Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Ashton Fan

Senior Member
  • Posts

    372
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Ashton Fan

  1. Perhaps the explanation for the lack of Royal Opera House based celebrations has less to do with the absence of an Ashton or a major compo=oser available to write an opera to mark the coronation and more to do with the King's apparent desire to make the coronation appear less.elitist than it has been in the past. It would seem. from what has so far leaked that the King wants a sort of people's coronation rather than one in which he is surrounded by the peerage and the political great and the good. My guess is that the palace has not approached the ROH to lay on some sort of gala because it wants to avoid any suggestion that the King is remotely interested in elitist art forms.It is one thing for him to go to the opera or ballet quietly and sit in the royal box quite another to do so with the sort of adverse coverage that the Sun and the Mail might unleash on a royal gala at a time of financial challenger. The strange mixture of composers engaged to provide music for the coronation combined with the list of performers lined up for the coronation celebratory concert suggests that the aim is to appeal to what is perceived to be popular taste and to avoid any idea that any member of the the royal family is anything other than safely middle brow and that the King in particular shares the tastes of his people,
  2. The death of Lynn Seymour has just been announced. Seymour was one of the Royal Ballet's great ballerinas at a time when the company had many great dancers in its ranks. Although she came to be regarded as a MacMillan dancer and his muse because of the number of roles he created on her she also worked with Ashton on a number of major roles. Both Ashton and MacMillan created roles for her which remain part of the company's active repertory. She was an extraordinary dance actress and both choreographers exploited her dramatic skills and expressive qualities to the full.
  3. Although not part of the Ashton Foundation's activities those who are interested in the changes that have occurred in teaching practices and performance style in the years following Ashton's retirement and death may find the short film "Dancing de Valois;Teaching the 1947 syllabus" of considerable interest.In the film Anita Young , a former member of the resident company and until recently a teacher in the Upper School, takes a handful of RBS students through some of the exercises and enchainements students and professional dancers would have encountered in de Valois' classes. What I found of real interest is that at least two of the students said that they found the exercises from the 1947 syllabus easier on the body than those they usually encounter. The de Valois syllabus requires the dancer to fit the combination of steps that has been set into the music to which it is to be performed. It is the music which regulates the speed at which the enchainements are to be performed. There is no thought of allowing the dancer time to complete and finish each step perfectly and adjust their balance between steps. The students' comments about the difference in approach and emphasis and the way it made them think ahead, it seems to me, helps to explain the difference in the quality and flow of the movement in the past and what sometimes seems like a lack of obvious flow today. It makes clear why the comment "We were always off balance" was a prevalent refrain in the past. I hope you find the short film as interesting as I did. It certainly provides food for thought.
  4. In addition to the Foundation's activities there are recordings of two fairly recent Royal Opera House insight events which are of interest to anyone who wants to look at the company's Ashton repertory. Both focus on Ashton ballets which have been out of the company's repertory for some years. One is easily identified as it is labelled "The Royal Ballet Rehearse Enigma Variations the other from about ten months ago merely refers to an Ashton triple bill without specifying what is being rehearsed. Strangely although it has a picture of Nunez as Natalia Petrovna suggesting that it may be concerned with rehearsing A Month in the Country it is in fact concerned with a rehearsal of Ashton's masterpiece Scenes de Ballet.
  5. Lynn Wake's film was shown at an event held at the Royal Opera House to mark the tenth anniversary of the Ashton Foundation.It was shown as the second item in the evening's programme. The first part of the evening was devoted to showing dancers performing pieces of Ashton's choreography most of which had been the subject of the Foundation's Insight events. This part of the evening's programme can be found by searching for Frederick Ashton the Influence of a Ballet Legend. The most interesting segments of this part of the programme I think are a performance of part of one of Ashton's early ballets called Foyer de Danse reconstructed from a film of a performance given at the Mercury Theatre; the men's choreography from the pas de quatre Ashton created for Helpmann's production of Swan Lake staged in 1963 danced by Leo Dixon and Joseph Sissens; the fisherman's solo from Le Rossignol danced by Matthew Ball and the reconstruction of a gala piece which Ashton created for Fonteyn and Nureyev which was originallly called Hamlet Prelude,The reconstruction now known as Hamlet and Ophelia is danced by Francesca Hayward and William Bracewell.
  6. The film is fascinating and well worth watching. It contains two precious snippets of film showing Beriosova in two roles which Ashton created on her. The archive material includes excerpts showing the original cast in the Dream and Enigma Variations . There is an extract from the 1962 recording of Ashton's Birthday Offering in which we see the solos with two of the original cast, Nerina and Beriosova, dancing their created roles . In this section Seymour comments on the qualities of each ballerina which Ashton sought to capture in the solos he created. The substitute dancers are more than acceptable as they include Sibley, Parkinson, Linden and Page, The archive film of the Dream includes commentary by Sibley and Dowell about working with Ashton on the ballet. The film ends with Wayne Eagling working with Francesca Hayward and William Bracewell on reconstructing Hamlet and Ophelia which Ashton created for Nureyev and Fonteyn but made on Eagling and Fonteyn because Nureyev was not available during the time allocated to the work's creation. .
  7. We all hope that the new production will be a success. I am not sure what, if anything, will be revealed about it on Sunday. I suspect that tomorrow will be far more concerned with coaching than providing information about its designs and its "exciting" special effects. If Ms Ellis-Somes and the Foundation have any sense they will ensure that the recording of tomorrow's event is posted on the Foundation's website with some speed in order to boost ticket sales. The Foundation took far too long to post the Daphnis and Chloe recording. The most interesting aspect of Dowell coaching Bracewell in the role of Daphnis is the emphasis he places on making the choreography speak to the audience by avoiding pure classroom classicism and instead making his movements naturalistic and expressive. Ronnie Hynde did not seem so concerned that Monaghan makes Dorkon far more classically correct than I recall David Drew making him in performance. Drew who would have been coached by Somes and had his performance polished by Ashton managed to show that Dorkon as a goatherd was an outsider through the deliberate and finely judged rough quality of his movements.
  8. A further reminder to look on the Frederick Ashton Foundation website where all the masterclasses which really matter up to and including that held on Daphnis and Chloe towards the end of last year are now available to view by the general public. The latest masterclass includes Dowell coaching William Bracewell in Daphnis' solo from the dance contest with Dorkon and Ronald Hynde coaching Lachlan Monaghan in Dorkon's solo from the same contest as well as the choreography for Dorkon's reappearance in the ballet's finale. The Foundation's next masterclass takes place this Sunday at the RBS Upper School when Wendy Ellis Somes will be coaching excerpts from Ashton's Cinderella which we are due to see in a new production in a couple of week;s time. It is difficult to predict who will appear in this forthcoming masterclass or what will be coached on this occasion.The ballet has been out of the repertory for such a long time that only the longest serving members of the company can be said to be familiar with the work. I have no doubt that the masterclass will in due course be posted on the Foundation's website.
  9. Dancers have relatively short performing careers and we all know that at some point each of them however distinguished will choose to retire. The great trick is to leave the stage before it leaves you. Morera has been a company member for more than twenty five years, she received her silver medal a couple of years ago, and despite some inexplicable gaps in her repertory she has almost certainly covered a far wider range of roles that are central to the company's repertory than most dancers manage in their careers. She is technically strong but never lets that get in the way of her performances which are always full of lively artistic and interpretative imagination. Her career has almost certainly suffered from her versatility and her usefulness She told London Ballet Association that when she was promoted to Principal dancer that she was told that she would still be dancing her usuak repertory which at that time was essentially senior soloist roles where you have to make a mark. At that point in her career she was dancing assorted Prologue Fairies. the Neapolitan dance. Fairy Godmother and Fairy Autumn and leading roles in the Ashton repertory where she had, and has, few equals, as unlike Rojo , she knew that Ashton's choreography, dance vocabulary and style is not something you can put on and take off like an overcoat. Morera by her own account arrived at the RBS as something of a bravura technician and initially questioned why she had to go back to basics.She has since said that it was the best thing that could have happened to her for her career as a dancer.Steeped in Ashton from an early stage she understands his musicality and dances his choreography idiomatically and was dancing leading roles in his works.long before she was was given leading roles in the nineteenth century repertory. Her nineteenth century repertory includes Giselle, Sugar Plum Fairy,Gamzatti and Swanilda. She has an extensive range of roles in the ballets created by the company's own choreographers which includes The Betrayed Girl (de Valois); Lise, Gipsy Girl, Fairy Godmother and Fairy Autumn.Titania,Nathalia Petrovna, the ballerina role in Rhapsody.Lady Elgar, side girl in Symphonic Variations, one of the Blue Girls and Diana (Ashton); Manon and Mistress, Larisch and Mary Vetsera. Anastasia, and the Woman in The Song of the Earth ( MacMillan); the Red Queen,Paulina and the mother in Like Water for Chocolate (Wheeldon) ; Mary in Frankenstein, leading roles in Asphodel Meadows, Viscera and Symhpnoc Dances (Scarlett). She is making a belated debut as Cinderella when the ballet is revived in a few weeks time and her last appearance on stage at Covent Garden will be as Anastasia in Anastasia act III. She will give her final appearances with the company in A Month in the Country in Japan in July. After this she will work with the company as a coach.
  10. Here are a few suggestions of people who both need and deserve biographies Rambert, de Valois, John Crankp and Peter Darrell. I will begin with Marie Rambert. Her autobiography Quicksilver is well worth reading but I think that someone who began with a hearty dislike of classical ballet; admired Duncan so much that she gave her own Duncan inspired dance recitals; studied Dalcroze euhrythmics and found herself working with Nijinsky on Sacre would be an obvious candidate for a biography. But that was only the beginning of the story. After the Great War Rambert settled in London where she taught euhrythmics and classical dance using the Cecchetti method. Among her pupils were both Frederick Ashton and Antony Tudor. Among those whose choreographic skills she discovered and developed were not just Ashton and Tudor but Walter Gore, Frank Staff and Andre Howard all of whom danced with Rambert's company in its early days..Later generations of dancers turned choreographers included Norman Morrice and Christopher Bruce. Rambert as the company is now known dates its foundation to 1926 when Rambert and her dancers appeared at the Lyric Hammersmith in the first dance work devised by Ashton called A Tragedy of Fashion, Then there is Ninette de Valois an Anglo Irish woman whose family were part of the Ascendancy class with three contradictory autobiographies to her credit.As it is only nine years until we celebrate the centenary of the company she established it is quite possible that there is someone hard at work researching the subject at this moment. While the life of the founder of a major national institution ought to be of interest the life of someone which spans an entire century and brings that individual into contact with everyone who was anyone in the world of dance in the west during that lifetime should make the subject even more attractive to a would be author.But then there is the family story which on the Irish side of her family covers a not so young lady;s voyage to India as part of the "fishing fleet"in search of a husband; that lady's marriage to a second son who comes into property as the result of a fortuitous death which brought her husband an estate in Ireland; a great grand mother, I think, who wrote a definitive account of the Potato Famine in Wicklow; a will and dispute over property you might find improbable if you encountered it in a nineteenth century novel; some sort of financial crisis which forced the family to sell up and move to London. A father who dies of wounds in 1915 and is awarded a posthumous MC and a mother who was involved in the Arts and Crafts movement in Ireland and was at one point accepted as a leading expert on Irish antique glass. There must be someone who would find that subject tempting. As far as my other potential subjects are concerned while there is the biography of John Cranko written by John Percival which was published in 1983 I can't help thinking that after forty years perhaps it is time for a new assessment of the man,his works. and his lasting influence on dance. There is still time to capture the views of those who were in the studio with him at Stuttgart and on whom he made his ballets. As far as Peter Darrell is concerned he belonged to the same generation of dance makers as Crankp and MacMillan. He is of significance both as a choreographer and as the man who established Scottish Ballet. I recall enjoying his creations and his repertory choices. He was able to give his new company the distinct identity it needed because he had a ballerina in his company who was particularly suited to romantic style ballets as a result among other works they had a lovely staging of Bournonville's Napoli. Other possible subjects include Walter Gore, Frank Staff and Andre Howard about whom I know far too little. And then there is Karsavina although her own memoir Theatre Street is wonderful and the book Diaghilev's Ballerina is of great value. Karsavina really does deserve a full biography.
  11. I think that both promotions have been anticipated for a couple of seasons. Clarke first came to notice early on in his time with the company when he replaced Matthew Golding in the Somes' role in Symphonic Variations. After that he began to acquire the princely roles as well as de Grieux and Romeo . He danced with Yanowsky in her last season with the company giving audiences a brief glimpse of what might have been if he had been a few years older or she a few years younger. as his height gave her a freedom of movement that she sometimes lacked with other partners. He gave an authoritative account of the leading male role in Scenes de Ballet. partnering two very different ballerinas with equal success. Bracewell spent several years with BRB where he gave some outstanding performances. A serious injury slowed his progress to the top in Bow Street. He is an extraordinary dancer who is very much at home in roles created on Dowell and in the sort of roles in which the older dancer made his mark. Coming back from injury he gave the best performance of Troyte in Enigma Variations that I have seen since Dowell retired from the role. He has since made an equally impressive debut in A Month in the Country again in a role made on Dowell. Given that these two promotions were not at all unexpected, being more a question of when rather than if I think that there will be more interest in seeing who else among the ranks of the very talented male dancers is promoted. Among the men there are far more candidates for promotion than there are vacancies. There are plenty of interesting and talented female dancers in the junior tanks of the company but perhaps fewer obvious candidates for promotion say to First Soloist. Perhaps the casting of the supporting roles in Like Water for Chocolate and the casting for the first booking period of the 2022-23 season will throw some light on which of the women is likely to move up the ranks of the company in due course.
  12. The season has had its ups and downs with a short lock down. over Christmas due to covid which led to the loss of several performances of Nutcracker. Covid continues to lead to unexpected cast changes and debuts in role being brought forward. The imminent arrival of the all Ashton mixed bill is something to look forward to after what has felt like an interminable run of Liam Scarlett's wrong headed, incompetent Swan Lake which despite its cost I hope will be dumped at the earliest opportunity. From this Saturday we shall be back in the hands of the man de Valois described as a "real choreographer" if only for a few days. There have been a number of changes to the advertised cast for the all Ashton programme the most important of which are Morera acquiring Cuthbertson's advertised performance in Month and Cmpbell's loss of the lead in Scenes de Ballet because Takada is off. Scenes de Ballet was the subject of an Insight evening a couple of days ago and for once most of the time was devoted to the rehearsal process rather than discussions and lectures. The inanity quotient was, as a result, remarkably low . The rehearsal was led by Christopher Carr and the dancers involved were Naghdi and Muntagirov in the leading roles with Dixon, Dubreuil. Ella and Rovero as the quartet of men who act as living sculpture ,partners to members of the corps de ballet and the ballerina's cavaliers. Apparently this quartet are the men assigned to dance with Naghdi and once you see the choreography at close quarters you can see why the men need to be assigned to a specific ballerina. At the moment Naghdi and Muntagirov are not due to dance together at any stage during the run but that could easily change. The rehearsal can be found on You tube and is well worth w
  13. I seem to recall the late chairman of the Royal Opera House Board complaining that the name of the building put people off attending performances there so perhaps the failure to arrange a gala or other celebratory event is part of a deep laid plan devised by him or there again it could be yet another oversight. One of the problems may be that Alex Beard who is responsible for the day to day running of the organisation has experience of working for arts institutions such as the Tate Gallery rather than theatrical institutions which are expected to mark state events and stage the occasional gala.It would not be the first time that an important event has escaped the notice of the powers that be at the ROH..My recollection is that Kevin managed to overlook the Fonteyn centenary or, putting it another way, nothing was announced when when the 2018-19 season was originally published and the event suddenly appeared in the schedule at quite short notice. I think that the thing that strikes me most is the sudden apparent obsession with marking anniversaries. Does the fact that we are to mark the thirtieth anniversary of MacMillan's death mean that we are now to mark that event at five yearly intervals? Then there is the weird programme to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the foundation of the Friends organisation which, as far as I am aware, includes nothing originally supported by the Friends
  14. A change of director has a different effect on a ballet company' s personnel depending on where the company is based, local law and employment practices in the industry Local practice varies greatly across Europe. in some countries being a company member means permanent employment until a set retirement age is attained while in other countries there is no fixed retirement age as such.In the UK a change of director does not automatically trigger a change in the company's personnel and it is unusual to see an exodus of dancers in the wake of an announcement of the appointment of a new director. In Germany, as I understand it, the appointment of a new director can result in a complete change of personnel as it is for the director to choose the dancers with whom he or she wishes to work I would be interested to know whether Tamara Rojo's imminent arrival at SFB seems to have triggered a greater number of departures from the company than is usual at or near the end of a season?
  15. I admit that my initial response to the announcement of next season's bill of fare was to identify the performances I feel no need to attend . Somehow I think it unlikely that the casting ,when it is announced, is going to make me change my mind. about the extended version of Crystal Pite;s' Flight Patterns which I fear will damage a theatrically powerful and tightly constructed work by over extending it; the revival of Woolf Works or the triple bill of contemporary works which includes a new work by Wayne McGregor, a revival of Wheeldon's Corybantic Games and Anastasia Act III. All in all this part of the season's programme does not seem that attractive. As far as the rest of the season's repertory is concerned it is restricted to four established works, Mayerling which is apparently not being staged because Lady MacMillan wants to make money but to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the choreographer's death; the now inevitable Christmas Nutcracker which only became a seasonal fixture during Dowell's directorship; a revival of Sleeping Beauty and a revival of Cinderella. I think that all four works have been allocated far too many performances . It will interesting to see at what point the demand for tickets dries up. Personally I think that management would have been well advised to revive a fifth ballet such as Fille or stage a really interesting mixed bill with a genuine bonne bouche in the form of a revival of Apparitions or Daphnis and Chloe. I don't think that I am being churlish when I say that it seems to me that the choice of repertory this season reveals even more starkly than usual Kevin's weaknesses as director of the company. He is much better than his predecessors in developing his dancers and giving them real career development opportunities allocating roles with less concern about dancers' place in the company's hierarchy than in the past but at the same time he is far weaker in his understanding of the importance of the company's twentieth century repertory of which he is merely the temporary custodian. He says the right things about Ashton and the Ashton repertory, "He made us who we are",but when it comes to repertory choices you can't help thinking that he sees the Diaghilev and Ashton masterpieces in the store cupboard as a barrier to further and greater creativity, if only because of the deman they make on time in the studio and on stage. There have been far too many occasions on which Kevin has given the impression that he sees the bulk of the company's twentieth century repertory as disposable works which do not require regular revival to keep them in pristine condition ; to maintain the chain of transmission and sustain a performing tradition as part of a living experience within the ranks of the company. I don't want to be misunderstood I am relieved to learn that Cinderella is to be performed after more than a decade's absence, it means that the stand off over the designs has been resolved and that with any luck we shall not be faced with coarsely inappropriate designs as we were with the new production first staged in the 2003-4 season.My rapture at the announcement of the new Cinderella production is however somewhat modified by a lack of faith in the rights owner's ability to capture that elusive quality of magic and mystery which can make Cinderella so compelling in performance. With any luck the new production will have designs which capture the mood of the ballet which Ashton created rather than evoking the world of pantomime. I know that everyone has to start somewhere but I find it rather worrying that neither of the designers involved in this important new production seem to have any experience of designing for ballet.Somehow that seems something os.f a weakness.
  16. On the basis of this season's performances Bonelli has looked good for a couple of more seasons but at the end of the day only he knows how much of a toll these recent performances are taking on him physically. The old saying which advises the dancer to"Give up the stage before it gives you up" still holds good but as to how a dancer knows that it is time to go local wisdom at the Royal Ballet, and no doubt in company's across the globe seems to be "You will know". Watson talking about his own retirement was asked how he knew it was time for him to retire and said that it was the very question he had asked older dancers when he was younger. They had told him "You will know" which at the time he had not thought a very helpful answer but had in fact proved to be true for him. In Bonelli's case it seems that hos retirement was prompted by the right job coming up at the right time. I had half expected that when the time came for Bonelli to retire he would go to the school to teach but the RBS' loss is certainly Northern Ballet's gain. Northern is a company which under David Nixon its current director has promoted the creation of new narrative works. It will be interesting to see in what direction Bonelli will choose to take the company. Retirements are usually carefully planned at the Royal Ballet with a performance in a chosen role available to the paying public marking the end of the dancer's career. In this case it seems that it was the vacancy at Northern and his successful candidacy which prompted Bonelli's departure as his final Swan Lake of the season is a performance which is not open to the ordinary ballet goer. Kevin will have to resolve this situation.The problem is that simply changing the schedule will leave many people upset, those who booked for the cast cast originally advertised and those who want to see Bonelli's re-scheduled final performance but either can't find a ticket or find the new date inconvenient. It is not entirely clear how Kevin is going to resolve this issue. One solution might be to hold the farewell performance over to next season which I think according to the revival timetable should be a Manon year. We await further announcements about the date and time of this right of passage. Retirements come in most seasons but this is the season which will have the greatest impact on the company as far as the senior male line up is concerned. Kevin's idea of what the Royal Ballet is, and should be, becomes clearer as in turn each of Mason's principal dancers leave the stage. By the beginning of next season we will know what the male side of the company is likely to look like for years to come. It may well be that by then it will be clear which dancers are likely to be leading the company in its centennial year which is only nine years away.
  17. The Frederick Ashton Foundation held a an event at the Royal Opera house last month to mark its tenth anniversary. The event opened with Ashton choreography danced by members of the company and was followed by a specially commissioned film using film from the archives. The first half of the event which is available on the Royal Opera House website until 21st December 2021 featured short excerpts from two of his ballets, Sylvia and Dante Sonata, which Anthony Russell Roberts in the late 190's declared irretrievably lost and longer sections from ballets on which the Foundation has worked. The Foundation's contribution to the rediscovery of Ashton's ballets includes an excerpt from his 1932 work, Foyer de Danse, created for Markova in which he also appeared and the revival of a gala piece he created for Fonteyn and Nureyev. Foyer was reconstructed from a film record which was painstakingly fitted to the music while the gala piece originally called Hamlet Prelude and is now called Hamlet and Ophelia was reconstructed by Wayne Eagling from his own memory and film. Ashton created the role of Hamlet on Eagling because Nureyev was not available and he then taught the role to Nureyev. The second half of the event was devoted to a film commissioned from Lynn Wake which is well worth watching . It can be accessed on the Frederick Ashton Foundation's website and does not seem to be subject to any time constraints.
  18. Sir Peter also has a Prologue in his Swan Lake production for BRB which takes the form of a funeral procession to explain why the prince is under such pressure to marry. I find his Nutcracker Prologue less objectionable than the one he devised for Swan Lake which I find intrusive even if for once it does not depict Odette's abduction. I find his Nutcracker Prologue far less intrusive possibly because it represents his attempt to attach the action of the ballet more securely to the ETA Hoffman story which provides the source material for the work. Sir Peter Wright has tinkered with his Covent Garden production over the years. When first seen it had more elements based on Wiley's research on Tchaikovsy's ballets than it does now. In its first iteration I seem to recall Harlequin and Columbine emerging onto the stage from a large pie and a vegetable of some sort ; Clara and the Nutcracker being largely non participatory and non dancing roles; the choreography for the Kingdom of the Snow being based on what we were told was Ivanov's choreography and floor plan and the Kingdom of Sweets somewhat more stereotypical when it came to the dances representing the lands which provide chocolate, tea and coffee. The production has been altered over the years, the pie and vegetable disappeared quite early on and when Clara began to be performed by an adult dancer rather than a student from the school the choreography began to be altered to give Clara and the Nutcracker who is Drosselmeyer's nephew opportunities to dance in the Kingdom of Snow of the first act and in the second act divertisements which are no longer entertainments for them but sections of dance in which both characters participate. The production has undergone further alterations more recently. The Chinese dance was completely re-choreographed by Sir Peter a couple of season's back turning the dancers involved in it into tumblers, This season he has altered the Arabian dance in an attempt to eliminate the racial stereotype he found in his own choreography. Some big changes were made in last season's revival as a result of Covid. The battle with the mice has been completely re-choreographed for adult dancers which has had the effect of reducing the involvement of the White Lodge students in the ballet and eliminating not only the coveted student role of the Rabbit Drummer but the touches of humour in the choreography for the student version of the battle. The Mouse King in this version is trundled on in grandfather's bath chair rather than appearing centre stage via a trap while the number of Snowflakes in the Kingdom of Snow has been reduced in an attempt to make the section more Covid secure. It will be interesting to see how many of the Covid changes are retained in future seasons.
  19. I am pleased to hear that you are happy with what you have seen so far. I think that the production does its job remarkably well.All the performance I have attended during the run have been pretty impressive as far as the named characters are concerned and we have been treated to very individual and satisfying interpretations of the roles of Giselle, Albrecht and Myrthe. My only quibble has been with the casting of the pas de six but then we have been rather spoiled at recent revivals with casts composed of dancers who were clearly on their way up. This time round it is not so much the dancers as individual performers which seems to be the problem but the combinations which have been selected who don't seem to gel as a group in the way they have done in previous seasons. I know that the bouquet presentation at the matinee must have looked a bit unusual to those not in the know but then I knew that I had booked to see Roscoe's debut. The fact that the ROH is now publishing the cast lists on line makes it possible for those who do not attend specific performances to know who actually danced at that show as opposed to the dancers who were initially announced as appearing. There is a Giselle Insight connected with the current revival floating about on the internet which might interest you, it includes Monica Mason coaching Roscoe in the role of Myrthe and Naghdi and Ball being coached by Olga Evreinoff, in addition the World Ballet Day footage from Covent Garden includes Mason coaching Nunez as Myrthe.
  20. Cubanmiamiboy, I am not sure that I would describe what you saw this afternoon as "scandalous". We have several new Myrthes this season one of whom is Roscoe. I have a feeling that Roscoe danced Myrthe earlier in the run but that was at a closed performance of some sort, perhaps for schools, rather than one open to the paying public. Today's matinee while not strictly a house debut for Roscoe was the first time that the public, friends and family have had the chance to see her in the role. The number of bouquets she received seemed completely in keeping with a debut in a major role. It would be interesting to know what you thought of the second act of Nunez's Giselle. Giselle is a far more difficult role to pull off than a lot of people think. I am not talking about the technical aspects of the role but of the difficulty some dancers find in being equally convincing in both acts as the title role calls for a dance actress and not just a superb dancer. There are Giselles who are better in the first act than in the second and others who come into their own in the second act. I think that Nunez is just such a dancer but then her second act is so compelling that you forget that she is not entirely convincing as a member of the peasant community of the first act.
  21. I do wish that the ROH's marketing department would buy themselves a thesaurus as they are working the words "excited ", "exciting", "thrilled"and "thrilling" to death. The truth about the forthcoming ballet season is that the two new works make it interesting and the works selected for revival come as no surprise at all and even when their casts are announced are unlikely to excite or thrill. With the casting which has been announced for the first booking period the season remains an interesting one rather than an exciting one. In my view the 2021-22 season as a whole is far too serious and would have benefited from considerably less earnestness and a bit more frivolity in the mix. A revival of Fille even if only for eight performances would have been a great improvement. The 2021-22 season is essentially a conservative one much of which is designed to generate income. It holds few surprises because most of its contents were originally programmed for the 2020-21 season. Kevin has promises to keep in terms of premieres and major debuts in Swan Lake. The Dante Project was supposed to be premiered this season and was intended to be the last work which Watson appeared in as a dancer and company member. At the same time a number of younger company members several of whom have recently been promoted to the rank of principal were prevented from making their scheduled debuts in Swan Lake by the pandemic which is why the ballet is being revived. I understand why Romeo and Juliet and Nutcracker are being programmed but not why there are quite so many performances of either ballet. I can't help thinking that another revival of Coppelia would have been in order if only to provide a choice of ballets at Christmas. The 2019 revival was very successful and left most people who attended those performances wondering why Coppelia had been out of the repertory for so long. Even if I end up disliking it I am intrigued by the thought that Wheeldon is making a ballet based on " Like Water on Chocolate" to me it seems as improbable and potentially as foolhardy as making a ballet based on Rostand's Cyrano Bergerac. The best news for me is the Ashton mixed bill and the fact that it does not include Marguerite and Armand. The return of Scenes de Ballet is welcome but I do wish Kevin would permit us to see a much wider range of Ashton's output rather than a selection of works which simply reflects his own likes and dislikes. Daphnis and Chloe would be at the top of my list for revival closely followed by his revivable works from the 1930's including Apparitions and A Wedding Bouquet.
  22. I don't want to put people off watching the streamed performance of this mixed bill. It is,I think, one of those programmes you will either love or hate according to your taste and expectations about dance. Those who are curious but unsure about whether they should invest in a ticket to watch the streamed performance of this programme can get a taster on You Tube in the form of rehearsals of the two works by Pite both of which I am pretty certain show the dancers due to appear in the streamed performance. All you have to do is search for "The Royal Ballet rehearses Crystal Pite's The Statement and Solo Echo".
  23. I strongly suspect that Kevin's taste runs to serious dance works rather than anything even daring to hint at fun and frivolity. I have little doubt that this first programme reflects his personal taste. I think that Within the Golden Hour was almost unavoidable because it was not going to need as much time to be stage ready as a new work would have required. The problem is it is little more than a solid piece of choreography that comes in handy when you are putting together a mixed bill. It is essentially a useful ballet rather than a work with hidden depths which reveals more about itself with repeat viewings and at the moment for me,at least, it is suffering from over exposure. I do wish Kevin had given more thought to the mood likely to be generated by the juxtaposition of the works selected for this programme. If he had done so we might have been spared quite such a depressing evening. Perhaps he felt that a familiar Wheeldon, a world premiere and two company premieres by living choreographers on a programme packaged as "21st Century Choreographers" with its evidence of creativity and promise of more would be sufficiently inspiring to dispel any sense of gloom. Well it did not work for me. The all too familiar Within the Golden Hour was followed by a family row for three dancers by Kyle Abraham and two works by Crystal Pite. The first of Pite's offerings was The Statement which struck me as something akin to a cartoon for dancers, the second was Solo Echo in which the choreography seemed to have little connection with the music which accompanied it. The dancers did their best with the works they had been given to perform. All four works had atmospheric lighting which simply added to the general gloom. Although I am sure that the current crop of earnest critics would not agree with me but I could have done with a large dose of dance fun and frivolity. I am afraid I left the theatre thinking how much better an all Ashton mixed bill of Les Patineurs, A Wedding Bouquet and Facade would have been for all of us.
  24. Sarasota's latest programme provided an opportunity to see three Ashton works long neglected in London. We should have had the opportunity to see Valses Nobles et Sentimentales as part of a mixed bill which was due to be staged in the Linbury last summer but Covid put paid to that. This made the opportunity to see a streamed performance of Valses Nobles et Sentimentales even more welcome. This ballet is one of a number of neglected works which Ashton revived towards the end of his life. I remember seeing it at Sadler's Wells in the late 1980's and I never understood why the SWRB did not keep it in its active repertory. Seen in isolation, which is how I saw it in 1987, I did not realise how much of a watershed the war had been in terms of Ashton's stylistic choices. Valses Nobles, together with Symphonic Variations and Cinderella can,and perhaps should, be seen as a manifestation of Ashton's post war statement about the central role which classical ballet and the ecole de danse played in his concept of dance. Valses Nobles was the second occasion on which he had used this particular Ravel score but where in his 1935 ballet for Rambert he had created a narrative work in 1947 there is no obvious story and the relationship between the dancers is elusive and hinted at, and what really matters is the dance. As the streamed performance gave me the opportunity to watch the ballet more than once I began to see any number of choreographic ideas that Ashton would use again in later works often to entirely different effect. I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to see the work again and even more grateful to see it more than once. I almost feel that it is unfair to write about The Walk to the Paradise Garden as the only cast ever seen in it in London were the dancers for whom it was made. This is a considerable advantage for any dancer but the original cast had other advantages both Wall and Park were well suited in height and both had considerable experience in handling tricky lifts, not only in making them look normal and natural but in using them to expressive effect. Before I saw the performance I had seen a comment about the performance which suggested that the essence of this ballet was the Bolshoi lifts which it contains. But that is not what struck me when I first saw it in the 1970's. What I saw was a short and very effective narrative work. I am sure the technical challenges which the lifts used in the ballet present are the last thing Ashton intended the audience should be aware of in performance. I hope this is not seen as being unfair but to make this ballet work the dancers need to have complete technical mastery of the choreography so that the entire piece appears spontaneous and effortless . The audience should never be aware of any of the challenges the choreography presents in performance. I was pleased to have seen the piece again. I should certainly like to see it revived at Covent Garden say with Hayward and Bracewell. Finally Facade a ballet about dancing made for the Camargo Society first performed in !931. It wears its years well and it is always a pleasure to see it. Its neglect at Covent Garden is perplexing as it works with audiences who know a great deal about dance and those who know nothing. Perhaps the powers that be at the Royal Ballet are suffering from a bad case of earnestness and deem this ballet too frivolous. Thank goodness the Webbs are not of that opinion.
  25. I am saddened by Scarlett's death but equally I am certain that everyone has the right to a safe workplace where they will be free from bullying and sexual harassment. The Royal Ballet/ RBS investigation seems to have been a protracted affair. We heard that Scarlett had been banned from the theatre and many months later a formal announcement was made that the company was severing ties with him. I think that the fact that they did not drop his staging of Swan Lake may well say more about the amount of money spent on it than anything else. I don't think that the decision to sever ties with him would have been taken lightly. I think that the company would have found it very difficult to deal with the matter in any other way for two very basic reasons both of which must have loomed very large in the minds of all engaged in the process of investigating the allegations. First the reputation of the school as a safe place to undertake vocational training and second recollections of the length of time it took to dislodge Ross Stretton when serious allegations were made about his conduct and his casting methods. I don't think that anyone in the company's senior management team would have been ignorant of the circumstances surrounding Stretton's departure. They would know that David Drew had gone out on a limb to tell the board what they did not want to hear about Stretton and that it did not seem to be enough to prompt any sort of action or enquiry by the board . They would know that It seemed to have taken Lady MacMillan's threat to withdraw the MacMillan repertory to make Stretton's position untenable. If there was evidence to support the allegations made against Scarlett and if things had really changed since Stretton's time and management now took its obligations to its dancers seriously then a slap on the wrist was not going to be an adequate response. As to the nature of the allegations I seem to recall that when the Times first reported on the matter it referred to allegations that young male dancers were being asked for intimate photographs in exchange for roles in Scarlett's ballets that would usually go to more experienced performers. Now remember that RBS students work with the ballet company from time to time sometimes to dance and sometimes in walk on parts to gain stage experience. Whether those students are from White Lodge or the Upper School as an educational establishment the RBS is in law in loco parentis to its pupils and has a legal duty to protect them. Its child protection duties apply to its students whether they are in the school buildings or in the theatre, This is why the director of the school was so quick to announce the result of the investigation in so far as they related to the school. It must have come as a great relief to him that no child protection issues had been raised in respect of the school or its pupils. As far as the company was concerned it had to act decisively if it was to make it clear that certain types of behavior were not acceptable and would not be tolerated whoever was involved.
×
×
  • Create New...