Romanian National Opera Ballet Company in La Fille mal gardee

[Helene]

Thanks to a heads up from this past Sunday's Links, I told a friend who is visiting Bucharest this week that "La Fille mal gardee" was playing during his visit. He went and he gave the Lise, Cristina Dijmaru, a rave review.

[sandik]

I'm so glad to see this work getting a wide life -- it's such a wonderful example of narrative ballet.

[Helene]

It helps that native daughter Cojocaru and Kobborg have adopted the company. (Cojocaru had long donated Gaynor Minden shoes to the company for her sponsorship role.) Kobborg did the staging and performed Widow Simone.

My friend, who is not a ballet junkie but has a great eye, likely didn't know being what trained in the RDB tradition means to a character role like Widow Simone, but his comment was that Kobborg did the comic parts without being over-the-top, and that the clog dance *almost* stole the show, which is how the ballet is supposed to work.

I still think about how my first performance in my PNB subscription was an add-on, the Australian Ballet performing the work, with the very young, but extraordinary talent, Lucinda Dunn. It's such a shame that ABT won't do a West Coast tour on the way to Socal for "Nutcracker" next year, bringing this work.

[sandik]

It's such a shame that ABT won't do a West Coast tour on the way to Socal for "Nutcracker" next year, bringing this work.

Oh, wouldn't that be a treat!