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According to Amazon, the Royal Ballet's Manon, filmed a year ago, will be released on DVD on November 17. Manon: Tamara Rojo Des Grieux: Carlos Acosta Lescaut: José Martín Lescaut’s Mistress: Laura Morera Monsieur G.M.: Christopher Saunders I couldn't find a Blu-Ray listing, but perhaps someone else will have better luck.

Actually, I would be grateful for the reviews of our French posters as well. Quite recently I had cancelled Artv because it hadn't shown anything of interest to me in what seemed like an age. Now I'm debating whether to reconfigure my TV package again in order to watch the program.

Canadian Bravo. Sorry for being imprecise.

Bravo will replay the program this Monday, October 19, at 7:00 p.m. ET/4:00 p.m. PT.

For Francophone Canadians out there, Artv will be airing Sonia Paramo's film Noureev: L'attraction céleste this week. Sunday, October 18 at 7:00 p.m. ET Tuesday, October 20 at 8:00 a.m. ET Wednesday, October 21 at 12:00 a.m. ET Friday, October 23 at 7:00 a.m. ET Saturday, October 24 at 7:00 a.m. ET http://artv.ca/emissions/portraits.html Here is a blurb in English about the film: http://www.fipa.tm.fr/en/programmes/2009/mus_18796.htm

There's no word yet on when this DVD will be available in North America, but here is a link to a web site dedicated to Sylvie Guillem: On the Edge. I'm posting it on the board because the track list includes an unidentified 10-minute excerpt from Swan Lake, perhaps the White Swan adagio. http://www2.deutschegrammophon.com/special/?ID=sylvieguillem

I hadn't heard that but it would certainly be nice if that was the case. A problem though is that none of these theatrical properties last forever. They are subject to hard use being trucked in and out of the theater. And all kinds of things seem to happen in the warehouses. As I had mentioned, the Met revived Adriana Lecouvrer last season but when they took the sets out of storage some of them were deteriorated beyond the point of refurbishing/repainting. They usesd the ones that were able to be salvaged and used projections for the rest. Still, it would be great if they still had the Chagall. It's really something a bit beyond a typical group of theatrical sets. When I went to the movies to see the Liceu's Aida, the production's big selling point was the restoration of Mestres Cabanes' trompe-l'oeil paper (!) sets, originally painted in 1945. I have to say that the sets were pretty astonishing, very beautiful and looked terrific on a big screen in HD. That Aida gave me hope that the Chagall Flute could be revived in similar fashion. http://www.opusarte.com/productGallery_ima...92407/aida2.jpg http://www.musicweb-international.com/sand.../aida2_1024.jpg http://www.musicweb-international.com/sand.../aida1_1024.jpg

Oh, certainly. This continues into act 2 prior to Othello's arrival, where it's pretty obvious that he would never engage in the sort of witty banter that goes on between Desdemona and Iago. There are lots subtleties lost in the opera. I'm sorry to lose Emilia's cynicism, too, but these elements aren't terribly operatic, so Boito was completely right to drop them and pare the story down to its violent emotions. These, I think, register more powerfully in the opera than they do in the play. Not to mention the fact that "Ah, sangue, sangue, sangue!" sounds so much better than "O, blood, blood, blood!", especially with cymbals crashing in the background.

Venus, no? I agree that it's a brilliant condensation. Makes me wonder why Shakespeare bothered with an entire act. Opening with the storm is so much more dramatic.

Wouldn't this just mean that the conductor has the score memorized? It's not at all unusual in my experience.

A number of years ago when I went to see the film Le roi danse, about Louis XIV, Lully and Molière, I sat in my seat dreading the arrival of this moment. Fortunately, director Gérard Corbiau decided to get it over with right at the beginning and turn the rest of the film into a flashback.

Has April Fools' Day arrived early this year?

I'm sorry to say that this kind of thing sometimes happens with VAI releases and the Hardy Classic DVDs they distribute. The good news is that the DVD is still listed on the VAI site and can be purchased there, albeit for a higher price. I wouldn't be at all suprised if the DVD reappeared on Amazon under a different product number, at which point you'll be able to buy it, but you'll no longer get the pre-order discount you should have been entitled to. It's happened to me before.

La Bayadère will be showing at five UltraStar locations in southern California and Arizona. Thurday, October 8, at 7:00 p.m. Sunday, October 11, at 10:30 a.m. The participating cinemas are located in San Diego, CA (Mission Valley Cinemas); Oceanside, CA (Mission Market); Apple Valley, CA; Surprise, AZ; and Lake Havasu City, AZ. http://www.ultrastarmovies.com

The DVD will finally be released in the U.S. on October 27.

Heinz Spoerli's Peer Gynt, performed by the Zurich Ballet, can be pre-ordered at Amazon. It's scheduled for release on October 27, 2009.

However, be warned that it's a pirate with somewhat inferior video quality. The DVD is still in print in Europe, courtesy of Arthaus Musik. If you've got a region-free player, you can get it for a good deal less than $525 on German, French or British Amazon. http://www.arthaus-musik.com/templates/tyC...etail.php?id=86

The North American release date is October 27. Amazon is now taking orders for the DVD and Blu-Ray.

I suppose I have two separate categories in my mind: 'illustrious dancers who leave me cold' and 'illustrious dancers who drive me up a wall.' Most of the dancers in the latter group are divisive enough not to enjoy universal critical and popular acclaim in the first place, e.g. Svetlana Zakharova or Nikolai Tsiskaridze. Even though he seems to enjoy critical favour in the U.S., I'd have to add Ethan Stiefel to the list. Zoltan Solymosi and Rex Harrington had a similar effect on me, though they had nothing like Stiefel's technique. These are the dancers who make me squirm in my seat, as though my consciousness were desperate to tear itself away from my body and hightail it away from the theatre. I think it's a reaction to what comes across as extreme narcissism on their part. The other group is made up of dancers whom I don't necessarily dislike, and who are often superb technicians, but who don't do much for me. They would include Darcey Bussell, Miyako Yoshida, Viviana Durante, Cynthia Gregory, Kyra Nichols, Uliana Lopatkina, Gillian Murphy, Aurélie Dupont, Emilie Cozette, Roberto Bolle and Carlos Acosta. I am sympathetic to detractors of Makarova, though over time I learned to live with her eccentricities and came to see her as a net positive for ballet. I also agree that Mukhamedov was ill-suited to the classical roles. Agnès Letestu frustrates me about 50% of the time, though I have to acknowledge that her ballerina aura is very real.

I can think of many examples. This is heresy for someone living in Canada because she has the status of national icon, but for me the most obvious case is Karen Kain, whose performances usually bored me to tears... until she began dancing the works of Glen Tetley, in which she was terrific. Unfortunately, it didn't do anything to loosen up her Odette-Odile.

Cinderella will be screened at five UltraStar locations in California and Arizona this week. Thurday, September 17, at 7:00 p.m. Sunday, September 20, at 10:30 a.m. The participating cinemas are located in San Diego, CA (Mission Valley Cinemas); Oceanside, CA (Mission Market); Apple Valley, CA; Surprise, AZ; and Lake Havasu City, AZ. Below is a listing of other performing arts screenings coming to UltraStar cinemas. September 24 & 27 - La Bohème (Teatro Real) October 1 & 4 - Il barbiere di Siviglia (Teatro Real) October 8 & 11 - La Bayadère (Royal Ballet) October 15 & 18 - I puritani (Teatro Comunale di Bologna) October 22 & 25 - Castor et Pollux (De Nederlandse Opera) October 29 & November 1 - Swan Lake (Mariinsky Ballet) November 5 & 8 - A Midsummer Night's Dream (Pacific Northwest Ballet) November 12 & 15 - Eugene Onegin (Bolshoi Opera)

Balanchine's Serenade, though I, too, am exceedingly fond of Liebeslieder Walzer. I saw a lot of ballets in New York last spring, but the clincher that made me get on the plane in the first place was Liebeslieder.

Apparently the performance was filmed in December 2008. When the Royal Ballet beamed its Nutcracker into British cinemas last December, the SPF and her Cavalier were danced by Ansanelli and Hristov. There are clips of the performance on You Tube. Whether the market can sustain a third DVD of this production is another matter. But I must say that Ansanelli and Hristov are a better-matched pair than Yoshida and Cope. An incomplete video of the pas de deux is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBc_uVevnkY

Landmark Cinemas (in Winnipeg, Calgary, Nanaimo, Kelowna) and Vancouver's Ridge Theatre have announced their Opus Arte line-ups for the season, and there is distressingly little ballet on offer. September 19, 2009 - Verdi: La traviata (Royal Opera) October 3, 2009 - Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia (Teatro Real) - Landmark Cinemas October 17, 2009 - John Caird: Twin Spirits (Sting & Trudie Styler) November 14, 2009 - Verdi: Falstaff (Glyndebourne Festival) November 28, 2009 - Shakespreare: Romeo and Juliet (Globe Theatre) December 5, 2009 - Ivanov/Wright: The Nutcracker (Royal Ballet w/Alexandra Ansanelli & Valeri Hristov?) December 12, 2009 - Handel: Messiah (Choir of King's College) January 23, 2010 - Petipa/Ivanov: Swan Lake (Royal Ballet w/Marianela Nuñez & Thiago Soares) January 30, 2010 - Shakespeare: As You Like It (Globe Theatre) February 13, 2010 - Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore (Glyndebourne Festival) February 27, 2010 - Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost (Globe Theatre) March 13, 2010 - Puccini: La Bohème (Royal Opera) April 3, 2010 - Massenet: Manon (Gran Teatre del Liceu) April 17, 2010 - Ashton: Tales of Beatrix Potter (Royal Ballet) May 7, 2010 - Tchaikovsky: Cherevichki (Royal Opera) I have no objection to the screenings expanding to include Shakespeare, but I hate to see it happen at the expense of ballet. According to the NEA, ballet is more popular than opera. Is Canada so different from the United States? Will no Royal Ballet productions be filmed in the coming season? I am also sorry to see no productions from the POB this time around. That may be beyong the control of Opus Arte, but in the past it hasn't stopped the distributor from "borrowing" ballets from other producers. It also strikes me as decidedly strange to screen Swan Lake after its DVD release. If previous patterns hold, the DVD should hit the North American market on October 27. Granted, two of the opera productions are already available on DVD, but screening them strikes me as equally illogical. Why a repeat of Tales of Beatrix Potter and not a repeat of Giselle or Sleeping Beauty? Given that ballet used to enjoy some sort of parity with opera screenings in the past, this schedule is not at all encouraging. In my experience, audiences at ballet screenings are no smaller than audiences at their operatic counterparts. I'm also sorry to say that since these screenings began, I haven't seen many bun-heads attending them in my city. Perhaps they're all in class on Saturdays, but surely occasional field trips to ballet screenings would be beneficial to them, and undoubtedly the schools could get a group ticket discount to do it. Oh, dear, dear, dear... P.S. Interesting to see that Opus Arte is pitting As You Like It against the National Theatre's Nation on the same afternoon.

A film of Pierre Lacotte's reconstruction of Joseph Mazilier's Marco Spada, with Rudolf Nureyev, Ghislaine Thesmar and Michael Denard, can now be pre-ordered on Amazon. It's scheduled for release on October 6. http://www.hardyclassic.it/searchresult.as...l=Marco%20Spada