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Lizbie1

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  1. Lizbie1
    Off-topic, but I caught Ballet Central this weekend on their tour: substantial excerpts from MacMillan's House of Birds and Ashton's Valses Nobles et Sentimentales as well as a wonderful dance to tunes from Carousel. It was very well done and, again, very moving to see them all as they prepare to go out into the world. Only a few dates left this year; I'll certainly be going next year and would urge others to do so (https://www.balletcentral.co.uk/ontourpage2.php). The programme ran for an hour or so including an interval while they got the set ready for Carousel Dances. I spent House of Birds rather starstruck as Philip Feeney (Cathy Marston's usual composer and Central's Music Director) was providing the accompaniment a few yards away from me. He was very warm in his applause at the end, like a proud father!
  2. Lizbie1
    I saw Hayward struggling at last Friday’s matinee and wondered if the speed was too slow. I assume it operates just as singers have certain speeds which work best for them when it comes to coloratura - it’s not simply a question of too fast or too slow, things just click in at particular tempi.
  3. Lizbie1
    But none of the lads’ behaviour veers into outright caricature. Surely there’s a happy medium to be struck between “subtle” and “Carry on up the Palazzo”.
  4. Lizbie1
    I didn't comment at the time about it, but there was an extraordinary quote from Lady MacMillan in the article in the FT on Clement Crisp's retirement: she said, "He seemed to have an insight into where Kenneth was going: taking ballet out of the 19th century." To which I thought, "I wonder what Diaghilev was up to in that case" (let alone Balanchine, Ashton, Tudor, etc, etc). I like Romeo and Juliet best of all his three-acters - think it's a masterpiece - but I could gladly do away with the harlots' knicker-flashing antics - were they always this crudely drawn or is this a development over the last 50 years? Manon and Mayerling in my opinion have both greater longueurs and more of what I think of as "bad", prurient MacMillan - subtle as a brick when compared to Paris's manhandling of Juliet. I also think that, unlike Georgiadis' matchless designs for Romeo and Juliet, Manon's and Mayerling's could do with being at least re-worked: too much '70s browns and orange, too reminiscent of the wallpapers of my childhood (which my parents had never got round to replacing).
  5. Lizbie1
    I think I’ve only ever been blown away by live performances, so don’t feel bad!
  6. Lizbie1
    I don’t have direct experience of American education so can’t offer an opinion on it, but I would mention that in England and Wales at least (I don’t know about Scotland or NI) unless you’ve chosen English Literature - or a language - for one of your AS levels, nobody asks you to open a novel or read a poem after the age of 16. I agree with DrewCo that any cultural divide seems more likely to be about ballet itself.
  7. Lizbie1
    Thank you both for posting this review: it almost exactly reflects how I felt about this ballet. (Rather than seeing the four star reviews from UK sources as inflated, I didn’t think they went nearly far enough.)
  8. Lizbie1
    The new Bristol Old Vic front is a complete triumph IMO.
  9. Lizbie1
    I didn’t catch this run, but my assumption when I saw it first time around was that the production deliberately portrays a rather sanitised, late 19th century version of Revolutionary France, in keeping with when the opera was first staged.
  10. Lizbie1
    I don’t love Nunez in everything - I sometimes feel her great technical assurance (a very good thing) bleeds into her characterisation (not always such a good thing) - but she is super-reliable and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her make a significant mistake. That alone must be a big comfort to all involved in a live relay. I think we might be in danger of taking her for granted. The same goes for Muntagirov, though I don’t think he needs me to defend him in these parts!
  11. Lizbie1
    I choose to see it as a tribute to Fonteyn’s “Cook’s Tour of the stage”.
  12. Lizbie1
    I thought they’d made it quite clear from before booking opened that there’d be a complete performance of The Firebird. (The production page, which I think hardly changed, says, “In this special celebratory performance, The Royal Ballet performs The Firebird alongside some of the works indelibly associated with one of ballet’s most revered and influential dancers.”)
  13. Lizbie1
    In case there are any crossed wires, I was referring to the fouettes in the coda.
  14. Lizbie1
    From everything I've read or seen, ballet as an artform is essentially defined in the US by Balanchine and in Russia by Petipa, but in Western Europe (including the UK) there's a much broader range of expectations for what you'll get at "the ballet" - rightly or wrongly. I think I read somewhere that Mats Ek is a strong influence on Marston. I'll hold my hand up and admit that I've never actually seen any of his ballets (videos don't really do it for me if it's an unfamiliar work), but I understand that his approach is that the steps are of secondary importance and a means to convey emotion. I think it follows that if you don't think the story-telling is up to much - as IvyLin did - you aren't going to like the steps.
  15. Lizbie1
    In fairness, that may have been down - at least in part - to the nature of the pieces they were performing. I'm not nitpicking at Naghdi - she was indeed terrific - but as this has been said, from where I was in the amphi you could see her travelling quite far forward and two or three yards to the left during the first half of the fouettes, though much less during the remainder.
  16. Lizbie1
    Talk of Margaret Barbieri being in town for the Fonteyn Insight has started me daydreaming: wouldn't it be wonderful if the "other company" were Sarasota Ballet?
  17. Lizbie1
    Amazing pictures, Rob S!
  18. Lizbie1
    I don’t mean to open up any more rabbit holes on this thread, but I’d place Marston more in the European tradition than the British. (I’m pretty sure more qualified people have already made this observation.)
  19. Lizbie1
    And Dame Ninette, the woman who made it happen!
  20. Lizbie1
    I agree - I know it’s considered OK to take potshots at her on this forum but I thought it very sporting of her to take part.
  21. Lizbie1
    It’s interesting to see Marston described by US writers as being MacMillan-ish: I don’t really see much of a resemblance.* I think that’s possibly an indication that the reference points are very different. Similarly, watching San Francisco Ballet these last couple of weeks in mostly abstract, neo-classical works, I would struggle to point out substantial differences between them in voice based on this showing, but I imagine a US audience might feel very differently. (The exceptions were Marston herself, neither neo-classical nor abstract; Ratmansky, semi-narrative and partially in Soviet pastiche mode; and Peck, in what I understand is known as a sneaker ballet. I skipped the Pita.**) *FWIW, I share DrewCo’s strong preference for Ashton over MacMillan. Taste is seldom a straightforward thing! **To save any cross-referencing, the remainder are: McIntyre, Dawson, Wheeldon, Scarlett, Liang and Welch.
  22. Lizbie1
    Lovely picture of the participants posted by Claire Calvert. Love how Hayward has gone on pointe to even the row up!
  23. Lizbie1
    All I can say is that I see the RB frequently and the Mariinsky and Bolshoi whenever they’re in town, and Jane Eyre was hands down the ballet highlight of 2018 for me.
  24. Lizbie1
    Well something must have been lost in translation - but without anyone coughing to having seen both companies performing it, we can’t know what. I don’t think it’s just a case of lower standards or expectations - leaving aside my own and other forum members’ critical faculties, I can’t see Luke Jennings, Judith Mackrell, Louise Levene and Ismene Brown all being taken in - I can think of at least one of those who would be glad to burst any bubbles they perceived to be forming.
  25. Lizbie1
    I was going to post asking whether anyone had been yet (very early days I know!) and how substantial the stage/costume design presence is.
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