mauriceC

Delighted to see Louise winning Round 3 with such wonderful assurance and musicality and she is also in the "song" final.

Having been brought up on Ashton,SV will always remain my favourite ballet.It is the perfect combination of dance,music and design:my elder son on first viewing said the dance was like an extra musical stave on the score.I have seen very few ballets in 50 years that have achieved this and agree with Bruce that it should be performed every season though I once said this to the late John Percival,the dance critic and he did not agree.Some prefer "Scenes De Ballet"(when did we last see that?) No dancer should actually stand out in this ballet which I imagine was why Ashton resisted for a long time,Nureyev's pleas to dance it and Nunez interestingly made reference to dancing as a group in the Live relay interview.It should sing and in no way be po faced and reverential.The Sibley/Dowell performances of the 70s will forever be in my memory but the last BRB revival was superb and Clement Crisp thought them the best performances since the original.I very much enjoyed the first cast at this revival(regrettably screen only).

Surely the whole creative process behind "Arcadia" will have been greatly beneficial to Brandon and is likely to get far more press attention than yet another revival of "Coppelia".Meanwhile there are 2 new Frantz casts to look forward to in Max Maslen & Lachlan Monahan and whilst I always groan at yet another Coppelia,BRB always bring it off.

Watch out next week for soprano,Louise Alder in this competition.She is currently singing Sophie in WNO Rosenkavalier.A sparkling delightful talent!

As ENB and BRB are both taking Romeo and Juliet to Bristol next season,ok...different productions...,one would suspect the answer is no.Presumably the theatres must have some "say" in what they take though?Has been a problem for as long as I remember and happens all the time with Shakespeare...this year Twelfth Night is all over the place,last year it was Lear.

Whether it is TV or radio,they should have at least got the name of his most important ballet correct.

There were a lot of errors in this programme;Katie D twice referred to Symphonic Variations as Symphonic Dances,there was a mention of the Sugar Plum Fairy from The Sleeping Beauty and the very little of the long extract from Cinderella was relevant to the Ugly sisters,who were given unheard of names. She also seemed to assume that because Fille has a Clog Dance,the score was folk music.I realise you cannot cover the whole output in one hour but there was no mention at all of those masterpieces,Rendezvous,Patineurs,Scenes De Ballet,.Monotones,Birthday Offering,Facade ,Birthday Offering or Daphnis and Chloe and Wedding Bouquet. Month was only mentioned because of Ed Watson' tweet. We were told that Ashton was at the centre of the current 70th Anniversary celebrations.....really???? A disappointment.

Janet, Did you know that he appeared in the Arabian dance in one of the BRB "Cracked Nut" performances? As expected,he made the most of the role but I don' think had to catch the girl!