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Sarasota Ballet Ashton Festival

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toursenlair

toursenlair

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I'm enjoying myself very much, trying to keep up with reporting on events. I managed to get my account of the first lecture, by David Vaughan, up on my blog. Today's talk was by Jane Pritchard of the V&A, very interesting look at Ashton's time ca. 1920-1935.  Also a film of the original cast of Enigma Variations. The whole audience broke into spontaneous applause after Anthony Dowell's AMAZING solo (especially since I would say it's in a remarkably un-Dowellesque style). Iain Webb said afterwards, "I don't know how Anthony even did that solo, and I said that to him once, and Anthony said "I don't know how I did it either!"

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toursenlair

toursenlair

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am just waiting in washington dc airport for my connecting flight home. The whole week was FABULOUS. Don't have time to report on everything but thought you'd enjoy a couple of one-liners:

1) From the documentary "Sir Fred" made by the BBC just after his death. Alexander Grant recounted how when Hans-Werner Henze was holed up in Ashton's house composing Ondine, Ashton would phone AG every day and ask pleadingly "Has he produced anything that sounds like a melody or a tune?" and AG would regretfully report, alas , no. Then one day Ashton's housekeeper told AG she had been hearing beautiful pretty music coming out of Henze's room. AG, astounded, said, "Really? Pretty music?" but when he asked HWH about it, HWH replied that he had felt too tired to compose that morning and had been playing Mozart instead!

2) Watching company class taught by Iain Webb (it was a great class, with lots of swooping torsos much in evidence):

IW: What are you doing looking at the floor? You know, it's going to be there for the whole show!

IW: Here at the Sarasota Ballet we have beautiful Ashton necks; other North American companies have Dracula necks

 

Bravo to Iain Webb for bucking the trend and asserting the value of this historical repertoire, and more amazingly than that, having the temerity to put on something OTHER than Nutcracker (Fille!) this coming December. This is UNHEARD-of in NAmerica. He seems to have converted the very enthusiastic Sarasota audience to Ashton.

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toursenlair

toursenlair

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Closing gala was brilliant. A fantastic performance of Les Patineurs, with company principal Logan Learned as the Blue Boy. He is about 5 feet tall (really) and would probably never get a job in another ballet company, but is technically excellent and has loads of personality, and is used to very good effect in the Ashton repertoire. Many of the Sarasotans I was sitting next to said "He's our absolute favourite".

Also diverts:

Jazz Calendar Monday's child, which I had never seen and enjoyed very much. Very slinky jazzy movement, but classical ballet alluded to with the dancer circling her face with her hand as in the "beautiful" mime.

La Chatte was just delightful and hilarious (especially for us cat lovers), ballerina starts out on a couch in a white fluffy outfit, stretches, extends her claws, at one point reaches out to sharpen them on the couch. At the end an errant white mouse scuttles on stage, and at the end the ballerina, to everyone's surprise, lets out a loud MEOW! Classic charming funny Ashton.

Gotta go, they're boarding my flight.

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Ian Macmillan

Ian Macmillan

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Looks like the Wall St Journal was there too:

 

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304831304579543703340648082?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304831304579543703340648082.html

 

Iain Webb and Margaret Barbieri seem to have really made a mark with this event - quite an achievement, by the sounds of it.

 

Edit:  And the NY Times:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/arts/dance/frederick-ashton-celebrated-by-the-sarasota-ballet.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=nytimesarts&_r=0

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Terpsichore

Terpsichore

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I would love a chance to see Jazz Calendar again not to mention some of Ashton's other one act ballets such as Monotones, Symphonic Variations and, most of all Enigma Variations.

 

I really didn't know too much about Sarasota Ballet until you and others mentioned this festival.   I will try to see them if I ever get to their part of Florida.

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toursenlair

toursenlair

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I believe Enigma Variations is on Iain Webb's wish list for his company. I was very impressed with the standard of dancing in the company. The women are stronger than the men, though. In any case, Sarasota is well worth visiting, and even if you are somewhere else in Florida I would say it's worth a trip to Sarasota if the ballet is on. And if they do another Ashton festival, it's worth a trip from much farther away.

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John Mallinson

John Mallinson

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Reading about the wonderful Sarasota programme lead me to look up what the Royal Ballet put on for the Ashton centenary season in 2004. Not a bad selection!

 

A Wedding Bouquet

Sylvia

Scènes de ballet

Daphnis and Chloë

Cinderella

La Fille mal gardée

Rhapsody

Marguerite and Armand

Enigma Variations

The Dream

Ondine

Symphonic Variations

A Month in the Country

Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan

Diverts: Devil’s Holiday pas de deux, Voices of Spring, Sleeping Beauty Awakening pdd, Thaïs pdd

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Terpsichore

Terpsichore

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Terpsichore, the RB is performing Symphonic Variations next season. You must have missed their EV and Monotones, both of which they have performed in the last couple of years.

 

I missed a lot of ballet in London because it was difficult for me to get there until very recently for several reasons.

 

I will look out for Symphonic Variations.

 

I believe Enigma Variations is on Iain Webb's wish list for his company. I was very impressed with the standard of dancing in the company. The women are stronger than the men, though. In any case, Sarasota is well worth visiting, and even if you are somewhere else in Florida I would say it's worth a trip to Sarasota if the ballet is on. And if they do another Ashton festival, it's worth a trip from much farther away.

 

Since reading your posts I have checked out the Sarasota Ballet website and I see that they have a very interesting programme.

 

I have always wanted to go to Florida for the art deco architecture, the Everglades National Park, the Cays and the connection with Hemingway but I have never been able to find an excuse to visit them. But I live in hope.

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Two Pigeons

Two Pigeons

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Thank you so much for this thread. I am sure a lot of us would loved to have been there. All this and Les Rendezvous in the proper costumes. Sheer heaven!

 

Well done Iain and Maggie. May this harbinger similar events closer to home. It is the very least Sir Fred deserves.

Edited by Two Pigeons
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Two Pigeons

Two Pigeons

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This is probably not the right thread for this but here goes. My penultimate visit to the ballet with my mother was March 2009 to the Birmingham Hippodrome to see Enigma Variations. At the end we turned to each other and we both had tears pouring down our cheeks. My father joined us and all he said was 'oh, that music'.

 

It remains one of my greatest moments of over 35 years of ballet going. She was a huge Ashtonphile and admired both Iain and Maggie greatly. Few people inspired that sort of devotion. Thank you Sir Fred and to the people who keep his legacy going.

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alymer

alymer

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A film of the original cast of Enigma Variations was shown at the Festival (Jenner replacing Sibley who was ill) and I would say that most of the audience was in tears by the end.

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Terpsichore

Terpsichore

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I was lucky enough to attend a special gala for Frederick Ashton's retirement as artistic director of the Royal Ballet on 24 July 1970. I was 21 at the time and my tickets were for the upper slips so I spent most of the evening standing. 

 

It was a splendid evening.   It started at 19:00 instead of 19:30 and continued late into the night.  Sir Robert Helpmann compeered the gala. He even sang a few bars quipping that we never knew that he had a talent for opera.  Svetlana Beriosova also spoke some lines of poetry in French.   Helpmann remarked that it was rare ever to hear a ballerina's voice.   Extracts of nearly all Ashton's ballets were performed.

 

There is a picture of the curtain call of the event on the Royal Opera House's flickr stream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/royaloperahouse/7371389654/

 

In those days ballet goers used to shower cut flowers which they had bought from the wholesale market next door onto the stage after a performance. On that occasion the stage was knee deep in flowers and that was in addition to the massive bouquets that had been presented to Margot Fonteyn and the other ballerinas by liveried footmen.  It was the only time I have ever known a standing ovation in the House.

 

I have never seen a performance quite like that in my life and I don't suppose that I ever will. However, I have recently experienced two other standing ovations: one in Leeds for Northern Ballet's Midsummer Night's Dream and the other in Amsterdam for the first night of the Dutch National Ballet Youth Company's national tour when Hans van Manen took a bow.

Edited by terpsichore
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Terpsichore

Terpsichore

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Svetlana Beriosova speaking 'poetry in French' was in fact an excerpt from Ashton's ballet "Persephone".

 

Many thanks. That has enabled me to look it up on the Covent Garden website:

  • The basic information is here; and
  • The performance details are here.

I don't think we saw the entire ballet at the gala but I may be mistaken as it was a long time ago.

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Terpsichore

Terpsichore

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Thank you Melody. I wish that article had been available in 1970 for I would have appreciated that part of the gala even more.

 

Isn't this dialogue over Persephone an example of one of the glories of this forum. I must be one of the few people on the planet ever to have seen a performance of any part of that ballet yet contributions from subscribers are helping me to build on an experience that took place nearly 43 years ago.

 

PS. Thanks to Melody and mijosh I have found the score, libretto and information about an earlier performance of the work. I don't have time to read it all now but I have bookmarked it and will try to write a proper article for my blog if not this forum. I enjoyed the work at the time but there were so many others to see on that night, particularly Enigma Variations, and I had put Persephone to the back of my mind for all those years. Once again, I am grateful to all concerned.

Edited by terpsichore
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