Nogoat

There were two things that drove us to the ROH last night (well, three if you count the car...); the chance to see James Hay as a step-sister and the chance to see the set released from the 2D constraints of the cinema screen into its promised 3D glory. We were not disappointed on either count! And as an added bonus we got to meet a few of the forum members. Thanks for organising that @Sim ! Our eyes and brains crave the third dimension; the eyes grab the detail and the brain inflates it - the big skies of somewhere like Montana may be impressive, but you find more tourists flocking to 'lake and mountains'. Similarly, the cavernous space of the ROH stage is imposing, but adding layers of scenery to its depth, if done properly, will work wonders. And those wonders happened last night! The combination of 'proper', layered scenery and effective lighting (including projections, which added to the effectiveness of the scenery rather than substituted for it) gave a real sense of there being a palace a quarter of a mile or so away. And this is a real effect - mountains never look as impressive in a photograph as they do in real life because in real life the brain 'inflates' the size of things further away. So congrats to the set designers on their wonderful 3D illusions. (Oh dear, I've just re-read the above and it sounds like a cross between Father Ted and the Open University. Sorry about that, but I think it's an important part of why the staging had the impact it did on me) This also meant that some of the momentary tableaux adopted by the dancers at various points, and occupying a lot of the depth of the stage, were even more impressive - especially from the Amphi where we were (I always think cinema broadcasts and DVDs tend to under-utilise Balcony or Amphi level views; anything higher than the Grand Tier seems to give them a nosebleed). They enhanced the illusion, and the illusion was enhanced by them. Prior to the performance we noticed how loud and 'buzzing' the audience were - there seemed to be a real sense of anticipation, which made for a great atmosphere. Also, more people seemed to be having trouble finding their seats: was there a greater number of 'first-timers' than usual? If so, what a great introduction to the magic of ballet! I think it's fair to say that Cinderella is not particularly dramatic, but I was really surprised to hear what seemed to be an Amphi-wide, collective gasp go up when Fumi dropped her slipper next to the other one of the pair. It was a lovely moment that suggested most of the audience was 'in the moment'. But, aspects of the staging that disappointed me in the cinema also disappointed at the ROH. I understand there have been issues with some of the 'illusions', so I don't know how they should have appeared and can only report on what I saw - or, in the case of the first transformation (Crone to Fairy Godmother) what I didn't see. With the possible exception of Tommy Cooper, I don't think any illusionist's career would last very long if their modus operandi relied on asking the audience to shut their eyes at key moments - and that's effectively what we were asked to do last night. The crone was in full sight, the lights on that side of the stage went out, and the Fairy Godmother rushed on stage to replace her as the lights came back up. Less like Dynamo and more like 'flat battery'... And I wasn't the only one to notice that the lighting used to create the silhouette of the crone also had the unfortunate effect of showing the silhouette of what was presumably a stage-hand crawling around that part of the rear of the stage. So we ended up not only not seeing what we wanted to see, but also seeing what we didn't want to see! Similarly, the appearance of the coach was as unimpressive at the ROH as in the cinema. As before, there was no sense of the pumpkin *becoming* the coach, more the pumpkin triggering the appearance of the coach. And perhaps I was hungry, or maybe it was a hangover from Easter, but in my head the pumpkin did manage to turn into something as it ascended - a Terry's Chocolate Orange. The reappearance of Cinders after the clock struck midnight was better in the ROH than in the cinema - yes, you could see how it was done; but that's the point, being able to see it done well. The last time I heard the music to Cinderella in its entirety would have been in the last run; and given the choice between listening to the scores for Romeo & Juliet and Cinderella, I'd choose R&J - for me it's much more accessible. But the Cinderella score certainly has some earworms, and I found myself humming (hopefully only in my head) some of these while leaving the ROH, on the tube, and during the long drive home. As mentioned in one of the interviews at the cinema, it does contain some 'banging tunes'. Unsurprisingly, the orchestra got its usual loud cheer. I'm not always the greatest fan of Kessels' conducting, which can seem a bit flat at times (for example, the best Mayerling I heard the last run was the final performance under the baton of Martin Georgiev, simply because of the sympathetic depth and nuance he managed to get the orchestra to extract from the score and convey to the audience) but the cheering last night was well-deserved. Maybe it's me starting to become familiar with the role, or it's the difference between the cinema and the ROH, but I was really impressed with Liam Boswell's interpretation of the Jester. He brought a bit of depth to the character and, although the dancing might not have had the same degree of energy, the fact it looked fairly effortless was a definite positive - a case of less is more? It also raised the age-old question (which also applied to other characters last night) of the relationship between acting and technique: it's no doubt worthy of its own multi-page thread, but my own personal opinion is that it's effectively a zero sum game - a gain in one will generally be accompanied by a loss in the other. The same applied to William Bracewell as the Prince. I found his character to be much more '3D' (as that seems to be a theme of this post) and relatable - eg he 'chatted' to various characters on stage - but his dancing had fewer fireworks compared to Vadim. Mind you, the role of the Prince offers little in terms of character development. There is no backstory - he's basically a combination of plot device and animated stage prop - unlike the Princes in Sleeping Beauty and particularly Swan Lake where the lack of fulfilment in their lives helps drive the story forward. It must be difficult to paint Cinderella's character and develop it, as she's basically niceness personified. But it's a role that fits Fumi like a glove, because as far as I can tell that's her natural state. Fumi, of course, played the other 'pure' character, the Fairy Godmother, in the cinema broadcast, and through no fault of her own I did find myself occasionally looking at the transformed Cinderella last night thinking 'why is the Fairy Godmother on stage at the moment?' We rely on differences and change to flesh out characters and develop the drama. It's an uphill task for Cinderella, for even the moment with most jeopardy - the clock counting down to midnight - has little in the way of real tension. Other 'princesses' offer greater dramatic scope from the beginning; Giselle's intrinsic sweetness and innocence is threatened by her 'weak heart'; Aurora has to navigate the ordeal presented by her suitors (and by extension us, the audience!) and won't put down the spindle; Anastasia has to cope with the contrast between the idyll of her youth and the internalised horror of her imagination. It will be interesting to see how Osipova deals with the lack of dramatic content in Cinderella. It seems strange to say, but the characters offering the most scope for 'drama' are the step-sisters. The absolute level of slapstick/pantomime seemed greatly reduced last night compared to the cinema cast of Avis/Acri, as was the relative difference between the two sisters. In the spirit of less can be more, I found last night preferable. James Hay's step-sister appeared much more demonstrative than Acri's, and we all agreed during the interval that his eyes played a major role in conveying his character to the audience. He is one of a small number of dancers for whom acting has minimal impact on technique, and as such is probably a more valuable asset to the ROH than is suggested by the roles he is offered. Gary Avis usually tops my list of go-to character actors, but last night I found Gartside's more considered, less hysterical performance more satisfying - the 'meanness' of his step-sister was more deliberate than reflexive, but it was no less mean because of that. I am really warming to this production of Cinderella. With repeated viewings it's less embers dying and more phoenix rising.

Until last night's screening of Cinderella, all the full-length ballets I've seen since the summer break - ENB's Raymonda, Mayerling, Woolf Works, ENB's Creature - have been, to varying degrees, firmly (and sometimes harrowingly) rooted in the messy complexities and chaotic consequences of 'real life'. I was unsure, therefore, how I'd react to something at the other end of the narrative spectrum; a happy-ever-after, wish-fulfilment fairytale delivering a rather feeble moral message and narrative excuses for various divertissements:- and a new production, to boot (or should that be 'to slipper'?). 🤔 I've yet to see it at the ROH, so camera angles/close-ups might have affected my experience compared to the theatre (for the better or worse), but overall I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. When we originally bought our tickets I couldn't understand how the ROH's aim to bring ballet and opera to a broader audience could be squared with cinema tickets costing £21.49 (ENB's Creature in the cinema was £6, though that wasn't live), so it was a bit of a pleasant surprise to find the cinema over half full (about 70 people) with a broader than usual cross-section of ages - from pre-teens to pensioners. There was one small transmission drop-out during an interval, but otherwise the broadcast was fine (though my normal complaint about picture quality applies - cinema projectors can't render dark colours as well as LED TVs, and certainly nowhere near as well as OLEDs, so I'd much rather have the option to view these broadcasts at home). In terms of the staging, I think the short interviews during the screening helped frame the over-arching design theme - that of nature, in particular plants and flowers and their 'natural' versus 'cultivated/hot-housed' growth (as far as I remember!) with that connection reinforced by applying it to the step-sisters (as unnatural, forced hot-house flowers - which might explain their larger-than-life outfits and behaviours?) and even to Cinderella (much more demure and natural - more akin to a modest meadow-flower). In this imagining, the fairy godmother acts as a link between the wonders of nature and human ways, rewarding small acts of kindness towards her and, therefore, nature at large (and helping to provide a narrative justification for the extended pieces by the Seasons). The riot of style in the costumes was also explained as a means to deliberately avoid grounding the story in any particular time period. Those explanations helped me to make sense of what otherwise would have been a rather incoherent mish-mash of colours and styles. However, the staging didn't always seem to work (though some of that might have been down to the way it was broadcast). In my mind's eye, Cinderella's father flickered between Ed Watson 40 years on from the last scene of Alice in Wonderland, and Ozzie Osborne if he'd eschewed heavy metal to become a New Romantic. Very strange. The train on Cinderella's costume for her entrance to the ball was attached around her neck by a contrivance that reminded me of a giant shuttlecock. Curious. The 'star' costumes reminded me more of snowflakes; perhaps lots of sequins could have complemented the effect of the 'twinkling' choreography? The weird horticultural kids' costumes didn't bother me as much as it did others. But, yes, they were weird. I was left wondering if these colour and style mixes, distortions, and dissonances were semi-deliberate in order to provide a dream-like aura to the proceedings that would feed our imaginations? If so, then it worked! The staging struck a good balance between the use of scenery and projections (unlike, say, Water for Chocolate which I felt relied too heavily on projections - which presumably are cheaper), though I'm surprised that the ROH still cannot project onto the stage in a way that avoids 'painting' the dancers (I remember seeing a documentary about Cirque de Soleil many years ago where they used scenery projectors that 'knew' where the performers were and could adjust what they were projecting accordingly). But I am looking forward to seeing the production for real at the ROH, as I got the impression in the cinema that I was missing out on a lot of the lighting/stage effects. In fact, at two key moments the camerawork was behind the unfolding action - possibly deliberately given the criticisms of some of the special effects. Firstly, the key transformation into the Fairy Godmother was not shown in the cinema - the camera was busy looking at Nunez, then in the next shot it was looking at Fumi. That was really annoying. Where's the magic in that? Secondly, the key transformation back to Cinders at the stroke of midnight seemed to happen off camera as we first saw her as Cinders when the director switched to a different camera and angle. Again, I want to see that I'm being fooled by stage tricks, not wonder what's happening out of sight. Having said that, I was generally impressed by the extent to which Ross MacGibbon resisted close-ups of dancers torsos at the expense of their legs and feet - this was particularly evident in Nunez's wonderful solo at the start of Act 2. Let's hope he keeps moving in that direction. I was also disappointed by the transformation of the pumpkin into the coach - a pumpkin carried by Fumi floated up into the air, split into two, released some glitter, and suddenly there was the coach lit up below on the stage. There was no sense of the pumpkin *growing into* the coach - it acted more like an elaborate light switch. But, on to the dancing. I really grew to like Avis and Acri as the step-sisters (although my partner wasn't so enthusiastic), and for me they kept firmly on the right side of the hamming-it-up line. Avis's face was a hyperactive maelstrom of (mostly furious) emotions, while Acri did a remarkable job of remaining pretty deadpan throughout the mayhem (they reminded me slightly of Laurel and Hardy in that respect). There were a good number of laugh-out-loud moments; my favourite, which I'm not sure will work from the Amphi, was Avis doing his synchronised smearing of Acri's lipstick just prior to leaving for the ball - wonderfully petty sibling rivalry! The Act 2 dance with the two Suitors (Philip Mosley and Lukas B Braendsrod) was a hoot, and Lukas gave the most wonderful impression of a man so narcissistic that he stands there, constantly distracted by gazing at his own reflection in a mirror he keeps in his head. It's a compliment to say he reminded of the comically self-infatuated Siegfried in the Trocks version of Swan Lake. I haven't seen Cinderella enough over a sufficiently large span of years to pass comment on how 'faithful' the step-sisters are to the original. There has obviously been a shift in the overall 'tone' to better reflect current sensitivities, for the 1970 DVD lists them as The Ugly Sisters rather than the current Step-Sisters. Their behaviour was less vicious than I expected (though Avis did at one point appear to lift Acri off the floor by his neck!), and they appeared less grotesque than earlier incarnations (though they are still obviously caricatures, especially as men playing women). However, I don't think the ballet's narrative is adversely affected, as it's pretty lightweight anyway, and relies more on Cinderella's intrinsic goodness than on the gulf between her and her step-sisters' behaviour. I have greater concerns with more radical changes, actual or putative, to ballets such as Raymonda and La Bayadere, but this is not the thread to discuss those! It was an absolute joy to be able to see Anna-Rose, Melissa, Yuhui, Mayara and Fumi dancing on stage together as the collective might of the Seasons in the service of the Fairy Godmother. That triggered happy memories of a slightly different alignment of the stars in Zucchetti's Prima in the Diamond Celebration, and also of Magri and Osipova on stage together in Act 3 of Woolf Works. Principal ballerinas are definitely an addictive drug - and the more concentrated the dose, the greater the high! But for me, it was Nunez's dancing that provided the highest high of the evening (ably abetted by Muntagirov, of course). The consistently razor-sharp clarity of her movement and the precision of her timing were truly beautiful to behold: but her dancing briefly surpassed even those heights during the scene where she is back in the kitchen reminiscing about the ball. She performed a single slow turn en pointe, though I'm hard pressed to say exactly how slow as no individual part of her was moving, just her whole body rotating smoothly through space. It was flawless, I was captivated, and the moment became stretched out in time. She did something similar a good few years ago in one of the Bayadere performances, where she went up en pointe and just stayed there, unchanging - messing with our perception of time. Those rare moments are timeless and priceless, so I'll now retract my complaint about spending £21.49 on a cinema ticket! And I'm certainly not going to complain about spending a bit more than that for a Blu-Ray if they decide to release it (as long as they re-edit it to address the problems arising from mixing it live).

Acts 1 and 3 more often than not push me close to tears - who knows what those around me think to find me surreptitiously blowing my nose/wiping my eyes when the lights go up 🙄 - but Becomings, as you say, is shallow in comparison (though I still find it as thrilling a sugar-rush as a box of Friars Assorted Dessert Chocs).

Thanks for the suggestion, @JohnS. I've copied the relevant bit over.

I put a reply on the Creature thread concerning whether or not music written specifically for some recent ballets worked on their own as soundtracks to listen to. My post made a particular point about Max Richter's album of music from Woolf Works (Three Worlds) that @JohnS felt might bear repeating here. That made sense, so here is the extract... I listened to the Richter's album 'Three Worlds' on Spotify a few weeks ago, following my first visit to Woolf Works at the ROH and my desire to help relive that wonderful evening. It didn't quite have the impact of the live performance (and Becomings ends on the solo piano rather than the upbeat finale in the ballet), but it came close. In fact, in one respect the album improved on the theatre. In Woolf Works at the ROH, the first and last acts are introduced with the spoken word, which I find helps prime the senses and emotions for what is to come; for a choreographer famously reticent to provide too much structure, it's a welcome framing device. On Richter's album, the second act, Becomings, also starts with the spoken word - a quote from Orlando itself. And my goodness, is that quote fitting! It sets up both the fragmented, diverse musical structure of Becomings and the choreography/staging so brilliantly that I'm left wondering why the creative team didn't use it in the ballet itself. In fact, because it fits so well, I'm left wondering if it was something that got dropped/forgotten about at an early stage. (Mr McGregor, in case you read this forum, could you please consider (re-)introducing it to the ballet?) Here is the quote... "Memory is the seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after. Thus, the most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the inkstand towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim, hanging and bobbing and dipping and flaunting..." Gosh, just reading that again makes me think of the roaming spotlight, the lasers, the costumes, the shards of music, the foreground and background choreographic snapshots all competing for attention.

Most of the time, but not always, I've found that music for dance/ballet that layers a recorded soundtrack over a live orchestra adds another dimension to the experience - eg AK's Giselle and Creature, and McGregor's Infra and Woolf Works. I agree, @LinMM, Richter's music provides a completely different emotional experience. I love the music to Woolf Works, and its emotional heft is one reason I ended up close to tears in three of the four performances I saw this current run (Osipova being the other reason!) - in particular those plaintive solo strings in Acts 1 and 3 that help convey and magnify the emotional content of what's happening on stage. In contrast, the music to Becomings has almost zero emotional impact; it's chaotic, futuristic, bold and brash - and thoroughly enjoyable! It's also very loud, and certainly at the final performance I thought it got out of control at one point (there's a bit where the mixing desk seems to blend in some feedback, and it seemed a bit too prolonged and ear-splitting - at least at the front of the amphi where we were sat). It's an interesting point about listening to the soundtracks on their own; the above ballets had music specifically written for them, so the relationship of the music to the ballet is stronger than, say, the three pre-existing, stand-alone symphonies used in MacMillan's Anastasia. So do they work in isolation? Well, the music to all of the above is available on Spotify. I listened to the Richter's album 'Three Worlds' a few weeks ago, following my first visit to Woolf Works at the ROH and my desire to help relive that wonderful evening. It didn't quite have the impact of the live performance (and Becomings ends on the solo piano rather than the upbeat finale in the ballet), but it came close. In fact, in one respect the album improved on the theatre: I was going to write about that in a post about Woolf Works, but I never quite got round to putting it all 'on paper' in any coherent form, and since that ship has now sailed I might as well mention it here! In Woolf Works at the ROH, the first and last acts are introduced with the spoken word, which I find helps prime the senses and emotions for what is to come; for a choreographer famously reticent to provide too much structure, it's a welcome framing device. On Richter's album, the second act, Becomings, also starts with the spoken word - a quote from Orlando. And my goodness, is that quote fitting! It sets up both the fragmented, diverse musical structure of Becomings and the choreography/staging so brilliantly that I'm left wondering why the creative team didn't use it in the ballet itself. In fact, because it fits so well, I'm left wondering if it was something that got dropped/forgotten about at an early stage. (Mr McGregor, in case you read this forum, could you please consider (re-)introducing it to the ballet?) Here is the quote... "Memory is the seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after. Thus, the most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the inkstand towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim, hanging and bobbing and dipping and flaunting..." Gosh, just reading that again makes me think of the roaming spotlight, the lasers, the costumes, the shards of music, the foreground and background choreographic snapshots all competing for attention. But back to Creature... I have not yet plucked up the courage to listen to Creature on Spotify. I'm pretty sure it won't work as a stand-alone piece as well as Richter's Woolf Works, but I will have a go next week once the run is over and I'm hankering after something to help mollify the inevitable feeling I will have that I should have gone to more performances...

After less than stellar reviews from the critics in the original run, I was somewhat concerned that what I regarded then - and still regard now - as a modern classic would fail to pull in the crowds. However, the audience at last night's Creature not only filled Sadler's Wells to about three-quarters capacity, but the noisy approval at the curtain calls was more reminiscent of a full house. Part of that response must go down to the incredible portrayal of the title role by Jeffrey Cirio - he is the prototypical Creature against which all others should draw inspiration - but some of the cast's characterisations also seemed more sharply defined than I remember from the last run, which made the very powerful, disturbing and challenging narrative even more searing. I regard this ballet as a modern classic because, for me, it ticks all the boxes - the narrative, emotion, choreography, music, staging, and character portrayal by the dancers all combine to make the total greater than the sum of its parts. Like AK's Giselle, Creature is an 'angry' ballet - with its anger once again directed at the arrogance of power (particularly patriarchal power), and the abuse (particularly misogyny) that arises from it; there are also the additional, though linked, dimensions of alluded-to environmental destruction and the permissive effects of conformity in enabling authoritarian abuses and 'othering'. That these issues remain after millennia of earth-bound 'civilisation' and, as suggested in Creature, seem destined to be exported to space, just adds to this anger. I think Creature will be the defining role for Cirio - he has so grown into the role (or has the role grown into him?) and fine-tuned its nuances that the association will persist. The breadth and strength of the emotions felt and conveyed to the audience must have been as exhausting a roller-coaster ride for him as it was for us, but that doesn't even touch on the physical demands of the role, with him being on-stage and the centre of the action most of the time! He looked physically and emotionally drained at the curtain calls, though the rapturous applause definitely seemed to lift him. Surprisingly, Fabian Reimair has managed to make the Major even more odious and repugnant than before. Given that he exerts absolute control in the microcosm of the research station, he makes manifest the view that 'absolute power corrupts absolutely'. There is no part of his behaviour that doesn't smack of arrogant entitlement and disdain and, like many others in his position, he seems to take a casual enjoyment in flaunting that abuse of power, as if to say 'and what are you going to do about it?' Off the top of my head, and ignoring supernatural beings, I can't think of another male role that is so comprehensively malign. The Major is abhorrent, and I salute Reimair for making him so. If Cirio is the definitive Creature, then Takahashi is pretty close to being the definitive Marie. A lowly cleaner with a higher aspiration to join the escape into space, her powerlessness makes the role fairly passive and her abuse at the hands of the Major depressingly inevitable. She gets one opportunity to rebel - by seeming to side with the Major in order to get a helmet to give to Creature, and so save him - which tragically leads to her murder by the Major. In the first run, that murder took place in full view of the audience; with nothing else happening on stage we were forced to confront that uncomfortable reality or look away. In that sense, its staging was similar to the graphic re-enactment of Giselle's murder at the beginning of Act 2 of AK's Giselle, though the frenzied violence of Giselle's murder contrasts with the more cold-blooded killing of Marie. Nevertheless, something has happened between the first run of Creature and now, for the murder now takes place behind a 'screen' made up of some of the 'army', who observe it passively and emotionlessly (with the exception of one female recruit who stands off to the side, horrified, and is then threatened by the Major). Were complaints made of this 'gratuitous' violence and these complaints acted on? I do hope not, but I wouldn't be surprised if so, - in which case I am really concerned about what changes may be made to AK's Giselle when it goes on tour this autumn. And, if this were true, why did the sexual assault on Marie by the Major (in the same place on the set) at the end of Act 1 remain, unchanged? What 'standards' are being applied here? In real life, and appropriately, we may see on the news a gunman stalking the school corridors, but not the murders. In the 'safe space' of a theatre performance, should the same norms apply? It was a shame not to be able to see Stina Quagebeur as the Doctor one more time, but I felt Sarah Kundi gave an excellent performance in which she walked that fine, but compromised, line between loyalty to 'the project' and concern for the safety of Marie under the predatory gaze of the Major. That compromise between duty and morals was also admirably expressed by Ken Saruhashi as the Captain, though I still believe the conflict that led to the Captain's suicide (alluded to in a warning notice outside the auditorium) was most clearly expressed by Frola in the first run. For Frola's Captain, it was obvious the end could no longer justify the means. It is a shame he doesn't feature in this run. The music to Creature is an interesting mix that adds to the pressurised, chaotic, out-of-control narrative unfolding on stage. Structuring the initial music around Nixon's phone call is inspired, and it gradually morphs to give a dystopian feel to the proceedings; the reworking of Purcell's Cold Genius for the 'experiment' that sees Creature put outside in freezing temperatures without protection is also inspired; the reworking of Ravel's Bolero provides the slow acceleration to the horrible inevitability of the assault on Marie by the Major; the choral work at the end, with haunting, drawn out chords reminiscent of Blade Runner, is a beautiful, sad accompaniment to the destruction of the station and the Creature coming to terms with the loss of Marie. The music is loud - very loud - but the second circle wasn't vibrating in resonance quite as much as it did last time, so I think they might have turned the volume down a bit. Either that, or I'm becoming acclimatised to loud music having recently been to four performances of Woolf Works! At every viewing so far, Creature has; engaged and challenged me; has toyed with my emotions; has caused me to think about difficult subjects seemingly 'baked in' to the human condition; and has made me think about the benefits and costs of scientific progress, exemplified by space exploration. At one superficial level, Creature is reminiscent of a 1950's sci-fi 'B' movie such as 'When Worlds Collide', but at another I think it touches on some quite profound aspects of the important relationships between society, human behaviour and scientific progress. I've been grasping at something in the recesses of my mind since leaving Sadler's Wells last night, and it finally came to me earlier today. I think Creature has the potential to become a modern classic because it resonates so well with the profound insights and sentiments expressed in the episode Knowledge or Certainty, from Jacob Bronowski's TV series The Ascent of Man - in particular the following quote... "There are two parts to the human dilemma. One is the belief that the end justifies the means. That push-button philosophy, that deliberate deafness to suffering, has become the monster in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit: the assertion of dogma that closes the mind, and turns a nation, a civilization, into a regiment of ghosts - obedient ghosts or tortured ghosts." If that sounds a bit pretentious, then so be it. But the best ballets, the ones that persist, do more than entertain; they make you question things; they teach you things.

The promotional blurb around this filmed version of Akram Khan's Creature placed a lot of emphasis on the involvement of 'acclaimed documentary maker' Asif Kapedia, to which my immediate reaction was 'Oh dear, the lives of Amy Winehouse and Ayrton Senna are - quite literally in this case - poles apart from a stage performance of a ballet.' And, just as a named choreographer evokes the expectation of a particular style, to what extent would the involvement of a prominently-named director lead to a particular presentational style? Would Asif Kapedia add another 'creative layer' to AK's Creature to give us some weird chimera - AK's AK's Creature? For me, the overall result was a mixed bag - a few aspects were enhanced by the film, but a worrying number elicited frustration, and for others there was disbelief at their apparent naivety. So, what was good? Well, the cinema we were in (Waterside, Bristol) was almost packed, which was great to see. The alternative was a 50 mile journey, but I wonder if that excellent attendance was repeated elsewhere? And the cast were uniformly on cracking form - Reimair as the callous, arrogant, misogynistic Major; Quagebeur as the Doctor, torn between her scientific calling and loyalty to her own sex; Saruhashi as the Captain, similarly torn between duty and morals (though we preferred Frola at Sadler's Wells); Takahashi as the lowly cleaner with soaring aspirations, brought crashing down to earth by toxic masculinity; and Cirio as the Creature, for whom adjectives and superlatives quickly run out... Even at Sadlers Wells, armed with binoculars, I didn't realise just how accomplished a dance-actor Cirio is - the close-up filming of his face (and body) revealed him as a tabula rasa onto which a dazzling range of emotions could be projected at will by his musculature, and similarly changed in the blink of an eye. Part of it would be the lighting and camera angles, but his mimicry of a prowling, animal gait across the stage could easily be mistaken for CGI, it was that good. I know Andy Serkis contributed his vocal talents to the soundtrack, but could he also have been coaching Cirio on movement, given his experience in 'animating' otherworldly creatures in mainstream films - eg Gollum in Lord of the Rings? I'm so glad Cirio's back for the upcoming run at Sadler's Wells - and that we have tickets to one of his performances! What wasn't so good? There's a couple of things that occur with annoying regularity in ballet films and cinema broadcasts that are guaranteed to wind me up (especially when perpetrated by ex-dancers turned directors who should know better!). First is the seemingly willful (because they must know what they are doing!) tendency to cut off dancers below the waist when they are jumping/spinning/etc. Kapedia took it a stage further, often also cutting off forearms with over-tight shots (yes, I know I said that the close-ups helped with conveying emotions, but it shouldn't be at the expense of the dancing - it's a ballet, after all; let the dancing do the majority of the, er, heavy-lifting. If the director can't 'trust' the audience to understand the dance, then either get a director that can, or commission a play called Creature instead). The other, marginally less annoying tendency is to keep cutting from one camera angle to another. In increasing order of 'guilt' are; The Bolshoi (they seem to use a limited number of cameras in the auditorium, and have the fewest shifts of perspective - bravo!); the Royal Ballet (there are too many shots of spinning torsos rather than spinning dancers); La Scala (where a spin is almost guaranteed to be accompanied by an overhead shot; even folk in the upper slips at ROH would never see anything from that extreme a perspective!). Creature was performed on its stage set - presumably at Sadler's Wells - yet additional liberties were taken during its filming by positioning cameras on the stage itself, sometimes looking out, and also by making them mobile. The worst examples were the spinning of a central camera to track Creature running around and around the stage, and conversely the continual circling of the camera round and round the table on which Creature and Marie were dancing. All it did was draw attention to the movement of the camera and detract from what we really came to see, the movement of the dancers. For me, the worst transgression was the inclusion of video effects in what could otherwise have been a pretty faithful recording of the on-stage action. For, once post-production effects are admitted, faith in what we are watching is irreparably damaged. Ballets such as Alice and Frankenstein are both replete with special effects, but, importantly, the experience you get from watching the cinema broadcast or DVD is exactly as it would be in the theatre - they are completely faithful. On the other hand, I recall a seeing a Shechter ballet on the TV a few years ago (was it Clowns?) that seemed to have some quite subtle slow motion effects in it that completely undermined my appreciation of the piece - I wanted to marvel at the natural skills of the dancers, not the director's/editor's ability covertly to 'enhance' them. Even my enjoyment of my favourite recording of Nutcracker (the Baryshnikov/ABT) is diminished by the inclusion of some video effects (eg the dissolving of the Nutcracker mask to reveal the handsome prince) - though those effects (no doubt cutting edge at the time!) simply look a bit twee now, and the recording is so obviously a studio recording that the overall effect is thankfully minimal. Creature, however, is a recording made on the proper stage set, so the inclusion of video effects during the performance itself is particularly jarring (I didn't mind the video prelude showing an Arctic wilderness and the pre-credit simulation at the end of earth/space from orbit, as they sat outside the performance itself). Ballet can be an almost miraculous medium, with subtle meaning transcribed and communicated through movement, expression and gesture. I can only conclude Kapedia misinterpreted his own lack of understanding of the medium as the medium's inability to communicate through such analogy. Why else would he feel the need to 'explain' the meaning of characters pointing to the sky by showing actual footage of a Saturn V rocket soon after launch? And do it not once, but over and over again? It had all the sophistication of a primary school nativity play... And given the superb job Cirio was doing in physically manifesting every aspect of the chopped up Nixon speech, why did Kapedia feel the need to 'enhance' the static noise inherent in those early earth-to-space communications by breaking up the picture with visual static post-production? Again, just too literal, unimaginative and naïve. And, if we don't 'get' that it's Nixon speaking, in what way does an almost subliminal flash of his image contribute to the experience? And, during the sequence where the Doctor examines Creature, I'm convinced I briefly saw a green ECG trace superimposed on the film (or projected on the back wall) while she was taking his pulse - deary me. Other unnecessary, overly literal, interpretation 'aids' were the close-ups of a rocket taking off towards the end; flashes of Creature mouthing the words spoken on the soundtrack; and the shot of Creature stumbling around in a blizzard having been ejected from the research station. Taken together, it all smacked of a lack of confidence in ballet as a communication medium, or a rather insulting lack of faith in the audience's ability to understand the medium. A simple solution would have been to take the traditional approach of naming/showing the principal characters at the start rather than the end (which would have had the added benefit of giving deserved prominence to the wonderful dancers who bring these projects to life), and also providing a brief synopsis. Or does being a 'creative' nowadays preclude one from doing anything so obviously 'traditional'? The start of the ballet was not as I remember it - I don't recall Marie being 'lifeless' at the beginning - she was caring for Creature. I also recall the string of beads being passed from Marie to Creature to the Captain, rather than being with the Captain when he first appears (the beads were a puzzle, which is why I concentrated on them at Sadler's Wells). Was this a sub-Mayerling attempt to make the ballet 'circular' with Creature starting off with an apparently lifeless Marie and ending the same way (if so, it was half-hearted as the music wasn't the same)? The final part of the ballet was rushed and (deliberately?) confusing. From the point at which the decision to leave earth is made, the film becomes chaotic. Multiple, rapid camera angle changes; what appear to be flashbacks showing video from earlier sections (anathema - see above!); the corps, who make repeated crossings of the stage with backpacks and then helmets, are seen only in the background, and out-of-focus; I'm sure, after he kills Marie, the Major is confronted by the Doctor in the original run, and is threatened in return before he takes her off stage to what is now an uncertain fate; the poignant ending, with Creature cradling the lifeless Marie and the station falling apart around him, is played out in the theatre to the entirety of an amazing vocal track with soaring notes - in the film, the on-stage action is truncated to accommodate the 'orbit' video mentioned above with that music still playing. All very unsatisfactory! Other points The beads remain a puzzle. The work carried out at the station appears mostly soulless, mechanical, coldly scientific and dehumanising - even if its aims (saving the remnants of humanity?) are lofty in comparison. Perhaps the beads represent religion, or those 'higher values' of humanity that might otherwise get lost in the headlong pursuit of the project's success? It would seem that the Captain thought those 'higher values' had been sacrificed - making the whole enterprise ultimately pointless - as he deliberately chose to leave the station with no protection, presumably to die. The film solved a minor mystery. In the synopsis for the original stage production, it states that the banished Creature 'returns with a creature of his own', but over the course of four performances we couldn't figure out what this referred to. Well, the brief footage at the start of the film that places the action in the polar wilderness includes a brief shot of what looks like an Arctic fox and, indeed, an apparently dead animal is brought back in by Creature in the film itself (and he attends to/is distracted by it at the back of the stage while Marie is being killed by the Major). It will be interesting to see if this change, which better fits the original synopsis, also appears in the stage run next month. A major mystery, however, remains - just who is this filmed version of Creature aimed at? In mixing 'live action' with video effects, and in filming a performance but disregarding the convention of keeping the viewpoint in the auditorium, the whole enterprise becomes a rather unsatisfactory, immiscible mix - as a creature itself, it's neither fish nor fowl; it falls between two stools and sits there, looking up to the lofty heights it could have reached by trusting the stage presence of performers and performance.

I don't think Saturday evening's performance (Hirano/Osipova/Morera) reached the same consistent highs as the previous Saturday, though parts of it were definitely up there. And maybe it's only complete consistency (across cast and acts) that allows the narrative thrust to grow unimpeded and exponentially - to achieve escape velocity and reach such heights that we can only gasp at the view it affords us. For example, I'm struggling to pinpoint exactly why Rudolf's PDD with his mother failed to move me in the way it did on opening night and last Saturday; on both occasions the end of the scene was met with appreciative applause from the audience, but not last night - so I don't think it was just me and/or whatever mood I was in yesterday. Maybe it was the clarity of communication that was not quite at last week's level - for instance, the look that the Empress gives Rudolf when he is holding her arm a bit too firmly didn't seem as imperious as before. Tiny, tiny details we don't necessarily look for, but to which we can't help but react when they are relayed clearly. And of course, in a narrative ballet as complex and interconnected as Mayerling, those details inform and feed into our reaction to the next scene, then the next, etc. I'd mentioned in my previous post the sense of 'abandon' amongst the cast members last Saturday. That seemed to translate into freer-flowing, more confident story-telling that took the audience along with it. In general, those embellishments - touches, looks, kisses, etc - were less evident last night. But that's not to say last night was not great! It was! A case in point would be the bedroom scene that ends Act 2. I have not felt that hot under the collar from that scene for a number of years now. Osipova's Mary oozed sexuality from every pore, and her every move was refracted through the prism of the exploration and pursuit of physical pleasure - even the gun's discharge (only very, very slightly 'premature' this time!) seemed imbued with a carnal significance. And the way she wrapped herself around Rudolf - slowly, completely, immersing herself in the gratification it offered - was almost unbearable in the intensity of its primal impulse, its sexual imperative. Like @Dawnstar, I kept an eye open for Morera's arrival at the 'fireworks' party and, yes, it did seem her character had simply forgotten to put her gloves on - an easy oversight to make when you're such a busy arch-manipulator, working day and night (albeit unknowingly!) on the demise of a whole empire!

I thought I'd hold off so I could write just the one post on two performances (by the same cast) with one of them from two different perspectives (ROH and cinema encore). I apologise right away as it turned out just as long-winded as usual... 😐 Wed 5th - ROH - Osipova/Hirano Sat 8th - ROH - Osipova/Hirano Sunday 9th - encore showing of the Wed 5th cinema broadcast I love Mayerling - it is a work of genius, a pure alpha-predator of a ballet; all muscle and sinew, power and fearful beauty, with not an ounce of unnecessary flab or filler. And all driven by primal urges we share with much of the animal kingdom - except, perhaps, that knowledge of our own mortality and, tragically, the ability to take that path in extremis. So I did get slightly annoyed reading in The Times review that 'this overlong ballet has its faults (too many characters, too many scenes, too much plotting)', particularly after reading a quote in a Guardian article the previous week 'that if you have to read the programme, a ballet has failed in its job'. Well, no and no! Mayerling is NOT entertainment, to be supped on as a distraction; it's education, to be engaged with, assimilated and processed - and that takes work! It's convoluted because life is messy and complicated, even (particularly?) for Royal Families. In fact, a ballet based on real life almost demands complexity as there are no magic wands to wave, no enchanted kisses to give, and certainly no deus ex machina to bring the whole edifice crashing down at the end. If there is a 'god' at work, it is MacMillan teaching us about the human condition. The Guardian article also contained Balanchine's quote 'there are no mothers-in-law in ballet'. I would qualify that with 'but there can be if you do some homework or read the programme'. In Mayerling, a simple scowl and tap of a walking stick speaks volumes about the relationship between Elizabeth and her mother-in-law. Does anyone know when Balanchine came up with that quote? It would be wonderful to think that MacMillan included Archduchess Sophie to test that 'law'... The lady sat next to me on opening night had not seen Mayerling before, but she had read the synopsis. She managed to keep up until about halfway through Act 2, then lost it (I didn't make it that far on my first viewing). She still enjoyed the spectacle and the dancing, though, as did I that first time. So, if we can be encouraged by the choreographer to get the most from Like Water for Chocolate by watching RB Insights that were as long as the ballet itself, then I won't accept those complaints about Mayerling in The Times. And if I do want to be entertained while I'm being educated, then the best source I've found is the old South Bank documentary on YouTube (Part 1 here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IntawIGac4). I approached Wednesday's performance full of nervous expectation and anticipation - it was opening night at the ROH, with a cast of favourites, doing one of my favourite ballets, with the cameras present and the possibility of a video release! I found myself getting unusually emotional during Act 1, and there was lots of (hopefully) surreptitious sniffing going on. I initially put it down to the excitement of the occasion and the fact that after a couple of uninspiring new full length ballets over the last two years, I was finally watching a true masterpiece. However, it also happened on Saturday 8th at the ROH and even on Sunday at the encore screening. It happened mainly during Rudolf's PDD with his mother, which laid bare the gulf between his longings and her inability to reciprocate - it was tragic to watch. But it was also triggered by his cruel mistreatment of Stephanie, in this case the sympathy switching to Francesca Hayward as she was thrown around like a rag doll - frightened, confused and trying to adapt to the situation she found herself in as best she could. It was even bubbling away in the earlier PDD between Morera's Larisch and Rudolf; again, the communication between them, expressed through dance and expression, had a clarity that hit home. The three females - Morera, Hayward, and especially the poker-faced Mendizabel - were on top form, but the common denominator of Hirano's Rudolf really helped to expose and amplify the dynamics of those relationships. The character of Rudolf is difficult to portray as it needs to demonstrate his gradual inner disintegration across the three acts. The dancer can't start off completely 'mad and bad', and neither can he leave his madness until his last scene with Mary. During the last run, there was some criticism of Hirano keeping too much of his inner turmoil, er, inside. I felt he certainly improved over three performances in the last run, but for this run I think there has been a marked improvement in projecting that gradual disintegration (and the causes of it) to the audience. This may just be his growing experience, but it might also be receiving the benefit of Ed Watson's insights now he has moved to coaching. Either way, his improved skills at projection, coupled with his incredible physical stature, strength and endurance, bodes well for the future. Rudolf may well be disintegrating before our eyes, but Hirano is consolidating his own interpretation of this character very nicely indeed. And what of Osipova's Mary? She, too, goes on a journey from wide-eyed adolescent at the Imperial Court to nymphomaniac (going to meet someone alone, in their bedroom, dressed in a negligee sort of gives the game away) and, ultimately, to willing (and even eager) participation in the story's deadly conclusion. I think Osipova mentioned in the broadcast between acts that she is at her best when she completely inhabits the character on stage. That doesn't happen every time with her (just most!), but when it does her performance and character's journey can reach heights that few others can. Examples would include the shifts in character required for the three acts of Sylvia, for Romeo and Juliet, and certainly for Anastasia (as an aside, this is one reason I'm a bit worried about the RB just doing Act 3 of Anastasia - I think it needs the context-setting of Acts 1 and 2 to make it work. It's that business of real-life stories being complicated again!). Having seen yesterday's encore cinema broadcast of opening night, I'm actually now more impressed with the Act 2 bedroom scene than I was on the night itself - and I think this was down to how much I was hoping for a flawless performance as it was being filmed/broadcast. And there were a few 'issues' that had a disproportionate effect on me - the revolver firing too soon and having to be fired again, plus the rather untidy, early dismount from a lift (and ironically, there was a segment in the interval broadcast that referred to the difficult of their PDDs - lots of hands being moved to lots of places. Of course, it worked perfectly there!). The final PDD was harrowing, but at the same time somehow intensely beautiful to watch as they made the ultimate sacrifice for each other. There were other gremlins as well, including Mitzi Caspar having to spend some time extricating her skirt from the chair she was trying to get up from, just when Rudolf was about to ask her to commit suicide with him. And please, please bring back proper blanks to be fired behind the screen for the double 'suicide' (they don't even have to be in the gun); otherwise the gunshots can be lost in the music, and the lack of a bright flash from the gun leaves doubt as to what's happened. Given all the technology available, why not give the job to a percussionist - surely they could get their beats and the bangs on the dot? And talking of the 'old days', it used to be that broadcasts were filmed twice - once to practise and get something in the can, and the other on the night itself. This was filmed only once, on opening night - not even part-way into the run when things generally get smoother - so there's no fall-back position! Was this just over-confidence, or a cost-cutting exercise - or both? 🤔 And while I'm at it, why on earth was it broadcast and not streamed? I know it was an encore broadcast, but there were literally ten people in the city centre cinema we went to. This cost the two of us around £40 including parking and travel, of which the ROH would receive a fraction. I would much rather pay £25 direct to the ROH and settle down in front of a TV - no hassle, no traffic jams, no parking, no having to go out to the desk to tell them there was no sound (though someone else did that, not me), and a much better picture quality (it's in the nature of the projection equipment that blacks are rendered a dark grey - modern TVs pride themselves on rendering black, so if a TV was that bad it would be straight back to the shop!). I didn't realise until I went to the Saturday performance, which wasn't filmed, that the lighting was exactly the same as on opening night; no allowance was made for filming. Yes, the cinema broadcast was dark, but it was still watchable (key dancers were well lit) and nicely reflected the overall dark mood. What is really annoying is that Saturday's performance with the same cast was absolutely superb! After the 'practice' that was opening night, the cast had extended their 'comfort zone' and danced with a confidence, precision and abandon that completely swept me along. It was one of 'those' performances, and the great shame of it is that the cameras were not there to record it... In a ballet that is a relentless challenge for the male lead, I'm becoming increasingly in awe of a scene in which he does not feature - when Larisch arrives at the Vetsera household, where Mary and her mother are arranging flowers. This scene becomes the historical axis around which the increasingly complex plot is cajoled into moving in the direction that ultimately leads to tragedy and, eventually, repercussions across Europe and the world. This is instigated and steered by deception on the part of Larisch. Three women in a drawing room, and a game of tarot; and that music - full of foreboding. A stunning piece of story-telling. I'm reminded of the bit of The Second Coming that starts 'Turning and turning in the widening gyre' and ends 'Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world', and it makes me shiver. And the things is, we know what's going to happen - we have a god's-eye view, but we are impotent gods; all we can do it watch it unfold, Cassandra-like. The impact of that scene was enhanced by the excited dancing of Osipova's Mary - full of the fast, hyperactive movement of the adolescent, but also accompanied by laser-sharp movements and stops - in contrast to Morera's more deliberate movements in controlling events. Unlike some, I have a lot of sympathy for Larisch. I think she genuinely cares for Rudolf (more than all the other women thus far) but is gradually losing her influence and ability to rein in his increasingly deranged behaviour. She hopes that 'younger blood' will be able to help, and forgoes her own position in a selfless quest to help Rudolf. Why do I say this? Because at no point does Rudolf ask her to die with him. To me, her motive is not to find a sacrificial lamb, but a salve for his troubled mind. She may be an arch-manipulator, but that alone doesn't make her evil. From our privileged position, it can look like the bestowing of a death sentence (especially with that sombre chord that is played when she places her hand on Osipova's shoulder) - but that is the sadness that comes with our knowledge of the future. Larisch sees a slightly different future, and her contained excitement is contained and only manifested in her stuttering exit across the stage. I've already mentioned how MacMillan managed to demonstrate the relationship between daughter- and mother-in-law. A couple of other tiny, but telling, encounters worked particularly well. The Hungarian officer trying to flirt with the Empress is beautifully put in his place by a suave Gary Avis demonstrating that the officer might well be able to kiss the outside of her hand, but in turning that hand over and kissing it on the inside he implies he has much more intimate access - superb! And I just love the way Mary's increasingly reckless relationship with Rudolf is implied in the way she traverses the stage to him, moving the gun around in circles like a gunslinger, and also when she goes across to him, arms flailing like a windmill. And I mentioned in the last run how Mary moving across the stage in the suicide scene on her knees, and prostrating herself in a cross made perfect sense when I found out that the land underneath where they died became a place of worship. There are so many layers to be mined here... Finally, I'd like to say how much I enjoyed Leticia Dias' Louise - she really does have 'presence'. Thank you for reading all of this!

I was underwhelmed on my first viewing of two recent works (‘The Weathering’ and Osipova’s ‘Carmen’) only to have the scales fall from my eyes on the second and so emerge from the auditorium a convert. I also came out of opening night of Like Water For Chocolate underwhelmed, but I thought it best to reserve judgement until I’d seen it a second time, which was last night. Unfortunately, any clarity that the second viewing afforded the complex narrative was offset by the harsh glare this shone on the deficiencies and limitations that were lurking in the shadows on opening night. That’s not to say there weren’t things (or performances) to like, but on balance it didn’t deliver what I expected from a major new full-length ballet co-produced by two of the best companies in the world. So first a few plaudits… I thought the efforts to help the audience understand the complexities of the story and its presentation were a breath of fresh air. The three hours of ‘insight evenings’ were helpful, though it did seem a bit of an (ex)critic’s and creatives’ love-in at times – more incest than insight? And was Peloton a sponsor as well as Rolex, btw…? 🤔 The programme set a new standard in design and layout, well worth £8 – highlights being the large-font contents page, character sketches and plot synopsis, evocative use of photos, and lots of background articles (which I’ve promised myself I will read one day, probably the day before the stream…). More of the same, please, for Mayerling etc next season, not just new works! For a ‘magic realism’ production, I just loved the visual trickery of the long line of figures depicting and switching between death and life, and the way they remained in the background and oversaw some of the action. On opening night, Corrales stole the second half of Act 2 (and maybe even the show) as the ‘revolutionary soldier’, Juan; a blazing, percussive solo effort that seemed to lift, in perfect synchrony, those around him and even, it seemed, the orchestra pit. And what a marvellous, Rhapsody-like touch at the end when he just dismissed his whole, perfect effort with a wave of his hand and what seemed like a shrug of his upper lip. (there’s a counter-argument to be made that, as a minor character, and with no similarly strong, virtuoso pieces for the main characters, a strong Juan unbalances the narrative flow and actually exposes some of its deficiencies.) Last night I was really impressed with Naghdi’s Tita; such a strong character, yet forced by tradition, obligation and domination to suffer. I was also very pleasantly surprised by Clare Calvert’s Rosaura, especially in the cruel madness brought on by sickness just before she died. While not reaching the same brief supernova brightness of Juan on opening night, Corrales burned consistently brightly throughout as Pedro last night. I first saw Laura Morera then Fumi Kaneko as the appalling Mama Elena, a victim of her own history. Trying to choose one over the other is like asking to choose between, er, water and chocolate? Morera’s spiteful, physical cruelty versus Kaneko’s more sly, psychological viciousness; I’ll have both, please! The score contained several good, strong passages, and I loved the use of a song to finish the performance - though for me it seemed to impart more emotion than the final duet itself. (Much of the rest of the music was not only predictable, but confusing familiar – see below.) However, however, however… I haven’t read the book or seen the film, but from the insights and programme we are told there are deep, dark, and complex familial, sexual, and violent undercurrents ebbing and flowing throughout the story presented on stage. But, quite frankly, this is no Mayerling. The success of Mayerling as a psycho-sexual drama obviously depends on the successful blending of the ingredients of staging, music and choreography into, literally, a recipe for disaster. OK, Mayerling has the ‘bonus’ of being set against a broad sweep of imperial history, but LWFC has the ‘bonus’ of magic-realism to bolster its impact. I have problems with all three main ‘ingredients’ of LWFC, separately and together, as well as aspects of the ‘magic’. I felt the staging was rather sparse. One could argue the approach brought focus to the important elements (especially the tables!) onstage, and perhaps helped represent the expansiveness of rural Mexico. On the other hand, it just looked a bit cheap; great for touring, but less so for evoking atmosphere for that audience at that time (though some of the projections were effective – eg the animations of hills and mountains moving to suggest travel). One reason I prefer the RB production of Manon over that of ENB is the sparse settings used in the latter – they fail to convey the claustrophobic sense of decadence and decay that is so important to the narrative. The magic-realism effects were quite well executed, but I got a sense of déjà vu in places... - An autocratic, cruel head of all she surveys, appearing larger-than-life (or death) to wreak havoc? The Red Queen in Alice. - A large, celebratory ensemble piece visited by a malevolent being who can only be seen by the hero/heroine but cannot raise the alarm as the dancing and music gains in tempo and momentum? That’ll be Act 3 of Frankenstein. - A single on-stage tree in the background adorned with ‘stuff’? The Winter’s Tale (and at a push the ‘waiting room mural’ of Act 2 of Dante). As far as the dancing is concerned, I can understand choreographers wanting to establish their own ‘style’, but with Wheeldon I sometimes think this is at the expense of narrative flow/communication. I’ve moaned before about his tendency to interject ‘ugly’ movements such as holding the foot at right angles to the lower leg, and it predictably and annoyingly kept cropping up in this production. For me it adds nothing and detracts a lot; it’s the ballet equivalent of spreading the credits through the first 10 mins of a film – all it does is shout ‘look at me!’ (at least Shostakovich integrated his musical ‘signature’ into his compositions, rather than just get a tuba to blast it out in the quiet bits.) I also found the choreography a bit episodic and literal (an example might be the ‘ballet sex’, which came across as a bit tacky – again, see Mayerling for how ‘it’ should be done). Some of this might be explained by the complexity of the final story, despite trimming, but Wheeldon did manage to get a good sense of choreographic flow in Alice, which is just as episodic if not more so. Now I wouldn’t expect something like Alice to venture too far into the sea of deep emotions, but stick to the shallows; I would, however, expect LWFC to try to pull us like a riptide into deeper and more dangerous waters as befits the material’s potential (and as semi-successfully done in Winter’s Tale). I got absolutely none of that; I was (mostly) entertained, but no more. Staging aside, what drags us into the emotional depths of the narrative is the combination of choreography and music; Manon, Giselle, Mayerling, etc – the list of ballets able to reduce half the audience to tears is, thankfully, a long one. Even given I regard the choreography for LWFC as weak, I’m sure it was the music that was the real (anti!) siren call that kept me paddling in the emotional shallows on both nights. I actually like Joby Talbot’s musical style, and it’s definitely identifiable as his own. The problem is, it’s way too identifiable. I became increasingly convinced I’d heard much of the music to LWFC before (maybe not note-for-note, but enough to trigger the connections to his other scores – though I accept I might not have a sufficiently discriminatory musical ear to prevent that). I loved his orchestrations of the White Stripes for Chroma, and his score for Alice was a brilliantly paced and nuanced accompaniment to the on-stage action, helping to make an already colourful staging more vivid. Yes, he did ‘borrow’ bits (there was one section taken almost note-for-note from the Moody Blues Days of Future Passed) but that was more a musical joke or homage. Alice came across as new and fresh and innovative. I quite liked his music to The Winter’s Tale, though it didn’t have the instant appeal of Alice. A major problem with LWFC, for me, was I kept making associations between what I was hearing and parts of the scores for his previous two ballets – not helped by his use the ocarina again! It completely messed up my ability to relate the music to what was happening onstage (in fact, I saw Ed Watson in the Amphi Bar on opening night, just before it started, and I’m glad I did as 10 mins into LWFC I could quite easily imagine him appearing onstage as a metamorphosing white rabbit!). It could be similar for anyone who has seen the film The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, for which he wrote the score. I haven’t seen the film, but I explored bits of it on Spotify today and there are tracks there that have the same ‘feel’ as, in particular, the score for Alice (eg Arthur Wakes Up, Destruction of Earth, Space, Vogon Command Centre). It all started to sound a bit ‘samey’, and that has a detrimental effect in terms of the music supporting the narrative – at least for me. On reflection, I’m left with the impression that the ‘creatives’ involved in LWFC are either running out of steam, out of innovation, or are simply playing it safe. I’ve also felt that way about the resident choreographer for a while – although I’m really looking forward to Woolf Works next year. As I alluded to in my post about Osipova's Carmen, the evolution of dance and the repertoire, like real evolution, will leave a trail of mistakes and dead ends, and our view of the genesis of the established repertoire will be skewed by not having easy access to those past failures. So, yes, we shouldn’t expect every new full-length ballet to be a ‘keeper’, but I do worry we are in a bit of a cul-de-sac as far as the current set-up is concerned. That’s not to say LWFC is bad. Someone we spoke to during an interval thought it was absolutely wonderful, and the general audience reaction was febrile in its enthusiasm for both performances. But that person absolutely adores West End musicals, and I think that is the issue here. LWFC is more Matthew Bourne than Kenneth MacMillan, and in the same way that Mayerling would not suit a West End theatre used to delivering musical blockbusters, so LWFC might be more suited to that brash, sugar-rush environment than to that of the ROH. That sounds awfully elitist, but there’s only one ROH and it needs very careful curation and cultivation so it can continue to help bring to fruition what will ultimately be seen as the ‘fittest’ by future generations. I won’t be there in that future, but I’m pretty sure Mayerling will be and LWFC won’t.

While following 'official advice' to prepare for the upcoming Like Water for Chocolate by watching the (3 hours of!!! 😲) Insight Evenings on YouTube, we came across an interesting and, at 8 mins, refreshingly short Making of Carmen video - at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE8eJUPsTzQ I just wish I'd seen it before attending the two performances at the weekend! I'd wondered at those performances how much of what I'd labelled as a 'self-doubt' sequence (where Osipova-the-actress, after being 'mobbed' by the adoring fan, uses greasepaint to 'cancel' her image in the mirror) reflected aspects of her own personality, especially given the dramatic way her Swan Lake performance on March 3rd unfolded (my account of it here). If deliberate, it would make it an incredibly open, honest and personal part of this version of Carmen - especially as the work predates that particular Swan Lake performance. There may be equally insightful interviews in the UK press (but as most are behind paywalls I wouldn't know), but there's an open (in more ways than one) article from about three weeks after that Swan Lake - at https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5270658 - that reveals the very human side of this superhuman performer. It's in Russian, but if Chrome doesn't translate it immediately, then right-clicking and choosing 'Translate to English' provides readable copy. Even though the translation appears stilted in places, reading her account of the night and recalling my own memories made me feel even more for her, and for the art that enthralls the both of us.

I'm so glad we'd booked both performances of this version of Carmen rather than just the one, as I needed both performances to really appreciate it. At one extreme, for a sufficiently shallow ballet/performance I'm 'happy' with one viewing (eg The Unknown Soldier); at the other, a sufficiently confusing or impenetrable ballet/performance (eg Tree of Codes) will also only be seen once. The happy medium for both producers and audience alike is where we are satisfied by our initial experience but know we can glean more by going again. A performance is, after all, an act of communication between the stage and the audience - there are stories to be told, reacted to in the moment, mulled over at leisure, and built on with repeated viewings. After the first viewing, Carmen didn't sit in the 'happy medium' of my arbitrary scale. An apparently simple story told by a small cast had been deliberately complicated by being framed and conveyed in at least two different but, frustratingly, not always easy to differentiate ways:- as the filming of the Carmen story and as a parallel interplay between the actors' real lives. The device of mirroring story-telling this way has precedent in the film world - eg The French Lieutenant's Woman - though it's the first time I've seen it used in dance. The deliberate blurring of the boundaries between the two strands - life and art - had been flagged up in the (gorgeous, though variably expensive [£10 on Friday, £15 on Saturday]) programme, but trying to keep track of the switches on stage (with minimal use of props), yet alone the changing relationships between both the actors and their characters, proved rather frustrating. In fact, another layer of complexity was thrown into the mix on opening night. A slow-motion celebration/birthday party for the director/Escamillo character (Hernandez) was interrupted by him clapping his hands and shooing the cast off-stage. Was he interrupting a 'take' of a scene? But a take of what, as I thought this bit was their 'real' life? He stood there facing the audience, the (recorded) music stopped and started and stopped, voices were heard off-stage. The audience responded and clapped their enthusiastic support for Hernandez. Eventually the whole scene was played out again. I left the theatre confused - it certainly had the appearance of a glitch, but it also fitted and extended the central concept of blurring boundaries; maybe we were being shown not only the Carmen performance (ie Hernandez as Escamillo) and the 'real life' of the cast and crew of that performance (ie Hernandez as the director), but also the actual cast being coached/rehearsed (ie Hernandez as Hernandez) on the night. Were we part of the performance as well? All I can say is that the clouds parted and all became clear in the second performance. I was able to follow just about every strand of the complex and changing relationships playing out on stage between the two 'layers' of reality presented to us (the 'third layer' didn't reappear - it was just a glitch on opening night - though I was strangely disappointed when it didn't happen, as I think that 'accident' on the first night added a very interesting, if at the time confusing, dimension to the central, recursive conceit of the staging - stories within stories within stories). I really hope that Carmen pops up on Sky Arts at some point, as The Mother did back in those halcyon pre-covid days. If it does, and if anyone were to ask me if it's worth watching, I would say 'No - don't watch it, watch it twice; once to get your head around the plot and the second time to really enjoy what it has to offer.' The closest comparison I can think of is with the film The Usual Suspects; a multi-layered, labyrinthine, roller-coaster of a film with an incredible plot twist at the end. I just about followed it on first viewing, but the real rewards came from repeat viewings. In fact, that analogy is a bit closer than I first thought as there is also a really good twist at the end of Carmen. I won't say what it is, but I was struck how death, in life and art, in reality and fiction, is mirrored/inverted - very clever indeed! And what of the music? Having seen Frank Moon and Dave Price perform the music to The Mother live, I was slightly disappointed that Moon was not listed in the programme and that the music was pre-recorded. I had also assumed that Price was more a session player than a composer, so I was pleasantly surprised to find the music was similar in style to those earlier works. As with the plot, I was taken more by the music second time round than first; familiarity breeds content?! I thought the music for Jose's jealousy/breakdown/paranoia scene worked particularly well - I could just imagine that pounding, pressurised, heartbeat rhythm pushing him relentlessly towards the abyss and the tragedy that followed. And what of Osipova in this production of Carmen? Is this a vanity project and, if so, whose vanity is it satisfying? Her trajectory since leaving the Bolshoi has allowed her to expand her dance horizons - in the more classical repertoire through MacMillan and Ashton at the ROH, and in the contemporary sphere through, amongst other things, new works in collaboration with Vasiliev, Polunin and now Kittelberger. While we may be moved to tears by her in Giselle, Manon, etc she has said she 'is not a robot' and needs to develop not just repeat; and I really think for her it is 'needs to' rather than 'wants to', it's that fundamental to her - after all, we don't 'want' to breathe, 'want' to eat, 'want' to drink, we 'need' to. This need to explore, to push at the boundaries is an integral part of who she is as a dance-actress, as a 'creative'. And, hey, dancers gonna dance, creatives gonna create, and spectators gonna spectate. As a 'spectator' I just love seeing her as a 'dancer', almost regardless of whatever vehicle the 'creative' has assembled (packed theatres suggest there are many thousands like me). So, I think it's necessity rather than vanity. That's not to say my awe of her is completely uncritical. The nadir of those vehicles was probably Narcissus and Echo with Polunin (though she still managed to grace the stage, er, gracefully). On the other hand, I'm happy to argue the toss about the merits of pieces like Passo (with Vasiliev) which many panned but I thought quite complex beneath the surface. However, the best pieces, for me, have come from her collaboration with Pita. The Mother is the perfect vehicle for her as it plays to her uncanny ability to unite body and soul - it melds the visceral with the emotional, the physical privations of the mother with the unrelenting love for her child. Facada has a similarly deep vein running through it of the emotional made messily physical. It is, of course, essential that new works are commissioned and performed, and creating work around established stars is one way to help deliver these new works economically. I guess there's a bit of a symbiotic relationship between the dancer and choreographer; Osipova needs to push the boundaries and choreographers need established stars to make their works viable. It's questionable how many of these pieces will stay the course, especially when those have been created for a particular person. Mind you, it's questionable how many of the large productions from the last decade will stay the course (yes, The Dante Project, I'm looking at you!). It's easy to get lulled into a false sense of security. When looking around at the classical repertoire, we only see the fraction that managed to stay the course. The only difference between the old and the new (and the source of much argument around the time that new seasons are announced) is that with new work we get to see the evolution of dance in action - with all the messy, but necessary, wastage that entails. And, as with all things, only time will tell if this Carmen survives to dance another day.

There were two reasons I went to yesterday's triple bill - the chance to see Osipova dance (sufficient on its own) and the chance to listen to a live performance of Nyman's score for DGV (a nice bonus). I regarded the middle piece, Pite's Solo Echo, as something to sit through - a sort of extended interval. I wasn't even sure if I'd seen the Pite before, but based on her previous work I'd seen I assumed it would be dark in tone and presentation. Kevin O'Hare, for the third performance in a row for me, managed to turn up the tension with a stage announcement. There's normally a bit of prior warning for his unscheduled appearances; the extended interval at Osipova's first Swan Lake told me something was amiss, though the drama surrounding that delay ended up amplifying the emotional impact of the performance itself; and his announcement at her third Swan Lake was not a surprise as I knew she was being replaced. But when he just marched on stage before the first piece last night, The Weathering, my heart sank - oh no, not Osipova again! Yes, it was to announce a replacement, but to my mind 'only' Naghdi by Hinkis in DGV, as well as to thank the dancers for the way they've managed to cover each other for the lottery that is Covid. Cue much applause - a mix for me of relief and gratitude. Like others, I felt that The Weathering was overlong; the only thing I remember about weathering from school is that it takes a very long time, so I guess I shouldn't really complain about 40 minutes... It all seemed a bit generic and disjointed, with nothing obvious to bind it together (apart from the usual trope of 'relationships' forming - and maybe breaking?). The music didn't help either; I am completely unfamiliar with the composer, and am happy to remain so. However, it was an absolute joy to see Osipova and Kaneko dancing together, albeit so briefly! For me, that was worth the price of admission. They are such bright, commanding stars in the ballet firmament - each can be gazed on in singular awe, but when they are in conjunction that reaches another level altogether. It will never happen, but I'd love to see them in The Bright Stream... As soon as Solo Echo started, with the brightly-lit 'snow' falling against the dark background of a darkly-lit stage containing a darkly-dressed figure, I thought 'here we go again, earnest gloom and doom'. I gradually started to switch off, but something about the choreography began to break through, and by the end I'd concluded it had been a tour de force in terms of both Pite's choreography and the cast's execution, and I clapped along as enthusiastically as the rest of the audience. If one of the aims of classical ballet is disguise the limitations of the body, and one of the aims of contemporary dance is to illustrate the limitations of the body, then this piece aimed to illustrate the dynamic forces underpinning both of those. The choreography was punctuated by brief stillness - still-frames, if you like, from a movie, or the 'freezing' of repetitive movement by strobe lighting (going back to school again, the repetitive dripping of a tap could be 'frozen' by strobe lighting, or even made to move backwards reversed by changing the strobing frequency). Here's a few examples. There were certainly some movements made by a number of dancers 'linked' together where the movements of one were gradually echoed by the others and then reversed in time. This illusion of seeing all parts of a movement, forwards and backwards in time, seemingly simultaneoulsy, was enhanced by the fact that all the dancers, male and female, were dressed the same - dark pin-stripe trousers and waistcoats. In another, a group of dancers stood facing us, one behind the other in single file. The first one fell to the floor. The next repeated 90% of that movement, stopping near the floor. The next repeated 80% of that movement, stopping a bit higher. And so on and so forth, leaving us with snapshots of the path taken in falling to the floor. What a wonderful conceit - using poses to reveal movement! It brought to mind Muybridge who used pioneering 'freeze-frame' photographic techniques to capture animal locomotion for the first time. And in writing this, I see the clue was in the name of the piece all along - does Solo Echo refer to the movements of a single dancer being echoed by the identically-dressed others? In other examples, the time course and 'agency' of movements is made ambiguous: a male holds his cupped hand out at waist level; a female (probably the glorious Isabella Gasparini) tracks across the stage head down, slows and stops with her head in his hand. Was this as we saw it (which would be a bit weird) or was it in reverse? Elsewhere, the limb movements of one dancer are constrained by the hands of others - or are they being driven by them? If Pite and those skilled dancers can reverse time on stage, then I can reverse my preconceptions - I ended up really, really liking this piece and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it again at the cinema or via streaming. DGV is a strange vehicle. The music was commissioned for the opening of the high-speed line between Paris and Lille, and represents a train journey. The stage is sparse, with parallel lines presumably representing train tracks, but these seem to end in mangled metal at the back of the stage; I could only think of the cast 'tearing up the track' and 'hitting the buffers' when looking at the stage. The music has a driving rhythm in many places, but the choreography seems to reflect this, at best, at only half speed (possibly to not tire out the dancers?). The only exception was at the very beginning, with the massed dancers at the back left, in semi-darkness, swaying to the rhythm of the moving train. It's only when they come into the light that that their costumes become apparent - what look like one-piece swim suits for the females, and matching tops (with dark tights) for the males. The patterns on the costumes seemed to hint at art-deco, and the colours were rather muted and reminiscent of the washed-out tones in old colour photographs. I feel compelled to make narrative sense of any ballet with more staging than, say, Symphony in C. During the quieter parts of DGV I came up with the following scenario to make sense of what I'd seen. Here was a group of passengers (the swaying, dimly-lit mass of dancers at the beginning) on a long train journey, day-dreaming of their holiday destination - perhaps beaches of the French Riviera back in the heyday of train travel? Okay, I know Lille is not on the Riviera, but there is room in my head (ample room!) for artistic licence... So, yes, on balance a worthwhile 220 mile round trip. Perhaps next time I should take the train, listen to Nyman and daydream...

How I wish yesterday's performance had just been a routinely remarkable performance by Osipova. However, it was not routine, though it was definitely remarkable. Ballet, perhaps more so than opera or even superficially showy musical theatre, is escapist in nature. We may relish and immerse ourselves in the escapism, but what happens on stage and in the audience is informed and influenced by the increasingly larger stages on which our own lives and those of others play out. How can it be any other way, unless we leave our humanity at the door? Those typically numerous, though subtle and indeterminable, effects were swept aside last night by one colossal, shared reality - one gigantic, tragic backdrop. I had wondered how Osipova, that consummate sensor and transmitter of emotions, would react to it; I had also wondered how the audience would react to her. It never occurred to me that the night would unfold the way it did. I didn't realise Kevin O'Hare had decided to precede each performance with the orchestra playing the Ukrainian national anthem. The audience, almost without exception, stood. It was remarkable to behold, very emotional, and it set the tone for the rest of the evening. Act 1 was excellent, if unremarkable - though I found it impossible to resist current events affecting my view of Avis' cold, power-crazed, arrogant, evil, inhuman, cruel and uncontrollable (at times, out of control) Rothbart (and others I spoke to in the interval found the same). In some ways it was a relief to get on to the reassuring otherworldliness of the second act. Part of that, of course, is the extended mime sequence between the Siegfried and Odette. That seemed to progress at quite a pace - I remember thinking that anyone taking shorthand notes of that conversation might have found it difficult to keep up! But then along came their pas de deux - what a contrast! Time seemed to slow, expand and drift, in a way that allowed them (and me) to linger on and soak up every exquisite note and movement; and when it all became almost too much to bear, along came a razor-sharp dance of the cygnets to free me from my reverie. We rushed back from the interval with the bell herding us towards to auditorium, only to be confronted with an almost empty orchestra pit. Ten minutes later it was obvious there was a problem. When KOH came out we feared the worst. Yes, it was bad - Osipova was feeling ill, but she wanted to try to carry on and KOH was prepared to let her, though in reminding us of his obligation to minimise risk I wondered what compromises would be made. Act 3 was extraordinary - at one and the same time completely familiar and yet totally unknown. What would she do? What would we do? Well, I don't remember ever seeing an Odile enter to prolonged applause, and similarly applause so close to the very beginning of the 32 (or however many single, doubles and triples she eventually threw in) fouettes. She finished them on the button and the audience erupted. And let's not forget Reece Clarke with his beautiful lines and soft landings. He rose into the air, glided through that same buoyant air, landed on that same button, on the sweep of the baton and musical note. Superb! When we talk of dancers filling the stage, the implication is two dimensions - covering the area. Last night Clarke seemed to extend that to three - he seemed to fill the volume of the stage. And that was from the balcony - what on earth was it like from the stalls? It is almost two years to the day that he made his Swan Lake debut with Osipova. There has been a paucity of performance opportunities since then, but in that time he has matured into the partner she deserves - and we are all the better for it. Within Act 3 there was the sense of an incredibly dynamic, symbiotic relationship between Osipova and the audience - we were feeding off what she was doing, and she was feeding off our response to it. We wanted the best for each other and, boy, did we get it. I didn't think it possible, but my already stratospheric respect for her has gone up a notch or two. There is less at stake for the principals in Act 4, though their duet had a touching poignancy to it. For this particular performance, the act seemed almost anticlimactic given the drama of Acts 2 and 3 (including that of the interval between) - though it did serve to gradually ease us back from escapism to the real world where tragedy is not some idealised tale of the supernatural but more the burden of the cold, dead body of a love lost. I am so glad I went last night, and am so desperately sad for the circumstances that made it so remarkable.

The opening of priority booking has always been stressful, but in recent years the ROH website evolved to be pretty robust and fairly straightforward to use (though the new flashy, image and effects-rich 'front-end' makes it somewhat more difficult to navigate in a hurry) and my stress levels subsided accordingly. So, it was a bit of a shock last Tuesday when I breezed into the first date, selected tickets, put them in the basket and clicked the link to pick another, only to be faced with an error page. Much frantic clicking, refreshing and general panic resulted in multiple errors, an empty basket and a mix of stress and annoyance. Some of the errors were '404 page not found ' errors, but I would say the majority (though I wasn't counting) were ' 500 internal server' errors - was I the only person to get those? I ask because any website worth its salt should not be generating '500' errors - it smacks of poor implementation or testing. The email advice* eventually sent out by the ROH (clearing caches, etc) covers problems where the browser's interactions with the target website are influenced (maybe inappropriately if the website itself has changed in the meantime) by its previous interactions with the site; it may end up requesting a resource that does not exist and the generic error page is served instead of the (non-existent) one - it's an error, but at least the request concludes 'gracefully'. However, the '500 internal server' error indicates that the website tried to fulfil what may or may not have been an appropriate request by the user's browser, but tied itself in so many knots that it failed to finish the request. The ROH website has sat behind a 'waiting room' system for quite a while now, and that has prevented problems caused, as booking opens, by high volumes of requests overwhelming the ability of the site's servers to handle those requests (the actual system used by the ROH is not novel, by the way - I've visited at least one site in the last week that has a similar 'walking person' graphic and the same chime once entry is permitted). Nevertheless, the opening of booking is bound to attract unusually high traffic, so if there are hidden weaknesses in the site's operation they are more likely to manifest at those times. What's changed between the comparatively smooth operation of the booking site last year and the debacle of last week is the introduction and parallel running of an alternative booking system; so it's reasonable to conclude that that's to blame. One would hope (expect!) that in return for receiving bucket loads of cash from the ROH, the developers would stress-test their new system beforehand rather than just going 'big bang' and relying on the paying punters to test it 'live' on the day. I'm sure they did, but a lot of the stress-testing would have been automated and, crucially, I would guess that the automated browsers interacting with the site would have been nice and clean and well-behaved, not like the 'unwashed' browsers of the hundreds of real users trying to access the site on Tuesday or Thursday - sullied by old data and behaviours arising from their prior interactions with the 'old' system. Under such circumstances it would be little wonder if the reconfigured site found itself tying itself in knots. The developers may well have asked individual 'real' users, maybe some from this forum, to test the system beforehand and provide feedback, but that wouldn't have replicated the bun-fight that is the opening of booking. I managed to get tickets eventually. I tried using the Firefox browser on my PC rather than Chrome but that didn't work, so I tried my phone (which I have previously used to browse the site but not buy tickets). The phone, unlike the browser on my PC, asked if I wanted to try their new system (it was recommended); I said 'yes' and managed to buy the tickets I wanted with comparatively little hassle beyond the uncertainty of poking at tiny blobs (aka seats) on a tiny screen with a big finger. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the email confirmation of the purchase came through 10 mins later and then thought 'why the hell should I be breathing a sigh of relief for accomplishing something that every other big site I use on the web just does with minimum drama?' It's embarrassing, ROH; it's embarrassing. *Someone with a much better knowledge than me about how the web works said that the ROH's email advice is the standard 'boilerplate' advice that covers a multitude of sins - most of them unknown, and most of them caused the web designers; it fobs users off and implicitly shifts the blame to them. A well-designed system should be able to handle any old requests that are thrown at it, especially when the volume of requests is already being regulated by a 'waiting room' system at the front. There are few, if any, excuses.

Hi @Shade. Yes, I think we are talking about fine margins here - reaching either the top of K2 or Everest is, to my non-mountaineering mind, so impressive as to be effectively equal. And, yes, I did see the Acosta R&J - and all those other amazing performances with her; Manon, Giselle, etc. He, too, was one of those completely failsafe partners that she could abandon herself to. So, thank you, because now I'm looking at not just K2 and Everest, but the whole blooming vista of the Himalayas! 🙂 But I guess over the years the fine detail of those performances has somewhat faded from memory, just like a range of mountains into the distance. I didn't read the forum back in 2013, nor commit anything to writing, and I'm grateful that doing so over the past few years has allowed me to consolidate my memories of specific performances, and also helped me understand why I feel the way I do about particular performers/performances/pieces/etc. I am endlessly fascinated by how and why such an outwardly curious artform as ballet has such a profound effect on me - at its best it's like stepping into Virtual Reality for the soul.

The last time I saw Osipova's Juliet was June 1st, 2019. It's a date I remember well as I'd never seen an Act 3 as raw and visceral - made all the more 'real' by the deep bond between her and her dancing soulmate, Hallberg (in fact, we were fortunate enough to speak briefly to Osipova some time later and she told us that she also felt that final act was something 'special'). Any concerns I had about her performing with a freshly-minted Romeo were blown away in Act 1 as I, too, was blown away by what was the best Act 1 I'd seen in a long time, and maybe ever. Reece Clarke entered to a mere ripple of applause, but then proceeded to take off as a fully-fledged Romeo; streetwise, flirtatious, full of the bravado of youth at that difficult adolescent transition point between merely playing alpha-male games and suffering or inflicting the real-life consequences of them. Clarke's on-stage confidence was reflected in the little embellishments; one I remember was during the initial fight - he was duelling with one of the Capulet foot soldiers, knocked his opponent's sword from his hand, picked it up, disdainfully compared it to his own, longer sword, and threw it back to him to carry on fighting. Osipova's Juliet is, of course, on a parallel journey between her breezy, consequence-free playing at relationships (with her toys, her nurse, even Paris) and the full-blown storm of hormones, emotions and real-life consequences triggered by 'true love'. And, boy, what a trigger that is; I just love the way Juliet - increasingly bored and disinterested in Paris - switches her attention, instantly and totally, to Romeo - like some apex predator catching sight of its prey and spending the next few, tense, still seconds while its baked-in reflexes, honed over millennia of evolution, evaluate how it's going to seize it and sate itself. I think it's one of the great non-dancing moments in ballet. And, of course, the balcony scene is one of the great dancing 'moments' in ballet! The Osipova/Hallberg pairing might well have given us the benefits of dancing soulmates, but there were occasions (particularly in the balcony scene, both in the full ballet and the Fonteyn celebration in 2019) when the limits of his physical strength were apparent - and that must have had some impact on the confidence of his partner. In contrast, Reece Clarke was and is, literally, a tower of strength, and that must have removed any concerns that Osipova had in their duets. I don't think I've ever seen her dance the balcony scene with such confident abandon; she was able to hand her well-being over to him completely and we were rewarded by her literally flowing around the stage, and in full flood as well. Someone asked during the interval 'Does she have any bones?', and if I'd had my wits about me I could have said 'Yes, they are called Reece and Clarke'. Act 3 did not quite reach the exceptional intensity of her performance in 2019, but it came close - a K2 rather than an Everest, and the descent was still terrifying. Part of the impact of her 2019 performance was the shock of seeing her channel the raw power of primal emotion at an intensity I hadn't seen before (the uncontrollable ecstasy of waking up next to her beloved Romeo, the suffering - no, let's call it what it was, abuse - at the hands of her father, the dark depths of her despair, and the inexorable unfolding of the crypt scene exposing fate at its most vindictive). I knew what to expect (and hoped to expect!) this time and so its impact was slightly diminished. And speaking of great, non-dancing moments in ballet, the short scene with Juliet sat motionless on the bed, trapped by her predicament, until she thinks of and grasps at that fateful straw and decides to see Friar Laurence, sends shivers down my spine. It's partly the emotion conjured by the incredible music, partly the way the narrative pivots on this tiny decision, and partly the way that narrative shift is relayed by the dancer's face - we cannot help but look, and in looking we see, and in seeing we understand. I fully agree that the orchestra put in a fabulous rendition of the score on Saturday, and it was lovely to see Jonathon Lo appear on stage for the curtain calls and be greeted by very enthusiastic and well-deserved applause! So, Jan 29th, 2022 is another date to add to my list of ones to remember.

Seeing Bennet Gartside (as Friar Laurence) on stage with Osipova's Juliet in Saturday's R&J brought back memories of one of the most achingly perfect and poignant pieces of ballet I've seen - their dance, as married couple Tatiana and Prince Gremin, in the ballroom scene of Onegin; from way back in 2015. In trying to tease apart the reasons I found it so moving, there is of course the sense that, despite the chaos and tragic loss encountered earlier in her life, she now appears to inhabit a near-perfect state of contented stability and happiness. And who wouldn't hanker after such heavenly bliss? Who wouldn't prefer order over chaos? And when we've invested so much in the heroine's story, who wouldn't pick up on and wallow in those self-same feelings? And that last point, for me, is what makes Osipova so special. She is the epitome of non-verbal communication - she has the uncanny ability to turn her characters inside-out, to expose their inner life on the surface for me to absorb and empathise with. Performance becomes experience, and that irrational, complex artifice I see in front of me - the scenery, the costumes, the cast, the lighting, the choreography, the music and, critically, the skills of the principals - conspires to draw me into their world and their experience. At its dream-like best I imagine it's as close to an out-of-body experience as it's possible to get. But, like a lucid dream, it's a fragile thing that can break at the slightest inconsistency - a bum note, a mis-step, a programme dropped nearby; for that performance, for that cast, for those principals, it worked like a magic charm and I thank them for it. But I think there is another dimension that amplifies the experience and adds, in this case, poignancy. As spectators we are in a privileged position compared to the characters and their unfolding stories. Osipova communicates her characters' experiences to me like no other, but characters live in-the-moment in the story, whereas I know their futures. That knowledge changes how I experience what I see in front of me - future events and behaviours inform and modify the strength and nature of what and how I feel in-the-moment (it's probably a large part of why I get more out of narrative ballets with repeated viewing). However, it won't just be down to me; Osipova is such an intuitive actress that I have no doubt she will, consciously or unconsciously (for she, as Osipova the actress, knows the future, too), be giving out oh-so-subtle cues in the ballroom scene to reflect that slight sadness of opportunities lost and fulfilment not realised - the slight stress fracture in the edifice Tatiana has constructed out of her life that may yet bring it all tumbling down - and priming us for what happens next. It may all end up as a lovely, tangled, recursive mess of relationships between the dancer and the spectator, of the present and the future, of cause and effect, but that emotional vortex I got sucked into and so enjoyed all those years ago had at the heart of it the incredible talent that is Natalia Osipova.

Last week's Giselle was bound to be special as it was my first 'classic' ballet in 20 months as well as the debut of the Osipova/Clarke pairing in it. I was prepared, then, for their second outing last night not to leave quite the same impression. On balance, I felt last night's Act 1 had less of an impact on me compared to last week, but Act 2 had more. Nothing obvious stands out as to why that should be - it was probably a combination of small things, plus and minus. Here are a few of them... - Osipova can conjure up magic on stage but, like the sorcerer's apprentice, even she can't always avoid resistentialism (don't worry, I had to look it up too - it's the tendency of inanimate objects to cause mischief 🙂). In Fille, the ribbons tried to tangle her feet (as they do for everyone at some point?); in her first outing as Sylvia, the bow and arrow behaved as if it was covered in glue. In Act 1 of Giselle last night, the 'love me/love me not' flower refused to be plucked from the pot and had to be yanked a second time. When it came to Clarke's turn to fiddle the petal count, the flower went to the other extreme and decided to shed all its petals rather than just the one - leaving neither an odd nor an even number behind, but an inconclusive nothing at all. When it was the sword's turn to be picked up by Giselle at the start of the mad scene it, too, resisted ever so slightly. - Ospiova's Act 1 solo seemed to be more grounded in the reality of what she was doing - dancing for the assembled nobility - compared to last week where she seemed to be in the throes some sort of ecstatic reverie. - During the mad scene, Giselle rushes over to stage left to separate Bathilde and Albrecht, as if to destroy the evidence of their relationship. When she then held Albrecht's face in her hands, she didn't so much look him in the face to seek the truth as screw her eyes tightly shut to deny that truth. I hadn't noticed that before, and I found it very affecting - her desperation became palpable. - For this second performance, I felt Clarke was much clearer in the way he communicated his feelings and, thereby, his 'story' through his facial expressions. - If Magri's Myrtha was good last week, it was excellent last night! I remember the amazing Osipova/Golding/Nunez Giselle from a good few years ago: Giselle/Albrecht/Myrtha might be the 'correct' sequence of names in terms of casting, but in terms of the power-dynamic the narrative unleashes on stage, it's really Osipova/Nunez/////Golding. That clash of supernatural forces - one old, established, coldly powerful, and almost bureaucratic and possibly slightly jaded in the way it rules; the other new and still retaining the disruptive, rebellious power of love - demands two dancers of equal calibre for greatest effect. Well, on last night's performance I think Magri is heading, at pace, in that direction. Like Osipova, Magri has a commanding stage presence, and her acting and technique have come on in leaps and bounds over the last few years (I remember her amazing Firebird from a few years ago, and more recently I felt she was the equal of Osipova in 'woman with water'). - I hadn't looked at the cast sheet beforehand, so it took me a while to figure out who was dancing Zulme. The penny eventually dropped - here was the sombre, straight-faced Zulme being danced by Isabella Gasparini, who normally sports the broadest and most infectious smile of the whole company! No wonder I couldn't help but smile beneath my mask! And she did it beautifully; I was so happy for her. - Those two static lifts by Clarke were perfect this week. The second one was held, completely still, for what seemed like ages (just about avoiding being inappropriately long, I felt). And on the subject of time, I'm quite happy with the changeable and sometimes very slow tempo in places. The normal rules of time and space are unlikely to apply in the netherworld (though admittedly I have no proof of that 🤔), and if she's trying to string things out until daybreak, then doing things slowly makes sense. - During the curtain calls, Osipova gave the impression of being really pleased with her performance and with her partner - and I don't blame her! - I'm definitely not a fan of clapping the corps while they are in the middle of what they are doing, no matter how well they are doing it - it just seems 'wrong'. I can't figure out why, because I'm perfectly happy to clap in the middle of a solo (maybe it depends on whether or not the person is performing beyond what one might expect? Also, in a solo the dancer is standing out, whereas for the corps it's all about conformity). For Clarke's entrechats, I counted 20 with arms by his side, and four more with them out. I agree it's not a competition, but when it goes beyond reasonable expectation, applause is warranted. - But I definitely am a fan of the corps getting recognition at the curtain calls with a bouquet of flowers, as they did last night! Given the praise heaped on the corps within the forum, I guess someone from the forum might have been last night's Beautiful Bouquet Benefactor? 🤔

That might not have been the best Giselle I've ever seen (at least on the 'floods of tears' scale), but it certainly was the most welcome. Twenty months on from my last full-length, bona fide 'classic' it was so comforting to return to certainty - to a production that prioritised the clarity of communication between stage and audience (and so apposite to hear that Sir Peter was in the audience): beautifully rendered sets and costumes; lighting that sought to, er, illuminate the action; the reassurance provided by the lingua franca of the choreography and mime. For me, Osipova is the Giselle of her generation. One solo encapsulates and exemplifies that. I literally shiver with excitement when the music swells and she is given 'permission' to dance for Bathilde in Act 1. Her solo completely exposes both the technique of Osipova the dancer and the searingly pure, joyful, naïve honesty of Giselle herself. Osipova/Giselle opens up completely during the solo; there is no pretence or artifice - just Osipova, just Giselle, just the unadulterated rapture of them both. (I'm getting all emotional just recalling it!) And what an assured debut by Reece Clarke! His partnership with Osipova seems to be developing nicely, and the mutual appreciation shown during the curtain calls bodes well. She needs a partner with a strong presence, and Reece not only has an imposing physical stature, he also has strong technique and physical strength (those Act 2 lifts he did looked about as difficult as putting a tin of baked beans back on the top shelf at Tesco). His entrechats (at a guess, twenty plus?! Did anyone count?*) were so impressive, even if they did conspire to slightly undermine the plot (did he really need Giselle to save him? He probably could have carried on himself until the day, or the day after, broke!) 🙂 There was one minor ambiguity (and I've seen it on a number of occasions, including Osipova in Marguerite and Armand) and that was his apparent difficulty in expressing emotional anguish and pain in a way that could be broadcast to the auditorium without the exaggerated 'bared teeth' expression straying into the category labelled 'amusement'. I thought Magri did well as Myrtha, though perhaps she could have been a bit colder, a bit sterner (more along the lines of Nunez or Kobayashi?). There is nothing more to say about the corps apart from 'outstanding'; they are a machine, and their reception at the curtain calls recognised their synchronised skills. And nobody does 'spoiled, entitled princess' like Arestis! Albrecht may well have been 'pulled' to Giselle's grave by the love he had lost, but to some extent he may have been 'pushed' there by the stark realisation of the awful alternative! Roll on the 12th! * I just checked the Osipova/Acosta DVD and he did ten (though he was approaching the end of his career); in my Osipova/Polunin video from 2015, he managed an impressive twenty-nine!

It's the first part of Woolf Works - 'I Now, I Then' - that I have problems remembering as it sounds a bit mangled. I find the Orlando part - 'Becomings' - comparatively easy as it's indelibly linked to Michelle Obama in my head! 🙂 And, yes, naming conventions are indicative of content, but whereas the three parts of Woolf Works are not named after the novels that inspired them, the three parts of the Dante Project are named after the major sections of The Divine Comedy. When combined with all the other 'content indicators' (KOH's intro in the prog, all the other stuff in the prog that mentions 'narrative', 'journeys', etc., and the staging) I had placed my marker (on the continuum of pure abstract to pure narrative) rather more towards the narrative end than the abstract. That the gap remained on second viewing suggested to me a mismatch between intention and realisation. The piece misfired for me, but obviously (and thankfully!) the perceptual engines in our heads are all tuned in different ways! 🙂

Ed Watson's farewell performance on Saturday was my second Dante. I really enjoyed the chance to catch up with other RB regulars, of celebrating the unique dancer that is Ed Watson, and of seeing a 'concentration' of talent on stage normally reserved for galas. But strip those aspects away, and The Dante Project itself remained underwhelming when compared to what might be expected of a project with the full creative weight of the ROH/RB behind it. Nevertheless, I quite like Act 1, as long as I view it as a 'themed gala' ('256 Shades of Grey' ?) or, given the large circle in which the action happens, a circus, complete with a couple of colourful if rather melancholy ringmasters (tag-line, 'The Greyest Show Under Earth' ?). In fact the penultimate action - 'Thieves' - is a shoo-in for a show-stopper to end a gala or circus (though isn't it just typical of Satan to turn up and spoil even that!), though as part of The Inferno it seemed incongruous. But if I try to hang a narrative on Act 1, I just get frustrated; how do all these disparate vignettes contribute to Dante's journey? While on stage, Dante seemed more of an observer than a mirror reflecting his journey back to us - as useful as a silent Michael Palin travelogue. If anything, it seems much of his journey occurred in the intervals as he moved from one set to another while we munched on our lunches in the corridors. At least in Act 2 another dimension (time, in the form of younger versions of himself) was added to the rather flat, static picture we had of Dante up to that point. I surprised myself during Act 3 when my attention wandered - there was a lot of spinning and movement on stage that should have engaged me, but didn't. Perhaps it was because I knew how it was all to end - literally in a light-bulb moment as Dante suddenly achieved some sort of inner peace/happiness, all reinforced by some rather boilerplate, uplifting music. I'm not that familiar with Ades (though I've been given a few pointers as to what to listen to to acquaint myself) but as someone else has noted, it did seem a bit derivative in places. Ignoring the obvious Mayerling connection (yes, I am now aware of the original Dante connection, but Mayerling still elbowed that straight out of the way) and in talking to others, here's a list of connections/styles; Wagner; Frankenstein; Bright Stream; Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk; Prince of the Pagodas; and even Pink Floyd (On The Turning Away). I think the major part of my problem with Dante is it's neither narrative fish nor abstract fowl, but some sort of non-viable chimera of the two. In a successful 'pure' narrative ballet such as Mayerling, the staging, music and choreography are all seamlessly employed to convey an extremely complex story (the main thrust of which can still be 'got' at first viewing). In contrast, a 'pure' abstract ballet like Symphony in C has one aim - to faithfully match and thereby represent movement as music (I think of it as a form of induced synaesthesia); in this context, staging and story are minor or non-existent. It is possible, of course, to deliver a narrative in an abstract setting. An excellent recent example is Apollo - in which a fairly complex story is communicated to the audience by the clear choreography and strong connection to the music, with only a handful of props (and a huge staircase!) as staging. In Dante, however, the choreography is obscure and not always connected to the music. The staging provides little in terms of reinforcing any developing narrative - even Act 1 almost wilfully tries to hide some of the action. Overall, there is a distinct lack of coherence and synergy (which as others have noted may well reflect the way the creatives created). Dante's journey was mainly reduced to traversing landscapes; we were not really privy to his personal development - it remained internalised much of time. For a narrative ballet that's a cardinal sin, as communicating the changing internal landscape of thoughts and emotions should be front and centre. And when the staging, choreography and music are in skilled hands, miracles can happen. For example, in the full-length ballet Anastasia the vast majority of the action takes place in someone's mind, yet it manages paint a vivid picture of everything from world-changing events to adolescent concerns. It uses three pre-existing symphonies, hardly altered, for the score. The staging is distorted, as if to question the nature of memory. The final act delivers a narrative 'twist' as jolting as that in The Matrix, and as those implications play out they deliver a devastating emotional punch. If I find it difficult to put Dante in the same league as the narrative greats of the Royal Ballet, how does it compare to his other narrative work for the RB? I thoroughly enjoyed Raven Girl. I thought the quirky story was communicated well (the exception being the rather unclear ending) with all three aspects - choreography, staging and music - minimising the abstract and emphasising the narrative. I still wonder why it didn't receive the critical acclaim I thought it deserved. I enjoyed Woolf Works just as much, if not more. Here was a three-act ballet that made no pretence to tell a comprehensive, linear story; rather, it presented three discrete aspects of the life and work of Virginia Woolf. Act 1 was the most purely narrative of the three, and the combination of staging, choreography and music delivered the storyline to great emotional effect. Act 2 was based on her novel Orlando, but rather than attempt the impossible task of relaying its detail, it abstractly and successfully portrayed how the various incarnations/phases of his/her life still represented one person (mainly through the convergence of the costumes as the act progressed). Act 3 was a moving mix of abstract and narrative as it played out (essentially in slow motion) her suicide by drowning. But as far as Dante is concerned, I'm left wondering what all the fuss was about.

The flower-throw, presentations and celebration following Ed Watson's final on-stage performance at Saturday's brunch-time Dante elicited a wonderfully raucous cacophony of appreciation from the packed auditorium - complete with much foot-stomping. I was immediately reminded of the last time I heard such a wild, uninhibited and thunderous reaction at the ROH - it was the Bolshoi's Flames of Paris with Osipova and Vasiliev, way back in 2013. And who could be surprised by that reaction? All the stars were aligned*: it was the Bolshoi; they were at the ROH; it was Flames of Paris, complete with its rousing narrative, its revolutionary zeal and its show-stopping set-pieces; it was Osipova, returning to the Bolshoi as a guest; it was Vasiliev doing the same. But mainly it was the last two. Individually, each has a stage presence that acts like a lens to focus our attention; together, they magnified that effect to burn performance into memory and ignite the audience into frenzy. That famous, final PDD, alternated between pin-drop silence and explosive relief (Vasiliev, walking so, so slowly upstage, in utter silence, for his first solo - feeding on our anticipation and out-Baryshnikoving Baryshnikov in his swagger; Osipova, so full of physical and revolutionary energy she crackled as she fought to contain and then release it). And the eruption at the curtain calls was more akin to a volcano blowing its top, complete with foot-stomping seismic tremors. I really have never heard anything to surpass it (though Wembley, 1976, when Southampton won the FA Cup, was probably louder - but there were a few more people at that event, and they'd probably had a bit more to drink). * or should that be 'continuous and planetary', since I'd just seen Dante?

I haven't read his review, but I might support that suggestion if it covered only those bits that feature in Mayerling, regardless of any other connection to Dante. Why? Because even if I knew of the Dante connection of Liszt's music (and I admit I didn't at the time) a much louder Mayerling voice would have been shouting in my head and leading me up the garden path - presumably inappropriately from the creatives' point of view. There is a lovely example of this sort of unintended, experience-based effect I saw in a book (the name of which escapes me at the moment). Imagine an unknown Mozart manuscript was discovered in some dusty library. Initial excitement is replaced with confusion when it is realised that the central melody is essentially that of 'Happy Birthday to You'. Only those who have never heard that birthday tune can appreciate the music close to that intended; anyone else will have a completely different experience of the new work - and it's an experience they cannot avoid. In this hypothetical case, of course, Mozart's work was not known to the composer of Happy Birthday; in the case of The Dante Project and Mayerling's use of the same Liszt music, the existence of Mayerling was.