Mashinka

I agree. The Bolshoi danced his Pique Dame in London earlier this year and most of the UK critics trashed it even though it went down well with audiences. Clement Crisp appears to be a fan of his though and his works are much admired by those British fans that go across to Paris to see POB on a regular basis. I recommend the DVD of Clavigo, perhaps the most flamboyantly theatrical of all his ballets.

It's probably very un-p.c. to mention this, but at Sadlers Wells I'm told they have an 'inclusivity' policy that allows people with severe mental problems into performances. All highly laudable, but the reality is that performances suffer from frequent disturbances from the audience. There were a number of shouts and cries during a BRB performance there on Tuesday night and on another occasion I heard someone howl like an animal throughout the entire show. I feel it is time to question the wisdom of this.

In today's Guardian there is a wonderful interview with Deborah Voight who discusses her former weight problem candidly. These links don't usually contain pictures, but this one does and Ms V's transformation is simply jaw-dropping. http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1880920,00.html I'm one of those opera goers that rates the voice above all else and I'm not overly worried about a singers girth, though of course there are serious health risks connected with obesity. Ms Voight is clearly delighted with her new figure and explains how her sacking from Covent Garden gave her the gap in her schedule to fit in the surgery she had been considering. BTW, as a UK tax payer I'm more than happy to have paid a small contribution to her medical bill.

For anyone wanting to see Kolesnikova's dancing there is now a DVD available of her in Swan Lake. I haven't seen it myself yet so can't comment on technical quality. Here's a link to Dancebooks who are selling it online. http://www.dancebooks.co.uk/titles/4788.asp Having seen her dance this role in the UK I can vouch that she is very good in it as befits a pupil of the great Alla Osipenko. The company performs a very conventional version of the ballet that looks similar to the Kirov production and the standard of the company as a whole is pretty high, so worth getting a copy.

I find it rather alarming that the Bolshoi has to bring in male dancers from outside. In the past the company was always renowned for its male dancers. What's happened? In my opinion neither Merkuriev nor Shpilevsky are outstanding dancers, though Merkuriev is the better of the two. Obviously the company can produce future female stars - just look at Osipova and Krysanova, so why aren't they producing top male dancers any more?

Valery Panov did a version of The Idiot some years ago with himself and Rudolf Nureyev in the leading roles.

That’s absolutely right. F of B was danced by the Kirov at the Coliseum a few years back with Guillem and Asylmuratova alternating in the role of Zarema. Interestingly Guillem seems to have specifically asked to dance the role and was resplendent in a fantastic red robe specially designed for her. Perhaps Asylmuratova was cast as Zarema because of her ethnic background but I thought her wasted in the role, as surely she would have been better suited by temperament to the role of Maria. As far as I know, no western company has staged this ballet, but it went down well in London.

The Bolshoi has or had: Svetlana and Yulia Lunkina. Irina Semirechenskaya and Ivan Semirechensky. Egor and Roman Simachev and their elder half-brother, Alexander Vetrov (no longer with the company). Dmitri and Vitaly Mikhailov - who are identical twins. and two favourites from the recent past: Gediminas and Vitautus Taranda.

To mention Juan Diego Florez and Russell Watson in the same breath is ludicrous. The former is the most exciting young tenor on the international scene today whereas Watson has never to my knowledge even appeared in an opera.

It's her recording of Ariadne auf Naxos that does it for me.

The pieta at the end of Spartacus and mad Ivan suspended from the bell ropes at the end of Ivan the terrible, both ballets by Grigorovich.

Clearly Natalia never saw MacMillan's "Isadora".

From someone describing the plot of Giselle I once overheard "she comes back in the second act reincarnated as a swan"

Not a chance! De Valois was too busy creating the English style along with Ashton and besides her beloved Fonteyn never looked her best dancing Balanchine. Don't forget even the very English Tudor was a choreographer too many in those days.

Surely the ‘Ecole Classique’ from the 19th century still exists in Denmark? Bournonville’s Le Conservatoire” has at its heart the recreation of a ballet class that shows us exactly what that 19th century dance vocabulary looked like. And why is the Vaganova School so highly regarded? It certainly doesn’t cut that much ice in either Copenhagen or Paris, where classicism in its purest form still manages (against the odds in Paris these days I’d say) to survive. As for Daughter of the Pharaoh, I have to admit to some disappointment that the Paris Opera Ballet hasn’t yet performed it. Petite batterie has been virtually lost in Russia (and elsewhere, as is acknowledged in another Ballet Talk thread, ‘Are certain ballet steps an endangered species?’) and I don’t agree at all that Vaganova training enabled the Bolshoi to tackle Lacotte’s choreography, which was his own remember, not the original. I was in Moscow for the premiere of that work and the dancers I spoke to were highly indignant at having to perform such difficult steps that they weren’t used to; there was actually a move to have the ballet dropped from the repertoire completely. Fortunately this threat was averted due to the instant popularity of the work with Muscovites and today the Bolshoi dances this ballet rather well. Although this thread is about dancers lacking in technique, I would like to refer to two that don’t lack technique at all: Messrs Lund and Thibault in Copenhagen and Paris respectively. If you want to see what the ‘Ecole Classique’ looks like, you need look no further.

Purcell’s King Arthur doesn’t get performed very often, possibly because chunks of the action are given over to Dryden’s prose as originally this very early work was more of a masque than an opera. Mark Morris knows just how to tackle the problem: he red pencils Dryden’s contribution and turns Purcell’s opera into a ballet. What was the opera about? Don’t ask me – I haven’t a clue. It is definitely not anything to do with the familiar Arthurian legends. The sung arias are pretty much on the standard baroque themes: joys of love, the changing seasons, transience of youth and so on. Only a very patriotic finale gives us a clue as to the opera/ballets setting when the singers extol the virtues of England. No cast is given, just a list of singers and dancers. Identification of characters is almost impossible though Winter, (who lives in a refrigerator) and Cupid were easily identifiable; I never managed to work out who Arthur or Merlin were though. Incidentally the music that accompanied Winter was startlingly similar in form to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, could it have inspired Vivaldi later on? This was a bargain basement production without any sets to speak of, with minimal props and a strange ragbag assortment of costumes. It opens unpromisingly with the singers making their entrance to sit in a semi circle on folding chairs to sing about a recent victory, although they look more like a group of dropouts assembling for an AA meeting. Once the dancing starts it all gets more interesting, the choreography is in part movement rather than dance to allow the singers to participate too, but as the work progresses the dance element becomes more dominant. The second half was stronger than the first and the dancing takes on a more English flavour with Morris dancing (how Morris must love that very English genre that bears his name!) and a maypole dance. We also get a pair of classical dancers interacting with the lovelorn singers and treating us to a balletic joke with the female carried off stage by the male exactly as Albrecht carries Giselle to her grave: Mr Morris’s sense of irony is as strong as ever. Morris has banished the chorus to the orchestra pit presumably to provide more space for his dancers, but this I felt resulted in a slightly muted sound. The singing has to take second place in this production though and is very much subservient to the dancing. For me the result was an enjoyable enough evening of dance a la Mark Morris, but at the expense of a rarely performed opera from a major British composer. Reviews have been mixed with dance critics coming away happier than opera critics, but the Coliseum was barely half full on the night I went and I have a suspicion that London’s opera fans don’t like their opera “mucked around with”. Good fun for modern dance fans though.

Sorry to hear Sarah Lamb had problems with the Rose Adagio, she certainly didn't have any in London last month. Perhaps Cojocaru impresses those least familiar with her dancing; I've been watching her as Aurora for some time now and although she makes a pretty little princess, I've yet to see any real development in the role.

Inconsistency was Nureyev's failing. He certainly had the technique, but couldn't/didn't always display it, which is why you still get so many people considering him over-rated as a technician. On top form he could compete with anyone.

The problem with Covent Garden is that most seats have a restricted view of some sort and as I was sitting over on the left, I couldn't see that part of the stage. According to the reviews there was a huge ominous wing above the Castel, but no mention of St Michael. As all the action seemed to take place stage centre I hadn't until I read the review realized I'd missed something, but set details do sometimes go unnoticed if you are sitting in the wrong place.

Tosca is dressed unpretentiously for her Act I entrance in this version, so not much change from Zeffirelli’s production. Difficult to know which is the right approach to the Tosca role; should she be depicted as a grand lady? Well, she is repeatedly referred to as a great diva, but her arias describing the fairly simple domestic and romantic pleasures she looks forward to with her lover seem to indicate a quite modest soul. In Act II her costume is sumptuous more because she was scheduled to sing that night and I failed to mention the massive cross of diamonds she wore that added to the extravagant effect. She looked dazzling. Can I add that I think the Callas mystique is finally fading as fewer and fewer operagoers remember her live performances. Certainly there is some disappointment among those listening to her CD’s for the first time, as Callas was perhaps a great stage performer rather than a beautiful voice.

Last night saw a sacred cow slaughtered at Covent Garden when the famous Zeffirelli production of Puccini’s Tosca was superseded after over forty years. I don’t think any production ever lasted so long in a company notorious for new productions with every opera revival staged. Of course many people refer to it as the “Callas production”, so synonymous it has become with her performance, rather than Zeffirelli’s production and it had attained almost legendary status amongst the Royal Opera fans that have seen generations of singers in the leading roles. At least on this occasion the ROH has stuck with a traditional rendering and not moved the action to another historical period (difficult with the references to Napoleon). Of the three acts the second was the best design-wise, with a set that managed to look intimate and threatening at the same time and where Tosca made her entrance wearing a ravishing white gown with a huge train. The church of the first act with grilles on two levels looked wrong with too many vertical lines everywhere and in the final act, the roof of Castel St Angelo resembled an urban car park with bollards in front As Cavaradossi Marcelo Álvarez gave a sound, conventional performance, but in spite of a couple of famous arias for him it is the tension between Tosca and Scarpia that is the heart of the opera. In the familiar Zeffirelli production Baron Scarpia was a haughty aristocrat, autocratic and debauched playing devious mind games, but in this version Scarpia is an unkempt brooding villain enjoying the prospect of inflicting pain in all its forms. Bryn Terfel was on cracking form in the role, a big man; he towered over the fragile Tosca emphasising her vulnerability, filling the audience with disgust as he pawed his victim; and that voice of his just gets better and better. The opera belongs to Tosca herself of course and Angela Gheorghiu looked stunning as the eponymous heroine, she sang like a dream in my opinion, but, a big but this, is that lovely voice of hers right for this kind of role? There were interval mutterings that the voice wasn’t quite ‘big enough’ for the role. Personally I don’t feel it matters a lot, but it must have mattered to others as there were isolated boos aimed at her at the end coming from the back of the amphitheatre, though perhaps these were from a couple of old-timers taking umbrage at Ms Georgiou’s criticisms of Callas in a recent interview. Apart from that it was a huge success with even the designer getting applauded (not always the case in the UK) but the warmest applause went to the massively popular Terfel whose travelling fan club was out in force, with a huge Welsh contingent including a lady with a large tattoo of a dragon on her upper arm: that’s taking patriotism a little too far in my book. For those interested in Ms Georgiou’s controversial comments; heres the BBC link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5048492.stm

Not only is Homage to the Queen not going to DC, I'm told it isn't featuring in the RB rep next year at all. A great pity as I was visualizing other casts in the roles too. Opinion is mixed about it here in London but I share Natalia's views and think it might even be good enough to interest other companies. I would say Steven MacRae is set to be a big star; he has a better proportioned physique than Sarafanov by the way, though he might be shorter.

I seem to remember a recent interview with Ratmansky in which he stated that he liked a third of the company, tolerated another third and would like to sack the rest. Not surprising that some of the troops are feeling mutinous. If moral is shaky, it doesn’t show and I agree with Chiapuris that the company is in terrific form at the moment so Ratmansky must be doing something right.

Forsythe’s style would appear to be ideal for Somova, but correct me if I’m wrong; I don’t think she has appeared in any of his works yet and instead has been cast predominantly in the classics. Balanchine will give her problems as her basic technique looks suspect to me and she doesn’t have the precision needed for most Balanchine works. Somova isn’t the only dancer to specialize in frightening extensions at the Kirov as they are becoming a dominant feature of the new style that is emerging in St Petersburg, where all penchee arabesques are required to be at least 180 degrees regardless of context. Ms Somova goes well beyond 180 and pushes to the limits most peoples ideas of stylistic acceptability. Not mentioned quite as often is the way she holds her head while dancing, which looks rather odd. She still looks an unfinished article to me, so why is she constantly cast in leading roles? Although there are few things in dance so disheartening as teachers that simply try to create clones of themselves; how a beautiful dancer like Chenchikova could produce a Somova is beyond my comprehension.

No, this film comes nowhere near the truth, it is poor filmmaking and in part downright scurrilous. It was first shown as a two part documentary on the South Bank Show on UK television last year and follows in the shameful British tradition of re-evaluating the lives of dead celebrities – make up what you like about them, they’re dead and can’t sue. Major achievements are brushed aside as irrelevant while any hint of scandal is magnified and blown out of proportion. The South Bank Show purports to be an arts programme but Fonteyn’s career is glossed over in favour of unsavoury speculation supported by people with grudges. Fonteyn’s talent created jealousies that still fester with lesser artists: ever heard Nadia Nerina sounding off about her former colleague? Margot Fonteyn never behaved like “some kind of royalty” but she always behaved with dignity and displayed true nobility in her loyalty to her crippled husband. She belonged to an age when duty and decorum were regarded as virtues, not as character flaws. Buy it for the dancing clips, but take almost everything that is said with a very large pinch of salt.