Swan Lake
3D Dance looks Skywards with Matthew Bourne's Swan LakeFriday, 24 June 2011
Last March’s Japanese earthquakes and tsunami, as we know, brought devastation to hundreds of thousands of Japanese. But it also caused a crisis in the 3D film industry, just as it is attempting to be born. The most important 3D tape stock finishing... Read more... |
Swan Lake, English National Ballet, ColiseumWednesday, 23 March 2011
As everyone who has been watching Agony & Ecstasy: A Year with the English National Ballet on BBC Four now knows, Vadim Muntagirov, last night’s Prince Siegfried, and Daria Klimentová, his Odette/Odile, are the ultimate in ballet melodrama:... Read more... |
Agony & Ecstasy: A Year With the English National Ballet, BBC FourWednesday, 09 March 2011
You thought Black Swan was a nightmare depiction of the ballet world? Now watch Agony & Ecstasy: A Year With English National Ballet, Part 1 and squirm. Compare Natalie Portman’s tormenting balletmaster with ENB’s Derek Deane, as each of them... Read more... |
Swan Lake, Royal BalletSunday, 23 January 2011
The return of the Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake production coincides with the tumult over the film Black Swan, about which the company’s marketing department must be pretty pleased, even if some of the dancers aren’t. The chief surprise for any newcomers... Read more... |
Black SwanThursday, 20 January 2011
They’re calling Black Swan BS on some of the dance websites, and while they’re right about the dancing, this is a whale of an enjoyable outing to the flicks: lush, Gothic, psycho and flavoursomely OTT. I don’t much care that Natalie Portman can’t... Read more... |
Giselle, Royal Ballet/ Swan Lake, Russian State Ballet of SiberiaWednesday, 12 January 2011
The chasm between the top-class ballet available to London-area ballet-goers and the low-grade stuff peddled in the regions is the field where the battle to save ballet’s soul is nightly won or lost. Nothing could be more dispiriting than to see the... Read more... |
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, Prog 2, Peacock TheatreWednesday, 22 September 2010
I have a friend who loves telling jokes. One night he started a well-worn story: “Please,” he said, “if you’ve heard this before, don’t stop me – it’s one of my favourites.” I am always reminded of that evening when watching Les Ballets Trockadero... Read more... |
Swan Lake & Giselle, Mikhailovsky Ballet, London ColiseumThursday, 15 July 2010
It would be tough for any Russian ballet company to come into worldly, balletwise London just ahead of the great Bolshoi, but the Mikhailovsky Ballet make a very pleasing impression in their first week at the Coliseum with a pretty and historically... Read more... |
Reconstructing Ballet's Past 1: Swan Lake, Mikhailovsky BalletWednesday, 14 July 2010
You need very little for a Swan Lake. Tchaikovsky’s music, white swan-girls, a mooning boy, and 32 fouettés for the ballerina in black. That's about it, isn't it? Every traditional Swan Lake we see now is a sort of balletic pizza - a musical base... Read more... |
Swan Lake, ENB, Royal Albert HallWednesday, 09 June 2010
Within two bars of the overture starting, the first flashes could be seen. English National Ballet’s arena Swan Lake at the Albert Hall - they make no bones about it now - is intended for people who rarely go to the ballet. Actually it is in many... Read more... |
Swan Queen delayed by visa troubleWednesday, 09 June 2010Visa red tape has dashed English National Ballet’s plans to open its gigantic arena Swan Lake with the scheduled Russian star Polina Semionova. The 26-year-old ballerina from Berlin Ballet was much acclaimed on her debut with ENB in the production... Read more... |
Magia de la Danza, Ballet Nacional de Cuba, London ColiseumTuesday, 06 April 2010
“It’ll be tricky to write about,” said the man next to me last night, a Cubaphile. “It's the good, the bad and the awful.” The Cubans’ second programme, The Magic of Dance, is an old-fashioned warhorse of showstoppers from the classics, a tapas bar... Read more... |
