The Dutch National Ballet's "The Sleeping Beauty" - I have waited nearly 50 years for this show

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The Dutch National Ballet The Sleeping Beauty, Stopera, Amsterdam 17 Dec 2017, 14:00

It's funny how some performances stand out in one's memory over the years.  The performance of The Sleeping Beauty by the Royal Ballet on 22 July 1972 was one of those. Dame Margot Fonteyn danced Aurora and Rudolf Nureyev Florimund.  It was a glorious evening and I saw the show when I was at a high point of my life, shortly after graduating from St Andrews and just before I was due to take up a scholarship to UCLA.

I've seen many excellent performances of The Sleeping Beauty since then by Birmingham Royal Ballet, the Hungarian National Ballet and lots of other companies including the Royal Ballet. None has come close to that show on 22 July 1972. It was for me the gold standard. At least not until last Sunday. Now, over 46 years after that remarkable performance by Fonteyn and Nureyev, I have seen its peer.

The matinee that I attended on Sunday afternoon had been staged by Sir Peter Wright, It is a production that I had seen several times before and know very well, Although the music, choreography and designs appeared to be the same as those I had seen before, Sunday's show had a freshness, an energy, a je ne sais quoi that somehow distinguished it from all previous performances of that ballet since 1972. The reason why it was so good is that HNB is one of the world's great companies and very special as Sir Peter noted in a YouTube clip to promote a previous revival (see Sir Peter Wright has wonderful words for the company (Dutch National Ballet) HNB 6 Dec 2010). In fact, when a gentleman in the seat next to me asked how it compared with London I replied that for my money HNB was the best company in Europe if not the world.

HNB has some brilliant dancers. Aurelia was danced on Sunday by Maia Makhateli. Although she trained in Georgia and the USA she seemed to dance very much in the English way displaying a pleasing line and considerable virtuosity but without exaggeration or gratuitous theatricality. Her rose adage was superb and readers can see her performing it in Maia Makhateli Sleeping Beauty Rose Adagio 28 Oct 2016 YouTube. It is the best I can remember. I should add that Ms Makhateli is as charming off stage as she is impressive on it for when I asked her to sign a card to my contributor, Helen McDonough, in a signing session after the show she knew exactly to whom I was referring.

Ms Makhateli was partnered gallantly by Daniel Camargo. He is a very powerful but also very graceful dancer and he can also project emotion and feeling as well as any voice actor. In those regards he reminds me very much of Nureyev at the same age.  Sunday's performance was the first time I had seen him in a major role and I was impressed,  His rise to principal in Stuttgart over just a few years was meteoric. Although he is still quite young, he has already achieved a lot.  His potential must be considerable.

As Perrault's tale is essentially a struggle between good and evil, the most important characters are perhaps the lilac fairy and Carabosse.  Erica Horwood was a delightful lilac fairy but the prima ballerina, Igone de Jongh, was the best Carabosse I have ever seen, Both appeared with their attendants and Carabossse's were particularly creepy. The other fairies, Jessica Xuan, Suzanna Kaic, Yuanyuan Zhang, Naira Agvannean, Aya Okumura and Maria Chugai, danced exquisitely There were strong solo performances in the final act. I particularly liked Young Gyu Choi's and his partner Suzanna Kaic as the bluebirds and Clotilde Tran-Phat and Daniel Montero Real as the white cat and Puss'n Boots. Everyone in the cast danced well but this overlong review would resemble a telephone directory if I gave every artist the credit he or she deserves.

The Stopera's enormous stage displayed Philip Prowse's gorgeous costume and set designs to optimum advantage.

It was thrilling to sit in centre of the second row of the stalls just a few feet behind the celebrated conductor Boris Gruzin. It was tantamount to being in the orchestra pit. Indeed, it was almost like being on stage.

The Sleeping Beauty will run to New Year's Day but, sadly, almost every performance is fully booked. However, Birmingham Royal Ballet's version, also produced by Sir Peter Wright and also very good, is about to go on tour.  It will visit Southampton between 31 Jan and 3 Feb, Birmingham between 13 and 24 Feb, Greater Manchester between 28 Feb and 3 March, Cardiff between 14 and 17 March and Plymouth between 21 and 24 March.

Finally, I must apologize to readers for the long and embarrassing delay since my last post in November. I have made made copious notes of Rambert's Ghost Dances at the Alhambra, Northern Ballet's The Little Mermaid in Sheffield, Birmingham Royal Ballet's The Nutcracker in Birmingham and the Russian State Ballet and Opera House's Romeo and Juliet in Harrogate not to forget the preview of Sharon Watson's Windrush, cinema relays of the Bolshoi's Le Corsaire and the Royal Ballet's Alice in Wonderland and The Nutcracker, Martin Dutton's inspiring Nutcracker intensive, great classes at Pineapple and Huddersfield and the Arts Council's seminar on grant applications. I will try to get these out to you by the end of the year.

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.

Margot Fonteyn

Bronze statute of Dame Margot Fonteyn

Photograph by Ian Yarham,
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Source Wikipedia

Peggy Hookham was born this day in Reigate exactly 96 years ago. She is of course better known as Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias, prima ballerina assoluta and probably one pf the greatest dancers of all time. I won't attempt a biography. There are plenty around as well as her own autobiography. For those who want to research her life and career the Wikipedia article provides a good starting point.

I shall confine myself to some personal memories. Although I saw her on television many times as I was growing up I did not see her on stage until I went to university. This was in the late 1960s and early 1970s when she was entering her fifties. One of the roles that I saw her dance was Juliet in Macmillan's Romeo and Juliet from which a remarkable film was made. You can still see on YouTube. I saw her in most of the other great classical roles as I was a Young Friend of Covent Garden and practically lived at the House in the Christmas, Easter and first part of the Summer vacations between 1969 and 1972.

My last memory of Fonteyn was not on the stage but in the Great Hall of Lincoln's Inn. She had been invited to dine with the benchers on Grand Day. This is an occasion when prominent individuals in public life visit the Inn. Usually the benchers and their guests enter and leave the hall in silence. After their name is read out they are greeted with a bow which they usually reciprocate. But when Dame Margot left the Hall there was an explosion of applause as though she had danced Odette-Odile. Her smile will remain with me to my dying day.