JMcN

It's been announced today that Wayne Eagling is stepping down as AD of ENB at the end of the current season in August 2012.

http://www.theartsdesk.com/dance/now-english-national-ballet-loses-its-second-head-eagling-leave

I LOVE Annette Delgado as Kitri - that's the one I'd go for!

I am so jealous! Asier was one of my favourite dancers when he was at BRB and I have only had 2 opportunities to see him dance since he left.

I see that Momoko Hirata and Aaron Robison are both now listed as principals. Well done to both of them.

Cinnamonswirl's post #20 mentions the fouette music in Don Q. I've just had a look at a couple of clips on youtube and to my untrained ear that also has short groupings that a conductior could break out of if the ballerina wanted to finish early.

I had always assumed (I know nothing technical about music) that the change to short repeating groups was to facilitate the ballerina if she needed to stop early.

In the early 90s, ENB used to split into two parts to tour to smaller theatres. I saw Lyudmila Semenyaka in Crewe flashing out the fouettes so fast that the accompanying pianist could not keep up with her! It was fabulous to watch - and in Crewe.

I found Roger's musical detail in relation to the number of fouettes absolutely fascinating.

I have never tried to count the number of fouettes as I prefer to take in the overall performance rather than just the technical wizzardry and anyway I get so carried away I am sure I would lose count.

Off topic but on following the youtube links for Katherine Healey I came across lots of clips of Sir Frederick Ashton's R&J which took me down a very happy memory lane. Thanks

Edited to change one sentence to hopefully make more sense!

I would echo Jane Simpson in nominating Trinidad Sevillano. I saw her in the first night of the production that Natalia Makarova made for London Festival Ballet and she was unforgettable.

I also saw Miyako Yoshida give some amazing performances when she was with Birmingham Royal Ballet. One performance I particularly remember was in Liverpool. When she turned her back to the audience to make her act 2 exit, the way she moved her head, arms and back move had the entire audience gasping in amazement.

I would also have to nominate both Simon Cooper and Adam Cooper for their interpretations in Mathew Bourne's production.

I've seen a number of naughty pigeons in Ashton's Two Pigeons. At one performance in Plymouth there seemed to be three pigeons, two of whom spent most of the performance fornicating on the Paris rooftops! On the final evening a couple of years ago at the Lowry, when the pigeon flew in at the end, he landed on Chi Cao's head! Chi managed to extricate the bird from his hair and he and Ambra ended up cuddling said bird. What could have been a disaster turned into a moment of sheer romance and magic.

At a performance of Northern Ballet's Romeo, during Romeo's fatal altercation with Paris the dagger flew onto a piece of scenery out of sight and reach of Juliet. She ended up finding enough poison left in Romeo's vial to kill herself.

At a performance of Mathew Bourne's Swan Lake, the conductor's baton flew out of her hand and landed in my friend's lap!

I guess that there are far more mishaps than the audience ever realises because the dancers are so good at covering them. Well done to them all.

As no-one can ever know what goes on behind closed doors or even what has been discussed between client and lawyer, no matter what one's morals and standards, it is, IMHO, inappropriate to apportion any blame to any of the parties. Additionally, IMHO, the direction this thread is taking bears little relation to ballet.

Onegin is the production that turned me on to ballet. With a spare evening in London and no other shows we fancied we booked to see London Festival Ballet performing Onegin on the basis of a review we had seen in the Liverpool Echo. Prior to this performance I was really into contemporary dance and thought ballet was boring! On 26th May 1984 I was totally converted! I didn't realise till years later just whom we had been privileged to watch and it's no wonder that I was converted. We saw Marcia Haydee and Richard Cragun in the leading roles with Maurizio Belleza and Lucia Truglia as Lensky and Olga. Michael Pink (now AD in Milwaukee) was Gremin.

Because of that night, to this day Onegin is my favourite ballet and between 1984 and 1990, I saw performances with LFB - now ENB nearly every year. I then had a gap but have since seen it performed by RB, NBC, RDB and POB. I think that because I hold the production in so much affection I can't remember any performances that I haven't enjoyed but some have been more memorable than others. Apart from that first time, I loved Natalia Makarova with Alexander Sombart (still my favourite Onegin) and also Lynn Seymour and Eva Evdokimova (again with Alexander Sombart). I was also lucky to see one performance at RB with Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg. We were very fortunate to see one of Kenneth Greve's final performances with Gudrun Bojesen.

This is one ballet that really suits a mature dancer as Tatiana and I vaguely recall that there was some surprise when Alina Cojocaru was cast in her early 20s. The performance I saw proved why she is such a great artiste.

I hope SFB and ABT audiences enjoy this ballet as much as I have done over the last 20-odd years.

My first production of Coppelia was Ronald Hynd's for London Festival Ballet (now ENB)

Northern Ballet had a charming production set in a caravan by (I think) Robert de Warren

I saw a production at the Edinburgh Festival by an American Company with Rudolf Nureyev as Coppelius

The Royal Ballet's revival of their 1950s production

And ..... Sir Peter Wright's for BRB

Stefano Gianetti used Elgar (including a lot of the Enigma Variations) for his production of Great Expectations for Northern Ballet in 2000.

Ashton's Enigma Variations is, IMHO, a true masterpiece.

This is absolutely shocking news, especially for the seven dancers who are not retiring. I used google translate; it came up with a very bizarre translation but did give the gist and the names.

Just found details of this Tour en l'air trip on Twitter:

http://toursenlair.blogspot.com/2012/01/stuttgart-munich-ballet-trip-now.html

There is also a British based tour company called Travel for the Arts.

Over the years, I've met a number of people who have been travelling independently, having compared schedules and worked out their own itineraries. We used to meet up often in the Autumn with an American gentleman (Jim from the Bronx) who spent a month in the UK following all the British companies he could find.

The "Word Lady" was in the UK last Autumn. I met her at Birmingham where she interviewed Robert Parker for her group and Friends of BRB.

BRB are performing their production of Nutcracker at the O2 Arena in London between Christmas and New Year. I am interested to see how the wonderful transformation scene will translate to the arena setting but I am sure it will be very enjoyable.

The performances are being introduced by Joe McEldrerry, who won X-factor a couple of years ago and Popstar to Operastar more recently.

Here is a clip from BBC breakfast news: http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-arts-16176480

Yes, the book covers a much longer period than the film, mostly covering Li's early life which goes a long way to explaining the title. I suspect that Graeme Murphy's choreography was used because the film was financed and mostly filmed in Australia. I think I identified a section from Stevenson's Three Preludes though.

Do read the book, I found it an inspirational read and relevant whether you are interested in dance or not.

A trip to Paris in January sounded fun so we've already booked! My friend and I are very excited...

Further news regarding ENB Spring 2012.

Programme 1. L'apres midi un faune, Firebird, and The Rite of Spri Wed. 28th March - Sun 1st April.ng Thurs 22nd - Tues 27th March. Prog.2. World Premier of a new Toer van Schayk Ballet, Apollo (Balanchine) Suite en Blanc

ENB seem to have abandoned touring mixed programmes for the time being - certainly to Liverpool! Very sad because it is becoming prohibitively expensive to travel to London even trying to book trains within a couple of days of them coming on sale.

I was looking at the BRB's 2011-12 season and -- wow -- they sure perform a lot of Ashton. Symphonic Variations (October), Daphnis and Chloe (February-March), The Two Pigeons (February-March) and The Dream (June) -- has BRB become the true home of Ashton in this world???

The programme for BRB at the London Coliseum "Spring Passions" iis 13th & 14th March 2012 (3 performances only) will

be Daphnis and Chloe and Le Deux Pigeons.

Thursday 15th to Sunday 18th March Coppelia (5 performances only.)

I've already got my tickets (and some for Birmingham)!

By the way, that Mikhailovsky tour to London last year was the victim of poor planning. It coincided with the Bolshoi at Covent Garden and audiences were embarrassingly minute for most performances.

I have to say I'm not convinced by the pulling power of Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev, their R&J performances with Schaufuss's troupe didn't sell out with first night numbers boosted by complimentary tickets for most of the audience. Before someone comments that they weren't dancing with a front ranking company I'll remind you that Fonteyn and Nureyev could have been dancing with the Outer Hebrides Amateur Dance Group and people would still have fought to see them.

That may have also had something to do with the ticket prices for most of the decent seats! I've always adored the Ashton Romeo and was going to book for this until I saw the cost! Add the cost of travelling to London, it became prohibitive! Off topic, but the Schauffuss company did a couple of performances outside London without the stellar guests and the top price at, for example, Llandudno was £20 compared to a top price of £120 for premium seats or £85 for ordinary at the Coliseum

I've just seen three performances of BRB's Autumn Glory comprising de Valois' Checkmate, Ashton's sublime Symphonic Variations and Cranko's Pineapple Poll. It was a real blast of the company's heritage.

All the performances were excellent but Friday evening's Symphonic Variations was truly outstanding. The dancers were: Natasha Oughtred, Nao Sakuma, Elisha Willis, Joe Caley, Chi Cao and Cesar Morales. It was sheer bliss to watch.

I think it's swings and roundabouts. A couple of years ago we had lots of Balanchine and now we've got lots of Ashton, not to mention works galore by David Bintley (Hobson's Choice is a particular meisterwork IMHO) and other choreographers. Fans of BRB are very lucky bunnies!