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JMcN

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Everything posted by JMcN

  1. Helene - we tried Chez Clement on our recent trip and really enjoyed our meal there - thanks for the recommendation. I can also say that Flybe were excellent. We've just booked another trip for April (Onegin), using Flybe again and the flights were very reasonably priced. The problem is the plummeting £ once we get there!
  2. I've seen offers before for ROH discounted ballet tickets. There have recently been offers in the freebie Metro paper. I think they tend to be for performances that are not guaranteed to do well. The credit crunch is most definitely biting, except for sales of Strictly Come Dancing Live (the original DWTS). The Liverpool Arena date is completely sold out. Also Take That sold out a whole stadia tour within hours recently.
  3. This documentary was shown on British TV over Christmas last year and is absolutely fascinating. It was made by the Ballet Boyz. I would highly recommend watching it.
  4. I'm not a dancer either. When we visited Russia in 1986 (yes I glow in the dark!) on a Friends of London Festival Ballet trip, we were told that all the stages in Russia are raked at the same angle and so are the rehearsal studios. The touring companies of Britain have no such luck! The audience sees a variety of rakes and no two seem to be the same. I guess the dancers have a lot to contend with! Before the Empire Theatre in Sunderland was refurbished, Friends of Birmingham Royal Ballet saw a rehearsal of Coppelia in which the chair the dolls is wheeled out on kept on rolling forward and would not stop! Fortunately, whatever the stage technicians were able to achieve worked and the performances were fine.
  5. Over the years I have seen performances, in various productions, of Romeo and Juliet where I cannot understand why Juliet has not run off with Paris before the end of the ballroom scene!! Or in Onegin, Tatiana runs off with him at the end instead of collapsing in grief?
  6. I think Manon as a character is very hard to quantify and, over the years, I have seen a number of interpretations. She needs to be an innocent cocquette who is manipulative but greedy! I saw Sylvie Guillem once in this role and I couldn't believe how different she looked to the other dancers - she looked SOOOOOO French (don't laugh!). Whoever dances Manon, she needs to be a supreme actress who, most importantly, can act young. Dancers I would like to see as Manon (I am very biased by the way): Nao Sakuma (BRB) Ambra Vallo (BRB) Georgina May (NBT) Pippa Moore (NBT) Dancers whom I would like to have seen and will never get an opportunity Trinidad Sevillano
  7. Mashinka - I'm sorry to have ruined your day - yes they were totally wonderful! I'm seeing ENB perform Manon in Manchester on 11th November. I'm hoping they'll be bringing it to Liverpool next year.
  8. I absolutely adore Manon. For me it is a timeless joy to watch. I've mostly seen it with the Royal Ballet. My first, and never forgotten, Manon was Lesley Collier with the late Julian Hosking as her Des Grieux. For me, it's a very well structured ballet with lots of exciting choreography and a vividly told story. There is plenty of opportunity for the leading dancers to build their characters. I love the orchestration of Massenet's music. As well as the RB, I was also fortunate to see the RDB in a couple of performances just over two years ago. They had different costumes and I've got to say that the girls' costumes in the brothel scene were amongst the most hideous I have ever looked at! The others were fine though. One thing I really liked about the RDB production was that in the final pdd there were no mangroves hanging down, just the stage as a black box. It allowed us to see every nuance of this climax. I will never forget the performance that Caroline Cavallo and Andrew Bowman gave. My friend and I were completely beyond the power of speech for quite some time afterwards. I was similarly affected by a performance by Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg at RB a few years ago.
  9. The Canadian production, mentioned above by rq, was broadcast by the BBC in the late 1980s and was commercially available. I have got it on video but not DVD. Onegin is the ballet that converted me to watching ballet on 26th May 1984 at the London Coliseum. It was London Festival Ballet (now ENB) with Marcia Haydee and Richard Cragun guesting. Maurizio Belleza was Lenski and I think Lucia Truglia was Olga. Michael Pink (now AD at Milwaukee) was Gremin. I didn't realise till years later what a stellar cast I had seen. Since then I have seen many wonderful performances of Onegin, mostly with LFB/ENB. Memorable Tatianas have been Natalia Makarova, Lynn Seymour and Eva Evdokimova. Alexander Sombart is my favourite Onegin ever! Stuttgart Ballet performed in Glasgow when that city was European Capital of Culture and I was lucky to see Wolfgang Stollwitzer in the title role at one performance. (He went on to join BRB and was very popular with the Birmingham crowd. He's just rejoined as a member of the ballet staff.) I have seen RB do it a couple of times - the most memorable being Cojocaru/Kobborg - he was totally fabulous. I've also seen NB Canada. The late Serge Lavoie was Onegin (I had seen him do Gremin during a season he did with LFB). Earlier this year I saw two wonderful performances by RDB. I was fortunate indeed to see Kenneth Greve in one of his final performances before retirement. He was utterly compelling in the role. As you may have guessed, I am a bit of an Onegin obsessive! I am hoping to see POB do it next year - I'll report back if I do.
  10. There's some fantastic news on the BRB website. Robert Parker is rejoining the company this Autumn. All I can say is: WELCOME BACK ROBERT! (and thank goodness he participated in Desmond Kelly's gala!). Here is the relevant page on the BRB website: http://www.brb.org.uk/Robert-Parker.html
  11. JMcN

    Molly Smolen

    When Molly and Tiit were with BRB we were able to enjoy her as a very gifted classical dancer with an enormous stage presence. She was truly awesome in Ashton's Five Waltzes in the manner of Isadora Duncan. She has a real depth of acting ability from extremely naughty harlot to very moving and young Juliet in MacMillan's R&J. We miss them both very much and it was great to see Tiit again recently in a short excerpt from Apollo at Desmond Kelly's gala.
  12. I've just been looking at the photographs (which are stunning). Where the Swan Princess is on the Prince's head, the photograph has been taken before she is fully in position because he does actually remove his hands. Although not clear, this manoeuvre, is achieved partly because the Prince wears a hat (that looks like a black pudding basin) which obviously provides a better platform. What was totally mind boggling was that she then rotated on his head while en arabesque! I found it incredible to believe that anyone has this amount of control and such perfect balance to achieve this. Judging by reviews and comments from London, even the jaded Capital audiences have been won over by this company. I think they have toured the UK before, more conventionally, as the Chinese State Circus. I saw them at the Liverpool Empire a couple of years ago and enjoyed them so much that I went to the Lowry a couple of weeks later to see them again.
  13. I saw the film (Mamma Mia) last week. I've got to say that I never cared for Abba (and having seen a tribute show a couple of years ago I remembered why - all the songs are individually great but put them all together and they are a perfect cure for insomniacs!). Therefore, I have not seen the stage production either. I absolutely adored the film and came out on a real high. OK - the plotline is thinner than a piece of paper but who cares? The cast looked as though they were having a ball making this film and that is reflected in the finished product. It has a huge feel-good factor and I came out on a real high. Did everyone stay till the credits at the end?? If not - you need to go back and see it again! Did the audience participate at the end? While no-one was dancing, the rest of the audience was singing and clapping along at the end! (I've heard that in some cinemas here they are making announcements before the start of the film inviting people to get up and dance at the end!).
  14. I attended a performance of the Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe's Swan Lake at the Lowry this afternoon. I've got to say from the outset that this work is tremendous fun and I came out feeling really uplifted. OK, it's not Swan Lake as we know it and the music is mangled but at the end of the day it really didn't matter at all! The performance starts with a prologue of a Princess being turned into a Swan by a wicked black Eagle (the set for this short section is stunning and would grace any conventional production of Swan Lake). The next scene has shifted to the court of the Prince. The Prince is asleep and dreams of a beautiful Swan Princess. When he wakes up he sets off to find her. This allows for various acrobatic set pieces as he proceeds on his journey around the world. The end of this act roughly equates to the White Act and is where the Prince meets the Swan Princess. The swans are on roller-skates and are surprisingly effective. The cygnets are portrayed in two ways. There are four small men in drag who provide some comedy relief at various points. The dance of the cygnets is performed by frogs and they are worth the entrance money alone! Act 2 starts with the Prince being duped by a black swan, realising he has been tricked and ends with him dashing off to try and find his true love (equating to act 4). What I liked about the two white acts and the "black pdd" is that they start off with small sections of the Petipa/Ivanov choreography before the performers move on to more acrobatic feats. All the performers are absolutely terrific and all apart from the Prince and Swan Princess have a number of roles. I especially liked the sequence with the hat juggling. Some of the "acts" are quite mind-boggling and the audience cheered throughout. Wu Zhengdan was beautiful and tragic as the Swan Princess. She had the most beautiful and elegant arms and hands. I could well imagine that, if her life had taken a different direction, she could have been a ballerina gracing all the world's best stages. Wei Baohua, as the Prince, has the stature of the strong man at the bottom of a tower of acrobats but he was very elegant, again with beautiful hands and arms. I would say again that this performance was tremendous fun - a really good afternoon's entertainment. The rest of the audience obviously agreed with me - as well as cheering throughout we gave a standing ovation at the end. The company seemed well chuffed with the very enthusiastic reception. I would highly recommend this production for its entertainment value and for the obvious joy of the performers as well as their acrobatic talents.
  15. Thanks for the recommendation - we'll be going there!
  16. We're going to Paris in December, just before Christmas and will be using FlyBe (for the first time) from Manchester. It takes about 90 minutes looking at the flight times. Despite the rising fuel costs, the flights were very reasonably priced. Last year we found a really nice hotel about 10 minutes walk from the Garnier (or at least 10 minutes if we didn't divert into the lovely little shops en route!). I'm definitely going to be looking for Nanarina's restaurant as I haven't managed to find anywhere decent near the Garnier - I thought the places we have tried to have vastly over inflated prices and not particularly good food (although I do know somewhere really nice adjacent to the Bastille). Nanarina, I very much enjoyed reading about your trip.
  17. I've just seen BRB performing in Giselle. I must say that the pointe shoes were almost silent throughout. Victoia Marr, especially, looked and sounded as though she was floating while dancing the role of Myrtha. I notice when pointe shoes are nearly silent or are particularly noisy. As pointed out by others, the Russian companies seem very noisy to me. Some stages do not help - for example the stage at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth is, apparently, built over a steel frame and has some VERY noisy spots where the girders are even for the quietest of dancers in whatever shoes the role requires.
  18. I've just had the same problem of only getting the hosting page - but I'll keep on checking! It's good news that their site is being developed!
  19. Sir Peter Wright also made a somewhat different but still very traditional production for Birmingham Royal Ballet (it was his "gift" to the City of Birmingham when the company moved there in 1990). In my opinion the BRB production is absolutely THE ONE TO WATCH!!! I find it much more to my taste than the RB version and sometimes find it hard to believe that they were mounted by the same man. It is available on DVD with Miyako Yoshida and Irek Mukhamedov in the leading roles. I would love a newer film with some of the current BRB dancers - Nao Sakuma and Chi Cao would be my choice. It is advertised on the BRB website (www.brb.org.uk) on the "shopping" tab. For a different take on the Nutcracker you could see if Matthew Bourne's version is available. This is set in a children's home that make's Oliver Twist's look like the Ritz and it is super fun. I've seen lots of different videos from the Kirov and the Bolshoi available in the UK over the years, but have never watched any of them so can't comment.
  20. Desmond Kelly has been a wonderful coach and teacher with BRB, I have seen him taking classes that BRB Friends' have been able to watch, and also rehearsing dancers in many roles. Most recently we saw him rehearsing Jamie Bond and Ambra Vallo in Giselle. I believe he has a very special relationship with the Balanchine Trust and has been responsible for most, if not all aspects of the Balanchine productions that BRB have performed in recent years. He is moving on to be director at Elmhurst School, which moved to Birmingham a few years ago and from which BRB is recruiting some dancers. The first two Elmhurst students taken into the company were James Barton and Nathanael Skelton.
  21. Nao Sakuma has got a big following amongst BRB's fans. She is known for her classical virtuosity and is often paired with Chi Cao (currently filming the leading role of "adult Li" in Mao's Last Dancer") in this respect. She has also matured into a wonderful actress over the years, especially in the tragic roles. She had a fabulous partnership with Robert Parker in the likes of Two Pigeons. This season she has developed a great on-stage partnership with Matthew Lawrence in both Swan Lake and Giselle. In terms of first nights and premieres, she has mostly featured in the classical repertoire but is often in the alternate casts of David Bintley's works. She was wonderful as Roxanne in Cyrano, for example.
  22. I attended the Desmond Kelly gala in Birmingham on Saturday evening (28th June). It was splendid and I make no apology for the over-use of superlatives. The evening took the format of slide shows of Desmond in various roles with which he is associated, followed by a presenter talking about Desmond and then a danced item. All the danced items had significance in his career and was not just a long string of dancers' party pieces. David Bintley started the evening off with a moving tribute to Desmond and led into the first item - the pdd from La Sylphide danced by Roberta Marquez and Ivan Putrov from the Royal Ballet. It was a delightful and rousing start to the evening. Galina Samsova introduced the next item with an anecdote reminding us of the oft quoted story that if you drop your programme and bend down to pick it up you will miss this duet! Yes it was Asaf Messerer's showstopping Spring Waters joyously danced by Ambra Vallo and Dominic Antonucci. There fabulous performance was made all the more remarkable by the fact that Ambra gave a beautifully intense and emotional performance of Giselle at the matinee. Patricia Neary sent a recorded message that introduced Desmond's love of Balanchine. We were then treated to Robert Parker and Elisha Willis in the pdd from Prodigal Son - they were wonderful together. Next we were delighted by Jenna Roberts and Tiit Helimets in the duet from Apollo. What a treat to have Robert and Tiit back on the Birmingham stage, even if only briefly. Marion Tait (and large handkerchief) then had us all moved to near tears with her talk leading into the Fight pdd from Cranko's Taming of the Shrew. This was danced by Leslie Heylmann and Filip Barankiewicz from Dresden and Stuttgart respectively. They magnificently caught the flavour of the relationship between Kate and Petruchio and really told the story. The first half of the evening ended with the Grand pas from Sir Peter Wright's BRB production of the Nutcracker danced with verve and precision by Rachel Rawlins from Australian Ballet and Matthew Lawrence, now with BRB. The first danced item of Act 2 was Robert Parker as Will Mossop in the clog dance from David Bintley's Hobsons Choice. Robert has always had a very special energy and stage presence and this was magnificent. It deservedly raised the loudest cheers in an evening of very loud cheers! This was followed by Nimrod from Ashton's Enigma Variations, beautifully realised by Joseph Cipolla, Silvia Jiminez and Alain Dubreuil. This is such an emotional and moving piece that, needless to say, I wept buckets throughout. As if emotions weren't already overflowing, Lady McMillan and Christina from Ballet Hoo! introduced the Ballet Hoo! company in the mandolin dance. It was tremendous to see these young people participating in this glorious evening and bringing the house down with their energy. This was immediately followed by Miyako Yoshida and Ivan Putrov, beautiful together in the balcony scene. How could the evening possibly get any better?? Well it did with the finale which was a section of Theme and Variations led by Nao Sakuma and Jamie Bond. BRB looked FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!! As they led off in the diagonal the diagonal started again with students from Elmhurst. This finale was a piece of sheer genius - celebrating the end of Desmond's current career and moving on to his new career as Director at Elmhurst. At the curtain calls there were more speeches and Desmond was presented with the RB's Gold Medal for 2008. He was clearly moved as the audience stood and cheered. What a wonderful, exhilerating and heart-warming evening it had been!
  23. David Bintley, Artistic Director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, is being appointed as Artistic Director of the New National Theatre Ballet Company of Tokyo. He is taking up the appointment, which is for three years, in 2010. To reassure all BRB fans, the appointment is part time and is in addition to his current post as AD of BRB. There is a press release on the BRB website: http://www.brb.org.uk/4714.html
  24. I was at a Friends' event in Birmingham on Saturday morning - a mixed class taken by Christine Anthony, which was super. At one point the pianist started playing the duet from Two Pigeons. I reckon if she had continued for another 10 seconds I would have been sobbing uncontrollably! (For anyone who knows the score she stopeed just before the bit where the harp comes in). I mentioned this over lunch and both my friends agreed it was just as well she changed music when she did because it has the same effect on them too!
  25. Just off topic but I should have read the previous posts properly. Iain Webb was dancing with BRB (then SWRB) when I first started going to watch ballet. I especially remember him as a very fine Petrushka.
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