Jane Simpson

Thankyou all for the guidance - I've just brought the Garis book home from the library and will read that first.

I've just acquired Haggin's Ballet Chronicle, and though I love the photographs, a quick flip through the text has already had me disagreeing with him fairly violently. Please could someone postion him for me - how is he seen as a critic of Balanchine? and of other choreographers?

The Royal Ballet has announced that Christopher Wheeldon is unable to complete his new ballet, due for premiere on March 11th, as he is suffering from a viral infection. The company hopes to reschedule the work for next season, and meanwhile is replacing it with Balanchine's Duo Concertante.

The main reason she didn't do Coppelia with the RB is that it wasn't in the repertoire for any of the time she was in the company - but in any case I shouldn't think she'd have been cast, as she was seen very much as a dramatic dancer (she made her name in the MacMillan repertoire). The RB had several very promising young dancers at the time and Ferri wouldn't have been at the head of the queue for Aurora, either. (I think she was 20 when she was made a principal, by the way.)

I've just acquired the programme book for the RB's tour of the US in 1955 and am enchanted to find it actually includes 'I dreamed I danced a ballet in my maidenform bra', complete with illustration. Also there's 'lovely Maria Tallchief' enhancing the beauty of Gulistan carpets, and 'Capezio people are jim-dandies to be with' - I assume that's a good thing? (From the photo it appears that they're the sort of people who walk around with shoes on their heads. ) And a small-ad for J. Berle, who designed 'a perfectly-fitting brassiere for a prominent ballerina'. (There are some nice pics of the RB dancers too)

The Royal Ballet has announced today that Inaki Urlezaga has left the company 'for personal reasons'. He has been on leave of absence for the first half of this season, also for personal reasons, so this isn't entirely unexpected. He was scheduled to partner Marianela Nunez in her first Swan Lakes later in the season, and also to dance leading roles in Les Biches and Symphonic Variations: no replacements have yet been listed.

Canbelto, I think this is the film dating from 1997, just before the Royal Opera House was closed for rebuilding. Forsythe's Steptext was shown in the same programme. If so, in Symphony in C the fourth movement woman was Deborah Bull and the men were Bruce Sansom, Christopher Saunders, William Trevitt and Stuart Cassidy.

His contract runs out in June 2006 - the company is already advertising for his successor.

Daria Pavlenko is advertised as dancing in a Russian New Year Gala in London on January 11th, with RB principal Ivan Putrov. They will do the pas de deux from Act 2 of Swan Lake and also Le Spectre de la Rose, in which Putrov had a great success with the RB last season.

Thibault promoted???? Well, well - there will be some very happy fans!

Yes, he certainly did - you have only to look at Les Rendezvous, unmistakably Ashton, and made before he'd ever worked with Fonteyn. Of course one, very important, aspect of his style developed after he started working with her, but it was by no means the whole of him - he had already absorbed many of his most telling influences before he set eyes on her, and other aspects of his style appeared when he worked with other dancers.

I think there are many different ways of interpreting the play, from 'cheeky silliness' to cynical misogyny, and it would be amazing if Ashton and Balanchine saw it the same way. Similarly, it's evident that people see Ashton's ballet very differently: far from being bowdlerized or romantic, the big pas de deux looks to me as if it's about reconciliation (possibly quite temporary) through glorious sex. (After all, quarrelling and making-up seems to be some couples' idea of connubial bliss.) I don't think Bottom is particularly cute, if it's being done properly; Puck on the other hand is a pain - but so he is in any medium, if you ask me, even in the Britten, which I love.

The cardboard box problem just got too much for me earlier this year and I went out and bought a large filing cabinet - not pretty, but I can now find anything I want without crawling about on the floor etc. And of course I now have lots of empty cardboard boxes which are gradually filling up with things from e-bay, more books, more programmes....

I can only say that we must see Duprot very differently!

Well, Natalia, I think you're certainly the first who's mentioned it! I haven't seen all that much of Caroline Duprot, but so far I have to say I can see no resemblance between them at all, physically or stylistically - I'll keep what you say in mind the next time I'm watching her, though.

It's Ashton's Foyer de Danse, I think.

Dame Alicia Markova died today, the day after her 94th birthday. One of the great ballerinas of the twentieth century.

I recently had a note from someone asking where Balanchine and Milstein first met - does anyone happen to know?

Maude Lloyd, the original Caroline in Lilac Garden, died in London on Saturday, aged 96. She was one of the most important dancers of her generation, creating roles not only for Tudor but also for Ashton, Andree Howard and others in the 1930s, when she danced for Ballet Rambert and later for the London Ballet. She stopped dancing in 1940 to work for the Red Cross, and never returned to the stage: but she had a second career as a critic, writing with her husband, Nigel Gosling, under the name of Alexander Bland. She and her husband befriended the young Nureyev when he first came to London, and she remained close to him throughout his life. One of the great names in British ballet, her loss will be felt by many friends and admirers.

I recently acquired a set of 12 cards called 'Lovely Young Dancers of 1960' - photos of (female) dancers of the era, mostly from the Royal Ballet. They have well-written biographies on the back but there is absolutely no indication of where they came from. I've wondered if they were trading cards of some kind, or maybe just given away with some magazine.

Both Petrouchka and Giselle still exist - I've seen them in the last few years at the National Film Theatre, and the Petrouchka is one of the best-televised ballets I've ever seen. There's also, of course, the film of the original cast of La Fille mal Gardee, of which there are copies still around in various places - but again, not available commercially.

Leigh, if you have David Vaughan's bnook on Ashton, it has the complete synopsis of Devil's Holiday at the back. It sounds rather a strange piece - the Devil, just for his own amusement, causes a nobleman's daughter to desert her fiance and fall in love with a beggar (disguised as a prince by the Devil). There's a ball, a foxhunt, a dream scene, a gypsy girl, and it ends with a carnival masquerade in Venice. One odd thing is that I can't tell from reading the story who the girl ends up with - her fiance or the beggar! It was all worked out before Ashton was asked to do the choreography, and on the page it sounds rather heartless - but from what I've read of the two extracts Franklin has restaged, it seems that Ashton managed to inject some real feeling into it.

The original version of Ashton's Sylvia was danced by Fonteyn, Elvin, Nerina, Linden, Wells (all short/middle sized), Grey and Beriosova (tallish), and Melissa Hayden (?). When it was revived in a one act version it was done by Nerina, Beriosova and Wells and also by Mason and Bergsma (both tallish). I'd like to see Tamara Rojo do it next, and then maybe Leanne Benjamin - and it might be a good role for Laura Morera.

Sylvia opened last night and my first impression is that though it's not a lost masterpiece there's some lovely, lovely stuff in it, and that combined with the interest in just seeing what it's like make the revival worthwhile. I loved the first act, but the second isn't really strong enough to stand on its own - it may look better in ABT's version, perhaps - and the last act is patchy though the pas de deux is absolutely top-drawer Ashton and I loved the ending, with Eros reminding the haughty Diana that she too had once fallen in love. And of course the score is wonderful. Thiago Soares was terrific as the villain, Orion, but I thought both Darcey Bussell and Jonathan Cope were struggling with the choreography. The audience seemed to have a good time - lots of cheers and curtain calls. It's been Christopher Newton's dedication that has brought Sylvia back to the stage and I think he can feel very proud of himself.

The middle act is very short, I think - only about 20 minutes - so it might make good sense to join it on to one of the others.