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Jane S

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  1. Jane S
    I always think Florimund is wrongly maligned: to my eyes he isn't dim at all (he's a Royal Prince, after all...) - dazed, possibly, but then who wouldn't be? He's been dancing with apparitions, been led through a dark and threatening forest, then walked through a palace full of apparently dead people in the clothes of the previous century - all with no idea where this is leading - no wonder he doesn't instantly catch on who Aurora is and what he's supposed to do about it. We know, but then we've read the book. (I also like the idea that his lightbulb moment is not because he's figured out what to do - he's remembered it: he's heard the story of the sleeping princess who can oly be awakened by a prince's kiss and he suddenly realises that it's now real and that he can be the one to break the spell. In fact when someone asks me to do a production of the ballet, he will be a descendant - great-grandson perhaps - of one of the Rose Adagio princes - they presumably were out of range of the spell after carrying Aurora offstage so escaped to their homes, married other princesses and passed the story down to their children etc.)
  2. Jane S
    She was a principal dancer, widely admired, and she came in at the beginning of Ross Stretton's season to find that her first leading role (not counting Nutcracker, which everyone did) was something like the sixth cast of Giselle, in Aptril - so she decided that rather than hanging on at Covent Garden, getting bitter, she would rather leave and continue her career elsewhere. (All in the public domain) I have sometimes wondered if Stretton had ever seen her onstage .
  3. Jane S
    If you don't remember the beginning of that run of Coppelia, it was ... a bit difficult: it was to be a long run, with three senior casts in the first weeks and then a gap followed by a set of debutantes as Swanilda. Yoshida and Acosta did the first night; the second cast was announced as Belinda Hatley and Ethan Stiefel but Hatley was injured and out for the whole run so Benjamin stood in for her, and two days later did her own scheduled performance with Angel Corella. Then Yoshida hurt her back and Benjamin also danced with Acosta, including at the televised performance. To save Benjamin from having to dance every show, they brought Sarah Wildor's debut forward about 2 months and she did one performance with Stiefel (she was magical - I've never seen it done better) but she hurt her foot that night and didn't dance again till the second half of the run. Benjamin deserved a medal , or a lot of champagne at least. Am I right in thinking, from the photos that have been posted of the cast sheets, that they don't give any casting this time for Act 3 apart from the soloists, and no listing at all of the different bits of the masque of the hours?
  4. Jane S
    Yes, Yoshida.
  5. Jane S
    Maybe you'd find them here ...
  6. Jane S
    I worked out last time that it was something like 'Cecchetti, after (and directed by) Petipa, possibly with some influence and even input from Ivanov; revised and added to by Sergeyev and later by de Valois' ... but no doubt there are more scholarly attributions!
  7. Jane S
    Thank you - that's the same as it said last time and I thought it strange as the biography of Ivanov in the programme didn't mention Coppelia and the history of Coppelia didn't mention Ivanov - have they improved on that this time?
  8. Jane S
    Please could someone say who's been credited with the choreography and staging this time round?
  9. Jane S
    Surely that's David Wall? Peter Wright was the first Prince in the made-for-television production, some years earlier.
  10. Jane S
    It's now back.
  11. Jane S
    Thanks - it's been a very long update, though, and I don't remember seeing any warning about it, which they usually do. Just keep checking, I guess.
  12. Jane S
    I've been unable to reach the balletalert site all day - anyone who uses had better luck?
  13. Jane S
    No, it isn't.
  14. Jane S
    That's a bit hard, isn't it? David Dougill had only just over 400 words to set the scene for general readers and then to review two casts, and he manages to praise 13 dancers by name - seems rather well balanced to me!
  15. Jane S
    The Outstanding Performance awards are for a single performance - someone who only appeared once in the whole year could be nominated.
  16. Jane S
    I'm struggling to remember a time when they did flag debuts in minor roles (or major ones, come to that) - was it quite recently? (Also I don't know how to delete tags when quoting a previous message!)
  17. Jane S
    Gregory Dean's latest ballet, Blixen, opens tonight in Copenhagen. There's an interesting podcast in whch Dean, Kizzy Matiakis (who has the title role tonight) and the designer Jon Morrell talk about the problems of bringing Karen Blixen's life to the stage. (The music is by Debussy.) One idea that's new to me, at least, is that Matiakis does the whole ballet in the first cast but at some later performances the role is split between Ida Praetorius (Young Karen) and Gudrun Bojesen (Older Karen). Matiakis, who is within a couple of years of mandatory retirement at 40, feels she's at exaactly the right point in her life to be able to do both and sounds to be relishing the challenge. I hope anyone who sees her, or the Praetorius/Bojesen combination, will write a nice long piece about it for us.
  18. Jane S
    60 years ago at this very minute I was at Covent Garden for the very first time, watching a matinee of Swan Lake (still Le Lac des Cygnes at that time) with Svetlana Beriosova and Donald Macleary. It was a very foggy day and my train was 3 hours late so I missed most of Act 1 - they used to let latecomers in to stand at the sides of the Stalls Circle and I vaguely remember just catching the end of the pas de trois. Beriosova was already my idol and I had never seen her live before - I thought she was wonderful. Otherwise from my notes I seem to have been most impressed by the size of the stage and the way the curtains went up 'sideways' - but looking at the cast now I really wish I could see the cygnets again - Merle Park, Antoinette Sibley, Doreen Wells and Debra Wayne - Wayne didn't stay long in the company but she had already danced Odile at her graduation performance and I wonder if they ever again had four once-and-future-Odiles as cygnets! My Stalls Circle seat cost 17/6 (about 86p) and the programme was 1 shilling. I don't remember if the fog had lifted by the end of the afternoon but it was a memorable day, anyhow!
  19. Jane S
    From an interview with Christopher Hampson by Kelly Apter in The List: 'We're using all of Kenneth's original choreography and the same score,' explains Hampson, 'but there will be some adaptations in terms of the scenes we present, and the order we present them in. So it's two acts rather than three, and because there will be far less pageantry around Rudolf, we'll really focus in on those iconic, key dramatic moments in his life.' Well hallelujah. I've been saying, and writing, for so long that there could be fine, strong ballets buried inside MacMillan's blockbusters and I'm so pleased someone is trying this! Hope it's a huge success. Extra doublegood if they drop the brothel scene.
  20. Jane S
    Denise Nunn danced Concerto with Nicholas Whittle at the 1974 RBS performance but she also danced with Michael Batchelor in the same performance in Friday in Ashton's Jazz Calendar.
  21. Jane S
    The credits list says 'Developed in association with Lady Deborah Macmillan'. Also 'Adapted for Scottish Ballet by Christopher Hampson and Gary Harris' Could be a great improvement!
  22. Jane S
    I should have said that Shine On is not being done at every venue on the tour.
  23. Jane S
    This morning's links include a long and detailed review by Claire Seymour of the Alston company's programme at Snape Maltings on Saturday. I saw the same programme the night before, which included the first performance of Shine On, the latest addition to Alston's probably unequalled list of dances to the music of Benjamin Britten - I say 'the latest' rather than 'the last' in the hope that this isn't the end: the last poem in the piece ends '... the loss as major, And final, final' but I would sooner believe Alston's own very brief speech at the end - "I LOVE this place. I will not say goodbye". Anyway. I liked Shine On a lot, despite my own very strong preference for a tenor voice in this music (no disrespect at all to the soprano. Katherine McIndoe). I did wish though that Alston had found rather more depth in the Nocturne ('Now through night's caressing grip') - for me it's one of the most beautiful pieces Britten ever wrote and I was hoping for a stronger response. The programme ended happily with Brahms Hungarian, which I hadn't seen before - and if you are a ballet-goer I defy you to sit through it without once thinking "Dances at a Hungarian Gathering" - and very nice too.
  24. Jane S
    Anne, I believe that if you really don't like a ballet after 20 years of trying, you probably never will. Just stop going to it - it' s a huge relief, as I found myself with Manon , decades ago!
  25. Jane S
    I think the rank of Principal Character Artist was only introduced in the very late 1980s and all of the first people at that level were previously Principals - Coleman, Conley, Drew, Edwards and Rencher. Dowell was running the company by then.
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