Jamesrhblack

Will any Forum members be present this evening and, if so, is there an accustomed place to say hello?

As in, I have a Grand Tier ticket for tomorrow evening for sale, as managed to secure two returns for 8 March…

Managed to get two tickets for 8 March and now have 1 Grand Tier for 2 March if anybody wants to pm me.

Re “purity defiled,” I’m not sure there is much “pure” about Manon as a character. There’s a good reason she is being sent off to a convent and it doesn’t take her long to elope with a young man she has just met, stealing the money entrusted to her care by an admittedly foolish older man. I’d agree re the strength of the Osipova / Campbell depiction of the siblings, but I thought Fumi Kaneko excellent last night, almost hard-boiled in her detachment for much of the brothel scene and actively spiteful to des Grieux in the Bracelet Duet before being reduced to catatonic stupefaction in the last act. Inevitably, for a debut it was less complex than Osipova’s very remarkable performance with Campbell which I am delighted was broadcast (and must surely appear on DVD) and, as  Missfrankiecat observes above, explores Manon’s own agency in her downfall.

I rather enjoyed Joseph Sissens’ sharp, opportunistic take on Lescaut and find him compulsively watchable as a dancer and stage presence. And I thrilled to Vadim Muntagirov’s long lines in Act 1 and didn’t see him as reticent, rather bashfully shy in trying to articulate his sudden intensity of feeling, whilst the humiliation of Act 2 and the despair of Act 3 really gripped. 

Absolutely: he is so very evidently held in great affection and esteem by very many of us, rather as was Laura Morera. Very sad that a second of my favourite dancers of recent years is now leaving.

18 minutes ago, Jan McNulty said:

Done!  Recently I didn’t notice autocorrect corrected my diminutive name to Jacob!

You’re wonderful, but you know that 🙂

1 minute ago, Jam Dancer said:

I think you mean Roberta Marquez here?

 

I do. That’s an internet auto correct. Might a moderator rescue me from forum shame?

2 hours ago, FionaM said:

Wonderful memories of recent performances

- brilliant Des Grieux with Francesca Hayward in the last run

- clever Lescaut only last week with Osipova, Clarke and Magri.  Never seen the brother sister relationship work this well

- audience stunned into silence by his Romeo with Yasmine Naghdi

- masterful lead role in Dances at a Gathering 

 

I could go on! 

 

I heartily concur with all of these.

Heartbreaking as Albrecht with Francesca Hayward as Giselle, irresistible as Colas with Roberta Marquez as Lise, dazzling (too much so?) as Benno, and brilliant as Troyte, turning to the left too.

35 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

 

Thanks. That video's already on my need-to-get-round-to-watching list! Though as Dowell is about 80 now I guess he may have shrunk a little from when he was dancing.

Yes, but even with that in mind you’ll see what I mean. It’s rather wonderful in that he looks very frail at the beginning but as he becomes more and more involved in the process his movement becomes freer.

1 hour ago, Dawnstar said:

 

May I ask how tall Dowell was when he was dancing? I had vaguely assumed that he was fairly tall but it sounds like I'm wrong.

I’d think around 5ft 10. Happy to be corrected. Reece Clarke is consideranly over 6ft and very broad too. There’s a video of Dowell coaching Clarke and Melissa Hamilton in Ashton’s Awakening Pas de deux on the Ashton Foundation YouTube site so you can see them together there.

I was hugely impressed by the broadcast, as watched in an almost full Kino in Rye. Many people have already written at length more eloquently than I can of their impressions. I was very taken with idea of Lescaut’s drunken solo being a metaphor for his beginning to lose control of the situation.

Accordingly,  I’ll try to be brief and post only a couple of observations.

I thought Natalia Osipova and Alexander Campbell brought out more than any other pairing I have seen that Manon and Lescaut are of one blood. She is certainly no innocent: (I would think she is being sent to a convent after having been found once too often in the hayloft) and her subsequent behaviour makes that clear. Their facial exchanges caught exactly the sense of opportunism the siblings share, including an amused disdain at those around them, not forgetting her her peeved embarrassment at being paraded in her underclothes in Act 1 or her laughing observation in Act 2 of his alcoholic breath. 
 

Some have written that Reece Clarke was rather pale dramatically. That was certainly not my impression from the screen. Indeed, the hurt in his eyes was palpable during Act 2 and he also, for me, more importantly brought the character to life through movement. He’s much taller and bigger built than Anthony Dowell but his lines were impeccable, yearningly beautiful in Act 1, and the articulation of his jumps in arabesque was hugely impactful: all des Grieux’s misery was there and the sharp musicality as he threw himself to the ground and then looked back up at Manon in Act 2 brings tears to the eye even in recollection. I had thought Campbell the master here, unforgettable with Francesca Hayward in 2019, but I found Clarke in no way inferior.

i agree with the praise for the solo ‘cello although I thought the opening Prelude unexpectedly ragged and thought for one nano second that Manon’s exquisite early moving forwards (to Les cocinelles) was going to stop and restart.

It was a pleasure to see Laura Morera so prominently featured in interview. The truth of expression about which she spoke with such eloquence was clear to see in the company’s performance on stage.

1 hour ago, Sophoife said:

 

 

I discovered that between 1974 and 1991, there were only three Des Grieux at the ROH: Dowell, Rudolf Nureyev and Wayne Eagling. Bruce Sansom debuted in 1991.

 

Irek Mukhamedov was the first to dance both Des Grieux and Lescaut, and on 30 October 1995 he was Lescaut to Guillem and Hilaire. Carlos Acosta has also danced both rôles, as have Alex Campbell and Marcelino Sambé. Ryoichi Hirano will be only the fifth dancer to have done this when he makes his DG début.

 

David Wall made his debut as Des Grieux in January 1976 to Lynn Seymour’s Manon with Anthony Dowell as Lescaut so he and Dowell were the first to dance both of the principal male dancing roles.

I am fairly sure that Julian Hosking danced Des Grieux before 1991.

Bruce Sansom danced Lescaut for his last performance with The Royal Ballet.

I loved this production last weekend and am very pleased to have picked up a standby ticket with less an an hour to go. I’m looking forward to viewing with the benefit of the insights offered on this forum by Irmgard and also hoping for a performance without injury or incident. 

41 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

Richardson, Hirano, Bracewell, Sambe-DG

Naghdi, Kaneko- Manon

Acri- Lescaut 

O'Sullivan, Magri, Hinkis (not sure if she's danced it before-60% certain) - Mistress 

 

Not an exhaustive list....just ones that came to mind

Acri and Magri definitely appeared as Lescaut and Mistress in 2019 (not I think together. Acri was Lescaut in Morera’s cast with Hinkis, and I saw Magri with Corrales opposite Hayward and Campbell, which was a decidedly dream cast)

Bonelli’s Bedroom Pas de deux with Morera (credited as Morena) is currently on BBC4…

7 hours ago, Irmgard said:

In the section you refer to in Act 2, Myrtha commands Giselle to get Albrecht up after he has fallen to the ground.  The mime Giselle says is "You remember how we loved and how we danced" in the hope that this will get him to his feet again, as she knows she must keep him dancing until dawn or the Wilis will kill him.  The beautiful supported series of temps levées following his next solo are again to keep him moving.

 

The sharp-eyed in today's audience may have noticed a slight limping by Oliveira towards the end of the mad scene and this is unfortunately why she had to withdraw from the rest of the ballet, as she had a problem with her calf which sadly prevented us from seeing her beautifully ethereal Act 2.  Heartfelt thanks to Erina Takahashi for taking over!   

 

In Giselle's first Act 1 solo (she has two in the Skeaping production), there is an alternative to the diagonal of hops which Oliveira did today and Khaniukova did on Thursday and Friday which I actually prefer as it makes this interpolated solo (from around 1880) slightly more Romantic in feel and less of a show-off number. And yes, dancers who choose to do the whole sequence of hops can use either diagonal,  for whichever supporting leg is stronger.

 

Myrtha does not have to appear baleful or menacing in her first solo.  Wilis, when mortal, had an overwhelming love of dance, and, in death, this passion is indulged.  Therefore, this solo (longer in the Skeaping version than in any other because it uses Adam's music for this almost in its entirety) is meant to portray this passion, building to an almost ecstatic climax, and is what Gautier intended.  Myrtha becomes menacing only when confronting potential male victims.  

 

In the 'travelling arabesques' (a much nicer description than Alistair Macaulay's reference to them as cow-hops!), the Wilis look to the audience to indicate that they hypnotise/seduce their potential victims with their beautiful eyes.  Therefore, the arms are in third arabesque, rather than first, to allow the head to turn to the audience.

Many thanks Iemgard. This is so useful and interesting to know and I really appreciate your taking the time to explain.

Morera and Bonelli. Never to be forgotten, their first Mayetking, their last Giselle. For me, the most potent partnership since Sibley / Wall and Collier / Mumhanecov, although I’m very keen on Hayward / Campbell now and looking forward to Kaneko / Muntagirov

12 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

Hi @Jamesrhblack with regard to the first question about Giselle urging/cajoling him to get up and dance, I've been told by coaches and other stagers that the reason is that if he stays collapsed on the ground, Myrtha and the wilis can move in onto him and kill him. While he is on his feet and moving, she can shield him from Myrtha's power. (Sounds very Twilight film series/books but I guess all stories copy each other eventually!) Oh, I do remember another repetiteur saying (maybe in their own production), that Myrtha can't reach Albrecht and harm him or influence him while Giselle is there, but she still has power to force Giselle to obey her (that's why Giselle has to leave the cross to dance instead of just standing there all night...and not just because that would be a dull Act 2 if she did that!). So in that section she is forcing Giselle to urge/entice Albrecht to get up and dance so that she can kill him indirectly. I guess both interpretations work!

 

The solo is actually a later addition and not found in Coralli and Perrot's production at the premiere (see Mary Skeaping's fascinating notes compiled by @Irmgardin the reasonably priced £6 programme  😀) and is probably choreographed by Petipa to music by Minkus.

 

To me the hops on pointe have always seemed a bit out of place in a Romantic era ballet like Giselle, although in Petipa's time hops on pointe  would have existed. Ratmansky took them out in his reconstruction for United Ukrainian Ballet and used a more historically informed series of linked turns and sequences, which I like more. The hops on pointe also don't really fit in with Giselle's weak heart in most productions as you'd have train pretty hard to do them. So, I suppose the context is that they are probably not out of place since the solo dates over 40 years after the premiere (but I prefer the modified versions). Khaniukova on Friday night did a modified version, Takahashi on Saturday night did the hops on pointe. 

Many thanks. Yes, I forgot to add that the programme for this production is excellent and well worth £6.00 (and made jolly good reading on the train home AFTER I’d put down my thoughts)…

4 minutes ago, Fonty said:

 

I've always read it as the latter, as in  "you are being compelled to dance, but remember I am here to support you and help when you falter....."

Thanks 🙂

And Lizbie1 and Fonty, your are very prescient and that may now be three of us needing to delete our accounts…

I booked this Giselle for the production rather than any particular dancers, having seen the Skeaping version nearly forty years ago when I knew much less than the little I know of the historical background of the ballet, and then again in 2017 when I was so flummoxed by an unexpectedly disappointing performance from a highly regarded dancer that my memory is of that rather than anything else.

Having seen the current RB Peter Wright production many times, it wasn’t until I saw Ratmansky’s production as danced by United Ukrainian Ballet that I realised that there were other possibly preferable solutions to the challenges posed. It may be that I enjoyed that as a production even more than today, but I was very pleased to have an opportunity properly to appreciate this classic production from an excellent, if leg-restricted, seat in the front centre of the Upper CIrcle.

As with Ratmansky, it was good to hear the fuller version of the score, which is what I grew up on as my father had the Bonynge Monte-Carlo LP’s. Others better informed than I will be able to comment more appropriately but two details particularly caught my eye.

In Act 1, as Giselle sought reassurance from Albrecht (or rather Loys) in front of Bathilde, rather than meeting her eye his gaze was locked on Hilarion who had penetrated his disguise. At that moment, Giselle “knew.” This tiny anticipation of the truth, precipitating her breakdown, was really striking.

The other was in Act 2 when Giselle lures an exhausted Albrecht back to the dance. Is somebody able to explain for me the intent? It read to me as Giselle saying, “Remember, I love to dance,” her inner Wili surfacing, but it could equally have meant, “Remember, I love you. Now dance,” which isn’t quite the same thing.

I thought Fernanda Oliveira exquisite, although I remarked to my companion at the interval that she seemed very fragile. I’m not sure whether that was her characterisation or a symptom of the indisposition that took her out of her first performance and out of the Second Act today. The gentleness, but also the coquetry were there, and her Giselle visibly grew in confidence in her relationship with Loys, making her betrayal very poignant.

Again, might somebody who knows better advise as to whether her modification of the hopping sequence in the Act 1 Solo is Skeaping or a very effective alteration necessitated by her weakened health (I’m also sure that Laura Morera took this sequence on the other side and foot).

Kudos to Erina Takahashi for saving the show with a new partner, minimal notice and no doubt whilst in anticipated recovery mode after dancing last night. Her technique seems more obviously steely and brilliant than Oliveira’s making for some thrilling moments of height and flight, yet beautifully softened in the Pas de deux. I wish that over the years I had come to know more of both these evidently very accomplished ballerinas.

I didn’t get a lot of sense of emotional involvement from Francesco Gabriele Frola, nor did I think he strung his Act 2 solo into a sequence rather than individual moments (I’m not sure how better to express this), but those moments were certainly impressive.

The extended version of Myrtha’s entrance, so akin to the 19th Century Recitative-Aria-Link-Cabaletta is thrilling to behold. I didn’t find Alison McWhinney as baleful or menacing as memory still tells me Monica Mason was, but she sure can jump and her stamina was impressive too. In terms of lighting, I thought a couple of moments were the darker side of atmospheric, but Myrtha leaping through the ranks of the Foresters was terrific.
 

Unqualified praise for the ladies of the Corp de Ballet in Act 2, never betraying any sense of the exhaustion they must surely be feeling at the end of the week (again, can somebody explain to me the significance of the heads facing over the shoulder and out during the travelling arabesques in opposition rather than looking down) and just about for the orchestra too, apart from a couple of horn fluffs, under Daniel Parkinson’s fluent baton, without any of the over slow tempi that seem to plague The Royal Ballet’s musical response.

I really enjoyed it very much and hope it won’t be too long before this beautiful production returns.

49 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

I hope it's okay to post this link. The friend who I saw Monday's Nutcracker with has reviewed it on his website. While he's a West End theatre expert, it was his first Nutcracker so it's not a technical review but I thought maybe the opinion of someone seeing the production for the first time might be of interest to some on here. https://www.theatremonkey.com/blog/2023/december/nutcracker-royal-opera-house-covent-garden

I always think it is really valuable to read comments from people for whom The Royal Ballet, or, indeed, ballet, is not a regular port of call, so thanks for posting this Dawnstar.

Marcelino Sambé as Rudolf delivered something I would not have anticipated in terms of a moving characterisation aligned to technical virtuosity and partnering strength, no doubt encouraged by being with Sarah Lamb, in what I have always thought her best role as Larisch, and Francesca Hayward, who seemed ideally suited to Vetsera.

Full capacity in Rye and the only glitches some sound issues at the very beginning and during the spoken introduction to Act 2. Greatly enjoyed seeing the interview with Johanna Adams Farley and felt an opportunity missed by not speaking with Andrew Litton to get his perspective on The Royal Ballet’s The Nutcracker from his position at New York City Ballet. The orchestra certainly sounded superb in Tchaikovsky’s ever glorious score.

I’m not really a Nutcracker aficionado (I have seen it once ‘live’ in 35 years and that was only because I sensed the clock ticking on Laura Morera’s career and didn’t want to miss seeing her dance), so perhaps not best based to comment, but I didn’t come away thinking I’d seen a vintage cast.

I very much liked Sophie Allnatt and Leo Dixon, she wide-eyed with excitement, he dashing and ardent, both dancing cleanly, musically and with easily responsive musicality; and I enjoyed Thomas Whitehead, who seemed a more sinister Drosselmeyer, perhaps akin to the spirit of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s original tale, than I might have anticipated (not much glitter, which I imagine is Gary Avis’ prerogative). However, much as I usually like her, Isabella Gasparini seemed rather light weight as The Rose Fairy (it’s good to see her being given more ‘mature’ roles, but I wasn’t convinced this was the best fit for her); and I wasn’t convinced by Anna-Rose O’Sullivan and Marcelino Sambé. Perhaps it was the camera angle, but she seemed too tall for him when on pointe (the long supported pirouette at the end of the Pas de deux seemed particularly uncomfortable) and whilst I enjoy his easy virtuosity, I agree with Linnzi5 that he doesn’t convince as a danseur noble.

However, I enjoyed his Romeo in cinema and thought his Rudolf really fine and see no reason why every dancer should be successful in every role they dance. As for Anna-Rose O’Sullivan, I think her technically accomplished and, obviously, musical, but she doesn’t touch me at all as a dancer. This is, of course, a personal response.

She did speak beautifully in her VTR about not just the challenges but the responsibilities of dancing this role. However, in the same VTR Sambé seemed to hint at the darkness behind the music at this point (it was one of those moments when the sound faltered) and I didn’t sense that glow and abandonment to the moment that can be seen in last year’s broadcast with Fumi Kaneko and William Bracewell, now available on the ROH stream so that one can make the inevitable “odorous” comparisons.

48 minutes ago, Sim said:

Probably her beautiful long line!

She often reminds me of a sketch by Modigliani in her long limbed elegance…