Friday, June 7

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The Royal Ballet celebrates Frederick Ashton.

Bachtrack

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Marianela Nuñez danced, as always, with pin-point accuracy and control, and brought Ashtonian lusciousness to the head, neck and shoulders, adding subtle flirtatiousness to the character and interacting charmingly with the other dancers and with her partner, Reece Clarke (excellent). If you are looking for épaulement, look no further than Isabella Gasparini, whose great strength it is. She brought serenity to the pas de trois, ably accompanied by Leo Dixon and Harrison Lee, attacking the speedy, challenging work with alacrity.

The Guardian

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Ikarashi is only in his early 20s but this season he will also make his debut in the effervescent Rhapsody, which closes this triple bill – although tonight it is another young dancer, Taisuke Nakao, who flies through the steps like a skimming stone, leaving little trace. Everywhere in Ashton’s work there is just enormous pleasure in the act of dancing.

The Daily Telegraph

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Long one of the company’s most valuable and dependable members, Marianela Nuñez was made to look on the stiff side in the upper-body by her younger colleagues, while Reece Clarke is something approaching a foot taller than Stanislas Idzikowsky, the dancer for whom it was very carefully created. Clarke is a strong, noble performer, but he simply had too much limb to manoeuvre in too little time, and looked ill at ease

Broadway World

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Hayward is surely part-fairy, but could afford to hang onto moments of whimsical suspension a little more, and though Sambé's Oberon starts strong, it doesn't seem to build until the Scherzo, where he really begins to take flight. I'd also encourage more apparent projection throughout, in both his overall line and use of head. Daichi Ikarashi as Puck is working well with the role, but needs more time (post debut) to find his individual characterisation, Joshua Junker is a natural Bottom from start to finish, and the cast of mortals did super work with the Carry On style set-up.

 

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Debra Craine reviews the RB for The Times.

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This is the 60th anniversary of The Dream, Ashton’s masterful distillation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the revival was coached by Anthony Dowell, the original Oberon. Taking on that role here was Marcelino Sambé, whose king of the fairies owned this performance with his imperious presence and spinning, fizzing, virtuosic dancing. Francesca Hayward, his capricious Titania, moved beautifully but didn’t project fully the drama of her marital tiff or the emotional depth of reconciliation with her husband. Daichi Ikarashi was an ebullient Puck; Joshua Junker’s lively Bottom bravely donned pointe shoes for his transformation into an ass; and the four mortals successfully mined the choreography’s deft comedy.

 

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Isaac Hernandez is leaving San Francisco Ballet.

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Hernández chose not to renew his contract, which expires on July 1, company spokesperson Kate McKinney told the Chronicle. Hernández and Rojo both declined to comment. 

 

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Lyndsey Winship talks to Christopher Marney about the revival of London City Ballet for The Guardian.

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The donors bought into the idea of reviving lost works, and Marney’s research suggests there is an audience for it. For the company’s first programme, he is bringing back Kenneth MacMillan’s 1972 ballet Ballade, in collaboration with MacMillan’s widow, Deborah. MacMillan’s pieces (Romeo & Juliet, Manon, Mayerling) are some of the most popular at the Royal Ballet, where he was artistic director in the 1970s, but Ballade was danced only once, on a foreign tour 50 years ago. The subject is Kenneth and Deborah’s first date – they went to the cinema on Fulham Road – but Deborah has never seen it before. There was no video, so the ballet has been reconstructed from a written score in Benesh notation (written on a stave, like musical notation), which had been sitting on a dusty shelf at the Royal Opera House all this time. “It’s fascinating,” says Marney. “The score tells you not just the steps, but the intention, the looks between the dancers, the tempo.”

 

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The State Ballet of Georgia will perform "Swan Lake" in London.

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Odette/Odille will be performed by Nino Samadashvili, a leading Georgian soloist and Principal Dancer at the State Ballet of Georgia; Laura Fernandez, who is half-Ukrainian and half-Spanish, and fled Moscow and her position as first soloist with the Stanislavsky Theatre in 2022 as Russia invaded Ukraine; Chloe Misseldine, who joins the State Ballet of Georgia as a Guest from American Ballet Theater; and Ukrainian soloist Anastasia Matvienko, who was previously star at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg and is now a principal at the Slovenian National Ballet.

 

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Video with commentary by Gia Kourlas of students from the School of American Ballet rehearsing "Serenade."

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They wind and unwind again, their positions flowing and spiraling by the angles of their épaulement, or the placement of the shoulders.

 

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The Queensland Ballet revives its production of Coppélia.

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Different nationalities, typifying early migration trends in Australia, include the McTaggarts, Mr and Mrs Angus and son Henry, Pastor Kluge and his wife, together with Swanilda and her parents (the Hoffmans) and Franz’s parents the Smits, and his three brothers. These add dramatic detail, but also a modicum of confusion initially, sorting out who’s who. Acts 2 and 3 take you into more familiar territory, however, with the second act tightly drawn comedically by the main protagonists, Coppélius, Swanilda and Franz. 

 

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The Royal Swedish Opera is fined after the death last year of a stage technician.

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Following the death, which was investigated by police, the Royal Opera decided to cancel all performances and tours of Sweden’s national theater for opera and ballet, founded in 1773. The downtown Stockholm stage offers a mix of performances and classical masterpieces with opera, ballet and activities for children and adolescents.