Jane Simpson

David Amzallag has added a set of photographs taken backstage during the Balanchine programme to his series of portraits of the RDB. He's concentrated particularly on some of the younger members of the corps de ballet, including several who joined the company only this season, including Holly Jean Dorger, Shelbye Elsbree and Laure Dougy. (Some better-known dancers and a fine portrait of Nikolaj Hubbe are also included.) There's also a collection of pictures of Femke Molbach Slot and Ulrik Birkkjaer in Neumeier's Romeo and Juliet, added in the last month. I wish more companies could be so well documented.

It's his version of Alice in Wonderland - he talks a bit more about it later in the interview. I don't think the RB has announced anything about it yet but Wheeldon seems to be talking about it quite freely. (I can't say the idea makes my own heart beat faster, but maybe he'll manage to make something different out of it.)

The Sarasota Ballet has announced that the leading roles in Margaret Barbieri's new production of Giselle (premiere November 27th 2009) will be danced by Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg, guesting from the Royal Ballet. Quite a coup for Iain Webb! Here is the press release: Sarasota Ballet Opens Its 2009-2010 Season with The Royal Ballet’s International Stars Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg Dancing in Margaret Barbieri’s New Production of ‘Giselle’ (Sarasota, FL – May 7, 2009) The Sarasota Ballet is pleased to announce that two of the most famous dancers in the world, Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg, will be Principal Guest Artists for the 2009-2010 Season which premieres with a new production of ‘Giselle’ on November 27, 2009 in the Sarasota Opera House. Cojocaru, promoted to principal by Sir Anthony Dowell after her first performance in the title role of ‘Giselle’ with The Royal Ballet in London, is widely considered the most inspiring dancer in today’s international ballet world to take the role. An April 29, 2009 New York Times review of a London performance of ‘Giselle’ noted, “For an improbably long time, showers of blooms rained down on Alina Cojocaru after her performance of “Giselle” at the Royal Opera House last week.” Kobborg, former principal of The Royal Danish Ballet and now principal of The Royal Ballet and Cojocaru’s partner, is equally renowned as one of the leading male dancers today. He has been the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the Nureyev International Competition (Grand Prix 1994), USA International Competition, Jackson, USA (Grand Prix 1994) and the Erik Bruhn Competition (1993) and received a 2006 Laurence Olivier Award nomination for his production of La Sylphide. Cojocaru and Kobburg’s unique partnership and artistry have captured the hearts of audiences all around the world where they have made guest appearances, including dancing with the Mariinsky Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, La Scala Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Hamburg Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Vienna State Opera Ballet and Teatro San Carlo, Naples, to name a few. For the Sarasota Ballet Season Premiere, Cojocaru and Kobborg will be dancing in a new production of what is arguably the most famous romantic ballet of all time, which has been created by another one of the world’s great Giselles, Margaret Barbieri. At the peak of her career with The Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, Barbieri flew all over the world as guest in countless productions of ‘Giselle’ including Houston Ballet. Barbieri will draw on her artistry and depth of understanding of this timeless ballet to create a fresh new production for the Sarasota Ballet. “As soon as I heard of the departure of Lauren Strongin I phoned Johan to ask if there was any possibility that he and Alina could come and dance Giselle with the Sarasota Ballet,” said Sarasota Ballet director Iain Webb. “I am ecstatic that they have agreed to be Guest Artists for the 2009-2010 Season.” To place your name on the mailing list for information about the entire season, please contact the Sarasota Ballet at (941) 359-0099 ext. 102 Or visit www.SarasotaBallet.org. GISELLE November 27 – 29, 2009 - Sarasota Opera House A new production of the most famous of all the Romantic Ballets Friday, November 27, 8 PM Saturday, November 28, 2 PM & 8 PM Sunday, November 29, 2 PM

Before she goes, Ansanelli creates a new role in Alastair Marriott's ballet Sensorium, which has its premiere on Monday. (Music by Debussy, not much else known about it yet.)

Cojocaru has now dropped out of all her planned appearances in Les Sylphides (Yohui Choe will dance them, partnered by Johan Kobborg) and also out of her Ondines (replaced by Roberta Marquez). No reason known so far...

The annual Reumerts awards ceremony for the dramatic arts in Denmark was held in Copenhagen yesterday, and the overall prize went to Silja Schandorff. She has previously won the Dancer of the Year award twice, but this is the big one - it's seen as a great honour, and also gives her 300,000 kroner (about £36,000 at today's horrendous exchange rate). This is the 11th year of the awards and she is the third dancer to have won the main prize, following Nikolaj Hubbe and Thomas Lund. There are a couple of very nice pictures here.

Full details of ballets and dates (but no casting) are now available on the RB website. The big mystery for me is why they are putting on Tetley's Sphinx. They're throwing talent at it (casts are Nunez/ Pennefather/ Watson and Cojocaru/ Polunin/McRae) but I will take some convinving that it's worth it.

Ismene Brown interviews Cojocaru about her injury and the long road back, to coincide with her Giselle tonight: Evening Standard However Cojocaru has dropped out of her first scheduled performance of Les Sylphides on May 4th - but she will do her later shows as scheduled, partnered by Johan Kobborg rather than Federico Bonelli.

Well, I have to say it's a ballet I can live happily without - I don't mind if I never see another 'historical' ballet, ever - but if I were casting it from the Royal Ballet I might give Elizabeth to Deirdre Chapman. Mary would depend on how she's going to be portrayed - innocent/scheming etc. Tamara Rojo perhaps? But the showstopper for me is the costumes - no problem for the men, but what do the women wear, if it's on pointe? (Peter Darrell's 1976 piece for Scottish Ballet had commissioned music by John McCabe and was 2 acts of an hour each - some of it was lovely, apparently, but there was lots of potted history, I believe (I never saw it) and it did indeed have the Guises and Darnley and Walsingham and Darnley and Bothwell and Knox, and Riccio and Babington as well. The women wore panniered skirts open at the front and cut off at the knee, which in the photographs look to take all their dignity away. There was no direct 'confrontation' scene.)

The Royal Ballet has mailed details of next season to its Friends supporters, some days ahead of the scheduled press announcement: Mayerling Sleeping Beauty Agon/Sphinx(Tetley)/New McGregor Nutcracker Les Patineurs/Beatrix Potter Romeo and Juliet New Watkins/Rushes(Brandstrup)/Infra(McGregor) La Fille mal Gardee Concerto/The Judas Tree/Elite Syncopations Cinderella Electric Counterpoint(Wheeldon)/New Scarlett/Carmen Chroma(McGregor)/Tryst(Wheeldon)/Symphony in C There will be 22 performances of Sleeping Beauty, with 8 different casts. Jonathan Watkins and Liam Scarlett are company members given their first choreographic opportunities on the main stage. There are some new casts in Mayerling - Thiago Soares and Rupert Pennefather get the leading role - and an interesting Agon, with Melissa Hamilton and Eric Underwood doing the pas de deux.

Good news at last - Cojocaru danced Giselle yesterday, at a Family matinee, so hopes are high for her scheduled return later this week.

A Danish TV channel broadcast a 20 minute feature about Schandorff's farewell performance and the background to it. It's in Danish (apart from Nikolaj Hubbe's short speech, which is in English) but there's a lot of interesting film as well - it's a very nice programme. Clicking here will take you to the page - click on April 12th on the calendar, then look down the right hand column till you see Schandorff's name and click on that.

Schaufuss revived it for the RDB during his brief tenure as director in the mid-1990s, but it didn't stay in the repertoire - they are very attached to the Neumeier version in Copenhagen.

Silja Schandorff gave her last performance on Wednesday evening, as Giselle. It sounds to have been a wonderful evening, ending with a ten-minute standing ovation whilst her former partners brought her roses, Hubbe gave her a very big kiss, and Kenneth Greve swung her off her feet and whirled her round. Eva Kistrup has written a lovely appreciation of her career on her DVT Blog. I've seen a couple of reviews in the Danish press - this one is worth a look just for the lovely photograph; the reviewer gives the evening 6 stars and said that Schandorff is quitting while still right at the top. Another promises more photos after Easter. If you were there, please write about it!

A recent article by Michael Crabb in the National Post gives some interesting background on how Kish came to join the RDB. Kish is still listed as a Principal with the National Ballet of Canada, but the conclusion of the article makes it sound as if that link is getting weaker: "I live here in Denmark now," Kish says. "Karen Kain and I are still talking about things for next year, but now with the financial crisis that may be more difficult. I'd like to retain the connection, although it's harder to tell how realistic that is. Sometimes you have to make a career decision hoping you're not closing any doors."

Eva Kistrup went back to a later performance of the Balanchine bill and has added some more comments to her DVT Blog. I was there the same night and have little to add to what she says. I thought Symphony in C was the least successful of the 3 pieces, but the next night went much better and I really appreciated Bojesen's dancing in the second movement. La Sonnambula suits the company very well though I wasn't too enamoured of the new setting. In Symphony in Three Movements I liked both the men I saw in the pas de deux - Sebastian Kloborg, who improves every time I see him, and Thomas Lund. The big disappointment was the absence through injury of Silja Schandorff - I was really hoping for one last look at her before her retirement!

There's now quite a long piece by Jennifer Dunning in the online version of the NY Times, at least.

German sources are reporting the sad news that Eva Evdokimova died in New York earlier today, aged only 59. She had been suffering from cancer. More details will no doubt follow.

Just-announced casting for the RDB's run of Don Quixote (which opens tomorrow) shows that Romel Frometa, principal dancer with the National Ballet of Cuba, will dance Basilio on April 20th and 22nd, with Amy Watson as his Kitri. This is the Cuban production of Don Q, and Frometa follows Annette Delgado and Joel Carreno, who danced the leading roles in Copenhagen last season. 'Home team' casts announced so far are Yao Wei with Nehemiah Kish, and Diana Cuni with Thomas Lund. Frometa's website includes a video of clip of him in Don Q.

More in Hubbe's defence: the RDB has been dancing Symphony in C for more than 50 years, and had La Sonnambula several years before NYCB did - they've just done their 160th performance of the first and their 222nd of the second, though admittedly only the more senior dancers will have done them before. Only Symphony in 3 Movements is new to the repertory.

Well, that didn't quite happen - we got Part/Gomes/Stearns instead. (Pas de trois was Copeland/Kajiya/Matthews.) I thought both Hallberg and Gomes were fine Siegfrieds, though completley different - Hallberg all nerves, Gomes much happier in his skin. I haven't seen Part for years and wasn't entirely won over - I've never seen anyone who can so often go from glorious to gawky in the course of a single phrase. Easy to see why she divides opinions! I preferred her Odile to her Odette, which was a bit too frantically tragic for my taste. Stearns seemed a bit young for Rothbart but I thought Gomes was terrific in his big seduction number - nothing at all to do with Swan Lake but a brilliant turn anyway.

I'll wait to comment on Hallberg/Gomes till I've seen Gomes/Hallberg tonight (with Part). I liked the simplicity of Michelle Wiles as Odette (I took a quick tour of some of those to be seen on YouTube the other day, and found some of them so self-indulgent that it was good to see someone who just does the choreography) but I didn't see much depth in her interpretation. Her Odile was much stronger.

Sunday matinee (Wiles/Hallberg/Gomes): pas de trois was Riccetto, Kajiya, Saveliev. This was the first time I've seen this production on stage and I have to say it was better than I remember from the televised performance. Except for the opening of Act 4.

I happened to be watching the film of Fonteyn and Somes in Act 2 of Swan Lake this morning, and noticed another change: in the bit where Siegfried supports Odette as she hops in arabesque down the diagonal line of swans, Somes isn't supporting Fonteyn - he's hopping too, in an exactly parallel arabesque. Does anyone still do this any more?

Eva Kistrup has added a long review of this programme to her DanceViewTimes blog. It's especially interesting to read what someone who knows the company very well thinks of the casting! For anyone who's interested, these are the credits for the stagings: Symphony in 3 Movements: Suzy Pilarre assisted by Kevin Irving La Sonnambula: Richard Tanner assisted by Sorella Englund Symphony in C: Merrill Ashley and Stacey Cadell assisted by Heidi Ryom and Anne Holm