silvermash

But I'm not sure that it's worth going to the Paris Opera to see so many modern works which are often already shown in other theaters (e.g. the Théâtre de la Ville... and with lower seat prices and sometimes with dancers better suited to their styles that ballet dancers...) I'm standing exactly the opposite. Ballet dancers are really giving new insights in the contemporary repertoire. Most of these works danced by average dancers, you never know what to think of it.

Well I don’t really fancy the next season as well but this is due to my own taste. I must admit that the contemporary choreographers are really very good: Pina Bausch, Trisha Brown, Mats Ek, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Wayne McGregor… they are top ones ! But, except for McGregor as it's a World Premiere, I just don’t really like the works chosen. As for the other ballets, it’s the POB repertoire, you can’t help with that. The classics, Swan Lake and Romeo & Juliet are not really exciting but that's the role of a big company to dance them... Paquita and Coppelia, well they have been dance recently and are not that much excellent ballets.... But honestly, Coppelia in any versions is just a bore.

the season is online http://www.operadeparis.fr/cns11/live/onp/...dex.php?lang=fr Apollo is the Balanchine Le Loup-Rendez-Vous and Le Jeune homme et la mort for The Petit bill

Mezzo is a French TV channel. It's specialised in music, opera and dance. They co-produced quite a lot of stuff, sometimes with the public channels so that's why you may find two different logos on the same ballet, it's just a different broadcast.

None of these ballets are yet released on DVD. They were only shown on TV. L’Arlésienne was part of a Roland Petit triple bill from which only Carmen and Le Jeune Homme et la Mort made it from the TV broadcast to the DVD. Reasons unknown… Nutcracker has long been delayed to even be broadcasted on TV. The ballet was due to be filmed with different dancers (Major Principal dancers) but because of the 2007 strikes and injuries, it turned out to be those two… However it was filmed because it was to be shown on Christmas day that year by one of the Public channels. It was only broadcasted fully this Christmas. Raymonda has the full cast chosen by POB but it was too only shown this year in its entirety. They had a lot of technical problems on stage during the filming and perhaps it was difficult to edit. However it’s only one year since they recorded it which is quite fair, while Nutcracker is two??? Raymonda has 5 Principal dancers, I guess this one is gonna make it to the DVD soon or later, especially now they took time to edit it. POB released The Lady of the Camellias and Orpheus and Eurydice in the meantime, perhaps they are waiting a bit to spread the releases?

I see your point, Marcmomus. However, the ballet IS called "Proust" so there's ambiguity -- or, possibly, confusion -- built into it from the beginning. On the whole, I agree with Patrick on this one. Well in fact the full title is "Proust ou les intermittences du coeur" which is a bit different. I think in english, it's translated as "Proust or the heart's intermissions"

There is also a big Ballets Russes gala on December 16th at the Palais Garnier mixing dancers of POB and Bolshoi. Here is the cast: Le Spectre de la Rose Mathias Heymann Nina Kaptsova L'Après midi d'un faune Nicolas Le Riche Emilie Cozette La Mort du cygne Marie-Agnes Gillot Shéhérazade - Pas de deux Agnes Letestu Nikolai Tsiskaridze Giselle - Pas de deux Aurélie Dupont Ruslan Skvortsov Le Tricorne - Pas de deux Maria Alexandrova Jose Martinez Le Lac des cygnes (Pas de trois du cygne noir) Svetlana Zakharova Karl Paquette Stéphane Bullion Petrouchka Natalia Ossipova Benjamin Pech Yann Bridard

It’s even more complicated… The Nutcracker is another dance in fact... Well to make it short, Nureyev version is quite a Freudian interpretation of the story. When Clara is falling asleep at the end of the party, she dreams she is attacked by all kind of dangers and it’s always Drosselmeyer in a Prince costume who comes to save her as he has done as Drosselmeyer when her brother was annoying her during the evening. But at the end, when she wakes up, the party is over and it’s Drosselmeyer who is here….

It wasn't the overt sexuality that I objected to. It was creating a dance image of Charlus as fundamentally ridiculous. ("Monsieur Pierre," the stereotypical gay hair dresser or window dressser.) Charlus's compulsive and dark sexuality is a focus of the novel. It is discussed in detail, including graphic images of his descent into sado-maschism, by the end. But Charlus himself always remains a grand seigneur despite his sexual and other obsessions. Her emerges as a tragic figure in the last volume. Proust examines him mercilessly, but never without a sense of wonder. I suppose that Charlus himself MIGHT have danced like that if he were a dancer. But Proust would not have seen him -- or depicted him -- in this way. I guess that's what I mean about the characters as PROUST would have drawn them. You make a strong case for this ballet, silvermash, and you've persuaded me to obtain it and attempt to see it on its own terms. Thanks for that. Well the way Charlus may look ridiculous is also part of the dancer interpretation. I think Manuel Legris looks pathetic in the DVD because he depicts an old Charlus and Manuel Legris is a lot shorter than Stéphane Bullion, which emphasises some strange steps in the choreography. Anyway, this year other dancers took the role and for example, Aurelien Houette a tall and strongly built dancer gave another dimension to Charlus, a younger one, less a victim, more playfull and those steps looks less ridiculous I think. But anyway, when one is in love, one may sometimes do ridiculous things and I think what Petit wanted to show was how much Charlus was in love...

Well I think you’ll have to see the whole ballet to get a better idea of what Petit intended to do. Of course, it’s impossible in 90 mn or so to give a full idea of Proust’s work. I believe the choreography is more developing about an idea about what the characters are or a situation and is revolving about the idea of love only. The ballet is divided in two parts, one is mostly ladies part, with reveries, delicate dancing where everyone is dressed in white and full costumes and it’s called something like images of the paradise. Up to me, it’s a bit weak and the choreography is quite traditional. The second part is called I think something like images of hell, and up to me is brilliant. It aims to depict love in a more practical way, that is to say unhappy love. Dancers are dressed in black or with barely nothing, it has intense dancing and acting, interactions and emotions between the characters. The fact that Petit chose to show Charlus as a man of sexual desires is perhaps restricted but I think Charlus doing everything to get Morel who is so far from him, socially and physically speaking, is not that bad shown in the ballet. Also, Charlus, unable to get Morel having rough sex with four guys is, up to me choreographed with tact. That’s in fact what you can read in Proust, his failure and frustrations with Morel, his compensations with sado masochist practices… I don’t fully agree when you only see in the duet of Morel and Saint-Loup just two beautiful men. You can see through the whole pas de deux and also the single solo that happened just before, who is really Saint-Loup, a man full of contradictions, perhaps the reason why one happened to know in the novel he was homosexual once he’s dead. His interactions with Morel are full of hesitations, desire, but his fights too against himself and this desire. Stéphane Bullion is also depicting a two-face Morel. He’s tough with Charlus and is malicious but he’s different with Saint-Loup. He himself fights against his will to dominate Saint-Loup and his own desire. That’s a beautiful pas de deux and I think it’s fully rendered by Mathieu Ganio and Stéphane Bullion in the DVD. All and all, I think Petit took just some ideas about Proust characters but gives a rich lecture of thes tiny bits, very satisfying in the ballet context.

Josua Hoffalt is an elegant and promising dancer (nice elevation and ballon), I think he was the favourite by far. He has already got some soloist roles in “youth ballets” such as Nutcracker and La fille mal gardée and he was up to the expectations. He’s got a strong stage presence. As far as I’m concerned I liked his Colas the best in the last run. He’s good also in the contemporary rep. Vincent Chaillet is less known but has danced regularly interesting small soloist roles mostly in contemporary ballet until Répliques this season where he leads the second cast with Emilie Cozette. I quite liked his Lacenaire in Les Enfants du Paradis and he was beautiful as the Phenix Bird in Bejart’s Firebird. His elegant lines (he’s quite tall and thin) are always striking. He danced one of the Figures in Caligula and I remember noticing him as very good there, as well as one of Manon’s lovers in La Dame aux camellias… They are both young so they will have time to develop and take their place among the other Premiers Danseurs… What is interesting right now is that there are few active male Etoiles and that Premiers Danseurs are entitled to dance a lot in the main roles, more or less trusted by the leading triplet Bullion/Duquenne/Paquette... As for to become an Etoile? Well who knows what is an Etoile made of nowadays? Surprisingly, there were few candidates for these two important positions (while there was no position last year). Some were injured but others are currently on stage? Some surprises in the Coryphées class but all the first 6 dancers are good in their own domain, it’s the rule of the concours to rank them… and I wasn’t there so can’t really say more.

Well Ludmila Pagliero has something special so perhaps as you said it’s not typically POB style but that’s why it’s interesting to have her Première danseuse instead of corps the ballet where you have to be like any other… I think she can bring a different touch to the company and I quite like what I have already seen in the contemporary rep where she is really excellent. This doesn't mean the other Sujets didn't deserve as well the title. She was not my favourite but I'm not disappointed...

well I think it's part of the French identity to be highly critical and voiced it... which is not that bad in a way. A lot of Etoiles have been critized when they have been chosen with more or less strength and not only the ones you mentioned. Laëtitia Pujol, Delphine Moussin, Wilfried Romoli, Hervé Moreau, Benjamin Pech... Art is always subject to taste... but the level of violence here is far above some preference... I'm sceptical...

As far as I'm concerned, I think that it's not so easy. I think the people who disagree with her promotion have in mind not only that she is a foreigner but that she has studied abroad... and also because a couple of dancers are expected for some years to be promoted and have not. It's also a lot in comparison with those dancers. I think Yannick Bittencourt is from Switzerland and he suffered the same kind of criticisms when he has been promoted.

Why not, she's only 26... let's see. (Besides, Première danseuse is a very high level in the company and not all of them will be Etoiles)

Ludmila Pagliero is from Argentina and was a soloist at the National ballet of Chile before entering POB in 2003 I think, at the first level like any other dancer. She raised quite quickly in the ranks though, due to her strong technical background but still, as she has only been a Sujet for one year, she hasn’t got yet so much soloist roles in Paris so it’s really difficult to tell how she will develop but she shows some nice promises. When she danced the main role in Les enfants du Paradis last year, I thought she was really excellent as an actress too. As she is strong technically she could invest in the interpretation which was important in this ballet. However, she has been mainly seen in contemporary repertoire where she is really stunning with a lot of musicality. I think she has done most of the contemporary ballets the past years... but she’s very strong and secure technically, so perhaps we will see her next in more classical parts?

As far as I know, in France the legal age is 60, not 65. Still off topic but this is not that clear in the public sector at least, you can go on till 65 if you want. 60 is the age you can cash your pension.

Hasn't this since been changed to 42.5 years for both men and women? Manuel Legris and Wilfried Romoli retired under the old scheme because they were still entitled to do so. Madame Brid. Lefv. said in the film, when discussing contracts, that the official agne of retirement for the dancers was 40.but they could continue after if they wish. It seems they can officially leave at 40, but return as a guest artist up to 42 in Paris. She mentioned the difficulties that had arisen due to the difference in the age of retirement in general. Well they can come back as a guest... until they can, not matter their age as any other guests... Michael Denard is dancing quite a lot, La dame aux camélias, la Fille mal gardée... for example. I think the difference between 40 and 42 is that they can retire at 40 and have their pension... In France, regular retirement age is 65 but if you want , you can leave at 60 which is the age you can start to receive your pension. If you quit before, you have to wait the legal age to cash it.

Was it Marie Agnes Gillot as she was in the DVD that was releaed of it. Can't remember, perhaps Alice Renavand who's dancing the role of Creuse in Médee... The other Creuse, Muriel Zusperreguy, is seen with Yann Bridard. Marie Agnès Gillot didn't dance Médée that year. Yann Bridard danced Orphée et Eurydice from Pina Bausch

Well I’m not very much into the budget of the company but if that helps... What I understood from a talk given by the late director Gerard Mortier, if the Paris Opera (opéra and ballet) is state funded, most of this money is going into the salaries. The productions are mostly funded with other funds, Patrons companies Circle, The American Friends, The Friends of Paris Opera, Private Patrons, Private Foundations, and some companies involved in specific productions…

What do you mean exactly? This is the Patrice Bart and Eugene Polyakov version so it's just like in the DVD with Nicolas Le Riche and Laëtitia Pujol. I think you can find it on YT if you don't have the DVD Regarding this season, we had a couple of dancers new to the roles who were quite interesting, and some of them show a lot of promises...

Don’t be sorry, everyone is entitled to its own opinion… Well I believe it’s a question of taste but I never found Aurélie Dupont could match the others on acting while I think she’s often technically astonishing, There is a kind of non-interaction between these two things which disturbs me because she’s unnatural. I must admit that up to me, Agnès Letestu is far better paired with Stéphane Bullion or Hervé Moreau than with José Martinez who has the same kind of body stiffness and severe look, but she is a very refined actress, with a very intelligent sense of play, often very subtle and very internal, which is nested in her dancing. That's the difference for me.

Thank you very much Silvermash, I am surprised I did not reconise M. Gsnio snd M Heymann, as I have seen the later in person dancing Onegin, then afterwards at the stage door. So Jeremie was the other person, . I think he is lovely "it's those muscles you know!!!!I Mathieu Ganio is only there a short moment with Agnès Letestu in Genus... They both got injured and only danced a show or two I think, being replaced by Emilie Cozette and Stéphane Phavorin

Well there is no ticket left on the internet and the phone booking is not opened yet. You should try to phone on the 26th of October, when the booking is opening, and ask for an english speaking operator, it's no problem. Alternatively, from the 2nd of November, you can go to the box office... by phone and on the internet, only the first 4 categories are sold but at the box office you can find lower price tickets (most of them with restricted view but some with not so restriceted view if you stand up for example...) the opera office has three dates of release for tickets to dispatch them the best....

This is a small amphitheatre which is under the Opera Bastille. Same entrance as the main Opera House. This show is in fact a rehearsal. If you come 30 minutes in advance to queue you will have no problem to get in 'cause they are giving away tickets but as it's a free event, people don't systematically turn out so they let people with no ticket in 5 minutes before it starts to fill the place. This kind of event usually lasts about 1 hour.