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For those of you who subscribe to Deutsche Welle's television service, DW-TV will be airing a half-hour documentary titled Dancing on the Big Stage about pupils of the Staatliche Ballettschule Berlin as part of its Im Focus/In Focus series. The English version of the program will air on Sunday, November 30 at 20.30 UTC or 3:30 p.m. ET Monday, December 1 at 12.30 UTC or 7:30 a.m. ET Tuesday, December 2 at 00.30 UTC or Monday, December 1 at 7:30 p.m. ET The German version, Tanzträume, can be seen on Sunday, November 30 at 17.30 UTC or 12:30 p.m. ET Monday, December 1 at 07.30 UTC or 2:30 a.m. ET http://www.dw-world.de/popups/popup_pdf/0,,3440788,00.pdf P.S. I should point out that the schedules for Europe, Africa and Asia and Latin America are somewhat different.

I'm sure that regular patrons of San Francisco Ballet can help me out with this one. I'm trying to match the "soloists" listed in the final credits with their roles. The booklet to the DVD states that David Arce performed the Mouse King, but the order in which he's listed among the soloists suggests that it was actually Garrett Anderson. Could any of you offer some clarification? You'll pardon me if I don't give the characters their proper names. Ricardo Bustamante - Clara's father Anita Paciotti - Clara's mother Pascale Leroy - Clara's grandmother Jim Sohm - Clara's grandfather Rory Hohenstein - Harlequin Clara Blanco - Ballerina Doll Garrett Anderson - ? David Arce - ? Dores Andre - Spanish Frances Chung - Spanish Jaime Garcia Castilla - Spanish Hansuke Yamamoto - Spanish Anthony Spaulding - Arabian Brett Bauer - Arabian Mariellen Olson - Mirlitons Elana Altman - Mirlitons Jennifer Stahl - Mirlitons James Sofranko - Russian Louis Schilling - Russian Matthew Stewart - Madame du Cirque Your corrections would be appreciated.

The documentary is about an hour long and is included on the second disc along with Act 3. Generally I thought that the performance clips complemented the interview segments less well than they had in Reiner Moritz's previous film about the POB's Jewels. It was interesting to see the interview with Stéphane Phavorin because his real-life personality comes across as not at all threatening or flamboyant, unlike his outrageous Stepmother. I had always thought that Nureyev's idea to transpose the story to 1930s Hollywood was a rather good one since the score strikes me as poorly suited to the tutu approach. So imagine my surprise to discover that it was actually the idea of set designer Petrika Ionesco and that initially Nureyev hated it. Given that, it's a bit funny to watch the POB dancers gush, as they always seem to, about how brilliant Nureyev's concept was, how it came out of his lifelong love for movies, etc. My favourite quote, though, comes from José Martinez, who describes Nureyev's choreography as "abundant," which is much nicer than calling it "cluttered." Please don't misunderstand me, though. I like Nureyev's Cinderella more than most other productions, and I think that the DVD is worth having, even though the two-disc format drives up the price, and I'm still hoping for a re-issue of the Guillem performance.

According to the jacket, the additional feature is Out of Line, "a documentary portrait of the influential British choreographer, Kenneth MacMillan, [the commas implying that he was the only influential British choreographer?] with extracts from many of his ballets including The Burrow, Romeo and Juliet, Gloria, Manon and The Prince of the Pagodas. Produced and Directed by Derek Bailey." My poor eyesight prevents me from reading the fine print. http://estore.websitepros.com/stores/16526...g/D4438_fbc.jpg

The POB's Swan Lake will return to TFO on Sunday, December 7, at 8 pm ET. http://www.tfo.org/television/emissions/se...26&c=45ABF0

On Sunday, November 30 (8 pm ET/5 pm PT) Canada's Bravo network will air a documentary titled Royal Winnipeg Ballet: 40 Years of One Night Stands. It's a curious title given that the company is 69 years old, and touring is still a crucial part of its identity. http://www.bravo.ca/thearts/wednesday.asp

Perhaps I should have been more specific and described him as short-legged rather than short, because I do find his body proportions distracting in the classics. This is not unlike the casting on the POB's DVD, bearing in mind that Laëtitia Pujol is probably a bit taller than Cojocaru, and Marie-Agnès Gillot is a good deal taller than 5'8", and I can't say that it looked badly out of proportion. Mind you, I wouldn't want to see Pujol and Le Riche together in Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake.

I'd rank the DVD in the good but not great category. Among the strengths I'd include Marianela Nuñez as Myrtha, who makes up for lack of physical stature with ferocious dancing, and Cojocaru in Act 2, though she lacks a little stamina, cutting off sequences where other ballerinas keep going for another bar or two. In the first act I think she lacks the simplicity to make a convincing peasant girl. Among the demerits I'd list Wright's production, which I've always disliked (so I'll admit to bias); Kobborg's lack of height (which may sound like a petty criticism, but in my defense I'll say that when I took my mother to see this production at the cinema, she couldn't even look at him because his appearance reminded her of Shrek--her words, not mine!; her verdict was that she would've chosen Martin Harvey's Hilarion, no contest); and Genesia Rosato, who is simply too old to play Bathilde on television: her interaction with Albrecht came off exactly like Siegfried's scenes with his mother. The corps is not as good as the POB's, and what Wright does with the peasant pas de deux is an abomination (though I like Ricardo Cervera). If I'm willing to give this DVD four stars out of five, it's on the strength of Cojocaru and Nuñez in Act 2. Otherwise I'd give it three stars.

Kultur will be releasing Kenneth MacMillan's Winter Dreams on January 27, 2009. As far as I know, this is the first time it will be available on DVD. It can be pre-ordered at Amazon, and the product code is B001KL3H0I. http://estore.websitepros.com/1652646/Detail.bok?no=1390 Glad to see Kultur back in the dance business after a dry spell of two months.

The good news is that some semblance of a Royal Ballet site is now up. So far only bios of the principal dancers have been posted, but at least each is linked to a listing of the dancer's scheduled performances, which should be helpful to his or her fans. http://www.roh.org.uk/discover/thepeople/t...llet/index.aspx

I think it's a matter of clicking on the Xs and downward-pointing arrows. I found that if I kept the cursor off the screen, most of the graphics disappeared altogether.

One final note. The opera is available on demand at www.medici.tv until December 31. Let's hope that POB broadcasts will follow soon.

Watch right now. It's terrific. (And the subtitles are in English.) http://www.medici.tv/#/festival/169/164/

Here is a link to a television report about the ballet, featuring brief comments from Mathieu Ganio and José Martinez. http://tf1.lci.fr/infos/culture/0,,4136670...a-garnier-.html My thanks to sophia for this one, because I confess that I'd been completely unable to find it.

Collectively, the worst set of accents I've run across is in Black Hawk Down, a film I've never seen in its entirety. Whenever I run across it, I'm reminded of the NYT review: "...a cast of non-American actors like Ewan McGregor, Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom try out their Yankee soldier accents, with vowels so oddly enunciated that you expect them to be singled out as foreign spies." When I do catch a bit of the film on television, I always stop for a few mintues for a good howl and to award the anti-prize for least convincing accent to one of the poor sods on screen. At present I'd be inclined to give it to Jason Isaacs.

On Tuesday, November 4, the Paris Opera will broadcast its production of The Cunning Little Vixen live on the Internet at 19.30 CET. In addition to its own website, the opera will be available on medici.tv and france2.fr. I don't know how easy it will be to maintain a fix on the live stream, but I'm watching medici.tv right now without any difficulties. http://www.operadeparis.fr/Accueil/Actualite.asp?id=726 You all know what I'm thinking.

A marginally cheaper version of the same Region 2 PAL DVD can be found here: http://www.alapage.com/-/Fiche/DVDVideo/56...e_appel=ALAPAGE

Uwe Scholz's Le Sacre du printemps performed by the Leipzig Ballet will be released on DVD on November 18. The Amazon product code is B001HBX8PA. A trailer is available on the Euroarts web site. http://www.euroarts.com/artikel/dvd/?id=00...pher_uwe_scholz There certainly will be a lot of dance DVDs coming out that day: San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker, Paris Opera Ballet's Cinderella, Royal Ballet's Tales of Beatrix Potter, and Blu-Ray discs of Lopatkina's Swan Lake and Acosta's Spartacus.

I saw this film at a movie theatre and enjoyed it more than I expected to. I'll admit that going in some of my anxietes were pretty darn shallow. I was worried that Letestu and Martinez, being in their late thirties, would look too old for their roles on a large screen. They didn't. I was also worried about Letestu's yellowish teeth, given that she was playing an aspiring movie actress. Not a problem. I wasn't distracted by the strangeness of her body proportions, with her super long torso, because she wore a longer skirt throughout. Mentally I'm sure I was measuring her against Guillem, but I enjoyed her Cinderella on her own terms. For his part, Martinez is one the few dancers that can handle Nureyev's choreography without awkwardness. No mean feat. She's no Guerin, but temperamentally Romberg is well suited to her role, Pujol is very funny, and Romoli, as always, is charismatic. Best of all is Phavorin, who dances the Stepmother like a deranged Forsythe ballerina.

Amen to that.

The American release date is November 18. Amazon's product code for the DVD is B001F5IO5M.

Not available just yet, but Amazon.com lists the release date as November 18. ASIN: B001F5IO4S

Indeed, though hostess Elise Lucet seems so preoccupied by the sets and costumes that she'd probably be happier interviewing Agnes Letestu than the, you know, choreographer.The Paris Opera has posted a couple of excerpts from the ballet featuring Isabelle Ciaravola as Garance and Mathieu Ganio as Baptiste. http://www.operadeparis.fr/Saison-2008-200...723&IdS=546

By then it will have been available on DVD for several days, but on Saturday, November 1, at 1:00 p.m. local time the Royal Ballet's Giselle with Alina Cojocaru, Johan Kobborg, Marianela Nuñez and Martin Harvey will be screened at Canadian cinemas. Personally I'll vouch for the value of watching ballet on the big screen. The sense of kinetic energy lost when dance is filmed is largely restored when dancers are magnified many times over. I don't like Peter Wright's production, but I'll go see it for Cojocaru. Here's a trailer: http://centralsystem.digiscreen.ca/ShowPag...resentation=230 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. The ballet will also be screened at the Ex-Centris Theatre in Montreal: www.ex-centris.com and Ridge Theatre in Vancouver: www.festivalcinemas.ca (10:00 a.m. PT)

For Francophones: José Martinez discusses his new ballet adaptation of Marcel Carné's film Les Enfants du paradis on the October 22 edition of France 2 midday news. Skip ahead to 34 mintues past the hour. The clip should be available for the next week. http://jt.france2.fr/13h/ It should also be accessible here.