Press Release: ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET PERFORMANCES SPRING 2013

[Jan McNulty]

ENGLISH NATIONAL BALLET PERFORMANCES SPRING 2013

 

Emerging Dancer Competition 2013 – celebrating the talent of tomorrow’s stars

4 March, Southbank Centre

 

Emerging Dancer Competition is an annual event for English National Ballet to recognise and nurture the phenomenal talent of its up-and-coming dancers. In this live final watch six emerging dancers perform two solos in front of an eminent panel of judges. The 2013 Emerging dancer Award winner is announced at the end of the evening together with the recipient of The People’s Choice Award, which is voted for by members of the public. This year’s judges are Darcey Bussell CBE, Tommy Franzén, Luke Jennings, Jude Kelly and Tamara Rojo.  The Emerging Dancer and People’s Choice Awards are generously supported by Talbot Hughes MacKillop, the restructuring experts.

 

My First Cinderella

28 March - 7 April,
Peacock Theatre, London

(and on tour until 26 May)

My First Cinderella tells everyone’s favourite rags-to-riches story in a beautifully adapted version for young audiences. The My First... series brings young audiences their first taste of ballet through the magic of fairy tales, captivating music and beautiful dance. After presenting My First Sleeping Beauty at the Peacock Theatre last year, ENB2 returns with its graduating dancers of outstanding potential from English National Ballet School.Prokofiev’s ravishing score is accompanied with narration to ensure that everyone enjoys this classic fairytale.
My First Cinderella is choreographed by George Williamson, English National Ballet’s Associate Artist.
My First Cinderella is generously supported by the Leverhulme Trust.

 

 

Ecstasy and Death

18-21 April, London Coliseum

Three contrasting 20th century ballets of magnificent choreography and deep poetic emotion, showcasing the Company’s stylistic versatility, technical brilliance and dramatic flair. Petite Mort is danced to two Mozart piano concertos and explores energy, silence and sexuality. This Company premiere of Jirí Kylián’s beautiful, poetic piece, is a landmark of contemporary choreography. Le Jeune Homme et la Mort is Roland Petit’s choreographic masterpiece. Itconcerns a faithless woman tormenting her young lover, driving him to despair. It has attracted some of the greatest male dancers, from Nureyev to Baryshnikov.  Etudes is Harald Lander’s classical, glamorous celebration of how a daily ballet class develops from simple stretching at the barre to a full virtuoso performance showcasing the artistry and skills of the corps de ballet.

 

Choreographics, A Letter to …

3-4 May, The Place, London

English National Ballet’s dancers turn choreographers when five of them get a chance to create ballets in collaboration with students from the Royal College of Music who provide the music.Choreographics, A Letter to … is directed by English National Ballet Associate Artist George Williamson who has asked the dancers to choose a letter as inspiration for their work. With this as a starting point, choreographer and composer will work together as partners, exploring and building the relationship between dance and music. The choreographers are Anton Lukovkin, Makoto Nakamura, Stina Quagebeur, Fabian Reimar and Tamarin Stott. The composers are Andrew Baldwin, Ryan Cockerham, Gerardo Gozzi, Laurence Osborn and Raquel Garcia Tomas. The finished pieces will be performed by English National Ballet artists to music recorded by students of the Royal College of Music.

 

Swan Lake in-the-round

12-23 June, Royal Albert Hall

Raymond Gubbay and the Royal Albert Hall present English National Ballet at the Royal Albert Hall in June, with Derek Deane’s lavish in-the-round production of Swan Lake – the largest production of its kind in the world and London’s dance event of the summer. The show has been a sell out for the last three seasons. This will be the seventh sensational season in which this ballet has been performed in-the-round.  Featuring more than 120 dancers on stage, this production has delighted audiences around the world and has been seen by nearly 500,000 people since its premiere in May 1997.  Set to Tchaikovsky’s classic score, played by an orchestra of more than 80 musicians, this magnificent production features acrobats, jugglers and 60 swans gliding across the arena within the magical splendour of the Royal Albert Hall.  Set design is by Peter Farmer and lighting by Howard Harrison.

 

A Tribute To Rudolf Nureyev

25-27 July, London Coliseum

 

75 years after Nureyev's birth and 20 since his death, English National Ballet celebrates the legacy of this uniquely gifted dancer from his traditional classical beginnings through to his inspirational innovation in A Tribute To Rudolf Nureyev.  Petrushka is a hopelessly romantic puppet trapped in a love triangle with the Ballerina and the Moor, choreographed by Fokine to Stravinsky’s score.  Nureyev danced Petrushka throughout his career and all around the world. Song of a Wayfarer by Maurice Béjart is one of the most beautiful ballets ever created for the male dancer, set to Mahler’s first song cycle. This work marked Nureyev’s move to the French contemporary repertoire in the early 1970s. Raymonda Act III was choreographed by Marius Petipa, creator of The Sleeping Beauty. The celebratory final act contains some of his finest work to Glazunov’s magnificent score.  Nureyev mounted this version in 1969, a memory of  his formative years at the Mariinsky.

 

Ends

For further information about English National Ballet 2013Performance Schedule visit www.ballet.org.uk  You can find English National Ballet on Facebook and Twitter @ENBallet

 

 

[Bruce]

6 March 2013

 

LEGENDARY DANCER NICOLAS LE RICHE TO
STAR ALONGSIDE TAMARA ROJO IN LE JEUNE HOMME ET LA MORT

 

Ecstasy and Death

London Coliseum

18-21 April 2013

Petite Mort by Jiří Kylián

Le Jeune Homme et la Mort by Roland Petit

Etudes by Harald Lander

Legendary French dancer Nicolas Le Riche, Étoile of the Paris Opera Ballet, will dance the
lead role in Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, partnering Tamara Rojo, for the Ecstasy
and Death programme.

 

This limited run, which opens at the London Coliseum on
Thursday 18 April, will be the first time he has partnered Tamara Rojo.
Nicholas Le Riche whose farewell performance at the Paris Opera next year has
just been announced, has made Le Jeune Homme one of his signatures
roles, following in the footsteps of Baryshnikov and Nureyev, Le Riche’s mentor
at the Paris Opera.

 

English National Ballet Artistic Director Tamara Rojo said: “I am delighted to
both welcome and partner Nicolas Le Riche in Roland Petit’s
masterpiece of love and despair.”

 

Le Riche will alternate with English National Ballet’s own
protégé Yonah Acosta whose interpretation of the role was acclaimed in 2011 and
made such and impact. “Yonah Acosta was astonishing: strong, lithe and
gymnastic but entirely tortured, too. He has impressed before, but this performance…felt
like an instant coming-of-age.” Daily Telegraph

Casting details are also announced for
Etudes which include performances by Vadim Montagirov, English National
Ballet’s recently promoted Lead Principal who will partner Tamara Rojo and Erina
Takahashi.

 

The Ecstasy
and Death programme
consists of three contrasting 20th Century ballets of
magnificent choreography and deep poetic emotion, which together, will showcase
the Company’s stylistic versatility, technical brilliance and dramatic flair.
Drawing on the dancers’ extraordinary physical, emotional and theatrical talents, this will be the first time English National Ballet has
performed Jiří Kylián’s landmark ballet Petite Mort.

 

Petite Mort

Jiří Kylián’s beautiful, poetic piece, is a landmark of
contemporary choreography and its language has inspired a new generation of
choreographers. It features six
men, six women, and six fencing foils, symbolising energy, silence and
sexuality. The foils become dancing partners in the piece, representing the
brutality of everyday life. Choreographed to the slow movements from Mozart’s
Piano concertos in A Major and C major, Petite Mort was created in 1991 for the Salzburg Festival to mark the
second centenary of Mozart's death. Jiří Kylián is a Prague-born dancer and
choreographer, formally Artistic Director at Nederlands Dans Theatre. Since his
first renowned piece Sinfonietta, his work has become part of the
repertoire of all major ballet companies throughout the world.

 

Le Jeune Homme et la Mort

Le Jeune Homme et la Mort is Roland
Petit’s choreographic masterpiece. It concerns a faithless woman tormenting her
young lover, driving him to despair. It has attracted some of the greatest male
dancers, from Nureyev to Baryshnikov. It provides the perfect opportunity for a
male dancer to explore the most dramatic of characters as he takes the audience
through a journey of destruction and pain led by the ‘femme fatale’ Death.
Created in 1946 by choreographer Roland Petit, the ballet was last performed by
English National Ballet at the Coliseum in 2011, just days after its creator’s
death.

 

Paying tribute to the choreographer, Tamara said: “I had the
immense privilege of working with Mr Petit in his Carmen. It was a dream come
true and he was every bit as intimidating and demanding as I had imagined. His
deep knowledge of the art form combined with a love for showbiz and razzmatazz
was a great artistic lesson that I have treasured ever since.”

Etudes

Etudes is Harald Lander’s glamorous homage
to classical ballet training and dance. It requires a corps de ballet with
exceptional skills and uses both their artistry and technique to great effect. Etudes
showcases the rigorous training a dancer goes through every day to gain strength, agility and speed,
and, above all, elegance. Etudes celebrates the journey from daily
ballet class moves and simple stretching at the barre to the full blown
virtuosity and bravura of the final performance. Created in 1948, it became a
signature piece for English National Ballet following the Company’s first
performance in 1955. The music is taken from a Carl Czerny study adapted and
orchestrated by Knudaage Riisager. Etudes returns to the Company’s
repertoire after four years, and was last seen at the Royal Festival Hall in
2008.“…the full 39-strong cast is flying across the stage with
the split-second co-ordination of particles in the Hadron collider.”
The Observer

 

[Jan McNulty]

Irmgard has very kindly provided a bigger font version of the casting here:

 

http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/3145-english-national-ballet-coliseum-casting-for-ecstasy-and-death/

[Hambleton]

I am wanting to book to see Swan Lake in the round at the Royal Albert Hall.  Has anyone been to this in previous years who might have an idea of the best place to sit?  Higher or medium priced seats would be preferable for me on this occasion but I have never been to a ballet performance at the RAH before. 

[alison]

Hello, Hambleton.  I think we discussed this quite recently - I believe toursenlair asked about it somewhere, but I can't find it at the moment.

[Bluebird]

Hello, Hambleton.  I think we discussed this quite recently - I believe toursenlair asked about it somewhere, but I can't find it at the moment.

 

Here it is:

http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/2734-where-are-the-best-seats-for-swan-lake-in-the-round/

[alison]

Thanks, Bluebird.  Trying to find it when the search facility will only look for words of 5 letters or more was a little difficult!

[aileen]

Well, the last chance to see Nicholas le Riche before he retires in July (unless one goes to Paris). I believe that he is also dancing Le Jeune Homme et La Mort in one of his final performances in Paris.

[Hambleton]

Thanks alison and Bluebird.  My dd is lucky enough to have been cast as a child so I wanted to make sure I could see them from a good vantage point!

[GTL]

There's another locked thread about this but now fuller casting for ENB's "Ecstasy and Death" bill 18 - 21 April 2013 at the London Coliseum is on their website

http://www.ballet.org.uk/whats-on/ecstasy-and-death/  , currently showing :

 

Petite Mort
18 Klimentova, Osbaldeston, Oliveira, Ovsyanick, Summerscales, Fumero, Streeter, Bosch, Reimair, Forbat, Berlanga, Muntagirov
19 McWhinney, Glurdjidze, Takahashi, Zehr, Ramirez, Stott, Streeter, Forbat, Bosch, Young, Atymtayev, Westwell (Matinee)
19 Klimentova, Osbaldeston, Oliveira, Ovsyanick, Summerscales, Fumero, Streeter, Bosch, Reimair, Forbat, Berlanga, Muntagirov
20 McWhinney, Glurdjidze, Takahashi, Zehr, Ramirez, Stott, Streeter, Forbat, Bosch, Young, Atymtayev, Westwell (Matinee)
20 Klimentova, Osbaldeston, Oliveira, Ovsyanick, Summerscales, Fumero, Streeter, Bosch, Reimair, Forbat, Berlanga, Muntagirov
21 McWhinney, Glurdjidze, Takahashi, Zehr, Ramirez, Stott, Streeter, Forbat, Bosch, Young, Atymtayev, Westwell (Matinee)

Le Jeune Homme et la Mort
18 Rojo – Le Riche
19 Zhang – Acosta (Matinee)
19 Rojo – Le Riche
20 Rojo – Le Riche (Matinee)
20 Zhang – Acosta
21 TBC – TBC

Etudes
18 Takahashi, Muntagirov, Forbat and Berlanga
19 Kase, Gruzdyev, Saruhashi and Vargas (Matinee)
19 Takahashi, Muntagirov, Forbat and Berlanga
20 Kase, Gruzdyev, Acosta and Vargas (Matinee)
20 Rojo, Muntagirov, Forbat and Atymtayev
21 Rojo, Muntagirov, Forbat and Atymtayev (Matinee)

Edited March 23, 2013 by Grand Tier Left

[capybara]

I'll just repeat here that ENB is offering 2 tickets for the price of one on the top three prices for this Triple. You have to quote EMERGING to the Box Office.

 

I've been lucky to see some rehearsals. It will be a terrific show and a wonderful opportunity to see both established and rising stars. Best bet is to book for the performances which have Vadim Muntagirov in both Petite Mort and Etudes.