|
|
|
Lord Byron
|
 |
« Reply #1 on: 12:48:45, 10-10-2007 » |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Mary Chambers
|
|
« Reply #2 on: 20:50:44, 13-10-2007 » |
|
I went this afternoon to ENB's new ballet The Snow Queen. It's very beautiful to look at, but contains every balletic cliché known to mankind - little house at the side with motherly figure in it (cf. Giselle, La Fille Mal Gardée), dancing peasants and gypsies (no political correctness in Balletland), lots of snow with dancing snowflakes (I think), spirits of roses (male, very Nijinsky), jolly dance of celebration when all's well in the end. Not sure that I've ever seen a pas de deux for ballerina and reindeer before, though.
It was too long. The music, Prokofiev's Stone Flower messed about arranged by Julian Philips, didn't often seem to fit the subject matter. It was beautifully danced though, almost without exception, and I did enjoy it in an undemanding sort of way.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Lord Byron
|
|
« Reply #3 on: 21:24:03, 13-10-2007 » |
|
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 21:26:46, 13-10-2007 by Lord Byron »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Mary Chambers
|
|
« Reply #4 on: 21:32:49, 13-10-2007 » |
|
Unfortunately it wasn't Daria this afternoon; it was Agnes Oaks,  a very good dancer but not as right for the Snow Queen as I think Daria would have been. I hadn't heard of any of the others. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Reiner Torheit
|
|
« Reply #5 on: 21:51:40, 13-10-2007 » |
|
, but contains every balletic cliché known to mankind - little house at the side with motherly figure in it (cf. Giselle, La Fille Mal Gardée), dancing peasants and gypsies (no political correctness in Balletland)
Unfortunately (well, unfortunately IMO) ballet seems stuck in the past in this regard - the sad thing being that its public seem to like these tired clichés. Whatever his gainsayers have against him, at least Matthew Bourne makes a proper theatrical performance out of ballets, instead of a thin-as-paper excuse for acrobatics with tawdry old scenery... |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
|
|
|
|
Mary Chambers
|
|
« Reply #6 on: 22:14:03, 13-10-2007 » |
|
Well, I'm part of the ballet public, and although I have absolutely no objection to these things in a 19C ballet, in a brand new one I think it's unimaginative in the extreme. Frederick Ashton would never have done it - except in his reworking of Fille (and that was only the house and mother), and Kenneth MacMillan certainly wouldn't have. Good choreographers are as rare as good composers, possibly rarer.
I think ballet audiences vary enormously. In Liverpool on a Saturday afternoon (as today), the audience is at least 90% female, which always depresses me, and I suspect many of them are the same people who would enjoy musicals, rather than the people who (like me) enjoy opera. London audiences are generally much more sophisticated, at least at Covent Garden.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Kittybriton
|
|
« Reply #7 on: 13:45:46, 14-10-2007 » |
|
I went this afternoon to ENB's new ballet The Snow Queen. It's very beautiful to look at, but contains every balletic cliché known to mankind - little house at the side with motherly figure in it (cf. Giselle, La Fille Mal Gardée), dancing peasants and gypsies (no political correctness in Balletland), from my unfinished (unstarted?) Star Trek Pantomime: "Here we speak in Reason and in RhymeFor this is planet Pan-to-mime!" spirits of roses (male, very Nijinsky)
Beware of pricks! |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish. |
|
|
|
|
|
Lord Byron
|
|
« Reply #9 on: 19:51:59, 14-10-2007 » |
|
I am going, to see Daria  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Soundwave
|
|
« Reply #10 on: 20:50:24, 14-10-2007 » |
|
Ho Lord B. Come now! You only want further opportunities to be involved with the dancing ladies you admire.
Cheers
S'wave
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Ho! I may be old yet I am still lusty
|
|
|
|
Mary Chambers
|
|
« Reply #11 on: 20:51:21, 14-10-2007 » |
|
I don't know what you'll think of it, LB. Depends what you like. There was a review in yesterday's Guardian which largely sums up what I thought, last paragraph in particular. The ballet quite missed the sinister qualities of Hans Andersen's story. Lots of pretty dancers though, if that's what you go to ballet for! http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/dance/reviews/story/0,,2190386,00.html |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Lord Byron
|
|
« Reply #12 on: 20:55:39, 14-10-2007 » |
|
I like the way Daria dances, which is a big reason why I want to go see this ballet ( she was great in giselle at the eno in january ) I will be going with a pretty dancer, who will be sat next to me, as we watch other dancers, on the stage. Hope this clarifies things, for the confused.  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
