THE ROYAL BALLET USA TOUR 2004

ORANGE COUNTY: 5 – 10 JULY
NEW YORK: 13 – 17 JULY

The Royal Ballet is delighted to be returning once again to the USA.. This is the first international tour with Monica Mason as Director. The Company will visit Orange Country Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, California with Frederick Ashton's Cinderella and Peter Wright's production of Giselle. The Royal Ballet will then travel to the Metropolitan Opera House in New York where they will perform an Ashton Triple Bill featuring Scénes de ballet a series of Ashton Divertissements, Marguerite and Armand and ending the tour with the full length new production of Cinderella.

The last time The Royal Ballet visited Orange County was 1996 and New York in 1997, both to great acclaim. The 85-strong company, includes principals; Leanne Benjamin, Darcey Bussell, Alina Cojocaru, Mara Galeazzi, Marianela Nuñez, Tamara Rojo, Jaimie Tapper, Miyako Yoshida, Federico Bonelli, Jonathan Cope, Johan Kobborg, Ivan Putrov, Viacheslav Samodurov, Inaki Urlezaga, Principal Guest Artist Sylvie Guillem, and Guest Artists, Anthony Dowell, Nicolas Le Riche and Wayne Sleep.

ORANGE COUNTY PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

The new production of Frederick Ashton's Cinderella with set designs by Toer van Schayk and costume designs by Christine Haworth opened in December 2003 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and will have its USA debut at the Performing Arts Center. Prokofiev's score for this full-length work is wonderfully evocative of its mysterious and magical fantasy world, encompassing the comedy and pantomime of the Ugly Sisters. Made for the Company in 1948, Cinderella was the first full-length ballet by a British choreographer and a resounding affirmation of Ashton's choreographic abilities. The timeless fairytale follows the down-trodden Cinderella from her domestic imprisonment to freedom through the intervention of her Fairy Godmother. As with all fairytales, the road to happiness does not come without a set of rules to complicate matters.

Peter Wright's production of Giselle, with designs by John Macfarlane and haunting score from Adolphe Adam, was first performed by the Company in 1985. Love that transcends even death provides the heart of this most famous and poignant of Romantic ballets. First performed in Paris in 1841, Giselle tells of a gentle peasant girl who is driven to kill herself when she discovers that her lover 'Loys' - in reality Count Albrecht - has deceived her. Joining the ghostly ranks of betrayed women who rise from the dead to prey on the men who have destroyed them, Giselle cannot seek vengeance. Instead, she protects her remorseful lover when he visits her moonlit grave, defending him until dawn from the deathly touch of her phantom sisters. The title role provides one of the most technical and emotional challenges for a ballerina in the classical repertory.

CINDERELLA
Music Sergey Prokofiev
Choreography Frederick Ashton
Set Designs Toer van Schayk
Costume Designs Christine Haworth
Production Wendy Ellis Somes
Lighting Mark Jonathan
Cojocaru, Kobborg, Marriott, Howells 5 July
Benjamin, Samodurov, Soares, Matiakis 6 July
Rojo, Cope, Marriott, Mosley 7 July
Tapper, Urlezaga, Marriott, Mosley 8 July

GISELLE
Music Adolphe Adam
Choreography Marius Petipa after Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot
Production Peter Wright
Designs John MacFarlane
Yoshida, Bonelli 9 July Marquez, Putrov 10 (MAT) July
Cojocaru, Kobborg 10 July
Conductor to be announced

METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE, NEW YORK

Frederick Ashton described Scènes de ballet as 'just an exercise in pure dancing'. This one-act ballet, choreographed to Stravinsky's score of the same title, is a complex and lively piece. Choreographed with Euclidian geometry in mind, Ashton intended that this ballet could be viewed from any angle and still 'work'. Scènes de ballet is a homage to 19thcentury classicism with designs by André Beaurepaire.

The Divertissements consists of five pas de deux from Ashton at his most virtuosic; The Awakening (The Sleeping Beauty), Voices of Spring, Thaïs, Ondine Act III and Birthday Offering.

Completing the programme is Frederick Ashton's Marguerite and Armand, an adaptation of Dumas' La Dame aux camélias, the story of the doomed, turbulent passion between a courtesan and her young, idealistic lover. Ashton created this ballet for Fonteyn and Nureyev, but for today's audience it has become one of Sylvie Guillem's signature roles with The Royal Ballet.

ASHTON MIXED BILL

SCÈNES DE BALLET
Music Igor Stravinsky
Choreography Frederick Ashton
Designs André Beaurepaire
Yoshida, Putrov 13, 15 July
Cojocaru, Kobborg 14 July

DIVERTISSEMENTS
Awakening pas de deux
Bussell, Urlezaga 13, 15 July
Tapper, Bonelli 14 July
Voices of Spring pas de deux
Cojocaru, Kobborg 13 July
Benjamin, Urlezaga 14 July
Galeazzi, Samodurov 15 July
Thaïs pas de deux
Benjamin, Soares 13 July
Galeazzi, Makhateli 14 July
Ondine pas de deux
Rojo, Cope 13, 15 July
Birthday Offering pas de deux
Bussell, Cope 14 July
Nuñez, Soares 15 July

MARGUERITE AND ARMAND
Music Franz Liszt
Orchestrated by Dudley Simpson
Choreography Frederick Ashton
Designs Cecil Beaton
Guillem, Le Riche 13, 14, 15 July
Conductor to be announced

CINDERELLA
Music Sergey Prokofiev
Choreography Frederick Ashton
Set Designs Toer van Schayk
Costume Designs Christine Haworth
Production Wendy Ellis Somes
Lighting Mark Jonathan
Cojocaru, Kobborg, Dowell, Sleep 16 July
Benjamin, Samodurov, Marriot, Howells 17 (MAT) July
Rojo, Cope, Dowell, Sleep 17 July
Conductor to be announced

Looks like a good cast, I am very much looking forward to it.

Sim

The only time I have seen Cojocaru is on a tape of Nutcracker. But of course "live" is something entirely different and Giselle, an especial treat.

I don't believe I have ever seen Kobborg.

I am just looking the schedule over again and seeing if I can stay two nights at the hotel, but there doesn't seem to be a performance on either the evening before or the evening after. Sometimes the dancers stay in the same hotel as we do, and it's really fun seeing them at breakfast. The last time the Royal Ballet was here that happened, so maybe I will luck out again.

Kobborg, IMHO, is one of the 3 best Albrechts I've ever seen live. Hope you're sitting close, though ...

If you would like to see where the Royal Ballet will be performing here is the site:

http://www.ocpac.org/

If you would like to see the theater from several different views - including from the stage here's a virtual tour:

http://www.ocpac.org/about/Vtour.asp

The Center is in the throes of constructing an entire new concert hall complex directly across the street. When all is finished there will be several theaters in all. Even at the present time OCPAC is considered the venue for concert and dance in the entire Southern California area.

Within easy (one block or so) walking distance are several major hotels, a man-made lake, and a huge (and I do mean huge) shopping plaza/mall and scads and scads of restaurants. The dancers can be found walking around the shopping mall during the day. When the Kirov was here in the early 1990's we saw three of the principal ballerinas walking about. Then we saw them having lunch - three of them shared one salad. I happened to be wearing my Kirov t-shirt, so I walked by them and gave them a "brava" - they were very pleased.