GTL

1 hour ago, Jan McNulty said:

 

 

............Elmhurst is Europe’s oldest vocational dance school and started life in Surrey in 1923, nearly one hundred years ago. .....

(I'm not quoting Jan personally of course, but the Elmhurst press release.)

I thought the ballet schools in Paris, Copenhagen, St Petersburg, Moscow all date back to the 17th/18th C?

I'm glad you intend to hang on in there a bit longer! No one should expect to be perfect on their first day, you need time to settle into a routine, and after a while you will get used to the sort of requests guests make of you, which will help with the hearing problem.

Best of luck to you and Sean, Lisa.  Getting any sort of paid work isn't easy these days, especially where you live, and will stand you both in good stead whatever you move on to. Your new employers must have seen "ideal receptionist" in you to offer that job when you had applied for another.  And RIP Pumpkin. (A word of caution though: be careful how much information you make public. I'm thinking here of your working hours and location.)

12 hours ago, Sim said:

Considering that she is and always will be the company's Assoluta, and the immense part she played in establishing it as one of the world's best, I am astonished that there wasn't even a mention of her centenary.  A revival of Ondine  perhaps?  Nothing.  Unless they are planning a tribute evening that we haven't been told about?  I doubt it somehow.

 

I don't understand why they are celebrating Bernstein's centenary but not Fonteyn's.  He had nothing to do with the company whilst she, to a great degree, created it and its English style.  Gggrrrr.

i have a horrible feeling the Fonteyn commemoration might well be a tribute evening, and a horribly expensive one at that, with a post-show dinner as its main selling point. 

On the other hand, I was siiting near the stage at a fairly low-key matinée at the London Coliseum watching him in a mainly Balanchine programme with Zurich Ballet (c 1980) when, early into the big pas de deux, his obviously nervous ballerina could be heard to say, "I can't go on!".  He talked her through the rest of it, with lots of "Good, good" and they took their bows graciously together.  I doubt many would have noticed anything amiss, but oh, to have been a fly on the wall once the curtain went down.

Does anyone know what the Argentinian Ambassador presented to her? He also made a lovely speech praising her as Argentina's best ambassador to the UK, holding a tray which I thought be an Argentinian honour, but in the end he handed it to her without elaboration saying she already had enough flowers. So was it a plaque or tray or what?

From the press coverage of the Royal Ballet's visit to Hull last autumn, I'd guess there is a whole new market for ballet there. I hope Northern Ballet gets the resources to build on it.

Just a quick observation, as no one has yet mentioned last Saturday's matinee: Sarah Lamb and Ryoichi Hirano were the leads and I thought they made a very effective, intense partnership, one of the most moving I've seen in my 40 years of ballet-going.

Yes, the new gallery is below the new courtyard entrance from Exhibition Road. The Cromwell Road door is still the main entrance .

All galleries are fully accessible according to the website.      https://www.vam.ac.uk/visit#accessibility     

Oh dear, I'd assumed that the jumpiness of the soundtrack was due to my brisk, time-constrained progress round the exhibition. 

I guess they're targeting a new audience to opera, perhaps hoping to pick up those first lured to the V&A by David Bowie and Pink Floyd - which is not such a bad thing overall, just a pity if it alienates the more informed. 

I managed a only a half-hour visit so I'll be going back to take it all in properly, don't take what follows as authoritative. I'm not knowledgable on opera but the social/political history stuff I already knew so I didn't feel I got a lot out of it, and I go free so can't judge its value for the £19 entrance, but it looks and sounds good.
You get lovely leather Bowers and Wilkins headphones to wear and an audioplayer which matches the music to the exhibit you're standing near, so you can listen to as much of the extracts as time allows.
It traces the development of opera with emphasis on its place it wider society from Venice via
London (Handel, plus a mini stage with working scenery),
Vienna (Mozart, Beethoven, various artifacts, emphasis on revolutionary social changes),
Paris & late Romanticism (can only remember the loaned paintings),
Milan (Verdi, Italian nationalism, Violetta's white party dress from the ROH),
Dresden (R.Strauss, Salome, censorship, filmed extracts, those bringing children might prefer not to linger here),
Moscow (Shostakovich and Stalin, brush up your Russian to gain maximum benefit as much is untranslated),
then I realised I had to leave and skipped by the final contemporary world opera section, which seems to be filmed extracts.
There is a bit of seating but I saw one man carrying his own fold-up stool.  Lots of space though, so wheelchair users should be fine if it's not busy and the V&A can usually loan you one if you need it.

Congratulations from me to those who conceived and organised last night, what a resounding success!  It was good to hear so many Birmingham and Scottish accents enjoying their companies' chance to shine in the splendour (building work notwithstanding) of the ROH, and the dancers looked thrilled at their reception, especially the "red runners".   

Wonderful dancing in "Concerto". In addition to the five leads, Brandon Lawrence particularly impressed me. "Le Baiser de la fée" was a similar story to "La Sylphide", bleaker and for me overlong, but as others have remarked interesting for the bits of choreography that MacMillan developed in later works.   Having avoided "Elite Syncopations" for decades, I really enjoyed this one, the cast went to town with the characterisations, what terrific performances from Yasmine Naghdi and Ryoichi Hirano: her such a "babe" and him an inspiring partner and establishing a dominating presence over the whole proceedings despite little solo oppotunities. Can't wait to see them as Manon and her brother, and what a pity they won't be together as Lescaut and his mistress next year.

Back to last night, a MacMillan commemoration could be a depressing affair and this, although balanced out by the more downbeat "Fée", wasn't. I hope Lady M was there to feel the love!

Finally, grab a ticket for "Jeux" in the Clore if it comes up, but look up a synopsis beforehand as the cast sheet doesn't give it.  It was such a privilege to see world-class dancers in so intimate a setting.

Best of luck to him, Lisa, hope it goes well.

4 hours ago, capybara said:

ENB's shows are never longer than 3 hours.

And they keep their intervals brief, on paper if not always in practice, so with two ballets which usually run around 65 / 75 minutes, plus two intervals of 15 minutes, it's do-able. Theme: at a basic level, loss, fate, regret?  

I'm so glad they are plugging the "La Sylphide" gap, I miss the Royal Ballet's Kobborg production, and I doubt I'll manage to get to their ROH "Song of the Earth" so I welcome this opportunity.

Thanks alison. "Anna Pavlova" (1983) will be repeated Sunday 9 July 0915 - 1200 on London Live, Freeview channel 8.

I think it's this one.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086089/

7 hours ago, Darlex said:

The most worrying trend at ENB in recent years, in my opinion, is not rate of turnover or number of guest artists, but the fact that at least one dancer I can think of (no names) at mid-rank has actually been demoted to artist level...........

I can think of one such dancer who is also listed as a member of staff with a very specific function in the organisation, so his career is moving on as his dancing winds down.

Almost all of all of the above for me.   

Can't believe no one has yet mentioned the openings of Rubies and Symphony in C.  At the other end of the spectrum of Sheherezade and Petruschka - those frontcloths with the wonderful music.

My most thrilling snapshot of the RB season: the opening of the Forsythe  Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, Vadim Muntagirov and Steven McRea standing together in 5th.

I hope not.  Those character rôles are greatly enhanced, IMHO, by the performances of the long-serving retired dancers and could well turn into caricature in less experienced hands, when the likes of Thiago Soares and Bennet Gartside could, in the future, do them full justice. It will be interesting to see how the proposals to maintain Zenaida Yanowsky's involvement with the company works out in practice: in the past, the "Principal Character Artist" would have been a solution.

What struck me at the Royal Opera House last night was how few women were wearing "taxi shoes". Admittedly it was raining, whichdetermined my own choice of sensible shoes, along with the memory of Saturday's news coverage, but nearly half the women I saw were literally in running shoes, most others in flats. Touring the House, I eventually I spotted a pair of high heels, then a few more, but not many. The Royal Box was extremely low key too, dimly lit and unoccupied until lights-down: I don't think I've seen that happen before.

Very interesting Bruce. There was an advertisement in last night's London Evening Standard (puzzles page I think) placed by a law firm to promote their seminars for UK residents wishing to renounce their US citizenship and I wondered why, tax issues not withstanding, it was such a fraught process - now I know.

Something to give you a smile I hope, Lisa - dyed pointe shoes as appearing currently on the Royal Opera House website.

Lisa, he has that option and it's thanks to you. From what I've seen on the forum you have a lot that's good to offer him and those of us who read your posts. The best mothers I know admit to feelings of inadequacy at times, but that's life and it's better than complacency.  You're entitled to cry today after such a rotten experience, I hope we are helping to give you a plan for tomorrow.

1 hour ago, LinMM said:

 

Is this going to spoil his chances of getting a possible Uni place though?

 

This seems to me the crucial question, and as long as Sean is not required for interview, does he really need to go for a look around in these internet days? The course content is the most important thing, so I would expect the Admissions Officers to be happy to discuss this with him over the phone.  

(I say this as someone who chose her university by reputation, both academic and as a desirable place to live, and came to regret it. I had a good social life, expanded my mental horizons, changed course there and managed to graduate, but I certainly didn't embark on the career I had envisaged when I started.)

....I was also going to say that the RB's Lilac Fairy variation doesn't contain Italian fouettés.  Italian fouettés are those found in Gamzatti's variation and that of the Queen of the Dryads in Don Q (a developé followed by a turn with a transition of the leg into attitude, though it can also end in arabesque).  The Lilac Fairy simply does a fouetté whilst turning. 

There was a "Ballets Russes" exhibition in 2010 which featured costumes, designs and film clips, even account books and contracts.

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2010/mar/29/v-a-ballets-russes-exhibition

Back in I think the 1980s there was a spectacular and more general exhibition of costumes including the Royal Ballet and the Ballets Russes. It was very atmospheric, they played extracts of the relevant music and spotlit the relevant costumes, with concealed wind machines making them move gently.  I have a feeling Richard Buckle was involved (as he was in their 1954 Diaghilev one, Google tells me).