Pineapple Poll etc.

[Jacqueline]

I am wondering if anyone can help me with this. Having seen Pineapple Poll recently,courtesy of the BRB, I realised I had seen it before many(many!) years ago at the Theatre Royal in Brighton. I seem to recall it being part of a mixed bill with possibly the Swedish Ballet. One of the other pieces was the Balcony Scene from Romeo and Juliet,with Margot Fonteyn. Can this be right? My mother took me to see it so it must have been in the 70's.Does this ring any bells?

[Jane S]

Jacqueline, could it have been this one?

 

May 17th, 1973

Theatre Royal, Brighton

 

Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet

 

Allegro Brillante

Tilt

Pas de deux with Fonteyn and Desmond Kelly

Pineapple Poll

 

It doesn't say what the pas de deux was but she had danced the R&J balcony pd2 with the company the year before. So far as I can see this evening was a one-off, the only time on this tour she danced with the company.

[hfbrew]

Oh for a time machine! I would love to see that!

[Jacqueline]

Jane S! You are a star! It must have been this. I would have been ten years old, so on the cusp of it no longer being cool to go out with ones parents! I remember the pas de deux, as Margot was obviously past her prime and quite frail, but still had that magic that made seeing her so exciting. Are you from Brighton by chance? I don't suppose you recall the night of Swan Lake by a visiting company, when they overdid the dry ice - it is a small theatre - the entire auditorium was engulfed and all you could hear were coughs and cries of 'I can't see anything'. This would have been early eighties! Happy days, sounds like I go to all the best gigs.

[alymer]

Was it in fact the balcony scene from MacMillan's Romeo? About that time Fonteyn was dancing George Skibine's Romeo and Juliet pas de deux which is danced to the Tchaikovsky overture. I certainly remember seeing her dance it with what was then called the Royal Ballet New Group.