Terpsichore

But "The Three Little Pigs" aren't coming to London. The nearest they'll be is Milton Keynes which is too far for Auntie Terps to take her 3 year old nephew who lives in London. He's such a sweetie. I think he might be good at ballet because he has such an expressive face and can manage an arabesque without wobbling or even knowing it's an arabesque. His mum tells me not to be so silly because all kids can do that. That may well be true but even if he doesn't want to DO ballet he can at least learn to ENJOY ballet. Ah well! There's always English National's "My First Ballet: Coppelia" at the Peacock I suppose,

I do hope this ballet comes to London. I can think of several kids there who would love to see it including my 3 year old nephew.

Glad we are agreed Ian Macmillan. Audiences outside London are not so resistant to novelty as one might fear. I noticed very few empty seats in the Theatre Royal, Glasgow on 21 Dec when I saw Hampson's Hansel and Gretel and even fewer in The Grand on boxing day when I saw Nixon's Cinderella. I also saw an excellent Nutcracker at the Coliseum on 11 Dec and an exceptional Giselle in Covent Garden last Saturday which is as it should be.

What was novel and in my view shocking about the article on the RAD's website was not the debate over new work against the classics which is an issue for individual companies and upon which some like Northern Ballet have already made a decision but the suggestion that the Nutcracker, Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty "should be given a rest globally for five years". In other words, that companies should agree not to put on the classics for a year so that the public will be forced to see new work whether we want to see them or not. I can see the reasoning behind the suggestion but it is wrong and, as Northern shows, it isn't even necessary. I agree that as a general rule it is undesirable to incorporate other websites voces populorum into this form (though as Wordpress, Blogger and other blogging packages and even static websites incorporate a comments feature it is hard to see how one can avoid them) but I would respectfully argue that the dismay at the suggestion expressed by many ballet goers (including me) justified an exception.

That is so true.

I have just taken the very first adult ballet class at the University of Huddersfield's swanky Student Central Buildings. Here is my review: "Our local university is The Times Higher Education University of the Year. The university's website notes: 'The award comes at an exciting time at the University with its new Student Central building due to open in early January. The new building will form a central hub, home to the Students’ Union and support services plus a state-of-the-art sports centre and gym which includes an eight court sports hall, two squash courts and two dance studios as well as a gym kitted out with Technogym Artis technology.' I tried out one of the dance studios at 18:30 this evening when I attended the first adult ballet class given by Fiona Noonan. Fiona also teaches at The Base Studios in Huddersfield. Today's class consisted of about 20, all women, most of whom were quite young. Although the class is open to the public I guess that at least half the pupils were undergraduates. For many of us it was our first lesson. We started with pliés, then tendus followed by glissés, ronds de jambe, fondus and développés at the barre and then some centre work which included chassés and posés pirouettes. Finally, we finished with stretches. This class was just what I needed. My confidence had taken a knock a week or two ago when I fell flat on my face trying to do posés pirouettes that I had not really mastered and I was starting to ask myself whether at age 65 I wasn't getting a little bit too old for this ballet malarkey. One day my body will say "no" and I think that is likely to happen sooner rather than later but until it does I am going to pack in as many classes as I can. The London Ballet Circle shared a poster on its Facebook page from Étude Ballet Boutique with the words "Money can't buy you happiness but it can buy you ballet classes which are kind of the same thing," Oh how true. The class meets every Wednesday during term between 18:30 and 19:30 in the Student Central Building which is opposite Sainsburys. There is plenty of street parking at that time. For those using public transport the university is perhaps 5 minutes walk from the bus station and slightly further from the railway station. Classes cost £5 per hour."

I am sure "Swan Lake Must Die" must be somewhere in this site but I couldn't find it when I did a keyword search just now. If it is already posted and I have not found it then pardon my obtuseness. It was my ballet teacher who drew my attention to this news item last night and she is quite upset about it - poor swan. So too are the vast majority of the folk who have commented including yours truly. Of course it would never happen. At least not this side of the Revolution for even if all the artistic directors of the world's leading companies conspired to pension off Petipa and Ivanov there would always be an enterprising impresario backed by oodles of sponsorship money and TV rights to sign up the world's leading dancers, orchestras etc and stage their own Swan Lake, Nutcracker or whatever. I think someone is pulling our legs but if it were ever a serious proposition these Olympian artistic directors should learn a bit of humility for it is we the ballet going public who keep the ballerinas in pointe shoes - not the artistic directors. Incidentally I am all for new work and there are companies like my beloved Northern Ballet who produce it very well. The last time Northern staged Nutcracker was Christmas 2012 and in the meantime they have given us Gatsby and Cinderella which are jolly good.

That's a good idea Janet McNulty. I may well do that. Many thanks for the suggestion. For the moment the present arrangement where I cut and paste reviews from Terpsichore works well enough. The reason I posted a lot of links to my blog when I first joined this forum was that I had a stock of articles on many of the performances that were then under discussion and it just seemed easier to link to those articles than write new copy, I have now caught up with everyone else so my contributions will be more or less the same frequency as those of most other members,. I have learned a lot from this forum which has already enhanced my appreciation of ballet. The thread provides a very good example. I have not yet seen Jewels on stage so the reviews about the Royal Ballet's version were a good preparation for the HDTV transmission. Another good example is the discussion in the Giselle thread about how she died. Having seen a lot of Giselles from a lot of different companies over the last 40 years I thought I knew everything that an intelligent ballet goer needed to know about the work. I never gave a moment's thought as to whether Giselle killed herself or whether she just died but now I see why the manner of her dying might be relevant. Had she been buried in a churchyard the wilis would not have got to her but because she was buried in unconsecrated ground they could. I don't really buy that interpretation because it sounds dodgy theology for one thing and, for another, ballet does not always condemn suicide - for instance Rothbart's spell is broken only when Siegfried and Odette jump in the lake - but I shall certainly think about that rationalization when I see my next Giselle. Especially as it carries the authority of Peter Wright behind it, One of the delights of ballet is that there is so much scope for interpretation. For choreographers, of course - the work which you and I are going to see at The Lowry next week is a case in point - but also for us the audience. Ultimately, it is the impression that a work makes on us that really matters. Just as you can't run an airline without passengers you can't run a ballet company without an audience,

If anyone is interested I have cut and pasted my review of the HDTV transmission of the Bolshoi's Jewels that I have posted elsewhere having removed all links to my own blog: "I am something of a fan of the Bolshoi's HDTV broadcasts as readers will recall from my review of Spartacus. They are next best thing to seeing ballet on stage. In one important respect they are actually better because their engaging presenter Katerina Novikova interviews people like Sergei Filin, the Bolshoi's artistic director, and Merrill Ashley, the US ballerina who helped the Bolshoi stage Jewels. Ballet goers have seen a lot of Jewels lately. The Bolshoi brought it to London a few months ago (see Luke Jennings's review in The Observer 18 Aug 2013) and the Royal Ballet has just staged its own version as an alternative to all those Nutcrackers that appear over Christmas. Choreographed by George Balanchine for the New York City Ballet the work consists of three acts each of which could stand as a ballet in its own right. The programme notes say that the ballet was inspired by the beauty of the gem stones at the jewellers Van Cleef & Arpels though the Wikipedia entry quotes Balanchine as saying that "The ballet had nothing to do with jewels. The dancers are just dressed like jewels." And so they are: green in the first act to symbolize emeralds the women in romantic tutus dancing to a Fauré score; red in the second to symbolize the cast dressed as for a Broadway musical dancing to Stravinsky; and white in the third to symbolize diamonds the women in classical tutus dancing to Tchaikovsky. According to the presenter there was to have been a fourth act where the dancers were to be in blue to represent sapphires but that never came off. A pity though it would have made for quite a long ballet. Ms Novikova also said that each of those gems or colours was to represent a city that was important to Balanchine and its associated dance tradition. Emeralds were to represent Paris and the romantic ballet as well as wine and perfume and some of the other good things in life; Rubies New York with its razzmatazz and all that jazz; and Diamonds were to stand for St Petersburg and the classical ballet. There was a bit of criticism in the press and also in [an on-line ballet discussion forum to which I subscribe] of the first and second acts but everyone seems to have liked Diamonds and I certainly did. That act reminded me of Serenade which Balanchine had created over 30 years earlier and which Boston Ballet had performed in London on 4 July 2013 (see Boston Ballet: "High as a flag on the Fourth of July!" 7 July 2013). But I liked the lot particularly Emeralds which reminded me of the exquisite Giselle I had seen the night before ("Giselle - Royal Ballet 18 Jan 2014"). The Bolshoi has helpfully published a cast list so that you can see who did what on Sunday. I liked all of the dancers and it would be unfair for me to single any of them out for special praise. Ms, Novikova did tell one of the principals (I won't say which for the reasons I have just given) that her performance was "stunning" and it was so good to see her smile as she accepted the compliment. The truth is that they were all stunning and although I have my favourites I can give no good reason for my choice. The next HDTV transmission from Moscow will be Ratmansky's Lost Illusions on the 2 Feb 2014 which alas clashes with Sibley and Crisp at the Royal Ballet School and wild horses will not drag me from another chance to glimpse Antoinette Sibley, my favourite ballerina of all time."

I share your affection for Birmingham Royal Ballet BristolBillyBob. I never miss a chance to see them when they visit Manchester and I am looking forward to seeing Pagodas next week. The Birmingham company is related to the company in Covent Garden. It was known as the Royal Ballet Touring Company before it moved to the Hippodrome. Several principals danced with both companies before the Touring Company moved to Birmingham. I enjoyed your review very much. Everyone has his favourite Giselle and we all appreciate it in different ways. I can't take wilis seriously but I love the dancing in the second Act in the way as well as the drama of the first. I look forward to your future contributions,

Euan "The whole thing though whetted my appetite for bringing back a refreshed version of Peter Darrell's Nutcracker." I am also looking forward to Nutcracker. I shall make a special trip to Glasgow to see it. I am also a fan of what is now Scottish Ballet and I followed it even before it came to Scotland. It was the first company that I got to know as it was the only company I could see during term when I was at St Andrews. I remember Peter Darrell very well and also his ballerina, Elaine McDonald. I have already bought tickets for Scottish Ballet's Romeo and Juliet when they come to Sadler's Wells. Another Scottish company that I like is Ballet West in Taynuilt near Oban. I think the company is a bit like Ballet Central, an opportunity for the kids to dance before an audience, I can't think of anywhere better to study ballet than the banks of a sea loch surrounded by hills and woods. Real Gurn and Effie country. The fact that one of their students got a medal in last year's Genee and is now dancing with Scottish Ballet says a lot for them. The company is now touring small towns in Scotland with Swan Lake and I hope to catch them in Pitlochry, weather permitting.

I am grateful for the insight from bangorballetboy and Mary and also for the debate over whether Giselle stabbed herself or died of shock. I must also say that I found the notes on the ballet in the current programme very interesting. All of these contributions have added considerably to my appreciation of the work, I first saw Giselle when I was studying Hamlet and I have always had Ophelia's mad scene in mind. In fact literally because I would have seen Dante Gabriel Rosetti's painting at the same time. One of my favourite Giselles was Carla Fracci. American Ballet Theatre visited London in the early 1970s. I had seen the Royal Ballet's version several times with all the principals of the time and had a set view of the ballet. The Americans' version was very different but no less moving. I may be confusing it with another version that I have seen but I think Hilarion survived in theirs and the curtain fell as he shook hands with Albrecht. One lesson I learned from watching two fine companies from different continents is that there is more than one way of interpreting the same ballet. That goes for theatre goers as well as choreographers and dancers.

Alison I also liked the Bolshoi;s presenter. My heart went out to her when she translated the word déçu as "deceived" rather than "disappointed" in the context of "I hope you won't be deceived (sic) by diamonds." I think she is wonderful and she contributes to the transmission. I remember being scolded for that mistake when I was preparing for my French "O" level many years ago. My teacher called it a faux ami. I much prefer the Bolshoi's transmissions to the Royal Ballet's and just about everyone else's except the Met's operas from New York. As for the performance I loved the whole show particularly "Diamonds". I suppose Rubies does require some razzle dazzle which doesn't come easily for a 200 year old state ballet company. I also liked Emeralds. Such a shame that the choreographer never added Sapphires as I think he had intended. but then it might have been too long. Reeling back to October - which was before I discovered this website - I enjoyed Spartacus and would like to see it danced more often perhaps by a British or at least a Western company. I wonder why it is not shown more often.

Fonty There's a little bit of discussion on that topic in Mark Monahan "The Romance of a Lifetime". I don't think it matters. The point is that Giselle goes mad. I have always thought of Act II as a nightmare. And in that sense it is a lot more real and a lot more scary than the spirit world which we don't really believe in nowadays. Do we? Terpsichore

Here's my review of the evening performance on the 18 Jan: "Why do we still watch Giselle? Except for the occasional performance of La Sylphideand La Péri we don't see much of the romantic ballets of the 1830s and 1840s probably because we no longer believe in ghoulies, ghosties and lang-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night. So why is it that Giselle with its wilis has remained so popular and is in the repertoire of just about every major ballet company in the world? I think it is because the ballet still has a lot to to say to us not about wilis or prince charming in reverse but about human relationships, shock and the imaginings of a deluded mind. Arguably it has a feminist message though I doubt that was ever in the minds of Perrot, Grisi or the audiences around the world who have filled the theatres night after night ever since it was first performed. Modern theatre goers do know what it is like to build up one's hopes unreasonably, to see them dashed suddenly, to suffer public humiliation crushingly and in a few cases extreme cases illnesses that can lead to self harm, Everything is hunky dory for Giselle. She's the prettiest girl in her village. She attracts the hunky new kid with style who is so much more fun than nerdy old Hilarion who is in with her mum for slipping her the occasional rabbit or partridge. There she is - queen of some kind of harvest pageant the envy of all her friends - and then Hilarion spoils it all by exposing Albrecht as a two timer. Suddenly from queen of the pageant she is a laughing stock. No wonder she goes out of her mind. And her mum yapping on about the spirits of girls who die before their wedding day can't have helped. Giselle's mad scene is the key to the ballet which forms the link between the merry making and flirting of the first part of the first act and the world of the wilis of the second. It takes a ballerina with extraordinary dramatic powers as well as great virtuosity to do it well. And she needs a credible partner with similar powers to accompany her. I have seen many versions of Giselle by many companies but I can only recall a couple of performances when I have been entirely satisfied. One of those performances was by Fonteyn with Nureyev and another by Sibley with Dowell. A third last last Saturday night.Natalia Osipova who danced Giselle in the evening performance at the Royal Opera House on 18 Jan 2013 with Carlos Acosta has those powers. As for her partner, I would go so far as to say that Acosta, who dominates a stage like no other dancer, was the best Albrecht that I have ever seen, and that includes Nureyev. Also impressive were Thomas Whitehead who danced Hilarion, Deidre Chapman Giselle's mum, Christina Arestis Albrecht's girlfriend, Hikaru Kobayashi queen of the wilis and Elizabeth Harrod one of her attendants. I have been following Harrod ever since I first saw her at a Yorkshire Ballet Summer School Gala and it is great to see how well she is coming on. I loved everything about Peter Wright's production and also John Macfarlane's designs I used to go to the Royal Opera House frequently until it was refurbished. I got out of the habit when it was closed for those works and I have only been back since though I kept up my membership of the Friends of Covent Garden for most of that time. It must be over 30 years since I was last in the amphitheatre and how that has changed with its swanky bars and restaurants. On the whole I welcome those changes but I do miss the old House with its stench of veg, the cut flowers tossed by the audience from the boxes, the liveried footmen and the ritual of the ballerina choosing her choicest bloom for her partner."

I thoroughly enjoyed Giselle tonight, Acosta has such presence. Osipova such virtuosity. I also liked Elizabeth Harrod in Act II. This was my first visit to the House for some time and my first visit to the amphitheatre in 30 years, I must say I miss the flower market, the stench of veg, the liveried footmen and the cut flowers thrown by the audience but there have been massive improvements in the catering. It was a great pleasure to meet DonQFan and I wish her a safe journey home. A full review will follow shortly.

My ticket from The Lowry for the 07:30 performance on the 30 Jan has just arrived. A nice change from the usual bills and junk mail. Is anyone else from this forum going to that performance? If so, would he or she like to meet in the interval or before or after the show to say "hi" in person? I will review the performance and cut and paste a copy of my review in this thread shortly afterwards.

if you have got good eyesight and don't mind climbing umpteen flights of starts to the top of the amphitheatre you can see stars like Acosta and Osipova for less than the cost of watching Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty in the Bradford Alhambra and just possibly enjoy the show more. The main problem of watching ballet in London is not so much theatre ticket prices as the king's ransoms charged by railway companies, car parks and hotels and restaurants in Central London. I drive to Luton Parkway which takes 2 hours 30 minutes (I would need to allow 1 hour and 30 minutes to get into Manchester, Leeds or Sheffield), park at the multistorey which costs £2 in the evenings, take Thameslink which costs about £6.45 at weekends when I use my old ladies' railcard and either walk to the Wells, House or Coliseum or use my bus pass for the last few hundred yards. I also use the same route to get to work since my chambers and the Rolls Building are within a few hundred yards of a Thameslink station. I can't always use my railcard if I need to be somewhere by 10:00 and parking before 10:00 on a weekday costs £7.95 but it is still not a lot of money.

All this talk of the Royal Ballet being under-starred. I am looking forward to seeing the Royal Ballet's Giselle tomorrow evening. if you notice the cast list I think you will agree that there is not much danger of that particular performance being under-starred. Although I am very fond of other companies, particularly Scottish Ballet, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, Ballet Black, English National Ballet and Northern Ballet, I still regard the Royal Ballet as the gold standard rightly or wrongly. I will review the show and if anybody is interested I shall cut and paste my review to the appropriate forum here. I can no longer take you to my blog because of a recent change of the rules but I don't think there can be any objection to my reproducing an article which I have written and of which I own the copyright so long as I excise any links to pages in my publication. It is such a long time since I last visited the House even though I have been a Friend of Covent Garden for most of my life. I feared a cardiac arrest when I thought I might miss out on tickets for the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company at the Linbury on the 29 May so I shall rejoin the Friends as soon as I can afford to do so There is also the live streaming of Jewels from Russia to look forward to. Not a bad weekend for ballet. I probably spend far too much time and far too much money on ballet lessons and watching ballet than is good for me - but what the hell.

Visitors to this thread may like to look at Capybara's post in Ballet / Dance news & information about the Junior Company's visit to the Linbury on 28 and 29 May. I mentioned it to several of my fellow students in the Over 55 class at Northern Ballet this morning. Maybe we can hire a bus and have a singsong all the way down to Covent Garden and back.

VBee I have just seen your post and am delighted. Goos to end a very long, strenuous and somewhat challenging day with some unalloyed good news.

You won't be disappointed LinMM, Not only is dePrince a great dancer she also seems a lovely human being. I came across this video on the South African Mzansi Ballet website when she danced Gulnare in Le Corsaire with them while I was researching for an article that I have just posted about the Junior Company. There is a good article on the South African Broadcasting Corporation website. I saw Ballet Central at The Lowry last year bangorballetboy and I think you will enjoy that company too. I hope to catch them at the Stanley and Audrey Burton in Leeds. I would love to meet you LinMM. I shall be in the Linbury on the 29 May. Best wishes Terpsichore

Well I have placed an order and I think paid for the tickets but I am told that I have to wait for 2 hours and 43 minutes for a confirmation email. Grrrrr! I shall be heartbroken if I miss them. I made a special trip to Amsterdam to see them in November and they were one of the highlights of last year.

Thanks for that news. I saw them in Amsterdam on 24 Nov 2013 and was bowled over by the show. Michaela dePrince is the most exciting young dancer I have seen for quite a long time. I shall certainly be there.

Two interesting titbits that I have come across on Facebook today which may be of interest to adult dance students in this forum: Rambert advertised the following drop-in classes at their new premises near Waterloo; and this article by Aly Cardinali entitled "15 Truths about being a professional dancer" which Ballet West of Taynuilt near Oban drew to my attention. It is good to know of another place in London for the days I can't get back to Leeds or Huddersfield for my usual classes. I will try out and review one of Rambert's classes one of these days. Although Cardinali's article is directed to professional dancers there's plenty of good advice for folk like me who learn dance for fun. Indeed there is plenty of good advice for life in general. i have mentioned it on my twitter stream because it would apply with at least equal force to folk who are starting their careers in my profession which actually shares more in common with dance than many might think.