leonid17

Robert Ivey Founder of Ivey Ballet, Charleston has died. Link to obituary http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/jul/16/ivey-ballet-founder-dancer-dies/

Respectfully, Simon, I know of no one here who is baying for anyones blood. Some people here take a poorer view of cocaine use/abuse than you seem to do, specifically in the workplace, and some also think that a more thorough investigation of the allegations in the report seems desirable, given what we currently know. Regarding rules of evidence and "innocent until proven guilty" - leonid, this is a discussion board, not a court. We can express opinions and speculate within bounds. In any case, no one here has rushed to judgment against Hubbe. Point taken. I was merely trying to give a sense that "fair play" should rule. ie "In ethics, the concept of fairness involves treating everyone equally and impartially."

I understand that, but your position here doesn't flow inevitably from concern, and the opposing position isn't in conflict with it. Firstly I would say that the public have no right to know the content of internal reports of any investigation within an organisation whether government subsidised or not. This would be the case in the USA, the UK and no doubt in Denmark. It would take the process of a court of law to enforce the revealing of such information. If this matter was subject to a court of law and only adults were involved and no government security personnel were involved, anonymity would not be acceptable in the case of giving evidence. As regards to statements made by certain parties, the test is not losing their jobs, but substantiating the accusations would be. Privacy begins and ends when accusations are made. I am only concerned that the subject should not be discussed in a manner where the line between information and actual judgement may be concerned as if it is an open day, to attack anyone and not be held to account for doing so. My concern is the rights of the accused, which generally states, innocent until proven guilty. To my mind the press coverage has undermined and possibly influenced the processes of future investigation which may therefore be abandoned. The disclosure to the press may be considered a breach of trust on the part of employees in any organisation and therefore subject to a disciplinary procedure. To Kay Denmark, I would say being a taxpayer does not give a citizen an inherent right to know any or all of the organisational processes of the Royal Danish Ballet or any other Government subsidised organisation. If any Danish citizen is truly so concerned about their small personal contribution to the Royal Danish Ballet, why not get their MP to ask a question in parliament. Processes exist for a reason and what will be the measure of the fall-out of this affair in terms of the Royal Danish Ballet's status. EDITED

My concern is not just for love of the company as you suggest, my concern is for the institution it once was and that might one day, be recaptured. As to my wishing "the allegations to be ignored", what allegations are we talking about. Supposed statements by supposed unnamed persons by definition can have no status, so there can be no sunbstantive allegations that alone a substantive statement of evidence. What we have seen so far are,"Empty statements," that is to say statements that are purported to provide information, but in reality, provide no genuine or "admissable" information at all. Someone allegedly said something to someone about someone. Surely the pot has to have something tangible in it before it can be stirred.

Did we really expect much more?

Clement Crisp's review of Osipova and Vasiliev in Romeo and Juliet. http://www.financial-times.net/

I am in general shocked at the level of muckraking that has infected this thread.

Thank you Jane. I have amended it and my apologies to Alban Lendorf.

Peter Schaufuss brought his touring production of Sir Frederick Ashton’s “Rome and Juliet” to the London Coliseum this week with a preview performance on Monday and a Gala performance last night. Ashton’s production has for always been a problematic work in his oeuvre, as he chooses to focus almost entirely on the star crossed lovers, leaving the political dramas to be found in MacMillan’s production as almost sideline events. Ashton had seen Ulanova as Juliet and takes his cue from her mesmerising performance in the role, to almost concentrate the story entirely on Juliet alone. The result is that she is dancing almost constantly throughout the production. The setting is somewhat minimalist, with its use of changing backdrops of photographic projections of ancient Italy but sitting in the second row of the stalls I thought it worked in the context of the production as the dancers become the entire focus. In the revival of this work in the 1980’s undertaken by London Festival Ballet, one was aware of the typical Ashton meticulous detailing of Juliet’s portrayal, in which her emotions entirely carry the story. The evening being a Gala event on behalf of Dancer for Cancer Trust and was introduced from the stage by Dame Beryl Grey in one of her stupendous gowns and I say respectfully, that some might think, looking more glamorous than any woman of 83 should be entitled to. Throughout the evening there were vignette performances of former leading dancers of the Royal Ballet. Wayne Sleep was among them and almost stealing the show as Peter, the page. As the star crossed lovers, Natalia Osipova and Vladimir Vasiliev had the audience bravoing like mad at the end. Vasiliev acted very well for most of the time, but Ashton’s Romeo is a difficult role in which to remain in character with the nuances demanded. His dancing was strong, even forceful at times and echoes of Spartacus rather than Ashton's Verona were present. All the same he remains a remarkably vigorous performer and at times a touching actor. I suspect by the end of the week he will have completely nailed the role. Likewise Osipova had many moments of touching beauty in both dancing and in her deeply sought out expression. Here is an actress clearly revealing Juliet’s inner conflicts. So much so that at times she was searingly emotional, capturing that demanding, expressive and quirky physicality that Ashton seeks to convey inner turmoil, a trade mark that he so brilliantly employed in a number of his ballets. The excellent Alban Lendorf was Mercutio and Benvolio was played played by Robin Bernadet with Johan Christensen as Tybalt. Ashton was also celebrated by a huge portrait suspended on stage at the beginning of the evening and at the end. For an old timer it was a pleasure to see on stage, Marguerite Porter(Lady Capulet), Donald MacLeary(distinguished with silver hair) as Lord Montague, Stephen Jeffries as Lord Capulet, Peter Schaufuus(Friar Laurence) and Wayne Eagling as Escalus. The English National Ballet Orchestra played well under the baton of the widely experienced Graham Bond. Ashton's Romeo and Juliet is a very difficult work to pull off. The meticulous nature of his very hands on coaching is impossible to replicate and here lies the problem with his version being restaged. Peter Schaufuss has made a good stab at doing so, it but for some, it is probably not good enough.

I am pleased to see that the last three posts have brought some healthy reality into the discussion and I hope that the readiness among some posters to,” do down" Hubbe all costs and lay down with the scurrilous, will now get back to some kind of dealing with only the facts that have been presented. This is an "in house" affair which has been ineffectively controlled and probably temporarily damaging to to the RDB reputation. The Reuters quote posted by Quiggin, is somewhat telling. EDITED

Well ... to play devil's advocate here I'd say that the RDB is a dance company who has to put on presentable performances of revered ballets, and that cocaine has well known health effects that impede a dancer's ability to perform at the highest level. Tragic cases in point would be Gelsey Kirkland and Patrick Bissell. So if a whole company is snorting then eventually the quality of the performances will go down. So the public in that sense does have the right to know. Where did you find the absolute evidence that drug taking had occurred? As far as I can see this is so far an unsupported statement and in that case it seems shameful to bring the names of dancers not concerned with what appears from reports to be a bitchy farrago when all decent people want to read about is a fandango.

When you say " if this story is true then it may go some way towards explaining the very mixed reviews the company received on the recent US tour." I think it is a correlation to far." As much as one might admire a particular critic, reviews are never an absolute measure of performances as they only reflect a personal view and as we know not all critics whole heartedly agree with one another regarding a performance. Have you measured the track record over a period of time of the critics who wrote the critical reviews of the company? What was the same critics record of reviewing Mr Hubbe as a dancer in New York? I love everything about the history of the Royal Danish Ballet and especially its personal stylistic link to the era of the Romantic Ballet. However for me, the Royal Danish Ballet has never attained the same qualities in performance as those I witnessed in the 1960's despite their obvious charm and the important retention of the Bournonville School. Mythologies about this company abounds, especially when you read reviews of the last forty odd years regarding the casting of Madge.

The following interview gives an insight into Nikolai Hubbe's personality and perhaps confirms that his successful sojourn in New York created some jealousy back in Copenhagen. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/arts/dance/10kour.html EDITED

As stories in "The Times" and the "The Telegraph" are reported in a certain manner, there are always bottom of the sea creatures writing anonymously in the "rags" to create as negative a view as possible. We are looking at a report that has spawned comments from anonymous persons(?)to make comments which have been taken up by the less refined Danish press. The Royal Theatre's Managing Director, Eric Jacobsen, rejected the report's allegations stating they were made on a "frivolous basis," and he stressed that "passed on rumors of drug abuse is not substantiated and can not be verified." Jacobsen has further criticised the employees who spoke anonymously in the report, writing that the other dancers and director "don't deserve this anonymous suspicion". "We can't throw suspicion on people in that way," Jacobsen told Jyllands-Posten, "In a society governed by the rule of law we are obliged to take people at their word, even if there are well-documented complaints." Hubbe when confronted, offered to take a drug test on the spot. What more is needed to be said. Surely we are not beginning to see a concerted effort from both sides of the Atlantic to do Hubbe down?

I have presumed that Roland Petit is less well known in America than he is in Europe, so I have cobbled together a brief and somewhat incomplete biography, which I hope, might be of interest. Roland Petit was a distinguished figure in the post 2nd World War period albeit a seemingly restless artist who went wherever he could to find an audience for his works. Born on January 13, 1924, in Paris, Roland was the son of the owner of a small bistro. When he was twelve years old, his mother, Italian Rose Repetto founder of Repetto ballet shoes who separated from her husband and left Paris, Roland and his younger brother Claude and was brought up by his father, Edmond Petit Roland attended Paris Opera ballet school where studied under Gustave Ricaux. He would later study with Lubov Egorova, Olga Preobrazhenskaya and Madame Rousanne. He joined the corps de ballet of Paris Opera Ballet Company reputedly aged 16. During 1942-1944. Petit, together with Janine Charrat gave ballet peformances exhibiting their choreography. In early 1943, when Petit was still a corps de ballet dancer, director of the Paris Opera Serge Lifar instructed him great solo part in the ballet "El Amor Brujo” music by M. de Falla. It was at time that Petit expanded his choreographic activities outside of the Opera and in 1944 he resigned from the opera. In 1945 he collaborated in forming the Ballets des Champs- Elysees and in 1946 he staged “Le Jeune home et la mort” a seminal work in his oeuvre. Ever a creative and restless spirit he leaves the Ballets des Champs-Elysées to form his "Ballets de Paris" in 1949 he creates another lasting work Carmen for his wife to be Zizi Jeanmaire and the following year stages "Ballabile" for the Sadlers Wells Ballet starring Violetta Elvin and Alexander Grant. In 1950 he brings Roland Petit’s Le Ballets de Paris to New York with a triple bill of Carmen. L’Oeuf a la Coque and Les Forains appearing at the National Theatre for six weeks and then transferred to the Broadhurst for two weeks. In 1951 Hollywood calls him and he works on,” Hans Christian Anderson,” “Daddy long legs and “Anything Goes” and “The Glass Slipper.” Zizi Jeanmaire and Roland Petit marry in 1954. Petit was to continues working on films in Sweden and France. From 1956 to 1961 he works at1: music-hall in Paris with the "Ballets de Paris". In 1965 we find Petit creating the Notre-Dames de Paris for the Paris Opera and takes the leading role. In 1967 he stages a most unlikely work for Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias and Rudolf Nureyev called "Paradise Lost" at the Royal Opera House. Photographs of Nureyev diving through lips on a backcloth were widely published in magazines. In the same year he stages “Extase “for La Scala Milan with Nureyev and later “Turangalia” for the Paris Opera Ballet. By 1972 he was leading Ballet de Marseille and in this year for Maya Plisetskaya and Rudy Bryan he staged “Rose Malade.” In 1978, Petit staged a balletic version of "The Queen of Spades" and later that year he staged his "Notre Dame de Paris" in Leningrad for the Kirov Ballet. In 1987, Petit created “The Blue Angel” for Ekaterina Maximova and Vladimir Vasiliev which was staged at the Palais des Sports in Paris. Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s Petit was still active always finding a muse including DomInique Khalfouni and Altynai Asylmuratova. Works followed for Nicholas La Riche. Carla Fracci and Marie-Claude Petragalla. In 1998. Petit staged “Le Jeune homme et la mort” and “Carmen” at the Mariinsky Theatre, the two casts for which were - Altynai Asylmuratova with Islam Baimuradov and Diana Vishneva with Farukh Ruzimatov. In 1999, Petit staged “Clavigo” at the Paris Opera with Nicolas Le Riche. In 2001, he chose Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Ilze Liepa and Svetlana Lunkina to appear in his Bolshoi Theatre staging of “The Queen of Spades.” Petit is survived by Zizi Jeanmaire his significant wife, muse and collaborator and their daughter. PS While researching for accuracy before I posted, I found the following website which I found of interest and I hope you do too. http://www.culturekiosque.com/dance/exhib/rolandpetit_expo165.html

et plus Notre-Dame de Paris (1965) Le Diable Amoureux One of these days Pink Floyd Karen Kain and Rudy Bryans rehearse Petit’s Coppelia pas de dex Official website Roland Petit http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=fr&to=en&a=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.roland-petit.fr%2F

Thank you CM for posting the news. Roland Petit had a successful career as a dancer and a more important career as a choreographer. Some of his works had a touch of the outre which along with his choreographic skill gave him a particular status on the European dance scene. Background information: http://www.cmi.univ-mrs.fr/~esouche/dance/Peti.html Filmed performances of his works "Le jeune homme et la mort" (1946),Jean Babilee and later Rudolf Nureyev Les forains (1948) Later production by a fledgling Dutch ballet company Carmen (1949) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3tXfWMvM-U Le loup (1953)

Mashinka, you are right to enjoy the posts in the comments section as they reveal the long held distress engendered by Margaret Thatcher's government and the continuing disenchantment with subsequent UK governments. I have never before heard the expression, "Bulldog chewing a wasp", but I do however get the picture.

I know we are not talking about Spanish dancing, but I say to Simon G, "OLE".

As to Cocaine use in Europe here are some statistics at:- http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/stats10 If you would like to compare USA statistics see:- http://www.drugabuse.gov/infofacts/HSYouthtrends.html In the reports of this case which were posted, one cannot help to be suspicious that there is a classic case of theatre politics where inappropriate temperament has rightly or wrongly been added to and ascribed to high profile member of the company in terms of their behaviour. Since the 1960’s the socially damaging effect of the encouragement of prurient interest in peoples lives by the media, has degenerated to a level which is in my opinion appalling. Celebrities, real or manufactured beyond their talents, are not such a significant group of people in any society. They are a product of a commercial process and given a status that should belong to the many unsung heroes who perform decent and life supporting acts on behalf of others. I do not believe in “the public right to know” when the subject is not guilty of a criminal act. I have received an email this morning from an acquaintance in respect of the subject in question which started, “If you are the kind of person who likes scandal and trashy reports demeaning personalities, you might like to read the following report in a Danish newspaper.” I didn’t read it.

Extraordinary casting for a Gala Performance on Tuesday 12 July at 7.30 pm in aid of the Dancer for Cancer Trust. Ivan Vasiliev Romeo Natalia Osipova Juliet Alban Ledorf Mercutio plus very special guests Lynn Seymour Lady Montague Wayne Sleep Peter, the page Marguerite Porter Lady Capulet Wayne Eagling The Prince of Verona Stephen Jefferies Lord Capulet David Wall Lord Montague http://www.eno.org/see-whats-on/productions/production-page.php?&itemid=1533

I am sure you are right in what you say in your last sentence. However it seems to me that some of the comments in this thread miss a number of points. In producing The Sleeping Beauty, Telyakovsky had simply picked up on what was an earlier tradition of setting the well-known tale as a ballet. This was following the examples of, “La belle au bois dormant, “staged at The Opera, Paris in 1825 by Pierre Gardel with music by Michele Carafa. This was followed by Jean Pierre Aumer’s version with the same title again produced at The Opera in Paris in 1829 with music by Ferdinand Herold and designs by Pierre Ciceri . In 1833 a revision of Aumer’s production was staged by Anatole Petit at Drury Lane Theatre, London. Of course there are spiritual overtones in this Petipa ballet as he was a Catholic, Telyakovsky and the ballets audience, were in the vast majority Russian Orthodox Christians. So a parallel of beliefs and values were required in this 1890 production. I think we also have to remember that this ballet is quintessentially a paean to the Romanov dynasty and the gift of the Lilac Fairy to Aurora symbolises that she will be blessed with, beauty, pride, and youthful innocence. The idealised parallel being, that the children of the Imperial family arrive blessed by God. As regards drama in this ballet, there are two powerful dramatic scenes that if played well capture evil nature of Carabosse. I recall both Ray Powell and Alexander Grant giving outstanding performances as Carabosse and who were often as well received as the two/three principal characters. Anatole Gridin of the Kirov gave legendary performances in this same role clearly delineating the dramatic fight between darkness and light taking place in what is a seemingly (Goodly/Godly) protected kingdom. 1890, was a time (especially amongst Royal and Imperial families) when young women married as virgins and Telyakovsky and Petipa portray Aurora as being innocent and therefore, in a state of God's grace. As Waelsung states, "Aurora's grace is not unearned, it is symbolically dignified by her status as was typical of characters in fairy tales. Aurora is born into a magic kingdom of light and goodness, and without having done anything either good or bad; she receives everything one can only dream of. Sin has no role to play here." To contextualize evil as depicted in The Sleeping Beauty, the sheer venom of Carabosse, would resonate with that 1890 audience as symbolising the continuing existence of evil within Imperial Russia. This had earlier been signified by the bomb placed in the Winter Palace in 1880 that killed eleven people and later followed by the subsequent assassination of Alexander II. EDITED TO CLARIFY PS Regarding the Bolshoi couple they have been photographed in a studio in Southwark(London)rehearsing Romeo and Juliet.

Thank you Alison.

Cy Twombly has died at age 83: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14038987

Patricia Zhou a prize winner of the Prix de Lausanne 2011 is to join the RB later this year as an apprentice as a result of her prize. Miss Zhou was born in Canada but was brought up in the USA and trained at the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington DC. One wishes her success with the Royal Ballet.