Birmingham Royal Ballet At Covent Garden in May

[Lynette Halewood]

Birmingham Royal Ballet come to Covent Garden for their annual visit in
May. This year the program is as follows:

Tues 21 May 7:30 Birthday Offering [Ashton] (Lenzi, O'Hare K)
Carmina Burana [Bintley] (Batcheller, O'Hare M, Lenzi,
Zhukov, Muller, Cipolla)

Wed 22 May 7:30 Far from the Madding Crowd [Bintley] (Muller, O'Hare M,
Cipolla, Stollwitzer)

Thur 23 May 7:30 Theme and Variations [Balanchine] (Lenzi, O'Hare K)
Agon [Balanchine] (Zamora, Cipolla)
Still Life at the Penguin Cafe [Bintley] (no cast
details given)

Sat 25 May 2pm Far from the Madding Crowd (Lenzi, Cross, De Gruchy,
Pobereznic)

7pm Far from the Madding Crowd (Zamora, Justin, Zhukov, O'Hare
K)

Mon 27 May 7:30 Theme and Variations (Batcheller, Wallin)
Agon (Tredinnick, O'Hare K)
Still Life at the Penguin Cafe

Thurs 30 May 7:30 Birthday Offering (Batcheller, Zhukov)
Carmina Burana (Zamora, Cross, Peppin, Pobereznic, Clark
S, Wallin)

Fri 31 May 7:30 Birthday Offering (Peppin, Pobereznic)
Carmina Burana (Muller, Justin, Madgwick, Ottevanger,
Williams C, O'Hare K)

It seems odd that there is no appearance by some of the BRB principals at
all. Various people on the ng helpfully posted details about Jennifer
Gelfand when she joined BRB and I was looking forward to seeing her - but
there seems no sign of her in these productions. Monica Zamora seems to
be in the full glare of publicity at present.

BRB have been presenting a more interesting triple bill in Birmingham as
part of a 1950's theme in the arts ('Towards the Millenium'). This
included Birthday Offering, Agon and The Cage.(it's been quite favourably
reviewed) They aren't bringing the Cage to London though. I think that
BRB's programme is often rather more enterprising than the RB's which
tends to stick to safer choices and to the Ashton / Macmillan repertoire
(until Ms Guillem persuades them into Forsythe). Perhaps they thought
that Theme and Variations was a safer bet for the ROH (the programme
emphasises its beautiful costumes !)
rather than The Cage....

Far from the Madding Crowd has attracted fairly tepid reviews - pretty
costumes, prettily danced, not desperately memorable would be a
reasonable summary of them. Most reviewers predicted it would be very
popular - Crisp dubbed it "Near to the Madding Box Office" or something
such.

Hope this is of interest - I think I want to go and see all of this,
which I can't possibly do. But I feel I must go and see Agon. I read
postings on this ng concerning Balanchine and what is or isn't authentic
about productions by other companies, and feel like a child with their
nosed pressed against a sweetshop window. Have a heart for those of us on
this side of the Atlantic !

Lynette

[Bobbledun]

Once more, ways to get in touch with Nick, friend of the '60s, lighting
designer for Cunningham and Winnepeg Ballet in past.

Cheers to all,
Bob, SeniorNet

>Robert Ellis Dunn< >Department of Dance<
>University of Maryland, College Park<
>(home) 6102 85th Place, New Carrollton MD 20784<
>bobb...@aol.com<
>><...to the destructive element submit yourself...In the destructive
element immerse...> -- Conrad, LORD JIM<<
Robert Ellis Dunn