Mashinka

Britain is a basically philistine country, all arts organizations are desperate for sponsors, no questions asked, and they are often foreign. They cough up the cash because it's an ego trip to see their names on things, e.g. Vilar. The names change when the money runs out. Donors names never register with me at all.

I am going tomorrow. To be honest I've never heard about this bloke. They never sell stuff with a "dodgy Russian oligarch" disclaimer here.

Good. With just one male lead principal and one principal, he is desperately needed.

I find that view highly contentious. For many years I've witnessed what I can only describe as an artistic decline in Russian companies. There are leading dancers in Russia that I personally find repellent. I am not likely to miss the vast majority of them, there are of course a small number of exceptions.

Too shocked to comment.

Famous too for her Lilac Fairy in SB, I have many fond memories of her, she danced with the company when it was at its zenith. May she rest in peace.

Many thanks for that review, as you said, lengthy, so I'll read it this evening. I've emailed it to a group of fellow opera goers. I'm having a good year for opera rarities, Ethel Smyth's The Wreckers (now why is that ignored), Ponchielli's La Gioconda, Poulenc's La Voix humaine and Les Mamelles de Tiresias (next week, train strike permitting). And on my travels, Boito's Mephistopheles with Erwin Schrott in the title role in Budapest and Rameau's Platee with Laurence Brownlee in the title role in Paris. Some of those have really well known arias, but frustratingly they are not performed, or just in concert performances here, though I once saw Mephistophes at ENO sung in English. Has anyone seem a staged performance Puccini's Edgar? Or any opera by Paer? Should add the Villi's dancing was rather good. What accompanied Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours though was atrocious.

Why this early Puccini opera is hardly ever performed I don't know as it is very good indeed. The story is virtually that of Giselle with a village couple, apparently devoted, postponing their wedding when Roberto goes to the city to claim his inheritance. Anna dies of grief waiting for him. When Roberto eventually returns after squandering his money the Villis seize him and dance him to death. Anna, unlike Giselle, isn't forgiving. Currently being performed in London by Holland Park Opera on a double bill with another curiosity, Margot La Rouge by Delius. I went with a couple of ballet fans and we all loved it. Still a couple of performances left for any Londoners who want a chance to see this rarity.

Well, he won't be conducting ballet that's for sure. They kicked out the ballet when they kicked out the shah.

So we know who to boycott in future.

Earlier this week I caught the second cast and they were every bit as good as the first cast. The limited enjoyment I derived from the ballet on the first viewing I now realize is solely down to the dancers who seem to enrich the ballet with a vitality that the story line and choreography lack. Both casts are to be commended for their commitment. I'm told the third cast was equally good, but frankly twice is enough for me and should the ballet be revived I won't bother to book again. To be fair some did like it, so it may have a shelf life, but it's definitely not for me. I'll be interested to hear the thoughts of others when it gets to ABT.

The BBC has reported on a massive exodus of young people leaving Russia in the first couple of weeks of the war, though this is the continuation of a trend first noted some time ago. Initially the authorities were happy to see them go as they were considered 'free thinkers', people the present regime prefers to do without. Perhaps there has been a clamp down.

There's every reason to hope some tweaking takes place before it gets to ABT. Agree about Winter's Tale, hard enough to stage as a play, doubly difficult as a ballet.

We have a new full length Christopher Wheeldon ballet at Covent Garden based on the novel Like Water for Chocolate. Watching this ballet I was reminded of Balanchine's famous pronouncement on mothers in law as this ballet appears to have more in laws than you can shake a stick at. LWFC has a lot of named roles and even those that read the book in advance weren't helped that much as I'm told Wheeldon has changed the story in places. Frankly I found it confusing. The story is basically about a matriarch controlling her daughters' love lives. MacMillan took the same theme and told a very similar story far more succinctly. I didn't wholly dislike LWFC, as there was a lot to enjoy and it has a terrific cast. If any dancer deserves a ballet created on her it has to be Francesca Hayward in the leading role of Tita, but although she gave her all on stage, the ballet failed to engage me entirely, perhaps due to the episodic elements of the story and the odd preoccupation with food. Three sisters and an overbearing mother with a past (the wonderful Laura Morera) are the central characters along with a cook who is actually a ghost plus lovers and admirers of the sisters, principally Marcellino Sambe as the long suffering Pedro, married to one sister but in love with another. Highlights of the ballet for me were the romantic pas de deux of Tita with her American doctor (Matthew Ball) and the explosive entrance of a young revolutionary danced by Cesar Coralles that damn near steals the show though his sexual congress with one of the sisters while on horseback was the nadir of the evening. Wonderful sets and a score with Mexican undertones did bring a sense of place to the work, maybe I'll like it better on a second viewing. I'd sum it up as not quite my thing but worth going to see. It will be interesting to see what the second cast makes of it.

I have never seen the Bolshoi dance Etudes, in fact I didn't know it was in there rep, which illustrates I suppose how much my interest in them has waned. Kovalyova apart, how do they do in it? The Maryinsky once danced it in London and it was excruciatingly bad, only their appalling performance in Les Noces was worse. Does the Bolshoi corps still have speed (and accuracy)?

This is the link I referred to https://www.kino-teatr.ru/lifestyle/news/y2021/3-27/24138/

Thanks for that link Volcanohunter. In the present climate I suppose this following comment was inevitable "I understand Nikolai and his pain, anger at our modern and shameful ballet... Unfortunately, politics is not enough here.... The West and Europe do not need the luxurious and best Russian ballet in the world, as it was in the USSR - they need debauchery and vulgarity. They enjoy when they trample on Russia in all its guises and trample on, corrupt our talented, brilliant peoples for decades ...." That's telling us!!!

I have huge admiration for his choreography, this is indeed well deserved.

Skorik is symptomatic of the trend to produce a certain type of dancer to the exclusion of others. Ballet in general is in a serious decline and won't recover until artistry is rated higher than technique and appearance. If Skorik has managed to loose her habitually sullen expression, I might give her another go, but like others I believe what is happening in Russia makes it highly unlikely any of us will see a Russian company for a very long time, and in my case perhaps never.

Neither dancer is up to international standards, I'm not alone in regretting that there was no move made to acquire Tissi or Motta Suarez when they left the Bolshoi.

History repeating itself?

The irony of it! Spartacus! A slaves struggle for freedom against oppression while the Ruzzians round up Ukrainian civilians and deport them to remote regions for who knows what purpose.

I still feel overwhelming sadness when I think of Thibault's treatment. His first full length role was as Basilio and half the London regulars had got on the Eurostar for the mattinee with Clement Crisp and John Percival sitting together in the front row of the stalls. Extraordinary ovation at the end with the audience chanting Manu!, Manu! His popularity was as great as his neglect by the Opera. One of the greatest dancers I've ever had the privilege to watch.

It is pretty dismal, though the casts may be interesting. I note a celebration of 60 years of The Friends, but remain amazed that there appears to be nothing to mark the Queen's jubilee in at what is after all the ROYAL Opera House.

World famous?