Jane Simpson

Hans, be warned: you may find that you also have to buy the two books (one with details of the steps, the other with the music) that come with the DVDs, and they are VERY heavy - postage must be horrendous. Also the set costs about 50 pounds, I believe. (Though personally I think it's worth every penny - I watch it almost every day!)

I've just come back from seeing the Napoli film and it is WONDERFUL - pure gold! The only thing I wished is that we could have seen it again straight away. It starts right in, with no introduction, into Henning Kronstam's solo - he was about 22 I think, and I would hardly have recognised him. The presenter, Richard Dimbleby TALKS all the way through - I think he was setting the scene and explaining what was happening but I managed to ignore most of it. Then there were the women's solos - I recognised Mona Vangsaae and Inge Sand. then the end of the pas de six, the Tarantella (Margrethe Schanne and Kronstam doing the bit with the scarf!), and right on to the end of the ballet. then one curtain call, and the Danish national anthem, showing King Frederick and Queen Ingrid in the Royal Box with Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh. (QE2, with tiara, only just comes up to the King's shoulder.) Overall, just like with films of the British RB from that time, the technique isn't nearly as tidy and refined as you see today, but there is so much life and spirit in it! It was also much faster than they do it today, I think, and so exciting. But the STAR, the STAR, was Borge Ralov. Can it be right that he was 49 at the time? We didn't see enough of him to see how much technique was left, but the style, the charm - what a scene-stealer! It's being shown again on the afternoon of Aug 20th - if you care about Bournonville, be there! (And the preceding performance of the whole ballet by Scottish Ballet is very nice, too.)

The pas de trois known as The Ocean and the Pearls, which the Bolshoi used to do in gala programmes, is from the last act of the LHH, I think - but I've seen it attributed to both Petipa and Gorsky.

drb, I think the pictures were taken at the dress rehearsal - last night was the first night of the programme in London.

Vishneva did actually wear a crown - or at least a very large tiara - in last night's performance! (And it looked completely incongruous with the chiffon skirt.)

Solitaire doesn't have a plot - as far as I remember it's described in programmes as 'a kind of game for one' and MacMillan said of his original thoughts 'the theme was was a very simple one, or so I thought, of a lonely child unable to make friends, but happy in the memories of the rare times that people had befriended her'. The leading role was created by Margaret Hill - Seymour danced it later and gave one of the funniest and most touching performances of anything I've ever seen. The Birmingham Royal Ballet is reviving it next season for the first time in years. The backcloth is meant to be an abstract version of a children's playground.

Jocelyn Vollmar was born in San Francisco in November 1925, according to Koegler.

Guillem is doing some performances of Marguerite and Armand with the Royal Ballet next season, but she' s also appearing with Russell Maliphant in a new show at Sadler's Wells Theatre at the end of September - this seems to be the sort of thing she's more interested in these days.

Renata, you can read full details of the tour at: http://info.royaloperahouse.org/News/Index.cfm?ccs=770

Sadler's Wells Theatre has just announced its autumn schedule and if anyone is thinking of planning a trip to London, could I suggest you try the week from 14th - 21st October? You can then see: The Paris Opera Ballet in Le Parc (Sadler's Wells) The RB's La Sylphide (with Sarah Lamb) and Les Rendezvous (ROH) Two performances of an RB triple bill (La Fete Etrange/Pierrot Lunaire/Marguerite and Armand) including Tamara Rojo's long-awaited debut as Marguerite (ROH) Two different programmes from the Mark Morris Dance Company, including V (Sadler's Wells) And hardly any of them clash - usually if we get something like this, all the things you want to go to are on the same night, but not this time!

Someone on ballet.co confirmed that the Napoli is from a gala performance given in honour of our Queen on a state visit in 1957. The cast was: Borge Ralov (Gennaro), Mona Vangsaae (Teresina) Ruth Andersen, Kirsten Ralov, Inge Sand, Margrethe Schanne, Vivi Thorberg, Fredbjorn Bjornssen, Henning Kronstam, Kjeld Noack, Stanley Williams The extract starts with the third male solo (Kronstam) followed by the pas de six and Tarantella. Has anyone seen this? It sounds unmissable although the quality is apparently not perfect.

It's certainly Flindt in La Sylphide with Schanne, and it's from 1966 - would that be right? No Folk Tale, I'm afraid.

Thanks once more to Jane Pritchard, the National Film Theatre is showing another season of ballet films in August - this time of Bournonville. The details aren't on the NFT site yet - I'll post the link when they appear - but there are some exciting things in it, including Margethe Schanne in La Sylphide, and an extract from Act 3 of Napoli which I hope is the one with Kronstam, Schanne, Inge Sand, Stanley Williams etc etc.

I saw the opening night of this, when the cast was: Le Conservatoire - Massot/Lindstrom/Bojesen Flower Festival - Cavallo/Lund La Ventana pas de trois - Cuni/Hojlund/Matiakis Jockey Dance - Eggert/Hansen La Sylphide pas de deux - Schandorff/Blangstrup Napoli Act 3 - the solos were done by Lund/Eggert/Massot/Bojesen/Cavallo/Cuni/Hojlund For the last 3 performances they were all due to swap round, with Cuni/Sakurai doing Flower Festival and Cavallo/Lund in La Sylphide. The sad thing has been that the theatre has been nowhere near full - the good thing is that there are now hundreds of people who didn't know Bournonville at all and have now fallen under the spell. La Sylphide suffered most from the bare stage and lack of attendant Sylphs - there were just the three leading ones, and Conservatoire had a cut-down but high-class corps de ballet. Some of the performances were less than ideal but the audience loved the whole thing and the reviews have been very good indeed.

The competition was won by Milou Nuyens from the Netherlands, with Poland second and Belgium third. There's a short report at http://www.esctoday.com/news/read/4726

Ross Stretton, former director of the Australian Ballet and of the Royal Ballet, died in Melbourne today of melanoma. He had been ill for some time. He was 53.

Those of us over here who are suffering from Bournonville withdrawal symptoms after the Festival get another look at some of the company's top dancers next week when a group led by Thomas Lund appears at Sadler's Wells. We are promised 19 soloists and principals, and the programme is: La Sylphide (divertissement) Napoli Act 3 Le Conservatoire Flower Festival in Genzano La Ventana Jockey Dance Can't wait!

Kirsten Simone did Anna this week, too, and was indeed excellent. However, so far as I remember, at the beginning of the ballet Effy wasn't wearing the same tartan as James - she changed into it when she went upstairs with Anna before the wedding. The Danish cast list describes Effy (I think!) as Anna's sister's daughter, so she wouldn't wear the same tartan unless Anna and her sister had married men from the same clan. I've always assumed that when James gives Effy a scarf in his own tartan it signifies that she's joining the clan - but maybe this varies between productions?

About La Sylphide: the English language version of the programme describes Anna as 'a tenant' and James as her son (and Effie as her niece). I completely disagree about the tartans - I thought James's much the chicest and felt seriously sorry for Effie marrying Gurn and having to spend the rest of her life dressed in mustard!

There's 15 years between them, I think. Grant Jr had a valid career of his own but he never entirely escaped the 'brother of the more famous Alexander' tag.

Oh dear. I had the Garis out of the library for 2 months - renewed it twice, took it everywhere with me - but never got beyond the first chapter. And the Haggin is still on my things-to-read pile. I'd better have another, more serious try...

Yes, that's how I mostly hear it - but before I'd ever heard it pronounced I always read it as BALetomane (with the t pronounced, as you say) - and my dictionary says balletoMANE, to go with balletoMANia, I suppose

If we've sorted out ballet (BALlet to me), what about balletomane? Accent on the first syllable, or the last, or maybe even the second?

I think that not only did Sleeping Beauty signal an end to wartime privation, it was also exceptionally appropriate - and therefore captured the zeitgeist - as it deals with the restoration of order and the triumph of good over evil. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> However, it may have looked gorgeous but the costumes were subject to the general clothes rationing and were not quite as lavish as they looked - wartime privation might have ended but post-war privation hadn't. There was a lot of improvisation in them (pipe cleaners and paper doilies are often mentioned) - maybe you don't need to throw money at a production to make the right theatrical effect?

I assume they'll take the new Beauty to the US (that's summer 2006, right?) - the Makarova one is now history. Ballet Imperial is to be stage by Patricia Neary and the sets are 'Eugene Berman realised by Anthony Dowell' - I think that's what we had at the last revival in the 1980s but I don't have anything here to check.