The Christmas double bill we've all been waiting for opened this afternoon to a packed house full of kids in their best party frocks. This thread is for thoughts, reviews and reflections on one of the quirkier bits of RB repertoire.

As ever John Ross was at the photoshoot for your Christmas delectation. And a huge thank you is due to John for bringing us all these wonderful images so regularly and so well - its a lot of work and nice one John....

Patineurs

Alexandra Ansanelli and Valeri Hristov in Patineurs

Bennet Gartside - Pigling Bland and Laura Morera - Pig-wig in Tales of Beatrix Potter

Ricardo Cervera - Johnny Townmouse in Tales of Beatrix Potter

RB: Les Patineurs & Tales of Beatrix Potter - Royal Opera House, Dec 2007
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Over to you folks...

For the ballet purists, the dancing is actually quite demanding. Les Patineurs featured 5 main dancers (Mara Galeazzi, Sarah Lamb, Jose Martin, Alexandra Ansanelli and Valeri Hristov), supported by two more (Laura McCulloch and Cindy Jourdain) and then 8 further patineurs. All dances are performed as if on ice, and contain beauty, humour and physical difficulty.

The Beatrix Potter ballet is a complete delight throughout. I had booked this purely for the purpose of taking six year old Hannah, but found myself completely enthralled by the dancers interpretations of the animals, enhanced by the wonderfully drawn scenery and constant set changes. Even a technical hitch which stoppped the show for 5 minutes did not detract from the entertainment. Indeed, this show must be a stage manager's nightmare, with so many scenery and prop changes.

Gemma Sykes and Gary Avis were a particularl highlight as Jemima Puddleduck and the Fox. Giacomo Ciriaci and Iohna Loots has a whale of a time as the two made mice and Steven McRae was extremely mischievous as Squirrel Nutkin. The scenery got a round of applause on its own at one point and Ricardo Cervera as Johnny Town Mouse swaggered his way through the entire piece.

So, if you have post Christmas blues, book yourself a ticket and be transported for a couple of hours, or catch it on TV on December 31st.

I particularly liked Mara Galeazzi and Sarah Lamb in Les Patineurs. The Tales worked well on the stage and all the cast seemed to be enjoying themselves, though in the pre-performance talk, they had said what hard work it was. Some of our group went to this talk and found it fascinating. The children especially enjoyed meeting Jemima Puddleduck and Fox.

A great afternoon was had by all.

Margaret

Both children and adults enjoyed the sparkling, joyful choreography of this delightful, but all too brief, ballet. Sarah Lamb and Mara Galeazzi stood out as the girls in dark blue. Both fixed the audience with gazes speaking of mischievous fun to be had and so it was. I'm sure that it is not an easy piece to dance, but the company made it look so easy. Jose Martin also sparkled as the boy in blue and executed his series of turns at the end with speed and finesse - much to the delight of the children - especially as by then snow was falling across the enchanting set.

A wonderful afternoon, with some superb dancing - and unusually good playing from the RB Symphonia. Anyone jaded from a surfeit of Nutcrackers would certainly do well to catch this treat of a double bill.

Mark

Does anyone know for sure which date was filmed for broadcast on New year's Eve please ?

Thanks

Incidentally, since the cameras were manned during Patineurs as well, I assume we'll be seeing that sooner or later too.

Edit: Well, they weren't filming again today, so I think you can safely assume you've got the first cast, but I don't know which performance.

Incidentally, some cast updates: Ryoichi Hirano replaced David Makhateli as the white skater today, and Rupert Pennefather was pulled from the Arabian Dance in yesterday's Nutcracker, so I don't know if that's indicative of anything. Samantha Raine replaced Lauren Cuthbertson as one of the blue girls, but Cuthbertson is still shown on the ROH website as dancing the rest of her scheduled performances.

(Alternative cast for Beatrix Potter includes Philip Mosley as Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, Laura Morera and Thomas Whitehead as Jemima Puddle-Duck and Fox, Hirano again as Jeremy Fisher, Jonathan Howells and Hikaru Kobayashi as Pigling Bland and Pig-Wig and Michael Stojko as Squirrel Nutkin.)

Beatrix Potter has been a odd one for me because I've never really grasped whether this ballet is meant for kids or not. Despite some excellent dancing from the company, I just find this ballet too long and even quite hard to sit through for the latter half.

The ballet has so much going for it and is on some levels very enjoyable, humourous and indeed quite clever, but for me 25-30 minutes are plenty and I just find the following 40 minutes drag on.

The dancing and characterisation from the company was excellent but once the novelty wears off, the choreography isn't interesting enough to move the ballet forward. I think with some pruning, it could be a beautiful piece but in it's current state there is far too much of it and unfortunately the fabulous costumes aren't enough to keep the kids entertained or indeed myself!!!

However the programme began with Les Patineurs and I loved every minute of it from the costumes, to the sets, to the lighting, to the particular cast of dancers I saw this afternoon.

The ballet is beautiful to watch and warms you inside from start to finish.
The dancing from everyone on stage was perfect and I was delighted to see such fantastic ensemble dancing both from the four brown couples and the two pairs of girls.

Les Patineurs is basically several diverts linked together by the "pas des patineurs" so you don't really feel like you're watching a series of dances. The effect is wonderful and the curtain comes down on the Blue Boy hopping round some extremely fast turns that just seem to go on and on, but the star of the show were indeed the dancers as a whole who all contributed equally to give a faultless performance of this lovely work.

Pas des Patineurs
Tara-Brigitte Bhavani, Celisa Diuana, Cindy Jourdain, Laura McCulloch,
Richard Ramsey, Henry St. Clair, Andrej Uspenski, Jonathan Watkins

Variation
Steven McRae

Entree
Samantah Raine, Laura Morera

Pas de deux
Isabel McMeekan, Ryoichi Hirano

Pas de deux filles
Victoria Hewitt, Gemma Sykes