volcanohunter

There are a number of married couples within the Hamburg Ballet. Principals Anna Polikarpova and Ivan Urban, and Silvia Azzoni and Alexandre Riabko are married to each other and dance together frequently. Both couples were featured in the 2006 New Year's concert from Vienna, though in the case of Azzoni and Riabko, Thiago Bordin was thrown in to make a trio. Principal Carsten Jung is married to retired principal Elizabeth Loscavio, and they did dance together occasionally, though he being eight years her junior was on a slightly delayed career trajectory. Principal Lloyd Riggins has been married to soloist Niurka Moredo for many years (since 1991, the company web site states). Soloists Georgina Broadhurst and Peter Dingle are also married to each other. Principal Heather Jurgensen and corps dancer Yaroslav Ivanenko are a pair. They don't intersect much in the company's repertoire, but she often performs his choreography in other settings. As of last summer, former principal Jiří Bubeníček, now in Dresden, was dating POB étoile Marie-Agnès Gillot, but I don't know if they've had many opportunities to perform together. Former Hamburg soloist Yukichi Hattori and corps member Galien Johnston are now at Alberta Ballet, but the fact that she's taller than him would probably preclude any partnering opportunities.

Detailed casting for Proust has finally been posted on the Paris Opera web site. If it holds, the filmed version will feature: Albertine: Eleonora Abbagnato Andrée: Caroline Bance Young Proust: Hervé Moreau Morel: Benjamin Pech Saint-Loup: Mathieu Ganio Charlus: Manuel Legris Odette: Eve Grinsztajn Swann: Alexis Renaud The Duchess: Stéphanie Romberg pas de deux: Laura Hecquet - Christophe Duquenne Gilberte: Mathilde Froustey Topless: Peggy Dursort So, Benjamin Pech will drop his pants, while Peggy Dursort goes topless. Naturally, there will be lots of simulated sex to go around. For those interested, here are a couple of New York Times reviews from the 1983 run of Proust at the Met. French Company Opens in Petit's 'Proust' (with Mathieu Ganio's parents as Albertine and Proust) Natalia Makarova in 'Proust' (with Richard Cragun in the title role)

For that matter, so does the National Ballet of Canada, though I can't say the company has an unmistakable style. Perhaps that must be formulated by great choreographers. Transplanting Cecchetti training and classics with an English School emphasis across the Atlantic isn't the most obvious way to spawn a distinctive identity. But I agree with Hans completely about the importance of a "default" style for each company, and I would think this would be difficult to achieve without uniform training.

Indeed. The state of the Bolshoi towards the end of Grigorovich's tenure is proof positive of that.

To hear Clement Crisp tell it, the POB was a great company in the first half of the 19th century, it was great under Lifar and became great again under Nureyev. But I remember hearing an interview with Yuri Grigorovich when, for some unfathomable reason, the POB decided to revive Ivan the Terrible. When asked about Nureyev, Grigorovich was dismissive of his choreography (fair enough) and downplayed his artistic leadership. According to Grigorovich, the POB is great because of its school, and if it's great today, it's because of Claude Bessy, not Rudolf Nureyev. I'm not agreeing with Grigorovich, but I can see how a great school is the source of a company's resiliency. I remember when the Bolshoi visited New York in 1990, the headline of the Dance Magazine review read, "Bolshoi means big, bol'noi means sick." Yet quite of few posters have voted for the Bolshoi as the finest company in the world. Ratmansky couldn't have pulled that off if he didn't have excellent dancers at his disposal, nor could Nureyev have turned the fortunes of the POB around so quickly if he didn't have brilliant young dancers to do it with.

I've started watching this DVD, and so far I'm underwhelmed. Zakharova and Bolle seem concerned primarily with showing off their fine legs. I can't really say I expected anything different. Thoughts, anyone?

At the risk of derailing this thread, I wonder how often relationships between artistic directors and dancers can really qualify as healthy and equal. Diaghilev, for example, went through plenty of lovers after Nijinsky. Did the dancers really enter these relationships freely? A couple of years ago Charles Jude got into trouble for allegedly refusing to cast his former girlfriend in ballets, and Zdenek Konvalina filed a sexual harassment suit against Stanton Welch. On one of several television specials about her Karen Kain mentioned an incident with Mikhail Baryshnikov. She was feeling restless at the National Ballet of Canada, so she broached the subject of joining ABT with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Apparently, his reply was, "We'll talk about it over breakfast," at which point Kain decided that she didn't really want to dance with ABT after all. I'm uneasy about director-dancer relationships because there's a potential for abuse of one person's power over the other.

I take that back. In Nureyev's POB production the waltz is used as a solo for Rothbart, which is quite sensible from a musical point of view, since it leads directly into the "Black Swan" coda.

drb noted on a different thread that the planned Sylve/Gomes performances in La Bayadère with the Dutch National Ballet didn't take place either, which would suggest that Gomes is injured. http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...topic=24308&hl=

I'm not sure. I think I'm aware of my default accent (perhaps because I made an effort to purge any remnants of Noo-Yawkese from my own speech). Whenever I hear a newsreader at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation pronounce "Canada" with a vaguely American accent (stretched out, twangy first vowel), I practically climb the walls. On the other hand, I would have absolutely no objection to an American newsreader pronouncing it that way. I would think someone particularly familiar with a given style would react just as sensitively to any deviation from it. Or have I misunderstood your point? As for the hands, if I had to choose between Barbie hands and the claw, I'd go with Barbie. Knarred-looking hands take away from the illusion of effortlessness. Of course, my earliest teachers were British, so I've probably inherited their prejudices, and I still remember corrections about "hamburger-grip hands" .

That's very interesting because a few years ago the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation produced a radio series about Stravinsky in which one participant talked about musicians going to NYCB performances just to hear some of the later Stravinsky works that are performed rarely in the concert hall. (He didn't express an opinion on the playing of the NYCB Orchestra.)

Nicolas Joël, director of the opera house in Toulouse, was announced as Mortier's successor at the beginning of December. I think that most ballet fans are happy about this since Toulouse is one of the few French houses that still has a classical ballet company. Oops, I see Azulynn's beaten me to it!

I'm not so sure that the artistic lives of musicians in most "regular" orchestras are always more exalted. Perhaps the New York Philharmonic is not so hard pressed, but orchestras in many cities have to fight to attract audiences. In addition to programs of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, they program "lighter classics," pops concerts, concerts for children, concerts with pop and country singers, and so forth. Consider this concert presented recently where I live: Shocking, isn't it? But the truth is that the London Symphony Orchestra has been recording film soundtracks for years. The orchestra doesn't include them among the CDs it sells on its web site, but it probably makes more money from them than it does off its recordings of Elgar or Sibelius. There is an interesting juxtaposition of photographs in the autobiography of Steven Staryk, former concertmaster of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Toronto Symphony Orchestra. In one photograph he's shown on the jury of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow; in the other he's seen recording a jingle. The financial reality of being a musician, he explains.

The National Ballet of Canada has announced its 2007/08 season. 2007/08 Season Announced 2007/08 brochure November 8-18: All-Robbins program (West Side Story Suite, Glass Pieces, In the Night) November 21-25: Ronald Hynd's The Merry Widow (plus April 24-26 in Ottawa) December 8-30: James Kudelka's The Nutcracker February 27-March 2 & June 21-22: James Kudelka's An Italian Straw Hat March 8 - 16: Jiří Kylián's Soldiers' Mass, Marie Chouinard's 24 Preludes, Christopher Bruce's Rooster May 28-June 8: James Kudelka's Cinderella June 12-18: Harald Lander's Etudes, William Forsythe's the second detail, Dominique Dumais' Skin Divers In September there will also be a tour of western Canda (Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria, Nanaimo & Vancouver) with a curious double bill of Giselle and Christopher Wheeldon's Polyphonia (except Victoria and Nanaimo, which get Giselle only). No Winnipeg or Regina? Now that's strange. So apart from a tour of Giselle, no 19th-century classics next season. Hmm. And wouldn't it be a good idea to throw in some Ashton, Cranko or MacMillan among all that Kudelka? No Balanchine? I dunno.

Ironically, the quality of music can be better in the provinces than it is in places like New York. Where I live, ballet and opera performances are infrequent, so the local symphony orchestra, which is perfectly respectable, accompanies the performances of the local ballet and opera companies. The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra does a much better job of The Nutcracker than the New York City Ballet Orchestra, I can tell you that. And as Leigh Witchel points out, the in-house ballet companies of state-subsidized opera houses often have excellent orchestras at their disposal. Consider that in order to be eligible for the Vienna Philharmonic, a musician has to be a member of the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, and that includes playing for ballet performances: http://www.wienerphilharmoniker.at I've sometimes wondered why a dancer would wish to work at the Vienna State Opera, where opera is definitely king and ballet is something of a poor relation, but I suppose the quality of the orchestral playing would be a very attractive incentive.

Here is a link to a review of ABT in Paris. American Ballet Theatre delivers mixed results in Paris

A friend who graduated from the piano faculty of a Soviet conservatory once explained to me that being assigned as accompanist to a ballet company was considered the least desirable position a pianist could get. Why? Because of the smell. (I guess it negates the charms of staring at half-naked dancers all day.) No offence to the ballet accompanists out there, but it may be that the most gifted musicians don't want to get anywhere near sweaty dance studios.

I don't know whether he still feels this way, but in late 2001 Clement Crisp gave an interview in which he gave a very dim assessment of the Royal Ballet: A 70th birthday lunch with Clement Crisp Of course, the situation is not exactly the same as it was five years ago, and the people in charge have changed, but no doubt many of the issues and problems remain.

I think you're referring to Mark Godden's Conversation Piece, which was commissioned by Ballet British Columbia about 10 years ago.

I think you should post your thoughts. Many of us weren't hanging around Ballet Talk years ago and could find some of those topics extremely interesting. Certainly I've seen older topics resuscitated, with animated discussion following as a result.

Canada's Bravo network will be re-airing the reality mini-series Ballet Girls beginning on Saturday, March 3, at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT, with parts two and three airing on March 10 & 17 respectively. The series follows several young ballet students as they vie for a place at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School and the role of Clara in the RWB's Nutcracker.

Thank you so much for that report. While reading it I almost felt I'd been there myself. Do you know whether Andersen's choreography is entirely original, or does he draw on the Cecchetti version or perhaps Balanchine's staging for NYBC?

Thanks for the heads up! Here is a link to the DVD on the Deutsche Grammophon site. http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/catalog/...=&PLAYER=yellow Cast list: Marguerite: Marcia Haydée Armand: Ivan Liška Manon Lescaut: Lynne Charles Des Grieux: Jeffrey Kirk Prudence: Colleen Scott Gaston: Vladimir Klos Olympia: Gigi Hyatt M. Duval: François Klaus The film was released in 1987. I saw it on television a few years later and remember that the print was conspicuously scratched up. I hope this is corrected on the DVD.

Thanks, Geier. Hopefully, this link will work. http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/catalog/...=&PLAYER=yellow Neumeier's The Legend of Joseph, filmed around 1977 with Kevin Haigen as Joseph and Judith Jamison as Potiphar's Wife, is scheduled for release about the same time. http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/catalog/...=&PLAYER=yellow

Celia Franca, founder of the National Ballet of Canada, has died at age 85. National Ballet founder Celia Franca dies The National Ballet of Canada press release includes links to her biography and some photos. It so happens that Canadian Bravo is airing a program about her this evening at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT Celia Franca: A Tour de Force