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Royal Ballet: Manon, autumn 2019


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7 hours ago, RuthE said:

 

Incidentally, I watched a bit of my Rojo/Acosta DVD the other day to check something, and noted that Manon's Act 2 dress had sleeves.  When did it become the current strappy version?

 

Climate change? :)

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7 minutes ago, Bruce Wall said:

 

... or possibly just a simple 'cut back'?  :)

 

 

 

Clearly a great way to get oneself mentioned in the  cast sheet and programme for the next run ‘Manon’s sleeves are generously supported by Rob S’ 🤔🙂

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31 minutes ago, Rob S said:

 

Clearly a great way to get oneself mentioned in the  cast sheet and programme for the next run ‘Manon’s sleeves are generously supported by Rob S’ 🤔🙂

 

Perhaps you could go in with someone - have a sleeve each 😉

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On 12/11/2019 at 12:20, RuthE said:

 

Incidentally, I watched a bit of my Rojo/Acosta DVD the other day to check something, and noted that Manon's Act 2 dress had sleeves.  When did it become the current strappy version?

 

Did it have sleeves throughout Act 2?  The current dress has a sort of jacket with sleeves which stays on for a while and is then removed for Manon’s solo and the pas de parcel.

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44 minutes ago, Anna C said:

 

Did it have sleeves throughout Act 2?  The current dress has a sort of jacket with sleeves which stays on for a while and is then removed for Manon’s solo and the pas de parcel.

 

I just checked the Rojo/Acosta video. After her entrance with Monsiur G.M, Manon takes off her coat  to reveal a jacket over her dress. At some stage, she takes the jacket off  and puts it over the back of a chair (revealing the "strappy" dress).  Later, when everyone (apart from Manon) has left the room, Des Grieux picks up the jacket and kisses it,  putting it down again before approaching her.

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In the run a couple of years ago I remember Lauren Cuthbertson took off a jacket and laid it over the chair in her Act 2 solo for the two men.  She then forgot to pick it up again, so had to make it look like part of the solo when she went back to get it! 

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2 hours ago, Bluebird said:

 

I just checked the Rojo/Acosta video. After her entrance with Monsiur G.M, Manon takes off her coat  to reveal a jacket over her dress. At some stage, she takes the jacket off  and puts it over the back of a chair (revealing the "strappy" dress).  Later, when everyone (apart from Manon) has left the room, Des Grieux picks up the jacket and kisses it,  putting it down again before approaching her.

 

If I remember rightly, that happened in the 2014 Bonelli/Nuñez version too.

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry this is a bit belated but I've finally got round to listening to the recording of the Manon ballet music from Bonynge & the ROH orchestra from the 70s. I don't have much musical expertise but even to my ears a lot of the tempi are quite a bit faster than I heard during the recent run. Does anyone know if this was the speed the piece was actually danced at back in the 70s or if it was just done faster for the recording?

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I'm glad someone's bumped this thread, because I kept meaning to post some final comments about the run, and never remembered when I was on a computer.

 

Overall, I was a little disappointed with this run, compared with the previous one.  The standout partnership for me was Bonelli/Morera - just goes to show what experienced, senior, dancers can bring to a performance - and I really loved the detail of characterisation which Bonelli brought to his Des Grieux (and which I missed from quite a few of the others).  But various things didn't seem as sharp as in the previous run, particularly in Act II: last time around, the "three gentlemen" were superbly together in virtually every performance I saw, but this time it was a little messier (I really missed Will Bracewell in this - next time, I expect he'll have graduated to Des Grieux, or maybe Lescaut, and we may not get to see him again in the role); again, the "battling courtesans" often lacked that last bit of comic timing which really finesses their dance; I think one of the Lescauts (can't remember who) didn't actually give full weight to the steps in his Act I solo, something which I had thought was no longer a problem; and, unless it was my viewing angle, some of the steps in the Mistress' solo in Act II seemed to have got a bit sloppy.  I must have a look at the DVD and see whether I'm right.  Some of the scenes didn't read as clearly as previously, too, I thought - although possibly there I was being influenced by having seen ENB's production, where there is less visual distraction, earlier in the year.

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  • 7 months later...

In its regular Thursday afternoon opera slot, BBC Radio 3 is currently broadcasting Massenet's Don Quichotte.  It's quite disconcerting finding pieces of music which you know from the score for Manon cropping up in a different guise!   (Mind you, the other day I caught some of L'elisir d'amore - the bit which is used in the cornfield scene, I think, in La Fille Mal Gardee

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