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Jane S

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  1. Jane S
    Andreas Kaas, who made quite an impression on London audiences a year ago, makes his debut tonight as Romeo in John Neumeier's ballet - a Copenhagen favourite - and as if that wouldn;t be enough excitement for one day, his promotion to soloist has just been announced. He's dancing with Ida Praetorius and from the snippets of video on the RDB site they look wonderful together. Eva Kistrup's article
  2. Jane S
    Holly Dorger was promoted to the RDB's highest rank - 'solodanser' - onstage after she danced the lead in Theme and Variations in Copenhagen last night. She was trained at SAB in New York and was one of Nikolaj Hubbe's first hires. She's an open, generous dancer and I love the way she shares with us her enjoyment of what she's doing - she can certainly match any Dane when it comes to 'joy in dancing' . The company's top line has been looking rather stretched since the last of the previous generation retired and it will be very interesting to see how Hubbe uses his new principal. More detail in Eva Kistrup's report here
  3. Jane S
    Today's Times has two lovely photos of Sophie Martin rehearsing for Scottish Ballet's new Swan Lake (page 4).
  4. Jane S
    It was Covent Garden, actually. although the preformance data base doesn't list it - July 1993. And since then - May 1995 - BRB also danced Le Tricorne at Covent Garden.
  5. Jane S
    Graham Powell? (too late for David Wall, I think)
  6. Jane S
    The Zoe Dominic book is mostly photographs - wonderful ones, I just got my own copy out to have a quick look and half an hour later I've just torn myself away - with short commentaries on each ballets and a lot of quotations from Ashton himself and his collaborators. If I were you I'd leave Geraldine Morris till the last - it's interesting but quite hard going in parts - unless it's an academic approach you're looking for.
  7. Jane S
    If you happen to have a copy of Following in Sir Fred's Steps it's worth looking up the round table discussion about dancing for Ashton - some fascinating stuff in there, especially - in this context - Collier talking about Rhapsody and saying how she changed her interpretation after she saw Merle Park dance the role, 'calming down' a bit!
  8. Jane S
    I need to start getting rid of duplicate books etc, so if anyone who's at the Rhapsody matinee this Saturday would like my spare copy of David Vaughan's Ashton biography - the first edition, written before Ashton's death - please send me a PM.
  9. Jane S
    Always, I think - at least in the nationals.
  10. Jane S
    And on a good day I can spell his name, too. * Gartside*
  11. Jane S
    Well, maybe - but I enjoy Garside's quieter performance just as much.
  12. Jane S
    ... which also lets you print at home if you haven't a smart phone. http://www.roh.org.uk/news/royal-opera-house-to-introduce-e-tickets-during-2016 Excellent news!
  13. Jane S
    And the Life in a Day piece at the back of the S Times Magazine section is about Lauretta Summerscales.
  14. Jane S
    But always as a guest artist, I believe - so not from the 'RB Umbrella'.
  15. Jane S
    FLOSS, I agree with you on most of these, but are you sure about (4)? I thought they did the whole ballet. It's possible that the BBC didn't keep a copy of the original cast programme - a lot of stuff from the earlier years is lost, I think.
  16. Jane S
    But that wasn't the one shown in the programme, was it? The earlier of the two extracts was from 1978 and the Bride was Vergie Derman. I just caught up with the Ballroom and Ballerinas programme and thought it left a rather sour taste - nice to see the ballet clips but too much of the commentary seemed to be either patronising or poking fun.
  17. Jane S
    (Don't know if this has already been flagged somewhere else - apologies if so!) This morning's Times has a large picture of James Forbat (worth a look if your'e a fan) captioned: Pop culture: James Forbat, of the English National Ballet, rehearses a routine for the Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody. It will be broadcast on BBC4 tomorrow. (The Times is having a very balletic week - we've already had 3 RB photos in the main news section.)
  18. Jane S
    Well, it IS their ballet!
  19. Jane S
    Just to add a little perspective: on the one hand, there are dancers in the 1978 Prologue who didn't impress me much at the time but who look rather better seen from here; but on the other hand, I enjoyed Francesca Hayward's recent Songbird Fairy just as much as I ever liked Collier's, or anyone else's - all is not lost.
  20. Jane S
    I've just noticed that Violetta Elvin's Wikipedia page gives a link to an article about a forthcoming novel based on her life - I'm not sure I understand exactly how it will work but it's well worth a look if only for the photographs.... Elvin is now 91.
  21. Jane S
    Just checked and discovered the performance was on 16-12-78 - it was shown in the USA on that date (live?) with a repeat on Christmas Day, and shown on BBC television on Christmas Eve.
  22. Jane S
    The fairies, in order of their solos, are Vergie Derman, Wendy Ellis, Alfreda Thorogood, Lesley Collier, Laura Connor. and Marguerite Porter.
  23. Jane S
    Though to be fair, both Gartside and Stepanek were short-notice replacements for more senior dancers (Soares and Samodurov I think) - I thought they both went down fighting. And I actually thought Kobborg was rather good as the Rake, though neither he nor Samodurov brought out the full tragedy of the last scene.
  24. Jane S
    I saw The Invitation in its (and my) early days and although I was overwhelmed by Seymour and Doyle in the rape scene I still managed to note that the piece as a whole was too long and the scene with the acrobats - a sort of 'if you really haven't picked up the undertone yet, let me spell it out for you one more time' section - wasn't very good. Alison, I don't think I'd cast Watson as the Husband - more a role for Bennett Gartside, or maybe Golding or Kish?
  25. Jane S
    They've been doing Prodigal Son off and on since the 1970s - Nureyev was the first, then David Wall.
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