Melody

Oh, that sounds wonderful. Four hours of interviews, classes, and coaching sessions? That would be so great.

I didn't much care for this from the BBC website: "He also said the ballet was not as "excellent" as it claimed to be, but added that its troupe could be "perhaps the best modern dance group in the world"." What the heck is this with wanting to turn ballet companies into modern dance groups? Ballet companies and modern dance groups are different - you wouldn't expect a modern dance group to suddenly mount a production of Petipa's Swan Lake, so why expect ballet companies to combine top-level ballet with top-level modern dance? Quite apart from anything else, we keep hearing about how this is one of the reasons that dancers are getting injured so often. If this guy wanted to run a modern dance group, why didn't he go and find a modern dance group to run, rather than finding a major ballet company and trying to turn it into something completely different. There's no reason to expect that a ballet company would be the best modern group in the world, given the number of already outstanding groups, it just sounds like an excuse for him to do something he wanted to do anyway.

I've never understood Balanchine's appeal. Well, no, I guess I understand it, but try as I might I can't participate in it. Obviously he's a great choreographer and his work is impressive, but I've never been touched by it the way I have by Ashton. I guess it isn't helped by the fact that most of what I saw at San Francisco Ballet seemed to be set to Stravinsky (to the point where they only performed Rubies from Jewels), and with a few exceptions Stravinsky's music makes my teeth ache. I remember having to sit through Duo Concertant several times and thinking that root canal surgery was less painful. Two people in practice costumes with no scenery to speak of, doing acrobatics to a piano and violin sounding like fingernails on a blackboard. *shudders at the memory* I agree that he makes the music sing, but in many ways it reminds me of what would result if you asked the world's biggest supercomputer to take a piece of music and make it visual, within the constraints of the basic ballet vocabulary. It's a visual representation of the music but somehow the soul isn't there. Mind you, having said all that, I'd love to see Union Jack. That looks like a lot of fun.

Must have been a large vehicle. Kangaroos can really do a number on a regular-sized car that hits them, so this must have been a truck or something. Honestly, the things some people get their jollies from...

This is one of the downsides of the internet - the way every last blowhard can set himself up as an expert on political and social issues. There aren't any filters any more, and some people are very good at appealing to their audience's basest instincts.

I think the best you can do is to be guided by their feedback. I'm pretty wary of Marketplace sellers with feedback percentages below about 97% (although once in a while I've risked it from someone with feedback around 93% and it's been fine). But that doesn't help you with a seller who has a sterling record and then decides to go out in a blaze of glory with a bunch of fictitious sales - that happened to me at eBay with a fairly expensive purchase from a seller with 100% feedback until the very end when it suddenly turned negative and he absconded.

Oh dear. Well, hopefully, as a Professor of Oriental Languages, he did at least know that Japan is a monarchy even if he didn't know that Canada is one.

Buy. As for the Geraldine Morris book - I found it hard-going but rewarding. It isn't something to just dip into, though.

He's Prime Minister. Sweden is a monarchy, it doesn't have a president.

And while we're at it, we can stick Marco Rubio in there with him. President of Sweden, indeed. Could these people be any more ignorant about international affairs?

Actually I think there are worse possibilities out there among the candidates than Trump. Which, when you come to think of it, is a truly scary scenario. Although I do like the mental picture of Hillary tearing his wig off (especially if it turns out that it isn't a wig...)

Thanks, Bluebird. Apparently I got the wrong Anthony, since I'd gathered from previous threads that Anthony Russell-Roberts didn't seem to be very proactive in promoting Ashton's work whereas I assumed that Anthony Dowell, with his knowledge of and success in dancing the Ashton repertoire, would have been more passionate in making sure it thrived in the company. Then again, I'm not sure why Ashton's death should have made such a difference. Petipa was also dead, but that never meant his works should be sidelined in favour of living choreographers. MacMillan's own works seem to have survived his death rather better than Ashton's. Anyway, I'm glad that the advent of homegrown new talent is coinciding with the revival of interest in some of Ashton's less frequently performed ballets. Hopefully we'll see Les Patineurs and a few of the others at some point in the none too distant future.

Obviously not, but the alternative is that he's been advocating for them and being ignored by several ADs in succession, while those same ADs have been very attentive to what Kenneth MacMillan's heir wants. And as I said in a previous post, and others have also said, he's been saying that Ashton ballets are lost when that isn't necessarily the case. It doesn't sound like the behaviour of someone who is passionate about seeing the Ashton repertoire given pride of place at RB, and I'm not the only person who's said so. Plus, in Floss's post 525 she said "If Jeremy Isaac's memoirs are to be trusted then the Royal Ballet's attitude towards its MacMillan and Ashton repertories are not simply a matter of chance or the effects of time and changes in taste but the result of decisions made by the company management not long after Ashton's death. He gives an account of a meeting at which he, Lady MacMillan and Kenneth MacMillan were present at which Lady MacMillan argued that as MacMillan was still able to make ballets the company should concentrate on his works rather than Ashton's which were old fashioned. Isaacs records that he was told that Anthony agreed with this approach and he says that he too agreed that MacMillan's works should be promoted." If the person most closely associated with Ashton's heritage agrees that MacMillan's works should be promoted and Ashton's were old-fashioned, then it's not unreasonable to draw the conclusion that he hasn't exactly been advocating for them.

That was a post specifically in response to one about Monotones, Rhapsody and Two Pigeons. So in that particular context, they sort of don't.

Well, yes, but this was a conversation about the RB and Ashton's place in the repertoire, at least that's what I understood from Floss's post 525. I remember mentioning RB and BRB in tandem in a post a while back and was told pretty sharply that these days they're separate companies that both just happen to have Royal in their names. So I don't think the BRB repertoire is relevant to whether RB is performing the Ashton repertoire as frequently as it could.

He hasn't exactly been advocating for them, if this is the first revival of a major Ashton work like Two Pigeons for several decades.

I can see why Kenneth MacMillan's widow would be forcefully advocating showcasing his work and cementing him in people's minds as THE choreographer associated with the Royal Ballet. I'm a lot less clear why Anthony Russell-Roberts would go along with this. It seems from things reported here and also mentioned in biographies and whatnot that he's been almost actively sabotaging Ashton's heritage (I'm thinking about the comments that certain Ashton ballets are lost and beyond hope of revival when other people are saying otherwise), and I'm at a bit of a loss to understand why.

Doing OK so far, thanks. The most exciting thing that's happened is that a bunch of snow came off the new solar panels while my husband was outside taking photos and nearly buried him. We had around 2 feet of snow, but with the wind it's piled up in drifts in some places. The porch roof has so much snow on it that we're just hoping the whole thing doesn't collapse. At least this amount of snow was forecast. I gather New York City got a lot more than they were expecting, which must have caught a lot of people off guard. Hopefully my husband will get a YouTube video together soon, assuming he doesn't have any more close encounters with avalanches out there.

At this point it's more severe than predicted, the prediction is now 2 feet of snow and a blizzard warning from Friday evening till Sunday afternoon. This is supposed to be the most severe winter storm in recorded history in this area, with the combination of snow, wind, and coastal flooding. I've just read that the Metro (that's our version of the Underground) will be shut from Friday evening till Monday morning. The airports are also closing from Friday afternoon until at least Sunday morning and maybe later. People are being warned to be prepared to spend most of the weekend wherever they happen to be on Friday evening. So I think it's pretty much given that that performance isn't going to happen.

It isn't that I don't like snow or anything - but 12 to 20 inches (or more, depending on the final storm track)? along with high winds and blizzard conditions (meaning power outages across the region)? and a strong onshore flow during an astronomical high tide meaning flooding and erosion problems for the coast too? "Potential life-threatening conditions" says the National Weather Service. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/01/20/blizzard-watch-severe-snowstorm-likely-friday-through-sunday/ Looks like quite a weekend coming up. Hopefully our new solar panels will keep our backup power system online as long as they aren't totally buried by snow. It was sort of funny in the supermarket this afternoon watching people buying bottled water as though there was no tomorrow. We're expecting up to two feet of snow on Friday and Saturday, and people are buying water...

Given the response to Ashton's centenary, you might want to steel yourself for disappointment (yes, I know it was a different AD then, but still). As for 2020, I presume we can rule out Elizabeth since Acosta has retired and Yanowsky will be mid-40s (and probably also retired), unless they have another cast in mind.

What shocking and sad news. I remember with great affection his portrayal of Mr Slope in the Barchester Chronicles, which pretty much ensured that nobody else could ever be Professor Snape. Considering how many British character actors are going strong in their 80s, I think we've been cheated out of many wonderful years of brilliant acting from him.

Well, Louis XIV was a bit of a bird of paradise himself, one way and another. This bird brings berries, he built Versailles (although not to impress the womenfolk!).

Thanks, Ian and BBB. I do hope there'll be a DVD one of these days...

I'm surprised there isn't anything about it on the ROH YouTube channel.