Jamesrhblack

I have a spare ticket for Raymonda on Saturday afternoon. Upper Circle Row A13 (Restricted Leg Room) £32.50. I will be using A14.

Campbell and Naghdi this afternoon. Breathtakingly beautiful and moving. The final curtain came down in absolute silence. Says it all.

Gosh, they work the dancers hard. Having been Clara and Hans-Peter this afternoon Sophie Allnatt and Joshua Junker have no time to rest on their laurels, but are back as Colombine and Harlqeuin. I know lots of others are also changing roles, but it’s salutary that even an afternoon as principal doesn’t get you a Saturday evening off at a busy and challenging time. I see that Melissa Hamilton, having done the Arabian Dance this afternoon, is back as a Lead Flower (not even Rose Fairy). I think it’s been several seasons since she danced The Sugar-Plum Fairy (I’m not a Nutcracker aficionado and am here this evening essentially to see Laura Morera while I still can) and it reminds me of a time many years back when there were not enough performances for what were even principal dancers and you’d get to see Laura Connor as a Big Swan and Wendy Ellis as Zulme.

Haegee and I had a good laugh about this (she is one of the artists I manage). She loves the ballet as it happens (and, indeed, we were at Laura Morera’s second Giselle together)…

I managed to get one !!!

Well done, I’ve been trying without success to find one (and haven’t seen any Nutcrackers thus far)

I don’t understand the logic of just one performance. Of course, there are a limited number of slots but this seems curmudgeonly to me…

It’s in the November issue. There’s a response to it in the January issue now out…

Isn’t Giselle’s hair always down, if held back, in Act One with Berthe surreptitiously removing the restraining pins after she discovers she has been betrayed…

The Dionysian element is interesting indeed. Although I’ve been watching Giselle for over fifty years, something struck me at Friday’s performance for the first time. At the conclusion of the Grand Scene of the Wilis before Giselle’s apparition the entire company led by Myrtha unite in, I think, three a la seconde leaps side to side. At the conclusion of the Waltz section (a musical interpolation according to the notes on the Bonynge Monte-Carlo recording), Giselle leads the company in the same step over the prone Albrecht. One of the tensions of this Act is the tug between Giselle’s obedience to Myrtha, her love of dancing and her compassion for Albrecht. The choreography gives you a real sense that that this Dionysian love of the dance is gaining the upper hand. I’ve long been intrigued by the way in that Giselle, even though Albrecht is obviously exhausted, literally beckons him to continue dancing with her. I’m probably reading too much into this and it’s simply a choreographic structural repetition, but can it been seen as Giselle giving into dancing ecstasy and about to claim her Wili wings with her first “kill.” It’s not only Albrecht who is “saved” by the bell. Of course, it’s over in a moment…

I’ve been reading Cyril Beaumont’s The Ballet Called Giselle, which gives the following synopsis from the Gautier’s original book of the ballet, Giselle ou les Willis, published in 1841. ”She seizes Albrecht’s sword still lying on the ground, and at first plays mechanically with the weapon, then she falls on its sharp point just as her mother leaps upon her and drags it away.” I didn’t see Lamb but did see Morera twice. At the matinée, it wasn’t clear if she stabbed herself but she did do the gesture of seeing blood on her hands and wiping them clean. On Friday, she certainly didn’t stab herself and I didn’t notice the hand cleaning gesture either. Does anybody know if Sir Peter Wright has a preference on this and if the dancer is allowed a personal interpretation at this point?

May I ask who was answering the question?

The Tatianas last time were Mendizabal, Naghdi, Nuñez and Osipova. I recall being astonished that she wasn’t cast with Bonelli after their sensational Mayerling and she mentions the hurt she felt about this in her her most recent Ballet Association interview.

Sorry for auto spell name correction. I doubt she’ll dance Tatiana again, having been taken out of it last time, and I think if there were a time for Swan Lake it has past, but I think Natalia Petrovna would be perfect for a dance actress who is also a superb Ashton dancer.

I agree with you meetmeatthebarre: I had to go for a walk and process too. I’m probably still doing so, but enjoyed reading your response very much and agree that there was a very valedictory feel to the evening, even if Kevin O’Hare was at pains to point out, “She’s not leaving.”

Thanks, good to know. She’s a dancer I like very much and I’d have been sorry if she had left without it being public knowledge (which is what seemed to happen with Tristan Dyer).

Really useful and interesting, thank you. I will get out my CD of the Bonynge recording and re listen plus work though Beaumont’s Giselle.

A most interesting post. On a musical question, does the Bonynge Monte-Carlo recording reflect the musical score for Mary Skeaping’s production? I’ve always wondered how the Fugue for the Willis works dramatically and there are other extended / altered passages from what is played at the ROH including an extended version of Myrthe’s Coda.

As I wrote, “these things are personal.” I remember being surprised at the time and recall when writing about Coppélia something along the lines of that the third act pas de deux reinforced why she hasn’t been seen much in “tutu” roles. Nevertheless, she’s a dance actress who I admire very much (pace John S, I didn’t see her in Anastasia but should have cited Winter’s Tale) and was really very touched by her performance today which moved and surprised me in ways I hadn’t expected, including dance as opposed to just dramatic-wise.

Lovely photos Dawnstar. Thank you.

Interesting. I’ve always felt Giselle one of the more naturalistic ballets, with the Willis legend being not only part of German folklore (as opposed to fairytale) and Romanticism (with the ideal of the Sylphide turned on its head), but also in its themes of infatuation, love, betrayal and forgiveness, especially with Act 1 being set within a real world for whom the fantasy (which becomes a living nightmare) is true.

It’s a personal impression. As Lise, her performance failed to project to me (admittedly, I was quite a long way away in the Balcony Stalls). As Swanilda, I enjoyed her acting performance, but found that in the Act 3 pas de deux her dancing didn’t have the impact I might have anticipated for such a climatic show piece. As I hope I’ve made clear in my post above, I admire Laura Morera greatly as an artist and was very touched by her performance today.

Just back to East Sussex and been musing on today’s performance which I found unexpectedly touching, even moving. I love Giselle, which was the first ballet I ever saw at the ROH (Sibley’s London debut with MacLeary), and for all the criticism of the score think it ideally suited to the scenario (possibly because my maiden aunts on the Isle of Sheppey had an Ace of Clubs LP with Fonteyn on the cover that was played so endlessly in my childhood that I used to sing the music in my head when trying to sleep on the back seat whilst my parents drove back from visiting them). I’ll be honest and say that I had essentially accepted a friend’s offer of a ticket out of sentiment for Laura Morera, who is a dancer I very much like. These things are personal, but in principal roles I’d found her disappointingly under-danced as both Lise and Swanilda (nothing was wrong, just not very remarkable), but sensational as Vetsera and as Manon in the Bedroom pas de debut on two RB Lockdown streams. I am also aware that the clock may be ticking on her career reading her remarkably frank interview on Ballet Association. Of course, in those MacMillan works, her partner was Federico Bonelli, and with no disrespect to Ryoichi Hirano, I was delighted when the change of cast was announced. Pace Bridiem, I was surprised at how very youthful she looked (I was in Stalls Row N) but, more importantly, was entranced by her performance. I had expected that she would excel in the dramatic aspects but was completely taken aback by how very beautifully danced her performance was. Nothing was shirked (well, perhaps there was a sensible adaptation that worked beautifully in the pirouette turns during the Pas de seul) and her low arabesque line in Act 2 was so exquisite: it reminded me of the famous lithograph of Carlotta Grisi, whilst her timing at the end of the Valse before the Finale was absolute musical class. The coquetry, the tenderness, the sense of community (she watched the Act 1 Harvest celebrations with keen and admiring interest) were all utterly involving; the bewilderment, the anger of the Mad Scene; and the maturity of forgiveness (I’ll agree with Bridiem there) were touching even moving. I was astonished at her speed in the turns when released from the grave and at the height of her ballonée (was there a nod to Osipova’s “I’m dead, broken neck look” before the start of the section with the high devlopée - not too high - when commanded to dance by Myrtha) and her theatrical instincts meant that we always felt when Giselle, as a spirit, could not quite be physically embraced by Alberich. I’m writing at too much length: forgive my volubility. In quicker summary, Bonelli seems like a man rejuvenated; genuinely taken with his Giselle; genuinely taken aback as circumstances move beyond his control; deeply moved and moving in his Act 2 exchanges. I think the audience enjoyed the full set of entrechats six more than I did, but I’m still musing over the poetry of the image at the end of the Act 2 Pas de deux and its beautiful segue. As always, he was a most adept parter, immediately adjusting the height of his jetés at Giselle’s entrance to accommodate hers. Gina Storm-Jensen’s Myrtha seems to me to be work in progress, understandably as it’s her debut season. It was technically there, although I always regret the shortened version of her Coda that the RB production uses, and the characterisation became stronger once the worst of the technical challenges were surmounted. I still don’t understand why such a taxing role is now so rarely given to a principal, although apart from Kaneko, Magri and Nuñez I suppose none of the current roster might suit anyway. Does anyone know what has happened to Mendizabal (who I know is a First Soloist and like very much, but found oddly disappointing in the 2018 CInema / DVD). I enjoyed David Donnelly’s Hilario, a more than youthfully credible rival for Giselle’s affections; loved Christina Arestis as Berthe (to be fair, I’d love her on stage whatever she did whatever the role and find her Mime scene one of the most fascinating moments of all); and was very happy to be there. Was it a Giselle for the ages? Thinking recently at the RB for me, Collier’s farewell, Osipova’s first performance, no, However, the fact that I’ve written at some length brings home that it was a performance that impacted a lot (and not just because it was my first live ballet since 2 March 2020).

This was such a joy. Was MacMillan inspired for Mayerling (1978) by some of Ashton’s Hamlet (1977) hand to floor images? I so love Ashton’s Swan Lake PDQ (joyous memories still of Wendy Ellis, Rosalyn Whitten, Michael Batchelor and Stephen Beagley) and was delighted to see Leo Dixon and Joseph Sissens in this. Kudos all round.

I’d suggested NE for Rudolph some years back, so glad not to be alone on this one. I’d also imagine that if works such as The Winter’s Tale and Woolf Works remain in the repertoire, Calvin Richardson might well take over some of Edward Watson’s created roles. Back to Giselle.