Estelle

Actually that already happened several times in recent years (with Laetitia Pujol and Delphine Moussin)... Well, it has always been very hard to find some sort of logic in the decisions of the direction about promotions... Also Brigitte Lefèvre said for years that she wanted to reduce the number of étoiles (and indeed it diminished quite a lot compared to before), and there were years without a single promotions, while lately the promotions have been very numerous, including some dancers like Romoli and Moussin who are only a few years away from retirement and who probably would never have been promoted at such an age a few years or decades before (well, part of the problem perhaps was that they'd have deserved to be promoted much earlier in their careers). Also it sometimes is hard to know which part of the decision comes from Ms Lefèvre and which part comes from the directors of the Paris Opera (Gall, then Mortier). Indeed a female promotion would probably have made more sense- but well, the present premières danseuses already perform many principal roles (it seems to me that the hierarchy rules are far less strict than before) so promoting someone from première danseuse to étoile doesn't necessarily make a big chance in termes of casting... There are 9 premières danseuses now (Eleonora Abbagnato, Isabelle Ciaravola, Emilie Cozette, Nolwenn Daniel, Dorothée Gilbert, Mélanie Hurel, Myriam Ould Braham, Nathalie Riqué, Stéphanie Romberg), and all of them dance quite often (only Nathalie Riqué is close to retirement age). From what I've seen and read, Dorothée Gilbert (who unfortunately didn't perform much this season, probably because of an injury) and Myriam Ould-Braham both look very promising, but both still are quite young and haven't danced that many roles, so perhaps there's no emergency to promote them... And for example I hope that the direction won't have the strange idea to promote Eleonora Abbagnato (often cast as Jérémie Bélingard's stage partner- she's a dancer I never appreciated much and who has some real weaknesses in the classical repertory...) By the way, there's a dancer I really regret not seeing in that list: Fanny Fiat, who is in my opinion at least as talented as several dancers of that list, but has never got all the recognition she deserved...

Thanks, Azulynn ! I'm looking forward to reading your review. How sad it is that the company direction seems to care less and less about the classical repertory and the dancers best suited to it... Which classical roles has Bélingard danced, besides Basilio ? I remember he danced in Lacotte's "Paquita", and he danced the Bluebird in "The Sleeping Beauty", but don't remember seeing his name in the cast lists for roles like Siegfried, Solor, Albrecht, etc. Well, not everybody can dance every role (and for example, it seems to me that Patrice Bart, when he was an étoile, probably wasn't cast that often in "prince" roles), but it is a bit worrying when a dancer who is promoted to principal mostly performed in contemporary roles and doesn't seem to care much about the classical repertory. (By the way, isn't it a problem with Marie-Agnès Gillot to some extent too ? She seems to be performing fewer and fewer classical roles, that might be linked to partnering problems as not many male dancers are tall enough to partner her, but it seems to me that she used to perform more classical roles a few seasons ago...)

Well, I used to dislike much Karl Paquette, as I found him bland, uninteresting, often weak technically (and not especially good-looking- well, "chacun ses goûts..." ;) ) but from what I've read he's made some progress in the last seasons, and indeed he probably is one of the less often injured present premiers danseurs. Thibault actually has its detractors besides Ms Lefèvre (I'd say he probably is one of the most controversial topics in the French forums), but at least his promotion probably would have sounded a bit more logical to most people than Bélingard's. I don't think anything is known about Ms Lefèvre's retirement... She's "only" 60 and could stay there for several years (even though she's been the director of dance since 1995, probably the longest tenure in decades). And who knows who would be her successor (I'm not especially confident in the choices of politicians...) Azulynn, please feel free to open a thread about Don Quichotte if you'd like to post your comments about Thibault and Ould-Braham's performance (or any other performance of the series), I'm sure many people here would be interested !

I'm a bit surprised too. As far as I know, Jérémie Bélingard has been injured quite often, and also tends to be cast far more often in the contemporary repertory than in the classical one (well, I guess it's quite significative of what Ms Lefevre's priorities are...). That makes a lot of male étoiles indeed (even though several of them dance less and less now). But I'm not sure his promotion will solve any of the casting problems: being an étoile doesn't protect one from injuries, and so it's not sure that he will actually dance more... I can't say he impressed me much the few times when I saw him on stage, but perhaps I didn't see him in the right roles. I guess that the fans of Emmanuel Thibault (who danced Basilio a few days ago) probably are quite saddened by that promotion... volcanohunter, Moreau and Pech seem to be quite fragile too. Actually the present roster of étoiles seems to be in a somewhat worrying shape, with three of them leaving soon (Belarbi, Romoli and Legris- I've heard that the next season might be his last one, even though he's one or two years younger than the other two, what a pity ), Bart dancing less and less big classical roles because of health reasons, Moreau, Pech and now Bélingard who are often injured... That leaves Martinez (who's not that young), Le Riche and Ganio. And there don't seem to be that many potential étoiles among the male premiers danseurs (especially as the last promoted were promoted quite late in their careers). cygneblanc, did you attend the performance after which Bélingard was promoted ?

Small world: Harrer's book (its French title was "Sept ans d'aventure au Tibet") was one of the favorite books of my dad when he was a child... :-)

Well, "parisianism" has been a problem in France for decades, or actually centuries (a trace of the Paris-center monarchy ?), as nearly all of the main cultural institutions are based in Paris. There have been some progress since the "decentralization" laws in the 1980s, but more on the administrative side than on the cultural side... and I don't think politicians pay much attention to such a topic. As volcanohunter wrote, there are some TV performances which are broadcasted on public TV (but it is a relatively recent phenomenon), however in my opinion that should be in addition to tours, not seen as a replacement (especially as such broadcasts generally are shown at such a late hour that they can only reach a tiny audience.

What a really disappointing season indeed ! I'm not especially surprised, as Brigitte Lefèvre clearly has shown for years that she isn't especially interested in the company's classical repertory, but well, really there isn't much to be excited about. Two of the full-length works are opera-ballets with choreographies by modern choreographers (Waltz's "Romeo and Juliet" and Bausch's "Orphée et Eurydice"), two others are works by company dancers which don't use much ballet vocabulary (Belarbi's "Wuthering heights" and Le Riche's "Caligula"), Neumeier's "Lady of the camellias" will be scheduled for the *third* season in a row, Carlson's "Signes" has already been shown again and again... And only one Balanchine work, no Robbins, no Ballets Russes works, no Lifar, no Petit, no Tudor, no Ashton, etc. Patrick Dupond was sometimes criticized as a director, but from what I've read the criticism focused mostly about casting decisions (and the fact that he was both the director and an étoile with the company, with a tendancy to cast himself much) and not much about the repertory (also, in that period the administrateurs de la danse- I believe Jean-Albert Cartier had that job for a while- probably had an influence too... Now, as far as I know, that position doesn't exist any longer- the last "administrateur de la danse" was Brigitte Lefèvre herself, and the job was suppressed when she became "directrice de la danse" so she has all powers...) It seems that only the direction of the POB school is interested in showing the classical repertory (the school's performance will include Staats' "Soir de fête", Petit's "Les Forains" and a work by Nils Christe)- by the way, what an absurdity that for example the school performed in recent years works like "Divertimento n.15", excerpts from "Napoli", "Western Symphony", some Lifar works, etc. while the company itself, who should be dancing it, completely ignored that repertory. volcanohunter, you mention Manuel Legris as a potential director for the company after Lefèvre's retirement (but so far we have no idea about when she'll retire- she's 60 now and could still hold that job for several years, alas). While I admire him immensely as a dancer, I really know too little about his skills as a director to know what kind of job he'd do. He has no experience as a company director (and I think that directing a small touring group of dancers has little to do with being the director of a big company) and I don't know much about what his choices of repertory would be. Also, the previous experiences of former POB dancers turned directors hasn't be very positive in some cases (see the Pietragalla affair in Marseille, which ended quite sourly, also Jean-Yves Lormeau didn't stay much in Rio de Janeiro- Charles Jude seems to do a better job in Bordeaux- except that perhaps at his age he should consider casting himself less-, however a problem of moral harrassment one or two years ago with a soloist who was his former girlfriend didn't exactly cas a positive light on the company) and so I wonder if the officials making such decisions might be a bit cautious about choosing a POB dancer. (Now, most of them seem to know so little about ballet that one might fear any bizarre decision, e.g. choosing a modern dance choreographer to lead the company or something like that... Who knows ? ) One thing that made me smile is that the only tour announced in the company season is to... Créteil, a close suburb of Paris which actually has several metro stations on the line 8, which is a line which also goes to both Paris operas, so that's not as if seeing POB performances was terribly difficult for its inhabitants ! Well, perhaps they'll tour elsewhere and it hasn't been announced yet, but I wish the company's direction would think more about all the French cities which have no ballet company and where opportunities to see some ballet are about zero (and whose inhabitants subsidize as much the POB as Paris people, as the subsidies are national)... [Edited to add]: Also among the season's absurdities, there will be: -the Défilé in Bastille (it had already been done in the Dupond era, but if I remember correctly, back then there were some works done in Garnier which wasn't available... And also back then, the evenings with the Défilé were at a normal price.) -the fact that the only two classical full-length works ("Paquita" and "The Nutcracker") will be scheduled at the same period (in december), which might lead to a lot of injuries and casting problems as it already happened in previous seasons, and which will leave the ballet audience hungry for the rest of the season

I'll have to check my books later, but surely the Paris Opera Ballet was not disbanded during the French revolution: actually it was very active, as Pierre Gardel created at least three of his main works in that period ("Télémaque" and "Psyché" in 1790 and "Le jugement de Pâris" in 1793), they were extremely popular and performed several hundred times during the next decades- actually, in 1976 (when Ivor Guest published the first version of his POB book), "Psyché" still ranked second in the list of the most often performed works of the POB repertory (even though it probably hadn't been performed since around 1830...) Themes inspired from Greek and Roman antiquity were very popular in that period, as can be seen from the ballets' titles... The Gardel brothers were directors of the POB for decades (first Maximilien, who died in 1787, and then Pierre until 1820 officially, and in fact until 1829) so I guess they must have been very influential in that period- and probably Pierre managed to be not too involved in politics, as he managed to survive so many different political regimes (monarchy of Louis XVI, First Republic, First Empire, and Restauration with Louis XVIII and Charles X)... Also, if I remember correctly, until the 1990s the official status of the Comédie Française depended on a decree signed by Napoleon during the campaign of Russia in 1812, called "le décret de Moscou" (strange to think that he was interested in theater in such a critical period... But from what I've read, Napoleon was very keen on theeater, he went to the theater more than 600 times in his life- but I've no idea whether he was interested in ballet too!) I'll see if I can find more details about that period.

The repertoire for the 2007-2008 season has been announced on the RDB site (but I've seen only in Danish so far, the corresponding English page is empty): http://www.kglteater.dk/site/Forestillinge...llet_07_08.aspx The only two Bournonville works will be the same as those of this season: "Napoli", and "La Syphide" (which will be paired with a new work by Jorma Elo). If I understand correctly, the other full-length works will be Flemming Flindt's "Carole Mathilde", Alicia Alonso's production of "Don Quixote", John Cranko's "Onegin" and a production of "The Nutcracker" by Kenneth Greve and Peter Langdal (is this a new production ?). There will be a Jiri Kylian program with six (!) works, and some double or triple bills (Uotinen/ Cherkaoui, Lindell/ Bauer/ Wilkinson/ Baecher, Naharin/ Duato/ Wheeldon), and a program for children by Tim Rushton and Anne Marie Vessel Schlüter.

Just a short note to say that I really enjoyed the three performances I saw (but not the rather awful sight lines of the Châtelet... :-( ) and that the audience reaction generally was positive (and very enthusiastic for some works, especially "Le spectre de la Rose", "Swan Lake" pas de deux and the final performance of "In the upper room"). I hope to be able to post some more detailed comments later, when I have time (and Azulynn, I'm looking forward to your review too- so it seems that we saw the same performance at least on Saturday 10 in the evening ?)

This was used to killing effect in one French review I read lambasting ABT in Paris: Each blasted dancer was identified by her/his owner. Considering the much more scandalous history of the Paris Opéra, if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is. I think that drb was talking about a review posted in a forum by a viewer (not a critic), and while I didn't find that review especially interesting or well-written, I find your comment a bit odd: there's no way to conclude that the viewer supported all the scandalous affairs of the Paris Opera in the 19th century (wealthy old gentlemen "protecting" ballerinas, etc.)

Thanks for the link, volcanohunter. I wonder if there will be some reviews of that opening night in the French press (unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer articles about ballet :-( ) I'd be careful about generalizing too much from what is written on one or two French discussion boards, as sometimes they mostly reflect the opinions and tastes of only a handful of people (and it can sometimes be amusing to see that one dancer which is almost unanimously admired on one board is criticized on another, and vice-versa...) But well, perhaps starting a program with the Shades Act from Bayadère was a bit risky, as it is a ballet which has been seen very often at the Paris Opera and so people are likely to draw comparisons. (By the way, "Dark Elegies" was danced by the POB in the 1980s and 1990s, and if I remember correctly it mostly got good reviews then, so the "aesthetic incomprehension" might also be a matter of individual tastes of the people who posted...) I'm going to see programs 3, 4 and 5 in Paris this week-end (two on Saturday and one in Sunday, so I'm doing the trip from Lyon only to see it as there won't be time for anything else this week-end...) and if I'm not too lazy I'll try to post a report later.

It is interesting to see that the gala included Jacques Garnier's trio "Aunis", was it already in the SFB's repertory ? I notice that it is with an all-French cast But what a pity it was with taped music- I saw it several times with accordion music played on stage (one of the players was Maurice Pacher, the score's composer) and it really added much emotion to the performance.

Cute story indeed. I didn't expect to see a quote from a Francis Cabrel song in an American newspaper (but what's missing is his southern accent ;) )

One detail which seems to show some real lack of coherence, to say the least, from Ms Clarke, is the fact that her life partner and father from her child is a dancer from Cuba, with Chinese roots- so a "non-white" immigrant, not exactly the kind of person the BNP welcomes very much... In France I'd also say that in general, ballet dancers don't seem very involved in politics (less than, for example, theater actors). If I remember correctly, during the 1995 presidential campaign, there were at least three dancers from POB who publically supported Mr Chirac: Claude Bessy, Cyril Atanassoff and Patrick Dupond. Also I remember reading that the ballet choreographer Janine Charrat was involved in the RPR party (Chirac's party, right-wing) in the 1980s and 1990s (she was a member and had some responsibilities). Modern dance choreographers seem more involved in politics (and more often supporting parties of the left), for example in 1996 Angelin Preljocaj left Chateauvallon, where his company had been based for about five years, because the new mayor of Toulon (the city near Chateauvallon) belonged to the far-right Front National party and he didn't want to be associated with them (part of the theater's subsidies came from the city of Toulon). On the other hand, an example of involvement of a politician (of a notorious kind) in ballet was during a duel between Serge Lifar and the Marquis de Cuevas in 1958: the reason for the duell was that Cuevas' company had performed a ballet by Lifar even though he had refused his authorization. The second of the Marquis de Cuevas was Jean-Marie Le Pen (who was then a 30-years old former paratrooper and deputy of a right-wing party). There is an article about this duel (published in Time magazine in 1958) there: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...,863234,00.html It was one of the last duels in France, and from what I've read, the whole incident generally was considered as a bit ridiculous (especially as the protagonists were 53 and 72).

As Marc explained, there is quite a difference between not being very interested any longer in some prince roles and not being interested in ballet... And from his comments, what he regrets about POB programming actually is the *lack* of classical works, not the opposite ! Well, health issues are not a choice... And if I remember correctly, Nicolas Le Riche had some injuries problems too at some periods- and unfortunately, injuries are quite common (for example Lionel Delanoë retired quite early for health reasons, he had a very severe back injury when he was in his early 30s which forced him to stop dancing for a whole season, he came back but never regained completely his previous shape and retired early to become a ballet master, also dancers like Hervé Moreau, Alessio Carbone, Benjamin Pech, Jérémie Bélingard got injured several times too, unfortunately).

Thanks for reminding us about your interview, Marc (lucky you to have interviewed him, by the way ! ) Grissi, Bart was born in 1972, so he must be 34 now.

I've enjoyed the works of his that I've seen (IIRC: Tzigane, pas de deux; Péchés de jeunesse; Diable à quatre; Javotte; A la manière de, pas de deux) and I really wish he were given more opportunities to choreograph, especially as there are so few French choreographers really interested in the classical vocabulary... He's choreographed for the POB school and for some "Jeunes danseurs" program, but I wish he would be given an opportunity to create a real work for the company (after all, Nicolas Le Riche got to create "Caligula", and as far as I know he wasn't more experienced as a choreographer than Bart...) In his interviews, he mentions some plans about doing a new version "a 19th century ballet" for the company, but nothing seems to be concrete.

(Reply to volcanohunter): Not really. Either he is less interested in such roles (but that doesn't seem likely to me), or perhaps it is a problem of injuries (actually Legris would perhaps be more the exception than the norm, being still very active in major classical roles at 42, more than most of his colleagues of the same generation...), but as the Paris Opera generally gives no official information about injuries, one can only make guesses. Edited to add: Farrell Fan, thanks for your translation of "bravo allievo". I think that it French it'd have been something like "bon élève".

I've come across the following interview of Jean-Guillaume Bart (the page also includes a few nice photos)... unfortunately, it's in Italian: http://www.balletto.net/giornale.php?articolo=1476 My level in Italian is very basic but basically here are the topics of the interview: -his opinions about the responsibilities of a POB "étoile" (I guess he won't please much some people, as he criticizes "some of the recent promotions", saying that "one could say that the title of étoile is used somewhat improperly, as now one can obtain it without having the profile and the maturity which are necessary in my opinion", he insists that spending eight years in the corps de ballet was very useful for him, especially in terms of knowing many roles from the repertory) -the very important influence his teacher Florence Clerc had on him (by the way, is there an Italian speaker here who could explain to me what a dancer "bravo allievo" means ?) -his strong interest for dance teaching (he says that at the end of his dancing career, he would really be interested in being one of the teacher of the POB corps de ballet, especially as it could leave him some time to choreograph, while being a répétiteur would take more time) and his ideas ballet classes -some thoughts about ballet technique: about pointe technique, hyperextension (he criticizes a lot the taste for excessive extensions), the Cecchetti technique, the importance of épaulement -his work as a choreographer (the importance of music for him, his admiration for Balanchine, the fact that he'd like to stage some story ballets but so far hasn't had the opportunity to stage any) -soon he will stage "Le corsaire" in Russia for the Ekaterinenburg ballet -his worries about the future of ballet in France (present only at the POB and in Toulouse and Bordeaux, and for example he mentions the fact that he wonders about the future of the ballet school of the Ballet de Marseille, considering that it aims at training ballet dancers while now the company mostly is a modern dance company...) He mentions also how difficult it is to work as a ballet choreographer in France.* That's an interesting interview (Bart also had given an interview to "Dance Now" some months ago, some of the topics were similar, and he also had expressed his sadness about the ballet situation in France, and also some criticisms about the POB's policy). What a pity that he doesn't get more support as a choreographer... By the way, he isn't mentioned often on this board, so if some people would like to talk about him either as a dancer or as a choreographer, this topic is open ! Unfortunately I haven't had many opportunities to see him on stage in recent years (and he dances fewer long roles now) but a few months ago I had the luck to see him in the Mazurka of Lifar's "Mirages", and it was a wonderful lesson in style and class.

It's interesting to know about that difference of names... Well, I guess that perhaps an advantage of such a name in France is that he could be in the phonebooks without risking many unwanted phone calls from fans, as there probably are many "José Martinez" in Paris (also, I think in French the accent on the "i" of Martinez is omitted, as it is written as if it were a French name...)

Thanks for the news, Azulynn and cygneblanc. I'm looking forward to reading more of your comments. Could you post how many dancers competed in each category ? Usually there are quite a lot of injuries in that period (especially with two big productions at the same time) so I guess not everybody competed ?

Thanks a lot, cygneblanc ! Did you attend the competition ? And do you know which were the compulsory variations ? The results of the competition are announced on the POB web site there: http://www.operadeparis.fr/Accueil/Actualite.asp Is it the first time that men and women dance on separate days ? It seems to me that usually one gender danced in the morning and the other in the afternoon (but perhaps it's simpler to organize it on two days). Congratulations to all the promoted dancers! I was a bit surprised to see that Duquenne was promoted: he is a very talented dancer, but he is 35 now, and usually people rarely were promoted after 30 (with the exception of Isabelle Ciaravola a few years ago, promoted around 31 or 32 if I remember correctly). It seems that the present direction is more inclined to promoting "older" dancers than before (see also the promotions to étoile of Romoli and Moussin at a unusually late age... I remember that back in the early 1990s, some people considered that when Gaïda and Arbo were promoted to étoile, they were too old, but they were indeed much younger than some of the last promoted étoiles !) Actually Duquenne would have deserved to be promoted long ago (he's been a sujet since 1993 !), especially as he performed a lot of interesting roles and "saved" some performances when he had to replace some dancers... I'm happy he finally got some recognition, even if it comes a bit late (wasn't he in the same promotion at the school as Bart, Martinez, Le Riche, Bridard ?) Edited to add: I had forgotten that Stéphane Phavorin had been promoted at a rather late age too... By the way, I wonder which of the present male premiers danseurs could be considered as potential étoiles (the list is: Jérémie Bélingard, Yann Bridard, Alessio Carbone, Karl Paquette, Stéphane Phavorin, Emmanuel Thibault and now Christophe Duquenne).

Thanks for the update, LLP2975 ! There's an article about Ms Mandradjieff (dating back from 2005) there: http://www.pitt.edu/~ppw/MandradjieffSu05.html and she's listed there: http://www.balletacademypgh.com/BAP/About%20Us.html

Thanks for the link, volcanuhunter (now I'll have to install the suitable stuff to be able to read it...) Well, the media always seem to spend a lot of times about any detail concerning Johnny Hallyday (a sixty-something French singer, for all the readers unfamiliar with that name- very famous in France), and perhaps even more now as he also is a bit involved in the presidential campaign as he publicly supported a candidate.