Sebastian

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.

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.

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

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.

Gone back to the box office

Gone back to the box office

(Bumping this up as it’s tonight)

PPS One of the admins has just told me that the problem is because your PM mailbox quota has been used up. As your message box is full, they suggest you delete a few old ones to make space. I hope this is helpful! Sebastian

For Sale The Sleeping Beauty Thursday 5 December 2019, 7.30pm Lamb/Hirano Upper Slips, CC-21 £11 e-ticket so can email. Please PM as well as posting here if interested.

PS Just discovered your message box says you can’t receive messages. Are you able to message me? Sorry Sebastian

I would like this, will PM you now. Thanks Sebastian

I have a spare ticket for the last “The Sleeping Beauty and Me” Insight this coming Wednesday 4 December at 6pm (timed so people can comfortably get to Coppelia that evening). The participants are not announced in advance but have tended to be starry (earlier in this run we had for example Gary Avis, Darcey Bussell, Monica Mason and conductor Simon Hewett). £11. Please PM as well as posting here if interested.

However if one goes back earlier, to the story which inspired Perrault for his 'La Belle au bois dormant' of 1697, one does indeed find sexual violence. As Jeanne Morgan details in her comprehensive account, Perrault drew on Basile's 1634 story 'Sole, Luna e Talia' in which "a king, who is already married, finds Talia unconscious in her locked room and ravishes her. Nine months later she gives birth to twin children...(But in Perrault) there is no rape of the sleeping princess; instead, she awakens when the Prince approaches her" (from 'Perrault's Morals for Moderns', Jeanne Morgan, 1985)

I wonder what's up. I have accessed the piece via a professional online news source (as used by the city, lawyers etc) and there this is shown as a 3-star review. Maybe there was a computer glitch or a revision? Not that the difference really matters.

Thanks Bridiem (our posts crossed: as you were writing, I was updating my post!) That's a good suggestion: maybe there is a Russian member of the Forum who knows about pre-revolutionary birthday celebrations?

Many thanks for drawing attention to this Xandra. Just one addendum: the writer says Aurora pricks her finger on her 16th birthday, which is what it says in the programme (and so presumably reflects the 1946 production, does anyone know?) But there is some confusion: the original Perrault tale does indeed say "fifteen or sixteen years" (Grimm later said fifteen) but the libretto for the 1890 premiere of the ballet clearly specifies she is twenty years old. Does anyone have any ideas as to why they choose a 20th birthday in 1890 (the manners of the Imperial court perhaps or the taste of the censor)? And why this was changed again in 1946 or more recently?

And here is the relevant section from Joan Lawson's authoritative 1942 translation of the working documents for the ballet (a shortened version of which appeared in the programme for the first night in 1890) -- >>"He [Prince Desire] goes up to the Sleeping Beauty and kisses her on the brow - the music rises to a crescendo. Then a pause. The spell is broken. Aurora and the entire court awake...The music expresses: astonishment, wonder, happiness and joy. Everyone embraces at seeing each other again."

The question of what constitutes “the original” is an interesting one and not entirely straightforward. Vsevolozhsky said he was setting the Perrault tale: in this there is no kiss (that appears in the later version from the brothers Grimm) but, as one translation has it, “the princess awoke, and bestowed upon him a look more tender than a first glance might seem to warrant”. Which sounds pretty consensual to me. Incidentally the French text also has a sly little joke about the young couple not needing a lot of sleep.

Indeed FLOSS, it is a great pity we don’t have a filmed record of these (or any) lectures by Karsavina. However some of her manuscripts of the talks have turned up, which is why I was recently able to write here with authority about what she said at White Lodge in 1967.

(Just bumping this up)

Yes please - I'll send you a DM now! Many thanks, Sebastian

May I buy Friday 15th? Sent you a DM.

Thank you MargaretN7. As I indicated in my original post, one does indeed read this all over the place, asserted as if it is established fact. I have tried to find proper sources - it is such a nice idea one wants it to be true - but without success. One problem is that the dates don’t really fit. The Mariinsky Theatre was indeed electrified by 1890 but, contrary to some claims, electricity was not that season’s sensation. Electrification was completed some years before Sleeping Beauty and indeed Petipa and Vsevolozhsky had done a fair number of other ballets in the interim. So if the variation celebrates electricity - and as yet no document has emerged from Petipa’s papers to support this - it does not do so because the theatre had just fitted new lights. Incidentally, there are interesting differences as to where or how high this fairy points, depending on whose performance tradition is being followed. Perhaps Ratmansky has found a good source for this (the notation does not include arm movements). Sadly although Karsavina - when speaking to the Royal Ballet School in 1967 - did at one point refer to electricity in relation to Manzotti’s 1881 ballet Excelsior, she said nothing about Violente’s fingers or arms. One final tidbit. The original costume for this fairy - as designed by Vsevolozhsky - features a turquoise salamander over the dancer’s heart as well as a crown of flames, which might lead one into further speculation.

This website is indeed a marvellous compendium of secondary sources and some lovely visual material (including much which is hard for the casual reader to find). However one can’t rely on it, as I discovered when doing some research around the history of the Sleeping Beauty. To give one example, the site asserts - as if established fact - that >>The purpose of the Fairy Violente pointing her fingers during her variation in the Grand Pas de six of the Prologue is that she is zapping electricity, which was new in 1890. I very much hope this is true, as it is a most entertaining idea and the Prologue Fairies are somewhat mysterious. However nowhere does there seem to be a 19th century source for this observation, in any language, although it pops up, unsourced, in some speculative writing after the Second World War. More than happy to be corrected by those who know more but I can’t find where this comes from.

I would be grateful for an affordable (SCS or such like) ticket for this evening.