@straightenthoseknees / straightenthoseknees.tumblr.com
An adorable picture of Daria Klimentova with flowers after her final performance with the English National Ballet. If you haven’t seen the BBC documentary Agony and Ecstasy: A year with the English National Ballet, you should! It’s a great look at her and her dancing relationship with 20 years her junior Vadim Muntagirov. They are so good on stage together! All the feels. She is a great ballerina, not only technically capable but also dramatic, playful, and strong.
When dancers get engaged! Congrats to NYCB dancers Joaquin de Luz and Emilie Garrity on their engagement!
Photos: instagram @jdeluz23 and @emilieger.
Love this portrait of Aurélie Dupont. Will be so interesting to see what she does with the Paris Opera Ballet. #likeaboss. Photo: Sophie Delaporte
BALLET REVIEW: PARIS OPERA BALLET’S “ROMEO ET JULIETTE”
Last night I had the honor of watching Dorothée Gilbert and Hugo Marchand perform Romeo and Juliet at the Opera Bastille, with choreography and staging by Rudolf Nureyev. By the time I purchased my tickets at the end of February, the entire March and early April run was nearly sold out. This is clearly a production that Paris adores.
The sets and staging are sumptuous and dramatic. Nureyev was inspired by “West Side Story” and it shows. One can feel the drama and tension between the Capulets and the Montagues. The fight scenes are long, intricately choreographed, and Nureyev uses every person on stage.
This R+J focuses on Romeo. When he enters the stage, it’s a grand solo entrance. There’s foreshadowing about his being born under a cursed star, with appearances by dice rollers and the untimely death of a beggar. Had I not read show notes in advance, these references would have been lost to me. He gets small solo sections here and there, expanding more upon the Romeo role than in the MacMillan version.
When Juliet first appears, she’s barely able to be identified. She’s dancing in a group of her friends and wearing a nearly identical costume as everyone else. Rosaline had so much dancing time at the intro that my friend seeing the show for the first time, thought that Rosaline was Juliet at first!
Finally after we see Romeo and his friends having a merry time, Romeo and Juliet meet at the ball of the Capulets. This piece of music happens to be one of my favorites, and Nureyev does the Capulet party ensemble grand justice. I have never been a fan of “filler” corps dance scenes, but the Nureyev R+J ones are grandiose and fill the music.
Here is the moment for Romeo and Juliet to meet, fall in love, and embark on their grand and cursed journey in love. The music swells, the lovers dance, and... nothing. I felt nothing. I kept waiting for the movements to match the music in grandeur, desire, desperation and longing, but there was nothing. Technically, not a hair was out of place for our Romeo and Juliet, but emotionally, I did not feel the mad magnetic attraction between them.
Nureyev spends so much time paying homage to other details of the original story and opening up the exposition of the Capulets vs the Montagues, that by the time our lovers meet, decide to marry, get separated, and die together, it all seems rather rushed. It’s as though he had to put in these plot points because it is the story that everyone knows.
Perhaps I am biased from watching the pas de deux from MacMillan’s version so many times - but you could really feel all stages of the evolution of their relationships: from falling in love (the balcony pdd), to the pain of separation (Juliet’s bedroom pdd), to the final drama and realisation of each other’s deaths (the crypt scene pdd).
Tybalt - Audric Bezard and Mercutio - Allister Madin brought life to their roles and owned the stage. Allister was in particular a fan favorite that night.
Dorothee Gilbert is of course a fine étoile of the Paris Opera Ballet. I have watched her R+J PDD on YouTube many times. In the video up close, you can see all of the small nuances that make her performance so wonderful. But sitting back in the audience, even still in the parterre, some details were lost.
I feel the role of Juliet gets shortchanged. She goes from spritely maiden dancing with her cousin, to teenager in love, to petulant teenager defying parents, to... being visited by ghosts and choosing magical potions. While Romeo has stage-time, I don’t feel invested in his development either. I’m not rooting for him. To be blunt - I felt he was bland. Tybalt and Mercutio stole a bit of the show from him.
In all honesty, the MacMillan R+J pdd’s are my favorite ballet pieces of all time. So, it would be difficult to watch something new for the first time and have it measure up. Nureyev has given the Opera de Paris a grand and dramatic Romeo & Juliette that is their own (but why does the Opera de Paris advertise it with contemporary photos...?). It is his vision come to life, one that will delight viewers both new and knowledgable to ballet.
But maybe, if I ever want to be moved to tears like I did when I watched Alessandra Ferri perform Juliet’s bedroom pdd, I will need to head across the pond or the Atlantic to watch my beloved MacMillan version...
Photos via Paris Opera Ballet / Julien Benhamou
2 things happened:
Lauren Lovette accepted my friend request on Facebook. I feel special!
This whopping announcement happened on Valentine’s day. What! So I guess her and Chase are no longer engaged? :(
So, according to Instagram, Mathilde Froustey is officially leaving the Paris Opera Ballet and joining SFB as a principal dancer for real.
Her words: “Je suis aussi heureuse qu'émue de vous annoncer que j'ai decidé de poursuivre ma carrière au San Francisco Ballet ! I am as moved as excited to announce you my decision to continue my career at San Francisco Ballet!”
Stella Abreba, on being promoted to principal dancer at ABT
I absolutely adore this photo of Carla Korbes from a 2013 issue in Vanity Fair. Sad to see her retire.
Extreme apologies for taking forever to upload these pictures. Lucky me - I managed to get tickets of Aurelie Dupont’s farewell performance of Manon at the Opera Garnier the DAY BEFORE the performance (they were limited visibility seats, but, not complaining). This was my first, and unfortunately probably last, time seeing her perform in person. She asked Roberto Bolle to be her special guest partner for her final show. It was magnificent. There was a standing ovation of at least 20 minutes, and she was joined on stage by her 2 sons, her husband, and various other dancers current and retired who all presented her with flowers. Her sons wouldn’t stop playing with the confetti that was raining down gently from the stage. At the beginning of her final bow, when she was alone on stage by herself, she took one of the star shaped confettis, licked it, and stuck it to her chest. An étoile through and through.
It was a good year for dance - still reeling from Stella Abrera’s promotion to principal dancer. I hope that she gets some great roles next year! R&J, Swan Lake, Onegin, more Giselles... one can dream ;)
okay i can’t help it. there’s too many cool pics of Lauren Lovette on her instagram.
So I realised my last post of Lauren Lovette was of all very serious pictures, which doesn’t really match what I said about her effervescent personality. So here are some more fun pics!
Also a very belated congratulations to Lauren Lovette for being promoted to principal dancer at NYCB. She is exuberant and you can feel her joy radiating from her smile and on-stage when she's on-stage and off-stage. In-person she’s really kind and super genuine. An all-around gracious dancer and thoughtful person. She’s featured in a few of the episodes of the NYCB online series “city.ballet”.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!!! I’m really behind on posting (saw Aurelie Dupont’s last performance in Manon at the Paris Opera Ballet, but more on that later) but of course I had to take a moment to post about STELLA ABRERA BEING PROMOTED TO PRINCIPAL DANCER AT AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE.
Excerpts from a review of her Gisele performance in May 2015 by Marina Harss: “Like her acting, her dancing is pristine, elegant, and unforced.”
“Abrera, an almost twenty-year veteran of the company and a consistently elegant, understated and perhaps undervalued presence in a wide swath of repertory – everything from Twyla Tharp’s Bach Partita to the adorable Katia in Frederick Ashton’s Month in the Country – has many fans.”
A bit of a lackluster footnote in the end of an article at the NYT: “Three other dancers, enormously respected in the dance world but far less famous outside of it, were also made principals. Stella Abrera, who has been a soloist with the company since 2001, was promoted.”
And lastly, if there’s any doubt that people in the dance world are anything less than happy for her, check this video taken by Julie Kent at a company meeting yesterday morning! The applause is unanimous and joyful. Dancers are SO HAPPY for Stella.
Photo credit: Daniil Simkin
Tiler Peck and Robbie Fairchild perform in costumes designed by Alexander McQueen for the NYCB
Mathilde Froustey (a sujet with Paris Opera Ballet) has decided to stay with San Francisco ballet for another year and has been touring with them now in Paris to perform at the Theatre du Chatelet. Pictured here performing in Giselle with SFB.
