Jane S

In case you don't look at the Links page, there's a nice appreciation of Judith in today's Guardian

I haven't seen the full-length Anastasia in 40 years but I just looked up the first-night review and I was struck by John Percival's description of one of the few bits in Acts 1 & 2 that really impressed him: "... the short passage when Rasputin comes to the aid of the Tsarevitch Alexei who has fallen over. The danger of falling for a haemophiliac is that bruises can cause bleeding into the joints which can... thus induce a kind of paralysis. So Rasputin, on his knees, slowly compels the child to walk stiffly forward until ...Alexei again walks freely on his own." .... and I just wondered if the passage Lindsay dislike so much refers to, or even replaces, this? Also, apparently the bit at the end where the bed goes round the stage looks like that because the theatre in Berlin where that act was created had a revolving stage, which was far more effe.ctive. Also, on the first night the leader of the revolutionaries was named - it was Wayne Sleep.

Clement Crisp gives it five, Sim!

I don't worry too much about the tallish young men - there are loads of roles for them - but I do wonder how Kevin O'Hare plans to cast some of the less tall but extremely talented young dancers - Sambe for instance. I'd love to see Balanchine's Donizetti Variations here - Nikolaj Hubbe put it on in Copenhagen for the young Lendorf and it was sensational.

A good evening, on Friday, opened a weekend of events under the title 'Britten Dances'. Of the five Alston/Britten works shown, two were new to me - the world premiere of Chacony (a respectful, full-company ensemble piece), and the attractive Rejoice in the Lamb, sounding superb in the wonderful Snape acoustic. My favourite remains Illuminations - beautiful in every way, with fine singing from Mark Padmore, and strongly danced by Liam Riddick and Nicholas Bodych - their partnership in the section starting Gracieux fils de Pan! was very touching. I also liked Bodych a lot in Rejoice in the Lamb - don't think I've seen him before but look forward to the next time. A warmly enthusiastic audience, too. But I did wish they'd turn the lighting up just a bit...

Kizzy Matiakis made her debut as Odette/Odile in Copenhagen last night and afterwards was promoted to principal dancer - a very emotional occasion for her, I'd guess, especially as she's only 5 years from retirement and the RDB has never promoted anyone this late before.There's a little film on the theatre's Facebook page She was trained originally by Leo Kersley (wouldn't he have been proud of her!) and then at Central School.

Also the Royal Danish Ballet is showing a half-hour session on its Facebook page from 1.45 to 2.15 (London time) - a rehearsal of their new production of Giselle, with Albrechts Ulrik Birkkjaer and Andreas Kaas.

Today's Times has a nice picture of two of the Sarasota dancers (unnamed) in the Friday section from Jazz Calendar.

I am sad to record the death last week of Judith Percival, well known as a writer and critic under her professional name, Judith Cruickshank. She also posted on ballet.co and on this site as Alymer - her middle name - and her sane and authoritative voice, backed by an immense store of knowledge and experience, will be greatly missed. She had many friends both in and outside the dance world and her death has come as a great shock to us all.

According to Sarah Woodcock in her history of the SWRB/touring company, when the question of acquiring the Spoleto 3-act Raymonda arose, "Ashton felt that without the drama the ballet lacked heart, that the designs were dull, and it would need drastic re-thinking if it were to go into the repertory, so Covent Garden dropped the idea of buying it in for the Touring Company".

I've just noticed that the first performances of The Invitation were introduced by a much longer summary than the piece by Arnold Haskell which replaced it by the second season: it gave a little more background: "In a grand house live a wealthy widow and her three daughters. The two elder daughters of marriageable age are strictly guarded from the world by their mother. The youngest daughter has invited her boy cousin and some young friends to stay with her, along with their parents. In the party there is an unhappily married couple who were friends of the widow's husband. The youngest daughter and her cousin are drawn towards each other, but she is also attracted to the married man after dancing with him. After the children have gone to bed, entertainers arrive to perform for the guests. Tthe girl creeps down and secretly watches. At the end of the performance the married couple quarrel and the man rushes off in anger followed by the girl. The cousin appears in search of the girl but instead finds the wife alone. Timidly, he succumbs to her. At the same time the girl discovers the man walking by the lake, but his affectionate approach to her changes to violence and she is left weeping. The house party ends and the married couple contine their indifferent relationship. the boy tries to resume his courtship of the girl but she rejects him." Incidentally if you find the step from Obsidian Tear to The Invitation a bit of a stretch, pity the audience on the first night, when The Invitation was sandwiched between Pineapple Poll and John Cranko's Sweeney Todd!

I am finally running out of space for memorabilia etc so am about to throw away a lot of large format programmes (BRB, Kirov/Mariinsky etc etc), About the House from 2000 to 2013, a lot of RB red programme books, lots of aged Dancing Times etc - too bulky and heavy to post in quantities but if anyone has any interest in particular items I might have, please send me a PM and maybe we can arrange something.

Plus ça change - this was the summing up from Peter Williams, editor of Dance and Dancers, of the first performances of Manon: "I can think of no three-act work, apart possibly from Lavrovsky's ffirst ballet to Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, that was considered totally successful from the outset. I am certain that with imaginative re-orchestration of the score, some judicious pruning, with the story clarified in greater production sense (perhaps a theatre producer shoud be engaged for all full-length ballets) then I think Manon could become a work of lasting value to the Royal Ballet's repertory." And incidentally, I don't think even Fille was universally proclaimed a masterpiece at first - I can remember at least one critic frothing with rage about it!

Mm....no he couldn't.

No, he said it was the least enjoyable full-evening work he has ever seen the Royal Ballet perform - a much less sweeping condemnation. Surely by now the RB must have a plan of the Opera House stage showing which bits of it can be seen by everyone/most people/hardly anyone? You'd think it would be given to every choregrapher on day 1.

Next season's programme for the Royal Danish Ballet is being announced right now - it includes Wheeldon's Alice and a new piece by Wayne McGregor, and also a new full-length version of Dangerous Liaisons by Cathy Marston, who has made work for other groups in Denmark but never for the RDB itself. Next season looks much more interesting than this one, with Jewels and a re-run of the new Swan Lake as well as a couple of triple bills. There's also a new Giselle...

There are two separate organisations, the Balanchine Foundation and the Balanchine Trust, and it's actually the Trust that licenses performances and appoints the people who stage them. (Worth looking at its FAQs page for an explanation of the difference between the two bodies, and also the rules about Balanchine on YouTube.)

In one RB production (maybe the early days of this one?), at the end Albrecht gently placed Giselle's body in a different grave, possibly to show she was saved from being a Wili - but it confused a lot of people and they dropped it eventually.

See the moment here

The Royal Danish Ballet's performance of Neumeier's Romeo and Juliet was transmitted live to cinemas all over Denmark last night, and during the curtain calls at the end Nikolaj Hubbe announced that the evening's Juliet, Ida Praetorius, was promoted to principal dancer. She's run very quickly up the promotion ladder - about 2 years each in the 3 lower ranks - and it's been obvious for some time that this latest step must come very soon. She's had ecstatic reviews for her Juliet and it's a nice (and canny) move by Hubbe to make the announcement before the maximum possible audience - and with a poem he'd written specially, too. Like others reading this, I'm sure, I can clearly remember the first time I saw Praetorius, as the little girl in Bournonville's Conservatoire during the 2005 Festival, and it's been a pleasure to watch her progress.

Glad we were able to help!

I wonder if your tutu could be from the televised production of Sleeping Beauty in 1959? Judith Sinclair danced one of the fairies (and FonTeyn was Aurora and Sibley was also a fairy, which would fit) and as it was a one-off version they could easily have been given different names, like 'Fire'. Have a look at the video - there's a bit from about 4.20 where you see the group of fairies in close-up and you might be able recognise your tutu - harder of course because the film isn't in colour.,

The Magazine section of today's Times has a big piece about Eric Underwood.

Casting now shows Nunez dancing Myrthe at the remaining Osipova/Golding performances

Incidentally the RDB is live streaming company class tomorrow (5 Mar) from the stage of the Royal Theatre from 10.00 Danish time (09.00 in the UK). Link