Estelle

I've had a more detailed brochure of their season, and there are some other interesting things, for example a cycle of 6 conferences about the Ballets Russes given by a music professor of the Paris IV University (I suspect it will probably focus more on music than on ballet, but it could be interesting nonetheless). Actually the Lyon Orchestra and Lyon Auditorium have an interesting policy of having either conferences or short concerts (1 hour) every Friday between 12:30 and 13:30 at a low price (either free or at 6 euros), so that's a nice opportunity to have a musical lunch break (and this will be the first year I will actually be be free on that time of the week). One could find some links between this year's "Concert Expressos", as their main focus this years will be Mendelssohn, so there will be among other things "Scotch Symphony" and "A midsummer night's dream". More generally, I find the policy of the Lyon Orchestra and Auditorium quite "welcoming", with a lot of activities, and also for example on some concerts they have a program of 4 concerts especially for kids (from 5 years old) and some unexpensive "musical child care" for kids between 5 and 8 during the Saturday evening concerts. They also do a free concert for students at the beginning of every schoolyear.

Indeed, Benjamin Millepied didn't perform yesterday (I hope that his injury won't keep him far from the stage for too long, that must be terribly frustrating). I'd have loved to see "Other dances" again, but the replacement pieces really were worth seeing too. The program included a pas de deux from "After the Rain", and then "Tarantella", "Closer" and "Fancy Free". Actually I regret not being able to attend it a second time, as it was very enjoyable and I'd really like to see those works a second time to have a more precise appreciation. I found "After the rain" (performed by Sébastien Marcovici, and Céline Cassone from the Grand Ballet du Théâtre de Genève) very interesting and with a fascinating range of vocabulary and impressive partnering, but perhaps not really the best program opener for me, as it took me some time to get into the right mood (also I'd really like to know more about the rest of the work as it is only an excerpt). Also a funny coincidence is that some of its score (Spiegel im Spiegel) is the same as that of the end of Mats Ek's "Solo for two", and one couldn't imagine two more different works... "Tarantella" was the only work of that program that I had already seen, but it was years ago (by a group of POB dancers- if I remember correctly, the male role was danced by Hervé Courtain) and in the huge arena of Nîmes so the dancers looked a bit small on such a large stage. Here I could enjoy that work more fully- a small piece of candy, fast and joyful ! I know very little about this ballet's history- the costumes made me think of Bournonville, but is it only because there also is a Tarantella in "Napoli", or was it also a conscious homage of Balanchine to Bournonville ? Both dancers performed it with great virtuosity and a lot of enthusiasm. "Closer" had the great advantage to be performed with live music, as there was a pianist (Pedja Muzljevic) on stage to play the Philip Glass score (as for the final score for "After the rain", I somewhat had a sensation of "déjà vu", or actually "déjà entendu", but it probably is because that the score sounds a bit similar to other Glass pieces, as in those in the "Glass pieces" ballet by Robbins). The performers were again Sébastien Marcovici and Céline Cassone, in simple costumes which looked perhaps a bit too much like pajamas (blue-grey trousers and white tee-shirt for him, very short sleeveless white dress for her). It was a very pleasant work with a somewhat meditative mood and a very fluid style of movement, I especially enjoyed a nice male solo at the beginning and a very soft, tender part at the end with both dancers sitting on the floor. Roderick Murray's lightings (mostly in white, pale blue, pale yellow shades, a bit as if it were natural sunlight changing during different moments of the day- by the way, how refreshing after seeing so many modern works with very dark lightings) were a definite asset for that work. I had been looking forward to seeing "Fancy Free" for years and was not disappointed (even though some parts of the plot looked a bit dated to me, especially the "stolen handbag" part which would easily evoke some not really pleasant behaviour now...) Unfortunately, the program sheets listed eight dancers (but it seems to me that there are only 7 dancers in that ballet, including the barman) but didn't say who was whom- with the help of the NYCB site, I think I identified the three sailors as being Amar Ramasar (the one with the Rhumba), Tyler Angle (the one who does the machinegun gesture) and Daniel Ulbricht, and the girls being Georgina Pazcoguin (the one with the handbag), Rachel Rutherford (the second one) and I think Celine Cassone- Tiler Peck was listed too, and Henry Seth (perhaps he was the barman ?) All the dancers seemed to enjoy themselves tremendously and the whole work was a delight to see; all three sailors were wonderful but I was especially impressed by Tyler Angle, there was some kind of sweetness, youthfulness and charm in his dancing which really was endearing and moving (and at the same time a great line)- he really is a dancer that I wish I could see in some other works... The Maison de la Danse was full for the first evening of that series of 6 performances, and all works were welcomed with much enthusiasm. (By the way, I noticed quite a lot of people in the audience who sounded American). It is the second time the Millepied company comes to Lyon and I can only wish that they will come back again in the next seasons.

Actually I'm not totally sure, but I think that he will come to Lyon only as a choreographer, but will not perform in that program (I guess "Tarantella" wouldn't be an easy work to perform with a broken foot...)

NYCB fans might be interested in learning that Benjamin Millepied's company will be performing in Lyon next week, as part of the Biennale de la Danse (actually it will be one of the very few ballet works of the Biennale, as nearly all companies who will perform are modern dance companies). From what I've read in the free newspaper "20 minutes", Mr Millepied broke one of his feet and so the program had to be modified (with "Tarantella" and "After the Rain" instead of "Other dances", if I remember correctly). I've booked tickets for tomorrow's performance.

Edited to add: here are some links to the biographies of the main dancers of that video on the POB site, in case it could be useful: http://www.operadeparis.fr/ToutSavoir/LeBa...etitiaPujol.asp http://www.operadeparis.fr/ToutSavoir/LeBa...remarieOsta.asp http://www.operadeparis.fr/ToutSavoir/LeBa...athieuGanio.asp http://www.operadeparis.fr/ToutSavoir/LeBa...aderBelarbi.asp http://www.operadeparis.fr/ToutSavoir/LeBa...reliedupont.asp http://www.operadeparis.fr/ToutSavoir/LeBa...ssioCarbone.asp http://www.operadeparis.fr/ToutSavoir/LeBa...AgnesGillot.asp http://www.operadeparis.fr/ToutSavoir/LeBa...gnesLetestu.asp http://www.operadeparis.fr/ToutSavoir/LeBa...illaumeBart.asp

As a POB fan (well, I should almost say "ex-fan", as I have seen so few performances in the last two years... ) who saw "Jewels" only as performed by the POB (three times, if I remember correctly), it is very interesting to read this discussion... Unfortunately I never saw maost of the dancers present on the video on stage in those roles - and I really wonder how people here would have reacted to the first POB cast of that ballet (as far as I know- Guérin and Le Riche, Gaïda and Belarbi for Emeralds, Moussin, Legris and Gillot for Rubies, and Letestu and Martinez for Diamonds) or to some other dancers who performed it (especiallly Maurin and Arbo). I'm happy to read some positive comments about Osta's performance here, as she's a dancer I've always liked much in the Balanchine repertory, and she sometimes got some undeserved criticism from some people insinuating that she was promoted to principal only as Nicolas Le Riche's wife. I generally was less convinced by Pujol in Balanchine roles, but haven't seen her that often in such a repertory.

Yes indeed, that was one of my first thoughts when seeing the season schedule !

I'm definitely a cat person (always a bit too like to lose much time trying to pet any cat I see in the street, unfortunately they generally stare at me and then run away frightened...), the proud owner (I'd better say "servant") of a small black and white cat called Venise (and my parents had three cat, a male tabby called Fripounet who unfortunately ran away when he was only 1 year old, and later successively two cats who were wandering in the neighborhood, good old female yellow-bellied tabby Marcel and later hot tempered female calico Mimile- yes they were female but with male names, go figure...) My husband is more of a dog person and loves basset hounds, but such dogs require more room and exercise that what we could offer now, so he just collects basset hound related items- and now that he has Venise he has become almost as crazy about cats as myself. That's not really ballet, but Venise's jumping accomplishments can be admired there: http://www.bruhat.net/jumping-venise.mpg Yes indeed, I remember seeing her with them at the POB's "entrée des artistes". I remember some other dancers had small dogs, one of them travelled in a bag on its owner's motorbike but I can't remember which dancers... In Mannoni's "Les étoiles de l'Opéra de Paris" published in the early 1990s, there are two beautiful photos of Noëlla Pontois with a little dog (I don't know which kind of dog, but it seems to be small, gey and hairy- and it's called "Snouf") by Marc Badran, she looks so joyful and elegant on those photographs... Patrick Dupond mentioned in an interview that his two small dogs helped him when he had to recover from a car accident a few years ago. And Sylvie Guillem recently mentioned on her own web site that she had a cat.

It's an amusing example of mis-translation ! Actually, now horseman in French would be "cavalier", while "chevalier" means "knight", so there is no ambiguity (but both words probably come from the same etymology, as "cheval" is "horse". Actually it seems that many latin words starting with "ca" gave French words starting with "ch", like capra -> chèvre (goat), carrus -> char, canis -> chien (dog), etc.) Pamela, did the article say in which order Tsiskaridze became a "chevalier" ? Is it the Légion d'Honneur, the ordre national du Mérite, the Arts et Lettres ?

Err, what is the "right" pronounciation ? (I'd have the same question about Petrouchka, by the way). dirac wrote: Well, it happens to me very often with so many English/ American words and names (I'm sure the way I "pronounce" the nicknames of many posters here probably has very little to do with their real pronounciation...) Talking about "eggcorns", it reminds me of a comical TV program called "Les guignols de l'info" (it's a satirical program using puppets of famous characters in a sort of parody of TV news), some years ago one of their characters was a puppet looking like the (now retired) football/soccer player Jean-Pierre Papin. The character was depicted as, shall we say, not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, and would often say "egg-corns" or some absurd mixing of expressions (e.g. "la sorcière m'a jeté un sort" ["the witch has cast a spell on me"] became "la sorcière m'a jeté un ressort" ["the witch has thrown a spring to me"]).

Welcome, lg0627 ! I hope you'll tell us about the ballet performances you get to see And your English seems perfectly fine. As your daughter dances, perhaps you already know about our sister site Ballet Talk for Dancers ? http://www.dancers.invisionzone.com/ A technical tip: I noticed that in the following post: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...ndpost&p=187999 you wrote you had posted in the wrong thread. If you wish to edit or to delete one of your posts, you might use the small "edit" button which is at the bottom right of each post. Hope this helps. [Oops, I just noticed I posted at the same time as Giannina].

That sounds quite similar to the dance situation in France- except that here there was no Ford foundation grant, but state subsidies. Modern dance appeared quite late in France compared to the US, and had at first very little financial support, and there must have been some resentment about the huge POB subsidies. Even now, if I remember correctly, the Paris Opera (opera, ballet and orchestra) gets by far the biggest cultural subsidy of all French institutions... But outside Paris, the number of ballet companies is small and shrinking, and the audience has fare more opportunities to see modern dance than ballet (and for example this is obvious in summer during the season of the festivals). I don't know if more people attend ballet performances, given the small number of performances outside Paris. And I feel that now the institutional support is far more on the side of modern dance than of ballet (except for the POB, which is protected by its status as an old traditional institution- but well, its repertory includes more and more modern dance too), many newspapers won't even review ballet performances, etc. The lack of important French ballet choreographers after the generation of Petit and Béjart surely didn't help (but it was nonetheless striking to realize in the last programs of choreographies by POB dancers "Danseurs chorégraphes" that all the works were modern dance works, not ballet ones...). And in a period of shrinking subsidies, modern dance companies cost far less... Also it seems to me that another factor which might have had a role in France might be the influence of theater (e.g. most theaters - except operas- are directed by theater people, not music or dance people, and such directors might feel more familiar with modern dance works, which are often influenced by theater in France, rather than with ballet). Well, sorry to get a bit off-topic from Mr Segal's article, but frankly I was really annoyed to read an article which seemed to voice about any silly prejudice against ballet I'm so accustomed to hear (generally from people who never attended a single ballet performance, except perhaps their little 6 years old cousin's Dolly Dinkle school performance).

Yes indeed, the Ballet de Bordeaux site is a bit strange- I never managed to get the season of the Ballet de Bordeaux only, their list always give it mixed with other performances... By the way, it's interesting to see that they'll perform Massine's "Rite of Spring". Are there some companies which still perform it today ? The last time I heard about it was in the 1990s when the Ballet de Nice performed it along with other Massine works ("Le beau Danuble bleu" and something else, I think).

Charles Jude must be around 53 now (he was born in 1953), and I hope that he won't make the same error as his mentor Nureyev, dancing for too long... Thanks for the comment about the piece by Julien Lestel (a former POB dancer now at the Ballet de Marseille), I didn't even know he also was a choreographer. By the way, a funny anecdote about him: a few months ago, I was with my in-laws in a shop in Lyon selling fancy furniture and decoration items, and the clerk said some of the paintings on sale were from a ballet dancer of the Ballet de Marseille who did some painting besides his dancing job, he couldn't remember his name but it was Julien something, previously at the POB... So Mr Lestel seems to be a multi-talented artist.

Thanks for the information, cygneblanc. That sounds like a nice idea of gift for next Christmas

I definitely love the final tableau of "The four temperaments"...

The main theme of the next season of the Orchestre National de Lyon will be the Ballets Russes. The opening concert, in September, will include Debussy's "Afternoon of a faun" and Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring"- it will also be the closing performance of the Biennale de la Danse (which unfortunately shows almost only modern dance works) and so the works will be danced by the company Marie Chouinard. The other Ballets Russes works of the season will be (if I'm not mistaken, as they're not clearly listed)- I added in bold the name of the programs, which also contain other works: -Rimsky-Korsakov's "Le Coq d'Or" (suite) and Stravinsky's "Firebird" (the whole ballet) in October (Contes de Russie) -Stravinsky's "Pétrouchka" (in October too) (Le sourire de Mozart) -Borodin's "Polovtsian dances from Prince Igor" in November (Danses symphoniques) -Stravinsky's "Apollo" in December (Atout alto) -Ravel's "La Valse" in January (another "dance-related" work in the same program will be his "Valses nobles et sentimentales") (Printemps et maturité) -Debussy's "Jeux" in January (Jeux sonores) -Ravel's "Daphnis and Chloe, suite n.2" in March (Oiseaux du paradis) -Prokofiev's "Le fils prodigue, suite op. 46b" and Stravinsky's "Les Noces" in March (Eloge du rythme) -Stravinsky's "Pulcinella, suite de ballet, version de 1949" in May (Combat de classiques) -Rimsky-Korsakov's "Schéhérazade" in June (Rêves d'Orient) -R. Strauss' "Till Eulenspiegel" in June (L'âme de Salomé) Some other dance related works of the season will be Debussy's "La boîte à joujoux" (composed at first for a "ballet pour marionnettes") in November (program Boîte à joujoux) and Prokofiev's "Romeo and Juliet" (excerpts from suites 1 and 2) in February (program Schiff, chef et soliste). Also, the four "musical Wednesdays" wor children will be Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" in November, Debussy's "Jeux" and L. Mozart's "Symphonie des jouets" in January, Prokofiev's "Le fild prodigue" and "Romeo and Juliet" in March and Gershwin's "Cuban ouverture" and "An American in Paris" in May. That definitely sounds like an exciting season for ballet lovers, and I regret not knowing my schedule early enough to take a subscription...

Welcome, Aude. I've had a look at priceminister.com (French web site of people selling used books, and also CDs, DVDs, etc.) but unfortunately there was no copy of that book to be sold there. However, you might want to create an account there and set a "wish" (souhait) for that book so that you'd be warned immediately by e-mail when it becomes available. I used that site several times for various sorts of books and so far I've always been satisfied with what I've bought. Could you tell us in which French region you live ? Some bookstores like Gibert (especially the big ones in Paris, Joseph Gibert and Gibert Jeunes, on the the Boulevard Saint-Michel) sometimes have good collections of used books. Good luck !

Paul, that's a small detail, but his first name is "Michael" with an "a", not "Michel" (perhaps because his mother was German-born ?) I fully agree about Legris (and am so sorry that I haven't seen him onstage for a while, and he's going to retire quite soon unfortunately...) He's certainly a dancer I'd mention for his port de bras, and also some other POB dancers like Laurent Hilaire, Charles Jude, Jean-Guillaume Bart... A dancer whose port de bras totally mesmerized me the only time I saw him was Jean-Claude Ciaparra, a former POB premier danseur who was very involved in the contemporary group GRCOP and left the company quite young probably in the late 1980s or early 1990s: I saw him in a Robbins trio (I don't remember its title, it was for two males and one female with grey unitards) in a charity gala (against AIDS) with Jean Guizerix and Wilfride Piollet around 1995 and he had such a marvellous port de bras that it was my main memory of that evening...

As Andre Yew, I guess you mean Manuel Legris in the "Paris Dances Diaghilev" video ? (By the way, I wonder who was that "Mich..." whose name you didn't finish typing... Michael Denard ?)

I wonder to what extent part of the problem is that the definition of "neo-classical" seems to vary a lot depending on the country. For example, French dance critics often use the term "neo-classique" for choreographers as diverse as Balanchine, Ashton, Lifar, MacMillan, Béjart, Forsythe, Kylian, Duato or Ek, while I seriously doubt that for example Ek would be considered as "neo-classical" by most US critics. I remember being quite puzzled with such differences in vocabulary and classification when I started reading US based ballet newsgroups and forums, and perhaps it is one of the causes for the disagreements and misunderstandings of this discussion (and it's even worse with the words "contemporain"/"contemporary" as their meanings generally are very different). Actually I now have some trouble understanding what French critics mean by "néo-classique", as it can be, depending on the context, a matter of making works using some ballet steps, or making works performed by ballet-trained dancers and/or by ballet companies, or having received a classical ballet training, etc. I don't have much time now to look for it, but there must have been some earlier discussions here about the definition(s) of the word "neo-classical", and perhaps it would be interesting to revive it. Joel, you've written, "the essence of the aforementioned choreographers is purely neo-classical since all of it comes from the same source" so if I understand you correctly, for you "neo-classicism" is mostly a matter of having some ballet training ? Perhaps if you explained more precisely what makes you consider Kylian as a neo-classical choreographer, and Leigh and Helene explained more precisely why they think Kylian is not a neo-classical choreographers, the discussion would be easier to understand...

Helene, probably you mean the small girl, not the tall one ? Osta is not very tall, and never danced the tall girl role as far as I know (I think it was always danced by tall dancers, like Letestu, Gillot, Baey, Romberg...)

Thanks for your message sybella ! And welcome to Ballet Talk ! I'm not sure I can find the email address of the person who had emailed me three years ago asking about Yvonne Daunt- but anyway it is very interesting to finally know more about her and her career.

Thanks a lot for the editing, cygneblanc. Do you know about Yann Chailloux's training ? And were some of the dancers on the list already on a temporary contract with the POB ?

Yes, actually it was his post which made me think about the Ballet de Toulouse and look for some information about their next season- so thanks Joel Sorry, I planned to post a link but forgot. So here it is (but unfortunately, only in French): the web site of the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse: http://www.theatre-du-capitole.org/sommaire/accueil.htm So far, the 2006-2007 season only is shown in a linked PDF file. The 2005-2006 season is there: http://www.theatre-du-capitole.org/sommair...-06/accueil.htm Some pages about the ballet company (I don't know if they have been updated recently): General introduction: http://www.theatre-du-capitole.org/sommair...let/accueil.htm Company staff: http://www.theatre-du-capitole.org/sommair...rganigramme.htm Repertory: http://www.theatre-du-capitole.org/sommair.../repertoire.htm Repertory for tours: http://www.theatre-du-capitole.org/sommair...nie/tournee.htm Well, I'm not feeling optimistic at all about ballet in France... Recently, the contract of the director of the Ballet de Nice (already a small company), Marc Ribaud, was not renewed, and from what I've read the number of dancers in the company will decrease quite a lot. And actually since I started being interested in ballet about 1992, the following companies have more or less changed from ballet to modern dance ("more or less", because they sometimes keep a few ballet works in their repertories): Ballet du Rhin, Ballet du Nord, Ballet de Nancy et de Lorraine, and to some extent Ballet National de Marseille...