Jamesrhblack

Reece Clarke described as First Soloist ???

Rather thrilled that one of my artists has been asked to be Musical Director for this. WIth another as Katharina Schratt at the ROH my dance credentials are on the rise :-)

I appreciate that Nuñez is a technical marvel and Bonelli usually no slouch, but Sibley and Dowell, as well as being astounding technicians in their prime, were also fairly compact physically (with a remarkable shared musicality too) and I wonder if this might be why yesterday evening they seemed so uncomfortable, being longer of limb and, perhaps, larger of frame. Has anyone seen Takada and Hay?

Just back from my local cinema. I've not seen Anastasia since 2004 but my memories seem pretty good, especially of Acts One and Three. I went with a friend who is an actor who had never been to the ballet before who absolutely loved it and felt that you really needed Acts One and Two to give a reference point to Act Three. I'm seeing the matinée on Saturday week and will write more after that but really felt it came across strongly. The new framing device at the start works well although by reflecting the DNA truth we now know about Anna Anderson it makes Acts One and Two less ambiguous. I didn't mind the revolutionaries not opening Act Two and thought that their introduction via the Scherzo worked rather well. I didn't think that Nunez and Bonelli had a very happy evening (that Pas de Deux is really hard) but did think that Soares was a powerful presence, that Arestis looked absolutely ravishing, that Cowley has a liquid grace all her own, that Campbell is a treasure and that Osipova was truly astonishing. Her intensity never flagged and moments in the last act had a visceral impact that hurt. Kudos too to the orchestra that managed a long evening with real commitment.

"A deviant?" Surely, it's a nightmare memory of Rasputin helping the child to walk with Anna (thinking of herself as Anastasia) then rejecting that memory, hence the throw to the wings. Yes, it's an unsettling image but perspective please.

A truly haunting evening. It's a long journey from East Sussex to Southampton, four hours by train, and involves an overnight stay too but I'm very glad I made the effort. Akram Khan's Dust moved me to tears the two times I saw it, and in recollection too, and at the interval I wondered if I'd out too much emotional anticipation in to this evening. Although there were some thrilling visual moments, I particularly enjoyed the dancers becoming the mechanics of the loom, I wasn't convinced that the relationship between Giselle and Albrecht was presented with enough commitment for us to invest in. Her madness and death seemed to come from nowhere and I was both non plussed and non committed after Act One. Conversely, Act Two really drew me in: my Giselle pre-conceptions (and it was the first classical ballet I really loved, listening to my aunts' Ace of Clubs LP of the ROH / Irvine version and then the Monte Carlo / Bonynge version endlessly as well as it being my first ROH visit with Sibley and Macleary) were swiftly forgotten. Myrtha, having exchanged an act of jumping for bourréeing, was, with her cohorts, chilling, Giselle being reborn to a living death truly chilling, and Hilarion re-enacting Giselle's death truly unsettling. I really liked the references to the traditional choreography (mirroring those in the music): the "cow hops," Albrecht just missing Giselle as she moves past and the raised hand in the pas de deux. Perhaps I missed the emotional release of the traditional version but it's important not just to watch with new eyes but to learn how to watch too. Of the commitment shown by the cast (superb corps with Rojo, Streeter - almost as moving as they were in Dust and another wonderful May - ish / September pairing, Corrales and Quaegebeur) there can be no question, nor of the excellence of the design and stage craft with the orchestra absolutely committed) there can be no question. This one will undoubtedly resonate and grow in recollection.

Lindsay, apologies if you felt I was implying a "dirty mind." That was absolutely not my intention and I am sorry if it came across in that way. As I have written, I would not advocate advantage being taken of a performer, child or adult. Different people will react in different ways to what is presented and perhaps I will feel differently after I have revisited Anastasia in performance next month. However, my recollection of this moment in the ballet (which is indeed an unsettling image even in memory) is far more to do with an evocation of Rasputin physically manoeuvring Alexei in a way that read to me of his using his influence over the child to gain control physically and emotionally. The sudden discarding is shocking too. An earlier poster has also referred to how this moment is a nightmare version of Rasputin helping Alexei to walk again from a previous act. However, given that the scene is set in a madhouse and dealing with the memories of a woman who believes she is Anastasia (and is processing those memories) we should not be surprised to see some unnerving images. I appreciate that MacMillan was a probing, even provocative choreographer, and not all his work reads to me, but I don't believe he was an irresponsible one. I guess one positive out of these exchanges is that we are at least addressing our responses to choreography and theatrical invention rather than just comparing performances. I've probably written more than enough now but would like to reiterate Lindsay that nothing personally adverse to you was intended.

Indeed Vanartus. Art holds up a mirror to life; sometimes our own interpretations may say more about ourselves than the artistic creator intended. Indeed, I found in my own professional stage career that directors were far from reluctant to have a sense of ambiguity about their intentions rather than dictating a response. Some Art will be uncomfortable. Certainly, although I'd never advocate harm to performers, I'd be very reluctant to see a "safe place" erected around the ballet stage (such as the nonsense seemingly increasingly perpetrated in universities with students protected from confronting issues that might not meet with their own criteria).

As Pulcinella points out, the role was originally danced by a small female adult. However, whilst the moment is manipulative and uncomfortable, it doesn't read sexually to me. That is your interpretation Lindsay. As a matter of interest, would you propound that a boy soprano and (as increasingly occurs now) a child soprano should not be cast as Miles and Flora in Britten's The Turn of the Screw which is undoubtedly about sexual abuse?

I've not yet seen this revival but remember that moment being uncomfortable to watch last time round. However, isn't it the point that it is a representation (graphic and exaggerated through nightmare) of Rasputin's manipulation of the Romanovs through his seeming ability to control Alexei's haemophilia. It's not comfortable to watch but nor should it be. The situation will have been explained to the child taking the role and cleared with his teachers, the ballet staff and the chaperone department and, from my experience as a child working, admittedly as a singer, in an adult environment meany years ago, I don't think you should under estimate the emotional maturity and understanding of children working at a young age in a sophisticated "adult" world. I'm not condoning child exploitation: rather, guarding investing the emotional reaction to a theatrical situation with a sense of it taking place in a "real" situation. I'm not sure I've expressed myself as clearly as I wish on this but hope many will understand what I'm trying to write.

It was interesting to hear Lauren Cuthbertson discussing Anna Anderson's claim when i caught up on iPlayer. Her feeling was that at the time the ballet was created there were many, including MacMillan, who felt, or hoped, that she was indeed Anastasia and that whatever DNA has since proved the last act has to be played with Anna firmly believing in her identity, which she seems to have done, or at least maintained (there are one or two claims of her muttering darkly things along the lines of "who I am and who I claim to be" and of her failing a lie detetctor test late in life). Many of the supporters of Anna Anderson made mention of the "memories" she had of Tsarist Russia and felt that these were incompatible with any imposter. Again, later evidence suggests that these "memories" were very much built upon conversations held and books scoured as her "claim" emerged and that Anderson was often passive in her acquiescence of her proclaimed identity, leaving it to supporters to do much of the public work in pushing for recognition. This is a slightly convoluted background to my own stance that Acts 1 and 2 do enhance the impact of Act 3, whether in presenting an idealised world shattered by revolution, from which Anna Anderson emerged, the nostalgia for a lost world that enabled those claims to find a remarkably secure footing in the public imagination, and to suggest the untroubled past to which an injured Polish factory worker (for such it seems was Anna Anderson, her identity as Franziska Schankowska proven by the DNA tests) in her desperation to escape the grim reality of her own existence reached out. Somebody above questioned the bed moving: I'd always taken that as an indication that the bed is where Anderson feels safe and that in her mind it becomes linked with the ship from the first act (whether Anastasia's memory or Anderson's appropriation if it) thus framing the action and linking start with finish. If I recall correctly, one of the survival stories, had the Romanovs saved from the cellar with doubles executed in their place and the entire family living out the rest of their lives on a yacht in the Gulf of Finland. For those who feel that the ballet is now irrelevant, given that Anderson's claim has been disproved (although she still has adherents who believe that there was something manufactured about the DNA testing), I would suggest that it is also about more than an historical figure. It is surely also about memory, identity, loss of identity, and that yearning for a past that can never be ours, however much we long for it, a highly appropriate theatrical image, given how much many of us as audience members invest in watching a world that is not ours on stage in which we nevertheless see our own lives and aspirations reflected. How many little girls watch their first Sleeping Beauty and dance the ballet at home, convinced, in their own minds, that they are also a princess. Anna Anderson became that princess in her own mind and later life, even if, after initial fêtings and luxury, the fairy tale scarcely lived up to an ever more grim reality.

Well, Saturday evening was utter enchantment. I too topped and tailed the Fille run and have to say (write) that for sheer joy and tenderness, Marquez and Campbell rather outshone Morera (who had seemed a little subdued) and Muntagirov. Marquez's sheer exuberance in this role is absolutely captivating and if we might think it rather remarkable that a South American seems to have found her fullest expression in what might be thought a quintessentially English role, let us not forget Sir Frederick Ashton's South American upbringing. I'd agree her shoes were occasionally noisy but she then turned that too dazzling effect in the sequence of prancing steps across the diagonal at the end of the Essler pas de deux. She has not always been a favourite dancer but in this role I'd put her up there with fondest memories of Lesley Collier and Ann Jenner. Her sheer impudence, her temper, her glow, her technical assurance that never here became an end in itself and, of course, her exquisitely tender and nuanced partnership with Alexander Campbell moved me greatly at the time and brings a slight dampness to the gills in recollection even as I type this. He is, of course, an absolute favourite dancer of mine, and it was marvellous to see the new assurance of his stage manner: he has already grown in to his principal status and as partner, technician and dance actor, I'd have said it was more or less flawless. There can be something very magical in these May / September pairings (remember Collier and Mukhademov or, more recently, Yanowsky and Clarke) and I wish very much that they had had further opportunities to dance together. Bennet Gartside was a delightful Simone, not overdoing the drag act, and clogging with delightful vitality, as well as establishing an affectionate on stage relationship with Lise, whilst Luca Acri brought some of the pathos to Alain that I felt missing on the first night. There were no exaggerated wiggles and the sense that here was a shy boy who knew what he ought to do but couldn't quite manage to do it was very touching. A flower show, some tears, some elation: nobody can say goodbye quite like the ballet. Does anybody know if Marquez is intending to dance elsewhere or was this indeed her last on stage outing?

Of course, Bratfisch and Mitzi were both created by Principal Dancers, Graham Fletcher and Laura Connor...

Oh no, not again. I hadn't heard about that ...

Slightly surprised that Kaneko, Kish and Clarke are not cast in anything...

I like Nuñez enormously (who doesn't) but I can't envisage her height and maturity working well for Vetsera (ideal, surely for Larisch, except that that was choreographed for a small dancer) and although Campbell is one of my absolute favourite dancers I'd think his lack of inches would complicate the partnering, albeit he coped extraordinarily well with Mendizabal in Pigeons.

No, although Park did dance Vetsera. Others to have danced both include Alfreda Thorogood. Jennifer Penney, Lesley Collier and Mara Galeazzi (famously, once switching roles between matinee and evening shows). In 2013, she was cast only as Vetsera before retirement. Morera has been saying in at least two Dance Insight videos that she has been around a long time. Let us hope that her withdrawal from Larisch this time isn't following precedent. Were Rosato and Conley the only two to dance both Larisch and Elizabeth?

Some exciting surprises in the Mayerling casting. Didn't see McRae coming as Rudolf, especially with Lamb as Vetsera, but Morera as Vetsera is less unexpected as she was dancing the final pas de deux with Acosta at the RAH. Delighted that Cowley will get Larisch (she's a really luscious dancer) although a little surprised that neither Morera nor Nunez now cast. Hurrah for Yanowsky and Campbell. Very pleased that one of my artists will be singing Katharina Schratt ????

Absolutely. I have such fond memories of their first Don Q where her evident pride in his achievement, as well as her enjoyment in dancing with him, was absolutely clear, and I am sorry, with no disrespect intended to Yuhui Choe, that they did not dance Pigeons together.

I thought this was a reference to "Red in the morning, Shepherd's warming" and a presage of the storm that disrupts the Maypole dance....

I saw him with Ann Jenner. It's a blissful memory and the speed of those two in the coda of the Essler pas de deux indelibly branded on my mind's eye :-)

I was having an unexpectedly intense ballet conversation over dinner last night and the lady with whom I was talking propounded some interesting observations. The Cockerel is a symbol of fertility, the Maypole is part of a fertility rite, ribbons keep people together but can also entangle them, Lise becomes the maypole and then moves towards a marriage in her Act 2 mime which is probably consummated before the final pas de deux. I've read similar observations elsewhere concerning the butter churn and the one handed lift. Fille works at many levels, most enduring art does, and I wonder if it is these deeper levels, not necessarily identified but perhaps sensed, that have kept it in the repertoire. If it were just charming, I think it might have faded by now. Of course, although notionally set in France, it also seems a hymn to the Suffolk countryside that Ashton loved so much: for me, there is something almost heart stopping when the drop curtain goes up on the harvest scene with the synthesis of man/woman and nature through the working of the land that sustains them.

[Morera was certainly faultless but she did not excite me. I found her lacking in energy and the essential pertness which I can imagine Lise needs. She was effortlessly outdazzled by Muntagirov" I rather agree with you, penelopesimpson. The joie de vivre with which Muntagirov danced the role meant that I couldn't take my eyes off him, and if Morera was taking the subtle approach, it was too subtle in comparison to her partner. It was very sweet, but it highlighted to me their age difference, not something that I would normally think about. There is a rather grudging review of Morera in today's links from the Sunday Express. Having also been a little less impressed than I'd hoped after the first might and reading penelopesimpson and cavycapers, I am trying to determine what might be amiss and wonder if it is to do with the injury she suffered last season and also, ungallantly, a matter of seniority. On the Insights Evenings for both Frankenstein and Anastasia she comments on the fact that she has been around for a long time (or words to that effect) and I wonder if the slightly muted impression is a combination of these two factors. Injury takes longer to heal in a more mature dancer and, sadly, technique and stamina seem often to fade just as an artist's interpretative insight is maturing most fully.

Nor me. It seems evidence of a coarsening of tone that has crept in, other symptoms of which concerned me on the first night.

The Two Pigeons Blu Ray has arrived and, as anticipated, it is Kaneko not Morera, despite the listing on the ROH website.