Lizbie1

GWR have published their timetables - it might be worth seeing if your train companies have a dedicated strike page and checking there (sorry if you've already done so).

9 minutes ago, LinMM said:

I think it would be nice to see some of the RB’s earlier works especially Tudor ballets but not sure how it could be done …

Are they RB or Rambert? I had thought the latter for the most part. I've often thought ENB could be filling that particular void.

I don't know why we've got onto the subject of Onegin. I know people love it and the RB do it well but it can't be counted as an RB "heritage work".

On the bright side... maybe this season's hated price increases will create headroom for some more interesting programming.

Which leads me to ask: would people posting here - I'm not interested in second guessing the general public - be prepared to pay Swan Lake prices for a bill reviving some of the older RB works mentioned? I would!

16 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

I'm currently looking up ticket offers for next Wednesday, as I'll be travelling back from a matinee in Richmond via Kings Cross so could pop up to Sadler's Wells & just see the Balanchine. Not exactly happy about having to pay for 2 tickets to see 1 complete triple bill though!

Your compensation for the delay should help I suppose?

1 hour ago, FionaE said:

It is also possible to have a political point of view that supports the Russian narrative rather than the NATO one.  

Possible but reprehensible.

Edited to add: the conflation of mainstream Ukrainian opinion with "NATO" is careless at best. And it's news to me that NATO has 141 members.

I thought that this recent article (about football) offered a very persuasive answer to the argument that sport - and by extension the arts - should not be held to a higher standard than governments.

"Not being able to heat your home is suffering. Cowering as the bombers fly over your school is suffering. Being imprisoned and tortured is suffering. Going a few years without winning a cup is not."

8 minutes ago, Tango Dancer said:

 

I love the Four Last Songs.  We used "Beim Schlafengehen" at my grandfather's funeral at the end for the coffin going out.  I love the way the soprano voice soars at the end especially in the Schwarzkopf recording.  

I always remember our music teacher saying to us "well I wouldn't be getting much sleep after that!" 😉

Thank you to everyone who posts about strike announcements here. I'm lucky enough to have a good coach service to London as a (less convenient but cheaper) alternative to the train. I normally hear the strike news here first, allowing me to book a coach ticket in the few precious hours before they put the price up.

I've personally heard a ballet-goer talking disapprovingly a couple of years ago about a very prominent dancer having put on weight. The only difference to her dancing that I could discern was that her port de bras looked lovelier than usual (and it was pretty great in the first place!).

2 hours ago, FionaE said:

Most contracts do not specify that a dancer is obliged to have permission from their AD for whatever they do in their time off and holidays.  And it’s quite right that contracts should not.  It’s high time the artists had more say over their short dancing careers than being dictated by company management.  Opera singers do.  Theatre actors do.  Musicians do.  I really hope this incident does NOT revert to contracts dictating what employees do in their time off.  (I wouldn’t agree to it in my work.  My weekends and holidays are mine. I’d hope you’d all agree with this principle.)

I believe exclusivity clauses are quite common in employment contracts? My last (bog standard) contract stated that I had to get permission before taking on any outside work and my current contract says I need permission before I do any work for a competitor or where there is a potential conflict of interest. I have never thought this is unreasonable. I believe such clauses are banned for zero hours contracts and for low paid work, which also makes sense.

Most singers, actors and musicians are freelance (and have no job security), so of course exclusivity clauses wouldn't come into it. Are you suggesting that freelance contracts should become the standard for dancers too? I doubt that many of them would concur!

I know I've said this before: FionaE, you're obviously intelligent, you're not malign, and you offer a lot to this forum, but I can only assume that your admiration for Polunin leads you to some very motivated reasoning.

1 hour ago, FionaE said:

@Angela @oncnp

Yes that was my point … I was declaring mine as hearsay.  And that the hearsay was less hurtful than the speculations by others.  
 

I can see I wasn’t clear.   Apologies.  

So in other words we can safely ignore the alternative version of events until confirmed by a reputable source?

At the moment it's hearsay (a Polunin fan site?) vs the Süddeutsche Zeitung, so forgive me if I go with the latter for now.

I boarded from 10 and loved it - very few seemed to struggle and indeed there was a waiting list for boarding places from day pupils who wanted to board instead because they felt they were missing out!

Perhaps the mods can move this discussion to its own thread? I fear this one is being significantly derailed!

I'll take that as a no.

1 minute ago, FionaE said:

No one else who has crossed the political divide is being forced to terminate their contract. 

And are those dancers who remain in Russia allowed to speak against the invasion? Some did in the early days but I'm not aware that any have persisted.

40 minutes ago, FionaE said:

The main point is that freedom in the West is an illusion. 

 

Many dancers from Mariinsky, Bolshoi, Mikhailovsky, Stanislavsky have been free to perform in Europe, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, South America and USA in 2023 without being forced to leave their home companies on return.  (I can provide names.  Information is public on their instagrams.).  
 

Only Prisca has been forced to leave.  She is Austrian, trained at Vienna State ballet school and was previously a Soloist at Vienna under Legris.  She joined as a soloists in 2016 and has been a principal in Munich since 2019.  
 

I’ve no doubt she was aware of the possibly consequences of performing alongside longterm friends and colleagues. 
 

You may wish to reset your thinking about freedom and democracy . 

 

 

Is there any talk of her being imprisoned for doing this?

2 hours ago, FionaE said:

And Munich don’t even have the full information … only what they have learnt from an informer about the galas.  The press in Sueddeutsche Zeitung reveal they get their information from Sergei Polunin fan groups on Facebook.  (Graham Watts and other journalists admit to the same sources).  

I don't understand this post - are there some extenuating circumstances that we aren't privy to?  Unless she wasn't in fact there I'm struggling to think of something that makes a difference. Surely she'll have known the likely consequences when she decided to do it.

The set for the last production appeared to be falling apart before my eyes during its final cycle: sitting in one of the cheap seats I had a good view things not visible to the rest of the audience. They probably had to make the decision whether to rebuild it or start again and I don't recall that the last production was much loved by the audience. My own view was that it contained a long list of opera cliches (Goth costumes, oversized furniture, etc etc) though perhaps the Kosky ring isn't any better in that respect. I'm not going this time - not interested enough in the cast.

I enjoyed the ENO Rheingold a lot - much better than the Walkure promised! - and I thought the cast was excellent.

I ask this not in hopes of identifying anyone but to gauge whether the culture is self-perpetuating: are the teachers that have caused problems generally older?

Setting aside the question of whether it's a valid theory, I'm a bit troubled by the suggestion raised several times above that the women don't need to be "thinner", it's the men who need to be stronger. Isn't this just transferring the potential for body-shaming to them?

11 minutes ago, oncnp said:

Another new Insight

 

INSIGHTS: THE LEGACY OF NIJINSKA

18 NOVEMBER 2023, 12PM

CLORE STUDIO

BALLET AND DANCE

Join us for this extended Insight that celebrates the innovative creative genius of Bronislava Nijinska.

I can think of a better way to celebrate her.

I understand the point being made about Osipova being "bad" at social media, but my assumption is that she has made an active decision not to post routinely about forthcoming engagements. Not everyone wants to be a slave to Instagram, and she is one of the few dancers in a position to push back on such demands. She might pocket a smaller fee as a result, but I'd applaud her for doing so.

11 minutes ago, Ianlond said:

However, as Monica Mason mentions in the same insight, dancers have historically been rather silent & even seen as stupid so I absolutely see the worth of dancers being able to express their views more clearly &, perhaps, take more agency in promoting their own career. 

On the other hand, isn't their silence one of the main sources of their magic?

7 minutes ago, Ondine said:

 

Indeed. These days I suspect Margot Fonteyn's 'affairs' would have been splashed all over the gutter press and I think that would certainly have altered her public image!

 

Constant Lambert of course.  And a blue plaque for what I will politely call her  'love nest' 🤨

 

In 1952 she gave up the flat to her brother’s ex-wife Idell, who lived there until the 1990s. In turn, Idell lent the flat to Fonteyn for her meetings with the aviator Charles Hughesdon, with whom she had an affair for at least ten years from about 1964.   

 

 

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/margot-fonteyn/

 

 

Ondine - I find it interesting that you refer to the "gutter press" talking about her affairs in one paragraph and go on to inform us about one in the next.