Jane S

Alison, I don't think they're anyone in particular - just made up names - they appeared for the first time in Aurora's Wedding, which was put together from bits of the Diaghilev production, using the music previously given to the four Jewel Fairies, and choreographed probably by Nijinska. De Valois danced in it at one time.

The RNB's first, pre-war, production reverted to the Jewels, but for the 1946 Messel production Ashton rechoreographed the Florestan and his Sisters idea, and it and the Jewels have been swapped in and out at Covent Garden ever since, sometimes in the same production.

The characters apparently don't  appear in any of the well known fairy tales but if you'd like an invented back story for them - and have pleny of time - try this !

The Times piece says general booking opens on August 24.

Also from the Times, Kevin O'Hare expects every ballet production next season will be either streamed or shown in cinemas.

By the way, it's nice to remember that Two Pigeons had its premiere on Valentine's Day - 60 years ago today!

Jonac, I think the names you give are probably those used by Russian companies much later on.

This link shows (I hope) the names used originally and in some of the best known later productions up to the mid-1960s - later scholarship may have overwritten some of them, of course.

(link comes originally from Dance & Dancers, quoted on balletalert by rg )

1 hour ago, Odyssey said:

Yes, I have been enjoying these in-depth interviews. For those of us of a certain age (!) , check out the interview with  Doreen Wells subtitled the Miracle of Soleto - for a reason she explains during the interview. It’s a wonderful resume of her career and she name drops so many wonderful artists. There are a couple of previously unseen clips including a wonderful extract of her dancing the second movement from Concerto with David Wall. 
 

Thank you so much for mentioning this - I had not seen it before - pure gold!

Doreen Wells interview

43 minutes ago, alison said:

Ooh!! Sibley/Dowell!  😛   Black and white, I suppose, or was it late enough to be in colour?

It's in colour, assuming it's from the tape.

Nice cast, too.

The music was arranged by the Australian composer Douglas Gamley who apparently drew on other works by Strauss as well as Die Fledermaus.

My copy  (price 3/6) lives in a plastic bag as all the pages fell out decades ago. I once, sometime around 1970, remarked to a (male) work colleague that my first recipe meal was Poulet Marengo and got the languid reply *Whose wasn't, dear?"

If you still think a 'slut' is someone who will take something to wear out of the laundry bin because it's cleaner than anything than anything else available, and if the first dish you ever cooked in your own bedsit was Poulet Marengo, you were of the generation that grew up blessing the name of Katharine Whitehorn and will be saddened to have read  of her death.

You're right, Alison - KO'H did Elihu.

The 1993 revival was in honour of de Valois' 95th birthday and on that tour it was only shown in Birmingham and at the ROH, in a programme which opened with MacMIllan's Concerto and closed with Massine's Choreartium. (Job was replaced by several shorter pieces for the rest ot the tour, and by the way, in another programme on the same tour they were also doing The Green Table.)

One of the ROH performances is actually on the ROH database but you have to search for BIrmingham Royal Ballet performances to find it. And if you just look at RB performances, the 1948 date is when it was first given at Covent Garden and if you click on that there are various performances through the years listed, with the last RB one being in 1972. The Touring Company also did it at the ROH in 1970 but that doesn't seem to get a mention.

I think I only saw the 1993 revival and enjoyed the score rather more than the piece itself.

BRB did it in July 1993 at  the ROH

Just a reminder that The Royal Danish Ballet has re-released its  Swan Lake (Hubbe version), currently not geoblocked - it was filmed on the big stage of the Opera House in Copenhagen and is a terrific spectacle even if you don't like the production.

Also you can see their production of Christopher Wheeldon's Alice, streamed from the Danish television channel DR2 - haven't watched it all the way through but it looks to be well filmed and there is some interesting casting.

I think Susan Jaffe was in a later run (1997?) when Yoshida had to drop out at very short notice - Asylmuratova substituted for her at  the dress rehearsal* and the next night with Mukhamedov, and Jaffe did some performances later on.

* and gave the greatest performance of a Petipa ballerina role I've ever seen, as I may have mentioned quite often before...

It's a nostalgic, happy memories sigh - what else, for Cervera?

Sigh...

(not that this is a fan site or anything)

We recorded the Ashton triple bill from Sky Arts the last time it was shown and - having just got round to watching it - we were surprised that there was no information of any sort given, no introduction, just the names of the ballets, and it stopped abruptly after 2 hours, quite soon into the curtain calls for Marguerite and Armand. I gather there's actually more to it than this?

We'll try recording it again next week.

And isn't Yanowsky stunningly beautiful?

Both Christopher Saunders and Elizabeth McGorian were in the first-night Nutcracker cast, 36 years ago - was either of them in #500?

And I wonder how many hundred they've each done in between?

Now geoblocked, sadly.

I think they mean 'the rest of the year'?

Do you think the last lady might actually be  a singer?

There is a lot of very interesting background to the making of the programme in a Ballet Association  interview with Desmond Kelly and Marion Tait from 2007.

It was reported in the dance magazines in March 1973 so presumably happened in Jan/Feb.

The Danish Government has decided to close theatres, restaurants, schools etc until January at the earliest, so all RDB performances  are cancelled till then, and till the Covid infection numbers start to fall.

31 minutes ago, Tony Newcombe said:

Hayward, Corrales, Pajdak and Dixon on 1stJanuary. Dreamy

And Gartside - dreamier still!

Not that I'm going.