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The Royal Ballet's Ashton double bill of Rhapsody and The Two Pigeons will be beamed live from the Royal Opera House on Tuesday, January 26.

Ashton/Rachmaninov: Rhapsody

Natalia Osipova & Steven McRae

piano soloist: Robert Clark

Ashton/Messager: The Two Pigeons
Lauren Cuthbertson, Vadim Muntagirov, Laura Morera Fumi Kaneko, Ryoichi Hirano

All the information, including a screening search box, is here: http://www.roh.org.uk/showings/two-pigeonsrhapsody-live-2016

Participating cinemas in Europe will screen the performance live starting at 7:15 pm GMT, except in Finland (January 31) and Bulgaria (February 17 and/or 21).

The ROH database lists some U.S. screenings for January 26, but I was not able to find confirmation of this on the Cinemark web site. Most screenings will take place on Sunday, February 14 and later.

February 14: Showcase Cinemas in Fairfield, CT, Chestnut Hill, MA, North Attleboro, MA, Woburn, MA, Worchester, MA, Elmsford, NY, Providence, RI
Frank Theatres in Bayonne, NJ, Egg Harbor, NJ, Cary, NC, Coral Springs, FL, Delray Beach, FL, Venice, FL, Gettysburg, PA, Lansdale, PA, York, PA, Murrells Inlet, SC, Blacksburg, VA
Malco Theatres in Fayetteville, AR, Oxford, MS, Memphis, TN

Aperture Cinema in Winston Salem, NC, Cinema Paradiso in Hollywood, FL

February 14 & 17: Dairy Arts Center in Boulder, CO, Roxy Stadium 11 in Camarillo, CA, Sierra Vista Cinemas in Clovis, CA, Lodi Stadium in Lodi, CA, Lighthouse Cinemas in Pacific Grove, CA, Summerfield Cinemas in Santa Rosa, CA, Limelight Cinema in Bellingham, WA

February 17: Carolina Theatre in Durham, NC, Cinemas Palme D'Or in Palm Desert, CA

February 17 & 20: City Lights Cinemas in Florence, OR

February 20: Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley, CA

February 21 & March 2: Princeton Garden Theatre in Princeton, NJ

March 14 & 15: Laemmle Theaters in Beverly Hills, CA, Claremont, CA, Encino, CA, Pasadena, CA

March 23: Symphony Space in New York City

In Canada the program will be screened on Sunday, January 31 at Cineplex and Landmark cinemas.

It will be screened In Australia starting on February 26 and in Mexico in March.

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Same for me, and Rhapsody uses my favorite music of all time.

It's odd the usual cinemas in Seattle who show RB are not, not even a theater in Portland. Small towns like Bellingham, WA and Florence and Medford, OR are showing it. So weird.

Does anyone know why? I certainly hope this instance is not the start of a trend.

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Here in Seattle it seems like each chain will only commit to one company. Regal theaters showed the Lincoln Center series, and the little chain that runs the Varsity and the Admiral are showing the Bolshoi films (Shrew this weekend) Landmark says they have a relationship with the Royal Opera House, but they're not running anything .

Sigh.

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In NY its only at Symphony Space, and showing on a Wednesday afternoon. They are showing the whole ROH ballet series on Wednesday afternoons. So if you want to see any of them you have to take a day off work. I'll probably do it for this program, but thats it. And then they'll wonder why they can't fill the theater...

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Fumi Kaneko will dance the Gypsy Girl in place of Laura Morera.

http://www.roh.org.uk/news/cast-change-fumi-kaneko-to-dance-in-the-two-pigeons-on-23-and-26-january-2016

The digital program is available free of charge with the (rather unfortunate) promo code FREEPIG. Click on the red "Do you have a promo code?" link to enter the code, then hit the green "add to basket" button. If you don't wish to make a £3 donation to the ROH, click on the "remove" link in the shopping basket.

http://www.roh.org.uk/publications/rhapsody-the-two-pigeons-digital-programme

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Does anyone know why? I certainly hope this instance is not the start of a trend.

Sandik mentioned that Landmark seems to have dropped the ROH, and apparently so have Cinemark, iPic and Cinepolis. I'm sure it boils down to box office and whether cinema owners think showing the programs is worth their while financially. At the moment it appears the answer is: no. It also appears that there will actually be more screenings in Canada than in the United States, which--even given traditional Canadian Anglophilism--is a perverse state of affairs, considering that the U.S. is nine times more populous.

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Landmark lost a number of screens in Seattle recently, and seems to be rethinking its programming strategies here. The ridiculous part is that we have two non-profit cinema groups (Seattle International Film Festival and Northwest Film Forum) who would really be the natural home for these programs. SIFF ran some programming in the past (I saw the earlier Royal Fille, and Bright Stream), and NWFF has run specialty dance programming as well (Wiseman POB documentary, Joffrey doc, and just last month the new Taylor doc) but they don't seem to want to make a commitment to something ongoing. Sigh.

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I think the fundamental difference is that movie theaters don't do the same kind of promotion that dance companies do. The studio that makes the film does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to promotion -- the local screener does buy display ads for their programming, but they don't really have to reach out to an audience and explain a film. They just have to make it clear that they're showing it.

Dance events don't have that same kind of promotional model -- the movie theaters don't know how to make those connections. In my community, the local opera company has a big presence at the Met in HD showings, promotes the events to their own mailing lists and generally acts like the cinema broadcasts are a good selling point for their own productions. Dance companies here haven't managed to make that connection yet.

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That's a very good point, sandik about cinemas not doing promotion. I hadn't thought of it, but it's true.

Meanhwile I think that many dance companies see the cinema broadcasts as competition for their own product, rather than complementary or audience-building.

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Here in Seattle it seems like each chain will only commit to one company. Regal theaters showed the Lincoln Center series, and the little chain that runs the Varsity and the Admiral are showing the Bolshoi films (Shrew this weekend) Landmark says they have a relationship with the Royal Opera House, but they're not running anything .

Sigh.

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Meant for my reply to go with Sandik'squote. After I read it I checked the theater I used for RB screenings and it belongs to Regal, and thus has switched to the Lincoln Center series. Sigh.

Does anyone know if a DVD will be released?

Otherwise I am going to take the afternoon off at work and drive almost two hours one way to Bellingham. I really want to see Osipova and McRae in Rhapsody.

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Wow, I wish I could see this. Hope it makes it to DVD. I really don't understand why the Royal doesn't release more dvd's of Ashton's work.

They have five:

Fille

Ondine

Sylvia

Les Patineurs, Scenes de Ballet, Five Brahms Waltzes..., Voices of Spring, Devil's Holiday, Sleeping Beauty pdd, Thais pdd

La Valse, Monotones 1 and II, Marguerite and Armand.

That's not bad! I wouldn't be surprised if this latest cinema broadcast also goes to DVD.

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In addition there is the stage version of Tales of Beatrix Potter. But there have also been relatively recent telecasts that frustratingly didn't make it to DVD, including Cinderella, Daphnis and Chloe and Symphonic Variations.

If a cinemacast is a big hit, and social media users begin clamoring for a DVD release, the ROH often makes a positive announcement soon after the live transmission. sometimes within a matter of days.

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I know there are some on DVD, but I find it frustrating that there are so many beautiful works by Ashton that I can never get a chance to see because they aren't on DVD, Symphonic Variations and Cinderella being the best examples. Birthday Offering is another work that I would looove to watch in its entirety.

Crossing my fingers that this broadcast gets on DVD. :beg:

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I know there are some on DVD, but I find it frustrating that there are so many beautiful works by Ashton that I can never get a chance to see because they aren't on DVD, Symphonic Variations and Cinderella being the best examples. Birthday Offering is another work that I would looove to watch in its entirety.

Crossing my fingers that this broadcast gets on DVD. :beg:

There is a Cinderella from the 60s with Sibley and Dowell (and Ashton himself as one of the stepsisters)

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That Cinderella DVD although old has the considerable advantage of being danced by the Royal Ballet when it was Ashton's own company.There is not a single dancer in it who does not dance the choreography with complete mastery of the style. Unfortunately that is not something that can be said of more recent recordings where there has been a tendency to cast Ashton's ballets according to seniority and box office power than according to the dancers suitability for a role or as an exemplar of the style. On this DVD you get not only Sibley and Dowell as Cinderella and the Prince, Ashton and Helpmann as the Ugly Sisters but Alexander Grant who created the role as the Jester. Georgina Parkinson as the Fairy Godmother and a fine selection of dancers as the Fairies of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. In this recording you see the Jester danced as a character rather than a keg machine closely related to the Soviet Jester. There is an older recording made for US television which was broadcast in colour but only preserved in black and white. The cast includes Fonteyn, Somes ,Grant with Ashton and MacMillan as the Ugly Sisters.

Cinderella, the fruit of Ashton's "private lessons with Petipa", is Ashton's Imperial Russian ballet, Sylvia is his Empire ballet and Ondine his modern take on the three act ballet using a score by Henze but incorporating a staging of the famous pas de l'ombre which appeared in the most famous nineteenth century ballet on this theme and storm at sea deliberately staged in nineteenth century fashion.

As far as Fille is concerned there are four recordings to choose from. The oldest was recorded by the BBC with the original cast of Nadia Nerina, David Blair, Alexander Grant and Stanley Holden. If you want to see what an extraordinary dancer Nerina was this recording is for you. It does not use the sets used in the theatre but that does not matter when you have performances of this quality and freshness.

The second recording dates from 1980. The dancers are Leslie Collier, Michael Coleman, Gary Grant and Brian Shaw . Unfortunately Grant was little more than a pale imitation of his older brother. We almost certainly owe this recording to the celebrations of Ashton's eightieth birthday which is a pity because it catches Coleman's Colas a little too late to be ideal. However for me he is still better than either Colas on the later recordings because he dances Ashton idiomatically and well. At the time of this recording he was still the first cast Colas, Collier is a great Lise her footwork is brilliant, and she dances expansively and with vigour. I would have preferred Ronald Emblem as Simone to Brian Shaw. Emblem was a brilliant exponent of the role and his characterisation was far warmer than Shaw's. The best bit of Shaw's performance was always the way he swept of the stage at the end of the clog dance. which has not been preserved.

The third recording stars Marianela Nunez, Carlos Acosta with Jonathan Howells and William Tuckett. While it may be true that a new recording was needed the problem is that Acosta is not an ideal Colas. He is not a natural Ashton dancer and clearly finds some of the steps awkward, Nunez on the otter hand is splendid and dances Ashton with real understanding of the style,

The fourth is the recently released recording starring Natalia Osipova and Steven McRae with Paul Kay and Philip Moseley. The first night cast of Laura Morera, Vadim Muntagirov, Paul Kay and Will Tuckett had a real warmth to them which was lacking in the cast who appear on DVD. Morera is a fine Ashton dancer she has the footwork and the pliant upper body which the choreography requires. Osipova is a superstar and she is not,as yet, an Ashton dancer. Muntagirov " charmed with the innocence of youth" not something I would accuse McRae of doing. Paul Kay is excellent as Alain and in many other roles created by Alexander Grant, Philip Moseley characterisation is alright but he is not the best clog dancer to have graced the Covent Garden stage. .The recording is fine if you simply want a technician's approach and are happy with a close approximation to the style rather than the real thing.

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