FionaM

ENB staff have replied … “We have spoken with the venue team - this was as you suspected a misunderstanding whereby the team there were under the impression that the ban on filming and photography during the show extended to the curtain call. We've been in touch with them to clarify that for the curtain call specifically we're very happy for our audience members to take pictures and videos.” Hooray .. that’s the second time this has happened to me recently … the other was Northern Ballet in Cardiff and Federico Bonelli himself sorted that for the second night.

I most especially want to see Emma Hawes in this role. is there a shortage of O/O? They have Erina Takahshi, Fernanda Oliviera, Emma Hawes, Natascha Mair (who performed Swan Lake with Isaac Hernandez in Russia under Tamara’s tuition) and hopefully Shiori Kase will be recovered by then. Soloists who could step-up are Alison McWhinney, Precious Adams, and no doubt others. Plenty with the technical capabilities to do this role … Julia Conway, Haruhi Otani, Ivana Bueno, ….

I know I’m not the only one to find her onstage portrayals to be rather wooden. But then I have only seen her online or on cinema. I’m hoping she can open up her expression in Amsterdam. The signs are good. The other principal ballerinas in Amsterdam are also worth travelling for. If you go … see multiple shows 😉 - Anna Tsygankova especially for dramatic range, Anna Ol for melancholy and superior technique, Maia Makhateli for pure joy on stage, Jessica Xuan for sensitive refined performance, and Riho Sakamoto (only age 22, promoted to principal in 2021) is extraordinary. There are other principals too that I don’t know.

Has Nijinsky/Stravinsky original version of ‘Rite of Spring’ been mentioned ? The ritual sacrifice of a young girl forced to dance herself to death. Creepy violence against women … the pianist and dance teacher in cahoots in Flemming Flindt’s ‘The Lesson’

@Emeralds I live in Bristol 😉

Oh and annoyingly Bristol Hippodrome staff stopped one of my party from taking photos of the end of show curtain calls. They claim this is a directive from ENB, which I cannot believe. Curtain call photos are allowed at ENB shows at Sadlers Wells and London Coliseum. I’ve messaged ENB staff to get them to clarify why, or to correct the instruction to the venue. Tamara Rojo was at the show … she left saying it really was her final show.

Bristol tonight … Eric Woolhouse was on fire 🔥. He grabbed everyone’s attention as soon as he walked on. (Ok … I can’t attest for everyone .. my party of 4 were all hugely impressed). He was both sexy and dead keen on Raymonda and also polite and understanding of her situation. A masterpiece of a role and portrayal. FG Frola had kicked off the show with exciting leaps and beautiful technique … “huge airtime”. But was soon overpowered by Eric’s charisma and leaps. Extraordinary. Has to be seen. I realise the John de Bryan role in this version is a nondescript character, but FG Frola did nothing with it emotionally, even in the wedding scene when he’d won Raymonda he hardly smiled. You’d think he’d be happy on his wedding day. That was disappointing. His technique was super. But it’s not enough for me. Fernanda Oliveira’s Raymonda was an internalised character struggling with her life decisions. It worked quite well I thought.. She does have such reliable technique and beautiful feet in pointe shoes. Beautifully executed. I felt Francesca Velicu needed more sass for Henriette, but was otherwise a fun flirty friend. I find the Sister Clemence role annoying and interfering, so it’s hard for me to appreciate the dancer in it. Precious Adams did a decent job, and was especially lyrical leading the trio in the final act. Super foursome in the male pas de quatre … Henry Dowden, Ken Saruhashi, Sabiel McCormick, Matthew Ashley. They nailed it!

I’m starting a new topic for livestreams that are offered free of charge. There are plenty of companies offering pay-to-view online but precious few offering free ones. Münich, Vienna, and Argentina are the ones I’ve noticed. The livestreams from Teatro Colon in Argentina are live only at the time of performance. The next free offering I know of is today … CINDERELLA Bayerisches Staatsballett, Münich Available for 24 hours from 4pm CET 🇩🇪 on 19.11.22 “The Bavarian State Ballet is in your home this weekend! For 24 hours, you can watch Christopher Wheeldon's CINDERELLA at home on the couch, in bed, eating or wherever! Enjoy Madison Young as Cinderella, Julian MacKay as Prince, Maria Chiara Bono as Stepmother, Elvina Ibraimova & Bianca Teixeira as Stepsisters, and Shale Wagman as Benjamin. To be seen on the State Opera. tv Video on demand starts sat 19th November 16h available for 24h. The show was held on the 13th November 2022” https://www.instagram.com/p/ClI9urKuj2X/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

I’d suggest asking the ushers for a step or stool for your daughter to stand on. I’m 5’1” and can usually see without interruption from standing. Often better than hugely expensive stalls which has insufficient rake and therefore tall people make head dodging necessary.

Sad sad situation thank you for all your info and insights @Buddy

lovely speech by Misha 👏

@Sophoifethank you for all this great info. Disappearing down ballet ‘rabbit holes’ is my idea of fun too 😉

There seems to be a misunderstanding here. Please re-read what I said. My friend and I throughly enjoyed and were impressed by Vadim’s interpretation. I also enjoyed Matthew Ball and Ryo Hirano’s interpretations in this run. And my friend clearly felt more from Ryo’. Others here mention their companions’ views, so the hearsay reprimand on us is unfair and inappropriate. I haven’t seen Steven McRae this time around. I have before his injury, and I also have his DVD and Ed Watson’s and have seen many other casts in the past including David Wall and Irek Mukhamedov. Each dancer’s portrayal has much to admire and are actually quite different. It is truly fascinating. I reflect on what a brilliant role MacMillan created for the male dancer. I don’t say one is better than another, I only say which I preferred. Personally I am now intrigued to see what Vadim could do in another run hopefully in not too many year’s time.

International born for sure! I meant UK centric in that they contributed primarily to ballet in Britain. I’d think McAllister and Kain might be RAD trained in their respective counties of birth. Baryshnikov seems different to the prior names. Maybe the RAD is taking a more international perspective.

Thank you @Sophoifefor that list of names. An impressive list to join. Though UK centric. Until now?

I reject the comments rejecting my friend’s views. All impressions are valid whether they concur with yours or not. My friend was determined to see Vadim having heard much of him and having not seen him dance live before. She is familiar with Mayerling. So we went together. I have seen Ryo previously, so didn’t join her at the Saturday matinee as I was at ENB. The comments I posted are not hearsay … they are copy and paste from a conversation we had afterwards. I agree with her. It doesn’t mean we didn’t appreciate Vadim’s strong performance … we did … and talked about aspects of it at length afterwards. Obviously she had a deeper emotional impact from Ryo and Melissa. As I did from Ryo and Natalia Osipova. . Vadim’s superior technique does bring a welcome different dimension to the role … the juxtaposition of his beautiful lines in arabesque and developés, multiple controlled pirouettes and juicy jumps .. are super to enjoy compared to the obvious turmoil of the character. Beauty and ugliness in one. And it was actually good to see Vadim losing balance one or twice as he let the portrayal take precedence over perfect technique. For my own personal preference … I would love to combine Vadim’s technique with the more insane portrayals of Matthew Ball or Ryo Hirano.

Some alternative perspectives: I was enthralled by Yasmine’s performance on Friday evening … a great Mary Vetsera. Intense and nuanced. Totally surrendering herself in love to Rudolf. A few times I didn’t notice Vadim 🙈 because she drew my attention away. A friend from Germany came to see two Mayerling shows … Vadim on Friday and Ryo on Saturday. Here are some of her comments: Ryo is so good. Very male. Very sexy. Very insane. This is like made for him! The officers. Specially looking at Reece; just great! Actually everybody is good! But Ryo! Wow! Vadim was too nice… I almost cried with the music and Ryo’s pain… he had a braintumor I think… Yesterday was a „pink“ Version of Mayerling. Today was strong, oh la la! But Vadim was a Baby-Rudolf compared to Rio! So strong! Melissa Hamilton was unbelievable too

I was there … he was holding (struggling to hold) 6 or more bouquets of varying sizes !!

Firstly .. thank you Bayerisches Staatsballett for this FREE livestream. One of the few still providing them. I’d not seen much of Madison Young before … what a beautiful dancer! Technique and ease of control .. it all looked so easy for her, that she could *be* Cinderella in the most natural way. I’ll be looking out for her. All the characterisations were well done. It’s easy to overact in this ballet and especially when balancing close-ups of filming and also projecting for a live theatre audience. Bravo to Maria Chiara Bono as stepmother and Elvira Ibraimova and Bianca Teixiera as the stepsisters for being humourous and delightful as well as technically secure 👏 Thrilled to see Shale Wagman as Benjamin. His charisma and high quality technique are always a joy to behold. Lovely interaction with the sisters. Julian MacKay’s height, youthful and princely looks obviously suit this role and his portrayal was good. I thought there was decent chemistry between the two leads. As an aside, Julian and Madison were the first and second prize winners at Prix de Lausanne 2016 respectively. I was somewhat disappointed by Julian’s technique having not seen him in a full-length ballet before. He no longer has a boyish figure (he’s 25 now I think) and is not at the technical level when I last saw him pre-covid. I do hope that he can return to peak level with the benefit of a full-time company routine. I’ve been reflecting that life has not been easy for him since leaving the Mikhailovsky company to go freelance shortly before Covid hit the world in early 2020 and all his carefully self-created projects and collaborations would have been cancelled overnight. Then, due to the travel shutdown, he and his younger brother (the very talented ballet photo/videographer) Nicholas, struggled to find a plane to get them back to Montana as their father was dying. This must have been an incredibly hard time for such young lads. Since then Julian became a principal at San Francisco Ballet and of course danced very little due to the prolonged pandemic shutdowns for American ballet companies. And as we know his contract was not renewed by the incoming director. So I’m thinking he’s had a hugely interrupted time for most of these last 2-3 years with regards to dancing and will need time to regain shape, form and technique. I hope he can devote himself to his ballet without flitting off to too many of his own projects and galas. Cinderella could have done with more rehearsals to have more seamless partnering.

Oscar Frame partnered Principal Nino Samadashvili in Giselle in Tbilisi https://www.instagram.com/p/CklCrLTICXC/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

How odd … no Kase. Did Katja perform the lead role last time around? I don’t remember. I know she did perform the substantial soloist roles. I’m delighted with my casting for Bristol … Oliveira, Frola and Woolhouse! though I’d like to see the Hawes cast … might have to go again 😉

Loved, loved, loved this triple bill … saw final show on Saturday evening. Three different pieces, all danced brilliantly. Hotel is sticking with me longest I think because of the inventive use of live video mapping. I’ve never seen anything like this where the videos actually collaborated with live dancers in real time. It was additive and enhanced the dancing without overpowering the dancers or drawing attention away. and … I am totally thrilled to see I have the opposite view to the odious critic mention above … I loved the pulling of ballerinas in splits as did everyone around me.

Logistics were a problem … the auditorium was not opened until 5 minutes before the actual time (presumably due to tech overruns). The Dress Circle bar area had become a crush zone. When the doors were opened, the ushers did not usher, so it took some back and forth to find seats. Consequently the show started very late … I didn’t bother to check … must have been over 20 minutes. This kind of thing happens regularly with one-off shows with limited access to the theatre for tech set-up and rehearsals. There were glitches with lighting and music in places too, and overall there wasn’t enough lighting on the dancers’ faces. It was rather odd to start a show based on male dancers with the curtain rising on a lone female … Fumi Kaneko in Spectre de La Rose! For me, Wheeldon’s ‘Us’ performed by Matthew Ball and Joe Sissens was the highlight of the evening. Well-rehearsed, beautifully danced by both, high on emotional content and interesting choreo. Other pieces worth seeing were Matthew Ball and Luca Acri in Bourne’s white swan duet, Vadim Muntagirov in Nureyev’s Swan Lake lament solo and Matteo Miccini in both his pieces by Clug and Goecke. Vadim’s second solo was a poor choreo imitation of Ashton’s divine ‘Blessed Spirits’, an Bach Adagio chore by by Miroshnichenko. He was dressed the same, also only in white tights. I would not have included it on the same programme. Ivan Putrov himself is in decent classical dancing shape … but the ‘Blessed Spirits’ solo that he performed would have been better by any of the names above. Nice to see him dancing though. Ditto Spectre de La Rose needs a special dancer. Ed Watson was entertaining in his drag queen solo by Arthur Pita. I didn’t find it sat well with an evening that was otherwise focussed on meaningful and serious pieces. Still … it lightened the mood and Ed does grab your attention, deservedly. The rest was a mixed bag. Some too long. Some too samey. It was good to see some younger dancers featured, three from Dutch National Ballet and also Jack Easton (graduate from RBS this summer, now at BRB) in his own interesting choreo. Biggest disappointment was Dmitri Zagrebin from Royal Swedish Ballet … he performed 3 pieces and they were all unmusical. The show ended with Zagrebin in the Lacrymosa solo which Luca Acri had performed so sensitively at the Putrov/Cojocaru Ukraine gala earlier this year. With 20 pieces it was a generous programme … I feel some could have been cut and certainly improved. The evening did feel disjointed, as most galas do. One theme was that more than half of the pieces were performed in tights or shorts … so there were plenty of sculpted torsos and expressive shoulders and arms to admire. Maybe that’s good enough.

tonight!

Hayward has lovely Ashton upper half … her legs and feet can’t keep up with the speed (as evidence in Rhapsody) and not does she have the technical range (as seen in Giselle). For the other two it’s more a personal choice .. I don’t like their style in tutus.