Jane S

Anyone fearing withdrawal symptoms when the RB's run of Jewels ends on Friday could pop over to Copenhagen on Saturday and see the Royal Danish Ballet's first night! They haven't danced it before so everyone is new to it - there are some nice photos online and although unfortunately the company seems to have stopped adding captions to identify the dancers, anyone who's caught the recent online Giselle or R&J will recognise at least some of them,. I'm hoping to see a performance later in the run, but if someone sees it before then, please report back!

They may look hilarious to our eyes but they are like that for a reason - each one of the men is dressed to resemble a fashionable 'celebrity' of the time - I can't remember who they all are except that one is Liszt. (And incidentally I saw a young man in London this week who had exactly the hairstyle and moustache of one of them, worn for stylishness rather than irony by the look of him!)

No to all those. We'd get there by a process of elimination in the end, but in fact the dancer in question is Akane Takada, A fine dancer whose rise to principal level got remarkably little attention in the press, so it's good to see her getting a bit of the limelight. But why just now, I wonder? (Of course the headline may just be an attention-grabber and not reflect the actual article at all - we'll see tomorrow.)

No, neither of those

Nope - it is a woman, though...

Today's Times is trailing a feature in tomorrow's T2 under the title 'Meet the Royal Ballet's new sensation' Just out of interest, and assuming you don't already know, who would you guess this might be?

The RB only did Taming of the Shrew because their planned first run of Onegin had to be cancelled very late on because of a problem with the fire-proofing of the sets and they had to find something else to do. It was dropped after a brief second run in the next season.

Deleted - info already in post above

The dancers in blue were Caroline Baldwin and Jonathan Chmelensky, the set designer is Maja Ziska and the costume designer is Mia Stensgaard

Pacific Northwest Ballet, which has had Jewels in its repertoire for some time, is reviving it next season with new costumes by Jerome Kaplan - so it's not actually that uncommon for the Trust to allow changes. And yes, Alison - Lacroix

I haven't seen much about this yet, although it's next month and sounds mildly sensational: The Mark Morris Dance Company will be appearing at the Royal Court Liverpool from May 25th - 27th in a new work, Pepperland, set to a score inspired by Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It's part of Liverpool's Heading for Home Festival and details are here

Odd, though, that when you get to the page about him he's not described as a 'guest artist' - as is Galeazzi, for instance - but as 'former Royal Ballet Principal'. Later - actually I see he's listed as a guest artist on one list and not on another so I guess they just haven't completely finished their updating.

Denise Nunn with Nicholas Whittle, 1974 Alexandra Ferri with Michael Crookes, 1980

On Sunday April 2nd at 8 pm BBC4 is showing a 1-hour programme called Giselle: Belle of the Ballet, in which Tamara Rojo uses ENB's two productions as a basis for an examination of "the cultural and social background to the ballet's genesis in 1840s Paris, and the spiritual themes that have fuelled its success over the last 175 years." There's a clip showing the first 3 minutes of the programme here

Just a footnote to the Lilac Fairy discussion: I'm a bit surprised to see Monica Mason's name mentioned so often as so far as I know she only danced the role a handful of times, over a year or so quite late on in her dancing career. I only saw her once (her debut, I think) and don't remember being blown away by her. By far my best memory is of Deanne Bergsma, who gave 70+ performances, starting when she was 19 and still in the corps de ballet. Bergsma made her debut on the same day as Vyvyan Lorrayne (aged 21 and also in the corps de ballet) and Dance & Dancers (Clive Barnes, I'd guess) featured Bergsma as its 'Dancer you will know' the next month: " June 11, 1960, will probably be remembered in Royal Ballet annals as the day the Lilac Fairies came to Covent Garden. With Vyvyan Lorrayne in the afternoon and Deanne Bergsma in the evening, the company produced a brance of lilac ladies so promising, so assured, that even the the fiendish ingenuity of Oliver Messel's new costumes could not extinguish them. .... As the Lilac Fairy [bergsma] brought to the role a young, almost shy dignity, a sort of reticent expansiveness, a blazing personality still obscured by the clouds of inexperience. Her dancing was a similar mixture, with its unusual blend of fluency and gawkiness. She was like a gracefully clumsy foal that is clearly going to become a thoroughbred racehorse. It was a most exciting debut." A wonderful description - Bergsma was 7 years away from being a principal and I really don't believe that the most senior dancers we've seen in the role over the decades were necessarily the best. Nunez excepted, obviously.

I've seen it most often with The Lesson in Denmark, but also with Etudes, a piece by Jorma Elo, and Symphony in C. I'd really like to see it paired with Balanchine's Donizetti Variations (which, incidentally, the Royal Ballet really ought to get for Sambe and others).

Didn't the RB do it with Les Rendezvous one season?

Bennet Gartside being the obvious example. Though maybe he could do Siegfried sometime if that's what it takes...

I think we perhaps need to ask if it's not a case of letting people return but of not being able to stop them - 'entitled' people who believe that paying for a ticket allows them to do as they please are not going to be deterred by a polite usher tellling them they can't go back in.

I would guess the answer is that they put on so many casts that they simply don't have time to give in-depth individual coaching to all of the soloists.

Thank you all for the advice, which I will pass on to my friends. Geoff, I found the prices on the ROH website, once you'd told me they were there!

In her 1977 production Ninette de Valois replaced the usual RB Golden Vine variation with the one which Nijinska developed for herself, described by Preobrajenska apparently as 'Bizarre, tres bizarre'..

Some friends who have never been to the ROH before would like to see Turandot this summer and have asked me for advice - I can't really help them as it's a long time since I was a regular opera-goer. Is there an obvious choice between the two casts? (Goerke/Antonenko and Lindstrom/Alagna) And how hot a ticket is it likely to be? - i.e completely sold out 10 mins after the booking opens, or possibly tickets still available a day or two later? And finally, is there anywhere that gives the price range of tickets? Thanks in advance for any help.

There's one more Garland Dance too, as Wheeldon completely rewrote his version for a revival of Mason's production - can't remember when but it was some years ago.

Thanks to DanceTabs for picking this little line out of a new Twyla Tharp interview "As for whether there is anything left for her to do, it appears there will be much more to come — and not just the full-length, five-movement Hadyn symphony she will choreograph for the Royal Ballet later this year." 22 years since Mr Worldly Wise!