Estelle

Thanks for the information Katharine. I wonder why the people at their phone standard didn't mention it? Actually, I could see the opening performance on Oct 16th- I waited near the Chatelet theatre (getting soaked by the rain) and finally a lady had an extra ticket to sell, so I could see it for 15 euros (in the amphitheater, very high but with a not too bad sight). I had noticed some empty seats up there, and wondered why they didn't sell it. It's a pity their phone standard doesn't give the right information (the person I talked to basically told me it wasn't worth going to the theater- fortunately I didn't listen to her advice!) I'll post some comments about the opening program later, but it was a very enjoyable evening- very long, as it finished at 0:30 AM (having started at 7 PM- it was about 40 minutes late at the end, it's the first time I attend a performance getting so late), but with many beautiful things to see (and to hear- great music!)

Actually, when reading it, I sometimes thought "now I know where some reviewers of the late "Saisons de la Danse" magazine found their inspiration"... He calls the 2002-2003 brochure of the Theatre de la Ville a "monument of hermetic literature", and well, that's not so far from the truth!

I've just found a very hilarious generator of "program notes for the Theatre de la Ville" (on the web site of Martin Granger, a contributor of a mailing-list I'm involved in): http://margranger.free.fr/critique.htm Every time you reload the page, you get another text. It's made after some excerpts of the real season brochure of the Theatre de la Ville (a theatre in Paris which shows a lot of modern dance, and also some music and theatre). Well, I've read some stuff which sounded almost like that... Perhaps someone should show that URL to Jiri Kylian!

I wonder why Lacotte preferred to create his own choreography rather than using the original one. Do you know why? Didn't he like the style of the original work? Was it too difficult for today's dancers to get used to that style?

I've read that Jackie Chan was an apprentice of the China Drama Academy for many years in his childhood, and besides martial arts his training included dancing and singing. Probably not tango, but at least there was some dancing! Tango is very popular in Finland, and I think there is a special kind of tango there- perhaps Jaana or Päivi could tell us more about it?

On September 26, I attended the second performance of the Robbins-Petit miixed bill". Before attending it I was not very enthusiastic about the content of the program, as I had seen three of the four works in recent seasons, and didn't have especially good memories of the fourth one ("Passacaille"). But it turned out to be a good evening. "Passacaille" had been premiered for the POB in 1994, during Dupond's directorship, along with two other works, "Rythmes de valses" and "Camera Obscura", all on Viennese music. "Rythmes de valses" was performed in another series of performances, but neither "Passacaille" nor "Camera Obscura" had been performed until last year. However, Petit revived "Passacaille" for the Bolshoi recently, and that's probably why he decided to revive it for the POB too. The main roles, which had been premiered by Agnes Letestu and Jose Martinez (who were not yet etoiles back then), were performed that night by two talented sujets, Stéphane Phavorin and Céline Talon. The work itself was less boring that what I remembered of the 1994 performance I saw (but then, a few minutes before the beginning of the program, I had strained by ankle when rushing down the stairs to get a program booklet, which probably didn't help :rolleyes: ) , but still didn't look very satisfying to me. Roland Petit generally is at his best with theatrical works with strong characters, and the few abstract works of his weren't very convincing. "Passacaille" strangely made me think of some Balanchine-Stravinsky works, like "Agon", "Rubies", "Violin Concerto" or even "Apollo", except that I found the score (Webern's "Five movements for string orchestra opus 5 " and "Passacaille for string orchestra op. 1") far less suited to ballet that Stravinsky's work, and the choreography, while not bad, far less inspired in general that Balanchine's. Most of the work was dark and slow, with a lot of somewhat acrobatic portés of the female dancers, and I kept on waiting for it to liven up. Well, I had plenty of time to see Herve Le Roux's funny costumes with horizontal stripes (white and flesh-colored) and the good work of the corps de ballets of 12 couples of dancers, and Talon and Phavorin both did an excellent job. "The Cage" featured an impressive Marie-Agnès Gillot as the Queen (I regret not having seen her yet as Myrtha); Eleonora Abbagnato was good but perhaps a little bit too soft as the novice. Wilfried Romoli was excellent as the second man, and the corps de ballet was in top shape. I was especially glad to be able to see Isabelle Guérin in "Other Dances", as there aren't many opportunities to see her now that she's officially retired from the POB. She was very charming and poetic in Robbins' delicate ballet. On the other hand, I was slightly disappointed with Nicolas Le Riche's performance- he didn't do anything wrong, but his style was less to my taste than Manuel Legris' (whom I had seen two seasons ago), what was pure delight with Legris looked more ordinary with Le Riche. The last work of the program, "L'Arlesienne", was the hightlight of the evening for me. The plot is inspired by Alphonse Daudet's short story (which is available online there: http://www.ifrance.com/lestroisprovencaux/...ux/lettres6.htm ) and the play which he had made later after the story: http://gallica.bnf.fr/scripts/Consultation...exe?O=88118&T=2 Curiously, "L'Arlesienne" has become an expression in French (meaning something or someone that many people talk about but which is never seen- as the character of l'Arlesienne- which means, the woman from Arles- in the story) but most people have never heard of that story itself (the play was very popular during the late 19th century and the early 20th century, after having been a big failure at the beginning). It deals with a young man from Provence, Frederi, who falls madly in love with a woman from Arles who doesn't love him, gets fianced with Vivette but can't forget his "Arlesienne", and it ends tragically. Petit's ballet features only two dancers in the main roles, Frederi and Vivette, and a corps de ballet of 16 dancers in dark, who do geometric shapes and sometimes act like a sort of chorus. The choreography isn't that great- but it can give great performances with suitable dancers. Those I saw were Delphine Moussin, a very moving Vivette, and Manuel Legris, who was absolutely wonderful frrom the beginning to the end. His stunning performance made me regret that he never danced some other works of Petit like "Le jeune homme et la mort", and transformed that evening in an unforgettable experience.

Hi Clamous, and welcome on this forum! Could you explain a bit more what you mean by "Cozette and Fiat failed to fall"? Do you mean they had some bad landings and fell on stage?

Tonight, the cable/satellite French channel "Mezzo" will show Nureyev's "Don Quichotte", filmed last season at the Paris Opera, with Aurélie Dupont (Kitri), Manuel Legris (Basile), Jean-Guillaume Bart (Espada), Delphine Moussin (Queen of Dryads), Marie-Agnès Gillot (Street dancer), Clairemarie Osta (Cupid), Jean-Marie Didière (Don Quichotte), Fabien Roques (Sancho Pança)... I'm not really a fan of that ballet, but with such a cast, I really regret having no TV (and my parents don't subscribe to that channel)!

A link about the upcoming Paris performances of the Kirov Ballet, at the Theatre du Chatelet: http://fr.news.yahoo.com/021011/202/2sex5.html There will be three series of performances: a Fokine mixed bill ("The Firebird", "Petrouchka", "Polovstian dances from Prince Igor", "Le Spectre de la Rose" and "Scheherazade"- not exactly a short program... And, silly me, I called too late when everything was sold out so if anybody knows a miracle solution to get tickets at a not too outrageous price, I'm interested ), "The Nutcracker" and "La Bayadère".

Solor, you have posted a similar post in the Kirov Ballet forum, so I'm going to close this one: it's better not to start several threads about the same topic, as it can become a bit confused... Here is the URL of the other thread: http://www.balletalert.com/forum/showthrea...=&threadid=7432

Thanks for the precisions, Alymer. Probably the problems with the designs could be corrected, but the choreography problem is quite big indeed... I wonder if at that time there still were other people still alive who could have remembered some parts of the choreography? Darsonval passed away a few years ago, so it would probably be even harder to make a reconstruction now. I'm a bit jealous that you could see Denard when he still was active, as it was partly a book about him which made me pay attention to dance ten years ago (I saw him a few times on stage, but for open rehearsals or in acting roles).

Didn't Alice Nikitina become an opera singer after her career with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes?

On the official POB site ( http://www.opera-de-paris.fr ) there is a announcement about two other POB-related sites, warning that they are not officially authorized to sell POB tickets. I've just had a look at them. One is: http://www.parisopera.com/ It's a site for "Michael Cook's Ticketfinders International Ltd", selling tickets for various events. They warn that: "Ticketfinders International are not regular ticket agents. Our prices reflect the cost of obtaining preferred seating and are based on supply, demand and seat location." Well, indeed: they sell ballet tickets at about 180$, while the maximum price at the Paris Opera for ballet tickets is 67 euros, plus 3 euros for phone or Internet booking (one euro is about 0.98 US $). The other site, http://www.parisopera.org/ looks *very much* like the official POB site, using the POB logo, the same presentation, the same texts, etc. It also has English, German, Japanese and Chinese versions, unlike the official POB site. But the prices in the booking section are far more expensive than the official prices: for Garnier, the top category of tickets is at 160 euros (for any kind of opera and ballet), while the real price is 109 euros for the operas, and is between 40 and 67 euros for ballets. And for the example on that site the price for 4th category seats is at 65 euros, while the real prices are 37 euros for opera, and between 13 and 19 euros for ballet. Those sites sound like real robbery to me, especially the second one which might look very much like an official site to uninformed people!

I don't think there are any choreography classes at the POB school. There are some at the Paris Conservatoire (perhaps only in the "modern" section?).

Well, some people mention choreography about rugby, but rugby players don't exactly look balletic...

That must have been Darsonval's reconstruction? I wish I could have seen it, I've only seen photographs of Denard, Pontois and a few others in it. But it seems unlikely to be staged again now, only Claude Bessy seems interested in staging some old works of the repertory and it probably is a too big ballet for the school...

A version of "Sylvia" will be performed at the Paris Opera this season, but it is Neumeier's version, premiered in 1997 (great music indeed, but the choreography isn't very convincing for me...) Around 1979, the POB had danced a reconstruction by the late Lycette Darsonval(POB principal), which probably was quite close to Merante's versin, but it wasn't danced again after that...

Amy, if I remember correctly there wasn't any Spanish or Scottish doll. Swanilda started dancing Spanish and Scottish dances after being given some objects, a flower and then a Scottish scarf or something like that. But I don't know if Lacotte's production is faithful to Saint-Leon about that, or if he changed it... Actually it was said to be Lacotte's production after Albert Aveline (POB ballet master) who had staged it in 1936, and removed the third act. I think Lacotte had danced it in his childhood when he was at the POB school. As far as I know, the productions danced at the Paris Opera were not influenced by the Petipa production (by the way, it is a pity in my opinion that the company doesn't dance the original Coppelia, which had been performed almost continuously since its premiere, but just a new version by Patrice Bart...) When I saw it, yes, it was lively and comic. Perhaps much of it has to do with the interpretation (and the coaching), if the mime isn't done well enough probably the plot is impossible to follow...

I don't know what Nureyev thought about "In the Middle", but probably he was interested in Forsythe, as he had asked him to create another work "France-Dance" earlier, in a period when Forsythe wasn't well known... Anyway, you're right that it has little to do with the Royal Ballet! Perhaps they could have revived "Paradis Perdu", to know if it looked as bad now as when it was premiered I've tried to find some information about the Darde solo with google, and all what I could find was in Italian, from various sites of summer festivals in Italy; it was included in some performances of Guillem and Hilaire (it seems to be a male solo but I'm not sure). Well, that sounds like a "me, me" program...

Well, one could argue that "In the Middle Somewhat Elevated" is one of the few works created for the POB during Nureyev's directorship which are still very active in the repertory- but indeed it is a rather bizarre idea (and probably Guillem included it mostly because she premiered it and wanted to dance it herself?) I can't find a reason for the inclusion of Pierre Darde's solo (Darde is one of the senior POB sujets, he's done a few choreographies, including "Orison" premiered by the POB a few seasons ago which I had found quite disappointing).

rg, the dolls of the POB performance were exactly like those you depicted. But I don't remember any "blowing kisses" gestures...

Well, I saw Lacotte's reconstruction danced by the POB school two seasons ago, and there definitely was a Coppelia doll in the first act, so there must have been a problem with the sets... Indeed the first act must be hard to understand if there is no Coppelia doll- Amy, I hope that your daughter was not too disappointed by that performance If I remember correctly, one of the dolls of the second act was Chinese, but not all of them (I remember there was a Moor, for example).

Yes dirac, you've understood it correctly, the problem is personal: people complain about Maryse Delente's attitude, accusing her of moral harrassment, humiliating people, bad working conditions... On the other hand, Maryse Delente says she is harressed and persecuted. Nothing is written about the artistic side (by the way, the Ballet du Nord used to be a ballet company, with a fairly large Balanchine repertory, until the early 1990s, then had some big financial problems under the direction of Jean-Paul Comelin, there was a big mess as the ministry of Culture wanted Prejlocaj to lead the company -especially as he would have brought the dancers of his company and fired the previous ones- and after a while Maryse Delente was chosen as the new director. As first she was supposed to have a diverse repertory, but now most of the repertory is her own modern works. Some are interesting, in my opinion, but the people in Lille and Roubaix can't see any ballet any longer.) The end of the article lists the public subsidies given to the Ballet du Nord: about 763000 euros (1 euro is a bit less than 1 US $) from the state (ministry of Culture), 763000 euros from the Region Nord-Pas de Calais, 381000 from the city of Roubaix, and 107000 from the departement of Nord. Roubaix has about 100000 inhabitants, but it is a close suburb of Lille and the whole conurbation is more than 1 million inhabitants (Lille has no ballet company). I was a bit surprised too that they were received indeed at the Ministry of Culture, as such problem generally are solved at a local level (with officials of the city or the region), but it seems that the situation is quite bad and no solution seems to be found... Actually most European countries have Ministries of Culture, as far as I know. The budget for the French one is about 2.6 billion euros this year, a bit less than 1% of the total budget of the state. A few days ago there were some debates in the newspapers because the 2003 budget for culture is about 5% lower than the 2002 one (contrary to what President Chirac had promised during his campaign). On the other hand, private sponsorship for culture is far weaker than in the US...

Here's a link to an article in "Le Monde" about a strike at the Ballet du Nord: http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3246-...292629-,00.html 45 of the 50 people employed by the ballet du Nord (dancers, technical and administrative staff, teachers of the dance school) have been on strike for two weeks, asking for the resignation of Maryse Delente (the director and main choreographer of the company) and Claude Burguière (administrator).

Well, I remember that one or two years ago, Guillem caused a scandal at the end of some kind of some dance festival in Monaco- she was awarded a prize, and when receiving it made a rather violent speech against "commercialism in the dance world" (the scandal was mostly that in that sort of gala everybody is supposed to say positive things...) I might have agreed about her, but a few years before she had toured in many French cities with a program including mostly solos (and which didn't receive good reviews in general, partly because of rather low production values), and at that moment one could barely open a magazine without seeing Ms Guillem's photos, reading her interviews, she even appeared on the evening news of TF1 (France's most popular private channel- verrrrry commercial), did advertisements for Rolex, etc. So well, her positions didn't seem very coherent. mbjerk, what does "gws" mean (about Kirkland)? And what did happen with Dowell and Sibley?