Nina99

1 hour ago, Fonty said:

I think Mr O'Hare is between a rock and a hard place.  It cannot be easy trying to maintain a classical ballet company and satisfy the requirements of the Arts Council, which from what I can make out seems to be a tick box exercise in political correctness.  Ashton seems to be the embodiment of all that the ACE would disapprove of.  Classical ballet, characters such as fairies and nymphs, stories that to not contain nitty gritty realism of every day life in modern day Britain with the emphasis on sexism and racism....I am astounded we manage to get anything by him.

 

 

From what I gather the ACE is doing its best to make itself very unpopular with various sections of the arts world. According to the latest edition of Private Eye even the great Antonio Pappano, late of the ROH, now with the LSO, has joined in the general criticism of their actions. Apparently he used the launch of his first season with the LSO to deliver some home truths. According to him ACE “does not seem to be supporting or being a cheerleader for what we really do”.  The Orchestra’s business he said was performing music rather than engaging in identity politics and social work!
 

Hopefully, criticism from such an august figure will embolden others to speak out more forcefully.
 

I was very sorry to read this news. I didn’t know Linda Gainsbury myself, but I remember seeing her when I went to see Vadim’s interview and book signing at the London ballet circle evening. From the beautiful tributes paid to her, she sounds like a wonderful person and was certainly a true friend to Vadim especially in the way she was instrumental in getting his book published. My deepest condolences to him and all her other friends and family.

Thank you for posting this insight @Balletfanp. I must admit that I had hoped that Vadim would reprise his performance as Florizel in the WT. However, having seen this rehearsal, I think he should be a great Leontes and I now wish I had bought a ticket for both performances. 
Vadim is certainly busy, he’s now off to La Scala where he’s dancing Sleeping Beauty PDD with Marianela on Friday and next week I believe he’s dancing with Fumi at a gala in Belgrade.

40 minutes ago, Mora said:

I also prefer more reserved personalities.

That's the reason why, apart from their astistry and charisma, William's and Fumi's instgram accounts are my favourites. In my opinion, they are sensitive and very kind persons but reserve (mostly Fumi) and private as well. I love them for that too.

 When I did a backstage tour at the ROH, we went past one of the rehearsal studios where Fumi and Vadim were rehearsing for their PDD in Mayerling.  Our tour Guide made a point of saying that Miss Kaneko, as she called her, was considered to be one of the nicest people in the company.  

22 minutes ago, Kerfuffle said:

Saw it tonight, an electric atmosphere in the ROH! Could palpably hear the relief when the announcement was made about replacements in the cast that it wasn’t going to be Marianela or Vadim! Hugely appreciative audience, standing ovations and the longest curtain call I’ve ever experienced! Every aspect of this was truly memorable, I feel like I’ve experienced something very special tonight. 

Well I think you’ve just about summed up my feelings about this evening. It certainly was a magical night – I especially loved the Act 2 PDD, which really had the audience enthralled, and was met with a big roar of applause, at the end.  As Kerfuffle says the energy seemed to spread to the whole cast, who were all superb. I think there should also be a special shout out to the orchestra who were on fine form tonight.
I’m going to see Vadim and Fumi in May (on my birthday!), So it will be very interesting to compare the two partnerships.

There was also trouble on the tube last night with the circle and district line being suspended in both directions. Fortunately , I had left plenty of time and after a longer journey than normal was still able to reach the Coliseum in plenty of time. When I finally sat down, I found myself next to actress Susan Hampshire was very enthusiastic and cheered loudly after her favourite pieces. I was very surprised to find out that she is 86. She certainly looks good for her age.

As for the gala, I mostly enjoyed it very much. I appreciated the opportunity to see new works, and some of them performed by dancers I’ve never seen before. Vadim was predictably wonderful in his two pieces - of the two, I think I preferred the first piece with Fumi, mainly because he had more to do. I also liked The Thinker with Sergio Bernal although I agree with somebody further up this thread that beige pants and shoes were not a good look for a dancer’s costume. I also enjoyed Esmeralda, and thought that Caravaggio with Melissa Hamilton and Roberto Bolle was very beautiful. However, I couldn’t enjoy the Forsyth piece because of the awful music which assaulted our ears! 
 

One thing I noticed, and which I think has been mentioned before on this forum and which happened a couple of times last night is the habit of dancers stopping after a series of pirouettes, or fouettes in the middle of a variation or coda to acknowledge audience applause.  To my mind, this breaks up the flow of the piece and I much prefer the RB habit of keeping going.

34 minutes ago, FionaM said:

@Balletfanp @Silver Capricorn I’d like to echo both your sentiments about the Fumi/Vadim onstage partnership being something special.   It touched me too.   You can see the connection between them carrying on into the curtain calls.
 

I am especially looking forward to their Swan Lake.  Siegfried which is possibly Vadim’s signature role.  Will has the edge in some adagio technique, but not in jumps and virtuoso.  I saw Fumi’s debut as O/O and it was nothing short of spectacular.  
 

And I also like the mix and match approach.  I prefer dancers to not always be paired with the same partner.   For me, that’s a tradition that can happily die out with Sibley/Dowell.  Having seen Yasmine Naghdi and Reece Clarke this last weekend being fabulous in the R&J balcony pdd and Spring Waters …. this is a pairing I’d like to see more of.  Though it seems unlikely at ROH.  

I absolutely agree with you @FionaM. 

Well, for me, last night was wonderfully emotional.  Like @Silver Capricorn I’m very happy to see Vadim And Fumi finally performing together on the ROH stage after guesting together all over the world. IMO they are a beautiful partnership and I hope they dance together many more times. 
I’m really looking forward to seeing them in Swan Lake in May.

It was a great treat to see Antoinette Sibley appear on stage at the end. I’m old enough to have seen her dance with Anthony Dowell, many years ago. I was surprised by how tiny she is, Vadim seemed to tower over her. It must’ve brought back many fantastic memories for her, getting a standing ovation on the ROH stage. The house lights were put on so that she could see everybody enthusiastically applauding her.

Dame Antoinette Sibley is here tonight! KOH introduced her from the stage and mentioned that it’s her 85th birthday today. As for the performance - so far, so fabulous! 

An absolutely wonderful evening yesterday with a fantastic debut by Fumi Kaneko, and Vadim Muntagirov taking his performance as DG, which I’ve only seen on DVD, to another level. My only complaint was that it was over all too quickly. Thank goodness I’m going to the performance on Tuesday. 
 

The audience was hugely enthusiastic, and although I’ve only been going to ballet for a few years, I haven’t heard such loud cheering at the end of a performance. I thought it was a nice touch that while Fumi and Vadim were taking their curtain call bows, the house lights were put on so that they could see that there was a standing ovation for them - In the stalls at least. 
 

Roll on next Tuesday when I can, hopefully take in all the details that I missed last night. 

Since KOH has recently marked the 10 year and 25 year anniversaries of Osipova and Bolle joining the RB, I wonder if he will now do the same for Muntagirov. His first performance of Manon on the 23rd of February will be exactly 10 years and four days since he joined the RB. IMO this was definitely a significant date for the company and worthy of one of Kevin‘s nice speeches to commemorate it.

Well, I know Fumi Kaneko is for a start. There are some lovely pictures on her Instagram of her and Vadim’s stage rehearsal. It certainly looks like a very promising partnership and I’m really looking forward to seeing them both in February.

I think that Marci Sambe it’s also making his debut as well as William Bracewell.

Well it’s appeared now on the ROH TV app at least. I found it under New this Month.

I agree that the streaming service is rather poorly designed And it is difficult to find anything.  However, at least the quality has improved. Previously I found the Coppelia was fairly unwatchable because of the poor picture but it is now much improved. Hopefully it is like that for other performances.

26 minutes ago, oncnp said:

as no one else has mentioned it...

 

New "Spotlight On..."   Spotlight on... Vadim Muntagirov (roh.org.uk)

Well that’s all very well, but I couldn’t find it either on my tablet or on my TV using my Amazon fire stick. It’s not even in the ‘coming soon’ section.

3 hours ago, oncnp said:

Naghdi replaced Nunez in the last run of SL  d/t illness.  

Actually Nunez did return for the last performance of SL with Muntagirov in that run.  I was lucky enough to see this performance and you would never have known that Nunez had been ill.  Needless to say they were both superb and I have a particular memory of how moving their Act 2 PDD was. 

Thank you for pointing out that Prima has appeared on the ROH stream. I enjoyed it very much when I saw it at the ROH Diamond Celebration although I did have some reservations about the costumes. This time, watching it on TV through my Amazon fire stick, I enjoyed it again but was a bit disappointed in the quality of the picture, even when I changed the video settings.

I hope that Wheeldon’s For Four, which was also part of the Diamond celebration, might now be included on the stream.

As a big Muntagirov fan I am delighted to see him top and tailing the spring, run of SLs with three performances with Marinela in March and April and two with Fumi in May, including one on my birthday - is this a record for him in one season? Fumi and Vadim have done both the black swan and white swan PDDs in several galas in Italy and I believe they will perform the whole thing in Rome next June. However I don’t think my bank balance will run to seeing all of his performances!

it doesn’t look as if Stephen McRae will be back before the end of the season. It must be incredibly frustrating for him although he seems to be staying positive.

Like others, I am delighted that Joseph Sissens has been given this wonderful opportunity.

I loved Marianela and Vadim’s curtain call jumps. Not sure I can see it becoming a thing though. I mean it wouldn’t be very appropriate for Manon for instance. However, they were certainly fitting end to this performance which I thought was wonderful.  It was my first time seeing Don Q live and I loved every minute of it. I think @WoodlandGladeFairy post said it all in her post and I absolutely agree with her comments. 
 

Besides, the two leads who were on superlative form I also enjoyed the performances of Rio Hirano who was just right as Espada, and Christopher Saunders who was superb as the Don. Unexpectedly, I also very much enjoyed the vision scene, which I thought was lovely.

All in all, it was a superb evening and it was lovely to see a ballet where so much of the company had plenty to do.
 

The Don Q insight is now available on the ROH stream. I enjoyed watching it, and as others have said, Chris Saunders is excellent at taking rehearsals and always seems very nice and encouraging but with a great eye for detail.

I was also impressed by Annette Buvoli as Mercedes, and Lukas BB looked very promising as Espada. I could certainly believe in the ladies going all gooey eyed at him!

What an absolutely beautiful place to have a wedding in front of so many of your friends and family. Wishing lots of happiness to Yasmine and her lovely husband, Riccardo.

On 17/08/2023 at 20:08, MJW said:

Does anybody find that certain streams seem play unevenly? On my PC the new streams are fine but through the app on Amazon Firestick they are very jerky. It could be my connection but other ROH streams are fine.

Regarding picture quality of certain streams, back in January I complained about Coppelia which seemed shockingly jerky when played through the Firestick.  I got this answer from the box office

"Coppelia is filmed in 4k rather than standard HD.  It is data heavy; therefore, some browsers may struggle to play this volume of data.  

May I suggest trying a lower quality setting.  You can do this by loading the video and going to the 'settings' cog in the bottom right of the screen and then adjust video or audio quality."

This may apply to the Ashton triple as well.   I have found that lowering the video setting does seems to get rid of the jerkiness but it also lowers the quality of the picture which becomes a bit pixilated as well.  However doing this certainly improves the picture for Coppelia although it is still not as good as that on most of the other streams which are mostly excellent when played on the best quality and without any jerkiness.

It'll be a bit of a bore having to change video setting according to what I'm watching.  

I’ve been able to see the Ashton triple for about a week, now on my TV courtesy of my Amazon fire stick. The new interview series features so far, Alexander Campbell and Akane Takada. However, I was only able to play the Akane interview.  Nothing happened when I clicked on Alexander Campbell, so no doubt he is still “coming soon.”  However, the interview with Akane is very nice and there are some lovely excerpts from ballets and rehearsals that she has featured in and show what a beautiful dancer she is.

I’m very excited that Kaneko and Muntagirov are partnered together. Kevin, O’Hare saw them perform together in R&J in Osaka last month and certainly looked very pleased in the backstage photos there. I’ve only ever seen Muntagirov’s des Grieux on DVD and I thought he and Sarah Lamb were both wonderful. Nevertheless , it’ll be great to see him dance this time with someone younger than him and Kaneko certainly couldn’t wish for a better partner for her debut in this role.

I would love to see Kaneko and Muntagirov partnered together in Manon next season. 

Rachel Hollings has just posted on her IG story some nice photos from the wings and backstage both before and after the latest R&J in Osaka with Vadim Muntagirov and Fumi Kaneko.