Jane Simpson

The interesting thing is, that the RB's programme for this season, with specific dates, was published a year ago this week. I can understand that the ABT dates may have been fixed before then, but is it really not possible to change the planned show in a whole year? Surely it can't be just that no-one noticed till it was too late?

David Amzallag, who is building up an extensive archive of RDB photographs, has added a portfolio of pictures of Gudrun Bojesen and Mads Blangstrup in Giselle. I think the ones of the second act in particular are very simple but beautiful.

There are some better reviews today, mostly praising the same dancers but rather warmer about the ballets themselves and the company as a whole. The casting for the next few performances is also announced, revealing that Christina Michanek and Kristoffer Sakurai will also dance the leading roles in La Sonnambula, whilst Gudrun Bojesen and Gregory Dean do the 2nd movement of Sym. in C. (I'm slightly worried, though, that Mads Blangstrup - who features as the Poet in some of the rehearsal photographs, and according to Hubbe was to do the first night - isn't listed so far. Maybe he'll appear by the end of the run - please let him not be injured again!)

The RDB's all Balanchine programme - Symphony in 3 Movements/La Sonnambula/Symphony in C - opened last night. No casting was announced in advance but there were clues from the photoshoot, notably that Silja Schandorff would be doing both the Sleepwalker and the 2nd movement of Symphony in C (she has 3 weeks left before her farewell in Giselle on April 8th). I think Symphony in 3 Movements is new to the company, but the other two have been in the repertory for a long time, though neither has been seen in the last few years. The first review I've seen (in Danish) gives the programme 4 stars out of 6: Henrik Lyding is fairly scathing about the corps in the first piece but liked soloists Yao Wei, Thomas Lund and Christopher Rickert. He doesn't think much of La Sonnambula as a ballet but has praise for Schandorff, Marcin Kupinski as the Poet, and the Harlequin of young Alban Lendorf (who represents the company in this year's Erik Bruhn Prize competition). He goes home happy, though, after Symphony in C (Schandorff with Nehemiah Kish, Gudrun Bojesen and Tim Matiakis in the 3rd movement, Ulrik Birkkjaer in the 4th). I'm not seeing the programme myself for another couple of weeks - any reports meanwhile would be very welcome!

The cynical answer would be that yes, it was an improvement - it was shorter. But it didn't work, even in this form. For a lot of reasons, the basic one for me being that I still don't understand what MacMillan thinks of Isadora as a dancer or a woman: does he admire her? despise her? - I have no idea. We are just presented with a series of events, with little emotional content except immediately after the death of Isadora's children, and the ending is so brusque and banal that it's hard to care. There was a lot to admire in Tamara Rojo's performance though I think someone (like Lynn Seymour) more prepared to go over the top dramatically might be more in tune with the character as presented here. And Watson did dance Edward Gordon Craig but was seen to much better advantage in an impressive debut in Dances at a Gathering in the second half of this strange pairing - I said to my husband on the way out how good I thought he was and a total stranger turned round and said 'Yes, wasn't it nice to see him looking cheerful?'.

She danced Giselle in London 3 or 4 years ago and though I got very tired of her long, and inappropriate, balances in Act 1, there was absolutely no sign of them in Act 2 and she was really lovely!

Thank you for that, miliosr. It certainly sounds as if it fits with what Hubbe is trying to do: apparently he said at the press conference that "there is too much unisex and fitness/body culture in classical ballet" (yes!), and these two Ballerina/Danseur Noble programmes are to re-focus the audience's ideas of the role of men and women in ballet.

Er... I just read a little more about the new Napoli. (Sit down, Alexandra, and take a deep breath...) It will be set in the 1950s, in the decay and poverty of a Naples controlled by the criminal underworld, and Maja Ravn's cinematic designs will make this an exciting meeting between Fellini and Bournonville. I wonder what they'll do with Act 2? (Edited to answer my own question, in part) Act 2 will have choreography by Hubbe and new music by Louise Alenius Boserup.

I don't know anything about the Limon piece - please tell!

The Royal Danish Ballet has just announced its programme for the 2009/10 season. West Side Story Suite/Dances at a Gathering Giselle Napoli - staged by Nikolaj Hubbe and Sorella Englund Nutcracker Bournonville and Balanchine: La Sylphide/Symphony in C Midsummer Night's Dream (Neumeier) Shakespeare in Motion - Othello (Midjord)/new piece by Pontus Lidberg M/K Ballerina: Serenade/The Cage/Ashton's Isadora Waltzes/new piece by Kim Brandtsrup M/K Danseur Noble: new Brandstrup piece/Bournonville variations (from the Bournonville Schools)/A Suite of Dances (Robbins)/Les Gentilhommes (Martins)/The Unsung (Limon) The last two programmes run quite late in May and into June - M/K is Male/Female There's also a repeat of Thomas Lund's children's ballet, Kom Bamse, which has played to sold-out houses this season. I expect there'll be more details, especially of the new Napoli, when the press release appears.

The Danish dancer, director and choreographer Flemming Flindt died today in Florida, after a short illness. He was 72.

For old-time, filmstar, glamour I'd go for Lorena Feijoo. I can just imagine her on one of the Ballets Russes whistle-stop tours, stepping down out of the train in the morning to be interviewed for the 87th time, in full make-up, a suit and heels and a gorgeous hat.

Putrov has been dancing with Roberta Marquez for the past few seasons but they haven't appeared together recently. Marquez has been switched to dance with Kobborg quite often (she's very small - about 5' I'd guess).

Although Osmolkina will of course be very welcome in herself, it does seem that the RB is having problems finding partners for Ivan Putrov - let's hope they will be able to sort something out when all the 11 female principals are fit again.

The Royal Ballet has announced that Mariinsky soloist Ekaterina Osmolkina will dance two performances of Swan Lake with Ivan Putrov next month. Putrov was originally scheduled to dance with Roberta Marquez but she has been switched to partner Johan Kobborg in Cojocaru's absence. A similar chain of events led to Stuttgart principal Silvia Azzoni being brought in to dance Bayadere with Putrov.

Yes, it was the Helpmann production from 1963. The synopsis describes the prologue: "The Princess Odette and her attendants, whilst visiting the forest, unknowingly enter the domain of Von Rothbart, the Evil Owl Magician, who wants Odette for his bride. He abducts her. Because of her royal birth, he cannot change her into an owl but only transform her into a Royal bird - the Swan..... {description of what will break the spell}.... But if his oath is not kept for one month, she must remain a Swan forever." A month! That doesn't seem too taxing for even the most fickle. The synopsis, reprinted in Dance & Dancers, is then followed by about 7 pages from Clive Barnes, mostly tearing the production to shreds. He says a lot about the Prologue - thinks it removes 'something of the work's essential romantic quality' to know too much about Odette before Siegfried meets her, but admits he might have chosen to try a prologue although he'd have cut it when he saw it didn't work. Also he suggests that Helpmann might have taken an idea from his own Hamlet and made a prologue showing the dying Siegfired, so that the whole ballet is a flashback. (Hasn't someone else since done that?) But he does say the transformation of Princess to Swan (Fonteyn to Ann Jenner) was brilliantly done. I rather liked Peter Wright's idea of showing Seigfried's father's funeral, but it did make Act 1 a bit glum.

I have the impression - mostly from reading this board over the years - that Baryshnikov was much 'bigger' in the USA than in Europe - well, in England anyway. Although he was known here outside the dance world, he wasn't automatic front page news like Nureyev was.

Natalia, please could you tell us what Englund did right at the end of La Sylphide, in the last second or two, after James has (probably) died? Was she exultant, or despairing? Did she do her 'I was a sylphide myself' bit, shown by lifting up her skirt to show a bedraggled sylphide skirt underneath? Also, I think the Washington Post article said that Hallberg has already danced James elsewhere, so maybe it was Kobborg who orginally taught him the role.

Famous name or not, they don't seem to be selling like hot cakes at the moment. (You get a slightly false impression by looking at the Coliseum booking plan as some of the seats marked as unavailable are those allocated to Sadler's Wells, who are jointly arranging the visit, for separate sale.) I'm afraid they may suffer from the memory of the NYCB visit to the same theatre last year, when those who paid upfront for the extremely expensive seats found they could have got in very easily on the night at greatly reduced prices. Also I don't think the general public knows many - if any - of the ABT dancers, and of course they may already have booked months ago to see the RB's Swan Lake in the same week. And then there's the economy.... But maybe some clever publicity will liven the box office up a bit in the next few weeks.

Although the casting is not yet on the ABT site, someone with very sharp eyes has spotted it on the Sadler's Wells site - it's almost illegible but at least it's there. (Click on the names of the ballets.) Now we can buy some tickets. (They're actually dancing at the Coliseum but it's a joint venture with Sadler's Wells)

David Amzallag has just added a series of 99 (yes, that's ninety-nine) photos of Kloborg and Christina Minchanek, and others of the cast, in Romeo and Juliet to his site. Another series, with the alternate cast, is to follow.

Richard Glasstone, in an article in Following Sir Fred's Steps, says 'an important element of the movement texture [in Les Patineurs and other Ashton ballets] is provided by the gliding motion of the Italian chassé - in which the whole foot slides along the floor, unlike the lighter, ‘pointed foot’ chassé of the Soviet Russian school'. I think it's that which is the clearest 'skating' imitation. And Glasstone complains that it's not taught much these days. And Bart, please don't refer to Patineurs in the past tense! We still see it sometimes at Covent Garden and it's still near-perfect in its apparent simplicity.

Sebastian Kloborg was promoted to soloist on Saturday, the day he danced Romeo on the opening night of this season's run of John Neumeier's Romeo and Juliet. Not a great surprise - he's been doing soloist roles for the last couple of seasons and was clearly the next in line - but nice to see nonetheless.

Mashinka, do you actually know they're going to do Dances first? The publicity talks about Isadora/Dances so I'd rather assumed it would be that way round. (Either way, I'd toyed with the idea of setting up a ticket exchange desk in the interval so that those who can't stand one of them could sell the other half of the evening to someone with the opposite tastes. With a small commission for me, obviously.) Slightly less cynical than you - on this occasion - I wonder if the pairing is more because at about an hour each they're difficult to programme with other things but would fit together quite well. Bart, I hadn't thought out the Scenes/Sylphide pairing quite as deeply as you - I liked the thought of an Ashton/Bournonville pairing and Scenes was the one that came immediately into my head - but doing a bit of retrofitting, I'd say that SdB is a piece very much of this world and therefore leads on quite neatly to James's search for something beyond the tangible. But I'm really more motivated by the idea of seeing two of my most favourite ballets on the same evening!

The Lesson comes first - whenever I've seen it, anyway. It's certainly a huge contrast, but it seems to work, except if the Flindt has had such a strong emotional impact that you're still reliving it when the curtain goes up on James and the Sylphide. At the last revival of the Kobborg production in London, the RB started with a 'dances from Napoli' and though that might sound more suitable it actually wasn't. What comes to my mind first would be Ashton's Scenes de Ballet. (The RB's next double bill pairs the new, one act version of MacMillan's Isadora with Dances at a Gathering - an even stronger contrast!)