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I very much enjoyed the live stream tonight. The Munich company gave a very good account of themselves in each piece. Ashley Bouder was fantastic, I thought, in Rubies. Alina Somova danced with cool precision and allure in Diamonds, just about coping with the brisk tempi in the final segment! A special mention for Vladimir Shklyarov who is really dancing on top form at the moment (appearing in The Little Humpbacked Horse last night at the Mariinsky and presumably flying to Munich this morning) - it was a great pleasure to see again his elan and musicality. I look forward to watching the performance all over again tomorrow!

I had the fortune of being in New York to see two of NYCB's programs and I wrote reviews on both of them - Jewels and All Balanchine. I would love to hear your opinions, especially about Symphony in C because it's a ballet that I wanted to like but just didn't. Do I give it another chance?

Anyone fearing withdrawal symptoms when the RB's run of Jewels ends on Friday could pop over to Copenhagen on Saturday and see the Royal Danish Ballet's first night! They haven't danced it before so everyone is new to it - there are some nice photos online and although unfortunately the company seems to have stopped adding captions to identify the dancers, anyone who's caught the recent online Giselle or R&J will recognise at least some of them,. I'm hoping to see a performance later in the run, but if someone sees it before then, please report back!

Paris Opera Ballet and The Bolshoi are to collaborate with New York City Ballet in 5 performances next summer, 20-23 July 2017, to celebrate 50 years of Balanchine's trilogy Jewels. POB will dance Emeralds, NYCB Rubies and the Bolshoi Diamonds. Later in the run NYCB and the Bolshoi will swap. Each company will use it's own costumes, so Lacroix for POB, Karinska for NYCB and Zaitseva for The Bolshoi. Should be a fantastic treat to see this!! http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/arts/dance/celebrating-balanchines-jewels-with-an-international-flair.html?smid=tw-nytimesarts&smtyp=cur

We have had the casting discussions elsewhere, but the performances start today so all views to be posted here, please. Do let us know what you think!

My sister is now selling her ticket for this Thursday 6th April. I will be there to hand over ticket in person on the night. ROH Jewels, 7.30pm Upper Amphitheatre P46 £24 PM me if interested.

It has been reported in Paris that the performances already announced for New York of 3 national companies performing the three ballets of Jewels, will be reprised in September, opening the Paris season with Paris Opera Ballet, New York City Ballet and the Bolshoi respectively dancing Emeralds, Rubies and Diamonds

I was very pleased to be able to go to Amsterdam last weekend for 3 performances of Balanchine's wonderful Jewels trilogy and was most definitely NOT disappointed. What a fabulous set of performances I saw. As you know I am not well versed in the technicalities of ballet so it is just a case of what was nice etc... The run had been staged/coached by Elise Bourne and the wonderful Patricia Neary from the Balanchine Trust and by seeing 3 performances I saw an amazing cross section of the dance talent at Dutch National Ballet. Emeralds was beautifully danced each day - the corps were lovely and included Michaela dePrince so it was lovely to see her and then meet her at a post performance signing session on the Sunday (they do these signings at DNB - great idea!). The only principal of the women to dance Emeralds was on Saturday when Jurgita Dronina was the lead in the first couple with the lovely Marijn Rademaker, newly arrived from Stuttgart. In all 3 Emeralds, however, First Soloist Qian Liu partnered by principal Artur Shesterikov impressed me as the second couple. Qian had lovely arms although her clock movements looked like they were hard to perform. Of the 3 pas de trois teams in Emeralds by far the best was Saturday as Young Gyu Choi was just wonderful - much more tidy than the Friday performance. Rubies was good on all 3 nights but I will come to Saturday's in a moment. Friday was danced by First Soloists Susanna Kaic and Sasha Mukhamedov with principal Isaac Hernadez (soon to join ENB) and they were very good. The Sunday Matinee Rubies saw Young Gyu Choi partnering Megan Zimny Kaftira and Samantha Mednick and he got his chance to shine as he did in Emeralds. I really liked his powerful, precise dancing - he is definitely one to watch me thinks. Then there was the Saturday Rubies - OMG Maia Makhateli and Remi Wortmeyer were the lead couple with Ignone de Jongh as Tall Girl and they just blew Rubies out of the water..it was fabulous. Looks like that trio of principals really click together with a fabulous resulting performance. I loved the corps de ballet who were really together and the piece where the male lead is chased by the male corps was fun to watch. Ignone de Jongh performed Tall Girl beautifully and oozed all that pzazz demanded of Rubies. I think of the weekend this Rubies was definitely the stand out performance for me. Remi W was really enjoying himself (much like Steven Mcrae although Steven spins even faster!) and Maia Makhateli was a revelation I can't pinpoint one thing Maia did it was all fabulous and now I am a big fan! Maia had danced Diamonds on the Friday really beautifully with Artur Shesterikov, but I think her ultimate is Rubies! Which brings us to Diamonds...as I said Maia performed on Friday with Artur S and was just lovely and elegant and then on Saturday it was Anna Tsygankova with Josef Varga - after the comments about Anna T at ROH Don Q with Matthew Golding I was really interested to see her. She was a very authoritative dancer, very precise and beautiful, although unfortunately suffered a slip in her solo but she recovered amazingly well with, I hope, no lasting effects! I noted also in the shop that it is her who seems to star in all the DNB DVDs which is a shame as they have so many talented dancers. On Sunday Diamonds was performed by Jurgita Dronina with Isaac Hernandez - again really beautiful. The corps de ballet were great and the finale with 32 dancers on the huge stage was breathtaking. I especially enjoy watching what I call the "mirrored choreography" that Balanchine employs with left and right dancing with opposite lead feet and arms etc and it was very well executed by the dancers. It would be hard to determine which Diamonds was the best. I think DNB is just a quality company! I have to heap praise on the Orchestra - wow what an amazing sound they were wonderful under the baton of Andrea Quinn. And the pianist for Rubies was Michael Mouratch who had a wicked sense of humour, for when he took his bow on stage he topped off his black suit with a pair of bright RED shoes! Needless to say he played Stravinsky very well too! The stage sets were really good with just a plain stage and some subtle lighting with a hanging arrangement of elasticated threads which moved to form shapes like facets of the precious stones, it was really simple but very effective. On Saturday night I was seated just 2 seats away from Wayne McGregor and DNB's Director Ted Brandsen - I took the opportunity to chat to Wayne in the interval - what a nice man! He told me that he is bringing some of Paris Opera's dancers to the Manchester Opera House for the Manchester Festival later this year so I might just have to go to that even though, as I told him, I'm not a huge modern dance fan! Then just when I thought I didn't like modern, I really liked his Qualia in the ROH Gala on Wednesday LOL! With regard to the Het Nationale Theatre, and it being while since I have been there, I was really re-impressed by the theatre itself very bright and spacious with excellent facilities and with lovely catering (not too dear either) the auditorium was extremely comfortable and seats have wonderful views - the Dutch being tall have lots of leg room and seats are steeply raked so no big heads! The ticket prices were very good value IMHO. The DNB shop was great with a fabulous range of goods - related in some cases to the ballet being staged which showed great thought. There were loads of DVDs and great deals on them too! The DNB Friends desk had lots of signed pointe shoes for sale (like NYCB and ABT) they were EUR50 a pair which was nice, not that I bought any, but it is a nice idea and one I wish UK companies would introduce. They also had one of the Emeralds costumes on display which was a lovely touch and so nice to see close up details of the costume. I took lots of photos (pity I can put any up here!) Whilst I have had a hectic ballet week I can honestly say that I feel enriched by what I have seen this week and now have great memories. I am now really looking forward to seeing 2 performances of DNB's La Dame aux Camelias in Amsterdam in April - I reckon go if you can! And I dare say Cinderella in London later this year will be worth the trip too. I am really VERY impressed with DNB.

Just time before I go out to set up a new thread for the run of Jewels starting this evening. Please post your thoughts here.

This thread is to discuss any of the Bolshoi Ballet cinema broadcasts for this season. According to our original list on the "ballet in cinema" thread (http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/3251-ballet-in-the-cinema-2013-14-season/page-0), they are: October 20th Spartacus November 17th le Corsaire (repeat) December 22nd Sleeping Beauty (repeat) January 19th Jewels February 2nd Lost Illusions March 30 Golden Age Marco Spada although I have a feeling this may have changed?