Estelle

Pierre Lacotte made a reconstruction of "Paquita" for the Paris Opera Ballet last year, and it will be performed again next season. The "poor girl who is in fact the daughter of a noble family" seems to have been a rather common scenario in that period (there the truth is discovered thanks to a medal that she has on her necklace). Here's a link to a thread about it (started by Jeannie): http://www.balletalert.com/forum/showthrea...ghlight=Paquita

Alexandra, I think you're right about Lifar's not exactly small ego. It's not by chance that the two main French choreographers of that period, Petit and Béjart, had careers outside the Paris Opera. A few years ago there was a choreography competition in Paris (associated to the ballet competition organized every second year) but the reviews were not very good. Also, in 2001 the Hamburg Ballet organized a ballet competition, and the winner work was performed later by the company (it was open to any choreographer living and working in Europe, and the Hamburg Ballet put its stage and staff at the disposal of the candidates, the application was done on videotape). http://www.hamburgballett.de/e/prix_dp.htm I wonder if it might be difficult for a choreographer who is used to working with a small company to create works for a large corps de ballet. It seemed to be a problem for some of the modern works premiered by the POB recently, for example in Li's "Scheherazade": it seemed that some of them didn't really know what to do with all those dancers, and so chose unisson movements most of the time, or badly structured movements (also the fact that their style was non-balletic probably didn't help).

Actually, when looking at the 2001-2002 schedule of the Hamburg Ballet, it looks quite a lot like an "auteur" company, as all the work they dance are choreographed by Neumeier, except a production of "La Bayadere" by Natalia Makarova, and some shorts works (in mixed bills) by Christopher Wheeldon, Jiri Kylian, Gustavo Sansano. There are works like "Giselle" or "Swan Lake", but all of them are Neumeier's versions. I guess that the people who don't like Neumeier in Hamburg must feel a bit bored! (But his company seems very successful there.) So it didn't look very different to me from the Frankfurt Ballet which has a few works from other choreographers in its repertory (at some moment they danced "Agon" for example), even though Forsythe's works are very different from Neumeier's. I think that an important point, for a company with a main choreographer, would be to invite other choreographers from time to time, and also if possible to train others, so that the company doesn't become repertory-less when the main choreographer dies or retires. That's what happened to the company of the late French choreographer Dominique Bagouet (he was quite influential, Preljocaj and Kelemenis were among his dancers), his premature death in the early 1990s made some people conscious of the fragility of some companies and their repertories. Also, the lack of ballet-oriented choreographers in France might be linked to the fact that during the Lifar period, he staged a lot his own choreographies but didn't encourage anybody else in the company to choreograph too...

Alexandra, you forgot Hamburg (Neumeier) among the German companies (and also to some extent Kylian and the NDT, and at some point Ek and the Cullberg Ballet but now there are other choreographers in its repertory). And if you include modern companies (which is the case for Pina Bausch), there are quite a lot of others... In those cases, I think that perhaps the "only company in town" can be solved is there is a big enough density of companies in the country (I'm quite impressed by the large number of ballet companies in Germany, generally with a lot of performances each season and a rather large repertory), people can travel a little bit to see something else (which might be different in the US because the country is larger). Also another solution might be touring companies (and exchanges organized between them- pity it is so rare...) Ari, it's interesting that you mentioned the POB among the companies with a distinct style, because in my opinion, that style is far more a matter of schooling than a matter of repertory now. The POB doesn't have that much of an indigenous repertory: it makes a while it hasn't had a genius choreographer like Balanchine for NYCB and Ashton for the Royal Ballet, and much of what's been added to the repertory recently is danced elsewhere too (Forsythe, Ek, Neumeier, Bausch...) or is some modern/contemporary dance which is a bit at odds with the company's style (Li, Duboc, Preljocaj...) Also, in recent years some works which were characteristic of the company were quite absent from the repertory (Lifar's works, Lander's "Etudes", the traditional version of "Coppelia"). So now the repertory which is most characteristic of the company might be Nureyev's productions of Petipa's classics. A company which seemed to have a good balance (that's just an impression, since it was before I was born) was the Royal Ballet during the De Valois/ Ashton period, with its own choreographers, and also excellent productions of Petipa's classics and works like Nijinska's "Les Noces". (By the way, there's an article by Lynette Halewood on ballet.co.uk about the last RB season and its repertory policy which is very interesting.)

Here's a link to a New York Times review of Toni Bentley's book: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/02/books/re...iew/02SCHI.html and another review: http://www.dancingbadger.com/ssbentley.html Also Toni Bentley has her own site there: http://www.tonibentley.com/ There were some articles in "Les Saisons de la Danse" around 1993-1994 about Colette's "dancing" career (by Olivier Marmin- he managed to write interesting articles about really odd topics, like "dance in the comic books series *Alix*" or "dance and vampire stories" (that was before the Dracula ballet craze). There's a bit of information about her "music-hall career" on the following page: http://www.colette.org/musihall.htm Those performing episodes, as well as her "scandalous" love life (her complicated mariage with the writer Willy, who published her books with his name and their various "menages a trois", her liaisons with the marquise de Belboeuf and later with her stepson Bertrand de Jouvenel who was 30 years younger than her, and so on) were quite famous, but now she is better known for her novels, and I doubt that she would have had national funerals if she had only done some stripping... About Balanchine and the Crazy Horse (argh!), well, I guess even geniuses can have moments of really, really bad taste...

Manhattnik, John Neumeier created a ballet, "Yondering", on some songs by Stephen C. Foster. It had been created for the National Ballet School of Canada in 1996, and I saw it danced by the Paris Opera Ballet School. I was not entirely convinced by the choreography (much ensemble work and little individuality for the dancers), but I really loved the songs (I had never heard it before). But I think that the style of the POB school might not have been well-suited to the kind of "boyish" style required by that work. Would "Fall River Legend" qualify as typically American too? At least because of its plot...

Manhattnik, John Neumeier created a ballet, "Yondering", on some songs by Stephen C. Foster. It had been created for the National Ballet School of Canada in 1996, and I saw it danced by the Paris Opera Ballet School. I was not entirely convinced by the choreography (much ensemble work and little individuality for the dancers), but I really loved the songs (I had never heard it before). But I think that the style of the POB school might not have been well-suited to the kind of "boyish" style required by that work. Would "Fall River Legend" qualify as typically American too? At least because of its plot...

When reading the July issue of "Danser", I had the bad surprise to learn that the dance critic Irene Lidova had passed away on May 23. I had missed the link with the obituary in the New York Times posted by Ari on June 19 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/19/obituari...ies/19LIDO.html and I guess that it's a sad reflection of the lack of attention of the French general media for ballet that I had not heard about it before... She was born as Irene Kaminski in Moscow in 1907, and had emigrated to Paris after the October Revolution with her family. She became a journalist, and got married to the famous dance photographer Serge Lido. She was especially influential on the early careers or Roland Petit and Janine Charrat, organizing their first dance concerts in the mid-1940s. She still was active for the monthly Italian magazine "Balletto Oggi", and its French version "Ballet 2000", writing a monthly chronicle about all the famous dance people she had met in her long life. There is an affectionated obituary about her in "Danser", by its director Jean-Claude Dienis, who had worked with her in the 1960s and 1970s for "Les Saisons de la Danse". Here's a link for another obituary in "The Independent", by Nadine Meisner: http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=311458 and also another one by Mary Clarke in "The Guardian": http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/...4454021,00.html She is buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve des Bois, along with many ballet people like Kchessinskaia, Preobrajenska, Lifar, Nureyev... (If I have enough time perhaps it would be interesting to go there and take some photographs of their graves...)

That's a nice game (and probably any balletomane has thought about it many times, "if only I could choose the company's repertory"...) You didn't mention the size of the company. I'd like to play "choose the POB repertory", but probably with 5 programs in the season it's not that style of company. I think I wouldn't try to stage a "Swan Lake" with a relatively small company... Also, you didn't mention if the company was supposed to have a school: probably one doesn't stage the same kind of works if there is a well-train corps de ballet with a uniform style, or if they all come from different schools...

I had never heard that mime was forbidden in Soviet Russia... Alexandra, the training and coaching are essential indeed. And also there's the problem that since the audience sees less and less mine, people get accustomed to its conventions, and so it's harder to understand what it means. As far as I know, the POB school students do have some mime classes. However, when Lacotte staged his reconstruction of "Paquita" last season, I had been told that many of the dancers who danced it fell a bit ill at ease with all the mime it included; they found it clear when Lacotte did it, but had trouble doing it as well (however, from the audience, they looked fine in my opinion...) Also, perhaps another problem with mime might be the large stages and theater halls: when one is very very far from the stage (for example in the Opera Bastille) and has no theater glasses, sometimes it's quite hard to understand what happens...

For the Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse: http://www.theatre-du-capitole.org/sommair...ire/accueil.htm -"The Nutcracker" (Michel Rahn after Petipa) -"The Sleeping Beauty" (Michel Rahn and Nanette Glushak after Petipa) -"A midsummer night's dream" (Jean-Christophe Blavier) -a mixed bill by Bruno Jacquin (new work) and Uwe Scholz ("Beethoven Symphony n.7") It's the first season since Glushak's arrival without any Balanchine... The Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève seems to have a page there: http://www.geneveopera.ch/ but for me it doesn't work... For the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux: http://www.opera-bordeaux.com/index.asp -"American evening": "Aureole" and "The Rite of Spring" (Paul Taylor), "The Moor's Pavane" (Jose Limon), "The Four Temperaments" (George Balanchine) (Hum, the opportunities to see those works in France are so scarce that in my opinion it's worth a trip to Bordeaux!) -"The sleeping beauty" (Charles Jude after Petipa) -a Bartok program ("The Castle of Bluebeard" and "The wooden prince") with choreographies by Jude -a week of homage to Nureyev, with two programs including works which had been created for him -"Le Ballet, Picasso...": Massine's "Parade" and "Le Tricorne", Lifar's "Icare" and Balanchine's "The Prodigal son" (That program will tour to Paris in June 2003). Plus five guest companies, including the Paul Taylor Dance Company. The Ballet du Rhin in Strasbourg and Mulhouse: http://www.opera-national-du-rhin.com/accu...dexfrancais.htm -"The prince of the pagodas" (Bertrand d'At) -a mixed bill including "Agon" (Balanchine), "The vile parody of address" (Forsythe), and "Grosse Fuge" (van Manen) or "Pandora" (Gallota) -a double bill including "Woyzeck-Fragmente" (Davide Bombana) and "The Green Table" (Kurt Jooss; great to see that it's back in their repertory!) -another mixed bill to be announced

Yes, I edited my message and we posted at the same time! Pamela, what do you think of the next season of the Swedish Ballet? It seems a bit more traditional that what they had been doing in the recent seasons (one or two seasons ago they had come to Paris with a program of modern works only). It would be interested to list the works danced by choreographer, for example a lot of works by Neumeier will be danced in various countries...

For the Finnish National Ballet: http://www.operafin.fi/2001/Englanti/index.html -"Cinderella" (Ben Stevenson) -"La Bayadère" (Natalia Makarova) Only the works until December 2002 are listed. For the Swedish Royal Ballet: http://www.operan.se/ Unfortunately, I don't speak Swedish... But it seems to include "Giselle" staged by Natalia Makarova, a reconstruction of Gardel's "La Dansomanie" by Ivo Cramer and Mary Skeaping, "The sleeping beauty" staged by Beryl Grey, "Swan Lake" staged by Peter Wright and Galina Samsova, a mixed bill "The Swedish Fifties" (Birgit Cullberg, Ivo Cramer, Birgit Akesson), another mixed bill "Blanbaletter" (?) and another one "Unreal estate" (Preljocaj, Vainonen, Ashton's "Scenes de ballet", Szyber and Reich) For the Norwegian National Ballet: http://www.operaen.no/flash/index_flash.htm -"Dracula" (Christopher Gable and Michael Pink) -a triple bill with "Serenade" (Balanchine), "Four Last Lieder" (Rudi Van Dantzig), "The rite of spring" (Glen Tetley) -"The Nutcracker" (Dina Bjorn) -"The Sleeping beauty" (Mats Ek) -a triple bill with "Fearful Symmetries" (Martins), "Por Vos Muero" (Duato) and a new work by Ingun Bjornsgaard -"Cinderella" (Stevenson) Well, it seems that the Norwegian Ballet is becoming another National Ballet of Anywhere... For the Dutch National Ballet: http://www.het-nationale-ballet.nl/new/men...nu_uk/menu.htm# -"New Amsterdam" (world premieres by Ted Brandsen and David Dawson, and "Ruins of time" by Wayne Eagling) -"Romeo and Juliet" (Rudi Van Dantzig) -"The Nutcracker" (Wayne Eagling and Toer Van Schayk) -a triple bill with Van Manen's "Five Tangos", and world premieres by Krzysztof Pastor and Ted Brandsen -"New York Masters": "The concert" (Jerome Robbins, Dutch premiere), "Acts of light" (Martha Graham), "Serenade" (George Balanchine) -"Kurt Weill" by K. Pastor

Here are the season schedules for some European companies. Berlin- Staatsoper Unter den Linden: http://www.staatsoper-berlin.org/ballet/ba...balletind02.htm -a new version of "La Bayadere" by Vladimir Malakhov after Petipa -a triple bill with Nacho Duato's "Without words", George Balanchine's "Ballet Imperial" and a work by Christian Spuck -"Giselle", "Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker" staged by Patrice Bart after Petipa -"The Sleeping Beauty" by Rudolf Nureyev after Petipa -a ballet by Uwe Scholz -a mixed bill with George Balanchine's "Serenade", Vaslav Nijinsky's "Afternoon of a faun", and Angelin Preljocaj's "Rite of Spring" For the Hamburg Ballet: http://www.hamburgballett.de/e/index.htm -by John Neumeier: "24 preludes", "As you like it", "Saint Matthew Passion", "The seagull", "Winterreise", "Peer Gynt", "Nijinsky", "Messiah", "The lady of the camellia", "Illusions- like Swan Lake", "The Nutcracker", "Giselle" -"La Bayadere" (Natalia Makarova after Marius Petipa) For the Deutsche Oper Ballet in Berlin: http://www.deutsche-oper.berlin.de/DOB0203...rep_ballett.htm -"The Sleeping Beauty" and "Romeo and Juliet" by Youri Vamos -"Goldberg Variations" and "A midsummer night's dream" by Heinz Spoerli -"Stravinsky- Rachmaninov" by Uwe Scholz -"The Wall" by Mario Schröder

The 2002-2003 season of the Munich Ballet can be seen on the following page: http://www.bayerisches.staatsballett.de/c....6&von%5Bjahr%5D It will include: -"Raymonda" (Ray Barra after Petipa) -"The taming of the shrew" (John Cranko) -"Manon" (Kenneth MacMillan) -"Don Quijote" (Ray Barra after Petipa) -a mixed bill with "Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet" (George Balanchine), "In the night" (Jerome Robbins), "After Dark" (Jacopo Godani) -"Onegin" (John Cranko) -"Swan Lake" (Ray Barra after Petipa) -a Jiri Kylian triple bill (Svadebka, Sechs Tanze, Bella Figura) -"A midsummer night's dream" (John Neumeier) -a new work by John Neumeier on some music by Ravel -a double bill with Saburo Teshigawara's "Rite of spring" and William Forsythe's "Artifact II" It is very interesting to notice that the Munich Ballet does not have series of a single ballet for a given period, as the POB or the Royal Ballet: all the works of the season's repertory are danced in alternance for a large period of time (for example "Raymonda" will be danced from July 2, 2002 to May 9, 2003).

The 2002-2003 season of the Stuttgart Ballet is available on their web site at: http://www.stuttgart-ballet.de/english/e_s...2_03rahmen.html It will include the following full-length works: -"Edward II" by David Bintley -"Onegin" by John Cranko -"Swan Lake" by John Cranko -"The taming of the shrew" by John Cranko -"Romeo and Juliet" by John Cranko (performed during a US tour) and also the following mixed bills: -"Dance views" (Marguerite Donlon, Douglas Lee, Daniela Kurz) -"American Masters" (George Balanchine's "Symphony in C", Glen Tetley's "Pierrot Lunaire", Jerome Robbins' "The Concert") -"Rendez-vous avec Chopin" (Michel Fokine's "Les Sylphides", Jerome Robbins' "Dances at a gathering", and a world premiere by Christian Spuck) -"Dutch dances" (Hans Van Manen's "Grosse Fuge", Jiri Kylian's "No more Play", Paul Lightfoot's "Skw- Whuff", and a world premiere by Itzak Galili) -"UK moves" (three world premieres by Wayne McGregor, Douglas Lee and Russell Maliphant)

Hey, why not inviting Béjart? (surely an idea which would please Manhattnik )

Katharine, do you know the context of the Nureyev quote? The POB school danced "Conservatoire" in 1980 and 1988 (Oh, I wish I could have seen Bart and Fallou in it) but I really don't know if they have much exposure to Bournonville... and the POB itself hasn't danced any since the mid-1980s, I think (Nureyev himself probably was more interested in staging his own ballets ;) )

I saw Elisabeth Platel's official farewell performance at the Paris Opera in july 1999, in Lacotte's version of "La Sylphide". Actually she came back to dance with the company later (last summer I saw her in Neumeier's "Midsummer night's dream"), but it was her last official performance as an "etoile" (principal dancer). There were two different James: Nicolas Le Riche in the first act, and Manuel Legris in the second act, both excellent. I couldn't compare with other performances in that role, as it was the first time I saw that version of "La Sylphide" live (I had seen it on video with Denard and Thesmar), but for me that was a great performance, and I couldn't help regretting the stupidly strict POB rules about retirement ages. At the end of the performance, Platel received several bouquets, and also some sort of confettis or petal flowers falling from above, and a long, long standing ovation. There have been quite a lot of farewell performances since I started attending POB performances, and I do regret missing all the others (Lormeau, Jude, Legree, Loudieres, Arbo, Gaida, Guerin- Dupont and Pietragalla had no farewell performances because they resigned). Also there was a very special performance from Noella Pontois in 1993: her official retirement performance had taken place about 10 years earlier, but on that time it was a real farewell, and she danced in Neumeier's "Nutcracker" with her own daughter Miteki Kudo dancing the role of her little sister, all that on Christmas Eve and on the day of her 50th birthday... It must have been a moving moment. Elisabeth Maurin might have to retire next season (unless there are some changes in the rules) and I hope that if she does, I'll be able to attend her farewell performance. Unfortunately, sometimes those performances sometimes aren't advertised very much (I remember asking at the phone about Jude's farewell performance, and obviously the person at the POB standard didn't seem to understand why some people might be especially interested in such an event...)

Marilia, I think that the American Ballet Academy is a fictional school which exists only in the film "Center Stage"...

Salut Ophélie! I like those three dancers a lot too. I especially like Clairemarie Osta in the Balanchine repertory, she was lovely in "Concerto Barocco" a few seasons ago, and also in the "Emeralds" pas de trois last season. I hope that she will perform again in "Jewels" next season, hopefully with a bigger role (she was supposed to dance one of the pas de deux in the tour to Brasil, but got injured). It's a pity she hasn't been promoted to etoile- but well, the promotion policy isn't especially easy to understand... In general, I prefer Marie-Agnès Gillot in the modern repertory (she was great in Forsythe works, for example), but perhaps it's just that I haven't seen her often in purely classical roles (however, I enjoyed a lot her "Paquita" last season). Marga, her tall height makes it difficult indeed to find partners tall enough...

Sorry to be off-topic (perhaps we could open a separate thread about Bonnefous/x?)... It's not a very common name (actually I know nobody else with that name), but both spellings (with "x" and with "s") sound plausible in French.

Alexandra, thanks for your answer about Bonnefous/ Bonnefoux, but I'm a bit puzzled: the spelling "Bonnefous" did exist before he came to America. For example I have here a copy of a "Dictionnaire des ballets" by Ferdinando Rayna printed in 1967 (before he left the POB) and it's written "Bonnefous". So perhaps there was a mistake in the spelling very early in his career? (By the way, he had been promoted to principal just before, and it says "Sa carrière a été foudroyante, sa musicalité est grande, son ballon silencieux, élastique, sans une faille, harmonieux et viril au possible. La promotion voulue par l'Opéra est hautement méritée.")

Farrell Fan, could you tell me a bit more about Bonnefous/ Bonnefoux? I've always seen the former in all French books dealing with Bonnefous (and his career as a POB principal), and often the latter in articles dealing with his American career. Did he really change his name?

I think that "Voluntaries" was in the POB's repertory in the late 1970s (I seem to remember a photograph of a very young Elisabeth Platel in it, but am not sure).