Christine

OK, thank you for this info, Fiona, I hadn't seen this yet. Yes, it is a bit of a disappointment, I admit, but in these times we have to be pleased if performances can go ahead at all, I guess. I've never seen Emilie Mazon so I do look forward to her Aurora, too - unless there's going to be another change thanks to the Covid lottery.

So, this will be a week full of suspense. I've got tickets for the 15th, SB with Alina Cojocaru... that night's performance has not been cancelled yet.

So sorry to hear this, Sabine. In Stuttgart, our luck still holds, for how much longer nobody knows, of course.

Sorry, I forgot: I do wish you all the best and that this awful Omicron wave will be over soon and not cost too many lives. In Germany, it is still ahead of us and it is not going to be fun - sadly, in Stuttgart, more than 30% of the population are not vaccinated and not likely to get vaxxed anytime soon either, not voluntarily anyway. So, January and February could get rather grim here. Let's hope not. And: Merry Christmas to Everyone reading this and thank you to all your wonderful contributions. I have been learning so much on this forum! My biggest wish is that next year will see the end of the great difficulties we had to endure during last two years.!

You are right, of course, the missing live orchestra was a disappointment. On the other hand, as visiting Paris to see ballet for me is a pleasure that is not to be had everyday, I was very happy that they didn't cancel the entire performance and that I was still able to enjoy some spectacular dancing. It is probably a testament to the professionalism of these dancers and their relief at still being allowed to perform that they did their very best to make you forget that they did not in fact dance to taped music, even though it must have beem a sore let-down for them, too. I suspect that hygiene protocols at some houses are pretty sophisticated by now which is why POB was able to still go ahead with the planned performances. Financially, this solution was probably far less damaging than having to cancel and refund 2,700 tickets.

I have just been this weekend to the Bastille for the very first time (Don Quixote - Gilberte/Marchand) and it is definitely a different experience. Even if you're not into this particular style of contemporary architecture it is exhilarating to watch a ballet performance together with 2.700 other spectators in the huge auditorium. I guess it must be similar at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Did you actually get to see the performance, Sabine? Instagram snippets of Shale Wagman and Carolina Bastos do look rather tantalizing.

Well, they are closing in some places like Dresden in Saxony where the number of cases are running especially high, at the very least until the 12 of December. The 525 places remaining in Munich are apparently 25% of theatre capacity, which can make nobody very happy. With case numbers soaring and the debate about what can or should be done to stem the tide of new infections in full swing (without making much progress) we do not know what this development will mean precisely in terms of theatre closures or restrictions. The decision conerning whether to shut down venues for cultural or sports events or reduce seating capacity is taken at the level of the states (Bundesländer). So we are all a bit on tenterhooks at the moment and are hoping for the best while fearing the next hit... Anyway, it does feels like a déjà vu.

So sad. 😢 Totally frustrating, really! Thank you, Angela, for the good news regarding the Pina Bausch Online Archive!

Well, they are as good as sold out now with only one seat left for some of the performances to the full capacity audience in November which should make the Director very happy! But its true of, course, people have been rather hesitant about returning to events in general.

For some reason it was only available until yesterday 4 pm and I don't know why - perhaps it has got to do with the rights attaching to Cranko's Onegin. In previous years the Stuttgart Ballet contributions to the World Ballet Day were available for much longer (and one still is), on the other hand they had a duration of 30 minutes only, this year it was 60 minutes. That's no consolation if the video is no longer accessible, I know.

You should translate your dream into reality! If you do, you'll have to hurry a bit, however, as unfortunately, the current run is a short one with the last performances of Onegin on 14 November. The first cast - that is the plan - will dance only on 23rd and 31st of October. Anyway, Onegin is bound to come back again sometime in the future, so I am sure there will be opportunities!

Good news: my copy has arrived this week - sending a reminder to Waterstones seems to have set the train in motion. Thank you to all of you for your encouragement! There don‘t seem to be border processing issues with shipments from the UK to Europe either anymore, which is great. Another order I had made earlier in the year had been lying around for months at customs control in Frankfurt and could not be cleared due to some missing information perhaps, or for some reason. Anyway, the book looks great, makes perfect bedtime reading -a few reviews at a time - his brilliant dance writing is a joy. Needless to say, I lapped up his wonderful article on Marcia Haydee in the favorite dancers section, an article I hadn‘t come across so far.

Same here!

That does not sound too promising. I received an email today telling me, that payment had been made the day before and that the book was now prepared for shipping. At least the reminder has set someting in motion, hopefully not just the payment...

Completely agree re. wait and weight. I have written to Waterstone Customer Support, perhaps there will be a reply.

I haven't received a copy yet and heard nothing from the publishers. I placed my order in May. I do expect shipments to Germany to take even longer, however,

Bought my ticket yesterday and I am very greatful for this glimpse into the program which, by the way, I coudn't find anywhere. But I really wanted to see Nachtmerrie with Friedemann & Elisa and am very happt that I will get a chance to finally see Mayara Magri live - I really love her charisma. Also very happy with the other contributors on this list!!!

OK, I just heard it on the local news... the premiere has been postponed until Saturday. It's sad to loose two performances, of course, but still better than loosing all three Boleros with Friedemann Vogel and the whole wonderful rest of the programme. Let's just hope that the water does not wreak more havoc on the opera house in the meantime.

Oh no! Have you received a cancellation, Angela? I haven't heard anything thus far and was hoping that might be a good sign... For the second time I managed to get front row seats for this and for the second time I've been frustrated ... first time by what they called the "lock-down light" and now the thunderstorm. It is much worse, of course, for the artist(s), though.

Yes, it was pretty bad. I attended the concert and everything seemed fine. But then we were unable to leave because of the storm raging outside. The good news is that nobody got injured.

That is very true, of course, and you could add after a lengthy period of deprivation. Thank you for your comments, LACAD.

Finally, this weekend I was able to see live ballet again. And, like quite a few other fans of Stuttgart Ballet, after almost 7 and a half ballet-barren months I was so starved of this particular kind of pleasure that I went to see all three performances - yes, I treated myself..! And yes, a mixed bill it was, and while I enjoyed all the Works presented, whether New as a creation or New to the Stuttgart stage, I do agree that not all of them were a complete success. It is always fascinating to read other viewers’ accounts of your own local troupe and members on this forum really do have an amazing amount of experience and knowledge on ballet that has provided me with lots of valuable insights since I rediscovered ballet a few years ago. So I really loved reading your accounts of the stream, LACAD and Sabine0308, and, of course, ninamargaret, even if I was slightly taken aback by the use of the term “consternation”… not sure whether it is as strong a term in English as it is in the German language. It’s certainly true, that Stuttgart Ballet love choreographic experiments at the risk of creating “duds”. I do hope, in this case, however that none of them will turn out to be quite that, although, admittedly my experience with the Spuck piece was similar to yours – it made for pleasant viewing, the backdrop painting with its stylise trees was beautiful, but I did not find it very memorable. Still curious about that cause of “consternation”, LACAD, I went and had look at the live stream after the three shows and felt very strongly that some of the pieces did not really transmit very effectively at all onto the screen. The atmosphere evoked by the set, lighting, music and dancing in the real theatre context seemed to have burst like a bubble – which, I thought, especially applied to Source by Clug, but also, to some extent to the Goecke, where the ingenious, magical lighting really is an integral part of the story-telling by the dancers and the choreography but hardly registered on the screen. Source, seen live, developed a real hypnotic pull: visually - the centre-piece is a a huge chandelier-like structure hung with ceiling- to-floor strands of translucent material which initially served as a maze to the dancers and later were drawn up to a shorter length to hover like a good spirit (that of Cranko, perhaps) and shining a light above the dancers who were dressed in black-and-white sports suits looking very sleek; musically – a beautiful if minimalist score – and also thanks to the reduced-to-the-max choreo with its use of unexpected twists. All in all, it made for a very fragile composition which, I feel, should best be seen in full without close-ups and heard with the full resonance of the live orchestra. The live stream made the choreography look overly simplistic. Whether this could have been improved by different camera work, I am not sure. I suspect, that some pieces just fall flat when streamed. Now, and since I have written this overlong sentence above, I have discovered Jeannettes’ comment on the piece in the other thread who obviously enjoyed the piece despite the live stream, so perhaps what I have been writing is just down to the usual disillusionment of watching a streamed performance after you’ve seen the real thing. By the way, even on the third viewing Source still felt like only 10 minutes rather than the 25 minutes it actually lasted. Loved Nachtmerrie by Goecke, whom I very much admire like a lot of other German ballet-goers, as, for me, he has developed a choreographic language which can express the emotional turmoil of human existence and interaction with unrivalled clarity and graphic poignancy. I can understand that a lot of people find his style too disjointed, difficult, jerky - it goes so much against the grain of the flowing lines of ballet dancing. I absolutely loved Blake Works I, of course, which was danced with so much spirit and exuberance. “Breezy dynamism”, such a perfect description of how the piece should ideally be danced, LACAD, and I could see that not all SB dancers had quite achieved that, yet. By the third performance, however, you could already see how much easier and flowing the dancing had become and how much the dancers really enjoyed flaunting it.

Oh that is very sad! Admittedly, I have never met her but did subscribe to her newsletter and always thought her Tours en l’air enterprise was such a wonderful way of sharing her passion for ballet with other ballet lovers. May she rest in peace.

Finally managed to watch this dance movie and it is definitely worth seeing: very innovative use of the camera on stage with close-ups as well as panoramic views of dancers and a choral piece of music to die for. Movements are pared down to the basics - "A simple piece" - but highly effective together with the music and camera images. It is stil available to watch until June 5th.