joy

I believe it was quite something . Even on video the tension on stage is quite palpable. I saw also Polunin interpretation on youtube and it doesn't even come close (purely technically he is maybe better, but it all felt to me unnatural as emotion)

You spoke for a exact person that you met in theater. How any article will prove that this person was paid?

(an article on the topic is on the first page of the discussion which SwissBalletFan cited here, you don't need to dig)

And how do you know they took money?

(I'm just curious, not trying to make big discussion )

Well yes, it was one person, Joy. But had a very bad experience with lots of Russians staying at the same hotel as us in Crete last year.Unbelievably rude! My last word on the subject too.

Yep, they are not the most behaved tourists. I know it well, they are quite frequent in Bulgaria. You know who we think equally unsurvivable- british tourists. Coming for cheap alcohol, aggresive when drunk and behaving like the world must bow to them. As a young and let's say exotic for western standarts girl I had many, many very unpleasant moments in clubs with drunken englishmen. But I don't form my opinion about the nation from them- I met a lot of incredible and amazingly clever british people, but in another environment

It is a single person, you cannot make general conclusions from a single person. And what you described is different from the applause habbits in russian theaters- one is tradition, the other just lack of manners

So what would you call someone whose crass behaviour ruins your evening and that of your fiends?  Did you actually read my post?

I usually read and listen very careful when in conversation. And measure my words before answering. So- I did read your comment and answered to it in (I think) clear way.

To clarify more- as one of this people who have the habbit from childhood to show emotionally their support  when on ballet performance, I find your comments deeply offensive and they ruined my day here. Should I call you low-life for this? Maybe this is the way to show good manners of an educated person, but I will pass and stay a low-life .

With this I'm finishing my comments on the topic. It is quite enough, I think.

And couldn't you just accept that people are just doing it there, Mr Boyd ? As I said they have habits and traditions, formed for centuries.

Years ago I read a amazing biography of Pushkin and there was nicely described also which type of ballet fan he was. Dreadful, indeed- epitome of low-life, if using the terms from here

MAB, you cannot call unknown people low-life, just because they show their emotion differently than you. Or you can but it speaks volumes about you too. Is it still unclear?

Hmm, how I forgot to add Diana Vishneva to my list. Beautiful ballerina!

O, Janet, it is so so easy to say "You're unpolite also" instead of thinking what is provoking such kind of reaction . Of course it will be me who is wrong here, not the one with similar to your opinion (who are continuing to use offensive language for public completely unknown for them). 'Low life', what next?

SwissBalletFan, starts to look to me that it is not good idea to write here if you are just a common ballet fan, not part of the elite British public. Low-life, in other words. So sad... I was quite happy to find this forum, but it looks to me that I had to read more before to join . 

claque led exhibitions of fake enthusiasm

And how exactly do you know if it is fake? Some special algorithm for calculating other people emotions

Also to judge how the russian dancers are feeling about their own public- wow, it amazes me!

Janet, to have a tread discussing behavior of British public (from which you are part) is one thing, but to throw some low level comments about behavior and traditions for which most of you know next to nothing- completely another. And just one thing- Bolshoi is a russian theater, which performs first and most important for russian public. And this public has the complete and basic right to behave as they pleased and as common for the country; so all people watching it secondarily in cinemas must accept the traditions and habits of the theater. Or if it is so irritating, nobody puts a gun to nobody's head- watching cinema broadcast from russian theater is not obligatory. What is obligatory is some level of good manners in voicing one's opinion. "Ghasty" is not it, neither "fake" or "dreadful".

It's all question of personal opinion in the end . From all the ballets in my list I could call just one really horrible (Carmen), the others are just not for my taste.

It is quite insulting to call the way of people showing their appreciation "dreadful". I don't know what is OK for the british public, but we (the dreadful clapping people) usually don't comment the ways of others.

Not good to read of the dreadful clapping. This seems to be getting worse in Russia.

It is good idea when you don't understand something at least to don't insult it! OMG!!

Disagree about Ashton though!! Love most of his ballets too!!

I put one of his ballets in my 'Favorites' list, and I quite like Ondine, but in general his choreography is a little bit too ornamental for my taste.

Have you seen his Mayerling?

Just on DVD

Some news about "Dancer":

 

http://variety.com/2016/film/global/westend-ballet-documentary-dancer-1201743660/

Good news!

This one http://www.hamburgballett.de/e/_tod.htm

Unfortunately I never saw it live, but even on video it gives me goosebumps.

Winter's Tale- never saw more powerful story-telling in ballet!!!

Marguerite and Armand

Mayerling

Spartacus

Infra

The Judas Tree

Death in Venice

Coppelia

The Rite of spring, almost all versions but specially the one of Bejart

everything of Pina Bausch

Thank you, Janet, I'm happy to join the wonderful crowd here .

Edward Watson. He is the only one from the nowadays stars that for me represents not only what a dancer should be, but an artist in general.

And purely for the joy of dance- I love Sergei Polunin. Speedy and brilliant.

Sylvie Guilleme! No other comes even close.

I like also Tamara Rojo, Leanne Benjamin and Lauren Cuthbertson.

The problem with the Ashton repertory is that for the main part  it is not as carefully cast as it should be. Casting star dancers may guarantees ticket sales  but it does not guarantee stellar performances. His choreography should not look fussy in performance.As for Enigma Variations it is a great ballet but casting decisions by both Royal Ballet companies of recent years have done the work no favours.

 

The 2011 revival at Covent Garden was very patchy and should not be taken as representative of what the work can be in performance.. The BRB performances at Sadler's Wells last year were extremely variable. The Friday evening performance was so badly danced that I almost did not go to the matinee performance. The Friday cast seemed to have little idea of what they were supposed to be portraying  and the dancing looked more like something from Monty Python's ministry of funny walks than Ashton  choreography. Those in the audience who knew what it should look like came out shaking their heads in disbelief  those who did not were perplexed. The matinee cast which included Joseph Caley was excellent.  One of the problems with both companies is that they insist on having two casts when it is difficult enough to find one. that is good enough, As nearly all of Ashton's choreography should look easy in performance it is dangerous to assume that apparent ease of execution equates with lack of technical challenges and difficulty.. He, like his contemporaries, worked in the shadow of Fokine's aesthetics which were a reaction against all the overt technical display found in Petipa's late  ballets His ideal was. ballet used to tell stories and create mood rather than reduced to a displays of dance..

 

I think that most of the problems that people have with  Sleeping Beauty are attributable to the sluggish tempi adapted in performance. It is a completely different ballet when performed at a speed that the choreographer and composer would recognise. Replacing the Russian conductors who indulge the dancers would do wonders for performances as would careful and contrasting casting of the Fairy Variations a few technically competent Lilac Fairies and Auroras who understand the trajectory of the role and don't treat the Rose Adagio as an Olympic event.

 

Here is my loath list. There are other ballets which I dislike but these have an unpleasant habit of being revived. They are nearly all by MacMillan.

 

Different Drummer in which far from expanding the range of ballet's subject matter MacMillan shows what ballet is incapable of  doing. It is a pallid effort which fails to achieve anything remotely as effective as Berg's opera Wozzeck. 

 

Rituals a ballet of incredible stupidity supposedly influenced by the company's visit to Japan.

 

My Brother my Sisters. A jolly little ballet about murdering a sibling. A bore even with the original cast.

 

Playground. A jolly day at a mental institution. A great waste of Marion Tait's gifts and the audience's time.

 

Judas Tree. A heady mixture of religiosity and rape on a building site.

 

Valley of Shadows.. If I recall a piece based on a popular novel with a holocaust theme.

 

Isadora in any form. The closest you can get to ballet as documentary. I suspect  that MacMillan was prompted to create it by Ken Russell's BBC documentary about Isadora Duncan. A sequence of scenes with Duncan's lovers and two freak accidents do not add up to an effective theatrical work. There is tragedy in it but not theatrical tragedy.Freak accidents are not the theatrical equivalent of someone destroyed by flaws in their character or societal pressures.

 

Last, but by no means least Raven Girl. I can only assume that it cost a packet. The need to recover production costs is the only rational explanation for its revival.

Hmm... you are not very fond of step or two out of the frame, or at least it looks so to me from your list .

I love, love, love Judas tree, what a daring ballet it is.

Ballets I really don't like:

* Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake- sorry, but man in feathers doesn't do it for me

* Limen- I like Mcgregor in general, but this one was a torture both for my ears and my eyes

* the horrible contemporary Carmen for Diana Vishneva- pff!!!

* Monotones I. I would put here also the other part, but I liked it danced by Watson. However, generally I also don't like Ashton so much.

* Sleeping Beauty. The old-fashioned choreography, not the music, which is magical