Jane Simpson

From a spectatar's point of view, one of the strongest arguments against perpetual 180 degree arabesques and extensions is that they're so boring - no subtlety or nuance, all looking much the same. And I think the height does matter, as well as the way they're done. The example that best shows that, to my mind, is the bit in Apollo, where the muses are grouped round Apollo. It used to look like this: |/ - carefully angled so that the eye is drawn to Apollo in the centre; when the Kirov did it in London it looked like this: ||| - which is not just the same, or just as good, it's boring and it loses the point of the grouping. So far as I can see the choice with arabesques and extensions is now as follows: EITHER Each time, use your intelligence and instinct to choose the right height, bearing in mind the period of the ballet, the style of the choreography, the costume you're wearing, how your line should relate to your partner's or to other dancers in the group, your own physique, and the mood or emotion you're trying to convey; OR Kick as high as you can. Is the second option really an enrichment of our experience?

Jeanetta Laurence is a former RB dancer who's been the company's artistic administrator since 1990 - i.e. Mason has decided to appoint someone who will assist and support her, rather than a potential successor.

Monica Mason announced the details of next season's performances today. Details at: http://www.royaloperahouse.org/Custom/Docu...04ROHSeason.pdf Lots of interesting things: We get Four Temperaments back at last! And Eric Underwood and Kevin Thomas from DTH dance some performances Jeanetta Laurence is made Assistant Director MacMillan's Isadora comes back - a strange decision, costing a lot of money and will need some justification Johan Persson, who's been off injured for at least a year, is leaving the company to take up a career in photography Russell Maliphant is making a new work featuring Sylvie Guillem, William Trevitt and Michael Nunn - the Ballet Boyz, who left the RB for Kumakawa's company and now run their own company Ashton's Cinderella gets new decor - not, as originally announced, from Luisa Spinatelli, who's just done the RB's Sleeping Beauty; and Anthony Dowell and Wayne Sleep dance the Ugly Sisters' Ashton's Daphnis and Chloe also gets a revival

grace, is it Kontakthof you want to hear about, or Bruce Sansom's review of it?

Ravenna Tucker was a principal of the Royal Ballet in London for several years before she moved to the Birmingham company. She joined the Royal Ballet in 1979, and danced all the big classical leads. She was a lovely dancer, with a gentle, modest stage presence, but I remember her especially in a rather untypical role, as one of the soloists in the Shades scene from Bayadere - she did the fast, cheerful solo and used to get cheers every night.

That's interesting. One of the things I find disappointing in the Prologue is that, because the Fairies have no cavaliers, there's no variation in height in the long sequence before the fairies' solos - no lifts, no architectural groups - the Lilac Fairy doesn't even get a stool to stand on as she does in the new/old Kirov version. I'd thought it might look better from the amphi than from stalls level, but evidently not.

Both of them, at the same time. Actually I expect there was a disappointingly prosaic reason - most likely the little boy just forgot he wasn't supposed to be doing the mime any more - but at the time all sorts of more interesting solutions seemed possible. And it is good news that the Lilac Fairy returned to her proper place in this scene.

Last night's performance featured one of the most bizarre moments I've ever seen at the Royal Ballet, greeted where I was standing with total glee. Up till last night the Lilac Fairy has not made it to the palace for Aurora's awakening, disappearing after she's seen Carabosse off in the forest, and when the Prince wanted to know how to wake the sleeping princess he's had to ask the Cupid, who responded with a 'give her a kiss' gesture. Last night, though, the Lilac Fairy came too, so that at this crucial moment the Prince had the choice of advice from the tiny boy Cupid or, standing right next to him, the extremely tall and very beautiful Lilac Fairy of Zenaida Yanowsky, simultaneously doing the 'old' mime telling him to figure it out for himself. Whoever thought of this? - Makarova, Mason, Yanowsky? In any case, it was just wonderful - a perfect symbol of the RB reclaiming the ballet. I liked Marienela Nunez, as Aurora, a lot. It's hard to remember that she's actually younger than Cojocaru - she's a completely different type of dancer, much more expansive, and her dancing is on a much larger scale. At the moment she doesn't seem to know quite what to do with her very strong technique and amazing control, but with proper coaching she could develop into a real ballerina. (Yoshida, incidentally, gave a very nice performance in exactly the same manner as she always has - Peter Wright, who first taught her the role, was in the audience and must have been proud of her.)

jude, the programme for the Royal Ballet's 2003/4 season is due to be announced on March 26th.

A poster on ballet.co has seen the dress rehearsal of Makarova's new production for the Royal Ballet, and reveals that this time round the fairies are called Purity, Vitality, Generosity, Eloquence, and Temperament.

rg, the programme was made in 1990 and was called Sleeping Beauty Rediscovered. The voiceover says the SB film was made '22 years ago, when Fonteyn was 50' - I'd guess 1968. It was to be part of a complete Beauty directed by Keith Money, but they ran out of cash and this is all that survives. It's filmed on a rather small stage, and I think it's the RB's touring company. There is no casting given apart from Fonteyn, but David Wall is the first prince. It's more or less the complete Act 1 except that it starts straight into the Garland dance (Ashton's) so there are no 'knitting ladies'; and it doesn't include Aurora's solo. The intro includes shots of Fonteyn rehearsing, and some comments from Fiona Chadwick, who was coached by Fonteyn at one time. I think it's a better performance than the b&w one referred to above, which is hampered by a truly awful costume.

'Ghastly appearance', 'abominable weakness', 'disgusting line' - these are quotations from Robert Johnson's review of the Royal Ballet School's performance in New York. Does he always talk like this? I see he also refers to the 'crude posturings' of SAB students, but I'd have thought if he hates what they're doing so much, it's the school he ought to be lambasting rather than the students, who must be shattered to read such harsh words about themselves.

Alymer, I shouild think that could easily be Zambelli, who was only in her early fifties - but it's very hard to estimate the age of any of them - Zucchi looks amazingly well-preserved for nearly 80. And if Ivor Guest says Legnani was still alive by then, that settles it for me! According to Celli, incidentally, Cecchetti on his deathbed recommended that Fornaroli should succeed him as principal of the La Scala school (which she did), but added 'But remember, you must eventually get a man for the place'.

Mel, I do hope your source is the correct one. I did think it a bit strange, when I checked the dates before I put the photo up, that no-one quoted a month or a day, as they seem to for other people. The picture came from Dance Index, for July 1946, which consists of a long article on Cecchetti by Vincenzo Celli (who is presumably the young man with all the dark hair).

Cia Fornaroli (1888-1954) was one of Cecchetti's favourite pupils. She was the principal dancer at the Met. Op. in NY just before WW1, and was the prima ballerina at La Scala from 1934. Rosina Galli also danced at the Met.Op and was its ballet mistress from 1919 to 1935. Rosa Piovella appears on the NYPL index as Rosa Piovella Ansaldo but it doesn't give much idea of what she did. Vinvenzo Celli was one of Cecchetti's last pupils, and later had a studio in NY for a long time - Maria Tallchief was one of his pupils. Koegler rather tartly says 'Considers himself the American authority on the Cecchetti method'. He died in 1988 (I think).

I came across this photograph in a magazine I bought in a second-hand shop yesterday, and it shows such a galaxy of talent I thought it was worth putting it up. According to the accompanying text, it shows Cecchetti and the twelve members of the jury after the final examinations at the La Scala ballet school in 1928 - just a few months before Cecchetti died. The others in the photograph are: Carlotta Zambelli Pierina Legnani* Virginia Zucchi Anna Pavlova Cia Fornaroli Ettorina Mazzuchelli Cecilia Cerri Rosetta Mascagno Rosina Galli Rosa Piovella Giuseppe Cecchetti Vincenzo Celli *either this is a mistake or the picture is misdated, as Legnani died in 1923! I guess Pavlova is the fourth from the left - any guesses which might be Zambelli and Zucchi?

'A one-act expressionistic take on Shakespeare's "Hamlet," it [sea of Troubles]is hardly representative of MacMillan, who is known mostly for lushly romantic full-length ballets such as "Romeo and Juliet" ' I was rather surprised to read this in Sarah Kaufman's article today (see links), as to those who've grown up with MacMillan, a 'one-act expressionistic' piece is exactly representative of his work. After all, he made over 50 ballets of which only six were full-length. Is this how he is generally perceived in the US - lushly romantic?

Mel, though I'm not entirely sure of the point you're making here, I wouldn't think the Independent has much in common with the New York Post - it was set up as an alternative to the existing broadsheets, for people who found The Times too 'establishment' and the Guardian and Telegraph too left- and right-wing respectively. So far as knowledge of ballet is concerned, I wouldn't expect its readership to be much different from The Times, except that more of them probably prefer modern dance!

grace, if you had written this 4 or 5 years ago I would have agreed with you, in terms of repertoire if not of dancer-type. But I get the feeling that there has been a change recently and that 'globalisation' is begiining to come much more from two different sources: the popularity of long story ballets like Manon and Onegin, and of more recent choreographers such as Duato. (Incidentally, Alexandra, I don't see Bussell's success as owing anything to Guillem - she was already in the touring RB before Guillem had ever been seen in London, and her talent was so obvious it wouldn't have mattered what shape she was!)

On the contrary, in London at least there would be queues round the block for her.

Among lots of interesting things in Marc Haegeman's interview, one thing really caught my eye: it's the first time I've ever seen a dancer say that having new ballets created on her was not necessarily the best thing. Whelan says that some (not all!) choreographers just look at her and think 'athletic' and make a piece to show off how athletic she is - which she finds neither challenging nor interesting. She often gets more out of finding her way into a role made on someone else. I've wondered about this before, particularly with Darcey Bussell - does she wish more choreographers would see past her sweet nature and her long legs? And I remember there was a lot of disappointment when Twyla Tharp made Mr Worldy Wise for the Royal Ballet - she said something like she wanted to celebrate the decorum she found in the company, whilst we, and perhaps the company, would have much preferred something to shake them out of that customary decorum. Have there been other dancers who've felt so misunderstood by the choreographers they've worked with?

There's a photo at http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/s...47p-49733c.html

The strange thing in London is that part of the justification for the huge amount of money spent on rebuilding Covent Garden was that there would be far better backstage facilities, and far more room, so they could keep the sets for several different productions ready all at one time. And yet, forty years ago in the old building, we could see six different full length ballets in one month, sometimes two different ones on the same day, and the triple bills were always mixed and changed as Alexandra describes at NYCB.

It's not just Paris - the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden are currently doing 6 performances of a triple bill, but that follows something like 17 Swan Lakes and 20 Nutcrackers; in February there is nothing but Manon, and then 19 Sleeping Beautys before we get to the next mixed bill. This is Ross Stretton's idea of a good time, and won't, I hope, be Monica Mason's.

One of the interesting things about this programme will be to discover what is this year's take on the costumes for Scenes de Ballet: for years people used to complain that they were dated and dowdy; then at the last revival they were suddenly seen as amazingly chic again. Also it'll be interesting to see how Cojocaru gets on in Fonteyn's role. I agree with Mel that you don't need to know anything about how Ashton made the ballet, or what he thought of it himself - it's just a masterpiece, vying with Symphonic Variations for a place in the programme I'd choose for my last night on earth. I'm looking forward to seeing Dowell in Winter Dreams - I think it's arguably one of the three best roles he ever had made for him - but very different from what you might expect, if you've never seen it before! It's ironic that Ross Stretton saw Kylian's Sinfonietta as the highlight of the whole season - I wonder how many of the audience will agree with him? - but since he left it's had almost no publicity at all. (Kylian and the RB fell out sometime in the 1980s and this is the first time since then he's allowed them to do one of his pieces.) (Actually ANYTHING would be interesting, after a straight run of something like 40 performances of Swan Lake and Nutcracker!)