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Thank you so much for your detailed reports. Ever since I discovered ballet the Royal Ballet has been my favourite company (along with NYCB) and videos of RB dancers from the 50s, 60s and 70s have shaped my tastes and opinions. Unfortunately I have never been able to actually see the company live, so it makes me very happy to at least read this kind of posts.

I have never seen this beautiful video of Fonteyn and Nureyev in the White Swan pas de deux. She's such an incredible dancer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MGYgDkoHQs I don't know how to post a video unfortunately.

I may be in the minority here but I think the sets for LHH are pretty neat. Same goes for costumes (especially the one for the Tsar Maiden). I've only seen it on video with Somova and I liked her a lot, which surprised me because she's not the ballerina type I tend to like and I've never liked her in other videos.

Well I haven't seen Ratmansky's reconstruction, but I also haven't seen many modern Swan Lakes that really work... just my opinion.

Thanks! I'll check that out.

I know there are some on DVD, but I find it frustrating that there are so many beautiful works by Ashton that I can never get a chance to see because they aren't on DVD, Symphonic Variations and Cinderella being the best examples. Birthday Offering is another work that I would looove to watch in its entirety. Crossing my fingers that this broadcast gets on DVD.

Wow, I wish I could see this. Hope it makes it to DVD. I really don't understand why the Royal doesn't release more dvd's of Ashton's work.

How lovely!

Ovcharenko was good but I found the dialogues in the reconstructed scenes a bit lame. "I love trains" is my favourite line. I wish they had included more footage of the real Nureyev though. I liked the interviews with Lacotte. Overall, a nice watch but I wouldn't say I know a lot more about Nureyev after watching it.

I think it looks gorgeous despite the funeral tempi. The men's costumes in the Flower Waltz are hilarious.

To be perfectly honest I am glad that Nureyev didn't do the last act. I think it's perfect to end the ballet with the Shades and I find Makarova's reconstruction quite cheesy.

Unfortunately I can't find anything about her in english or french and even the romanian articles don't contain much information...

Lizica Codreanu was by all accounts a wonderful romanian avantgarde dancer. She was born in 1901 and as far as I know she studied ballet in Paris (I heard that she studied also under Nijinska) but she didn't like the constraint and the order of classical ballet. Constantin Brancusi appreciated her a lot and loved her innovative approach to dancing so he made some costumes for her like the one above. He called her "Tiganca" (which means "the gipsy"). She married some journalist at the end of the '20s, divorced and opened a Hatha Yoga school in Paris. She died in the '90s.

No idea who the dancers are, but I was very surprised to hear romanian. The dancing looks amazing!

I think her Giselle is a very powerful thing and I'm glad I have it on dvd but her arms frustrate me even though I love everything else about it. But I can't imagine her doing Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty, and the short videos I've seen really didn't paint the greatest picture. Sometimes I feel like a dancer can be too strong.