chrischris

chrischris, I think that Glastonbury is the iconic music festival of the summer though and performing on the Pyramid stage and being filmed on the BBC brings the company to a the attention of a very wide audience which includes many people who have not watched ballet in the theatre. However, in the light of your previously expressed view that you do not see the point of ENB, I doubt that you would be impressed by anything that the company did.

Ha ha that made me laugh, like I have some vendetta against the ENB.

Yeah Glastonbury is the most iconic and I wish I could afford to go. My comment was in response to Alison's about Latitude, and I was just pointing out that all festivals have dance companies performing, often ballet, so it isn't exactly unusual for a classical company to be performing at a festival. Good for them to be on the pyramid stage and I hope it brings them to a wider audience.

Yeah I don't think it's that new. Latitude has had ballet for ages. I remember Alex Whitley did a piece there a few years ago, and they did a Swan lake thing last year. I'm sure i've seen ballet at the big chill as well, and bestival often has different dance groups. It's great that they managed to get on the main stage, but it's not exactly groundbreaking.

Ah I love Glastonbury.

He doesn't strike me asthe most obvious choice for Don Q, so it will be interesting to see what he is like.

Only two Symphonic Variations for Hamilton and Muntagirov but five for Nunez and Golding?

That's so weird: I checked her Twitter account just before I posted, and the latest entry was June 3rd

 

Thanks, John.

Twitter has changed now and you have to click 'replies' or whatever it says, to see all posts. Otherwise you just see new tweets and not replies to other tweets. I hope that makes sense.

Harrod & McRae are expecting a baby (congratulations to them) so obviously she will most likely be out of the 2014/15 season.

I also understand Sabina Westcombe is leaving too.

Thanks. Manon, R&J and DonQ in a coupleof weeks is a huge undertaking for those dancers dancing leads in all 3.

Guess this means Mendizabal, Kish and Pennefather are still injured. Hope to see them back in their roles by September.

Vadim will be rather busy doing ENB's Romeo & Juliet in June. :-)

Oh ok, cheers. Don't really follow the ENB schedule.

 

On the Bolshoi website the cast of the Royal Ballet Manon and Triple Bill are online!

 

Manon - Marianela Nunez (20.06), Lauren Cuthbertson (21.06, 13.00), Sarah Lamb (21.06, 19:00), Natalia Osipova (22.06) 

Des Grieux - Federico Bonelli (20.06), Matthew Golding (21.06, 13.00), Steven Macrae (21.06, 13.00), Carlos Acosta (22.06) 

Lescaut - Thiago Soares (20.06), Rioychi Hirano (21.06, 13.00), Alexander Campbell (21.06, 19:00, 22.06) 

Monsieur GM - Christopher Saunders (20.06, 22.06), Gary Avis (21.06, 13:00 and 19:00) 

Lescaut Mistress - Laura Morera (20.06), Claire Calvert (21.06, 13.00), Helen Crawford (21.06, 19:00 22.06)

 

 

The Triple Bill (Rhapasody, Tetractys, DGV)

RHAPSODY

Laura Morera, Steven Macrae (June 17) 

Yyuhi Choe, Valentino Zucchhetti (June 18)

 

TETRACTYS

Federico Bonelli - Lauren Cuthbertson - Nicol Edmonds  - Paul Kay  - Sarah Lamb - Edward Watson - Steven Macrae - Marianela Nunez - Natalia Osipova  -Thiago Soares  - Akane Takada - Eric Underwood 

 

DGV

Zenaida Yanowski, Natalia Osipova, Marianela Nunez, Laura Morera 

Eric Underwood, Edward Watson, Thiago Soares, Valeri Hristov (June 17) 

 

Tierney Heap, Akane Takada, Melissa Hamilton, Beatriz Stix-Bryunell 

Rioychi Hirano, Tristan Daiya, Matthew Golding, Valentino Zucchetti (June 18)

 

Thank you. Had kind of assumed Muntagirov would be performing at the Bolshoi.

It is interesting that it is over a human rights concern and yet I assume that the same two dancers may well be joining for the China portion where certain human rights issues are equally strained.  Such considerations - on a global scale - are oft hard to balance methinks.  

Yeah I thought about that. And i'm sure the RB have toured to places in the past where the LGBT community is as persecuted as they are in Russia. Such a difficult one. I admire anyone who takes a stand, but I think it's impossible to be 100% consistent all the time. You'd never leave the house.

Details of the Russia tour here:

http://www.russianartandculture.com/news-the-royal-ballet-announces-2014-international-tour-to-russia-16-22-june/

This is a repeat of February 2012 after Polunin walked out.

Yeah i thought that. That was also a period when loads of people were off injured too, if I remember correctly.

Adding anything before (and never, EVER after) Giselle would just dilute both in my opinion, it would just be a distraction from what I really wanted to see. And I'm sure the corps wouldn't be keen on doing Symphony in C or Shades before then doing Giselle's Wilis. The injury toll has been bad enough as it is!

I really don't understand why you'd want to bloat out the evening, from distilled perfection (OK, bias alert, Giselle is probably my fave ballet). Perhaps you should write to that Peter Wright chap and ask him to 'fill it out a bit' for you, so you'll get more bang for your buck.

Ha ha you really are very judgmental aren't you?

"Giselle" is complete as a considerable work of choreographic art and an evening's entertainment and is perfectly capable of standing on it's own and satisfying any true ballet lover without bolstering it's appeal for those who feel they are being short changed with any additional work,either before or,perish the thought,after. The notion of following it with 50 minutes of murder,rape and misoginistic violence strikes me as just too absurd to even contemplate.

So people who don't feel satisfied with the length of Giselle are not true ballet lovers?

Lovely

Giselle is perfect without any add-ons - it may be short because of the single interval. Any other work with it would just spoil the atmosphere. The tickets usually a little cheaper, so its not like you're being diddled for quantity - I'd prefer to stick with the quality anyway.

Disagree.

I agree MAB, they are such an odd bunch to put together. I sort of think Sweet Violets might be a good ballet to put after a performance of Giselle, which always seems like quite a short evening to me, or maybe it could be fleshed out and turned in to a full length. it just seemed jarring being in between Serenade and DGV.

 

In my view, criticisism of some young dancers can be also a fair point.

I don’t think that fame and fortune were necessarily Carlos’ overriding dreams. Given his background it seems to be natural for this talented dancer to dream of seeing the big world, to use greater opportunities, to enjoy artistic freedom and to realise himself in this world. There are so many other dreams that people can cherish. And if Carlos regrets that for some young dancers fame and fortune are more important, he is entitled to say so.

 

I don't think anyone is saying he isn't entitled to say it, it's just that it is an odd thing to say; ballet doesn't bring you fame or fortune, so it would be a surprise if that was the overriding motivation for young ballet dancers. There isn't one ballet dancer today that is really famous (in the UK, don't know about other countries) and I doubt any of them are rich. As Melody pointed out, if you want fame or fortune, you wouldn't try and become a ballet dancer.

 

 

I'm surprised he's still on this kick about young people these days going into ballet for money and fame. I thought it was a notoriously poorly paid profession and that these days most ballet dancers are pretty well unknown outside the narrow world of ballet itself. If you want money and fame in the performing arts, ballet would be quite a long way down the list of things to get into.

 

 

Yeah I didn't get that either. Very weird observation.

Good luck to her.

Didn't realise Underwood had been around so long. Just checked his ROH page and I assumed he was younger than I guess he is.

I assume that this means that they have had their first stage rehearsal and the Robbins people like what they see

Do the Robbins people exercise a large degree of control over castings and stagings?

Ha!  I knew there was someone else ...  Ed Watson's is in a day or two, can't remember exactly which, and I *think* Rupert Pennefather may be in May too.  I know he made his Des Grieux debut on his 30th birthday, and I'd have thought it was May, although it might have been further towards the end of the run in June.  And Johan Kobborg missed out on May by only a few days, too.

Oh yeah I do remember reading that when Manon was on. Don't Watson and Pennefather both have twin sister's too? Sure I remember reading that somewhere too.

ME!

ha ha happy birthday. You'd make a fantastic Manon i'm sure!

Interesting. Who else has their birthday in May, other than Rojo, Osipova and Alina?