Jane S

Sad to read of the death of the wonderful dancer Dudley Williams - his performance in I Wanna Be Ready in Alvin Ailey's Revelations was one of the greatest things I've seen on the dance stage - ageless grace and eloquence.

The extract on the Fonteyn/Somes DVD is actually from a one-off TV special, with 'revised choreography' by Peter Wright - not an RB production. I thought Ashton's one-act version was made for the touring company? - and I don't think they ever danced it at Covent Garden.

They didn't use to do anything particular for Christmas - maybe some Cinderellas or Sleeping Beauty or Fille, but the programming was much more varied in those days - you could see three or four different bills in a month and they didn't do long blocks of anything . The Nureyev Nutcracker was actually premiered at the end of February and had more performances at the beginning of the next season but it wasn't shown in December at all that year. And after that it only reappeared for a handful of performances at a time, mixed in with other things even over Christmas.

I think it's the theatre's problem. rather than ours - the pick-up queue has been getting longer for some time and I certainly don't want to have to arrive half an hour early to stand in a queue. Surely it's about time they introduced a print-at-home option?

But the online version is signed 'Louise Levene'....

Yes - I was hoping for a repeat of the new Kermessen in Bruges. But they have had to cut their programming down so much in the last 2 or 3 years that there's hardly room for two Bournonville programmes. Maybe Gudrun Bojesen will ask for something of his in her farewell programme (though she's just as likely to want to play her saxophone or dance flamenco or something equally off the wall). The problem for me is the way that everything I really want to see is after Christmas - it looks a really thin start to the season. By the way this is the fourth production of Don Quixote they have tried in this same (very pretty) decor - Grigorovitch - Nureyev - Alonso - Hubbe. Hope they get it right this time - for myself I don't think they need a Don Q any more than the RB does. (Though I just saw that Bournonville made one - a 3 act ballet called 'Don Quixote at Camacho's Wedding' in 1837, only a few months after La Sylphide )

Ferri was born in May 1963 - she came to the RBS when she was 15 and then won a Prix de Lausanne in 1980. She was taken into the company in December 1980 so was 17 at the time.

The Times has a long interview with Alessandra Ferri today (in T2, written by Debra Craine).

Next year's programme has just been announced: Short Time Together Short Time Together (Leon/Lightfoot) New work (Idan Sharabi) The Death that Best Preserves (Natalia Horecna) Sept 25 – Nov 14 2015 DANS2GO Swan Lake – the white act New work (Tilman O'Donnell) Oct 22 – Dec 1 2015 Nutcracker (Balanchine) Dec 4 – 22 2015 La Sylphide Theme and Variations Jan 6 – Feb 27 2016 Romeo and Juliet (Neumeier) Mar 4 – Apr 14 2016 Don Quixote ( new production by Hubbe) Apr 30 – May 25 2016 Come Fly Away (Twyla Tharp) May 21 – Jun 2 2016 Rystet spejl (Shaken Mirror) New piece by Kim Brandstrup May 28 Jun 4 2016 Also: Fabelmageren – a ballet for children Hubberiet – several evenings on different topics presented by Hubb Horisonten – a theatre/dance/opera/etc piece with Gudrun Bojesen and Sorella Englund among many others A farewell performance for Gudrun Bojesen, sometime in April ______________________________

The RB only did a tiny number of performances of it, one of them a royal gala - blink and you missed it. I did.

Kathrine Sorley Walker, by far the most senior London dance critic still writing, died in her sleep last week. The Telegraph has a long obituary, giving a lot of detail about her professional life - many people probably don't know that as well as her dance writing she also edited the letters of Raymond Chandler - and also revealing her age, which until now has been a very well kept secret. She had begun to look very frail recently and I'm lost in admiration for someone who in her mid-nineties would still turn out to see most of the mainstream first nights, and then walk away on her own into the dark and rain to catch a bus or a tube home. I've been reading Kathrine's criticism and her books for as long as I can remember, but didn't actually meet her until about 14 years ago, when I found myself sitting next to her at Covent Garden and rather hesitantly introduced myself: she was much less formidable than I'd expected - and astonished that anyone would recognise her - and since then she has always been personally friendly and professionally kind to me. Talking to her was a stimulating experience - I'd say she didn't suffer fools at all, let alone gladly - but she had a dry wit, a vast amount of knowledge, and some delightfully unexpected soft spots too. A remarkable woman.

I went to one of her performances (she danced it at Covent Garden with Flemming Flindt and what was then the Royal Ballet Touring Company) but for reasons unconnected with the performance I had to leave after the picnic scene. I only have a faint memory of it (it was more than 50 years ago!) and I think of it as a nice try - but Clive Barnes was much more appreciative, writing in Dance & Dancers: "...she was delicious and assured. She gave everything with a difference. the choreography emerfed with a new vigour... and even Hayden's miming, while remarkably clear, was given with an American intonation. Lise seemed to have been transported to Oklahoma and this made a nice change... Not better, not worse, but different, Hayden's Lise proved a fine testimony to the enduring qualities of Ashton's ballet [which was 3 and a bit years old at the time]." In the same season she danced Sylvia (very well, according to D&D) Les Sylphides, the pd2 from Flower Festival at Genzano (not so good) and the Don Q pd2.

Interesting that they've taken Matthew Golding with them to dance the first night Swan Lake in Tokyo with Jenna Roberts. Casting

The old ballet.co site has a list of people who had danced Lise or Colas with one of the RB companies - last updated in 2010 but fairly accurate up to then, I think.

Gartside... now that could be a fun Pigeons cast: Gartside/Osipova/Morera, perhaps, or Gartside/Morera/Osipova?

In case you can't access the FT review, Clement Crisp gives 5 stars, loved Morera, thought Muntagirov the best Colas since Baryshnikov, and hasn't seen a finer performance since the first night. (I loved it too but I think he slightly overrates it!)

Correction, with apologies: the costume designer's name is Mia Stensgaard.

Sorry - I forgot I'd already opened this thread and have put some comments on a new one

I saw a couple of performances of Nikolai Hubbe and Silja Schandorff's new production of Swan Lake in Copenhagen last week: there's a lot to like, which makes it all the more frustrating that Hubbe hasn't taken more care to work his plot ideas out properly. I like the basic concept (as I understand it): the King has died and Siegfried is acknowledged as his heir but must prove his worth before he's actually crowned; meanwhile the chancellor, von Rothbart, is scheming to gain power by marrying his daughter to the young prince. (Quite a familiar story from television and film these days.) Hubbe sets some of this up in the opening moments but from then on he leaves so many loose ends trailing that it's very distracting, and ultimately annoying. For instance I think I've picked up somewhere that the Jester represents one side of Siegfried's character, but you would never ever work that out from the staging and the sole purpose of the Jester actually seems to be to fill out the bits of music that are too cheerful and jumpy to be assigned to anyone else. (The problem with every attempt to modify the story is that no-one told Tchaikowsky...) The company is using the Opera House rather than the old theatre for Swan Lake and the new sets look wonderful there. (There are lots of photos and videos on the theatre's website ) They are completely unrealistic geometric structures, beautiful in themselves and completely successful in this context - and I have to say that it will be quite a shock to get back to trees and rocks and things next time I see a traditional production. They move around to suggest different locations but never while there is serious dancing going on. The Opera House has a very high proscenium opening and from the stalls you can look up and up and see the criss-cross structures stretching up into the darkness - it's like looking up in a dark old cathedral. One problem though is that the stage is very deep and some of the action would make more impact if it was played further downstage. The whole evening is beautifully lit (the designer is Mikke Kunttu, and the Elizabethan-ish costumes are by Mas Stensgaard) and if you had the misfortune to turn up some night and find that all the dancers had been stranded in fog at some airport, you could really have a very enjoyable evening just listening to the music (very well conducted by Vello Pähn - I love his phrasing in the overture and the way he keeps up the tempo - no dirge-like Act 2 pas de deux here) and watching the scenery. Most of the choreography is attributed to Hubbe and Silja Schandorff 'after Petipa and Ivanov': the Act 1 pas de trois, most of Act 2 and the Black Swan pas de deux look more or less untouched (though some of the pd3 looks bizarre to my Royal Ballet trained eyes); the prince's solo in Act 1 is by Erik Bruhn; and the national dances in Act 3 have been entrusted to two of the dancers. The Hubbe/Schandorff sections are respectable enough, and rather more than that in some of Act 4; Oliver Starpov's Russian Dance would make a perfect gala number some time, and Gregory Dean's Neapolitan pas de trois is witty and interesting. The RDB is stretched by a big piece like this and everyone, principals included, is kept very busy - for instance on both the nights I was there one of the Neapolitan princess's near-interchangeable escorts was a dancer new to the company this season and the other one was Alban Lendorf. Jon Axel Fransson and Jonathan Chmelensky alternated as Von Rothbart (a big dancing role) and Benno - Fransson goes for everything and is exciting to watch even when he doesn't quite make it, Chmelensky is quieter but his von Rothbart was possibly slightly the more scary. The corps de ballet of swans was outstandingly good - one of the highlights of the evening. I saw two casts in the leading roles: Ida Praetorius with Marcin Kupinski and Caroline Baldwin with Andreas Kaas. All except Kupinski were making their debuts. Praetorius got most of the pre-opening publicity - she is clearly being promoted as a future ballerina and it's easy to see why. Her dancing is lovely but she's still very young and her inexperience in building such a major role showed somewhat in Act 2 - much against expectations she made a much stronger impression as Odile. Both she and Kupinski might perhaps look better with different partners - Kupinski with a more sophisticated Odette and Praetorius with someone whose acting style was a better fit with her own. Baldwin was a surprise in the opposite direction - I'd expected her strong Odile but was pleasantly astonished by her Odette - lovely clear, simple dancing and and excellent rapport with her partner. Kaas was wonderful, starting with a beautifully controlled and elegant account of the Bruhn solo and following that with as touching an account of Act 2 as I've seen in a long while. Completely in love from the first moment, he never took his eyes off Odette and partnered her with such tenderness and wonder - it was as if he knew how to tame a wild hawk and guessed that the same thing would work here, persuading her gradually to trust him. It's a very young man's interpretation and I guess he may well have grown out of it even by the next run of the production, but I'm really happy that I saw him at this stage! I have another cast to see later on in the run and am looking forward to it despite the shortcomings of the staging. (posted also on another board - sorry if that's against the rules!)

No, actually - I have a cast sheet! The 'I think' was because I don't remember what Karen Gee looked like so it could be wrong.

Karen Gee, I think.

First reviews: darkness triumphs and (spoiler alert) Siegfried marries Odile. But it looks magnificent. Eva Kistrup Vibeke Wern (in Danish but Google translate gives you the gist - for 'to fracture' read 'as his bride')

... opens tonight. As well as many photographs and videos on the company's website there's a new set of backstage pictures on a Danish newspaper site featuring the Susanne Grinde/Sebastian Haynes cast. I think the set looks fabulous in the photos and I'm really looking forward to hearing about (and eventually seeing for myself) how it works in the theatre.

Slightly off-topic, but I just came across an agency page with 100 photographs of different Napoli productions in London and Paris, from the RDB at Covent Garden in the 1950s to the RBS School in 2008 (nice photo of Muntagirov!), via various LFB productions and lots of the RB divertissement from 2007. http://www.topfoto.co.uk/imageflows2/?s=Napoli+AND+ballet

Jane, I think the Ofelia is actually in the playhouse, on the other side of the harbour. I've never eaten in the Bojesen but I agree it looks good - the only thing is that there is no hot food so far as I know. But the Opera is an amazing place to be! Hope you will enjoy Swan Lake - I had guessed from your name what might be bringing you to Copenhagen!