The Royal Ballet: Woolf Works, Spring 2015

[SPD444]

Definate 5 from CC - no doubt.

[zxDaveM]

Definate 5 from CC - no doubt.

Well, Natalia and Steven are in it, so that's at least 2....

[Quintus]

there are still tickets for tomorrow and I'll likely grab one tonight.  I noticed some comments around viewing perspectives.  Is this a ballet that benefits from viewing from above, or from being reasonably close. Not having the eyes or taste for perching on a cliff face of a golden eagle, I'll rule out the Amphi.  There are some front edge seats in the Stalls and a few in DG Grand Tier and above  - which would give the better experience of this particular work?

[capybara]

Well, Natalia and Steven are in it, so that's at least 2....

 

And Ed Watson - so three!!!!

[annamk]

 

And Ed Watson - so three!!!!

 

and there you have it - 3* from CC  'A luxurious production and fine dancing cannot redeem Wayne McGregor’s familiar choreography"

[Lindsay]

I saw it from the Grand Tier and thought that worked well.  You might not get full lighting effects from front of stalls - but I might be mistaken and you would get a more detailed look at the costumes.

 

My betting is that Clement will hate this - he detests modernism and anything that smacks of intellectualism rather than pure "emotion" and "refinement".  He may also lament that brilliant performances by Ed, Natalia and Steven got lost in the special effects.

[Lindsay]

haha cross-posting.  I was half right - nothing can make him like McGregor.  Clearly not a Woolf fan old Clement - quelle surprise...

Edited May 12, 2015 by Lindsay

[Jane S]

But the online version is signed 'Louise Levene'....

[Jan McNulty]

 

 

 

and there you have it - 3* from CC  'A luxurious production and fine dancing cannot redeem Wayne McGregor’s familiar choreography"

 

The FT review was by Louise Levene.

[annamk]

The FT review was by Louise Levene.

 

 

Yes I just realised. I saw him there so I just assumed and as someone told me at work many many years ago to assume can make an *** out of u & me  

[Lindsay]

You're quite right. Interesting.  The review reads very much like the great man too.

[capybara]

However, recently, Clement Crisp has tended to eschew the productions he doesn't much fancy seeing. And who could blame him!

[Booklover89]

Discussion of Woolf Works on Radio 4 Front Row right now.

Edited May 12, 2015 by Booklover89

[alison]

There will be a review on Radio 3 tonight from 10 pm, as well.

[alison]

Discussion of Woolf Works on Radio 4 Front Row right now.

 

Grr.  I was on Radio 3

[Duck]

Adding to my high-level review from late last night. What a performance.

 

I now, I then. I loved the dancing – fluid, emotional, and evocative of relationships past and present. The period costumes, the sound of clocks ticking and the videos/ pictures of 1920s London all helped create the atmosphere of the book Mrs Dalloway. Stunning dancing by all involved and beautiful music.

From the three parts of Woolf Works, this was for me the piece that was closest to the underlying book. I made guesses last night as to who was playing which role from Mrs Dalloway, and was surprised to read in an interview with Gary Avis today that he was playing the current Richard Dalloway not the current Peter Walsh as I thought last night (as Mrs Dalloway was shown young and current, I wrongly assumed that this would also be the case for Peter Walsh). I think it would be useful to have the list of who played which character in the cast sheet.

Two other parts of I now, I then left me thinking that I should read the book again to catch up on a couple of details. The first was the liaison between the young Peter and Sarah (is this also to this extent in the book?), the other is the interaction between the current Mrs Dalloway and Septimus (in the book they don’t meet, and Mrs Dalloway hears about his suicide at her party yet I don’t remember her spending an extended amount of time thinking about the incident – or is my memory playing tricks?). This is then maybe where the non-narrative elements of the piece take over.

 

Becomings. What a contrast. When I read Orlando, I most enjoyed the chapter that describes how Orlando is adjusting to being a woman e.g., moving like a woman in women’s clothes (in particular no flashing of ankles), no exclamations, no walking alone through the streets of London. It was these elements that I thought would be wonderful to capture in a ballet – dancers showing male figures in expansive movements and dancers showing female figures doing small steps and only in groups, etc. Not quite what I saw last night ;-)

I loved the costumes. Fantastic designs in gold and black. From what I was able to see (some of it was a little darkly lit for my taste and vision), at the beginning every member of the cast was wearing a full set of costume in Elisabethan style (most gorgeous: the golden dress that Eric Underwood was wearing also at the curtain calls), and when they reappeared, either the top or the lower part was gradually replaced by nude kit, until at the very end all dancers were wearing just nude kits. The movements did not have a link to the Elisabethan age for me and instead were mostly huge extensions and hectic movements. The elements of dance that I did enjoy were the more fluid parts – the sensual PDD by Natalia Osipova and Edward Watson in the middle of the piece (and I kept wondering whether this would be based on Orlando’s liaison with the Russian princess when the Thames was frozen over), and the two circles of dancers towards of the end (though I am not sure what the reference might have been). A video in the background was showing sea, and I kept asking myself whether this reflected Orlando’s ship voyage back to Europe as a woman.

While the piece started to feel a little long, what kept me going were the variations in costumes that were worn by different dancers, and a sensation that what I had expected to see in relation to different genders doing different forms of dance was in fact shown from a different perspective. The dancing was often a combination of male/ female pairings where each gender performed the same steps while wearing different costumes (such as black and gold tops) and male/ male pairings where one male (or two males) lifted another male dancer. The final section of the piece showed all dancers in nude kit dancing in two separate circles, with no visible difference between dancers in relation to the intensity or expansiveness of their movements. The sensation of “which gender was this - or does it even matter as they are so interchangeable?” was heightened for me by the fact that the dancers had their hair combed back tightly, so all looked rather similar. Again, stunning dancing by all involved.

 

Yesterday. Much closer in style to the first part. Hugely moving opening sequence by a voiceover of Virginia Woolfe’s suicide letter (that’s when I choked the 2^nd time last night, the 1^st time being the duet between Dyer and Watson in the first part), followed by the PDD that is available from the Insight Evening on the ROH web site. The six children in The Waves are evoked (or are these Susan’s children now that she is older and has a family herself?) and Susan (I understand based on Virginia Woolf’s sister) appears. I loved the flowing dancing of the corps, in particular the arm movements that looked like waves. Finally, what a superb and emotional ending with Alessandra Ferri slowly sinking down, held by Federico Bonelli. And again, stunning dancing by all involved, beautiful music and a fitting video of waves.

 

Preparation. I had never done so much prep work before watching a ballet for the first time, having read Mrs Dalloway, Orlando, and currently The Waves (and I like it though it’s not the best choice for a quiet, focussed read during the morning rush hour in London). Was it necessary read all these books? Probably not as the ballet is non-narrative, and extracts or good summaries of the books would have equally done. Was it enjoyable? Immensely as I had known very little about Virginia Woolf this time last year. Was it beneficial? I think so. I went through phases of apprehension as to whether the ballet would go over my head given, I am afraid to say, the information available on the ROH web site. In these situations, the sense of having read the books gave much needed confidence that I had done as much as preparation as possible. For anyone unsure what to read in terms of preparation – I would go with summaries of the books (the programme has about a paragraph on each book however in particular for I now, I then does not mention any characters that appear in the book), of Virginia Woolf’s life (I only discovered last week that she drowned herself), and the various newspaper articles the week before the premiere (as they provided e.g., an explanation of the background to the titles of the three parts).

 

Enough said for tonight, other than that I am looking forward to being back in the audience soon. :-)

[Duck]

Yesterday

 

Well, this should have read Tuesday

[Nina G.]

Thank you for this lovely review Duck.

 

I'll have to wait until Thursday to see Woolf Works and looking forward to it (after reading all the reviews).

[MAB]

How wonderful it was to see Alessandra Ferri back at Covent Garden and to realize the withering hands of time haven't touched her at all.  Not just a beautiful presence but a mesmerising one too, while she was on stage I was guilty of watching only her so won't comment much on parts one and three, but I felt that McGregor has ventured into new choreographic territory with this work and has shown he can create ballets that are concerned with complex emotions.

 

Orlando however brought us back to the Wayne we know and love with high energy all out dancing.  Fabulous roles for Osipova and McRae.  Loved the lasers too. Definitely the evening's highlight for me.

 

Mr Crisp was in attendance and sitting near me in stalls, seen him looking happier though. 

[aileen]

The Guardian's (5 star) review has links to earlier features on Mrs Dalloway and Orlando, which may be helpful.

[Beryl H]

Tickets seem to be going like hot cakes now, last night just as I switched on TV about 5.50pm on BBC News there was an interview with Max Richter about the ballet and his music, short clip of Osipova and Watson dancing. The Times gives 4 stars today and although short it really gives a good idea of what to expect, the more you know about Virginia Woolf the better, also I guess people are reading their own interpretations as to which real life people the dancers are.

 

There are 10 male and 10 female lead dancers in the second cast, but I notice Ryoichi Hirano is missing, perhaps the ROH website is incorrect or trying to update!

[alison]

I'm not quite sure what's happening casting-wise, but it now looks as though Lamb, Bonelli and Watson (and possibly others) are in both casts.  Does that make sense?

[Nina G.]

Casting on ROH website is confusing. Is there or is there not another cast? Are Choe, Kaneko,Naghdi,Mendizabal just mixed into the Opening Night cast? 

[alison]

I'm starting to wonder, given the apparent discrepancy in numbers (I don't *think* it's merely a reflection of the length of the names), whether some of the dancers who are doubled up in different acts in the first cast are replaced by a different dancer in each act. 

[aileen]

There was a long queue at the Box Office this evening, presumably because people were picking up late booked tickets. I advise people to arrive extra early if they are picking up tickets. I can't believe that the performance started on time (I was at the ROH for Northern Ballet).

[bangorballetboy]

There was a long queue at the Box Office this evening, presumably because people were picking up late booked tickets. I advise people to arrive extra early if they are picking up tickets. I can't believe that the performance started on time

It didn't. Delay due to the queues announced by stage management. Curtain up just after 7.40.

[Quintus]

Well those of us who turned up at 640 picked up our tickets with no queue whatsoever and were thus able to fork out the price of a whole bottle of wine for a small glass to while away the wait..

 

I really enjoyed Woolf Works. Ferri was quite a revelation, with great stage presence and command. I always like Sarah Lamb in McGregor and she seems a far healthier shape than last time I saw her. Also impressed by Beatriz Stix Brunell and of course

Natalia O. Enjoyed the music, even, nay particularly, the Kraftwerkesque electronica..

 

It got a very positive audience reception. Three women a few rows in front of me stood up for an ovation which caused a ripple effect behind them with people grumbling about not being able to see the curtain call and so standing up in turn! I'd happily see it again. Oh, and the diminutive Wayne Sleepe walked past while I was knocking back my ice cream. There was someone famous in about T3 of the stalls too, may be an old politician - it'll come back to me..

Edited May 13, 2015 by Quintus

[alison]

There was a long queue at the Box Office this evening, presumably because people were picking up late booked tickets. I advise people to arrive extra early if they are picking up tickets.

 

I think the standard wording on the ROH's emails in such cases asks you to aim to pick up your tickets 30 minutes before the show, or something.  Would that more people would pay attention to it.  It's a long show, and adding an unnecessary 10 minutes to it could have serious implications for someone needing to get public transport home.

[Jane S]

I think it's the theatre's problem. rather than ours - the pick-up queue has been getting longer for some time and I certainly don't want to have to arrive half an hour early to stand in a queue. Surely it's about time they introduced a print-at-home option?

[alison]

I think the point is that if you arrived half an hour early there probably wouldn't be a queue for you to stand in, Jane   Anyway, my guess as to why the situation has got worse recently is that the ROH is now refusing to send out tickets booked less than 2 weeks before the event - I think it used to be 1 week? - so for anything where there are lots of late sales you are going to get this problem.  They need to do something, because patrons shouldn't have to have to duck the last act or anything in order to make last trains etc.

[Fonty]

Talking of picking up tickets from the box office, can you pick these up in advance, or is it only on the day of the performance?

 

I am assuming it is the latter, as with other theatres, but it doesn't actually say so on the website (as far as I can see.)

[capybara]

Yes you can pick them up in advance. I have done so a few times now (from the main part of the Box Office when attending another performance) so as to avoid the problem of the ever lengthening queue on the night.

[FLOSS]

As the box office does not usually have so many last minute sales to cope with I don't expect front of house management to change the way they work in order to accommodate a programme that has required a great deal of publicity to shift the seats. I suspect that the reason that the Opera House has not gone in for the print at home ticket option is concern about forgeries.There are performances at the theatre during the year when the overall demand for ticket far exceeds supply and I imagine that it is concern for ticket security that explains the way that they operate. As this is a problem that rarely affects other companies such as ENO I imagine that those responsible for running the box office at the Coliseum have decided that audience convenience rather than ticket security should be their priority.

 

I believe that the reason that they are so bureaucratic about returning tickets for resale at Covent Garden is because in the past there were occasions when two people had tickets for the same seat at the same performance. No doubt the concern for ticket security and a fear of upsetting the well heeled part of the audience is thought to be of greater concern than the convenience of those who buy tickets a matter of days or weeks before a performance.

 

I have to say that if I thought that I had been put to considerable inconvenience by the operation of the Covent Garden box office I would be interested enough to write to enquire, in the nicest possible way, about their failure to embrace the modern world.