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Sebastian

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    Royal Ballet Sleeping Beauty, 2019-20

    in Performances seen & general discussions

    Posted

    On 10/01/2020 at 13:02, FLOSS said:

    Following on from the comments about the audience being fully engaged with the action of the ballet last  night and in particular the reaction to the fate of the knitting women.The knitting women are sentenced to hang not to be beheaded. The halter is depicted in the mime.Beheading although capable of being botched was I believe regarded as a merciful death when compared to the agony of being slowly throttled on the end of a rope. Beheading was therefore reserved for the nobility and those to whom a monarch might wish to extend a modicum of mercy. I suspect that the gasps from the audience were prompted by the idea that such a severe punishment might be imposed for the mere act of knitting rather than the form the punishment would take. The punishment seems excessive today but at one time at the end of the Prologue instead of the corps de ballet lining up in a diagonal facing Aurora's cradle gesticulating in a beneficent manner towards her the final tableau was of the corps grouped around the King as he forbade the use of spindles, and by implication other sharp handicraft implements, in his kingdom. Ratmansky's reconstruction has this as the Prologue's final tableau which makes the King's actions at the beginning of the first act seem a little less arbitrary than the current Royal Ballet  text does.

     

    Like Leslie Edwards before him Montes' Catalabutte collects the knitting and holds it so that all the points of the needles are facing upwards. He then tests the needles to see if they fall within the letter of the law concerning prohibited sharp implements. He discovers to his horror that they are sharp and begins to look sad. But is he sad for them in the knowledge of the punishment that awaits them for breaking the law or is he sad on his own account because of the effort he has put into preparing for the great day which now looks as it it will be wasted? The Queen's notices that Catalabutte is sad. She asks the reason.The King is told that the knitting ladies have broken the law and he condemns them because by their actions they have endangered the life of the heir to the throne. As members of a class clearly far removed from the nobility the women would have suffered the ignominy of hanging had it not been for the Queen's intervention. Her actions enable the audience to see the benefits of living in an autocracy as they watch the KIng exercising his prerogative of mercy . I imagine that this bit of flattery went down exceptionally well with the Tsar and his family.

     

    But what prompts the Queen's intervention? Does she intervene simply because she is kind and considerate or is it that she sees that the King has acted in an arbitrary manner ? Is she concerned that the executions would dampen the celebration of Aurora's birthday making things a trifle awkward with the visiting Princes? The reason for Catalabutte's concerns almost certainly encompass those of the Queen with the addition of the planning and preparation he put into the event which seems likely to be wasted.

     

    Following this useful account by FLOSS of the current iteration of the 1946 production, here for comparison is what Vsevolozshky and Petipa published in 1890, in the programme for the first performance:

     

    image.png

     

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    “Nutcracker” on Radio 3

    in Ballet / Dance news & information

    Posted

    4 hours ago, Janite said:

    thank you for posting Sebastian, that was intersting.

     

    Indeed. However, caveat emptor. The fact that Tom Service can get through half an hour on Radio 3 without once mentioning that the bulk of the choreography - and certainly the bit everyone remembers - is by Ivanov should make one wary. However I liked that the programme was done at all, and some of the musical selections were thoughtfully away from the obvious. 

     
    For those who might like something more serious about the Nutcracker, here is a wonderful article by Damien Mahiet from 2016:
     
     
    • Like 1

    Royal Ballet - Coppelia (Dec. 2019 - Jan. 2020)

    in Performances seen & general discussions

    Posted

    7 hours ago, LinMM said:

    Well yes am interested in both your posts Sebastian thank you!

     

    Thank you LinMM, it’s an interesting puzzle. 

     

    7 hours ago, LinMM said:

    The irony is that in 1975 as an amateur dancer and being rather tall  I danced as Franz a couple of times in a Coppelia production based on the Rambert version! And in finding out about all this I believe the role of Franz was at some point way back ...in the original even? danced by a female! 

     

    In fact a few pages earlier on this thread FLOSS posted about this:

     

    https://www.balletcoforum.com/topic/21564-royal-ballet-coppelia-dec-2019-jan-2020/?do=findComment&comment=303465

     

    Royal Ballet - Coppelia (Dec. 2019 - Jan. 2020)

    in Performances seen & general discussions

    Posted

    At the risk of trying everyone's patience, there is an earlier use of the name Swanhilda (this time with an h) which might interest people. Charles Dickens co-owned and edited a weekly magazine in the 1850s called Household Words. There we find a piece called Wild Legends which purports to retell folk tales from around Bohemia (more exactly, Oberlansitz).

     

    One of the wild legends tells of a maiden in a castle who is called Swanhilda. However her adventures do not resemble what happens in either E T A Hoffman or the ballet, nor do we know if Dickens wrote this piece as the articles and stories in Household Words were published anonymously.

     

    Perhaps Swanhilda - with an h - is Anglophone, whereas the Francophone spelling is Swanilda. Just a guess.

    • Like 5

    Royal Ballet - Coppelia (Dec. 2019 - Jan. 2020)

    in Performances seen & general discussions

    Posted

    8 hours ago, LinMM said:

    I don’t know which librettist used the names Franz ..Swanilda...Coppelia.. first ...did they come from the 1852 opera or were they made up in 1870 especially for the ballet. 

     

    The character names in the one-act 1852 opera La poupée de Nuremberg - with music as you say by Adam - are Bertha, Donathan, Miller and Cornelius. The name Swanilda appears to be original to the 1870 ballet libretto by Nuitter.

    • Like 2

    Royal Ballet - Coppelia (Dec. 2019 - Jan. 2020)

    in Performances seen & general discussions

    Posted

    8 hours ago, LinMM said:

    it switched to Wikipedia and there shows a picture of the first ballerina to perform role: Guiseppina Bozzacchi and spells Swanhilda with the ‘h’ 

     

    Wikipedia? Given how Wikipedia articles are compiled, this needs checking. So please note first:

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppélia

     

    I assume this is the page you looked at. And yes the caption to the photograph is indeed currently spelled with an h. However where does whichever editor who wrote that caption get their spelling from? Presumably from the photograph itself, so clicking on that takes one to...

     

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppélia#/media/File:Coppelia_-Swanilda_-Giuseppina_Bozzachi_-Act_I-Scene_2_-Paris_-1870_-2.JPG

     

    You will notice now in the information shown about the photograph that Ivor Guest (from whose 1974 book the picture is taken) spells it without an h, so whoever drew on this photographic source to write the caption seems to have made a mistake. Everything on Wikipedia needs a source - preferably a secondary source - and the source for the caption is the 1974 book.

     

    Perhaps I was not clear in my earlier post. The costume designer - of the costumes worn by the dancer who created the role - spelled the name Swanilda on a drawing made in 1869-70, as can clearly be seen on the original to which I linked. I submit that those who worked on the first production knew how the name should be spelled.

     

     I suggest this is therefore a far more plausible source than either a book published in 1974 (even though it spells the name the same way) or a Wikipedia article, which by its very nature can never be more than a secondary, provisional and ever changing project.

    • Like 1

    Royal Ballet - Coppelia (Dec. 2019 - Jan. 2020)

    in Performances seen & general discussions

    Posted

    4 hours ago, LinMM said:

    If I can find the original story presumably written in German there may be a way of finding if the ‘h’ existed in German

     

    The original ballet of 1870 was premiered in Paris and the Bibliothèque nationale has put some helpful documents of the period online. For example:

     

    https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8454648k/f14.item.r=coppélia 1870

     

    The spelling on that contemporary document is clearly (see the top right) Swanilda. For those who want to check further, full details of this source are here:

     

    Title : [ Coppélia ou la fille aux yeux d'émail : vingt-deux maquettes de costumes / par Alfred Albert et Paul Lormier]

    Author : Albert, Alfred (1814?-1879). Dessinateur

    Author : Lormier, Paul (1813-1895). Dessinateur

    Publication date : 1869-1870

    Identifier : ark:/12148/btv1b8454648k 

    Source : Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Bibliothèque-musée de l'opéra, D216-23 (43-64) 

    Relationship : http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb409159018 

     
     
     

     

    ROH Otello Kunde/Jaho - December 2019

    in Opera & Music

    Posted

    Just out of the Otello revival dress rehearsal. We don’t review rehearsals but if anyone was wondering what the 2pm Floral Street crowd was roaring at, this was when Jaho and Kunde came out.

     

    Not many tickets left for the run but if you are still wondering whether to go, I suggest doing what you can to get in.

     

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