A Fille that owes Nothing to Ashton or Lanchbery

Krasnoyarsk State Opera House

Author MaxBioHazard 
Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International
Source Wikipedia Krasnojarsk

The Russian State Ballet of Siberia La Fille mal gardée 15 Feb 2019 Liverpool Empire

Krasnoyarsk is a city in Siberia with a population of just over a million on approximately the same latitude as Dundee. According to Google Maps, it is 4,559 miles away and takes over 14½ hours to reach by air or 5 days by surface transportation.

An opera house with a resident ballet company opened in that city in 1978.  The company's founder members included graduates of the Vaganova Ballet Academy and the Moscow State Academy of Choreography.  Krasnoyarsk has produced some fine dancers over the years despite its remoteness and modest population. They include Anna Ol of the Dutch National Ballet and Viktoria Tereshkina of the Mariinsky.  Many of those dancers trained or began their training in the city and some such as Ol danced with the Krasnoyarsk opera house company.

Every year artists from the Krasnoyarsk opera house ballet tour the United Kingdom as The Russian State Ballet of Siberia (see Anna Lidster Promoting Krasnoyarsk: How the Russian State Ballet of Siberia has won British hearts 3 March 2013 The Siberian Times). I am not sure why they chose that name. It may be that they think that the name of their city might be a bit of a mouthful for British tongues or it may be because they recruit a few extra dancers for the tour such as Francesco Bruni and Francisco Gimenez. However, it is clear from comparing the Russian State Ballet of Siberia's programme with the Krasnoyarsk opera house's website that the two companies are substantially the same.

The tourists have a punishing schedule.  They opened at St David's Hall in Cardiff with The Snow Maiden on 19 Dec 2018 and they will finish in Oxford on 16 March 2019 with Swan Lake. By the end of their tour, they will have performed 6 full-length ballets in 24 venues in every one of our constituent nations except Northern Ireland.  On Friday they reached Liverpool which is where I saw them for the first time.

I was attracted to Liverpool by the show rather than by the company.  They were to dance La Fille mal gardée with music by Hertel rather than Lanchbery and choreography by Gorsky rather than Ashton. La Fille mal gardée is in one sense the oldest ballet in the modern repertoire having first been performed at the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux less than a fortnight before the storming of the Bastille but the version that we know was premiered in 1960.

To my great surprise and joy, Friday's performance was not at all inferior to the Ashton-Lanchbery-Lancaster version. I would go so far as to say that I left the Empire somewhat more elated than when I left the Lowry in October after seeing BRB's latest production which had somehow expanded into three acts. The story was very much the same. The only significant difference is that Colas gets into Simone's house disguised as a notaire rather than hidden under a bundle of wheat sheaves.

There were a few other differences.  Instead of churning butter half-heartedly, a distracted Lise collected a couple of eggs from the henhouse while her mother gathered a basketful.  Nobody dressed as poultry though there were computer generated animations of pigs and other animals crossing the backcloth which earned a few laughs from the audience. There was a sort of ribbon dance but it did not end up as a love knot and Simone performed a clog dance though not the one we know.  Alain was not swept into the sky by the storm clutching his umbrella.  Nor was he made to resemble a carthorse.

But there were elements that do not occur in the Ashton version such as a full-blown classical pas de deux complete with entrée, male and female solos and coda.  Lise dons a classical tutu which could not possibly have been in the Dauberval version. In the Russian version, Lise dances at least as many fouettés as Odile in Swan Lake or Kitri in Don Quixote.

As in Ashton's version, Simone was danced by a man.  In this case Pavel Kirchev, a Bulgarian guest artist who dances with the Varna ballet.  He reminded me quite a lot of Stanley Holden. Elena Svinko was a delightful Lise, coquettish and feisty.  She had teeth and she used them on poor Alain (Ilia Kaprov) biting his fingers and ear and stamping on his foot as he tried to express affection.  Marcello Pelizzoni, who trained in Moscow and dances with the Krasnoyarsk ballet, was Colas. He has impressive elevation, power and grace and I delighted in his virtuosity.

Considering the time they must have spent on the road and the need to pack and repack almost every day I was pleasantly surprised that the sets and costumes seemed so fresh and that the cast had so much energy.  I shall try to catch their Swan Lake when they come to Halifax or Sheffield.

Swan Lake in Paris - Christmas Day Matinee

Karl Paquette, Ludmilla Pagliero and Germain Louvet

Author Helen McDonough
(c) 2016 Helen McDonough: all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the author

Paris Opera Ballet Swan Lake, Opera Bastille, 25 Dec 2016

The second of Helen McDonough's reviews of the Paris Opera Ballet's production of Swan Lake.

"On Christmas Day I watched the matinee of Swan Lake. For this show the main roles were danced by Ludmilla Pagliero (one of the few non French etoiles at Paris Opera Ballet) as Odette/Odile and Germain Louvet, who has recently been promoted to etoile, as Siegfried. Rothbart was again Karl Paquette (earlier casting had Mathieu Ganio so I was sorry to miss him). 

Pagliero and Louvet were very nice dancers. When I saw the performance Louvet was still a sujet, Shorty afterwards I wrote: 

"I think his future looks promising as he coped very effectively with the role of the Prince and his dancing reminded of Mathias Heymann in style, again elegant and refined."

I was right because he was promoted to premier danseur with effect from the 1 Jan 2017.

 

The pas de trois was nowhere near as exciting as that on Christmas Eve. This time it was danced by Marine Ganio, Eleonore Guerineau and Axel Ibot. Ibot is far more slender than Francois Alu and I felt he did begin to tire at the end of his 12 tours en l'air, so it was not quite the same spectacle as I had been privileged to witness the night before. 

In Act 3 Pagliero performed her 32 fouettes and managed to stay on the same spot better than Ould-Braham, although she did mainly doubles and finished facing the back of the stage! 

The swans were just as wonderful as on Saturday night. Amazing to think that those same dancers had done it all less than 24 hours earlier. The majority of dancers were the same so kudos to them! 

For me there was no stand out performer in the matinee as Alu had been the night before, but both performances were wonderful and I was delighted that I got to see them. I would happily go and see it all over again!

The orchestra was magnificent under the baton of Vello Pahn. Dare I say it that the music alone was worth the price of the tickets?

If you are not really “into” Christmas like me I found this trip to Paris to be the perfect antidote. Christmas was not in your face – at least not in my end of town near Nation. Even some of the shops (and to my delight patisseries!) were open on Christmas Day and public transport was all running! After the show I headed straight off to the airport to fly home what a great whirlwind trip to Paris it was!"

HELEN McDONOUGH

I should like to thank Helen for two great reviews and also for her travel tip for those of who want to do something other than eat too much, drink too much and slump in front of the telly on Christmas Day. She travels a long way for her ballet and sees more of the world's great companies than most of us. I do hope to welcome her back again as a contributor. I wish her all the best for the coming year,

Swan Lake in Paris - A Christmas Eve Treat

Karl Paquette, Myriam Ould-Braham and Mathias Heymann

Photo Helen McDonough
(c) 2016 Helen McDonough: all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the author

Paris Opera Ballet, Swan Lake Opera Bastille, 24 Dec 2016

Here is the New Year treat I promised you. My fellow blogger and ballet goer, Helen McDonough, who tweets as @Scarfie1, went to Paris for Christmas. While there she attended the Paris Opera's performances of Swan Lake which she agreed to review for us.  I think you will agree she has done a very good job.

"On Christmas Eve I set out from Manchester Airport for Paris although the aeroplane did try to hamper this by requiring a wheel change which delayed me by 3 hours! However, I eventually got to Paris in good time for 2 performances of Swan Lake.

The Paris Opera Swan Lake is choreographed by Nureyev after Petipa and Ivanov and after watching 2 performances you can really see his stamp on it for reasons which will become clear.

Act 1 opens with the Prince asleep on a throne played by the very elegant Mathias Heymann. While the Prince dreams, Rothbart (Karl Paquette) appears at the rear of the stage in a large cape which he sweeps over Odette who has been dancing towards the back of the stage, turns her into a swan and makes off with her.   It is not clear who danced Odette's steps in this prologue as Myriam Ould-Braham is not due on stage for some time yet! The dramatic scene has Rothbart in black and Odette in white being lifted high up into the fly area.

 Rothbart then reappears as the tutor to the Prince (who makes a habit of whispering to the Prince throughout). With the Prince now awake the corps de ballet appear on stage and perform several ensemble dances.  There follows a lovely solo for the Prince and then a Pas de Trois for him with some of his lady friends.

 Mathias Heymann is a beautiful dancer to watch: one of those men with exquisite line and movement and lovely hands/fingers.

 I personally found the corps de ballet a little ragged at points but what I found very refreshing was that Nureyev has decided to employ the male element of the corps quite heavily in Act 1 - and Act 3 for that matter. It was a real “dancer’s ballet” for the men if you see what I mean!

 Over and over through this ballet one sees geometric formations. A lot of work in groups of 4 and 6 went on. For example, with the men the front 4 at the front right of a group would move out of the main group of 16 and move across the stage and then the next group of 4 would follow until all 4 groups of 4 had move around whichever way required etc... There were also joint male and female dances as well in Act 1. At times the large Bastille stage looked a tad overcrowded!

The jewel in this performance’s crown (never mind just Act 1) was the Pas de Trois. I give you Francois Alu! Wowzer! What an amazing dancer! Not since I saw Ivan Vasiliev explode onto the stage in Don Quixote with the Bolshoi years ago, or saw ENB’s young Cesar Corrales in Le Corsaire as Ali, have I been this trilled by a dancer. He was ably partnered by lovely Leonore Baulac and Hannah O'Neill. Both of whom are great to watch but Francois Alu really stole the PdT in my eyes! His circle of 12 tours en l'air had each one as exact as the next right to the end. No slacking. He put his own stamp on the turns as he had one leg slightly straighter. It  looked really difficult to do. His other jumps and cabrioles were similarly high and powerful. He was on fire! I am so pleased I got to see him as it was totally unexpected! He danced again in Act 3 in the Czardas which was great too.

In this version there is no interval between Act1 and 2 (great) so we moved swiftly on to Act 2 where Odette appears and meets the Prince. The mime was good and I could see it clearly even from my eagle’s nest of a seat! Ould-Braham has lovely soft arms, but I did not get much emotion – I think because I was so far away in this huge theatre! However, the “piece de resistance” were the swans:-

Corps de Ballet

Photo Helen McDonough

(c) 2016 Helen McDonough: all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the author 

Corps de Ballet

Photo Helen McDonough

(c) 2016 Helen McDonough: all rights reserved
Reproduced with kind permission of the author 

I especially adored the choreography for the swans. I was seated in the 2nd tier - so very very high up – but it was the perfect place to see all the details of the choreography and detailed it was. There were 32 swans at times on the stage and it was sight to savour – thankfully Paris Opera Ballet utilise proper “pancake” tutus so all the better for effect. The swans entered the stage very much like the Shades in La Bayadere as they snaked across and down the stage to form their bolt straight lines. The swans were really well “together”, moving as one with lines so straight and moves so well executed that there can only be the Mariinsky that is better when it comes to swans, in my humble opinion. The swans moved as if on air around the stage going from a circle to a pointed V moving forward towards the audience. 

Then they would divide up into groups and make 4 smaller Vs with the points to the middle of the stage so making a square and then they moved again into another shape - I was totally immersed in this geometry and symmetry! Quite how Nureyev managed this I do not know – genius perhaps?

The 4 cygnets were danced very competently and were followed by the 4 big swans doing their piece – all really lovely.

I’m afraid I am not well versed enough to say much about Ould-Braham and Heymann other than that they were very good as you would expect from Etoiles of the POB! My attention was 100% absorbed with the swans! 

 Ending Act 2 though the Prince swore his love to Odette as per usual....

After the single interval we moved on to Act 3 and all the national dances and a Queen desperate for her son to marry.

The dances were very nice and well danced but none of them particularly stood out for me. Rothbart dances a solo piece just before the Prince and Odile do their fireworks so that altered the flow of the story for me a little bit BUT on the plus side it made good use of Rothbart (see more male dancing - Nureyev’s touch?). This allowed Karl Paquette to show that he still has what it takes.  

Miriam Ould-Braham did her 32 fouettes although I found that she did travel quite a bit across the stage if I am being picky, and her "error" was to do a double right at the end, after having done singles, so she landed a little untidily. Mathias Heymann whipped off his 16 turns perfectly and it was all quite the thrill to see. 

Once the Prince realises he has been duped when he sees the vision of the real Odette there was a brief pause and then Act 4 began. 

The fabulous swans returned to the stage and were just as amazing as before in Act 2 with their precise lines and wonderful patterns.

The ending is quite tragic as Odette throws herself off a cliff closely followed by Rothbart and the two of them go up to heaven whilst the Prince is left lying on the stage - I presume dead."

HELEN McDONOUGH

Helen also attended the Christmas day performance and has reviewed it for us.   I will publish it tomorrow.

So what is the rest of Europe watching over Christmas?

Author Ssolbergj
 Source Wikipedia
Creative Commons Licence

"Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without the Royal Ballet's Nutcracker" exclaims the Royal Ballet's trailer. The Birmingham Royal Ballet and English National Ballet seem to agree for they are staging the ballet too (see The Good Nutcracker Guide 31 Oct 2016). There are, of course, alternatives. The Royal Ballet itself is staging The Sleeping Beauty from today as well as The Nutcracker on other days and there is also The Red Shoes at Sadler's Wells which I reviewed when it was at the Lowry in the metropolitan borough of Salford in the county of Greater Manchester (see Red Shoes Bourne Again 3 Dec 2016) and The Red Shoes Second Time Round 4 Dec 2016).

Outside London Scottish Ballet are dancing Hansel and Gretel in Edinburgh which will be wending its way around Scotland early in the New Year before making an appearance in Newcastle where I hope to see it and Belfast in February. I saw the ballet in 2013 and enjoyed it very much (see Scottish Ballet's Hansel and Gretel 23 Dec 2013). Elsewhere in England Northern Ballet's Beauty and the Beast is in Leeds (see Much Less Beastly - Indeed Rather Beautiful 18 Dec 2016) and Ballet Theatre UK will resume their tour of England with Romeo and Juliet after Christmas.

From my Pennine eyrie just to the east of Manchester the great continental cities are nearly as accessible as London and in many cases rather less expensive when you get there.  I have already expressed the view that the Dutch National Ballet's Coppelia at the Music Theatre in Amsterdam is the best Christmas show within reasonable travelling distance of Manchester (see Brandsen's Coppelia 12 Dec 2016 and Pictures of Coppelia 15 Dec 2016).

Both the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky are staging The Nutcracker over the Christmas and New Year holiday season (see the Bolshoi's Schedule of Performances and the Mariinsky Theatre's Playbill) but the Royal Danish Ballet offer Christopher Wheeldon's Alices Adventures in Wonderland, the Paris Opera Jiri Kylian at the Garnier and Nureyev's Swan Lake at the Bastille, the Stuttgart Ballet Don Quixote and La Scala Macmillan's Romeo and Juliet.

Two other bits of news.  

Our contributor Mel Wong who has spent the last 15 months in Hungary is now back in the UK - for the time being at any rate. She is working on an article on Ballet Eifman which we look forward to reading.

In a circular announcing that today is the fifth anniversary of the formation of BalletcoForum, Simonetta Dixon of that forum wrote proudly that "a real community has been established" and "friendships have been forged through BalletcoForum."  I can certainly attest to that. Mel is one of those I met in that way. Linda Morris is another. Aileen is a third.  Helen or Don Q Fan is one more.  Michelle Richer yet another. And, of course, last but not least, Janet McNulty. There are several others who are friends on Facebook and followers on twitter. Today also happens to be the third anniversary of my subscribing to the forum. Although I have had the odd run-in with a moderator and a heated exchange of views with subscribers from time to time I always read my daily email from BalletcoForum with interest. Well done them and long may they continue.

Wishing all my readers around the world a merry Christmas and happy New Year. 

Sir Peter Wright's The Sleeping Beauty in Budapest

Standard YouTube Licence

Hungarian National Ballet, The Sleeping Beauty, Budapest Opera House, 17 April 2016

Last Sunday I attended the opening night of Sir Peter Wright's production of The Sleeping Beauty for the Hungarian National Ballet at the Hungarian State Opera House in Budapest. I came to Budapest as a member of the London Ballet Circle of which Sir Peter is patron. Towards the end of last year the Circle newsletter carried a news item about this production together with an invitation from Sir Peter for members to join him on the first night. The newsletter arrived just before the departure of my friend Mel Wong to take up an offer of training and employment in Hungary. I told her about Sir Peter's invitation and asked her whether she would like me to visit her to which she said she would.

I arrived on Saturday evening and spent much of Sunday with Mel taking a class with her teacher Imre Andrási followed by a sumptuous lunch and the performance of The Sleeping Beauty at the Opera House in the evening (see My Trip to Hungary 21 April 2016). I did not know much about the Hungarian National Ballet before my visit and I wrote just about everything I could find out about it in The Hungarian National Ballet's Sleeping Beauty 24 Feb 2016. Having seen one of its performances and having met its director and several of its dancers and other staff at the cast party after the show I am very impressed. I asked some of them whether the company had any plans to visit the UK. I was told that it had not but that they would very much like to dance here. One of the dancers I met was British although he had trained abroad. I think they would do very well here. In the meantime, I hope that this and my other articles will encourage British and other foreign ballet goers to visit Budapest and see the company for themselves.

The Budapest Opera House is a very beautiful late 19th century building which must have been erected during the reign of Francis Joseph I (1848 - 1916) when Hungary was part of the Dual Monarchy or Austro-Hungarian Empire. As you can see from this photograph the auditorium is sumptuously decorated with a magnificent ceiling and chandelier as indeed are the other rooms. However, it is not a large theatre. It seats 1,300 spectators which is slightly smaller than the capacity of the Leeds Grand Theatre built a few years earlier and just over half that of Covent Garden. Mel and I had seats in the centre of the fifth row of the stalls and so had a perfect view of the stage.

The ballet was very much the same as the Birmingham Royal Ballet's which I had last seen at the Lowry on 27 Sept 2013 (see The Sleeping Beauty - a Review and why the Ballet is important 27 Sept 2013). Sir Peter had brought Denis Bonner and Miyako Yoshida to help him with the choreography. The sets and costumes had been designed by Philip Prowse, the lighting by Peter Teigen and technical support was provided by Doug Nicholson.

Dimitry Timofeev and Aliya Tankpaveva
Budapest Opera House, 17 April 2016

Photographer Gita Mistry
(c) 2016 Team Terpsichore: all rights reserved 

The dancers and musicians, however, came from the company.

Aurora was danced by Aliya Tanykpayeva who appears in the photo to the left. According to the Hungarian National Ballet's website Tankpaveva trained at the Almaty National Ballet Academy in Kazakhstan and danced in the Almaty State Ballet for a number of years before joining the Imperial Russian Ballet Company (which despite its name appears to be based in New Zealand) and the ballet companies of the Vienna State Opera and the Zurich Opera and the Hungarian National Ballet. There appears to be a rather good documentary on her entitled Алия Таныкпаева. Жизнь на кончиках пальцев but, unfortunately, it is not dubbed or subtitled.

Tankpaveva's partner on stage was Dmitry Timofeev who also appears in the photograph. According to his entry in Network Dance (now a little out of date) he is Russian. He was born on 14 July 1989 and trained at the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St Petersburg. Before joining the Hungarian National Ballet Timofeev danced with the Israeli Ballet and the Croatian National Theatre.

Tankpaveva and Timofeev danced well together. They are clearly very talented dancers but they danced the leading roles differently from the way I remembered Elisha Willis and Jamie Bond at the Lowry three years ago. Both Tankpaveva and Timofeev were impressive - particularly Timofeev in his jumps - but the roles - especially Aurora's - require acting as well as virtuosity. It was hard to imagine Tankpaveva as a 16 year old Act II (or Act 1 if you count her birth as a prologue) or the mix of emotions upon being woken up from a 100 year sleep by the love of her life which I have seen in other Auroras. But Tankpaveva, who was utterly charming, fitted the role in every other respect very well indeed.

Danielle Gould
17 April 2016

Photographer  Gita Mistry
(c) 2016 Team Terpsichore

As for the other major roles, the Lilac Fairy was danced by Zsuzsanna Papp, Carabosse by Karina Sarkissova and Bluebird by Maksym Kovtun who also doubled as Puss in Boots. In that latter role he was partnered by the young Canadian dancer Danielle Gould who danced the white cat. It is not an easy character role particularly with a heavy cat mask. She has to be both human and feline: flirtatiousness at one moment, they playful slapping her partner at the next. It is one of my favourite divertissements of any ballet and she danced it well winning the hearts of the audience. Having been trained at the National Ballet School of Canada and the John Cranko Academy it is clear that this young woman is going places. She has very kindly agreed to supply material for a feature of her which will appear very soon.

Audiences seem to applaud differently in Budapest than in London. When they like something they fall into a slow hand clap which is disconcerting to English ears as we tend to regard it as a sign of boredom rather than pleasure. There were plenty of shouts of "bravo" and "brava" throughout the performance, particularly after something spectacular. At the curtain call Karina Sarkissova called on István Dénes to take a bow and he in turn brought the orchestra to their feet. Then someone called on the director who in turn invited Sir Peter himself to take a bow.

Sir Peter was magnificent. He is not a young man. According to the Royal Opera House's website this Christmas's production of The Nutcracker will celebrate his 90th birthday but nobody would have guessed that by looking at him on stage. He bowed. He clapped his artists. He joined in the reverence. He took several curtain calls and I couldn't help but rise to my feet in admiration for the man.

To make him and us from the London Ballet Circle feel at home someone in a box to the right of the stage was raining bouquets of flowers on the dancers. Not quite as spontaneous as in Covent Garden for the chap seemed to be wearing a badge and the flowers were bound but a flower throw none the less.

It was a great night not least because I was lucky enough to be invited back stage with my compatriots to meet Sir Peter and members of the company which I have mentioned in more detail in My Trip to Hungary 21 April 2016. I missed a lot of good things in England, not least the chance to shake hands with Deborah Bull, Robert Parker, Dominic North and Sarah Kundi at Chantry Dance's studio naming ceremony (see What's in a Name 22 April 2916), and I can't be sure that I will ever get another. But even if I don't this visit to Hungary will have been worth it.

The Hungarian National Ballet's Sleeping Beauty

Budapest Opera House

Photo PDXdjSource WikipediaCreative Commons Licence

On 17 April 2016 the Hungarian National Ballet will present Sir Peter Wright's production of The Sleeping Beauty at the Budapest Opera House. As patron of the London Ballet Circle, Sir Peter has invited members of the Circle to attend the opening night.

According to Wikipedia the company was established in 1884 with the opening of the Budapest Opera House which seems to be a magnificent auditorium.  The theatre has an excellent internet radio station called Operadio Budapest to which I am listening right now.

I regret to say that I do not yet know much about the company. The only dancer I know is Ryosuke Morimoto who has recently joined the corps de ballet. The reason I know him is that he was a member of the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company last year. I included him in my feature on the Junior Company (see Meet Ryosuke Morimoto of the Dutch National Ballet Junior Company 3 Dec  2014). I had the pleasure of meeting him briefly at a reception that followed the Junior Company's performance at the Stadsshouwburg on the 6 Feb 2015 and found him to be a very personable young man as well as a fine dancer. I am delighted that he has landed a job with the Hungarian National Ballet.

The company's artistic director and ballet master appears to be Tamás Solymosi The Étoile of the 2015-2016 season is Lili Felméry. a soloist with the company. That lady seems to have studied at a lot of ballet schools including the Royal Ballet School between 2008 and 2009. Her latest role is  in Manon. There are four women principals in the company (Alexandra Kozmér, Tatiana Melnik,  Aleszja Popova and Aliya Tanykpayeva) and five men (Máté Bakó, József Cserta, Gergely Leblanc, Zoltán Oláh and Dmitry Timofeev). 

In staging the Sleeping Beauty Sir Peter has been assisted by Dennis Bonner  and Miyako Yoshida from the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Sets and costumes have been designed by Philip Prowse. The cast has not been announced but the orchestra will be conducted by István Dénes.

Members of the Circle who want to attend are expected to make their own way to Budapest. Tickets for the show can be booked online. The top price is 25,000 florints (about £62.50 at current rates of exchange) and there are plenty of cheaper seats. The low cost airline Wizzair flies several times a day from Luton. Yhe K & K Opera Hotel which is a few yards from the opera house charges £190 for a 2 night stay, 

The Increasing Cost of Friendship

On Saturday 10 Oct 2015 I discussed public funding for ballet (see How Arts Council England supports Dance 10 Oct 2015).  I mentioned Arts Council England’s analysis of its investment inlarge-scale opera and ballet in which the Arts Council announced on page 7 that it will reduce the total funding to the major opera ballet companies by 7.3% in real terms, and shrink their share of national portfolio funding to 21%.  I was, however, pleased to see on the next page that the Arts Council gave Northern Ballet a planning figure of £3.1 million from 2015-16, an increase of £550,000 per annum on its core grant.

By coincidence I received a letter from Mark Skipper DL (well, actually 2 because one was addressed to "Miss Jane Lambert" and the other to "Ms Jane Lambert") thanking me for my commitment to Northern Ballet over the years and expressing his extreme gratitude and that of David Nixon for my past and ongoing generosity.  In the next paragraph Mr Skipper mentioned the numerous cuts and budget constraints that the arts sector (though happily not Northern Ballet) has faced over the years as well as competition from touring musicals from London and abroad.  He concluded

"To preserve a sustainable future for Northern Ballet, we have to become less reliant on Arts Council funding."

Now as an old fashioned liberal I have always been uncomfortable about asking our beer drinking, football supporting fellow citizens to support my passion for ballet which I have to acknowledge is a minority interest.  As Jeremy Bentham put it:

"Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry."

I therefore applaud any initiative to reduce dependence on Arts Council England.

However, it comes as a cost for Mr Skipper's letters announced that the Friends' subscription (though not the Patrons') will rise.  For most Friends the increase is from £50 to £70 a year but for pensioners who have until now contributed £30 per year it is a whopping 133.3% as they can no longer subscribe at a concessionary rate. A price rise that contrasts with negative inflation across the board in the UK.

Now there is no question of my not supporting Northern Ballet. I have done so in one form or another ever since 1985 when I returned to the North. I do so not because I am Northern, still less because I want to attend open rehearsals or receive the other benefits advertised on the Friends and Patrons page but because I love ballet. By the same token I am also a Friend of Covent Garden even though I hardly ever get to the Royal Opera House, Scottish Ballet even though I am not a Scot and the Dutch National Ballet even though I am a Brit.  I will continue to make an annual gift to Northern Ballet and the Northern Ballet Academy to the extent that I have done in the past even if I cease to remain  a formal Friend.

The reason why I may cease to remain a formal Friend is that there are a lot of companies such as Birmingham Royal Ballet and English National Ballet that deserve my support and don't yet get it. There are also bodies like The Ballet Association, The Vic-Wells Association and Dance UK which I really should support. Similarly there are schools and students the length and breadth of the country and elsewhere who need help.  The problem with subscription hikes of this kind is that it forces us to make hard choices.