Australian Ballet Season 2007

[tylerls]

The 2007 season has just been launched:

Austrlian Ballet 2007 Season

- Don Quixote

- New Romantics ("Apollo. After the Rain. New Stephen Baynes work.")

- Bodytorque. Generations

- Paquita

- Destiny ("One Classic, and one world premiere.")

- The Nutcracker

Sounds good to me. Don Q., Paquita and the Nutcracker will be enough to keep me happy. I had reservations about the 2006 season, but it hasn't been bad so far. (I'm yet to see Raymonda.)

[drb]

... New Romantics ("Apollo. After the Rain. New Stephen Baynes work.")...

This is also a program to look forward to: Wheeldon's After the Rain is the best new ballet to hit New York in the past quarter of a century! Glad to see it beginning to move around the world (in a number of Spanish cities this summer, courtesy of Angel Corella). Could you tell us upside down folks something about Stephen Baynes? I know that during the European part of his career he danced a lot of Cranko, MacMillan, Forsythe, Kylian and Neumeier. Does his work resemble that of any of those choreographers?

[tylerls]

Could you tell us upside down folks something about Stephen Baynes? I know that during the European part of his career he danced a lot of Cranko, MacMillan, Forsythe, Kylian and Neumeier. Does his work resemble that of any of those choreographers?

I'm afraid I haven't personally seen any of his work yet. I almost went to see "Southern Lights" in 2004, but my friends pulled out on me. As of this year, I've started going to ballets by myself when necessary (sad, I know) so hopefully that won't be happening again.

I'm sure there'll be others on this board with first-hand experience, but here are a couple of references. It sounds like he's good at what he does:

Australia Dancing profile of Stephen Baynes

New York Times review of "At the Edge of Night" (October 15, 1999) (probably requires registration)

[Leigh Witchel]

Baynes did a work for NYCB in the 2002 Diamond Project called Twilight Courante. It was rather traditional in vocabulary.

[tylerls]

"The Age" mentions a few more tidbits:

- New works by Christopher Wheeldon and Krzysztof Pastor. (I guess Christopher Wheeldon = "After the Rain".)

- Leonide Massine's "Les Presages"

See:

The Age: Australian Ballet's year of dancing too safely

[tylerls]

Today's Herald Sun (6 September 2006, page 59) adds the following information:

"Destiny" will consist of Leonide Massine's "Les Presages", plus "the revamp of Massine's 1936 work 'Symphonie Fantastique', by Polish choreographer Krzysztof Pastor" (which will be a world premiere).

"Don Quixote" will be based on Nureyev's staging (as seen in the 1973 recording)

The Nutcracker will be British choreographer Sir Peter Wright's version. The production will be rebuilt, based on the Birmingham Royal Ballet version.

Stephen Baynes is the chap who is creating "Raymonda" for the 2006 season.

2007 will be Stephen Heathcote's 25th year with the company.

(Sorry, I haven't found an online copy of the Herald Sun article.)

The Australian Ballet's email newsletter promised that our nice glossy subscription brochures would be waiting for us in our mailboxes today. So naturally, the rain has been bucketing down. Typical!

[tylerls]

More from the Herald-Sun:

Paquita

Includes La Favorita, Spring Waters, Diane and Acteon, pas de deux from Swan Lake, Le Corsaire and a new work.

Choreography: Petipa, Agrippina Vaganova, Anne Woolliams, Petal Miller Ashmole, Asaf Messerer, Paul Knobloch

[Sophoife]

Will actually be interested to see Don Q as the last live performance of it I saw was the Royal Ballet's which is the Baryshnikov version.

Haven't seen the Nureyev one live for close on 30 years. Lucette Aldous shines in my memory more brightly than Sylvie Guillem, perhaps because I was much much younger? Whatever, Irek Mukhamedov was simply sensational Would've loved to see him again.

Last Paquita seen was for the 25th anniversary gala - IIRC it was Liz Toohey and David McAllister. ETC: That was La Favorita. David's really pleased it's being done again, as it was choreographed for himself and Liz.

Really like Stephen Baynes' work so looking forward to that!

Went to a briefing last Saturday afternoon between the matinée and evening shows. David talked about the ballets and Nicolette Fraillon about the music - in between conducting two performances. David's excited (what a surprise) and so's she. They talked a lot about Nureyev, Balanchine, the Ballets Russes, and Massine. The Destiny programme is Massine's Les Présages and not his Symphonie Fantastique but a new one. Same music. Sounds interesting. They haven't done a Traditional Nutcracker for years so are promising a gob-smacking production.