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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.
  16. saki
    I see, so McRae's is only the first live relay of Mayerling, not the first cinema showing. According to the ROH database, there were two principals also dancing Rudolph in the 2009 run who were younger than Watson - Soares and Pennefather. Their names don't appear in the previous run in 2007, so I assume they were debuting in 2009? If that's the case, then like McRae, Watson was also the youngest principal who was not a debutant in that run to dance Rudolph. So we have an Interesting coincidence - both dancers being filmed for the cinema Mayerling at age 32 to 33, in their second seasons, and both the youngest non-debutant Rudolphs. Are we looking at the beginnings of a formula for cinema Rudolphs?
  17. saki
    My apologies, I left out one relay - La Fille mal gardée - McRae I imagine the ballets selected for the relays play an important part too, as well as where the repertories of the principals overlap, and, particularly for the male principals, who they are partnering. For instance, we might wonder if McRae would have been filmed a second time as Colas in the 2014-15 season had Campbell been promoted to principal by then (were there any principals other than McRae at the time who also danced Colas?}, or if he hadn't been partnering Osipova. To come back to Mayerling - other than Hirano, who is debuting, McRae is the only Rudolph in this run on the right side of 35. Considering that it's the first time the ballet is being shown in cinemas, and, as I've heard, Rudolph is one of the most draining classical ballet roles for men, perhaps McRae is the fail-safe choice simply in terms of stamina.
  18. saki
    I won't go into too much detail as this a Mayerling thread, but the relays have generally been more evenly distributed among the female principals. Nunez appeared in only one out of the eight ballets shown the last cinema season, and she was absent in the first two cinema seasons (there have been seven so far). Since then, in seasons with four or five ballets, she has never appeared more than once, and in those with six or more ballets, never more than twice. But it's true that as and when she's been filmed for the cinema, it's often been in the biggest roles in the classic repertoire - Odette/Odile, Aurora, Giselle, Kitri, Manon, which may explain why she seems disproportionately prominent. In fact the next season will only be the first time she's filmed for the cinema as the Sugar Plum Fairy - even Morera has been filmed before her, in 2012.
  19. saki
    Thank you, Janet, alison 🙂.
  20. saki
    Hello, everyone This is my first post. Here in Asia, I'm almost entirely dependent on the ROH cinema relays to keep up with the company, and I don't usually have the luxury of seeing multiple casts, so the casting announcements for the cinema relays are always a big event for me. I've not actually seen Mayerling the ballet, so I may not appreciate the full extent of the disappointment expressed here over McRae being filmed instead of Bonelli, but I do share it, because of the raves I've read here, and because I generally prefer Bonelli's subtlety as a performer to McRae's style, and most of all, because there are only so many cinema relays a year and I don't know when or if I'll get to see Bonelli (and Morera) again before they retire. Still, I think it's fair to point out that if McRae has had "more than his fair share" of cinema relays, then so has Bonelli. From notes on cinema casting that I've kept over the years: ----------------------------------------- 2011-12 season Romeo and Juliet - Bonelli La Fille mal gardée - McRae 2012-13 The Nutcracker - McRae Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Bonelli 2013-14 The Nutcracker - Bonelli The Sleeping Beauty - McRae The Winter’s Tale - Bonelli (Polixenes) and McRae (Florizel) 2014-15 Manon - Bonelli Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Bonelli and McRae (Madhatter) 2015-16 Romeo and Juliet - McRae Tchaikovsky pas de deux - McRae Rhapsody - McRae Frankenstein - Bonelli and McRae 2016-17 Anastasia - Bonelli (act II pas de deux) The Nutcracker - Bonelli The Dream - McRae Rubies - McRae Woolf Works - Bonelli and McRae 2017-18 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Bonelli and McRae (Madhatter) The Nutcracker - McRae Yugen - Bonelli ---------------------------------------- Incidentally, in the last season, McRae would have had two more relays if he hadn't been injured - The Age of Anxiety and Winter's Tale - so it's understandable that there's a sense that he's dominating the cinema casts. But that's not quite true, and in the upcoming seasons, not just the next, I expect to see as much of Muntagirov and Ball. In any case, for the coming cinema season, I'm hoping against hope that I'll at least see Morera and Bonelli in the Pite/Wheeldon/Cherkaoui triple bill.
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