Reece Clarke promoted to RB First Soloist

[Shade]

Congratulations to Reece Clarke

[FionaM]

7 hours ago, LinMM said:

FionaE thanks for your info but you have two casts for Dances at a Gathering for 4th March!

The 4th March is the Lamb O Sullivan cast. 
Also just heard of Reece replacing Vadim on 12th Feb from ROH 

I will be disappointed not to see Vadim in this role but am equally pleased for Reece ...I think he’s going to be good in this role. 

 

I copied and pasted from Graham Watts Facebook.  Assume he did same from RB announcement.  No idea where or why errors crept in.  Not my typing (for once!) 

[Sarah langfield]

Huge congratulations to Reece Clarke on his promotion to first soloist.

[alison]

IIRC, three of them are still dancing and the other one has gone into something else related?

[Candleque]

6 hours ago, MJW said:

You all might be interested in these, given the news:

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/royaloperahouse/albums/72157712560790361

Great pictures, thanks MJW. And interesting indeed.

The shots of Reece Clarke and Natalia Osipova in rehearsal for Onegin were taken on December 12, 2019. Yet the Royal Ballet didn't tell ticket holders — and new buyers — about the cast change until today. Why the lag?

Am a big fan, so psyched to see Reece in this, and delighted at his well deserved promotion. He is a beautiful dancer. But like many others I originally booked for Vadim Muntagirov, so wish RB were more upfront about 'planned in advance' cast changes. 

[alison]

Has Osipova been around to rehearse? What, if anything, has she been performing in December which made her unavailable for Coppelia?

[bridiem]

8 hours ago, Candleque said:

Great pictures, thanks MJW. And interesting indeed.

The shots of Reece Clarke and Natalia Osipova in rehearsal for Onegin were taken on December 12, 2019. Yet the Royal Ballet didn't tell ticket holders — and new buyers — about the cast change until today. Why the lag?

Am a big fan, so psyched to see Reece in this, and delighted at his well deserved promotion. He is a beautiful dancer. But like many others I originally booked for Vadim Muntagirov, so wish RB were more upfront about 'planned in advance' cast changes. 

 

Maybe Clarke was cover and so also rehearsing?

[Dawnstar]

2 hours ago, alison said:

Has Osipova been around to rehearse? What, if anything, has she been performing in December which made her unavailable for Coppelia?

 

I saw her exiting the stage door when I was waiting there after the matinee of Coppelia on 30th December & also saw her entering on 20th December. So she's certainly been around some of the time & was presumably there to rehearse as she wasn't performing on either date.

[FionaM]

2 hours ago, alison said:

Has Osipova been around to rehearse? What, if anything, has she been performing in December which made her unavailable for Coppelia?

She was performing Nutcracker in Perm in late December.  
 

We don’t know that she was unavailable for Coppélia.  She may have chosen not to do it.  It would have been new choreography for her from other versions she had performed elsewhere, all many years ago now.  Maybe it’s not something she wants to be doing now.  Or perhaps it was a scheduling conflict around rehearsal time rather than performance times.  All speculation!  

[FLOSS]

 I think that we need to remember that in Russia the old rules of emploi are still pretty rigorously applied in the world of ballet. This means that from the day a dancer enters a company their career trajectory is pretty much laid out as far as the sort of repertory and roles available to them is concerned. The rules of emploi are based on the idea that a dancer's physique and their looks determine the sort of role to which they are suited. The tall dancer is seen as elegant and stately dancing with elegant effortless ease which makes them suited for princely roles; the shorter more compact dancer is suited for less elevated roles, dances with far greater overt vigour than the danseur noble and plays less socially elevated characters and so on down the ranks of dancer types each of which has their specialist allotted roles and repertory.

 

I understood that Osipova came to London because she wanted to escape being typecast as a demi -character dancer and only ever being permitted to perform roles deemed suitable for dancers of that emploi.  As Swanilda is a prime example of the sort of role available to a demi-character dancers in Russia it is quite possible that she just did nor want to dance the role again. I don't think that we need to know why she has not appeared in this revival of Coppelia but I think it highly unlikely that she would have been denied the opportunity of appearing in it had she wished to do so. In the circumstances it seems a pointless exercise to try to work out whether she was gainfully employed, pursuing  one of her private projects, at the time this revival was being prepared and rehearsed and so unavailable or whether there was some other reason for her not being given the role. The simple fact is that she did not appear as Swanilda at this revival. I suspect that if given the choice between preparing the role of Tatiana in Onegin or Swanilda in Coppelia, Osipova would choose Tatiana every time as it is the sort of role that probably would not have been available to her at the Bolshoi as a demi-character dancer. 

 

I am not at all put out by the revised casting. Casting according to type has its advantages and its disadvantages as does casting against type which does not always pay of.Much as I admire Muntagirov as a dancer the announcement that he was to appear as Onegin intrigued me but also left me feeling that with his boyish charm it was unlikely to prove to be an inspired decision to cast against type which might give new insights into Onegin's character and was much more likely to turn out to be a serious miscalculation which would not work in performance.  As far as Clarke's suitability for the role is concerned he has the undoubted advantage of looking the part before he dances a step and of having , as yet, no established stage persona from which he has to extricate himself in order to convince the audience that he is Onegin. 

 

A sort of postscript.

 One or two posts have touched on the topic of dancers working elsewhere when we might have expected to see them performing in London.giving the impression that they rather disapprove of the practice. While it can be disappointing not to see dancers whom you admire on a more regular basis I suspect that agreed absences work to the company's and the audience's advantage by enabling the company  to recruit and  then retain outstanding dancers within its ranks. The range of repertory may be what makes dancers want to join the company but it is the promise of roles and development opportunities which keeps them there. It seems to me that Kevin has got the balance between meeting the needs and expectations of his senior dancers and those of the younger ones about right. The truly talented get opportunities in a way that would not be possible if all the senior dancers were appearing at Covent Garden during the entire ballet season. In the dim and distant past dancers would join the company brimming with potential and enthusiasm but by the time they got their chance to show what they could do in a do or die debut the potential had more often than not been smothered by years of waiting. It was not pleasant to see then and it would be unlikely to happen today as today's dancers would almost certainly vote with their feet.

 

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by FLOSS

[Lizbie1]

10 minutes ago, oncnp said:

 

All good points as always.  Similarly Mr. Muntagirov, denied even the opportunity to expand his repertoire beyond the box he's been put in and still relatively young,  may decide to vote with his feet. I wouldn't blame him

Apologies if this falls into speculation, but it’s by no means clear that the RB were responsible for this cast change.

[bridiem]

50 minutes ago, FLOSS said:

I am not at all put out by the revised casting. Casting according to type has its advantages and its disadvantages as does casting against type which does not always pay of.Much as I admire Muntagirov as a dancer the announcement that he was to appear as Onegin intrigued me but also left me feeling that with his boyish charm it was unlikely to prove to be an inspired decision to cast against type which might give new insights into Onegin's character and was much more likely to turn out to be a serious miscalculation which would not work in performance.

 

Well we won't know now, will we? Having seen him in Winter Dreams, I think he's a lot more versatile and mature in his acting than he's sometimes given credit for. And the biggest issue is that he was announced as performing the role and then the casting changed with no explanation very shortly before his début. I know casting is always subject to change, but once announced it should really only be changed for injury/illness/unavailability. If it might be changed for some other reason that we don't know about but the company does, the casting should be shown as provisional/to be confirmed from the outset.

[Lizbie1]

2 minutes ago, bridiem said:

If it might be changed for some other reason that we don't know about but the company does, the casting should be shown as provisional/to be confirmed from the outset.

My understanding is that pretty much all casting involving the Cranko estate would fall into this category.

[alison]

6 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

My understanding is that pretty much all casting involving the Cranko estate would fall into this category.

 

In that case - or any other - the standard "casting is subject to change" statement applies.

 

7 hours ago, FionaE said:

 

We don’t know that she was unavailable for Coppélia.

 

I did say "if anything"   

[bridiem]

5 minutes ago, alison said:

In that case - or any other - the standard "casting is subject to change" statement applies.

 

Yes, but it's disingenuous if the casting is known to be provisional from the outset, which doesn't apply to most casting. Would a big opera star be withdrawn with no explanation? (Btw I'm sorry this discussion is happening on the Reece Clarke promotion thread - his promotion is entirely welcome and deserved whatever the reason that prompted it!).

[bangorballetboy]

22 minutes ago, bridiem said:

 

Yes, but it's disingenuous if the casting is known to be provisional from the outset, which doesn't apply to most casting. Would a big opera star be withdrawn with no explanation? (Btw I'm sorry this discussion is happening on the Reece Clarke promotion thread - his promotion is entirely welcome and deserved whatever the reason that prompted it!).

 

Yes, big opera stars sometimes withdraw with no explanation.  Also, there is no public information that Muntagirov was "withdrawn".

 

I really wish people on this forum could be mature enough to realise that suppostion about cast changes such as Muntagirov/Clarke can be very inappropriate and potentially distressing for those involved. 

[capybara]

I did not want to become caught up in this discussion and certainly not on a thread which should be celebrating Reece Clarke's promotion - which I think is terrific.

However, since this matter is simmering in two places on the forum.....................

I happen to know that Vadim Muntagirov was not 'withdrawn' by the Cranko people or the RB. He is talking to The London Ballet Circle on the 20th January and it was necessary (yesterday) to ask him if he was prepared to say anything about this particular issue as it might otherwise be  "the elephant in the room". He gave me an explanation and said that he would be happy to answer the same question in that semi-public forum.

I don't feel that I should be reporting what he said to me as it is better that it comes direct from him.

I do, however, wish that the ROH announcement could have provided some detail.

 

[bridiem]

13 minutes ago, capybara said:

I did not want to become caught up in this discussion and certainly not on a thread which should be celebrating Reece Clarke's promotion - which I think is terrific.

However, since this matter is simmering in two places on the forum.....................

I happen to know that Vadim Muntagirov was not 'withdrawn' by the Cranko people or the RB. He is talking to The London Ballet Circle on the 20th January and it was necessary (yesterday) to ask him if he was prepared to say anything about this particular issue as it might otherwise be  "the elephant in the room". He gave me an explanation and said that he would be happy to answer the same question in that semi-public forum.

I don't feel that I should be reporting what he said to me as it is better that it comes direct from him.

I do, however, wish that the ROH announcement could have provided some detail.

 

Thank you, capybara; that's very reassuring. My primary 100% concern is for dancers (though audiences are also not unimportant) and I think that the ROH announcement did, perhaps unnecessarily, raise some legitimate questions on behalf of both.

 

And yes, I am very much looking forward to seeing Reece Clarke in Onegin, and apologies for my part in this thread getting diverted.

[FionaM]

Loving the photographs of Reece and Natalia that were posted.  They look really good for the roles and together 👏

 

 

[Balletfanp]

6 hours ago, FLOSS said:

 

I am not at all put out by the revised casting. Casting according to type has its advantages and its disadvantages as does casting against type which does not always pay of.Much as I admire Muntagirov as a dancer the announcement that he was to appear as Onegin intrigued me but also left me feeling that with his boyish charm it was unlikely to prove to be an inspired decision to cast against type which might give new insights into Onegin's character and was much more likely to turn out to be a serious miscalculation which would not work in performance.

Well, we’ll never know, will we, now that he isn’t dancing it? I think it rather unfair to write anyone off before seeing them. I have seen dancers before in roles that I didn’t think they were particularly suited to, and been very pleasantly surprised.

 

I think those who have seen Muntagirov in roles such as Winter Dreams, Month in the Country and Jeux, are aware that his acting abilities are far beyond what most people credit him with (I didn’t personally see him in Jeux but heard very good reports of his acting in that). It feels as though he is being somewhat typecast by those who have perhaps only seen him in classical or lighter roles and, as someone said above, if you don’t allow a dancer the chance to prove him or herself, or write them off before seeing them in a particular role then you are keeping them in that pigeonhole forever.

 

I regret that for whatever reason Muntagirov is no longer to dance Onegin as it would have been a chance for him to prove himself in a major role far different from those he is generally selected for.

 

Anyway, back to Reece - for whom I am delighted, by the way! I hope very much (and feel that he will) give an excellent account of himself.

[Fiz]

Exactly, just as Osipova was kept in soubrette roles. 

[Mary]

 

 

Saying a dancer wouldn't be right for, or good in, a role when you have not seen them dance it always strikes me as  a bit unhelpful. I can think of quite a few examples on the forum over the years when in fact a dancer has gone on to be very good despite such comments. (Too short, too tall, too classical, too cheerful, too restrained or not restrained enough, not a 'romantic lead' or 'no good at comedy' -  or whatever.)

 

But  they often surprise us.

 

It's one thing to say a performance you saw wasn't so good - fair enough- but surely, if you haven't seen it........that really is just speculation.

 

I feel pretty confident that we have an awful lot more to find out about Vadim Muntagirov- and come to that, Reece Clarke as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Fiz]

I hope so. To quote Marie Kondo, for me Vadim Muntagirov sparks joy when I see him dance. 

[maryrosesatonapin]

I'm really, really happy about Clarke's promotion - I just couldn't understand why he wasn't promoted before.  Better late than never!  And I also firmly believe that had Muntagirov danced Onegin he would have been capable of making the role his own in an entirely convincing way.

Edited January 8, 2020 by maryrosesatonapin
typo

[jmhopton]

On 08/01/2020 at 17:09, capybara said:

I did not want to become caught up in this discussion and certainly not on a thread which should be celebrating Reece Clarke's promotion - which I think is terrific.

However, since this matter is simmering in two places on the forum.....................

I happen to know that Vadim Muntagirov was not 'withdrawn' by the Cranko people or the RB. He is talking to The London Ballet Circle on the 20th January and it was necessary (yesterday) to ask him if he was prepared to say anything about this particular issue as it might otherwise be  "the elephant in the room". He gave me an explanation and said that he would be happy to answer the same question in that semi-public forum.

I don't feel that I should be reporting what he said to me as it is better that it comes direct from him.

I do, however, wish that the ROH announcement could have provided some detail.

 

 

I phoned the box office today about Vadim's non-appearance (as it said to do in the cast change email) and had a very pleasant chat with the young man there. He was very honest about it and I came off the phone feeling happier about things but like Capybara think it's better not to discuss it in a public forum until Vadim can state his own case. I just wanted people like me who have been worried about the reason for it (and getting rather depressed) know they can find out for themselves if they don't want to wait until the 20th Jan (or afterwards if, like me, you can't make the meeting). Like Capybara, I feel a lot of speculation and worry could have been avoided if the ROH had given more detail in the cast change announcement.

 

Anyway, enough of that and onto Reece's promotion which is really wonderful news. My only surprise is that it didn't come earlier. I was expecting it in September as he has already danced several principal roles and seemed a shoo in for first soloist. This season he debuted the prince in Sleeping Beauty and was obviously understudying several major roles as he was able to fill in mid-performance for Steven McRae in Manon and also Onegin at fairly short notice. So a hugely versatile dancer with a great talent and I'm sure he'll be a splendid Onegin.

 

[jmhopton]

And I also firmly believe that had Muntagirov danced Onegin he would have been capable of making the role his own in an entirely convincing way.

Hear Hear Maryrosesatonapin!!!!!!!!!

[Richard LH]

3 hours ago, jmhopton said:

I phoned the box office today about Vadim's non-appearance (as it said to do in the cast change email) and had a very pleasant chat with the young man there. He was very honest about it and I came off the phone feeling happier about things but like Capybara think it's better not to discuss it in a public forum until Vadim can state his own case. I just wanted people like me who have been worried about the reason for it (and getting rather depressed) know they can find out for themselves if they don't want to wait until the 20th Jan (or afterwards if, like me, you can't make the meeting). Like Capybara, I feel a lot of speculation and worry could have been avoided if the ROH had given more detail in the cast change announcement.

 

If the box office staff are authorised to explain the reason for a cast change, to anyone who calls them, I don't quite understand why people in the know cannot pass the information on to anyone else.

[HappyTurk]

1 minute ago, Richard LH said:

 

If the box office staff are authorised to explain the reason for a cast change, to anyone who calls them, I don't quite understand why people in the know cannot pass the information on to anyone else.

I agree!

[balletfan2020]

congratulations to reece! longtime lurker here, but I just remembered watching this a while back: https://vimeo.com/84028653 interesting clip about the clarke family's journey to the Royal Ballet School. His parents and brothers must be so proud! 

[Jan McNulty]

Hello Balletfan2020 and welcome out of the lurking shadows!

 

Now that you've broken the ice I hope you will continue to join in.

[Bluebird]

6 hours ago, balletfan2020 said:

congratulations to reece! longtime lurker here, but I just remembered watching this a while back: https://vimeo.com/84028653 interesting clip about the clarke family's journey to the Royal Ballet School. His parents and brothers must be so proud! 

 

It's interesting to see a young Claire Calvert dancing with Russell Clarke during the closing credits of the film!

[bridiem]

7 hours ago, balletfan2020 said:

congratulations to reece! longtime lurker here, but I just remembered watching this a while back: https://vimeo.com/84028653 interesting clip about the clarke family's journey to the Royal Ballet School. His parents and brothers must be so proud! 

 

Really interesting film! Thanks for posting it, balletfan2020.

[Sim]

Thanks Balletfan2020.   A fascinating watch!  Does anyone know what the other three Clarke brothers are doing now?