All Credit to the Royal Ballet's Dancers last night. If only the Presenters and Techies were as good.

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Royal Ballet Triple Bill: Concerto, Enigma Variations and Raymonda  streamed from the Royal Opera House to cinemas worldwide including Leeds-Bradford Odeon, 5 Nov 2019, 19:15

If the Royal Opera House had subcontracted the streaming of its live performances to Pathé Live or at least recruited Ekaterina Novikova, yesterday's screening of the Concerto, Enigma Variations and Act III of Raymonda would have been perfect.  The double act between Anita Rani and Darcey Bussell just did not work. Alexander Campbell and Kristen McNally who recently hosted World Ballet Day were so much better.

Also, I probably saw the screening at the wrong cinema.  I was at Leeds Bradford Odeon which has been promoted as a super luxury auditorium. Each seat has an airline-style tray enabling patrons to chomp away as you watch the feature.  Fine for Disney perhaps but not for ballet.  Also, the transmission started late.  No more than 5 minutes before the curtain was raised.  Nobody in the cinema had bothered to print the programmes even after I had given a member of their staff the URL from which they could be downloaded. The ladies' loos on the first floor were a disgrace because they could not be flushed properly.

Happily, my mood changed the moment Maestro Sorokin entered the orchestra pit. Soon I was enchanted by the music of Shostakovich and MacMillan's choreography.  Concerto is a very short piece but it must require considerable strength, stamina and concentration to do well.  The dancers were Anna Rose O'Sullivan, James Hay, Yasmine Naghdi Ryoichi Hirano and Mayara Magri.  The set was very simple.  Just a red disc like a setting sun for the second movement.  So, too, were Rose's costumes. They filled the stage and uplifted even the cinema audience.

In the interval, Rani and Bussell interviewed Wayne Sleep and Alfreda Thoroughgood.  They were the leading dancers of my youth and it was so good to see them again. They had, of course, aged but they were still beautiful.  I am not sure that I ever saw Thoroughgood in Enigma Variations but I certainly remember Sleep, Anthony Dowell and the wonderful Antoinette Sibley as Dorabella.  When one associates a role with a dancer it is always difficult to watch another artist a generation later fill her shoes but I was more than happy with Francesca Hayward in Sibley's role.  I was also delighted with Laura Morera as Lady Elgar and Christopher Saunders as Elgar.  I think is my favourite Ashton work. It is certainly my favourite of his short works.  I can't remember when I last saw it but it was good to see it again.

The last work was a treat with Natalia Osipova in the title role and Vadim Muntagirov as de Brienne. Having seen the Bolshoi's performance of Raymonda on 27 Oct 2019, I would dispute that it is a silly story or not much of a story as Bussell or someone else last night.  I think there is a love triangle between de Brienne, Raymonda and Abderakhman and anyone restaging the ballet might want to develop that.  Abderakhman/s treatment could be explained by Islamophobia or racism. To my mind, the last Act, which is one big divertissement, is the least interesting of the ballet.  But it provides plenty of scope for virtuosity,  Being Guy Fawkes day, Osipova and Muntagirov excited us as well as any pyrotechnics outside.

So my thoughts of the evening are as follows: All credit to the Royal Ballet's dancers and creatives last night, If only the presenters and techies were as good.

Spotted - Northern Ballet Academy's Schools Outreach Programme

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In So Proud of those Students and their Teacher 7 Feb 2018 I wrote:

"Cara is not only an excellent teacher. She is also a fine choreographer. I have only seen one of her works, Small Steps, about the rescue of Jewish children from Nazi Germany in commemoration of the Kindertransport (see Small Steps and other Pieces - Leeds CAT End of Term Show 2 July 2016). It was profoundly beautiful and very moving and I long to see more."

I was, of course, referring to Cara O'Shea who appears in the film above as well as the recording in my earlier post.

As it happened I did not have to wait long to see another of Cara works for she had choreographed a short but delightful ballet for Northern Ballet Academy's boys called "Be My Guest".  The boys were dressed as waiters and they performed some quite difficult movements including soaring leaps that quite drew my breath away towards the end of the piece.

Cara had created the work to entertain some of the company's benefactors at a fundraising dinner on Thursday. The dinner was held to raise money for the Spotted,  the Academy's outreach programme for schools in Yorkshire. This is a programme to deliver dance to schoolchildren some of whom may never have attended a ballet.   Pupils in years 4, 5 and 6 are offered a 90 minute dance workshop.  All will have fun.  Those who show promise may be invited to the Academy for further training under the You've been spotted programme.

The company presented two other delightful interludes for our pleasure - Concerto and the proposal scene from the last act of Jane Eyre.   I congratulate all the dancers but I particularly enjoyed Abigain Prudames and Mlindi Kulashe in the proposal.

Northern Ballet's MacMillan Celebration

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Northern Ballet A Celebration of Sir Kenneth MacMillan Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, 7 Oct 2017, 19:30

Kenneth MacMillan died on 29 Oct 1992. On the 25th anniversary of his death, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Northern Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Scottish Ballet and Yorke Dance Project have joined in a national festival of his work. The focus of this celebration was a special season at Covent Garden to which each of those companies contributed.

Before going to London, Northern Ballet performed three of MacMillan's works at the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford between the 5 and 7 Oct 2017:

• Las Hermanas;
• Concerto; and
• Gloria.

The company will dance them again in Leeds on 16 and 17 March 2018. 

These were not the jolliest of works for a Saturday night. One ended with a suicide.  Another was about the First World War.  Concerto was abstract but it can hardly be described as a bundle of laughs. MacMillan did create more cheerful ballets such as Elite Syncopations.   It would have been good to have included something like that in the programme.  There may have been some in the audience who had never seen MacMillan's work before.  Those audience members would have gained a better impression of the extent of his genius had some of his lighthearted work been included.

Las Hermanas means Sisters in Spanish and it was based on La casa de Bernarda Alba by Federico Garcia Lorca which is subtitled Drama de mujeres en los pueblos de España ("Drama about women in rural Spain"). Though set in Andalusia on the eve of the Spanish civil war it was first performed in Argentina just before Juan Domingo Perón came into power. Melancholy runs through this work like the name of a seaside resort through a stick of rock.

As in Lorca's play, there are five sisters who range in age from 20 (Adela) to 39 (Angustias) plus their mother (Bernarda) but, unlike the play, there is a powerful male role for Angustias's fiancé, Pepe. Bernarda is in mourning for her second husband and she insists that her daughters mourn too. They sit at home without companionship as their lives tick by. Pepe enters the home,  He dances first with Angustias but she is tight and tense. Adela is more receptive but she is spotted by one of he sisters who betrays her.  Overcome with shame, Adela hangs herself. 

MacMillan created the work for the Stuttgart Ballet. His cast included Marcia Haydée, Birgit Keil, Ray Barra and Ruth Papendick who were among the most celebrated dancers of their time.  Appropriately,  Northern Ballet deployed its "A" team. Hannah Bateman was the eldest sister and Javier Torres her fiancé. Minju Kang was the wilful Adla, Pippa Moore the spiteful jealous sister and Victoria Sibson the tyrannical mother. Rachael Gillsepie and Mariana Rodrigues were the fourth and fifth sisters.  

Another impressive feature of this performance was the elaborate set by Nicholas Georgiadis, Georgiadis collaborated with MacMillan on many of his ballets including his Romeo and Juliet which is a masterpiece of theatre design. According to Kenneth MacMillan's website, it was Nicholas Georgiadis, who suggested the balletic possibilities of Lorca’s play.

I would be lying if I said I enjoyed the work. It is chilling, depressing and very dark. But I was very impressed by the dancers, the technicians who recreated and assembled Georgiadis's magnificent designs, the lighting staff and everyone who was involved in the production. Artistically and technically it was one of the best performances by Northern Ballet that I have ever seen.

Concerto was another work that MacMillan created while in Germany. This time it was for the Berlin Opera Ballet. His dancers included Didi Carli, Falco Kapuste, Lynn Seymour, Rudolf Holz and Silvia Kesselheim. Its score is Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 2.  The work consists of three movements. The first consists of a leading lady, a leading man and six soloists. The second movement is a pas de deux. The third movement has a leading lady and the corps. According to MacMillan's website, the original performance was danced against a plain background the dancers in tunics of olive and ochre. Northern Ballet's sets and costumes were redesigned by Lady Deborah MacMillan with the dancers in brighter colours.  On 7 Nov 2017 Antoinette Brookes-Daw and Matthew Koon were the leading dancers in the first movement, Abigail Prudames and Joseph Taylor danced the pas de deux and Dominique Larose was the leading lady of the third movement.

MacMillan created Gloria for the Royal Ballet in 1980 after he had ceased to be its artistic director. It is an elegy to the youth who died or were injured in the first world war. Inspired by Vera Britten's Testament of Youth with music by Poulenc it is a highly emotional, haunting and intensely spiritual work. The males are soldiers (or perhaps spirits of soldiers) clad in khaki and very insubstantial looking helmets. If the men could be taken for ghosts the women are unambiguously ghostlike glad head to foot in white or grey. The dancers rise over a ridge as though clambering out of a trench to charge the enemy lines. On World Ballet Day, David Nixon contrasted the stage of the Alhambra with that of the Royal Opera House where the ridge looked real.  Lorenzo Trosello danced a solo, Mimju Kang and Giuliano Contadini a pas de deux. Sarah Chun, Ashley Dixon, Nichola Gervasi and Sean Bates a pas de quatre and Dreda Blow joined Hannah Bateman, Abigail Prudames and Dominique Larose in a dance for four women.

Sadly, the Alhambra was less than full on 7 Oct 2017 and I think that was because of the programming. While audiences do not expect to be jollied every time they go to the theatre there is only so much doom and gloom a body can take - especially with all the other horrible things that are happening in the world. It would also have been nice to have had a programme. I received a cast list eventually but only after I had hunted down a duty manager.

But these are niggles. Anybody who stayed the course was rewarded by some exquisite dancing. My standing order for another year's sub to the Friends of Northern Ballet went through last week. It is money well spent.

MacMillan - A National Celebration

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Sir Kenneth MacMillan died on 29 Oct 1992 (see the biographical notes on the Kenneth Macmillan website). To commemorate the 25th anniversary of his death, dancers from the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet, Northern Ballet and the Yorke Dance Project will come together on the stages of the Royal Opera House to celebrate MacMillan’s extraordinary legacy (see Kenneth MacMillan: a National Celebration on the  Royal Opera House website.

On 18 and 19 Oct 2017, dancers from the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet and Northern Ballet will dance Elite Syncopations which the Kenneth MacMillan website describes as MacMillan at his most playful (see Elite Syncopations on the Kenneth MacMillan website). Extracts from the ballet performed by the Tulsa Ballet appear in the video above. Birmingham Royal Ballet will dance Concerto and Scottish Ballet Le Baiser de la Fée  (see Concerto, Le Baiser de la fée and Elite Syncopations on the Royal Opera House's website and Scottish Ballet dances Stravinsky on Scottish Ballet's). Readers may remember my article on the reconstruction of an extract from Le Baiser de la Fée in Pavlova's drawing room (see A Minor Miracle - Bringing Le Baiser de la fée back to Life 2 June 2014),

On 24 Oct and 1 Nov 2017 dancers from the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet will dance The Judas Tree and Das Lied von der Erde (see The Judas Tree and The Song of the Earth on the Royal Opera House website).  The Royal Ballet will dance The Judas Tree again on 26 and 27 Oct 2017 while Northern Ballet will dance Gloria and dancers from the Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, Scottish Ballet and Northern Ballet will perform Elite Syncopations (see Gloria, The Judas Tree and Elite Syncopations on the Royal Opera House website).

The Royal Ballet will dance Jeux. a short ballet by Wayne Eagling inspired by MacMillan's recreation of Nijinsky's work at the Clore Studio Upstairs on the 18, 18 and 24 Oct 2017 (see Jeux on the Royal Opera House website).

Also in the Clore Studio Upstairs, dancers from the Yorke Dance Project will dance A Sea of Troubles on 26 and 27 Oct and 1 Nov 2017 (see Sea of Troubles on the Royal Opera House website).

As I noted in What can possibly follow Tindall? Nothing less than MacMillan 13 March 2017, Northern Ballet plans its own tribute to MacMillan by dancing Concerto, Las Hermanas and Gloria in Bradford between 5 and 7 Ocr 2017. The company will also dance that programme in Leeds on 16 and 17 March 2018 (see A Celebration of Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Master Choreographer  on the Northern Ballet website),

What can possibly follow Tindall? Nothing less than MacMillan

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I think everyone who was in the Leeds Grand Theatre on Saturday night would agree that Casanova was a great success (see Casanova - "it has been a long time since I enjoyed a show by Northern Ballet as much as I enjoyed Casanova last night" 12 March 2017). What could possibly follow a work like that? Nothing less than a master like Sir Kenneth MacMillan I would say.

Happily, that is exactly what we can expect for Northern Ballet will dance three of Sir Kenneth's works at the Bradford Alhambra between the 5 and 7 Oct 2017. An excellent venue for the Alhambra is arguably Yorkshire's finest theatre by a country mile. The ballets that the company will perform are:

• Concerto
• Las Hermanas, and
• Gloria.

Concerto and Las Hermanas were originally created for German companies though Las Hermanas found its way into the repertoires of Western Theatre Ballet (now Scottish Ballet) and The Royal Ballet where I first saw it.  Gloria was created for The Royal Ballet shortly after he had ceased to be that company's artistic director.

Nothern Ballet also plans to dance the triple bill in Leeds next year.