Stephenwolf

4 hours ago, FionaE said:

I see I’ll be spending a lot on Fumi Kaneko in this coming year … outstanding in Don Q, Swan Lake, Winters Tale, Dante and no doubt Manon too.  
 

I hope Lauren Cuthbertson will be back for Winter’s Tale.  But who will play Leontes asides from Ryo Hirano.  I may be wrong … is he the only dancer not retired to have performed it?  William Bracewell?  Vadim?  Matthew Ball? Calvin?  Steven McRae?  I can’t wait to hear!

I'm convinced that Fumi would be a brilliant Mercedes in Don Quixote! With Ryoichi Hirano as Espada. What a dream pairing that would be!

I simply cannot wait for Don Quixote. I watched the 2013 version recently. It is stunning.

On 03/04/2023 at 17:13, bridiem said:

The ROH has posted on Twitter some curtain calls from last week's Schools Matinée - actual screams!! Hope it's OK to post the link: https://twitter.com/i/status/1642916239411388419

 

That clip was great, and echoes exactly how I want to react every time I set eyes upon Fumi Kaneko! She is a dream, but so is Marianela Nunez, whom I saw dance for the first time on the opening night gala. She is utterly brilliant and magnetic. Having her and Fumi onstage at the same time is almost too much to bear. Like as a child gorging on chocolate on Christmas morning. I felt giddy, and was glad I was seated!

Seated in the White Lion Covent Garden having just experienced an extraordinary performance of Woolf Works. I was at the rehearsal a couple of weeks ago, and really enjoyed it. However, I was not enthused by Act 2. I watched it from the amphitheatre, and the lasers, I thought, were a real hindrance. Tonight, though, seated in the stalls it was totally different, a revalation. Act 2 had a standing ovation!  To be fair, though, any performance with Alessandra Ferri is going to be well received, but the whole cast were just wonderful. Typically, Fumi Kaneko was a stand out. She is really beyond belief.  But they were all just brilliant. I just didn’t want it to end. I’m enjoying my pint, basking in the recall of Alessandra Ferri, who remains a virtual nymph, and would still be a convincing Juliet!

There is a very strong rumour that Chi will be returning to the stage next Wednesday (February 8th), which could mean that she may be appearing in The Sleeping Beauty that evening. I hope that's the case, because after what she's been through she should be given every opportunity to perform, however minor the role may be. Also, I have a ticket for that performance, and if she does appear, no one will be cheering louder than I will be.  

10 hours ago, art_enthusiast said:

Melissa Hamilton certainly is a brilliant Mary Vetsera. Incredible performance yesterday

I agree one hundred percent. I also think that Ryoichi Hirano was wonderful. Very convincing as the tortured prince. To be frank, I think Ryoichi has a tortured look about him most of the time, although this disappeared when taking his ovation. He was obviously sincerely happy at the applause and cheering, which was well deserved. His was a great performance, as was that of all of the cast. My companions and I were all very happy on the journey home, as were several other people on the train who had also been at the performance.

23 hours ago, Fonty said:

I am utterly baffled as to why nobody pointed out that it is a very bad  idea indeed to have 4 female dancers in a plotless ballet dancing together on stage at the same time wearing radically different costumes.  Was Zucchetti given completely free reign when it came to costume and budget?  There are multitudes of experienced people working at the ROH.  Surely one of them might have said this might be very distracting visually, and detract from the choreography?  As I said in my review, I can't remember a thing about the steps, my attention was entirely focussed on  masses of swirling fabrics in glaring and clashing colours, and those horrible hoops looping up into strange shapes.  

 

The last live ballet I saw was the ENB Forsythe evening earlier this year.  I remember writing at the time how wonderful the costumes were.  Very simple but very flattering and gorgeous to look at.  

 

 

I don't profess to  being an expert on the finer aspects of ballet. However, I do like to see beautiful things, and being a 'professor' of literature I always look for the metaphor, in any work of art. I can therefore appreciate both stark and elaborately costumed ballet. There is an interpretation to be made of both, particularly when the choreography (in my view) is so radically different when dancers wear hardly more a leotard. I thoroughly enjoyed 'Prima' at today's matinee. For me, four principal ballerinas dancing together worked amazingly well, and the costumes only enhanced the experience. Imagine what the alternative would have been like, if all four had been dressed identically in barely more than underwear. The visual mind wash provided by the shimmering kaleidoscopic colours combined with flowing textile and elastic sinew was simply jaw-dropping. I got it, absolutely: the catwalk, models, prima donnas, colleagues, in conflict! Just like a brilliant novel, I wanna read it again!

Is Fumi Kaneko alone in being able, in addition to her beautifully expressive dancing, to telegraph her facial expressions so vividly and profoundly that even high in the amphitheatre, she makes the spine tingle with just a flash of her eyes? 

Just left June 15 performance in a state of absolute euphoria. What an amazing experience. I read the book beforehand, but though helpful, I don’t think it’s necessary. The narrative is clear. It is a visually delicious interpretation of the novel. Yasmin was, as usual, brilliant. But I have to applaud Fumi. Dancing and portraying that character is tough call, but she showed what a good actress she is as well as great dancer. I’m stood in a Covent Garden pub coming down from the buzz! Last orders just rang. Time to go home. Time to dream of artistic beauty!

3 hours ago, emmarose said:

 

Where exactly were you seeing these comments? 

 

And for what it's worth, most people are usually (deservedly) very complimentary of Fumi online from what I've ever seen.

Dear emmarose,

Well, as I am only active on this forum, I saw, (or didn't see) the comments here. However, please don't misinterpret my opinion. It's a fact that when you are in support of a particular entity, no amount of feedback can be enough to reinforce your own inclination, particularly when you're not so sure whether you are in a majority, or a minority. The fact is, I became instantly entranced by Fumi, and I just couldn't get enough comment about her. It just seemed to me that she didn't seem to be getting the recognition that I thought she deserved. In my (limited) view, she is the at the very apex of a company that surely, currently, has to be at the very apex of world ballet. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Yours very sincerely,

Stephen

1 hour ago, Sim said:

I have a girl crush.  It's never happened to me before, but now it has.  Last night's astonishing, awesome, assured debut from Fumi Kaneko has made me fall in love.  Maybe the spell she cast in Act 3 reached out to me in the stalls circle standing section, dazzling me and putting me totally under... because I am still not quite thinking straight today.  

 

I just loved every single thing about Fumi's interpretation.  Usually I have something even vaguely critical to say, but not this time.  Those eyes!  Those arms, that surely can't have any bones in them!  Those long legs that uncurl into such beautiful, perfect, expressive lines!  Simply stunning, and with such a strong and varied technique it works in a way that is rarely seen.

 

I loved the way she smiled through a lot of the Act 2 pdd.  I can't remember ever having seen this before...Odette usually looks so sad here.  But Fumi showed her to be happy, falling in love and hopeful that her saviour has arrived.  And with Mr Bonelli as her noble, handsome and deeply passionate prince, why wouldn't a girl be happy?  She punctuates these moments of happiness with worry, as a brief shadow of sadness and foreboding passes over her face and her whole body...but then she shakes it off and allows herself to hope once more.  

 

This smiling makes eminent sense;  when Odile brandishes that smile at Siegfried in Act 3, of course he would think it's Odette.  He has seen and felt that smile already.  Fumi's Act 3 was dizzyingly fabulous.  Her total control of every movement's beauty, her feel for the music, the whaz of those fouettes, mixed up with singles, doubles and triples, one arm raised aloft in triumph whenever she felt like it...she created a whirlpool into which I would have happily been sucked and drowned at that point, such was the delirium I was experiencing!  Her delight in her control over Siegfried, knowing from the get-go that she had already won, was palpable, every movement drawing him more and more into her orbit.  Her evil laughter when the deception was unveiled sent the proverbial shiver up my spine, and then right back down again.  Sensational.

 

As others have said, Act 4 was so very touching.  The deep hurt that Odette felt was expressed so beautifully, with each gentle shake of the head, movement of those big dark eyes or flutter of the hands...here was a vulnerable creature about to break in two.  Siegfried, full of pain himself, and as devastated as you can get, gently convinces her that he truly loves her and to forgive him.  Once achieved, they find strength again and defy Von Rothbart.   When the artistry is like this, I don't even care about the ending.  I personally prefer an apotheosis involving both of them.  Hopeless romantic that I am, at least they are together forever, and I love that.  

 

As many others have said, this was a very special night in so many ways.  Saying arrivederci to Federico Bonelli was so sad, but we can all be glad for the 19 years he has been here.  It has been a privilege to watch him grow over the years into a true danseur noble as well as a dance actor who could raise every emotion possible in the audience.

 

As a new star is born and illuminates the night sky, another star fades into the morning light, having burned brightly for so long.  

 

Thank you Mr Bonelli for so many wonderful performances, and the very best of luck in your new position at Northern Ballet.  You will be missed very much.   In bocca al lupo! 

 

 

I’m so glad that I read Sim’s post, because I am also in thrall to the divine Fumi, and beginning to doubt myself because of a perceived (by me) lack of appreciation among other Balletco members of her performances so far since becoming a principal dancer. As I have mentioned in previous posts, Fumi is the single reason that I became interested in Ballet just prior to the first lockdown. I noticed her in the role of Rosaline in RB’s film Romeo and Juliet Beyond Words. Though a relatively minor role, for me it was a standout performance. Her haughtiness towards a besotted and persistent Romeo really caught my eye. I was mesmerised by her, but I had to wait until October last year for live ballet to resume and I finally saw another mesmerising performance in Romeo and Juliet, but this time with Fumi in the title role.

Unfortunately, she has been underutilised since then (again, my opinion). I saw her as Satan in The Dante Project, but nothing else, until last night. Oh what a debut! What a performance! What a night!

Following her Juliet last  October I expected that, like me, others would be in raptures after witnessing such a stunning performance (partnered, of course, by a wonderful Romeo in William Bracewell), but comments have been relatively low-key.  In the build-up to the opening of Swan Lake there was even a suggestion that in rehearsal for Swan Lake she smiled too much! Why not smile? I thought. But then I’m just a novice. Maybe I should rely upon the judgement of other more seasoned balletomanes, I thought. Maybe my instinctive adulation is just because of the novelty of immersing myself in (for me) a new art-form. Well, after last night all that negativity has evaporated. My instincts were true. Others think that Fumi is as wonderful as I do. Comments that I heard last night were “a performance out there with the best!”, and “she is almost certainly going to become a ballet superstar!” She already is, for me!

Thank you Sim. I couldn’t agree more with your post. But “dizzyingly fabulous.” That says it all for me. I know exactly what you mean. I’m sixteen again, and in love for the first time!

20 hours ago, art_enthusiast said:

Other standouts for me are Fumi Kaneko and William Bracewell. Theirs was the first one I saw and it still sticks with me now, as does Fumi's performance in the final crypt scene. Just astonishingly real.

I couldn't agree more. Imagine, seeing my first ever ballet last 23 October and I get to witness Fumi and William give their all in a performance that I will never forget. Utterly wonderful. Coincidentally, a very nice couple seated beside me were also attending their first ballet, and like me, were just speechless after the final scene. 

On 03/02/2022 at 14:14, serenade said:

Yeah I definitely do. I love Sadler’s wells and the coliseum as venues as much cheaper generally and you can actually see the stage well from most of the seats 😂 but ROH is where I feel comfiest!

It seems that my first post on the forum kicked of this thread, for which I'm delighted. Like Lizbie1 and serenade, I'm also very happy to find that, in addition to Balletco's friendliness, in my experience, the ROH is probably (maybe including The Globe) London's most 'laid back' live performance venue. I love both theatres, but particularly the ROH. Despite being a newbie! 

19 hours ago, AnticaFiamma said:

Another great performance this afternoon, with excellent chemistry between Naghdi and Ball. I much preferred her partnership with Matt to the one with Muntagirov, and what a Juliet she is: every movement of her hand is a story, and her bourees speak volumes. Truly wonderful technique and acting: the final scene in particular is a real gem and the fact that she dies before reaching Romeo's hand is really a tragedy within the tragedy. And both are excellent in their PDD, both at the end of Act 1 and at the beginning of Act 3.

 

There are very strong supporting performances from Benjamin Ella in a memorable debut (?) as Mercutio, Teo Dubreuil as Benvolio and David Donnelly as a warm and sympathetic Paris. I had somehow assumed that Gary Avis had retired from the role of Tybalt and I'm really happy I was wrong: he makes a full meal of a small part and his characterisation is a highlight of the whole show. While on the whole I preferred Sambé & O'Sullivan in the title roles, this afternoon performance was sharper than the one I watched last night, and the orchestra in particular played much better.

I concur totally with AnticaFiamma. I thought Naghdi and Ball et al were perfect yesterday. It was my second Romeo & Juliet, after my first just last October. My first ever live ballet, leaving me stunned and speechless at Fumi Kaneko and William Bracewell in a performance that I will never forget. Yesterday I treated my whole family (wife, two sons and girlfriends) to their first ever live ballet. They all thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but were interestingly, in light of AnticaFiamma's comments, particularly effusive about the orchestra. It turns out that, with the exception of my wife, none had ever been to an orchestral performance of any type before, and were stunned at the richness of the sound!

We wandered around Covent Garden afterwards, killing time before our early dinner reservation at 'la Ballerina' just across the road from the ROH. As we eventually made our way there we were delighted to find Yasmin Naghdi outside the ROH stage door, signing autographs and chatting to fans. She had the sweetest smile on her face, obviously enjoying the adulation. I was awestruck, and couldn't summon the courage to ask her to sign my programme. A memorable day for us all, but I have to admit that as good as Yasmin and Matthew were, they could not better my memory of Fumi and William. 

I simply cannot wait to see Fumi in Swan Lake in March!

12 minutes ago, Ian Macmillan said:

Stephen:  Welcome to the Forum.  Like you, it seems, I was a late convert to ballet some 20 years or so ago.  I share your appreciation of Ms Hayward's remarkable Juliet in the filmed R&J and I hope your family takes to the artform as you seem to have done. 

Thank you, Ian. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Though having read the above reviews of yesterday's performance it seems that they're in for a real treat!

I recently caught the 'ballet bug' after stumbling upon Romeo and Juliet Beyond Words on TV a few months ago. As most will be aware, Francesca Hayward was a strikingly beautiful Juliet in that film. However, I was captivated by Fumi Kaneko in the very minor (in that production) role of Rosaline, and when live performances resumed last October, I bought a ticket in the Amphitheatre to see Fumi in the role of Juliet on 23 October, followed by her appearance as Satan in The Dante Project three days later. I was overwhelmed by both, but rendered almost speechless by Romeo and Juliet. It is literally one of the best things I have ever seen. A life changing experience. 

Enthused, I attended two subsequent performances (Giselle and The Nutcracker, both wonderful). However, after the unforgettable experience of Romeo and Juliet, I bought tickets for all the family to see it on 29th January, and I'm looking forward to seeing Yasmine Naghdi as Juliet, in what looks like another sell-out performance, with only three tickets remaining available as I write. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my wife, two sons and partners, who have never been to a ballet before, are as enthused as I was last October. 

After that, Fumi again, in Swan Lake on 4th March. I just cannot wait for that! What a change in my life, just as a chance result of surfing the TV channels! Serendipity indeed!