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The POB Under New Management


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http://http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/arts/dance/review-the-paris-opera-ballet-under-new-management.html

Macaulay's latest review would seem to confirm a new era at POB - and the most obvious sign of change is in the dancing itself:

The new triple bill of ballets at the Paris Opera — named, after its choreographic auteurs, “Christopher Wheeldon, Wayne McGregor, Pina Bausch” — demands three thoroughly unalike styles from its dancers. Yet the company’s dancing in each is a tremendous pleasure: three-dimensional in texture, keen in dynamics and, most welcome of all, proceeding through long, multifaceted phrases...

I have strong reservations about all three works. “Alea Sands” sets up dramatic situations it doesn’t develop; “Polyphonia” is an exercise in high style without serious drama; the Bausch “Sacre,” less musical in its response to the larger architecture of Stravinsky’s score, has moments of ludicrous melodrama. Still, the Paris Opera made important cases for all three — and for itself. This was my first view of the company under Mr. Millepied’s direction; it gives me great hope.
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He would have been better off embedding himself in Paris during the recent run of La Bayaderes and then comparing how the POB dancers were dancing that relative to how they were dancing the Wheeldon/McGregor/Bausch triple bill. I could argue that Millepied is just completing what Madame LeFevre already started, which is replacing the old French style with a new international style. That's OK -- it may be wonderful. But once the old style is gone, it's gone. (Or maybe it will find a new home in Bordeaux.)

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I am incredulous at how someone who rarely sees a company dance can make such broad pronouncements about a change in style based on a single performance. Overreaching? Needed to fill up his column?

No need to be incredulous, this is Macaulay after all.

But what I want to know is, where is this all coming from? Macaulay wearing rose-colored glasses - for POB?

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He would have been better off embedding himself in Paris during the recent run of La Bayaderes and then comparing how the POB dancers were dancing that relative to how they were dancing the Wheeldon/McGregor/Bausch triple bill. I could argue that Millepied is just completing what Madame LeFevre already started, which is replacing the old French style with a new international style. That's OK -- it may be wonderful. But once the old style is gone, it's gone. (Or maybe it will find a new home in Bordeaux.)

well they may have had a Petipa conference in Bordeaux but the rep of the company itself is not terribly classical.

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it's not about the repertoire but about the style, a particular French style, which is going to be lost, if not already ...

You have captured my thoughts exactly.

In any event, the Bordeaux company under Charles Jude is performing two classics this season (Sleeping Beauty and Giselle) to the POB's three (La Bayadere, Romeo and Juliet, and Giselle), which, given the relative sizes and funding levels of the two companies, isn't much of a difference. (I don't count the planned Nutcracker as classical given who's choreographing it.) It's all the more jarring because the POB is supposed to be France's greatest classical company.

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