Stevie
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Posts posted by Stevie
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53 minutes ago, Rob S said:
So glad I was sat down when I read that!! 😂
53 minutes ago, Rob S said:So glad I was sat down when I read that!! 😂
Or taking a drink, 2 metres wouldn't have been sufficient.
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Don't know if anyone saw how HET are dealing with social distancing in ballet.
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On 19/06/2020 at 23:49, Bruce Wall said:
Stevie, just an alert ... I don't know if you read the notice I posted on BcoF yesterday - but the Mayflower, Southampton has announced that it will be closed at least through 10th December. That's one element of the proposed tour down .... at least at this juncture. Perhaps the others will survive ... Time will tell.
Oh well, that suits me best, I didn't want to miss it. but was concerned about going.
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On 28/01/2020 at 15:53, Jan McNulty said:
And the press release:
English National Ballet
2020-2021 Season
- Tamara Rojo CBE to direct and choreograph her first ballet, Raymonda, after Marius Petipa
- Raymonda to receive world premiere in Manchester, before UK Tour
- Triple bill of works by William Forsythe to be performed at Sadler’s Wells
- 2020 marks English National Ballet’s 70th Anniversary year
- 10th Anniversary of English National Ballet’s Dance for Parkinson’s programme
English National Ballet today announces plans for its 2020-2021 Season.
Tamara Rojo CBE, Artistic Director of English National Ballet, will create a new version of the classic 19th century ballet, Raymonda, after Marius Petipa. Marking her first foray into choreography and direction, Rojo adapts the three-act production for today’s audiences, revisiting this important but rarely performed work of the ballet canon which is not, in its entirety, in any other UK dance companies’ repertoire.
Bringing the story into the setting of the Crimean war and drawing inspiration from the groundbreaking spirit and work of the women supporting the war effort, including Florence Nightingale in this her bicentennial year, Raymonda is recast as a young woman with a calling to become a nurse. With a new narrative and developed characterisation bringing women’s voices to the fore, Rojo’s Raymonda introduces a heroine in command of her own destiny.
Tamara Rojo CBE said: “It continues to be a part of my vision for English National Ballet to look at classics with fresh eyes, to make them relevant, find new contexts, amplify new voices and ultimately evolve the art form.
"Raymonda is a beautiful ballet – extraordinary music, exquisite and intricate choreography – with a female lead who I felt deserved more of a voice, more agency in her own story. Working with my incredible creative team, I am setting Raymonda in a new context and adapting the narrative in order to bring something unique, relevant and inspiring to our audiences.
"I have truly enjoyed delving into the creative process of adapting and choreographing a large-scale ballet and have been inspired by Florence Nightingale’s drive and passion.”
Rojo brings together a stellar production team for Raymonda with costume and set design by Antony McDonald, lighting design by Mark Henderson, dramaturgy by Lucinda Coxon, character dances by Vadim Sirotin, and choreology research and advice on the Sergeyev notation by Doug Fullington. Alexander Glazunov’s original score, with music arrangement by Gavin Sutherland, will be performed live by English National Ballet Philharmonic. Raymonda is a Co-Production between English National Ballet and Finnish National Ballet.
Furthering its commitment to UK touring, the world premiere of Raymonda will take place at Manchester’s Palace Theatre (15 – 17 October) before performances at Mayflower Theatre, Southampton (21 – 24 October), Milton Keynes Theatre (28 – 31 October) and then at the London Coliseum (7 – 16 January).
I just hope that it will be safe to go to Manchester to see Raymonda in October, but have my doubts. I went to the railway station in my dust mask yesterday, just to have a distant look at how procedures are going. Looked promising from the platform, but its a long time to wear a dust mask on the train. I don't know of another British company that has this complete production in their locker. Even the Entr'acte is brilliant.
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21 hours ago, David said:
I was told by the shop some time back that it was listed for release in October so I'm not giving up hope entirely. Meanwhile it's worth saying that IMHO the RB's DVD from 2000 with Leanne Benjamin and Carlos Acosta and with Mariane Nunez as one of Swanilda's friends is very fine.
There is some logic in that. The Bolshoi released Coppelia on DVD and Blu-ray on 12th April 2019. It would be best commercially to put some time in between the two release dates, so 18 months apart make sense.
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12 hours ago, alison said:
Yet they managed to release the 2017 The Dream triple bill on the back of only one performance, not even a backup filming ...
We should take that as hopeful. As I recall there were mega variations of casting over the Dream production run and the ROH Production page has now disappeared, so cant see what if any opportunities existed for repeat filming with the same cast. Anyway, we cant do anything other than wait and see if it is released. Fingers and toes crossed.
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45 minutes ago, David said:
Very true. I'm a blu-ray fan but I really value the older DVDs and the way they show the progression of key dancers through the ranks. I mentioned Marianela as Swanilda's friend in 2000; eight years later she was dancing the lead in Fille mal Garde with Lauren Cuthbertson, Sarah Lamb and Laura Morera as her friends - another lovely disk - and so it goes on. Now we are hoping for her in Coppelia with a new set of friends, the next generation. I do so hope the company find a way to release it, even if there are problems. After all, what else do they have? A record company without new material to release will fall. And if that means we may get a release of Jewels from 2017 as Stevie suggests, that would be great. It was a brilliant cast and I loved every minute of it. And if they're worried about the quality I'll happily forego the blu-ray and settle for a DVD!
It was a senior member at Naxos who said he would initiate another look at releasing 'Jewels'. From memory he thought there had been a copyright glitch at the time and thought that they only had the Cinema streamed filming and like to have three. When I expressed that the Cinema streamed version was great and would settle for that he told me in how much detail every movement is scrutinised and how difficult it is to get it past this examination and into manufacturing. I suppose we would call it 'fussy'. It appears to be about artistic merit rather than picture and sound quality, which as we know from the Cinema release was excellent. If they release it at all, I believe it will be on both DVD and Blu-ray. That was about a month ago and I haven't heard anything since.
I have other versions of Jewels, but would definitely prefer this one above all.
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No, but they appear to have skipped from Enigma straight to Cellist, missing out the Coppelia, which at first glance doesn't look promising, especially since Enigma was streamed on line as well. I know they were reconsidering releasing Jewels, but not heard if there is any result. They did tell me they usually rely on several recording sessions and don't normally release if they only have one recording.
This means there isn't a HD blu ray recording of Coppelia, apart from the Bolshoi release, which I found very good, POB which is quite different and Ullate Ballet, which is 'extremely' different.
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On 08/06/2020 at 11:30, David said:
Oh good - hopefully that's a good sign. Thank you.
On 10/06/2020 at 16:19, David said:Well that's encouraging - thank you Stevie. I must confess I am one of those strange people who still buys Vinyl, in fact there are a couple of disks coming up in Sept that interest me!
The 'Enigma' Blu-ray is now available to pre-order on Amazon.com and it's the multi regional version, so you can safely bet that it will be available soon on Amazon.co.uk
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Just up on youtube. Mariinsky Theatre streaming 'Anna Karenina' , choreography Alexie Ratmansky
Anna Karenina - Ulyana Lopatkina
Alexia Karenina - Viktor Baronov
Count Vronskya - Andrei Yermakov
And of course Maestro Gergiev heading the proceedings
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Mariinsky Theatre are streaming the Ballet, 'The Four Seasons', today on you tube from 5:00 pm onwards.
The Vivaldi score Orchestrated by Max Richter and starring Ekaterina Kondaurova
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Just up, streaming from 'Perm Opera Ballet' , La Bayadere, complete ballet
Guesting are
Nikiya - Natalia Osipova
Gamzetti - Maria Alexandrova
Solor - Vladislav Lantratov
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1 hour ago, David said:
Surely the closure of the theatres and the rush switch to live-streaming will have hastened the demise of the DVD/Blu-ray. Apart from the Concerto/Enigma/Raymonda and Cellist/Dances releases and possibly still Coppelia in mid 2021 I'm not aware of any other Arts releases in the pipeline from any company other than a rapidly diminishing batch of concert performances tho I still have hopes for The Red Shoes following the cancellation of the cinema relay. Even if theatres re-open, maybe with live broadcasts, even possibly live cinema relays one can't see any more performing Arts disk releases for at least 18 months by which time the technology will have moved on. It will depend on the movie industry of course, not the relatively small Arts niche, and surely the future there is already being taken over by digital streaming? Will there still be a cinema industry as we have known it? The question which the current ROH survey didn't tackle was whether one would merely want a one-off watch or to down-load streamed performances which would surely affect what people are prepared to pay,.
I find the future for recordings very uncertain as I guess we all do. It's depressing - does anyone see some light?
There has been a decline in disc sales as streaming has grown. However the current return on optical disc movie sales is still a very healthy 4 billion dollars per year, in the US alone.
With a massively reduced production cost over the years and little new investment requirement, it appears very unlikely that distributors would completely abandon this lucrative market. It is more likely that the future of DVD & Blu-ray, in years to come, will have a similar future to Vinyl, which was replaced by tape and then disc, but now forms a very lucrative niche market, having made a healthy return. I don't see a need to worry about buying on disc for a long time to come. There are some shrewd businesses out there and why make money on one product if you can make money on several.
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On 16/04/2020 at 02:13, LinMM said:
Well I'm not sure I should be sharing this for what it reveals.
But back in 1984 I acquired a gorgeous little grey kitten who was half Burmese and half Siamese.....he wasn't a true Tonkinese because parents weren't Tonks but mixing these two breeds eventually lead to Tonkinese ....incredibly difficult to stabilise apparently as keep reverting back to original breeds.
Anyway a digression.
So I decided I wanted a theatrical name and had always liked the sound of Tosca. I knew it was a tragic opera but that's about it I'd never seen it just heard the odd aria from it.
So I named my cat Tosca. Until a friend pointed out that my cat was a male so why did I give him a female name?
Blush blush! I had assumed that Tosca was the name of a male character in the opera had absolutely no idea she was a lady!
So anyway decided to keep the name but put an R on the end so suppose made it seem more like Oscar so Tosca became Toscar.
I still haven't seen that opera.
Mario Cavaradossi is the male lead in Tosca, but rather long for a pet, so just Mario. If you ever have an evil scary pet, you could call him Scarpia, also from Tosca.
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5 hours ago, Rob S said:
I'm sure there will be a blu ray, maybe there isn't a release date yet for the same reason the Medusa dvd/blu ray had different release dates
The Blu-ray has been registered with a bar code, which is fairly conclusive that it exists as a manufactured product. Just need to be patient with the pre order confirmation, after all, it wont arrive any sooner than the release date, whenever it is paid for.
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15 hours ago, alison said:
Very glad to have seen this "legendary" production after all these years. Very enjoyable, and the transfer to Louisiana made perfect sense. I particularly appreciated Act II in the swamp (did Albrecht always arrive in a boat, I wonder, or was it specially introduced for the filming?) The 1980s' resolution was a bit difficult to watch in Act I at times, but actually I found it contributed to the misty atmosphere in Act II, as did the Wilis' draperies, which emphasised their ethereality. Great and moving performances from Virginia Johnson and Eddie J. Shellman in the lead roles, and well adapted to TV - although I did wonder if the picture had been trimmed somewhat, as we tended to lose tops of heads and toes at various times.
Can anyone give me any idea, though, of how much classical ballet Dance Theater of Harlem were performing over this period? Based on this showing, I'd have guessed a lot, but my perception of them, probably from the 1990s onwards, was far more of a contemporary dance company. If there had been more footage of this type widely available, it would certainly have done much to counteract the claim that "black people can't do ballet" - because clearly they could, and very well
Also, can anyone remind me what it was Shellman guested with the Royal Ballet in? I originally thought Agon, but later wondered if it had been Apollo. I'm sure I remember him with Darcey Bussell.
3 hours ago, Jane S said:Alison, the DTH Coliseum season which included this Giselle also showed Balanchine's Serenade, Four Temperaments (with a young Joseph Cipolla showing 'immense promise'), and Square Dance (with a caller) and Petipa's pas de dix from Raymonda (on the same bill as Giselle). John Percival said "I think I have seen nothing more beautiful or exciting on any London stage this year than Serenade as danced by the Harlem company"' but he was less enthusiastic about the Petipa.
I enjoyed the Giselle film very much - the main disappointment for me was that the restricted studio space meant we couldn't see the magnificent Lorraine Graves in full cry!
I had never heard of such a claim, and had thought the opposite. An Eric Underwood article cleared it up for me, when he said, ' In a corps de ballet, especially for women, the idea is to be identical: you're trying to move the same and not call attention to yourself. For someone who isn't white, that's difficult. You're left with a choice: you have to either become so great a dancer that you're not left in a chorus or a line, or embrace your beauty and hope others do, too – seeing it as beautiful, even if the symmetry is disturbed.
I suppose that's how such great artists as Arthur Mitchell, Carlos Acosta and many others came to be. I recently saw Precious Adams with English National and Rishan Benjamin with Scottish Ballet, where they stood out only because they were and looked so good. It could be in an Ethnic company the opposite would apply but I have seen mixtures which look good there as well.
The only valid claim for people who cant do ballet, stands against me. My Physio said I had flat feet, bow legs and funny knees, just like a footballer. Now there's a real physical reason.
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Opus Arte have the Royal Ballet DVD , Concerto/Enigma/Raymonda act 3, advertised on Amazon for release on 17th July, to pre -order
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17 minutes ago, Jeannette said:
Shall we give the Lincoln Center at Home series another chance?
”There is trouble all over this world” - the opening words in Alvin Ailey’s Revelations, a work that closes tonight’s scheduled stream of four works in a Quadruple Bill, beginning 8pm est.
If it shows up on YouTube, it should be here:
https://m.youtube.com/user/LincolnCenterVideos/videos
info on the program:
They wouldn’t dare cancel/postpone this one too, would they?
If they fail to show it (or even if they don't), it is a worthy purchase. I have it on Blu-ray and the whole programme is very good
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57 minutes ago, Jane S said:
Dance Theatre of Harlem announce an on-demand series, starting with their famous 'Creole' Giselle - some background features to start with and then the full ballet on Sat 6th June. This really is a 'must see' production!
This looks very worth while. It says 8pm, but not sure what time zone that is in.
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I have never heard of this ballet before and came across it by chance. 'The Bluebeard', Petipa, extended variation seen here with Kristina Kretova and Semyon Chudin.
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English National streaming Swan Lake on 27th. Recorded at Liverpool Empire so perhaps Jan can hopefully give us a review ?
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You may wish to check this out prior to posting.
I see that Winter Dreams is being streamed by Perm on 23rd May at 15:00. See attached.
I wont try to speculate whether this is in breach, I wouldn't know how to check.
I prefer to watch a complete ballet, rather than watch related interviews or documentaries and Perm, as well as a few others have been appearing regularly.
The NYCB has been putting on a regular schedule of twice per week and my favourite was Pulcinella Variations.
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Mariinsky have uploaded 'Le Cavalier de Bronze' on youtube channel.
Starring
Vladimir Shklyarov
Viktoria Tereshkina
Ekaterina Kondaurova
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On 15/04/2020 at 13:00, alison said:
That must have been literally overnight, then, because it still looked normal when I looked yesterday (although it had moved to saying "Schwanensee", but still had a Mayerling photo up
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It may be to do with when your browser is updated. I haven't seen this particular site, but know that is the case for certain others.
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Ballet-inspired pets' names
in Performances seen & general discussions
Posted
My wife's favourite Opera is Tosca, I think its because of all the torture in it. Be careful what Opera you chose, there are those that will cure you for life and those that will inspire.