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.

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.