Pulcinella

There is often applause when the curtain goes up at the beginning of Act 4 of BRB’s production of Swan Lake with the swans rising out of the dry ice.

I don’t mind so much when it’s the casting for the triple bills as I can often only make certain performances anyway and it’s more the ballets rather than the cast I’m interested in. For full lengths however knowing the casts in advance is essential as there are certain dancers I really want to see and others I will actively avoid. 

Much quicker to walk, takes a maximum of 10 minutes. To walk from Moor Street station follow the instructions to go to New Street station, walking through a tunnel, but instead of crossing the road to New Street station continue on the same side of the road until you reach a set of traffic lights. Turn left there and the Hippodrome is a short distance on the right. If you have an iphone I recommend getting the Citymapper app which not only covers London and other international cities but also has Birmingham on it. I find it invaluable when in London to go to places I havn't been before.

13 hours ago, Jan McNulty said:

 

Do you mean the "strings" across the back?  I have seen these on many costumes over the years - they are to facilitate them being worn by more than one dancer who may all be different sizes.  Some of these costumes date back to the original production.

 

I recall being told at the time of the first performances of this production in Birmingham that the Lilac Fairy costume was so expensive to make that they only made one, which had to be shared by all the dancers taking the part of the Lilac Fairy. If this is still the original costume then I think it may have faded somewhat as I definitely remember it being much more of a pale lilac colour.

On 10/04/2024 at 22:17, Jake said:

Am I right that the lighting of the recent ROH broadcasts is considerably improved?

I was at the encore screening this afternoon and all three ballets were a lot darker than when I saw a live performance. The backdrop of Danses Concertantes couldn't be seen at all. Requiem, for which the lighting is a lot brighter was quite dark at times. Even one of the staff mentioned it to me on the way out.

This ticket has now been returned to the Box office.

I have one ticket I can no longer use in the Amphitheatre, price £49. 
 

I will return this to the box office tomorrow if no one asks after it.

1 hour ago, alison said:

 

Very much also enjoyed the Bracewell Preliwd piece

I found it interesting that this piece used the Welsh spelling of Prelude. I know Bracewell is Welsh but I don't think he speaks Welsh. I wonder what the reasoning was.

Carlos mentioned at the season launch yesterday that he hoped to programme some more Ashton works in the future, including some lesser known ones, as part of the Frederick Ashton Foundation's international festival 2024-2028. So here's hoping!

3 minutes ago, alison said:

PS: There isn't a 29th February next year - presumably 1st March is meant.

Yes it is. It's correct on the brochure.

3 hours ago, JohnS said:

I see Birmingham Nutcracker tickets are already on sale, Birmingham Fille tickets marked as ‘coming soon’, with other venues saying ‘on sale’ but the links don’t yet seem to be working.
I thought I’d seen something giving Fille ticket dates in the next few days depending on priority but can’t seem to find it.

The dates for booking for the Birmingham performances are BRB Dancers' Circle: 6 Feb, Gold and Silver BRB Friends: 9 Feb, Bronze BRB Friends: 13 Feb and Public booking: 21 Feb. All at 11am.

At the season launch at the Hippodrome this afternoon we were treated to a truncated clog dance by Rory McKay in full costume and makeup as Widow Simone. The season brochure has Beatrice Parma and Lachlan Monaghan on the cover as Lise and Colas so that is one possible cast.

I have one SCS ticket which I can longer use priced at £5.

The new season announcement will be on 1st Feb. There is an event for Friends early afternoon that day and then there will be a general/press announcement to follow.

Each volume has 250 pages and is priced at £200. The recent biography of Balanchine, Mr. B, has 784 pages and is £35. I assume the price is having to account for all the time it took to do the research for the book, which I imagine was considerable.

The only proviso I would say about booking any cast for BRB (the exception being Cojocaru in London, injury excepted) is that the cast may well change from that announced as I found out to my cost for the Nutcracker performances.

At the very least surely they could say Cast 1 and Cast 2 so that people could book for different casts.

Apologies for putting reviews of these two companies together but I couldn't see any other threads for them and having seen them within two days of each other it made sense to review them together. Living in Mid Wales, as I now do, we don't get very much live ballet in the area so it's a little irritating to have the two companies performing so close together. First was Ballet Theatre UK at the Wyeside Arts Centre in Builth Wells. They were performing The Wizard of Oz with choreography by their director Christopher Moore with a cast of twelve (8 female and 4 male). The company apparently has twenty dancers but the stage at the Wyeside must be one of the smallest they perform on, if you're sitting in the front row you can literally touch the dancers. There was no programme or cast list so I was only able to identify some of the dancers from their website. All the dancers were good but I particularly liked those dancing Dorothy, the Wicked Witch of the West and the Cowardly Lion. I have great admiration for this company coping with one night stands on all sorts of stages and always try to see them when I can.

Two nights later it was travel in the opposite direction to the Hafren Theatre in Newtown to see Ballet Cymru in Roald Dahl's Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs with choreography by Dariusr James and Amy Doughty. In a way this company is even smaller the Ballet Theatre UK as they only have eight dancers many of whom have to double up roles. For this ballet one of the dancers, Robbie Moorcroft acted as a narrator and had a BSL signer, Liz May, alongside him. Based on Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes this was the well known stories with a twist. Kotone Sugiyama was a feisty and unusual Red Riding Hood. Effective use is made of projections for the scenery with three "houses" for the Three Little Pigs. There was an appreciative and enthusiastic audience with a lot of children who were all well behaved.

Thanks Emeralds, I'm hoping to be able to change my ticket for the evening performance. Luckily my daughter lives in B'ham so I will be able to stay with her if I can change it. The 9th matinee seems to be sold out.

Irritatingly several of the casts have been changed. Having booked to see Rosanna Ely as Clara at the matinee performance on 30th November I now find she is dancing at the evening performance. Travelling from Mid Wales I am not very pleased. Some of the Sugar Plum and Prince casts have also changed. Everyone originally announced still seem to be dancing it's just that their performance dates have changed so it's not as though they are ill or injured. Why do BRB have to do this?

On 08/11/2023 at 01:58, alison said:

Agree that the lighting was distinctly dingy, but I don't know whether that was my cinema or just what you have to expect when a staged performance is being broadcast live without additional lighting.  Perhaps they can adjust it for any stream/DVD, assuming that they have a good recording of the fouettés from the other performance.

I went to an encore showing this afternoon and the lighting was fine. Interestingly they had edited out Mayara's fall. I don't know if it was just that bit or they showed the whole of Act 3 from the other recording. I suspect the latter because there was nothing to indicate that the Royals were there, unlike at the beginning of Act 2. I spoke to the manageress of the cinema afterwards (it's only a small cinema) who I have got to know slightly. She must have heard me saying that the fall had been edited out because she asked exactly what had happened and told me they had been instructed to use a specific recording because of an "incident" and had wondered what that was.

It was interesting that Jonathan Payn said that Symphonic Variations would suit Rosanna Ely, whom he was interviewing yesterday for the Friends, who is making her debut as Clara in the Nutcracker. The last time BRB performed Symphonic was 2011 even longer ago than the Royal. Will they ever perform it again? I really hope so but I have my doubts.

As a bookseller I ordered this from our main supplier who are saying Temporarily Out of Stock and have given me a delivery date of 23 October. This could change though, forwards or backwards, as I have found with orders placed for other books. It gives the publication date as 21 Sept. This is where the Dance Books shop is sorely missed.

Just back from the first night and first impressions are some will love it and some will hate it but it was certainly a first nigt like no other. Three different styles for each act with the second act being danced in sneakers/trainers apart from a pas de deux, danced at this performance by Celine Gittens and Tyrone Singleton. There is a guitarist who appears in the first and third acts and Lachlan Monaghan debuts as a singer in the second act. The voices of Tony Iommi and Sharon Osbourne are heard in act two and Tony Iommi put in an appearance at the end of the ballet playing his guitar, which drove the audience wild. Despite being a Brummie born and bred, although no longer living there, I've never been a Black Sabbath or heavy metal fan but I came out at the end feeling exhilarated. The music is very loud at times but there are also quiet moments and the music is very symphonic at times. It is also amplified but I think that is probably justified in this case, unlike for ENB. I will be seeing it again next week, probably with different dancers so will be interested to see how I feel about it then. 
Just to add the programmes are £15, although they do come in an individually numbered sleeve! I don't know if this will still be the case when the ballet reaches Sadlers Wells.

I think many years ago Fille was performed on tour without a pony because there was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. Like Jan I remember the cart being pulled by some of the lads.