Jamesrhblack

As I recall, Maria Björnson had been commissioned to design Katya Kabanova for the Royal Opera and The Sleeping Beauty for the Royal Ballet at the same time.

I hugely enjoy reading Floss' posts which are informed, informative and eloquently expressed.

Sorry, that should be "almost" not "al.out." Editing on dodgy river wifi didn't work; if a moderator could oblige I'd be grateful..."

Posted 05 December 2015 - 03:08 PM " I could not agree with you more Fonty. I was lucky enough to see Merle Park dance Aurora in the early 80s and the moment of her arabesque at the start of the act 1 variation is one of those freeze frame instants that has remained in my memory ever since. I also have very happy memories of Collier, Penney and Whitten in the role. They all danced with such a wonderful combination of great foot work, musicality and attack. Just because they were not 5'9" with extensions past their ears does NOT make their performances anything less than superlative." I saw Park a little too late in this role (1980, although her Giselle from that year with David Wall is one of my happiest memories) but do remember how beautifully fluid Penney was in that exquisite Ashton variation in the Vision Scene, Whitten's dazzling almost off balance renversés in the Act 1 Coda (I think people forget what a brilliant combination she was of technique and musicality) and, of course, Collier's effortless accomplishment. I was very sad that she did not dance her London performances with Mukhamedov but treasure the clip of the Pas de Deux available on an ROH DVD. There is a moment towards the end of the first section where Mukhamedov gazes at her with what can surely only be described as adoration.

Don't forget Morera. Apart from R & J she seems to have principal roles in everything, including Giselle and Nutcracker, as well as the new Carnen (admittedly by default) and Frankenstein....

Now on the ROH website... http://www.roh.org.uk/news/bryony-brind-a-look-back-at-her-life-with-the-royal-ballet

Thanks for this report. I'm looking forward to that matinee too :-)

Being an agent for opera singers, although dance was my first love, I'll definitely be looking in ;-)

How very sad. I still remember the excitement generated by her 1981 debut in Swan Lake (not withstanding slipping over as she rushed too hastily to protect her Swans in Act 2) and then being chosen to partner Nureyev, despite the fact that she was rather too tall for him, in Bayadère. Im also sure, unlikely as it might seem from the size perspective, that she was partnered by David Wall in his last few weeks as a full time member of the RB in Beauty, don't know if anything else quite lived up to those thrills and a difficult run in Ballet Imperial apparently affected both her personal confidence and managent's confidence in her but relatively late in her Covent Garden career I did see her as a memorably affecting Giselle, capturing an intriguing mixture of fragility and vitality in Act 1 and a really other worldly delicacy in Acr 2. She certainly had a magic about her and even if eariy promise wasn't entirely fulfilled she will be remembered fondly by many who saw her dance who will also mourn her untimely passing.

Was anybody at last night's performance? I do hope Roberta had a good send off - it seems to me that there's something very unpleasantly disrespectful about the way this situation has evolved and the ROH's confirmation of what many of us has suspected late on a Friday afternoon less than a week before her final performance seems only to emphasise that.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who hopes she will be dancing with Alexander Campbell....

No, she wasn't cast in Nutcracker (nor n Pigeons or Giselle) so the situation seemed very clear from management perspective; I just wonder why it has taken so long to become official. One could speculate but one has learned not to do so ....

I think the dismay is occasioned, quite as much as anything else, by the way n which she has, seemingly, been side lined....

She wasn't always one of my favourite dancers but I thought her Lise was outstanding and, perhaps unexpectedly, her Manon. I also think it's a great pity that her partnership with Alexander Campbell, which was so delightful in Don Q and Fille, wasn't extended into Two Pigeons. Looking at the 15/16 casting this news is scarcely a surprise though and I too am surprised that the ROH has left it so late officially to confirm what so many of us were, perhaps improperly, speculating on several months ago...

Corrected below as couldn't edit for some reason .... In some ways the most sheerly involving emotional moment seemed to be that between Romeo and Benvolio after Juliet's supposed death and I don't think that's quite the right emotional arc.

Slightly modified rapture this evening possibly because of jet lag (I flew back from NYC overnight in Tuesday) and a vertiginous seat (front row of the very steep Grand Tier) but more, I think, because of my feelings about Nureyev's production. The sets and costumes are very handsome and I thought that the English National Ballet Philharmonic played really well under Gavjn Sutherland (no squally brass), a fact acknowledged by the seemingly grateful dancers. I'd not seen this particular choreographic text since the early '80's and still remember the astonishing power of Juliet's breakdown as portrayed by Patricia Ruanne. Unfortunately, nothing this evening registered as true or as strongly as that memory, possibly embellished by the rose tinted memories of yesteryear. This evening, too much of Nureyev's choreography seemed over busy, even fussy and the emotional temperature on stage seemed low, although I'm absolutely willing to blame some of that on my own physical condition. Some seems inept too. The inclusion of Father John's murder scarcely registers and given that Juliet has established no relationship at all with Mercutio, why does his ghost come to her to persuade her to take the potion? Nureyev might have shared the Soviet distrust of mime but the dancing out of Friar Laurence's instructions to Juliet te the potion by a singularity unconvincing double just didn't work for me, whilst the rush to stage out Shakespeare's reconciliation and bring back the figures of fate from the start in the closing bars registered as messy. I also struggled to feel any true stage chemistry between Alina Cojocaru and Isaac Hernandez, however technically accomplished their dancing. For me, the best performance came from James Streeter, dangerously feline as Tynalt, and Fernando Buffala, elegant and roguish (despite some embarrassing choreography - the bottom wiggling, the mincing around in the Nurse's veils) as Mercutio. No some ways the most sherry involving emotional rise seemed to be that between Romeo and Benvolio after Juliet's supposed death and I don't think that's quite the right emotional arc. Sadly, for me, as a choreographic expression of Prokofiev's ever thrilling score it fell rather flat. I'd be interested to know what others may have felt and want to emphasise that this is a purely subjective response under less than ideal physical conditions.

Oh dear. I booked a trp to Manchester specially to see Max as Romeo on Friday afternoon and cannot switch to the evening performance :-(

Matthew Ball is cast as The Young Man on 23 and 28 January as it happens .....

Good to read that Marquez did well. I like her very much in many things and find the current casting attuned towards her very frustrating....

It is always interesting to see a company that one doesn't know so well as it concentrates the mind on what is much being danced, quite as much as on who is dancing. Theme and Variations is musical and choreographic joy and I must state how very well the Royal Ballet Sinfonia played all afternoon under Paul Murphy’s sympathetic baton. Sitting in the Circle, the stage seemed very noisy. In my performing days, I did sing in this theatre and I don't recall it as having been a clunky place and the shows in which I was involved with the English Bach Festival did include a lot of dancing. The corps was neat even decorous (Celine Gittens, with that old fashioned quality of glamour and a wonderfully languorous manner was an exception) and I also wanted more sense of danger and glitter from the principals. Momoko Hirata is evidently exquisitely schooled and very musical but it looked just a little small scale (has Nunez danced this? A memory seemed to stir at one point of her rising vertically into the air with her feet tucked under her mid pirouette) and Mathias Dingman had smiling grace and lovely stage manners without quite the technical panache to make that horribly demanding solo really speak. Enigma Variations continues to look ravishing and it seemed to me that the most evident strength of BRB was displayed, each dancer having a very strong sense of character projection in this more dramatic context.Dominic Antonicci as Elgar and Wolfgang Stollwitzer were particularly impressive as with little actual dancing to do they effortlessly dominated the stage and when joined by Ana Albutashvili’s Lady brought wonderful poignancy to Nimrod. That wonderful moment when they run forward at the climax in pursuit of their individual dream and then, slightly embarrassed at such a show of feeling, return to formality seems to be truly Edwardian in feel. Is it heretical to find that some of the ballet, particularly in the earlier episodes, hasn't worn well. Perhaps there were exaggerations in the performance but HDS-P and RBT seemed almost out of the Monty Python School of Silly Walks. *** doesn't really work either, however beautiful the solo, as her presence in the Finale makes no sense. True she flits away before the photograph but she is still acknowledged by, amongst others, The Lady. It is also struck me watching Troyte (a splendid Joseph Caley) and Dorabella, how much of the original dancers is in the choreography. I didn't see a lot of prime Sibley (although I was at her first ROH Giselle in 1970, one of those matinees which ended with the stage ankle deep in flowers as well as her last Manon and Natalia Petrovna) but saw a lot of her mature post comeback work and also saw a lot of Dowell. Their ghosts haunt the solos: his extension, elegance, cool panache, her swiftness, her bending, her love of movement, and I sense that if we watch truly carefully we will also, from that point of vantage, learn much of the movement quality of the other dancers on whom this work was created, so many now, sadly, gone to Terpsichore’s Dance Temple above. The raison d’être for my visit was David Bintley’s The King Dances, which I had enjoyed very much in television a few weeks ago. In the theatre. It looks magnificent, from the flaming torches at the start to Louis XIV’s revelation as The Sun King. For me, it's not perfect. The episode with La Lune has a pleasing resonance (Sun King dancing with the Moon) but seems overlong and there is the risk of the Nightmare scene turning into almost comically camp grotesquerie, Nevertheless, the opening and closing Watches with the grandeur of Stephen Montague!s trumpets and drums rising from the pit and the ever more thrilling images of the gorgeously costumed men moving from contained Baroque formality to virtuoso brilliance will long resonate with me. Of course, William Bracewell is terrific as The King, but I thought Tyrone Singleton as Cardinal Mazarin absolutely magnificent in power, presence, technique and style. It was great to see a new ballet drawing on the art form!s own historical heritage and, in programming terns, the contrast of Balanchine's “Ballet is Woman” stance with the male dominated choreography from Bintley'produced a very satisfying afternoon.

Delighted to have managed to get a last minute ticket for today's matinee. BRB isn't a company that I see at all often so I am looking forward to seeing some new dancers but, above all, to seeing The King Dances, which I loved on the television.

Likewise Muntagirov and Dyer - very different physical "types...." After an excursion as Gremin which suggested a certain line of managerial development, Hirano seems to be getting lots of principal role opportunities now suggesting he may be in line for promotion...

There's a very positive review of the Ball / Naghdi cast in today's Sunday Times.

No, she remains in the artist list but apart from two Juliets has not otherwise been cast so far this season.

I managed to make a work trip to Manchester fit with being able to see Max as Romeo and now can see Alina as Juliet too the night before as my train gets in with time to check in, eat and get to the theatre. Hurrah!