Mashinka

Very sad to hear this news.I saw her many, many times and she was a very rare jewel of British ballet.  So happy she chose to dedicate her career to Britain.  She was superb in all she did but her Giselle was among the finest.  May she rest in peace.

I was recently reading about Fanny.  She had a supportive husband who encouraged her composing.  Her famous brother however was at times another matter

I personally, at the risk of being labelled a prude, strongly disapprove of sexual activity raking place either during working hours or on work premises.  What people choose to do outside the office and in their own time is no one else's business, above all not the employer's.

13 hours ago, Drew said:

I myself don't find it plausible that the Royal Ballet got rid of someone they had anointed (a little prematurely) as a superstar choreographer merely on an "anonymous tip."

The ROH has dispensed with the services of Domingo and Grigolo.  Frankly I believe anything of them. 

If a UK employer meddled in employees private lives they'd find themselves in front of an employment tribunal.

It absolutely is none of their business.

So sorry, yes it was Portrait of a Lady on Fire, a reference to a skirt catching fire from a beach bonfire.

I believe it was Walter Crane who had a notoriously prudish wife.

Pretty certain "one sugar plum too many" was first coined by an earlier UK critic.  He used the term to describe the corps of Festival Ballet after a sluggish Boxing Day performance.

The French film 'Lady on Fire' refers to this problem of women denied access to life classes with naked men.  Towards the end of the film the female artist exhibits a painting with both male and female figures, but she claims the painting was by her father.

Sometimes prudishness worked the other way with Victorian wives forbidding painter husbands to use a female model.

This thread has been of great interest.  We had seating restrictions in the summer, but that's all over now.  No masks, no tests, no proof of vaccination required at ROH, though they do provide hand sanitizer.  Some of us do wear masks.  By us I mean the older audience members only.

Meanwhile infections and hospitalizations are on the rise.  Morocco has today banned all flights from the UK.  I expect other countries to follow suit.

Oddly enough I've just finished reading a book on woman composers called Sounds and Sweet Airs by Anna Beer.  Most names in the book were familiar to me though their stories were not.  I particularly admire Barbara Strozzi and Marianna Martines.  Lots of Strozzi's works on discs, but sadly little of Martines.

The Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis has died at the age of ninety six.  An iconic figure in his native Greece he fought with the partisans in WWII and was imprisoned in the 1960's for his opposition to the military junta.

Perhaps he is most famous for his score for the film Zorba the Greek.  The scene in which the two leading actors dance the sirtaki on the beach is for me one of the most memorable dance sequences on film, encapsulating the life affirming and healing qualities of dance.

May he rest in peace.

Should add very difficult to fly to Russia at the moment due to the ban on flying across Belarus.  All countries have different entry rules right now.  The current stress of travelling makes you wonder if it's worth the bother.

With Covid raging out of control in Russia mainly due to low vaccine take up., she's right to stay put.  Also if she went almost anywhere abroad right now she faces ten days of quarantine on return.  He should show more understanding.

Is it being broadcast in the US?

Saw the opening programme on Tuesday.  A dismal affair, I would have thought a more upbeat selection of works would have been more appropriate.

I notice it was Holten, not Hubbe who delivered the killer blow.  The former opera supremo in London who would have been aware of Scarlett's RB troubles.  As someone else has pointed out, Danes as a rule are not subject to sexual hysteria and didn't Mr Hubbe himself  experience problems with young dancers?  Not sexual I hasten to add.

It would be a double tragedy were Scarlett's ballets to die with him.  I very much hope there is a chance of a couple of the best ones such as Asphodel Meadows and Symphonic Dances finding an appreciative audience elsewhere.  His Hansel and Gretel was superb in my view though very much tailored to the acting skills of the original RB dancers.

As someone who's been watching ballet for over 60 years I miss waists.  Compare the figures of Fonteyn and Shearer to the dancers of today and you'll see what I mean.  I wonder if they wore corsets off stage?  I seem to remember nearly all British women doing so up until the 1960's.

I'm afraid I find most female ballet bodies of today ugly in the extreme.  If, as Volcanohunter points out, they had stamina and musicality I'm sure I could tolerate them, but far too many haven't.

I doubt there is a dancer anywhere in the world to compare with Lynn Seymour.  She had a body that would mean rejection today, but such artistry comes once in a generation.  The thought that there may be gifted dancers out there discarded because they don't conform to the current fad for emaciation troubles me greatly.   

On 10/15/2020 at 9:10 PM, volcanohunter said:

Please note that the Bolshoi did not renounce its collaboration with Placido Domingo.

Domingo is currently fully employed in Europe, his most recent performance was in Florence.

Nudity is viewed differently by different societies.  I think English speaking people are less happy about it than some others.  Continental Europe has a very different view.   Like the time I was delighted to discover I had a huge top floor terrace in a hotel in Greece, less than thrilled to discover a naked man stretched out next door.  In Britain that is indecent exposure and a criminal offence.  We didn't stay long in a room where we were forced to keep both doors and curtains closed.

I have occasionally seen nudity in dance, but usually fail to appreciate the choreographers point.  I'm strictly in the same camp as Robert Helpmann when it comes to dance nudity.

Some information about Montes here:

http://www.roh.org.uk/people/erico-montes 

I believe he teaches and choreographs outside the company, perhaps he sees that as his future.

Andrew Lloyd Webber has volunteered to test the vaccine being developed at Oxford University.  Picture of him being injected on Facebook yesterday.  As the owner of seven London theatres be must be feeling desperate,  There is also a vaccine being developed at Imperial College in London.  The hope is that one or the other will be ready next spring.

One of my favourite cold war ballet books is The Bolshoi Ballet by Yuri Slonimsky (1960).  In the chapter Our Point of View he states the following.

"the absence of heroes in capitalist society  has become an almost insurmountable obstacle on the path of choreographic development.  Many French, British and American ballets of today simply do without a hero,  The characters of such ballets are deprived of moral ideals since the authors cannot find any in the morals of the ruling classes."

That's telling us!

What is this lady's actual link to the ballet world?  A google search brought up nothing.

16 hours ago, Buddy said:

My daughter who follows all this very closely is convinced that the use of face masks is the key to getting on top of it.

I think she's right.  As an asthmatic I once had to seek emergency treatment in Spain after catching a mere cold, as a consequence I'm obsessive about hand washing but it's never prevented me from catching things.  If someone coughs or sneezes close to you, particularly if they don't put a hand in front their face, you will catch all manner of things.  Masks are definitely the way to go.

15 hours ago, balletforme said:

It seems to me that the media (and related group think) are doing what they do during epidemics-- make a "news story" out of people who are infected.  This further stigmatizes the illness.

Moe than forty thousand people in Britain have died of the virus, what do you expect the media to do?  Brush the story under the carpet?  There is no stigma attached to illness.  In the beginning it was bad luck if you caught it, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Now it can be avoided by social distancing and wearing PPE - to catch it now is an own goal.

Frankly right now I'm more concerned about the consequences of the national debt and mass unemployment than when or even if I can watch ballet again.