Angela

The casting for Vienna State Ballet's Lady of the Camellias is now online: 24.3. (premiere), 26.3. Ketevan Papava (Marguerite Gautier), Timoor Afshar (Armand Duval), Hyo-Jang Kang (Manon Lescaut), Marcos Menha (Des Grieux), Ioanna Avraam (Prudence Duvernoy), Masayu Kimoto (Gaston Rieux) 5.4. Olga Esina (Marguerite Gautier), Brendan Saye (Armand Duval), Liudmila Konovalova (Manon Lescaut), Alexey Popov (Des Grieux), Alaia Rogers-Maman (Prudence Duvernoy), Arne Vandervelde (Gaston Rieux)

Forgive me if this is nitpicky, but the link does not provide Neumeier's statement, which I translated from the press release by Hamburg Ballet, but an article critizing Neumeier's decision with a few citations from his statement. The author thinks she is the moral authority on artists and their relations to Russia, she has an ongoing controversy with Neumeier about giving the rights to his works to Russian companies. Hamburg Ballet does not publish its press releases online, I fear you have to believe my translations without a link.

You can watch this beautiful waltz in rainbow-coloured costumes and with the colours of Ukraine here - go to 32.25', don't be surprised to see Priscilla Presley in a box, and watch till the end to see a very elegant Alexei Ratmansky in tails, followed by the students of the Vienna Ballet Academy. I hope it works outside of Austria/Germany/Switzerland, it's online until March 1st. Scroll down to see the whole programme and the cast.

No.

John Neumeier just offered an explanation about three performances of his “Anna Karenina” at the Bolschoi in March: “I have decided to allow the Bolshoi Theater to perform my ballet Anna Karenina - despite the fundamental distance I feel from the Russian state due to its deeply inhumane war of aggression against Ukraine. Anna Karenina conveys exactly the humane values that the current Russian regime so criminally disregards. This begins with the external form of organization as a German-Canadian-Russian co-production and does not end with the spiritual creator, a homosexual American. Last but not least, it also affects the substance of Anna Karenina: Just think of a character like the free spirit Lewin, who I let appear as a popular figure to the music of Cat Stevens. For all of these reasons, I see it as positive when performances of this work - and only this work - take place in Moscow. I will donate the royalties from the planned “Anna Karenina” performances at the Bolshoi Theater to a charitable cause. Since the war began on February 24, 2022, it has been natural for me to use my position and my diverse contacts to support Ukrainian artists. I made my ballet “Spring and Fall” available free of charge for performances and a film adaptation by the Kyiv National Ballet, I supported the rehearsal in Kiev by my ballet masters and invited the dancers to our traditional Nijinsky Gala in Hamburg. In addition to the spontaneous acceptance of young Ukrainian talents at our ballet school, the hospitality for Ukrainian professional dancers has developed into a permanent ensemble under the direction of my principal soloist Edvin Revazov: the Hamburg Chamber Ballet, in which refugee Ukrainian dancers find a new artistic home. The company is now established and will soon celebrate its one-year anniversary. In addition to artistic excellence and social commitment, for example with education projects, the Hamburg Chamber Ballet was able to make a significant contribution to Hamburg's urban society through my mediation in November, when the major cultural institutions spontaneously organized an evening of solidarity for the victims of the Gaza war under the motto “Breaking Silence”.” “Anna Karenina” was created at Hamburg in 2017, with subsequent premieres by its two co-production partners: the Bolshoi Theater Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada. On the other hand we the French choreographer Martin Chaix, who created a ballet in 2020 for the Bolshoi and posted a statement on his webseite, that the rights for his ballet have expired, but the Bolshoi continues to dance it.

According to a press release by the BBL, Julien Favreau will be Gil Roman's successor - as he was his successor in the company as leading male dancer. "Following discussions over the weekend, the Board of Trustees is delighted to announce the appointment of Julien Favreau, currently a dancer in the BBL troupe, to take up the baton. The date of his appointment will be announced in the coming days. The BBL Board of Trustees is today pleased to announce the appointment of Julien Favreau as Artistic Director ad interim. His talent, his experience, his perfect knowledge of the company and its dancers, and his artistic qualities make him the ideal person to take on this position and to infuse the company with the energy and high standards needed to make the choreographies of his mentor, Maurice Béjart, shine. Julien Favreau has accepted the offer to "continue to bring Maurice Béjart's work to life, through the finest instrument he created, the Béjart Ballet Lausanne, and in the company of the current artistic directors, who will support me in passing on Maurice Béjart's achievements. From the shores of the Atlantic to the shores of Lake Geneva Born in La Rochelle and trained in classical and contemporary dance, Julien Favreau entered the Rudra Béjart School in 1994. Quickly spotted by Maurice Béjart, he joined the Ballet a year later and was soon given important roles, including : The Chosen One in "The Rite of Spring", Freddie in "Ballet for Life", the Detective in "The Competition", Zarastro in "The Magic Flute", "Serait-ce la mort?", "Ce que l'Amour me dit", "Light" and numerous pas de deux. He has also danced as a soloist in creations by Gil Roman, Sthan Kabar Louët, Tony Fabre, Andonis Foniadakis and Yuka Oishi. Invited on stages all over the world and recognised as an incredible performer, notably for his role in the Mélodie du Boléro, the Foundation Board is convinced that he will also be an excellent artistic director, whose quality and high standards will enable the Béjart Ballet Lausanne to continue to bring Maurice Béjart's work to life. The Maurice Béjart Foundation confirms its commitment to the BBL The Maurice Béjart Foundation, whose committee members have been informed of this decision, is delighted to see the ballet's future secured in this way and confirms that the BBL will be able to continue to benefit from the rights to Maurice Béjart's choreographies under the current conditions."

Yes it had, such great dancers! But who knows, maybe today's dancers could do the same, if there were choreographers who challenged their personality instead of using their flexibility. I know it's a cliché, but I honestly can't remember the same feeling of having seen a revelation, something life-changing in ballet that I had when I watched "Ring um den Ring" (the moment when the Ring turned into Parsifal!) , "Wien Wien nur du allein" (Jorge Donn's smile when the Blue Danube started among all the ruins!), "Ballet for Life" and all these evenings. And yes, jm365, Gil Roman was a stunning, devilish, wonderful dancer.

At least his Bolero is in the international repertoire, Sylvie Guillem used to dance it very often on tour, in Japan for example. Or Roberto Bolle. Béjart made lots of full-length pieces and some of them were also danced by other companies than his own, the very funny crime-ballet "Le Concours" for example, or "Ring around the Ring", a four-hour ballet of Wagner's "Ring des Nibelungen". The Ballet of the State Opera in Berlin danced his works when Michael Denard was director there, Stuttgart Ballet danced Béjart back in den 1990s because Marcia Haydée loved his work and inspired him. Back in the 1960s, he was quite a revolution, having his company dance in jeans. Together with Cranko and Grigorovitch (all three were born in 1927), Béjart very much changed the aesthetics of the male dancer. Go to Youtube and look for Jorge Donn, you'll get a notion of what Béjart was. The American critics hate him with a vengeance 🙂, and I guess Britian did not see much of him, he was a French/continental thing. The first philosopher among choreographers...

As reported by Swiss and French newspapers, Gil Roman was fired yesterday as director of the Béjart Ballet Lausanne. He had led the company since 2007, when Béjart died. Roman was a former dancer of the Béjart company and had also contributed his own choreographies to the repertoire. When the Béjart Ballet was rocked by allegations of sexual harassment two years ago, there was an audit and reforms were announced. The company's production manager was fired due to these allegations. Gil Roman retained his post and was placed under the supervision of the new general director Giancarlo Sergi, a human resources director was hired. According to various Swiss news outlets, Gil Roman invited the former production manager to a performance by the company at the Paris Opéra Garnier in January and then to a private aperitif in the presence of all the dancers. After an examination, the board of trustees of the Fondation Béjart Ballet Lausanne considered this behavior towards the institution and towards the dancers to be inappropriate. Gil Roman will therefore resign from his position on April 30, 2024, the newspapers cite the press release. The foundation wants to find a successor. The planned further performances and tours will take place. The rights to Béjart's work are in the hands of the Fondation Maurice Béjart which is also directed by Gil Roman; he had threatened to take the rights from the company if he has to leave his post. The company therefore risks no longer being able to perform the works of its founder choreographer. According to Radio Télévision Suisse, Grégoire Junod, mayor of Lausanne and vice-president of the Béjart Ballet Lausanne foundation, said that “It’s not impossible, but we think today that it’s unlikely. We have discussions with all the members of the Maurice Béjart foundation. All the feedback we have today suggests that we have a joint desire to continue the adventure and to continue to entrust the ballets of Maurice Béjart to the BBL. " https://www.rts.ch/info/regions/vaud/2024/article/le-directeur-artistique-gil-roman-licencie-du-bejart-ballet-28388793.html https://www.bluewin.ch/fr/infos/regional/le-directeur-artistique-gil-roman-licenci-du-b-jart-ballet-2065744.html

Fiona, you and zxDaveM mentioned snippets and "gaps" in the music. I guess that's why I had the idea that one could use the beautiful, coherent score that was written by the film composer himself especially for the occasion that someone would make a ballet from "La strada". But having seen a Nutcracker recently that mainly used Sleeping Beauty music, I may be wrong. Everything is possible, I'm sure Alina danced to a wonderful score.

Fiona, I guess an important reason to chose different music may be the fact that there is no recording of the one hour long ballet suite. They did not have an orchestra for the production, they had to rely on recorded music. Else it might be a bit ambitious to drop a score that was made for that story, to know better than the original composer about "emotional coherence" and to find it in obviously not so much coherent snippets.

THANK YOU, Amelia. How I miss to see the Russian dancers on stage.

If I understand correctly, the ballet uses music from different movies by Nino Rota? But there are ballet suites of La Strada in different lengths by the composer himself, one over an hour long, another half an hour, which don't fall into snippets but sound like a symphonic score, a beautiful symphonic score in my opinion. I know it because it was used for the Munich version of "La Strada" by Marco Goecke, which was 80 min long. Rota himself made a ballet music out of his film score, the ballet premiered in 1966 at La Scala. Does the programme say why the choreographer did not use this original ballet music? You can listen to the shorter suite here, in an official recording by the HR Orchestra from Frankfurt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLAqaH2VS7I

Oh my, you could have seen the young, blossoming Marcia Haydée, the first version of Onegin right after the premiere, with Tatyana's children still there. Or a just three year old "Song of the Earth" by MacMillan in blue costumes that were different from the light brown and yellow ones now used in Stuttgart and from the (sorry: ugly) black ones now used at the RB. Imagine!...

They are by Jordi Roig, not Jürgen Rose - only Stuttgart has the original, no other company used his sets and costumes for the Haydée production, because they are just too expensive, I guess. He had three different backcloths handpainted for the three parts, first blue sky, than the rose hedges, than the autumn forest. It would cost a fortune to paint them now. And he used material from Indian sarees for many costumes, for King and Queen, for the princes, the fairy tale figures. It's just lavish over and over.

This has nothing to do with Onegin, but it is the case in many German towns: you can use public transport with your theatre ticket before and after the performance.

Any chance for a tour to the continent??? 🙏

A very distinguished guest will present a new work at this years Opera Ball at Vienna, one of the highest society events in Austria every year: Alexei Ratmansky will choreograph the waltz "La Separation" by Mykola Lysenko, a Ukrainian composer (1842-1912). The soloist couples will be Elena Bottaro - Masayu Kimoto, Sonia Dvořák - Brendan Saye, Alice Firenze - Marcos Menha, Kiyoka Hashimoto - Alexey Popov, Hyo-Jung Kang - Davide Dato, Aleksandra Liashenko – Géraud Wielick, Ketevan Papava – Eno Peci and Claudine Schoch – Duccio Tariello. The Vienna ballet academy dances to the Ecossaise from the opera "Eugene Onegin", in a choreography by Christiana Stefanou, director of the academy. For viewers in Austria/Germany/Switzerland, the ball will be live-streamed on 3sat on Feb. 8. from 20.15 CET.

Oh, and that Coppelia movie by Het Nationale Ballet from 2021 got rid of the boring Delibes score and hired the famous Maurizio Malagnini to write new music 🙃 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E6vITTIeLQ

Maurice Béjart did his Romeo and Juliet with the Symphonie Dramatique "Roméo et Juliette" by Berlioz in 1966 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWzBy3uYjwI - as did Erich Walter for Wuppertal in 1966 and George Skibine for the Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in 1959 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd-x4HUOQMQ and also Sasha Waltz used this score for Paris in 2007 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlTx53N_E_c There is a ballet score for Romeo and Juliet by Constant Lambert: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/romeo-and-juliet-9780193652828 It was used by Nijinska (and somehow not by Balanchine) for the Ballets Russes in 1926: https://www.tumblr.com/balanchine-ballet-master/125199517048/balanchines-romeo-juliet https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200185262 There is music for a whole Cinderella ballet by Johann Strauß II called "Aschenbrödel", which has been used often in Austria or Germany, and which is used still, for example by Bridget Breiner for her Cinderella version called "Ruß" ("Soot") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aschenbrödel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2il75BVfRE There must be also a score by Frédéric d'Erlanger, as Mikhail Fokine made a Cinderella in 1938 for the Ballets Russes de Colonel W. de Basil Balanchine did his version of Don Quixote with a new score by Nicolas Nabokov https://www.balanchine.com/Ballet/don-quixote

Debuts in John Neumeier’s Lady of the Camellias at Hamburg: Madoka Sugai and Alessandro Frola will dance Marguerite and Armand for the first time on January 17. and 20., in the same cast there will be debuts by the very young Ana Torrequebrada as Prudence, Artem Prokopchuk as Gaston and Eleanor Broughton as Olympia. Ida Praetorius and Jacopo Bellussi dance on the 19., it’s their Hamburg debut after they danced the main roles at a tour to Venice

Alina Cojocaru dances Marguerite in John Neumeier's Lady of the Camellias at Hamburg on January 10. and 14. If you have not seen her in the role, she is the best next to Marcia Haydée who once created the role, imho.

Hi Richard C, for this question I have bad news - Germany companies are quite late in publishing the casting. If you get it one month in advance, you're a lucky guy, often it's just two weeks before. Don't start to check before the end of January. For Munich, you'll find it with the details for the piece: https://www.staatsoper.de/en/productions/la-bayadere For Berlin here: https://www.staatsballett-berlin.de/spielplan/stueck-detail/stid/william-forsythe/101.html#a_199 For Dresden it's already online!! https://www.semperoper.de/en/whats-on/schedule/stid/sleeping-beauty/54849.html#a_30375 For Leipzig with the details for the piece: https://www.oper-leipzig.de/de/programm/der-kleine-prinz/546 For Prague it's online: https://www.narodni-divadlo.cz/en/show/forsythe-or-clug-or-mcgregor-3266489?t=2024-02-29-19-00 For Hamburg, the casts will appear in the calendar https://www.hamburgballett.de/en/schedule/index.php Information about Guided Tours for the Narodni Divadlo at Prague is here: https://www.narodni-divadlo.cz/en/show/guided-tours-at-the-national-theatre-en-1941032 I fear there are few restaurants or bars with ballet history in Germany 😳. In Munich, the famous Hofbräuhaus is near to the theatre (actually, directly next to the ballet centre Am Platzl), but also lots of other, more quiet bars or cosy restaurants in the town centre. The Leipzig Oper House is also near the town centre. you should find something within walking distance (by the way it's a beautiful house, so much space!). I haven't been to the Deutsche Oper Berlin in a long time, but there was some kind of opera café right across the street. In front of the Semperoper you'll find the Alte Wache or Schinkelwache with a café in it - it provides a beautiful view of the Theatre Place. John Neumeier's Odyssey is one of his older pieces, it's the Homer epic. It's been decades since it was on the schedule, so this should be interesting. It was made for the second generation of his famous dancer-actors, people like Ivan Liska, Ivan Urban, the Bubenicek twins - no idea how he will replace them, Hamburg was such a great company back then. I liked it very much, but that was 25 years ago. I would definetely recommend it, because Neumeier was a much better choreographer then - but on the other hand, Dresden is such a beautiful, beautiful town where you can spend much more than three days. Visit the museums, the bridges, the wonderful Frauenkirche, maybe take a tour to Saxon Switzerland. Right now, Dresden is flooded, but I suppose the waters will disappear until February.

... who is now working in "La Strada" for The Prague Chamber Ballet. It seems there has been some kind of break-up between the choreographer and the producers. https://x.com/JiriBubenicek/status/1737942162694897830?s=20

Fiona, if I would know the casts for Lensky and Olga, I would post them here. This is was the Bavarian State Ballet has offered until now. They regularly publish the casts who study the roles without the exact dates.