annamicro

The town is beautiful and inexpensive and the Romanian National Ballet was great in La Fille mal gardée, as it was in La Sylphide the past year: the trip is highly recommended! I'd have loved to write something about Fille premiere, but I had no time to put together ideas in English...I hope to be able to do that when back from London.

Wow, Angela! I hope you will attend: Cojocaru and Vogel were magical together in Romeo and Juliet (Alina ' s best partnership after the legendary one with Johan Kobborg?) and I would expect even more in Manon! Let's hope they will dance also the full length soon.

My desktop is too far from Tv and I cannot dowload it on my business laptop...so maybe te best solution is to wait for the DVD/Bluray release :-( How annoying! Thanks to you and the "guru" for your help! :-)

Thank you. Do your techie husband think I would be able to copy the downloaded files onto a DVD to watch it with my player connected with TV?

I think the a Philharmonic Orchestra is a sort of "association" of musicians, with members, a symphonic orchestra is a "business company", with employees. At least this is what I understood from a documentary about Berliner Philarmoniker: members even decided who will be the leading director. Etymologically it would made sense.

I wonder what does it mean: next year is in a little more than 20 days. I'd be happy to download it if I can burn a DVD and watch it on the sofa. Or on my sister's sofa, opposite her 55" TV screen! But if I have to sit at my desk to watch it, three quarters of the enjoyment is lost...

If possible I would already be in the queue .... http://www.digitaltheatre.com

Also Romanian National ballet is dancing gain Kobborg's Sylphide in January and february 2015 http://www.operanb.ro/en/spectacol/stagiunea-2014-2015-la-sylphide/2015-01-07 The "Romanian" cast I saw the past year, Sena Hidaka and Robert Enache, was excellent. The Japanese Hidaka especially was outstanding.

They are doing a lot of things... :-) Janet, I'm going but unfortunately only for the first night on the 13th. I'd have loved to see also the second cast and have a little time to visit the town, but when I decided to go I was not given the following Monday off...now iIve been "forced" to be off the whole following week (year given days off to finish) but it's too expensive to change my travel plan :-(

La Fille mal gardee will have its premiere in Bucharest on Saturday 13th. Cast of the premiere: Lise - Alina Cojocaru Colas - Robert Enache Widow Simone - Johan Kobborg Second show on the 14th: Lise - Bianca Fota Colas - Dawid Trzensimiech Widow Simone - Călin Rădulescu http://www.operanb.ro/en/spectacol/la-fille-mal-gardee/2014-12-13

Not only Neumeier, if a guest dancer can accept such a "partner". Imagine Vishneva being proposed that! But, yes: we are definitely out of topic, sorry to everybody :-)

I'm booking from abroad 95% of my ballets and unfortunately I've missed a few times the dancer I booked for (usally for injury or illness, in one case, in Hamburg, for this same reason) and I went anyway with one exception for very peculiar reasons. Today 2 of my top 4 favorite ballerinas were supposed to dance in MK, but this time I'm skipping also the dancer I've booked for in the evening, because I'm too upset to see her dancing tonight. In addition, a friend in Moscow has already reported that Alina was wonderful as Marguerite and so I have something more to regret about...

And mainly if her home company agrees to do that; I think the agreement happened above Cojocaru head (not that I think she is going to kill herself for this, as I already wrote). I do hope the agreement inlcudes something as a compensation. Even though it would not compensate the money spent on flight, train, stays and theatre tickets I have wasted (too upset to come in any case: I don't want to see evening performance neither). But if Neumeier can consider to give the superexpensive Kameliendame for free for a couple of shows and we could see not only Cojocaru but also Rojo as Marguerite...well, I could try to forgive him. Regarding your question...who else? also Othello on Sunday was desperately bad.

I'm with you Bruce, but according to her boss (source is available for the moderators if they think it's needed) she wanted to dance MK Swan Lake but she was asked to go to Moscow. That said, I don't think she considered making harakiri at this request.

No, Angela, they have never danced together and have just a couple of days to rehearse. Maybe more than a short dancer, and more than the indisputable best in the role, Neumeier wanted a dancer that can dance it "by herself" and fully deliver it also in the unfortunate case that rehearsals are not very successful. Regarding physical and mental exhaustion, she danced Cranko's Tatiana in two consecutive nights in Hamburg and she was magnificent, and this despite dancing with the ugliest (technically and artistically) Onegin I've ever seen, definitely an obstacle to the performance. So she is a solid asset when you want to be sure that the character is there and at it's best also in the worst possible condition. A pity that Neumeier vision is to stick her in this uncomfortable position also in her future commitments with Hamburg Ballet. But maybe she is happy with this and from stage it seems less awful (I'd recommend to watch a video, in that case). I don't think Neumeier Kameliendame and so his Marguerite have ever been danced in the UK: Cojocaru and Riabko danced the White pdd (maybe not the best as standing alone, if one doesn't know the ballet and cannot add mentally the previous and the following parts) in a gala at the Coli few years ago. It's quite incredible that she has never danced Ashton Marguerite, but sadly the use of Cojocaru in her last few years at the Royal Ballet is overall "quite incredible".

There are dozens all around the world: a list of names longer than the way from MK to Moscow. In Hamburg Azzoni, Bouchet and Laudere: only Bouchet was busy this week, but that shouldn't be a problem since it had not to be for ENB. Surely Neumeier wanted Cojocaru because she is by far the best of those dozens (think to an upgrade of her Tatiana), but this doesn't change the fact she was scheduled to dance elsewhere. I only hope he is giving back something of really substantial in change of this. In another post you wrote (more or less) that Cojocaru should be grateful to Neumeier also for her international career...she has to be grateful to Neumeier (and vice versa) for many many reasons, but you probably somehow missed the first 10 years of her international career :-)

Sim, I'm trying to look at the possible reasons with my head, not saying that it's right. Personally I'm following more my guts and I'm on strike. I'm not coming to London and Milton Keynes and skipping also Tamara's show because I'm afraid I could throw my binocular at her, even if I had the opportunity to express my dismay and discuss this with her and I can understand in part her reasons. But I'm throwing my flight and theater tickets in the trash bin (must admit I'm happy to skip RB mixed bill the night before). I'm very disappointed for this with Alina (maybe the very less responsible here), Tamara the Director and Neumeier. But since I love and trust Alina and Tamara and will go on loving and trusting them also after this, I prefer to be more disappointed with Mr Neumeier, the one who started and moved everything. If Neumeier can shut Tamara up and she cannot say NO, I suppose he has very strong arguments to support his artistic request. Alina has not been asked for in advance because she is stepping in for Smirnova, nothing was planned before. She is even putting on a dramatic and complex ballet with a dancer she has never danced before in two days. I'd not exclude she was asked to leave earlier (Riabko, dancing with Obraztsova, left on Sunday night, with a flight at 7 pm having finished a show at 5.15) but maybe she and ENB wanted to dance the first Swan Lake yesterday night. Unfortunately I was not there, yesterday.

Sim, two years ago I flew to Hamburg to see Silvia Azzoni and Sascha Riabko dancing together in MidsummerNight's Dream and spent an arm for my ticket. Unfortunately Mr Neumeier decided to leave Riabko in America to dance Nijinsky with National Ballet of Canada (they were having problems with injuries): I'm happy for the opportunity Sascha had (and it was a triumph), but I was much less happy to see the same cast TWICE in a day, because there was no time for Azzoni to rehearse with another partner or it was not feasible to ask Thiago Bordin to dance a complex ballet with two different partners in a day. Anyway in that case Neumeier was playing with his own dancers, now he is interfering with other companies schedules. But, you know, Mr Neumeier has a "vision"... (well, sometimes, considering recent and planned casting it seems more a delirium). Anyway it has to be said that to have a dancer guesting at the Bolshoi is important also for the international name of ENB and that Neumeier asked to have Cojocaru dancing on an important stage in probably her best role.

No: John Neumeier called Cojocaru boss, not the Bolshoi. It seems that is not possible to say NO to Mr. Neumeier. To compensate, as a minimum he should give for free Kameliendame choregraphy to ENB next season, plus Sascha Riabko as a guest. As minimum, but I'm not sure it's enough to lessen my disappointment.

Noooo, I think you remember wrong, Sim. :-) In the rare occasions when they were choosing the other door (always letting people know about that) they usually did it together. Of course there are exceptions...

A decent performance...

Really? :-D When? I saw Cojocaru just once as Olga.Anyway, hope Badenes does everything else Cojocaru does.;-)

Tickets for 2014-15 season are now available http://bilet.ro/newsletters/9/index.html

Alina Cojocaru was named Best Female Dancer, as tweeted also by Hamburg Ballett

a lot of filming in La Scala: on the 28th RAI5 will broadcast Rojo-Vasiliev cast...