tylerls

I bought the Bonynge recording from HMV Japan, and it arrived a week or two ago. I had trouble finding a reasonably priced copy anywhere less exotic, though it looks like arkivmusic.com have it in stock, too. (I hadn't heard of arkivmusic at the time.) "Pas des fleurs" is track 6 on disc 2. It's 3 minutes and 11 seconds long. On a hunch, I googled for "cddb", the old database where people entered track names for their CDs and shared them with everyone. You can search for CDs that have a "song" with the exact title of "Pas des Fleurs": Pas des Fleurs but, unfortunately, that database only seems to know about the Bonynge recording, and a few false matches. (I tried a few other searches.) Still, I thought the database was worth mentioning, in case it helps someone else, for some other problem.

News on the Australian Ballet's website: Steven Heathcote's big leap There's also an article in "The Age": Heathcote ready to hang up the ballet shoes (The Age)

"HMV Japan" says the Japanese edition of Bonynge's Le Corsaire recording is "coming soon" (16th of May, 2007). They have a few other Bonynge ballet recordings which seem to be pretty hard to come by. Le Corsaire (Bonynge) at HMV Japan The other ballet recordings they've listed as "coming soon": Giselle Les Sylphides / La Boutique Fantasque La Bayadere La Source Coppelia Sylvia Sleeping Beauty I've ordered "Le Corsaire", so hopefully it'll really turn up at my door in a month or so. Worth a try, at least. (You never know, it could be just a mis-translation of "we think we might be able to get this for you in 2-3 weeks, but we're wrong, and it's long out of print".)

POB have finally announced the details of the gala. I just received an email about it. The details are here: Paris Opera Ballet - Grand Gala Wednesday 13th of June 2007, 19:30 at the Sydney Opera House. PROGRAM: Paquita (after Marius Petipa): Grand Pas Swan Lake (Rudolf Nureyev after Marius Petipa): Pas de trios, Swan Lake Act III La Dame aux camélias (John Neumeier): Pas de deux INTERVAL The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude (William Forsythe) Sonatine (George Balanchine) Three-Cornered Hat (Le Tricorne) (Leonide Massine): Miller’s Dance, solo L’Arlésienne (Roland Petit): Pas de deux Tickets are on sale on the 2nd of April at 9am from the Sydney Opera House website Be warned, the tickets are pretty expensive. An A-reserve seat will set you back as much as a full subscription to The Australian Ballet company's 2007 season.

I just found the official website for the tour via the Capitol Theatre's website. There's still no word about the gala, though it's listed on Manuel Legris' own website.

Swan Lake and Jewels went on sale on the Internet about four hours ago, but you seem to need some sort of presale code. The general sale starts 9am on the 5th of December. Ticketmaster Edit: Search for "capitol" and then choose "Capitol Theatre, Haymarket". It's a few pages into the search results. No idea about the gala, yet.

According to Manuel Legris' website, the Gala will be held on Wednesday the 13th of June, 2007. He'll be partnering Aurélie Dupont for some of the above Swan Lake performances. (Dates to be determined).

Dates for "Swan Lake" and "Jewels" (Taken from an offer to Sydney subscribers on the Australian Ballet Company's website.) Swan Lake Sat 16 June 7.30pm Sun 17 June 2.00pm Tue 19 June 7.30pm Wed 20 June 7.30pm Thu 21 June 7.30pm Fri 22 June 7.30pm Sat 23 Jun 1.30pm Sat 23 Jun 7.30pm Sun 24 Jun 2.00pm Jewels Wed 27 Jun 7.30pm Thu 28 Jun 7.30pm Fri 29 Jun 7.30pm Sat 30 Jun 1.30pm Sat 30 Jun 7.30pm I don't have any further information about the gala at the Opera House.

The Australian DVD (R4) will be released on the 21st of September.

Looking at the aStores review I quoted earlier, when I originally suggested you could make one of them for BalletTalk: review of Amazon aStores you can see they managed to add a search box to their example store: Reviewer's example aStore I think it's something to do with "adding categories". (See the review.) The reviewer's store seems to be narrowing down the categories of search you can do to fairly specific things ("Dead Trees", "Movies for Geeks", etc.) but it seems you can also make broad search categories ("DVDs", "VHS", "Books", "CDs", etc.) judging by this randomly selected aStore: Another example aStore For example, I think you can configure fairly restrictive categories to search such as "Balanchine", and/or you can have broad, flexible categories such as "DVDs". Whatever seems suitable. I'd start off with some broad categories, and perhaps add some more focussed categories ("American Ballet Theatre DVDs"? "Paris Opera Ballet DVDs"? "Ballet Biographies"?) to give people ideas, beyond the nine featured items.

More from the Herald-Sun:

Today's Herald Sun (6 September 2006, page 59) adds the following information: "Destiny" will consist of Leonide Massine's "Les Presages", plus "the revamp of Massine's 1936 work 'Symphonie Fantastique', by Polish choreographer Krzysztof Pastor" (which will be a world premiere). "Don Quixote" will be based on Nureyev's staging (as seen in the 1973 recording) The Nutcracker will be British choreographer Sir Peter Wright's version. The production will be rebuilt, based on the Birmingham Royal Ballet version. Stephen Baynes is the chap who is creating "Raymonda" for the 2006 season. 2007 will be Stephen Heathcote's 25th year with the company. (Sorry, I haven't found an online copy of the Herald Sun article.) The Australian Ballet's email newsletter promised that our nice glossy subscription brochures would be waiting for us in our mailboxes today. So naturally, the rain has been bucketing down. Typical!

"The Age" mentions a few more tidbits: - New works by Christopher Wheeldon and Krzysztof Pastor. (I guess Christopher Wheeldon = "After the Rain".) - Leonide Massine's "Les Presages" See: The Age: Australian Ballet's year of dancing too safely

I'm afraid I haven't personally seen any of his work yet. I almost went to see "Southern Lights" in 2004, but my friends pulled out on me. As of this year, I've started going to ballets by myself when necessary (sad, I know) so hopefully that won't be happening again. I'm sure there'll be others on this board with first-hand experience, but here are a couple of references. It sounds like he's good at what he does: Australia Dancing profile of Stephen Baynes New York Times review of "At the Edge of Night" (October 15, 1999) (probably requires registration)

The 2007 season has just been launched: Austrlian Ballet 2007 Season - Don Quixote - New Romantics ("Apollo. After the Rain. New Stephen Baynes work.") - Bodytorque. Generations - Paquita - Destiny ("One Classic, and one world premiere.") - The Nutcracker Sounds good to me. Don Q., Paquita and the Nutcracker will be enough to keep me happy. I had reservations about the 2006 season, but it hasn't been bad so far. (I'm yet to see Raymonda.)