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18 minutes ago, FionaE said:

I’d be delighted to Rhapsody again … but with new casts only.  
(Passage cut from quote from Paul Arrowsmith.)

Daichi Ikarashi's insouciant performance almost convinced me otherwise. Next stop for him – please – would be the lead role in Ashton's Rhapsody, so that ballet may regain its nonchalant wit, long missing.”

 


Yes please!!!

 

 

Edited by capybara
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I think it’s safe the assume that all the money for new Main Stage Productions has gone to the Royal Opera.

New Das Rheingold

New Carmen

New Jephtah

New Elektra

And no new Main Stage work for the Royal Ballet. 
Hopefully the tables turn the season after next.

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15 hours ago, Ondine said:

 

I see I've used up my quota of LIKES for today. Hmm.

 

 

There is a quota??  Hmm, I am obviously not Liking enough!

 

Checkmate is a very interesting ballet.  I saw BRB perform it, and loved it, whereas when RB did it I didn't enjoy it as much.  I would like to see it again though.  

With regard to choreographers, are Wayne McGregor's ballets still wildly popular?  I speak as someone who really doesn't like much of what he produces, and would only go and see anything by him if there were other choreographers on a triple bill.  And that includes Woolf Works, which I thought was ok, but wouldn't want to see on a regular basis.  Given the amount of time, money, and dancers that presumably are lavished upon these efforts, I would rather have somebody producing openly classical new works.  If I want contemporary, I will go and watch other dance companies.  I've always felt that having a resident choreographer who is not in the classical mould rather defeats the object of the post in the first place.  

Edited by Fonty
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Thanks for this video!
Nice to see Wayne Sleep STILL so enthusiastic and being invited to pass on his invaluable knowledge. Great stuff. Such a character. 
But back in the 70’s he sometimes came to a Saturday ballet class over in South Kensington when with the Company and was always very unassuming and hard working you’d never have thought he was a star with the RB.  No showing off …he obviously just enjoyed this particular class ( and teacher) as didn’t seem to mind dancing with us mostly amateurs with the odd professional dropping in occasionally. 
I still think he is the best Puck in the Dream and Kolia in Month in Country and his duet with Vergie Derman in Elite Syncopations always brought the House down! You can see in this video he’d still love to be able to do it.. if only!! 
Daichi is a real star in the making too great times ahead for him I think! 

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3 hours ago, JNC said:

Did Osipova not get cast as Kitri in the 2019 revival as I vaguely recall? Imagine her performances will sell incredibly well!

 

I have also used up all my likes but reading this thread with interest. There’s so much great repertoire out there that I’d love to see in future years, including Checkmate! 

She was cast in a few performances, originally with Cesar Corrales, who was due to partner both Osipova and Kaneko. He got injured, so Osipova danced it with Vadim Muntagirov and Kaneko danced with Daniel Camargo, invited at very very short notice to fly to London to learn the production and make his debut on the ROH stage and with the company (he’d danced at Sadler’s Wells before but not ROH) in a high pressure role- brave man! Vadim ended up being Basilio for both Nuñez  and Osipova’s shows, was a hit, as were both Osipova and Nuñez. That was a fun season! 👍😊 (not so fun for Cesar but he did recover and come back).

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9 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

She was cast in a few performances, originally with Cesar Corrales, who was due to partner both Osipova and Kaneko. He got injured, so Osipova danced it with Vadim Muntagirov and Kaneko danced with Daniel Camargo, invited at very very short notice to fly to London to learn the production and make his debut on the ROH stage and with the company (he’d danced at Sadler’s Wells before but not ROH) in a high pressure role- brave man! Vadim ended up being Basilio for both Nuñez  and Osipova’s shows, was a hit, as were both Osipova and Nuñez. That was a fun season! 👍😊 (not so fun for Cesar but he did recover and come back).

 

Just my opinion of course but I really enjoyed the Nunez performance whereas with Osipova I got two exquisite dancers doing their job with no connection. 

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3 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

Those main stage commissions were a very long time coming - and only did come after the press started asking questions. Prior to that, under O'Hare and I think Mason also (I don't exempt her from criticism) female choreographers were relegated to other stages and spaces. This would have been less glaring had the quality of work from many of the male choreographers who received main stage commissions during the same period been higher.

 

we all see the world through different filters. 

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7 minutes ago, PeterS said:

 

we all see the world through different filters. 

 

The thing is, I don't generally see it through this filter. The imbalance at the RB was just sufficiently obvious to make it difficult not to pick up on it.

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20 minutes ago, oncnp said:

 

Just my opinion of course but I really enjoyed the Nunez performance whereas with Osipova I got two exquisite dancers doing their job with no connection. 


I didn’t see Osipova but the energy for Nunez/Vadim was great! 

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Oooh yes Coppelia!  That was terrific.

 

Coppélia first came into the repertory in 1933, brought from Russia by Nicolas Sergeyev. Royal Ballet founder Ninette de Valois created this production of Coppélia in 1954, working with notations that had been previously made of the original Petipa production in 1870 and with material added by the the great mime artist and teacher Enrico Cecchetti. The effervescent and technically brilliant Nadia Nerina starred as Swanilda.

The choreography of Coppélia is unassumingly challenging: brimming with fast, fleeting footwork and covering a gamut of styles, from the jerky doll variations in Act II to the grand ballerina climax of the Wedding pas de deux.

 

https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/coppelia-2019-digital

 

I was thinking more of Ninette de Valois'  ballets which were by her alone. It would be good to have a revival of a few but it would have to be carefully done, with the right casts etc. I don't know how modern audiences would react.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Regarding the 'likes' limit, this is something that is integral to the system that the web hosts design and maintain, so unfortunately the mods and our techies can't do anything about it.  It's the same with the editing; the half-hour limit is imposed by the web hosts, not by the mods.  On the positive side, it's lovely that so many forum members are so generous with their 'likes' that they run out!  

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51 minutes ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

The thing is, I don't generally see it through this filter. The imbalance at the RB was just sufficiently obvious to make it difficult not to pick up on it.

 

apologies but the 'imbalance at the RB' is not sufficiently obvious to me. 

the best candidate who is available from the widest pool of talent ought to be the one get the commission and i believe that the RB strive for this when deciding.

 

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4 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

Those main stage commissions were a very long time coming - and only did come after the press started asking questions. Prior to that, under O'Hare and I think Mason also (I don't exempt her from criticism) female choreographers were relegated to other stages and spaces. This would have been less glaring had the quality of work from many of the male choreographers who received main stage commissions during the same period been higher.

I agree- it’s been a long time coming. The question Max posed would be very relevant if asked 10-15 years ago, but seems odd right now when the leadership are trying to make improvements in the right direction. And I know sometimes it’s not just a case of the artistic director wanting to do it- in the past the board of directors have vetoed productions or commissions even though the artistic directors wanted them (eg Cranko’s Onegin, which eventually  got to the Royal Ballet over 2 decades late.....when the people comprising the board of directors had changed several times, haha).

 

3 hours ago, bridiem said:

 

Well it's true that the quality of many of the new works has been disappointing; but I'm afraid I don't rate Cathy Marston as highly as many others do, and although Crystal Pite is excellent her style seems to be quite repetitive and she is very much on the contemporary dance end of the spectrum (as is Pam Tanowitz). The only work of Kristen McNally's I've seen or heard of has not filled me with confidence (though I'd like to be proved wrong). So it doesn't seem to me that there are lots of talented female choreographers out there who are deliberately being ignored. Anyone who wants to choreograph should be encouraged (at least at first!), but to me the only thing that matters is the quality of what is produced. (My criticism of KOH would be more on those grounds than on the sex of those who have been commissioned. And I personally would include e.g. The Cellist in the list of disappointing works.)

I agree that good quality new works is difficult to find! Some companies abroad don’t give so many performances to new works as RB do, maybe only three showings, and if it’s good it is done again next season or the season after, if it’s unsatisfactory it’s not staged again. Often the new works aren’t given a massive budget and expensive costumes and sets either, on the understanding that if it’s good it can be tweaked later.

 

The RB model is close to that of many European companies which is to lavish a lot of money on it, programme it for quite a few shows and hope, fingers crossed, it’s a winner. Some companies even focus more shows on a new work than RB do, and in some cities and companies, there is a culture of thinking companies should perform new works all the time (not exclusively but a lot) and accept bad creations as part and parcel of company life and theatre going, perhaps because they have less of a back catalogue than RB does. That model works well if your house choreographer is eg Balanchine, who produced a lot of successes, but less good if your choreographer is like most other mortals!

 

I wouldn’t like to have RB doing only the proven back catalogue successes of old works with no new creations, but neither would I want just premieres all the time and the heritage works forgotten. Striking a balance is the tricky bit.

 

I saw the short piece McNally did for the platinum jubilee (ironically not on tv because the editing/directing was rubbish but on Lauren Cuthbertson’s Instagram page, filmed on her phone) and a small pas de deux she did- I think she has potential and with practice and more time to develop her work she will be a good choreographer with a distinctive voice, but she’s obviously still busy performing. I don’t think she is there yet, but she needs more opportunities to do it and to learn.

 

I thought The Cellist was good in some parts while other parts needed tweaking to make it a very good work. I thought her ballet for SFB, Snowblind, was a more finished and compelling ballet. SFB is an example of a company that does tons and tons of new works (am talking about Tomasson’s time, not Rojo’s). They have had many, many unsatisfactory works too!  (I remember that I used to think of SFB as, the company that has a lot of boring, meandering new works, but really brilliant dancers who performed these pieces with total commitment! Recently they have had more successful and compelling works on their tour programmes- eg Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour was made with them). 

 

PS ignoring the Swan Lake production and the non-artistic related incidents, would be curious to hear what you thought of Liam Scarlett’s Asphodel Meadows, Viscera, Age of Anxiety, Symphonic Dances, No Man’s Land (for ENB), Hummingbird (for SFB, if you’ve seen it), bridiem. You can include Sweet Violets if you wish. I’m leaving out Frankenstein though! 😁

 

Maybe rather than just one new choreography festival a year (which I accept is already luckier than what many less well endowed companies can manage) new choreography can be put on once a month at Linbury Theatre. It has been observed that one reason why Balanchine became such a good choreographer was that he had lots of practice and opportunity-maybe more obligation than opportunity!  Often he had  to “whip up” a new ballet to order eg once or twice a month during the season just to have a mixed  bill on the programme, and didn’t have the luxury of “waiting for inspiration” but would use music he had heard recently and just come up with the steps and ideas. Robbins was the total opposite- very low and slow output compared to Mr B but what came out was very good (both characteristics due to his perfectionism as well as his time spent doing musicals and film as well). It’s a good thing both were in the same company! 

 

Every company and director is on the hunt for good choreography and quality new ballets all the time. We were lucky to have had Ashton and MacMillan, and a small collection of works from de Valois, lost Cranko to Germany, lost Tudor to the US, managed to keep Bintley who has produced a collection of quality works, lost Wheeldon to NYCB but now “sharing” him with several other companies. McGregor has had successes (like Robbins) in other genres and made some masterpieces for RB, but they’re not classical in the strict sense (McGregor isn’t even trained as a ballet dancer but a contemporary one).

 

Can we find another choreographer with the quality and skill of Ashton or MacMillan? - we have to start by giving them opportunities to choreograph and to learn from their mistakes. Maybe the use of the Linbury space to show work more frequently. Perhaps ROH should have a choreography competition that is open to all choreographers and not just RB employees? Iron sharpens iron- competing with others not only motivates you to work at your best but also to learn from what others are creating. (I’m not sponsoring or organising one- sorry. 😉 Just putting ideas out there. But it’s a worldwide search-not just at RB!) 

Edited by Emeralds
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6 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

PS ignoring the Swan Lake production and the non-artistic related incidents, would be curious to hear what you thought of Liam Scarlett’s Asphodel Meadows, Viscera, Age of Anxiety, Symphonic Dances, No Man’s Land (for ENB), Hummingbird (for SFB, if you’ve seen it), bridiem. You can include Sweet Violets if you wish. I’m leaving out Frankenstein though! 😁

 

I thought Asphodel Meadows was (is) one of the most beautiful ballets I'd ever seen. I don't remember Viscera very well but perhaps inevitably for me it didn't reach the heights of AM. Age of Anxiety was too long and over-designed and melodramatic, but did still indicate talent. Ditto Sweet Violets. I loved No Man's Land and greatly disliked Symphonic Dances. I haven't seen Hummingbird. Really for me Scarlett started on a major high and then frustratingly failed to fully build on it in the way I had hoped/expected, but I nevertheless think that with more time and perhaps more guidance or perhaps greater maturity he would have done so.

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58 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

 

PS ignoring the Swan Lake production and the non-artistic related incidents, would be curious to hear what you thought of Liam Scarlett’s Asphodel Meadows, Viscera, Age of Anxiety, Symphonic Dances, No Man’s Land (for ENB), Hummingbird (for SFB, if you’ve seen it), bridiem. You can include Sweet Violets if you wish. I’m leaving out Frankenstein though! 😁

 

Asphodel Meadows: excellent

Viscera: very good.

Age of Anxiety: below par.

Symphonic Dances: excellent.

No Man's Land: not his best.

Sweet Violets: good, could do with some edits, need to understand the characters.

Frankenstein: good grief, no.

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Reminder to self to watch Liam’s CARMEN staged for Finnish National Ballet in January this year.   Laura Morera was involved in the staging (though their website doesn’t make that clear.  She talked about it in the recent London Ballet Circle interview.).
 

It is available to watch free online until 20 May 2023

https://oopperabaletti.fi/en/stage24/video/carmen-recording/

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33 minutes ago, bangorballetboy said:

 

Asphodel Meadows: excellent

Viscera: very good.

Age of Anxiety: below par.

Symphonic Dances: excellent.

No Man's Land: not his best.

Sweet Violets: good, could do with some edits, need to understand the characters.

Frankenstein: good grief, no.

Agree with the above, except that I really liked No Man's Land.   I can't remember Symphonic Dances but I do remember not being blown away.  Maybe the fact that I can't remember it says something...

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6 hours ago, FionaE said:

 

I’d be delighted to Rhapsody again … but with new casts only.  
(Passage cut from quote from Paul Arrowsmith.)

Daichi Ikarashi's insouciant performance almost convinced me otherwise. Next stop for him – please – would be the lead role in Ashton's Rhapsody, so that ballet may regain its nonchalant wit, long missing.”

 


Yes please!!!

 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by capybara

 

Include me for Daichi in Rhapsody too!  Perhaps even matador in Don Q? Especially as this will be after RB promotions and I'm sure he will be promoted. In fact, I can see him as a principal in the not too dim and distant future.

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35 minutes ago, jmhopton said:

6 hours ago, FionaE said:

 

I’d be delighted to Rhapsody again … but with new casts only.  
(Passage cut from quote from Paul Arrowsmith.)

Daichi Ikarashi's insouciant performance almost convinced me otherwise. Next stop for him – please – would be the lead role in Ashton's Rhapsody, so that ballet may regain its nonchalant wit, long missing.”

 


Yes please!!!

 

 

Edited 6 hours ago by capybara

 

Include me for Daichi in Rhapsody too!  Perhaps even matador in Don Q? Especially as this will be after RB promotions and I'm sure he will be promoted. In fact, I can see him as a principal in the not too dim and distant future.


And Joonhyuk Jun, hopefully!

Edited by art_enthusiast
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4 hours ago, Emeralds said:

PS ignoring the Swan Lake production and the non-artistic related incidents, would be curious to hear what you thought of Liam Scarlett’s Asphodel Meadows, Viscera, Age of Anxiety, Symphonic Dances, No Man’s Land (for ENB), Hummingbird (for SFB, if you’ve seen it), bridiem. You can include Sweet Violets if you wish. I’m leaving out Frankenstein though! 😁

 

Am I the only person who didn't mind Frankenstein? Not that I loved it but I thought it was fine. If it was revived again I'd consider seeing it again, if it was a good cast. I feel as though every one else hates it though! The only other Scarlett pieces I've seen are The Cunning Little Vixen, which I really enjoyed, Asphodel Meadows & an extract from No Man's Land.

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Just now, Dawnstar said:

 

Am I the only person who didn't mind Frankenstein? Not that I loved it but I thought it was fine. If it was revived again I'd consider seeing it again, if it was a good cast. I feel as though every one else hates it though! The only other Scarlett pieces I've seen are The Cunning Little Vixen, which I really enjoyed, Asphodel Meadows & an extract from No Man's Land.

 

I didn't hate Frankenstein! Actually quite enjoyed it in spite of its faults. But I'd be surprised if it came back.

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