Jamesrhblack

Who was the last principal promoted from the 'ranks' of the RB? I think that Matthew Ball could become a danseur noble. He has the physique and technique and can act as well; from his Lensky it appears that he also has the sort of soulful quality that you need for Siegfried, Albrecht etc.

And Reece Clarke was mightily impressive in Symphonic. Nevertheless, these are both very young dancers and recent recruits. It's the gap in the middle that is becoming ever more obvious.

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He supposedly does have a "regular" partner: she just doesn't seem to be being used very much these days. (Quote)

Well, increasingly, he seems cast with Sarah Lamb rather than Roberta Marquez.

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Lack of foresight?  Well, perhaps a bit, but I don't really think that Rojo, Cojocaru and Galeazzi could all have been expected to leave at more or less the same time. (Quote)

Of course, Benjamin left as well. Whilst I'd agree that nobody might have anticipated losing four principal ballerinas at the end of one season, surely there should have been at least one female First Soloist deemed suitable for promotion if due care to Company structure were being observed. Mind you, there wasn't a suitable male First Soloist at that time either.

She definitely could have, but due to family circumstances made the difficult choice to leave.  On a happy note, she is back and will dance in Woolf Works.  She is at the ROH rehearsing hard and taking class every day. 

 

And I agree about Morera....she has had a brilliant season, and I won't let her go until we have seen her as Juliet and Mary Vetsera.

Although the chances of either happening seem sadly unlikely ....

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/what-do-cricket-and-ballet-have-in-common

 

it was a weird and random article to be honest!!

 

Perhaps. But possibly also something to do with profile raising ..

Pregnancy does have a habit of restricting your opportunities

As I wrote, willing to be corrected and didn't know that. It explains her absence although I stand by my reservations over her Myrtha.

yeah I like Campbell too! Plus the new article on the Royal Opera House on Campbell alone shows something I suppose.!

Which article is that?

(Sorry, pressed send too soon)

However, I can absolutely see that he is extremely useful at First Soloist level.

With Acosta due to retire and rumours swirling around Yanowsky and Cervera being taken out of Colas cracks seem to be showing in the hierarchy. The long term future of Morera and Watson, neither of whom has much of a presence in the classics (particularly Watson) cannot be guaranteed either surely, and I'm not sure that there's much left for Marquez either.

As others have pointed out, Hamilton rarely convinces in the classics, Crawford had one go at Lise which hasn't been repeated, Kobayashi has danced Nikiya and Aurora which I didn't see but seems to have been in nothing all this season until the approaching In the Night (and I was not convinced by her Myrtha), Hirano has danced Beauty, Nutcracker and Pagodas (I think) but also seems to do some character roles (Gremin), Stepanek is no longer cast as Lensky (in which I thought be was terrific) but as Gremin and, even so, seems an unlikely candidate for principal roles. Hristov has been at First Soloist level for a long time and despite the occasional principal role (and I thought he was great in Winter's Tale) would surely have been promoted by now if it were to happen. Mendizabal again I like very much (and she did get Tatiana and Firebird by default) but would surely have been on the Swan Lake debuts if she were going higher and Gartside might get Character Principal but that's a different line of duty.

It seems to me that this lack of backup at First Soloist level is a current weakness of the Royal Ballet. O'Hare's wish to promote carefully and provide opportunities for lower ranking dancers is laudable but it can't disguise the existing problem as I see it and I'd think it inevitable that a couple of principals will be brought in from outside.

Does anybody else feel that the current situation shows a loss of managerial foresight and even control? I'd always thought very highly of the previous Director (and in many ways still do) but this situation does seem to have developed on her watch. Perhaps I'm being unfair and, as always, I am very open to correction from those mor informed than I.

I see what some of you mean when you say that some first soloists are not quite ready for principal roles, but I do think a new principal is needed, if not just to give Steven McRae a regular partner!

But sadly it does seem that Choe is not to be promoted, as much as audiences love her!

 

I think if Choe were to have been appointed it would have happened after she replaced Osipova in Beauty and the fact that Odette/Odile did not come her way despite a plethora of cast changes would seem to confirm that she has gone as far as she is likely to go in terms of promotion, I'm not quite sure when the new Swan Lake is due but if it is in a couple of seasons time, ungallantly, it probably might also be said that time had passed in terms of that particular debut. Indeed with Takada cast this season (for the second time after her debut cancelled through injury a couple of seasons back) and Fumi Kaneko hopefully fully restored to fitness and seeming a more likely candidate for casting I would definitely think that has now passed her by. It's a pity: I don't rate Choe quite as highly as some on here but I do remember the delicate freshness of her Dances at a Gathering when it seemed she was set to escalate especially after being featured in one of the Royal Ballet films and, without wishing to speculate, I can guess at the frustration and disappointment this may well cause her, although you'd never guess it from her smiling ease on stage.

Campbell I like very much indeed. Hasn't he danced Beaity, Don Q and Nutcracker male leads ahead of his Colas debut? His relatively compact stature shouldn't necessarily be a problem (as it hasn't been for McRae)

Admittedly I haven't been watching ballet for very long, but the only performances which I can remember Muntagirov missing are the two Etudes ones which capybara has mentioned, although he did, I think, still dance in Raymonda in at least one of those programmes. I expect that dancers do sometimes dance with injuries, particularly if they are sustained during the performance itself, but it must be risky to do so. I assume that other factors such as the relative ease of covering the dancer, the proximity of other scheduled performances and the length of time until the season end or break are all taken into account when the decision about whether to withdraw from a performance is made. Let's hope that he follows Acosta and McRae in having a largely injury free career (have those two dancers ever been injured?).

I believe Steven McRae had a year out with an Achilles tear....

Another cast change due to injury

 

Valentino Zucchetti is replaced by Alexander Campbell in the role of Colas

 

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/cast-changes-la-fille-mal-gardee-on-21-april-and-2-may-2015

It's a shame for Zucchetti but lovely that Alexander Campbell can dance Fille with Marquez. They worked together so well in Don W. Have booked my tickets already after this news :-)

I don't think it's ever said TBC for Cuthbertson's Swan Lake. From what she has said on social media, I don't think she will be dancing in Swan Lake.

There was a TBC for a while but it's definitely listing her again and also on her ROH People page. According to the website Lamb is fit for Tatiana and Zucchetti is back too....

Im not a conspiracy theorist but how unfortunate that in her last weeks with ENB, having not performed regularly for the last couple of years, Elena Gluedjidze has has to lose performances of both Swan Lake and Nutcracker because of injury to her partner....

That's a shame for Marquez. She doesn't seem to get many performances these days and is rarely injured. Mind you, I can imagine Takada and Campbell being great together.

Morera is also rarely off, so that's sad too (and she should surely be dancing some performances as Kitri)....

A very strong, but also a serene presence. I'm glad to have so many lovely memories of Deirdre Chapman's performances, with both RB and Rambert. It seems sad that ROH gave no prior announcement of her last performance (unless this was her wish). But what a beautiful final show. I'll miss her very much.

I'd hoped to get to Mknday's performance and am particularly sorry to have missed Deidre Chapman's last performance. She doesn't seem to have featured in anything much recently and my impression was that she had been taken out of many of her dancing roles but I have very fond memories of her as Myrtha and, in particular, Mitzi Caspar, whiskey earlier this year, her mime as Berthe was superb vivid, and, happily, preserved on the DVD.

And James has just posted that "dance also deals in absolutes" - so is he claiming that his view on Yuhui Choe is an absolute, and therefore valid - as opposed to the views of Tony Newcombe and his friends, which are merely their opinions?

Of course, it's on opinion, with the disclaimer cited, but at a dispassionate level i'd stand by what I wrote.

James, with regards to your comments about Yuhui you forgot to add the words "In my opinion"

In my own opinion and that of all my friends at the performance, she was absolutely wonderful.

With respect, I did write "from the Balcony Stalls."

Some years ago, I really enjoyed seeing Yuhui Choe in Dances at a Gathering and am sorry that the promise displayed then doesn't seem to have been fulfilled. I don't know if the stalling of her career is due to management prejudice or a levelling out of her own achievement, but dance also deals in absolutes, and I'm afraid I see no reason further to modify my comment beyond what I had already done. 

Finishing my posts, as I've had stallings and lost material hence writing separate reports, Scènes de ballet (which I don't know well, admittedly) seemed out of sorts last night. The men were heavy in their landings, the girls out of sync in a way that certainly didn't look intentional and although Yuhui Choe has her admirers who lament her lack of promotion, from the Balcony Stalls she was certainly giving a First Soloist performance last night, lacking in projection and brilliance. Zucchetti seemed most successful to me, although I absolutely take on board a previous poster who found his performance demi-charactère rather than danseur noble. 

James Hay did look at the sky but he didn't really tilt off centre. I should have said that Reece Clarke's unison dancing with his considerably shorter male colleagues was impressively in unison - schooling shows.

I also enjoyed Romany Pajdak's spontaneity in the Brahms. You could hear her exhaling before she launched into movement. Reading the programme, I was surprised to learn that she had been in the company for ten years and yet has done so little of solo import before this how incredibly frustrating for her, and what a waste of talent and potential.

Symphonic Variations is so beautiful but I don't understand the constant switching of casts. Shouldnt cohesion between the six dancers be paramount, and that can only come from repeated performances. Although technically precise and disciplined, I thought that with the exception of Nunez, incongruously leading a very junior cast, the dancers maintained technical and musical precision but at the expense of the glow that comes from total control of the material. Both James Hay and Tristan Dyer seemed winded by the end. Opposite them were Mayara Magri (the third dancer for this role? Emma Maguire is photographed in rehearsal in the programme but I don't she's danced a public performance) and Letitifa Stock, neat and well matched but seeming small scale. Reece Clarke did excellently. A handsome physical presence with some beautifully articulated dancing, although the effort of some of the partnering was apparent. Nevertheless, hugely commendable and great to see him seizing this opportunity so well.

I'd been looking forward to this programme very much, quite as much for the choreography as the dancers, so perhaps the anticipation had proved too great as enjoyment proved very muted until Month in which Osipova was truly exquisite (not a trace of exaggeration, quite the reverse - she's the only Natalia I've seen not to get an embarrassed laugh at the melodramatic exit through the side doors) with her astounding fluency and musicality illuminating score, choreography and character in a remarkable way. She wasn't afraid to show Natalia's irritability and her bleakness at the end was manifest. If her first performances had been overblown this just shows how a true artist will learn to strip away what is unnecessary to convey the simplicity of truth, Bonelli seemed more varied and involved than I had ever seen him while his high extensions and lyrical line spoke of sensibility allied to a certain narcissism. Hayward and Hay were also outstanding and although I read criticism of the pianist in earlier posts I actually found myself at one point during the final pas de deux noting how very beautifully she was playing. Terrific.

As my iPad has a disconcerting tendency to freeze and then lose text, I will continue my thoughts in a further post.

Not sure if it's rats per se - more the implications of poverty and squalor...

That's a shame for Fumi. Was just thinking hadn't seen Deirdre Chapman (who I like very much) for a long time so I'm pleased she is still being cast...

I doubt that I can write more eloquently than Lyn about what seemed to me a truly remarkable evening. The emotion was palpable and, as Beryl wrote, Manon's physical anguish at the end seemed all too real. Bolle too, who I had mistakenly pre-judged as a blandly handsome dancer, was utterly involved, almost howling by the end, and it was this emotional truth that, for me, was at the heart of the performance's success.

Neither Yanowsky nor Bolle is in the first flush of youth and her height and physical maturity as well as his own length of limb might seem to mitigate against them in roles conceived for much more compact dancers. Yet so convinced were they that they were utterly convincing, and as the passion of new love gave way to physical abandon, the desolation and guilt of betrayal, the heartbreak of recrimination and the struggle and humiliation of deportation and death the audience was caught up completely in what it is too easy and simplistic to call their "journey." It was a real example of Juliet syndrome - that you'll play it better at forty if you get the chance.  

Both dancers exhibited remarkable technical brilliance too, wonderfully well matched in line. Not a step, extension, turn or lift seemed shirked, a real achievement given that physically there is just so much more of the dancer to be accommodated, but there was no sense of rush or discomfort. Bolle's long, elegant line as he wooed Manon was truly beautiful, sculpting pictures of emotion in the air and his solo of loss at the Hotel Particulier heart rending in its simple anguish. His height and strength helped flesh out Des Grieux and this also enabled Yanowsky to release all her powers as a dance actress secure in the knowledge that she would not be over powering her partner.

In many ways, her entry in Act 3 was the most shattering moment, all physical confidence drained away. The contrast was so marked from the glittering creature we had seen swimming above the men, leg lifted high in the previous act. Just as some singers are not afraid to make an ugly sound in the pursuit of emotional truth she seems able to use her body to create desolation and loss without caricature but with overwhelming conviction. 

Acosta has fun as Lescaut. I missed the more sinister, complicit edge that Campbell brought to the role and his dancing looks a bit lumpy and heavy thighed next to Bolle but his charisma carries him through and he and Morera, who was dancing as usual with great detail and attack, were genuinely amusing (and risk taking) in the Drunken pas de deux. Tuckett's slightly insipid decadence as G. M. was pretty creepy and Avis, such an extraordinarily versatile dance actor (I know I'm stating the obvious) managed to physically as well as emotionally dominate Manon in the scene that finally breaks her with the physical violation that is the ultimate trajectory of her decline from eager young girl through courtesan to the vehicle for a thug's brutally physical satisfaction.   

A wonderful performance such as this, aided by some splendid playing from the orchestra under Martin Yates, also reinforces MacMillan's choreographic skill. Yes, there are an awful lot of harlots and beggars padding out the ballet, but there are moments that for me are truly compelling. It's not just the obvious things - the purely physical manipulation of Manon by Lescaut and G M. in that unsettling trio, the degraded girls shaking their shaven heads in shame while running after lost dreams, Manon sashaying her way on pointe in her signature walk looking neither to left as she ignores the detritus around her - but little details - that extraordinary moment when four essentially predators literally put their hands on Manon to lay claim and she in a sudden and all too temporary gesture of independence rejects them, Manon joyfully partnering Des Grieux, Manon desperately reaching for the stars in her last moments echoing the moment when she is lifted aloft in triumph in Act 2. Everyone loves the Bedroom Pas de deux but the end of the ballet with Manon desperately running across the stage before falling to be caught by Des Grieux at the last moment and her death in mid air are surely amongst the most original and arresting dance images of the last forty years since the ballet's premiere. They thrill but unnerve even now. 

Is Naghdi switching roles or staying on the same side? It does seem extraordinarily mix and match for what I think of as a very integrated work. Seeing this on 5 November. In the play, isn't Natalua meant to be 28? I appreciate that Seymour was older than that when she created the ballet and that there has been a tradition of more mature ballerinas taking the role.

Am on Safari. Just about to try again now...

Nope, that doesn't work. Hmm....