Miho Kakinuma

First of all, thank you so much for your kindness, Alexandra ! All the postings here made me very happy, because they reminded me of a lof of beautiful fairies ! My favourite fairy is Songbird Fairy. And Lesley Collier defines the role for me. I hadn't realise Petipa's intention before I came across her dancing. Unfortunately I haven't got any opportunity to see her real dancing of Songbird Fairy on stage. I know Darcey Bussel is one of the wonderful Princess Auroras, however she made really an excellent Lilac Fairy when she was very young. I also do love the second female variation of "Florestan and his sisters". In the "old" production of Royal Ballet, it was not a role for a fairy. However in the "new" production of Royal Ballet, it is danced by Sapphire Fairy.

Sorry, I made a mistake in the former message. I would have liked to write as follows: I don't think the role of Prince Florimund (or Desire) boring at all. It should be as difficutl and scaring for the male dancers to dance as Princess Aurora for the female dancers. I think to dance Prince Florimund reveals what he is, where he comes from, or what kind of dancer he is. Actually he doesn't seem to have so much free scope for his acting. If he does, he may look a bit over the top. There seems to be nothing for him to hide himself. Some of my impressive Prince Florimund are Manuel Legris, Jean Guillaume Bart (POB), Andrei Uvalov, Sergei Filin (Bolshoi), Igol Zelensky (Kirov), Bruce Sansom, Stephen Jeffries, Jonathan Cope (Royal), Roland Price (Birmingham Royal), Valdimir Malakhov, etc. I saw Anthony Dowell dancing Prince Florimund on video only and he looks brilliant. Prince Florimund is not a role to show off techiniqe or to act a lot. But I do love this role, because it seems to show us the essence of danse classique.

I did like the old production of "Sleeping Beauty" by The Royal Ballet company. When I saw it in the late 1980's, "awaking pas de deux" and "panorama" have been already dropped, but it was still really a lovely and fairy-tale like production for me. That production always made me very happy. I especially loved the scene in the end of Act I, when the Lilac Fairy makes all the people sleep and cover the castle with a deep forest. I haven't come across such a beautiful end of Act I ever. So, I was so sad and disappointed when The Royal Ballet sold it to Boston Ballet and mounted the current production. I have seen quite a few productions of "Sleeping Beauty", of Bolshoi"s, old and current Kirov's, Kiev's, St. Petersburg Mali's, Paris Opera Ballet's, ABT's, Stuttgart's, Birmingham Royal Ballet's, etc. However my first favourite production is still the old Royal's !!

Thank you so much for the inspiring messages ! But I am afraid that my question might be a bit too abstract. Probably quite a few of ballet-goers, including me, regards some ballets, like "Sleeping Beauty", "Swan Lake", or "Nutcracker", as "classical" beyond controversy. But for instance, we may tend to call "Giselle" a romantic ballet rather than "classical". How about "Coppelia", "Don Quixote", "La Bayadere" or "Raymonda", etc. ? Of course, we may have to take the productions into account. There are some very "modern" versions of "Swan Lake" or "Giselle" now. Some ballets choreographed by Balachine called "neo-classical". So I think we should have recognized something like elements or essence of "classical ballet" there. On one hand I like to go to see the modern or contemporary dancing a lot, however on the other hand, I always adore so called "classical ballets". I do want to know by what kind of elements or essence of "classical ballet" I am attracted. I should be really grateful if you give me your own opinion more. With many thanks

I have read the discussion about "classical/ classicism" somewhere in this board. It was quite interesting for me. I have also used the word "classical/classicism" for a long time without any doubt. However I can't define the word, when I ask the question of myself. There is another quite ambiguous word "academic/academism", which might have a slight difference. I should be very happy if anybody who has got his/her own opinion about the "classical/ classicism" and "academic/adacemism' will say something about it. I am especially interested when and who used the words "classical ballet" in the ballet history. With many thanks