Carlos at 50

[Guest oncnp]

1 minute ago, MJW said:

 

More urgently the Nutcracker (!) since we only have details of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince so far...

 

True...or any casting for Dante

[Missfrankiecat]

I thoroughly enjoyed this afternoon's performance and agree with a lot of the previous comments in terms of the pieces I most enjoyed, although I did think that, overall, the programme reflected many aspects of his life and range of work.  Some additional thoughts:  Is it possible that we sometimes take how lucky we are to watch Marianela Nunez dance so often in London and how consistently brilliant she is, for granted?  I was struck in the Apollo, where the women are performing the same choreography in close proximity, how exquisitely superior her lines and timing were to the other two women.  Her epaulement in particular made Celine Gittens look very stiff in the upper body by comparison.  I loved the chemistry between the two of them in the Swan Lake - I was very close to the stage and could see facial expressions more clearly than usual. I thought tthe build up to them making any eye contact in that pas de deux was scorching - not something I have ever thought of for Odette.  Carlos legendary charisma and vitality seemed very much in evidence in all his performances but especially the classics.  What a trick the RB missed in letting Brandon Lawrence escape to Zurich - I wish I had made the effort to see more of him in Birmingham.  The orchestra were outstanding today - especially the cellist soloist (whose name I can't find in the programme).

[Dawnstar]

@MJW I definitely agree with this. The other day someone I know who's planning to see the RB Nutcracker for the first time asked me for recommendations & I had to explain that given less than half the lead casting was available it was a bit tricky, especially with no Drosselmeyer casting as I'd say Avis is the must-see dancer out of all the Nutcracker roles. Personally I'm only going to book one performance (I really must get round to seeing Lamb's SPF before it's too late) & will be waiting for the rest of the casting information before deciding on any further bookings.

 

@Missfrankiecat Certainly seeing Nunez doing the Manon pdd made me decide I'm going to have to book to see her again in the full ballet next season, in case it's the last time she does the role. I also need to see her doing the entirety of SL live, as I've so far only seen her do Act III & now part of Act II!

Edited July 30, 2023 by Dawnstar
Added 2nd paragraph.

[MJW]

1 minute ago, Dawnstar said:

@MJW I definitely agree with this. The other day someone I know who's planning to see the RB Nutcracker for the first time asked me for recommendations & I had to explain that given less than half the lead casting was available it was a bit tricky, especially with no Drosselmeyer casting as I'd say Avis is the must-see dancer out of all the Nutcracker roles. Personally I'm only going to book one performance (I really must get round to seeing Lamb's SPF before it's too late) & will be waiting for the rest of the casting information before deciding on any further bookings.

 

Same - I am going to the General Rehearsal with a friend and am booked for the 23rd (?) for Bracewell and Kaneko and will wait for details before any further bookings. As you say, Gary Avis is the Drosselmeyer and for me James Hay is the Nutcracker.

 

Apologies we are rather off topic here !

[Missfrankiecat]

32 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

@MJW I definitely agree with this. The other day someone I know who's planning to see the RB Nutcracker for the first time asked me for recommendations & I had to explain that given less than half the lead casting was available it was a bit tricky, especially with no Drosselmeyer casting as I'd say Avis is the must-see dancer out of all the Nutcracker roles. Personally I'm only going to book one performance (I really must get round to seeing Lamb's SPF before it's too late) & will be waiting for the rest of the casting information before deciding on any further bookings.

 

@Missfrankiecat Certainly seeing Nunez doing the Manon pdd made me decide I'm going to have to book to see her again in the full ballet next season, in case it's the last time she does the role. I also need to see her doing the entirety of SL live, as I've so far only seen her do Act III & now part of Act II!

 

Agree on the Nunez Manon, although I always think it's a role Sarah Lamb excels in too.

Edited July 30, 2023 by Missfrankiecat

[capybara]

30 minutes ago, MJW said:

Apologies we are rather off topic here !

 

My apologies - I inadvertently caused that by referring to Kevin O'Hare's need for a break after his cake wheeling turn at the last of Carlos's shows.

[EVWS]

10 hours ago, Missfrankiecat said:

Is it possible that we sometimes take how lucky we are to watch Marianela Nunez dance so often in London and how consistently brilliant she is, for granted?

 

I agree with this 100%! 

[Sim]

11 hours ago, Missfrankiecat said:

 

Agree on the Nunez Manon, although I always think it's a role Sarah Lamb excels in too.

As does your namesake, Frankie Hayward!  

[Dawnstar]

14 hours ago, Missfrankiecat said:

Agree on the Nunez Manon, although I always think it's a role Sarah Lamb excels in too.

 

Oh yes, she's on my want to see again list too. In fact I fear that if Manon has the casts I am expecting it to I'm going to want to see all bar one or two of them, which is not going to be possible!

[Emeralds]

After worries about the rail strike on the day of the penultimate show, we did manage to get there in the end and get home without being stranded -just had to take the Tube (£5 more for our total journey costs) as the trains didn’t go through London and allow more time for the longer journey by Tube and having less frequent trains, but it worked out.

 

I knew it would be a mix of different repertoire styles given Carlos’s career and two very different companies he is running- BRB and Acosta Danza, which he founded- and his forays into choreography in the past. I thought a few of the programme choices were brave (eg Apollo is a demanding and unforgiving work for the male lead to dance at any age, though a great triumph and magnificent to watch when successful) but so many items were truly inspired, and for me, a real treat to see under the same roof. 

 

The full cast was also a mystery till the week or less before the first night but what a cast- Marianela Nunez (even more outstanding  than her usual outstanding self), Yaoqian Shang, Celine Gittens, Lucy Waine (a rising talent in BRB who has impressed in challenging roles last year and this season), Brandon Lawrence (for me a final wistful farewell before he leaves for his new “full time job” dancing in Zurich - he can of course return for gala and guest appearances when Ballett Zurich gives him time off), Laura Rodriguez (a stunning star of Acosta Danza whom I’ve never seen before-I couldn’t make it to Birmingham for her guest appearance in Nutcracker), Zeleidy Crespo (winner this year of the Outstanding Modern Dance Performance award),  Laurretta and Yonah Acosta (rarely seen in London since the couple moved to Munich as principal dancers), and the Acosta Danza company.

 

The title “Carlos at 50” of course indicated that we wouldn’t see physical and technical fireworks from Carlos himself, but that his artistry, dramatic skills and partnering abilities would still produce an inspiring and entertaining performance. Ironically if there were any concessions due to age- eg a series of lifts in the Swan Lake pas de deux were omitted and a sequence of jumps in Apollo were altered and his musculature is not what it used to be- it was due to factors that Carlos couldn’t control, but the toughest challenges eg the entrechats (jumps changing feet positions while airborne) and some demanding pirouettes, he had clearly worked very hard to do artistic justice to the ballets.

 

I don’t think I’ve actually seen any 50 year old (50 and 1 month and 3 weeks, in fact!) danseur perform Apollo or present entrechats as good at that age. Of the good performances (won’t mention a few I saw that were sadly very much “past it”) I’ve seen Dowell dance Palemon in the full length Ondine at 45 and Beliaev in A Month in the Country aged 47 (also entrechats in that), and Richard Cragun dance the demanding role of Onegin (3 acts!) aged around 47. Each passing year does make a difference to joints and cartilage that have had injuries over a busy dancing or athletic career, so the few years between 47 to 50 are significant! With women it is different as they don’t do lifting and the kinds of jumps they do (no double tours although I have seen Natalia Osipova and Australian Ballet’s Lana Jones do them as a novelty-Osipova in Le Corsaire years ago, Lana in class).  

 

I’m discussing  the age topic because apart from it being the name of programme, Carlos himself commented on it extensively in the souvenir programme and media interviews- that despite having a farewell performance (filmed and on DVD) with the Royal Ballet, his own farewell gala season at Royal Albert Hall, and a farewell overseas tour, and with two busy directing jobs, and new projects such as BRB2 and another dance school/centre coming in east London to occupy him, he felt he “still had some unfinished things left to say” hence these comeback performances this year. 

 

The prices were understandably higher than many mixed bills at ROH so far, but as a 5-day long gala, considerably more competitively priced than most galas, and worth it for the incredible cast list comprising stars from 3 companies as well as Carlos himself. 

 

Of the pieces, I enjoyed most of them despite not normally attending nor being a big fan of many other contemporary/street/jazz genres. The classical pieces Carlos danced in with Nunez were of course beautiful - apart from the jumps and turns I mentioned in Apollo, his rapport with and partnering of  all his ballerinas were wonderful, and the dramatic and sensitive interpretations he brought to the classics were inspiring and beautiful, Their Swan Lake Act 2 pas de deux was a masterclass in telling a story. Apollo was also a treat in programming for bringing Nunez’s outstanding dancing and interpretation of Terpsichore back to ROH (last time I saw her in this role with RB was 2013! - also with Carlos), and allowing those of us who couldn’t travel to Birmingham in early June to enjoy the delightful performances of Gittens and Waine in Apollo. 

 

As someone who couldn’t get to the BRB2 and BRB performances of End of Time, it was a treat to see it on the ROH stage performed by the versatile Yaoqian Shang, partnered (for the first time, I believe), by Enrique Corrales of Acosta Danza. Brandon Lawrence danced Valero Panov’s solo to Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde magnificently with great virtuosity and strength - what a joy to see those distinctive, elegant grand jetes of his and his powerful acting again. (I certainly hope he can plan some guesting stints in London/Birmingham/anywhere in the U.K. in the next few years and beyond.)   Laurretta Summerscales and Yonah Acosta (Carlos’ nephew) danced a confident Le Corsaire pas de deux, Yonah being a self effacing danseur who showed off his wife at her best beautifully. 

 

The Acosta Danza dancers were incredible in this programme. Laura Rodriguez was nothing short of a star in her own right, lighting up the stage as a dramatic Carmen in Carlos’s choreography  and compelling as the woman in Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Mermaid, created for Carlos and another dancer from AD. When I first saw Carmen at its premiere by RB in 2015, I didn’t enjoy it - there were a few excellent sections, but I felt the central pas de deux and many group scenes looked underworked, as though rushed to get it on stage without sufficient studio time for Carlos and his casts. Now it seems to have been tweaked and improved (althoughI still don’t like the use of the theme from L’Arlesienne, a completely different themed and famous Bizet score that Shchedrin and others often tack onto Bizet’s Carmen music). The production also suits Cuban dance background and Latin flair of the AD dancers - I gather it is a Cuban style Carmen rather than the Seville Carmen that Bizet envisaged (admittedly Carmen is probably the most rebooted and endlessly re-imagined opera-into-ballet out there). Rodriguez and Alejandro Silva were outstanding as the haughty Carmen rejecting the imploring, besotted Don Jose.

 

The company, particularly Zeleidy Crespo, were magnificent in the Tavern Scene dances, especially the first dance to original music by Denis Peralta, as well as the lively, fun Tocororo finale. The Two Dying Swans piece didn’t really click with me although I was impressed with the technical and artistic skills of Crespo and her partner (disappointingly, there was no announcement as to whether it was Raul Renoso or Mario Sergio Elias, alternating casts in the role, who danced that night). This is mostly due to the traditional Dying Swan solo (after Fokine’s original for Anna Pavlova) being a personal favourite and enduring too many spoofs of it over the years. Carlos had many interesting ideas in this reimagining, but it did make me long to see Crespo in the traditional Dying Swan solo itself - what an amazing glass ceiling smash that would be - or the two dancers in one of the pas de deux from 100% Cuban that Crespo received her National Dance Award for. 

 

The Cherkaoui piece, Mermaid, which appeared to portray a drunk woman and her put upon partner, is probably my favourite of the (admittedly small number of) Cherkaoui pieces I’ve seen now. The programme notes allude to a mermaid with new limbs being like a fish out of water, but the pas de deux/ ballet looked like the travails of the sober, caring but despairing man caring for his drunk loved one, so I’m not too sure if the mermaid theme is metaphorical  or literal, but Rodriguez is astonishingly impressive in the difficult and virtuoso choreography and the emotional nuances for the woman, and Carlos truly compelling in the more acting and partnering oriented role, with a short, sad solo that he dances eloquently and exquisitely, and moving in the ending, where he is rain soaked (with real water descending beautifully and dramatically from above!) as he is abandoned by the woman. Despite being more of a classical ballet fan, this was the most powerful and impressive piece of the evening for me.  It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but their artistry and underlying technical command brought out dramatic clarity and choreographic eloquence that many contemporary pieces often don’t for me. 

 

As others have noted, the audiences in the sold out performances were enthusiastic, warm and loud (but well behaved) with their appreciation: of the numerous Apollo performances -of both the condensed or full versions- I’ve seen from various companies in London and abroad, it’s the only time I’ve ever seen the curtain go up to loud cheers, whistles and applause before anyone has danced a single step! At the intervals and the end, there did seem to be a lot of attendees who don’t usually visit ROH or RB, but had seen (or read of) Carlos on the news, in the Yuli film,  or other media publications. He remains busy as ever, but having both worked hard to dance in as well as curate a marvellous show of stellar performances from an incredible cast, and brought in more new audiences to ROH and dance, he has truly succeeded on many levels.

 

Carlos, if you decide to do a Carlos At 60, or indeed a Carlos at 70 (to mirror Marianela Nunez’s quip of “I’ll  be continuing  for another 25 years” after her 25 year service medal), whatever and whoever you choose to include in the programme, I’ll be there!  Bravissimo! 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Emeralds

[Emeralds]

PS (sorry) : wanted to end 3 paragraphs earlier but couldn’t because of all the brilliance and artistry on the stage, and didn’t have space to thank and add bravi for the wonderful Royal Ballet Sinfonia and conductor Paul Murphy who played so magnificently for Parts 1 & 2, as well as the excellent unnamed solo pianist and solo cellist .....were they Jeanette Wong and Antonio Novais respectively, who have recently been playing many solo piano and solo cello parts for BRB performances? Not having received programme info beforehand, I bought tickets on the “wrong” side so I couldn’t see them even when I tried to bend over during the applause at the end. (If anyone knows the exact confirmed info please let us know.)

 

I loved the clever touches of a) having the opening music to Manon Act 2 played while the crew brought  the bed and the table out, behind the closed curtains, both to drown out any noise and to keep the audience entertained, as is done in the full length ballet, b) Maestro Murphy getting the orchestra to play a very loud opening to Le Corsaire to let the audience know (after a slightly long wait to clear the Swan Lake scenery with the invariable chatter beginning and then getting louder) that the next item had actually begun! 

 

Also, a big bravi to the Tocororo band for their energetic and delightful playing in the performance! 

Edited July 31, 2023 by Emeralds

[Emeralds]

On 30/07/2023 at 22:40, Missfrankiecat said:

I thoroughly enjoyed this afternoon's performance and agree with a lot of the previous comments in terms of the pieces I most enjoyed, although I did think that, overall, the programme reflected many aspects of his life and range of work.  Some additional thoughts:  Is it possible that we sometimes take how lucky we are to watch Marianela Nunez dance so often in London and how consistently brilliant she is, for granted?  I was struck in the Apollo, where the women are performing the same choreography in close proximity, how exquisitely superior her lines and timing were to the other two women.  Her epaulement in particular made Celine Gittens look very stiff in the upper body by comparison.  I loved the chemistry between the two of them in the Swan Lake - I was very close to the stage and could see facial expressions more clearly than usual. I thought tthe build up to them making any eye contact in that pas de deux was scorching - not something I have ever thought of for Odette.  Carlos legendary charisma and vitality seemed very much in evidence in all his performances but especially the classics.  What a trick the RB missed in letting Brandon Lawrence escape to Zurich - I wish I had made the effort to see more of him in Birmingham.  The orchestra were outstanding today - especially the cellist soloist (whose name I can't find in the programme).

I see one of the RB Sinfonia musicians has helpfully enlightened us on BRB’s Facebook page that the solo cellist was indeed Antonio Novais (and the pianist was Jeanette Wong). 

[Scheherezade]

I was there in the middle of the run. It was a very enjoyable evening that, for me, could be summed up by three simple words:.”feel the love”.

[Missfrankiecat]

9 hours ago, Emeralds said:

I see one of the RB Sinfonia musicians has helpfully enlightened us on BRB’s Facebook page that the solo cellist was indeed Antonio Novais (and the pianist was Jeanette Wong). 

 

Thanks for sharing that.  Both soloists were exceptional but I was especially moved by Novais' performance.

[Dawnstar]

I've had an email from the ROH asking me to "take a short survey" about Carlos At 50. It was an extremely short survey: only 2 questions. The first question was "How likely would you be to recommend the performance" which seems a rather silly questions as given the short run has concluded what would be the point in recommending it to anyone - unless Acosta is planning to do a Carlos At 51, 52, 53, etc.!

[bridiem]

15 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

I've had an email from the ROH asking me to "take a short survey" about Carlos At 50. It was an extremely short survey: only 2 questions. The first question was "How likely would you be to recommend the performance" which seems a rather silly questions as given the short run has concluded what would be the point in recommending it to anyone - unless Acosta is planning to do a Carlos At 51, 52, 53, etc.!

 

I've sometimes received emails like this. I assume it's some sort of tick-box exercise since the questions are so ridiculous they can't possibly be used to extract meaningful information. What a waste of resources.

[capybara]

18 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

I've had an email from the ROH asking me to "take a short survey" about Carlos At 50. It was an extremely short survey: only 2 questions. The first question was "How likely would you be to recommend the performance" which seems a rather silly questions as given the short run has concluded what would be the point in recommending it to anyone - unless Acosta is planning to do a Carlos At 51, 52, 53, etc.!

 

I had one of those silly surveys after the Swan Lake for Ukraine in May 2022 which was uniquely wonderful but unlikely to be performed in that way again.

[Emeralds]

I was thinking a Carlos At 51 might go down quite well in Birmingham, and i bet if he decides to do repeat ones at ROH they will be popular and sell out again! And the cheers and rock star reception- I think quite a few dancers were amazed at the enthusiasm! He probably wouldn’t call it Carlos at 51, 52, 53 etc though 😂.....and I suspect he will probably be too busy with other projects to do yearly ones. 😉 But yes, I agree it’s  probably a standardised post performance email. A bit inappropriate to send them after the Ukraine benefit Swan Lake though. 

[alison]

Total waste of time, as ever.  Why they don't ask some pertinent questions, I don't know.

[Lynette H]

Acosta Danza's performance of Carmen in this programme was considerably livelier than the Royal's original performance of this - particularly so in the tavern scene that we saw. Acosta is reviving his Carmen for Acosts Danza, and it is at Sadler's Wells next July. Booking open. 

https://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/acosta-danza-carlos-acostas-carmen/