Geoff

Maybe Geoff meant the Sunday Times interview? Otherwise, I suppose it's possible that the Observer doesn't put all of its content online.

Thanks Bluebird. I am trying hard, by squinting, to picture the copy of the review section of the Observer from last Sunday turning into the previous week's Sunday Times culture section, but no, it won't work, sorry. The Telegraph said it was quoting from the Observer, and so it was: see page 6 of the Observer review section, 26th February, interview with Polunin by Rachel Cooke, spread across two pages with what they call "portraits" by Suki Dhanda.

 

No idea when this article might appear online. There are sometimes reasons why a piece does not appear (eg copyright) or indeed it may have been briefly online but then removed, for whatever reason (stranger things have happened). Short of posting it to you, not sure what else to do to help.

Next week sees New Chamber Opera's performances of a double bill of William Walton's extravaganza The Bear, and Igor Stravinsky's burlesque Renard. For more information on the programme, please visit:

 

https://www.newchamberopera.co.uk/

 

Venue: New College Ante-chapel

 

Date: 9 & 10 March 2017

 

Time: 8.30pm

 

Tickets: £12/£7 from https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/newchamberopera

 

Or on the door

the usual low-level gossip that is so pleasing to the media.

That's as maybe. I have now read yesterday's long Observer interview - which is the basis for the (accurate) Telegraph summary - and what Polunin says there squares exactly with what he privately told a mutual friend at the time of his RB departure. So I suspect the Observer has just printed what he said to the journalist. That is not gossip, that is the reporter doing their job.

Have I discovered a new problem? Last night I was sitting in the ROH near several people with Apple smart watches (no idea what they are called, but they are big squarish watches which appear to be able to operate like smartphones as well as watches, ie deliver email etc) At least one of them found his "watch" far more interesting than Osipova, and so lit up the amphitheatre with the technology on his wrist while the performance was going on.

 

The most exciting thing for him seemed to be reading emails, which he did until his neighbour finally told him to stop it.

Am I alone in hating Black Swan? I don't think it did the world of ballet any favours, providing a very jaundiced view of what life is like in a ballet company.

 

No you aren't; I hate it too and so do just about every dancer and ballet fan with whom I have discussed it!

Hope to see you again soon Sim! When we meet I'll tell you more about my dear friend, a recently retired prima ballerina, with whom I went to see that shitty Swan film. By the end she was sobbing because, as she told me, it is a terrible film which contains more truths about being a dancer than other films. A minority view, perhaps (I hated the film) but maybe worth noting,

I think that the gifts that they give depends on production to production.

 

Here is my take on the Fairy Gifts

 

1) Modesty and Grace.

2) Intelligence and Honour

3) Beauty and Generosity.

4) Music and Song.

5) Charm and Eloquence.

6) Wisdom

Certainly the NAMES of the fairies change from production to production, see for example this useful table:-

 

http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/uploads/monthly_10_2007/post-848-1191874847.jpg

 

But, as I started to allude to in my no doubt underinformed original post, the GIFTS themselves were set by Vsevolozhsky and Petipa, and are written into the choreography (eg the purity mime - incidentally "honesty" might do as well as a translation as "purity", remember we are dealing with English versions of Russian descriptions derived from French!) As such the gifts by definition cannot change without the choreography being changed. The audiences of the time would have understood what gifts were being offered, simply by watching the show rather than needing to read a programme or be told the names of the fairies.

 

Nonetheless here goes (approximate names only, of course, as above):-

 

1 - Purity / honesty

2 - Grace / dancing

3 - Generosity / fertility

4 - Laughter / singing

5 - Passion / power

6 - Wisdom

The "coaching incident" referred to in an earlier post,seemed to take Kevin by surprise.He probably did not expect an eighty nine year old in high heels to leap out of her seat and start to coach...Given the transformation which she achieved within only a few minutes you might have hoped that Kevin would have recognised the need for some further coaching for all those cast in the Fairy Variations the fact that they continue to be so variable in performance seems to be evidence that he does not think it necessary.

An example might be the first fairy variation, the fairy known at the original premiere in St Petersburg as "Candite" - "Candide" - a name which is understandable enough (though currently for some reason she is rather confusingly labelled "Fairy of the Crystal Fountain"). She brings the gift of purity and her variation requires the dancer to perform the conventional mime movement which stands, in the traditional vocabulary, for purity. When I looked at the BBC recording of the RB doing this in 1978, the dancer performed this mime throughout the variation; the company certainly still understood what to do in 2003, as the mime is described in detail in the programme for that year's new production; but I have seen only faint echoes of the correct mime during the current run. Are things getting forgotten?

 

I should add, however, that the fifth fairy (the so called "finger variation") seemed back in 1978 to have no idea she was meant to indicate positive and negative (opposing) electrical charges, while our current fairies do this very nicely. So maybe things just depend on who is coaching what at any particular time.

Turandot is one of the operas in which I would still want to see Alagna. But yes, there is a risk he will cancel.

 

His tickets are likely to go quick. Lindstrom is probably the bigger name of the two Turandots so their performances will probably go first (the ROH website gives details of prices, if you have trouble PM me and I'll send you a scan of the page in the Friends brochure)

 

One thing I might add: the old ROH Turandot production is a "banker", a reliable night out for those who don't often go as well as the regulars.

not one Lilac Fairy I've seen has been able to give a decent account of the variation (maybe the RB should change the choreography if no one can dance it well)

During last May's RB Insight evening ("The Royal Ballet 1946-1956") Kevin O'Hare introduced us to a young dancer who was learning the Lilac Fairy variation, and said we would watch her being rehearsed by a member of staff. After not many minutes, one of the invited speakers - the then 88 year old Dame Beryl Grey - asked if she could intervene, Beryl Grey being of course one of the greatest dancers in the history of the RB (see YouTube).

 

What happened in the next few minutes was most revealing. First, we - and the dancer - learned a great deal about the Lilac Fairy and this variation in particular. But more worryingly it became obvious that not only was all this new to the girl, it was also new to the person who was meant to be coaching her and who should have known it. My thought at the time was whether the RB collective repository of choreographic understanding and performance tradition is getting lost.

Two specimen lines from today's double page Polunin interview by Debra Craine in The Times:

 

* When asked about the state of [his] relationship [with Osipova] Polunin is vague and indecisive. "We are taking a break; we are probably not together now".

 

* Though in the next breath you discover that Osipova will be dancing with him in his Project Polunin at the Wells

Balcony loose seat tix

Sorry for the beginners question, but what are these seats? And why are they available after the others?

Twee - irredeemably so - Two Pigeons

It's Valentine's Day which is perhaps an appropriate date to make an obvious remark. We know Two Pigeons was a gift of love from Ashton to someone he had loved (maybe lost, maybe found again) who inspired him, and as a result the work is chock full, chokingly full, of deeply felt and sincerely expressed emotion. That may be one explanation why, at the end of each performance I attended of the most recent RB run, I looked along whatever row I was sitting in and saw all kinds of people wiping away tears. Real emotion by a sincere artist, sincerely performed (at least sometimes) and received as such by a grateful public.

 

If that adds up to "twee", I'm a banana.

To get an idea of a perfect Adriana, there is a 1959 recording of the opera that is of first rate quality for its age.  Magda Olivero, the composer's choice, sings the title role with Corelli as Maurizio and Guiletta Simionato as La Principessa.

 

Absolutely superb and gets played over and over again.

I have a Magda Olivero compilation which includes recordings of the two great Adriana arias, recorded in 1939/40 (also some Turandot, Tosca, Traviata etc). Extraordinary!

An interesting discussion about booing has started here:-

 

http://slippedisc.com/2017/02/when-the-booing-has-to-stop/#comments

 

Which begs the question, in over fifty years of attending performances, I have heard boos at the opera (mostly but not exclusively outside the UK) but never once at a ballet. Is my experience unusual (anyone remember where and why a ballet was booed?) or are ballet audiences just different?

 

Maybe the feelings aroused are not the same or the atmosphere different? I remember when I worked briefly at ROH many years ago the bar staff told me that it was well known that far more alcohol gets sold to opera audiences than to ballet ones.

I missed the programme don't think it's available now is it?

Sorry for being unclear. The programme is no longer free on IPlayer but it is available to buy for £1.89 (assuming you have a digital tv or a computer / tablet etc with IPlayer). One pays the money and downloads the programme to keep for as long as one wants. The link is in my previous posting.

 

Hope this helps.

For those of us in the UK, I found The Ballet Master: Sir Peter Wright at 90 (as well as Dancing the Nutcracker - Inside the Royal Ballet and Darcey Bussell: Looking for Margot) available for purchase as a download in BBC Store.

Until and if this film is repeated, buying it from BBC Store (for £1.89!) is now the only way to see it, as it has gone from IPlayer (they let you download it and then keep it). The link is here:-

 

https://store.bbc.com/the-ballet-master-sir-peter-wright-at-90

Thank you Beryl, yes indeed. Do you happen to have a link or suchlike for the full cast list?

The screening I am at for Swan Lake (Phoenix, London) has sadly got no cast lists today. Can someone help with the information?

Anyone expert / obsessed enough to give a judgement on how this tango show compares against all the others? I used to go to each one decades ago, when such shows were rare, but now hardly a season goes by without another chance to see tango on stage so I feel confused.

 

I would love to go at least once a year - or more often if there is something special going on - but am lost for choice. By something special, let me remind those with long memories of one company which had a truly remarkable couple in the group, he clearly some kind of elder statesman of tango (imagine a retired Argentine ambassador) whereas she was barely out of her teens. One of the greatest dance pairings I have ever seen.

I probably liked Lucia better than Norma (is this heresy?)

No heresy! There are lots of elements which make up a judgement, and anyway both productions seemed to divide people. On the simplest of metrics, there is probably more fun music in total in Lucia than in Norma, and there was more going on in that Lucia production than in Norma's forest of crosses, so easy to prefer one over the other. Neither show was perfect, if only because neither lead was totally right (but for different reasons, the Lucia being not quite as good as promoted, the Norma just starting out in the role, not yet at the height she may well reach). Completely with you on Jaho, of course.

I'm a bit surprised that I just received an mail from See tickets (an agency) about ROH ballet tickets for the spring season available through them (not the ROH). They have added on a hefty premium for buying through them of about 10% (from a cursory glance), but seem to have some availablity for the difficult to find tickets. Buy why through them and not the ROH ?

 

http://www.seetickets.com/tour/mayerling/calendar/2

 

http://www.seetickets.com/tour/jewels

This is a new site to me. Over the years I have sometimes used agencies to get tickets for the opera or ballet (never in the UK though): in such situations I accept the mark up, as it usually reflects effort in obtaining the tickets (in some places agencies employ young people to start queuing in the middle of the night before tickets go on sale). But this particular site is intriguing: playing around I found performances where it would sell me two seats but told me a single ticket was not available.

I would be interested to see some detailed statistics about the make up of Royal Opera House Audiences. What percentage of the audience for Watson’s Mayerling dates will be the same on all three nights? 10%? 20%?

Interesting question Saodan, to which the ROH applies itself with some energy (not much is shared publicly though). I can report that I have been shocked over the years by private comments from certain senior ROH executives (better be super discreet here) about those who sit regularly in the amphitheatre. Not sure what is behind this attitude. Perhaps we know too much - or think we do - and write too many letters to management, buy too many tickets, cause too much trouble...

 

It is an odd business which allows itself to dismiss the customers who are most engaged and most loyal.

Alison, as it happens I loath Butterfly, the music, the story, the whole thing of it (sorry everybody) and am not sure there is such a thing as a good production. However Ermonela Jaho is one of the greatest singers it has been my privilege to see in over fifty years of opera going all over the world: do anything you can to see her do this!

I found the latest Met Live in HD - Gounod's Roméo et Juliette - a total bore. Never liked the opera (Faust is much more fun) and despite A list casting, the Broadway-style production did nothing to convert me.

 

So instead here is a new and different production of the Flying Dutchman which has got at least one critic very excited:-

 

http://classical-iconoclast.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/visionary-der-fliegende-hollander.html

 

The show is currently available online:-

 

http://www.theoperaplatform.eu/en/opera/wagner-flying-dutchman

Today is another time I have missed out on getting tickets in the ROH Friday Rush. At least in the old days one could make a commitment and start queuing really early to be certain of getting in.

 

There I was, dead on 1pm, but by the time I had clicked through the various online menus and achieved the point where I could select Friday Rush seats, it was 1.02pm and everything had gone.

 

I wonder if anyone with better understanding can offer any tips (or is it just a matter of having a faster internet connection or faster fingers)?