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Royal Ballet 2013/14 Period 3 Casting


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What would have happened if Matthew and Vadim had not joined the RB? Regarding the fairies, to give an idea of how injuries have affected casting: Claudia Dean and Leticia Stock have danced in all four performances which I have seen (Leticia in the same role) and I have only seen 10 fairies in total. Is this level of injury much higher than normal? If so, I think that someone needs to try to find out why, with a view to preventing a repeat of the situation, if that is possible.

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IMO the level of injury this Season has been much higher than usual. Regarding the Fairies: some of the "Fairy" dancers have only danced their role once or so as they've had to take over the roles from injured dancers cast in the Garland Dance, Friends and Nymphs, and we may not see those dancers throughout the rest of the run (so we get to see the same Fairies).

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And it's just been announced that Natalia Osipova will be replaced by Yuhui Choe this evening due to injury.

 

 

 

Oh, dear .... and here was I thinking that her cancellation at La Scala two weeks' ago 'due to a recurring injury' might have in some small light had something to do with her pairing with Vasiliev.  Here's hoping Osipova has a miraculously speedy recovery.  There is no question but that a burgeoning throng (myself included) will miss her abundant gifts during this sad interim.  I wonder when they will announce if she will dance the other two SB dates.    

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This is not a mischievous question: why is Edward Watson not (never) cast in Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, The Nutcracker etc? I've noticed that a few people dance in everything (eg Lamb, Nunez, McRae) but many others seem to dance a much narrower repertoire.

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I've heard him say he hates dancing Giselle so doesn't want to do it, so it could be more his choice than an issue of not being cast, but it is weird. I get that he's not a conventional 'prince' type of dancer, but he's so talented, it would be interesting to see him in them. He's 38 now too, so there won't be that many opportunities.

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Well, does he hate all the other princely roles as well? If you don't dance any of them then the number of your performances with the RB will be considerably reduced given the large number of performances of the classics which the RB schedules every year. 

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I don't know. I've always been a bit perplexed that he has stayed at the RB. Other than McGregor and Wheeldon casting him in new stuff, he usually has to wait for Macmillan ballets to be revived to get a really juicy part, and in the case of Mayerling, in my opinion his best role, they don't come around often.

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I've heard him say he hates dancing Giselle so doesn't want to do it,

I think you may be confusing Giselle with Nutcracker. I've definitely heard him say it about the latter, but not the former. In fact, last time I remember him saying anything about Giselle he seemed to quite have liked it.

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I get that he's not a conventional 'prince' type of dancer, but he's so talented, it would be interesting to see him in them.

 

I was thinking just that (again) about Sleeping Beauty Act II only a couple of nights ago.

 

I don't know. I've always been a bit perplexed that he has stayed at the RB.

Why? It's an ideal place for him.

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I think you may be confusing Giselle with Nutcracker. I've definitely heard him say it about the latter, but not the former. In fact, last time I remember him saying anything about Giselle he seemed to quite have liked it.

 

No, I haven't confused them (unless i'm going mad). Can't remember where it was, but it was definitely Giselle.

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No he danced a fine Albrecht to Benjamin's Giselle. I believe she asked for him as her partner. What surprises me is that he as not danced Onegin. Maybe it's the ginger hair

 

I didn't say he wasn't a fine Albrecht, I said I read that he didn't like the role. I could be wrong though.

 

Someone of his stature, and as one of only 2 British male principals in a company always criticised for its lack of british dancers, is likely to have a say in casting, so I imagine it's a decision made by mutual consent.

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Because he doesn't dance a huge amount and is largely excluded from the main repertoire of the RB

 

(Sorry for the rather abrupt previous post: I was coming to the end of the 15 minutes' WiFi which the Powers That Be think is all anyone could possibly need when they have a nearly 30-minute wait for a train :))

 

Yes, but can you imagine him with, say, ENB?  Given the restricted, largely classics-based, repertoire they do there, he'd have needed to be pushed into a more-conventional mould to have been any use to them.  I have occasionally wondered what other major company might have fitted him as well as the Royal: I discarded a lot of options, barring perhaps a couple of US companies, but there he wouldn't have had access to a lot of the MacMillan and Ashton he's done over the years, among other things.

 

(I do miss the old forum software, which would have allowed us to branch off a diverging discussion from the main topic of the thread)

 

Chrischris, just a bit of "history" since you haven't been around here that long (and someone please correct me if this isn't as accurate as it should be: it's my interpretation of what I've observed over the years): I think that around the time that Watson joined the company, in the mid-90s, there tended to be a bit of a gap (maybe there still is?) in the acquisition of partnering skills post-Upper School and in the early years in the company - if you hadn't physically matured to the stage where you could handle pretty demanding partnering by the time you graduated, as many of the boys hadn't, there didn't appear to be much opportunity to develop it in the company.  So, he was getting some decent roles already under Dowell - My Brother, My Sisters and Shadowplay come to mind, maybe Gloria? - but they all seem to have been roles which didn't really require much in the way of partnering.  It wasn't until Monica Mason took over and decided to throw him in at the deep end with Romeo to Lauren Cuthbertson's Juliet that he really had to start working on the partnering - sink or swim time.  He swam, of course, and the rest, as they say, is history.  But even that was well into his career. I oftten wonder what would have happened if he'd been steered towards the classics before that time - would he have extended his range by becoming a better all-rounder? Would he still have developed into the highly individual artist we know today, or might he actually have become something lesser?

 

No he danced a fine Albrecht to Benjamin's Giselle. I believe she asked for him as her partner. What surprises me is that he as not danced Onegin. Maybe it's the ginger hair

 

In 3 separate runs, if I remember rightly.  And yes, I've wondered about the hair colour being a contributing factor, too.  I guess that would be disproved if Steven McRae were to be cast in the role.  OTOH, as I've said here before, I've long come to the conclusion that Reid Anderson and I frequently don't see eye to eye in terms of Onegin casting.

 

I didn't say he wasn't a fine Albrecht, I said I read that he didn't like the role. I could be wrong though.

 

I was checking up on some of the things I'd written here: http://www.balletassociation.co.uk/Reports/2011/Watson11.html

He does admit to a bit of a love-hate relationship with Giselle, but definitely disliked doing the peasant pd6 and the Swan Lake pd3!

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Thanks for posting that link, alison. I hadn't realised that Watson had danced so much Ashton. Unfortunately for him, his ambivalence or antipathy towards the more classical roles has deprived him of many performances in the first seven months of the season which have been dominated by Don Q, R&J, Nuts, Giselle and Beauty (the latter has a particularly long run). You make an interesting point about partnering. It must be a disadvantage for boys to grow late. There is a big difference between partnering in the corps and the kind of partnering which a lead is required to do, involving complex positioning and high lifts. 

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Just musing over what you have said, Alison.  I vaguely remember comments about his "bad" or lack of partnering skills when he first joined the company.

 

I can understand that new male recruits would not have the skills of a seasoned veteran, but I would have thought the way to deal with it is to give the new boys a very experienced female to dance with, perhaps one of the smaller, lighter ladies?  Benjamin would have been perfect for him, but I seem to remember she wasn't cast much in the purely classical roles either (at least, not that I can remember).  In which case, another choice might have been Yoshida.  I am sure I read a critic's review once of one of her performances, saying how good she was at adapting to accommodate her partner's slight mistakes.  * 

 

I just don't see how any male dancer can join a classical ballet company, and not dance the classical roles.  This would be ok if the RB had masses of males on the payroll, but that has never been the case, as far as I know. 

 

* Edited to add that Yoshida also used to dance quite a lot with Kumakawa, and if my memory serves me correctly, I don't think his partnering skills were the best either!

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Sorry, but I'm still not clear why Watson does not dance the 'classical' roles and that includes the Balanchine ballets (I know that he did dance Emeralds last Christmas) and Don Q. Is he simply not cast by the AD and, if so, why not? Returning to the partnering question, I do wonder whether (some) male dancers trained abroad have an advantage and that is why there has been so much recruitment at a senior level. Perhaps these junior companies are a good idea if they give young dancers the opportunity to develop partnering skills for a couple of years after graduation. I suspect that there just isn't time in the RB's busy schedule and partnering is only started in the last couple of years at the RBS and is to some extent determined by the physical development of the boys. I certainly know several non-dancing boys who haven't started growing yet and they are 15 and 16 years old and some others have clearly got more growing to do. 

 

Vadim, who is now a very good partner, certainly benefited greatly from dancing with Daria for three or four years.

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I'm not saying that the AD owes me, or anyone else, an explanation. My question was directed to members of this forum. I find it curious that an experienced principal dancer does not dance a large portion of the repertoire which accounts for a very substantial percentage of the performances, certainly this year, and I wondered whether this was down to Watson's preferences or casting decisions by the AD. There have been a lot of male injuries this season and the RB could have done with another senior male dancer cast in some of the ballets. 

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 partnering is only started in the last couple of years at the RBS 

 

I was surprised to read this as I thought I remembered seeing Year 11 White Lodge students doing pas de deux work.  I checked on the White Lodge website and found the following (the highlighting is mine)

 

"A five-year course is offered here for students between the ages of 11 and 16, incorporating comprehensive classical ballet training together with an excellent academic provision up to GCSE Level.

...................... At senior levels, classes in repertoire, solos, pas de deux and upper body conditioning for male students are incorporated into the curriculum."

http://www.royalballetschool.org.uk/training/full-time-courses/white-lodge/

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You may be right, or this may be a recent development, but I doubt that much real lifting can be done before the boys are in their mid-teens at least. I recently read an article in which some ADs were commenting that graduates needed to have better partnering skills.

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I'm not saying that the AD owes me, or anyone else, an explanation. My question was directed to members of this forum. I find it curious that an experienced principal dancer does not dance a large portion of the repertoire which accounts for a very substantial percentage of the performances, certainly this year, and I wondered whether this was down to Watson's preferences or casting decisions by the AD. There have been a lot of male injuries this season and the RB could have done with another senior male dancer cast in some of the ballets. 

 

My thoughts are that Edward Watson was a soloist for so many years (until his late 20s?) and cast in so many soloist and contemporary roles, it was a bit of a surprise (well it was to me) when he was promoted by Monica Mason when she assumed the role of AD. It looked to me like he was being given principal roles he was most suited to, not the whole classic repertoire just because he was a principal. I think that's fine - he's a unique dancer with supreme gifts and I was surprised and impressed at how well he also embraced dramatic roles like Rudolf and Romeo.

 

I would also think that as a dancer gets older they are given more consideration about the roles that don't offer them much satisfaction. I think Kobborg stopped dancing SBs years ago. I don't think I ever saw Jonathan Cope in SB. Didn't Rojo miss a number of SB runs as well? (though I guess she's dancing Aurora again with ENB.)

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You may be right, or this may be a recent development, but I doubt that much real lifting can be done before the boys are in their mid-teens at least. I recently read an article in which some ADs were commenting that graduates needed to have better partnering skills.

 

There's an interview with Xander Parish (a ballet.co one?) where he said in his five or so years in the corps there were next to no partnering opportunities. I guess if you're stuck in the corps there's not much point, and if you're able to break out then you learn as you go.

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Watson gave an interview to Debra Craine (The Times, Jan 22 2014 ), in which he said:

 

"I have never fit the image of a ballet prince but what’s great about being at the Royal Ballet is that I haven’t had to,” he says. “There are people here who do and they do that stuff really, really well. But by dancing lead roles in .. the MacMillan ballets.. I have not had to represent myself by my technique alone. I’m so glad of that; otherwise I would have been found out years ago.”

 

He also said, speaking of his schedule at the time "I'm having the best time I've ever had."

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Benjamin would have been perfect for him, but I seem to remember she wasn't cast much in the purely classical roles either (at least, not that I can remember).

 

She was at the time we were talking about: I've certainly seen her do Swan Lake, Coppelia and so on with the company.

 

"I just don't see how any male dancer can join a classical ballet company, and not dance the classical roles." (Sorry, quoting is greyed out again) It's not as if he's been the only principal who didn't: Sarah Wildor and Mara Galeazzi didn't either (and it doesn't look as though Ashley Page did with the RB, either). When you think that the classics only make up about 1/4 of the RB's repertory, there's plenty else to choose from.

 

Sorry, but I'm still not clear why Watson does not dance the 'classical' roles and that includes the Balanchine ballets

He's danced a fair amount of Balanchine in his time: Stravinsky Violin Concerto and Four Temperaments immediately come to mind.

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Watson gave an interview to Debra Craine (The Times, Jan 22 2014 ), in which he said:

Thanks, Jane. The things we miss due to that blasted firewall!

 

Now, does anyone have anything to contribute re Period 3 casting? :)

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She was at the time we were talking about: I've certainly seen her do Swan Lake, Coppelia and so on with the company.

 

"I just don't see how any male dancer can join a classical ballet company, and not dance the classical roles." (Sorry, quoting is greyed out again) It's not as if he's been the only principal who didn't: Sarah Wildor and Mara Galeazzi didn't either (and it doesn't look as though Ashley Page did with the RB, either). When you think that the classics only make up about 1/4 of the RB's repertory, there's plenty else to choose from.

 

 

He's danced a fair amount of Balanchine in his time: Stravinsky Violin Concerto and Four Temperaments immediately come to mind.

 

Er....I wouldn't really have expected them to dance the male roles.  :)  

 

I was really thinking about males promoted to Principal level.  And the talk about Watson arose as a result of talk about Period 3 casting, I think?  (I've forgotten how we got onto this subject in the first place....)

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Er....I wouldn't really have expected them to dance the male roles.  :)  

 

Well, no, but the principle's the same with regard to classical roles :).  I just don't remember any "They're short of ballerinas: why doesn't Mara Galeazzi dance Swan Lake?"-type discussions.

 

BTW, before we started digressing, did anyone actually mention that the second cast for Winter's Tale has now been announced?  It's on the website.

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