ChrisG

I was at the first (very hot) performance of this programme on Friday evening and agree to its excellence, especially the van Manen piece, which was sublime. Benjamin Ella’s piece was light and frothy with definite hints of Dances at a Gathering. He was in the audience but sadly wasn’t called forward for a curtain call. Tiler Peck’s piece was full of New York pizazz, and was further confirmation after her Sadler’s Wells show that she may have as bright a future as a choreographer as her NYCB namesake. The original Janacek string quartet reflected, like many of his later works, his obsession with a much younger woman. Peck removed this age gap which obviously was valid in balletic terms, and it ended up being a young man’s hormones that were on show! Maybe Kevin O’Hare will give Peck a commission on the back of it, or even Christopher Hampson, who I think I also spotted in the audience. 
 

For those of you unlucky enough to live in the south, go see it at the Linbury if you can. It really showcases the excellence of the dancers not just in the story ballets for which they are noted but also in the abstract offerings on show here. I hope Federico continues to provide us with such bills in subsequent seasons.

I hope I’m not being too political in saying this, but if arts organisations like BRB can make it through the next year, and as seems likely there is a change of government, the future might be less bleak. I say this mostly because the newly appointed Shadow arts minister Thangam Debbonaire is a practicing cellist who studied at Chetham’s School of Music and the Royal College of Music and indeed has played with the RLPO. To have someone like that potentially in charge of the arts relatively soon fills me with hope that arts organisations may soon have a fairer hearing from central government, whatever may be the travails of local government.

However, I may of course be cruelly disappointed…

On 04/05/2023 at 20:15, Emeralds said:

Having watched both performed by RB, my personal opinion is that Daphnis & Chloe, with its stunning score by Ravel (which seems to be “trending” this season with lots of play time on radio recently, a sold out performance at the Proms in August 2022 by the National Youth Orchestra -who did their own singing - which was aired on tv, and quite a few concert performances this season, having been mothballed for some years) is easier to follow as a story and might be popular with audiences with 1) an inspired cast and leads who really gel with the story, 2) publicity and marketing emphasising the concert hall credentials of its score.

The Hallé are doing the full score in concert this autumn. I’ll be singing in the chorus!

All in all a very satisfactory programme imho. I'd forgotten that Anemoi had a Rachmaninov score so really pleased to see that return as part of the 150th celebrations along with The Cellist which I'm also looking forward to seeing again. Slightly odd that the Rachmaninov work I thought would be there, Rhapsody is in the programme but not until next year! Always pleased to see Manon and there are two more Macmillan works there I'm really looking forward to seeing for the first time. My only disappointment is the lack of Balanchine and Robbins, as others have said.

It's not ballet connected, but I'm really pleased to see the  Fallen Angels Dance Theatre given their debut in the Linbury. They're the resident company at Storyhouse, my local theatre here in Chester, and fully deserve this opportunity. The work they and Paul Bayes Kircher did on developing the movement for the recent production of Chris Bush's play Faustus That Damned Woman was remarkable.

If anyone’s interested, a live concert recording of Les Noces from the 1996 Verbier Festival has just been released by Deutsche Grammophon on Spotify and Apple Music Classical. It features the choir I sing in, the Hallé Choir, and talking to those who took part it sounds like it was a hoot! The album also includes a recording of Rite of Spring from the 2013 festival.

Wonderful news! Tiler Peck this season - the whole company next!!

Just had an email from Covent Garden to say that Australian Ballet will no longer be performing Kunstkamer and have replaced it with Balanchine's Jewels. Existing ticket holders are being offered a refund, though I certainly won't be asking for one!

4 minutes ago, Mary said:

Corybantics is on in June!

I knew that, and I'm going to see it! I missed out an important word - I meant to say 'it's a while since we saw a NEW shorter Wheeldon work'. I must remember to proof read my words!

My thoughts about next season!:

• Given it's the Rachmaninov 150th anniversary year, I'm guessing it's possible we might see Rhapsody in a triple bill in the autumn. An obvious work to pair it with would be Symphonic Dances, but that would be a tricky decision to make.
• It's a while since we saw a shorter Wheeldon work (Corybantic Games?), so I would predict we see one of those in a triple bill sometime next season
• I really enjoyed Jess and Morgs' new works for Scottish Ballet and BRB this season, so given Kevin O'Hare often seems to go with the zeitgeist, I would think it's possible they might be doing something, even if it's only in the Linbury
• Into pure wish-list territory now, I'd love to see, in no particular order:

1. An Ashton double bill of The Dream and Daphnis and Chloe (imho the most beautiful hour of music ever written!)
2. Manon
3. Symphony in C
4. Concerto
5. Anything by Forsythe
6. The first revival of The Cellist

I finally got to see Ashton's Cinderella on Thursday night and it was well worth the long wait. As a result I have a couple contributions to the ongoing debates around this production which I hope won't be too controversial. Firstly I loved Kristen McNally and Christina Arestis as the stepsisters. After a slightly slow start I really began to believe them as the slightly annoying elder sisters I never had (I just had slightly annoying elder brothers!), and the point where Cinderella made up with them at the end as a result felt very touching. The only productions of Cinderella I've seen before were the Wheeldon one (seen with Dutch National Ballet and ENB), the BRB Bintley one, and the Ratmansky version seen on Blu Ray, and all three of those productions had female sisters. My only exposure to Ashton's version prior to last night was the recently issued DVD with Sibley and Dowell that had Ashton and Helpmann as the sisters, and I have to admit  that I found them somewhat tedious and decidedly anachronistic. They came over as caricatures, but to my mind McNally and Arestis turned them into characters. My probably minority thoughts therefore are that I wish Kevin O'Hare had bitten the bullet and cast the majority of the performances with females in the stepsister roles (as had been Ashton's original intention) rather than the majority male casting that we're seeing in this run of performances.

Secondly, to enter the Mark Monaghan/Hayward debate, when I saw that the ballet was being revived and knowing that, owing to my location, I would only be able to see one performance, my immediate thought was that I would like to see Francesca Hayward as I thought she would be perfect in this particular role. I'm sure all the other Cinderellas have their merits - I would have loved to have seen them all, and I'm really sorry not to have seen Marianela in the gala (sadly my bank balance couldn't stretch that far!), but I'm so glad my decision didn't prove to be a mistake. I felt Hayward simply glowed in this role and Alexander Campbell to me is her perfect partner, not just physically in terms of height but in terms of empathy. Having seen them also recently in Sleeping Beauty, I really do think that they fit together well.

All in all then, a big thumbs up to me for this production, for the sets, for the lighting (apart from the overture where I got a spotlight shining right in my eyes), for the costumes, for the orchestra and most of all for the dancers. 

6 hours ago, LinMM said:

Of course Northern Ballet was initially set up as Northern Dance Theatre and was originally “made in Manchester”

I saw it in its very early days on the Wirral in Port Sunlight at the Gladstone Theatre I think or it may have been in a Hall there I always thought was called Port Sunlight Hall but not sure if that exists any more!! 

You possibly mean Hulme Hall, and yes that very much still exists. Port Sunlight is such a beautiful place, and the Lady Lever Gallery is a must for anyone who loves the Pre Raphaelites. It’s all about 25 minutes drive up the Wirral from where I live

I saw the last performance of the Sheffield run last night at the Lyceum, combining it with visits to some of my old undergraduate haunts! I saw the same cast as MaddieRose and echo everything she said. I hadn't seen The Great Gatsby before and I wasn't sure if I would like the complete ballet, but I very much loved it! I just thought I'd make a few general observations to add to hers

1 Though they haven't been called Northern Ballet Theatre for some time I love how the emphasis is still very much on theatre. Whether they're dancing works by David Nixon, Kenneth Tindall or Cathy Marston each movement the dancers make has a meaning in terms of the overall plot whilst remaining pure dance. They are all such good dance actors, especially in this show Rachael Gillespie as the ill-fated Myrtle and Harris Beattie as her angst-ridden husband George.

2 The music made me realise what an undervalued composer Richard Rodney Bennett was. I really liked how they matched the varied styles that he composed in to different types of scene. For the love scenes there were extracts from the romantic scores he wrote for films like Murder on the Orient Express and Nicholas and Alexandra. For the sultry Myrtle and George scenes there were the full-blown jazz workouts of his Jazz Calendar suite, and finally for the dramatic scenes in the second act where the plot well and truly thickened there were extracts from his much more spiky avant-garde concert hall works like the Concerto for Percussion.

3 These days Northern Ballet may be Made in Leeds, but in terms of conducting they're very much still Made in Manchester. I really enjoyed the conducting of the latest product of the inestimable Royal Northern College of Music conductor's course to head over the Pennines, Lauren Wasnyczuk, following in the recent footsteps of Jonathan Lo, Daniel Parkinson and Ellie Slorach.

4 Memo to self - don't travel 70+ miles to see a show on the night clocks go forward, especially on a night they closed the M56. I think this may have been the first night I actually saw the time flick forward from 1am to 2am on my phone!

I saw this afternoon’s matinée performance of Woolf Works and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s one thing or another for me with McGregor’s ballets - I either love them or hate them. So for example, Dante Project and Chroma - definite thumbs up, Carbon Life and Obsidian Tear - not so much. Woolf Works is definitely in the love category however, and seeing it during its first run changed the course of my PhD that I was a couple of years into at the time by exposing me to the work of Virginia Woolf. I was was looking at the way the real world is described in fiction and I ended up using a couple of excerpts from Mrs Dalloway to try and prove that Woolf was just as good a describer of a subjective reality as writers such as Arnold Bennett and J.B. Priestley were of an objective reality. They just came at it from different directions. I found that McGregor captured this perfectly in the first section of Woolf Works, and my two subsequent viewings, both as with the first viewing starring the luminous Alessandra Ferri (who appears to be ageless), have only intensified that feeling.

I get the same feeling in the final section and both these sections always bring me to tears, especially the moment in the first section leading up to Septimus Smith leaping off the balcony and the moment in the third section where Ferri stands still as Gillian Anderson reads out Woolf’s unbearably sad suicide note. I’m still not quite on board with the second section, though it always looks great, but it’s always the bit where I feel my concentration wavering. However, Orlando is the one out of the three novels that I haven’t yet read so maybe that might help with the interpretation.

My evening’s entertainment at Sadler’s Wells was just the tonic I needed after the melancolia of Woolf Works. What a programme Tiler Peck’s Turn it Out was - an hour and a half of full-on enjoyment, and what a dancer she is!! I really must save up to go back to New York and see her again before she retires.

Great to see both of these in one day!!

38 minutes ago, Ianlond said:

The piece ending the first half one of the best things I’ve seen in ages.

Absolutely! I don’t think I’ve smiled so much in a theatre for ages!!

I agree that the programme looks much more intriguing than this season’s. Interesting that after December 2nd there’s nothing outside London - I for one would have loved to have seen Giselle in Liverpool. Given the drop in Arts Council funding was this maybe inevitable?

39 minutes ago, Sim said:

Was anyone lucky enough to be at the Semionova/Lawrence SL tonight?

Yes, I was - just driven the 80 odd miles home. It was quite a night - Brandon Lawrence was impeccable as always but Semionova was just wonderful. Graceful and pure in the white acts (though her tempi were very slow!) and downright evil in Act 3. Huge shout out for the corps of swans - the opening of Act 4 with the swans rising from the mist brought gasps from the audience and a spontaneous round of applause. Also impressed yet again with Riku Ito as Benno - he is such a good acquisition. There was a very good pre-performance event as well with Jonathan Payn interviewing Daria Stanciulescu and newly promoted (and still quite emotional!) Lachlan Monaghan, before dashing off to get ready to play Rothbart

19 minutes ago, Angela Essex said:

The cinema manager told us it was nothing to do with the cinema and that everyone everywhere watching would be having the same issue as the fault was with the broadcast from roh itself. Not sure if that is true though so I’d be interested to know if anyone else experienced similar this evening.

Here in Chester we got everything without interruption - I think they may have been telling you porkies! 

And yes, wasn’t it wonderful?! When I saw it live I was up  in the amphitheatre and wasn’t 100% convinced by it, but seeing it up close on the screen the excellence of Wheeldon’s storytelling came through loud and clear.

If anyone's interested, Tiler Peck is featured in the latest episode of the NYCB podcast City Ballet, talking to Jared Angle about Balanchine's Allegro Brillante - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/city-ballet-the-podcast/id1479330738?i=1000594647387

You can actually see her dancing the whole piece on YouTube where somebody has posted the video of it that NYCB put out during the first lockdown. Watching it again it's definitely become one of my favourite Balanchine pieces!

Vienna State Ballet were prominently featured today as always in the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Day concert from the Musikverein this morning. There was a waltz and a polka in the main body of the concert and a lovely dance for five couples set against the Blue Danube in the encores, all beautifully choreographed by Ashley Page in sumptuous settings. Presumably it'll be avallable on iPlayer for the normal length of time!

40 minutes ago, Sim said:

Today at the end of his solo Sambe did a series of turns en place instead of the usual manège around the stage. Very good they were, too!  

He’d obviously had a word with conductor Barry Wordsworth because there was a much bigger orchestral accelerando than usual at the end of the solo. Quite exciting!

The concert is being recorded by the BBC for broadcast on December 15th, and obviously BBC Sounds thereafter 

If any of you are in or around Manchester this week and want a Sleeping Beauty fix, then Mark Elder will be conducting the Hallé in his own personal selection of music from the ballet (sadly sans dancers!) at the Bridgewater Hall this afternoon (Wednesday 30th) at 2.15pm, and also on Thursday 1st December at 7.30 and Sunday 4th December at 4pm. The programme also includes Samuel Barber’s Medea’s Meditation and Dance of Vengeance, an extract from a ballet score that he apparently wrote for Martha Graham. I’m going this afternoon and I’m really interested to see what Sir Mark selects from Sleeping Beauty and whether his favourite bits are the same as mine!

This looks really interesting! I’m in London on the 11th for the Woolf Works matinée so it looks like my evening is sorted.

I know it’s not strictly ballet related but if any of you are concerned about the plight of ENO you might be interested in signing this petition - https://chng.it/NDtZmjKQyG

P.S. The petition was started by Bryn Terfel!

51 minutes ago, Jan McNulty said:

I'm afraid I've just laughed out loud!!

Ditto! I know Mr Macaulay is far more qualified to write about dance than me, and that any person’s response to any piece of art is individual, but what he describes bears no relation to the programme myself and a large Birmingham Hippodrome audience gave vociferous approval to a week or so ago.  Never mind - I guess it means I’m a Philistine.

I think his comment that Carlos Acosta has ‘still achieved relatively little’ at BRB should also not go unchallenged. I’m sure Carlos would be the first to admit he hasn’t done as much as he would have wanted, but hey, there’s been a pandemic. In the meantime a glorious new Don Quixote, the introduction of a number of works from choreographers from Europe and Latin America new to the company, several exciting new commissions that carry on the Ballet Now initiative that David Bintley started, including Will Tuckett’s wonderful Lazuli Sky, an increased online presence in terms of talks, discussions and filmed rehearsals à la RB, and a general revitalisation of the company will be enough to be going on with for me!