volcanohunter

If my satellite guide is to be believed, a number of CBC affiliates will air the program on Saturday, March 14, at 12:00 pm ET/9:00 am PT.

This performance will be showing at three cinemas in Michigan on Sunday, March 15, at 12 pm and 7 pm.

Cinema Hollywood in Birch Run

Emagine Canton in Canton

Emagine Novi in Novi

http://www.emagine-entertainment.com/visMo...omeo+and+Juliet

The Paquita with Zelensky doesn't seem to be available anywhere else.

I believe this refers to the grand pas, led by Makhalina and Zelensky, which is included on the Kirov Classics DVD. The Amazon product number is B00006G8HI.

http://estore.websitepros.com/1652646/Detail.bok?no=578

On Berkshire Record Outlet if it says "Limited-pressing DVD-R) does that mean it is a pirate copy? In your experience is the quality usually there?

Yes, those are the pirates, and I expect their quality can vary greatly.

You do have to be prepared, though, to find that the disk for which you paid $25-40 is selling there for $13.99

Then perhaps this isn't the best time to mention that the DVDs of Roland Petit's Proust [140747] and Pique Dame [140746], and the Mariinsky New Year's gala that features the third act of the reconstructed Sleeping Beauty [140748] are available through BRO as well.

Bel Air Classiques really ought to reconsider their sky-high prices to prevent their disks from ending up among the overstocks, especially, as richard53dog points out, in this day and age.

On Amazon this DVD costs nearly $50, which, perhaps, is why it hasn't been selling particularly well. However, at Berkshire Record Outlet it's available for $14. If you're interested, search for 'Don Quixote' under DVDs or enter product number 140741 under BRO code. This appears to be the actual Bel Air Classiques DVD rather than a pirate thereof.

The Hamburg Ballet's blog reports that ballet mistress Niurka Moredo and her husband, principal dancer Lloyd Riggins, welcomed their son Oliver Lloyd Moredo-Riggins into the world yesterday. Congratulations to them!

http://www.hamburgballett-blog.de/hamburg_...ar-is-born.html

This is sad news indeed. I never saw him dance, but just the other day I was watching a video of La Scala's Guglielmo Tell, for which he choreographed two charming ballet sequences. Requiescat in pace.

Many dancers today don't do well in interviews. If the voice is high-pitched, chirpy, or erratically paced .. if diction is sloppy ... if "perky" is the goal .... then "glamour" probably will not be the result.

That's very true. Many, perhaps most, dancers have poor speaking voices. I have to remind myself that they're discouraged from "belly breathing" from early childhood. With dancers the voice is frequently stuck in the throat without much "support" from below. Even low-pitched voices are often the result of smoking and have little resonance. It would be interesting to compare the speaking styles of ballet dancers with their brethren on Broadway, who have to reconcile seemingly incompatible breathing techniques for dancing and singing.

If I were to sum up my reaction in one sentence, I'd say it's a nice performance that in no way eclipses the earlier film with Jennifer Penney and Anthony Dowell.

I found much to admire in Rojo's performance, less in Acosta's. Overall I was happiest with Laura Morera's Mistress and Paul Kay's Beggar Chief. Among the others I'd note Hikaru Kobayashi among the Courtesans and Valeri Hristov among the Gentlemen.

The most damning thing I can say is that I wasn't brought to tears, and I'm the sort of viewer who cries readily and willingly. This is not entirely the performers' fault since this ballet usually loses me midway through the second act, and I truly dislike Leighton Lucas' ham-fisted arrangements. Poor Massenet. Still, I'm glad I went if only because I'm not likely to buy the future DVD. (Oh dear, talk about a backhanded compliment.)

Bolshoi Ballet: ?? I can't find a list of the corps on the website, but there are 15 principals, 10 leading soloists, 16 first soloists, 23 soloists, 64 dancers who are above the corps (or various levels of corps) in rank, which is more than the NYCB corps, and bigger than any US company except NYCB, ABT, and SFB.

http://www.bolshoi.ru/en/theatre/ballet_troupe/soloists/

If it's any help, here are the Bolshoi's corps. I'll admit that I haven't counted them all, but it looks like about 100 women and 65 men.

http://www.bolshoi.ru/en/theatre/ballet_troupe/cdballet/

http://www.bolshoi.ru/en/theatre/ballet_tr...ex.php?from26=2

Recorded last autumn, the Royal Ballet's production of Kenneth MacMillan's Manon will be shown at Canadian cinemas on Saturday, February 28, at 1:00 p.m. local time.

Manon: Tamara Rojo

Des Grieux: Carlos Acosta

Lescaut: José Martin

Lescaut’s Mistress: Laura Morera

Monsieur G.M.: Christopher Saunders

The trailer's here: http://centralsystem.digiscreen.ca/ShowPag...on=237&ch=3

From the Royal Ballet web site: http://www.roh.org.uk/cinemas/manon/index.aspx

Most screenings will take place at Empire Theatres.

www.empiretheatres.com/opusArte

Participating cities: St. John's, Halifax, Sydney, Fredericton, Saint John, Moncton, Charlottetown, St. Catharines, North York, Mississauga, Ottawa, London, Kitchener, Kingston, Richmond Hill, Burlington, Bolton, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, North Vancouver and Victoria.

It's also showing at the Princess Twin in Waterloo: www.princesscinemas.com

and the Ridge Theatre in Vancouver, www.festivalcinemas.ca, at 10:00 am PT.

On a side note, it appears that the Coast Capital Playhouse in White Rock, BC, the Paradise Cinema in Williams Lake, BC, and the Hudson Village Theatre in Hudson, QC, have also signed on to the Opus Arte network, but I haven't been able to verify exact dates for Royal Ballet/Opera screenings there.

Upon retiring from Alberta Ballet Patrick Canny joined the Calgary Police Service. His wife and fellow dancer Amanda Walsh later became a florist.

The Goldwyn Follies, featuring Vera Zorina and the American Ballet of the Metropolitan Opera in choreography by George Balanchine, is coming to DVD on April 7. If you're interested, it can be pre-ordered at Amazon, its catalogue number being B001PPLINC.

I often complain about Balanchine being underrepresented on video, so I suppose the 'Water Nymph Ballet' will have to do for now.

In case you haven't seen the DVD, or if you're itching to see in on the big screen, the Royal Ballet's recording of La Fille mal gardée, with Marianela Nuñez and Carlos Acosta, will be shown at Canadian cinemas on Saturday, January 31, at 1:00 p.m. local time.

The preview's here: http://centralsystem.digiscreen.ca/ShowPag...on=236&ch=3

Most screenings will take place at Empire Theatres.

www.empiretheatres.com/opusArte

Participating cities: St. John's, Halifax, Sydney, Fredericton, Saint John, Moncton, Charlottetown, St. Catharines, North York, Mississauga, Ottawa, London, Kitchener, Kingston, Richmond Hill, Burlington, Bolton, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, North Vancouver and Victoria.

It's also showing at the Princess Twin in Waterloo: www.princesscinemas.com

and the Ridge Theatre in Vancouver, www.festivalcinemas.ca, at 10:00 am PT.

Surprised no one has mentioned the superb video with Cojocaru, Bonelli, and Nunez from the Royal Ballet. I rank Cojocaru's Aurora among the best, and I like the Royal Ballet production.

Since the Fonteyn and Sizova videos are highly abbreviated, I would recommend the Cojocaru/Bonelli performance. I don't actually hate the Dowell version, and in many respects I think the dancing of the corps is superior to the later video, but Durante leaves me stone cold, and I find Solymosi's performance grotesque--a caricature of the ballet prince.

I have no complaints whatsoever about Cojocaru and Bonelli. I like Nuñez in the original Lilac Fairy sections very much, but the more I watch it, the more tedious I'm finding her non-stop triples in the prologue. Yohei Sasaki has to be one of the least exciting Bluebirds on video, but I try to ignore him and focus on Sarah Lamb instead, even if it means skipping over his solo. Still, the leads carry the day, and the production is solid, so I do think it's among the best available.

A DVD of the program will be released and can be pre-ordered at Amazon. The Amazon catalogue number is B001PSVHNK.

http://estore.websitepros.com/1652646/Detail.bok?no=1420

It just occurred to me that Wayne Eagling was born in California.

He grew up in California, but he was born in Montreal, so he would have qualified as a Commonwealth citizen under the old rules. Richard Cragun, on the other hand, was born in California, which, presumably, is why he didn't join the Royal Ballet upon graduating from the school.

Last spring I was looking at the Ballets Russes posters hanging in the foyer of the Théâtre du Châtelet and hoping that since 2009 marked the centenary of Diaghilev's first ballet presentation in Paris, we might see some Ballets Russes-related releases on DVD. I'm more than a little frustrated that Paris Dances Diaghilev and Joffrey Ballet's Tribute to Nijinsky, both of which were released commercially on VHS, have not yet been released on DVD. For that matter, I wouldn't object to a DVD release of Herbert Ross' Nijinsky either.

I think the question is, why, since the Royal Ballet opened itself to "outsiders," are British dancers and British training having trouble holding their own in the new multinational pool? To put it crudely, why aren't British dancers and British training more competitive? Why are the Prix de Lausanne kids leapfrogging ahead of their British classmates? It's not about driving the foreigners out, it's about raising the standard of the natives.

I personally don't mind a person's country of origin, or (to a lesser extent) their training background. What matters more to me is the loyalty they show their company. All the long-standing principals within BRB have devoted the bulk, if not all, of their careers to BRB and that matters more to me than an accident of birth.

No doubt. But the issue at hand is the quality of British training. If the Royal Ballet School graduate most likely to achieve principal status is a Prix de Lausanne winner who spent one or two years at the RBS, having received the bulk of his training elsewhere, what does this say about the quality of the RBS? Why are so few of those who trained at the RBS from their early years achieving the same results? The fact that a slim majority of RB principals have no connection to the RBS whatsoever, and that most of those who do spent a relatively short period of time there would seem to reflect badly on the training offered there.

If the Commonwealth presence in the Royal Ballet has been reduced, why has this happened? Has it simply become too expensive for young Australians, Canadians and others to study at the RBS, leading most of them to train at home instead? As far as I can remember, the last Canadian to be a principal at the Royal Ballet was Jaimie Tapper, who trained and began her career at home. Is Leanne Benjamin, now in her mid-40s, likely to be the last "colonial" to climb through the ranks to the top?

I first saw the Royal Ballet live in 1981 in New York. The programs from that tour list 23 principals, including character artists, the vast majority of whom were born in England, plus 5 "colonials" and one "foreigner." Looking through the roster, filled with English and Celtic surnames, the only conspicuous foreigner, besides Gerd Larsen (and Genesia Rosato, who is, of course, a native of England), is Alessandra Ferri. I don't need to tell you that the Royal Ballet I saw in 2008 looked very different.

...Tchaikovsky's soaring music - a huge crescendo written to support what Balanchine used it for, the magically growing tree and crashing together of the giant window panes. This is a great BALLET moment; no quantity or quality of jumps, turns and lifts can touch it.

Yes, it is literally breathtaking. I was completely overwhelmed by the transformation the very first time I saw it. Mind you, Balanchine didn't need stagecraft to do it. The first time I saw the second movement of Concerto Barocco I had the air knocked out of me in exactly the same way.

Not so much an alternate ending as a post scriptum. Quite unable to decide which one of them gets to arrange the parties at Aurora's and Désiré's, Cattalabutte and Gallison launch a television show on which they compete head-to-head organizing fabulous soirees, picnics, hunting excursions and gala balls, with a jury of fairy tale characters deciding the winner.

Seriously, every time I see The Sleeping Beauty I wonder how those two will ever get along.

I love the Balanchine version. I was about to write "unequivocally," except that I've never cared for the extended sequence with Marie's bed going round and round the stage. I find the rest completely magical and was able to convert one self-described ballet hater into a Balanchine lover by taking him to a performance of Mr. B's Nutcracker. When a grown man turns to you in the middle of the battle scene with a seven-year-old's look of enchantment on his face, you know that the ballet's "done it" for him.

Unfortunately, that documentary ("Wonders are Many") does not seem to be showing on PBS here in Seattle. Our PBS station may have a lot of money problems because it seems they are doing little but "encore" broadcasts.

Yes, they do seem to be quite frugal in their scheduling, don't they? If I see that Roy Orbison special one more time, I'm going to reconsider my membership fees.

There doesn't seem to be a great deal of enthusiasm for Dr. Atomic among some PBS affiliates. KCTS Seattle will delay its airing until January 25, and my other PBS affiliate, WGBH Boston, is burying it with a middle-of-the-night showing on its second channel (which I don't receive). I don't know how widespread this tendency is.