Jane Simpson
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Posts posted by Jane Simpson
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I can imagine that the current Napoli may actually come over better on screen than in the theatre, given a director who can focus on what's important at any moment and cut out some of the background stuff - will be interesting to find out, anyway.
Also, the theatre is live-streaming the RDB school's Breakfast with Bournonville next Wednesday, 12th March - it's a programme put together and performed by the top classes and aimed at their own age group. Details here:
http://kglteater.dk/sarligt-for/pressen#/pressreleases/oplev-kompagni-b-live-paa-skolerne-967742
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The RDB will for the first time transmit one of their performances live to cinemas in Denmark: Napoli, on March 18th (Alexandra Lo Sardo and Alban Lendorf), In future seasons the plan is to transmit one ballet, one play and one opera live - next season's will be announced with the new season's programme on April 23rd.
Napoli will also be shown on Danish television later on.
Details here (in Danish):
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The Ashton Foundation has just launched a website - I haven't gone into it very deeply yet but so far it looks good and includes such often-queried topics as the current owners of the Ashton ballets. Good news!
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Manon opened in Copenhagen. last night and sounds to have been a huge success, for the leading dancers at least - one report says they had to bring the safety curtain down in the end to persuade the still-applauding audience to go home.
Eva. Kistrup's review is already up on her DanceView blog:
http://danceviewtimes.typepad.com/eva_kistrup/2014/02/the-material-girl.html
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I didn't know Karl Burnett's name but I guess this is him (3rd one down):
http://www.donaldscrimgeour.com/choreologists.html
What did you think of it, Anne? I thought it came over very well as a programme and I really did like Lendorf - I think des Grieux could suit him very well indeed. Also liked Lo Sardo and I'd guess she'll come over better in the full role than in extracts. And always good to see Mads Blangstrup! (Lo Sardo must wonder what happened - I don't think she's done the lead in a 3-acter with the company before and suddenly she gets two first casts at the same time! (She's also dancing Teresina in Napoli at the moment, also with Lendorf.))
I gather they had some transmission problems to some platforms - the bit I watched on my Android tablet stopped occasionally and was also in the wrong aspect ratio - but this is their first try and they acknowledge their system isn't perfect yet. But I do hope they'll do lots more like this. (And I wonder if they'll put this on YouTube eventually?)
It was announced on Facebook but I don't think it was on the company site unless you actually looked at the page for the event - I wouldn't have known about it if Eva hadn't told me.
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On now - and in English!
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The RDB is showing a live-stream of their introduction to Manon on Monday 10 Feb at 20.00 CET on kglteater.dk/live
Dancers listed as taking part are Alexandra Lo Sardo (Manon), Alban Lendorf (des Grieux), Mads Blangstrup (Monsiuer GM) and Benjamin Buza (Manon's brother). It lasts about an hour
No guarantee that it can be seen outside Denmark, though...
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This season's run of Napoli opens at the RDB on Friday - we're promised some revisions to the rather unsatisfactory third act of this production, with new costumes and some updated choreography. Alban Lendorf and Alexandra Lo Sardo dance the first night, and Eva Kistrup has just published an interview with Lo Sardo on her blog. Lo Sardo's 2nd movement in Symphony in C was one of the most unexpected and memorable successes I've seen in the last few years - hope I get to see her as Teresina later in the run!
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Well, well...
The RB has just announced that Muntagirov will join the company from English National Ballet next month.
http://www.roh.org.uk/news/vadim-muntagirov-to-join-the-royal-ballet-as-a-principal-dancer
Note that Kevin O'Hare very carefully points out that Muntagirov approached him, not the other way round. A very welcome addition to the RB ranks but very sad news for ENB.
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The yellow couple are Bojesen and Blangstrup, I think.
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Mariinsky watchers may be interested in the detailed casting for the company's short stay in Copenhagen:
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It was announced in Denmark this morning that Margrethe Schanne, ballerina of the Royal Danish Ballet and the most famous Sylphide of her day, died during last night - she was 92 years old.
Some pictures from her career:
http://www.b.dk/kultur/margrethe-schannes-karriere-i-billeder#slide-9
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Eva Kistrup has just posted a new interview with the RDB's French-born, Cuban-trained Chmelensky, who paints an encouragingly positive picture of the present state of the company.and points out the advantages of working with a rising star like Alban Lendorf:
“Hübbe is driving a steam locomotive with Alban on the front and I am trying to hang on to the train with everything I got”.
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I think it's a very good sign that so many of the people who joined the site in the very early days are still posting here!
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There's an RDB video of Etudes on YouTube with two ballerinas, but that was a special gala and I guess they wanted to get as many principals on stage as possible - otherwise so far as I know the same dancer always does the whole ballet in Copenhagen apart from occasional mid-performance injury crises. (Though the romantic pas de deux wasn't there in the original production - Lander added it when he restaged the piece for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1952. The lists I've seen show that there was one POB ballerina, early on, who only danced the romantic section. )
Going back to the Viennese production - the company has put up a short video of rehearsals of this bill - the Etudes section is in the middle.
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This sounds an absolute 'must have' - former dancers (Seymour, Ashley, Alonso, Ananisashvili...) talking about life after dancing, mainly teaching and coaching.
There's a review by Paul Arrowsmith on DanceTabs with enough tanatalising extracts to make me go and order it, right now!
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Ythe RDB has just promoted Caroline Baldwin and Holly Dorger to soloist - they've both already had some leading roles and look ready for more.....
..and Eva Kistrup reports that Gregory Dean has just been promoted to solodanser (principal) onstage after a performance of Nutcracker.
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And another performance where Lorena Feijoo just dances everything (I bet she could, and brilliantly).
And then could she come and do it in London too, please? And a few other roles, while she's here...
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Iain Webb was at the recent Ashton Symposium in London, and I think I remember him saying that he had borrowed the Illuminations sets and costumes from the Royal Ballet. But this will be for cost and convenience, I assume - the owners of the Ashton ballets will probably insist that the original designs are used, I've never heard that a company would not be allowed to have them made locally.
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Yes - and also Benjamin Buza in Lendorf's role.I would especially have loved to see Tim Matiakis as Hank and Nicolai Hansen and Alba Nadal as Chanos and Slim. And out of sheer curiosity it would have been interesting for me to see Camilla Ruelykke Holst as Babe, as I have never seen her in a major role
The children's ballet was briliantly inventive - it was the brainchild of Shane Brox, who I guess you will know from TV -
but it was about nightmares and some of it was really a bit frightening. But the children seemed to take it all in - next time maybe they'd better insist that timid older people are accompanied by sensible 7 year olds who can reassure them that it's only boys and girls dressed up. But a gold star to whoever had the clever idea of recycling the elephant from Bayadere!
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No, I would have liked to have seen the second cast too but the dates didn't work out. By the sound of it, it was a fairly even split in quality. Did you happen to catch the children's ballet while you were there? Scary!
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Anne, were you there on Tuesday? So was I! - but haven't got round to writing my review yet...
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A private fund in Denmark has just given the RDB about $9 million dollars for new work and new productions over the next 4 years - very good news at any time but particularly now, when the current season shows a sadly restricted repertory compared with a few years ago.
Eva Kistrup has the details in her blog
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It is very interesting how there are almost no photos of any Imperial or Diaguilev era dancer as Odile-(or pre1940's). Apparently, when N. Sergueev staged the ballet for Markova during the 1930's at the Vic-Wells, she wore a non black costume also, but there's no way to find a photo of it anywhere. All the photos of Swan Lake from those days are usually with the white attire.
Actually there are some photos of Markova in Odile's costume for the Vic-Wells production - you can almost always find a Gordon Anthony photo of productions from that era! Mary Clarke described the costume as 'golden with red-gold sequins' and in the photos it looks very light-coloured. (GA even has a photo of Markova at a rehearsal wearing the tutu half-finished, before all the sequins were added.)
Hugh Stevenson re-designed the production in 1937 for Fonteyn, and her costume for Odile had a very dark bodice - possibly black - but the skirt was definitely not all-black, and had light-colourd drapery on it too.
Henry Danton
in Dancers
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Henry Danton was one of the stars in a programme shown on BBC television last night, focusing on the way the Sadler's Wells Ballet matured during WW2. He's 93, looks amazing, talks with humour and sense - terrific! And the programme also included a precious few seconds of the dress rehearsal of Symphonic Variations, including Danton - it was a revelation, so much more freely danced than we see it today (although of course I know it was a rehearsal and therefore not necessarily what the first-night audience saw).
The programme also included interviews with Julia Farron (also 93, and the last survivor of the company's near-disastrous tour of Holland in the early days of the war) and with Beryl Grey (86), Gillian Lynne (88) and Pauline Clayden (91), all of them exceptionally articulate and fascinating. A lovely programme!