Jane S

39 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

That's Serenade twice Jane!  Fine by me....!

Yes, I know - not a mistake - I wouldn't mind a whole triple bill of Serenade!

Oh please, couldn't we have more just dancing? I get really tired of all these long stories and elaborate costumes.

Serenade

Symphony in C

Agon

4 Temperaments

Symphonic Variations

Scenes de Ballet

Monotones

Shades from Bayadere

Chroma

Asphodel Meadows

Les Noces

Rite of Spring

Song of the Earth

Serenade

Raymonda Act 3

Rhapsody

.

.

2 hours ago, PeterS said:

i was recently gifted some ROH programmes. Among them:

 

Cinderella 20 March 1954

Cinderella: Margot Fonteyn

The Prince: Michael Somes

Stepsisters: Frederick Ashton, Peter Clegg

 

Cinderella: 14 December 1972

Cinderella: Merle Park

The Prince: Donald Macleary

Stepsisters: Frederick Ashton, Robert Helpmann

 

Cinderella: Kirov Ballet at ROH 09 September 1966

Cinderella: Irina Kolpakova

The Prince: Yuri Soloviev

Ugly Sisters: Natalia Makarova Kalerya Fedicheva

 

does anyone on the forum have any memories of these performances? 

 

 

I just missed the 12/72 performance- was there the night before and the matinee 2 days later - Ashton/Helpmann both times.

(Totally off topic:

I checked the programme for that month in D&D and you could have seen:

5 casts in Cinderella

3 casts in Fille

3 casts in Swan Lake

3 Giselles,with either Symphonic Variations or Afternoon of a Faun

1 triple bill: Firebird/Faun/Raymonda Act3.

That is if you had any money left over after the month before, when you could have seen more Filles and Swan Lakes (2 with Fonteyn), Job, Bayadere Act 3, Dances at a Gathering, and a gala incuding Makarova in Les Sylphides  and the Don Q pd2, and Fonteyn in Birthday Offering.

Back to topic...)

16 hours ago, MargaretN7 said:

The first time I saw Cinderella, 29th December, 1958, Fonteyn and Somes, the step sisters were Moyra Fraser and Margaret Hill. If assume Ashton was involved with that, then he was casting women early on.

A few sisterly footnotes:

I think Fraser (as a guest artist) and Hill in 1958 were the first women to do the Sisters - ironically it was Fraser's decision to leave the company in 1948 that  caused Ashton to decide that he and Helpmann should do them instead.  Women danced the roles the roles maybe 40 times over the next few years.

Moyra Fraser was trained at the Sadler's Wells School and had danced  Myrtha amongst other roles. She left to go into musicals etc and eventually became an actress - if you remember As Time goes By, she was Penny, Judi Dench's sister-in-law.

Margaret Hill was in the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet/ touring Royal Ballet - she created the Girl in Macmillan's Solitaire.

There have been some rather good replacements for the Ashton Sister - I remember David Bintley in particular, and also liked Tim Matiakis ('a female Baldrick, all of whose cunning little plans went astray'), and Michael Coleman , but I think the Helpmann role is more difficult.

Ashton was 44 and Helpmann was 39.

(I know because I've been looking at the comparative ages of the first cast and the current casts - almost everyone in this run's openng night is older than the person who created their role in 1948.)

10 hours ago, TSR101 said:

I think Marianela Nunez posted on her instagram (from a follower) saying she will be performing Giselle in Paris as part of the new season but not seen in confirmed anywhere.

Laura Cappelle's Twitter report on  the press conference in Paris included Nunez being invited to dance Giselle.

Just been listening to him and Michael Chance singing Sound the Trumpet - almost unbelievably beautiful.

3 hours ago, Dawnstar said:

Reading through the reviews in today's links, may I ask if anyone can explain the following from the BroadwayWorld review: "It is wonderful to see a full and successful attempt at the legendary cambré/recover combo." I don't think I've ever heard of a cambre before. Searching indicates it means a bend at the waist but presumably in the context of the choreography it's something harder than just bending & straightening up again?

I would guess they might be referring to the bit inesr the beginning of

Cinderella's sola in act 2 - she's on the left of the stage, with her back to the audience, and she leans back from the waist and maybe looks back over her left shoulder, then straightens up , and then she does it again a few bars later.

(But it might be something quite different)

Sad to hear of his death earlier this week - a wonderful singer - unforgettable as Britten's Oberon.

Please tell me that they've finally ditched Napoleon...

Reminder that it's still available to watch - though  a bit bumpy on my screen.

There's a BBC film of a shortened version of Onegin with Haydee as Tatiana and Seymour as Olga (and Desmond Doyle as Onegin and Egon Madsen as  Lensky) - I'd love to see that again.

Her and Anthony Dowell and Christopher Gable ...

Or there was also a BBC Omnibus programme called 'When the Dancing had to Stop'.

Possibly 'Lynn Seymour  - In a Class of her Own" ?

Just a reminder that we had a long and appreciative thread about Seymour on the occasion of her 80th birthday - lots more reminiscences there.

1 hour ago, Bruce Wall said:

 

Certainly the Russians presented the Ratmansky take in London at the ROH.  

Wasn't that the Pierre Lacotte version, Bruce? (2004 -ish)

Ratmansky was due to make a reconstruction with the Mariinsky last year but pulled out for obvious reasons.

3 hours ago, Suffolkgal said:

I wish I could be more tolerant but the small boy keeping up a running commentary during this SB matinee is not adding to my enjoyment 

That happened to me once, decades ago - a little girl sitting behind me at a Cinderella and giving her mother a non-stop running commentary: when my patience finally ran out I just turned round and looked at her for a couple of seconds - no frowning or scowling - and the only words I heard from her for the rest of the performance were "Mummy, that lady has ruined my evening!" So I didn't know whether to feel pleased or slightly guilty...

Mummy, incidentally, said nothing, either to me or to her daughter.

Unless my memory deceives me (which is not unlikely) you could get tea brought to your seat at Covent Garden matinees when I first visited in 1959.

There's a lot about Inger's Carmen on Google including loads of clips and at least one complete performance (possibly needing a subscription) on Youtube.

Details recently announced - apologies if this has allready been flagged.

Some lovely things in there, including some Bournonville!

Squeaky Door was a piece Bejart made for Gielgud - you can see it on her YoutUbe channel.  It was also known as Variations for a Door and a Sigh, I think.

Steps Notes and Squeaks was a multi-segment show Gielgud produced, with a varying cast of dancers and including a coaching session (Beriosova on Sleeping Beauty the night I was there).

1 hour ago, Pas de Quatre said:

I clearly remember seeing it on BBC more than once, so hopefully they didn't wipe the tape to reuse it.

According to the Radio Times Archive a film of the complete production was shown twice - but curiously the usually very reliable catalogue of the BBC Film and Video  Library describes what they have as 'Acts 2 and 3 from a complete performance' - so have they lost the rest of it, or what?

Yes - I just watched lovely Hayward and Sambe - and it says it's available till February next year.

I really like the way it shows you where each item starts!

Ethan Stiefel danced quite a few guest performances with the RB in the early years of the century, dancing with some of the less tall principals - Wildor, Benjamin, Cojocaru. I remember him particularly as very nice Lensky and in a lovely Fille with Wildor - he looked much more at home in the company than many guests have done.