Jane Simpson

She also danced Cinderella a few times, in her touring company days; and I believe she and Christopher Gable understudied the roles of Marguerite and Armand, but of course never actually danced them. She'd have made a wonderful Ondine, too.

As I understand it, for the time being this will be the Napoli you'll see if you go to Copenhagen. Though actually I've thought it would be interesting to run them both sometime, maybe alternate nights - if only to see which brought in the bigger audience!

Well, I've now seen two performances of the new Napoli and also talked to Nikolaj Hubbe about it. I have to write two formal reviews of it so these are just some overall impressions. The three acts have been treated so differently that it's a bit like watching a triple bill: Italian versimo with some set pieces of dancing - contemporary ballet with new music - Act 3 of Napoli. It's an experiment, I think, done to find out if there are new things to be found in an old ballet and for myself I'd rather see a wholesale revision like this than the sort of creeping changes we see elsewhere: if we were talking about an English 'icon', I'd rather see La Fille mal Gardee in modern dress with the story slightly changed but most of Ashton's choreography retained than see the originalproduction with little bits snipped out and some pseudo-Ashton solos inserted. The first one you can just throw away when it outlives its novelty, the second is far more difficult to disentangle. That said, I'm sure there are lots of people who will detest this Napoli - I really disliked the first act the first time I saw it, but then quite enjoyed it the second time round when the shock had worn off. The second act is completely new. It's very attractively set and lit, and I liked the new music. Hubbe and Sorella Englund have provided new choreography which concerns itself more with the relationship of the characters than with providing the equivalent of a 'white'act. The third act, after the first 5 minutes, is pure Bournonville, with the addition of a short pas de deux for Teresina and Gennaro, which looks like stitched-together bits of the Bournonville schools - I have to say I just loved Gennaro's new solo. For me the first act is overdone - every possible Neapolitan character seems to be there and there are a couple of touches I'd be happier to see cut. Eva Kistrup has covered most of the ground about the removal of the reliance on religion etc and I agree with much of what she said. There were interesting contrasts between the two casts - some excellent performances, some weaker - the pas de six was noticeably more strongly cast on the second night. There were lots of cheers at the end but how many were for the Tarantella etc and how many for the rest of the piece, I don't know!

Here's another point of view, from the Financial Times: "This is a triumph: Nikolaj Hübbe’s new production of Napoli, his company’s signature work, confounds the lip-smacking doom-mongers both in Denmark and abroad who foresaw the destruction of the finest-cut jewel of the Royal Danish Ballet’s Bournonville repertoire. "

I think they're talking almost entirely about the new second act and the way it emphasises the erotic nature of the encounter between Golfo and Teresina - but I really don't 'get' much of spoken Danish and someone else will be able to tell us properly. (I'm also not really convinced that Golfo is actually Sebastian Kloborg, although he is listed as dancing with this cast.)

More on the new production: Eva Kistrup's long and interesting analysis in DanceViewTimes and on the RDB's website there's a very short video, with first-cast Gennaro and Teresina, Ulrik Birkkjaer and Gitte Lindstrom, introducing the production; underneath that , if you click on where it says her, you'll be taken to a screen where you can see a television discussion programme which features rather more clips of the production - some right at the beginning, then more in the Napoli section which starts at 12:13. For some reason all the film, in both videos, is of another cast - Susanne Grinder as Teresina, Alexander Staeger as Gennaro, Sebastian Kloborg (I think) as Golfo, and a tiny shot of Thomas Lund as Pascarillo, a transvestite street-singer.

First review this morning likes some of the new production but thinks it hasn't gone far enough, and that all logic is abandoned in the last act. But thinks it must be seen and is clearly made out of love for 'the family silver'. The first cast Gennaro, Ulrik Birkkjaer, was promoted to Solodanser (principal ) onstage after the performance - pictures here

The RDB's new production of Napoli (updated to the 1950s) opens next Tuesday and Nikolaj Hubbe is not sleeping well... In an article in a Danish paper yesterday (trailed by a large photo of Hubbe on the front page - this is a big story!) he and Sorella Englund rather nervously describe what they're doing as 'throwing Bournonville up in the air' and 'melting down the family silver' - but Hubbe is adamant that it's a valid thing to be doing and says he has the total support of the older dancers who've been doing the old version all their lives. There's also an older article here which shows that at least some of the costumes will look familiar. So we shall see... I won't be there till later in the month but I hope we'll have some news of it before then! Edit to add: And I've just noticed that David Amzallag has added a few pictures of Act 1 to his photo blog and also links from there to a whole series of the new Act 2.

Fonteyn was very kind and signed an awful lot of photographs - you can pick them up on e-Bay very often. The Baron books also appear on e-Bay for not much more than they cost when new, 50 years ago! (And checking e-bay just now brought up some really intersting things - one book included Pearl Argyle's signature, which I don't remember seeing often (or at all) and there's also a signed letter from Fonteyn to designer Leslie Hurry.)

I'd love to hear anything, but I was particularly wondering if it was a straightforward narrative or done by flashbacks or something even less structured. Thank you anyway!

It's perhaps not very widely known that Peter Darrell made a ballet about the Mayerling affair for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1963, 15 years before MacMillan's version. All I can discover about it is that the music was by Faure and it lasted about forty minutes. There's a list of the cast on the site devoted to Darrell, but no indication of which characters they were playing. Does anyone by any chance remember the ballet, or even have a programme which would give some clues? I'm just curious to know how it was done!

Well, no - they played at Sadler's Wells at least three times before I gave up watching them sometime in the 1990s because I thought their choreography wasn't worthy of either their dancers or their audiences.

Apparently the BBC is filming this programme for airing in December (as one of a series of 3 Diaghilev-inspired programmes) so we shall all (all of us in the UK, that is) get a chance to see it.

De Frutos said in an interview a few days ago: “Diaghilev always really liked a succès de scandale. He wanted them to happen. Nothing you can do today would be scandalous any more except for annoying the Catholic Church. So that is my target.” (I haven't seen the piece.)

A quick check in MTL shows that both are right - Bournonville quotes both Elizabeth and Bakunin's story as his starting points. He'd met Bakunin several times in Stockholm.

The gala was televised but unfortunately they cut it before the Balanchine. We had to go out to eat but just got back to see Flower Festival - Caroline Cavallo and Nehemiah Kish. A superb performance from Hubbe as the presenter!

The publicity for this DVD also includes the following: Future projects in the Massine series include St. Francis with music by Hindemith and Seventh Symphony to the Beethoven score. Both ballets are danced by the original cast members of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo featuring Massine, Alicia Markova, Igor Youskevitch, Frederick Franklin and Mark Platoff" (How on earth can they afford to do this, I wonder? How many copies will they sell? And if this is commercially viable, what a lot of other things might be!)

The very long and fascinating notes to this release are now available online - the sort of introduction we can usually only dream about. (Pity they can't spell your name, Alexandra!)

David Amzallag has been catching up with the later stages of last season on his photo-blog: Christina Michanek and Marcin Kupinski in La Sonnambula Amy Watson and guest artist Romel Frómeta in Don Quixote Yao Wei and Ulrik Birkkjaer in Giselle as well as some pictures of the Cross Connection group's latest programme (it is a small company using dancers from different companies, though on this occasion all but one are from the RDB).

Ashmole danced the Red Knight in Checkmate in the performance available from VAI, and there's an extract from it . (The Black Queen is Margaret Barbieri.)

I do actually have some sympathy with this idea, in some circumstances. For instance I wouldn't dream of staying away from Bayadere for ever even though I don't really expect ever to see a better Nikiya than Asylmuratova; but on the other hand I saw Paul Taylor's Roses once and though it perfect, and I'd be quite reluctant to see it again - nothing to do with particular dancers (I can't even remember who they were), more that I'd be so disappointed if it didn't work for me next time. I think it's more to do with one's personality than a sign of age!

I wonder if these are in fact Liane Dayde and Michel Renault, who danced with the Bolshoi shortly after Beryl Grey was there? There's a newspaper report from the time on Dayde's website.

Assuming it's the Sadler's Wells Ballet's 1946 production, it's James Bailey.

Could be Baron, I agree, but I've seen it published elsewhere credited to Maurice Seymour.

Well, that's what I thought it sounded like - but????????