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Royal Ballet: Asphodel Meadows / The Two Pigeons / RBS: The Cunning Little Vixen, 2019


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28 minutes ago, Darlex said:

Did we see The Two Pigeons or The Three Pigeons yesterday? I was wondering whether a reserve pigeon had it's chance to shine. Surely they must keep some 2nd casts side of stage (in the wings!). Or, Matthew Ball-like, did a pigeon get a very unexpected phone call from Kevin? Or we were just very lucky that the wayward one was coaxed out of pit in time? 

I believe it was just two pigeons but there are understudies  😁

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15 minutes ago, Jan McNulty said:

I think there are at least 3 pigeons; I believe the one that the young man brings in and places on the chair in the final scene has a clipped wing.

 

But that didn't stop it flapping to the floor and drawing all the attention away from Choe and Campbell in the last run!

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7 minutes ago, capybara said:

 

But that didn't stop it flapping to the floor and drawing all the attention away from Choe and Campbell in the last run!

 

Didn't draw my attention away!

 

I remember a performance in Plymouth where, near the start the two pigeons fly across the back of the set past the balcony - well they came back on and spent the rest of the act having rumpy pumpy on the Paris rooftops!!

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1 hour ago, jmhopton said:

What more can I see about Vadim? Every role you see him in seems to be his best until you see him next time

 

My thoughts precisely- didn't think he could better Winter Dreams but his beautiful performance in Two Pigeons was both completely different and equally exquisite. The way he holds his perfectly elegant line through each jump is something truly amazing and unique- he makes a beautiful shape in every position.

(just back from Bolshoi screening and I kept thinking about the contrast with Vadim.)

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17 minutes ago, Jan McNulty said:

I remember a performance in Plymouth where, near the start the two pigeons fly across the back of the set past the balcony - well they came back on and spent the rest of the act having rumpy pumpy on the Paris rooftops!!

 

Sounds like Ashton morphing into MacMillan!!

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37 minutes ago, capybara said:

 

But that didn't stop it flapping to the floor and drawing all the attention away from Choe and Campbell in the last run!

I only saw one out of two Choe/Campbell shows in the last run. I don't remember that happening (maybe it was their other show), but exactly what you describe did happen in a Takada/Hay performance.

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2 hours ago, jmhopton said:

The final pas de  deux is just so emotional and beautiful I am always on the verge of tears, especially when the final pigeon appears. I was there with my husband and he looked at me at that moment and kissed me and we had our own romantic moment and I nearly cried again! It was beautiful.

 

How lovely 😌.  I too am reduced to a teary state by that final pas de deux, especially with Vadim. Agree with every word you say about him. And Ashton had a genius for stirring the emotions in an unexpected and unusual way - who would have thought that just adding pigeons, ribbons etc. could have that effect?

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1 hour ago, Mary said:

......(just back from Bolshoi screening and I kept thinking about the contrast with Vadim.)

 

What contrast did you have in mind, Mary?

 

I really enjoyed the Bolshoi's La Bayadere this afternoon - amazing, quality dancing, Russian style. Their Solor (Artemy Belyakov was young, handsome, tall and slim - and new to me) and he was quite some dancer too. But he hadn't got Muntagirov's 'heart'.

 

[Yes, I know that there is a separate thread for Bolshoi Cinema relays, but I wanted to follow up on Mary's point here.]

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Yes I meant Belyakov- and I agree he is young, handsome, tall and some dancer!

But I thought he had not Muntagirov's line as well as heart.

 

I really enjoyed the afternoon too- but, I did not feel emotionally involved at all in the performance, did you?

 

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1 hour ago, Mary said:

Yes I meant Belyakov- and I agree he is young, handsome, tall and some dancer!

But I thought he had not Muntagirov's line as well as heart.

 

I really enjoyed the afternoon too- but, I did not feel emotionally involved at all in the performance, did you?

 

 

Agree but probably best not to continue in this thread or we will be admonished!

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Foteini Christofilopoulou was at the photocall for Asphodel Meadows and The Two Pigeons...

 


45872817055_d1f654ec98_c.jpg
Marianela Nuñez and Ryoichi Hirano in Asphodel Meadows
© Foteini Christofilopoulou/ROH. Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr
 

 

39822565013_378a89e891_c.jpg
Lauren Cuthbertson and Vadim Muntagirov in The Two Pigeons
© Foteini Christofilopoulou/ROH. Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr
 

See more...
Foteini Christofilopoulou: Royal Ballet in Asphodel Meadows and The Two Pigeons
Courtesy of DanceTabs / Flickr

Edited by Bruce
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Is Lynsey Winship the new dance critic for the Grauniad?  If so, she seems to be picking up where Luke Jennings left off, with her review of 2P.....completely missing the point, and trying to spoil it by applying today's sensitivities to the story.  I will be skippping her reviews, as I did with Jennings' !

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i don't think much of her review of Two Pigeons.

For one thing, it is surely rather simple-minded to focus on 'plot' at the expense of choreography, when she must know full well that is never the main point of ballet.

Then to complain that the story line of a couple splitting up and then re uniting is dull- well maybe, but it is the bedrock of a vast amount of our ballet, literatire, film etc. It is the treatment that matters.

Then she obviously doesn't know that Ashton is partly dramatising his own experiences.

Then she dismisses the marvellous choreography in a few words. Then she..but why bother to go on.

 

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OMG :( 

This shows Lyndsey Winship doesn't understand a thing what 2P is all about!

 

What a poor review: it shows a total lack of knowledge about the historical context in which 2P was created and ultimately what Ashton ballets are all about. 

 

I'll join you in boycotting her reviews!  If this is the future of ballet criticism/reviews....it makes me weep and it makes me angry.

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  • John Mallinson changed the title to The Royal Ballet: Asphodel Meadows / The Two Pigeons, 2019
28 minutes ago, Xandra Newman said:

OMG :( 

This shows Lyndsey Winship doesn't understand a thing what 2P is all about!

 

What a poor review: it shows a total lack of knowledge about the historical context in which 2P was created and ultimately what Ashton ballets are all about. 

 

I'll join you in boycotting her reviews!  If this is the future of ballet criticism/reviews....it makes me weep and it makes me angry.

 

I'm not sure it's fair to call it a poor review. 

 

I always thought of LW as having a contemporary dance bias when she was reviewing for the Evening Standard so I'm not surprised she isn't so fond of 2 Pigeons. Personally, I love it but I can equally well see a valid argument that it is twee and dated. I think it's worth reading reviews even if you don't agree with them unless they are plain wrong and in this case I don't think she is. 

 

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Your opinion differs from mine, Anna.  I don't know if I disagree with a review until after I've read it, but there are certain reviewers who I know in advance will annoy me.  I am very happy to disagree with critics who know what they are talking about, or who have some kind of understanding of what they are reviewing.  I avoided Luke Jennings because he always had an agenda which I largely disagreed with.  I never liked LW's reviews in The Standard, and from what I've read so far in the Guardian I don't like those either.  Not because her opinion differs from mine, but because she clearly a) doesn't understand what she is reviewing much of the time and b) also seems to have other agendas.   That is why I won't be reading her reviews, not because I disagree with her.   And what is 'dated' when it comes to classical ballet?!

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19 minutes ago, annamk said:

 

I'm not sure it's fair to call it a poor review. 

 

I always thought of LW as having a contemporary dance bias when she was reviewing for the Evening Standard so I'm not surprised she isn't so fond of 2 Pigeons. Personally, I love it but I can equally well see a valid argument that it is twee and dated. I think it's worth reading reviews even if you don't agree with them unless they are plain wrong and in this case I don't think she is. 

 

 

I think it's a review with a contemporary bias, if you like, and that's tricky especially when reviewing works made in the past. But I do agree that it's generally worth reading all reviews whether or not you agree with them, even if only to help clarify why you don't agree with them.

Edited by bridiem
'especially' added
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3 minutes ago, Sim said:

Your opinion differs from mine, Anna.  I don't know if I disagree with a review until after I've read it, but there are certain reviewers who I know in advance will annoy me.  I am very happy to disagree with critics who know what they are talking about, or who have some kind of understanding of what they are reviewing.  I avoided Luke Jennings because he always had an agenda which I largely disagreed with.  I never liked LW's reviews in The Standard, and from what I've read so far in the Guardian I don't like those either.  Not because her opinion differs from mine, but because she clearly a) doesn't understand what she is reviewing much of the time and b) also seems to have other agendas.   That is why I won't be reading her reviews, not because I disagree with her.   And what is 'dated' when it comes to classical ballet?!

 

Sim, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one :) 

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10 minutes ago, Sim said:

Yes.  There is a plot there which always gives rise to lots of discussion.  Both plot and theme in this case!

 

But if many of these plots are looked at from a contemporary point of view, then I could see several of MacMillan's ballets being criticised for the misogynistic attitudes of many the male characters.  Rape is a feature in some, along with forced marriages.  

 

Not to mention all that groping of prostitutes, and drunken behaviour.....

 

 

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24 minutes ago, bridiem said:

 

I think it's a review with a contemporary bias, if you like, and that's tricky especially when reviewing works made in the past. But I do agree that it's generally worth reading all reviews whether or not you agree with them, even if only to help clarify why you don't agree with them.

 

If that's the case we'll soon see Contemporary art critics reviewing classical paintings at the National Gallery (and other art institutions showing art from the past) totally out of their historical context and rubbishing the art. 

 

If Winship is contemporary biased she should stick to reviewing contemporary ballets and leave reviewing works from the past to those knowledgeable ballet critics who do have a full historical and choreographic understanding of ballets created in the past.

 

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5 minutes ago, Xandra Newman said:

 

If that's the case we'll soon see Contemporary art critics reviewing classical paintings at the National Gallery (and other art institutions showing art from the past) totally out of their historical context and rubbishing the art. 

 

If Winship is contemporary biased she should stick to reviewing contemporary ballets and leave reviewing works from the past to those knowledgeable ballet critics who do have a full historical and choreographic understanding of ballets created in the past.

 

Well said, Xandra.

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37 minutes ago, Xandra Newman said:

 

If that's the case we'll soon see Contemporary art critics reviewing classical paintings at the National Gallery (and other art institutions showing art from the past) totally out of their historical context and rubbishing the art. 

 

If Winship is contemporary biased she should stick to reviewing contemporary ballets and leave reviewing works from the past to those knowledgeable ballet critics who do have a full historical and choreographic understanding of ballets created in the past.

 

 

I agree, except that even with contemporary works I prefer to read reviews written by someone who has some sort of historical perspective rather than someone who can only see with contemporary eyes.

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1 hour ago, Sim said:

  I avoided Luke Jennings because he always had an agenda which I largely disagreed with. 

 

I quite often did agree with LJ’s agenda, and I was pretty fed up with reading him going on about it by the end.

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