Er... very Russian I thought and charmingly different for some and annoyingly different for others. But you can't knock Plisetskya's spirit or that it's wonderful to celebrate such an artist

The high spot for me was Lopatkina - in a sea of strong talent she floats above in another place. To see her dance is never to think of physical limitations, training, technique or whatever - she is a spirit come to us in human form. To see her dance is to believe in Wilis, sorcerers and dancing bronze idols. I'd better shut up.

A pleasing high spot for fans was young Steven McRae dancing Stars and Stripes with Cojocaru. He did well in such company and truly marked his card for the future.

It was also good to see MacMillan's Concerto pdd - as party pieces go it seems to hold up better than many out of its original context. Nice one Gary Avis and Mara Galeazzi.

Zelensky and Ruzimatov were there and still deliver their goodies with panache and show the intense pain of high art when taking a bow. Thrilling stuff really.

Plisetskya did a couple of 'numbers' - she revels in the love of the audience and has such a strong will - that had people clapping long after it should decently have stooped.

In general the lesser known pieces struggled to show why they were there and the opening laser show was very tabloid I thought. It was also a shame that the archive film clips were projected at the back of the stage with the result that many, in a house with poor sight lines, would not have seen them. Better to bring down a screen at the front of the stage and project onto that.

Finally Ivan Putrov had a bad fall and which stoped the show for a while - I do hope its not serious and won't take him out for long.

My thumbnail sketch - what did you all think...

Most fun: McRae and Cojocaru in Stars and Stripes. He is a young man with a good career ahead of him; he already has a strong technique and a real stage presence which will endear him to audiences. I would have liked to see Sarah Lamb dance this with him, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Alina danced it with her usual panache.

Best Contemporary Piece: Mara Galeazzi and Gary Avis in MacMillan's Concerto pdd. Mara excels in MacMillan and this was no different; a beautifully judged performance from her and Gary Avis.

Best Bravura Dancing: Tamara Rojo and Jose Martin in the Snow White pdd. I had never heard of this piece, nor of the choreographer, nor of the composer. To this evocative music, Rojo and Martin brought the house down with their various turns and spins....I have NEVER seen a dancer, anywhere, whip downstage like Rojo did last night. It looked like a film speeded up to impress, like they used to do in the old days for certain physical feats. Unbelievable.

Most Moving Dancing: Lopatkina and Kuznetsov in Death of the Rose. This was stunningly beautiful, and through the haunting slow movement of Mahler's 5th Symphony they sustained this languid choreography at the highest artistic level. I, and everyone around me, was stunned at the end of it. Glorious.

Most Improved Dancer: Ed Watson as Romeo in the Balcony pdd. From the outset he was very convincing as a young man in the first flush of young love, and his partnering and solos were so much more assured and confident than the first time round almost two years ago. I am really looking forward to seeing him with Lauren again after all this time.

Most Baffling Dancer: Irma Nioradze. She danced an exceptional Dying Swan...those arms were amazing. However, she seemed miscast in the Corsaire pdd, and when she was doing her fouettees her arms were doing the breast stroke. Nothing actually wrong with her performance, I just didn't like her style.

A few other comments: I wish Lopatkina had danced the White Swan pdd. We were supposed to get the Don Q pdd, but it never materialised...all of a sudden there were Sarah Lamb and Samodurov onstage doing the Tarantella! No mention of why. Looking around the audience in stalls and stalls circle, I'm sure most of them still thought they were watching Don Q anyway. Speaking of the audience, I could not believe the amount of people in the stalls who kept getting up to go to the bathroom (or perhaps to grab another free glass of champers) right in the middle of a piece, then, even worse, being allowed back in before a suitable break. Also, how they started leaving at the end while Maya was still onstage. It looked like most of them couldn't wait to get back to their champers and blinis. Such is the gala audience, I guess.

It was an amazing thing to see this 80 year-old legend on the stage. If someone told me she was 50 I'd believe them. I have NEVER seen an 80 year-old look like that. And to still be able to perform something on a stage without making herself look sad was a real feat, and enjoyable and seemingly effortless for her. What a woman, what a namesake!

Finally, to Ivan. Perhaps someone in the know could post up and let us know how he is. He and Roberta were in the middle of such a wonderful performance (my hubby had never seen her before and was bowled over by what he saw)when he came down hard. He was holding his knee in a lot of pain, and I can only hope that the injury will be of very short duration.

All in all, a very enjoyable night, and very interesting to see pieces which we don't usually have the opportunity of seeing.

Edited to add something I'd forgotten.

I haven't come done to earth yet! Everyone was wonderful, but special favourites for me were Farukh Ruzimatov, as great as ever, Concerto PDD, Irma Nioradze looking like I imagine Anna Pavlova looked in Dying Swan, so dark and fragile in that huge feathery tutu,
Stars and Stripes with Steven McRae so cheekily almost stealing the show, and Nunez and Soares in Tango. I could go on, but was that also some really interesting modern Russian choreography in Middle Duet? Zakharova and Merkuriev looked sensational anyway. And the ending of the first part with Maya Plisetskaya in that dress, promenading to Ravel's Bolero, it was so unlike I imagined a Covent Garden Gala to be!

Also, I don't know if anyone else agrees but I got very
>irritated at the late start as people seemed to be faffing
>about getting to their seats! I was anxious for it to begin
>as my friend & I needed to catch the last train home. We
>left the Opera House at 10pm & managed to get to Victoria by
>10.15 enabling us to get the 10.17 train home.......

I must have been following you very closely, I got the 11 bus and just managed the 10.17 train which was the last one to my station, although I could have got a later one to Brighton. I suppose the late start was due to frantic last minute rehearsals, it must have been hectic backstage.

>Also, poor Ivan! I could have cried for him, he was dancing
>so beautifully. I do hope the injury isn't serious, although
>I fear it was.

Yes, I had seen him and Marquez dance so beautifully in Giselle the day before and it was sad to see it end that way.

Mandy

"Finally, to Ivan. Perhaps someone in the know could post up and let us know how he is."

His knee aches but not in severe pain. He will be scanned today and will fly to Kiev tomorrow.

Two quick notes and more later...

I thought the highlight was the film at the end, the little dance of her playing jacks or so. Pure magic. Even on film.

But erm... was this a *celebration* or a marketing event? I understand the need for marketing, funding, etc... but...erm.... erm....

The laser "thing" at the beginning - it got to a point where I was thinking "come on I came here to see some dancing not advertising".... I mean all the advertisers are on the programme anyway...

Fish

Someone elsewhere identifies this as a clip from Bejart's Isadora.

For instance, the archival clips (mostly shot from below and emphasising that stupendous leap), interspersed in old Sovdoc style with unrelated audience shots, were far too bitty and badly reproduced to do more than hint at the greatness of the dancer's achievements, though even a newcomer to dance might realise that in this globalised age nobody does big and bold quite like that any more.

Did the danced extracts tell us much about the birthday girl, then? Some of the choices were distinctly odd. Why such a regular staple as the Manon pdd, for instance? Why Giselle, especially this extract, for which the wilis are a vital moderating frame? Why Scheherazade, if this headstrong old warhorse is to be trotted out in such a routine fashion (when did Liepa and Ruzimatov last believe in it?)?

If the intention was to show the finest contemporary dancing, however, then Rojo and Martin were the first to raise the temperature to gala-level. Lopatkina and Zakharova are of course among the very finest present-day Russian dancers, and they too gave much pleasure (especially the latter, in the seemingly Forsyth-influenced Ratmansky~ I wish the pieces had been dated). But the really exciting gala dancing came from Steven McRae (surely our next Blue Boy~ and perhaps Blue Bird, too?), very closely followed by Sarah Lamb (egged on by Samodurov, although someone should have given them better tambourines). Their performances seemed to say, 'I have never done this before, not quite in this way, and I am going deliriously O.T.T., in honour of Terpsichore~ and You.'

Fortunately, the lady herself was more than able to dominate the uneven proceedings (I half expected her to sing 'I'm still here' from Follies). Like Martha Graham in old age on this very stage, she has moved onto another astounding plane. The jump, of course, goes, but the carriage does not, the arms embracing first the stage, then the space inhabited by the other dancers who seemed like children by comparison, and finally the auditorium itself in that extraordinary Bolero: artfully made to look like improvisation, but if such, then only as a great jazz set is improvised.

And so, later, to the final, sweetly quiet triumph, the return of Carmen to the stage where it had been disparaged and which she had allegedly vowed never to grace again. It was, in truth, no better choreography than it had been all those years ago (we saw a bit of it in one of the earlier clips). But Maya's spirit prevailed as she took possession of an empty stage, rotating, with those noble ports de bras, as in slow motion~ what need assembled colleagues, or thrown flowers?

The Old People's Homes of Russia must have been curiously empty last night because Farukh Ruzimatov had also been granted day release to perform from his old bag of tricks. I suppose there was little doubt that he would perform an extract from Sheherazade in his usual camp way, nor that there would be about as much sexual electricity between him and his Zobeide, Ilze Liepa, than that between Jack and Vera Duckworth, but the surpise is that he is still going strong and still absolutely oblivious to the ridiculousness of the piece. Oh well you