Estelle

Wasn't it what happened to Stewart Granger, whose real name was... James Stewart? (A bit the same as what happened to Linda Merrill/ Merrill Ashley...) There are at least two actors from Hong-Kong called Tony Leung: Tony Leung Chiu Wai, and Tony Leung Ka Fai. This is all the more complicated as they have approximately the same age, and have played in several films together, and sometimes just are credited as "Tony Leung"...

Thanks to google, I managed to find an old alt.arts.ballet post of mine, and so in Montpellier it was Hilaire and Arbo (and Osta was a demi-soloist). Leigh, you're right about Osta, so far she's always been excellent in the Balanchine repertory. However, the direction doesn't seem to appreciate her much, and I'm afraid she's not very likely to be given such a role if they dance it again.

Kate, there was another thread about it in the "Dancers" section, under the (not very explicit) title "Speaking of..." http://www.balletalert.com/ubb/ultimatebb....ic&f=2&t=000446

"Theme and variations" was the first ballet I saw at the Paris Opera. It was in the summer of 1993, it had just entered the POB's repertory, and was in a program also including Robbins'"Moves" and "The Concert". It was the first work of the program, and was danced by Isabelle Guérin and Laurent Hilaire- but unfortunately, I remember very little of it, because of the circumstances (being for the first time in the Opéra Garnier, trying to regain my breath after having run from the metro station to the third floor because we were late, and also trying not to think too much of the not very successful oral exam of physics I had had in the afternoon at the Ecole Polytechnique...). Unfortunately, it hasn't been danced much at the Paris Opera since then. I saw it two other times, once in a lovely "Balanchine/ Tchaikovsky" program, and once in a tour to Montpellier. I can't manage to remember the casts right now, one of them was Legris/ Arbo, but I don't remember the other one (Legris/ Guérin or Hilaire/ Arbo). Since it was years apart, it's difficult to compare. I wish they could dance it again (but unfortunately, I wonder which of the current POB dancers would be good in it- perhaps Dupont?)

I haven't seen "Excelsior". But here are some links to some reviews in French: http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3246--258013-VT,00.html in "Le Monde" by Dominique Fretard http://www.imagidanse.com/francais/cadres_acceuil.html on the site Imagidanse by Rene Sirvin

In case it might help: the RAD's website is at http://www.rad.org.uk/

Eh, it's a bit unfair, because there are a lot of unlucky people who haven't seen 10 different ballets by Balanchine... It's a bit difficult for me to make a list as there are many that I've seen only once. My own list would be something like: 1- Concerto Barocco 2- Palais de Cristal/ Symphony in C 3- The Four temperaments 4- Agon 5- Emeralds 6- Theme and Variations 7- Apollo 8- Sonatine 9- Prodigal Son 10- Who Cares (But there'd also be the list of the 10 works I'd like to see the most: 1- Mozartiana 2- Liebeslieder Walzer 3- Divertimento n. 15 4- Chaconne 5- Le Tombeau de Couperin 6- Scotch Symphony 7- A Midsummer night's dream 8- La Source 9- Tchaikovsky suite n. 3 10- La Valse ).

I pronounce it "Sérénade", but I'm biased.

Calliope, at the POB there is a competition every year to choose who will be promoted to an upper category (there are five categories in the company), only the étoiles (principals) are chosen directly by the director of dance. Actually they get a mark on 30, with 20 points given by the jury (which includes the director of the opera, the director of dance, the ballet master, two "outside personalities"- this year John Neumeier and Boris Akimov- and five dancers elected by their colleagues) and 10 points given by the direction (based on "l'assiduité et la conscience professionnelle"- I don't know how to translate that, roughly it means how seriously you do your job). For each category, there is a compulsory variation, which is danced by all the competitors, and each competitor dances a second variation, chosen freely in the company's repertory. I've posted the result of this year's competition in another thread, in the "news and views" section. There have always been some debates about the usefulness of such a competition, the honesty of the results, etc. However, one point about which nearly everyone agrees is that at least it enables the dancers of the corps de ballet to show a variation alone on stage, which doesn't happen often to some of them, and so perhaps to get noticed.

About the POB competition: you're right, Alexandra, Marie Taglioni was in the first jury. On the sheet given to the audience of the latest POB competition (including mostly the list of the competitors), there's a small note saying that the first "Examen de la danse" took place on April 13, 1860, and the jury included Alphonse Royer (director of the Opera), Marie Taglioni, Amalia Ferraris, Emma Livry, Lucien Petipa and Louis Mérante. Quite an impressive list! (It's not clear if the list is complete). It also says that the idea originated from Marie Taglioni (then teaching the "classe de perfectionnement") and Bernard Sciot (a professor of the POB dance school). The POB dancers have been variously involved in ballet competitions. Several POB dancers got medals in Varna, like Patrick Dupond, Elisabeth Platel, Karin Averty, Sylvie Guillem, José Martinez, Aurélie Dupont, Yann Bridard, Clairemarie Osta, Jérémie Bélingard, Laetitia Pujol... Also some were involved in the Paris competition (Marie-Claude Pietragalla, Wilfried Romoli, Delphine Baey, Stéphane Phavorin, Emilie Cozette, Aurore Cordellier...) I don't know if the POB encourages them to participate or not.

The present discussion about the POB competition made me think a little bit about the notion of hierarchy in ballet companies. Most ballet companies have a hierarchical system, while modern dance ones often have the same status for all dancers. The number of categories may vary: 5 for the POB (quadrille, coryphée, sujet, premier danseur, étoile), also five for the RB (artist, first artist, soloist, first soloist, principal), three for the NYCB, the ABT and the RDB (corps de ballet, soloist, principals), I don't know about Russian companies... At the Paris Opera, the promotions depend on the annual competition (except for the principals), while in other companies it is the choice of the artistic director. So what are your thought about hierarchies? Do you think they are useful, or that they should be modified or abolished? Are they important for ballet companies in your opinion?

I agree that one shouldn't expect any dancer to be totally "polyvalent" and good in any possible repertory: some ultra-"polyvalent" dancers sometimes tend to look the same in anything (jack of all trades, master of no one?), and for example I don't think that the fact that Elisabeth Platel didn't perform much in the modern repertory made her a lesser dancer. However, I think that having a very limited range might be a problem, and the partnering is a serious issue too... Perhaps it'd be interesting to have a discussion about the meaning of the hierarchy at the POB today. The position of "premier danseur" is a bit uncomfortable, as sometimes it almost is the same as an etoile, and someones it is almost a trap. There have been some periods with fewer premiers danseurs than principals, and now it's the opposite, especially for women (as Alymer had pointed out in another discussion, the number of étoiles has varied a lot during the previous decades). Also, sometimes it is only a first step before being promoted to étoile, and sometimes it is the final step of a career... Some étoiles even skipped that category: Hilaire, Guérin and Legris all were only sujets when Nureyev promoted them to étoile. I remember reading that the five-category hierarchy of the POB was modelled by the roles in traditional 19th-century ballets: the étoiles for the main roles, the premiers danseurs for the pas de deux- pas de trois, the sujets for the pas de quatre- pas de six, the coryphées for small ensembles and the quadrilles for the rest. I don't know how true it is (and I don't know how old that hierarchy system is- there were seven categories until a few decades ago, with petits sujets and grands sujets, and premiers quadrilles and seconds quadrilles), and what has been the evolution in this century. I remember reading, for example, that some premiers danseurs of the 1950s-1960s like Gilbert Mayer (later one of the company's teachers) probably would have been promoted to étoile in other periods.

Thanks for the information about "union time". I have no idea if the same applies in French theaters... The Paris system is not too bad (when it's not on strike), but for the people who live in the suburbs and need to take the RER, sometimes the hours can be a problem too. And I remember, while in Marseille, doing a lot of calculations to see if I could get a train on time after some performances in Aix or Martigues, and finally giving up (I have no car)... I also wonder if it has anything to do with the dining hours in each country. At what time to people usually have dinner in the US and in the UK? And do the people who attend performances usually have dinner before or after the performances? In France, people have dinner have dinner around 7:30 or 8 PM (most restaurants open at 7 PM, for example), so it can be a bit difficult to attend evening performances for the people who need to have dinner at a regular hours (for example people with diabetes).

I also thought he was tall because he used to partner Platel often, and she's relatively tall. Jude was said to have been a good interpret of "Prodigal son", unfortunately I haven't seen him in that role (as far as I know, before the Homage to Kochno it last was danced in Paris in 1993, and a few times on tour later, I saw it with Belarbi and Platel in a tour in Montpellier). The reviews about the "Homage to Kochno" were mixed: the most controversial piece was "The seven capital sins", by Laurent Pelly (staging and costumes) and Laura Scozzi (choreography): some people loved it, while many others found it a bit vulgar and hollow. Also the mixture or ballet and opera in a single program seems to have been not very successful with the audience. Unfortunately, most of the ballets with plots by Kochno ("Zephire et Flore", "Les matelots", "Jeux d'enfants", "La Chatte", "Union pacific"...) have been lost, the only other one remaining in the POB's repertory is the lovely Petit's "Les Forains" (but it has been danced two seasons ago).

Thanks for the information. But was Lifar, who premiered the role, a small dancer, or was it a "tradition" which started later? It seems to me that there have been dancers of various heights performing that role at the POB: rather small like Quilleré, average as Legris or Belarbi, and taller ones like Jude (I don't know the exact heights of dancers, so perhaps it's just a false impression, but Jude looked taller to me).

Here's a review of Paquette's "Bayadère" with Moussin, by Paul Ben-Itzak: http://www.danceinsider.com/f2001/f1204_2.html

I have not seen Thibault very often, and it always was in the same kind of repertory (roles with a lot of jumps), but have often heard comments like those of Alexander about his problems with partnering. I agree about the promotion of Karl Paquette: everybody was surprised, I think, by his promotion, all the more as he had been promoted as a sujet only one year ago and hadn't done anything especially striking in the season. He has been cast much this season (more than Bélingard, surprisingly) but doesn't seem to have provoked much enthusiasm... Perhaps it is yet another example of the sometimes bizarre choices of the jury for the premiers danseurs (another controversial choice a few years ago had been Nathalie Riqué). Among the sujets, I think that many people would have been more interesting than Paquette, like Hervé Courtain (in Boston this season), Stéphane Phavorin, Yann Saiz (even if he's a bit careless sometimes) or Christophe Duquenne- but it seems that they now are considered too "old" by the direction to get promoted (they're about 28-30). I had't seen the previous competition, however, so perhaps it depended a lot on what had happened on that very day...

From her interviews, she seems to have disliked quite a lot the time she spent at the school (she also said that a difficult point was that her younger sister, Benjamine, was not authorized to stay at the school at some point. By the way, she now is a soloist in Marseille). She mentioned it in last year's documentary by Nils Tavernier about the Paris Opera. On the other hand, it seems that there are some people like Marie-Agnès Gillot who felt at ease in such an atmosphere. Another problem might be, as a dancer told me, that after such a hard discipline, the dancers who get accepted in the corps de ballet at 16 or 17 suddenly find themselves free, with nobody to look after them, a salary to spend and an independent life in Paris, and sometimes they're likely to stop working and to spend one year or two enjoying their new freedom, and somtimes they realize a bit too late than it can be detrimental to their career and that lost time is hard to repair... The Paris Conservatoire (CNSMD) seems to be less hard with the students; also it usually recruits them at a later age (it's very difficult to get accepted at the POB school after 13 or 14...) and most of their ballet teaching staff comes from the POB. On the other hand, there seems to be a greater and greater emphasis on modern dance in their students' program in the last seasons (perhaps to adapt to the trend with many companies?) And at least we find ourselves in agreement about Manuel Legris, who is one of the treasures of the company in my opinion. One of my most bitter regrets is that not having seen the company in the time of his partnership with Monique Loudières. He's a bit reserved, but I think his modest stage demeanor is part of his personality; I especially appreciate his courteous manners with his partners, he's never trying to show himself too much at their expense, or to sacrifice style for virtuosity. And for me, his performance last season in "Suite of dances", "Other dances" or "Rubies" were wonderful moments.

This season, the POB season lasts from October 3 to July 15. Sometimes it performs simultaneously in both Paris Opera Houses (Opera Garnier and Opera Bastille), but there also are some empty periods (sometimes because of tours abroad). I don't know the total number of performances (and feel too lazy to count it now on the calendar on the web site) but it should be of the same order as the number of NYCB performances, I think (and probably far fewer than the Kirov). There seem to be two kinds of programming: one with long runs of a given ballet or mixed bill, as the POB or the Royal Ballet, and one with many works alternating each evening, as the NYCB or the Kirov. If I remember correctly, the POB used to have such an "alternance" until the 1960s or 1970s, and it was modified then (the Comédie-Française still has such a programming). I wonder about the pros and cons of each sort of programming. Alternating many works is more interesting for the people who spend a few days in the city, as Kevin wrote, and a schedule as the NYCB's one is such that there never is exactly the same program. On the other hand, it might be more difficult technically to handle the sets and costumes, and it can only work with a company with a large and steady repertory (Petipa for the Kirov, Balanchine and Robbins for the NYCB), and performing some works only a few times in a season might be a bit too little to enable new dancers to master fully the roles...

Alexandra, could you explain what "union time" is? Perhaps one solution would be to have some "long" and some "short" programs in the week, so that people can choose the hour which suits them better. The Maison de la Danse in Lyon does that, if I remember correctly (starting at 7:30 PM some days and at 8:30 PM some other days). Well, of course there will still be some unhappy people when they realize that the program they're interested is on a day with the wrong hour!

Staats' "Soir de fête" was danced again in 1997, after about two decades of absence, but I wonder if anything else of his works remains... There has been quite a lot of Petit in the recent seasons, and a few works by Béjart (it seems that the relationship between Béjart and the POB are quite complicated, with many periods of conflicts) but not many, and some of his works which had been danced quite a lot in the 1970s and 1980s like his "Rite of spring" or "Firebird" are not danced by the company any longer. As for Lifar, the only work of his danced in the last 10 years was "Suite en blanc" in 1996 (except some performances by the school- Claude Bessy seems to care more about the repertory than Brigitte Lefèvre). There were some Fokine works in recent seasons ("Les Sylphides", "Le spectre de la rose", "Pétrouchka"), but I was a bit sad to read quite a lot of comments (by critics or audience members) calling it "outdated". Massine's "Le Tricorne" was, I think, a good addition to the repertory in the early 1990s (those sets were just so lovely), but I'm not sure it will be danced again. I'm having a look at the two editions of Ivor Guest's "Le Ballet de l'Opera de Paris", which include a list of all the works created by the company since 1776, and also lists of the most often performed works. There are some serious inconsistencies between the two lists (for example "Soir de Fête" is listed to have been performed 303 times between 1925 and 1974 in the 1976 edition, and 269 times between 1925 and 1997 in the 2001) and I don't know which figures are the right ones. "Coppélia" still is at the top of the list (it doesn't count Bart's "modernized" version, which will be danced again this season), but "Giselle has won the second rank against... "Psyché" by Pierre Gardel (performed around 560 times between 1790 and 1824. It's interesting to see that in those times with so many political changes, there still was a big audience for the ballet...) And "Telemaque" (by the Gardel too) remains at the 4th rank, "La Dansomanie" being high on the list too. The list of the second edition includes all the works performed at least 100 times; among them the 20th-century works are, in decreasing order: "Suite en blanc", "Suite de danses" (last danced in 1974- how good is it?), "Soir de fête", Bourmeiester's version of "Swan Lake", "Etudes", "Palais de cristal", "Le spectre de la rose", "Les mirages", Béjart's "Rite of spring", Lifar's "Divertissement" (1932), Alonso and Hightower's versions of "La belle au bois dormant", Skibine's "Daphnis and Chloé", Nureyev's "Swan Lake", Béjart's "Firebird", Clustine's "La Péri", "Pétrouchka", Aveline's "Elvire", Nureyev's version of "La Bayadère", Lifa's "Entre deux rondes", Nureyev's "Don Quixote", "Apollon musagète", Lifar's "Istar", Polovtsian dances from "Prince Igor", Taylor's "Aureole" (I was a bit surprised by that one!!), "Agon", Aveline's "La Grisi", Staats' "Siang-Sin", Lifar's version of "Afternoon of a faun", Forsythe's "In the middle, somewhat elevated" and "The four temperaments". That still reflects quite a lot the Lifar period, but I suspect that in that period the repertory was less diverse than now, and some works were performed over and over every season... I wish I could travel to time and see some of the other works listed, like "Les pages du duc de Vendôme" by Aumer (danced 126 times between 1820 and 1833) or "La rosière" by Maximilien Gardel (danced 115 times between 1783 and 1808)...

Thank you for your reviews, Manhattnik, and thanks too to all the other people who posted some reviews of the NYCB season. There's only one minor problem with it: I'm becoming green with envy when reading it!!

BW, there's a page about the history of the Paris Opera Ballet on my web site, at: http://www.cmi.univ-mrs.fr/~esouche/dance/POBhis.html I'm afraid it has remained "under construction" for years, and needs some updating. It's mostly a compilation of what I found in some dictionaries and in books by Fernandino Reyna and Ivor Guest. The URL for the site is: http://www.opera-de-paris.fr/ However, as far as I know, it's only in French, and some links don't work (for example the link to the list of the ballets of the season- one would think that any competent webmaster would have fixed it, as it has been broken for months and it probably is one of the most often clicked of the sites...) And I've yet to find anywhere on the site the list of the dancers of the company... I wish it were as complete as that of the Comédie-Française (the oldest French theater, founded approximately at the same period), which has detailed biographies of all the actors, pages about the repertory, etc. Well, I think that it's a bit excessive to say that all the POB female dancers look the same... Among the youngest ones, for example, the tiny Ninon Raux doesn't exactly have "spider-like limbs"... About the discipline, I agree that it is very strong, and perhaps excessive, as it probably discourages a lot of potentially good dancers who don't bear the very strict and competitive atmosphere of the school. I remember a TV report about the school one or two years ago, and while the classes were very interesting, I was a bit frightened with some of the interviews of kids (I don't find it very sane to hear 9 years olds little girls saying that they won't help a classmate who asks them to explain a movement because they want to be the best of the class)- but above all with the attitude of the parents... Perhaps the atmosphere at the Conservatoire is easier to deal with (and also they might get more opportunities to get involved with the cultural life in Paris). Actually, the only teen-aged Coppélius I saw was in a performance of the POB school, when all the roles were danced by students (except for some performances when Pierre Lacotte danced Coppélius), and there are some senior members of the company, like Jean-Marie Didière, Laurent Quéval or Richard Wilk, who dance mostly mime roles. But I agree that it's a bit silly not to keep the dancers after they turn 40 or 45 for such roles- for example it's a pity that Fabrice Bourgeois (who is now one of the ballet masters of the company), who turned 45 a few years ago, doesn't dance such roles any longer. They sometimes invite former principals, like Cyril Atanassoff or Miachël Denard, but really too rarely. About the mime, it reminds me of the performances of Lacotte's version of "Paquita" last season. It was one of the most successful programs of the season, with enthusiastic audiences and a full theater, and I was a bit surprised to be told by a dancer that most of the dancers of the company were not very happy to dance it (and were in fact surprised by its success). From what she said, one part of the problem was the great deal of mime in the production, which the dancers found difficult- she said that when Lacotte showed it to them, everything was clear, but they had trouble doing it as well as him. There are indeed some mime classes at the POB school (taught, as far as I know, by Yasmine Piletta, wife of the former principal Georges Piletta) but it seems to be not enough. It seems to be one of the big differences with the Nureyev era: from what I've read, he gave some big roles to very young dancers, which often proved successful. It caused some problems too, as some dancers who had been given such roles didn't want to go back to corps de ballet roles, and also he was criticized for breaking the ends of the careers of respected principals like Michaël Denard or Cyril Atanassoff. But at least corps de ballet dancers were given a chance to shine. Perhaps one part of the problem is that Nureyev's successors found themselves with a large number of very talented principals, who sometimes were too numerous for the roles (which lead to having seven different Giselles in a row, for example). So it was easy to the direction to have good casts, and there wasn't much left for younger dancers, who were a bit forgotten. But most of those dancers were from the same generation (born in the late 50s or early 60s) and retired in the same period, and now the company is lacking people to replace them. The policy seems to have changed a bit since the beginning of the last season: some hierarchical rules still apply (for example, the premiere of a program always is danced by the people with the highest rank for each role), but there have been more and more roles given to premiers danseurs and corps de ballet dancers. Sometimes it has been out of necessity (for example in "Paquita" because all the principals who were supposed to dance it were injured), and the direction seems to have some fondess for recently promoted dancers like Karl Paquette, Emilie Cozette and above all the premieres danseuses Eleonora Abbagnato and Marie-Agnès Gillot (who are cast de fact as principals). But there's also a problem of coaching, and perhaps of role models. And I do regret that some talented dancers who are now in their late 20s or early 30s, like Miteki Kudo, Laure Muret, Hervé Courtain or Stéphane Phavorin seem to be considered as already "out"... Probably they were not principal material, but I think that they would have been able to do better than the few roles they were given. About the acting and whether the POB is moving or not, well, I'm lacking elements of comparison as the only company I've seen rather often is the POB. Perhaps I have bad taste, but there were many moments when I was moved. And about the final remark... oh well, when it comes to arrogance, better leave it to a specialist. Alexandra wrote: But in Petit's "Les Rendez-vous" -- one of his Young Man falls in love with The Most Beautiful Woman in the world -- a/k/a Death -- they were completely different. The acting was very passionate, very immediate. Cyril Atanasoff, a former etoile then in his 50s, I believe, was wonderful as Death, an aging Dandy who seemed to have spent the last century in a sewer. I think that adding Petit's older choreographies to the POB repertory really was a good idea, and dancers like Pietragalla, Belarbi or Bridard really are good in that repertory (unfortunately, Belarbi doesn't dance it much any longer, apparently for some conflict problems with Petit, who isn't exactly renowned for his good temper). I'm far less convinced by his more recent works, or even by his "Notre-Dame de Paris", but his works of the 40s and 50s really are well-suited to the company. Not much has been said in this thread about the company's repertory, which is another real problem in my opinion. Well, in some sense it has almost always been, since the POB has known several long periods without a talented choreographer- and it is a problem with many companies, as genius choreographers aren't exactly numerous today... Personnally I'm not a fan of Nureyev's productions (even though they seem to be quite successful with the dancers and the audience) and his contrived choreographic style. And Lefèvre's recipe for the repertory seems to be an alternance of Nureyev's classics and modern works commissionned to various choreographers (often with limited success). There have been some valuable additions (like "Jewels" and "Paquita" last season), but it's worrying to see that much of the 20th century repertory is getting ignored more and more.

Thanks for the clarification. However, I think that the figure of 65% might be too high: Lefèvre has added much modern works (most of them haven't been danced again after their premiere) to the repertory, but in general their have much shorter runs than the classical works (more than 20 "Bayadère" this season, for example). I'm afraid much of the ballet audience isn't fully conscious of the technical difficulty of what they see, and of the extreme physical effort it demands... Perhaps also it is because they dance less often? In all the classics, the female corps de ballet dances a lot (Swans, shades, snowflakes...) and most of the men dance shorter roles... That was pretty obvious in Neumeier's "Midsummer night dream" last summer at the Paris Opera (there are many scenes when the dancers, male and female, wear only pale green leotards with long sleeves. One dancer told me that with such costumes it was nearly impossible to eat anything before the performance, because one's stomach was so visible...)

It reminds me of a dancer who seriously injured her ankle twice in two years- and each time in the same role in the same Forsythe work... I think that she'd be quite reluctant to dance it again now.