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The Royal Ballet: The Sleeping Beauty performances, 2016-2017


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I am afraid on these forums I constantly have the feeling that people are pitting them against eachother and it leaves an uneasy taste.

Wasn't it Martina Navratilova who said that if Chris Evert hadn't been around the other might have won more medals but neither would have become such a great player.

 

I really don't see it as competition but there have long been these oppositions within the performing arts: Calls / Tebaldi, Sills / Sutherland; Rojo / Cojocaru, Bussell / Bull, Sibley / Park, Mason / Seymour, Wall / Dowell etc etc

 

Different people will respond to different attributes of different artists and may also find that even at the top levels one artist is better suited than another to particular repertoire, whilst there may also be roles where each brings something unique.

 

Comparative not competitive. I don't think that anybody is denying that both Francesca Hayward and Yasmine Naghdi are young ballerinas of outstanding ability and achievement whose future development is exciting to contemplate. If discussion leads to a greater understanding of their strengths and styles then that understanding cannot but help inform our own perception of not only their performances but of their colleagues and also our understanding of the demands and potentials of the art form that we value so highly.

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In Act 3 Puss-In-Boots and the White Cat are worthy of a mention with extra character details I hadn’t seen before and deservingly got many chuckles from the audience. Keven Emerton and Camille Bracher, two dancers I had not previously heard of.

Camille Bracher is a super actress. I first spotted her talent in that department when she was the "yellow" harlot in R&J during Mercutio's death scene, last run but one. Loved her white cat yesterday :)

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With all due respect tennis is competitive; dance performative. I personally find the 'comparison,' as I often do with all dancers misplaced and having no place in the arts.

 

 

 

We are all human and we all have preferences for whatever reason.  Personally I seem to be more drawn towards dancers on the shorter side of tall.

 

Anyone who has read my posts on this Forum can probably tell you who my favourite dancers are.  It does not mean to say that I don't like or admire other dancers or even that I think the dancers who are more to my personal taste are "better" than other dancers.  We are all different and have different ideas but that does not mean we are inventing a competition where none exists.

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Is this because it's publicly expressed Shya100?

 

In the end there must be occasions when "privately" you have enjoyed particular dancers in particular roles......although in the end for me at least the Dance itself is more important than any one dancer so to speak.

But in the natural flow of things I find I often book to see particular dancers in this way ,,,,,,though quite often at certain points in time one is spoilt for choice of course! It's just one hasn't got an endless flow of money so cannot see all!

 

I do think though that writing on this Forum about dancers it is important to remember that it is a public forum that's all ....and I do think the vast majority of posters here do.

 

Back in the day I absolutely loved Fonteyn but also often booked to see Sybley as well who was an equally exquisite dancer in certain roles etc.

Both And rather than Either Or I think.

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With all due respect tennis is competitive; dance performative. I personally find the 'comparison,' as I often do with all dancers misplaced and having no place in the arts.

 

So are you saying you would prefer posters not to comment on the dancers making their debuts in SB?  Every dancer has strengths and weaknesses.  Aren't we rather blessed by this embarrassment of riches that has developed within the ranks of the Royal Ballet?  I'll be seeing four Auroras that are new to me this season and there is a good chance that I'll like one better than the other three. My taste in the role was formed decades ago and I suspect the dancer that reminds me most of Margot Fonteyn will prove my favourite.  Such preferences are subjective of course.   The RB has a certain performance style in SB that make it (in my view) superior to the interpretations of other companies performing the work, to see important debuts in this particular ballet makes it doubly exciting for me, I'm hoping all the ladies will be superb, so please excuse me if I start gushing somewhat.

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Oh and gush away MAB!!

 

The problem for me these days is unless it's a standing ticket .....which rarely seem to be available....I don't like sitting in the really cheap seats and cannot bear any restrictive view so mainly front eight rows of Amphi for me with the occasional Balcony seat thrown in and these are not cheap seats by any means and not living in London any more also makes a lot of difference.

 

It would be nice to see some really great partnerships developing and also some more stand out men .....as back in the day again I would book to see Nureyev .....didn't care so much who he was dancing with!! But great if it happened to be Fonteyn of course.

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And I do apologise for spelling Sibleys name wrong.....I had a niggling doubt and have just checked write out 100 times Sibley Sibley Sibley.......

 

Sibley was the first Aurora I ever saw back in '64 with Desmond Doyle as her prince and Graham Usher and Merle Park as the Bluebirds.  It was also my first visit to the Royal Ballet.

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It's been lovely reading the reviews of Yasmine Naghdi and Matthew Ball's debuts in 'The Sleeping Beauty', it has only made me even more excited to be seeing them in the matinee on 25th Feb!

 

It's one of my favourite ballets and so please to be finally seeing it at the Royal Opera House, going to hope this week goes quickly!

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Really, at this late stage, there is absolutely nothing I can say that won't repeat another forumer's intelligent comments on the Naghdi/Ball matinee. But I would like to add my voice to the many praising their performances yesterday afternoon. I may or may not be feeling rather self-pitying as I contemplate the fact that I didn't book tickets for either tomorrow's Hayward/Campbell or Saturday's Naghdi/Ball when I had the chance, because a re-viewing would be heaven.

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A quick comment on Saturday evening - a delightful debut from Reece Clarke.

Thanks for the update :) - with only one short comment on Twitter and silence on here, I started to wonder whether Reece forgot to turn up or ran away with the lilac fairy instead of waking up Aurora.

 

Like pretty much everyone else, I thought the Hayward and Naghdi debuts were special. Hayward brings such warmth and joy to her performance, it's a pure delight to watch. There is a generosity in her stage personality that reminds me a little of Nunez.

 

Naghdi is poetry in motion and on occasion I was overwhelmed by the pure beauty of her dancing. I didn't quite get a sense of who her Aurora was, but expect that will be there in spades in the next run. I'm rather thrilled that I have another ticket to see her On Sat

 

I'm a little disappointed with some (most) of the group scenes. Some of that might be choreography (looking at you, Garlands), but some of the dancing remains a bit ragged around the edges which I wouldn't expect based on what the RB can achieve normally. I've wondered whether some of the cavaliers had enough time to rehearse with each other.

Edited by Coated
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So are you saying you would prefer posters not to comment on the dancers making their debuts in SB?  Every dancer has strengths and weaknesses.  Aren't we rather blessed by this embarrassment of riches that has developed within the ranks of the Royal Ballet?  I'll be seeing four Auroras that are new to me this season and there is a good chance that I'll like one better than the other three. My taste in the role was formed decades ago and I suspect the dancer that reminds me most of Margot Fonteyn will prove my favourite.  Such preferences are subjective of course.   The RB has a certain performance style in SB that make it (in my view) superior to the interpretations of other companies performing the work, to see important debuts in this particular ballet makes it doubly exciting for me, I'm hoping all the ladies will be superb, so please excuse me if I start gushing somewhat.

It is something about these two and I really don't know why but it is like an undercurrent. May have been better if they made principal at the same time. Could be they are both English, about the same age. I really don't know but it makes me feel uneasy.

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It is something about these two and I really don't know why but it is like an undercurrent. May have been better if they made principal at the same time. Could be they are both English, about the same age. I really don't know but it makes me feel uneasy.

I haven't felt this all - there's been nothing but effusive praise for both dancers on here, and any differences pointed out between the two are to highlight their strengths. I suppose I have noticed that one is often mentioned on these boards alongside the other, which is not something I have seen with pairs of star ballerinas of the same era, such as Cojocaru/Rojo, Guillem/Bussell, which I guess makes this notion of competition greater than it actually is.

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Thanks for the update :) - with only one short comment on Twitter and silence on here, I started to wonder whether Reece forgot to turn up or ran away with the lilac fairy instead of waking up Aurora.

 

 

It’s a pity that those of us who were there have been reluctant to post our thoughts in public.  This seems very unfair to Reece so I’ve decided I have to overcome my shyness and state that I thought his performance Saturday night was pretty special. His characterisation in Act 2 was especially moving.  If he was nervous it most certainly didn’t show in his dancing.  I can’t judge his technique from an expert point of view but, to my eyes, his two solos were impeccably done.  The partnering seemed to go well and my overall impression in the final act was that he was really enjoying himself.  A most auspicious debut.

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As far as I am concerned there is little wrong with the Royal Ballet's current production of Sleeping Beauty when it is danced as well as it has been so far during this revival, its basic choreographic text is sound and reflects London performing tradition; its set designs contain none of the visual eccentricities or distractions of the Bjornson designs for Dowell ; the costumes look opulent and read well in a theatre the size of the Opera House in a way that the anaemic pastel shades of the original designs for this production did not.This year's revisions include bringing the curtain down on a grand stage tableau at the end of the Prologue rather than the preparation for it and playing the score at a speed which both Petipa and Tchaikovsky would recognise. I can only hope that we have seen the last of the over indulgent Russian ballet conductors who have been involved with the Royal Ballet's performance of the ballet since 2003.

 

There are still  things which I would like to see revisited and revived. The first act needs a more interesting opening than Wheeldon's Garland Dance provides for it. It is a very poor thing in comparison with the rest of the choreography in the act. It does not live up to the music  and it fails to provide any real contrast with what follows, it is merely bland milk and water choreography.The entire ballet was  created as a dance extravaganza and the stage needs to be populated and filled with dance of the highest quality. The original Petipa waltz, one of his cast of thousands set pieces with massed groupings and large groups of dancers moving around the stage, obviously was not feasible when the company first staged the ballet, but  today it should be given serious consideration. For me Wheeldon's  Garland Dance is exceedingly limp and unimaginative. It was a kind gesture to give him the opportunity to be a link in the chain by choreographing that section but with the company in its current form it deserves something better either restoration of one of  Ashton's versions or perhaps restoring the original choreography using the students from both branches of the RBS. I also think that the second act Hunting Scene would benefit from the restoration of the Farandole.

 

Even if we had not had the extraordinary number of debuts this revival would be a significant one because of the transformative effect that restoring the correct tempo has on what the audience experiences in performance. It makes the whole ballet seem somehow lighter and more lively and less of a monument to classicism in which not even Red Riding Hood nor the Puss in Boots divertisements seem to overstay their welcome.

 

What of the debuts? Everyone of the dancers new to the roles of Aurora, Prince, Lilac Fairy, Princess Florine and Bluebird who I have seen so far have really had the right to be dancing in it. In fact all of their performances have been so good that it is only just occasionally that you have to remind yourself how very young and inexperienced some of the dancers involved are.The really exciting thing is that all of the performances we have seen are work in progress rather than the finished product. I suspect that every Aurora, at whatever stage of their career they may be, always thinks about how to  improve their performance. Both Hayward and Naghdi have shown full command of the choreography and its technical challenges as have the new Princes, now we come to the interesting bit where each of the dancers begin to make the roles their own adding their own nuances and giving us "their Aurora" or "their Prince" and I for one can't wait. If Kevin were to programme Beauty for the 2017-18 season and the 2018 -19 season and it is a more suitable candidate than  Swan Lake for the Petipa bicentennial year, I for one shall not complain as this run of performances, much like the ABT ones in September has restored my faith in the ballet as a fabulous dance entertainment and not simply a classic which you attend out of a sense of duty rather than with any real enthusiasm..

 

I don't want anything which I write to be misinterpreted. So far on the basis of Hayward's and Naghdi's performances as SPF, Aurora and Princess Florine i would say that Naghdi strikes me as the more obviously classical dancer of the two. This is not a criticism of Hayward simply an observation of her style of movement and her performance personality which suggests to me that she is more of a demi-character dancer than a purely classical one. Somehow in each of these roles Naghdi provides greater clarity, expansiveness, grandeur and authority in these roles than Hayward because she is less "busy". I am merely putting into words the essential differences which I have found between the two dancers in performance. I'm not saying that one of the dancers is better than the other one, far from it,they are both eminently enjoyable. I'm not convinced for example that Lise would suit Naghdi at all. These two young dancers are as different from each other as Sibley and Collier were from each other or May and Fonteyn were in an earlier generation.

 

As far as the Princes are concerned here is a quick overview of those who have danced the role since the beginning of the February run.Muntagirov is Muntagirov and, as such, eminently elegant and watchable.Campbell was excellent as Hayward's Prince but I would expect nothing less from him. I think that Hay gave an extraordinary nuanced account of the role making all the choreography appear expressive, regal and elegant in its simplicity.Ball and Clarke are young and comparatively inexperienced they were both exemplary partners who presented their Auroras exceptionally well and both gave fine accounts of their own choreography. In the grand pas de deux Naghdi and Ball looked exceptionally good together.  

 

Cuthbertson does not really seem to have had a permanent partner in this ballet.It is quite possible that she has not had such an attentive and careful partner as Clarke,since she made her debut in the role with Pennefather. On Saturday evening Clarke showed that he has the necessary stage presence, authority and acting ability to play the Prince with real conviction.The Prince is a cardboard cut out character whose sole function is to support, present and make his Aurora look good and not draw attention to the assistance that he is providing to the star turn.It is nice, but not essential, for him to be an exceptional dancer.Clarke performed his partnering functions in an exemplary manner and although he looked a bit tired towards the end of the evening he danced his solos with finesse. 

 

I can't wait to see all of them again.I find it interesting that I came away from the Nunez, Muntagirov cast with the Florine and Bluebird of O'Sullivan and Sambe having made an even greater impression on me than either Aurora or her Prince, perhaps because it was so delightful and unexpected. Anna Rose has also given the audience a fine account of  Fairy of the Song Birds and Golden Vine/ Violente in both cases making it obvious why the Fairy Variations are not optional extras. Magri has also danced some fine Fairy Variations as well. If the Prologue is going to be as well danced as it has been in the last couple of days it is essential viewing once more. It will be interesting to see which dancers are selected for the streamed performance.

Edited by FLOSS
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There are still  things which I would like to see revisited and revived. The first act needs a more interesting opening than Wheeldon's Garland Dance provides for it. It is a very poor thing in comparison with the rest of the choreography in the act. It does not live up to the music  and it fails to provide any real contrast with what follows, it is merely bland milk and water choreography. The entire ballet was  created as a dance extravaganza and the stage needs to be populated and filled with dance of the highest quality. The original Petipa waltz, one of his cast of thousands set pieces with massed groupings and large groups of dancers moving around the stage, obviously was not feasible when the company first staged the ballet, but  today it should be given serious consideration. For me Wheeldon's  Garland Dance is exceedingly limp and unimaginative. It was a kind gesture to give him the opportunity to be a link in the chain by choreographing that section but with the company in its current form it deserves something better either restoration of one of  Ashton's versions or perhaps restoring the original choreography using the students from both branches of the RBS. I also think that the second act Hunting Scene would benefit from the restoration of the Farandole.

 

You also raise an important point that is frequently overlooked by ballet goers overenthusiastic about so called "reconstructions": the choreographers involved in such projects resort to filling gaps in the preserved sources by composing anew missing numbers "to the best of their abilities". And the result is, unfortunately, most of the time as you say it, "bland milk", "exceedingly limp and unimaginative".

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As far as I am concerned there is little wrong with the Royal Ballet's current production of Sleeping Beauty when it is danced as well as it has been so far during this revival, its basic choreographic text is sound and reflects London performing tradition; its set designs contain none of the visual eccentricities or distractions of the Bjornson designs for Dowell ; the costumes look opulent and read well in a theatre the size of the Opera House in a way that the anaemic pastel shades of the original designs for this production did not.This year's revisions include bringing the curtain down on a grand stage tableau at the end of the Prologue rather than the preparation for it and playing the score at a speed which both Petipa and Tchaikovsky would recognise. I can only hope that we have seen the last of the over indulgent Russian ballet conductors who have been involved with the Royal Ballet's performance of the ballet since 2003.

 

There are still  things which I would like to see revisited and revived. The first act needs a more interesting opening than Wheeldon's Garland Dance provides for it. It is a very poor thing in comparison with the rest of the choreography in the act. It does not live up to the music  and it fails to provide any real contrast with what follows, it is merely bland milk and water choreography.The entire ballet was  created as a dance extravaganza and the stage needs to be populated and filled with dance of the highest quality. The original Petipa waltz, one of his cast of thousands set pieces with massed groupings and large groups of dancers moving around the stage, obviously was not feasible when the company first staged the ballet, but  today it should be given serious consideration. For me Wheeldon's  Garland Dance is exceedingly limp and unimaginative. It was a kind gesture to give him the opportunity to be a link in the chain by choreographing that section but with the company in its current form it deserves something better either restoration of one of  Ashton's versions or perhaps restoring the original choreography using the students from both branches of the RBS. I also think that the second act Hunting Scene would benefit from the restoration of the Farandole.

 

Even if we had not had the extraordinary number of debuts this revival would be a significant one because of the transformative effect that restoring the correct tempo has on what the audience experiences in performance. It makes the whole ballet seem somehow lighter and more lively and less of a monument to classicism in which not even Red Riding Hood nor the Puss in Boots divertisements seem to overstay their welcome.

 

What of the debuts? Everyone of the dancers new to the roles of Aurora, Prince, Lilac Fairy, Princess Florine and Bluebird who I have seen so far have really had the right to be dancing in it. In fact all of their performances have been so good that it is only just occasionally that you have to remind yourself how very young and inexperienced some of the dancers involved are.The really exciting thing is that all of the performances we have seen are work in progress rather than the finished product. I suspect that every Aurora, at whatever stage of their career they may be, always thinks about how to  improve their performance. Both Hayward and Naghdi have shown full command of the choreography and its technical challenges as have the new Princes, now we come to the interesting bit where each of the dancers begin to make the roles their own adding their own nuances and giving us "their Aurora" or "their Prince" and I for one can't wait. If Kevin were to programme Beauty for the 2017-18 season and the 2018 -19 season and it is a more suitable candidate than  Swan Lake for the Petipa bicentennial year, I for one shall not complain as this run of performances, much like the ABT ones in September has restored my faith in the ballet as a fabulous dance entertainment and not simply a classic which you attend out of a sense of duty rather than with any real enthusiasm..

 

I don't want anything which I write to be misinterpreted. So far on the basis of Hayward's and Naghdi's performances as SPF, Aurora and Princess Florine i would say that Naghdi strikes me as the more obviously classical dancer of the two. This is not a criticism of Hayward simply an observation of her style of movement and her performance personality which suggests to me that she is more of a demi-character dancer than a purely classical one. Somehow in each of these roles Naghdi provides greater clarity, expansiveness, grandeur and authority in these roles than Hayward because she is less "busy". I am merely putting into words the essential differences which I have found between the two dancers in performance. I'm not saying that one of the dancers is better than the other one, far from it,they are both eminently enjoyable. I'm not convinced for example that Lise would suit Naghdi at all. These two young dancers are as different from each other as Sibley and Collier were from each other or May and Fonteyn were in an earlier generation.

 

As far as the Princes are concerned here is a quick overview of those who have danced the role since the beginning of the February run.Muntagirov is Muntagirov and, as such, eminently elegant and watchable.Campbell was excellent as Hayward's Prince but I would expect nothing less from him. I think that Hay gave an extraordinary nuanced account of the role making all the choreography appear expressive, regal and elegant in its simplicity.Ball and Clarke are young and comparatively inexperienced they were both exemplary partners who presented their Auroras exceptionally well and both gave fine accounts of their own choreography. In the grand pas de deux Naghdi and Ball looked exceptionally good together.  

 

Cuthbertson does not really seem to have had a permanent partner in this ballet.It is quite possible that she has not had such an attentive and careful partner as Clarke,since she made her debut in the role with Pennefather. On Saturday evening Clarke showed that he has the necessary stage presence, authority and acting ability to play the Prince with real conviction.The Prince is a cardboard cut out character whose sole function is to support, present and make his Aurora look good and not draw attention to the assistance that he is providing to the star turn.It is nice, but not essential, for him to be an exceptional dancer.Clarke performed his partnering functions in an exemplary manner and although he looked a bit tired towards the end of the evening he danced his solos with finesse. 

 

I can't wait to see all of them again.I find it interesting that I came away from the Nunez, Muntagirov cast with the Florine and Bluebird of O'Sullivan and Sambe having made an even greater impression on me than either Aurora or her Prince, perhaps because it was so delightful and unexpected. Anna Rose has also given the audience a fine account of  Fairy of the Song Birds and Golden Vine/ Violente in both cases making it obvious why the Fairy Variations are not optional extras. Magri has also danced some fine Fairy Variations as well. If the Prologue is going to be as well danced as it has been in the last couple of days it is essential viewing once more. It will be interesting to see which dancers are selected for the streamed performance.

Just want to thank-you for such a wonderfully informative post which I have much enjoyed

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assoluta, I don't think that the RB has ever suggested that the Garland Dance is a reconstruction of anything. In fact the RB tends to be very open and honest about the source of its choreographic patches and additions. When it first staged the Sleeping Beauty in 1939 the Vic Wells company were dancing in a theatre with a pocket handkerchief sized stage and did not really have enough dancers to do the ballet full justice even if it had wanted to do so. If they had had the correct number of dancers they probably would not have been able to get them on the stage it was so small.I doubt that the company had seventy two dancers let alone a spare seventy two for the Garland Dance at that time..

 

I don't know what the company danced to the music for the Garland Dance before the war. Ashton provided the choreography for the Garland Dance for the 1946 production and another version for Peter Wright's 1968 production. In 1973 MacMillan staged his own production and provided it with his own Garland Dance. In 1977 de Valois staged a "back to choreographic basics" production which I think came as something of a relief after two botched productions. This used the later of the two Ashton versions and I seem to recall a number of older ballet goers bemoaning the fact that the company was not using the earlier Ashton version which they thought was better. In 1993 this production was replaced by Anthony Dowell's production which used MacMillan's Garland Dance.This in turn was replaced during Stretton's directorship when the ballet was staged by Markarova in 2003.The entire choreographic text including that for the Garland Dance was that provided by Konstantin Sergeyev for the Kirov's 1952 production of the ballet.

 

A new Sleeping Beauty was high on the list of Mason's priorities when she became Director. She wanted a production true to the company's performance tradition rather than one which reflected the K.Sergeyev's version which out does Petipa's own version of the ballet. Mason's production uses Wheeldon's Garland Dance and as such it is the fourth version of the dance which the company has danced since 1946. Wheeldon's version is limp and unimaginative and that can't be attributed to anything other than a lack of imagination and feeling for Petipa's late nineteenth century choreographic style.I'm not sure that I think that Ratmansky's reconstructions of Paquita or Sleeping Beauty are limp and unimaginative. I found both Paquita which I saw streamed and his Sleeping Beauty which I saw live rather convincing as much as anything because they were danced at the right speed and Ratmansky had not done a Lacotte by giving the audience what it expected to see rather than what was recorded.He seems to have accepted that he would stage what was recorded even if it might come as a shock for the audience to see the choreography danced in a period appropriate style with low arabesques and not a foot hovering anywhere near any of the Aurora's ears.

Edited by FLOSS
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