BRB2 - Carlos Acosta's Classical Selection

[Guest]

What a night ! A cool, dry Spring evening at a fine venue, easily located by rail, car or (presumably) bus. No issues whatsoever with the logistics.

 

Virtually sold out as far as I could tell (there were a few tickets unsold on the website earlier in the day).

 

Cleverly conceived as a whole (I'll let you enjoy it for yourselves) with so much to enjoy. Fantastic sight lines from all seats I would have thought. A very well behaved audience. The dancing was a delight. The first half very classical, the second half will not ruffle any feathers in this regard - more modern, but with it's heart very much in the classical idiom.

 

Majisimo, the last and longest piece (to Massenet's Le Cid) was a magnificent finale.

 

The Royal Ballet Sinfonia were on very fine form and once again I do wonder if Paul Murphy is not the finest conductor we have for Ballet in the UK now.

 

The locals went home very happy indeed.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2023 by Robin Smith
spelling error.

[maryrosesatonapin]

I went to see this at the Derngate last night and was blown away.  It was a mixed programme of older and newer excerpts danced by the younger dancers of the company who might not ordinarily have the opportunity to dance soloist roles for a number of years. I knew Acosta wouldn't allow them on stage unless they were good enough, and of course the performances weren't technically perfect, but they were very good and some were outstanding. My personal favourite was the kilt-wearing Eric Pinto Cata who had terrific stage presence and technique.

The first half consisted of better known works, but introduced in a fresh way as we first 'met' the dancers preparing 'back stage' (ie the stage had a barre, various messy trunks, dancers putting on their costumes and so on). This meant that we were very aware of the performers as human beings, which worked well and was echoed at the end as they all picked up their bags and left the stage in their scruffy rehearsal clothes.  There was one instance where we had a 'shadow play' of dancers hugging and helping each other with costumes.  This must all sound a bit strange if you haven't seen it, but I thought it worked charmingly in this mixed selection.  (There was a similar element in Scottish Ballet's brilliant 'Starstruck'.)

So, the programme for those interested - mostly danced in front of a plain backdrop apart from a cafe scene for the second half:
Ashton's Rhapsody Pas de Deux/Bournonville's La Sylphide pas de deux/Swan Lake Act II pas de deux (choreography altered by Acosta), Dying Swans (choreography altered by Acosta, with two dancers, but I wasn't keen on this)/Vaganova-Petipa's Diana and Actaeon pas de deux.
Interval
Stevenson's End of Time/Mollsjoll's A Buenos Aires/Van Cauwenbergh's 'Je ne Regrette Rien' [danced to a recording of Edith Piaf, although the rest was mainly the live orchestra who played with verve]/Van Cauwenbergh's Les Bourgeois/Carmen (a pas de deux choreographed by Acosta)/Tuckett's Nisi Dominus/Garcia's Majisimo which was a suitably brilliant and energetic ending.

The well-deserved applause became a standing ovation which went on for longer than I can remember happening for a long time.  As you can imagine, I am recommending this if you can catch a performance in Nottingham, Peterborough, London or Wolverhampton.

The music was very much to my taste throughout - a great variety, but always enjoyable to listen to and appropriate for the dancing.  Acosta is clearly brimming with ideas and this is one that worked excellently and, I feel, can only get better, developing the company at the same time. Oh, and our 'best seats' cost only £16.

[LinMM]

Can’t wait to see this on 13th June!! 

[LinMM]

Glad you enjoyed am seeing on June 13th but I think there are comments on two different threads on this now 🤔

[Jan McNulty]

1 minute ago, LinMM said:

Glad you enjoyed am seeing on June 13th but I think there are comments on two different threads on this now 🤔

 

I've merged them @LinMM.

[maryrosesatonapin]

18 minutes ago, Jan McNulty said:

 

I've merged them @LinMM.

Thank you!  I searched first and failed to find anything.....

[MaddieRose]

So looking forward to seeing this on Saturday! 

[alison]

2 hours ago, maryrosesatonapin said:

The first half consisted of better known works, but introduced in a fresh way as we first 'met' the dancers preparing 'back stage' (ie the stage had a barre, various messy trunks, dancers putting on their costumes and so on). This meant that we were very aware of the performers as human beings, which worked well and was echoed at the end as they all picked up their bags and left the stage in their scruffy rehearsal clothes. 

 

That's actually fairly common for Acosta's "and Friends"-type programmes he's done in London in the past.  Glad to hear it went well.

[Blossom]

Thank you for all of the detail @maryrosesatonapin - very much looking forward to seeing this at the Linbury!

[Ondine]

Well the Guardian critic appears to have liked it which is good!

 

BRB2 review – great start for Carlos Acosta’s young squad

 

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/apr/26/brb2-review-great-start-for-carlos-acostas-young-squad

 

The newer dancers show care and precision, and a developing sense of performance. It’s clear they’re still young, but this an enjoyably impressive showcase, and proof that Acosta is serious about investing in young talent.

 

 

 

[Guest]

The Telegraph (Mark Monahan) has given it a 4 star review and a marketing email from Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall claims The Times has also given it a 4 star review.

[Ondine]

I've used up all today's LIKES quota so consider this a LIKE!

[Ian Macmillan]

44 minutes ago, Robin Smith said:

and a marketing email from Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall claims The Times has also given it a 4 star review.

Maybe, maybe not - we'll see in tomorrow's Links!

[Ondine]

BRB2: Carlos Acosta’s Classical Selection review — young stars of new ensemble shine

 

Hopeful!

[MaddieRose]

Very very amazing performance this afternoon in Nottingham!

A standout was Enrique Bejarano Vidal in Rhapsody, Diana and Actaeon and A Buenos Aires. Confident jumps and a lot of passion and charisma. 
 

I liked all the pieces to a certain extent, although was slightly by Nisi Dominus (I read the synopsis and still didn’t get it). Regan Hutsell was very good in it though.

 

I had seen the End of Time Pas de deux danced by Lawrence and Zhang, and Maïlène Katoch and Mason King were just as moving as them (I might have cried). Majisimo was also as fun as I remembered. Riku Ito lead that, and was wonderful, and was also hilarious in Les Bourgeois, dancing a drunk.

 

I enjoyed the set up, with the dancers at a barre, although it did confuse the audience about when to clap at the end. We then clapped for everyone as they left, and the dancers received hearty applause over six or seven curtain calls.

 

 

 

[Terpsichore]

I saw the show at the Theatre Royal in Nottingham and enjoyed it very much.

The format was very similar to the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company's touring programme.   There were 4 familiar works in the first half (or 6 if you count Fokine and  Descombey's Dying Swans as separate solos disregarding Acosta's bolt-on to make them a duet) and 7 less familiar works.   BRB2 included two pieces that had been in HNB's opening performance in 2013.

I would have trekked down the M1 for a second or even third viewing yesterday had it not been for Powerhouse Ballet's company class in Salford yesterday afternoon.

I am also sorry that I missed the opening night with the orchestra but I had to be in Colwyn Bay at 09:00 on 26 April and I have no flying carpet or private helicopter.    I will try to engineer a trip to London or Peterborough to see them there,

If anyone is interested I have penned a fuller review in Terpsichore. 

 

[Dawnstar]

I'm trying to write a review of this afternoon's performance but it's too late & I'm too tired so I'll try again tomorrow!

[Dawnstar]

We went to the matinee in Peterborough yesterday afternoon, as I thought it'd be much easier to get tickets for Peterborough than the Linbury. Sure enough, the theatre in Peterborough was maybe a quarter full while I see the Linbury is all but sold out. I was sat in the front row of the stalls, which I wondered might be a bit close for ballet but as there's a gap of half a dozen feet or more between the stage & the front row it was fine. No orchestra, as expected, but there was a live pianist & cellist for 2 numbers. I had expected to prefer the first half, as that was the more classical half, but unfortunately the first half was spoilt by not one but two small children (not together) being very audibly & repeatedly vocal in the audience. I know I'm sensitive to sound & find it difficult to block out unwanted noises but when I compared notes with my mother in the interval she too had found it very difficult to concentrate. Fortunately the squawking small children did not return for the second half.

While the programme & most of overall cast were the same as in the reviews of the first night, about half of the numbers were danced by different dancers. Unfortunately the printed cast sheets available at the theatre were completely wrong for the first half. I hope the online cast sheet is correct, as that's what I'm going by.

I wasn't madly keen on the framing device but at least I was expecting it. I enjoyed Rhapsody but having seen the RB doing it in full last season I did miss the scenery (& with the gorgeous music the noisy small kids were particularly annoying). I liked the dancers, Frieda Kaden & Oscar Kempsey-Fagg, and would have liked to see them together again, but the yesterday's casting didn't have them paired again (I see they are in another cast arrangement). I enjoyed La Sylphide, which I've only seen once before again in a gala. Funnily the James in this performance, Eric Pino Cata, looks rather like the previous one I saw, ENB's Fernando Carratala Coloma. Given my front row seat, I'm glad that ballet Scotsmen do wear something under their kilts! I thought Olivia Chang Clarke was nicely mischievous as the Sylphide but I think I would have liked a bit more ethereality (is that a word?). Swan Lake was afflicted not only by the noisy kids but also volleys of coughing from the audience. I don't know how the poor dancers managed to concentrate, I certainly found it difficult to do so. I thought Mason King partnered well. I regret that the Act II pdd doesn't include solos for both characters as I would have liked to see King & Mailene Katoch do some. I wasn't keen on the double Dying Swan, especially when it started with the same wind noises that I had disliked in the male-only version at the Dance For Ukraine gala. I must have seen Ava May Llewelleyn in the RB's corps but I'm afraid I can't say I recognised her. I thought Lucy Waine and Haoliang Feng put on a good performance in Diana and Acteon but both of them did have a couple of balance problems in their solos (she with couple of pirouettes & he had to put a hand down both times he landed a jump in a kneeling position). She was very good at keeping a big smile plastered on throughout though!

 

End of Time I was baffled by. I had no idea what it was supposed to be saying or what the context might have been. The nude unitards painted with what could have been leaves made me think of the Garden of Eden but that would be near the start of time, not the end. There seemed to be an awful lot of walking around with the man carrying or dragging the woman. I found myself comparing it to the Ashton & Bourneville & thinking that they have so many more proper ballet steps. It also had my pet peeve of feet flexed rather than pointed. Fortunately after that things looked up. I liked the way the next three numbers in the second half were linked together, with the woman in Je Ne Regrette Rien having evidently recently dumped the man in Les Bourgeois. I really enjoyed the tango (or is it Argentine tango?) style A Buenos Aires. When looking up the dancers on BRB's website afterwards I was unsurprised to find Enrique Bejarno Vidal is Mexican as he had the perfect look for a tango piece (and made me think a bit of Corrales). I was so-so on the choreography for Non Je Ne Regrette Rien, some of it was rather jerky but I liked the spins all round the stage (I don't know the correct term for that movement). I thought Riku Ito gave the best performance of the afternoon in Les Bourgeois, brilliantly acted, great stage presence & so nice to have something amusing amidst the mostly serious programme. I liked Carmen but it did feel a bit MacMillan-derivative & I did spend most of the piece wondering what the primary school group that were in the audience would be making of the quite erotic choreography! I also didn't understand why Don Jose was in 19th century shirt & breeches but Carmen was in modern-looking undies. Nisi Dominus I was even more baffled by than End of Time. I wasn't keen on the choreography, couldn't work out what the context was supposed to be, and spent most of the time wondering if the costume was supposed to resemble a farthingale & if so whether that was the right period for the music (checking Monteverdi's dates afterwards indicates it was). I really enjoyed Majisimo. It was nice to have a group piece after the rest of the programme was all pdds or solos. Among the eight dancers Rachele Pizzillo, who I'd liked as Clara in 2019, stood out for me. (And that's not just bias because I recognised her as my mother said the same afterwards before I told her that she was the dancer we'd seen as Clara.) As Maddie Rose has already said, the ending does make it rather confusing as to exactly when one should be giving the dancers applause given they drift off stage gradually. Riku Ito was last to leave & raised a laugh by picking up the prop bottle that he'd had in Les Bourgeois & miming disappointment at finding it empty!

 

I'd definitely go & see the company again, assuming they do more tours with mixed programmes in the future. (Though whether they'll bother to come to Peterborough again with the low ticket sales.) I'll also be looking out for the dancers whenever I next see BRB again. Unfortunately I can't make it up to Birmingham for their triple bill next month, unless someone knows a way to get from the Birmingham Hippodrome to Cadogan Hall in under 2 hours!

 

[Jan McNulty]

Great review Dawnstar!  Thank you.

[Dawnstar]

Thanks @Jan McNulty. It ended up rather longer than I expected. Hence why I gave up part-way through late last night!

[Dawnstar]

Something I've just remembered I meant to ask & unfortunately I'm just too late to add to my previous post. In one of the "dancers backstage" bits between the numbers in the first half, I can't remember if it was after Swan Lake ro the Dying Swan, the male dancer unhooked the female dancer's tutu for her & there was a brief bit of music playing that sounded familiar. Was it from Manon? (If no-one can answer this now maybe someone can after the Linbury performances, which I guess will be attended by lots of forum members.)

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Dawnstar said:

Thanks @Jan McNulty. It ended up rather longer than I expected. Hence why I gave up part-way through late last night!

 

At the Northampton performance the cast list said the end time would be 9.10 pm but I noticed the time was 9.45 pm as I left the concert hall and headed along the road to my car.

[MaddieRose]

4 hours ago, Dawnstar said:

Something I've just remembered I meant to ask & unfortunately I'm just too late to add to my previous post. In one of the "dancers backstage" bits between the numbers in the first half, I can't remember if it was after Swan Lake ro the Dying Swan, the male dancer unhooked the female dancer's tutu for her & there was a brief bit of music playing that sounded familiar. Was it from Manon? (If no-one can answer this now maybe someone can after the Linbury performances, which I guess will be attended by lots of forum members.)

I think it was Manon. It sounded very familiar to me when I heard it and this has just jogged my memory of thinking 'Oh that sounds like Massenet's violin work'. The ballet novices I was with thought that little interlude was going to lead into a whole shadow ballet. I also think we didn't get the intended effect of the shadows at the performance I attended, unless it was supposed to be comedic, as the shadow's ended up looking a bit grotesque at certain points because of the lighting. 

[Dawnstar]

Thanks @MaddieRose. I must say my music recognition on Thursday wasn't brilliant as I failed to recognise the Carmen music, though I knew it was something I should recognise. I can't say I noticed any significant shadows at any point in the performance.

 

16 hours ago, Robin Smith said:

At the Northampton performance the cast list said the end time would be 9.10 pm but I noticed the time was 9.45 pm as I left the concert hall and headed along the road to my car.

 

Oh, no, I meant my review ended up longer than I was expecting, not that the performance did! The performance we were at was due to end at 4.10pm and while I didn't actually check the exact time it did finish somewhere around then.

[capybara]

With the notable exception of one dancer, Rupert Christiansen’s review in The Spectator (see 11th May links) is brutal.

 

Given the main purposes of BRB2 (to provide opportunities for and develop young dancers while extending ballet’s reach into ‘new’ locations), the question arises for me as to whether critics should afford such ventures a little more leeway.

[Jan McNulty]

24 minutes ago, capybara said:

With the notable exception of one dancer, Rupert Christiansen’s review in The Spectator (see 11th May links) is brutal.

 

Given the main purposes of BRB2 (to provide opportunities for and develop young dancers while extending ballet’s reach into ‘new’ locations), the question arises for me as to whether critics should afford such ventures a little more leeway.

Brutal is the word!

[Ian Macmillan]

If nothing else, the header picture for that Spectator review appears to confirm what I'd surmised from others - namely that the Monteverdi piece is the Nisi Dominus that I saw Ms Yanowsky dance a fair number of years back in one of the Acosta & Friends shows at Sadler's Wells.  It's a very rhythmic piece from the 1610 Vespers, and that bustle support (or whatever it's called) took on a life of its own.  

[Sim]

25 minutes ago, Ian Macmillan said:

If nothing else, the header picture for that Spectator review appears to confirm what I'd surmised from others - namely that the Monteverdi piece is the Nisi Dominus that I saw Ms Yanowsky dance a fair number of years back in one of the Acosta & Friends shows at Sadler's Wells.  It's a very rhythmic piece from the 1610 Vespers, and that bustle support (or whatever it's called) took on a life of its own.  

I always remember Lauren Cuthbertson dancing it too.  😀

[Sim]

3 hours ago, capybara said:

With the notable exception of one dancer, Rupert Christiansen’s review in The Spectator (see 11th May links) is brutal.

 

Given the main purposes of BRB2 (to provide opportunities for and develop young dancers while extending ballet’s reach into ‘new’ locations), the question arises for me as to whether critics should afford such ventures a little more leeway.

The question arises for me as to whether an opera critic should be writing about classical ballet or dance.  

[FLOSS]

As this is, I believe, the first outing of a new BRB initiative it was inevitable that at least one professional critic  might decide to review Acosta's ballet programme devised for places usually deprived of the art form. So far Acosta has been carried along on a wave of uncritical good will largely  based on his reputation  as a performer and the pleasure he gave to so many as a performer. From now on I suspect that he is going to be judged, like other directors, on what he programmes and  his choice of casts. It really is that simple.

 

Mr. Christiansen does not seem to think that the show is up to much as far as Acosta's choice of repertory, lighting or casting is concerned. He suggests that Acosta's choice of excerpts is based on the  sort of programme that might have been seen in an Acosta and Friends programme which was essentially a star vehicle. Anyone with any sense would recognise that a showcase of ballet for young dancers would need a very different choice of excerpts from that for a star vehicle. It is not as if BRB does not have a range of works that could have been pressed into service in such circumstances. The only problem is that the works I am thinking of are from the company;s historic repertory which perhaps  Acosta's appointment was intended to consign to history.

 

None of this is the fault of the dancers. I can't help thinking that Acosta should have given greater thought to what he chose to stage and set out to show ballet excerpts more suited to his dancers' current experience and ability choosing works which would have extended their stage  experience while entertaining a ballet deprived audience. I have no idea how many dancers are involved in this tour but a programme which included excerpts from ballets devised for less experienced dancers such as Solitaire and Pigeons which ended with Facade would have been far more appropriate than the fare he chose to show.

 

[Dawnstar]

4 hours ago, capybara said:

With the notable exception of one dancer, Rupert Christiansen’s review in The Spectator (see 11th May links) is brutal.

 

Given the main purposes of BRB2 (to provide opportunities for and develop young dancers while extending ballet’s reach into ‘new’ locations), the question arises for me as to whether critics should afford such ventures a little more leeway.

 

I thought I was being fairly picky when I commented above but he's far more critical. I also evidently have completely the opposite taste in recent works than he does as the works he preferred in the second part were the ones I liked the least & vice versa, apart from both of us disliking End Of Time.

[Jan McNulty]

1 hour ago, Dawnstar said:

 

I thought I was being fairly picky when I commented above but he's far more critical. I also evidently have completely the opposite taste in recent works than he does as the works he preferred in the second part were the ones I liked the least & vice versa, apart from both of us disliking End Of Time.

 

Dawnstar, sadly I had to miss the performances I was booked to see but I enjoyed reading you articulate review infinitely more than the one written by RC.

[annamk]

3 hours ago, Sim said:

The question arises for me as to whether an opera critic should be writing about classical ballet or dance.  

 

I was curious about this too but when I googled him I found to my surprise that he has written a book about Diaghilev and has been following dance for many years. Wiki says he was the Mail on Sunday dance critic but I don't remember seeing his name against any dance reviews before the Spectator. 

 

https://www.faber.co.uk/journal/behind-the-book-diaghilevs-empire-by-rupert-christiansen/