Wheeldon Triple Bill - February/March 2016

[Indigo]

 

However, diverging from the actual programme, what I wanted to ask was what train company the £15 offer was with, and whether it operates in the other direction as well. 

 

Thanks, Alison. It's with South West Trains: 

From 26th January - 30 April 2016*, we're offering advance off-peak day return tickets for just £15 adults & £5 kids, to over 170 destinations across the South West Trains network! You can save up to 78%*!

 

I hope it's an offer you can take advantage of too. It's meant I can book quite a few trips to the ROH plus other excursions in London over the coming months - I just have to remember to book my train ticket before the day I want to travel! 

 

[Edited to restore the bold effect]

Edited February 14, 2016 by Indigo

[Indigo]

I noticed that McRae had yanked the legs of his shorts up as far as they would go, Golding had hitched his up a bit, but Muntagirov had, if anything, pulled his down!!!!

 

That explains it - I noticed the different leg lengths but not why! Personally, I thought Muntagirov had just the height/body proportion combination to actually pull off this particular design of costume.

 

 

Isn't there anyone with an eye for aesthetics who can put in a word to the wise in the design stages?

 

I've noticed on a number of occasions when seeing different casts in the same production, that whoever is cast in the male principal role is required to wear exactly the same costume irrespective of whether it's flattering to them or not. Plus the men often seem to keep their own natural hair colour, unlike the women who'll wear wigs.

 

To my eye, someone with dark hair like Federico Bonelli usually looks good & stands out whatever he's required to wear on stage. Whereas dancers like Vadim with his lighter brown hair can sometimes seem to fade away & blend into the scenery. Maybe it's because I'm usually up in the Amphi, but I particularly remember thinking in Manon that Vadim's hair & eyebrows could have done with being darkened a little with that particular costume! 

[alison]

Thanks, Alison. It's with South West Trains: 

From 26th January - 30 April 2016*, we're offering advance off-peak day return tickets for just £15 adults & £5 kids, to over 170 destinations across the South West Trains network! You can save up to 78%*!

 

I hope it's an offer you can take advantage of too. It's meant I can book quite a few trips to the ROH plus other excursions in London over the coming months - I just have to remember to book my train ticket before the day I want to travel! 

 

Thanks, Indigo - I suspected as much.  Interesting that it was valid for the week BRB were down in Southampton, yet didn't show up when I was looking for fares back then - I might have gone to one of the matinees if I'd known

 

Is there any other dance or anything down at the Mayflower before the end of April, does anybody know?

[Indigo]

Interesting that it was valid for the week BRB were down in Southampton, yet didn't show up when I was looking for fares back then - I might have gone to one of the matinees if I'd known

 

Is there any other dance or anything down at the Mayflower before the end of April, does anybody know?

 

There's lots on at the Mayflower depending on your taste - www.mayflower.org.uk/Whats_On?br=shows

At least four different dance events, including Nederlands Dans Theatre 2 & Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty. Plus opera, drama, musicals...

 

The £15 fare may not have shown if your journey didn't start at a South West Trains station / part of its network. 

 

It might be worth looking at the whether the cost of splitting your ticket works out cheaper. So that one ticket gets you to/from the start of the £15 zone & the other ticket is the £15 offer. Good luck!

[Jan McNulty]

Well, after a horrendous journey to London I got to ROH just as the audience was pouring out of the auditorium at the end of After the Rain.  You can imagine my feelings as that is the work I had specifically booked to see!

 

I'm not quite sure what I thought of Strapless and haven't got another opportunity to see it.  First thoughts are that it falls between 2 stools - it could have been a really taut chamber-work or it could have been a 3-acter with plenty of time for character development.  The music was OK but didn't excite me.  I really liked the set and costumes - I would kill for the robe that Amelie wore near the start!

 

The performances of the leads were top notch.  I thought Lauren Cuthbertson was absolutely ravishing as Amelie.  She came across as a brittle, passionate social-climber and her devastation at her social rejection was deeply moving.  I felt she really fleshed out a role that could have just been a cipher.  I did think the ballet was going to come alight with her duet with her lover.  There was one tiny little movement at the start of the duet where she touched Reece Clarke and it just sent shivers down my spine.  I loved that duet.  I also loved the trio between her, Sargent and his lover.  Valeri Hristov brought a lot of emotion to the role of Sargent too.

 

I would have liked another opportunity to see this work just to see if I felt any differently after a better journey, for example.

 

I loved Within the Golden Hour when I saw it a couple of years ago and I loved it again yesterday.  Once again Francesca Hayward provide that she is one of the brightest stars in the firmament.  She came on stage, she breathed and she was wonderful!  Yuhui Choe and Alexander Campbell showed yet again that they are a partnership I want to see over and over again.  I loved their witty duet.  

 

All the cast danced well and showed yet again that the Royal Ballet is brimful of young talent.

[alison]

The £15 fare may not have shown if your journey didn't start at a South West Trains station / part of its network. 

 

Ah, of course.  I'd have needed to get to London/Clapham Junction.  OTOH, I don't usually look for combined tickets from home because I know they tend to be a rip-off, so perhaps I am still a bit surprised.  I imagine I'd have put in Waterloo to Soton on the National Rail website.

 

I suppose I *could* try getting to see Sleeping Beauty there - it'd solve the problem of trying to fit it in at Wimbledon during Holy Week - but the seating prices are horribly expensive.  I really don't fancy paying over £20 for worst seats in the house.  (If anyone spots a ticket offer, please post!)

[capybara]

Pleeeeease can we not turn this otherwise interesting thread into one where every other post seems to be about transport and/or other entertainment options?

 

Maybe it's time we had a section on the forum devoted in some way to such queries - yes, I know, I know: that would be really difficult to achieve.

[alison]

4 out of 72 replies is hardly "every other post", capybara.

[capybara]

4 out of 72 replies is hardly "every other post", capybara.

 

Post numbers 67, 69, 70 and 72, Alison. I rest my case.

 

[by the way, I hope you've sorted your difficulties OK?]

[FLOSS]

Strapless is the story of a woman whose social position was destroyed by a portrait which John Singer Sargent painted of her. On Friday night Strapless seemed interminable on Saturday afternoon it seemed a lot shorter. I don't think that this is simply because I knew what to expect.

 

If Strapless is the story of a woman's social ostracism then the ballet stands or falls on how effectively her story is told. This must mean that all the other characters, including the famous society painter,are supporting roles.It seems that somewhere along the way Mr Wheeldon lost sight of this fact and became far too interested in the supporting characters and their lives and that as a result the ballet lost its focus.Do we need to know that Amelie is having an affair with a famous doctor who was also painted by the same society portraitist? Possibly as it does tell you something more about her. However I am not persuaded that knowing that Sargent had a male lover adds anything of substance to the story of Amelie's social ostracism.

 

As far as the narrative is concerned the scene in the café with the cancan dancers might make sense if the ballet was about Sargent, the painter, but it adds little to the story of the woman who is supposed to be at the centre of our interest. But perhaps Mr Wheeldon thinks we need to be reminded that the story is set in Paris, France, or perhaps he forgot that he was not choreographing An American in Paris. He would have done better to show us a scene in which Amelie was obviously moving in the highest social circles that way her loss of social position might have had some sort of impact. At present it's a case of who cares?

 

I think that the supporting roles in both casts were well taken but the second cast made considerably more from the material that Wheeldon had given them than the first cast managed simply because Lauren Cuthbertson made more of her role than Osipova had managed. In large part this was attributable to the use Cuthbertson made of the little naturalistic gestures that Wheeldon had given her character.

 

In its current form Strapless lacks a coherent structure. It is most unlikely to be improved by being extended to three acts.A one act narrative ballet needs a beginning , a middle and an end. A three act ballet needs a clear trajectory as well as a structure to each act. If the slim idea on which this ballet was based were extended to three acts it would be even worse than MacMillan's three act Isadora.

Edited February 14, 2016 by FLOSS

[Jan McNulty]

In its current form Strapless lacks a coherent structure. It is most unlikely to be improved by being extended to three acts.A one act narrative ballet needs a beginning , a middle and an end. A three act ballet needs a clear trajectory as well as a structure to each act. If the slim idea on which this ballet was based were extended to three acts it would be even worse than MacMillan's three act Isadora.

 

 

But surely that depends on how the scenario is developed...

[RuthE]

There's lots on at the Mayflower depending on your taste - www.mayflower.org.uk/Whats_On?br=shows

At least four different dance events, including Nederlands Dans Theatre 2 & Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty. Plus opera, drama, musicals...

 

The £15 fare may not have shown if your journey didn't start at a South West Trains station / part of its network. 

 

It might be worth looking at the whether the cost of splitting your ticket works out cheaper. So that one ticket gets you to/from the start of the £15 zone & the other ticket is the £15 offer. Good luck!

 

But if you're going to an evening performance, watch out for the long-term overnight engineering works in the Southampton area as you might find yourself on a rail replacement bus service.

 

(Sorry for off-topic remark but I thought it was important!)

[Mummykool]

Gosh, three acts of Strapless with that awful music? Count me out please.

[Jan McNulty]

Gosh, three acts of Strapless with that awful music? Count me out please.

 

 

It wouldn't necessarily have to be that music ... it was just a thought dump that it could be a 3-acter!

[Fonty]

I am still a bit puzzled by the whole story.  Was Virginie Gautreau really ruined by this portrait?  She was living in Paris, and I thought it was the norm for married couples to have lovers, even in those days.  At least. that's what my French friends are always telling me (usually after criticising the Brits for "being so prudish about these things")

[Jan McNulty]

I think it's one of those things ... If it goes on behind closed doors it's one thing but flaunting it in public is another. I suspect a member of high society would cause quite a scandal with a publicly exhibited portrait considered risqué.

[Fonty]

Ah, so full blown nudes are fine, but a dress with a slipping strap is considered too sexy.

 

I will never understand the world of art, never! 

[Jan McNulty]

Ah, so full blown nudes are fine, but a dress with a slipping strap is considered too sexy.

 

I will never understand the world of art, never! 

 

 

I don't think they were bothered about states of undress as such just one of themselves being depicted like that in public!

[Jamesrhblack]

Ah, so full blown nudes are fine, but a dress with a slipping strap is considered too sexy.

 

I will never understand the world of art, never! 

 

Isn't the point that Manet's Olympie was explicitly a professional lady, whereas Sargent's Mme X was, in theory, a lady of society and that the scandal was caused by her apparent endorsement of a less than saintly life style, the point being that whilst people accepted lovers as a fact of life behind closed doors, the slightest whiff of public importunity was devastating to your public image.

[Jamesrhblack]

 However I am not persuaded that knowing that Sargent had a male lover adds anything of substance to the story of Amelie's social ostracism.

 

Floss, usually I agree with almost everything you write but on this I disagree. Surely, the point is that the artist finds inspiration where it strikes and that Sargent's passion for his lover informed his ability to create a portrait of Amélie: the programme had some interesting pictures showing blurring of visual images by the artist between the two...

[Indigo]

Isn't the point that Manet's Olympie was explicitly a professional lady, whereas Sargent's Mme X was, in theory, a lady of society and that the scandal was caused by her apparent endorsement of a less than saintly life style, the point being that whilst people accepted lovers as a fact of life behind closed doors, the slightest whiff of public importunity was devastating to your public image.

 

That's what I was wondering in my earlier post (#59): is Dr Pozzi included to show that as a professional man, his reputation could survive, maybe even be enhanced by a daring / suggestive painting (which was done a year or two before Madame X). But Amélie Gautreau, who also moved in high Parisian social circles could not because she was a woman & different standards applied?

 

I have no in-depth historical knowledge & haven't read the book, but that would make more sense to me than to just use Dr Pozzi to depict an affair or Sargent painting another portrait. Without this element, the basic story of Strapless - woman loses social position due to bad luck in pose chosen for a portrait - feels rather vapid to me.

 

[Edited: Added for clarity & forgot the ?]

Edited February 15, 2016 by Indigo

[FLOSS]

Sim, Full blown nudes were perfectly acceptable in late nineteenth century Paris as long as they were either life drawings which were deemed essential  to an artist's study and development or they were finished works which were art. At the time that this ballet is set paintings including nudes were often set in classical times and referred either to mythology or historical events which made  the nudes acceptable. and meant that they could be hung in the public spaces of the owner's residence and openly admired. Possession of such paintings was a statement about the owner's taste. It was the people who were employed as artist's models,

some of whom posed in the nude,who were not acceptable in polite society.

 

As far as the picture itself is concerned you have to forget  everything you know about Impressionism and all the art movements that we now regard as typical of this period. Manet's Olympe which is now regarded as a masterpiece  was not greeted with enthusiasm by the sort of people that Amelie aspired to move among. Membership of high society was as difficult to acquire in France as anywhere else and very easily lost as Amelie discovered. The style of portraiture that they expected  displayed their wealth and their position in society.They were looking for someone who had learnt from Rubens and Lawrence and could give them portraits which expressed the permanence of their position in society as people who obeyed the rules and were to be respected. The original version of Amelie's portrait suggested that she was not above reproach and did not obey the rules and hinted that  she was available and therefore more like an artist's model rather than a society lady.

 

But that is the problem with this ballet you need to know a lot about the nineteenth century Parisian  society in  which Amelie lived to understand why the portrait in its original form  caused a scandal , To a modern audience it seems like a storm in a teacup.. I am afraid that I go along with the idea that a ballet which requires copious notes to enable me to understand it has failed as the choreographer has clearly selected an unsuitable subject for his work.

 

At the very least I expect a man who has been choreographing for  twenty years to have a real understanding of the strengths and limitations of his art form  and even if he does not make many narrative works to have  more of an idea of the sort of story that might make a good ballet than Wheeldon has shown with this.

 

 

. 

Edited February 15, 2016 by FLOSS

[John Mallinson]

Floss, usually I agree with almost everything you write but on this I disagree. Surely, the point is that the artist finds inspiration where it strikes and that Sargent's passion for his lover informed his ability to create a portrait of Amélie: the programme had some interesting pictures showing blurring of visual images by the artist between the two...

 

 

All I know about the relationship between Sargent and Amélie Gautreau is what I've gleaned from Wikipedia. It seems that her portrait was not a commission (which is why it ended up in Sargent's hands in London) but something that the painter was keen to do to enhance his reputation as a portrait painter in Paris. In other words here were two expat Americans on the make in different ways. The elision of the images of Amélie and Albert de Belleroche makes for a clever and effective scene in the ballet, but was it based on fact?

[Jamesrhblack]

The elision of the images of Amélie and Albert de Belleroche makes for a clever and effective scene in the ballet, but was it based on fact?

 

 

If you look at the picture reproached in the ROH programme it seems that it was...

[Coated]

I'm not sure that the 'double portrait' is fact - it is represented as fact in some sources, regarded as speculation in others.

 

Strapless the novel does seem to be a little on the lurid side, and I'm not sure how some of the facts sit with later portraits of Mdme being painted (one with a dangling strap...) and well received

Edited February 16, 2016 by Coated

[Jamesrhblack]

I'm not sure that the 'double portrait' is fact - it is represented as fact in some sources, regarded as speculation in others.

 

Strapless the novel does seem to be a little on the lurid side, and I'm not sure how some of the facts sit with later portraits of Mdme being painted (one with a dangling strap...) and well received

 

I don't know about a "double portrait" but the profiles shown in the images reproduced in the programme are remarkably similar...

[capybara]

As might have been anticipated, Clement Crisp did not like Strapless. To sum up: "The piece lasts 45 numbing minutes and says little about the protagonists and their world save to suggest that ..... (names of dancers and their characters given) .....should start digging an escape tunnel".

 

Crisp also writes that After the Rain "is redeemed by a touching duet" and the Within the Golden Hour "provides Wheeldon with the occasion to challenge and illuminate his cast with dances of fluent skill".

Edited February 16, 2016 by capybara

[Vanartus]

Re CC in the FT: praised by faint damnation ????

[aileen]

I wasn't greatly taken by this bill this evening.

 

After the Rain was ok, and the pdd was danced very movingly by Nunez and Soares, but, as others have said, it was as if two different works had been stuck together. I enjoyed the first part at the time but, as I write this, I can't remember much about it. Mendizabel seemed to be the most successful in getting the feel of the first section.

 

Strapless was a bit of a curate's egg. The pdd for Osipova and Bonelli and the pas de trois were the best parts of the choreography. I liked the opening with Osipova standing alone on the stage and the bit just before the end when the wall with her picture moves towards her threatening to knock her down. The low point was the scene in the bar with the dancing with the chairs and the Can-Can dancers - such a cliche and quite crass.

 

I felt that Within the Golden Hour did not sit that comfortably on the RB and that some of the junior dancers were rather better than some of the principals. Perhaps I was just a bit tired but I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would, having really looked forward to it.

 

Did anyone else see this evening's performance?

Edited February 17, 2016 by aileen

[MAB]

Just saw Strapless for the first time, not impressed, though quite liked the music.

 

The final scene, with the art historian presumably telling the story of the painting with its subject looking on, reminded me of an episode of Dr Who where Vincent Van Gogh is transported forward in time to convince him of the reverence he receives from modern day art lovers.  When my mind wanders as far as a TV sci-fi series, I know I'm seeing something for the first and last time.

 

On the other hand loved the rest of the programme and thought the dancer all on top form.

[Vanartus]

I'll be brief. A triple bill of any one choreographer is a big ask, and to a large extent Wheeldon pulled it off with a good mix of two imported abstracts and one home-grown narrative. I'll focus on Strapless. Most of the constructive criticism was justified. The snide stuff not. Music was far better than I expected after reading such condescending comments. Ballet started and finished with strength - Osipova both reticent and superb, and the key PDD and PDT amazingly danced and well constructed. Total commitment from all. I liked the set and the figures in black on black were strong images. In fact for me it worked as a tight symbolic "dark" work looking at the folly of vanity from a voyeuristic view point. It fell down when Wheeldon tried to extend this by adding a bit of light entertainment - the cancan bar scene, and even the husband/wife characters. Get rid of those, and you'd have a brittle, superficial dark jewel of a piece (cf the taut structure of Moor's Pavane) which would need to explain less (btw the plot is not THAT difficult!) and would show a lot more.

Edited February 17, 2016 by Vanartus

[capybara]

I was very sorry to see that a number of people left before Within the Golden Hour last night. It is possible that, at 9.15 ish, they thought to themselves, "Another long interval and the last ballet won't start until twenty to ten." But they missed the best bit.

 

Come to think of it, it can't be much fun for the dancers who have to wait around until really late for the ballet they are in.

[Balletfanp]

Maybe they were just there to see Osipova in Strapless. If they have a good reason for leaving early, then fine, but otherwise I think it is incredibly disrespectful to the dancers - who, as you say, Capybara, have had to wait around to perform.