SheilaC

Paris Opera Ballet are announcing the 2024/2025 season next Wednesday, 20 March, at 12.30 our time.

One of my memories is of a lovely interview Jan did with Alex in Cheltenham, where he was dancing with BRB on one of the wonderful split tours. He was just about to leave BRB to join the Royal and he shared his hopes for how his career could develop in London. He said he’d try it for two years to see how it went!

Lucky you, John S. I get the impression that the Sarasota tickets are going fast. While that's great for the company and ROH it's not so good for lower level Friends or the general public. I have been to every single Ashton masterclass, sometimes at great inconvenience- yet there are unlikely to be tickets left when I am allowed to book. A while back I wrote to Kevin to ask if regular attendees to the masterclasses could be allowed priority booking. He replied that it would be too complicated, which I understand. But the outcome will be that some wealthier Friends will secure tickets, even though they have rarely if ever attended a masterclass, while devotees like me may not be able to go.

This will be brief as my WiFi has broken down and I'm not good at typing on my phone. But I wanted to do a brief summary of the new Phoenix programme for those who like contemporary dance and live near the venues where the company will be appearing: Dundee, Liverpool, London, Malvern, Doncaster, York. I have watched Phoenix since they started over 40 years ago. Living up to its name the company has evolved through many iterations, starting with 3 boisterous young black men from inner-city Leeds. It now has a new director, Marcus Willis, formerly of Alvin Ailey, and new dancers. They are all very good, above all Phikolwethu Luke amongst the men and Dorna Ashory among the women. Whilst it's worth attending a performance to see the dancers alone, the first piece is well worth a journey. It is Requiem (excerpts), an edited version of the piece Dane Hurst, the company 's previous, all too brief, director created last year in conjunction with Opera North. Previously a superb dancer his choreography is fluent and moving. The second piece is by Miguel Altunaga. I have always really enjoyed his ballets but didn't enjoy Cloudburst. It seemed long and repetitive, difficult to understand and made my friends and me uncomfortable. According to the printed programme ( very well produced and good value at £4) it's about sacrifice. I think it's influenced by African-Cuban religion which focuses on the supernatural. But the Guardian review is very positive about it so I'll be interested to see how I react when I see it again in York. Finally the third work is by the artistic director, Terms of Agreement, supposedly about love, including an interesting duet for 2 men. It's to a number of popular songs plus some narration. The dances are quite varied but with brief pauses between them. It's bright both in terms of lighting and, mostly, mood. Overall, a varied programme with great dancing.

Oxfam has second hand bookshops. They are mostly in cities, London, York etc but general Oxfam shops will accept books (they all have book shelves) and will often pass on specialist books to the Oxfam bookshops or put them on on-line second hand book sales. My local Oxfam shop has a member of staff who's very knowledgeable about books and will pass specialist books to the York bookshop.

I agree with Alison about how good the 'other' Fille version was- particularly as danced by Velicu; I enjoyed her dancing as much, perhaps more, than any other dance piece, she had a lovely flow to her movement and technically was very polished.. Many companies across the world dance pre- Ashton versions of Fille, including the Ballet Nacional de Cuba. Their former prima ballerina, Viengsay Valdes (now their artistic director) watched a performance of Fille at the Royal Ballet some years back and said how much she'd love to do the Ashton version; I have a tape of her doing the Russian version and very good she was in it. The Russian version has many similarities with the Ashton version but is more slapstick, less subtle and poignant. The audience was very appreciative, I think we were all trying to clap especially hard to make up for the lack of numbers. But I was horrified when they applauded at the start of The Dying Swan, so totally inappropriate for that ballet, even though Smirnova was no where near as poignant as Pavlova in the excerpt shown on Fonteyn's Magic of Dance. I feared then how they would react to the final, sombre, piece, from Gloria, so bravely selected to end the evening but all was well and it was movingly danced. What I found especially moving was being sat next to an Ukrainian woman and her young daughter, who watched the ballet intently. The mother said how much she appreciates the support of the British people. Her husband isn't in the army, as a successful business man and father of 3 children he's allowed to work in Ukraine, to keep the economy going, and to visit them here, but when her son is 18 he's likely to be called up. After the interval a woman from Hong Kong sat the other side of me, and she said how many people from Hong Kong offer full support to the Ukraine movement. All in all, a lovely evening.

I have been told that the company expects Bello to be able to perform in Sleeping Beauty later in the season but that Samara is unlikely to do so.

This is a very interesting report, many thanks Jan for bringing it to our attention. What struck me most is that Arts Council England pressure seems to be a factor in subduing the amount and type of publicity that Northern can make. This ties in to a disturbing article in yesterday's Guardian about how ACE have threatened any one associated with organisations receiving funds from making any 'political' statements. Apparently ACE withdrew the threat, after criticism, but it indicates the climate of fear. The article also said that it was announced last week that there will be " a full-scale review into ACE" by a government department (Dept for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport), good news as ACE is pernicious as shown by the decision to move ENO From London, historically the baby of the great Lillian Bayliss in trying to take culture to the people of London. But how far that review can be unbiased is perhaps questionable in the current climate.

I'm really pleased to see that there's an excerpt from Gloria by dancers who did it so well in Northern Ballet's contribution to the Multi-company MacMillan festival at the Royal Opera House several years ago. Northern Ballet fans greatly miss Minju since she left to join ENB with Lorenzo Trossello; although she has had a few soloist roles, eg in Giselle, so far she's not had the opportunity to shine as brightly as she did with Northern Ballet, unlike Lorenzo. And Joe Taylor always enhances anything he dances. Each time I went to the Wells to see Alina's new ballet I met Ivan outside, handing out leaflets. He seemed to be astonished to be recognised!

There is currently a discussion on R3 with Junker and Lang about their new ballets (In Tune, if you want to catch it on Sounds)

I saw Scottish Ballet's Cinders at a matinee in Newcastle. and saw the male version. Although I quite enjoyed it overall I was a bit disappointed. Beforehand I welcomed the attempt to modernise the approach but, for me at least, it didn't fully work. The male Cinders in a shop is far less poignant than a female Cinders who's a drudge; changing the context, whilst clever in principle, weakens the impact. Altogether it made me think that it may be better to honour a fairy story, that by modernising it it becomes less effective. It's not as though the new version is any more believable although the depiction of the shop and the interactions of shop workers and customers is quite interesting. At least the two sisters aren't as offensive as in Bintley's version and the smaller sister, while amusing, has softer qualities than her sister or mother, as in Ashton's version. Also, like in Ashton, there are two royal aides in the ball scene who later become suitors (one to a gay relationship with the sisters' brother). As usual there is a missed shoe- but it's sparkly, quite unlike the shoes the male Cinders wears. The appearance of Cinder's parents to produce magic, in place of the conventional Fairy Godmother, is unconvincing. But the dancers gave their all and the costumes and scenery are attractive and there's a full orchestra playing the wonderful Prokofiev score. The company seems to be changing. Although I see them several times a year I didn't recognise quite a lot of the dancers and some of their best known dancers have left recently. But a lovely surprise was to recognise a dancer I used to admire greatly during Covid when I watched the Sarasota company on line: Yuri Marques. I had been hoping to see him dance with Sarasota in the summer, instead I may catch him again at Sadler's Wells in the wonderful Streetcar Named Desire.

Northern Ballet have just announced the works they will be performing next season (no doubt Jan will provide fuller info soon) It's great that they are going to revive another very popular ballet from Christopher Gable's time: A Christmas Carol. It will take the place of Nutcracker in the late autumn and performed in Leeds 17 December to 4 January. A further popular revival will be Jane Eyre, to be shown in Leeds and London amongst other places Another interesting ballet will they be doing is Rudi van Dantzig's lovely Four Last Songs in the 'Three Short Ballets' slot, along with a new ballet by Mthutuzeli November and a ballet soon to be announced. This will be in Leeds in the 2nd week of September. Other good news is that some performances will benefit from live music. A very encouraging announcement of their plans for next season.

I’ve seen two performances. I can’t boast that I fully understand either ballet, they are quite deep and there’s a lot left to one’s imagination. I think Kim Brandstrup’s approach to myths reflects the psychoanalytical probing of myths. But the performances are outstanding. Tommy Franzen’s ability to combine climbing and gymnastical movement with contemporary dance is astonishing. Matthew Ball does not only act with total conviction and dance expressively but demonstrates remarkable partnering skills, coping with difficult angles in moving with Franzen in the first piece and subtle but highly complex moves with Alina in the second ballet. Alina, well what can one say about Alina? Expressive, deeply touching, wonderful musical timing, lovely line, which one doesn’t necessarily expect in contemporary dance. But perhaps the revelation was Kristen McNally, a wonderful, moving performance, dancing so well, so expressively, not least in her long solo. It’s true she contributes a lot to the Royal Ballet as a principal character artist and through her choreography- but, whilst her contribution to Crystal Pite’s pieces is important, on the whole her ability to dance is not fully used. It was a great pleasure to see Kim Brandstrup’s work again. After so much classical ballet, much as I love it, and more ‘modern ‘ choreography, which is often pretentious or formulaic, it was refreshing to see the work of an independent mind, one who combines interesting musical choices with visual originality and a fresh approach to choreography.

Acosta also made similar statements in a long interview in the Dancing Times, so his views are in print. I wrote a long letter, criticising his views, which was also published, and which attracted considerable agreement, both in the magazine and to me personally. BRB has a very able administrator in Caroline Miller, and people suspect she has managed to achieve a more balanced approach.

Last night Northern Ballet held an event on the production of Romeo and Juliet which they are reviving in March. The speaker was Daniel de Andrade, Artistic Associate of Northern Ballet. He is responsible for the restaging; it is about the sixth time he has staged this ballet. He was not in the company when Christopher Gable and Massimo Moricone created it, in 1991, but joined soon after. He first took on the role of Romeo aged 32. Despite already having considerable experience as a dancer, and having performed with several companies (including London City Ballet), he found the rehearsals with Christopher Gable mind-blowing, the relentless focus on the dramatic meaning of each situation and of what emotions the character was experiencing gave him new depth in characterisation and dancing. Apparently the sword-play is very realistic and aggressive, using genuine, and large, swords. The dancers are trained by a swords professional and have to rehearse the sword play actions before each performance to ensure accuracy - and safety. The whole production is very dynamic and doesn't suffer from the padding that weakens some productions (my comment, not Daniel's). It opens on 8 March in Leeds, then moves on to Sheffield, Nottingham, Norwich and Sadler's Wells, before opening the next season in Stratford. There will be four casts.

I do wish Scottish Ballet would revive this ballet. I was thinking that only last week when listening to R3's Composer of the Week, devoted to Offenbach. It is a lovely ballet, rightly theatrical with lots of good dance to match the wonderful music. It should attract good audiences. But I doubt if Scottish will do it, it's probably regarded as old-fashioned! (Incidentally it's well worth listening to Composer of the Week this week, on R3 or Sounds, as it's devoted to Stravinsky, with a lot of discussion and music of his ballets. The discussion of Rite of Spring even included a brief recording of Hilda Munnings (Lydia Sokolova) talking about that eventful opening night).

There were 4 people filming both performances today. There are plans to edit the filming to produce a film as a record of the ballet, presumably to be available for the public. Like some others on the forum I enjoyed the 2nd performance I saw more than the first, when I found some of the other dancers' contribution to be intrusive, breaking the flow of the plot. Knowing what to expect this evening I enjoyed their involvement more, not least as they are very good dancers. And as others have said, Alina was, as ever, exceptional. She's a wonderful actor, like Ulanova and Seymour willing to look awkward if the plot requires it, expressive, touching and dancing fluently in a range of styles. She is so versatile- next week she will be dancing totally different choreography in Bath. And it was a treat to see Johan dancing again- and so well. .

Sorry for crediting the wrong choreographer- a senior moment!

A mod may want to move this to a different thread but I don't think anyone has commented that BRB will be dancing Cinderella next spring. Presumably Peter Wright's. Priority booking has been announced for the Mayflower Theatre for February 6 - 9 (only 1 matinee, the Saturday at 2pm). Presumably the company is sensibly trying to encourage people going to that, and other regional, theatres to watch Sleeping Beauty, to book a year in advance. But I don't think it's yet been announced what they'll be doing in the autumn, just the Nutcracker in Birmingham and London (RAH).

I contacted the company before booking for his last performance and was told he would definitely dance unless injury or illness prevented it. When I checked this morning there were virtually no tickets for the matinee, a few more, and better, seats for the 28th

Re Ballade, I don't remember it although I may have seen it. But if it was created for the Royal Ballet New Group it is probably one of his more contemporary style works as that group was more contemporary-influenced than its predecessors, Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet and Royal Ballet Touring Group or later versions of the company, Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet. Interesting that, according to the article Fiona helpfully linked, Samara Downs is the choreologist who has helped Deborah MacMillan restore the piece. What a pity the BRB, under Acosta, has no interest in reviving previous ballets.

Yes, in the end I emailed them and got a surprisingly quick reply, advising me that I didn't need to log in (despite the instruction when attempting to book) and, as Bluebird says, it turned out to be straightforward to book.

Has anyone been able to book the gala? People need a new password but the system won't send me a link, even though I keep getting a message to say that an email has been sent- they've never turned up. And no-one answers the phone.

In the Paris Opera Ballet production some, but not all, of the dancers taking the role of the Prince of Courland, after admiring Giselle, look meaningfully at Berthe, giving the impression that they may have had an affair.

The great Russian Albrecht, Vladimir Vasiliev, interpreted the 2nd act as though it was a dream or his imagination. If you were sat close to the stage you felt as though you could read his mind. An incredible actor as well as wonderful classical dancer.