volcanohunter

It seems to be working right now, at least on my computer. I have a feeling the old system kicks in when the new interface is overloaded.

Until August 20 you can watch the new Paris Opera production of Karol Szymanowski's Król Roger, starring Mariusz Kwiecien, Olga Pasichnyk and Eric Cutler, on the Internet at no charge. If you're expecting Byzantine opulence, the production is disappointing, but the music, of course, is gorgeous.

http://www.operadeparis.fr/cns11/live/onp/...ION=SELECT_NEWS

Since the opera is shown without subtitles, those unfamiliar with it may find the following background information and synopsis helpful.

http://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_revie...anguage=English

This is the second complete opera I've watched on the net from the Paris Opera. I wonder whether we'll ever get a chance to watch the POB this way.

Decca will be releasing MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet, starring Tamara Rojo and Carlos Acosta, on DVD and Blu-ray on August 25. Amazon is taking pre-orders.

Juliet - Tamara Rojo

Romeo - Carlos Acosta

Mercutio - José Martín

Tybalt - Thiago Soares

Benvolio - Yohei Sasaki

Paris - David Pickering

Lord Capulet - Christopher Saunders

Lady Capulet - Elizabeth McGorian

Escalus - Gary Avis

Rosaline - Christina Arestis

Nurse - Sandra Conley

Friar Laurence - Alastair Marriott

Lord Montague - Alastair Marriott

Lady Montague - Francesca Filpi

Harlots - Laura Morera, Isabel McMeekan, Sian Murphy

Mandolin Dance - Steven McRae

Well, it's about time. Decca has been sitting on this for quite a while.

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=27035

Funny, I never thought of "good feet" as being particularly related to aesthetics. I always thought of certain dancers being able to achieve a level of technical mastery, particularly in jumps, because they had good feet, that is, feet that work efficiently, inevitably in combination with a well-aligned skeleton. Sometimes these feet also happen to be beautiful, but not necessarily. If a dancer has aesthetically pleasing feet, but he or she is not able to land jumps quietly, I wouldn't describe those feet as "good."

...that's why the Royal has recruited so many foreign virtuosos. Ditto POB.

Surely you don't mean that the POB is loaded with foreign virtuosos. The company is still overwhelmingly French, and even foreign nationals like José Martinez and Eleonora Abbagnato were trained in France. In the top ranks only Alessio Carbone could be identified as a "foreign virtuoso."

33 theaters in "America" will get the performance 5 hours later. For some reason, it won't reach "the southern hemisphere" until July.

I'd be curious to know exactly what this means. As far as I can tell, at least 60 cinemas in Canada will be screening it in two waves of tape delays to accommodate multiple time zones.

http://www.cineplex.com/Movies/MovieDetail...efinition_.aspx

Here are the participating cinemas in the U.S.

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/47486/ve...ted-states.html

As bart mentioned, the trailer promises that this is to be the first in a series.

http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/ntlive

In Canada, ballets are shown in cinemas as part of the Royal Opera/Opus Arte series, but these are taped far in advance. ABT would be a logical candidate to broadcast live since the Met is already equipped for live transmission and evening-length narrative ballets are probably an easier sell than mixed bills of plotless works. I assume ABT hasn't done so already because movie houses are reluctant to cede screens to arty-farty programming on Saturday afternoons during the summer blockbuster season.

The Met won't even take a chance to broadcast the new Chereau "House of the Dead", Chereau's debut at the house, in HD next year, one of two productions next season that go into Mortier turf, and that has Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting and Peter Mattei in the cast. And that's Janacek, for Pete's sake, not really cutting edge.

I'm sure you're right, but I wonder whether the Met doesn't think of potential DVD releases when choosing what to broadcast in HD, and the Chéreau production is already available on DVD. Of course by that reasoning they shouldn't have bothered with the Laurent Pelly production of La Fille du régiment or the Caurier/Leiser production of Hamlet, but maybe different rules apply when Natalie Dessay is involved.

Natalia had previously reported that a DVD of the Mariinsky's Firebird and (apparently rather pallid) Rite of Spring is available in Europe. I haven't yet seen it on Amazon.com, but the DVD is available for pre-order on Canadian Amazon, and the release date is listed as July 21.

http://www.amazon.ca/Stravinsky-and-the-Ba...s/dp/B0023T9ZR0

These are the same performances that are presently showing at cinemas around the U.S., though for some reason the DVD doesn't include Les Noces.

http://www.emergingpictures.com/stravinsky...lets_russes.htm

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=29419

Sorry, but the Tsarist army uniform that Sergei is wearing clearly indicates that "On the Dnieper" takes place before the Revolution of 1917. "The New Soviet Man" came much later.

I agree. I found Michael Popkin's analysis exceedingly silly. Sometimes a ballet romance is just a ballet romance. Even when its protagonists are not terribly sympathetic.

My feelings were more mixed about the performance. I agree that Saveliev was magnificent, both in his dancing and his mime. But I couldn't squeeze out any applause for Murphy. I'm not a fan, and yesterday reminded me why I avoid her performances. I understand her wanting to make a strong contrast with Giselle, but her movements are abrupt to the point of being herky-jerky. This is supposed to be an incorporeal being? I would have been much happier with Isabella Boylston in the role.

Gomes is commanding, but overbearing and certainly not aristocratic. His dancing is powerful, but lacking in romanticism. His broad-chested bravura might work well for Conrad, and it worked last week in On the Dnieper, but not for Albrecht.

I don't think the corps of wilis deserved quite the raptuous reception they received. I've seen better, even on the Met stage. Ananiashvili, on the other hand, deserved every last cheer she got. Her second act was stupendous--boneless, weightless, pure poetry. Definitely go see her while you still have the chance.

Natalia, if you type 'Don Quixote' into the Amazon search box and narrow the results to the 46 DVDs with that title, it should pop up. I just tried it and the DVD turns up in 13th position, in other words, the first title on the second page of results. The ASIN is B00274SIA6, but apparently plugging this number into the box won't give BT a commission, so better to search by title.

The DVD can now be pre-ordered at Amazon.com.

http://www.deccaclassics.com/music/dvd/0743235.htm

After watching New York City Ballet's Romeo and Juliet debacle, I'd vote for Rudi van Dantzig's version. Among other things, Toer van Schayk's uniset design is much more successful.

Photos of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet production

http://www.rwb.org/whats_on/wpg3_gallery.html

Pacific Northwest Ballet used to do the Glen Tetley Alice in the early 90s, and I seem to remember that it was in the National B of C repertory, but now I can't find a reference. Does anyone else remember this, or am I hallucinating?

Scroll down to 1985/86.

http://www.ballet.ca/thecompany/archives/1981-1990.php

It was also filmed by the CBC, but never released commercially. If I'm not mistaken, the cast consisted of Kimberly Glasco as Young Alice, Karen Kain as Alice Hargreaves, Rex Harrington as Lewis Carroll, Peter Ottmann as Reginald Hargreaves and Owen Montague as the White Rabbit.

[Edited to add:]

I found an old program note.

Glen Tetley's Alice, the choreographer's first created work for The National Ballet of Canada, is steeped in romantic nostalgia--evocative, mysterious and poignant.

Tetley was inspired by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici's rich symphonic score, Child Alice, Part I: In Memory of a Summer Day--a setting of a prefatory poem which author Lewis Carroll wrote for his famous Alice stories. Picking up on Carroll's reflective poem, Tetley has created a multi-layered ballet which, while it presents many of the famous antic characters from the Alice books--the White Rabbit, the March Hare, the Mad Hatter--also speculates on the relationship between Carroll and his real-life inspiration, the 10-year-old Alice Liddell. The ballet moves back and forth through time, from reality to fantasy, to show us the profound impact Lewis Carroll had on the emotional life of Alice.

Critically acclaimed as one of Tetley's finest works, the ballet has been a popular hit with audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, attractive equally to seasoned ballet-goers and to young audience members for whom designer Nadine Baylis' re-creation of Wonderland has strong appeal.

Trendy, hyped, and over-produced works (TA-DAH !!!) leaves me feeling like I'm trapped in an airplane, strapped into my seat while others wander about peddling food, drink, items for sale, and noise.

I'm tempted to steal that one.

( ... ) you had to laugh at the idea of Joan Fontaine dancing Juliet!

Especially when it was her sister, Olivia de Haviland. People always confuse the two.

I've certainly walked out of ballets I thought were terrible, though never demonstratively; I wait for a pause or intermission to make my escape. And if I watch a ballet and find it to be a waste of time, I don't go back for seconds. Where I live now, I have relatively few opportunities to see live ballet, so I hate to do it, but there's only so much frustration I can stand.

I suppose I am intending to boycott a work my local company is planning for next season because I think the music and subject matter are unworthy, and because I disliked a similar project undertaken by the same choreographer a few years ago. As Jack Reed put it, it's a matter of protecting myself.

As for the Romeo + Juliet broadcast, I did watch it, but took the unusual step, for me, of not recording it. As it turns out, I was correct in predicting that I wouldn't have the slightest desire to watch it again.

The DVD and Blu-Ray can now be pre-ordered at Amazon. The American release date is June 30.

If you haven't seen it yet and are dying to see it on the big screen, Spartacus will be screened at five UltraStar locations in California and Arizona on May 27 and 28.

Wednesday, May 27 at 11:00 a.m.

Thursday, May 28 at 7:00 p.m.

The participating cinemas are located in San Diego, CA; Carlsbad, CA; Apple Valley, CA; Surprise, AZ; and Lake Havasu City, AZ.

http://centralsystem.digiscreen.ca/ShowPag...p;date=05272009

I prefer better sets, costumes, drama, and choreography.

A brilliantly succinct review.

I just had a look at that thread, volcanohunter - and yes I could certainly add to that discussion! But possibly my insight would make everyone tear their hair out even more. (A newbie question, that thread is quite old now, should I post to that thread, or start a new one?)

There's no reason not to continue the thread. I'm sure everyone who read it the first time around would be very interested in learning about filming subsidies, DVD sales and the like.

First and foremost, kudos to the two pianists who played the all-Chopin score and whose names I thought were on the printed cast list sheet at the cinema.

Thanks to the back cover of the DVD version I finally know that they were Emmanuel Strosser and Frédéric Vaysse-Knitter. At the screening their names had flitted past too quickly.

The American release date is June 30, and the ballet can now be pre-ordered at Amazon in both DVD and Blu-Ray formats. Search for 'La Dame aux camelias'.

Your comment leads on to another discussion, which is - how difficult it is to get ballet productions (the filming side of things, I mean) off the ground these days!

I am old enough to remember the good old days when ballet was shown fairly frequently on TV in the UK. Now it's a rare event.

BTers have ripped their hair out over this issue, for example, on this thread, which would certainly benefit from your input as a producer. Most of us can only speculate about how ballet comes to be filmed.

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=28457

For example, I'd be interested to know whether Dutch television has any sort of quota for ballet programming. DVDs of the Netherlands Opera seem to turn up fairly regularly, but there aren't nearly enough videos of the Dutch National Ballet for my taste.

I'm glad to hear about this. I had begun to despair of seeing any new ballet releases from Kultur, so this is welcome news.