10 replies to this topic

[Alexandra]

KB raised the question of the Royal Ballet's changing identity on another thread, and since it's the end of Ross Stretton's first season, I thought it might be a good idea to post that as another topic.

Lynette Halewood wrote a very reasoned piece, IMO, about this for the July ballet.co magazine, for those who'd like to read it. (There is also a thread discussing this article on the ballet.co forums, if you'd like to read the readers' responses.)

http://www.ballet.co...irst_season.htm

Any comments on the state of the company (from those who actually see it frequently ) or, for the arm chair quarterbacks amongst us, from what we've read in reviews, and postings comments, about the current state of the Royal Ballet?

[Lolly]

Since no one else has been brave enough yet...

I don't want to write a huge long post about this as there are still two weeks of the season left (my opinion could all change if/when promotions are announced!), but I want to start by saying that on the last night of the season I sat there after the curtain had gone down and cried my eyes out, I thought life would never be the same.

Well, it isn't the same, but life goes on! What cheered me up quickly and still has an impression on me is the fact that Ross Stretton is in the audience all the time - he is visible (and possibly approachable, although I haven't tried!) - you get the feeling he cares and really knows the company well. He seems very hands-on.

As far as repertoire goes, it has had its ups and downs! There have been lots of new works (new to me) which have provoked a strong reaction in me, both good and bad. The good - In the Middle Somewhat Elevated and Onegin. The bad - Carmen. The not-sure-why-we-have-this-one - Por Vos Muero. And my all time favourite, Romeo and Juliet.

Regarding dancers, I think I have seen my favourites a lot! The younger dancers have been favoured and it is FANTASTIC to see what they can do - no more lounging in the corps for ages I hope. Having all the new corps members from the school is exciting, but I still think there should have been a showcase to introduce them as I can't tell them all apart yet!

I don't agree with criticisms of high ticket prices - I think there are plenty of seats at the lower end of the price scale, and have not found any difficulty in getting those seats. I may be being naive here but how can £3 or £4 be out of anyone's price range? At considerably less than the price of a cinema ticket or a packet of cigarettes, I think ROH is there for everyone - if they want it.

[Brendan McCarthy]

A few thoughts about KB's posting:

1.  One realises already that Anthony Dowell protected London audiences from a great deal of choreography that was plain bad. Ek's Carmen was a depressing experience: one dreads Preljocaj's Le Parc next year.

2. Because no British government is likely to  fund the ROH fully, any artistic director of the Royal Ballet will have to make considerable compromises. Sometimes, however,  I wonder if production values need be so high. A present-day commission may cost upwards of £300k. Yet Ashton's Symphonic Variations, with its memorable designs by Sophie Fedorovitch,  was made on a virtually non-existent budget.

3. There is little purpose in the RB performing a rep that London audiences can  frequently see performed at such theatres as Sadler's Wells and the Barbican by the companies for which these pieces were made. The state's spending on the Royal Ballet  is part of an  investment in the UK's future creativity. The litmus test for Ross  Stretton's directorship is whether he can develop work that grows out of the company's heritage and its sense of what it is and where it is. His year 3 programme, when it is announced next March, will be the decisive test.

[Brendan McCarthy]

A few thoughts about KB's posting:

1.  One realises already that Anthony Dowell protected London audiences from a great deal of choreography that was plain bad. Ek's Carmen was a depressing experience: one dreads Preljocaj's Le Parc next year.

2. Because no British government is likely to  fund the ROH fully, any artistic director of the Royal Ballet will have to make considerable compromises. Sometimes, however,  I wonder if production values need be so high. A present-day commission may cost upwards of £300k. Yet Ashton's Symphonic Variations, with its memorable designs by Sophie Fedorovitch,  was made on a virtually non-existent budget.

3. There is little purpose in the RB performing a rep that London audiences can  frequently see performed at such theatres as Sadler's Wells and the Barbican by the companies for which these pieces were made. The state's spending on the Royal Ballet  is part of an  investment in the UK's future creativity. The litmus test for Ross  Stretton's directorship is whether he can develop work that grows out of the company's heritage and its sense of what it is and where it is. His year 3 programme, when it is announced next March, will be the decisive test.

[Lolly]

Oh dear! My debating skills are being tested!

As I said in my first post, I want to wait to find out what shifts in the rankings happen before committing myself, but I do want to defend the cheap seats! Yes of course it would be marvellous if we could all have great seats all the time - but wouldn't it be a bit silly if the top half of the House was just decorations or something and there were no seats? I can't afford to get good seats all the time - I will pay a bit more if I particularly want to see a certain cast or ballet, but for the most part I sit in the cheapest seats. My absolute favourite seats are £6 at the moment - I prefer those above any of the £73 top price ones. You are preparing yourself for disappointment if you say they are rubbish seats - so what if you are missing a corner of the stage? - the view from the boxes isn't that great either! How can it not be egalitarian - I am seeing 5 performances there this WEEK!

Brendan, I agree with much of what you wrote. I would rather see the "heritage works" than the new stuff. Maybe they should hand out a questionnaire to find out what people want. The problem with that might be that if we don't see new things, we mayn't know what we are missing. It's a quandary.

[Brendan McCarthy]

Lolly - while I agree with you that the RB needs to pay more attention to its heritage, I feel it equally important that the company develop new work out of its own history, genius and imagination.

Television and film have had to develop 'lean production' techniques. I wonder if the RB needs to do something similar. It would be a dereliction of duty to banish all new work to the Clore and Linbury studios, with only one new commission a year on the main stage. Ashton and MacMillan were producing new work all the time for the main stage: some of it was less than wonderful. But it was only because they had regular opportunities on a large stage that they were able to refine their craft. Some of our young choreographers, such as Cathy Marston and Tom Sapsford, deserve a chance on the main stage - to fail, if necessary, and to fail and fail again. Licence to fail is the sine qua non of eventual success.  Relegating new choreographers to the safe margins of the Clore and the Linbury is not to risk anything at all.

[Lolly]

Oh yes definitely - can we include William Tuckett please! I rather meant getting in outside stuff which modern companies do too. I am in full support of developing choreography from the inside. Hopefully the gala will have widened scope for this - wasn't it in support of the idea? The ADI has been great so far - the things I have seen in the Linbury and Clore have been fresh and perhaps should have been included as part of the many triple bills this past season.

[Alexandra]

As one of the armchair quarterbacks (sorry if that doesn't translate; it's an American football term, referring to the fan who spends the week complaining that the coach did this, that or the other thing wrong but doesn't have to go out on the field himself) I'm in agreement with many of the points KB and Brendan raised.

I don't think we'll learn anything more about Mr. Stretton after another season.  He has a clear pattern.  In my opinion, what has happened is what could be predicted to happen when someone from  outside the tradition is brought in to run a company like the Royal, with a special heritage and tradition.  I think one of the many things wrong with ballet today is that it's being run on a corporate model -- corporations bring in a new boy to shake things up.  What a good idea!  Let's do that too!  But it doesn't work that way.  I admired Lynette's piece on ballet.co very much and I think her analogy of a ballet company to a garden is quite apt.

I also agree, though, that the problems didn't start with Stretton, but began in the mid-'70s.  Of course, there were complaints before that, there always will be, just as there will always be people who enjoy what they're seeing and don't feel that problems outweigh what they like.  But the company started moving away from its heritage in the mid-'70s, moving away from having good, solid classical productions as a base, and whatever MacMillan's merits as a choreographer may be, his talents for being the ballet master of a large company -- and a repertory beyond his own work -- were wanting.  I think the company took a good sharp turn down the wrong road with Morrice -- who was outside the company but at least had watched it .

There were reports in the '90s that Dowell was under the thumb of the directorship and wasn't able to bring in the repertory he wanted. One can argue that a company director needs to be strong enough to stand up to a board, but I'd wager that the board wouldn't have a director who did stand up to them.  If Dowell's last season was the season he'd wanted to have all along, but could not, then it's even more of a shame.

I sympathize with those who missed the Glory Days and think that everything now is, on balance, fine.  It's horrid to be told constantly that things aren't the way they used to be.  More to the point, I think, things aren't the way they could be.

The prices are a problem.  I began hearing complaints about this in the 1990s, when "Swan Lake" and "Romeo and Juliet" began to take over the repertory and over and over and over and over. Vicious Cycle then sets in.  We need more money; what sells?  Who has enough money to pay what we want them to pay?  And then the audience becomes businessmen, who want to entertain their clients with a good evening out and certainly aren't going to plunk down -- what is it now?   100 pounds?  or more?  -- for An Evening of Who Knows What?  They want a name brand.  And so the company gives them the name brand, and so it goes.  There are other solutions to this, but once set on Swan Lake highway, it's hard to get off.

One final word.  Of course new work is needed, but bringing in modern dance choreographers to work with ballet dancers isn't the way to do it.  New BALLETS are what is needed.  Ballet is a specific language.  If English playwrights stopped producing stageable plays, theater companies wouldn't panic and start importing German playwrights and put on those plays in German.  They'd try to figure out what was wrong and train English playwrights.

[katharine kanter]

In response to a quote from KB:

"The Royal was founded on the spirit of a dream of a national company for the whole of the UK. It was founded by a pioneering dream of the ideal of ballet as an art form, an ideal that has more or less reshaped the way the whole world views, practices and appreciated ballet."

That is precisely what De Valois wanted.  No-one has ever said it more succintly.  Schiller's ideal of the theatre.  

KB, whoever you are, you should write articles and fight to get them published.  Not only can you get your ideas across, they are important and polemical ideas.

[Brendan McCarthy]

According to today's Independent,  members of the Royal Ballet in the performers' union Equity have held meetings at which they came close to passing a vote of no-confidence in Ross Stretton. They are concerned, in particular, at the lack of  information on casting. "We never know", one dancer said, "whether we will be involved in a production or when that will be."

[Lolly]

It's in the Evening Standard too. Oh dear.  http://www.thisislon..._text_id=634820