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saki

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  1. saki
    It's still up.
  2. saki
    I was just thinking it reminded me of the Mariinsky versions I'd seen, and didn't look very Ashtonian. Would this be the upcoming stream of the Nunez DVD, or did I miss the chance to see Ashton's Fille performed by another company? There was also Perm Ballet's stream of Les Patineurs in a triple bill with Macmillan's Winter Dreams last month, but it was up only briefly. It seems to be the same few ballets being trotted out though. If Sarasota Ballet could do for Ashton's ballets what NYCB's digital spring season has done for Balanchine's, wouldn't that be something? Still, I'm grateful for this ENB stream and the previous ones. Looking forward to Song of the Earth which I've heard so much about.
  3. saki
    The version in the ENB stream was completely different from this one though. Did Ashton choreograph more than one version, or was it Deane's? Does anyone know?
  4. saki
    Thanks for this 😅. He's the POB dancer I've most wanted to see live.
  5. saki
    I felt the same with the two previous recordings with Letestu/Martinez/Pacquet and Ganio/Albisson/Alu (who is also Rothbart in this recent version, I believe?). The homerotic tension was unmistakeable. The impression I had was that what was at stake, and what was lost at the end, was not Odette's freedom but Siegfried's belief that he could find love with a woman. Didn't Rothbart mock Siegfried's ability to tell one female from another with Odile? But I've not seen this production live or this recent performance with Louvet, so it'd be interesting to see if I still think the same when I have.
  6. saki
    These links were posted on Ballet Alert!:
  7. saki
    Someone on Twitter has noticed that all mention of Scarlett has been removed from the History page on the ROH website. The archived version is on the right.
  8. saki
    The Bolshoi is streaming their 2011 cinema relay of The Sleeping Beauty next, 28 March 7pm Moscow time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLWK53UuZgM Zakharova is Aurora with a pre-injury David Hallberg as Prince Desiré.
  9. saki
    Thank you. It's really useful to have them all in one thread. Here's another, starting in about 4 hours: The Bolshoi Ballet's 2015 cinema relay of Grigorovich's clammy Swan Lake. Svetlana Zakharova as Odette/Odile, Denis Rodkin as Siegfried, and Artemy Belyakov as the Evil Genius (von Rothbart).
  10. saki
    I'm not sure I need a Paris so likeable that he becomes Romeo's rival for our sympathy, or that I imagine Juliet would be happier with him, but the libretto does have him remaining in the crypt when everyone else has gone. I suppose the primary dramatic function of his presence there is to show how blind and heedless with grief Romeo is at this point when he kills Paris, but it also shows that Paris mourns Juliet's death, and I like it when a dancer has portrayed Paris up to that point in such a way that his grief is believable, particularly as he once seemed enough of a brute (or simply a man of his time) to try to make Juliet yield to him by force. I've personally found Tomas Mock's acting very nuanced and unforced in the roles I've seen him in, no matter how small, so although I didn't catch him in R and J last year, I'm glad to hear he's good as Paris too.
  11. saki
    Actually I did see Lamb do that in her second performance in the run. She pulled Muntagirov's Romeo to her and cradled his head with such tenderness, and with such a sweet, joyful smile on her face, I realized she didn't know he was dead. Then the realization dawns on her, and I remember thinking that if she had just froze, it would have made that moment much clearer and more powerful. As it was, it was perhaps too subtle and fleeting.
  12. saki
    In the video, it's Denise Nunn too, not Julie Rose. The video below shows the cast in Geoff's video. https://youtu.be/DqWSu5ij1Bw?t=19 Sorry, I can't seem to embed the video.
  13. saki
    At the time I thought she was, unsurprisingly, devastated at her fiance's death. However if it's supposed to only be a marriage of convenience then maybe she's just hacked off that she's not going to be a Baroness! In the introduction in the DVD, Irina is described as about to escape "though a marriage of convenience", and the characterizations in the DVD seem to support that, but I don't think it was as clear in the performances in this run - there was Bracewell's appeal and I remember in the other cast Takada's Irina seemed to genuinely like Tusenbach - after accepting his proposal and as they're leaving the stage arm in arm, she rests her head on his shoulder briefly in a very affectionate, intimate way, which I don't remember Naghdi doing. So in Takada's reading, it would be genuine grief for Tusenbach's death at the end, not just despair that she's lost her chance to leave the provincial town. I haven't read the play either and would be interested to see how it compares with the ballet. Speaking of Irina's grief, while Takada covered her face with both hands, I was quite struck by the fact that Naghdi covered her face with one hand and continued to cling to her sister with the other. Very expressive of the sisters' bond and the subject of the ballet, I thought.
  14. saki
    After seeing Avis's and Kish's quite different takes on Kulygin, I was sorry I didn't get to see Gartside's. I hope the trouble he had with the steps was only due to his recent injury. Was his characterization not quite right either, capybara? About Bracewell's Baron Tusenbach - until I saw him in Winter Dreams on the 18th, I'd only seen him in the cinema relay of Corybantic Games and Les Patineurs in the same triple bill that evening. He was inevitably eclipsed by Matthew Ball in the former and in the latter, disadvantaged by the fact that I'd always found the couple in white the least engaging part of the ballet. So I didn't have a clear impression of him either way. Then I had a curious experience with his Tusenbach – there was something about him that persistently suggested he was more than his mousiness. When I saw the DVD later I realized that Tusenbach's characterization there (physically unattractive and nerdy) was supposed to imply that by accepting him (and not the more sexually confident and attractive suitor, for one), Irina is choosing a marriage of convenience, not love. But watching Bracewell and Naghdi, I’d taken Irina's acceptance of Tusenbach to show, not that she was overlooking his personal qualities for his title, but that she could see the value beneath his appearance. In other words, Bracewell had come across to me as a frog who would turn into a prince. I'm not sure that degree of depth is called for in this role, but it's certainly made Bracewell a rather intriguing dancer for me.
  15. saki
    I was moved too at the matinee performance on the 20th. I also saw Avis's Kulygin on the 18th and the 20th evening but there was something about Kish's modest stage presence (I believe some posters have found it too modest for certain roles?) that suited the role particularly well. Next to Avis's more emphatic, more obviously anguished (and more charismatic) Kulygin, Kish's was timid, inarticulate, quiet in his suffering. He was a most ordinary man in pain. And for me that was the pathos of it.
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