SheilaC

Sky News claims that David Ross, chair of the Board of Trustees at the Opera House, is likely to resign due to government pressure to remain as a trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. In the short while that he has headed ROH he has been generous, notably in buying back the David Hockney portrait of David Webster, and his wide circle of influential political contacts would have continued to be helpful to the Opera House.

Henry Danton has a long and absolutely fascinating account of his involvement in Symphonic Variations in a letter published in the May edition of The Dancing Times.

How wonderful to see this again- I have long since been unable to watch my Betamax tape of it. It's great to see Jacques d'Amboise, still in his prime, in one of his finest roles. He's such a remarkable performer that I regularly sit through the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which I detest for its mysogyny, just to catch glimpses of him. And Suzanne (Farrell) at the start of her career, an innocent Terpischore (so unlike Bussell who sexualised her) and the great Pat Neary, now such a fervent stager for the Balanchine Trust. And it's good to see the original version, not the abbreviated version that even Balanchine it is reported came to prefer, which many of us Balanchine addicts like better. I wish current Apollos and directors would watch this tape. All too often nowadays Apollo is depicted as godlike from the very start, instead of gradually attaining that status. Thank you so much, Naomi.

I've checked my video of this. The programme was shown 19 years ago. As ONCNP says, the 'full' performance only contains sections of dance. Earlier the documentary shows Richard Alston choreographing them. The main dancers are Pari Naderi as the Chosen One and Martin Lawrence as the Sage (unusually the sacrificial dance is not a solo but the Sage is a partner.) Stephanie Jordan provides some interesting information on the original score which undermines some of Stravinsky's claims about Nijinsky's choreography. I think the film was made before the (somewhat controversial) reconstruction of the original choreography. And on the very same video I have copies of Firebird and Les Noces, shown by the BBC in 2000, I think. How times have changed!

Non-news, I'm afraid. This week Radio 3 is exploring and celebrating Stravinsky in the week in which he died, 50 years ago. All this week he is the subject of Composer of the Week. On Saturday there were notable programmes about him, included even in the remarkable Jess Gillam's wide-ranging This Classical Life (in which she referred to Diaghilev as a ballet master!) and Julian Joseph's J to Z, which explored the relationship between Stravinsky and jazz. On Sunday Tom Service's The Listening Service. focused on the key works created for ballets. So what have we got on TV? Firebird? Petrushka? Rite of Spring? Apollo? Pulcinella? Les Noces? Orpheus? Any of Balanchine's remarkable, ground- breaking ballets to Stravinsky? No, of course not. The lack of ballet on the BBC is serious and only likely to get worse.

Good news about Forsythe's Barre Project with the amazing Tiler Peck. I contacted the organisers, CLI Studios, as I was unable to watch either showing as they were in the middle of the night here, and viewing wasn't extended as I had hoped. I got a very prompt reply to say that Sadler's Wells will be issuing it, in May, at 'Europe-optimised' times.

I totally loved Choreartium, too, and agree with Jan that Samira Saidi was at her most impressive in it. .A few years later I was doing a public interview, pre-matinee, with David Bintley. That morning I had received post from Dutch National Ballet on future programmes and was very excited that they were planning to do Choreartium. In the pre-interview chat with Mr Bintley I burbled on how pleased I was that DNB were going to do BRB's production of it but was sternly informed that it was a dreadful ballet and the company would never do it again while he was director. Needless to say I went to Amsterdam to see it and all the posters across the city were of BRB dancers in it. I can't imagine that Carlos Acosta will programme it either. It was this ballet that made me like Brahms; before then I'm afraid I found his music boring. It also made me like Massine as a choreographer, it's so different from some of his comedic ballets.

At the BRB gala ( which didn't actually include much dance) we were told that Carlos Acosta's Don Q will be shown soon but will be different in some ways from the RB version so that it is specific to BRB (no details given as to how it will differ). There's still no indication that the company's wonderful rep will be shown, other than what has already been announced. There was a quiz that included Fille and Apollo, but that was devised by Paul Murphy as it was a musical quiz so it doesn't necessarily indicate that any of the Balanchine ballets will be shown, or even Ashton.

My humble apologies, bangorballetboy and Alison. May I point out that a moderator who referred to 'Daria' on 3 March was not similarly reprimanded. But you are right that full names are preferable. so.... Brandon Lawrence, Daria Stanciulescu (who performed the role of Queen Mother; less than 10 months later she became an actual mother to Zion), Lachlan Monaghan, Miki Mizutani.

A year ago this week I went to Sunderland on 4 days to watch BRB's wonderful production of Swan Lake- 1 rehearsal (rather relaxed!), a Friends talk by Brandon, a pre-performance talk (Daria), 4 performances. On the Thursday I was even introduced to Carlos Acosta (I had actually met him in Havana several years previously but he was scarcely going to remember that!). The Saturday matinee performance was especially fine (Lachlan and Miki) which was a relief as I had prioritised that over going to Leeds to see the premiere of Northern Ballet's Geisha that night, safe in the knowledge that I had tickets to see Geisha in Leeds the following week. How wrong can you be!

I agree with Stucha and Jeanette how beautifully both ballets were danced. But I would expect no less as the director of the Royal Swedish Ballet is Nicolas le Riche, former etoile of the Paris Opera Ballet. As a dancer he had a wonderful technique but above all was a consummate performer. His wife, Clairemarie Osta, a very pure dancer, directs the RSB school and may well assist in some rehearsals. Before the pandemic they also ran an interesting ballet education programme in Paris (they continued directing it after their move to Sweden) that trained ballet students not just in technique but above all in performance aesthetics, how to convey meaning and artistry through the technical steps. It was initially set up with support from the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, and there was a student performance there every June. It's good that the streaming will continue for several more weeks- I for one will keep returning to it.

He was Romeo at the very first performance I saw by the Paris Opera, but at the Palais des Congress, not the Garnier. His Juliet was that wonderful, pure, dancer Monique Loudieres and her mother was none other than Yvette Chauvire, and Tybalt the amazing dramatic dancer, Jean Guizerix. Dupond was a very special dancer, fabulous technique, charismatic personality.

I hope it's ok to post this information under this theme as it's about BRB but not about Domininc, rather about their educational work. In today's links there's one for the Guardian interview with Julie Felix- not the singer but a former ballet dancer who couldn't find work in the UK, because she is black, and moved to the USA to dance with Dance Theater of Harlem. She returned to England as a teacher and remedial coach for SWRB. (She doesn't mention she was married to Joseph Cippola, one of the most charismatic dancers ever, who had been a fellow dancer at DTH despite being white). She claims that BRB's educational work, although successful in the past, has 'fizzled out', a bit unfortunate given all the community and diversity related work the company does. (She blames LEA budget cuts rather than the company). She refers to Ballet Black and the lack of black dancers in mainstream companies but implies that it's only in this century that British companies have had dancers of colour. Yet: Johaar Mosaval joined SWTB in 1951. Vincent Hantam danced with Scottish Ballet in the last century. Jose Manuel Carreno joined ENB in 1990 and RB in 1993. Acosta joined ENB in 1991 and RB in 1998. Despite the minor inaccuracies it's an interesting article and discusses an important issue. Perhaps dancers of colour could be one of our threads?

Rojo's Raymonda rather proves my point! How on earth can a ballet about Florence Nightingale ( a woman who spent much of her life in bed- but presumably the plot will focus on her active nursing, and possibly the long struggle before then to persuade her aristocratic parents to let her become a nurse, in those days a job regarded as sex worker) use the Petipa choreography ?

I hope ENB do show La Sylphide again soon, Alison, but my fear is that companies will in the future only show classics that are safe, in terms of ticket revenue, so rep would be limited to Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker: Sylphide has never sold well. And most ballet companies (ENB, Scottish, BRB under Acosta, even the Royal) seem to be giving increased emphasis to more contemporary works, possibly under Arts Council pressure, and showing fewer 'heritage' works. Returning to the Polish National Ballet galas, in each of them Dawid Trzensimiech, who longstanding Royal fans will remember well, dances 2 pieces, a mix of classical and contemporary ballet. He's on good form.

The Polish National Ballet gala (3) is varied, offering both classical and contemporary excerpts. I particularly enjoyed seeing a well danced Bournonville pas de deux, Flower Festival. When I first used to see the Royal, in the '60s when there were so many varied and varying mixed bills, a Bournonville excerpt was often included. Now I wonder if a British company will ever dance Bournonville again; with Kobbrg having left the Royal they are unlikely to do Sylphide again, indeed they are likely to loan their sets and costumes to the Ballet Nacional de Cuba. There's also a gripping pas de deux to Kurt Weill, choreographed by the company director Krzysztof Pastor, who created some of the other pieces, including two excerpts from his production of Swan Lake, which I saw two years ago, and a Petipa pas de deux, Satanella. Well worth watching- and free!

The Sarasota company has just announced that, because of travel restrictions due to Covid, they are no longer able to present Elite Syncopations in program 6 (April 23/27) but instead will be dancing Ashton's Facade ..... which some of us think is a better ballet anyway!

I agree, DanJL, that one's mood can often affect our response to a performance, it certainly does mine. but your reaction to Paris Opera Ballet is not uncommon, I have heard English ballet fans describing their dancers as cold. So far as the defile is concerned, the face masks didn't help, I couldn't recognise most of the dancers and it dehumanised them. But the company was right to show it as the programme was primarily for POB friends and subscribers, like myself. The defile takes place at the start of the ballet season and is usually very impressive, even moving, as everyone, from the youngest pupil to the grandest etoile slowly descends down the huge rake of the stage (which seemed to have disappeared on the streaming!). I was slightly disappointed by the Grand Pas Classique, not my favourite piece admittedly. Hugo Marchand was fine but Valentine Colasante was tense and couldn't hold her balances for as long as this gala piece requires. As Capybara implies Sylvie Guillem was extraordinary in this, sending it up, teasing the audience and holding those poses for ever. In The Night usually has greater variety between the couples as the ballet is essentially depicting differing types of romantic relationship (or even, in my view, different phases of relationship of the same couple). In particular the first couple embody joyous young love, as when the Royal did it, rather than the more staid relationship shown here. The second pair have on the surface a more formal relationship but elements of passion are revealed towards the end of the pdd. I thought Leonore Baulac, whom I normally admire, was a bit stilted but Germain Louvet coped well with the difficult partnering as the lifts generally go wrong, even when the Royal did it. The final pair have a tempestuous relationship and Alice Renavand, whom I've admired since she was in the corps, and Stephane Bullion, who like Alice R has more personality than many current POB dancers, pull it off. When POB first performed it the company was in a golden age with wonderful dance artists that Nureyev had developed when he was director, and the emotional depth of the piece was conveyed to the full. The Vertiginious Thrill of Exactitude was a lively contrast to the Robbins piece and it was good to see newly promoted Paul Marque among others. The full programme contained Etudes, not an especially good ballet but great fun and shows off the full company, and presumably had some of their other stars, but they weren't allowed to stream it for legal reasons.

Thank you so much, DanJL. I did manage to do it in the end- but might forget, so will be glad to turn to your advice next time!

Although I bought a full subscription I just can't work out how to access the streaming. Any tips? (SFB do give some advice but I still can't work out what to do!)

I endorse what Jan says, it's well worth the £10 cost to rent, with the final viewing date for renters now extended to 15 February. The programme is a varied range of pas de deux, with a mix of music as well as choreography, from Gershwin to Malcolm Arnold. (If I remember correctly, the premiere of The There Musketeers was on the day that Arnold's death was announced, a sad coincidence). Anyone who was able to see the recent very interesting London Ballet Circle interview with David Nixon will especially enjoy seeing some of his best work, including an excerpt from the ballet he said would be his last, The Little Mermaid.

I've just checked the announcement that Alison has helpfully posted. The ballets listed in the latest announcement are the same as listed in June, but the order is very different eg Midsummer Night's Dream is Jan 21 - Feb 10, Jewels is April 1 - 21, R&J is May 6 - 26, Swan Lake is May 20 -9 June. The composition of the mixed bills varies too: Feb 11 - Mar 3: Rhoden, Thatcher, Morris Mar 4-24 : Ratmansky, Rowe, Possokhov Apr 22 - May 12 : Tomasson, Marston, Dawson

The article doesn't seem to cover the impressive digital season the company is offering from 21 January to 9 June. There will be 7 separate programmes. They include 2 full time Balanchine ballets (Midsummer Night's Dream, Jewels) and 2 full length productions by Helgi Tomasson himself (Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake) and 3 triple bills, including world premieres ( Myles Thatcher, Danielle Rowe, Cathy Marston- 'Mrs Robinson'), all on separate programmes. Other choreographers represented include Mark Morris, Ratmansky, Possokhov. Subscribers paying for the full season can watch each programme for the duration that it is available (approx 20 days) and access extras. Alternatively, it is possible to rent programmes separately, available to watch for 24 hours. I found out via an email as a supporter (the company has such amazing rep, possibly the best anywhere, and tremendous dancers) but presumably the full info is available from their website.

I don't think anyone has mentioned the streaming of a programme devoted to Nureyev's choreography, presented by the Theatre du Capitole, Toulouse. It started last night and is available until 15 January. It's free- not even a request for donations. There is quite an interesting selection of pieces- and not a Nutcracker in sight! It opens with six dances from the Hungarian act (3) of Raymonda. That's followed by pas de deux from first, the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, then Sleeping Beauty, then Cinderella and ends with the Black pas de trois (yes, 3, not 2- von Rothbart joins Odile and Siegfried) of Swan Lake. The standard of the dancing is variable but the ballerina Natalia de Froberville dances well in the famous Raymonda solo and as Odile. The company was rehearsed by two of the exceptional dance artists that Nureyev developed, Monique Loudieres ( who had a wonderful pure technique, she danced Juliet the first time I saw the Paris Opera Ballet) and Charles Jude ( who had compelling dramatic stage presence and personal charisma- the last time I saw him dance was as the Prodigal Son, at the Edinburgh Festival, although aged about 50 he was totally convincing). So with all their experience of Nureyev and his ballets the extracts are presented well. The streaming is available from both FaceBook and YouTube on the company website: theatreducapitole.fr

I'm afraid I disagree with John S. Far from thinking that BRB's Drosselmeyer is too creepy I regard Jonathan Payn's performance as way too genial. After all, the character is based on the Hoffmann story. Nowadays productions such as Nutcracker and Coppelia, although based on Hoffmann, are often far too sanitised. And the BRB production is a wonderful testament to Diaghilev's views that ballet should combine wonderful design, music and choreography where the whole comes to more than the sum of the parts. The designs are truly magical.