Helena

Mange tak - that's Danish for thank you very much! - for all these helpful comments. I will certainly report back when I get the chance.

Next week I'm going to Copenhagen for a short holiday, and while I'm there will see Helgi Tomasson's Sleeping Beauty. The advertised dancers are: as Aurora, Gudrun Bojeson, Caroline Cavallo or Silja Schandorff (I don't know which) and Desire will be Jean-Lucien Masset, Mads Blangstrop or Andrew Bowman. I know nothing about this production or any of these dancers - I've rarely felt so ignorant! Any opinions of any aspect, and especially of the dancers, would be very welcome.

Jonny Cagoiua (I've probably spelt that wrong) is joining the Birmingham Royal Ballet - that's good news!

It is very interesting to hear a dancer's point of view on this, Odette. I don't myself get the impression that it is what audiences want to see - at least, not in Britain. Story ballets still sell best, and I do not believe that people book for Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle or even Nutcracker because they are hoping to see amazing feats. They go to be moved and transported. Even in plotless works I think it is beauty that people want to see. It is of course possible that I am out of date on this. I am of an older generation, as is (by her own admission!) Katharine Kanter who started this thread. I am afraid that if a lot of publicity is given to the "desirablity" of contortions, people will gradually start to believe that they are what matter, and ballet as I know and love it will gradually be replaced. I am reminded of the publicity given to Nureyev's elevation, mostly by ignorant journalists. When he did his tragic farewell tour in the 80s people asked for their money back because "he never left the ground". I was stupefied that people went to see that great artist in order to see him jump (impressive though that was when he was young). It is very sad if good, expressive artists are indeed languishing (if you can call it that - I'd have killed, almost, to be in the back row) in the corps. I suppose it all depends on directors and choreographers. There are not many Alina Cojocarus - let's not destroy the ones we have. Imagine what we would have lost if Fonteyn had stopped dancing when she was 25 or 30 - all her best years were after that. But then, given a director who wanted acrobatics, she would never have emerged from the corps in the first place. [ March 22, 2002, 12:32 PM: Message edited by: Helena ]

I've been in the chorus for several concert performances of Porgy and Bess, and I found it incredibly difficult to sing. Not the notes - they are very simple - but the style. If you have been trained in the European (in my case English) choir style, and are used as I was to singing Bach, Mozart, Mahler, Britten and Elgar in a highly disciplined way, it's very hard to adapt to the much freer style needed for something like this. (I would find it near-impossible to sing like a gospel choir singer, for instance.) In the performances I was in the soloists were all black, the chorus all white, which is odd when you come to think of it - I took it for granted at the time. I imagine an opera chorus of whatever colour would find it easier, since acting is part of their job, but a style of singing is deeply ingrained in most people. It varies from culture to culture, and it isn't easy to adapt.

Swans were also common in Slavic, Germanic and Russian folk tales. I was given in 1950 a little glass swan wearing a crown - it is Czech, and I've never known whether it was anything to do with Swan Lake or just a reference to swans being fairy tale, and often royal, birds. I've still got it! To me it has always been Odette. In England, swans belong to the Queen to this day. The Royal Family don't eat them any more, (though they certainly did once) or hunt them as far as I know, but the Royal connection is still there. [ March 21, 2002, 10:44 AM: Message edited by: Helena ]

Whatever the technical definition, I do think it looks completely hideous, which is not a thing I ever expected to say about Alina Cojocaru. She looks like a circus contortionist.

I too read those words of Ross Stretton with a sinking heart. Of course dancers have to be fit - that goes without saying - but I have a horrible feeling, possibly though not probably quite unfounded, that he thinks that fitness, gymnastics, virtuosity, are the point of ballet. He is far from alone in this, alas. The fact that I have seen the question, (on this board, I think) "Is ballet a sport or an art?" shows that attitudes are veering towards the idea of ballet as gymnastics in some quarters. I would be curious to know whether people think this is the case more in some countries than others, or whether the idea started in one country. Is it an idea that was there in the past and is enjoying a resurgence? If you think, for instance, of Legnani's fouettes, it seems possible that it is.

I too read those words of Ross Stretton with a sinking heart. Of course dancers have to be fit - that goes without saying - but I have a horrible feeling, possibly though not probably quite unfounded, that he thinks that fitness, gymnastics, virtuosity, are the point of ballet. He is far from alone in this, alas. The fact that I have seen the question, (on this board, I think) "Is ballet a sport or an art?" shows that attitudes are veering towards the idea of ballet as gymnastics in some quarters. I would be curious to know whether people think this is the case more in some countries than others, or whether the idea started in one country. Is it an idea that was there in the past and is enjoying a resurgence? If you think, for instance, of Legnani's fouettes, it seems possible that it is.

In a television documentary about the Royal Opera House a few years ago, the children from the Royal Ballet School who were in a performance of Nutcracker said "Good Luck" to each other, and, if I remember rightly, were encouraged to by their teacher Christine Bickley, an ex-soloist of the Royal Ballet - so it seems to be acceptable here.

The very first opera I went to was Britten's Let's Make an Opera, when I was a young child - I don't know if that counts. And then I was an angel in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel (a dancing part) when I was 17. The next - I suppose the first really - was Gounod's Faust in Amsterdam. It was unforgettably bad, and it's amazing that I ever went to another opera. Both Faust and Marguerite were short and fat - I was used to ballet, where heroes and heroines looked beautiful - and one of them sang in French and one in Italian, or possibly German. They sang in different languages, anyway. I was appalled by the whole thing, and it was only when I went to Britten's Peter Grimes the next year that my faith in opera as an art form was restored. I was knocked sideways by it, and he is still my favourite opera composer.

I'm amazed to find that my taste has hardly changed at all over the 50 or so years I've been going to ballet. I liked Petipa and Ashton best when I was young, and I still do, though I find my appreciation of Ashton has deepened quite a lot. I've added a few - Bournonville, which I didn't see until I was in my 20s, and selected MacMillan. I didn't like Balanchine much when I was 12, and I still don't - though admittedly I have not been to unnecessary performances thinking I "ought" to like him. I have racked my brains trying to think of examples where my taste has changed, and can only think of ballets like Coppelia, which I loved at 10, thought myself far too sophisticated for at 20, but now have come to appreciate for reasons other than the fact that it is funny and has dolls in it. I also remember enjoying a performance of Petit's Carmen when I was about 25 - Erik Bruhn was Don Jose, and he was very convincing and powerful. I knew perfectly well, even then, that I really thought it was a shallow and vulgar ballet, but Bruhn swayed me - now, I don't think even he could make me enjoy it! I suspect also that something like MacMillan's The Invitation, which seemed very exciting and daring in 1960-whenever-it-was, would now seem merely earnest. My tastes have changed much more in music and literature, both of which I've been more professionally involved with than I have with ballet. (My ballet "career" ended at fifteen, since I was too tall and didn't have much talent!) This makes me wonder if knowing something from the inside, rather than just being an observer, has a profound effect. In both music and poetry my taste has moved away from lush romanticism towards something "cleaner" and sparer. I now prefer Bach and Britten to the nineteenth century (except, of course, for Tchaikovsky, who is deep in my soul). I like Housman better than Keats or Shelley.

Lolly, I agree with Alexandra's choice of books, but I have always found the Sorley Walker book quite hard going, though informative. The Fonteyn autobiography is out of print, but available second hand quite often. It is very interesting about her childhood, and the life of a dancer in England in the last (!) century, but take all the stuff about her private life with several pinches of salt. It omits a lot, and idealises her relationship with her husband.

I always knew James would do it! Many congratulations.

I was hoping someone else would come in on this one, as I don't feel I can point to further reading - I have read so many books over so many years that I'm not usually sure where I get information from. Books on or by key figures of the time - Ashton, de Valois - are useful. When the company had to get out of Holland quickly because of the invasion, they could only take with them what they could carry. As a result they had to leave scores, orchestral parts, costumes and scenery behind. They didn't have the money to re-stage everything when they returned to England, but did manage to do Ashton's Facade and Dante Sonata. I think his Horoscope was lost for ever. It is odd that Turner cites Massine as the greatest male dancer - he mostly did character roles, often in his own ballets, and was not known as a classical dancer as far as I remember. Yes, of course we have to have new ballets as well as the old ones, but I still think the combination-of-arts idea can be applied. Experimentation is always necessary - after all, the Diaghilev ballets were definitely experimental. I'm just stating my personal preferences! [ February 27, 2002, 03:12 AM: Message edited by: Helena ]

Thanks, Mel! We must have overlapped. So the English ballet just took the name of the original King and transferred it to the Prince.

I have just remembered that there was a famous English poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning called "Aurora Leigh", so the name was obviously known to her. It was published in 1856, well before Sleeping Beauty. When I was checking this I found that the poet Byron had also used the name in "Don Juan" for "a beautiful and innocent young heroine". That was even earlier, in the 1820s. Aurora was the goddess of the dawn, I think, in mythology. I don't know the name of the King in the original Petipa - it would be interesting to know. Then there's "Florestan and his Sisters", a pas de trois introduced by Diaghilev....this was included in some RB versions, where the King was also called Florestan (XXIV) but was not the Florestan in the pas de trois...I'm getting more and more confused!

In something I was reading recently I discovered that when Diaghilev brought The Sleeping Princess to England in the 1920s the Prince was called Charming, as he often was (and is still) in the English pantomimes. He was also often called Desire in pantomimes, which I think is the reason the Sadlers Wells ballet changed the name to Florimund for their production in the 1930s. Pantomimes were considered a downmarket form of entertainment, so the association was considered undesirable for a true art form like ballet. (I think I've said this before somewhere on this board.) Fonteyn very Britishly described the name Desire as "a bit much". Florimund presumably means "flower of the world", from Latin. These "flower" names were associated with royalty, or at least aristocracy, in European tradition - there is a Florismart in the Charlemagne romances, and the name Florizel was used by George the Fourth in his correspondence with his the actress Mary Robinson - he took the name from Shakespeare. There is also Florestan, of course. It was considered romantic. I've never come across Florimund other than in this ballet. (I've known a Florian, though!) Aurora is used in English, but very rarely. It is listed in books of names, but I've never met one. Dawn is used quite a lot. [ February 26, 2002: Message edited by: Helena ]

I have this book, in a slightly revised edition from 1946. W.J.Turner was a fairly well-known English poet - I know some of his poetry from other books, and he includes several of his poems in this book. What strikes me about it now is how serious (not in a bad way) and scholarly the approach to ballet was then. It is taken for granted that a knowledge of music and art (painting specifically) is essential for a true understanding of the ballet scene. Although music is still stressed, painting seems to be now much more neglected. The Diaghilev ideal was still very much alive in mid-20th century Britain. The book says at one point "Modern ballet is a combination of dancing, music, plot and decor." This is the definition of ballet that is deeply ingrained in me - in fact I think we may have had to learn something like it for ballet exams in the 40s and 50s. I think this is why I have always had some difficulty in coming to terms with plotless, decor-less ballet - well, plotless I don't mind, but costume-less (leotards) and scenery-less I find difficult to accept. To me it's a bit like having music-less ballet - which has been discussed, I think! Margot Fonteyn also described that journey out of Holland in her autobiography, and her description is included in Harriet Castor's anthology "Ballet Stories". It says a lot for the dancers' sense of humour in this dire situation that it can be seen as funny!

I seem to remember, when I saw this production in London, that there was a scarlet one with black rats on it. Could I have been imagining this in a particularly bad moment? I couldn't say I want it, but it was memorable.

I don't think Darcey Bussell sounds too wonderful either! Not what I'd choose for a stage name....

I have just heard on the radio that music from Swan Lake was played at her funeral this afternoon.

I perhaps should have added that Mayerling is about sinister happenings at the Viennese court in the late nineteenth century. Mayerling is the name of a Royal hunting lodge. [ February 15, 2002: Message edited by: Helena ]

You said it for me, Manhattnik! MacMillan did Anastasia (which I've not seen)and Mayerling. I think Mayerling works quite well.

I find that non-ballet people in Britain are mostly quite unaware that Princess Margaret was genuinely and seriously interested in ballet - they tend to think of her as being President of the Royal Ballet in name only, as is so often the case with these things, if they think about it at all. But she was really keen and in her time attended rehearsals as well as performances. I wonder if the Royal Ballet School could revive Ashton's Nursery Suite for their performance this year - or perhaps it would be too sad. I remember that Margaret said (to Ashton) that it made them cry. It summed up so marvellously the difference in character and in expectation of the two girls.