Manon

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Royal Ballet Manon Royal Opera House Covent Garden, 2 March 2024 13:00

While watching Manon on Saturday I was struck by the similarities to MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet.   Not so much with the libretti perhaps though Manon loses Lescaut and Juliet loses Tybalt and both sets of lovers come to a sticky end.  The similarities I had in mind were the choreography with its spectacular duets including one around a bed and great sword fights.  Also, Nicholas Georgiadis created the sets and costumes for both ballets.

Although this was an original thought as far as I was concerned  I doubted that it was novel.   I ran a Google search on "similarities between MacMillan's Manon and Romeo & Juliet"  The only comparison that came to light was Robert Gottlieb's Manon and Romeo and Juliet.   Mr Gottlieb does not seem to have been at all impressed.  He described Manon as "a piece of junk" and complained that Romeo and Juliet was "tedious at times" though "relatively stage-worthy."  

Some pretty uncomplimentary things have been said about the ballet by such critics as Mary Clarke and Jane King but the public seem to like it.  It will celebrate its half-century in a few days and it has been performed by the world's leading ballet companies.  The House was packed to the gunwales on the afternoon of 2 March 2024 when I saw it.  Not a few patrons rose to their feet at the curtain call which does not happen for every show.   I agree that the leading characters, Manon, des Grieux, Lascaut and Monsieur GM are morally flawed and the story is pretty sordid but that did not make it a waste of the lovely Antoinette Sibley or any of her successors.

For those who do not know the ballet it is summarized on the Royal Opera House website.   It is based on the novel  Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux, et de Manon Lescaut by Antoine François Prévost which had already been dramatized, made into several films, at least one other ballet and Puccini's popular opera Manon Lescaut.  MacMillan did not adapt Puccini's score even though it would have been familiar to many members of his audience.  Instead, he commissioned Leighton Lucas to compile a score from Jules Massenet's collected works

The advertised dancers for the lead roles were to be Sarah Lamb and Steven McRae.  McRea was unavailable on Saturday so the role of des Grieux was danced by Ryoichi Hirano.  Lamb reminds me a little of Antoinette Sibley who first danced Manon and Hirano is the sort of chap who could be expected to handle the eye-catching lifts and fish dives with ease.   James Hay danced Lescaut, not an easy role as he had to project a range of emotions.  In one scene he is drunk manhandling his mistress Meaghan Grace Hinkis in one of the few comic scenes from the show. Shortly afterwards, he is dragged in chains and roughed up by Monsieur GM,   That role was danced by the venerable Christopher Saunders who has been dancing in the Royal Ballet for almost as long as I have been following it.

As for the creatives, Koen Kessels conducted the orchestra, Laura Morera staged the performance and Christopher Saunders was the rehearsal director.

I lost count of the number of curtain calls. Sarah Lamb received enough flowers to set up in business as a forest. There were also some for Hirano which would never have happened in Dame Anroinette's day, She used to select one of her choicest blooms and present it to her partner who would sniff the perfume in gratitude. In a reversal of the old tradition, Hirano presented one of his flowers to Lamb.

There are now two different versions of this ballet in this country: the Royal Ballet's version with Georgiadis's designs and English National's that I mentioned but did not review in French Revelation: "The Three Musketeers" on 9 Oct 2018. The main difference between the two is that ENB's came from Denmark and uses the designs of Mia Stensgaard.

Manon in the Cinema

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Royal Ballet Manon 3 Nay 2018, 19:30  Royal Opera House (streamed to cinemas)

Although Manon is probably Sir Kenneth MacMillan's most popular ballet after Romeo and Juliet I have yet to see it live on stage.  I have seen a recording of it once before in the cinema (Manon Encore at the Huddersfield Odeon 20 Oct 2014).

I missed the ballet when it first appeared in 1974 because I was at graduate school in Los Angeles but the reports that I read in the British press to which my university subscribed were not particularly encouraging.  As Wikipedia reports:

"Critical responses to the opening night performance were mixed. The Guardian newspaper stated, "Basically, Manon is a slut and Des Grieux is a fool and they move in the most unsavoury company", while the Morning Star described the ballet as "an appalling waste of the lovely Antoinette Sibley, who is reduced to a nasty little diamond digger". The opening night audience gave the ballet a standing ovation."

I doubt that they would have put me off as I often find myself in disagreement with ballet critics.  I think it is more a question of inertia.  I don't live in London. My time and means are not unlimited. There has always been something I have wanted to see more. Right now, it is Liam Scarlett's Swan Lake.

I leaned a little bit about the ballet from Dame Antoinette Sibley in an interview that she gave to Clement Crisp at the Royal Ballet School in 2014 (see Le jour de gloire est arrive - Dame Antoinette Sibley with Clement Crisp at the Royal Ballet School 3 Feb 2014). Dame Antoinette produced a copy of the book by Abbé Prévost which Sir Kenneth had sent to her and she read from his note in the cover. Kevin O'Hare mentioned that story in an interview that he gave to Ore Oduba and Darcey Bussell before the show. The libretto does not follow the novel exactly but it is close enough in essentials.

MacMillan created some striking choreography for this ballet.  Vadim Muntagirov who danced Des Grieux referred to lifting the ballerina behind his back. Particularly memorable, in my view, was a pas de trois  in the first act in which Sarah Lamb (as Manon) appeared to be contorted into positions from which I feared she would never recover. More contortions in the party scene at which Manon's brother, Ryoichi Hirano,  who is very drunk, attempts to dance with his mistress.

One of the advantages of watching ballet in the cinema are the closeups of the dancers' facial expressions.  For the first time I appreciated Lamb's genius as an actor.  She expressed every emotion, every state of mind, almost every thought through her eyes.  The character that she dances is not a nice woman.  Greedy, capricious and deceitful, she richly deserves her comeuppance, yet she somehow wins the audience's sympathy. What greater proof could there be of her dramatic qualities.

Tall, slender, athletic, dreamy, passionate and at times explosive, Muntagirov is exactly as I would imagine Des Grieux. Also impressive were Gary Avis as the louche aristocrat who first makes and then breaks Manon, destroys her brother and disgraces her brother and Yorkshire's very own Thomas Whitehead as Manon's thuggish and lascivious gaoler.

Anyone who has seen his Romeo and Juliet will agree that MacMillan does fights better than almost any other choreographer.  There is one good sword fight in Manon in the second act but the knife fight in which Des Grieux dispatches the gaoler is particularly exciting.

The sets and costumes were designed by Ncholas Georgiadis who also designed the sets and costumes for Romeo and Juliet.  I am sure that on the stage they must have been magnificent but except for vines of the mangrove swamp in the very last scene they were barely visible which is a pity.

I doubt that Manon will ever be my favourite ballet but I have resolved to see it live next time it is staged which I did not do after the last screening of this work.

Royal Ballet's Rehearsals of Marguerite and Armand.and The Dream

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I skipped class on Wednesday night to watch the live streaming of rehearsals for two of the ballets in the Royal Ballet's Ashton triple bill of Marguerite and Armand. Symphonic Variations and The Dream at Covent Garden. The programme will only appear between the 2 and 10 June and all but two of the performances are already sold out. However, it will be streamed live to cinemas in the United Kingdom and elsewhere on 7 June thereby providing welcome relief from this already very depressing general election campaign.

Being very long in the tooth I know all three works very well and love them very much.

I shall always associate The Dream with Dame Antoinette Sibley who is my all time favourite ballerina by a country mile (see Sibley 17 Dec 2013) and her noble partner Sir Anthony Dowell  and visions of them in the reconciliation scene rush to mind causing me to forget whatever I am doing whenever I hear Mendelssohn's glorious score (see the RAD's tribute to Dame Antoinette on YouTube and if you have any heart I defy you to keep a dry eye). I remember hearing it in Leeds in the next rehearsal studio as our teacher patiently gave instructions for an enchainment which completely washed over me as I listened to the music.

Almost as dear to me is Marguerite and Armand in which I saw Nureyev dance with Fonteyn whom I also loved and admired (see Margot Fonteyn 18 May 2015). Fonteyn was also one of the original dancers in Symphonic Variations along with Moira Shearer, Pamela May, Michael Somes, Brian Shaw and Henry Danton. Although it was first staged even before my time Somes and Shaw were still dancing when I first took an interest in ballet. Danton was the only one I missed even though - ironically and praise is - he is still very much with us.

Those ballets are the very finest examples of Ashton's work which is discussed in a talk by Prof. Stephanie Jordan that you can hear in the above video. Also in the video is a Q & A by Kevin O'Hare, Lesley Collier, yet another all-time favourite ballerina and the gracious Zenaida Yanowsky. 43 minutes and 29 seconds into that session Yanowsky demonstrated the famous "Fred Step". The reason I know that timing so precisely is that I have been practising the Fred Step. There are two lovely rehearsals in the film. One by Yanowsky as Marguerite and Gary Avis as Armand's father in the scene where Armand's dad warns Marguerite to stay away from his boy. The other is Francesca Hayward and Marcelino Sambé in the quarrel scene over the changeling boy and the reconciliation. They are nothing like Sibley and Dowell but I think they are just as beautiful in the way they interpret this work.  At the end of the Marguerite and Armand rehearsal, Avis said some lovely things about Yanowsky which made me admire both of them even more than I already did. The whole video is presented and moderated by Alexander Campbell who did a really first class job.

I have said enough, ladies and gentlemen.  I will leave you to watch this gorgeous video.

12,190!

That was the number of hits that we received in October 2016!  In March 2013, our first full month, we achieved 269 hits and actually dropped to 196 in August of that year. We are now averaging 393 hits in a single day.

I started this blog on the 25 Feb 2013 with a review of Ballet West's performance of The Nutcracker at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre. Since then we have published 777 posts including contributions from Alison Winward, Ciara Sturrock, David Murley, Gita Mistry, Janet McNulty, Joanne Goodman, Mary Howard, Peter Groves and Mel Wong.  My thanks to each and every one of them.

Our most popular article to date was my interview with Gavin McCaig of Northern Ballet on 3 Sept 2014, followed by my reviews of the Junior Company's opening night in Amsterdam on 8 Feb 2016, Ballet West's 2016 Nutcracker and Romeo and Juliet in 2015 and Chelmsford Ballet's Nutcracker in 2014.

This blog has recorded important events in my life such as  my first lesson with the over 55 class of Northern Ballet and my first performance on film with Chantry Dance and my first live performance on the stage of the Stanley and Audrey Burton Theatre.

I have reviewed some great performances such as Ted Brandsen's Mata Hari, David Dawson's Swan Lake, Cranko's Onegin and David Nixon's Midsummer Night's Dream. Some of those shows have been in great theatres like the Stopera and Covent Garden. Others have been local theatres in small towns like the Chelmsford Civic and the Teatro Silvio Pelico in Trecate.

Through blogging I have seen some of the greatest dancers of all time such as Antoinette Sibley and Beryl Gray and shaken hands with some of the great names like Li-Cunxin and Peter Wright. I have also met some fine people - some on stage as dancers and choreographers, others in the studio as teachers and fellow students and many more in the auditorium or at talks who simply share my passion for dance.

I should like to thank all those who have danced for me or created dance for me, all who have taught me dance and all who have contributed in one way or another to this blog.

Ashton's Double Bill

Joseph Noel Paton: The Quarrel between Oberon and Titania

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Birmingham Royal Ballet, Ashton Double Bill, Birmingham Hippodrome, 20 Feb 2016

In Looking Forward to 2016 (30 Dec 2015) I wrote:

"To mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth in 1964 Sir Frederick Ashton created The Dream. Antoinette Sibley was Titania and Anthony Dowell her Oberon. The Dream was one of the most beautiful ballets that Ashton ever created. Here is a snippet of the original production and another of a more recent performance by American Ballet Theatre with Alessandra Ferri and Ethan Stiefel. The ballet was part of a triple bill of works inspired by Shakespeare. The others were Kenneth MacMillan's Images of Love and Sir Robert Helpmann's Hamlet. To commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death the Birmingham Royal Ballet will revive this iconic work at the Hippodrome between the 17 and 20 Feb 2016. If you see only one ballet this year this is the one you should not miss.

Last night I saw that work with Nao Sakuma as Titania and Joseph Caley as Oberon.  As the orchestra played the final pas de deux I found myself rooting for a tissue for I cannot help associating that music not with Mendelssohn but with Sibley who remains the ballerina that I most admire (Sibley 17 Dec 2013).

It was that association that attracted me to Birmingham last night but it was also the reason for the production's only flaw. Sakuma, who is Japanese, was made to wear a blonde wig so that she looked (from row P of the stalls at any rate) just like Sibley.  That is not necessary and it is not healthy. There is no reason why Titania should be North European (after all the changeling boy is supposed to be Indian) and Sakuma is a magnificent dancer in her own right. There cannot be many members of the audience who remember Sibley and Dowell as I do.  There are not many snippets of their performances of The Dream on YouTube.  Even I wanted to see an interpretation by a modern ballerina and premier danseur noble - not an ersatz reproduction of a performance from another age.

Putting that grumble to one side I still enjoyed the show. Caley and Sakuma danced well, as one would expect. Matthias Dingman danced Puck with his usual wit and spirit. Yijing Zhang was a charming Hermia and Yasuo Atsuji a gallant Lysander - at least for most of the time. As for the other mortals Ana Albutashvili was an amusing but likeable Helena and Tyrone Singleton a haughty Demetrius. The rustics were hilarious - particularly Jonathan Caguioa as Bottom.  I should add that his role requires some pointe work which is rarely demanded of male dancers.  As for the rest of the cast I loved the fairies - the corps as well as those who danced Cobweb, Peaseblossom, Moth and Mustardseed. It was a delight to see Farmer's designs again and Mendelssohn's overture always leaves me wobbly at the knees.

The second part of the programme was A Month in the Country which was created in 1976 - several years after Ashton had ceased to be the principal choreographer. I missed it when it was first performed. In fact yesterday was the first time I ever saw the work and I enjoyed it very much indeed.

Based on Turgenev's A Month in the Country the ballet creates three very strong female roles:  Natalia Petrovna the lady of a country house somewhere in the Russian countryside who is bored with everything about the country including her husband, her ward Vera and the housemaid Katia. Their routine is disturbed by the arrival of a young student Beliaev who brings a kite for Natalia's son Kolia. All three women fall for Beliaev which leads to an almighty row between Natalia and Vera as a result of which Beliaev is sent packing (in the nicest possibe way) by Natalia's husband.

Yesterday, Samara Downs danced Natalia, Jamie Bond Beliaev, Laura Day Vera and Yiijing Zhang Katia. Tzu-Chao Chou was a convincing juvenile and Rory Mackay danced the husband well. The score was John Lanchbery's arrangement of Chopin which also included an earworm - in this case, Chopin's variations on a theme from Don Giovanni. Julia Trevelyan Oman's designs were breathtaking - particularly the drapes immediately after the curtain rises which reminded me a little bit of Leon Bakst.  Altogether, a production that I look forward to seeing again.

For some reason or other the theatre was far from full which is disappointing for a performance by a company of the calibre of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Although there were some cheers and bravos - mainly from me - and one or two people on their feet - there were not all that many curtain calls. It was a good show and BRB deserved more appreciation. I am sure they will do better when they bring Romeo and Juliet to the Lowry.  I may be wrong but it may be that audiences were put off by Titania's blonde wig. After all it seems to have generated some discussion on BalletcoForum.

As a Mancunian I get bored by the pretensions of Brummies - often endorsed by Londoners who have been to neither Birmingham nor Manchester - that Birmingham is the second city - notwithstanding the latest census returns that the population of Greater Manchester now exceeds that of the West Midlands. However, I have to concede that Birmingham has a world class ballet company and a wonderful home for it in the Hippodrome. Yesterday I tried the theatre's Circle Restaurant. While I found it a tad expensive - especially compared to the Chinese and other East Asian restaurants that surround the theatre - I was delighted to be served Lancashire hotpot. There are not too many places where that dish is on the menu even in Manchester and I have certainly never eaten it at the Palace or Lowry.

Renewing Friendships

The Main Stage, The Royal Opera House

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When I was an undergraduate I practically lived at Covent Garden during the Christmas, Easter and start of the Summer vacations. The Royal Opera House sent bundles of ticket vouchers to Young Friends which could be exchanged for tickets for the upper slips or two thirds of the cost of the rows H to Q in the amphitheatre and I saw all the great stars - Fonteyn, Nureyev, Sibley, Dowell, Symour and all the other great names of the time. Those ticket vouchers enabled me to see great visiting companies such as American Ballet Theatre, the Bolshoi and even Dance Theatre of Harlem.

I maintained my membership of the Young Friends even when I was a graduate student in California. "You have such neat mail" my fellow students would say when About the House would arrive. And it was true, I did. It was a little reminder of home like "Ye Mucky Duck" and the "Brigadoon" at Santa Monica. I maintained my membership even after I ceased to qualify as a Young Friend at the age of 26. I kept it going even after I had moved to Yorkshire and made the acquaintance of Northern Ballet.

I let my membership lapse only when my late spouse was diagnosed with motor neuron disease. Somehow ballet no longer seemed to matter. In fact very few things did. There is nothing more distressing than watching someone you love shut down limb by limb and organ by organ.  Everything in my life went to seed.

But then a month after my spouse died I noticed a postcard on a notice board advertising "Ballercise" classes. I was told that a group of mums had asked the instructor who taught their little ones ballet to lay on a class for them. I was even more overweight than I am now and quite unfit but I joined the class and stuck with it. I struggled through pliés and tendus and goodness knows what. Eventually, my teacher invited me to a real ballet class in Huddersfield which led in turn to the over 55 class at Northern Ballet and ultimately Terpsichore.

Last Saturday I collected my tickets for the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company I impulsively asked whether I could rejoin the Friends. "Certainly" they replied and remarkably the House still retained my membership records.  Today my membership pack arrived and what a delight. My red membership card with the royal coat of arms, welcome letters from Susan Fisher, the new season guide, an invitation to attend the opening night of Carlos Acosta's Carmen on 26 Oct 2015 (the cheapest tickets being £1,000 per head) and the January and April copies of the Friends' magazine which appears to have superseded About the House. 

The January issue has a great picture of Ed Watson and Wendy Whelan on the cover as well as news of Wayne McGregor's Homage to Virginia Woolf and an essay on the genius of Jerome Robbins. The April issue has articles on Carlos Acosta, Cuba and transition and 50 years of MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet. When am I going to get round to reading all of that? But does it matter for I feel as though I have come home.

Although I have rejoined the Friends because I love the Royal Opera House and the Royal Ballet there are actually some tangible benefits of membership which are listed on the Friends page of the Royal Opera House website. This video explains what they are. I have derived so much pleasure from performances at the House over the years. I do hope this article encourages others to join the Friends too.

Elizabeth Rae

This morning our Over 55 class at Northern Ballet Academy was taught by Elizabeth Rae. As you can see from her biography on Northern Ballet's website she has enjoyed a glittering career as a dancer, teacher, choreographer and author. It was a pleasure and a privilege to be taught by her.

We have two classes on Tuesday: an hour of barre and exercises in the centre and then an extra 30 minutes for those of us who want to improve (or in my case learn) pirouettes and jumps.  It was quite challenging for all of us and particularly for me but Elizabeth gave us lots of useful tips and information which she delivered with considerable wit. For instance, always keep your little finger in view when doing grands pliés because you keep your back straight and transfer your weight to the ball of your foot and not the heel when doing turns.  Although I have been trying my best for ages I still can't do pirouettes properly and I get really frustrated with them but Elizabeth's exercises really helped. She taught us to do tours lents in retiré and while I was a long way from  getting it right I was a closer to getting it right than ever before.

After class we gathered round to thank her for her teaching and in a short conversation that followed she spoke to us briefly about her career.  She danced many important roles with Frankfurt Ballet and there is a lovely picture of her with Richard Sykes of that company on her Northern Ballet web page.  I googled her and found that she danced as Lisa Rae when she was on the stage and I found lots of other beautiful images of her.

One of the reasons I take as many ballet classes as I can is the precious interaction between teacher and student which you can see in the clips from Moscow and San Francisco (see "Adult Ballet in Moscow and San Francisco - could have been Leeds or Manchester" 2 Oct 2014). I have heard great dancers from the past such as Antoinette Sibley talk fondly about their teachers (see Le jour de gloire est arrive - Dame Antoinette Sibley with Clement Crisp at the Royal Ballet School 3 Feb 2014 and modern ballerinas like Lauren Cuthbertson and Elena Glurdjidze talk in the same way about theirs.  I will never be a ballerina but I can at least experience that aspect of their lives.

Anniversary Post

I started this blog a year ago today with a review of Ballet West's performance of The Nutcracker in Pitlochry. That was one of the highlights of the year and I am looking forward to returning to Pitlochry on Saturday for their Swan Lake. Last August I spent a very pleasant afternoon in Taynuilt on the way to Oban to catch the ferry to Mull (see "Taynuilt - where better to create ballet?" 31 Aug 2013). No wonder one of the students at the ballet school attached to the company won a medal in the Genée.

Here are some of the other highlights in no particular order:

1.  Dutch National Ballet Junior Company

I was in the Staddshouwburg in Amsterdam on the 24 Nov 2013 when Ernst Meisner's amazing young dancers began their tour of the Netherlands. I had come to the Netherlands to see Michaela DePrince. She was magnificent with Sho Yamade in the pas de deux from Diana and Actaeon. But in the same performance I saw the others and they were all as beautiful. It was a wonderful night. The crowd went wild. Every single member of the audience rose to his or her feet. One of the very few occasions in my life that has happened.  The Junior Company are coming to the Linbury on 28 and 29 May 2014. If tickets are still available - go!

2.  MurleyDance

Much the same thing happened a week later. I had come to Leeds to see Sarah Kundi who is one of my favourite dancers. On a particularly terrible day in May I drew solace from watching her dance "Dépouillement". But then I saw all the other wonderful dancers of MurleyDance.  I can't wait to see them all again in their Spring tour.




3.  Ballet Black

I was so sad when Kundi left Ballet Black. I had loved her performances in "Dopamine (you make my levels go silly)" and Chris Marney's "War Letters" when I saw the company at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham.  But just look whom Ballet Black have recruited now!

I shall see Isabela Coracy together with all my other favourites, including Cira Robinson, Sayaka Ichikawa, Damien Johnson and Joseph Alves, at the Linbury tomorrow (see "Ballet Black's Tour" 22 Feb 2014). Yippee!

4.    Scottish Ballet  Hansel and Gretel

Scottish Ballet was my first love  (see "Scottish Ballet" 20 Dec 2013).  It is still one of my favourite companies.  Christopher Hampson's Hansel and Gretel which I saw in Glasgow just before Christmas was outstanding (see "Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel" 23 Dec 2013).  Hampson reworked the story masterfully involving the public in the process with writing competitions, forest tours and many other events.   I first got to know the company when Peter Darrell was its artistic director and Elaine McDonald was his ballerina. I am looking forward to seeing Scottish Ballet again in Romeo and Juliet in May.

5.   Antoinette Sibley

There were great ballerinas in the early 1970s when I first took an interest in ballet - Fracci, Seymour and, of course, Foteyn. But my favourite was (and remains) Antoinette Sibley. I saw Dame Antoinette at the Royal Ballet School in conversation with Clement Crisp earlier this month (see "Le jour de gloire est arrive - Dame Antoinette Sibley with Clement Crisp at the Royal Ballet School" 3 Feb 2014).  Here is a clip of the great ballerina in Manon.

6.   Gala for Ghana

That same afternoon, thanks to the good people of BallertcoForum, I got to get a ticket to see Edward Watson, Lauren Cuthbertson and other great dancers at the Royal College of Music in a  Gala for Ghana. That evening I saw the wonderful Elena Glurdjidze dance The Dying Swan thus fulfilling a lifelong ambition that had been sparked by my mother's account of Pavolva to see a modern ballerina perform it on the stage. Glurdjidze is another dancer whom I greatly admire. There were many other memorable performances that evening including Ashton's Rhapsody pas de deux by Yuhui Choe and Valentino Zucchetti, Volver, Volver by Watson, Avant La Haine by Camille Bracher and Thomas Whitehead but the work that stands out in my memory is Requiem Pie Jesu by Lauren Cuthbertson.

7.    Northern Ballet, Midsummer Night's Dream

Something remarkable happened at West Yorkshire Playhouse on 14 Sept 2013 when Yorkshire Ballet danced David Nixon's Midsummer Night's Dream (see "Realizing Another Dream" 15 Sept 2013). This was one of only three occasions that I have witnessed a standing ovation  in the ballet. Somehow the chemistry was right. A lovely, intimate theatre.  An inspired cast who gave that little bit extra. A receptive crowd.

8.  Northern Ballet's Open Day

I had not intended to stay long at Northern Ballet's open day on the 15 Feb 2014 but I sat transfixed by a succession of the Academy wonderful teachers: Yoko Ichino, Cara O'Shea, Chris Hinton-Lewis and my own teacher, Annemarie Donoghue. I learned more about ballet in one afternoon from watching them than from reading a shelf of books or a week of performances.  A few weeks earlier Dame Antoinette had spoken fondly about Tamara Karsavina who had been her teacher.  Watching Yoko Ichino lovingly pass on her skills and knowledge to the young dancers of the Academy reminded me of Dame Antoinette's words. I love the Academy. I was already a Friend of the Company but today I have become a Friend of the Academy as well.

9.   Birmingham Royal Ballet, Prince of the Pagodas

I was so excited about the first performance in the UK of the Prince of the Pagodas at The Lowry on the 30 Jan 2014 that I had to write the review that very night. Great choreography, great sets, great score and great dancing  (see "Lear with a Happy Ending - Birmingham Royal Ballet's Prince of the Pagodas 30 Jan 2014" 31 Jan 2014). The Birmingham Royal Ballet brought two other great works to Salford - Aladdin on 28 Feb 2013 and The Sleeping Beauty on the 29 Sept 2014 - but Pagodas was my favourite.

10.  Royal Ballet. Giselle

The Royal Ballet is the gold standard and Giselle is in the repertoire of all the world's great companies. I have seen many of the world's finest ballerinas dance Giselle - Fracci, Sibley, Fonteyn and now Osipova. I have also seen many great Albrechts including Nureyev at the height of his career but I don't think I have ever seen anyone dance the role better than Carlos Acosta on the 18 Jan 2014 (see "Giselle - Royal Ballet 18 Jan 2014"  20 Jan 2014).

Le jour de gloire est arrive - Dame Antoinette Sibley with Clement Crisp at the Royal Ballet School

The Royal Ballet School     Source Wikipedia

I have said elsewhere how much I admire Dame Antoinette Sibley in "Ballerina" on 1 July 2013 and I announced Ivy House Music and Dance's afternoon with her and Clement Crisp in "Sibley" on 17 Dec 2013. Yesterday the great day came and here is what happened.

The event took place in the theatre of the Royal Ballet School in Floral Street. This was the first time I had entered that building and indeed it is only the second ballet school I have ever seen, the other being the Northern Ballet Academy in Leeds. There were photographs, drawings and other exhibits on the walls which I stopped to regard on the way in and out. They included the designs for The Birds, a ballet performed in 1942, the School's coat of arms and lots of photos of all the great names that had been associated with the school. It felt strangely like my old school save that instead of dancers and choreographers our exhibits were of generals, judges, bishops leavened with the a few poets, musicians and actors. These exhibits reminded me that English ballet is part of a living tradition linked through Dame Ninette de Valois and Sir Fred Ashton to Dighialev's Ballet Russes and through then to Petipa, This was a theme that a gentleman who spoke on behalf of the London Jewish Cultural Centre picked up when he proposed a vote of thanks and Dame Antoinette and Clement Crisp referred to it several times in their discussion,

After tea and biscuits we were ushered into a theatre near with barres which presumably also serves as a rehearsal studio. The theatre was packed but I managed to find a seat in the second row.  Before Dame Antoinette and Clement Crisp entered we were treated to the pas de deux from Act III of The Sleeping Beauty by Hikaru Kobayashi whom I had last seen dance Myrtha in Giselle on 18 January 2013 and Federico Bonelli. I don't think I had ever been so close to such beautiful creatures even in the stalls as there has always been the orchestra between us. Experiencing that proximity and intimacy alone justified the 200 mile trek form Yorkshire but there was far greater delights than that to come.

After the dancers left the stage a screen unfolded, two chairs were produced and Dame Antoinette and Clement Crisp were introduced. Dame Antoinette wore trousers with a tailored jacket and black shores and bag. She was as beautiful as I had remembered her on the stage, The years simply rolled away to 1970 when I first saw her. Clement Crisp was elegant too in his manner as much as his dress. Urbane and generous, Dame Antoinette called him our greatest ballet critic as indeed he is.

The conversation began with a joke. Sibley's first great role had been as Swanhilde in Coppélia but a misprint in the billing had cast her as Swan Hitler instead. I wondered about the tactfulness of that reference before a predominately Jewish audience as some of them were old enough to have lived through the Holocaust but nobody seemed to mind. The conversation passed on to Dame Antoinette's first appearances on stage which began when she was still at school. The first time she came to the attention of the press when they followed her to her home in Kent where she sometimes worked in her parents' restaurant. Her first tour to South Africa. Learning ballerina's roles in a matter of days before appearing on stage. Cranko's choosing her to dance in Harlequin.  

The first clip we were shown was of Sibley dancing Dorabella in The Enigma Variations a lovely ballet which may well have been the first time I saw Sibley. Dorabella is Dora Penny and Elgar himself described the movement as follows in his notes:

"'The movement suggests a dance-like lightness.' An intimate portrait of a gay but pensive girl with an endearing hesitation in her speech."

Well that was Sibley and Ashton brilliantly translated it into movement with short steps on pointe representing a slight stammer. Seeing that footage again after all those years literally brought tears to my eyes, and still more flowed  after Crisp revealed that Ashton had nicknamed Sibley Dorabella.

The conversation moved on to Sibley's other great roles in Manon, Cinderella, Thaïs and of course The Dream which was the first ballet Ashton had created for her and Anthony Dowell.  Dame Antoinette said that she had been concerned that she had been chosen by all the other choreographers of the day but not by Ashton and she wondered whether there was a reason for that. However, one day a notice appeared calling her and Dowell to learn the part for a new ballet based on Midsummer Night's Dream. She thought she would be one of the lovers but in fact she was to be Titania. She spoke about how Ashton always prodded her with his finger because he remembered Pavlova and he wanted his dancers to move like her. But he never prodded Sir Anthony.

She discussed how other dancers have to get used to each other in a pas de duex. Often a ballerina has to ask her partner to make adjustments to accommodate her centre but with Sir Anthony it was natural like hand in glove. She had been Sir Anthony's first partner and he had thought it was always like that until he found the contrary when partnering other ballerinas.

She talked about her relationship with Sir Kenneth MacMillan and how he had announced his intention of creating a ballet for her by leaving a book for her in her dressing room and Dame Antoinette produced that book and read from Sir Kenneth's note in the cover. She spoke of the difficulties of preparing for that role as the time she had set aside was interrupted by illness and a trip to Australia.

At the beginning of this post I mentioned the tradition of ballet. Crisp described Sibley as a "repository" - which set her giggling - of knowledge. She had known so many of the greats and indeed she had been taught by two of them. The great English ballerina Pamela May who taught at the School while appearing regularly at Covent Garden and Tamara Karsavina whom Sibley adored. Karsavina once invited the young Sibley to her home and she cooked a steak for her. Sibley chose a steak because she thought it might be easy - something you just place under a grill - but Karsavina took the same trouble over that steak as she did with everything else. 

As Sibley spoke about her teachers I realized that every teacher represents to his or students every dancer, choreographer and teacher who has gone before. Sibley loved her teachers and I can relate to that because I love every one of mine. Those who have gently corrected my wobbling arabesques and feeble turns. I texted one of them yesterday after the talk from a restaurant where I ordered - guess what - a steak. 

"Oh super jealousy" she replied.

"Don't be jealous" I responded "You are also part of the tradition. You live it, I just see it. And you pass on your gift to others."

"Awwwww Thanku xxxx" 

"When I go to class you or Annemarie represent every dancer, choreographer and teacher who ever lived". 

"Aw Jane! I won't be able to leave the room soon" 

"I am only  paraphrasing Sibley. She should know. Through you I am linked to your teacher who is probably linked to someone at Ballet Russes who is linked to Petipa."

"xxxxx wise woman!"

As indeed Dame Antoinette is. I learned so much from her yesterday for which I shall always be grateful.

As if this was not treat enough I got the chance through the wonderful BalletcoForum and twitter to buy a ticket for the Gala for Ghana but that will be the subject of my next post. I have to teach some law to graduate students before I can turn to that.

Sibley

The greatest ballerina I have ever seen was Fonteyn but the one I love the most is Sibley. She was at her prime when I first took an interest in ballet. As I wrote in Ballerina on 1 July 2013

"Who is the greatest ballerina of all time?" I am sometimes asked. It is impossible to say. We can only know our contemporaries and, even then, comparisons are invidious. Each dancer is a star for a reason and the qualities that make a star of one dancer may be quite different from those that make a star of another.

But I can name my favourite dancer of all time and that is Antoinette Sibley. During her prime I could not see enough of her. I lost count of the number of her performances that I saw. Some praise her line, others her technique but, for me, it was the expressiveness of her face. Particularly her eyes. Above is a tribute of photos compiled by the RAD of which she was president. It is a lovely reminder of a great dancer and a still ravishingly beautiful woman."

Thanks to the London Jewish Cultural Centre and the London Ballet Circle whose excellent newsletter drew my attention to this event I shall see that wonderful artist again at the Royal Ballet School on 2 Feb 2014 (see Ivy House Music and Dance "Dame Antoinette Sibley with Clement Crisp, An Afternoon at The Royal Ballet School"). Alas that event is now sold out but I was lucky enough to get a ticket and I shall review the event afterwards.

This visit to the Royal Ballet School is not the London Jewish Cultural Centre's only connection with ballet. Its home is Ivy House which was formerly the home of Anna Pavlova.  The Centre has published a lovely leaflet on the ballerina and her home on its website.  The leaflet shows Pavlova nestling a swan and it was The Dying Swan for which we remember her.

It is clear from its website that the London Jewish Cultural Centre does wonderful work not just in ballet or even the arts but in confronting racism, promoting education, running clubs and a vast range of activities for the young, women indeed everyone. We all benefit from such activities in one way or another and the Centre deserves our support.  The "How to Help Us" page suggests ways to do it.

Ballerina

"Ballerina" is a rank, rather like QC at the Bar. It is reserved for the star of a major company, such as the Royal Ballet or American Ballet Theatre, who dances the leading roles such as Giselle or Odette-Odile. There are only a handful of such stars at any one time.

There is no real equivalent title for outstanding male dancers. "Principal", which applies to both sexes, is how Nureyev and Dowell were described in the House's programmes

A great resource on the art of the ballerina is the Ballerina Gallery,  All the great names are there:

• Fonteyn
• Karsavina
• Pavlova
• Tallchief

and very many more.  Unfortunately the website does not seem to have been updated since 2010.   

"Who is the greatest ballerina of all time?" I am sometimes asked.  It is impossible to say.   We can only know our contemporaries and, even then, comparisons are invidious.  Each dancer is a star for a reason and the qualities that make a star of one dancer may be quite different from those that make a star of another.

But I can name my favourite dancer of all time and that is Antoinette Sibley. During her prime I could not see enough of her. I lost count of the number of her performances that I saw.. Some praise her line, others her technique but, for me, it was the expressiveness of her face.  Particularly her eyes.   Above is a tribute of photos compiled by the RAD of which she was president.  It is a lovely reminder of a great dancer and a still ravishingly beautiful woman.

Further Reading
Judith Mackrell "Margot Fonteyn as you've never seen her before" 10 Dec 2013
Jane Lambert Sibley 17 Dec 2013
Jane Lambert "Le jour de gloire est arrive - Dame Antoinette Sibley with Clement Crisp at the Royal Ballet School" 3 Feb 2014