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Sophoife

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  1. Sophoife
    Tzu-Chao is our (Aussie-trained) pocket rocket as Jan McNulty so rightly says. And almost as sweet in person as I hear Peregrine the pony is! 😉 He sent a string of BRB dancers down to sign my nieces' programmes in Cheltenham last year.
  2. Sophoife
    And the Australian dates (Village Cinemas) for the above are: 11 & 14 November: Mayerling 9 & 12 December: La Bayadère 22-24 December: The Nutcracker 7 & 10 April: Don Quixote 30 June/3 July: Flight Pattern mixed bill 29 & 31 July: Romeo and Juliet Paris and Russia are restricted to capital cities unfortunately.
  3. Sophoife
    Well what an experience! Village Cinema Albury advertised it on their website only plus one newspaper ad, had no cast sheets, and called it the Royal Ballet instead of Mayerling, as in when I asked for a ticket for Mayerling they looked blank. There were 12 of us, one person under 50 (that's not me btw). Darcey keeps saying "wiv" which is very distracting, and wanting to tell us about her Mitzi. The stage looks very dark - I don't remember it quite that dark? And the whole-stage images were at a funny angle - looked like the stage sloped down from the front to the rear! Director's choice of close-ups is never going to please everyone, certainly not me. McRae was better than I'd feared, certainly in the third act. Lamb was really very good, as was McNally - in fact she was wonderful. Standout for me was Morera as Larisch. Magri as Mitzi was also pretty good. Wish the second interval coaching had gone on for longer. I took a large pile of flyers for the rest of the season and will personally deliver them to dance schools in the area as we must encourage the cinema chain to keep showing these events, and bums on seats is all they understand. PS why Kish as Bay Middleton? Is Kish not dancing principal roles any more??
  4. Sophoife
    Thanks all, Vanartus I was hoping you might have seen Juliet, one of "my" dancers. Her last role with Australian Ballet was Maina Gielgud's Giselle, and I was stuck in an airport lounge at a country airport waiting for a plane to be repaired, only finally getting to Sydney as the curtain went up on the evening performance (Stella Abrera guesting). When Juliet then resigned I was even more devastated at how I'd spent my day. I've given up flying the same day as a performance. Sydney is eight hours away by train and about the same if I'm driving (I have to stop and stretch!!), so no viable alternative to a delayed plane. Twice I have had to get changed in the back of an Uber en route from the airport to the Opera House, with a plane due to leave Albury at 1pm not leaving until nearly 6pm.
  5. Sophoife
    Competition experience (which POB School dancers don't get)...Bianca Scudamore deservedly following in the rapid promotion footsteps of Sae-Eun Park and Hannah O'Neill, and yes huge yays for Héloïse Bourdon, who like Mathilde Froustey in years gone by, doesn't have that under her belt and until now it's been her stumbling block. Incidentally the full male results were: Premier Danseur : Marc Moreau Sujet : Axel Magliano Antoine Kirscher Coryphée : Léo de Busserolles Andréa Sarri and Chun Win Lam has had a year or more off with injury so well done to him, classed third.
  6. Sophoife
    RobR it's the screen or gauze or whatever in front on which the projections of the clouds and the earthquake appear. It seems from comments to be much more visible from some parts of the auditorium than from others.
  7. Sophoife
    These are the results of the men's concours which was held yesterday. There were two positions as coryphée, two as sujet, and one as premier danseur available. Interestingly, one of the more senior competitors, Marc Moreau, was chosen for premier danseur ahead of younger colleagues, whereas those promoted to coryphée and sujet are definitely in the younger brigade. The ladies are competing today and there are two positions as coryphée, one as sujet, and two as première danseuse available.
  8. Sophoife
    Which Giselle did you see please?
  9. Sophoife
    Can't quite believe it but it turns out my local cinema is saving me a 7-hour round trip to watch Mayerling. Have rounded up as many as possible to come with me or meet me there in order to reassure the cinema peeps that there is a market for it! As I didn't see Steven McRae as Rudolf last year, I am interested although would've happily seen Matthew Ball or Ryoichi Hirano - but would really have loved to have seen Bonelli and Morera or Soares and Cuthbertson again ..
  10. Sophoife
    I for one am happy to put my name to a criticism, and have done so both here and on an external site. Possibly I'm happy so to do because I don't have a child who dances, but I agree, if a thing is wrong in one's opinion, one should speak up, identifying oneself. Anna Campbell (with no relations who dance, unless you count my nieces with a different surname who allegedly perform hip-hop but all I can see is two kids (not them 🤣) out the front doing moves and the bulk of them standing at the side or the back stomping their feet)
  11. Sophoife
    My post under my real name (carefully not mentioning names or nationalities) underneath the article in question: Anna Campbell 8th November 2018 at 12:02 pm “Ballet requires so much more than the physical and technical ability to execute a step or series of steps. I am not alone in feeling that some competitions foster a culture that fails to encourage the development of artists – where technique is emphasised over artistry and students seek to reach extremes before they have mastered the basics. We see audiences agog at the elaborate physical tricks on display. That audience should be looking for an expressive dancer trying to communicate emotion, dynamics, musicality, storytelling ability, alongside an accomplished, clean technique relative to their age. Isn’t this what the art-form is truly about?” But you gave a scholarship to your Upper School (for 16-19 year olds) to a 14 year old girl, now 15, whose public Instagram is an example of everything you are saying here is inappropriate or extreme. I still do not understand how you are doing one thing and saying something almost completely different.
  12. Sophoife
    I could smell the hypocrisy from here so I posted a comment, moderation of which I await with bated breath: "This sounds very positive for child development and support. Except it comes from a man at the head of a school which brags on Instagram that it will be recruiting students from "selected international competitions", and who himself spends considerable time on competition judging panels. I don't understand."
  13. Sophoife
    DD Driver, unless either Stojmenov or Campbell has to pull out, there won't be any changes to a guest artist's scheduled performances in my experience watching this company. jmb, if you look at my Instagram way back to when Kobborg and Cojocaru guested in Manon with what I think was his final des Grieux, you'll find a photo of geek me totally grinning like a loon next to Kobborg. Strictly for identification purposes please 😉
  14. Sophoife
    Thank you very much jmb that makes you a hero in my book (although I'd already had the dates privately but was asked specifically not to share). He will be partnering Leanne Stojmenov, Ratmansky's original Cinderella in this production, in her final performances before retiring. I shall be there on the Friday night. BcF meetup at stage door after?
  15. Sophoife
    Thank you! Pìobaireachd in the Gaelic literally means "piping", but in general is used to denote classical piping - salutes, gatherings and laments - called Cèol Mòr, or great music, while the pipe tunes with which more people are familiar (marches, reels, jigs etc) are called Cèol Beag, or little music. Flowers of the Forest is Cèol Mòr and Scotland the Brave is Cèol Beag. Okay back to topic now...
  16. Sophoife
    I'm sure there's an appropriate Pìobaireachd somewhere...
  17. Sophoife
    Lyndsey Winship's review, unlike Mark Monahan's five-star award in the Telegraph, at least didn't say you were enjoying "Gamzatti’s intoxication at her power over Solor and Gamzatti"!
  18. Sophoife
    Le Tricorne or El sombrero de tres picos to give it the music's title certainly survived elsewhere...I have a DVD of POB dancing a Ballets Russes tribute programme from 2009: Le spectre de la rose (Mathias Heymann and Isabelle Ciaravola), Le Tricorne (Marie-Agnès Gillot and José Martinez), L'Après midi d'un Faune (Nicolas Le Riche and Eve Grinsztajn), and Petrouchka (Benjamin Pech (Petrouchka), Clairemarie Osta (Ballerina) and Yann Bridard (the Moor). And wowzas MAG and Martinez!!!
  19. Sophoife
    Oh *brass* players...! Loo break. With a beer on the way back. (former double bass player here who was frequently forced to dodge trombonists' spit buckets...er..."water receptacles") 😂
  20. Sophoife
    Chacun-e à son goût as they say... I agree with you about some Leibovitz but this one particularly I find delightful 😉
  21. Sophoife
    Oh Penelope and Jan, is this a cold image by Annie Leibovitz? 😍 Ella Fitzgerald by Annie Leibovitz, Los Angeles, 1988
  22. Sophoife
    Rob I don't think I've ever seen pre-season casting for Don Quixote that includes all the characters you mention. At most Kitri, Basilio and the Don. Dream sequence Dulcinea is usually danced by Kitri, as it is supposedly because of her resemblance to his ideal (Dulcinea) that the Don helps Kitri.
  23. Sophoife
    From reading the school's website, the aptitude test is the dance audition. First submit the application form, with video, and with copies of her last two school reports (Schulzeugnisse translates to certificate here but it's actually a report), then if they're interested they'll give an audition date. As far as the CEFR test or proof thereof is concerned, why not email them and ask? I'm pretty sure they'll provide an English-language email reply.
  24. Sophoife
    I have been told by the AD of Australian Ballet that the opinion is that the stage of the Sydney Opera House theatre is too small to accommodate the sets. And a big production like Mayerling would have to run in both Melbourne and Sydney, and that AB is locked in to using the Opera House on a long-term contract. I understand that to break that contract and use, say, the Capitol Theatre, would be prohibitively expensive, and that to add an extra Sydney season and book the Capitol would be logistically difficult given the existing performance commitments of the company.
  25. Sophoife
    I didn't read John's comment like that. I read it as being an alternative view. Surely what the forum is all about? Discussion not imposition? All this waxing lyrical is reminding me so strongly of April 28 last year, fresh off the plane from Oz, never seen Mayerling live, and Bonelli and Morera were the first cast I saw and I wrote then how sympathetic a Rudolf I thought he was, and was really impressed how different his and Soares' Rudolfs (seen on the same day) were. I wish I wish I wish Lady M would let us have it here.
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