FLOSS

We all see things differently. If you see ballet as athleticism with a symphony orchestra that is absolutely fine but don't ask me to come and see it. I have always understood that the reason that the Russian companies fell into the trap of athletic dancing after the Revolution was because they were suddenly faced with a new unsophisticated ballet audience who would appreciate and understand the the wow factor in a performance but not the subtleties of classical dance.The fact that the capital was moved from Petrograd to Moscow probably contributed to this development as even before the Revolution the dancers at the Mariinsky, if the autobiographies accurately reflect the views of the many rather than merely the author's opinion, seemed to have regarded the Bolshoi dancers as circus performers rather than artists. Danilova made some interesting comments about the development of ballet in Russia and the West in her autobiography Choura published in 1988. " I can see in the Soviet style an extension of the way that I was trained, but I think that what happened here in our century is much more interesting than what happened there.Somehow in Russia ballet has become the exhibition of dancing. Soviet dancers no longer want to show the story or the mood so much as they want to show us their technique- this one can turn three times in the air, lifting both his legs,and that one can do something else. " The other thing is that in Russian choreography in the twentieth century the vocabulary for male dancers seems to have been reduced to jumping and technical tricks are not disguised in any way.Acrobatic and athletic movements are created as obvious show stopping moments and stuffed into the choreography with little consideration for their context as far as story telling is concerned. If a male dancer is going to perform a series of pirouettes you see his lengthy and careful preparation.You can't miss the performance of the steps because the preparation rather than being disguised is advertised. Here is a bum lift !!.Look !. Applaud.While in an Ashton ballet the bravura doesn't draw attention to itself and is embedded in the story telling. The bum lift at the end of the Fanny Elssler pas de deux is the culmination of a pas in which both dancers perform a series of choreographic fireworks but the sequence tells the audience about the characters and their feelings for each other and none of the tricks with the exception of the lift at the end draws attention to itself because the performer has to make it look effortless and elegant. Fokine wrote somewhere that the ballet audience tends to be impressed by tricks which look difficult but are relatively easy to perform but are unaware of how difficult it is to perform apparently simple steps perfectly.The problem would appear to be that Ashton, Cranko, MacMillan, Robbins and Balanchine made the mistake of not advertising how difficult their choreography is.I seem to recall dancers at the Mariinsky cast as Sylvia saying that it was the most difficult ballet that they had ever danced. I sometimes wonder whether the problem with the Ashton repertory as far audiences are concerned is that it because the dancers have to make it look easy and natural the audience assumes that anyone could dance it and as far as dancers are concerned they get no credit for the difficulties they have mastered?

It was inevitable that Lavrovsky' s version of R and J should have become the template for most versions of the ballet that we see today because it made such an impact on those who saw it with Ulanova dancing the role created for her. Sibley and others describe being allowed in to watch a rehearsal at the Opera House and seeing this old lady swathed in woollies whose presence on the stage was a bit of a puzzle until she removed the woollies and was immediately transformed into the fourteen year Juliet. Naomi M thank you for quoting from the passage in Different Drummer which should kill off the idea that MacMillan's version is somehow a variation on a "Cranko original" which is a charge made by many of MacMillan's detractors. Cranko's version is a very fine one but I think that it is more dependant on having a cast of dancers with big stage personalities than the MacMillan version. The sad thing is that the Ashton version is not in any company's repertory.His R and J is unique because it was made before the Lavrovsky version was seen in the West. When it was revived by ENB in the 1980's I was amazed at how fresh it looked because it directly reflects Ashton's response to the music and his knowledge of the play rather than being,in large part, a response to Lavrovsky's treatment of the score

If O'Hare means the 2020 21 season then he has four more seasons available for his choreographers to create the new repertory. I do hope that he has Lady M's permission not perform any of her late husband's works in that season or it could all turn rather nasty. We usually have six or seven full length works each season.O'Hare already has Alice and the Winter's Tale available for the season. If Frankenstein is any good it will be in the running for inclusion as will Woolf Works. I can't see O'Hare planning a whole season without any nineteenth century works so he may well include Acosta's Don Q and the new Swan Lake whatever that looks like. I'm not sure whether that means it will be a costly season or one that will ease the strain on the bank account.

It is a long time since the order in which casts are scheduled to dance at Covent Garden has been any sort of indication of the likely quality of their performances, or, so it seems to me. indeed there have been occasions on which the choice of first night casts has seemed more than a little odd.But dancers and audiences have to be humoured.If Miss X or Mr Z are well known,enjoy great reputations both here and abroad,perhaps even enjoy star status they will probably be given the first night of some ballets. Indeed both they and their fans may be put out if they don't get that sort of recognition. However their reputation doesn't guarantee that they will give the best performances in the run.When it comes to scheduling performances availability and time for coaching will be a factor in determining when a dancer, who has overseas commitments, will perform.This could mean that the dancer concerned will appear lower down the batting order than their reputation or status would seem to require. Most choreographers have their muses both female and male.Balanchine had them and so did Ashton,MacMillan and Cranko.I wonder is it unfair if a choreographer works with particular dancers because he finds they stimulate his creativity and that working with them is particularly productive? Is it unfair for a director to allow a choreographer to continue to work with a small group of dancers who make the creative process a pleasure rather than a chore because they are particularly willing,receptive and quick to respond to his ideas? Having created a ballet isn't the choreographer entitled to try to ensure that his work gets the best possible performance by having a considerable say in casting? Dancers are not interchangeable however much some of us might want them to be.No one is equally good in everything. Only going to see a single dancer such as Acosta or Osipova doesn't mean that you will necessarily have seen the greatest performances in the run.Some dancers are fine actors,some excel in demi character work, some are technicians and others are the embodiment of pure effortless, elegant classicism.Each dancer brings their own gifts, skills,personality and potential into the rehearsal studio and onto the stage in performance. A choreographer casting a ballet will choose those dancers best suited to the type of work he wishes to create or revive from those available to him.In the case of a new work or a revival in which the choreographer is directly involved there will be occasions on which only the first cast truly embodies the choreographer's vision and other casts, are only there at the director's insistence.On other occasions there may be several casts each of which brings something different but equally valid to the stage in their performance. In the latter case referring to the casts as first, second or third tells you nothing about the relative merits of their performances only the order in which they will dance. I think that a choreographer is entitled to ensure that his work isn't undermined by compromise casting and to try to establish a performance tradition during his lifetime.Unless he sets up an organisation like the Balanchine Trust he will not be able to exercise any quality control over it from the grave.The point is that choreographers and directors have different prioritIes.A director needs to keep an entire company happy by providing a varied repertory which provide opportunities across the company.A choreographer's most compelling need is securing the best cast he can for his works.A director choreographer has to try to balance these two competing needs.Some manage better than others. . Every ballet goer has their preferences,foibles and prejudices. Directors and choreographers are not exempt from this. I don't like dancers who treat the classics merely as an opportunity to display their technique.A dancer can only amaze you once with a display of technical tricks such as balances extended to such a degree that the score has to be distorted in order to accommodate them or multiple fouettes that seem to be performed to excite the audience rather than to entrance Siegfried. If you only see them once you will be astounded. If you see them again, particularly if you already know the work being danced, you may start to notice the damage that is being done to the overall structure of the ballet. If you throw all your skills and energy at the Rose Adagio the vision scene may be acceptable but the great pas de deux of Act III, which is intended to be the culmination of the ballet is likely to fall decidedly flat.Of course if you enjoy pyrotechnics you may not find a performance marred by that sort of display.You may believe that the rest of the ballet is a boring wasteland of inconsequential choreography that could do with reworking to add excitement to it. As far as the casting for the Spring season is concerned I don't think that the order in which the various casts are due to dance should be taken as indicating the likely quality of their performances.When the Winter's Tale was new we had to book performances without knowing who would dance.I ended up seeing the casts in reverse order and found that both casts were equally effective but in different ways.The third cast to dance in this revival will give us the opportunity to see Soares' Leontes which we were denied in the initial run, to see Calvert in a big dramatic role and two young dancers of which much is expected. I look forward to seeing all three casts.It will be interesting to see how the first two casts have developed and to see a new cast. i wonder whether the new cast are entirely new to their roles or whether some of them were understudies. As far as Frankenstein is concerned the casting is intriguing. So what does first and second cast status mean? Not a lot as far as far as quality of performance is concerned which is why it is advisable with a work that has long been out of the repertory such as Sylvia or Two Pigeons to see more than one cast if you can as seniority is not the same as suitability.If I had only seen Bussell's first night performance in Sylvia I should have come away with the idea that its revival was a misplaced exercise in piety rather than the revival of a major work which deserved to be restored to the repertory.. As it was I saw Yanowsky who brought out the wonderful detail in the text which Bussell failed to deliver on first night.I am sure that Bussell improved throughout the run and her performance on the DVD is pretty good. As far as the casting of that run of performances is concerned what now strikes me is how bizarre it was to give that ballet to a dancer returning from maternity leave when I don't think that anyone would have given Aurora to a dancer in such circumstances.Was the decision made because the ballet is short? Was it a mistake because no one realised how demanding the role of Sylvia is?Yanowsky has said that it is essentially three separate ballets.Was it because it was thought essential to give the first night to a British ballerina? Whatever the reason it came close to scuppering the ballet as far as I was concerned. If you have the money try to see as many performers in a role as you can.Seeing the first performance of a ballet doesn't guarantee that it will be the best performance that you will see of the work. The second cast has the advantage of having slightly less weight on their shoulders than the first cast in a world premiere even if they may have had slightly less care and attention in the rehearsal studio.sometimes it is because sometimes it is because the balance is better sometimes it is because the movements are more striking when the second cast performs them better because they are unexpected. I am thinking of the brooding, jealous Leontes in Act I of the Winter's Tale where the choreography might be described as a series of "Watsonisms" which were far more powerful when performed by Gartside because they were so unusual and unexpected whereas with Watson they had less impact for me because they were the sort of thing that choreographers set on him.

It is heartening to see that Wheeldon has given his unscheduled second cast the opportunity to repeat their roles in the revival of the Winter's Tale rather than using the dancers who were his intended second cast. All three casts will be well worth seeing. In the first season there were many who thought that the second cast had a slight edge, if only because movements which could be described as Ed Watson's specialities have an even greater impact when performed by a dancer on whom they are unexpected. I can see that while this may be a short season it is likely to be an expensive one.

The probability is that those involved in reviving Ashton's works are not fully aware of the changes that have taken place in the performance of those works during the time that they have been custodians of them, in much the same way that you don't notice how old your parents are getting if you see them virtually every day.The differences are very obvious if you see early recordings of works made during Ashton's lifetime and are able to compare them with current performances of the work. There is a recording of Les Rendezvous made during the sixties with Brian Shaw and Doreen Wells in the lead roles and Merle Park.Petrus Bosman and, I think, Graham Usher in the pas de trois.The recording makes the ballet look incredibly light and full of wit which which is not how I would describe the performances that I saw last year given by BRB which gave the impression of being slower and too careful, perhaps because of the challenges that the choreography and style present to those to whom it does not come as second nature. Something that Christopher Carr said at last night's LBC meeting set me thinking about current performance style.He was asked about teaching and said that teaching was much the same as it ever was, A bit later he said that the fifth position is done better now than it used to be.Has the change in what we see on the stage come from too many people accepting that the steps as taught in class should be transferred onto the stage without any modification on the basis that what is taught in class is correct and that if a step was danced differently in the past that difference should be eliminated because it was an either a mistake or evidence of inadequate technique rather than a difference of style and performance practice? Taking a split second to ensure that you perform a step as taught in class rather than as set by the choreographer makes a considerable difference to how the audience experiences a ballet. A prime example of this comes in Alain's solo in the second act of Fille where the role's originator used to perform the little beaten steps as little more than rubbing his heels together,which meant that they looked as if they were being dashed off and they fitted the music, now you see clean,clear, perfectly articulated steps and the solo feels less breathless than it once did and fails to express Alain's excitement. I wonder does Ratmansky's recent recognition of Ashton as an heir of the old Russian school mean that he has elevated him to his personal pantheon of dance geniuses of the twentieth century or is he still may be close to genius? I entirely agree with those who have said that the recent restorations of nineteenth century ballets have been a revelation. Corsaire is a different,and much improved ballet, when the music is played in the intended order and all the Soviet accretions are,as far as possible,removed.Munich's Paquita was fascinating and worth reviving.On the basis of the DVD I would say that if you have to have Don Q in your repertory, something that I am not entirely convinced about, that Ratmansky's version is infinitely preferable to Acosta's production for the Royal Ballet. Many of the changes that were made to the nineteenth ballets in Russia during the twentieth century occurred because companies were performing to relatively unsophisticated audiences who needed to be entertained . While I understand that dancers want to display their technique I find that the definition of a ballerina as someone who can do everything but has the taste not to, sums up my view of how far technical improvements should be allowed to intrude into the choreography of these works.But then I don't find nineteenth century stage mechanism which allow the Sylph to take a bird's nest from a tree or allows the willises to appear in the trees and the use of traps out of place in the performance of a nineteenth century ballet. In the same way I think that it is a pity that the current Sleeping Beauty at Covent Garden does not have a panorama and find the staging of the ship's departure and the storm in Ashton's Ondine a wonderful insight into how such scenes were staged in the nineteenth century.The shipwreck in the Ratmansky Corsaire is its one real weak point. I want to see new things in new works. I am not interested in seeing them passed off as the works of the great choreographers of the past.

At a talk he gave to the London Ballet Circle some months ago Sir Peter Wright indicated that he was in the process of writing his memoirs. I have been told that Beryl Grey is writing hers. They should both be worth reading.If anyone obtains solid information about either book perhaps they could post the details here.

While I think that Siegal's review is a very well written account of his response to Ratmansky's Cinderella and one that quite a few people who I know would agree with,the opening paragraph is one of those arresting and clever generalisations which are written for impact rather than accuracy and don't bear close investigation.It is not clear whether this paragraph is only directed at Ratmansky's Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella which are reworkings of ballets which exist in many versions or whether he includes The Bright Stream and The Flames of Paris in the category of unnecessary remakes or whether it extends to the reconstructions in which Ratmansky has been involved. I suspect that it is not intended to include the reconstructions. Of course the great ballet scores are available to any choreographer who wishes to use them and it is good that choreographers are willing to create works that will inevitably be compared with what has been made by the great choreographers of the past.It is good for all of us that choreographers are not intimidated by existing masterpieces but anyone tackling those scores knows that he or she will have their works judged against existing works and many will be found wanting.There are some scores that are so bound up with a particular choreographic response that it is impossible to imagine anyone daring to choreograph a new work to them Balanchine's Serenade and Symphony in C are two such works Ashton's Symphonic Variations and Monotones also fall into this category for me. But although their text may be preserved intact their impact will alter radically if the speed at which they are danced is altered or they are danced off the beat when they should be danced on it or on it when they should be danced off it. Some time ago there was a discussion on this site which was concerned with whether or not the "advances" in technique should form part of the modern audience's experience of the nineteenth century classics.The general view seemed to be that it was the inclusion of those "improvements" which kept the choreography alive for performers and audience alike regardless of their impact on the performance of the score.However it isn't necessary to reorder the score or to add passages of new choreography or to treat the Rose Adagio as a balancing competition to alter a work radically.The reality is that comparatively minor changes to performance style can radically alter the text for the audience. These changes tend to be gradual shifts rather than radical changes so they tend to pass unnoticed by audiences and it is only when you see recordings of earlier performances that the changes becomes obvious. The problem is that while performing a cut and paste job on a play or ballet leaves some evidence that changes have been made if older versions of the texts are available, and the creation of a new work is obvious, the effect of changes caused by changes in taste have until very recently been far more difficult to identify.The recordings of Ashton's Fille provide evidence of changes in performance style over a period of just over fifty years.The first two recordings were made during Ashton's lifetime so any differences in choreographic text have to be seen as authorised changes.The first records the original cast on a set provided by the BBC the second records Collier and Coleman who were the company's first cast at the time it was made. I seem to recall the surprise expressed by some on this forum at Collier's speed and attack and it being suggested that perhaps the fact that the performance was being recorded had influenced the speed of the dancers' performance. In fact it merely records the way in which the ballet was performed at the time it was filmed.The third recording with Nunez and Acosta was the first to be made of a performance in which neither Ashton nor Somes had any involvement. Essentially it reflects Alexander Grant's ideas about the work.In the first two recordings the dancers perform the ballet, create their characters through the choreography and don't get bogged down in reproducing it. I find that the third is more concerned with reproducing the steps than performing the ballet. But perhaps that is just me or perhaps it reflects the increasing emphasis on technique as an end in itself and the dancer's knowledge that their abilities will be judged on the basis of this recording by many who will never see them in the theatre. A fourth is due to be released shortly and it will be interesting to compare it with earlier versions.Perhaps we shall find that it is not that much altered after all, perhaps we shall find that it is closer to the second recording than the third as far as speed is concerned.Interestingly Fille is a ballet that has been preserved and yet it has recently been treated to a sort of reconstruction in Russia. Should concerns about performance style and textual changes be confined to nineteenth century works? Perhaps the world of ballet should be just as concerned about the loss of significant twentieth century works by unfashionable choreographers as it is about modish improvements to well known nineteenth century works.Isn't there some suggestion that those who ignore their history don't deserve a future?

I don't think that the regular ballet goer or regular opera goer is against new works.The problem is that so many new operas and ballets seem to lack any real substance or interest.When the audience was offered the prospect of a new Ashton or MacMillan work it could assume that the odds were heavily stacked in its favour as far as seeing something of real quality was concerned, say 8 to 2 in favour of the work being a substantial one. Now I fear that the odds are more or less reversed. But I am an optimistic soul and hope always conquers experience. As a result I go to new works when they are programmed but I see no need to go to the revival of a ballet in which the narrative was weak and the choreography banal. Its strongest feature was its design which was probably the most expensive part of the enterprise. The announcement of its revival did not come as a surprise but after reading the comments of those who have seen the revised version and talking to others who have been to see it recently I am still left wondering whether the cost of the original production rather than its artistic merit was the real reason for its revival. Connectome does not appear to have improved since its premier either. I do hope that Stix-Brunell and Hirano are given the opportunity to take the leads in a full length work of real quality in the near future; so far they seem to have picked the short straw as far as leading roles in revivals are concerned.They appeared as an unscheduled cast in MacMillan's Prince of the Pagodas and gave a far better performance than it deserved and more experienced casts had given because they danced the ballet rather than merely reproducing the steps. And now they have Raven Girl. Well I suppose that it is true that there is no such thing as wasted experience I just hope that they get the opportunity to put their experience to good use some time soon..

As Christmas is coming up I thought that it might be a good idea to start this topic which I hope will enable fellow ballet enthusiasts to share details of recently published books on ballet and ballet related theme which might be of interest either as presents for others or as something that we might like to mention, if asked what we would like for Christmas,or we might simply like to buy for ourselves.The closure of the Opera House shop is likely to significantly reduce the opportunities to dip into ballet related books and keep abreast of the latest publications during the next few years and while opera goers will probably also regret its closure their interests are reasonably well served in other bookshops.If you have read a book about ballet published or republished recently which might be of interest to others perhaps you would share your opinion of it. Dance Books has recently republished Cyril Beaumont's The Ballet called Swan Lake which follows the same format as the same author's The Ballet called Giselle. Both volumes discuss the ballet's origins,the sources of the choreography,its performance history and end with a detailed account of the choreography.Both are well worth reading.The book on Giselle is invaluable as it discusses at some length who choreographed what the book on Swan Lake is almost as good. Has anyone read any of the following books? Newman's Never Far From Dancing a series of interviews with retired dancers including Seymour and Wall, the two recently published biographies of Alicia Markova and Constant Lambert and a book which I think is called Balanchine and the Forgotten Muse?This last book attempts to cover Balanchine's formative Russian years and the life and mysterious death of a young dancer called Lydia.Its weakness for me was the amount of speculation that the author indulged in which, for me, got in the way of her account of a fascinating period in the development of both Balanchine as dancer and choreographer and Russian ballet as a whole.

In the past it might have been clearer because Ratmansky had the assistance of people who could read Stepanov notation in which Petipa's ballets were recorded in various degrees of completeness but I believe that he can now read it himself so it may not be all that clear until much closer to the date of the performance. As he has been recorded as saying words to the effect that as everyone expresses admiration for Petipa it is about time we actually looked at his choreography the omens are good. According to Wiley who wrote a book about Tchaikovsky's Ballets and was involved in the creation/recreation of the Royal Ballet's last production of Swan Lake the notation is fairly full and only some elements of Act I are missing. The really interesting element in all of this is the impact of the stager's interpretation of contemporary performance style and practice. Two revivals based on the same notation can end up looking very different because of the stager's input. The production may not look as wonderful as the recent Sleeping Beauty simply because unlike Beauty, where the designs were inspired by the Bakst designs that were in large part responsible for Diaghilev's financial failure, there doesn't seem to be an obviously iconic production to use as the basis for the design of Swan Lake. Although the archives of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky may yield some treasures including production photographs and descriptions by journalists and diarists .

Dance Books are publishing a book about Mark Morris. It is called Mark Morris Musician Choreographer.It is available at a 20% discount until the end of this month. £40 rather than £50. Full details are available on the Dance Books website.

Is the Zurich Swan Lake to be based on the choreographic text recorded in the Harvard collection?

I made the comments about Nagdhi's involvement in Symphonic as evidence of the management's faith in her potential in large part because she was part of the first night cast of Symphonic which gave by far the best performance of the run.But on other nights there was far too much chopping and changing to allow the ballet to reveal itself. Of course it would be fascinating to know the ins and outs of all the changes that occurred and it left me wondering whether at least one of the changes was attributable to the rights owner putting her foot down.The problem with Symphonic is that the choreographer expected his dancers to be able to dance at speed. Antoinette Sibley tells a story of two very eminent dancers, well loved by many on this forum,who approached her saying that the rehearsal pianist was playing too quickly as they didn't have time to point their feet.I believe her response was that the rehearsal was being conducted at the speed at which they would be required to dance in performance and at that stage of the ballet the dancers wouldn't be able to feel their feet.I have to say that on the basis of his performance as Oberon I could not imagine Golding dancing at the required speed. The other problem is that you can't simply treat the cast as three couples each couple capable of dancing with any other group of four dancers. Any cast change has some impact on the overall effect of the ballet.The entire cast has to dance as soloists and as a corps and unless everyone hears the music in exactly the same way there will inevitably be some slight mistiming which might escape notice in another ballet but which call attention to themselves in this particular work.That's one of the reasons it is so difficult for the dancers.. As far as the preconception that ballet is only for an elite is concerned that is not going to change all the while people believe that it is not for them and that view is reinforced by almost every story about the Royal Opera House telling the reader how much the top priced seats in the stalls cost and there is nothing about ballet on readily accessible terrestrial TV channels. I'm not that sure that ballet tickets are that expensive when you think about the number of people involved in getting a performance on to the stage but you're not going to be in a position to make that sort of assessment unless you actually go to a performance or two.Their price certainly compares very favourably with the cost of tickets at the National Theatre and in the West End and of course with Premier League football. But of course football is socially acceptable as it is an elite sport rather than an artistic enterprise. It would appear that at present all the arts are fair game because they are elitist if only because they are said to appeal predominantly the middle classes.I wonder what went wrong? Perhaps the problem is that arts companies like the Royal Ballet no longer tell their own story, which it did in the pioneering days but let other people do so often to the company's detriment.

In the late nineteenth century the ballet reformers in St. Petersburg thought that the emphasis on technical developments for their own sake had gone too far.Even Petipa wrote that the Italian school was in danger of destroying ballet. The response of the ballet reformers in St Petersburg was to emphasise the purity of the French school.As a pupil of the Imperial School Pavlova was singled out, not for her technical skills but for the purity of her dance.Then Fokine created a revolutionary work without any choreographic pyrotechnics evoking the French romantic ballet, Chopiniana known to the West as Les Sylphides. Fokine's aesthetics dominated ballet for a time in Russia and for far longer in the West where choreographers continued to create ballets which emphasised balance, order and mood rather than creating works which were "displays of dance". Should the various attempts to reconstruct ballets ranging from LaCotte's La Sylphide and La Fille du Pharon to Ratmansky's Corsaire, Don Quixote, Paquita and Sleeping Beauty be seen as part of a single movement or are there several strands at work? Was LaCotte merely using the idea of reconstruction of long lost works as a cloak of respectability for the creation of works that were essentially new ?Are some of those working in the field trying to recapture the imagined purity of past performance style and practice in a way reminiscent of the Early Music Movement of forty or fifty years ago ? Are some simply against extreme movement and others trying to reassert the supremacy of the choreographer over the performer? Given the amount of time that restoring a ballet takes when there are still former dancers who remember dancing in it are Ratmansky's attempts to restore both choreographic text and performance style of a number of Petipa's major works a good use of his time and creativity ?Do we need to know what Petipa's choreography really looked like or is it enough to praise it however altered what we see may be? Are attempts to reassert the supremacy of late nineteenth classical choreography and dance style and performance practice a thinly disguised attempt to remove every aspect of Soviet balletic practices and style or are they directed at the practices of a few individuals? Is the authenticity movement a welcomed back to basics or a potential block to technical advance?

I think that the fact that Nagdhi was cast in Symphonic Variations and is in Monotones is ample evidence of the confidence that management have in her abilities.Symphonic is certainly not the sort of ballet that just anyone gets to dance on their way up the ranks. It is far from easy because not only do the dancers have to be on stage for the duration of the ballet they have to be able to dance as a cohesive group as well as soloists.In the past it has been the preserve of the select few rather than the multitude.While Nagdhi and Clarke came through with flying colours Hamilton struggled with the speed.As for Monotones it is a great work and both parts are very difficult to bring off successfully.As both sections are very exposed even the slightest error of timing stands out a mile.O'Hare has explained that he will be giving casting details later than was the case in the past in order to take account of performances during the season. Let's see what he does in practice when he casts ballets for the rest of the season and when gaps appear in the schedule through injury or illness I hope that he is going to be brave enough to look to his own dancers even when it comes to replacing someone like Osipova rather than phoning a foreign company for a replacement. But we shall see what happens as the season progresses. As for Nagdhi appearing as a Snowflake that sort of thing was happening to Hayward last year and still does.The Soloists are probably the hardest worked section of the company as they can be called upon to dance both corps work and and the occasional Principal role.It's part of the joy of the position. I wonder how the fans would feel if,for example, neither Lamb or McRae were to appear as Perdita and Florizel this season? If he is going to develop his company O'Hare is going to have to make that sort of decision or we will find that in a few years time out will come the chequebook and a whole lot of dancers developed by other companies will become the company's Principals. As O'Hare has said that the difficulty in recruiting from the school is the number of talented dancers that it produces it is to be hoped that in future years he will feel obliged to promote from within the ranks of the company simply because of the quality of the dancers and their performances.Meanwhile we can enjoy some outstanding young talent. Of course one of the biggest challenges O'Hare will face is how he deals with the expectations of the Principals that they will dance certain roles and the need to develop his young dancers some of whom were born to dance those very roles.Simply scheduling additional performances does not solve the problem.

I found the Vikharev reconstruction fascinating and think that it was a great pity that it was not released on DVD as whatever the Russian audience thought of it, it was an important attempt to show us what the original production looked like which it did since the original designs were used and to some extent it showed what the original choreography looked like.I think everyone would have had good grounds for doubting its status as a genuine attempt to reconstruct Petipa's Sleeping Beauty if there had been any attempt to include an anachronistic fish dive.As far as I am aware the fish dive was introduced into the choreography of the Sleeping Beauty in the Diaghilev production for which Nijinska provided additional choreography such as the Three;Ivans. this latter innovation had the effect of depriving the Act III grand pas de deux of its coda. I do not pretend to have any knowledge of the text danced in Milan apart from what I have read about it and the ABT performances.I referred to the fish dives in the context of the La Scala performances of Ratmansky's Beauty as I understood that,although inauthentic because they post date Petipa, they were included in the ABT production because they were regarded as iconic. Perhaps Ratmansky felt able to omit them in Milan. I find this sudden enthusiasm for trying to restore Petipa's text and trying to dance it in the appropriate style particularly fascinating when one of the leading lights is one of the most sought after choreographers working today.It is a great pity that Ratmansky is not in favour of DVDs as a DVD is likely to be the only opportunity that most people will have of seeing anything remotely resembling the choreography that Petipa set however stylistically perfectly or imperfectly it might be danced.I assume that his objections to DVDs are based on the idea that a recording can only be the account of how a dance text was performed on a single occasion and should not be treated as holy writ as to what it should look like.It may even be that he regards all the work so far as "work in progress" because he is asking his dancers to adopt a style that is not one to which they are accustomed.But that fails to take into account the number of ballet enthusiasts there are who will never be able to see a performance of it unless it is recorded.

Well we shall all have to be patient and see what happens.I think that O'Hare has got some very tough decisions to make. Given the number of Principals who he has to accommodate can he afford to give dancers like Emma McGuire or Demelza Parrish an opportunity to show what they can do if that means holding back the development of the younger dancers like Hayward,Nagdhi, Ball,Clarke,O'Sullivan,Stix Brunell and the more recent intake?After all the majority of the Principals are in their thirties and unless he intends to buy in the next generation of Principals and has the money to do so he has to begin succession planning now.Arguably the greatest contribution that O'Hare can make during his directorship is not the creation of new ballets, welcome though many of them are, but devising a system which provides opportunities for those in the junior ranks of the company,identifies potential and develops the next generation of Principal dancers while avoiding the overt selection at graduation undertaken by the major Russian companies. On of the things that makes little or no sense in this context is O'Hare's choice of repertory unless of course bringing the Two Pigeons and the Invitation back into the repertory is part of a training and development scheme. Perhaps he could be persuaded to revive Ashton's Les Rendezvous,Les Patineurs, A Wedding Bouquet,Jazz Calendar,Facade and MacMillan's Solitaire which are all ballets which give dancers the chance to create characters without the burden of carrying the whole show.Perhaps he should try to persuade his inhouse choreographers to make ballets on the younger dancers rather than the established ones. No actor, dancer or singer is equally good across the entire repertory of their art form.When that truth is acknowledged then the audience can, perhaps, be spared the horror of the entire season being taken up with an incredibly limited number of full length.works while every Principal gives us their interpreration of a particular role.I know that this is unlikely to happen and that if it did this site would be full of complaints from fans about dancers being passed over.But I think that there is a great deal to be said in favour of typecasting.I am far more interested in seeing dancers appearing in roles in which they are likely to excel than in seeing a dancer who even I can see in unlikely to bring much to a role being given the opportunity to give us her Juliet or Odette/Odile or his Romeo or Oberon on the basis of their position in the company. In a company the size of the Royal Ballet there is no excuse for compromise casting that is often inevitable in smaller companies.McRae is a fine dancer but while he would make a fine Mercutio he fails to convince as Romeo. It's all to do with his cheeky chappy stage personality and the sort of thing that he did in Rubies where he gave an extraordinary display of his technical skill and speed.He seems to me to be suited for any role that David Blair or Michael Coleman made their own and any role that requires a technician.Is he dancing Romeo because someone thinks that he is suited to the role or is it connected with the trend in recent years to treat this and other roles previously danced by Principal dancers as beneath the dignity of the current crop of Principal dancers? Casting dancers because of their status rather than their suitability for roles adds to the difficulty of providing the junior ranks of the company with opportunities for development. I don't expect that the director will deny the Principals their "rights" as far as roles are concerned but he may well find that he has to skip a generation in order to have the experienced dancers that he will need when the current Principals retire.

Mounting this production should not prevent La Scala from reviving the Nureyev version in future years if the company wishes to do so.It will certainly mean that the audience will see Nureyev's production with fresh eyes. Will they find it a relief to return to the familiar Nureyev choreography or will they see it as very much a product of Nureyev's Soviet training and experience full of rather more choreography than is good for it? Will they prefer the Nureyev display of dancing with some sections of choreography looking more like a series of technical tests, a bit like a choreographic show jumping course, or will they come to admire an attempt to stage a version of the ballet that Petipa might recognise as his own work? At least the La Scala audience has not been sold the story that their old production had faithfully preserved every element of Petipa's choreography.Seeing anything danced at the speed intended by both choreographer and composer with a real attempt to reproduce the style of the early twentieth century, even if the fish dives from the 1920's London revival are included, is likely to come as a bit of a shock to everyone audience and dancers alike.But Ratmansky has to be right when he says that as everyone admires Petipa so much perhaps it is time we looked at his choreography. I wonder what if anything is lurking in the La Scala archives from the original Petipa production.As I recall the original Petipa Sleeping Beauty was a co-production with La Scala.Did it all get lost or is it still sitting somewhere waiting to be discovered? Stucha the MacMillan production was the second one that I saw. I don't recall all that much about the staging except that the colours were all rather subdued and the fairies looked as if they were dancing in a swimming pool.i think that it was an attempt to restore the choreography but it wasn't that well received. I think that a significant part of the audience was still mourning the loss of the Messel production because when DeValois was asked to mount a new production although no one criticised the choreographic text there were lots of people who thought that it wasn't opulent enough.

Well I think that to call in anyone from the outside at the moment,especially former company members, would be seen as a massive vote of no confidence in the company as a whole.I expect that the casting of Nagdhi,Ball and Hayward in this run of Romeo and Juliet and some of the casts announced for the Two Pigeons after Christmas will help to reinforce the idea that hard work and talent will be rewarded. I believe that the promotion of Morera to Principal had a massively positive effect on the company as a whole when it became known. As far as Salenko's Juliet is concerned I thought that her Juliet was a series of beautiful poses and beautifully executed steps but singularly lacking in drama.It was MacMillan with all the quirkiness and character ironed out The pas in the tomb was beautiful shapes when it should have been ugly. I wonder whether her presence was at McRae's request or whether her presence is part of a conscious decision to bring in a certain number of dancers from outside the company each year? I am not sure that she brought all that much to Juliet and I am really surprised to see her cast in Two Pigeons. It can't simply be a question of height can it? I think that O'Hare has to do all that he can to develop the talent that he has got rather than calling in outsiders with big names. He should use Osipova's absence as an opportunity to develop his own dancers. It must be pretty depressing to come to realise that you are most unlikely to progress beyond soloist roles in all but a few ballets from the company's rarely performed specialist Ashton repertory and truly disheartening to see big names appearing in roles when they are unwilling or unable to perform in the appropriate style if you know that there are dancers in the company who could perform them in the appropriate style. I suppose it depends on how long Osipova is off as to how much opportunity there will be to give the youngsters a real crack at things. If she is off for any length of time then I would hope that we see debuts by dancers in the company rather than a string of guest artists.When Norman Morrice imposed a no guest star rule in the late 1970's it was a failure because there were no where near the number of talented dancers in waiting that the company has at present.There was also an unfortunate tendency to treat young inexperienced dancers as flavour of the month, selected and then discarded in favour of the next "new best thing".It has to be said that some of the choices didn't make much sense but they weren't all duds. It will be interesting to see how far O'Hare feels he can go with casting young hopefuls in big roles between now and the end of March.If Osipova is still off who will replace her in Rhapsody and who might get an opportunity to dance Giselle? As far as sensitivity to choreographic style is concerned two themes crop up frequently one is an idea expressed by Geraldine Morris in her book about Ashton's choreographic style that those who teach the Vaganova method lead their pupils to believe that there is only way to perform a particular step whether in class or in performance; the second expressed by a number of older dancers who coach is the unwillingness of dancers to modify the steps that they learnt in class to those required by the choreographer in a stage performance.Sensitivity to differences in choreographic style is not entirely absent from the stage of course it's just that it isn't always where it needs to be.One of the most interesting aspects of the Trocks is that they all possess a real understanding of the different choreographic styles in which they are performing.Sensitivity to style seems to be more important to a performer sending things up than it is to someone playing it straight where the audience seems to be quite satisfied with dancers performing in a "one size fits all style" where high extensions are seen as part of the "improvement" in technique rather than a whim of current fashion. If a singer were to treat Rossini as if it were Wagner he/she would be laughed off the stage. If a dancer treats Petipa as if he were or ought to be Forsythe, or Ashton or MacMillan choreography as if it needed correcting to classroom steps he/she is applauded.

Lucky you to have the chance to see this reconstrucution.It sounds fascinating. I just hope that it persuades the Royal Ballet to modify its production so that the modern "improvements" such as treating the Rose Adagio as an international sporting event as far as the duration of Aurora's balances are concerned and all those coarse arabesques are removed. Ratmansky said in an interview words to the effect that as everyone praises Petipa it was time we saw his choreography.It sounds gorgeous, What an innovation to play the music at the tempi set by Petipa! I can see that it would come as a shock to an audience who have grown up with a production crammed with more twentieth century style dancing and choreography than is good for it. It must be a shock to see choreography treated as beautiful comparatively restrained movement rather than an opportunity to display flamboyant technique. As far as the panorama is concerned I think it was the Royal Ballet's 1977 production by de Valois that had the panorama. That production was intended to make up for the two previous productions both of which had been thought less than satisfactory. I hope that the Ratmansky production finds its way onto DVD. I also hope that if it does it doesn't suffer from all the clever camera work that mars La Scala's recent Don Q DVD.

I couldn't agree more about the Mandolin dance which which is now crass and crude and no longer seems to have anything to do with the rest of the ballet choreographically. I believe that Lady M. tinkers with things perhaps she asked for it to be changed,but even if it wasn't done at her request she carries responsibility for the modification of the choreography as she has allowed it to remain.I am pretty sure that the mandolin dance in its current form crept in after MacMillan's death. Anyone like to comment on Lady M's description of ballet before Kenneth made Romeo and Juliet? i don't blame her for believing that her Kenneth was an innovative choreographer, which he was,but her description of ballet pre Kenneth is completely ridiculous.

No Cavycapers not "necromancy" which is calling up the dead to tell you about the future.Think Saul and the witch of Endor.I think you mean necrophilia.I'm somewhat surprised that no one raised any objection to that aspect of the choreography when the ballet was first performed.1965 seems several centuries ago as far as what is deemed acceptable on stage is concerned. People were more readily shocked than they are now.Perhaps the decision to give Fonteyn and Nureyev the first night wasn't just about box office after all.Their more balletic approach did ensure that the ballet was greeted with universal enthusiasm. Would the response have been the same if the first performance had been danced by Seymour and Gable giving their far more visceral and realistic account of the choreography? This is a genuine enquiry. As far as I am concerned Seymour was one of the greatest dancers that I have ever seen and certainly the best dance actress although Marcia Haydee comes a very close second.But what would the reaction have been on the first night if the originators of the roles had danced them?

It is a great pity that no part of Seymour's Juliet is available on DVD. I find it extraordinary to think that no one ever managed to capture any part of it if only because it was one of the great performances of the last century. For me the most effective Juliets are the ones who are not afraid of making ugly shapes.When Seymour danced Juliet the tomb pas de deux was like a horrible caricature of the balcony pas de deux and she was a heavy piece of dead meat that flopped about in a way that most of the recent Juliets seem unable or reluctant to emulate.With other dancers it's an element of their performance that you remember with Tait it was her hands when she was on the floor with Lord Capulet looming over her.You felt that the tension that she was experiencing had found its way into her hands which were suddenly transformed into claws. The thing about Seymour's performance was that there was much more variety in it than you normally see now. It did not look like a carefully modulated reproduction of a choreographic text.Her movements had an inevitability about them. They were Juliet's thoughts and movements that you were experiencing as an audience member rather than something that she had taken great pains to learn.The contrast between moments of stillness and movement were extremely strong.As Juliet sat still on the bed you felt as if you were drawn into her thoughts and her desperation and the music was not so much the accompaniment of a stage picture but an integral part of her teeming thoughts.When she rose from the bed you could almost pinpoint the moment at which made up her mind to seek Friar Lawrence's assistance.The section where she runs off cloak flying had far greater urgency and momentum than it has now,and she was still in a panic when she rushed into his cell.Everything was more raw and less ballet like; the retching after she has taken the draught looked very uncomfortable, she really looked as if she was fighting back nausea and she was frightened."What have I taken? Is it poison?" I think that most people would have agreed with David Wall that you forgot that she was dancing.Of course in the tomb scene Seymour had the advantage of a staging that emphasised the horror of the tomb. It is far from clear to me why that part of the staging has not been restored in its entirety. Now I know that Seymour had the gift of apparent spontaneity and was a great dance actress but I don't think that all of her impact in the role was attributable to her dramatic gifts I think that the way the music was played had something to do with it. I also suspect that the great emphasis on technique for its own sake that has been a feature of ballet performances in the last thirty years has something to do with the ballet's impact then and now.There seems to be a general desire to be seen to execute steps correctly whether or not the choreographer set a modified version of the classroom steps.Also I don't think that counting was so prevalent then. I know that MacLeary commented on the problem that he experienced with dancers who didn't see ballet as a theatrical art form and who thought that steps in a ballet should be performed in the same way that they were in class. Let me finish by saying that I recognise that ballet like opera has been in terminal decline since it first became an independent art form.I am aware that concern about technique is not a bad thing as long as the performer has the flexibility of mind to recognise and reproduce the choreographer's steps and style when they dance. Technique is only a means to an end and it shouldn't get in the way of a dancer's performance of a ballet. I still hope to see someone else who makes me forget that they are dancing.

As there are very few recordings of Balanchine's works available on DVD and I don't think that anyone has mentioned them let me tell you about the release of a Balanchine treasure trove that is now available to the ballet enthusiast. In 2014 VAI issued a series of DVDs which contain recordings of NYCB which were made in Canada in the1950's and 1960's.They have been issued under the title New York City Ballet in Montreal and mainly contain ballets by Balanchine and Robbins.Some of the Balanchine ballets are familiar to ballet goers in this country but many such as Raymonda Variations are not.Although they were not filmed in the best of circumstances they provide an extraordinary opportunity to see ballets which we may only know by name and dancers who we may have heard of but most of us have never seen such as Tanaquil Le Clercq, Jacques d'Amboise,Patricia Neary, Melissa Hayden and Diana Adams.They show the Balanchine style in process of being created and are, as such, interesting as historical documents but they also enable the viewer to gain a wider knowledge of Balanchine's works.There are a total of six DVDs and they are all worth watching.Some of them have been available in the ROH shop but needless to say they are all available on Amazon.I have bought several and so far I have not been disappointed.