Estelle

Thanks for the information. It must be a great day for the Pujol family! Did the promotion happen on stage? It used to be like that (and it was a great moment for the audience... The only time when I saw it was in 1993 for the triple promotion of Nicolas Le Riche, Carole Arbo and Laetitia Pujol in Nimes. All of them were crying with joy, and a Wilis- who was Clairemarie Osta- came out of the corps de ballet to kiss Le Riche. A moving moment... ) but all the latest promotions happened only after the performances. That is a bit frustrating for the audience, and also for the dancer because it becomes a more "administrative" thing... I hope that now she'll get enough interesting roles and enough coaching to mature. My only regret is that it is probably too late now for Clairemarie Osta (who was supposed to dance that performance but was injured) to be promoted, she's a dancer I admire very much. But I'm still happy for Pujol!

Heard this morning on the radio: the POB premiere danseuse Laetitia Pujol has been promoted to etoile (principal) yesterday evening, after her first performance as Kitri in "Don Quixote" (partnered by Benjamin Pech). Pujol, who is about 25, joined the company around 1993. She studied in Toulouse at the Besso Ballet School, and a won a prize at the Lausanne competition which enabled her to join the POB school for one year (she had danced the role of Lise in "La fille mal gardee" in the school performance of 1993). She was promoted to the rank of premiere danseuse in 2000, after a brilliant performance in "Etudes" during the annual competition. Actually, this comes as a surprise to me- a good surprise, as she is a very talented dancer, who started as a strong technician but has developed more and more, and displays a pleasant joy in her dance (and the company really needs new principals), but she didn't seem to be appreciated much by the direction, hadn't been cast much in the previous season, and there were more rumors of promotion about Marie-Agnès Gillor or Eleonora Abbagnato. But well, there still are only four female principals (including Elisabeth Maurin who will retire next season) so there's some room for other promotions... Anyway, I wish her good luck for her career as an etoile.

I haven't seen any work by Jan Fabre, but what I've read about his works (often performed in France) looked a bit similar to what you depicted. Recently, one of his works in Avignon was called "Je suis sang" (I am blood) and included quite a lot of (fake) blood, nudity, people doing a (fake) circumcision, etc. Not very surprising if some people booed! Actually, the Benois de la Danse look a bit odd: isn't it a bit strange to mix classical productions and such modern works?

I haven't seen any work by Jan Fabre, but what I've read about his works (often performed in France) looked a bit similar to what you depicted. Recently, one of his works in Avignon was called "Je suis sang" (I am blood) and included quite a lot of (fake) blood, nudity, people doing a (fake) circumcision, etc. Not very surprising if some people booed! Actually, the Benois de la Danse look a bit odd: isn't it a bit strange to mix classical productions and such modern works?

It's hard for me to define the "body type" of the POB dancers, if there is any, because I don't know other companies well enough to make comparisons. I think that there is a wider range of heights now than in the past: a dancer like Muriel Maffre wasn't accepted in the company supposedly because of her tall height, while now the principal Agnes Letestu and the premiere danseuse Marie-Agnes Gillot both are very tall. On the other hand, there also are shorter dancers like Clairemarie Osta or Laetitia Pujol. This is the same for the men, with taller ones like Jose Martinez, average ones like Legris, and shorter ones like Belingard. Also when comparing with older photographs, today's female dancers do look thinner in general, but that seems to be a general trend for many companies... And also perhaps more uniform body types.

It's hard for me to define the "body type" of the POB dancers, if there is any, because I don't know other companies well enough to make comparisons. I think that there is a wider range of heights now than in the past: a dancer like Muriel Maffre wasn't accepted in the company supposedly because of her tall height, while now the principal Agnes Letestu and the premiere danseuse Marie-Agnes Gillot both are very tall. On the other hand, there also are shorter dancers like Clairemarie Osta or Laetitia Pujol. This is the same for the men, with taller ones like Jose Martinez, average ones like Legris, and shorter ones like Belingard. Also when comparing with older photographs, today's female dancers do look thinner in general, but that seems to be a general trend for many companies... And also perhaps more uniform body types.

There are many people that I'd like to meet... but I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to do more than looking at my feet and mumbling things that they wouldn't understand. About the "thank you": perhaps Alexandra meant that when you didn't like the performance, you can say just "thank you for tonight" to thank the dancers for their hard work and effort, but don't have to feel obligated to add "you were terrific tonight, it was a wonderful performance" if it's not what you think...

Another example coming to mind is Tudor's "Dark elegies" (but, to my regret, I've never seen it) and to some extent "Lilac Garden" (it deals with love, but isn't exactly a happy story...) Also there's Jooss' "The Green Table", but it's not really ballet (though it has often been performed by ballet companies). There is some "darkness" in some works by Roland Petit, like in "Le jeune homme et la mort" (ending with a suicide), "Le rendez-vous" (ending with a murder), "Carmen" (a murder too- and each time it'st the fault of the "femme fatale"!)

I have very few memories of booing for POB performances (on the other hand, I've read it's quite common for opera productions at the Paris Opera- I don't know if it's because the audience has a different attitude, or because the opera productions are less good than the ballet ones!) And the only real booing that I remember was a bit odd: it was for the creation by Odile Duboc on "Rhapsody in blue" a few seasons ago. It was not especially successful, and was not danced again after the season of its premiere. The dancers were applaused (a bit tepidly), and then a lady came on stage and was booed by one part of the audience. But she was not the choreographer but... the pianist. The choreographer herself didn't come. Either there were some problems with the pianist that I didn't notice, or (which seems more likely) one part of the audience erroneously though that she was the choreographer, and booed her because of that. It must be awfully frustrating to be booed because of such a mistake! :rolleyes:

I have very few memories of booing for POB performances (on the other hand, I've read it's quite common for opera productions at the Paris Opera- I don't know if it's because the audience has a different attitude, or because the opera productions are less good than the ballet ones!) And the only real booing that I remember was a bit odd: it was for the creation by Odile Duboc on "Rhapsody in blue" a few seasons ago. It was not especially successful, and was not danced again after the season of its premiere. The dancers were applaused (a bit tepidly), and then a lady came on stage and was booed by one part of the audience. But she was not the choreographer but... the pianist. The choreographer herself didn't come. Either there were some problems with the pianist that I didn't notice, or (which seems more likely) one part of the audience erroneously though that she was the choreographer, and booed her because of that. It must be awfully frustrating to be booed because of such a mistake! :rolleyes:

Did you mean "the Purris Opera Ballet"? ;)

Well, when I saw "Sandpaper ballet" in Paris last year, the green color made me think of... frogs! But it just added to the humor of the piece... (By the way: welcome, Rubies!)

There are male roles in Lifar's works, mostly because he wanted to cast himself in it... Petit has quite a lot of male roles too- for example, his "Notre-Dame de Paris" has three main male characters (Phebus, Frollo and Quasimodo), and only one female character (Esmeralda). I wonder if one of the reasons hiw works were programmed often at the POB in the last seasons was that it was an opportunity to cast many male dancers.

Congratulations, Henrik! And congratulations too to the courageous Maria-Thumbeline! And I hope that the 2000 viewers who attended the show will be more interested in ballet (and who knows, perhaps some boys who saw you will tell their parents "I want to look like that Prince" and will want to attend ballet classes too? ) With which company does Kim dance?

POB stands for "Paris Opera Ballet". But I don't know more about Ms Ferreira: I just saw her name on a list of former POB students, but it says nothing about what they did afterwards. Do you know her first name? Perhaps you could find some information about her on the Web...

There is someone called Ferreira listed in the first division of the POB school for the 1988-89, as a paying student (I don't know her last name). Perhaps it was her?

What about "The Sleeping Meowty"? ;)

Morris Neighbor, I'm a bit confused about your answer: what's the connection with Genet and Diaghilev? As far as I know, Genet's only link with ballet was Janine Charrat's "'Adame Miroir" around 1948, which isn't much. Perhaps you meant Jean Cocteau (who did write quite a lot of ballet plots)?

Yes glebb, it was Renee (better known now as "Zizi) Jeanmaire, Roland Petit's wife (now 77 or 78, and still active!). As Petit, she first was a POB dancer, and later left the company to dance with Petit's companies and also do some music-hall shows and to sing. But well, perhaps it'd have been more authentic to take some authentic Bournonville works rather than Petit's choreographies for the film?

In French, it is "Poucette" (Pouce= thumb) or "La petite Poucette" or "Poucelina". I even found the text of the tale there: http://www.amherst.edu/~rjyanco/literature...thumbelina.html (in English) http://www.total.net/~jocelyn1/poucette.html (in French) Good luck for the performance, Henrik! And I hope that later you will tell us about your impressions (how does it feel to become a prince? )

I saw Rudi Van Dantzig's "Romeo and Juliet" a few seasons ago, danced by the Ballet de Marseille. It is a traditional version. I found it interesting, but my opinion might be a bit biased because I don't like much "Romeo and Juliet" in general (especially the score), and also the men behind me were some of the worst-behaved ballet audience I've ever seen, so it wasted much of the performance for me...

From the program notes of the version of "Coppélia" which was danced last season by the POB school: "Looking at Franzta, Swanilda tells the story of an ear of wheat which reveals all the secrets. She takes an ear of wheat in a sheaf. She puts it close to her ear and seems to listen to it, then she tells Frantz to listen to it: the shaft tells her than he is unfaithful... Frantz replies that he hears nothing. That's because he doesn't want to hear! Swanilda does the same with a friend of Frantz, who smiles and pretends that he hears very clearly what the ear of wheat says. Frantz wants to protest, but Swanilda stops his gesture, and, breaking the ear of wheat, tells him that all is broken between them." Also, the reason why the crowd is there is the blessing of a new bell for the church, so perhaps there is a priest because of that? But I think that there are several versions of "Coppélia", so it might be a little bit different in the version you have.

DaNzMaNiAc123, perhaps you already know that, but the NYCB has a web page about ticket booking, with information about ticket prices and availability, at: http://www.nycballet.com/nycballet/html/ti...ts_welcome.html From what is written on the site, the ticket prices range from $28 to $76 (the prices for the 5th ring are not written, I don't know if it's different). Mel, with one Fourth Ring society card ($15) one can purchase Fourth ring two tickets ($12 each), so it seems that it still would be a bit less expensive than buying two normal Fourth ring tickets (15+12+12= $39 instead of 28+28=$56)?

Thanks for your review, Sylvia! I saw that "Carmen" on video by the Cullberg Ballet, and also live once by the Lyon Opera Ballet. In general I like Ek's works, I don't like that "Carmen" as much as some of his other works like "Giselle", "Swan Lake" or "Meaningless meadows" but still found it quite pleasant and funny. It must be difficult indeed for ballet dancers to perform it... The Paris Opera Ballet has his "Giselle" in its repertory, they've danced it for several seasons so now they probably have got used to it, but in interviews the dancers said that when it entered the repertory around 1993, it was quite hard for them to get used to Ek's style. When I saw "Carmen" in Lyon a few years ago, the main role was danced by Ana Laguna, Ek's wife, who had premiered the role (and also most of the main roles in his ballets), she had been invited as a guest. I think that she has retired since then (she was in her early 1980s). What a striking dancer she was! Definitely not a ballet dancer (but I think she had had some ballet training), with rather large shoulders and legs with strong visible muscles, a rather big nose... But she had an incredible stage presence, when she was on stage one could only see her. And she had a great partnership with Yvan Auzely (who created the role of Escamillo), Ek's style looked very natural on them.

Terry, I saw Mathieu Ganio (his father was Denys Ganio) in "Coppelia" last year (and also in the video later). I found him very good in the role, but actually, I don't feel able to compare him with the students of the previous year, having seen them in a totally different repertory. And since the quadrilles get almost zero interesting roles, it's hard to know what he's doing now... Among the dancers who entered the corps de ballet recently, I'm looking forward to seeing more of Claire Bevalet, whom I had liked very much in "Peches de jeunesse" two seasons ago. Indeed it is a pity that the "Programmes jeunes danseurs" take place only every second year, because there are so many talented dancers in the corps de ballet who have nearly no opportunity to be seen... Katharine, do you know who Arbo, Gaida and Guerin will replace? The current list of teachers is (from oldest students to younger): -Christiane Vlassi, Francesca Zumbo, Liliane Oudart, Pierrette Mallarte, Janine Guiton, Claudette Scouarnec, Fabienne Cerutti for the female students -Jacques Namont, Jean-Yves Lormeau, Bernard Boucher, Marc Du Bouays, Bertrand Barena, Nicolle Cavallin for the male students If I remember correctly, Vlassi and Scouarnec were female principals (Scouarnec was in the Opera Comique company before it was united with the regular POB in the 1970s), Lormeau was a principal until 1996 (he replaced the former premier danseur Gilbert Mayer, who retired this year), Boucher, Namont and Du Bouays were premiers danseurs, and Barena was in the corps de ballet. I don't know about the others- and I don't know what all of them are like as teachers... Vlassi might be close to retirement age (but she hasn't been teaching that class for so long, as for decades it had been Christiane Vaussard's class). I liked a lot Platel, Gaida, Arbo and Maurin as dancers- but I have no idea of their teaching abilities, and surely directing the POB school must be an especially tiring job...