Estelle

I'd really be interested in knowing in which city the lucky person who replied "more than 100 performances" is living...

Oops, I should have written that it hasn't been available commercially *in France*. I'm curious: what did the PAL tape include? The French program also included Petit's "Le rendez-vous", but that one was never shown on TV, as far as I know. Still about Nijinska: the POB danced "Les Biches" one season in the early 1990s, but hasn't been danced it since then.

quote: Originally posted by Leigh Witchel: I checked in the NYPL catalog records to see what other works of hers have been documented. Les Biches, a reconstruction of Le Train Bleu by Anton Dolin. The rest are all brief fragments. Leigh, I don't know if it was Dolin's reconstruction, but the POB danced "Le Train Bleu" around 1993 (in a "Picasso" program, because the stage curtain was by Picasso), and it was filmed (with Le Riche as Le beau gosse, Maurin as Perlouse, Vayer as the tennis player, Quéval as the other man...) As far as I know, it has never been available commercially, but it was shown on the French TV twice (with also Massine's "Le Tricorne"). In my opinion, it is a much, much lighter work than "Les Noces", with less actual dancing, and it's less memorable- but of course it's hard to know how faithful the reconstruction is. It is a bit sad to realize that so few works by Nijinska still exist. "Les Noces" is such a fascinating work that there must have been other valuable works by her...

Now I remember- what I had read (I can't remember where, unfortunately) was about it performing at the John Jay College, too.

I saw "Speaking in tongues" at the Paris Opera around 1994. Actually I think it is a rather odd choice for a ballet company (the other Taylor works in the POB repertory are, I think, "Aureole", "Esplanade" and a version of "The rite of spring", but only "Aureole" has been danced in the last years), and probably some aspects of it are difficult to understand for a French audience. What I remember most is the great interpretation of Kader Belarbi in the main role... Also a video of it was shown on a French channel. [ March 04, 2002, 04:46 AM: Message edited by: Estelle ]

I'd be interested in hearing comments about Hervé Courtain: he's a POB soloist who took a one-year leave to join the Boston Ballet. How is he doing? He was one of my favorite POB soloists, and I regret not being able to see him this season, but probably he needed some "fresh air"... Has he been cast in interesting roles?

Great news! Congratulations, James

In French the tales often call the prince "le prince charmant", but that's an adjective, not a name... In some versions, "Florimond" is the name of the King (for example in Nureyev's version, he's "Florimond XIV", I think. Probably the "XIV" is for Louis the XIVth?), not that of the prince. What is the name of the king in the original Petipa version? After some further searching on that web site about first names, there actually were some Désiré born in the 20th century in France (and also some Hilarion, Bathilde, Berthe, Zulma, Albrecht, Albert, Paquita, Odile, Odette, Siegfried, Clara- but no Myrtha, nor Moyna, nor Raymonda...)

About the names: I think that the law restricted the first names to names of saints and names of famous characters of Greek and Latin Antiquity, and probably also well-known foreign names, but will have to check that to be sure. So the last part of the story is in the divertissements? I didn't know that. After some further thinking (and web-browsing)... Another Perrault tale is "Cinderella" (Cendrillon)- what a pity Petipa's version was list! Roland Petit made a ballet after "Le chat botté" (Puss-in-boots) in the late 1970s or early 1980s, but it didn't last much. Fokine did a "Bluebeard" in 1941. Perrault's book of tales was called "Contes de ma mère l'Oye", but the music by Ravel (used by Robbins) was inspired in fact by tales by several authors (for example "Beauty and the Beast", by Madame Leprince de Beaumont). Also "L'Oiseau bleu" (Bluebird), which appears in "The Sleeping Beauty", is by Mme d'Aulnoy... I wonder if "Peau d'Ane" (Donkey skin) would make a good ballet? The name "Lilac fairy" comes from there. At least the costumers would have some interesting job to do to create "sun-colored", "weather-colored" and "moon-colored" dresses...

I've found a site with statistics about the first names in France since 1900; and it says there have been about 51000 "Aurore" born in France since 1900, nearly all of them born after 1970 (by the way, there are about 8000 Giselle, nearly all of whom born before 1960, with the highest numbers in the early 1920s- on the other hand there are about 150000 Gisèle, nearly all of whom born before 1970, with the highest numbers around 1930 and 1950. There are about 1800 Florimond, born either before 1950 or after 1980. That was the statistical silly stuff of the day ) In France, there used to be some rather strict laws about which first names were admissible, but I think it was modified in the 1980s and 1990s and now people can give almost any name to their kids. About the second part of the story: the ugly Queen Mother tries to eat the princess's kids, but fortunately she finds a way to hide them (and to have the Queen Mother eat a young lamb and a young goat insteed- and also a young deer instead of the princess herself). The kids actually are called "Aurore" and "Jour", so the translations as "Dawn" and "Day" are accurate (it is even mentioned that the boy was called "Day" because he was even more handsome than his sister, in French there's an expression "beau comme le jour"). I don't know where "Florimond" comes from... As you wrote, "Désiré" makes sense (but given the beginning of the story, actually it is the princess who should have been called "Désirée"!) Reading Perrault's tale again, I've noticed that there were quite a lot of humorous or bizarre details that I had forgotten (and that are absent from the ballet), like the dwarf with seven-league boots warning the good fairy (Lilac fairy) who was twelve thousand leagues away when the princess fell asleep, the fact that the prince is more embarrassed than the princess when they meet because she had had plenty of time to think about what she would tell him thanks to nice dreams sent by the good fairy, the fact that the prince finds that she has clothes looking like those of his grandmother but of course doesn't tell her so, or that they don't sleep much during their wedding night because the princess doesn't really need it... That's really pleasant to read. By the way (perhaps it'd deserve a separate topic), I wonder which tales of Perrault have been adapted as ballets, and which haven't but would give interesting plots. (A really off-topic note: I've also discovered that the stupid princess in "Riquet a la Houppe" had no name either- in the book I had as a child, she was called Estelle... )

Perhaps also there should be a difference between "big" and "small" injuries? It seems to me that it would be reasonable to expect the company to announce, for example "Dancer X will be absent from the stage for the rest of the season because of a broken leg" (if the dancer agrees with such an announcement, of course), but on the other hand, with less serious injuries, it sometimes is hard to know how long it will take to be back in shape, and sometimes the dancers try to rehearse the roles as much as they can before finally cancelling their performances...

ronny, "aurora" is the Latin work for "dawn". In French it is "aurore", which also is a female first name, and that's the name of the princess in Petipa's ballet. I thought it was her name too in Perrault's tale, but I have just had a look at it: http://www.contes.net/contes/perrault/labelle.html and in the tale the princess' name isn't mentioned; it is her daughter who is called Aurore (but it is in the second part of the tale, which doesn't appear in the ballet). By the way, the Prince has no name either. "Aurora borealis" means "northern dawn" in Latin, so it probably has nothing to do with the Sleeping Beauty. But I have no idea of the origin of the name of the city of Aurora... Perhaps there are beautiful dawns there? By the way, is Aurora a first name in English too?

Mary, I agree with you totally. I really found that article a bit irritating. For me, the only interesting point was the part about the fact that theater directors make a lot of changes because the same plays are programmed over and over for box-office reasons- I do think that there's a similar problem in ballet, and that it's easier for a company director or choreographer to indulge in staging their own versions of "Swan Lake" or "Romeo and Juliet" rather than create a real new work because they know that the title alone will bring some audience... But Mark Lawson seems to consider such an egotistic behaviour as a part of "director's integrity". By the way, it seems to me that the criticisms about the RB' "Don Quixote" were not so much about it being "old fashioned" (and it was Nureyev's version, not Stretton's...)

In the early 1980s, there was a special issue of "L'avant-scene ballet/danse" about "Giselle", and I remember it included quite a lot of details about the original libretto (but my copy still is in Grenoble at my parents' house). As Aubri wrote, Pierre Lacotte staged a reconstruction for the Ballet de Nancy, but I don't know how authentical it was (Lacotte himself admits that there are quite a lot of things in his "Sylphide" which are not authentical, for example pointes for the corps de ballet, and a trio from "L'Ombre", so perhaps it was the same for his "Giselle"). Doug, what is a "repetiteur" in that context? That sounds fascinating anyway.

At the Paris Opera, sometimes the ballet performances are with the Paris Opera Orchestra, and sometimes it is with other orchestras, mostly the Orchestre Colonne or the Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux. I've always found bit a bit frustrating that ballet always seems to come second after operas (they wouldn't consider hiring another orchestra for the opera performances); clearly playing some Minkus probably isn't very exciting, but there are a lot of great ballet scores... I was quite happy to see that at the most recent Conservatoire performance I attended (see "Recent performances"), for once some of the scores were performed live, instead of the usual taped music. The musicians all were students and it was not perfect, but it added much emotion to the performance (and probably it was a good experience for the musicians too).

I have no TV and so have not seen the opening ceremony, but could someone please explain what hoedown is? I'm curious.

Thanks for your review, Sonja! It's great to read about the Munich scene thanks to you...

Perhaps one of the problems now is that in many companies there's a lack of coaching, and the directors or ballet masters who should tell such dancers "it doesn't suit you" (or "it will hurt you and shorten your career") don't say anything (or worse, say "you should do the same as X" even though it isn't physically possible)? About the initial article: I've seen too little of Lucia Lacarra to have an opinion about her (only a performance in a Roland Petit mixed bill long ago and a video excerpt), but was a bit shocked by the use of very negative terms like "perverse intelligence"...

A google search helped me find some alumni of the Conservatoire: +among those who had performed in 2000 (Leigh, you might remember some of them ) : -Mehdi Walerski dances with the Nederlands Dans Theater 2 -Vidal Bini and Céline Nunigé dance with the Ballet du Rhin -Franck Laizet and Dorothée Delabie seem to dance in Saarbruck in Germany +among those who had performed in 2001: -Aurélie Gaillard is in Basel in Switzerland. -Amandine Biancherin, Xavier Chasseur-Daniel and Alexis Gutierrez dance with the Centre Chorégraphique National de Nancy et de Lorraine -Alexis Simonot dances with the Grands Ballets Canadiens -Cyril Bréant dances with the Ballet of Leipzig in Germany [ February 06, 2002: Message edited by: Estelle ]

On Jan 29, 2002, I attended one of the annual performances of the students of the Paris Conservatoire (Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et de Danse). During their fifth year of training at the Conservatoire, the students form the "Junior Ballet" and perform in Paris, in a few other French cities and abroad; they also attend some pedagogy classes. The Junior Ballet is divided in two groups, one with the "danse contemporaine" students and the other one with the ballet students. In december, I had attended one of the performances of the contemporary group, which included some excerpts of Alwin Nikolais' "Tensile involvement", a humorous trio "Oratorio mongol" by the Groupe Castafiore, and some rather dull new works by Hervé Robbe and Philippe Blanchard. The performances of the ballet group used to include some repertory works, but in the last few seasons they seem to have switched to "crossover" style and include mostly very recent works. Tuesday's program included Nicolo Fonte's "Everyday Incarnation" (instead of a new work by Mauro Bigonzetti which had been planned initially), Davide Bombana's creation "Petite suite en noir", Robert North's "Death and the maiden", and David Allan's "Palladio". There was a total of nine dancers in the whole class, five boys and four girls (Boulat Akhmjanov, Isabelle Brusson, Julien Guérin, Marie-Séverine Hurteloup, Ludwig Koch, Aurélia Lefaucheux, Lilian Pommier, Maria Robert and Grégoire Thominet). A pleasant surprise was that, this year, two of the works were danced on some live music, performed by some musicians of the Conservatoire (during the previous seasons, all the ballets used recorded music). The Conservatoire seems to have some good relationships with Nicolo Fonte, as he had already created "Accidental signals" for them in 2000, which had been danced again in 2001. This time, it was a revival of a work which had been created for the Aspen/ Santa Fe Ballet in 2000. I had found "Accidental signals" rather pleasant but a bit empty and monotonous, and was even more disappointed with "Everyday incarnation": Vivaldi's "Concerto della Natura", played by six young musicians of the Conservatoire was pleasant, but for me the choreography was repetitive and bland, looking like a weak version of Nacho Duato (I saw later in the program notes that Fonte danced for Duato company for several years). The second work of the evening, "Petite Suite en Noir" by the Italian choreographer Davide Bombana, was the only creation of the program. It used several musical pieces by Hindemith (Kammermusik n.1 op.24 1st movement, n.2 op.36 1st and 2nd movements, n.5 op. 36 1st movement). It was fast and energetic, using some ballet steps (the girls were on pointe) but with some unusual arm movements (for example the dancers sometimes had clenched fists). Laurent Matignon's lights were quite nice, while I wasn't really convinced by Catherine Garnier's very short costumes. The style of the work reminded me a little bit of Forsythe, but fortunately with less aggressiveness. The third work, "Death and the maiden", had already been danced last year; this year it benefitted from live music, performed by four students of the Conservatoire (Carole Petitdemange, Olivia Hughes, Lise Orivel and Joelle Martinez). North's style is closer to modern dance than to ballet in my opinion, and has some grahamian elements, but (paradoxically for a "ballet" program) it was the most successful work of the program, perhaps because it was the only work with a plot (even if very vague), and also because of the emotional impact of Schubert's beautiful music. It was danced with talent by Grégoire Thominet, as the dark-clad, menacing Death, Marie-Séverine Hurteloup as the maiden, and Marina Robert as a sort of guardian angel; the last image (Death finally embracing the girl and taking her away) was especially striking. The last work, "Palladio", had been created last year for the students of the Conservatoire. It is a light work for nine dancers (8 couples and a male soloist) on Karl Jenkins'"Diamond Music" (a bit too repetitive for my taste but pleasant), with pinkish costumes by Catherine Garnier which I found somewhat ridiculous and unflattering. Julien Guérin had the difficult task to succeed the womderful Xavier Chasseur-Daniel in the main role, and was very talentful; in general all the dancers showed a bright technique (that was the more classical work of the program from that point of view) and much joy and enthusiasm. As usual at the Conservatoire, the audience (in which one could recognize some teachers, and also the former POB principals Jean Guizerix and Wilfride Piollet) was enthusiastic. I have one regret about those performances: the program notes include very few details about the performers, so that in general it's nearly impossible to identify the dancers, and they don't say anything about the careers of the students of the previous seasons...

Mel, actually "The pre-romantic ballet" by Marian Hannah Winter is not so hard to find: it is in the catalog of Dance Books (a wonderful bookstore indeed, what a pity it is not in London any longer), my boyfriend bought it for me there last year (but I haven't read it yet). Glebb, perhaps you could ask the owners of Dance Books about how to get such color prints.

Read in the French press: the French skater Sarah Abitbol (silver medal with Stephane Bernadis at the European Championship) injured herself very seriously at the left Achilles tendon last saturday during a rehearsal. She came back to France to go through some surgery, and of course their participation to the Olympics is cancelled.

Well, at least I'll ty to recognize the moment which was rehearsed when it is danced on stage! About the video: actually, I was a bit surprised to see that Belarbi relied so much on it. It was hard for the audience to see it, as it was on a small screen (and it took quite a lot of time to have the VCR work- which caused some laughters from the audience); it seems that it was a video of some previous rehearsals with the first cast (Le Riche and Abbagnato). They watched only a few segments of it, and about twice Belarbi used it to check some movement he was unsure of. I don't know how Bélingard and Daniel had learnt their roles. In general, it seems that videos are used more and more to learn the roles; surely it has the advantage of being quicker, and convenient when there are several casts, but I think that it can't replace real coaching, and that it might cause some problems because videos usually are in a bad shape after a few years...

Yesterday, I attended a "passeport" at the Paris Opera: the "passeport" are free events (generally a master class or a public rehearsal) which take place in a small amphitheater of the Opera Bastille. It can be an interesting way to learn more about some roles, and also to see some corps de ballet dancers who usually get only "third-swan-from-the-left" roles. This time, the "passeport" was dedicated to the creation of Kader Belarbi "Hurlevent", which will be premiered by the POB on February 26. It will be a full-length work in two parts, after Emily Brontë's "Wuthering heights" (often translated into French as "Les Hauts de Hurlevent"), on some music by Philippe Hersant (commissionned especially for the ballet). Belarbi, who just turned 39, has danced with the POB since 1980, and has been a principal dancer (etoile) since 1989, he's from the same generation as Manuel Legris and Laurent Hilaire, and was the last dancer promoted to principal by Rudolf Nureyev. In the last few seasons, he danced mostly demicaractere roles and contemporary works. He started choreographing a few years ago, and also is interested in painting. The "passeport" began with a short introductive talk by Brigitte Lefèvre, who explained that she was interested in Belarbi's previous work "Les saltimbanques", created a few years ago in Japan (I saw it later at the Maison de la Danse, it was uneven but interesting) and had asked him to create a work for the POB. The rest of the "passeport" was a public rehearsal with two dancers of the company, the premiers danseurs Jérémie Bélingard and Nolwenn Daniel, who will dance respectively the roles of Heathcliff and Isabelle in the second cast (in the first cast, they will be danced by Nicolas Le Riche and Eleonora Abbagnato). They rehearsed some parts of a pas de deux (which was in fact a part of a pas de quatre with two simultaneous pas de deux: Heathcliff and Isabelle, and Catherine and Edgar). It was a bit surprising to see that, three weeks only before the premiere, so many things still were unsettled, and Belarbi himself often had some trouble remembering the details of some variations, and needed to watch a video to remember it (also sometimes he modified some details). It made one understand the tremendous amount of work needed to create such a ballet, considering how much time it took to rehearse a few minutes of choreography... Also, I was quite happy to have an opportunity to see Nolwenn Daniel, a charming and musical dancer who was promoted as premiere danseuse at the last annual competition, after some rather empty months. However, I'd have liked Belarbi to give more explanations about his vision of the story, his inspiration for the ballet and his style of choreography, because it was a bit frustrating to see only such a tiny part of it. Now I'm looking forward to the premiere...

I had thought about "The Green Table" too... But in general, it's not easy for me to find some really "scary" moment in ballet performances (on the other hand, there are quite a lot of "scary" moments in modern dance, for example the moment when Medea becomes crazy in "Cave of the heart", or the arrival of the Minotaure in "Errand into the Maze"...)