Jump to content

Sophoife

Links_team
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    1,123

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Sophoife

  1. Sophoife
    My guess there, @Angela, is that Balanchine was envious of Cranko's ability to tell a story. My long-held and often-expressed strong opinion is that Balanchine should never have been allowed to make "story ballets" - an opinion I was shocked to have challenged by my viewing of his Prodigal Son in Denver, Colorado in April. Then I reminded myself (a) it was a very early Balanchine ballet (1929) and (b) I was watching a friend in his retirement performance, and I breathed again 😂
  2. Sophoife
    Well, @Geoff I was in Italy the night of the coronation, but I was lucky enough to chat with Kristen McNally after the first Beauty I saw and I commented that the David McAllister production for AusBallet has a final apotheosis, much like the Royal Ballet's Cinderella, and that this [the Royal's] Beauty needed a glitter shower to top it off. Miss McNally's response: "Ooh, I love a glitter shower, me!" Then again the Queen's costume had almost sufficient glitter on its own.
  3. Sophoife
    Wonderful appreciation @NiniGabriel and thank you for posting. I have enduring memories of, for example, The Lady and the Fool, Onegin, Pineapple Poll, and Romeo and Juliet. AusBallet's 25th anniversary gala in 1987 was the last time Lady and the Fool in any form was seen here. Indelible memory of the artistry of Marilyn Jones OBE (47 at the time), her husband Garth Welch AM (51), and the inimitable Ray Powell (62) as La Capricciosa, Moondog and Bootface respectively. Pineapple Poll with its Gilbert and Sullivan story, and its Arthur Sullivan medley of music, is a joyful experience but, again, hasn't been seen here since about 1980. Romeo and Juliet was remounted by AusBallet in 2022 and was so beautifully danced. I'd last seen it in Stuttgart in 2017 with Elisa Badenes and David Moore, and apart from the really long Girlfriends/Bridesmaids dance (how stupid are they to think she could stay asleep during that?), I love it. After a long Cranko hiatus, Onegin was brought back in 2012 and some dancers really amazed and impressed me with their characterisations. It's no wonder that after the Paris Opéra Ballet première in 2009 both Isabelle Ciaravola (Tatiana) and Mathias Heymann (Lensky) were named étoile. I would very much like to see live The Taming of the Shrew and Initials R.B.M.E. but I'm pretty sure AusBallet will not do either!
  4. Sophoife
    Delayed cinemacast in Australia this weekend just gone, with a final screening coming on Wednesday. Stunning Bluebird from Joseph Sissens, and Matthew Ball and Yasmine Naghdi a beautiful partnership. It was quite different from when I saw her as Natalia Osipova's replacement with Reece Clarke in May, which of course is because she and he had never done a full-length together before and she and Mr Ball have experience as a partnership. Kristen McNally a fantastic Carabosse and Mayara Magri a really lovely Lilac Fairy. Still think the final scene needs a glitter shower.
  5. Sophoife
    I was in Melbourne for AusBallet's Identity programme anyway so seized the opportunity of seeing the delayed cinemacast of Royal Ballet's Sleeping Beauty on Sunday afternoon. Thanks so much to the two groups of people who felt it appropriate to chat throughout. When reminded they were being disrespectful, not to mention rude, one group apologised and shut up, the other's reaction was astonishment "but we're in a cinema!" Yes honey and the rest of the audience doesn't want or need to hear you! This group (older women) continued to chat throughout, and I was particularly unimpressed by their comments on Joseph Sissens' locs and the skin-toned tights and shoes elsewhere. Friday night in the balcony at the live ballet a woman behind me felt it appropriate to place her booted feet between the two seats in front of her, on the arm rest where my left arm already was. Shocked at being kicked (which was what it felt like) I grabbed her toes and pushed back. Hard. At interval she was all "what's your problem?" 😳 Her companion apologised and said if she'd realised at the time what the other woman was doing she'd have stopped her.
  6. Sophoife

    horse

    Sophoife replied to zxDaveM's topic in Not Dance

    Devastating for all the connections, but for the horse - well, he was doing what he clearly loved doing. He was a lovely animal, I met him both times he came down for the Cup (in Oz there's only one Cup).
  7. Sophoife

    horse

    Sophoife replied to zxDaveM's topic in Not Dance

    Oh well. Like the name, though! If you're on the jumps, keep an eye out for Easy Game, my dad's friend Nick's horse. Dad, a lifelong follower of the Turf, on retirement started spending three months a year, with Mum, in the UK and Europe (I have a sister in Gloucestershire). My mother accepted his programme of Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown, plus Epsom and once or twice Ascot, in exchange for a month somewhere on the Continent: southwest France (several times), Italy, Greece...anyway, one year at Punchestown he fell into conversation in the bar queue and he and this fellow became friends. Fellow's name is Nick Peacock, had a decent horse by the name of Wicklow Brave, which won the Irish St Leger under Frankie Dettori in 2016, the 2015 County Hurdle and the 2017 Punchestown Champion Hurdle. Ran in the Melbourne Cup a couple of times too.
  8. Sophoife

    horse

    Sophoife replied to zxDaveM's topic in Not Dance

    Vadream ran on Tuesday in, as @zxDaveM suggested, the King's Stand Stakes, over 5 furlongs, with the going listed as good. Finished 12th of 17, next entered to run at Newmarket in the July Cup Stakes over 6 furlongs, on 15 July. Valentino Dancer ran on Tuesday as well, at Stratford, but the race was voided as a jockey was unseated and he had to be treated. Bolshoi Ballet ran second in a late race at Ascot, also on Tuesday, over 1 mile 2 furlongs.
  9. Sophoife
    Not Sydney! Too expensive for me to get to! 😂 I've no idea where they'll be dancing in Melbourne, I know when they did Coppélia some years ago at the Palais, they were uncomfortable dancing on its raked stage. Also don't joke about billeting the dancers...what they often did in former times was swap with Opera Australia company members as the opera would be in Melbourne when the ballet was in Sydney. I understand that the per diem is not exactly on a par with the costs of spending up to two months at a time in Sydney, either (I don't know how unequal it is). Matthew Bradwell, one of the dancers' union reps, was very well received by the audience when he came out on Friday night to explain why the curtain was being held. Tonight was Adam Bull's final show and I'm editing the video I took of the mass appreciation at the end, I'll post it on my Instagram (same username) as a reel, I think.
  10. Sophoife
    Addendum re cancellation of Bodytorque piece: stage crew are indeed on 5-hour call, but orchestra call is three hours, 7-10pm. If they go over by even one minute it means they're paid for another three hours. Of course, knowing the curtain wouldn't go up until 7:45pm the orchestra call could have been changed to 7:15pm...
  11. Sophoife
    I'm waiting for the curtain to be held, but I've found out that the stage crews are on a flat 5 hours from 6pm and if they finish earlier they still get that pay. So using my timescale from up-thread it makes absolutely no cost difference to show the Bodytorque piece, regardless of the curtain hold - it's a punitive measure. In terms of performing regularly in cities other than Melbourne and Sydney, the travel costs domestically in Australia are much higher than they would be if, for example, we had high-speed trains. The regional tour which is The Dancers Company aka the level 8 (plus occasionally a couple of level 7s) ABS students plus a couple of up and comers from the main company, is back on this year. From past experience the marketing is appalling and the houses are rarely full. I know in Albury the upstairs is not even opened. It runs at a loss, especially when they go outside regional Victoria and New South Wales.
  12. Sophoife
    @Emeralds I don't think that would work. A couple of galas this year and next wouldn't raise sufficient money - it wouldn't be a charity gala, where very often goodwill on the part of venue, musicians, dancers, and the essential backstage/lighting/stage management staff mean the costs of staging the gala are minimal. Added to which the State Theatre in Melbourne will be closed to the company for approximately two years starting in 2024, so venue hire is certainly an issue. The dancers are trying to keep a provision (increases in line with CPI) that was inserted into their contracts some time ago, and they want it to remain in future contracts. So the funding needs to not rely on one-off galas. Today's dancers, like those of 42 years ago, are fighting on both their own behalf and that of future company members. Just today, the Victorian state government announced a public transport fare increase from 1 July of 8.6%, nearly 2% higher than the CPI increase in the last 12 months. Public transport fares are normally "adjusted" in January but this year the Vic govt says it delayed the increase to help ease pressure on Victorians. Today the company has 77 dancers. After Saturday night it will have 75 (bye bye Adam Bull and Chris Rodgers-Wilson). In 1980 there were 56 (counts from programmes). Slightly incoherent but hopefully comprehensible.
  13. Sophoife
    It's only, as you say @Ian Macmillan, the first public word a couple of weeks or so ago. It's been simmering away for quite some time, but I've not been at liberty to mention it until the dancers chose to go public. Depriving Serena Graham and her dancers of their mainstage Bodytorque Up Late opportunity seems to be a very petty retaliation by the company. After all, the double bill starts at 7:30pm and is scheduled to run 132 minutes including interval, so 9:42pm, add on 10-15 minutes (from previous Bodytorque Up Late experience), it's an 8-minute piece, so would finish between 10pm and 10:05pm. Would adding a 15-minute curtain hold, pushing that out to 10:15-10:20pm, really make that much difference to the company costs, or the backstage/lighting/music people? I'll try and find out.
  14. Sophoife
    Both Signes and L'Histoire de Manon off tonight, 22 June. https://twitter.com/BalletOParis/status/1671826833816297472
  15. Sophoife
    Australian Ballet dancers will hold the curtain for 15 minutes tomorrow night. I shall report, as I will be there. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jun/22/australian-ballet-dancers-strike-first-industrial-action-42-years?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
  16. Sophoife
    Roxane Stojanov (cast as Lescaut's Mistress) has posted on Instagram that she is looking forward to being on stage tonight, 21 June.
  17. Sophoife
    Socials is where I found the info @ctas and @SheilaC. Twitter (company) and Instagram (Hugo Marchand) to be specific. For tonight, 21 June, no official announcement has been made, nor have any of the dancers scheduled to perform posted anything public. It's nearly 12:30pm now and yesterday's announcement was made before noon.
  18. Sophoife
    No news from my contacts about AusBallet @Emeralds but I'm going down for a couple of shows this weekend so I'll see what I can discover. @capybara, notice at noon of a strike for that night is, if like me one is travelling, bloody annoying not to mention expensive, but from experience I can say it beats being already seated in the theatre waiting for the curtain to go up (40-odd years ago, AusBallet, and I never did see that production).
  19. Sophoife
    Paris Opéra Ballet has announced the cancellation of tonight's première of what they call L'histoire de Manon due to a strike by artists of the ballet. It is apparently due to salary issues and the performances of 21 and 22 June are also threatened.
  20. Sophoife
    It has been announced that Li Cunxin, "Mao's Last Dancer", is to step down as Artistic Director of Queensland Ballet. His wife Mary (McKendry) will also retire from her roles as ballet mistress and principal répétiteur. He has a heart condition and has recently experienced complications, and she is being treated for cancer. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/jun/20/li-cunxin-maos-last-dander-retires-queensland-ballet-health-concerns https://amp.abc.net.au/article/102499144
  21. Sophoife
    Erk. I meant Cinderella recently, not Aurora. Got mixed up with my two brief London visits!
  22. Sophoife
    Thank you all and @Emeralds I'll take five of those Bravas! So happy to have seen Miss Morera as Titania back in 2017, and on my recent trip as Aurora. Also in Brisbane as Paulina. Can only wish I'd seen her as Natalia Petrovna, or Tatiana, or Giselle, or... Am I correct in thinking that she and Bennet Gartside graduated RBS in the same year? How very fitting, then, that they shared her last performance as a company principal on the Covent Garden stage (please note I'm leaving it open for her to perform there again!).
  23. Sophoife
    There is a YouTube video of Glenda Jackson as Cleopatra with Morecambe and Wise. Absolutely brilliant from all concerned. https://youtu.be/AtHNrRk3lQM I watched Mary Queen of Scots in parts yesterday, and today I'm able to spend a couple of hours on Elizabeth R. I can live without Women in Love, I find DH Lawrence turgid to the point of [my] immobility.
  24. Sophoife
    We can only dream, eh @Dawnstar? £2 or less per show... It's like when I started smoking 40 years ago, we all said we'd give up when the price of a packet of 20 passed $2. Um yes well today they're $45.
  25. Sophoife
    Anyone who is at Laura Morera's final show, please throw in a Brava! for me! I often struggle with McGregor's choices of music, so found @candle's post really interesting and thought-provoking. I hadn't liked anything of his until I saw Mara Galeazzi, in a tent on the side of a mountain (Howman's Gap, on the road to Falls Creek), dance a solo set to Bach. Wonderful. [slightly off-topic] No news from me re AusBallet possible dancer industrial action at this time, btw.
×
×
  • Create New...