Royal Ballet Sleeping Beauty, 2019-20

[Anna C]

1 hour ago, Legseleven said:

I would have said from these photos that the platforms of these pointe shoes range from the smallest being Naghdi’s and the widest being Osipova’s. Naghdi’s certainly are not ‘colossal blocks’ and indeed the largest blocks of these three seem to be Osipova’s. 
 

 

 

I do wish Osipova would go to Freed and get fitted there.  She has to do so much to her shoes that I’m sure wouldn’t be necessary if someone customised new shoes to suit her feet.  🙁 

[betterankles]

Answers to various points (pointes  ) raised in this thread

1. Lifts in act 3 Wedding Pas:  these are not ever part of the choreographic text in Russia, and in previous versions of The Sleeping Beauty at the Royal Ballet, some dances did the lifts, while others did the other enchainement with arabesque développe efface.   The lifts themselves changed over the years, and have been done simple with Aurora just going straight into a sort of pas de chat position and being carried from one side to the other like this (I believe there is footage of Fonteyn doing it this way somewhere still).    The success of the way they are performed now, with développe croise,, depends very much on the proportions of Aurora.

Incidentally a lifted entrechat used to be staple diet before the pirouette which precedes the run into diagonal of fishes.

2. Generally speaking although successful lifts are of course somewhat dependant on physical strength, they are also dependant on the couple hearing the musical dynamics of the take off in the same way.   Even a very light ballerina weight wise may be heavy for a partner to lift if not coordinated with her partner - and vice versa (although all configurations can of course occur!)

3. There are different schools of thought as to how the fish dives should be managed.  The most exciting being when Aurora makes her second endedans turn go forward off the supporting leg  and dives - her Prince catches her.   As opposed to her doing two turns on balance and the Prince taking her into the fish.   

4  Platforms on shoes:  

A.  Many photographs from the past were retouched to show a very narrow point.   

B. Russian pointe shoes, especially of early to mid last century, were much narrower in the toes (and the Russian dancers did not balance for any length of time on one leg, in Rose Adagio or other. - in fact they didn’t take their arm up when balancing in attitude to give hand to the next partner).

C. Many if not most dancers use a wider platform when dancing the act 1 Aurora, as it is much easier to balance.   Many also darn around the edges to create a still wider platform.   It is easier to turn however on a narrower platform, and some  have been seen to favour a wide platform on the right foot and a narrower one on the left (on which most of the pirouettes are performed).

D. It would be interesting to see the old film of Nureyev and Seymour dancing act 3.   I am almost certain that they did not perform the lifts either.

E. And lastly, to make performing Odette/Odile in Swan lake dependant on whether the ballerina wishes, or can do 32 perfect fouettees is IMO  ludicrous.   One of the greatest would never have performed it then - Maya Plisetskaya...    Fonteyn always had difficulty...   They are used in the coda to dazzle the Prince, so if a manege is equally dazzling, it will not spoil the overall effect of the ballet!   Technical virtuosity and facility,  should be there to enable and enhance interpretation, not for their own sake...

 

[Guest]

Excellent post, Betterankles.

[capybara]

31 minutes ago, betterankles said:

  Technical virtuosity and facility should be there to enable and enhance interpretation, not for their own sake...

 

Exactly, although some (even some Directors) see it differently.

[FionaM]

Posé turns en manège are easier to do than fouettes.  But can look equally dazzling. And it returns us to the question is Ballet art, or circus?.  I prefer the former.    
 

In the case of Osipova she was able to do 32 fouettés before, and I’ve seen at least one video where she returned to the stage to repeat them.  So that’s two lots of 32 in short succession, which is pretty remarkable.  

[assoluta]

Saying that "many photographs were retouched to show a very narrow point" is misleading. The next thing we will hear, I am afraid, is that the old recordings were similarly retouched frame after frame. Enormous enlargement of the blocs is not a one person's illusion, it has happened relatively recently. I know very well from my own experience, after all I am not very young, how the blocs on the point shoes have been expanding and, having an opportunity to examine pointe shoes worn by dancers from a number of companies, over an extended period of time, I made the comment that the Royal Ballet, unfortunately, has been at the forefront of this tendency, deplored by coaches and teachers. A direct comparison of the pointe shoes used for the same role by Fonteyn and by Nuñez shows the extent of the process. I was staring at them in a state of shock accompanied by colleagues from the Vaganova Academy and from Hamburg Ballett who were visiting London.

[Richard LH]

Back to The Sleeping Beauty.....Akane is back and on top form !☺

[Amelia]

1 hour ago, betterankles said:

D. It would be interesting to see the old film of Nureyev and Seymour dancing act 3.   I am almost certain that they did not perform the lifts either.

 

 

[betterankles]

21 minutes ago, assoluta said:

Saying that "many photographs were retouched to show a very narrow point" is misleading. The next thing we will hear, I am afraid, is that the old recordings were similarly retouched frame after frame. Enormous enlargement of the blocs is not a one person's illusion, it has happened relatively recently. I know very well from my own experience, after all I am not very young, how the blocs on the point shoes have been expanding and, having an opportunity to examine pointe shoes worn by dancers from a number of companies, over an extended period of time, I made the comment that the Royal Ballet, unfortunately, has been at the forefront of this tendency, deplored by coaches and teachers. A direct comparison of the pointe shoes used for the same role by Fonteyn and by Nuñez shows the extent of the process. I was staring at them in a state of shock accompanied by colleagues from the Vaganova Academy and from Hamburg Ballett who were visiting London.

 

They are no larger now then during the 70s...   western ballerinas always favoured square platforms (more or less large as wished), Russian ones less square and not flat, so balance was extremely difficult.

One of the difficulties with hand made pointe shoes such as Freed’s, is that the platform while flat, occasionally can do so at an angle, forcing over the instep, or not allowing the dancer comfortably to get to full pointe but remaining slightly back of it.  Occasionally even tilting to one side, making the dancer ‘roll’ or ‘sickle’.

Hence the enormous amount of time choosing the best shoe for each floor and according to the technical demands of the ballet danced.

[betterankles]

2 minutes ago, Amelia said:

 

 

 

 

Precisely - no lifts - thank you Amelia!

[Lizbie1]

35 minutes ago, assoluta said:

I made the comment that the Royal Ballet, unfortunately, has been at the forefront of this tendency, deplored by coaches and teachers

 

Assoluta - it would be helpful if you could supply some names or pictures of current dancers whose shoes you consider closer to the ideal so that we can draw a comparison.

[ElleC]

42 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

Back to The Sleeping Beauty.....Akane is back and on top form !☺

Thanks Richard LH - that was the news I was waiting (and hoping) to hear!

[Amelia]

1 hour ago, FionaE said:

In the case of Osipova she was able to do 32 fouettés before, and I’ve seen at least one video where she returned to the stage to repeat them.  So that’s two lots of 32 in short succession, which is pretty remarkable.  

 

Not only "before" as on this video below, with a whole variety of Fouettés. She can perfectly do the same now. 'betterankles' is right, some of the greatest didn't perform them. The best Odiles in my memory were Dudinskaya and Plisetskaya who both did manege that was like an evil spell, sorcery, bewitchment.

 

 

Edited November 23, 2019 by Amelia
to add the text

[LinMM]

I wonder when darning/crocheting the toes ...a la a Pavlova went out of fashion! 

We did this certainly up to about 1980 or so though not sure whether Professionals would have had the time to do this because of the sheer number of pointe shoes they get through. 

They do certainly seem to bash their pointe shoes about more though! And I do seem to notice dancers shoes more these days which I haven't always done so. 

I certainly remember Lynn Seymours feet ....beautiful!

I don't recall noticing her shoes in particular ...but maybe they were just as clumpy as ones in Robs piccies! 

Anyway clumpy shoes certainly don't equate to clumpy dancers!......so any shoe which enables a dancer to enhance a performance as opposed to shoe aesthetic is fine by me. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ivy Lin]

Darning a big flat platform isn't out. Uliana Lopatkina did it:

 

[LinMM]

Is that from the Vaganova museum?

Lopatkina is one of my very favourite dancers ....don't know about her shoes though! 

They do look a bit blocky but then she was tall. A smaller pointe shoe is always going to be more attractive.

Edited November 24, 2019 by LinMM

[Richard LH]

Perhaps we could have a separate thread about shoes??!

[assoluta]

No, it isn't. Lopatkina's shoes are on display at the Theatre Museum, next to Vishneva's and of Petersburg ballerinas of previous generations. Lopatkina is very tall, Vishneva isn't, but their shoes are both shockingly big, when compared with their predecessors.

[LinMM]

Yes the shoes of Aurora leading to the shoes of Everyman has rather taken over the thread!!

[Jam Dancer]

On ‎22‎/‎11‎/‎2019 at 15:40, JNC said:

Look at someone like Morera - a highly respected and beloved dancer, who is cast well in roles that suit her. Principals do not need to  dance every principal role. It is best for management/dancers to figure out where the strengths lie and play to those, whilst also appropriately challenging themselves to dance different roles and build up their repertoire, and master further technical expertise (i.e. just because Osipova isn't technically able to dance Aurora now, that's not to say she should never be cast in it again as perhaps with further rehearsals/experience she may master the Rose Adagio). 

 

 

Just to note that Morera has also NOT been cast in roles that suit her so there’s the other side of casting....

 Sorry to digress - this is the Sleeping Beauty discussion !

Edited November 24, 2019 by alison
Reduced the quote to the part referred to

[katharine kanter]

Allow me to suggest that the reason for much wider block and higher vamp  on shoes is PROTECTION:

 

1/ Choreography is become far more athletic and dangerous over the past 30 years.  The combination of hyper-extensions, hyper-flexibility and pointe work, is hell on the body.  Forsythe for example, is far more dangerous for the woman, than for the man.  Dancers including female dancers, are weight-lifting, cross-training, etc.  It’s become a competitive sport, rather than a branch of theatre.

2/ Until 40 years, « Cecchetti » or spring technique, was used in the West for getting up onto pointe, save in adagio work.  This places the foot straight under the line of aplomb, and considerably lightens the load on the metatarsals and phalanges.  Hence the « weightless », « floating » quality of pointe work prior to the mid-80s when Guillemitis and its cortège of ills, struck.  We now roll up onto pointe, placing the foot farther from the line of aplomb.  The strain on the ligaments and small bones is very considerable.  Even Darcey Bussell, not precisely your bold iconoclast, has referred to this as a serious problem.

3/ The current commercial-aesthetic fad is for Posers rather than Movers.  We like it when the dancer hard-points the foot (terrible for the calf-muscles inter alia), and then “nails” the pointe into the floor rather than “rising above it” as it were.  To get the “big arch” look, the dancer then pushes the arch right over the vamp of the shoe (many female dancers today wear a big fake arch, one can buy them on the Internet …), rather than standing tall and ramrod straight on pointe as we did until late 1970s.  Even men can no longer get a job today unless they have the big arch, and corresponding S-shaped knee-joint – an Accident waiting to Happen, as we have seen with Hallberg.

4/ In furtherance of the Poser craze, tempi have got glued down into treacle since the 1980s, poses and balances are consequently held far longer, and à la seconde positions are expected to be held on pointe with the gesture leg waving somewhere behind the ear.  Without an armoured tank of a shoe, the foot would buckle.

4/ all this, and more (I could go on….) helps to explain the need for Gaynor Mindens (good shoes, BTW) and generally, the extra-wide platform.

[Richard LH]

Last night's cast 

 

King Florestan: Avis

Queen: McNally

Aurora: Takada

Prince: Hirano

Catalabutte: Montes

Carabosse: Arestis

Lilac Fairy: Mendizabal

 

Fairy of the:

Crystal Fountain: Pajdak Dubreuil

Enchanted Garden: Magri Ella

Woodland Glade: Kaneko  Donnelly

Songbird: Gasparini  Lee

Golden Vine: Hamilton  Serrano

 

Lilac Fairy’s Cavalier: Edmonds

 

English Prince: Braendsrod

French Prince: Richardson

Indian Prince: Donnelly

Russian Prince: Emerton

 

Aurora’s Friends: Buvoli Gasparini Grennell Dean Bradbury Stock Roscoe Dias

 

Countess: Pajdak

Gallison: Emerton

 

Florestan and sisters: Edmonds Dias Hamilton

 

Puss/White Cat: Dixon Dean

Florine/Bluebird: O'Sullivan Sambe

Red Riding Hood/Wolf: Allnatt  Emerton

Grand Pas de Deux Takada Hirano

[bridiem]

Lovely to see the footage of Seymour and Nureyev. They were my first Aurora/Prince (only my second ever ballet performance, in November 1977) followed a few weeks later by Collier and Dowell with Seymour as Carabosse! Could any of the current Auroras also be a convincing Carabosse?! A certain Natalia springs to mind...

[Richard LH]

I feel truly privileged  to have been able to see Akane Takada’s “complete”  Aurora last night after the disappointment of her being unable to finish on 11 November.

She was just wonderful – so confident and expressive in her interpretation.

An element of the ballet that I have never really noticed before, but which she really brought out for me, was how in Act 2 the sleeping/dream/vision Aurora keeps  beckoning  her Prince towards her, to find her and release her from her spell ….Akane did this so movingly. He  keeps trying to catch the Vision, but he is prevented gently by Lilac Fairy until he makes what I took to be a marriage promise, after which all can be resolved!

This time round I felt the latter part of Act 2, with Takada’s impeccable classical dancing, ably supported by Hirano, plus the gorgeous costumes and scenery and the amazing ladies of the RB corps, to be one of the most beautiful passages of ballet I have yet to see.

In Act 3 O’Sullivan and Sambe were totally charming and confident as Princess Florine and Bluebird and the evening was rounded off  by a superb Grand PDD by the leads – (great fish dives from these two  by the way)!

Thanks to all at the RB for continuing  to stage such a  colourful, resplendent, and delightful ballet.  

[Jamesrhblack]

4 hours ago, Richard LH said:

 

An element of the ballet that I have never really noticed before, but which she really brought out for me, was how in Act 2 the sleeping/dream/vision Aurora keeps  beckoning  her Prince towards her, to find her and release her from her spell ….Akane did this so movingly. He  keeps trying to catch the Vision, but he is prevented gently by Lilac Fairy until he makes what I took to be a marriage promise, after which all can be resolved!

 

 

It's my favourite part of the ballet and the 'cello solo is so exquisite. We read things in different ways and I thought your interpretation of Aurora's beckoning as being a request to be released from her spell very apt: I'd always seen as it as a slightly seductive moment (like Giselle caught up by her dancing in Act 2 urging Albrecht to join her) but I like your idea too. Maybe it's a bit of both. I also find very touching the way that Florimund has to be "taught" not to be too impetuous in his approach but to let Aurora trust and come to him.

Edited November 24, 2019 by Jan McNulty
amended at poster's request to correct a couple of typos.

[LinMM]

I think some of the vision scene choreography has changed over the years but I used to particularly like Fonteyn and Nureyev in this scene always very moving and in perfect sync with the glorious music here. 

[FionaM]

Another reason for darning pointe shoes in a circle making the toe marginally bigger, is to help avoid skidding off pointe which can happen with the satin fabric, and also when the flat end is not flush to the floor.

[RobR]

Seriously though, could whoever is interested in pointe shoes start a new thread?

[Fiz]

I’d like that too. 

[Richard LH]

The one thing I forgot to look for during last night's beautiful performance of The Sleeping Beauty was what sort of shoes everyone was wearing! Sincere apologies everyone....👞👟👠👡👢

[San Perregrino]

2 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

The one thing I forgot to look for during last night's beautiful performance of The Sleeping Beauty was what sort of shoes everyone was wearing! Sincere apologies everyone....👞👟👠👡👢

 

Puss was wearing boots 😉

[Richard LH]

Just now, prs59 said:

 

Puss was wearing boots 😉

Well spotted!

[RobR]

3 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

The one thing I forgot to look for during last night's beautiful performance of The Sleeping Beauty was what sort of shoes everyone was wearing! Sincere apologies everyone....👞👟👠👡👢

I thought Catalabutte's heels were a little too high for him?