Sebastian

ROH Don Quixote - Wednesday 4th October 7.30pm - Magri/Sambe - two Upper Slips seats at £14 each - AA2 and AA3 - will sell separately. If interested please post here. Many thanks.

In any case, the ticket is now spoken for.

One good cheap ticket for this amazing pianist: https://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/202309241930 There are only six tickets available in the front (row AA) at the lowest price, £26, and they sell out quickly. I bought mine ages ago but am now unable to go. If you are interested please post a message here.

Sold

Sold

Waiting on your email (as per the PM I sent you this morning)

Would anyone like Amphitheatre C35 for the dress rehearsal of the opera La Forza Del Destino? Saturday 16th September, 6.30pm, £9. If interested please send a PM as well as posting here. Thank you.

Would anyone like Amphitheatre C35 for the Forza General Rehearsal? Saturday 16th September, 6.30pm, £9. If interested please send a PM as well as posting here. Thank you.

In case of interest (in person in New York or online): https://www.92ny.org/event/alexei-ratmansky-and-marina-harss

I have had the privilege of receiving an early copy and am impressed. Not finished reading yet but I am sure the book will be well reviewed. Based on substantial research and many interviews, the biography (running into the autumn of 2022) comes in at over 400 pages. Recommended.

Thank you very much. I have just sent you a private message (if you don’t know this system, have a look at the little envelope at the top right of this page). Best wishes, Sebastian

Hello again Linda, how very thoughtful of you. I have just dropped you a private note by email. Best wishes and thank you, Sebastian

My company once had the privilege of working with her. Here is what we tweeted last night.

Apologies, I should have checked before. This book, despite being only ten years old, is also available to read online for free via the Internet Archive, truly an extraordinary resource.

One more source. For those who would be interested in a recent academic discussion of the music and the choreography (including what cymbals might signify at the climax of the work) Davinia Caddy has a detailed chapter in her book “The ballets russes and beyond”, published in 2012 by Cambridge University Press: “Nijinsky’s Faune revisited“.

This online discussion, although it contains several of the famous de Meyer 1912 photographs of Nijinsky dancing the role, is missing a key image from the series. De Meyer also photographed the controversial final gesture of the ballet, an Image which is held by the New York Public Library. This photograph is reproduced in “The Art of Enchantment”, a collection of essays on the Ballets Russes edited by Nancy van Norman Baer and published in 1988. A scan of the book (the catalogue to an exhibition in San Francisco) can be found online via the Internet Archive. We do not know if the gesture is exactly what was seen on stage but one gets the general idea.

And here is a useful recent scholarly discussion: https://www.alastairmacaulay.com/all-essays/utkeiypp64xvbxlj2pykvqm6inm2p1

What an interesting discussion. Recapturing what did (and did not) happen on stage in 1912 is difficult. There is a supposed quote by Nijinsky himself, to be found on the internet but not (so far as I can find) anywhere else so I won’t quote it. It is well-known that the editor of Le Figaro newspaper, Gaston Calmette, was scandalised by the performance so gave his front page over to an attack on the work. Here is what he published (in a translation from the 1930s):- A FAUX PAS Our readers will not find in its accustomed place under "Theatre," the criticism of my worthy collaborator Robert Brussel, upon the first performance of L'Après-midi d'un Faune, choreographic scene by Nijin-sky, directed and danced by that astonishing artist. I have eliminated that review. There is no necessity for me to judge Debussy's music, which, besides, does not of itself constitute a novelty, as it is nearly ten years old. But I am persuaded that all the readers of Figaro who were at the Châtelet yesterday will not object if I protest against the most extraordinary exhibition which they presumed to serve us as a profound production, performed with a precious art and a harmonious lyricism. Those who speak of art and poetry apropos of this spectacle make fun of us. It is neither a gracious epilogue nor a profound production. We have had a faun, incontinent, with vile movements of erotic bestiality and gestures of heavy shamelessness. That is all. And the merited boos were accorded the too-expressive pantomime of the body of an ill-made beast, hideous, from the front, and even more hideous in profile. These animal realities the true public will never accept.

Just sent you a private message on behalf of a friend, in case this comes free.

Last ticket gone now

Ticket gone back to the box office.

ROH TROVATORE 29th June - BB1 - £19 Please PM as well as posting here if interested. Many thanks.

(Bumping this up as the show is next Thursday now - one good cheap seat for Trovatore) Please PM as well as posting here if interested.

Date changed again, now to August: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Petersburg-Noverre-Marius-Petipa-Russia/dp/1839984163

Here is the view of a very experienced opera lover (I am seeing this show later in the run): >>Just back from an invigorating Trovatore. I am pretty much with The Guardian - I have reservations about Jamie Barton. It isn't that Azucena needs a Stephanie Blythe voice - Anne Mason did very well with a voice that verged on soprano territory - but it calls for a uniformity of depth through the range of the part, which she couldn't quite manage. The best bits in the second half were rivetting but there were duff passages. Hieronymus Bosch antics for the chorus and the leaping ghouls provide a refreshing way of dealing with what can be stodgy, and the blocking is superb. All cabaletta repeats and cuts elsewhere opened up. The antics did not hinder a very clear presentation of the narrative. All helped by some striking lighting. Barton reservations aside, the singing was all good, not of the highest quality (Rodvanovsky and Hvorostovsky are too fresh in the memory for that). Wonderful work from the chorus and in the pit. I am not often moved by Trovatore but I was tonight. >>We have had new productions of 3 Verdi operas in the post lockdown era. Aida and Rigoletto are problematic and neither worked for me. Adele Thomas has found an excellent mix for Trovatore and, unlike Richard Fairman in the FT, I hope to see it again in future seasons. Unlikely for a shared production. But it is a wonderful show, one of the best. I am back for Kunde's Manrico later in the month.