Lolly

Leigh, when you said you sometimes help the audience out by explaining a title, you reminded me that when I saw Middle a few weeks ago, I read afterwards in the programme notes that the title refers to a bunch of cherries suspended above the dancers - well, I didn't notice any cherries! I felt embarrassed, I couldn't work out if this was my "fault" for not taking in the whole spectacle of the stage, or the choreographer for not making them prominent, if they were so important to the work. (Of course if they were there, they may not have been visible from my seat!) But then I realised that to me, what does that ballet have to do with cherries, or the middle of anything?! I don't think it's about anything, just light and speed, sound, movement... or cherries?? So to me it just seems like another anti-interpretation device, like although a ballet's title isn't necessarily an indication of its meaning, it does foreground certain aspects of it, leading you to think it is significant. If Middle had anything to do with cherries, I would have the dancers wearing red... It could have been grapes hanging above the stage, or oranges. Does it matter if I have missed the point? If, when there are answers, you come up with different ones? I loved it without the cherries. How did you feel when the NY Times said Green was set in the woods? Did you think they hadn't paid attention to what you were trying to do (by neither reading the notes nor the ballet as you had intended)? Or they had just discovered some new aspect of it you hadn't seen or anticipated? I think I'd be a bit cross that they has missed my point, yet of course an audience can read a piece of art however they want. It seems it is hard to reconcile the need to be illuminating enough to satisfy the curious, without being totally prescriptive to those who want their art to be more open ended, to do their own thinking.

In this month's (UK) Vogue there is a free booklet called "The Feel Good Guide", and a list inside of 100 things that make you feel good - things like having a massage or buying a lipstick. Number 83 on their list is "Repetto ballet shoes" and there is a picture of a pair of pointe shoes signed by Margot Fonteyn! There is also a fashion feature saying floaty chiffon things are "in" and you should wear them with ballet shoes! If you want to see the magazine you could try Borders as here we can get all the European and US Vogues.

Alexandra, I admire your gift of summing up in a few words what I struggled to do with hundreds! Estelle, I'm interested by what you said about musical works - I love classical music and listen to it all day on the radio or CDs, and I love how my heart leaps when I hear something familiar, a piece I love. But I really do know nothing about music, my ballet teacher is constantly frustrated by me not being able to tell her time signatures or count the music! The little I know about composers is from what ballet programmes have in their notes. But I don't think all this diminishes my enjoyment - maybe I just listen on a trivial level so I don't need to know the details of a composer's life, or where that piece of music came in his body of works, that is to say I just delight in the "tune" rather than attempt to understand its motivation. When I watch a ballet I barely think about what the music means, just what the dancing means, even though the dancing is so obviously inextricable from the music. The music is almost incidental to, or in spite of the dance. (In dance without music, like Richard Alston's Soda Lake, the silence itself provides a soundtrack) I don't know where I'm going with this, i'm getting out of my depth! About Perec, it's fascinating that he wrote a novel without using the letter 'e'. It occured to me that my response to reading it would depend on whether I noticed this as I was reading (surely I would? Maybe not) or whether I had to be told about it later. Does his foregrounding of the form distract from the content, or is it in itself the content - the content is merely a vehicle for the form? (I know, I'll have to read the novel!) That brings me back round to what Duato said about interpreting his ballets. By telling your audience what to see are you foregrounding the form thereby distracting them from the content? By picking out little parts to focus on or noting significant moments, does the whole become less meaningful? It might be like seeing a pas de deux at a gala, where it comes out of the blue, no build up or story - it's just pretty and exciting but it doesn't mean anything neccesarily, like the whole ballet does.

Alexandra, I admire your gift of summing up in a few words what I struggled to do with hundreds! Estelle, I'm interested by what you said about musical works - I love classical music and listen to it all day on the radio or CDs, and I love how my heart leaps when I hear something familiar, a piece I love. But I really do know nothing about music, my ballet teacher is constantly frustrated by me not being able to tell her time signatures or count the music! The little I know about composers is from what ballet programmes have in their notes. But I don't think all this diminishes my enjoyment - maybe I just listen on a trivial level so I don't need to know the details of a composer's life, or where that piece of music came in his body of works, that is to say I just delight in the "tune" rather than attempt to understand its motivation. When I watch a ballet I barely think about what the music means, just what the dancing means, even though the dancing is so obviously inextricable from the music. The music is almost incidental to, or in spite of the dance. (In dance without music, like Richard Alston's Soda Lake, the silence itself provides a soundtrack) I don't know where I'm going with this, i'm getting out of my depth! About Perec, it's fascinating that he wrote a novel without using the letter 'e'. It occured to me that my response to reading it would depend on whether I noticed this as I was reading (surely I would? Maybe not) or whether I had to be told about it later. Does his foregrounding of the form distract from the content, or is it in itself the content - the content is merely a vehicle for the form? (I know, I'll have to read the novel!) That brings me back round to what Duato said about interpreting his ballets. By telling your audience what to see are you foregrounding the form thereby distracting them from the content? By picking out little parts to focus on or noting significant moments, does the whole become less meaningful? It might be like seeing a pas de deux at a gala, where it comes out of the blue, no build up or story - it's just pretty and exciting but it doesn't mean anything neccesarily, like the whole ballet does.

This discussion is fascinating! I want to contribute, but please bear with me if my arguments are a little naive or even wrong! I'm not sure what I want to say, or how to say it. I'm sorry I can't refer to Billy the Kid, I haven't seen it. Do we need to know the background to a ballet to enjoy it? Is it necessary to have biographical information on the choreographer, knowledge of the world at the time of the ballet's creation etc? I can't decide. I think I need to know why I want to watch the ballet. When I read a book, I don't need to know any of that background - but I read a book in order to know 'what happens' - that is, to know the story. (That's where I came unstuck at college I think - I never read the book with the idea of being able to talk about it in a seminar, once I started to read it, I just wanted to know how it ended.) That approach is fine for the ballets which are inspired by fairy tales, I don't feel the need to think about the political situation at the time of Swan Lake, for example. It's just a pretty spectacle, I watch the dancers and wish I was a ballerina. There is no reason to think "why?" - it just "is". But with more abstract ballets, there may not be a story to follow. So if there is no story to follow, why watch the ballet? Its form becomes more important than its content. The way it is constructed and danced is highlighted over what actually happens. Without anything to hold onto, we feel the need to investigate further, into the creation of the ballet, the life of the choreographer etc. Being logical beings, we need to make sense of the world - even if what we see is not our world, ie the world of the choreographer, or the world he has chosen to represent in the work. I think I'm losing it here! I saw RB's Duato/Forsythe bill a couple of weeks ago, including Duato's Remanso and Por Vos Muero. In the programme, Duato was interviewed and asked "Have you any advice as to how audiences should understand your work, or any suggestions of motifs, characteristics or qualities that they could look out for in the ballets?" He replied, "I don't think that anyone should try and understand my work. Just as I don't think that one should try to understand visual art works, for example. What one should do is open oneself to their influence and let oneself be moved by them. To try to capture for ourselves what it is that that ballet or that work moves within us. You see, interpretations are always very personal. And that is how it should be." Well, I was absolutely outraged when I read the first sentence of his reply. Why should I waste my time watching his ballet if he wasn't going to tell me what it is about? Why shouldn't I try and make sense of it, and why wasn't he going to give me the facility to do that? Then I tried to think of what it is that made me want to know what his works are about. I think I'm not happy with just making of it what I will, I need to have some definites, some concrete answers, no cliffhangers! I don't want to use my own frame of reference and put it onto someone else's work - I want their frame of reference, so I can see it through their eyes. I want to know WHY and HOW and all of the question words! Okay. But is it less valid if my view of something is not what the choreographer intended? Well, I will venture a yes. Yes because either the choreographer didn't get across the "meaning" adequately, or their intention in making the work didn't match my intention in watching it. Because "feeling" something and being moved by something is all very nice but I want to know what it is that is making me feel it. I already know if I am depressed, or in love, or whatever - I don't need or want to project that onto the ballet. I want to know if the choreographer was feeling that when the ballet was made. I want to see the ballet as it was intended. Right. And what if there are references beyond the direct experiences of the choreographer? I'll use TS Eliot's The Waste Land as an example - Cathy Marston has just choreographed a ballet inspired by it for ENB. When you read the poem, do you have to know every language that is represented in it, every cultural reference, Greek myths, in-jokes (who knows?!) etc? When I first read it, I was quite cross and felt patronised - how dare Eliot write something I didn't understand, then my copy had the audacity to provide notes on the text to provide clues? Why didn't he just say what he MEANT instead of relying on subtle and teasing indications? Well, I like the poem. But I don't understand it. What is interesting (to me!!) here is why I don't understand it - how I know. It could be because I don't know all that stuff Eliot writes about - I haven't just made up my own "truth" for it, I want to know what the "real truth" is. Okay, so does that make my reading less valid than someone who does catch the references - or less enjoyable? Well, no - or yes? I like the poem - for it's language, not for it's form. For me Eliot has highlighted form over content - I don't know what he is trying to say, it kind of bugs me still. I can't decide if Duato had given extensive notes in the programme, would I have enjoyed the ballets more? Maybe he isn't a good example as I didn't really like either ballet! Forsythe was on the same bill, with Middle and Vertiginous Thrill. I went in knowing absolutely nothing about either ballet, or choreographer. I loved them both, particularly Middle. I didn't need to know what happened, although the audience seemed to hold its collective breath for the whole piece, waiting to see what would happen - choreographically, not in the "plot". I don't need to know about Forsythe's life and times to watch it. I'm not sure why - I can't relate the ballet to me in any way I can think of, i just enjoyed it. Maybe being told what the point of a work is, is a bit like when you see a film adaption of a book - you end up disappointed because a character doesn't look the way you had imagined, or talk the way, or walk the way you wanted them to. I don't know if I can make any conclusion from my ramblings, I've thought about what I wanted to say all day and I still don't know! Programme notes are generally the starting place for me in any ballet I see, and I don't know if I should read them before or after I've seen something. Estelle's post about Perec was interesting for me because it made me think, if he had hidden biographical references in his work, who had he put them there for? If writing was cathartic for him, why hadn't he said them outright - he must have meant them to be found? Or not - the details are just what makes us individual and no one else needs to know what makes us this way - your work isn't "you". I think it's nice to have some information because it does answer some of the questions some of the time. Apparently TS Eliot didn't allow any biographies of him, as he believed in poetry as an escape from personality rather than an expression of it. But can one escape from the fact that it has to be an expression as no one else could ever make the same work as we all have different 'everything'. I apologise if this is convoluted nonsense, it's just such an interesting subject!

This discussion is fascinating! I want to contribute, but please bear with me if my arguments are a little naive or even wrong! I'm not sure what I want to say, or how to say it. I'm sorry I can't refer to Billy the Kid, I haven't seen it. Do we need to know the background to a ballet to enjoy it? Is it necessary to have biographical information on the choreographer, knowledge of the world at the time of the ballet's creation etc? I can't decide. I think I need to know why I want to watch the ballet. When I read a book, I don't need to know any of that background - but I read a book in order to know 'what happens' - that is, to know the story. (That's where I came unstuck at college I think - I never read the book with the idea of being able to talk about it in a seminar, once I started to read it, I just wanted to know how it ended.) That approach is fine for the ballets which are inspired by fairy tales, I don't feel the need to think about the political situation at the time of Swan Lake, for example. It's just a pretty spectacle, I watch the dancers and wish I was a ballerina. There is no reason to think "why?" - it just "is". But with more abstract ballets, there may not be a story to follow. So if there is no story to follow, why watch the ballet? Its form becomes more important than its content. The way it is constructed and danced is highlighted over what actually happens. Without anything to hold onto, we feel the need to investigate further, into the creation of the ballet, the life of the choreographer etc. Being logical beings, we need to make sense of the world - even if what we see is not our world, ie the world of the choreographer, or the world he has chosen to represent in the work. I think I'm losing it here! I saw RB's Duato/Forsythe bill a couple of weeks ago, including Duato's Remanso and Por Vos Muero. In the programme, Duato was interviewed and asked "Have you any advice as to how audiences should understand your work, or any suggestions of motifs, characteristics or qualities that they could look out for in the ballets?" He replied, "I don't think that anyone should try and understand my work. Just as I don't think that one should try to understand visual art works, for example. What one should do is open oneself to their influence and let oneself be moved by them. To try to capture for ourselves what it is that that ballet or that work moves within us. You see, interpretations are always very personal. And that is how it should be." Well, I was absolutely outraged when I read the first sentence of his reply. Why should I waste my time watching his ballet if he wasn't going to tell me what it is about? Why shouldn't I try and make sense of it, and why wasn't he going to give me the facility to do that? Then I tried to think of what it is that made me want to know what his works are about. I think I'm not happy with just making of it what I will, I need to have some definites, some concrete answers, no cliffhangers! I don't want to use my own frame of reference and put it onto someone else's work - I want their frame of reference, so I can see it through their eyes. I want to know WHY and HOW and all of the question words! Okay. But is it less valid if my view of something is not what the choreographer intended? Well, I will venture a yes. Yes because either the choreographer didn't get across the "meaning" adequately, or their intention in making the work didn't match my intention in watching it. Because "feeling" something and being moved by something is all very nice but I want to know what it is that is making me feel it. I already know if I am depressed, or in love, or whatever - I don't need or want to project that onto the ballet. I want to know if the choreographer was feeling that when the ballet was made. I want to see the ballet as it was intended. Right. And what if there are references beyond the direct experiences of the choreographer? I'll use TS Eliot's The Waste Land as an example - Cathy Marston has just choreographed a ballet inspired by it for ENB. When you read the poem, do you have to know every language that is represented in it, every cultural reference, Greek myths, in-jokes (who knows?!) etc? When I first read it, I was quite cross and felt patronised - how dare Eliot write something I didn't understand, then my copy had the audacity to provide notes on the text to provide clues? Why didn't he just say what he MEANT instead of relying on subtle and teasing indications? Well, I like the poem. But I don't understand it. What is interesting (to me!!) here is why I don't understand it - how I know. It could be because I don't know all that stuff Eliot writes about - I haven't just made up my own "truth" for it, I want to know what the "real truth" is. Okay, so does that make my reading less valid than someone who does catch the references - or less enjoyable? Well, no - or yes? I like the poem - for it's language, not for it's form. For me Eliot has highlighted form over content - I don't know what he is trying to say, it kind of bugs me still. I can't decide if Duato had given extensive notes in the programme, would I have enjoyed the ballets more? Maybe he isn't a good example as I didn't really like either ballet! Forsythe was on the same bill, with Middle and Vertiginous Thrill. I went in knowing absolutely nothing about either ballet, or choreographer. I loved them both, particularly Middle. I didn't need to know what happened, although the audience seemed to hold its collective breath for the whole piece, waiting to see what would happen - choreographically, not in the "plot". I don't need to know about Forsythe's life and times to watch it. I'm not sure why - I can't relate the ballet to me in any way I can think of, i just enjoyed it. Maybe being told what the point of a work is, is a bit like when you see a film adaption of a book - you end up disappointed because a character doesn't look the way you had imagined, or talk the way, or walk the way you wanted them to. I don't know if I can make any conclusion from my ramblings, I've thought about what I wanted to say all day and I still don't know! Programme notes are generally the starting place for me in any ballet I see, and I don't know if I should read them before or after I've seen something. Estelle's post about Perec was interesting for me because it made me think, if he had hidden biographical references in his work, who had he put them there for? If writing was cathartic for him, why hadn't he said them outright - he must have meant them to be found? Or not - the details are just what makes us individual and no one else needs to know what makes us this way - your work isn't "you". I think it's nice to have some information because it does answer some of the questions some of the time. Apparently TS Eliot didn't allow any biographies of him, as he believed in poetry as an escape from personality rather than an expression of it. But can one escape from the fact that it has to be an expression as no one else could ever make the same work as we all have different 'everything'. I apologise if this is convoluted nonsense, it's just such an interesting subject!

I saw the same cast twice - you can see I was impressed! Nathan Coppen was Onegin, Lensky- Johannes Stepanek, Tatiana- Jaimie Tapper and Olga- Marianela Nunez. I think I reviewed it somewhere around here, I remember raving about Johannes...! He was covering for someone with an injury, he hadn't been cast at all and he was just SUPERB! I loved the whole ballet but he was the superstar of the evening for me. Nathan Coppen played the strong but silent thing well but he isn't one of my favourites. Marianela is alway fantastic of course. The ballet gives off an air of faded glamour and times gone by - a bit like A Month in the Country, it appears as if you see everything behind a metaphorical gauze curtain , or with a certain pale light. RB are bringing Onegin back this summer so if anyone is in London I highly recommend it. As well as seeing Johannes again, I'm looking forward to seeing what Ivan Putrov does with the role.

Sorry, I didn't specify which Monotones RB did! It was II, so I expect that is the one they are touring. I'm dying to know who they have cast in it now, you will have to keep us updated! I must say I didn't know they were touring in March... haven't heard anything this end! I expect Ethan Stiefel would do well in it, he is very similar in build to Tom Whitehead who I saw dance it, not too tall, with broad shoulders. (And blond too! ;) ) The girls who did it at RB are the tall slender ones, who look very serene and a bit "cool". The boys were the ones who now seem to be getting character-ish parts rather than pure classical - peculiar.

I saw Onegin at RB twice earlier this year - after the first time I had to get another ticket to see it again, I loved it! There were some excellent programme notes on the story with an essay by Donald Rayfield from University of London, called "Onegin's Morals", which made the duel clearer for me. I hope it's okay to copy a bit of it here. "In Russia, Peter the Great had ordered duellists to be shot, and the survivors of any duel to be hanged, and duelling remained a crime. But the punishment for the survivors was almost always commuted to a few months' confinement to barracks, and duelling remained for aristocratic males a means of rectifying injustice, establishing ranking order, for some almost a sport. Duelling grew more popular as improved pistols made differences in dexterity, strength and age less important than sheer sang froid. Duels were often formalities: of 322 fought between 1894 and 1912, only 15 had a fatal outcome. But where the insult was mortal and when the duellists' seconds agreed, then the terms of the duel might be such - for instance shooting at five paces apart - that both combatants would be killed.When Lensky challenges Onegin to the duel, Onegin cannot refuse, nor does etiquette allow him merely to fire into the air. "If the duel turns so vicious in Pushkin's novel, it is because the seconds allow it to be so. Onegin does what he can to annul the duel: he turns up late, with his man-servant Guyot, as a second: an unpardonable insult to his opponent and to the other second. (When Casanova fought a duel in Warsaw, he could not consider inviting his servant to act as a second and asked his opponent to provide one for him.) Thus killing one's friend in a duel - what seems today the action of a psychopath - was in 19th-century Russia a very real tragedy. Pushkin found his gruesome story of Lensky, Olga and Eugene was no fantastic invention when in 1837, with a Nabokovian twist or two, it came true and destroyed its author." It answers some questions I had but perhaps raises more problems than it solves! How can you convey Russian history and customs like this, as a dancer? Interesting, anyway.

Monotones was performed just last season by RB, in August. I saw Zenaida Yanowsky, Alastair Marriot and Maurice Vodegel-Matzen (he has left the company now),and Christina Arestis, Joshua Tuifua and Thomas Whitehead. From the cast sheet I see that Chloe Davies and Edward Watson were cast but didn't dance because of injuries, but I'm afraid I can't remember any more castings. I absolutely loved this ballet. Christina and Zenaida were brilliantly cast, I'd also like to see Leire Ortueta and Darcey Bussell in it, not sure about the boys although it was a shame Edward didn't dance as he would be superb. It was performed 5 times. In the Times today (could have been the Independent actually) there was a short article about RB's announcement of next season's rep with Ross Stretton's comments. He seemed to be saying that although next season has a lot of MacMillan and only one Ashton, the year after is Ashton's centenery so his works would be better represented in that season. I wonder what they are planning? There is still A Month in the Country left to go this season though!

I went to a workshop given by NBT on Swan Lake a few years ago, it was very good. ENB has a very good education department too and they have activities when they go on tour, you can see the dancers in class etc. They have opportunities for this when they are "at home" too, you can visit the company's residence. If you join their "Friends" scheme there are more opportunities. I think details are on their website. RB have some catching up to do, although you can see the dancers take class about once a month, it costs £10 but is well worth it I think! Have fun at R&J!

Golly! So we could have had 36 Shades after all!;)

Does this mean the company is getting bigger? We have just got 7 dancers from RBS, and now we are getting 6 dancers from other companies. Maybe because we have so many guest artists at the moment, they don't count towards numbers? I'll have to check old programmes to see how many have been in the company in the past. Just a thought!

I think it's completely right that we do a lot of MacMillan this season, I'm pleased there is so much and can't wait to see the castings! Although it does seem to be at the expense of our other "heritage works", which is a shame, but presumably there will be no MacMillan next season as we have an overdose now, and Ashton etc will get a look in then! Interesting that Nutcracker really is an annual event now... that's all you can see in London over Christmas these days. It is a lovely production though, and of course there are a lot of little soloist roles to show off our fabulous dancers - even if your favourites aren't in the principal roles, you are almost guaranteed to see them at some point of the evening! I like the idea of triple bills in the way that you can see a taste of several choreographers all at once, but I don't like the re-hashing of previous bills to create new ones, slipping just one new ballet in. Though saying that, I'm going to have to see Middle in April again as it was so fantastic! So i've ruined my point there! I think the balance is right for full length works and triple bills. I enjoy the whole "going out" thing about going to the theatre and I can dress up for the full length things wheareas the triple bills seem a lot more informal. But maybe that is Ross Stretton's intention I suppose, he does seem keen to get the "Yoof" into the House. I think it is confusing to have titles for the triple bills, as a lot of the ballets performed in them are new, I can never remember which is the ballet and which is the title. Yes the Images may have been Enduring in the last one, but why not just call it Forsythe/Duato for ease of reference? I'm never certain of what I'm going to be watching as only the tltle is printed on the ticket.

I agree with a lot of your choices. I'm sure it can't be too long before Marianela is promoted, she has had some great opportunities in the past year. I don't know why Ivan hasn't been promoted already, it's ridiculous that he's doing so many principal roles as a soloist (of course he was as corps too)! I'm hoping Giselle will push Ross Stretton into making the move! I loved Ivan dancing with Alina too and was upset to hear about her being paired with Johan K... until I saw them dance together! They are a wonderful team. The company is in very good shape (it was last season too, I can't credit Ross Stretton with that I'm afraid!) and we have a lot of dancers lower down in the ranks who are perfectly capable of dancing good roles. They seem to be getting chances too, which must certainly be keeping up morale. Luckily the company is small enough so that everyone gets a chance to shine. Something that reassured me about our new director is that he is always in the audience, so he really does know the dancers now. One hope I do have is that Zenaida will get to dance more, I've seen her about twice this season, and I practically live in the ROH!;)

Can anyone explain the difference between a philharmonic and a symphonic orchestra? My dictionary said a philharmonic orchestra is a music-loving one, but I think that is a given! Are there other kinds too? Sorry if it is a silly question, but I can't work out if the orchestra is actually different, or if it is just a name. Thank you!

I'm confused now... in The Red Shoes, they say "good luck"!

Thank you both for giving me some ideas for extra reading! Ballet is sometimes just as interesting to read about as to watch! But I do love books with pictures in, it really brings everything to life.

I can see I have a lot more reading to do! I didn't know that ballets were lost because of the war... that's sad. Can anyone point me in the right direction to read more on this? I agree about the idea of ballet being an artistic whole, composed of dancing, painting, plot and decor. Now it seems to have been separated so if you want to see plot you go to watch a play, if you want painting you go to a gallery etc. The Diaghilev ballets are overwhelming as soon as the curtain goes up, before anyone has danced a step. The stage is a riot of colour and the music, WELL! But the changes are good in a way, we are now able to see new ballets from their first stages of ideas and improvising, drafting and rehearsing before the ballet gets anywhere near the stage, because the focus has been taken off ballet as a finished product that must only be seen in a grand opera house. Maybe we now have the best of both worlds as (some of) the earlier works are still in the repertoire and we have new things too?

My aunt gave me this book she found in a second hand book shop, it was published in 1944. Has anyone seen it? It has some lovely pictures in it and is quite detailed in places. What is really interesting to me is how views on ballet have changed now we have got further along in the history of ballet, the differences between what was significant then and what is important to us now. For example, Massine is cited as the best dancer since Nijinsky, whereas now it seems it is Nureyev who is talked about in this way. Also Lilian Baylis is credited for being a "remarkable woman", as opposed to Ninette de Valois. There is a long description by corps dancer Amabel Farjeon, of the 1940 European tour. I have to copy out this very funny part! "We were halfway to England in the hold of a cargo ship. The ballet, combing straws out of its hair, shaking the creases from its clothes, wandered on deck and, in the grey green light, girls dabbed lipstick and powder over their worn and dirty faces. This gave one a sense of coming back to normal, despite its sordid incongruity with the situation. Constant Lambert appeared out of the luggage piles, looking most dramatic with a large bandage round his head; but this was not the result of the heroism one immediately suspected - a burning cigar ash had fallen into his eye while he lay smoking." It also brings up an interesting point with the current discussions about choreography and direction of the company here. The book says in 1939 there was a scheme of development for the company with three points. a) An enlargement of the Sadler's Wells school and formation of a second company. B) Invitation to a new British choreographer every year to produce at least one experimental ballet. c) Invitation for a two-year period of some eminent choreographer to introduce new ideas. "Such a plan is essential to the prosperous development of ballet in this country and it is to be hoped that it will quickly be put into operation as soon as the present war is over." Food for thought, with new directors for both the school and the company now. Anyway, I recommend the book if anyone wants something to read!

I heard they lengthened the intervals after the re-opening of the House because people could walk around more and get further in the intervals, and weren't making it back to their seats in time. I understand people have to catch trains, I am one of them myself as I don't live in London. But I think it is the height of rudeness not to stay to give applause, it only takes a couple of minutes at the most, and must make the dancers feel terrible in their curtain calls when they can see people walking out after they have just danced their hearts out for them for three hours.

I saw Darcey Bussell as Nikiya, Carlos Acosta as Solor and Marianela Nunez as Gamzatti, in Makarova's production. It was fabulous! The Shades scene was mesmerising, the corps looked in great shape and were incredibly uniform in their arabesques. Special mention for Ivan Putrov's Bronze Idol who I was already impressed by and now is top of my "give this man more to do" list. Only problem I saw, the stage looked a little cramped with scenery and people sitting at the back making it feel enclosed, so Carlos and Marianela especially looked slightly contained at times. This isn't usually a problem as the stage is large, but tonight I could see the dancers starting and finishing their solos very close to the wings. But it certainly is a lovely production, with beautifully rich sets and exotic costumes. No expense spared here! However I was apalled by four business men next to me who left as soon as the curtain went down, without giving any applause. I wish I had tripped them up as they squeezed by me. Grr.

There is another thread on this called "Memories" I think, I put my short review there. I liked Leaves, and thought the costumes were lovely. I didn't think it went on too long. The whole thing exuded that late-summer feeling of not wanting the days to end. I would have liked to have seen Memories again, but hearing about the cuts and last minute cast changes, I'm almost glad I didn't - I want to remember both Beyond Bach and Leaves as being idyllic and perfect.

I forgot to say that I'd like to see it again - it's definitely worth a second look. I was in the lower slips, far round enough to miss hardly anything, but I'm sure it's worth seeing from the other side of the House anyway! It's a shame Sylvie seems to have the monopoly on M&A as I would much rather see someone else in it. I wonder why there is no alternative cast?

I saw the same cast last night - it was lovely. Beyond Bach was mesmerising, I thought I could have watched it all evening, I didn't want it to end. The dancers drifted on and off stage in small groups, and the effect was just like a spell had been cast - I can't remember any of the steps or anything which was particularly pretty, but as a whole it was extremely compelling. I think it would have been nice to watch it performed by a company where I don't recognise the dancers - I found it almost distracting to spot my favourites. Darcey Bussell and Marianela Nunez look good together and I hope they are cast together more. The Leaves are Fading was wonderful too, and Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg stole the show (for me!) with their first pas de deux. They look so easy and natural together - they just put out a hand and the other is there to take it without even looking. I can't imagine anyone else doing that pdd, they seem to have made it completely theirs. It's magical watching a partnership which is so convincing, and they both have a look in their eyes showing they are completely connected. It was romantic! Marguerite and Armand was okay... but then I don't care for Sylvie Guillem at all so I'm not the best judge of it! She leaves me cold. But I have never heard the House so wild and appreciative at the end, so there must be something about her! Rest assured Jonathan Cope was his magnificent self, and showed off his beautiful line to perfection. I was pleased to see so many male dancers from lower down the ranks. It seems in our crisis of male principals and first soloists, the corps are getting good roles, which is fantastic!