Mary Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 7 hours ago, Roberta said: Basically, Manon is a slut and Des Grieux is a fool and they move in the most unsavoury company . . . the most effective character, in fact, becomes Lescaut himself’, wrote Mary Clarke in The Guardian. ‘ https://www.kennethmacmillan.com/new-page-97 I disagree with this, and don't think it is what Macmillan meant at all. Apart from the objectionable phraseology here...-if that were so, the ballet would be boring. it is certainly not as simple as that - and those pas de deuxs with which Macmillan presents the characters certainly do not reflect such a summary....they have always thrilled audiences, and partly because of the variety of emotion they convey, as the pair go through various phases of feelings about one another, from passionate excitement to -possibly- real love, anger, impatience to despair. You have to believe there is love there, for the ballet to work at all, and that they are both - foolish and weak as they might be - trapped in a world that cheapens and degrades people - surely not that they don't deserve any better. I have never really liked the ballet, mainly because I greatly dislike the brothel scene - especially the attempts at presenting some very nasty situations as glamorous and humorous, which I think are, at best, in poor taste. - but we've discussed all that before in previous runs so I won't start that again. But Des Grieux's first beautiful solo when he declares his love, and the scenes between the main pair I have always found quite compelling. I agree, Dawnstar, that the music is beautiful, moving and works really well all the way through. As for Lescaut being the main interest...I have always found the character just plain unpleasant: one-dimensional, the drunk scene very unfunny indeed and rather boring. There you go, I've stuck my neck out. Live dangerously. 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 On 17/01/2024 at 17:47, alison said: I was under the impression it was the bedroom pas de deux, but I could be wrong. Correction: I meant the courtyard pas de deux. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard LH Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 Superb debuts from Yasmine and Will tonight....❤️❤️ 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
balletyas Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 That’s wonderful /Please post more on their performance when you get a chance as I had to return my ticket tonight - so cross as I have been longing to see their debuts….now have to wait till the 3rd… 😡 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roberta Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 37 minutes ago, Mary said: There you go, I've stuck my neck out. Live dangerously. Critics always had a great deal to say about MacMillan. He was very controversial in his time, this was 1974, and It's worth reading the entire piece and also watching the short film with Darcey Bussell and Deborah MacMillan for further context (made I think for a cine broadcast). Although Manon was well-received by the public, critics had reservations about the ballet’s structure and the characters’ motives. Some were taken aback by the amoral nature of the heroine, more unusual in a ballet than in an opera. ‘An appalling waste of lovely Antoinette Sibley, who is reduced to a nasty little diamond digger’, opined Jane King in the Morning Star. In an extensive review in The Financial Times, Andrew Porter, who disliked the Massenet score, praised the distinction of the choreography, dancing and designs, predicting that Manon would ‘certainly reward repeated observation and generations of performers’. https://www.kennethmacmillan.com/new-page-97 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suffolkgal Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 I hope someone got a picture of them in each others arms at the first curtain call. Mainly because I saw it through weepy eyes but also because I had to tank it for the train. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linnzi5 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 I may have cried 😢 Yasmine and Will just got better and better. Wonderful, emotive debuts. Will post thoughts later but I can’t wait for Feb 3rd! 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linnzi5 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 1 minute ago, Suffolkgal said: I hope someone got a picture of them in each others arms at the first curtain call. Mainly because I saw it through weepy eyes but also because I had to tank it for the train. I’m hoping @Dawnstar did. I’m afraid my photos are all blurred due to me not being able to see where I was pointing my phone and trying to clap at the same time! 🙄 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WoodlandGladeFairy Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 (edited) Just back from seeing Manon Absolutely wonderful performance from Yasmine Naghdi and William Bracewell, the final pas de deux was heartbreaking, I was in tears by the end, it all felt so effortless and natural, both create space in the music Each time I see Manon is a unique experience and you also start to notice the little things you haven't seen before The Royal Opera House Orchestra was in fine form as usual Just a spellbinding evening Managed to get a nice curtain call photo as well Edited January 20 by WoodlandGladeFairy 20 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linnzi5 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 Best I’ve got - and it’s bad! 6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suffolkgal Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 Kind of sums it up though! Thankyou for sharing 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sim Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 Wow….that Act 3 just ripped me apart. 🥲🥲 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linnzi5 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 Just now, Sim said: Wow….that Act 3 just ripped me apart. 🥲🥲 Me too. I’m sitting on a train on the Central Line with rather misty eyes. People around me in the stalls gasped at some of the final PDD. There was a standing ovation in the stalls too. Well done to all, but especially to Yasmine and William. I think they found that connection Laura talked about in the insight! 🥰 14 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawnstar Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 14 minutes ago, Linnzi5 said: I’m hoping @Dawnstar did. I’m afraid my photos are all blurred due to me not being able to see where I was pointing my phone and trying to clap at the same time! 🙄 I'm afraid my photos at the start of the curtain call are hopelessly out of focus as I was shaky from the emotion of the swamp pdd, a habitual problem I have after Manons & R&Js (the funeral scene in Mayerling is useful for calming down after the emotional climax of that!). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roberta Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 Four magnificent photos from the Royal Opera House Twitter / X feed of Hayward & Sambé Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawnstar Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 That was a wonderful performance for my first Manon of this run. For me Des Grieux is the emotional centre of the piece & I have to be moved by him to be moved by the piece overall. Bracewell fully delivered. I had high hopes for his Des Grieux after loving his Romeo & he absolutely lived up to them. I thought his Act I performance was very good, with a lovely solo, but he seemed to get even better in Act II & had me in tears both at his pleading with Manon in the brothel scene & in the bracelet pdd. In Act III I was aching for Des Grieux & what he was driven to for love. I thought Naghdi also had an excellent debut. Again I thought she was very good in Act I but seemed to be even better from when she entered in full dress in Act II, queening it over the gathering. During her being passed round all the men I found myself thinking that thank goodness that hasn't been toned down in the way the Arabian has! I thought Acri, who I have seen as Lescaut before, was excellent. I really enjoyed his drunk solo & the following pdd with the third of tonight's debutantes, O'Sullivan. I wouldn't have really thought of her as Mistress casting but I was very pleasantly impressed by her performance. Whitehead & Avis were both wonderfully awful! I'd forgotten how difficult I find it to identify dancers in Manon with so many characters wigged & heavily made up. For instance it took me several minutes to twig that it was Pantuso as the boy whore, as her blonde wig really threw me. As for the various Courtesans & Clients I never managed to get them properly worked out. Was it Hay in a grey wig as one if the creepier Clients? 16 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sim Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 Yes, that was James! 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAB Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 There was a lot of ill feeling towards MacMillan from many quarters at the time Manon was created. Some critics pointed out that in the opera the crucial scene is where Manon seduces DG before the altar to join her life of pleasure, and if you know the opera it is hard not to agree. As I find too much padding in the final act, I still wonder why the church scene is omitted. Is the action of Act II set in a brothel? At one time is was simply described as an Hotel Particulier, in other words, a posh town house. 1 hour ago, Mary said: As for Lescaut being the main interest...I have always found the character just plain unpleasant: one-dimensional, the drunk scene very unfunny indeed and rather boring. In MacMillan's lifetime there was a great deal more variety in interpretations than today. No one has ever matched Dowell as Lescaut as far as I'm concerned, but his was far from being the only unique portrayal. I don't see anything like that today. Likewise Manon is a conniving venal character, not an innocent victim. A great pity the performances of Seymour and Markarova never made it onto film. 6 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roberta Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 How true. Also, what a wonderful oil portrait of Kenneth MacMillan by Deborah Macmillan in this brief biography of him. Sometimes in his lifetime it seemed as if his gifts were more valued in the wider world of the theatre than in the enclosures of classical dance. Since his death, however, his reputation has continued to grow. Audiences flock to his work, while dancers everywhere vie to perform in his ballets. Throughout his career he kept faith with his classical formation. He married to it a strong theatricality and, underneath it all, a deep moral sensibility. In Kenneth MacMillan’s hands ballet was not a fairytale art, but a powerful mirror to human frailty. https://www.kennethmacmillan.com/best-friends 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob S Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 (edited) Edited January 21 by Rob S 26 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
li tai po Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 Rob S - I enjoy your curtain call photos every night. It gives a tiny hint of casts which I did not see. Why do you not post photos of curtain calls at ENB? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suffolkgal Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 Teary again! Thanks Rob … 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob S Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 (edited) 7 minutes ago, li tai po said: Rob S - I enjoy your curtain call photos every night. It gives a tiny hint of casts which I did not see. Why do you not post photos of curtain calls at ENB? Thank you☺️ One advantage of the ROH going to digital cast sheets is you can see them for shows you’re not going to. I posted photos from the ENB Giselle performance I went to in the relevant thread, I don’t see many of their shows…. the RB is my team 😆 Edited January 21 by Rob S 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linnzi5 Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 @Rob S Those are, as usual, gorgeous photos! Thank you! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob S Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 Just now, Linnzi5 said: @Rob S Those are, as usual, gorgeous photos! Thank you! Thank you, the best of a limited bunch tonight thanks to the standing ovation 🫣 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcse8 Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 It was a wonderful performance tonight. William Bracewell's magnificent arabesques and stunningly elegant line really brought to mind Dowell and how the role was created on him. Then in the last act he added his own ardent passion to devastating effect in combination with the touching and vulnerable Yasmine Naghdi. Luca Acri impressed with his athleticism and bravado as Lescaut too. A moment of light relief was provided by me hearing a man, obviously reluctantly dragged along by his girlfriend, complain in the interval that nothing was happening and they were all just "prancing around" which I suppose is one definition of ballet ! 18 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bridiem Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 (edited) What a terrific performance! For me, Bracewell's Des Grieux was at the centre of this tragedy. From the moment he saw Manon in Act 1, he loved her completely - eros, agape, the lot. All expressed in the most beautiful, lyrical, yearning solo. Whereas for Naghdi's Manon, there was excitement, curiosity, pleasure, and love of a kind; but only in Act 3 does she understand real love, and feel real love, and by then it's too late. The kind of arc that anyone's life could take - the tragedy of realising too late that you've taken the wrong path, with disastrous and sometimes fatal consequences. In Acts 1 and 2 she and her brother are really exercising their power, including over Des Grieux; by Act 3, Lescaut is dead and she's lost everything. Bracewell was absolutely mesmerising; aghast at Manon's behaviour with Monsieur G.M., overflowing with love for her in the various pas de deux, desperate to put things right. But he's betrayed by Manon as surely as Giselle is betrayed by Albrecht. And in the last act here, it's Manon who is filled with regret and horror, and Des Grieux who supports her and loves her to the end. So in spite of the tragedy, there is still love at the end, which is the only possible redemption. Luca Acri was a marvellous Lescaut - ruthless and amoral. Anna Rose O'Sullivan danced superbly as his Mistress, but I do find that role quite unsatisfactory - no real character arc, and fairly repetitive choreography. And this time I found the drunk pas de deux, although brilliantly done, jarring in this context. Gary Avis was a loathsome Gaoler, bringing to mind Amon Goeth in Schindler's List. He didn't want Manon for herself but because he saw that she had a protector; he was asserting his power over not just her but also over Des Grieux. And in the end, the only way DG could fight back was by doing literally that - fighting back and killing him. The end of Act 3 was magnificent, from both Naghdi and Bracewell. Complete abandon, as if in a world of their own; except that we were privileged enough to be witnesses. Superb. Edited January 21 by bridiem 27 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 22 minutes ago, MAB said: There was a lot of ill feeling towards MacMillan from many quarters at the time Manon was created. Some critics pointed out that in the opera the crucial scene is where Manon seduces DG before the altar to join her life of pleasure, and if you know the opera it is hard not to agree. As I find too much padding in the final act, I still wonder why the church scene is omitted. I don't remember that scene appearing in the novel? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roberta Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 2 minutes ago, marcse8 said: moment of light relief was provided by me hearing a man, obviously reluctantly dragged along by his girlfriend, complain in the interval that nothing was happening and they were all just "prancing around" which I suppose is one definition of ballet ! I hope she dumps him, it's all he deserves. 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roberta Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 5 minutes ago, Rob S said: Thank you, the best of a limited bunch tonight thanks to the standing ovation Anna Rose O'Sullivan looking every inch a minx, dripping in jewels! 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAB Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 I 1 minute ago, alison said: I don't remember that scene appearing in the novel? I was comparing it with Massenet's opera. It is an incredibly powerful scene. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linnzi5 Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 13 minutes ago, bridiem said: What a terrific performance! For me, Bracewell's Des Grieux was at the centre of this tragedy. From the moment he saw Manon in Act 1, he loved her completely - eros, agape, the lot. All expressed in the most beautiful, lyrical, yearning solo. Whereas for Naghdi's Manon, there was excitement, curiosity, pleasure, and love of a kind; but only in Act 3 does she understand real love, and feel real love, and by then it's too late. The kind of arc that anyone's life could take - the tragedy of realising too late that you've taken the wrong path, with disastrous and sometimes fatal consequences. In Acts 1 and 2 she and her brother are really exercising their power, including over Des Grieux; by Act 3, Lescaut is dead and she's lost everything. Bracewell was absolutely mesmerising; aghast at Manon's behaviour with Monsieur G.M., overflowing with love for her in the various pas de deux, desperate to put things right. But he's betrayed by Manon as surely as Giselle is betrayed by Albrecht. And in the last act here, it's Manon who is filled with regret and horror, and Des Grieux who supports her and loves her to the end. So in spite of the tragedy, there is still love at the end, which is the only possible redemption. Luca Acri was a marvellous Lescaut - ruthless and amoral. Anna Rose O'Sullivan danced superbly as his Mistress, but I do find that role quite unsatisfactory - no real character arc, and fairly repetitive choreography. And this time I found the drunk pas de deux, although brilliantly done, jarring in this context. Gary Avis was a loathsome Gaoler, bringing to mind Amon Goeth in Schindler's List. He didn't want Manon for herself but because he saw that she had a protector; he was asserting his power over not just her but also over Des Grieux. And in the end, the only way DG could fight back was by doing literally that - fighting back and killing him. The end of Act 3 was magnificent, from both Naghdi and Bracewell. Complete abandon, as if in a world of their own; except that we were privileged enough to be witnesses. Superb. What a beautiful review! It brought tears to my eyes - thank you. I don't think there's any point me writing a review now 🤣 I agree with your thoughts. Yes. The drunk PDD was so well executed but it was a little jarring for me too - it seemed incongruous in the context of Act II but maybe it's supposed to and I'm not quite getting the point? 'Complete abandon' - just a perfect summary of that final PDD. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bridiem Posted January 21 Share Posted January 21 3 minutes ago, Linnzi5 said: What a beautiful review! It brought tears to my eyes - thank you. I don't think there's any point me writing a review now 🤣 I agree with your thoughts. Thank you, @Linnzi5, but there would be every point in you writing your thoughts so please do! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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