expect an unimaginative, junior reporter to put to ballet students. If this is an opportunity for Tamara to promote the idea of dancers as thinking beings and not just passive, pretty machines then the appointment is already a positive for that reason alone. And of course I hope she succeeds in building a good relationship with the ENB dancers and that someone finds a way to work around the inevitable budget constraints. I'm also very interested to see how much thought she has clearly already given to the balance which must be struck between entertaining and "educating" a paying audience - something which often goes unspoken even by experienced directors. It's going to be very interesting to watch.

I think Ismene Brown got tired of waiting.....

I understand that Janet and that is why I appreciate this forum's respect for such etiquette and would always follow it myself. The point I'm making is that once the cat is effectively out of the bag (which is without doubt the case here) it is unwise of an institution to continue to wait. Wouldn't it have helped the employee in your example if, once senior management knew the information had leaked to him, they had given him a frank explanation of their discussions rather than letting him "stew" on semi-informed half-truths?

Whilst I appreciate the point being made, criminal trials are actually a terrible example because the sub judice laws put them under a different legal (and practical) regime from all other news.

Bruce, of course you need to try and bring people with you and "manage" opinion but any semi-decent inhouse PR professional these days understands that in the age of the internet speed is of the essence. Any advance briefings must be to professional reporters you can absolutely trust not to tweet or otherwise leak the news (usually assured by offering them interviews or other exclusive access once the news becomes public) and when you do release onto the web you get on the phone at exactly the same time to any other "opinion-formers" so they also feel they have an inside scoop. Letting it drift out piecemeal as is currently happening prevents you from telling "your version" of the story. Even the ROH (not exactly the smoothest of operations in many, many areas) managed to keep the Kevin O'Hare announcement "clean". As I said, I have great respect for the way this site conducts its operations but the reality of the internet age is that very few will be so scrupulous.

I have genuine respect and admiration for the administrators here following the letter of the law, but it is ridiculous that a professional body should expect to be able to rely upon such goodwill. "Press management" of the standard seen at ENB (and indeed several other major arts institutions) is so amateurish that it would likely constitute a sacking offence in most commercial organisations.

To clarify, I wasn't actually calling for them to make an announcement, I was asking whether they had already done so - since several journalists now appear to think they are in a position to report on it.

Am I right in thinking that the identity of the new ENB AD is now "officially" public?