balletnut55

Question for ballet buffs: I was a little bit puzzled by the fact that the variation that Marianela danced in Corsair seems to be exactly the same as a Gamzatti one from La Bayadere. I guess it Pepita must have reused it. Is that right? https://m.facebook.com/royaloperahouse/videos/3854810867892261/

Thanks! Hannah Grennell and David Yudes were the ones I couldn’t make out during the performance.

I agree with everyone else and loved every minute. For me the highlights were Monotones and Concerto. I love the sense peace they both have, and how the dancers made them seem effortless and simple when they are really anything but. It was really interesting to see in some close ups that it looked like Nicol Edmonds and Reece Clarke were sweating by the end of Monotones, but it didn’t show in their dancing. I was also pleasantly surprised by Melissa Hamilton, since she hasn’t been one of my favourite dancers until now, but I thought she was wonderful last night. One slight grumble: I was trying to work out who all the dancers were in the “corps” for In the Golden Hour and was really disappointed that they weren’t listed on the ROH website. I know the corps de ballet aren’t normally listed individually, for practical reasons I suppose, but in this case there were only 8 dancers and I thought they more than deserved it.

Thank-you everyone for you comments and I apologize for the late reply. I am suffering from severely restricted internet access at the moment. Thank-you for the insight into Concert for Flute and Harp. I can’t the parallels between it and Giselle particularly jump out at me, either at the time or now in retrospect. It is interesting that you said that it was intentionally choreographed in order to give them male corp something to do and, I suppose, to maintain and develop their technique. It struck me as having a kind of deconstructed quality that reminded me of Macmillan’s Concerto, which had the same goal in mind I think. Also, consider me the newest member of the David Moore fanclub. Thanks for the advice. I definitely want to check out Gauthier dance, at will be at the cinema performance of ROH La BAyadere in Liederhalle next Sun.

Greetings! Long time lurker who has finally decided to contribute due to the fact have recently moved to Stuttgart and so finally have a chance to see ballet on a fairly regular basis. Last weekend I went to the “Shades of White” programme at Stuttgart ballet and thought some of you might be interested in my (completely novice) view of it. The programme consisted of Concert for Flute and Harp, choreographed my Cranko, music by Mozart The Kingdom of the Shades from La Bayadere (Markova version) Symphony in C (of course by Balanchine) I thought it was an interesting concept for a triple bill, in that all of the pieces are linked by a similar aesthetic. Unfortunately for me, this idea was not completely successful (more on that later). I had two ballet newbies with me and I felt quite stressed because I thought their opinion of ballet would largely be formed based on this. The first piece was the Cranko piece, which is a plotless neoclassical piece. It was the one I knew the least about, and in fact I don’t know if any other ballet company performs it. It quite unconventional, in that it has two principal ballerinas and a male corp of 10(ish) dancers, with two male principal parts embedded within it who occasionally emerge for variations and pas de deux. The choreography was very musical with interesting partnering and very nice moments. Something that really struck me was how much fun everyone on stage seemed to be having. I thought that it must be so nice for some of the male corp dancers to get some limelight and to push themselves technically. I was kind of surprised that it is not more well known, since it was really lovely in many ways. Overall though I felt that it didn’t quite add up to more than the sum of it’s parts. Possibly part of this was the music. Although there is nothing wrong with Mozart, I wasn’t sure how suited this piece was to ballet. The orchestra for it was small and it lacked drama. It was a good job this came first because, although it was very nice, it was followed by two pieces which are (arguably) masterpieces . Apparently La Bayadere has been missing from Stuttgart ballet’s repertoire and this run is a company premiere, not that you would have known that from the performance I saw. The shades passed the wobble test with flying colors during their entrance and the overall effect was nothing short of sublime. It’s something that I think I could see countless times and never fail to be deeply moved by. The three shade variations went well and Solor was suitably dashing, but the real star (along with the corp) was Nikiya, danced by the amazing Hyo-jung Kang. Not that I really know a lot about these things, but I thought she was very sharp technically while at the same time being wonderfully soulful and expressive. She is someone who I would book again specifically to see. This was both mine and my friends’ favourite piece of the evening and both of them said they would come again to see the full version (mission accomplished!). Lastly Symphony in C, and here we come to the drawback if this programme. This is ballet that I have watched extracts of on youtube and wanted to live for a long time, but the time it came around I was suffering slightly from what I have dubbed “white tutu fatigue”. I felt that the Cranko piece at the start owed, at least superficially, a lot to Balanchine and although I think Symphony is a wonderful ballet I couldn’t experience it with as much freshness as I would have wanted. Still, the finale was very impressive. Dancer-wise, the male lead in the first movement, David Moore, really stood out to me (in a good way). I was one of those dancers who somehow seems to draw my eye simply by standing still and doing nothing. Interesting. he trained at the Royal Ballet School, but wasn’t taken into the company. Appologies in advance for any spelling mistakes or typos. Is anyone else on here a regular Stuttgart ballet-goer?