Jane Simpson

I'd have thought the only monument Balanchine needs in the State Theatre is the one Christopher Wren's son wrote for his father in St Paul's Cathedral: Si monumentum requiris, circumspice. ('If you seek his monument, look around you.')

I've just got my copy of this (from Dance Books) - what a lot of pleasure to look forward to! (And how I wish we could have something similar about Ashton!)

The current RB production has five fairies plus Lilac and after reading this thread I took particular notice last night of how Makarova deals with it. Sometimes she just cheats by having one of the five leave the stage or stand protectively by the baby's cradle; other times she has the Songbird fairy arrive late, all of a flutter, and I still haven't worked out if this is meant to be funny. The only bit that looks really weird is when all six line up at the front of the stage for what used to be supported-pirouette-into-attitude but is now just pose-in-arabesque: the fairies at the ends of the line are each supported by one of the LF's attendants, and the LF herself - who of course is off-centre - gets two of them to hold her up - it looks as if they've decided she's the one most likely to fall over.

Rage at seeing what has always been one of the most beautiful moments in this company's various productions reduced to cute sentimentality. There are some pictures of the dress rehearsal of this production at ballet.co on http://www.ballet.co.uk/dcforum/happening/4182.html#5 Aurora, Prince and Lilac Fairy are Roberta Marquez, David Makhateli and Lauren Cuthbertson.

Well personally I think the Cupid is JUST as bad as it sounds - worse, in fact: the end of Act 1 - no forest grows, the Cupid draws a curtain across the stage and then turns to the audience to say 'Sshh' makes me almost speechless with rage. However the first night was overshadowed by Johan Kobborg damaging his ankle very early on and having to be replaced by Federico Bonelli, who apparently just happened to be watching from the wings - tough luck on all, especially Cojocaru who had to do the last 2 acts with someone she'd never rehearsed with.

The RB's first cast Carabosse this season is Zenaida Yanowsky, a principal very far from retirement (we hope), who alternates it with Lilac Fairy and is very good as both. The first cast of Fairies last season was all first soloists with maybe one or two principals on occasion, with succeeding casts including more junior dancers chosen from those seen as future hopes. What the company is really short of at the moment is Auroros - they've lost three out of the planned seven so far, so that someone could theoretically have booked to see Bussell, Yoshida and Tapper and find themselves watching Marquez, Marquez and Marquez.

Meredith Daneman, rg - it's currently scheduled for Autumn this year.

Kowroski is billed to do Terpsichore in London in a couple of months, in a one-off show put together by Zelensky (and also including Lopatkina in the Shades scene, with Kirov corps de ballet, and Zacharova in Scheherazade). Is this a role that suits her?

Simon, this particular appeal has been running for years, but until now it had been limited to the Friends of Covent Garden. I've never responded to it as, like you, I think they get quite enough of my money anyway, and I also dislike the pathetic-ness of the idea that without my extra help they'd be reduced to doing Sleeping Beauty on half-pointe. However, it works: they get quite a lot of money through this channel, I believe. Obviously it appeals to people more than 'give us some money so we can afford to pay to have the theatre cleaned/ pay the director's secretary/ buy more light bulbs for the dressing rooms'.

Yoshida is having an excellent season - after some years of partial eclipse she seems to have re-emerged in 'senior ballerina' mode. Both here and in Cinderella she has an air of someone showing all these young things how it should be done - not explicit in any way, just a feeling that she's totally in command and can make her point with a wonderful economy of effort. I haven't seen her in such good form since she was a girl and zipped through Theme and Variations as if it were no trouble at all.

I saw the second cast last night - the Putrov/Yanowsky pairing did give rise to a few giggles: I thought Acosta/Yanowsky and Putrov/Guillem would have worked better than the other way round. Star of the show, I thought, was Yoshida in the first movement of Symphony in C. Cuthbertson was noticeably better than last week - her musicality is starting to show and there were some really lovely moments.

Hochman, Natacha & Bavelier, Ariane Itinéraire d' Etoiles Estelle, or anyone, do you know anything about this book? Is it worth having? I came across it whilst buying something else and I've not heard of it before.

I think Romeo is going to be a real make-or-break test for Watson - even apart from his technique, the stamina and partnering skills it needs are of a different order from anything he's tried before. I've always thought he had an outstanding if extrememly idiosyncratic talent (I first saw him almost exactly 10 yearrs ago, when he was still at school - he surely can't be 30, Simon?) and I was constantly astonished that Anthony Dowell left him for something like 5 years in the lower ranks of the company without giving him anything to do. I personally think he's amazing in things like the recent Wayne McGregor piece, but whether there's enough in the repertoire for him we'll know better after his Romeo. (Incidentally I'm not at all sure that it's a good idea to put him on with a new Juliet, Lauren Cuthbertson - unless they're going to strike sparks off one another and become the next great partnership I'd have thought they'd both be better making their debuts with a more experienced partner.)

Leigh, Symphony in C was originally set for the RB by Victoria Simon, 'under the supervision of John Taras'. This revival was staged by company staff.

You had to feel sorry for Lauren Cuthbertson. She's still a teenager and has been given a huge amount to do this season - 12 new roles at least, to culminate in Juliet next month. As Simon says, she'd had a problem already in Agon, and in Symphony in C she didn't get anything like the support she needed from her partner - it would have been interesting to see how she got on with the advertised but absent Jonathan Cope - and she looked noticeably happier and more confident when she was dancing on her own. Though I don't think she's ready for this role yet - she was the 4th choice, with Bussell, Tapper and Yanowsky all having disappeared for one reason and another - she's doing every performance inthe run so it will be interesting to see if she can improve by the end of it. There's no doubt about her promise. I seem to be at odds with alsmost everyone else in that I didn't enjoy Guillem's Siren in Prodigal Son - I don't know it it's that she doesn't carry, or what, but I didn't see anything of the erotic or exotic flavour that has so excited others - she looked totally unsexy to me. But I guess this may be literally a case of 'whatever turns you on'. And I do agree that Yanowsky was terrific.

I also saw Rojo and Acosta on the 13th - a fine performance all round, I thought. Rojo is a more spirited Giselle than some, and less innocent, and there's a very strong attraction between her and Albrecht. In Act 2 I felt she was far from resigned to her fate, and was working out some form of acceptance for herself as well as saving Albrecht. Acosta had obviously put a lot of work and thought into his characterisation - he was a bit over the top to start with but soon calmed down, and I'd say this was the best thing I've so far seen him do. And his dancing was wonderful, of course. Zanowsky was their equal - at least so far as acting is concerned, I've not seen a better Myrthe, ever. Ricardo Cervera made an excellent debut in the pas de six, Martin Harvey was a natural and convincing Hilarion, and in fact the whole company looked better than I've seen them in a classic for ages - engaged, lively, and generally 'on'.

Paul, the 'best artist' categories used to be called 'best newcomer' or something similar, but there was a lot of disagreement about what constituted a newcomer; and calling them 'young' would also raise a lot of questions; so really it's just a label to cover outstanding but perhaps lesser known dancers. Categories always cause a lot of argument - the D&D survey used to get the same people nominated in several different classes.

So far as I remember the children were still there in the RB's Swan lake last season - maybe they don't take them on tour? The current production is supposed to be back-to-Petipa/Ivanov but there is curiously little detail about it in the programme notes.

I looked up the Dancing Times article mentioned by rg - it is one of a series of 8 written by Karsavina about the teachers she worked with. I don't have my copy of Theatre Street to hand but I think these were specially written rather than extracts from the book. There is an enchanting drawing of Beretta as Autumn in Les Vepres Siciliennes in 1855, but there's not much about her career - the article is entirely about the three months Karsavina spent taking classes from her in Milan in 1907. The classes were certainly hard work - Karsavina fainted in the middle of the barre on her first day!She came away feeling both her technique and her stamina had been greatly improved.

Press release just received: VICTOR HOCHHAUSER BRINGS THE BOLSHOI BALLET TO THE ROYAL OPERA HOUSE JULY 19 - AUGUST 7, 2004 One of the World's great ballet companies, the Bolshoi Ballet, comes to the Royal Opera House, London for a three-week season from July 19 - August 7, 2004. The company is presented by Victor Hochhauser who first brought the company to Covent Garden exactly forty years ago. In its first major London season since1999, the company - under its newly appointed Artistic Director Alexei Ratmansy - will perform three of its most revered productions - Yuri Grigorovitch's productions of Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty and Alexei Fadeechev's production of Don Quixote - as well as the latest acquisitions to the Bolshoi's repertoire - a brand new take on Romeo and Juliet from British theatre director Declan Donnellan with choreography by Radu Poklitaru, and a programme of Balanchine Ballets to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the choreographer's birth. Public booking for the season opens in March 2004. Further details of the season will be announced early in the New Year. _________________________ What will the Balanchine be, does anyone know?

So far as I remember, the revised sets were introduced about three years ago, after the company returned to the ROH. One of the reasons for doing it was said to be that they would be easier to tour, but so far as I know it's a permanent change. The mandolin dancers have been doing leapfrog for ages, I think - I seem to remember it from years ago, certainly in MacMillan's lifetime.

Obviously I can't speak for the whole of London, but I don't suppose I was the only one whose criticism was driven mainly by disappointment. We know from the Royal Ballet's best performances that Les Noces is one of the great masterpieces of the twentieth century, and the prospect of seeing it done by a great Russian company was very exciting: far from going along to pick it apart or to sniff, I was hoping to see it looking even greater. Then the curtain went up and we saw that they hadn't even finished learning the steps. There was, also, a lot of disappointment with Sacre, and I wasn't very impressed myself with the way they did Etudes, though others like it.

Michael, thankyou for your long review - it's always interesting to read how someone looking at a company with fresh eyes sees them. I saw Corder's Cinderella in London this week for the first time in a few years. Although overall I think it's a well-crafted and interesting approach, I do think it's 'overwritten' - he seems to think we'll get bored if he doesn't stuff every bar of music with as many steps as it can possibly take. For instance Cinderella has a very, very long solo in the first act which must be absolutely exhausting for her - but it doesn't seem to mean anything, and long before the end our eyes get tired of the constant busy-ness. The last scene is very pretty, though, and the whole thing makes a very interesting contrast to the Ashton version, which the Royal Ballet are doing over Christmas. Oaks and Edur were in the leads, with Daria Klimentova as a charming Fairy Godmother, Yosvani Ramos shining as the Dancing Master, and the very appealling Begona Cao as the Summer Fairy.

Alexandra, I was thinking mostly of the 1950s - but I don't think there was a precise moment when enthusiasm died, for Clive Barnes or others: it was just a gradual shift of opinion over quite a long time.

At the Royal Ballet, although of course they have limited stage time - like any company sharing with an opera company - I think they make things worse by putting on far too many casts: six or seven in the big three-acters, with some of them getting only one performance. They can't possibly all get a stage rehearsal. I saw one performance recently where a dancer in quite an important role looked as if he'd never even seen the ballet before, let alone had proper rehearsal time - and he wasn't a last minute replacement, either..