Jane Simpson

I liked Nunez a lot even in the last production, and going by the form she's been in so far this season I should think she'll be gorgeous. However I wouldn't like to see her typecast in 'cheerful' roles - her Nikiya was beautiful, especially in the Shades scene, and I can imagine her as a lovely Giselle too.

The changes to the production - Clara and the Nutcracker taking more part in Act 2 etc - were made a few years ago by the original producer, Peter Wright. He also made some changes to what Drosselmeyer does in Act 1, which look to be based on his own later production for the Birmingham Royal Ballet. The waltz of the snowflakes in the Covent Garden version is the nearest thing to a reconstruction: to quote Roland John Wiley's programme note, "[ivanov's steps and patterns] have been reconstructed for the present revival from choreographic notations of The Nutcracker made in St Petersburg before World War 1 and now in the Harvard Theatre Collection".

I've always assumed that the solos in the original Birthday Offering were in that order (as given by Kavanagh) because the dancers appeared in reverse order of seniority - I think Fifield still wasn't a principal dancer at the time, for instance. But I don't think I've ever seen that written down and I suppose it could be coincidence. Working it out from the details in Alexander Bland's The Royal Ballet, only Nerina and Beriosova from the original cast ever danced the pas de deux: they both kept their own solos and Merle Park did the Fonteyn solo. In the RB's last run I remember Muriel Valtat doing Fonteyn's solo when someone else (Guillem, perhaps?) did the pas de deux.

Arte broadcast two half-hour programmes of extracts from the Gala des Etoiles du XXIème siècle held in Paris in September last year - one on Christmas Day and one on the next Sunday. I particularly wanted to see the Feijoo/Boada Don Quixote pas de deux, but apart from all the fidgety editing, it was broadcast with a tiny snip - the whole of the entree/adagio. But if you want to see Feijoo's fouettes from vertically overhead, this is the programme for you!

I can't imagine anyone who's seen it will want to argue with you! It was terrible. The only bit I really liked was that we got to see Yanowsky's gorgeous backbend when she was carried on at the beginning of the pas de deux.

It opens on January 23rd - details can be found at http://www.ljcc.org.uk/events/exhibitions/features/ (thanks to ballet.co for the link)

If you haven't discovered Kobborg's website yet, it's at http://www.kobborg.co.uk/ and you'll find the bit about the Giselle film in the message board section. There's no guarantee that the BBC will bring it out on DVD, but if they see this thread they will know there is a market out there! (And my original message, which got lost somewhere in cyberspace, acknowledged that I picked this news up first on ballet.co)

The Royal Ballet has just announced that Jonathan Cope has broken his leg in a traffic accident and will be unable to make his scheduled farewell appearances in Firebird next month.

How long has Sarah Mearns been in the company? I confess I don't even recognise her name.

Daniil, it's today - right now - for the women, tomorrow for the men.

One problem is that the leading casting for the rest of the RB season had already been announced when Ansanelli joined - but as I said, she could be cast in secondary roles in Giselle and Sleeping Beauty, for instance, which aren't listed ahead of time. There's a lot of competition, though.

Well, he's not in the 'human fork-lift' category but he's OK, I think - he seems to be improving all the time and certainly looks stronger than he did a couple of years ago when he first joined.

Alexandra Ansanelli's first announced appearance will be on Feb 4th when she dances Balanchine's Tchaikowsky pas de deux with Federico Bonelli, repeated on Feb 23rd and 28th. (Of course she may be on stage before that we won't know till we see her.) The second cast for the pas de deux is Marianela Nunez and Carlos Acosta, and Acosta also does the Robbins Afternoon of a Faun with Sarah Lamb on the same nights as Ansanelli's appearances. The performance on the 23rd is also Jonathan Cope's last appearance with the company - he dances the Prince in Firebird - so it could be quite a night. The programme opens with Darcey Bussell and Zenaida Yanowskyy in Ballet Imperial, with the up-and-coming Rupert Pennefather.

According to David Vaughan's book, it was a bit more than that: it was a charity event for and by the Royal Ballet School, and Ashton arranged most of the 17 scenes himself, to popular music including Singin' in the Rain and These Foolish Things. There was a film of it (wonder if it still exists?) and Vaughan says it reminded him a bit of Ashton's Jazz Calendar. The dancers included Michael Pink, now a well known choreographer (Dracula etc) - Ashton let him arrange one of the numbers - and Ashley Page(then Ashley Laverty, now director of Scottish Ballet). (I never really knew that before - thankyou for asking the question!)

The Dance Section of the Critics' Circle in the UK has just announced the short list for its annual National Dance Awards - for details see the Press Release Some interesting choices to be made! There is an Audience Award for favourite company but the other categories are decided by votes from the members of the Critics' Circle (which includes me, to declare an interest).

She had danced La Sylphide before the current season, but not with the Royal Ballet; in the current production (a new one by Kobborg) she had the opening night dancing with Ivan Putrov, and she was indeed very charming.

Cojocaru is a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet in London, and is dancing in repertoire there - I saw her last night in Flemming Flindt's the Lesson. As it happens she hasn't yet danced with Kobborg this season, but they are reunited in La Sylphide at the the end of this week, assuming Kobborg recovers from the illness which kept him out of last night's programme.

Rojo made her debut in Ashton's Marguerite & Armand last night - only the third person ever to dance the role. It was a long-awaited occasion and in my eyes she had a triumphant success - not only giving a richly detailed and very moving performance herself, but also (with the help of Federico Bonelli as Armand) giving us back a ballet which had become nothing but a background for Sylvie Guillem's tour de force. I saw Fonteyn and Nureyev but not till the 1970s and I think I can truly say that last night's performance was the most moving I've ever seen.

No - it was a piece choreographed by Genee herself, first given at the London Coliseum on May 20th, 1912. There's quite a detailed description of it in the book on Genee by Ivor Guest - it sounds charming!

There are some fine photographs of some of the exhibits, including the 'bridal' jewels, on the Royal Opera House site

Did Yao Wei make her debut in this last week, as announced? If so, how did she get on?

The Royal Ballet announced yesterday that Jonathan Cope is to retire as a principal dancer of the company. He will do a couple of performances in Firebird in the new year but has withdrawn from his other roles. He will continue to work in the company as a repetiteur. The full press release is on the Royal Ballet site.

Well, it would be nice if all my balletic wishes were answered so speedily: tonight's films in this series included a performance of La Sylphide by Ballet Rambert televised in 1961, and the two first act solos were danced by two 'village boys' (and at least one of them was in tonight's audeince, I think!). The impact of James's first solo in Act 2 wasn't quite what it might have been in the theatre, but it was very interesting to see it all the same. Of course the other effect is that Gurn doesn't get a solo at all. The rest of this programme consisted of 2 extracts from Peter Schafuss's production for London Festival Ballet filmed in 1980 - what a contrast! James even has a new solo, just before the Sylph appears at the window - Schaufuss believed this was restoring the original version as danced by Bournonville himself (though the choreography was new, by Schaufuss.) Niels Bjorn Larsen was the witch in this one - fabulous. Star of the Rambert version was Lucette Aldous as the Sylph - James was Flemming Flindt.

When I first saw it, in London in 1974, must have been a transitional period - Jame s did the second solo in Act 1 but the first one wasn't Gurn but another dancer - Arne Willumsen in that case. I'd love to see it sometime in the version where James doesn't dance till the second act - it must be an extraordinary effect when he finally leaps into action. Kehlet actually did James in that season, before he'd danced it in Denmark according to the RDB site. (But it was Ryberg the night I was there.) It was a live broadcast, I think, so presumably they just started wherever the performance had got to at 10 o'clock or whatever.

Unfortunately the NFT has been unable to obtain the rights to show the Schanne Sylphide, or either of the other two Danish productions (Far from Denmark and La Ventana) which were originally scheduled. Details of replacement programmes are at: http://www.bfi.org.uk/incinemas/nft/season...ille/titles.php