Mashinka

A very good example: she danced Juliet in London and was much admired by the hard-to-please ROH audience. Technically and artistically she is superior to certain dancers habitually given principal roles.

Martins was astonishing in the role, no one has ever danced it better.

I would imagine an arch-conservative, which is what Lopatkina is rumoured to be, would be every bit as bad as Fateev, the one virtue he has is that he doesn’t see the company as a museum and although I believe a number of his repertory choices to be ill-chosen at least he is not preserving the Kirov in aspic. It is the bad dancing of a number of featured performers that should be Fateev’s most pressing concern with the likes of Somova and Skorik relieved of principal roles ASAP.

What a complex character he is, rumours about him were doing the rounds in London ballet circles before he left and it seems those rumours, specifically about being in it for the money, were true. He was of course growing up in the Ukraine at a very difficult time and hardship in the formative years proves a great spur in later life. Nureyev suffered dreadful privations as a child in the war years and finished up a multi millionaire, but Nureyev was performing at a time when there was far more money in the arts than there is today. There seems to be an element of self destructiveness in Polunin's personality and that should be a cause for concern, there is also a significant degree of immaturity and he comes across as a young man with a lot of growing up to do. I was cheered by the reference that he has a good relationship with Kevin O'Hare and hope that he can eventually get back to the RB even if infrequently, as his loss has been a severe blow to the company: it has few glittering gems these days and to lose one of those few was a catastrophe. Slightly off topic, but a dance writer unaware of Zelensky's physical appearance rather worried me, shouldn't someone writing about the art of ballet be familiar with all the art's most famous performers?

I'd like to second what YID has said. Under Fateev the Kirov has lost Sarafanov and Obraztsova and uber talented Smirnova didn't even consider the company a good career move. Casting and the promotion of certain dancers is a bad joke, and yes, he remains merely acting director with even ballet-phobe Gergiev recognizing that Fateev is second rate.

ROH propaganda

He gives a couple of good answers to his own question. That was 6 years ago. Since then, is anything systematic being done to "revive" Ashtonian dancing, or are we still coasting along depending on luck, the coaching of a few dances who worked with Ashton, and some current dancers naturally given to the style? The latter I'm afraid, but with a new director that may change. Bear in mind that Mason was a MacMillan dancer and the rep in recent years has reflected this. I've read Ashton didn't much care for her, if that is true then by mostly ignoring his works she has extracted her revenge.

Nao Sakuma! yes, I couldn't agree more. In my opinion, and I speak as someone who saw the RB when Ashton was around, the torch of Ashtonian style has somehow been handed to BRB probably thanks to David Bintley. Whatever the merits or otherwise of the Birmingham company it is fair to say they are better Ashton performers there than in London.

I enjoyed reading this post by Janet Suzman, though I don't altogether agree with her: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2012/jul/19/shakespeare-women-roles-theatre One of the comments underneath echoes my own view that Beatrice and Portia are strong women with some of Shakespeare's best lines. Perhaps as Shakespeare was writing these parts for pre-pubescent boys it might explain why the complex roles were best left to the men. Suzman has a lot to say about Cleopatra, I once saw Glenda Jackson in the role at the RSC and still remember vividly her power house performance, but with current tastes turning to actresses chosen to look good in HD, I despair of discovering a great actress of the future, at least not in the English speaking world. Can I add that I abhor the term 'female actor'' and male actor is tautology pure and simply. What is wrong with the word actress? You would think an actress of Ms Suzman's standing would have a better relationship with the English language.

The worse Salad Niçoise I ever had was in a cafe in Monte Carlo where tinned sweet corn somehow got into the mix. I thought with Nice just up the road it might be rather good, I suppose I was naïve in that belief.

I second that.

Alexandrova is a Slav with the typical high cheekbones of Eastern Europe, but still fundamentally European unless there is anyone out there still adhering to the strange interpretations of race that the Nazis dreamed up. Raymonda is French in the story, presumably Gallic, but as it is a Russian ballet is it has been predominantly danced by Slavs for generations. Abderakhman is referred to as a Moor, a rather loose term, which generally means either an Arab or Sub-Saharan, but his name is Islamic and so by race probably Semitic. Raymonda's fear of the man is because he represents the enemy her fiancée is fighting in the Crusades and an enemy that sought to subjugate Southern France. Alexandrova's interpretation of the role sounds a little harsh, as I have seen other Raymonda's that have spared Abderakhman a pitying glance as he is carried off to his death. Clearly she has no feelings other than hate for the man who has just engaged her lover in battle.

Well, O'Hare was named as new director over a year ago and as the general programming for next season looks somewhat different from what we have come to expect, the general consensus here in London is that O'Hare has had a hand in it and will hit the ground running so to speak.

Perhaps Mathilde Froustey and Raveau look like a work in progress because they are unfamiliar as partners, certainly Frousty has been dancing the role for five years now and I've seen her as Lise with both Mathias Heymann and Emmanuel Thibault. She compares more than well with dancers at the Royal Ballet in the same role. With Ashton's Cinderella I think it was a case of knowing his audience, it was premiered I believe in 1948 and at that time audiences would have been thoroughly steeped in the traditional English pantomime tradition (probably not the case today) so there would have been no question of creating the ugly sisters as anything other than pantomime dames as the audience wouldn't have accepted anything other than two men in drag. I was taken aback at my first view of the sisters on point - it was a real culture shock! The Russians do go in for the drag concept occasionally though with Nureyev choreographing the wicked stepmother for a man in his Cinderella and Vladimir Vasiliev in the same role in his version of the ballet was a sight to behold, a memory that will stay with me for the rest of my days, let’s just say there is camp and then there is Vasiliev. Living in London, I can just get on the train and be in Paris in a couple of hours, it still exerts its spell on me and it will always be my favourite city, it doesn't matter how many times you visit, there is always something new to discover. Glad you liked the Chagall ceiling, I remember sharing a box once with two Danish girls who were celebrating one of their birthdays by going to a performance just to see that ceiling. The original is behind it though and I've always been curious about that one too. So glad to hear the three of you had such a wonderful time and I bet your first trip to Paris won't be your last.

I expect word has filtered through about just how much the Spaniards love Don Q. and after all it is set in Barcelona so what could be more appropiate?

For next season we get a new director at the RB, Kevin O'Hare, and I suspect he will have a different management style. Let's hope he can build bridges with the prodigal Polunin and perhaps lure Putrov back too, he's certainly needed. To invite Ratmansky to choreograph and now Osipova to dance means Mr O' Hare really has his finger on the pulse of what is happening in the ballet world, after all those years of dreariness within the Royal Ballet could things be about to change?

I'm interested in the opinions of anyone who saw this programme, Leonid? Simon G? The reviews I've read were I thought overly kind, but some lengthier insight by someone with a better grip on what it was all supposed to be about would be appreciated. Only the final work, Diana and Acteon, (least good in my view) was clearly inspired by a Titian painting and perhaps the opening work Machina, could be a nod to Ovid at a stretch - and by the way does anyone know the cost of that robot contraption that bestraddled the stage? I imagine the services of Imperial College's engineering department didn't come cheap. I enjoyed the middle work, Trespass, the best with its quotes from Soviet ballet but couldn't see a Titian or Ovid link at all. Great Britain is in the middle of a severe austerity drive with many people down to one meal a day, unable to afford to heat their homes and forced to go to loan sharks that charge them 1,700 APR, in such a climate of belt tightening how miraculous it is to discover the RB still has access to unlimited funds.

Although I personally have some sympathy for your assessment of Ms Guillem the fact remains that she was a megastar and filled the house whenever she appeared and I can assure you the bunch of nonentities Ms Mason has assembled for our delectation in a succession of scintillating works by her favourite choreographer, Wayne McGregor don't have the same pulling power by a long chalk.

During Mason's tenure as director of the RB hasn't been memorable for her treatment of personnel, the loss of Putrov and Polunin has harmed the company immeasurably and both these losses could have been averted. As for Sylvie Guillem, what logic or lack of it caused Mason to let go the biggest star in the world of ballet? This thread is not about Monica Mason, but thank God she's retiring.

Disaster of the night?!!! How was it a 'disaster', it was very well danced in my view with Ricardo Cevera as good as anyone I've seen leading the male corps in the ballet. I think I may have been the same night as you, certainly I saw the same casts you describe and if anything was a disaster surely it was Birthday Offering with the embarrassing performance from Thiago Soares inexplicably cast in a role with repeated double tours and requiring a few entrechat six, which were completely beyond him. Sadly my memories don't go back as far as Fonteyn in the leading role, but I remember Merle Park and David Wall as the leading couple giving the pas de deux a delicate dreamy atmosphere that seemed to be totally absent at the performance I saw. Never sit in the front stalls at ROH - appalling view, you can't see feet at all.

Modern dance works rarely require a large corps de ballet leaving a lot of dancers feeling redundant. The modern dance choices have been very mixed with works of quality alongside pieces of negligible interest, also purely classical dancers get sidelined in favour of those more at home in the modern rep. Surely Mme Lefevre must be coming up for retirement soon, hopefully a director of more conservative traditional tastes will steer the company back towards its classical roots.

In many ways Acosta has always been 'on loan' and he his recently mentioned that when his performing days end he plans to return permanently. Loved the picture, didn't realize he was a Dad, congratulations to him.

Saracens were for generations the bogeymen and enemies of Europe and Christianity. Apart from the crusades Ottoman expansionism ravaged Eastern Europe (right up to the gates of Vienna), occupied Southern Italy and Iberia, remember El Cid? And the Barbary pirates captured and sold around a million northern Europeans into slavery, if you were looking for villains you looked no further. Raymonda was right to be scared.

In my experience there have always been 'faceless-technicians' knocking around, the difference today is that the ratio of these types to true artists is significantly higher.

During her time in the company she may well have been the finest of their dancers, some within the company actually acknowledged that fact to me - she was seen as a shining beacon of 'old Kirov' style.