Birmingham Royal Ballet: La Fille mal gardée in Birmingham, Plymouth, London, September-October 2024

[Emeralds]

The much awaited revival of Frederick Ashton's glorious La Fille mal gardée (6 years since the last London or Birmingham performances of the complete ballet) starts tonight at last! Opening tonight at Birmingham Hippodrome with performances until Saturday night, it goes to Theatre Royal Plymouth next,  then Sadler's Wells Theatre, London (with the premiere and performances of Luna in between as well). Running time is announced as 2 hours 20 minutes with 2 intervals. 

 

Advance casting info, booking info and downloadable cast lists for each  performance available at: 

https://www.brb.org.uk/shows/la-fille-mal-gardee#credits  (click on each PDF next to the show date to get the cast list for that performance). John Lanchbery's arrangement of Ferdinand Harold's music will be performed by Royal Ballet Sinfonia. 

 

Also wishing big chookas and best wishes to the company at the box office.

🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 

Edited September 25 by Emeralds

[MJW]

3 hours ago, Emeralds said:

The much awaited revival of Frederick Ashton's glorious La Fille mal gardée (6 years since the last London or Birmingham performances of the complete ballet) starts tonight at last! Opening tonight at Birmingham Hippodrome with performances until Saturday night, it goes to Theatre Royal Plymouth next,  then Sadler's Wells Theatre, London (with the premiere and performances of Luna in between as well). Running time is announced as 2 hours 20 minutes with 2 intervals. 

 

Advance casting info, booking info and downloadable cast lists for each  performance available at: 

https://www.brb.org.uk/shows/la-fille-mal-gardee#credits  (click on each PDF next to the show date to get the cast list for that performance). John Lanchbery's arrangement of Ferdinand Harold's music will be performed by Royal Ballet Sinfonia. 

 

Also wishing big chookas and best wishes to the company at the box office.

🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 🍀 

 

I'll be going to Sadlers Wells in October and taking some friends from work for their first taste of ballet !

[San Perregrino]

Opening night was delightful. Beatrice Parma exquisite as Lise. Enrique Bejarano Vidal effervescent as Colas. The audience loved it. 

[Emeralds]

10 hours ago, San Perregrino said:

Opening night was delightful. Beatrice Parma exquisite as Lise. Enrique Bejarano Vidal effervescent as Colas. The audience loved it. 

Fab! How was the new "guest artist"🐴 -  the successor of your namesake?  🙂

Edited September 26 by Emeralds

[DelphiumBlue]

Great ! 
Can’t make the London dates so have come up to Birmingham for the matinée . V excited indeed. 

[San Perregrino]

36 minutes ago, Emeralds said:

Fab! How was the new "guest artist"🐴 -  the successor of your namesake?  🙂

Well behaved

[SheilaC]

I agree that Beatrice was very good, she captured the essence of Lise, feisty and loving, and coped admirably with the deceptively difficult choreography. At the matinee this afternoon Sofia Linares was charming and Lachlan Monaghan caught the essence of Colas and danced well, as did Enrique Bejarano Vidal last night. At each performance Rory Mackay gave a masterclass in  characterisation as Widow Simone as well as bringing out the comedy. As Alain at both performances  Gus Payne was comic without quite exceeding the boundaries, apparently Christopher Carr was strict in demanding that all aspects of the performance should adhere to Ashton's original intentions. 

All the dancers performed well and the orchestra, under guest conductor Wolfgang Heinz, brought out emotional undertones in the score as well as the colours in the music. 

[Pulcinella]

10 hours ago, Emeralds said:

Fab! How was the new "guest artist"🐴 -  the successor of your namesake?  🙂

The name of the new pony is Oscar, who is a Welsh Mountain pony and has a whole page to himself in the programme.

[Tony Newcombe]

Oscar disgraced himself this evening. As soon as he entered he deposited a large amount of poop on

the stage. The I noticed he was led on by a handler not one of cast. He must have been behaving nervously. Fortunately in the BRB production the interval was only seconds away. Happy to there were no problems in the second act. 
Miki Mizutani as Lise was quite wonderful. Her technique is so secure and her acting was an absolute joy to watch. She has become one of the treasures of BRB. 

[Emeralds]

31 minutes ago, Pulcinella said:

The name of the new pony is Oscar, who is a Welsh Mountain pony and has a whole page to himself in the programme.

Thanks, Pulcinella! I was going to ask if anyone had found out the pony's name but you've saved me the trouble. 

 

19 minutes ago, Tony Newcombe said:

Oscar disgraced himself this evening. As soon as he entered he deposited a large amount of poop on

the stage. The I noticed he was led on by a handler not one of cast. He must have been behaving nervously. Fortunately in the BRB production the interval was only seconds away. 

If it's any consolation (to Oscar?) Tony, Peregrine had exactly the same problem in 2018 in a BRB performance- same scene! Like today, it was in the evening performance of a two-show day, and luckily, the curtain comes down for the first interval soon after. I wonder if the two shows causes slight issues with their bowels because they are already tired or excited from an earlier performance. In any case, that was actually a bonus for a friend who came with us who had been "expecting ballet to be quite boring" who laughed, and applauded heartily when the curtain came down and declared it was the most entertaining bit of theatre he'd seen in a while. 

[alison]

2 hours ago, Tony Newcombe said:

Miki Mizutani as Lise was quite wonderful. Her technique is so secure and her acting was an absolute joy to watch. She has become one of the treasures of BRB. 

 

Grrrr.  I was so annoyed to have to miss her, but I was trying - unsuccessfully - to get back to London, and couldn't get to the theatre in time   I'd got my dates wrong: I'd thought Hirata was on before Mizutani.

[JNC]

fantastic reviews, it seems like the performances are going brilliantly. Really looking forward to seeing this on Saturday (as I’m doing the matinee hopefully Oscar will keep the stage clean but equally I think I’d find it rather amusing if he didn’t and part of the joys of live performances being unpredictable!) 

[DelphiumBlue]

Yesterday’s afternoon was  just glorious - so happy to see ‘Fille’ again live. I don’t remember the pony ( must have been Peregrine then ) being led in by a ‘handler’ plus  a member of the corps before , tho it makes  perfect sense. However, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, expect my eye was just elsewhere on previous occasions. 

I enjoyed everyone’s performances and was particularly taken w Gus Payne as

Alain.  

 

 

 

[Emeralds]

A little video of the Linares/Monaghan cast for everyone having Fille withdrawal symptoms.....

 

Also just saw some photos and a video of adorable little pony Oscar on BRB's Facebook stories (should be on Instagram stories too) which I think will last only one more hour. 

 

If you missed the stories, here's the video (no Oscar unfortunately but hopefully more photos of him will turn up later) 

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/YbBritnzeWJWPD5Z/

Edited September 27 by Emeralds

[SheilaC]

As DelphiumBlue says, Gus Payne was very good as Alain. Alas, that was not true of last night's Alain, Tom Hazelby. He played him as an idiot, opening with a moronic grin, playing the role for laughs, not appreciating that the humour is in the choreography, and his dancing was unmusical. For the ballet to be fully successful each of the four main characters has to be ultimately sympathetic. Of the other roles, Miki danced beautifully as Tony says but, for me at least, didn't fully capture Lise's character, charming though she was. Mathias was blokeish and although he danced quite well his dancing wasn't as good as I expected from his past performances. Max made a good stab at the Widow, a bit gruffer and less affectionate than Rory. All the other dancers were good, with Olivia Chang Clarke 's charisma notable as one of Lise's friends- a step up from being a chicken on the opening night, where her smile was concealed! And Oscar behaved himself.

[alison]

Oh dear, we have the same Alain tonight 🙁

[alison]

I'd be very interested to hear from those who've been whether even the amended timings bear any resemblance to reality. From what I was hear I guess not.

[Emeralds]

How was the performance last night, @alison? (I'm assuming - could be wrong- that's the one you saw?)

Edited September 28 by Emeralds

[Occasional audience member]

The performances by the dancers (and the pony) last night were excellent to my non-expert eye and I admired  the music and artistry but I didnt take to the ballet which I havent seen before except for the well known excerpts. The comedy just felt very old fashioned and the characterisation of Alain unkind, despite the protestations in the programme. The choreography is clearly very demanding and the clever use of props, especially ribbons, was amazing. But too much like a pantomime for my personal taste (not a fan of that tradition either). I know lots of folk on here love the ballet and this seemed like a very  spirited production of it.   There were quite a few vacant seats sadly. 

Edited September 28 by Occasional audience member

[Emeralds]

Thank you for your feedback and candour, @Occasional audience member.... I  understand where you're coming from (especially since reservations about the casting last night had been expressed earlier). Hope you'll enjoy your next performance a lot more, and thank you for sharing your reactions honestly. 

[jules_skichick]

I saw Fridays fille and enjoyed it a lot.

Lachlan was amazingly good as the widow...really funny...seemed to be having a great time. Exceptional clog dance..one of the best I've seen...if plenty of performances.

Hirata and Maslen danced well and we're very enjoyable to watch. Thanks BRB

[Jan McNulty]

I was fortunate to see both performances on Thursday.  It is so wonderful to see this production back in the rep after some years.  I always think that Ashton, no matter how silly the story, manages to make characters that are believable and that you care about.  The choreography is just gorgeous too!  The Fanny Elssler pdd gets me every time.

 

In the afternoon we were treated to Sofia Liñares, Lachlan Monaghan, Rory Mackay and Gus Payne.  I thought it was a delight from start to finish.  Sofia was both cheeky and loving but perhaps a little too sexy.  Lachlan was absolutely terrific as Colas as was Rory as the Widow.  I greatly admired Gus' interpretation of Alain - he was an innocent abroad who had not been taught social skills - exactly as I expect it should be played.  The whole company danced their hearts out.

 

The evening performance was led by the always wonderful Miki Mizutani and Mathias Dingman with Max Maslen making his debut as the Widow and Tom Hazelby as Alain.  The two leads sparkled and sparked and I thought Max was wonderfully understated as the Widow.  I'm afraid that, sadly, I share the same concerns about the portrayal of Alain in this cast as others on the Forum.

 

Of the other dancers Olivia Chang Clarke stood out for me as did Jack Easton and Mason King.

 

I was lucky enough to meet Oscar taking a breath of fresh air in the interval.

 

As regards the running time - at the performances I saw Acts 1 & 2 seemed to go to schedule but there was a delay before the start of Act 3 at both performances.

 

 

 

[Emeralds]

Thanks, @jules_skichick and @Jan McNulty! Lovely photo of Oscar too!

[Tango Dancer]

Just back from the Saturday night show at the Hippodrome. Sadly not very well attended. The rear circle was mostly empty. I asked the steward if I could move forward and was told no because others paid to sit at the front. Obviously not very many of them paid or it would be filled up. I think this is because tickets are quite dear.

 

I thought the orchestra did a fantastic job with the music and were conducted well.

 

Matthias Dingman was good as Colas with strong jumps and some lovely controlled spins. Miki always impresses me with her lovely expressive arms and was a charming Lise.

 

I thought Max Maslen gave it his all as Widow Simone. I think I prefer that role done by character dancers though.He didn't quite manage to walk like an old woman but did really well in the clog dance.

 

Javier Rojas played Alain and I liked him as he came across as really sweet and nice and an innocent. He also had lovely technique on the turns and jumps. So the way the villagers behaved seemed cruel in comparison.

 

Oscar behaved very well with no crapping tonight. I heard at least one small girl on the way out saying she wanted a small horse and cart.

 

I don't think it needs 2 intervals that are so long (the cast list said they were 20 mins and 27 mins) and I did hear the people in front say the piece was too short.  

 

Overall very pleasant way to spend an evening and lovely to see BRB again.

 

 

Edited September 28 by Tango Dancer

[JNC]

Saturday matinee was wonderful. Beatrice Parma a very expressive Lise and really reminded me of Nunez (haven’t seen her live but adore the dvd with her and Acosta). 
 

The other standout for me was Rory Mackay as Widow Simone - just conveying the character so wonderfully humorously and I couldn’t imagine how it could be improved. The clog dance delightful. Vidal was a fine Colas but a bit lacking in drama/charm (perhaps he couldn’t project all the way to the back of the upper circle) if I’m being a bit picky. Glad to have Gus Payne as Alain looking at other comments - thought he played the role well with some real humour and charm with his umbrella and not all “village moron/idiot”. Just a very childlike innocent character, lots of friendly laughs around the audience for him I think is a sign he did it well. 
 

I was impressed at the lifts done in the pas de deux with Lise and Colas and also the use of ribbons in the pdd but also the maypole scene is both simple but clever and effective - Ashton is a unique genius for this ballet. 
 

Overall a lovely performance.

 

Agree the two intervals were too long / one would have been enough. There was definite overrun with 2h25 turning more into 2h40.

 

I also noticed a lot of unsold seats in the circle. And sadly not many children and a more middle aged/ elderly audience. Nothing wrong with that of course but I feel this is the perfect ballet for children (not too long, a pony, some farmyard characters and a simple and child-friendly plot, humour) so it’s a shame that either pricing and or lack of marketing means it hadn’t sold as it should generally but particularly for families etc. 

 

also the programme was a double feature with Luna and was only £5! 

Edited September 28 by JNC

[alison]

I picked up a copy of What's On In Birmingham - or whatever it may be called - on Thursday to while away the time.  It was the October edition, and I presume sticking religiously to that month since Fille didn't get a look-in - although there was a bit advert for Nutcracker.  Hopefully Fille was covered in the previous edition.

 

The ticket sales appeared to have been disappointing for several of the performances I looked at, which is a real shame.  I might have expected to see a greater push on social media for it.

 

I think one problem I have with Fille these days is that it seems pretty much of an outlier in terms of the rest of a company's repertoire - and possibly may not immediately appeal to audiences for that reason.  It used to be the Royal companies' lifeblood, but nowadays its style must require a lot of work to get back into it when it's been out of the repertoire for some considerable time (I'm not sure how many of BRB's dancers will have danced it previously - presumably Hirata, but I'm not sure about the others), and particularly if the dancers aren't getting much experience at other "demi-caractère" ballets such as Pineapple Poll.  Not only do you need to be able to execute the steps properly, and with ease, but musicality, acting and excellent comedic timing are also required for the ballet to have its full effect.  Normally, with a touring company such as BRB, you'd expect dancers to have the time and number of performances to really grow into their roles, but with the handful of performances they have this time around I'm wondering whether that will happen.  That's why I'm particularly surprised to see various Colas's also appearing as Widow Simone: you might have thought they would want to concentrate on the main role.

[Jan McNulty]

@Tango Dancer @JNC I was told a long time ago that the two intervals were required for the touring production due to technicalities with the scene changes.

 

There seems to be some sort of issue with the second interval ... it was listed as 20 minutes on Thursday but well over-ran at both the performances I saw.

[Emeralds]

Thank you for the informative reviews of the Parma/Vidal cast and the Mizutani/Dingman cast, @JNC and @Tango Dancer! I was wondering whether to squeeze in an additional show for their Sadler's Wells run (it would mean travelling 4-5 hours for 3 consecutive days on top of full work days - I have another event to attend on Thursday - which is a lot so your reviews are helpful while I'm still mulling over  it.

 

@alison I think Miki Mizutani could have danced Lise on the last run as she danced a lot of classical lead roles (eg Sugar Plum Fairy, Aurora) very early on in her career. Celine Gittens who was my last Lise (ever) when BRB brought it to Sadler's Wells in 2018, didn’t get cast this time (I don't know why and I think she should have been, unless she is injured or away).

 

There are a high number of new dancers in the key roles who would probably not have seen a lot of or any live performances of the ballet, not being in the company before 2018- eg Tom Hazelby only joined BRB last year. I do think it is harder to get Alain, Widow Simone and Thomas right in terms of portrayals compared to Lise and Colas. I think they should have cast more experienced dancers in those roles.

 

My concerns about casting Maslen and Monaghan as both Colas and Widow Simone in the same run are that while I've no doubt both can nail the acting and clog dance, it's very difficult to switch out of "Colas mode" into "mother mode" and back again on alternate days, whereas it would be better if there was at least a week apart (eg dancing all Colas in Birmingham and Widow Simone in Plymouth or London). There's also the risk of injury when not having much rest in between the Colas performances and Widow Simone is a physically demanding part too.

 

Louis Andreasen and Gabriel Anderson have been excellent in all the acting roles and the dancing roles I saw them in, are both experienced and have danced in Fille in its last run. I thought they could have shared the Simone and/or Thomas roles with Jonathan  Payn and Rory Mackay. 

 

Great to see so many members could travel to Birmingham to support BRB on this occasion. 👏 👍 I've done it several times before but my schedule is too packed this week even for Sadler's Wells or ROH so unfortunately can't do Birmingham. It does look like BRB should have either reduced the number of performances in Birmingham or reduced the ticket prices, and scheduled more performances at Sadler's Wells. 

Edited Sunday at 09:15 by Emeralds

[Jan McNulty]

@Emeralds Miki made her debut in the last run with Lachlan as her Colas.  Very wonderful they were too!

[Emeralds]

Thanks @Jan McNulty! I was quite sure she had danced it before this run at a perfornance I couldn't get to, but just didn't have proof that I remembered correctly! 

Edited Sunday at 10:07 by Emeralds

[Henry]

Tzu-Chao Chou doesn't seem to be dancing Colas this run.  I would have liked to see that.  

[Emeralds]

4 hours ago, Henry said:

Tzu-Chao Chou doesn't seem to be dancing Colas this run.  I would have liked to see that.  

Me too! He'd be a natural fit as Colas. We need more performances in London  😀.

[Tango Dancer]

4 hours ago, Henry said:

Tzu-Chao Chou doesn't seem to be dancing Colas this run.  I would have liked to see that.  

Definitely, he has such beauty and grace when he jumps it's like a force of nature I was hoping for him when I booked.  I wish they'd put him on (no disrespect to the dancers cast who are great).