Estelle

PK, I have not had her as a teacher either (and am not a dancer), but what I've read is similar to what balletowoman wrote: a very strict person, with a strong personality, and very devoter to her school. But actually, as far as I know, now she doesn't teach much herself directly: she's been the POB school's director for about 30 years, is in charge of all the administrative things as well as the artistic ones (choosing the teachers, organizing the annual performances of the schools and the tours, helping her students find a job...) and, as far as I know, chooses most of the students herself. But each POB class has its own professor, so I don't think that she does much teaching directly (but probably quite a lot of coaching for the school performances).

ronny, actually "La Fille mal Gardée" was created in 1789, only three years after Galeotti's "The Whims of Cupid", and much earlier than "La Sylphide". But it has been modified many times, and so very little remains of the original steps, and of the original music (it was a pot-pourri of popular French airs, Herold composed a new music in 1828 and Hertel another one in 1864...). The only thing that hasn't changed much is the score!

Leigh, yes Goscinny wrote the scenarios for the Astérix series too (and also for the "Petit Nicolas" series of novels, for several other comics, and he was one of the editors of the comics magazine "Pilote". He was very influential on French-Belgian comics, and several expressions invented by him are now part of the French language...) Alexandra, the link still works fine for me, that's a bit odd. It's a bit hard for me to say how good a year it is, all the more as I didn't see the second cast. I noticed more dancers than last year, but it may be due to the ballets (the dancers looked quite anonymous in Neumeier's "Yondering"). Also it's hard to make predictions about future careers from the POB school programs: some dancers blossom later, and on the other hand some get "buried" in the corps de ballet and never get promoted, even though they looked promising (injuries, too few available positions when they're young and after a few years as a quadrille it's very hard to become coryphee. For example, among the 5 girls who entered the company, 4 still are quadrilles and one is coryphee, and among the 7 girls who entered the company in 1998, 6 are still quadrilles and one is sujet.)

Actually, I think that for the kids watching the program, it will probably remind them of the "Lucky Luke" comics (very popular series of French-Belgian comics which started in the 1950s, by Morris and the late Goscinny, taking place in a caricatural Far West, with the cow-boy Lucky Luke and its talking horse Jolly Jumper. Suitable for all ages Actually it's in that comics that I first heard about Sarah Bernhardt, for example!) PS: here's an example of picture from "Lucky Luke": http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Midfiel...915/lucky40.jpg

I saw that program yesterday evening, with the same cast. I liked Mathilde Froustey too, and especially her excellent mime (however, as Terry, found her not really polished- but at her young age it's normal). As for Vincent Chaillet, perhaps he was just nervous on Saturday, or perhaps our tastes differ, but I found him really good as Colas, in his solos as well as in his partnering. Maxime Thomas was great as Alain (and very funny). I was happy to see Carole Arbo back on stage, especially after her especially unfortunate farewell performance last season (she wasn't even given a full-length work to dance, and her last ballet was in the middle of a mixed bill...) I have never seen Claude Bessy in that role, and so can't compare, but liked Arbo's performance. Clearly she must have looked younger than Bessy (as she is almost 30 years younger), but after all her age probably is more realistic as Lise's mother (she's 41 and Froustey is about 17), and they interacted very well. That version of "La Fille" had last been danced by the POB school, in 1993- some of the dancers in the main roles were the now premiers danseurs Jérémie Bélingard and Laetitia Pujol (by the way, Pujol was seated a few seats away from me) and the NYCB soloist Sébastien Marcovici. What made me feel a bit ill at ease about "Western Symphony" was the fact that some of the girls in the corps de ballet looked extremely young, with tiny, prepubescent bodies, and the costumes really looked weird on them. I had only seen "Western Symphony" once before, dance by the NYCB in Edinburgh in 2000- is my memory failing, or were there decors in the NYCB version? Considering the youth of most performers, and the fact that they've not been brought up in the Balanchine style, I found the performance very good (the work had been staged by Violette Verdy). The main roles were danced respectively by Laurène Lévy and Vincent Chaillet (who hadn't had much time of rest after "La fille"...) in the Allegro section, Laura Hecquet and Josua Hoffalt in the Adagio (I liked a lot Hecquet's humor and style), Emilie Hasboun and Cyril Chokroun in the Rondo, and I don't know who was the extra couple who appeared in the finale. The corps de ballet was especially precise and well trained, and when watching the impressive finale, I thought that the POB school teachers had every reason to be proud of their students. As last season's program, the program included both a classical story ballet ("Coppélia" last season) and a more modern one (last year's Neumeier's "Yondering"), but I found that this year's program offered more soloist roles (and there were two casts, with Marie-Laetitia Diederichs, Josua Hoffalt and Mehdi Angot in "La Fille" in the other cast). And actually, it is a bit worrying to think that the number of available positions in the corps de ballet in July might be quite low, while there are a lot of potential candidates. By the way, I think it's better not to put too much pressure on Mathilde Froustey's shoulders: clearly she is a very talented young dancer, but she still is very young, and the first years in the company often are very hard, as the quadrilles are given very few roles (I have not heard at all of Charline Gienzendanner or Claire Bevalet, who entered the company last year, for example) and some yeard the possibilites of promotion are very scarce. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed for her (and for her schoolmated too)! By the way, I don't think that she's already been accepted in the company: there is a competition which takes place in July every year, and I think that she'll have to take as as the other students (but of course there always are rumors about which students are the most likely to be chosen).

BW, in Italian "brave" is pronounced "bravé". In France, people use only "bravo"; I think it's borrowed from Italian, but people use "bravo" whatever the gender or number of the people (and not "brava", "bravi" or "brave").

BW, in Italian "brave" is pronounced "bravé". In France, people use only "bravo"; I think it's borrowed from Italian, but people use "bravo" whatever the gender or number of the people (and not "brava", "bravi" or "brave").

Ari, sometimes it's the same in the POB printed programs: perhaps it depends on how many people dance or how many room is left on the page, but sometimes it is, say, "Emilie Cozette, Fanny Fiat" and sometimes "Melles Cozette, Fiat" (also the order is a bit complicated: usually, in the corps de ballet the dancers with the highest rank are listed first, so there are the sujets, coryphees and then quadrilles). Also, for official announcements, it's always "Mademoiselle" and never "Madame", even for married dancers. (Oops, Alymer, I had missed your post! So it seems that the habits have changed quite a lot! Actually it'd be interesting to still have lists by order of seniority, because there is so little available information about the non-étoiles dancers that it takes one quite a lot of time to figure out that X has been a sujet for ten years and Y has been promoted just last year...) The tradition seems to be a bit similar at the Comédie Française: the actresses always are "Mademoiselle"... except when the "doyen" (the actor who has been a "sociétaire" for the longest time) happens to be female, as it is now (Catherine Samie), then it is "Madame". (And, as far as I know, the actors always are listed according to how long they've been to the company, not depending on their roles. I remember attending a "Hamlet" when one of the clowns was listed first, and the actor who played "Hamlet" almost was the last one on the list! ) I'm not sure of the habits in French companies, but seem to remember excerpts of videos with Patrice Bart where he called the corps de ballet "les filles" (girls).

Ari, sometimes it's the same in the POB printed programs: perhaps it depends on how many people dance or how many room is left on the page, but sometimes it is, say, "Emilie Cozette, Fanny Fiat" and sometimes "Melles Cozette, Fiat" (also the order is a bit complicated: usually, in the corps de ballet the dancers with the highest rank are listed first, so there are the sujets, coryphees and then quadrilles). Also, for official announcements, it's always "Mademoiselle" and never "Madame", even for married dancers. (Oops, Alymer, I had missed your post! So it seems that the habits have changed quite a lot! Actually it'd be interesting to still have lists by order of seniority, because there is so little available information about the non-étoiles dancers that it takes one quite a lot of time to figure out that X has been a sujet for ten years and Y has been promoted just last year...) The tradition seems to be a bit similar at the Comédie Française: the actresses always are "Mademoiselle"... except when the "doyen" (the actor who has been a "sociétaire" for the longest time) happens to be female, as it is now (Catherine Samie), then it is "Madame". (And, as far as I know, the actors always are listed according to how long they've been to the company, not depending on their roles. I remember attending a "Hamlet" when one of the clowns was listed first, and the actor who played "Hamlet" almost was the last one on the list! ) I'm not sure of the habits in French companies, but seem to remember excerpts of videos with Patrice Bart where he called the corps de ballet "les filles" (girls).

Well, there was some information about Courtain in a link which was posted yesterday: he'll leave the Boston Ballet, and will probably come back to Paris. Good news for me, as I consider him as one of the best POB sujets, but I hope that he'll be cast enough...

Dirac, yes, I think it was "The death of the moth" (well, for me it was "La mort de la phalène" anyway... Well, perhaps "Flush", about the love story between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, could be a nice pretext for a ballet, but I don't think one could reflect the fact that the story is seen through a dog's eyes!) Paul, I didn't have many opportunities to see Vilanoba dance when he was in Paris (as most soloists of his generation, he was a bit "blocked" by principals of the previous generation), but from what I read about him it's really the POB's loss. Probably he had had more opportunities to work with Petit (who staged quite a lot of his works for the POB in the last decade); also Lacarra started her career in Petit's company, so it must be a rather natural idiom for them. Most Petit works depend a lot on the interpretation, they can look wonderful with the right dancers, and just hollow or camp else. But "faisandée" is such a strange word to use for a dance- I see what you mean, but in general in French it is used for meat which is getting partly rotten, so that doesn't exactly evoke pleasant images! ;) By the way, "L'Arlésienne" has become a proverbial expression in French: it just means a woman from Arles (a Provencal city not very far from Marseille, mostly known for its Roman monuments and because Van Gogh lived there), but there are expressions like "jouer l'Arlésienne" or "jouer les Arlésiennes" which mean "not to appear", "to remain hidden", and also "c'est comme l'Arlésienne, on en parle beaucoup mais on ne le voit jamais" (it's like the Arlesienne, it is spoken about a lot but never seen). I'm pretty sure that most people who use that expression have no idea that it comes from Alphonse Daudet's book "Lettres de mon Moulin".

Does "Death of a moth" have something to do with Virginia Woolf's essay? (I have read it long ago and have a very unprecise memory of its content, but it's hard to imagine a ballet based on it... Actually, Woolf wouldn't be exactly the easiest author to adapt for ballet plots. Except perhaps "Orlando"?)

Ed, at the Paris Opera, the lights still were on on in the auditorium until Serge Lifar's arrival in 1935. Bobbi, I don't know if I've just been lucky or if the French audience is quieter from that point of view, but I don't remember hearing any applauses during "Giselle"'s Willis section (and hope I will never!)

Wow! Drew has just written all I wanted to say, except that it's written one thousand times better that anything I could write... By the way, that might be a stupid question, but is there much academic writing about ballet in the US and in other countries? Because in France, I think it's about nonexisting. In general, performing arts are very rarely represented in universities, and especially dance (theater probably is more common). I think there might be dance sections in two universities in Paris and another in Lyon, but that probably is about all. And as far as I know, they deal almost only about modern/ contemporary dance or with baroque dance. It seems that in the academic world, ballet isn't considered as "serious/ intellectual" enough (and it reflects a general mentality in France).

Wow! Drew has just written all I wanted to say, except that it's written one thousand times better that anything I could write... By the way, that might be a stupid question, but is there much academic writing about ballet in the US and in other countries? Because in France, I think it's about nonexisting. In general, performing arts are very rarely represented in universities, and especially dance (theater probably is more common). I think there might be dance sections in two universities in Paris and another in Lyon, but that probably is about all. And as far as I know, they deal almost only about modern/ contemporary dance or with baroque dance. It seems that in the academic world, ballet isn't considered as "serious/ intellectual" enough (and it reflects a general mentality in France).

I agree with you, Giannina. I remember a performance of Jacques Garnier's "Aunis" at the Paris Opera when the applauses really ruined the end of the work for me: the audience wrongly believed that it was finished and started applausing, but in fact it was not completely finished, and there was a short, nostalgic section at the end- but the applauses totally covered the music (accordion played on stage)... When my fiance started attending ballet performances with me, he was a bit puzzled about when to applause. The rule I told him (well, that's what I do) was: wait until the stage is dark for a rather long time (to avoid applausing when there's just a tiny pause between two movements), or until the dancers do reverences. An exception is the POB défilé- but it's made especially for applauses! That's simple: the dancers arrive on stage and do reverences, and the audience applauses until they have red, hurting hands!

I think that perhaps there also is some confusion because "ballet" might have a slightly different meaning in Spanish than in English (well, in France it is often used for any kind of dance company, like "Ballet Preljocaj"). They have a home page there: http://balletnacional.mcu.es/ingles/home.htm It seems to me that their repertory includes mostly traditional Spanish dancing (especially flamenco). Their first director was Antonio Gades.

I remember reading that expression in a review about Monique Loudières and Manuel Legris in "La Bayadère" during a NYC tour around 1995- now I understand what it meant!

Hi CygneDanois, it's great to see that you're back! I voted for Stravinsky, because he wrote so many scores for 20th century masterpieces, with such a diverse range.

Hi CygneDanois, it's great to see that you're back! I voted for Stravinsky, because he wrote so many scores for 20th century masterpieces, with such a diverse range.

Delibes also composed the full-length ballet "Sylvia", which was choreographed by the POB ballet master Louis Mérante in 1876 and revived by Léo Staats in 1919. A reconstruction of it was performed in Paris in 1979, but it hasn't been danced since then (but John Neumeier created his own version for the POB in 1997), and in general it's not as well known as "Coppélia". But George Balanchine did a pas de deux on it, "Sylvia pas de deux", and it still is in the NYCB's repertory. And in my opinion, that's a lovely musical score. And he had also composed the music for Saint-Léon's "La Source", premiered in 1866 at the Paris Opera. As far as know, nothing remains of that choreography. But part of the score is used in Balanchine's "La Source", premiered in 1968 by the New York City Ballet (and it also includes some music from "Sylvia"). Also some of it is used in Leo Staats' "Soir de f^ete", created in the 1920s and still in the repertory of the POB. Well, I'm not a fan of Prokofiev's ballet scores either... I don't think he wrote any score for a full-length ballet. But he composed a lot of scores for shorter works: one-act "story ballets" like "The Firebird", "Pétrouchka", "The rite of spring", "Apollo", "Pulcinella", "Les Noces" for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, and also abstract ballets like "Agon" in 1957 for George Balanchine. (I don't know if "Orpheus" and "Jeu de cartes" were composed especially for ballet). And also there were many of his works which were not composed especially for ballet, but which were used for ballet later, like "Symphony in 3 movements", "Violin concerto", "Capriccio for piano and Orchestra" (the score for "Rubies"), "Scherzo a la russe", "Movements for piano and orchestra", "Monumentum pro gesualdo", "Concerto in D for string orchestra" (used in Jerome Robbins' "The Cage"), "Dumbarton Oaks"... PS: Paquita, we must have been posting at the same moment!

Well, usually I'm more likely to use last names (especially to avoid confusions- would "Elisabeth" stand for Platel or Maurin?). Using only first names for people I don't know personally would be a bit disturbing for me. Also, I must say that it's a bit confusing to read on this board some posts reviewing performances or rehearsals using first names only, when one is not very familiar with a company it takes some time to remember who is who...

Well, usually I'm more likely to use last names (especially to avoid confusions- would "Elisabeth" stand for Platel or Maurin?). Using only first names for people I don't know personally would be a bit disturbing for me. Also, I must say that it's a bit confusing to read on this board some posts reviewing performances or rehearsals using first names only, when one is not very familiar with a company it takes some time to remember who is who...

If I remember correctly, the Dutch National Ballet is one of the non-American companies with the largest number of Balanchine works in its repertory (so performing only "Serenade" next season isn't much). Also they seem to have a few works by Ashton (this season, they performed "Symphonic variations" and "Cinderella"- strange to think that it is in fact more than what the Royal Ballet will perform next season... ) Their official site is there: http://www.het-nationale-ballet.nl/new/index.html

There also were Jan and Wim Broeckx, who are identical twins, but I don't know if they ever danced for the same company (Jan was a principal of Roland Petit's company and Wim was a principal of the Dutch National Ballet, both retired recently).