annamk

I really really enjoyed watching this; very grateful to Munich Staatsballett for making it available. I need to rewatch to make any considered comment but I agree with posters above about the dancing of Shale Wagman, Antonio Casalinho and Osiel Gouneo. For me the costumes, lighting and staging could perhaps have been more attractive/striking/interesting but I found the choreography incredibly appealing - rather the opposite of Wayne McGregor.

Some of the reviews of MaddAddam make it sound as though it has the same shortcomings that I find in other McGregor work, namely (to paraphrase), the choreography is outclassed by the staging and the score. But what really depressed me most which I mentioned some time ago on another thread was this comment in The Globe and Mail that the ballet "features one of the more horrific scenes you will ever see onstage, and it defies a call for choreographers (most of whom are men) to stop staging gang rape in ballet." On the basis of what has come to light so far for the 24/25 season I may as well cancel my Friends membership.

It premiered in Canada in November 2022 - reviews (mixed) can be found online.

@Richard C If you manage to fit Stuttgart into your trip and you fancy something different from an opera house tour I highly recommend the Mercedes Benz museum. I’m not in any way interested in cars but I thought it was really brilliant. Please report back and tell us about the performances you see.

Hello, have you looked at whether Stuttgart could fit your schedule ? There’s an interesting looking triple bill “Shades of Blue and White” various dates. The company has some marvellous world class dancers.

I know I'm getting ahead of myself here while Nutcracker is still in full swing but I'm looking for a ticket for this if anyone has one they can't use. Anna

It seems to be available on Youtube for anyone to watch. Highly recommend. I really enjoyed listening to them and watching the rehearsal.

PAYWALL misery for me

Not the right place for this news perhaps but the phenomenal Giorgi Potskhishvili was promoted to principal last night after Raymonda. https://www.instagram.com/p/C1B7hHtIfAC/?hl=en&img_index=1 We can catch him here as Hilarion in the DNB cinema relay of Giselle in January 2024.

I'd love to watch this and I thought Medici used to offer a monthly subscription but at the moment it's only an annual one at 50% off which is £64.50.

I hope so, I was worried it would be Alice.

The RoH usually post the interviews from the live relays on their YouTube channel but I'm really disappointed that they don't seem to have done so this time unless I have somehow missed it.

I love Leo Dixon although sadly I won't get to see his nephew this year. I know I'm in danger of repeating myself but I just don't understand why he hasn't been given an opportunity to dance the Prince or Lescaut in Manon.

Federico Bonelli as Rudolf and Laura Morera as Mary Versera.

I am looking for up to 2 SCS for this evening, if anyone can't make the performance this evening please message me. Anna

I really hope that all the Manon and Swan Lake combinations will be wonderful and I will be going along to a number of the performances to find out. But I can't unfeel what I have felt and unsee what I have seen with the Kaneko/Bracewell partnership: it is my raw emotional reaction to a chemistry that is as rare as hen's teeth. Together Kaneko/Bracewell have moved me more than any partnership with the exception of Cojocaru/Kobborg in 25 years of ballet going. Surely it is ok to express this feeling on the forum without it being taken as a judgement on other casts ?

Before Fumi Kaneko’s two serious injuries took her off stage for extended periods it was obvious she had an extraordinary talent. But just what a special ballerina she is has become increasingly apparent this last 12/18 months. That she is a brilliant technician is absolutely a given but she is so so much more than that: elegant, effortless, engaging, thrilling, daring, joyful and yet also poignant. On me Fumi has the emotional impact that Alina Cojocaru used to. I could be reduced to tears by the simple act of Alina bouree-ing on to the stage; she had an emotional depth that I could read in her eyes and that I could sense very strongly. Every role Fumi touches turns to gold and when she is partnered by William Bracewell it is simply ballet heaven. The oh so brief grand pas in the opening night of Nutcracker was a thing of exquisite magical beauty, both better than I have ever seen them. As others have mentioned it was something of a bittersweet moment given the upcoming casting. One waits years for the partnership of a generation and then it’s snuffed out just as it’s reached its’ apogee. The first night cast were uniformly excellent: in particular I was charmed by Sae Maeda , Joe Sissens and Mariko Sasaki, Lukas B. Brændsrød’s rock solid partnering in the Arabian with the lovely Melissa Hamilton, Leo Dixon’s Cavalier and Joonhyuk Jun with Taisuke Nakao in the Russian dance.

@Dawnstar absolutely how I felt about it. What a missed opportunity; if only the choreography had been the equal of the score, sets and lighting the whole would have been a masterpiece. Instead, we have the wonderful dancers of the RB doing their best to inject some meaning into largely meaningless steps.

Only yesterday ENB put this Giselle rehearsal clip on YT - Alejandro Parente rehearsing Fernanda Olivera and Frola. Maybe it means nothing, but I am living in hope.

This opened tonight. I had seen Cerberus before and I didn't get it at all; Goat also is not a new piece but is new to me. I really enjoyed Ben Duke's Ruination at the Linbury last Christmas. Anyway, for me this was an exceptional 5* evening. Two unique pieces of dance theatre that are funny, inventive, quirky and utterly bizarre; absolutely brilliantly performed by the superlative Rambert dancers who do contemporary choreography like no one else here. The music and the vocals were terrific. If you loved Ruination I can't recommend highly enough.

Tx spoken for.

I'll probably only go to one performance this time and my choice is Kaneko/Muntagirov; if I were to go to 2 performances I'd pick Kaneko/Muntagirov again !

£12 each, message me in interested.

Is this a role Corrales might have fulfilled had he not been derailed by injury since joining the RB ? Here's hoping he gets back on stage before too long.

You're not alone ! I feel like this sometimes when people reminisce about Nureyev, Baryshinikov, Guillem and others because I hadn't found ballet as a passion when they were dancing but as you said there are moving, golden performances to be discovered in every era.