Estelle

I'd also add Charles Jude, Michaël Denard, Laurent Hilaire...

I remember reading an article of his in the late French magazine "Les Saisons de la Danse", in the mid-1990s. It was an interesting article about injuries (the influence of training, why they occur so frequently, etc.) but strangely a second part was announced but never was printed. He mentioned having been interested in that topic after suffering an injury who prevented him from going on stage for several months, and also mentioned working with some Bournonville style teachers, but that's about all I remember (and I don't think the article said with which company he worked).

In any case one of the worst dissappointments for the next season, for me, is lack of Balanchine (only one is scheduled, I seem to remember? It's not enough!).  This season POB's dancers showed off beautifully what they could do with Balanchine's works - personally I feel it wouldn't hurt any one if they continued the efforts...... what a shame!

Yes, the only Balanchine work of the season will be performed by the POB school ("Le tombeau de Couperin"). I find this disappointing, and more generally the lack of classical works in the next season, all the new works in the repertory will be modern ones. I do enjoy some modern works in the POB's repertory, but it's sad to see that so much of the company's repertory is being neglected.

The 2004-2005 season for the Maison de la Danse of Lyon is available on their web site:

http://www.maisondeladanse.com/New_version...04_05/frame.htm

As usual, there's mostly some modern dance, but here are the few ballet programs of the season (well, more or less ballet):

-Sept 14-18: a triple bill of Mauro Bigonzetti works (Vespro, Les Noces, Cantata) by the Aterballetto company

-Sept 20-24: the Ballett Mainz in Martin Schläpfter's "L'art de la fugue" (actually, I don't know if it's a ballet or modern work)

-Oct 13-17: some NYCB dancers in "Danses concertantes", a program organized by Alexander Meinertz and Benjamin Millepied, in Robbins' "In the Night" and "Suite of dances" and two works by Millepied

-Dec 1-8: Alonzo King's Lines Ballet (in King's "Koto" and "Who dressed you like a foreigner)

-Mar 23- Apr 3: the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in "Bhakti" (1968), "Wien, Wien, nur Du allein" (1982), "Serait-ce la mort?" (1970) and "K 538" (2003) (sounds like an Indian- Austrian program )

-May 3-6: the young dancers of the Lyon Conservatoire

I've just received the season brochure for the Bordeaux Opera, and here's the program for the 2004-2005 season of the Ballet de Bordeaux (poorer than the previous one, it seems):

-"Coppélia" (Charles Jude's production): 14 performances between Dec 15th and 31st

-"Swan Lake" (Charles Jude's production): 9 performances between Mar 15th and 24th

-a new work: "The Messiah" (on Haendel's music, by the Argentitian choreographer Mauricio Wainrot): 6 performances between June 21st and 26th.

The program of guest companies will be announced only later.

Naoko: actually, when re-reading what I wrote, I realized that my sentences were badly expressed and ambiguous! Sorry! Now things are clearer (and actually, Balanchine fan that I am, I think I'd be happy about *any* new Balanchine work added to the repertory...)

I loved Liebeslieder Walzer, and regretted being able to see it only twice, as I think it takes some time for the dancers to get used to it. I especially enjoyed the pas de deux between Legris and Moussin. But it's a pity that it was in such an ill-suited program (after three modern works), and it might explain why it was received a bit tepidly: the contrast wasn't good, and some part of the audience probably came mostly to see the modern works (and on the other hand, I know some people who would have been interested in seeing it, but didn't attend because they didn't want to spend the price of a ticket to see only one classical ballet in the program). It would have made more sense to put it in a whole Balanchine program, for example. But I guess the programming was done also because of some material reasons (e.g. none of the works of that program needed a full orchestra, and also part of the company was busy with other programs). Anyway, I hope that they'll dance it again in upcoming seasons (but one is never sure with the POB... For example, I never understood why some works like Ashton's "Rhapsody", Robbins' "The Four Seasons" or De Mille's "Fall river legend" were never performed again after the first season they entered the repertory, and even a work like "Allegro Brillante" wasn't performed much after its first season. What a pity )

Yes indeed, his first name is "Jean-Charles", and here's his web site:

http://www.balletdesjeunes.org/jeancharlesgil/

He created his own company, "Ballet des Jeunes d'Europe", which is based in Marseille, and choreographs for it. They will perform his new ballet "Mireille" next August in the region of Marseille.

Previously, he had danced for the San Francisco Ballet between 1985 and 1988, and for the Ballets de Monte-Carlo between 1991 and 1997. I only saw him once on stage, around 1999 in a solo program in Marseille (with choreographies by himself and two other choreographers), and I had liked a lot his stage presence and elegance.

I've got to ask you more about this!  Which recent additions have you found less interesing than Who Cares?  Also what Balanchine programs do you think "would be great to end"?

Well, that's a matter of personal opinion of course, but for example I wasn't exactly enthusiastic about Trisha Brown's "Glacial Decoy" (especially in the same program as "Liebeslieder Walzer", what a clusmy contrast) or Davide Bombana's "La septième lune"... And one can notice that many of the modern works that had entered the company's repertory in recent years were not performed again after their first season (e.g. "Orison", "Rhapsody in blue", "Le rire de la lyre"...)

And about the end of some Balanchine programs (oops, I realize that my sentence was quite ambiguous), I remembered for example the recent Balanchine-Robbins mixed bill which ended with "Serenade": I do love Serenade, but thought that a more joyful work like "Who Cares" would perhaps be better at the end of a program, so that the audience would leave the theater in a happy mood!

For the sake of clarity, I've created a separate discussion about POB videos and moved some posts there:

http://balletalert.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17126

Feel free to continue the discussion there, and to talk about "La Sylphide" here.

Naoko, I agree with what you wrote about videos being useful for the next generation- and I'd also add that they also are very useful for the people who live in places with few opportunities to see some live ballet (when I started being interested in ballet as a teen-ager, I lived in Grenoble, where very little ballet was performed, and became interested in ballet thanks to a TV program about Nijinsky and some books. I remember how envious I was of the people who were lucky enough to see real performances, especially in Paris!)

From that point of view, it's extremely sad that the French TV isn't as interested in culture (that's an euphemism) as it used to be in the 1970s and 1980s: quite a lot of ballets were filmed and shown on TV, they were not available as tapes but at least some people could see it (and record it)... Françoise knows more than me about it, and it always makes me a bit envious (and angry about the present TV programmers) when I read about some wonderful videos which were shown on TV in the early 1980s! Well, in that time the French TV channels were public, and less concerned with audience figures and advertisement...

Well, I realize that discussion has gone a bit away from the POB Sylphide. So perhaps we should create a new discussion about POB videos and stay on topic in this one.

Wow! It's great to see that Elisabeth Platel still is active- but what a pity there are no opportunities to see her in France now...

Audric Bézard is a young male quadrille. I haven't seen him much so far, but if I remember correctly, he performed "Tchaikovsky pas de deux" in the last "Young dancers" program with Dorothée Gilbert (instead of Mathieu Ganio who was scheduled originally but got injured) and, though he wasn't as impressive as Gilbert, did quite well.

By the way, I still wonder why Brigitte Lefèvre doesn't want to add "Who Cares?" to the POB's repertory (while some parts of it are performed regularly in galas by some POB dancers): I'm sure the audience would love it (it was very successful each time I saw it in France, whether by the Ballets de Monte-Carlo, the Ballet de Toulouse or the Ballet de Marseille), the dancers seem eager to perform it, and while it's perhaps not among Balanchine's major works, it's surely far more interesting that many recent additions to the repertory, and also it would be great to end some Balanchine programs...

Oh yes, it's a pity there are so few videos of Platel- only Gamzatti in "La Bayadère" and the bride in "Les Noces" (but that's not a big role). But the POB didn't released many videos in quite a long period, unfortunately (and also some ballets were films and shown on TV, like for example "Le Tricorne" and "Le train bleu", but never available on tape and on DVD). They seem to film more ballets now, but still not enough...

[Edited to add that I posted that message before seeing Marc's message.]

I've heard that it will be indeed filmed with Legris and Dupont (on July 10th, 12th and 13th- the POB web site lists Martinez for the 13th, but it must be a mistake as Martinez is not supposed to dance with Dupont and Hurel), but it was not official news, so I don't know how reliable it is.

But in general the direction seems to like to film Dupont and Legris, as they already were filmed in "Don Quixote" and "The Sleeping Beauty" (and they were supposed to be filmed too in "Paquita", but Dupont got injured and couldn't dance it, and they filmed Letestu and Martinez instead). They're wonderful dancers, but I wish they would film some other dancers too and not always the same ones (and what a pity there were so few films with the dancers of the previous generation of principals, for example I'd have loved to see a video of Loudières in "Giselle" or "La Sylphide"...)

The detailed casts finally have been posted on the POB site:

http://www.operadeparis.fr/0304/fiche_597_distri.html

So finally, Alessio Carbone won't dance James and it will be danced by Gil Isoart instead (I've been told he already danced that role a few years ago). I've nothing against Isoart, but what a bad luck for Alessio Carbone ...

As far as I know, the casts for Effie aren't known yet by date.

It's not very surprising that you're not familiar with their names, as some of them aren't very well known even for the Paris audience...

Mélanie Hurel is a première danseuse (2nd rank of the company, after étoile= principal), Caroline Bance and Dorothée Gilbert are sujets (3rd category), Aurélia Bellet and Aurore Cordellier are coryphées (4th category).

There's a page on Mélanie Hurel on the POB web site, you can go there:

http://www.opera-de-paris.fr/ballet/compagnie/compa_3.html

and click on her name. She's been a premiere danseuse since the end of 2002. I haven't been

very impressed by her so far, but in fact I haven't had many opportunities to see her.

Dorothée Gilbert is considered as one of the most promising young female dancers of the company, she's about 20-21 and got promoted to sujet last december and was already given a few important roles (in "Concerto Barocco", "Liebeslieder Walzer", "Don Quixote"). Caroline Bance and Aurélia Bellet are often cast in modern dance works, so I was a bit surprised to see their names. Aurore Cordellier was, if I remember correctly, at the POB school at the same time as Dorothée Gilbert.

mmded, it's not sure but I think the cast is likely to be Dupont and Legris that evening (since the cast of the opening night generally is a cast of principals, and Letestu and Martinez aren't scheduled). Anyway, it should be an enjoyable evening for your daughter (she might also be interested in the souvenirs in the small boutique inside the Opera Garnier, some are a bit expensive but there is a large choice of postcards, booklets, jewels, etc.) Also, in case she's interested, the "entrée des artistes" is on the opposite side of the Palais Garnier, and most dancers are happy to give autographs (but sometimes it can require some waiting before they finally go out). I hope that you'll post some comments about the performance when you're back home!

About how to dress: well, there is much diversity in the POB audience, you can see some people dressed very formally and some others in jeans and tee-shirts, so do as you prefer and don't be stressed, whatever you wear, nobody will frown at you! B)

[Edited to add]: Thanks for the precisions, Françoise.

sylphide: if you liked the video, surely you'll love seeing it on stage!

I do agree about Moussin, and regret that she never was promoted to étoile. However, at least she got to dance quite a lot of great roles... I'd also have liked to see Clairemarie Osta in such a role, and I hope that she'll get to dance it later. Aurélie Dupont will probably be quite interesting too, she's matured quite a lot after her one-year leave for injury last season.

About the castings, there is some extra info on José Martinez's web site: he's supposed to dance it, with Letestu, on July 7, 14 and 15 (by the way, the performance of July 14th will be a bit special: as it is the "fête nationale", the performance will be free, but usually there is a huge queue and some people start queuing early in the morning). And of course the casts are likely to change, so you never really know who you're going to see (I'm keeping my fingers crossed about injuries, there's already been too many so far) until the ballet starts...

Thanks for your review, silvy!

Is it James Amar's own production (if I remember correctly, I saw him almost a decade ago when he danced with the Ballet du Rhin) or someone else's? Actually, Pierre Lacotte's "Coppélia", which was performed a few years ago by the POB school, also is a "short" version without a last act, and I found it a bit frustrating too. But they performed it in a double bill with another work after it.

I plan to see this ballet, but I don't know when... Do you plan to attend a performance?

The castings have been announced on the web site, but not completely (there's only a list of dancers, but no dates):

-as La Sylphide,

Aurélie Dupont or Agnès Letestu or Isabelle Ciaravola or Mélanie Hurel

or Delphine Moussin

It will be a new roles for all of them! The only dancer still in the company who has already danced the role is Elisabeth Maurin, but she's been absent from the stage because of her pregnancy. And actually, it's a bit unusual for the company to see that two premières danseuses (Ciaravola and Moussin) will be dancing that role, as it usually is considered as a role for étoiles, but I guess it's also because there aren't many active female étoiles now able to dance that role (Osta is away for maternity leave, and Gillot and Pujol probably aren't well suited to it). But I really wonder about the logic of having 5 different castings for a total of 12 performances, that doesn't leave much time to each dancer to really get used to the role (especially as they don't perform "La Sylphide" so often...) And there's also that tendancy to cast any dancer in almost any role... Anyway, I'd love to see Delphine Moussin in such a role...

-as James, Mathieu Ganio or Manuel Legris or José Martinez or Alessio Carbone or Benjamin Pech.

It will be a new role for Ganio (and actually only his second big classical role, after Basilio a few weeks ago) and for Carbone (his first real big role, I think). I wonder why Nicolas Le Riche won't dance it, but perhaps he's already been too busy this season. And unfortunately, several other male dancers, like Jean-Guillaume Bart and Hervé Moreau, are injured now.

About the pairings: the most likely ones seem to be Dupont- Legris, Letestu- Martinez, Ganio- Ciaravola, Moussin- Pech, and Hurel-Carbone.

-as Effie, Mélanie Hurel or Caroline Bance or Dorothée Gilbert or Aurélia Bellet or Aurore Cordellier

New roles for all of them except Hurel. Dorothée Gilbert was a charming Effie a few years ago in a pas de trois in a "Young dancers" program.

About the production: it is Pïerre Lacotte's production, after the original production by Taglioni, not the Bournonville production which is the one which is generally performed and which is better known internationally. Lacotte made this "reconstruction" (actually, not really a faithful reconstruction, for example there is more pointe than in the original work, also he added a pas de trois on some music from, if I remember correctly, "L'Ombre") around 1974, and it was filmed then with Ghislaine Thesmar and Michael Denard (it became one of their signature roles).

I've seen that production only once on stage so far, and it was quite special because it was Elisabeth Platel's farewell performance, with two different James (Nicolas Le Riche and Manuel Legris), one for each act, and it was of course quite moving. I'm not a all a specialist of that work, but I really enjoyed that production, and I think it's worth seeing.

Naoko: you mean his "But ballet truly matters in Paris."?

Yes indeed, when reading that, I thought thet he probably was too optimistic, considering the next season with so little real ballet...

A review by Clement Crisp:

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?p...p=1016625900929

Excerpt:

Interpretations by the ensemble were unfailing in energy and in delight, and the Opéra's orchestra under Paul Connolly played with grand responsiveness. I have already reported on the exhilarating readings by those twin angels Dorothée Gilbert and Emmanuel Thibault.

I also saw Eleonora Abbagnato and Karl Paquette as Kitri and Basilio, somewhat below their best form in matter of dramatic verve, and a fizzing interpretation by Laetitia Pujol (who took to the stage like an Exocet missile) and the ebullient Benjamin Pech, rejoicing in the wall-of-death difficulties that Nureyev offers Basilio.

He also mentions "Audiences eager, house-filling" but it was not true for many of the performances of this long series (16 performances): when I attended it, there were many empty seats (so that we could actually move to more expensive seats :grinning: ) and I've been told it's been the case several times. Perhaps programming at the same time this "Don Quixote" and Ek's "Giselle" in Garnier wasn't a very good idea.

The Massy Opera (near Paris) has just published the program for its 2004-2005 season.

The dance season will include:

-a program by young dancers "Europa danse" (directed by Jean-Albert Cartier), with works by Bigonzetti, Kylian, Ek, Duato and Naharin (does that sound familiar? :grinning:)

-the Aterballetto company, with a triple bill of works by Bigonzetti

-a group of POB dancers with Manuel Legris and Aurelie Dupont, with Balanchine's "Who Cares" and "Allegro Brillante", Jiri Kylian's "Petite mort", Rudi Van Dantzig's "Moments shared" and Renato Zanella's "Angel"

-a new work by Blanca Li, performed by her company

AntoP: to edit your posts, you can click on the little "edit" icon with a pencil on the top right of the post.

Estelle, thanks for the summary of the article and for your comments.  It's very interesting to learn that Mathieu's nomination was regarded by French ballet public as an extremely exceptional case - even by comparison with similar cases for Legris & Le Riche. 

Well, perhaps part of the problem is that for much of the audience, he still is basically unknown, since he has danced so few roles so far (only two big roles, and almost no soloist roles before). He's the youngest promoted principal since Guillem two decades ago, and even her had been promoted to première danseuse before, and, I think, had been given more roles before being promoted. On the whole, I don't think there has been such a quick promotion since perhaps Michel Renault in 1946 (and I guess there might have been a lack of male principals then, because of the war period), so that's why it just was so unexpected to everybody. even René Sirvin, who isn't exactly known for criticizing the POB direction, finds such a promotion a bit premature. Also it often was said that the reason why Pech had not been promoted yet was just a question of "no available position" (I never understood how all that worked), and now it shows that when the direction wants to promote someone, indeed they can.

But perhaps it's also a question of "habit": people have get used to relatively "slow" promotions, for example the last two promoted male principals, José Martinez and Jean-Guillaume Bart, who weren't exactly untalented dancers, were promoted to premiers danseurs respectively in 1992 and 1996, and to principals in 1997 and 2000 only (actually I think they'd have deserved to be promoted quite earlier in my opinion). Now it will be interesting to see if this is really a change of policy for the direction, and if they will continue to promote young dancers, or if it's just an exceptional decision.

(Well it's not only in France - I've been surprised and almost overwhelmed by great sympathy Japanese POB fans have shown towards M. Peche, in this instance.)    Although the strict hierarchy do exist at POB, a special dancer deserves a special treatment I think - otherwise would it not lead to a reverse-discrimination?  Dancer's age alone doesn't really matter either if you believe ballet world should forever ban a poisonous seniority order!

The problem is that, given the way things seem to work, it means that it's more and more likely that Pech will never get promoted (while Ganio, who was younger, still had "plenty of time" to get promoted a bit later)- I've no idea how much time it will take before another male principal gets promoted, but Pech is about 30 now.

And what is prerequisite to become Etoile? To me key factors seem to be natural talent and a star quality.

I'd also add "to be a role model for the rest of the company", and "to be able to carry a performance on your shoulders", if that makes sense, and some experience might help.

Sounds interesting - I wish I could hear the rumours! 

Well, I can say one of them now, some people were wondering if Gilbert and/ or Thibault might be promoted after their Sunday performance in "Don Quixote", but nothing special happened.

Leigh Witchel wrote:

Alessio Carbone has moved up young and fast; I liked him a great deal. Is he being favored by the direction at all?

I guess Brigitte Lefèvre and Hugues Gall probably are the only ones able to understand what the company policy is... :grinning: Carbone was not cast as Basilio, even though he had been cast at the beginning and had started working that role, but now he's an understudy for James and might get to dance it. So far, it seems to me that he hasn't been any real principal role since his promotion at the end of 2002, he dances mostly some traditional "premier danseurs" roles (like peasant pas de deux, "Swan Lake" pas de trois, and so on). I wonder if his relatively small height might be a disadvantage. However, perhaps he'll get cast a bit more, with Bélingard and Moreau being unfortunately injured.

Françoise, thanks for the precision about Manuel's Legris promotion at 21 and not 22 (I had assumed that it was 22 as he was born in 1964 and promoted in 1986, but I don't know his birth date). But one big difference with Ganio was that he had been a sujet since 1982.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/20040525.FIG0276.html

A review by René Sirvin in "Le Figaro" (it might be online for a few days only). He's enthusiastic about Gilbert and Thibault.