The Royal Ballet’s Mara Galeazzi says arrivederci to the ballet stage

 ballet  No Responses »
Apr 032013
 

wpid EdwardWatson MaraGaleazzi The Royal Ballets Mara Galeazzi says arrivederci to the ballet stageJust over a month ago the announced that prin­cipal dan­cer Mara Galeazzi will be leav­ing the company:

Mara Galeazzi will retire from The Royal Bal­let in July 2013, at the end of the cur­rent sea­son. Mara, who had her first child last April, will move to Oman to be with her hus­band. She will focus on new pro­jects, teach­ing dance and her work for her char­ity found­a­tion Dan­cing for The Chil­dren which raises funds for sick chil­dren in Africa.

said the press release.

Her last per­form­ance at the with the Royal Bal­let will be on 13 June in Ken­neth MacMillan’s May­er­ling with her pals from the 2009 DVD: as Crown Prince Rudolf and as Count­ess Lar­isch; her final per­form­ance with the com­pany will be in Monaco where she will per­form the title role in Manon on 29 June.

Teatro Romana Verona The Royal Ballets Mara Galeazzi says arrivederci to the ballet stageBut the tears won’t fin­ish that even­ing, for on 23 July in the evoc­at­ive set­ting of Verona’s  Teatro Romano, Galeazzi will say her last arrivederci to the bal­let stage after a star gala with Royal Bal­let col­leagues. , Sarah Lamb, Mari­anela Nuñez, Gary Avis, Steven McRae, Thi­ago Soares and Edward Wat­son, along with Mara Galeazzi her­self, will dance selec­tions from the clas­sical and con­tem­por­ary rep­er­toire that makes the Royal Bal­let one of the power­house com­pan­ies in the dance world.

Tick­ets for the gala are already avail­able, and with a top price of €33 I’d say that it must be the dance bar­gain of the year!

 

Photo: Mara Galeazzi and Edward Wat­son in May­er­ling © Johan Persson; below, Verona’s Teatro Romano.

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  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px The Royal Ballets Mara Galeazzi says arrivederci to the ballet stage
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px The Royal Ballets Mara Galeazzi says arrivederci to the ballet stage
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px The Royal Ballets Mara Galeazzi says arrivederci to the ballet stage
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px The Royal Ballets Mara Galeazzi says arrivederci to the ballet stage
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px The Royal Ballets Mara Galeazzi says arrivederci to the ballet stage
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px The Royal Ballets Mara Galeazzi says arrivederci to the ballet stage

Thiago Soares answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ Edition

 ballet, questionnaire, questionnaire - dancers' edition  No Responses »
Jan 202013
 

Q&A

Thiago Soares Gramilano 500x333 Thiago Soares answers the Gramilano Questionnaire… Dancers’ EditionWhen did you start dan­cing?
I star­ted age 15.

Why did you start dan­cing?
When I joined the Centro de Dança Rio it felt right, and I felt like I had found some­thing that I had been look­ing for until then.. and I thought that to keep going would take me somewhere.

Which dan­cer inspired you most as a child?
My first idol in dance was Fernando Bujones.

What’s your favour­ite role?
John Cranko’s One­gin.

What role have you never played but would like to?
Armand in Asthon’s Mar­guer­ite and Armand.

Who is your favour­ite cho­reo­grapher?
If there was a way to go back in time I would love to work with two people: Ken­neth Mac­Mil­lan and John Cranko.

… [con­tinue reading]

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Critics round-up: Royal Ballet’s “Birthday Offering”, “A Month in the Country” and “Noces”

 ballet, roundup  1 Response »
Jul 092012
 

’s last pick­ings from the Royal Bal­let rep­er­toire before leav­ing her post as the company’s dir­ector included two works by the Royal Ballet’s founder cho­reo­grapher, Fre­d­er­ick Ashton - Birth­day Offer­ing and A Month in the Coun­try - and Bron­islava Nijinska’s “extraordin­ary” Noces. It was Ashton who invited Nij­in­ska to restage her mas­ter­piece for the com­pany in 1966 and, as the New York Times notes,

When you keep watch­ing, you see that all three bal­lets ask the same pli­ancy of the torso, tip­ping every which way while the lower body keeps busy.

The crit­ics awar­ded the Dame’s choices and the Royal Ballet’s dan­cing with a splat­ter of 4 and 5-star reviews.

Birth­day Offering

Birth­day Offer­ing was cre­ated in 1956 to cel­eb­rate the 25th anniversary of the company’s found­a­tion and to show off the company’s baller­inas to the young Queen Eliza­beth.… [con­tinue reading]

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Ex-Royal Ballet dancer Ivan Putrov states that the company’s dancers are not artists, but defecting colleague Sergei Polunin is…

 ballet  4 Responses »
Jan 262012
 

General Monica Mason Ex Royal Ballet dancer Ivan Putrov states that the companys dancers are not artists, but defecting colleague Sergei Polunin is...Com­ment­ing on ’s sur­prise exit from the , fel­low Ukrain­ian and ex-Royal prin­cipal Ivan Putrov, has prob­ably upset a num­ber of his dan­cer col­leagues. In an inter­view with the BBC he said,

Being in a com­pany has this ele­ment that you are some­times told what to do. If you want to be part of the com­pany you have to, maybe, shut-up and do what you’re sup­posed to do. If you want to be an artist… an artist cre­ates. A crafts­man just does what he’s told, an artist cre­ates. Sergei is an artist and he likes to create.

While being a crafts­men is an excel­lent and noble qual­ity, Royal Bal­let com­pany mem­bers such as Alina Cojocaru, , Mari­anela Nuñez, Tamara Rojo,  and , will be sur­prised to learn that Putrov doesn’t con­sider them to be artists.… [con­tinue reading]

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Nuñez takes the plum role just in time — Sunday Times on the Royal Ballet’s Nutcracker

 ballet  No Responses »
Dec 112011
 

How many Nutcrack­ers has The Sunday Times’ David Dou­gill seen? Thou­sands cer­tainly. But he still finds an even­ing at the ’s ver­sion “uplift­ing stuff”:

Wright’s focal story is full of human­ity: the love of young Clara for her . Iohna Loots and are favour­ites in these roles, she so charm­ing, eager and won­der­struck, he ardent, soli­cit­ous and heart-throb romantic.

We don’t meet the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince until Act II, and, just before this began, on open­ing night, we learnt of a crisis — taken ill. Luck­ily, Mari­anela Nuñez, hav­ing arrived to spectate, was sub­sti­tuted to star along­side her hus­band, . They are, of course, reli­ably famil­iar with each other.… [con­tinue reading]

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The Sunday Times cheers Liam Scarlett’s ballet Asphodel Meadows

 ballet  No Responses »
Nov 272011
 

When the young cho­reo­grapher Liam Scar­lett premiered his first main-stage work for the  last year, on a mod­ern pro­gramme, it scored a tri­umphant suc­cess. Now, at its first revival in the com­pany of his­toric bal­lets by Fre­d­er­ick Ashton and Ken­neth Mac­Mil­lan, his accom­plish­ment is not one jot dimin­ished. He took on a dazzling score in Poulenc’s Double Piano Con­certo, a tour de force of shift­ing moods and idioms, and matched it with invent­ively shaped duets — a dif­fer­ent couple for each of the three move­ments — inter­woven with dances for a corps of 14. There isn’t a single sequence that isn’t fascinating.

Last week­end, both of last year’s casts were seen on the same day, both excel­lent. But the even­ing sex­tet, on whom Scar­lett cre­ated his bal­let, seemed to me to carry a spe­cial “right­ness”: and Rupert Pen­nefather sen­su­ously, beau­ti­fully paired in the first move­ment; and Ricardo Cervera twinned at the speed of light in the last; and, in the middle, and Ben­net Gart­side, subtle in dance that tan­tal­ises with some emo­tional back story.… [con­tinue reading]

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Critics Round-up: Royal Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty

 ballet, roundup  No Responses »
Nov 092011
 

In 2006 decided to go back to the begin­ning with the Royal Ballet’s sig­na­ture bal­let, The Sleep­ing Beauty: con­sign the 2003 Makarova dis­aster (“dra­mat­ic­ally shape­less and emo­tion­ally flat” said The Times) to the dust­bins, and restore Oliver Messel’s 1946 pro­duc­tion. That was the year that the Vic-Wells Bal­let moved to the Royal Opera House.

There has now been a slight change, as David Dou­gill explains in The Sunday Times,

In 2006, Mon­ica Mason and Chris­topher New­ton made this splen­did resta­ging of the land­mark 1946 pro­duc­tion, but the cos­tumes were rein­ter­preted. Now we find that many of those for the palace scenes have been metic­u­lously re-created from Oliver Messel’s ori­ginal archive, and what a spec­tac­u­lar dif­fer­ence it makes to see his bold, vibrant palette of col­ours and intric­ate dec­or­a­tions.… [con­tinue reading]

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