The Sleeping Beauty in Huddersfield

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The Royal Ballet, The Sleeping Beauty, The Royal Opera House, screened to cinemas, 28 Feb 2017 ay 19:30

It was great to see Dame Monica Mason and Dame Beryl Grey on the big screen last Tuesday. I saw Dame Monica on stage often when she was a principal of the Royal Ballet.  She is one of my favourite ballerinas. Nowadays I see her often at meetings of the London Ballet Circle. I have also met Dame Beryl but I have only seen films of her dancing.

Dame Beryl was in the Sadler's Wells Ballet's first performance at Covent Garden on 20 Feb 1946 which I referred to in The Sleeping Beauty - a Review and why the Ballet is important on 20 Sept 2013. Aurora's awakening has been likened to the country's recovery from war and also to the reopening of the Royal Opera House as a theatre. The restaging if The Sleeping Beauty this season commemorates that reopening.

There have been a few changes to the ballet since 1946. Additional choreography has been contributed by Sir Frederick Ashton. Sir Anthony Dowell and Christopher Wheeldon.  Dame Monica had produced the show with Christopher Newton. Oliver Messel's designs were supplemented by Peter Farmer's. The biggest change of all is that the Royal Ballet has grown considerably in size and international reputation.

The title role was danced by Marianela Nuñez. Her suitors in the rose adage included two of my favourites, Gary Avis and Thomas Whitehead. The other two, whom I also enjoyed. were Valeri Hristov and Johannes Stepanek. One of the advantages of watching the ballet on the big screen is that it is easier to appreciate the difficulties of this scene. Aurora's prince was Vadim Muntagirov, also greatly admired for his virtuosity.  Claire Calbert was a delightful lilac fairy. Alexander Campbell was a fine bluebird. Kristen McNally was a splendid Carabosse and richly deserved her flowers at the curtain call.

The HDTV transmissions from the Royal Opera House have improved though they are still mot perfect. It was a right to partner Darcy Bussell with an experienced presenter but I bristled when he called Dame Beryl by her first name and teased Darcy Bussell over her tracing the dancers' steps. The Royal Opera House's productions really need a presenter like the Bolshoi's Katerina Novikova.

Prizes, Prizes, Prizes

Lausanne

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Two significant prize givings this week.

First, the Prix de Lausanne which is open to young dancers aged 15 to 18 which took place all last week at the Palais de Beaulieu which you can just make out in the bottom right of the picture (see Prix de Lausanne 29 Jan 2017).

The finals took place on Saturday afternoon and were compèred by Deborah Bull of King's College. For at least the time being can see a recording of the event on the Arte channel. The winners were Michele Esposito from Italy, Marina Fernandes da Costa Duarte and Denilson Almeida from Brazil, Taisuke Nakao and Koyo Yamamoto from Japan, Lauren Hunter from the USA, Stanislaw Wegrzyn from Poland, Diana Georgia Ionescu from Romania, Sunu Lim from Korea.

My congratulations to all the finalists - indeed to everyone who took part in the competition whether they made the week in Lausanne or not - and I should like to wish each and every one of them well in the remainder of their studies and their career in dance,

Secondly, the winners of the National Dance Awards have been announced. You can find the list of winners in 2016 National Dance Awards – Winners Announced 6 Feb 2016. Again, I should like to congratulate the winners of those awards.

However, there are two awards that particularly delighted me. One was the One Dance UK Industry Award to Brenda Last. I remember in the Royal Ballet but I have just learned from Dance Tabs that she was a founder of what is now Scottish Ballet and that she later became director of the Norwegian Ballet who impressed me so much on World Ballet Day. The other was the De Valois Award for Outstanding Achievement to Dame Beryl Gray. She was one of the greats of my youth and she did much to attract me to ballet. I had the good fortune to talk to her briefly at the London Ballet Circle's 70th anniversary celebrations last year.

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.

70 Years of the London Ballet Circle

National Liberal Club

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I have just returned from a most delightful evening at the National Liberal Club. The occasion was a talk and party to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the formation of the London Ballet Circle. The Circle must have been formed just a few weeks after Sadler's Wells Ballet danced The Sleeping Beauty at Covent Garden (see The Sleeping Beauty (1946) Royal Opera House Collections On-line) and like the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Royal Ballet School it owes much to its first patron, Dame Ninette de Valois.

I can't tell you what was said in the discussion because a rule similar to the Chatham House Rule applies to meetings of the London Ballet Circle but I can say that many of the great names of British ballet contributed to that discussion or were in the audience to hear it. Before the discussion began, our chairperson, Susan Dalgetty Ezra announced that Kevin O'Hare and Cassa Pancho had been appointed Vice-Presidents of the Circle. The latter announcement delighted me so much that I clapped so vigorously that a lady in the front tow turned round to see who was responsible for the racket. Cassa Pancho and her delightful dancers are among my very favourite people in the arts. Indeed anywhere.

At the party I met some of my heroes and heroines. There was Dame Beryl Gray whose company's performances of The Nutcracker in the Festival Hall every Christmas attracted me to ballet when I was very young. Sir Peter Wright whom I had met for the first time in Budapest on 17 April was there too. So, too was Dame Monica Mason, one of my all time favourite ballerinas. Also, Gary Avis, the best Drosselmeyer ever, as gracious and handsome off stage as he is on it. I wish him all the best with Dance for Suffolk which I hope to review in Terpsichore. Last but not least Cassa Pancho whose company I had seen twice at the weekend and I take this opportunity to congratulate her.

There were warm words for great names who were not there. Among the people I spoke to Ernst Meisner's occurred more than once. As one of his fans, it was gratifying to note the enormous affection as well as respect with and in which he is held in this country.

To start its next 70 years The London Ballet Circle has arranged two Borealian treats. It has invited Javier Torres to speak on 23 May 2016 and Jonathan Watkins who created the delightful Northern Trilogy and 1984 for Northern Ballet will speak on 6 June. I shall be there to cheer them on.