Which rarely-staged ballets would you like to see return to the repertory?

[Arky]

ROH is giving us all a chance to have a say!     Pointes of View: Which rarely-staged ballets would you like to see return to the repertory?

 

Following the first performance of The Two Pigeons at the Royal Opera House for 30 years, which forgotten classics would you love to see again?

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/pointes-of-view-which-rarely-staged-ballets-would-you-like-to-see-return-to-the-repertory

[Two Pigeons]

A Wedding Bouquet, Les Rendezvous - but only with the right designs and not the most recent ones - Macmillan's The Four Seasons. If we are allowed to suggest works for BRB I would like to see Paramour, Consort Lessons and Galentaries again together with Les Patineurs.

 

I will probably think of some others. Oh yes, Raymonda.

Edited November 24, 2015 by Two Pigeons

[Bluebird]

A Wedding Bouquet, Les Rendezvous - but only with the right designs and not the most recent ones - Macmillan's The Four Seasons. If we are allowed to suggest works for BRB I would like to see Paramour, Consort Lessons and Galentaries again together with Les Patineurs.

 

I will probably think of some others. Oh yes, Raymonda.

 

If you want to make sure this is seen by someone who might have it in their power to bring back any of these ballets, I suggest you post it on the ROH website.  Arky gave the link in her post above..

 

Here it is again:

 

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/pointes-of-view-which-rarely-staged-ballets-would-you-like-to-see-return-to-the-repertory

Edited November 24, 2015 by Bluebird

[Fiz]

Mayerling!

[zxDaveM]

Mayerling!

 

Think that's back next year - and was only on 2-3 years back anyway

[alison]

Well, The Invitation and Anastasia have dropped off my list - there are a number of ballets still on it, if I have time to think what they are.  NOT Les Illuminations.  Does Daphnis and Chloe count, or does the fact that BRB have danced it recently rule it out?  Tombeaux, Galanteries, Consort Lessons (which I think is the one the RB haven't danced since 1997, and they only gave a handful of performances, of which I think 2 were closed to the general public).  Page's Fearful Symmetries (as opposed to all the other versions).  Different Drummer - while Ed Watson's still around.  Dances at a Gathering, if that's been out of the rep long enough. 

[Don Q Fan]

Coppelia, Firebird, Raymonda, In The Middle..., more Balanchine - would be great if RB could get his Vienna Waltzes!

Edited November 24, 2015 by Don Q Fan

[Dance*is*life]

Enigma Variations - although I am not sure that I would love it as much without the divine Beriosova as Elgar's wife!

[northstar]

I agree with the votes for Raymonda (full ballet). I would add Le Papillon, although I don't think it was ever part of RB's repertoire; Wikipedia says Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet did in in 1980. 

Edited November 24, 2015 by northstar

[pianolady]

Checkmate- I've never seen this live- Bliss's music is so eerie and evocative and the theme of power and control is so eternally relevant.

 

Thanks for posting the link, have replied to that too.

Edited November 24, 2015 by pianolady

[bridiem]

General: more Ashton, more Balanchine, more classical. Specific: Capriol Suite, Les Rendezvous, Les Patineurs, Tombeaux, Galanteries, Sons of Horus, Consort Lessons, Concerto, Danses concertantes, Solitaire, Dances at a Gathering, Liebeslieder Walzer, Concerto Barocco, Ballet Imperial, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Four Schumann Pieces (esp for Muntagirov), Dances of Albion, Pierrot Lunaire.

[Lindsay]

I think it might be a case of careful what you wish for piano lady. The RBS did Checkmate at their summer matinee a few years back and I thought t very poor. Not sure choreography was really Madame's strongest suit....looked very dated and tame

[Jan McNulty]

I think it might be a case of careful what you wish for piano lady. The RBS did Checkmate at their summer matinee a few years back and I thought t very poor. Not sure choreography was really Madame's strongest suit....looked very dated and tame

 

BRB have performed Checkmate on a semi-regular basis over the last 20 years or so and I have grown to admire it more as time has passed.  We saw some wonderful performances.

[Jan McNulty]

General: more Ashton, more Balanchine, more classical. Specific: Capriol Suite, Les Rendezvous, Les Patineurs, Tombeaux, Galanteries, Sons of Horus, Consort Lessons, Concerto, Danses concertantes, Solitaire, Dances at a Gathering, Liebeslieder Walzer, Concerto Barocco, Ballet Imperial, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Four Schumann Pieces (esp for Muntagirov), Dances of Albion, Pierrot Lunaire.

 

BRB are performing Solitaire on midscale South in 2016.

 

I agree with your specifics except perhaps Pierrot Lunaire.

[Lindsay]

Interesting Janet - maybe I shouldn't judge on student performances....

[bridiem]

BRB have performed Checkmate on a semi-regular basis over the last 20 years or so and I have grown to admire it more as time has passed.  We saw some wonderful performances.

 

I have a feeling that Checkmate is quite a difficult ballet for very young dancers to perform; I think it needs maturity, stage presence, a theatrical awareness etc that is more likely to be found in older dancers. I have also seen some wonderful performances of it.

[Jan McNulty]

I didn't like Checkmate when I first saw it, but it grew on my and I came to admire its structure.

[bridiem]

BRB are performing Solitaire on midscale South in 2016.

 

 

Thanks Janet - I'll look out for it.

[Lindsay]

I think theatrical presence is right bridiem. There is a certain stagey (and dare I say camp) aesthetic about much British ballet of that period which performers have to fully embrace otherwise it all looks a bit half hearted and embarrassed.....

[Sim]

Didn't the RB do Checkmate a few years back? I know I've seen it a couple of times in the not tooo distant past!

 

As they are on a bit of an Ashton roll at the moment, why not bring back Sylvia and Ondine? Both were painstakingly revived, and they now seem to have slipped out of rep for some reason. I agree with many of the suggestions above, but like Janet I would draw the line at Pierrot Lunaire...

[FLOSS]

It is interesting that some of you want a full length version of Raymonda.Does the company really need another nineteenth century Petipa ballet when it does not perform all of de Valois' acquisitions on a regular basis and major Ashton works are not performed regularly either? The only twentieth century choreographer whose major contributions to the full length repertory are performed regularly is Macmillan.Manon opened the 2014-15 season, Romeo and Juliet opened this season so it is fair to assume that we shall see Mayerling again next year.

 

May I ask those of you who have suggested Raymonda whether you are asking for a production of it because you want to see it or because you don't think that the company can survive without it? Is it to be a Soviet version or a reconstruction using the Stepanov notation by which I mean a version that Petipa might actually recognise as his work?

 

The question is "What rarely staged ballets would you like to see restored to the repertory?" Not what ballets would you like to see next season? MacMillan's major full length works are performed virtually to timetable as set out above.I don't think that the fact that BRB has performed a ballet in the last five years is a reason to hold back from asking the Covent Garden company to revive it. Ballets only live in performance and there is no guarantee that any Ashton ballets revived by BRB such as Daphnis and Chloe will be performed as a regular repertory piece by that company except in the season that it is revived.

Edited November 25, 2015 by FLOSS

[FLOSS]

The reason I said that the question is not about what you want to see next year but what has not been performed for a long time is because people have suggested a couple of MacMillan's works that have been revived fairly recently and one that seems to be on a three yearly cycle of revival.

 

One of the MacMillan works that really ought to be revived is The Four Seasons. A pure dance work which all the critics were very enthusiastic about when it was new. It is a company work and was performed several times and then inexplicably disappeared from the repertory. I believe that POB acquired it and the dancers and critics there did not like it very much. The impression that I got at the time of the Paris performances was that their dislike of the ballet was more to do with not wanting to dance the works of British choreographers than anything else. It was a very long time ago. Long before POB acquired La Fille mal Gardee and Manon.It is a ballet that has not been seen at Covent Garden since 1980, apart from a tiny snippet of a joke that goes on for slightly too long,that turned up in the RBS annual main stage performance a couple of years ago

 

I think that if we ask for a ballet to be revived that has been staged at Covent Garden in the last five years RB management will think that they have got programming right and we shall simply get more of what we are getting at present.Anyone who is uncertain about when a ballet was last performed by the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden can get most of the information they need from looking at the Royal Opera House performance database. It is not 100% accurate but it is batter than nothing.

Edited November 25, 2015 by FLOSS

[Mary]

Floss I agree with what you say and -as well as more Ashton- including Wedding Bouquet and Rendezvous-I would like to see Macmillan's Four Seasons and will suggest that to RB. What about Concerto- might that be worthy of revival? I have never seen it.

[LinMM]

Love the Four Schumann pieces thanks for reminding me about them!!

Dances at a Gathering I would love to be more regular as Macmillans Concerto .....but this latter is danced from time to time. I'd go to see Raymonda any time as just love the music. When I saw the final act for the first time in my 20's I went straight out to a very good music Library ....in Acton I believe it was then ...and got out the whole ballet music....probably drove everyone else mad continually playing it now come to think of it!

I used to love Les Patineurs as well but this was so long ago not sure what I'd think of it today.

Edited November 25, 2015 by LinMM

[FLOSS]

Might I suggest that if we include in our wish list pieces that have been seen in the last five years we add them as a postscript to the effect that it would be a pity if works like Concerto were allowed to slip out of the repertory. Actually Concerto was last performed in 2012 and has been revived several times since 2000 so it does not seem in danger of being lost. There are other works such as Capriol Suite that have not been seen since the 1980's.A lot of Ashton works were revived in 2004 and have not been seen since and Birthday Offering which was last seen in Mason's final year as director was so badly danced then that it really should be revived with dancers who might actually be able to dance it.The last time that it was really danced well by the company was in the late 1970's.

[Melody]

I don't know how well it's aged, but I enjoyed seeing Glen Tetley's Voluntaries back in the 1970s. I may have fond memories because I like the music rather than anything to do with the ballet itself, because I've just googled it and seen some lukewarm reviews, but I normally don't like abstract ballets all that much so it must have had something I could connect to.

Edited November 26, 2015 by Melody

[bangorballetboy]

The Royal Ballet performed Voluntaries in 2011.  In a bill with Rite and Scènes de ballet, IIRC.  I enjoyed the clash between the 3 different styles.  Agreed on the music for Voluntaries.

[Fonty]

I am trying to remember the last time I saw Les Patineurs.  It was on either a double or triple bill, before they started shoving it in with Tales of Beatrix Potter, which does it a great injustice, and it was a bit of a curate's egg, I seem to remember.  This was because, yet again, some of it wasn't very well danced.

[Lindsay]

Patineurs was done in the Christmas seasons of 2009/10 and 2010/11.  I remember going to an insight on the pas de deux.  And it must have been with Beatrix Potter because the other half of the insight was the Squirrel dance.  

 

I quite like Patineurs - and I think the blue boy role suited McRae's style and stage persona better than anything else I've seen him in.  But I agree that not all of the roles were brilliantly performed that season

[FLOSS]

The four greatest choreographers of the twentieth century were Ashton, Balanchine, Robbins and Tudor.Should we ask for the opportunity to see Tudor's works? He is part of the history of the development of British ballet and made many extraordinary works. Then there are the Diaghilev ballets that both De Valois and Ashton acquired. They were not acquired to provide ballets because the company had no choreographers but to provide the company and its audience with an opportunity to know the great ballets of the early twentieth century.Hardly anyone has seen a Massine ballet and Petrushka has not been seen for about twenty years. Should we be content with the lack of exposure that we have to the Diaghilev repertory or the fact that, other than Pineapple Poll, we rarely see any one act works by John Cranko?

 

The fact that the company struggled to cast Les Patineurs appropriately is reason to keep it in the active repertory not to drop it. It was made when the company was developing and like Les Rendezvous it provides really testing and exposed choreography for all involved. There is no hiding place for those whose technique is not all that it should be.

Edited November 26, 2015 by FLOSS

[Two Pigeons]

I think your point about Tudor is very valid FLOSS. The Royal Ballet seem to have a near schizophrenic relationship with his work and pieces such as Dark Elegies and Lilac Garden don't seem to have been performed in Britain for decades. I have only seen Lilac Garden once, at the old Sadler's Wells and by a foreign company. Sorry, cannot remember which one.

 

I would love a chance to see Gala Performance. I did see Shadowplay once with Anthony Dowell and Derek Rencher in the 80s. It did not impress me that much but it is a piece I would welcome seeing again now that my ballet experience has broadened. I had forgotten about Pillar of Fire but I have this rather dim memory of Marion Tait and Joe Cipolla doing it rather well. I have got that wrong I am sure someone will correct me.

 

Regrettably Tudor has few advocates left now and I am not sure how well his work is recorded. However, he did have most of his success in The States so it may well be that much of it is preserved in a number of ways.

[bangorballetboy]

Ever Tudor piece I've seen (including Lilac Garden) is too intimate to work well on the ROH main stage.  Perhaps in the Linbury (but the management have previously said there's not enough time to rehearse and put on shows in the Linbury, though we could work on them on this).

[Fonty]

The only Tudor I have seen is The Leaves are Fading, which I think was promptly rechristened The Fades are Leaving.  I can't remember much about it, apart from the fact that I thought the costumes looked a bit insipid.

 

I would love to see a proper performance of Birthday Offering.  The last time I saw it, Rojo was dancing the Fonteyn role.  I am a huge fan of Rojo, but I never really liked her in anything non dramatic, and this occasion was no different.  She was technically fine, but rather cold.  Looking at the current crop of females, who would you cast in the various parts, particularly the Fonteyn one?