Claire S

The first Royal Ballet season under Ross Stretton is about to start and already stories have made their way into the press about the new regime. First, Irek Mukhamedov - one of the best-loved dancers at Covent Garden for the past decade - was told his services were no longer required. The director sent an assistant to tell him rather than give him the respect of saying it himself, there was no announcement and Mukhamedov slipped out the back door with hardly a murmur. Then Sarah Wildor, a genuine home-grown dancer who was renowned as a true Ashtonian ballerina, decided to leave, two weeks after Stretton arrived, to avoid being made more unhappy. Casting information - which used to be available months befores performances to allow fans to reserve seats for their favourite dancers - is dwindling to almost nothing. Nothing for Onegin, nothing for the Triple Bills and only the two lead roles in Nutcracker, Bayadere and Giselle. No explanation has been given for this. Apart from the Sugar Plum Fairy's cavalier, only Principals have been cast in leading roles for the forthcoming season (as far as we know) whereas under the previous regimes First Soloists and Soloists frequently danced leading roles which allowed them to gain experience before promotion. Indeed this is how Alina Cojocaru attracted so much attention. In fact the newest Princpal, Zenaida Yanowsky, has not been cast in any leading roles according to the information so far. Sylvie Guillem is so far scheduled to dance Marguerite and Armand only. I won't even mention the unimaginative programming except to say Nnutcracker and Giselle for the third year in a row. The cumulative affect of all this is to create a very negative atmosphere for the start of the new directorship. Everyone expects there to be changes but so far they seem only negative ones, and I can'thelp feeling very envious of the people who are lucky enough to have snapped up two great former Royal Ballet stars - Wayne Eagling and Bruce Sansom - who not only were fine dancers but who seemed as considerate of their audiences as they were of their fellow dancers.

Your reply, Alexandra, about ballet being a live art reminded me how lucky those of living in London are. We have about ten months of the Royal Ballet, a Christmas season from English National ballet and probably a couple more seasons from them too, plus lots of visiting companies. In the next few months we have visits by the Houston Ballet, the Bolshoi (well, "STars of the Bolshoi" doing pas de deux and single acts from the classics to pull in the crowds), the Kirov, San Francisco Ballet and Dutch national Ballet, plus visit by home touring companies Northern Ballet Theatre, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Rambert. Plus there's other companies such Moscow City ballet, touring the country. If we can afford it (!), we have a great chance to see many different ballets and different styles and to compare and contrast them. It sort of counterbalances the pollution/transport problems/crime etc!

I've just watched a couple of Australian Ballet videos kindly sent to me by a dance fan out there. I knew very little about the company - apart from dancers who've come over to the UK such as Greg Horsman/Lisa pavane and now Nigel burley, but I was quite impressed by the company. Their version of The Merry Widow has great joie de vivre and I liked Manon, too - a better video record than the rather dated Royal Ballet version. I don't know if they tour much but the attention given to Sylvie Guillem when she danced over their last september suggests they don't get many visitors either!

Thanks to everyone for their intersting replies. I'm glad to see there are others out there who are entralled by the beauty behind the comedy! Glebb, your comments on dancing Ashton (and being Alain!) were interesting. Incidentally, did you find Ashton particularly hard to dance? Last year I went to a talk by Johan Kobborg who described how hard he found Symphonic Variations (his first Ashton I think), yet when he watched others dancing it from the winds all he could think of was "Why is it so difficult?" As a non dancer - merely and entralled spectator - I'd be interested to know whether Ashton's deceptibvely simple steps are as hard/harder/easier than other choroegraphers. Thanks Claire

I'm in love - and with a ballet, too! I can't help it, La Fille Mal Gardee is probably the best night out I can have at the ballet! Really! Making a welcome, return to Covent Garden (there were performances at the Royal Festival Hall during the closure period), this has to be Frederick Ashton's greatest gift to the Royal BAllet. Ashton left some wonderful ballets but rarely has choreography/scenario/music/design combined to such effect. The Nutcracker is the traditional Christmas, children's ballet but to my mind this is much more suited to non-ballet fans. It is marvellous to see it back in the repertoire with a new generation of dancers - I hope the incoming administration don't see it as a relic to be set aside in their rush join the adoration of NAcho Duarto (actually I love Duarto, too, I just want to see some Ashton too!) Fille was probably old-fashioned whne it was first made in 1960. Osbert Lancaster's cartoon designs evoke a sunny, benign landscape in which the worst thing that can happen to a girl is not being allowed out to see her boyfriend and a happy ending is a certainty (not that many of those in ballet!) John Lanchbery returns to conduct the fizzy, lilting score he constructed from Herold and his own compositions - incidentally he got a tremendous ovation at 26/1/01 performance from what was obviously a fairly knowledgable audience. I don't know if many overseas companies perform Fille - maybe it's too ENGLISH a ballet - but the choreography is both beautiful and witty, from the ribbon pas de deux to the clog dance and Lise's "marriage" mime. Four casts are scheduled to dance this season but already Johan Kobborg has had to drop out - I was SO looking forward to that as I'm sure it would have been a perfect marriage of dancer and role. Miyako Yoshida (whose acting has improved tremendously since she began dancing regularly with Mukhamedov) and Mukhamedov were the first cast. She was terrific and Mukhamedov showed he'd still a great artist - OK, a bit hammy but still a fabulous dancer and a showman (I like a dancer who relates to the audience and looks like he's enjoyed it too!) Sarah Wildor (the best Lise in 1998) is scheduled to dance with Ethan Stiefel (is he fit???!! I hope so) and Belinda Hatley will dance with Joahn persson, newly arrived from Canada. he's already danced with Jane Burn in place of Kobborg which sort of shows the lack of male dancers at the RB at the moment. Is there no one else - couldn't Burley give it a go, or Alvarez? I wish Carlos Acosta was scheduled for this run (I'll have to wait for his Oberon in May - should be amazing!) I bought the video of an eighties performance of Fille with Lesley Collier which is just enchanting too, though a couple of the performances are a bit bland. Alexander Grant - the original Alain, Lise's unwanted suitor - has been coaching the current casts which may have accounted for the improved characterisation. Ashton isn't supposed to "sell" well but Fille is practically sold out, the Ashton Revisited bill last MArch was the hottest ticket of the season and the Quintuple Bill including Symohonic Variations and Monotones last autumn was also very popular. I'd be interested to know how much Ashton is performed by other companies and of so, is it very popular? Claire