annamk

Corrales was originally scheduled to dance Albrecht in Giselle in Rome with Osipova last week but I noticed that Tissi danced instead. 

Me neither, just links to the companies youtube channels. The Bayerische in Munich doesn't work for me - does anyone know if the company actually took part ? 

10 hours ago, Sabine0308 said:

Let's go to more positive news from Ballet in Berlin...today, we as members of the Staatsballett Berlin friends, got to meet the new dancers and fellows who joined Staatsballett Berlin this season. It was a very friendly, relaxed meeting with a lot of fun and also thoughtful remarks by these young people. To avoid rather boring reports on "trained there, done that", the dancers got to pick randomly their "keyword" from a bunch of cards and were asked to tell their thoughts connected with the word. The acting director Christiane Theobald had prepared these cards. It was fun!

Just 2 examples: a guy from Belgium picked the word "tree house" and it turned out that he actually had built a tree house when he was a kid, to the dismay of his Mom who was scared he would fall down.

A funny mismatch was the word "techno" (when in Berlin, there's techno😀). The girl who picked it was laughing, since Techno is certainly not her kind of music and she would never go to a Techno club.

Other words were Berlin, winter, idol, pointe shoes (at this point we learned that dancers in Russia, e.g. Mariinsky, never do class in point shoes, so that was a new experience for the dancer joining SBB from there), mindset, mosquito sting, sunshine, and more.

Now that I'm writing this down it looks boring 😀, but it was really done in a nice, fun and relaxed way.

New dancers (I leave out the ranks, but add where they came from):

Marina Duarte, Vera Segova (from Bayerisches Staatsballett Munich)

David Soares (from Bolshoi Moscow)

Bruna Cantanhede, Erick Swolkin (Bolshoi Moscow)

Lisa Avsjanishvili ( Mariinsky St. Petersburg)

Daniela Thorne, Gregoire Duchevet, Achille De Groeve, Wolf Hoeyberghs, Theo Just, George Susman (all from Junior Ballet Zurich, probably picked by Christian Spuck before coming to Berlin next season)

and

For the Mentorship Programme:

11 fellows (coming in most cases from Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin). 10 Ladies, 1 Gentleman (who surprised us when he said that he began his professional training at age 17 only! he's now 22 - btw he picked the word "dream" and it was certainly a distant dream for him to join a professional ballet company).

 

I liked this evening a lot and was also delighted to see such strong personalities in the dancers. 

 

I thought David Soares was a very elegant dancer when I saw him at the Bolshoi (not live, just via youtube) so will be interested to read your reports if you go to see him Sabine. 

Returned to BO.

B5 £12 and B6 £19 

Message me if interested. 

Anna

returned to the BO

Why are you posting this ?

These dancers chose to leave Munich and go to Russia after the invasion of Ukraine ....... 

Tickets now spoken for.

14 hours ago, Emeralds said:

He likes pretty, idealised versions of ballet ie Bournonville, Petipa, Ivanov, cute Ashton, cute Balanchine (not their more gritty works). Not ballets that remind him that not everyone lives a privileged, comfortable and lucky life. That’s why he hated Tamara Rojo’s Raymonda and savaged most things that Edward Watson danced. I like Bournonville, Petipa et al, but I don’t have a blinkered view of life and we need Pite as much as Petipa. Besides, slippedisc is a website that’s usually negative and their approach is to report all news as “how shocking/how dare they” (especially with regards to cast changes or cancellations). I think they do it as click bait so that readers will jump in and say “it’s actually very good”, “he/she did better than that”, “don’t be so mean, nobody gets ill/injured on purpose”.

I don't know where you got the idea from that Macaulay confines himself solely to liking pretty, idealised versions of ballet ? And to suggest that he hated Rojo's Raymonda (a pretty, sanitised depiction of war if you ask me) because it reminded him "that not everyone lives a privileged, comfortable and lucky life" just doesn't make sense. 

This is an interesting look back on his years in New York as the New York Times chief dance critic. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/28/arts/dance/alastair-macaulay-dance-farewell.html

Just in case you're wondering, I'm not a friend of his, I've never met him and I dislike the sometimes barbed tone in his reviews but he's been a dance critic for 40 years and is hugely knowledgeable and I think it's unnecessarily derogative to make such unsubstantiated comments. 

13 hours ago, Diandri said:

 

He didn't & his harking back to the choreographers of 50 years ago suggests he might not be ideally placed as a reviewer of brand new works, especially those by Canadian women!!

He does like new work though and work by women choreographers, I remember him eulogising Pam Tanowitz's Four Quartets a few years ago. 

Bumping this up tickets still available. 

8 hours ago, Vanartus said:

PS

The Macauley review. Mean spirited, nasty and bitter. 

I don't think the review is any of those things. He didn't like it (neither did I) and he tells us why. I think his reviews tend not to be generous towards the RB but then IMO other reviewers are over generous. 

£12 each. 

Message me if interested.

Anna

19 hours ago, Christine said:

I also attended the last performance with this cast on Sunday night which was not filmed for the Cranko movie and it was even better - perhaps, simply, because it was the third time and had gelled even more or because dancing knowing that the filming is over can be a liberating expierience.. . Anyway, I found Jason even more convincing technically,  Elisa for me was outstanding in all three shows. The sheer amount of dramatic action she packs into her turns, twizzles and ballet steps is literally mind-boggling, On Thursday night she was so immersed in her role that she did not even manage to smile during the applause. By Sunday, probably routine kicked in and she recovered more quickly. On that night, too, they finally got the deserved standing ovation.

I'm so jealous, I wish I could have stayed for the other 2 performances ! 

Will you see the other casts ? Please post on here if you do. 

I didn't like Flight Pattern when it was originally premiered and so I suppose it was to be expected that a longer version using essentially the same music and the same choreography was not going to be my cup of tea and so it proved. 

The music is beautiful but I didn't think it was a good choice for a dance piece, it's a bit one note ?  The choreography for the new parts was just like Flight Pattern: boring and repetitive with endless running on stage, sliding, standing legs split, arms aloft, hands turned out etc etc I felt like Crystal Pite had run out of ideas. 

I couldn't wait for it to end. 

I should have said that the tickets are Stalls Circle Standing. 

£9 each, message me if interested. 

Anna 

2 hours ago, Angela said:

 

Thank you, Anna, for this very very wonderful report - I was there the next day and was equally ravished by this couple and by Reilly's incredible partnering.

In my performance, they repeated the final pdd for the movie with a camera on stage, which is an incredible physical achievement first, and then they did it with all the passion and intensity like before. Yes, it will be a movie about Cranko, not a documentary, where these Stuttgart dancers play the roles of their predecessors in the famous ballets - Elisa Badenes plays Haydée (you may have noticed that her hair was darker than usual), Reilly plays Ray Barra, the first Onegin (notice the curls!), Erikson plays Egon Madsen and Mackenzie Brown is Anita Cardus, the first Olga. They didn't reveal who will be John Cranko, the director of the movie said it will be a famous movie star. We'll see!

Thank you for the kind words Angela and for the clarification on the Cranko filming. How absolutely incredible to see them dance the final pdd twice - once was unforgettable, twice I cannot imagine ! 

A friend and I are big fans of Danil Simkin (Berlin) and Friedemann Vogel (Stuttgart) so when we spotted an opportunity to see them on consecutive evenings in Giselle and Onegin we couldn’t resist making the trip.

In Berlin the Giselle production uses Peter Farmer’s costumes and sets with choreography of Patrice Bart, after Coralli and Perot. Many of the steps were familiar, some looked very much like the choreography in Ratmansky’s recent production, although there seemed to be much more dancing for the corps (male and female) in Act. Evelina Gudanova was making her debut as Giselle but you would hardly have known- it was a very pleasing performance with no amateur dramatics, but entirely convincing and danced very well. Daniil Simkin was absolutely wonderful, he’s a fine partner, he dances brilliantly, his was a really rich performance. The corps seemed under-rehearsed in act 1 but were much improved in act 2. The Myrtha of Aurora Dickie was very strong and we liked both Zulma Luciana Voltolini and Moyna Alizee Sicre. Among the unfamiliar pieces of choreography were some beautiful bourees for Giselle where she leaves Albrecht by boureeing swiftly backwards to exit the stage side left. The orchestra were fantastic playing with an excellent brisk tempo.

On the day of the Giselle performance there was a cast change announcement in Stuttgart: Jason Reilly would be replacing Friedemann Vogel. It was too late to alter our plans even if we’d wanted to but since we’d seen Jason Reilly’s Onegin when he guested with the Royal Ballet opposite Alina Cojocaru, replacing an injured Johan Kobborg, we thought he would be very good. What we didn’t expect was to witness a phenomenal performance that was a masterclass in every respect. Like Friedemann Vogel Jason Reilly is now in his early 40’s, but he danced like a man at least 10 years younger with flawless tours en l’air, astonishingly youthful jetes entrelace, incredible fury turns, and so I could go on. His partnering was flawless. In some hands the exhausting mirror pdd can seem like a series of increasingly fumbled lifts as Tatiana is hoisted high into the air but Reilly moved entirely seamlessly from one lift to another so that the pdd became the perfect flowing expression of all Tatiana’s youthful longings and she melted in his arms like a whisper of gossamer. Reilly’s characterisation was so complete, so multi faceted, with every little detail correct, he revealed nuances that can only come from a lifetime of performing experience.

Tatiana was Elisa Badenas who trained at the Royal Ballet school and whom I’ve seen dance on several occasions in Stuttgart. In the great Stuttgart tradition she is a remarkable actress and a beautiful dancer. She has no mannerism, nothing is exagerated for unnecessary effect. The partnership with Jason Reilly was the truest, most genuine, most passionate, intense performance I’ve seen since the days of Johan Kobborg and Alina Cojocaru.

In the supporting roles were two younger dancers: Mackenzie Brown as Olga and Henrik Erikson as Lenksy. Mackenzie Brown won the gold medal at the prix in 2019 and has risen rapidly in the Stuttgart ranks to Soloist. She’s a lovely dancer and very much captured the personality of the flighty Olga. Her young Lensky was the tall and slender demi-soloist who partnered remarkably well for someone with relatively little experience and danced gracefully with a beautiful line and soft landings. The well known Lensky solo in the pre duel moonlight was executed with great aplomb - unlike many dancers I’ve seen tackling the exposing solo, Erikson didn’t hold every step and shape and force them into (im)perfection rather he moved seamlessly creating a beautiful flow of movement. Absolutely one to watch.

The Stuttgart opera house is unsurprisingly somewhat smaller than London and I’d say that Onegin is a ballet that benefits being viewed from the intimacy conferred by a smaller stage.

At the end of the performance the audience were invited to stay and be filmed applauding the cast and watching Erikson perform the Lensky solo again. It was for a documentary that’s being made to celebrate John Cranko, next year being the 50th anniversary of his death.

Ticket now spoken for. 

£9 message me if interested. 

C65 now spoken for. 

Bumping this up, C65 still available. 

Hello,

I will send you a message.

Anna