Jane Simpson

Ballet.co (Magazine) has just published a long (very long!)interview with Alastair Macaulay, written by Alan Helms. How he became a critic, what he wants to see in others' reviews etc etc etc - haven't had time to read the whole thing myself yet!

Edited to add that 'very long' = 17,000 words!

The Royal Danish Ballet has announced the casts for all performances except the last one already, which is quite extraordinary!

Amazing! Now at least it's possible to plan, even though there are some difficult choices. (And let's hope they do the same for Sleeping Beauty)

Have you ever seen their guest Odette, Jurgita Dronina, Anne? I've read very good things about her.

Hilary Guswiler and Gregory Dean (both of them still in the corps de ballet) have now been added to the Swan Lake casts - Guswiler is getting some big roles very early (she turns 21 this year).

(And, off topic but for today only - if you go to the Danish Google page at www.google.dk you will see that they are marking the 205th anniversary of Bournonville's birth!)

Advanced casting for next season shows Cecilie Lassen and Alban Lendorf making their debuts in Napoli, and several new casts in Swan Lake: Susanne Grinder joins Amy Watson and Gudrun Bojesen as Odette/Odile, and all the scheduled Siegfrieds are new to the role - Thomas Lund, Ulrik Birkkjaer, Marcin Kupinski and Alban Lendorf. It's not clear what the partnerships will be, though, and they won't announce actual dates till about a week before the respective first nights - far too late for people travelling from abroad! They're certainly working Lendorf hard.

Maybe it's worth pointing out that this was something like #23 in a series of 'Ten Best'which has been running for the last 6 months, so it's not something Luke Jennings suddenly decided he'd do - and he's coming along after 'Ten Best Screen Draculas', 'Ten Best World Cup Characters', 'Ten Best accounts of being Marooned in literature' and so on. Also, there's now a long comments section at the end of the article, where he replies to a lot of criticism and explains a bit more about his criteria.

From the Aarhus theatre's site, it appears that Schaufuss is doing a modern-dress version - there are some photos but whether they're of the actual production I don't know. The text states very clearly that Schaufuss owns the rights to the ballet so I assume he's setting it himself - if not, who?

The list of corps de ballet dancers on the RDB site now also includes Tara Schaufuss, who was listed as an aspirant for a time last season.

Now officially posted on the Mikhailovsky website - Duato becomes Creative Director on 1/1/11. He plans a modern dance festival in the Mikhailowsky Theatre in the spring of 2011.

"our troupe will take on the style, idiom and choreographic vision of a great artist whose work is set to form the future of international ballet."

On another thread, Marga linked to some photos of the Varna competition by Stanislav Belyaevsky, and I noticed that on another page he has some wonderful pictures of the Vaganova academy - 200 altogether including a lot from last year's graduation performance. No captions unfortunately.

The only sad thing about programmes like this is that the home country never gets to see them! Thank you for the reivew, Anne - and a reader of ballet.co has found a link to some interesting photos of the performance you saw.

Also there was a review of an earlier performance in Skagen in Berlingske Tidende - Google translate does a reasonable job on it.

Glyndebourne intervals are always that long - the picnic is part of the pleasure of the evening!

I read a book recently by a dancer whose name I regret I've temporarily forgotten who also wondered about it and asked Balanchine why he didn't have the father go to the boy, and he said 'No - is God - boy must come to him'. (Quoted from memory, almost certainly inaccurately.)

I remembered: In Balanchine's Company by Barbara Milberg Fisher (a very nice book)

I do too, but I also wish Balanchine had hewed more closely to the actual parable there, and had had the Father run to meet his son. In terms of the original story and its message that's more dramatic. In terms of choreography, it's hard to imagine a more dramatic ending than what Balanchine has actually given us, and I wonder if that's why he gave us what he did, or if he was working from memory and forgot that detail in the written story.

The ending bothers me too - so much, by now, that I feel I don't want to see the piece again. I read a book recently by a dancer whose name I regret I've temporarily forgotten who also wondered about it and asked Balanchine why he didn't have the father go to the boy, and he said 'No - is God - boy must come to him'. (Quoted from memory, almost certainly inaccurately.)

Very appreciative, indeed - but for the benefit of anyone who doesn't have time to read the complete review it's maybe worth saying that Gia Kourlas is at least as admiring of Osipova as she is of David Hallberg. Having read what he said himself about the performance, I doubt Mr Hallberg would want even the most casual reader to get the impression it was all, or even mostly, about him!

I also remember an adorable little boy called Tobias with the same surname who was marvellous in the Kenneth Greve version of Nutcracker: is he her brother?

Yes, I think so - I've certainly seen a review from 2005 which referred to them as brother and sister.

thanks, Jane.

is Luke Schaufuss related the Schaufuss name we know from Frank and Peter fame?

Yes, he's the son of Peter Schaufuss and Zara Deakin. I think he was at one of the RDB schools outside Copenhagen for a time but he left and danced with his father's company in some quite big roles. But I think he's still only about 17.

(Love this 'multiquote' reply feature!)

The RDB has recently updated the dancers' list on its website to show 5 dancers promoted from aspirant (apprentice) to corps de ballet:

Emma Håkansson

Josephine Berggreen

Stephanie Sahlgren

Benjamin Buza

Jón Axel Fransson

There are 9 new aspirants, more than I can remember in the last few years:

Astrid Elbo

Benita Bünger

Ida Praetorius

Stephanie Chen Gundorph Møller

Viktoria Falck-Schmidt

Jeppe Banke

Lukas Hartvig-Møller

Luke Schaufuss

Magnus Christoffersen

All of them are Danish. David Amzallag recently posted photographs of several of them, and those who were at the 2005 Bournonville Festival will probably remember Ida Praetorius as the little girl, Fanny, in Conservatoire.

They join 2nd year aspirants Andreas Kaas and Oscar Nilsson.

Claire Ratcliffe and Aurore Casanova have left the company, and as previously known, Nehemiah Kish has also left to join the Royal Ballet in London.

David Amzallag has some spectacular photos of this programme, taken in Copenhagen at the open air stage created for the summer just across from the Opera house, which you can see in the background.

Another view of the summer tour, with a slightly different cast, from Eva Kistrup in DanceView Times.

Thank you for this, Anne - I think you were lucky as I read that the first night of the tour was cancelled because of rain!

Just one thing - the company has done Les Bras de Mer before - I saw it about 3 years ago, I think, on one of their small stages and like you was very impressed by what the dancers did with it. Massot is terrific in things like this.

Also it's interesting to hear about the Petipa casting - clues for next season's Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty presumably?

Also interesting, and welcome, is that Beatriz Stix-Brunell is joining the corps de ballet - she made a big impression here a couple of years ago with Morphoses and I really look forward to seeing how she develops in the company.

Horst Koegler's Dictionary describes it as 'never having been staged' and he is usually right - though of course that's only up to 1987.

Eva Kistrup's review is now up on Dance View Times:

Ladybugs & Gentilhommes

I saw him in the Danseur Noble programme last night and I'm not surprised he has been promoted - he had the leading roles in 2 of the 4 ensemble pieces and an important role in a third, and was unquestionably the star of the evening.

There is an online version of the brochure but I don't find it at all easy to read... The full list of companies is on page 2.

Sadler's Wells Theatre has just announced next season's programmes, which include a visit from ABT from 1st to 6th February 2011.

Two programmes:

Seven Sonatas (Ratmansky)

Everything doesn't happen at once (Millepied)

Known by Heart (Tharp)

Duo Concertante (Balanchine)

and

Theme and Variations (Balanchine)

Lilac Garden (Tudor)

Company B (Taylor)

That second one sounds a knockout!