Jane Simpson

The RDB's senior principal, Jean-Lucien Massot, was 40 yesterday: that's retirement age in the company, and he will give his last performance on Saturday, 5th May, in a special programme ending with an exptract from Onegin - I hope it's the last scene in which he is superb. An article in Berlinske, under the heading 'French elegance and charm', regrets that the current financial situation means that he won't be able to continue in the company as a character dancer. I think he will be greatly missed, not least because he has such a strong physical presence that he can make even banal choreography look convincing! Admirers can leave messages on the page link given above.

The colours were: Fifield - grey - partner was Brian Shaw Jackson - red - Desmond Doyle Beriosova - green - Bryan Ashbridge Nerina - orange - Alexander Grant Elvin - violet - David Blair Grey - blue - Philip Chatfield Fonteyn - gold - Michael Somes The only review I can find for a performance in April 1957 was of a gala which had Anya Linden dancing for Elvin (who had left), Merle Park for Jackson (who was out around that time for medical reasons) and Annette Page for Beryl Grey. According to Alexander Bland's RB book, Grey didn't dance her role after 1956 so unless this (the film) was a special performance it must be Page in blue.

Beriosova is actually the one in green - the only one I definitely, positively recognise!

Possibly not - the entire first cast only did 3 performances. For instance, is the woman in blue tall enough to be Beryl Grey? And if it isn''t Grey, then the one in purple isn't Elvin as she was the first to drop out. (I just love the musicality of Fonteyn's supported pirouettes and the lifts - could watch it 20 times running and I'd still be smiling!)

Romeo will be danced by Federico Bonelli.

I think it's the first time he's danced with the RB so there will be a lot of interest - though it won't make much difference to the box office as the performance, which also includes Marianela Nunez making her debut in Song of the Earth, is already 'returns only'. My only slight concern is that he may be a bit tall for Cojocaru.

Gomes replaces Sergei Polunin as Oberon in just one performance of The Dream next week - 9 Feb - dancing with Alina Cojocaru. This sounds like good news to me (that Gomes is coming, not that Polunin has gone!) - any comments from people who've seen him in the role?

Well it certainly creates lots of nice job opportunities - anyone out there knows Ashton's Oberon and would like to do the revival first night next week? with Alina Cojocaru? Or Month in the Country, with Cojocaru, later on? Ballo della Regina, with Nunez? La Sylphide with Sarah Lamb? Alice, with a new solo specially written for you? Worldwide cinema relay of Romeo?

... with immediate effect, according to a press release from the company. Why??? And where is he going???

Keith Warner's farewell speech to the opera company (in English): http://politiken.dk/kultur/fakta_kultur/ECE1518243/dokumentation-laes-hele-keith-warners-tale-engelsk/ Wow. (Sorry, I know this isn't ballet, but it is so close to the RDB that I think it ought to be here! The bit where I don't quite follow him is where he says one saving could be made by having the orchestra play for fewer ballet evenings ...)

As a result of the cuts, the new director of the Danish Royal Opera, Keith Warner, has resigned today after less than one season in the job. He gives as his reason that he is 'unable to realise his great dreams for the Opera'.

Paul, in the order in which they get individual spots, the couples are - I think - Bussell/Zoltan Solymosi, Leanne Benjamin/Kumakawa, Collier/Mukhamedov, Durante/Bruce Sansom. Corrections welcomed!

My voices tell me it's by Ashley Page - specially choreographed for the finale of a Tchaikowsky Gala at Covent Garden sometime in the mid-1990s - but I can't check just now.

The Royal Theatre has today issued a press release about the job cuts, which have now all been announced. The final number of jobs to go was 81, with about a third of these coming from planned retirements, expiring contracts, abolititon of vacant jobs etc. The remainder was made up by 42 agreed redundancies and 12 layoffs. 33 of these were artists: 16 from the opera chorus, 1 opera soloist, 1 repetiteur, 11 dancers, 3 actors Most of the actual layoffs were from the ballet: the reason the theatre gives is that most of the dancers would lose their pension rights if they left voluntarily. The full text of the press release is here: http://kglteater.dk/Aktuelt/Nyheder/Nyhedsarkiv/2012/PRM%20mandag%2016januar.aspx It's in Danish but Google translate does a reasonable job.

Yes - and it was actually The Wand of Youth. Thank you, Alymer - I was sure there had been a ballet to that music for SWRB but couldn't remember the choreographer. And of course Ashton used Elgar's Nursery Suite for the piece he made for a gala, about Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. And didn't Wheeldon make a Sea Pictures ballet for SFB?

Today is decision day, when the Royal Theatre's leaders decide on how many redundancies they need and where they will come from. Meanwhile the leader of the dancers' union, Byron Mildwater, is saying that the dancers are prepared to negotiate about 'everything' - including taking a pay cut - to avoid layoffs. He is also coming up with other suggestions, such as that the ballet should only perform in one of the three theatres, that less should be spent on costumes etc, and that the management should look at options such as sponsorship of individual dancers. The actors' union, on the other hand, thinks the management should bear the brunt of the necessary cuts. Difficult times - desperate, even, for those whose jobs may go - and some very hard decisions to be made...

The Danish newspaper Politiken this morning carries a story - confirmed by comments from the Theatre Director and others - that the Danish Royal Theatre organisation has to cut its total workforce by about 100 people as part of the savings which were a condition of the four-year deal on funding made with the government last month. The cuts are to be split between management, technical/administration, and performers; the paper gives the total number of performers to lose their jobs as 35, which - if the cuts are spread evenly over the different art forms - would mean around 9 dancers. The artists were told before Christmas that this was going to happen and the decisions are to be made by January 16th. The compulsory retirement at 40 will somewhat reduce the immediate pain but won't cover it all, and the Director also says that the ballet, the theatre and the opera will each have to cut one major production next season.

The American dancer J'aime Crandall, who was trained at the Kirov Academy in Washington, was promoted to Solodanser (Principal) of the RDB after her performance as the Sugar Plum Fairy in Balanchine's Nutcracker last night. It's less than a year that she was promoted from the corps de ballet to soloist, so this is a fast rise - but she's been doing principal roles and from what I've seen of her she's come a long way since her Aurora last Christmas.

Cristian, from a captioned photo of a near-identical moment, the two men on either side of the leading couple are indeed the Chinese (Tea from China) and the four men in black hats are 'Nougat from Russia'; the 8 women with the Russians are from the Valse des Fleurs (Crystallized flowers) - the one with the Chinese man on the right is probably Maryon Lane, who led the waltz, and I'd guess that the corresponding one on the left is the one who led the 'Sugar Sticks', probably Patricia Miller, with the other four being the ones standing at the front. They certainly listed the 1934 production as having 3 acts but I'd guess it was actually the 2 acts, 3 scenes as usual. The Ashton version opened with a pas de deux for the Snow King and Queen (Robert Lunnon and Svetlana Beriosova in the first cast) - the review I'm reading says nothing about the choreography but adds 'Ashton has interpolated a variation for Beriosova to some music I cannot remember hearing in this ballet before' - which seems to imply that the rest of it was already in existence.

Ashton's 1951 Nutcracker consisted only of the Snow Scene and the Kingdom of Sweets, and according to David Vaughan's book, 'unlike some other choreographers, Ashton realised that it is difficult to improve on the original choreography for the grand pas de deux, and left it as it was'. However the Sergeyev production did not include a solo for the Prince, so Ashton made a new one for David Blair. Peter Wright actually danced in this production - he was in the original cast of the Arabian dance. The London RB danced Act 3 of the Sergeyev production up till 1944 but once they moved into Covent Garden it was dropped and there was no Nutcracker in the repertory until they staged Nureyev's production in 1968.

Queen Margrethe, presumably

The RDB has announced today that Nikolaj Hübbe's contract as director has been extended by a further 5 years. (His original 3-year contract expires at the end of this season.) Press release (Danish only) ... and now in English too.

The ballet.co magazine has recently published an interview with Cassa Pancho, the founder of the London-based company Ballet Black, which has an obvious relevance to this topic. "When I ask parents why they come from so far away to bring their children to our school in Shepherd’s Bush, that surely there are schools closer to them, they always say “yes, there are, but we don’t want our daughter to be the only black face in the class”. There are many little black girls who would like to learn ballet, but they don’t because they think they wouldn’t fit in. If you want to leave your precious 3 year-old somewhere, you want be sure they are ok. They are taught by me and by Cira Robinson, a black dancer, so they see from a young age that things are possible."

On this PC I have suddenly found that at the beginning of each section of the forums - Members Area, Companies and Performances etc - I get a vast blue rectangle with the name of the section at the top - harmless but annoying - how do I get rid of them, please?

The friend who ordered the two RDB books showed them to me yesterday and they look really good - the quality of the photographs is excellent and they seem to be printed on good paper. If you take the dust-jacket option the actual binding is perfectly plain and simple - my only question would be about how strong it is, and the photographs book is really quite heavy - but that's just a general question, I saw nothing (in a fairly quick look) to me me think it wouldn't last. The photographs book is now definitely on my Christmas wish list - it's particularly nice for me as the year it covers is the first one I saw quite a lot of so I remember all the dancers and a good proportion of the ballets. The interviews book also has lots of smaller photos, some of them I think duplicated from the other book, but if you don't read Danish the all-pictures one might be a better choice. I still haven't really worked out if they really print them off for each order, though. The books were sent from the US to Denmark and arrived in 8 or 9 days.