Jane S

Also a creation from Neumeier, a new production of La Sylphide, Jewels and some new work.

Its just been announced that a private fund has given the RDB a grant of 50 million Danish kroner (about £5.6m) for new productions over the next 4 years. It's the largest gift in the company's history and should make a huge difference - money has been very tight recently and this season's repertoire is very limited. First thing to be mentioned is an in-house production of Neumeier's Lady of the Camelias, borrowed a couple of seasons ago and very popular in Copenhagen but until now seen as too expensive ever to be repeated... we look forward to hearing what else they'll do!

I believe Philip Broomhead and Bruce Sansom also danced the leading role but I don't think Dowell did it - this was the opening programme of his directorship so I guess he had other things on his mind at the time.

The full text of Lindsey Winship's TimeOut  interview with Rojo is now online, so Rojo's remarks can be read in their proper context.

 

Quintus I will get there in the end though I may have to cheat too and have six and one of those may not exist!! It's difficult choosing between which ballets and which artists to take! Still trying to find out about Dances at a Gathering and Month in the Country!

I assume the RB has film of its original Dances at a Gathering cast somewhere in the archives but I don't think its ever been released even in extracts. There is definitely a film of Seymour and Dowell in Month in the Country: it was shown on television in 1978 but so far as I know has never been released commercially.

Ian, the Watson/Bostridge dream is mine, not Kim Brandstrup's - sorry if I didn't explain it properly!

I believe that Elisa Badenes graduated in 2009. 2005 was obviously a strong year. Was anyone else taken into the RB from the RBS that year apart from Steven McRae and Romany Pajdak? The men have done better than the women in terms of rank.

John Mallinson posted a list of graduate contracts from that year:

http://www.ballet.co.uk/dcforum/happening/4450.html#7

I think she danced Myrta with SWRB and had done Gamzatti with the RB before Pagodas.

I just read on Dansomanie that the May 31st performance was filmed and will be issued on DVD in the autumn.

There's another performance the next day - Friday 21st - but no plans for an ROH showing at present, so far as I know.

Cast includes Mara Galeazzi, Edward Watson and Marcelino Sambe.

(I know because I did an interview with Brandstrup last week, which will be on DanceTabs soon(ish).)

He won jointly with Alban Lendorf, I believe - double delight for me!

As I remember it, Cassidy said that at the end of his second year he'd been offered a choice between joining the company right away and staying at the school for another year - I think it was something like "and then you can join as 'somebody"' - the implication being that it wouldn't just be physical maturity he'd gained. (And he and they were right - I've never seen anybody, before or since, walk on to the Covent Garden stage with such an air of 'OK, you guys, move over - I have arrived' - but making it seem like total confidence rather than arrogance.)

But she only has 420 words - to cover 8 works and an introduction and any overall comments! How could she review anything in depth in that much space?

By coincidence I just came across this link on Ballet Alert, which tells a bit more.

Lendorf must have been skipping about - apparently he danced he danced Mercutio in Copenhagen on Saturday night as well as Etudes in London on Friday  and on Sunday afternoon!

Pity you went home, Bruce - the last 2 minutes were the best! Ratmansky uses Shakespeare's ending - the reconciliation of the feuding families - and I found it, rather to my surprise, much more moving than the one used in most ballet versions. Otherwise the whole piecei was full of steps - too much so at times, when I  wished Ratmansky had chosen stillness instead - but lighter in feel than Lavrovsky etc, more - like Ashton in that respect. But for me nothing disguises the fact that the score dictates that it's simply too long, especially in those endless market-place scenes.

July 15th, according to the ROH site today. But UK only, so far .

An obituary in this morning's Times announces the death, on March 27th, of the music and dance critic Noel Goodwin. He wrote about both those arts for numerous magazines, newspapers and reference books as well as serving on various committees.

I remember him most from his contributions to Dance & Dancers, where every review of a new ballet would include a contribution from him on the music. Ballet.co owes him a particular debt for allowing us to reprint his break-down of the score for Mayerling - still online in our archives .

I know from experience on Ballet Alert, which uses the same software, that the Views count isn't updated in real time - there's often quite a long  timelag and I assume (though I've never checked closely enough to see it happening) that the count then jumps by the number accumulated in that time. But a gap of a whole day doesn't sound right.

What I most remember is Collier's entrance for that 'Diana' number - shooting out of the wings like an arrow from her own bow. (And Bryony Brind did it too, at a later performance, if I'm not imagining it.)

Glen Tetley also used it for the second half of a piece he made for the RB around 1980 - it was called Dances of Albion and rather oddly started with Britten's Serenade and then went straight into the Sinfonia da Requiem.

Gemma Bond was out for the whole of that summer, I think, and had to teach Olga to both Jane Burn and Belinda Hatley - but there were so many people injured and so many cast changes that I'm not surprised the programmes couldn't keep up. (They ran out of Tatianas eventually and had to bring in Yseult Lendvai.)

There's one of her and Bonelli being released later this month.

Yes, Sim, she danced Tatiana in the RB's first run - with Adam Cooper I think.

And Sarah Crompton is right about Nunez - i saw her and Soares last night and was very impressed indeed.

(Simultaneous posting - sorry, capybara!)

Kish danced Onegin during his time with the Royal Danish Ballet.