Jane Simpson

No, Beaumont's version of the 1895 scenario (or at least what he calls 'The Book of Swan Lake adapted by Marius Petipa') has nothing about the lake of tears - Odette just tells how Rothbart has bewitched her. In passing, I notice that in this version the scene actually starts with the entrance of the swan maidens, and Siegfried, Benno and the huntsmen are about to shoot them when Odette enters for the first time - was it actually choreographed like that originally, I wonder?

Giannina, the real interest of your visit may only become apparent in five or ten years - will you be able to say you saw some of the last performances of the 'old' Royal Ballet? I wish we'd been able to see the originally announced Urlezaga as the tutor in Month in the Country - his normal air of slight bewilderment might have made him just right! (And it was great meeting you - come back soon!)

I can't make it to Edinburgh myself this year, but for those with the time/money/stamina to combine a visit with the recent SFB season in London, it gives the opportunity to see, in just over a fortnight, 23 non-Balanchine works made for American ballet companies - unprecedented over here, and not that common, I'd guess, even in the USA. There will be a lot of interest in the two works by Christopher Wheeldon which NYCB are showing - his Sea Pictures for SFB had rather mixed reviews.

I believe the papers from the Conference are still being edited and there is no date for publication yet.

Maybe they're swans, magically transformed into maidens at night? (More seriously) C W Beaumont's book quotes lots of antecedents for the woman/swan transformation story; and he also gives the libretto for the original Swan Lake, which I thought was fascinating. Odette tells Siegfried that the spell she's under was put on her by her grandfather, not out of spite but to protect her from her wicked stepmother. The lake is made up of his tears, and he keeps Odette there, just letting her out at night close to the lake where he can keep an eye on her. But during the day he turns her (and her friends, which may be a clue in this discussion) into swans - not as a punishment but so that they can fly away safely and have a good time!

The Royal Ballet has announced that Piccone is to join as a First Soloist (that's one level down from Principal)

Mm, yes, I like the idea of the 1930s - you could just catch Pavlova at the beginning, too, and then there'd be Cotillon and Serenade, and the Ballets Russes with Massine's symphonic ballets and the baby ballerinas, and Lilac Garden and Dark Elegies - and you could drop into Leningrad to see Ulanova in THe Fountain of Bakhchisarai. And The Green Table, and Lifar in Icare.

Another silly season topic: if you could fast forward through one decade of ballet history, seeing anything you wanted regardless of geography, which would you choose? I'd be torn between the 1960s - which I did live through and did see some of, but not nearly enough - and maybe the 1880s - or maybe the 1920s, to see Diaghilev and Pavlova? (Actually I've been wanting to use this topic title for some time so that when you add a reply the message will come up 'Sit tight...we are taking you back to the Golden Age' - well, I can dream!)

Winterreise - too late, Mary: Robert North did a piece called A Stranger I Came for ENB a few years ago, which used a mixture of Schubert songs including the last one from Winterreise. I did not enjoy it.

I should think the Russian audiences will adore Fille - they certainly did in 1961. (Interestingly, many of them saw it as 'Alexander Grant's ballet' rather than Nerina's or Blair's - I wonder if they'll still see it like that today?)And Ashton was happy for the Bolshoi to do it - there was a plan after the Bolshoi's 1963 London season for them to take Fille and the RB to take Lavrovsky's Romeo and Juliet in exchange - which might have completely changed the course of the RB's history. It's said, too, that Ashton was strongly influenced by the Bolshoi's first visit when he was choroegraphing, especially for Colas, and I know people today who strongly prefer a tougher, more 'Russian' approach to the role than the pastoral English perormances of dancers like Bruce Sansom. So maybe it will be all right?

Meredith Daneman is writing a 'big' biography of Fonteyn, but I've lost track of when it's due to be published.

Now that someone has mentioned Ichino, can I ask if anyone ever saw this, quoted in Selma Jeanne Cohen's 'Next Week, Swan Lake'? "...Yoko Ichino's innovation: four fouettes, then a swoop into a low arabesque penchee and two slow revolutions holding that pose" Sounds, er, interesting...

Alternatively, Glebb is maybe remembering Ashton's Varii Capricii, which had Dowell cast as a gigolo, with greased-back hair and shades - I still remember the shock-wave of delight which ran through the audience at the first London performance (the premiere was in New York), as they recognised that inside this disguise was their pure, classical prince! Sibley also was cast out of type. To recreate the effect of the first cast today you'd probably need to see it with Lopatkina and perhaps someone like Peter Boal. [ 07-10-2001: Message edited by: Jane Simpson ]

All the talk about NYCB on other threads made me wonder how people see the future of the company. Say, 5 years after Peter Martins retires, what would you want/expect the company to looke like? Who would be running it - dancer, choreographer, administrator...? Would Martins' own ballets still be danced? What proportion of the rep would be Balanchine? Would there be more imported works, more classics?

You're right - I just meant I thought I'd been rather too sweeping in my earlier post.

No, I didn't - or at least I didn't mean to! - I said I love Ashton best, and I do, but I love lots of other ballets as well, including many of Balanchine's. Sorry if I didn't explain that properly.

No, no - I wasn't at all offended - I'm more than happy for other people to invent words - it's just that I know I would wish I'd never read them!

Leigh, I truly don't understand what you mean by this, even after re-reading the thread several times. I don't think anyone is casting any aspersions on the 'merits' of audiences, in New York or anywhere else. I respect, indeed I honour, your declaration of your belief in Balanchine's greatness, and I have no doubt it is, rightly, shared by most of the NYCB audience - and indeed probably by most serious ballet goers throughout the world. But you include the vital point that for you Balanchine is "A dance genius, not THE dance genius"; what causes resentment, I think, is the PERCEPTION that a small minority of the NYCB audience, and some writers, believe that Balanchine is not the greatest among the great, but the ONLY great of our age. Note that I say PERCEPTION: it maybe that these people, and this viewpoint, don't exist at all. The New Yorkers I know myself all seem perfectly reasonable, sensible people - but the perception does exist. It may be that discussion on a site like this could help to remove it, if it is without basis in fact. You ask if we would be having this discussion about Ashton or Bournonville, and I have to say no, on this site - where most of the active participants are American-based and probably haven't seen a huge amount of either, compared with Balanchine - we wouldn't: but on ballet.co (a London-based board, for those that don't know it) there have in the past been equally impassioned arguments about Ashton (and MacMillan), and about the London-centric nature of the board; and I've no doubt that Copenhagen and St Petersburg would have their own versions. As for the question of loving best what we first know: certainly for me it's true - to adapt your own words, I will not and do not need to defend loving Ashton's works best. But that doesn't mean I couldn't or didn't recognise the genius of Balanchine when I saw it - love is something different. I think it would be a real shame if this thread were to collapse into acrimony - there is a real point to be discussed and I don't see that anyone is out to belittle other readers and posters. [ 07-06-2001: Message edited by: Jane Simpson ]

Sorry, but I don't think the first half of this is true - most of the British critics I read love Balanchine; and I don't see why believing the Kirov to be the best dancers should make someone 'notorious'!

Felursus, this is the only one of your posts I have very determinedly not read! Making up words to ballets is a curse - they will haunt you forever! I once made up some words for a bit of Giselle when I was very young and it has taken me the rest of my life to forget them.

Robert Mead worked in Germany after leaving the Royal Ballet, and gained a good reputation as a stager of Ashton ballets. He died in 1988.

Robert Mead worked in Germany after leaving the Royal Ballet, and gained a good reputation as a stager of Ashton ballets. He died in 1988.

Peter Wright's production for the Birmingham Royal Ballet starts with a prologue showing the funeral of Siegfried's father - so in Act 1 the reason his mother is angry about his drinking is not that she disapproves on principle but that he's partying while the court is still in mourning. (Actually it's all Benno's fault - he's arranged the party to cheer Siegfried up.)

(I seem to remember we did this on another thread some time ago - but maybe we should include it here too for completeness.) Should a ballerina who would make an outstandingly good Odette/Odile but can't reliably do 32 fouettees be allowed to do something else instead, or should she struggle, or should she not be given the role at all?

In the olden days, Beriosova; more recently, Trinidad Sevillano. [ 06-30-2001: Message edited by: Jane Simpson ]