Jane Simpson

After last night's performance of Napoli, Frank Andersen came on stage and announced that Amy Watson is promoted to Solodanser (Principal) from the start of next season. Amy Watson trained at SAB and danced with Suzanne Farrell's company before joing the RDB in 2000. She made a very successful debut as Odette/Odile earlier this season, undoubtedly contributing towards her promotion. Eva Kistrup wrote about in DanceView Times RDB website announcement Amy Watson's CV

In a recent Yanowksy/Greve Swan Lake at Covent Garden, I noticed Greve watching Odile with the dazed but happy expression of a young man who's fallen in love with a mysterious stranger and now finds that as well as being beautiful and entrancing she's also the hottest thing in town - he can't believe his luck. He's definitely not stupid!

Leigh, as cargill says I think they used different colours, and also allocated the dances slightly differently, in London and NY. If it helps, and maybe someone can translate it into NY colours, this was the original assignation in London: Sibley- Mauve Seymour - green Mason - apricot Connor - blue Jenner - pink Nureyev - brown Dowell - gold Wall - green Coleman - salmon Kelly - mauve Though by the end of the season the programme says Nureyev was in blue. Anyway, he was the man who comes on right at the beginning; but when he wasn't dancing, so far as I remember Dowell did that role but still wore his gold costume. Lynn Seymour definitely did the Verdy solo. Jonathan Kelly, incidentally, was a late replacement for Donald Macleary, who did the role later on.

If I were casting Dancing at a Gathering I'd be looking above all for dancers who can look as if they are just being their natural selves on stage. I could suggest a couple of casts for the women from the RB but the men would be much more difficult. I have to say the only one of my choices which would coincide with Mashinka's would be Acosta in what we think of as the Nureyev role! But it's going to be hard for any cast, as cargill says, to compete with the memory of the RB originals - one of the greatest things the company has ever done, in my experience. Also, I don't think we can assume that people who haven't seen it before will automatically adore it on first sight - I know people who saw it for the first time when NYCB brought it to Edinburgh a few years ago and who just loathed it, and couldn't begin to understand why so many people remember it so fondly. I think it's a piece that looks much better on dancers you know.

The RDB press release, now in English: The Royal Danish Theatre Board of Directors has on 29 March appointed Nikolaj Hübbe as new Artistic Director of the Royal Danish Ballet for the tenure of 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2012. The decision embraces the unanimous nomination by the recruitment committee. The managing director of the Royal Danish Theatre has furthermore appointed Nikolaj Hübbe as principal stage director of the Royal Danish Ballet for the period of 1 August 2007 to 30 June 2008 with responsibility for co-managing the repertoire for the upcoming seasons. Nikolaj Hübbe is an obvious choice as artistic director. He has for many years enjoyed international acclaim as principal dancer at the New York City Ballet. He has over the years nurtured close ties with Denmark and the Royal Danish Ballet both as visiting performer and as director, such as his recent staging of La Sylphide. With his Danish background and international experience Nikolaj Hübbe is well prepared to lead the ballet in the years to come. Mads Øvlisen, Chairman of the Board Excerpt from Nikolaj Hübbe’s application: "Despite my many years of absence from Danish ballet, I still consider myself to be a Danish dancer. Naturally, with the term ‘Danish’ I mean my upbringing and the training I received at Kongens Nytorv – Bournonville and dramatised ballet, the art of storytelling through dance. I know that the Royal Danish Ballet is born of this tradition. I would find this an exciting point of departure in creating new and modern storytelling ballets to thus bring the Royal Danish Ballet profile in tune with the new audience of the 21st century."

The Danish paper Jyllands Posten has a video of a short interview with Hubbe - go to this page and scroll down to the heading 'Ny Balletmester er barn af huset' (New balletmaster is a child of the house) and click on 'Se video'. I assume it's in Danish but I can't get it to play any sound - would love to know what he's saying!

Now completely sold out !

The Royal Danish Ballet has just announced that Nikolai Hubbe will succeed Frank Andersen as director of the company from the end of next season.

The press conference is scheduled for the first week in April, I believe. From somewhere (someone talking about the opera company's plans, perhaps?) we've already heard that we get Bayadere and R&J near the start of the season.

Yes - Kenneth Greve is doing the choreography and it will be directed by Peter Langdal, who is well known for his theatre and opera work. For the last 5 (?) years the company has been doing a Nutcracker by Ratmansky in the Tivoli theatre at Christmas - now they are 'bringing it home' to the Royal Theatre. Alonso's Don Q, by the way, will be done in the same sets and costumes - by Jens-Jacob Worsaae - already used by the RDB for their last 2 productions.

There's a John Ross photo showing the black/white swans on the ballet.co gallery I have to say I'm surprised that they look so definitely black/white in photographs - on stage they somehow come across as much more black. I suppose it's just the contrast with the others.

I saw the same three performances as 4mrdncr and I too liked Stella Abrera very much in Symphonie Concertante, and also in Fancy Free - but was she really one of the Shades in the Herrera/Corella Bayadere? The programme said Sarah Lane, Yuriko Kajiya and Hee Seo and though I don't know any of them, I believed it! It's really interesting to read the views of someone who does know the company - my main disagreement would be that I was disappointed by Corella in all three of his roles. Maybe at this level it's just a matter of taste, but I didn't think he had the charisma for Sinatra Suite or the dramatic and stylistic weight for Bayadere or Black Swan. On the other hand I liked Gillian Murphy much more than I'd expected to after her televised Swan Lake, and Fancy Free was just terrific (Carreno/Stiefel/Cornejo).

I've emailed you a copy - let me know if it doesn't arrive!

I found a review of the last performance Palma Nye gave with the Sadler's Wells company, in an old Ballet Today magazine, with a nice photo of her in Wedding Bouquet. Maybe you have it amongst your press cuttings - if not, let me know. Among other things it says that she was the first soloist in the first ever Sadler's Wells performance of Sleeping Princess, dancing the Camelia Fairy. There is sadly very little film from the early days of the company - maybe someone will be able to point you at something in the New York Public Library collection, but there's nothing of your mother in the catalogue of what has survived from BBC Television. Did she stay active in the dance world? kfw, I think I have the books you mention - I'm getting to the stage where I find it very hard to find anything I haven't already got! The photographers of that era left such a fantastic record of the dancers of the time.

You should keep an eye on eBay - I often see books like this going for practically nothing! There's one called The Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden, by Merlyn Severn, which also has some photos of your mother. I never saw your mother dance but know her from photographs - when I saw her name in your post I immediately thought of her as the Miller's Wife in The Three-Cornered Hat - was that the biggest role she did? But I just checked the other things she might have done and discovered that she danced the maid, Webster, in A Wedding Bouquet (the role created by Ninette de Valois) far more times than anyone else ever did (or ever will, I imagine). I love the history of this period - do tell us more about what sort of souvenirs you have! (And also, something I've always wondered, how is Palma pronounced?)

Bournonville's original libretto describes the witches' scene as taking place in 'a forest at night. Thick fog shrouds all but the nearest trees and rocks'. But after the witches disappear, 'The fog disperses; dawn yields to sunrise'. I've always assumed, too, that Gurn and Effie would not be getting married in the middle of the night. Though I suppose time may appear to pass at a different rate in Sylphide-land.

I was very interested in the Sarah Lamb interview to read the following: "Ballet is an illusion; so, if you can rely on your intelligence, you'll always find a way to make what needs to happen appear to happen." I think she's wrong: intelligence is not enough, and I think it's exactly this that makes her performances much less rewarding than others, like Leonid, find them. When I'm watching her I see a dancer delivering a performance which is clearly the result of much thought and hard work, and is very prettily executed, but I find her almost totally unmoving - and it's because it looks to me as if everything she does is controlled absolutely by her intelligence, and it won't live until she lets go: or perhaps until she appears to let go. After all, Gelsey Kirkland could rehearse down to the last eyelash and then look exactly as if she was making it up as she went along. (And personally, I think that's what's missing from this production is a first-rate James.)

One of the Royal Ballet's casts is a man - Gary Avis, who appeared on the opening night of this run, with Tamara Rojo and Federico Bonelli.

Get on a plane, Paul - we saw her at Covent Garden last night. The only problem is that the company don't tell us minor details like which nights she'll be on, so you'd have to attend the entire run of Sylphide to be sure of catching her.

In the Royal Ballet's late and unlamented Makarova production I noticed a trend towards the Killer Bluebird - I've always seen him as a friendly, helpful sort of bird and am glad to see that in the new production he seems to have reverted to that.

The ending of Prodigal Son bothers me more every time I see the ballet , and every time I find myself wondering why a religious man like Balanchine would so badly distort the message of the parable. Was it just that the music didn't fit the biblical ending? And if so, how could he bring himself to do the ballet at all? I'd really welcome any more light anyone could shed on this.

The two examples that come to my mind are both by Ashton - the Awakening pas de deux which he added to the end of Act 2 of Sleeping Beauty is a perfect portrait of Sibley and Dowell; and Armand is Nureyev (even more than Marguerite is Fonteyn).

No Swan Lake for Ansanelli this time, I'm afraid - there is a new Odette/Odile but it's Lauren Cuthbertson.

Well, the press release says 'His plans include a new work for Paris Opéra Ballet', but that's all I know!

The full press release is now up on the Royal Opera House website at http://info.royaloperahouse.org/News/Index.cfm?ccs=1109