Estelle

I've had a look at the site of the Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse, and the 2006-2007 is announced there. There will be 4 ballet programs: -"Don Quichotte", in a production by Nanette Glushak (October, 5 performances) -a mixed bill with "Theme and variations" (Balanchine), "Sinfonietta" (Kylian) and "Brel" (Van Cauwenbergh) (January, 3 performances) -"The Nutcracker", in a production by Michel Rahn (February, 5 performances) -a mixed bill with "Paganini !" (Benjamin Millepied), "SYNC" (Nils Christe) and a new work by Jacopo Godani (April, 5 performances) The ballet will also perform in some of the operas. It is not a very big season, but it was about the same in the previous seasons (generally four programs), and at least it does include a decent amount of classical ballets, which is becoming rarer and rarer in French theaters... Also the company generally tours quite a lot, and often with some works which are not those of the Toulouse season. Also it is interesting to notice that Nanette Glushak has been the company director since 1994- which is a lot of time compared to many companies (too often company directors tend to change quickly because of local politics, funding problems, etc.)

Welcome on Ballet Talk, Joel, and thanks for your comments about that performance ! If you'd like to introduce yourself, there is the "Welcome" forum for it. May I ask in which city you saw the company ? My mother saw the same program in April in Issy-les-Moulineaux (a suburb of Paris). She told me that she had loved that program, however her expectations might have been different from yours (especially as where she lives there are very few opportunities to see classical ballets, and if I remember correctly she had never seen "Theme and variations" before...).

Thanks a lot. In the second list, which ones are POB alumni ? (Perhaps you could edit your post and mark it with a * or bold letters or something like that). There are a few names that I recognize, but I don't know well the list of POB students or alumni... Oh my. Poor kids... I saw a few people like that in another context (the classes préparatoires) and would be likely to say that it often produced children who were either extremely arrogant or extremely unhappy and lacking self-confidence... And also such an attitude can generate so much stress and anguish for some kids that it probably makes the competition even more difficult for them.

Thanks for the information, cygneblanc ! If you have enough time for it and if such information is officially public, could you post the lists of candidates and the rankings ? Actually I saw the program in Paris, not in Lyon... Well, it happened more than 30 years ago when Ghislaine Thesmar joined the company directly as an étoile... But it was really long ago, and considering how hard it can be to get promoted in the company, I guess the dancers would probably be very unhappy with that. I think it is good to leave some opportunities to dancers who were not POB-trained (after all, that was the case for some famous POB dancers, like Michael Denard and Jean Guizerix), but at the same time I agree with you that taking so few dancers from the POB school is a bit absurd, and probably detrimental to the style of the corps de ballet... Yes indeed... I wonder if one of the causes might be some sort of excessive pride from the POB dancers and former POB dancers (and therefore also the POB school teachers), thinking that they achieved the best and so getting into another company is a sort of shame. What a pity... And if only more publicity was given to alumnis who had good careers in other companies, perhaps the students would realize that there is more than one way to be successful. Also do you think that the students' parents generally are realistic from that point of view ? Yes, France is becoming more and more a desert in terms of classical ballet, alas. Helene, the EU rules might have an importance, but I've never heard anything about it (and if it was the real cause for such a policy, perhaps the company would have said it publicly when Claude Bessy was complaining, and sometimes even threatening to resign ?) And as far as I know, the POB school is open to non-French EU citizens...

So, if I understand correctly, in order to be allowed to repeat the last year of the school, the students must be offered a temporary contract ? What do they do then, do they work only in the company for the temporary contract or do they also attend some classes at the school ? If I remember correctly, Claude Bessy complained a lot about it when she was the school's director... Does Elisabeth Platel protest about it too ? And what are your hypotheses about such a policy ? Is it because of administrative or financial reasons (perhaps temporary contracts are cheaper or something like that) ? Or that having people on temporary contracts is considered as a better way to "test" them during a whole year to know what they can do ? Or something else ? That's sad indeed... But as it seems quite obvious that anyway the number of available positions will always be smaller than the number of talented students coming from the school each year, I think that perhaps the students' families and their teachers should also prepare them to the idea that there are other valuable companies in the world than the POB (even though, unfortunatly, the number of ballet companies in France is getting smaller and smaller) and that they should consider auditioning for other companies and not thinking that not getting into the POB company is a shame... After all, there are several examples of former POB students (or former POB dancers who left) who had successful careers in other companies, and sometimes it can be more rewarding to get a soloist position in a smaller company rather than getting into the POB, remaining a quadrille for decades and dancing only corps de ballet roles... Surely being more realist before taking the competition would prevent some people to get severely depressed, and sometimes to give up ballet completely after years of hard work. And if the students aren't mature enough to change their attitude (which wouldn't be surprising as they are young teen agers), it should be part of their teachers' jobs to think about it, rather than train it only with the idea to get into the POB and considering that everything else would be a shameful failure...

Thanks a lot for posting so much information, cygneblanc. Are the lists of the students who competed for these competitions public ? Once again, the numbers of positions sounds very very low (only two for the "internal" competition !), especially as, if I remember correctly, four dancers were promoted from quadrille to coryphée at the last competition of the corps de ballet, so one could have expected more available positions... I'm not familiar at all with the dancers of the POB school, but had attended a performance of the school this season, and there seemed to be such a wealth of talent among the students that it's sad to think that so few of them will get a position in the company.

So far the only film by Ozu I've seen is his last one, "An autumn afternoon" (in French "Le goût du saké") but I'm going to Paris tomorrow morning for a few days and have had a look at the cinema programs there... and there are three cinemas showing "Tokyo story", so after reading this thread I hope I can manage to see it !

I remember a similar experience during a tourism trip in Egypt when I was a teen-ager, it was quite surprising for me to see for example some male soldiers walking with their arms around each other... And a French member of our group of tourists told us that it was the same when he was a kid living in North Africa (it was back in the colonisation period, I think it was in Algeria) and that it caused quite a lot of misunderstandings when he moved to France a few years later... Alexandra, how are male ballet dancers and ballet students considered in Denmark ? I'd also be curious about the attitude towards male ballet dancers in some other countries which produced many talented male dancers, like Cuba or Russia for example.

In Petipa's original production, did the Lilac Fairy have a lilac-colored costume, or was she just "La fée des lilas" (assuming that the program notes were in French) ? By the way, I wonder if the names "Carabosse", "Aurore", "Désiré", etc. were created by Petipa, because in Perrault's tale, none of the characters have names (except the two children of the princess and the prince, who are in the second part of the tale- which was not used for the ballet-, they were called "Aurore" and "Jour", i.e. "Dawn" and "Day". I wonder if "Aurore" already was a French first name then- because "Jour" never was a French first name, the tale just says the little boy was called like that because he was "even more handsome than his sister", and actually there is a French expression "beau comme le jour", "as beautiful as the day"...)

I thought that actually "Lilac" could be considered as a name (I think that in French it is "la fée des Lilas", so lilac couldn't be considered as color in such a name).

I haven't seen that video, but have seen "Jewels" performed by the POB a few times, and I regret that it wasn't filmed earlier with one of the first POB casts... I'd have loved to see a video of it with dancers like Guérin, Gaïda or Maurin in "Emeralds", for example. Also I wonder if Carbone was the planned cast for "Rubies": Manuel Legris danced it many times (and I really found him great in it- but well, I've only seen the POB in that ballet) and usually he connects well with Dupont, but there were moments when he was injured... And sometimes Dupont tends to be a bit "cold" on stage (well, I guess that her numerous fans at the POB might disagree with me about that...), but for example I really loved Osta in that role. Well, sometimes the POB castings are a bit puzzling, especially as in recent seasons there often were something like 17 different casts in the same program and it was sometimes hard to find a logic in it... Was it Bart dancing with Letestu in "Diamonds" ? They tend to be often paired together, especially as Martinez and Letestu dance less often together and there are not many male dancers tall enough for Letestu, but I often was somewhat disappointing by such a pairing, as I find them a bit too icy together, with very little chemistry...

atm711, be careful with the dates of the post: most of the messages of this thread were posted about five years ago.

As far as I know, José Martinez and Agnès Letestu aren't a couple any longer (and they weren't married). The list of POB couples include, as far as I know: -Nicolas Le Riche and Clairemarie Osta (both étoiles), -Lionel Delanoë (assistant ballet master, former premier danseur) and Delphine Moussin (étoile) -Kader Belarbi (étoile) and Laure Muret (sujet), his first wife was Christa Charmolu (retired sujet) -Gil Isoard and Miteki Kudo (both sujets) -Richard Wilk and Fanny Fiat (both sujets) and among former dancers: -Jean Guizerix and Wilfride Piollet (étoiles) -Charles Jude and Florence Clerc (étoiles, now divorced as far as I know) -Hervé Dirmann (sujet) and Monique Loudières (étoile) -Fabrice Bourgeois (sujet, then assistant ballet master) and Fanny Gaïda (étoile) -Attilio Labis and Christiane Vlassi (both étoiles) -Arnaud Dreyfus (quadrille or coryphée) and Françoise Legrée (étoile) -Fabien Roques (sujet) and Amélie Lamoureux (coryphée, I think) As far as I know, all of them have children.

I can't offer any interesting information about ballet in the Third Reich (I've only read things about modern dance in that period), but thanks for the link to the article about Lifar. I was a bit surprised to read about that offer from Hitler- and the footnotes also say that in 1930 "In 1930, Lifar had refused Stalin's offer to become director of dance for the USSR, maintaining that art should be totally independent from politics. See Lifar, Ma Vie, p. 296; also private archives of André Hofmann, Lifar's unpublished memoirs, chapter V, p. 54." I wonder if there are other sources than Lifar's own autobiography (considering that Lifar often is said to have been a somewhat arrogant and self-promoting person, I don't know how reliable his autobiography is...) Lifar's attitude during the Occupation period has been a very controversial topic to this day.

There were some discussions about that video in the following thread, back in 2002: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...wtopic=4340&hl= and also a post by Alexandra in December 1998: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...pic=1817&st=15#

I haven't seen Petit's ballet "Proust ou les intermittences du coeur", but it will enter the POB's repertory in march 2007. I wonder if Mathieu Ganio, principal dancer and the son of Denys Ganio (and Dominique Khalfouni, former POB principal before she left for Marseille) will perform in it...

I'm pretty sure Serge Lifar must be spinning in his grave

Sylvie Guillem often made me think of Isabelle Adjani.

The next season of the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris will include seven programs by the American Ballet Theatre (with the shadows act of "La Bayadère" and works by Tudor, De Mille, Balanchine, Jooss, Morris, and Tharp), as announced there: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...topic=21793&hl= It will also include Jean-Christophe Maillot's version of "The Sleeping Beauty" by the Ballets de Monte-Carlo.

The Maison de la Danse of Lyon has published its program for the season 2006-2007. http://www.maisondeladanse.com/ http://www.maisondeladanse.com/New_version...7/spec/p_00.htm As usual, there are mostly modern dance companies, but here are a few programs which might be interesting for ballet fans: As part of the Biennale de la Danse: -Duato's "Compania nacional de danza" in September -Benjamin Millepied's group in September, with a mixed bill including two Robbins works ("Fancy Free" and "Other dances" ) and Millepied's "Closer" and later: -Boris Eifman's "Anna Karenine" in october -the Cullberg Ballet in March (with two new works) -the students of the Lyon Conservatoire in june

I'm a bit relieved to see that I'm not the only one with that scrolling problem ! Drew, thanks for your humorous post. It maked me think of the web site of the SNCF (French national railways), it has improved a little bit over the years but there still are quite a lot of dysfunctional things (especially considering that's it's such a big state company and so many people use it to buy tickets or find timetables), and actually even now when I need to know a train hour quickly, I generally use... the web site of the Swiss railways, which is far more convenient to use, even for trains in France :rolleyes: (I used to use the site of the German railways, but the Swiss one is more convenient for me because it exists in French )

The repertory for the next season is available there: http://www.kglteater.dk/site/Forestillinge...oire_06_07.aspx The season will include only two Bournonville works ("Napoli", and "La Sylphide" paired with Flindt's "The Lesson")... The rest of the season will include four full-length works (Peter Martins' production of "Swan Lake", Flemming Flindt's "Caroline Mathilde", Pär Isberg's "Paper cut" and Tim Rushton's "Requiem"), and quite a lot of double and triple bills, which seem to focus mostly on modern dance (Neumeier/ Rushton/ Laerkesen on some music by the Beatles, Uotinen/ Preljocaj/ Wang, Scholz/ Lander, Elo/ Midjord/ Isberg, Fonte/ Mrozewski/ Dove, Ailey/ Zuska/ Brandstrup, Uotinen/ Cherkaoui), plus some guest companies (Bolshoi, Forsythe company, some performances for children). So what do the people familiar with the company think of that season (Alexandra ?) ?

Just a short reply before going to bed (it's 2 AM here): there is a book by Ivor Guest in French about the Paris Opera Ballet,"Le Ballet de l'Opéra de Paris", a first version was published (by the Paris Opera itself) around 1976 and a more recent one (with more photos and some updates) in the early 2000s. It's a very interesting book, with much information which is not easy to find elsewhere (e.g. all the works in the repertory of the POB since its creation in the 17th century, a list of all principal dancers and ballet masters since then, etc.) I don't know if that book in English is a translatio of that one or a new version.

I had planned to post some links to French reviews of "Aurore", but forgot... Well, I can't say it was well received by the French press- all the reviews that I've read so far were negative (most of them criticizing the scenario). It's a pity, as there are so few dance-related films (and Tavernier's documentary about the POB was quite good). Carolyn Carlson, now in her 60s, leads the Ballet du Nord, which is yet another ballet company turned modern, after several difficult moments (Alfonso Cata's death, Jean-Paul Comelin's early departure in a period of financial problems, Maryse Delente fired for moral harrassment, José Montalvo refusing the offer to lead the company because he was too worried about its financial state...) Carlson had a special status of "étoile chorégraphe" at the Paris Opera in the 1970s and did a few works for a special group of POB dancers called GRTOP (it lated became GRCOP under Jacques Garnier's direction, but didn't survive Garnier's death in the late 1980s) and more recently created "Signes" a few years ago for the POB. I've only seen some of her works on video, and while she looked quite fascinating as a dancer, I wasn't impressed by her choreographies, which I often found a bit empty... As a side note: bart, as far as I know Belarbi still is a POB principal, even though he'll probably retire soon and tends to perform not very often.

Mashinka, you're right: as far as I know (and as announced on the POB web site), the only dancers in the role of Caligula were Ganio and Bélingard: http://www.operadeparis.fr/Saison0506/Dist...tion.asp?Id=834