The Sitter In

Wonderful news that Tatiana Leskova is planning her 100th birthday party early next month in Brazil where she has lived for a long time. She danced with the de Basil Ballets Russes and the Original Ballet Russe and worked with Fokine, Nijinska et al. She was the setter of Massine’s Choreartium (BRB) and Les Présages (AB) twenty plus years or so back. Has been a company director, a great teacher and coach…an amazing lady. Happy Birthday!

Was this in any way a celebratory evening? And if so, of what? I cannot think of a more rag-bag, poorly put-together evening at the RB, except perhaps Ross Stretton’s truly appalling gala for the late Queen. The company are in magnificent form…such a pity what they were given to dance often did not match their artistry. Diamonds was, appropriately, brilliant all round. Thank you, thank you. For Four - intelligent and showing a full understanding of the male ballet dancer’s body. All superb with James Hay and Matthew Ball the stand outs. Prima - fun, cheeky, in homage to the RB’s history but marred by childish costumes. Superb violin paying from Vasko Vasiliev of course. Fille pdd - beautifully danced but not an opener on a bare stage Manon pdd - again beautiful, but as sexy as a packet of custard creams. MacMillan is not ‘nice’ and his choreography should be as even the programme states ‘visceral’. Dispatch duet - interesting but looking like a 1970s mash-up of Cunningham and Clarke…it felt VERY period. Clever and intelligent though. concerto pour deux - inconsequential and dull. Mimsy music, mimsy choreography. see Us!!! - ranting, hollow, devoid of meaningful choreography (as opposed to gestural socio-political shouting). Part Pite, part Shechter, it was unoriginal and in no way celebratory. Why use A-class ballet artists for this posturing? OK for a local community dance group but the Royal Ballet? Depressing that the company felt thus was in any way appropriate. What all this mish-mash had to do with 60 years of the Friends is anyone’s guess. Pity the poor dancers.

A ballet created for the company in 1962 was Rite of Spring (MacMillan)…anyone remember that? They also acquired Napoli Divertissement and the Flower Festival at Genzano pdd…

Simply for information, in the current Paris production, the dancers fire their own guns, the coffin is lowered by the attendants, the lights stay on until the scenes have finished and the hunting party takes place in a snowy forest. I will check again tonight because of my defective eyesight.

“How can you tell?” because there were many, many familiar faces from the London arts world who had been invited or given heavily reduced tickets. ‘Papering’ is a common theatre practice if there are big gaps…no-one who forked out £105 to see this show would be happy being the only person in their row…. Hence the need for a full house. If the top price were £30, the ROH would be full with paying audience, but it never is nowadays and they are now quietly ‘papering’ and discounting for nearly every show, opera and ballet.

“And am sure that’s not all due to complimentary tickets being given out.” It was. You only had to look around.

I’m afraid I disagree wholeheartedly bridiem - I don’t subscribe to the ‘everyone’s a winner’ philosophy of life in any way. If all the RB principals are stars, then it will be for the first time ever, anywhere. The reality is that ballet companies have a majority of OK dancers who come and go - only look at rosters from, say, 30 years ago and I defy most people to know more than a couple of names. As for the RB, no, at present, it is very light on true talents of the art form. No-one’s fault, but nice, polite dancing and doing what you are told to do a true étoile do not make… sorry.

The dancer I have in mind is technically highly accomplished but neither moves me nor offers any particular insight into character. I think it comes from them thinking they are a different type of dancer from what they actually are. I disagree that you can be a star in some roles and not others…some don’t suit, but that doesn’t detract from their underling star quality. Regarding your comment re. Monotones, I simply chose it as something that requires no set and only six dancers…I agree, it would sit oddly alongside the Pite, but then the days of stimulating and contrasting triple bills are also long dead at the RB and meat for another discussion thread.

“It could be, of course, that Mayerling and Light of Passage together have made such demands on the Company that it wasn’t possible to accommodate another work alongside the Pite. “ Well, given all the unused principal dancers in the Mayerling castings, I suspect they could have squeezed something in…why not the promised then cancelled Monotones I and II? Where there’s a will….

Re. the ‘half a star dancer’, I shall remain silent, given it is purely my personal view and I do not wish to offend anyone. I have been asked for the definition of ‘star’, however I believe the qualities that make a ‘star’ artist cannot be easily pinned down.

Sat mat on 22/10 is about 30% sold…

Is anyone surprised that this programme is selling extremely poorly? An evening with no title (until recently) by a choreographer who is not a household ballet name which turns out to be VERY short for a full-length (long gone are the days of preceding a shorter ‘full length’ with a one-act) but at prices guaranteed not to encourage the curious to ‘take a chance’. More evidence that the RB’s artistic policy is shot to pieces coupled with a greedy box office. When will the ROH understand that it is simply charging too much? Opera casts now rarely feature big international names (either on stage and in the pit) and the ballet company, nice as it is, lacks star dancers (it has two and a half, maybe three) and is presenting one of the dullest seasons in memory. Thoroughly depressing given the stunning repertoire it steadfastly refuses to show.

There is Ballet 2000 which is published in English, French and Italian. Great images, plenty of news and reviews from around Europe. http://www.ballet2000.com/abbonamenti_ballet2000.asp

DT is a business whose income is subscriptions/purchases and advertising. Advertising has collapsed. Also, of all the ballet fans, how many have a subscription/buy the magazine every month? Does everyone on balletcoforum? I suspect not. That, I imagine, is why DT is folding.

And so the search begins to replace Aurélie Dupont. Indications are that someone will be in post by the beginning of the season. Much turmoil in Paris with rumours flying. Perhaps the next director might have a stronger belief in ballet as an art form and focus on the heritage French repertoire a little. Lifar has been absent from the Garnier for so long.

The inflated cost of going to the ballet at Covent Garden runs contrary to the founding principles of Ninette de Valois and Lilian Baylis. I could understand when the Hochhausers rented the ROH to bring over Russian companies and had to pay for it all themselves, but, as others have noted, the ROH and its companies are state subsidised - £96 million for 2018-2022. The problem with charging £170 for a stalls seat for Beauty is, of course, who will be dancing it. The current RB policy is, seemingly, ‘let as many people as possible have a go’. What that means is that there will almost certainly be a raft of inexperienced Auroras, Florimunds etc. Some will be good, some not. But for those buying top price seats, it will be more difficult to shrug their shoulders if the performance is not up to standard. I am all for lower ranking dancers being brought on, but the idea of building a dancer up to the greatest roles in the repertoire has largely gone out of the window, probably because today’s choreographers choose across the ranks and often favour younger artists because physicality is to the fore in their works. The same is simply not true of roles in Giselle, Beauty, Swan Lake etc. etc. Debuts must always happen, and they can be simply amazing, but to charge such inflated prices without some idea of quality (as opera-goers have when booking for favoured, proven singers) may well be counter-productive: ‘once bitten, twice shy’ could reduce the number of returners at these prices if the performance they see isn’t of the highest standard.

Ashton, Ashton, Ashton. The company looked like The Royal Ballet again…finally.

This Requiem is, of course, the one made for Stuttgart by MacMillan shortly after Cranko’s death and therefore a very personal response - hence the entire cast shaking their fists at the heavens in grief at the beginning. First cast included Cragun and Haydée, of course.

rosefairy - This has nothing to do with the dancers, rather the Russian state which uses such events to promote itself - the Moscow competition has been a showcase for the ‘superiority’ of Russian dancing since its inception. To think otherwise is to be naive. You do not address the fact that the vast majority of the Russian public supports the invasion of Ukraine and believes the view of the world as promulgated by Putin and his government - the same Russian public who comprise the audiences for the competition. Life for Russians is tough, but that is a fact of their own ‘democratically elected’ government. It does not then mean that non-Russians should give validity to that government by participating in a state-sponsored event - if Russian dancers and teachers wish to, that is their business. The Ukrainians are having to contend with enough equivocation from countries which should, given their own histories, know better - every message, however small in itself, to Putin and his Russia that what has happened and is happening is not tolerated can only be good for the non-aggressors in this appalling war. I cannot see how ballet is in any way exempt - the money spent by non-Russian competitors to get to Moscow might have been better spent on helping Ukrainians in some way rather than going into Russian state coffers…

Business as usual then! As long as you can’t hear the missiles landing, it must be OK.

Glad to see that teachers in Japan, Italy, Brazil, Korea and others feel that sending their students to Moscow now is entirely appropriate. The youngsters are not to blame, far from it, but anything that allows the Russian state to portray ‘business as usual’ normality needs to be challenged robustly. However, given that Italy and Brazil have been distinct fence-sitters re. Ukraine, it may not be surprising…no German entrants then? Unfortunately, ballet is a powerful propaganda tool for Russia, as it has been for a century now, and no amount of ‘art rises above politics’ talk can erase that fact. Also, what possible use will an award from this competition be to a young dancer?

Extraordinary that the two new male principals and one established one (Campbell) who might do a decent job of Rudolf are denied the opportunity in favour of others, shall we say, far less suited to the role. That Clarke can celebrate his promotion by acquiring the role of Bay Middleton is also a bit of an insult to be honest. RB casting continues on its haphazard, ‘let them all have a go’ way, which does the company few favours. Some casts for Mayerling will have novelty value, admittedly, as square pegs get hammered into distinctly round holes. Fourteen Sugar Plum Fairies must also be a record…with very tight rehearsal time, one simply wonders how much attention each will receive, but then Nutcracker has recently become ‘pile ‘em high, sell ‘em not at all cheap’ at Covent Garden.

If you really want to show off four male dancers, why not Dolin’s Variations for Four which Muntagirov knows already? If you want a pendant, Dolin’s Pas de Quatre - you choose the company’s four ‘top’ ballerinas. That said, Birthday Offering desperately needs and deserves revival and the RB has enough good dancers to do it - it just needs to be properly rehearsed and no-one to play around with it. If it was good enough for Fonteyn and all the others who have followed, it is good enough for now. Wheeldon, I’m afraid simply doesn’t come close to comparing with Sir Fred.

Welcome to you. Re. your question, no…this season announcement is particularly bad!

The problem with citing cost is that the RB only seem to watch the pennies with revivals of heritage works but throw buckets of cash at the new stuff - The Wind, anyone? Les Noces and Les Biches should be staged regularly - they were set on the RB by Nijinska herself and thereby represent a precious part of ballet history of the 20th century. Ditto Daphnis, Rake, Checkmate, Ondine, Sylvia etc etc etc Regarding the triple bills that many on here are coming up with, surely it just shows that the basic problem at the RB currently is a serious lack of imagination… If the company were to celebrate 60 years properly, they should stage at least one work from each decade… But that would take imagination.