Jane Simpson

The very talented Alban Lendorf was promoted to soloist last night after the first performance of the RDB's 'Danseur Noble' programme. Born in 1989 and trained at the RDB school, he's only been a full member of the company for 2 years - but I don't think anyone who's seen him will be surprised at this rapid advancement. He's not tall and is quite stockily built but - as someone once said to me - he can fly! (The RDB has a flat hierarchy, like NYCB - corps de ballet, soloist, principals.)

I think that's wonderful - exactly what I hope to get from a dancer. A huge thankyou from me too, Anne, for such an elegant summary!

I'm going, volcano permitting, though not to the first nights.

An easy choice for 'most gruesome' - Bintley's Edward ll dancing with the severed head of his lover (in a bag, fortunately)

...who surely must get more air- and screen-time than any other ballet master in the world! This time it's an hour-long radio interview. A Google translate of the on-screen introduction will give an idea of some of the topics, but my own Danish is only good enough to get a very sketchy impression of the actual conversation. If anyone has the language and the time to listen to the whole thing, maybe they could pick out some key points for us? (Anne? Pamela? please?)

Carling Talcott's blog is especially well worth keeping an eye on: today she's just put up some nice rehearsal shots of Serenade, and other entries give a nice picture of the life of a dancer learning to live in, and love, a new city - and a new language. (According to the RDB site, incidentally, Kim Brandstrup's new piece for the women is actually called 'Eid♀lon' and the one for the men, obviously, 'Eid♂lon'.)

If you have a copy of Cyril Beaumont's Ballets of Today, you can read an extraordinarily detailed 6-page description of the action of Les Algues - and also learn that Castelli, fascinated by this true story and wanting to make it the basis for a theatre work, spent 2 months as a voluntary inmate in an asylum before deciding that ballet would be the most suitable medium.

The RDB's latest evening is called Shakespeare in Motion and consists of Louise Midjord's Othello and Pontus Lidberg's new Exit, Pursued by a Bear, the two pieces being written for the youngest and oldest members of the company respectively. Eva Kistrup reviews the programme in Dance View Times and also talks about the final casting in Neumeier's Dream and the televised gala for the Danish Queen's 70th birthday celebrations.

Thank you, Anne! There's lots of footage of Hubbe teaching a men's class, for which you don't need any Danish, and also some nice shots of the new theatres.

Just to clarify: without re-checking the recording, my memory is that it was me who said the bit about some people abroad being '"very protective of Bournonville - possessive, almost", and reacting as if it was... and Hubbe broke in with "sacrilege". I don't know if this came from his own personal experience or if he was conjecturing. My own remark came from what I'd heard from some other people - some of them on this board! - but I was not intending to imply that it was a universal reaction, rather trying to discover how he would defend what he was doing against such criticism.

We already know the casting for T&V: Rojo/Polunin, Cojocaru/McRae and Nunez/Kish. Yanowsky is doing Sylvia with Makhateli - they have danced it together before. Kish may also be tall enough for her. Bolle isn't listed for next season, so far as I can see. Yanowsky has done Symphony in C in the past, but not recently I think - in any case she wouldn't be cast in this season's run, as she's currently on leave after the birth of her second child. (Cojocaru and Nunez are doing it.)

The Royal Ballet has announced that Nehemiah Kish, currently with the Royal Danish Ballet, will be joining the company as a Principal at the start of next season. Kish has been with the RDB for the last two seasons, and before that of course he was a principal with the National Ballet of Canada.

Well, he may well have been scheduled to dance it later in the run but he certainly wasn't announced for this week.

Alban Lendorf made an unscheduled but apparently very successful debut as Puck this week, and has more performances later on. Amy Watson and Gregory Dean are to dance Titania and Oberon after Easter, both for the first time.

Cojocaru's performance on March 29th has been cancelled because of 'illness' - not hers, as she's dancing the next night as planned but with Nehemiah Kish instead of Mads Blangstrup. Gudrun Bojesen and Sebastian Kloborg dance on the 29th.

High Yellow was the piece originally announced as Sorrow in Sunlight. Neither Spectre nor Faune was actually given in this season, and in the article I'm looking at (by John Percival, Dance & Dancers, March 1961) I don't see any mention of either Cephalus and Procris or Pomona; but there was an Ashton/Satie piece called Mercury. This was the season when Spessiva danced in Giselle and in Swan Lake Act 2. Maybe the 'trust' element was taken care of by offering a book of subscription coupons in advance, exchangeable later for tickets - presumably after the programmes were announced. 20 coupons cost the same as 14 single tickets.

As a footnote to Anne's remarks about the demi-soloists in Symphony in C, David Amzallag has just put up a new set of photos which follow the American corps de ballet dancer Holly Jean Dorger through rehearsals after she was given 90 minutes to learn the first movement. There's also an account by Dorger herself of what it felt like.

Bolshoi casting has now been posted on the Royal Opera House site - obviously it may change before July. Any spelling mistakes are my own. Spartacus 19, 20, 21, 31 July at 7.30pm, 31 July at 2pm Vasiliev/Kaptsova/Zakharova/Volchkov 19, 31E Nikulina/Dmitrichenko/Alexandrova/Baranov 20 Lobukhin/Kaptsova/Krysanova/Shpilevsky 21 Nikulina/Dmitirichenko/tbc/Baranov 31M Coppélia 22, 23, 24, July at 7.30pm. 24 July at 2pm Alexandrova/Skvortsov 22 Osipova/Lopatin 23 Stashkevich/Lopatin 24M Osipova/Skvortsov 24E Serenade/Giselle 26, 27, 28 July at 7.30pm Krysanova/Leonova/Yatsenko/Shpilevsky and Zakharova/Tsiskaridze/Allash 26 Leonova/Yatsenko/Stashkevich/Shpilevsky and Osipova/Volchkov/Allash 27 Krysanova/Leonova/Yatsenko/Shpilevsky and Nikulina/Skvortsov/Leonova 28 Russian Seasons/Petrushka/Paquita 29, 30 July at 7.30pm Alexandrova/Volchov; Vasiliev/Osipova/Savin; Osipova/Zakharova/Merkuriev 29 Vorontsova/Tsiskaridze; Lopatin/Krysanova/Biktimirov; Osipova/tbc 30 Le Corsaire 2, 3, 4, 5 August at 7.30pm Alexandrova/Tsiskaridze/Krysanova 2, 5 Osipova/Vasiliev/Kaptsova 3 Shipulina/Skvortsov/Yatsenko 4 Don Quixote 6, 7 August at 7.30pm, 7 August at 2pm, 8 August at 3pm Zakharova/Lobukhin 6, 8 Krysanova/Merkuriev 7M Osipova/Vasiliev 7E

Also I think Hubbe said they have found some private sponsorship.

I think when you have to write something later, it's much worse reading something you completely agree with than something you think is totally wrong! I know the solution is not to read anything till you've written your own piece, but I can never resist, and just once or twice I've thought I was going to have to file something which just said "I entirely agree with So-and-So." Glad you liked the DanceView pieces. Did you see the Neumeier Midsummer Night's Dream?

Nunez was the name I immediately thought of....

The RB has just announced next season's programme, which includes the company premiere of Ballo della Regina, and two new pieces - one by Wayne McGregor, the other Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It's a very 'home-grown' season. Dates are the opening night of each run - no further dates or casting yet available. Onegin (Cranko) (Sept 30 2010) La Valse (Ashton)/new Brandstrup/Winter Dreams (MacMillan)/Theme & Variations (Balanchine) (Oct 15 2010) Sylvia (Ashton) (Nov 3 2010) Cinderella (Ashton) (Nov 30 2010) Peter and the Wolf (Hart)/Tales from Beatrix Potter (Ashton) Les Patineurs (Ashton)/Tales from Beatrix Potter (Ashton) Giselle (Jan 11 2011) Swan Lake (Jan 22 2011) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (new Wheeldon) (Feb 2011) Rhapsody (Ashton)/Sensorium(Marriott)/Rite of Spring (MacMillan) (Mar 16 2011) Manon (MacMillan) (Apr 21 2011) Ballo Della Regina (Balanchine)/new McGregor/DGV (Wheeldon) (May 13 2011) Scenes de Ballet(Ashton) /Voluntaries(Tetley)/Still Life at the Penguin Cafe(Bintley) (May 28 2011)

Anne, it's great to read such a long and detailed account. I was at the same Sylphide/Symphony in C performance as you were - if you want to have a look at my own review you'll see that we had very similar opinions, except that I really liked Alexandra Lo Sardo - though I think perhaps more people were with you on that. By the way, Nikolaj Hubbe said at the press conference announcing next season's programme that he knew Napoli wasn't quite right yet and that they would be doing more work on it before it comes back - will be interesting to see what he does.

I'm just reading a biography of Harald Lander and have got to the bit where Etudes has its premiere at the Opera. It was a great success and Svend Kragh Jacobsen, reviewing it, said that during the curtain calls, "The gorgeous Mademoiselle Bardin [who had danced the ballerina role] stepped forward and, as is the French custom, read the programme in a sweet little ballet-girl voice, which had a great deal of difficulty with Danish names. then everyone who had contributed to the evening's success came on stage..." I've never heard of this happening - can anyone remember it? (Assuming it's not still like that - don't think I've been to a first night in Paris!)

Three different casts, including Cojocaru/Blangstrup, went on in Copenhagen over the weekend. Eva Kistrup saw them all, and reviews them in Dance View Times.