Alymer

I've just seen a press release from the Royal New Zealand Ballet stating that Ethan Stiefel is to take over the artistic direction of the company from the start of the 2011 season. It's not a huge company but has nice dancers and an interesting repertory. I wonder in which direction he'll take it.

Yes, she's the younger of Peter Schaufuss's two daughters from his marriage to Janette Mulligan who was a dancer with English National Ballet.

Sheilah O'Reilly was one of the original members of the Sadler' Wells Theatre Ballet, appearing with the company from 1945 to 1955. She created the role of Mrs Dimple in John Cranko's Pineapple Poll and also had a part in the original version of Lady and the Fool. She created the title role in Celia Franca's Khadra and also danced the Betrayed Girl in Rake's Progress, the Bride in La Fete Etrange and Swanhilda in Coppelia.

I think you may be correct. There are photographs captioned Sleeping Beauty, dating from 1950, showing Helpmann in what seems to be a similar jacket. Fonteyn however, is wearing a head dress and there seems to be more decoration on her tutu than in your picture - though it's hard to tell.

I can perhaps give you a few clues. The piece was made in 1972 for Alexandra Radius and Han Ebbelaar who as well as being on-stage partners were also a couple off stage. She wears high heeled shoes - as Van Manen once said she has prepared feet, like the prepared piano. The decor is by Jean Paul Vroom and is some kind of chemical plant. It should fade away at one point, but I can't remember exactly (it's a long time since I saw the piece) and there has always been some technical difficulty in reproducing the original effect. I've always thought that the piece takes its theme from the music; John Cage's The Perilous Night, which was written at a very difficult period in his life. Horst Koegler describes it as a "dramatic ballet for a man and a woman who fight out their precarious relationship with unrelenting provocation and aggression".

When the Hungarian State Opera and Ballet came to London some years ago they brought a version of the Wooden Prince by Lazlo Seregi, along with his version of the Miraculous Mandarin as part of a (very long) Bartok evening. Geoffrey Cauley also made a version for London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet). For some reason this version had a chinoiserie setting. The Seregi version had some really excellent dancing but the scenario is not exactly easily put across in dance.

When she did Theme with Kobborg she danced nicely, but it was all too small in scale for my taste. And I think the role needs grandeur rather than sweetness. But what I found really strange in those performances was to see Alexandra Ansanelli confined to a demi-soloist role.

The National Ballet of Canada has danced Month in the Country, part of the celebrations for Karen Kain's 25th anniversary season. I believe that Maina Gielgud had also secured it for the Danes when she was briefly their director, but when she left the plan was scrapped.

It's a great read, but you might now like to try Coryne Hall's Imperial Dancer - Mathilde Kschessinska and the Romanovs,which is a complete biography of Kschessinska, published in 2005. Hall knows a great deal about Russia in that period and has had access to a number of unpublished diaries, letters and papers. It's perhaps less romantisised than Dancing in Petersburg, but fascinating nonetheless and Kschessinska comes across as a remarkable woman.

Well, it's certainly Bejart supporting Farrell, with Donn watching, hands on hips. And Farrell danced a great number of pieces from the Bejart rep as well as taking the leading female role in his Nijinsky and Golestan ballets.

I think I expressed myself badly. What I meant to say that Wheeldon may not have realised just what is involved when you leave a large organisation for a small one. All of a sudden, all the back-up that you take for granted vanishes and it's up to you to solve the problem, do the job yourself or find the cash (which you probably don't have) to pay someone else to do it. And you have to learn to wait until you can afford to run things in the way you would want them to be in your ideal world. Hence perhaps, his disatisfaction with things at Morphoses. I agree with Sandik that running a small dance company wouldn't necessarily prepare you to run a large organisation like City Ballet or the Royal (negotiating peace in the Middle East might be useful in negotiating Royal Opera house politics though) and I'm not even certain that its necessary to be a choreographer. In fact, if you are primarily a choreographer then running a company, other than one that exists largely to perform your own work, is probably deleterious. I know that MacMillan was delighted to shed his responsibilities as director.

But with an institution like the Royal Ballet or New York City Ballet there are always people around to answer the telephone, deal with queries, print out the begging letters, stuff them in envelopes, make travel reservations, book studios, etc. etc. But if it is a small start-up enterprise, then if it's going to be done you have to do it yourself, no matter what your official title.

Ed, I couldn't be more happy that you are enjoying the Amsterdam Cops!

What struck me when I saw the recent revival for the Royal Ballet was that some quite strange steps and lifts which I remember very distinctly from the original Royal Ballet cast, and a couple of viewings of a (largely original) City Ballet cast, had been smoothed out or effectively eliminated, making it a much more bland, "sweet", affair. I think also that it needs to be cast from dancers with strong and differing personalities.

Just wonderful!

The Amsterdam cops series begins with Outsider in Amsterdam, and they are not a bit dark; rather the reverse. One of them, The Rattle Rat, made me laugh out loud quite immoderately. Some of De Wetring's other books can be quite serious though and he has written a couple about Zen Buddhism.

Helene, I would start with the first of Barbara Nadel's Insector Ikmen series which is Belshazzar's daughter. I think there must now be about ten in the series. Ed: a great many Scandinavian crime writers are now being translated into english. Jo Nesbo is another one I've enjoyed although Sjowell and Wahloo are perennial favourites and I went to immense trouble to aquire the complete set, endlessly haunting second-hand bookshops. But now they've all been re-issued. I guess you've already read Janwillem van de Wetering's Amsterdam cops series.

You could try RD Wingfield who has a series featuring Inspector Jack Frost (I think those are the correct initials). HRF Keating - best known for his Indian dective, Inspector Ghote - also has a series with titles like The Hard Detective, etc. Ian Rankin has produced a new detective hero to succeed Rebus and the first book was very enjoyable. And, should you want to move further abroad, I'm very fond of Barbara Nadel's series set in Turkey and featuring Inspector Ikmen.

I can only add that the best, the most magical and moving, cast I ever saw in 2nd movement Symphony in C (and yes, I did see Farrell on more than one occasion) was Trinidad Sevillano, who in no way could be described as tall.

All I can add is that Christout, who I knew a little, was a great admirer of Lifar and knew him well. So she might have had the information from the man himself.

The Finnish National Ballet actually dates back to the opening of the old opera house in 1879 when a group of dancers was formed to supply ballets in opera productions. They did do occasional evenings of ballet with soloists from ST.Petersburg. The company proper was established in 1921 under George Ge. The company now appears in the new opera house which opened in the 1990s. I, alas, was not there on holiday but on business trips and managed to add a weekend to one of them. I've never been to Finland in the summer, but my husband went to one of the several arts festivals held outside Helsinki and said it was beautiful.

I wouldn't say that The Taming of the Shrew is one of Cranko's best ballets, but it is very entertaining, following the plot of the Shakespeare play pretty closely. It was made for Marcia Haydee and Richard Cragun and so the role of Petruccio demands some real virtuoso dancing. If they aren't too heavy-handed with the comedy, it can be really funny. I haven't seen the Finnish company for years, but they were always of a good standard and I think the fact that they are allowed to perform the Cranko gives you some kind of asssurance. The company is now directed by Kenneth Greve who was a principal with the Royal Danish Ballet. I know nothing about the company in Tallinn except that their director is Tomas Edur, formerly with English National Ballet and like Greve, a very good dancer. Nils Christe was a dancer with Netherlands Dans Theatre in its early days, and he's not a bad choreographer, from the little I've seen. I've never been to Tallinn, though I've heard it is very beautiful. I love Helsinki, and if you are interested in architecture it's like a textbook of 20th century styles, although there are still some buildings left over from Tsarist days - Senate Square and the Lutheran Cathedral, and the old opera house which used to be a garrison theatre for the Russian officers based there. If you get the chance to take a trip into the country round Helsinki do so. It's very beautiful and you certainly should see plenty of snow. Do tell us about your trip, please.

He was a real classical virtuoso - at least as far as virtuosity was seen to be at that time. He was a truly classical dancer, incapable of making a non-classical shape. A colleague and near-contemporary once remarked that when he first started to teach he had problems because he simply couldn't comprehend that a student demonstrating a port de bras or an arabesque wouldn't have perfect line - it came so naturally to him. Mel is correct, in saying that several of those who inherited Ashton's ballets have died and the rights have passed to their heirs. Attempts to set up an Ashton Foundation on the lines of the Balanchine Foundation seem to have stalled. Wendy Ellis, who was Somes third wife, is very much alive though, and it is she we can thank for the deplorable designs used for the last revival of Cinderella.

I think the main reason the Wise Virgins failed to survive in the repertory was that the decors and costumes were lost when the Germany army invaded the Netherlands and the Sadler's Wells company had to escape with only the clothes they were wearing.

I think the hairdresser in question was more usually known in Paris simply as Guillaume. It was certainly one of the most fashionable hair salons in Paris at that time and I believe Chauvire was a regualr client - at least according to someone I knew who was an apprentice there.