ROH On-Line Shop

[Fonty]

I have just received an email telling me about this.  I was looking through the DVD collections, and there are some gems on there.  I came across this, which looked very interesting.

 

http://www.roh.org.uk/products/margot-fonteyn-michael-somes-tchaikovsky-ballet-masterpieces

[Margaret]

I bought one of these ICA Classics some time ago,  which included 'The Lady and the Fool' - by Crank and Pinapple Poll, and found it very interesting.  Last week I purchased a couple of others from the opera house shop.  I have watched part of one  - Les Sylphides with Berisova, Elvin and Markova and Giselle  with Nerina.  This I found fascinating - the original recordings are from 1953 and 1958 and in quite small studios. Nadia Nerina in Giselle is lovely and it was interesting to see Peter Wright (as Albrecht's equerry). 

 

I started watching part of the other which also had a recording of Les Sylphides (with a note about the problems of restoring this work) which was not so easy to watch. It also has Coppelia (Nerina, Britton and Helpmann) and part of Giselle (Fonteyn and Nureyev), which I have not seen yet.

 

They have done quite a lot of restoration work on the original black and white films, but they are  still a bit grainy and limited by the capabilities of the cameras of the day.  Still lovely to have these historical performances available and I look forward to watching the remaining parts I've not had chance to see.

 

Margaret