Paul Arrowsmith

Did anybody see this - what was danced??

Lydia Sokolova Dancing for Diaghilev.

Bronislava Nijinska Early Memories - wish that her later ones had made it into print.

Gelsey Kirkland Dancing on my Grave.

Dear Paul, didn't see "Chaplin", sorry, but here's a link to the websitefor the production, it says that Schröder uses "Music by Charlie Chaplin, Benjamin Britten, Samuel Barber, John Adams, Richard Wagner, Charles Ives, Kurt Schwertsik". He had made a Chaplin ballet already when he was ballet director at Kiel, where - as I take from the old reviews of 2006 - he used music by Arvo Pärt and Petr Vasks, jazz by Samuel Barber, Chaplin Songs and Wagner’s Lohengrin Overture, which is used in "The Great Dictator", apparently for the same scene. So Schröder's first version must have been a little different.

 

If you need a more specific listing of the music, maybe you could write to the press office at Leipzig Opera House?

Many thanks Angela. The answer it seems is only the storm music from Peter Grimes - I misheard what I thought was some gamelan music from Prince of the Pagodas.

Hello Angela - or indeed anybody who might have seen Mario Schroder's ballet Chaplin, created for the company in Leipzig.

I am trying to identify what music was used - any insights will be helpful. Thank you.

I keep wondering if the names are in the wrong order, but am taking it that Valeri Hristov is dancing Onegin, hope so anyway!

Hristov is dancing Onegin - I had the opportunity to ask him recently. Prior to that he is doing Albrecht in his native Bulgaria (and during the summer was Jean de Brienne in Raymonda in Cape Town. "There's a duel and I win!" he told me).

^{No - but some good balcony standing for the picking for the Ashton.}

Shadowplay - I'd forgotten that but it is a strange and disturbing work - rather better than its designs reveal.

The power of Dark Elegies makes it a timeless work - far from a period piece. Rambert have danced it - and are often asked for it on overseas tours. The Royal Ballet danced it briefly in about 1980.

Kevin O'Hare has said something to the effect that Tudor is on the 'maybe' pile. He danced in Tudor's Pillar of Fire with BRB in the 1990s - which did work in the ROH.

I was less convnced by Lilac Garden at the ROH - it seemed lost there - though the cast looked lost in their characterisations too - a very internalised Sylvie Guillem as the lead.

The Leaves are Fading didn't convince me at all. It seemed very lachrymose - but that may have been the effect of the rather effete costuming.

The Neue Galerie in New York for the wonderful golden portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Klimt - and the gallery's Viennese coffee shop.

The Abegg-Stiftung north east of Lausanne in Switzerland for a fabulous collection of textiles.

The Fry art gallery in Saffron Walden.

I understand that La Rojo mentioned that discussions regarding touring are ongoing.

I hope the touring programme includes the triple bills - and that they do not only appear in a few headline grabbing performances in London.

Etudes certainly used to be toured successfully by ENB, Petrushka too in its LFB days.

Aileen said in post 18:

"Having seen SFB, I have been wondering what makes this company dance with such class and vigour. The RB is regarded as a world class company, which has the pick of the best dancers from all over the world, and yet when I go and see the company I often come away feeling slightly disappointed. Invariably, the performances are of a high standard and yet I often feel that something is lacking."

Class and vigour are the qualities that I have always found in SFB, having watched them in the US and here over the past dozen years or so. Their performing style is infectious - it exudes charm and confidence that floods out into the audience. Usually.

To try to answer your observation, IMO, the RB is more reticient, less overtly theatrical in their performing style - it has less character. It's instructive to see RB and BRB in the same rep. For example while RB dance Ashton's Les Patineurs more cleanly, BRB, despite some technical stickiness, bring greater flair and engagement with the audience.

But, at the Sunday matinee - I was disappointed by SFB, particularly in Diverimento no 15. The finale went with a swing thanks largely to the corps but the soloists looked careful, lacking that brio and physical alertness that makes SFB such an attractive company (normally). This was a tentative performance where the cut glass of the choreography did not sparkle. It's the same complaint that many had with the RB's Birthday Offering this June - also from 1956, like this Balanchine. These studies in classical language left the dancers looking exposed.

In both ballets they were clothed in roccoco confections of the costumier's art. Andre Levasseur's costumes for Ashton have achieved a retro allure but Karinska for Balanchine looked uncomfortable for these highly athletic dancers. Their elan was lacking.

Precious few observations here - is everybody still on holiday???

Yes - those reviews prompted me to pose the original question.

If any balletco-voyagers made it to Cape Town or any readers there saw the performances - please do share your observations.

I see Hikaru Kobayashi and Valeri Hristov danced the full-length Raymonda with the company in Cape Town in August.

Any impressions from anybody who saw their performances would be interesting to hear.

Would worry more if the shop were worthy of a venue such as the ROH. Compared to the shop at the New York Met it is poor.

I'm struck how few comments there are here - when in the rest of twitterdom and the blogoshere these new creations have generated Diaghilevian levels of heat, comparable to a century ago when in the same hot flush Le Dieu bleu, L’Après midi d’un faune and Daphnis and Chloé were all premiered.

Now as then - are these pieces that excite traditionally non-dance goers?

<<Re a MacMillan ballet with a date for a title that was dedicated to Ninette de Valois and was danced at Sadlers Wells. It was largely condemned because the costumes had the same pointillist design as the set, making the dancers appear to merge into the back cloth. I remember the choreography being good though, a pity the designs weren't altered as it deserved to be reassessed.>>

6.6.78 created for de Valois' 80th birthday, costumes by Ian Spurling, even more of a riot than those for Elite Syncopations.

That bill also included an early (first?) ballet by David Bintley. His early works have largely disappeared - because he considers them apprentice pieces. he told me here is always a gap bewteen audeinces' wish to see something again and a creator's desire to make something new.

Do keep an eye on your financial statements - I have been charged twice for what I though was a pain free booking.

_{It is a performance in costume and without the set, the composer told me.}

_{Running time 14 minutes, free - other than for the booking fee.}

Here's a video with an interview and a couple of short clips of him dancing in Coppelia:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2vFbNvNrYQ&feature=context-gfa

 

Sorry, I can't figure out how to make the video any smaller!

Thanks Laura - I remember this production from 1976, broadcast by the BBC with Petit's own company.

Then it was a real eye opener, fresh, full of vitality - a couterpoint to the ulra-traditional de Valois staging then in the rep of SWRB (the first ballet I saw in the theatre in this country).

Point taken, but it is a very different place since Dr Johnson's day.

Oh! Thought Mayor Boris was being invoked!!

Amazed - at the start of public booking - in and out in three minutes and managed to snaffle a SCS for Robert le diable.

Just hope now the production includes the ballet!

Perhaps they are basing their opinions as much on the play as the ballet because in the play Beliaev is a catalyst, not really a romantic figure at all and if I remember correctly the central figure of the drama is not Natalia Petrovna but Rakitin. The play is about the ennui of the Russian countryside with Beliaev the newcomer piquing everyone’s interest. Ashton took the play only as a basis and gave it a far more romantic spin than it had ever had before, but the play - and the ballet in its initial performances, were full of nuance and subtlety and the more melodramatic interpretations of successive casts has taken the work far away from what appeared to be the choreographer’s intentions when the work was first shown.

Wisely said MAB.

Jennings and Flanders are both way off the mark.

I don't believe Ashton understood Turgenev's sardonic humour - but equally revivals of the ballet this past decade have been far removed from Ashton's intentions.

Guillem I thought brought us closer to Turgenev's Natalia - and Ashton's vision of her as created by Seymour.

Could somebody kindly post up names of the supporting ensemble for the Rojo/ Bonelli cast of Birthday Offering. Many thanks.