Roberta

For anyone who travels east coast line to London and back) this could be welcome or unwelcome news, it all depends. Initial reaction appears to be that it's simply a means to make more money for the rail company. LNER to scrap off-peak rail tickets between London and Edinburgh https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/jan/16/lner-to-scrap-off-peak-rail-tickets-between-london-and-edinburgh?CMP=share_btn_tw

It's... complicated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet_(Prokofiev)

I made no mention of what I thought of the merits or otherwise of the comments, I merely pointed out they were 'interesting' and being added to so who knows, a real diamond could be being posted even as I type.

The Act II fugue is also in the Ratmansky Giselle. If you Google search "(5/7) Hilarion's death and "fugue of the Wilis" (deleted scene restored) | Ratmansky's GISELLE" you can watch / listen on YouTube.

The comments under the article are interesting and probably worth watching as they are being added to. https://slippedisc.com/2024/01/just-in-publisher-prohibits-use-of-older-prokofiev-scores/

Bonnets and caps images here as a starter! https://www.uvm.edu/~hag/sca/tudor/bonnet.html

This is new today, Alessandra Ferri Masterclass on Mary Skeaping's Giselle, from ENBs YouTube "16 Jan 2024 #EnglishNationalBallet #giselle Now in the midst of our Giselle performances here is a look back at those golden moments when the extraordinary Alessandra Ferri transformed the studio into her canvas and coached Katja Khaniukova. A masterclass we're still in awe of!"

It sounds as though it could be very expensive indeed for ballet companies and I hope it isn't the end of R & J being performed. Northern Ballet is struggling enough financially as it is.

Contact the ROH and ask! Here is Bonelli with Nunez so it was certainly filmed with him at some point. Feb 2018

Here is the Press Release for Manon 2019 https://static.roh.org.uk/for/pdfs/press-releases-19-20/Manon-2019-Press-Release.pdf There was a cine relay in 2018 https://www.facebook.com/royaloperahouse/videos/the-royal-ballets-manon-trailer/10156308989792579/

I have only just now posted a piece and link on the new Ashton thread which mentions him, so seeing his name again for a moment was confusing. Very sad news. All the 'old brigade' of the ROH departing. Arts admin, without people like this 'the arts' would not be able to function as they do. Anthony Russell-Roberts, "Above all he was a tireless defender of The Royal Ballet itself".

Post Christmas, everyone is Nutcrackered out and skint possibly? Wary of what January weather could bring?

2024. 120 years this year since the birth of Sir Frederick Ashton. I hope that the Royal Ballet will continue to remember and celebrate Ashton, so that when his hundredth birthday comes along in the year 2004 his work will be alive and well. This seems an appropriate thread in which to post this, for reference. https://archives.danceviewtimes.com/2004/summer/Ashton/ashtonconf1.htm A short extract Frederick Ashton would have been ninety years old on 17 September 1994. He often used to say that after his death most of his works would be considered passe and would fall into neglect. This was typically self-deprecating, yet it proved to be not too far from the truth, and shockingly soon. There was a sense that those who took over the direction of the Royal Ballet did indeed find his works silly and irrelevant. Whether or not this was actually the case, the number of his ballets in the company's repertory certainly declined. And if ballets are not danced, people forget how to dance them. It didn't help that in the Royal Ballet School the Russian influence was in the ascendant, while the Cecchetti system, the technical basis of Ashton's style, went into eclipse. (It has even been suggested that the Russian-based training, with its emphasis on athleticism, is the cause of the growing number of injuries in the company's ranks.) A few ballets remained in the active repertory—the term is of course a relative one in the case of the Royal Ballet; it is possible that more Ashton ballets would be danced more often if the Royal Ballet gave more performances in general than its usual two or three a week. La Fille mal gardee, The Dream, A Month in the Country have become classics; Cinderella comes around every other Christmas, more or less; Scènes de ballet, in the opinion of many, including Ashton himself, his best ballet, is brought back every so often. (Even some of these suffered from the general neglect.) The revival of Ondine came and went a few years ago; a stage version of the film Tales of Beatrix Potter, a more misguided addition to the repertory, seems to have stuck, as another Christmas treat. Celebrating Ashton by David Vaughan originally published in DanceView, Spring 1995

Latest on Twitter / X from ENB.

I have two shelves and it's never been a problem, though the top element is exposed so things brown better nearer there.

Just to draw to everyone's attention there is a really good photograph of the court ladies in their utterly beautiful Tudor dresses in the Gramilano review (see yesterday's Links From @Jan McNulty) by Jann Parry https://www.gramilano.com/2024/01/review-english-national-ballet-giselle/ Click on photos to enlarge. (One for @Blossom whose query it was.)

"If you go down to the woods tonight, you're sure of a big surprise" I'd stay clear as who knows? 👻

If only WD40 had been available at the village shop. If that hut hadn't been conveniently next to beautiful Giselle's humble dwelling, we'd not be here now still talking about it all.

Not Mary Skeaping's Giselle so forgive me, it predates her version and her time as ballet mistress at Sadler's Wells Ballet but I chanced upon this recently so I'll quote a tiny extract relevant to staging Giselle and the perils of flying Wilis. Beware the Phantom of the Opera (House)! The Sadler's Wells Ballet A History & Appreciation by Mary Clarke pub 1955 https://archive.org/stream/sadlerswellsball010229mbp/sadlerswellsball010229mbp_djvu.txt 1945 - 46 season On I2th June Giselle made its reappearance in new decor and costumes by James Bailey, a young designer discovered by Ashton, whose first important work for the theatre this was. It was a first taste of the "bigger and better" philosophy which was to disfigure so many of the early productions. Bailey's designs were attractive and very much on the right lines, but they were carried out with rather too much splendour. The habiliments of the nobles, in particular, were so ridiculously ornate that they completely swamped the simple style of the old ballet. It was not until several years had passed that Bailey was given an opportunity to modify his designs and improve the general balance of the production. His present version is infinitely better and a real evocation of the Romantic period. Nevertheless this first fussy version was a popular success and, as is usually the case with the rarely performed Giselle, it filled the house. Fonteyn danced faultlessly, but seemed to have lost the pathos of her earlier performances, and Alexis Rassine never managed to make a complete character of Albrecht. He had some sympathetic moments but seemed to find it difficult to maintain a performance, and would occasionally lose contact with the audience and slouch or stroll about the stage as if at a rehearsal. It was this lack of continuity in his performances that prevented him from ever quite attaining the position that his gifts as a dancer and mime should have earned for him. Some experiments in production effects were introduced into this Giselle with no very marked success. The Queen of the Wilis (Beryl Grey) was required to come up from the bowels of the earth through a cavernous opening and some Flying Wilis on wires skimmed about at the beginning of the second act. They were "produced" with rather less imagination than is usually expended on the Rhine Maidens, and simply floated about from one side of the stage to the other. One memorable evening a Flying Wili came too close to the earth and collided in very human fashion with Albrecht as he prayed by the tomb of Giselle. After that the phantoms were not seen again at the Royal Opera House. Mary Skeaping does get a mention in 1950 The first-night audience in San Francisco was a society one which received the company with polite applause that reminded them of the more difficult kind of gala performance in London. The Press was restrained in its enthusiasm and sometimes very critical. The season was successful, but it was not the "push-over" that the company had enjoyed in most other cities. By this time the strain of touring was beginning to show. There were many minor strains and skinned toes and Pamela May and Gerd Larsen had to return home for medical treatment. At the end of the two-week San Francisco engagement Ninette de Valois also returned to England (to start work on a revival of The Prospect Before Us for the Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet), and the company remained in the charge of Frederick Ashton, Herbert Hughes and Mary Skeaping, the ballet mistress.

I never cook without one! Not even oven chips!

I can't answer that as I don't have one! I have baked in a fan oven, it's just the temperature needs to be accurate, reduced and the brown paper packages tied up with string advice carried out carefully. My fan oven is a separate setting and element to the non fan oven setting.

Small question: does this include positive news, for example the RBS summer shows, news of to where students are moving at the end of their time at Upper School, the fact certain successful dancers trained at the RBS, and other related matters which have nothing to do with the legal cases? These cases could go on for a very long time indeed.

I've never been a cap doffer either, though of course a reverence at the end of class to teacher and pianist is a different thing. This has started me off thinking about a bow and a curtsey to the audience at the end of a performance, though maybe not the scope of this thread.

"Quaint can also be used to show that you do not approve of something, especially an opinion, belief, or way of behaving, because it is strange or old-fashioned" https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/quaint

It all got rather specific in the middle of the night and we do need to keep it general I feel rather than any particular school, and this thread is about a particular school. This particular school, the RBS, was specifically mentioned by Leigh Day as the one a court case was being brought against. I don't know how far along the line that has now proceeded. (And we need to always have libel law in our minds of course, I had a friend caught up in one of those, a SLAPP case really, and though she didn't lose it still cost her a great deal of money to fight / settle.) Last news I saw on the RBS case was here. https://www.leighday.co.uk/news/blog/2023-blogs/abuse-in-ballet-update/ We have registered one case already at the High Court in London and await a court hearing to address next steps in that case, to include the listing of a trial date. We have also instructed a barrister Nina Ross to work with us on these cases, and she is also going to be acting, as we are, on a no win no fee basis. Royal Ballet haven’t provided a response at the date of writing This is why I said I think it could be a poisoned chalice for any new AD. New job and the glare of adverse publicity? I can't say who I think will be applying for the role as I have no crystal ball. I'm not sure some mentioned here have the relevant experience. / expertise mix. The current AD is staying on until summer I believe and I look forward to reading the advert with the role description. As an aside, it wasn't so very long ago that students at White Lodge were expected to curtsey / bow if the Director was spotted in the vicinity. That was still the case when Mere Park was in charge. Quaint.