Sebastian
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Joined
Posts posted by Sebastian
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(As just posted in Tickets)
It now looks as if I won't be able to make the Friends rehearsal for Macbeth, Amphitheatre Row A, centre.
£30 for e-ticket. Please PM as well as post here if interested.
Many thanks.
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It now looks as if I won't be able to make the Friends rehearsal for Macbeth, Amphitheatre Row A, centre.
£30 for e-ticket. Please PM as well as post here if interested.
Many thanks.
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Although this could be posted on the thread about the current run of Giselle I put it here as that thread has already moved on from Thursday's premiere, which saw Osipova return to one of her greatest roles. I have just received a comment from an old friend who was there and which seems worth sharing:
>>My husband was on the film unit that had been quickly assembled to film the Bolshoi on their first visit to Britain in 1956. They filmed all night at Covent Garden. He described with awe how Ulanova, then in her late 40s?, seemed to be the 16 year old Juliet. Thought the same about Osipova in Giselle this week.
High praise indeed.
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This ticket has now been spoken for.
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I have just found out that very sadly I won’t be able to use my ticket for Osipova / Giselle next Thursday, 4 November.
D36 (end of row, front side amphi) £21.
Please DM as well as post here if interested.
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Just now, Lizbie1 said:
Sorry to go even further off topic, but - you made After Dark? What a remarkable thing; you must be very proud!
What a nice thing to say Lizbie1, how good you remember!-
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Might I add a few words from the perspective of a copyright holder? My company owns the copyright in several hundred hours of archive television programming, some of which is valuable and may indeed become more valuable as the years roll on and people move from life into history:
The opinions of my colleagues on the subject of YouTube run across the spectrum, from digital anarchy ("there is no point in protecting anything, that is so 20th century") to the pragmatic ("if people steal our clips and spread them around, that's good advertising") to legalistic exactitude ("anyone who uses our IP without a licence is breaking the law").
I need to strike a fair balance in a world where almost everyone is getting accustomed to finding almost everything online within a few minutes of searching. We tend to ask YouTube to take down poor quality copies of our material which end up online, as we have come across a fair few media companies who sadly try and exploit our footage without our permission (footage they rip from YouTube). Whether we like it or not, we are bound by the contracts which govern this content, much of it produced in another era.
But we have our own YouTube channel, continue to release clips on a regular basis for free and, if someone has a particular research interest, we try and help out with copies for a small fee, subject to various legal restrictions.Hope this helps provide a little context. I don't however pretend to speak for the BBC or other such large operations.
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Might I add a few words of Clement Crisp (from the wonderful new collection of his work)? Here is a short extract from his 13 August 2007 review of Don Quixote in the Financial Times:
Let us not exaggerate, but six stars seem to be in order...Not since Plisetskaya and Maximova have we seen so adorable a Kitri, and never one so divinely destined to claim the role as her own. This Kitri can do no wrong.
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Dance as soft power - ie cultural diplomacy - is an unusual subject. This recent discussion - a series of short essays - of a book about Martha Graham from 2020 might be of interest:
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I am always grateful for the threads/posts tagged "Books". This thread hasn't got such a tag yet so might someone explain how I can do this (or does an admin have to add the tag)?
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13 hours ago, jonac said:
The replies I received in February were very helpful and I've just looked back at them. But I do not see that they answer the question I posed this afternoon; namely, how the names presently used by the Royal came to be used, and why.
Jonac, just to let you know that I sent you a PM (private message) on February 18. Having just checked the message box I see my note to you is marked “Not read yet”. You might like to have a look in your messages (the envelope icon on the top right of the screen). -
I watched this excellent film last night. It's as enjoyable and instructive to a beginner like me as it will be to experts.
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With apologies for the late notice, here are details of a talk at 12.30pm today which might be of interest.
https://courtauld.ac.uk/event/online-addressing-images-niall-billings?dm_i=AHZ,77B12,ML3UKL,T6NJ7,1
What's on in The Research Forum?
Addressing Images: Niall Billings
This is a live online event. Please register for more details. The platform and log in details will be sent to attendees at least 48 hours before the event. Please note that registration closes 30 minutes before the event start time. If you have not received the log in details or have any further queries, please contact researchforum@courtauld.ac.uk.
Friday 15 January 2021
Online Event
In this Addressing Images we will consider representations of mythology and mysticism within the English Ballet. Some of the works we will consider will include Margot Fonteyn’s performance in ‘Horoscope’ (1938) as well as the Ballet Rambert’s production of ‘Mars and Venus (1930); of which both were choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton. Through the lens of costume and set design we will examine how mystical, astrological, and classical themes were explored on the ballet stage, as well as considering how these themes expanded into other areas of visual culture.
Niall Billings received his BA in History of Art from UCL (2014-2017) and then completed his MA at The Courtauld Institute of Art with Dr Rebecca Arnold (2017-2018). His research focuses on twentieth-century dance and its relationship to constructions of gender and psychoanalysis. His MA thesis examined constructions of queer identity within the costumes and performances of Ballet Russes’ star, Vaslav Nijinsky. His work often explores the ways in which the dancing body interacts with perceptions of physical and mental health. Currently, he is a PhD candidate supervised by Dr Arnold and is researching the development of ballet in London during the interwar period.
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4 hours ago, alison said:
Rostropovich?
The great cellist was also no mean conductor, if that's what you mean Alison:
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Just to report back briefly for those who were not able to join, David Nice's fascinating talk - illustrated with many musical and dvd examples - overran and in the end lasted a full three hours. Very worthwhile.
From a host of insights - including where Tchaikovsky's music may contain a hidden reference to Aurora's hundred-year sleep - it is perhaps worth picking out one point, as it has been raised on this Forum more than once in the past. Which is the best recording of the music? David Nice replied that he had once done a BBC Radio 3 "Building a library" episode on this question, when Mark Ermler’s Covent Garden performance came out on top. This is however not currently available, so now he would be torn between Vladimir Jurowski's live recording and John Lanchbery’s Philharmonia CDs. I presume he did not mention Andre Previn's recording as this omits two numbers from the last act (Tom Thumb and the Sarabande).
He also repeatedly praised Rostropovich's recording of the Sleeping Beauty Suite.
In any case, a seasonal treat for those who were (virtually) there.
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(Bumping this up as it is now TODAY)
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Following two Zoom terms on Russian music and a pre-Christmas special on The Nutcracker, the well-known British music critic David Nice is offering a two-hour exploration of Tchaikovsky's score for The Sleeping Beauty.
Tomorrow (Wednesday 30 December) afternoon, 2.30-4.30pm UK time. £10 per household.
If interested, please email David on david.nice@usa.net
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An article about the Nutcracker by the British film-maker Margy Kinmonth appeared online this week, on the "Russian Art+Culture" site. Her article draws on her film "Nutcracker Story" and the Bolshoi transmission tomorrow with Semyon Chudin and Margarita Shrayner.
Here's the link, in case this might be of interest:
https://www.russianartandculture.com/bolshoi-ballet-cinema-the-nutcracker/
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22 hours ago, DVDfan said:
I have the DVD of Cojocaru and Bonelli from 2000, I think it is, and I thought that the more recent performances were danced faster, and that this made most of the corps de ballet pieces much more exciting. Am I right?
That is a very interesting question DVDfan. Might I recommend that you search the old discussions on here, as some of the highly informed comments on this point in the past have been very illuminating.
You might also like to read this post:
From my personal POV, my first Royal Ballet Sleeping Beauty was in 1963, so distance no doubt lends enchantment. However I did have the privilege in recent years to be able to compare a number of Sadlers Wells / Royal Ballet films of the Sleeping Beauty from the 1940s to the present day (including watching some recordings not widely available). This gorgeous experience left me in no doubt about changes over the decades: the company slowed down, in broad terms, from certainly the end of the 1970s onwards (perhaps even from a bit earlier, that’s for experts to comment on).
But, yes, I agree: I feel things got better in recent years, perhaps since the arrival of Koen Kessels as music director.
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16 hours ago, Jeannette said:
Which is precisely why I thought that the Fairy Violente/finger variation in most Royal Ballet productions of Sleeping Beauty was Ashton’s doing...extra frilly/extra fussy/extra hyper! (No offense intended...I love her.)
Regarding Royal Ballet “style” we know Diaghilev was most impressed by de Valois when she danced this variation in the 1920s, and asked for her specifically in the role.
By way of comparison here is the Kirov’s famous 1964 feature film of the ballet:
https://www.ivi.tv/watch/34369
The variation - across the globe from Ashton and behind the iron Curtain - starts around 15:18.
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On 01/09/2020 at 14:34, Angela said:
Which does not mean that Sergeyev's notations cannot be trusted, but we may have to accept that we will never know what Petipa's own, original steps were.
22 hours ago, Irmgard said:She said that Sergeyev was rather unmusical when it came to teaching variations etc. so, unbeknownst to Sergeyev, when he had left the rehearsal room for the day, De Valois would keep the dancers back and ‘clean them up’ musically.
Thank you Angela, thank you Irmgard. I bow to Tim Scholl (though one point on which we differ is elaborated on in the piece I wrote for Covent Garden last year and which is linked to on this site). However, just to be tidy:-
- It was as you know Sergeyev who brought the Stepanov notations to the west, so they are only "Sergeyev's notations" in the sense that he had possession of them at the time, rather than that he had done the notations himself.
- Even the original Stepanov notations are not uncontroversial (not recorded until some years after 1890, incomplete and so on).
- As for the chain of ownership of authenticity from Petipa onwards, it is not entirely clear how much of the detail of the Sleeping Beauty ballet de Valois knew before she teamed up with Sergeyev. She had seen Diaghelev's Sleeping Princess production in 1921 (on which Sergeyev worked) and also worked later with some of the key Russians, eg Cecchetti and indeed Diaghelev himself, for whom she danced a fairy variation and also the not entirely authentic "Florestan and his sisters" in "Aurora's Wedding".
Tim Scholl - who tracks the history of Russian productions of The Sleeping Beauty in his book - leaves it to others to follow the development of the ballet outside Russia. This is important research and one always looks forward to new discoveries.
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There is a further issue, the question of authenticity to the Sleeping Beauty as Petipa, Vsevolozhsky and Tchaikovsky created it, ie how much of what we see now goes back to 1890, in style as well as detail, even in those sections where there is no new (interpolated) choreography. This goes beyond questions of what was (and was not) notated by Stepanov and bleeds quickly into more general questions about, for example, the tempi the work gets conducted at, something which has been discussed here a number of times in the past.
The production you ask about - the Sleeping Beauty we know best in London - grew out of Sergeyev and De Valois working together at Sadler's Wells before and during the war. We have one clue that Sadler's Wells (and then the Royal Ballet) is indeed, whatever else changed over the years, nonetheless some kind of guide to the 1890 production. The argument goes like this. Those who visited Perm and saw what this Russian company was doing with the ballet (isolated as they had been from all the changes in Leningrad and Moscow) noticed striking similarities to the Covent Garden production. Following the same kind of argument as has been used on (for example) the Dead Sea Scrolls this suggests that where the Perm and de Valois productions are similar, there is therefore a likelihood of some kind of authenticity.
It is interesting to follow Sergeyev when he left de Valois and went to International Ballet. Mona Ingelsby repeatedly made the claim that their subsequent work was truer, more authentic, than the Sadler's Wells production. Allowance must be made for hype (Ingelsby needed to sell her show) but it would be really good to know what Sergeyev did when he was given the freedom to do what he wanted (and which he said he had not been able to do under de Valois). This has however proved hard to research. We know IB's Sleeping Princess had a full garland dance (ie more people on stage than Madam's) and a more complete final act (with more variations, characters and music). But on the other hand their Aurora's Wedding included a "Flame Fairy", which suggests that, at least so far as names are concerned, Sergeyev wasn't too fussy about keeping things as they had been in 1890 (there is no "Flame Fairy" in the 1890 scenario). And this in turn suggests that maybe he did not know what the Petipa "back stories" for the individual fairies were.
As for Stepanov, the notations are not quite as much help as one might hope (although Ratmansky has made magnificent use of them). The notations are sadly silent on anything "above the waist" or indeed on "stage business", which possibly no one notated, not even a stage manager, as everyone at the time will have known what to do.
As always, more research is needed.
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1 hour ago, li tai po said:
I was fascinated by this discussion. Petipa choreographed the Bluebirds as a fairy tale with a story, as much as Puss-in-Boots, Little Red Riding Hood (and Cinderella).
The Vaganova Academy teaches the choreography carefully in terms of the story and its interpretation - and the Mariinsky perform it in the same context.
Some European companies treat the pas de deux as a bravura exercise with scant regard to the story - which has led to some interesting differences of opinion backstage.
Maybe you like this work-in-progress from Ratmansky, li tai po? The Blue Bird starts around 3:15 in:—
FOR SALE Friends rehearsal MACBETH opera - this Saturday 11.30AM - Front row Amphitheatre
in Ticket Exchange & Special Offers
Posted
Ticket now spoken for