‘Firebird’ reviews RB ‘Firebird’ reviews RB ‘Le Biches’ reviews

Thursday night's 'Diaghilev Legacy' insight evening at the ROH's Linbury Theatre was a real pleasure and I'm glad I plumped for that rather than the Schaufuss 'Elvis' opening at Sadler's Wells.

Monica Mason talked us through both 'Firebird' (Fokine) and 'Les Biches' (Nijinska) with the help of Mara Galeazzi, who will be dancing in both ballets in the upcoming Diaghilev programme at Covent Garden.. Galeazzi seems both technically assured and artistically mature, but with a pleasantly unassuming personality (how thin she is, though!).

Mason, however, was the real star. She had the enormous advantage of actually being coached through 'Biches' by Nijinska herself and - since she's a born communicator - managed to convey her memories of this with revealing clarity and wit. She began by explaining that Nijinska's ballet, like most of the Diaghilev repertoire, called for a more relaxed stance than we are familiar with today - arms held loosely and without tension, shoulders not pulled back, a more rounded and softer look than we see now. She outlined the dynamics of La Garconne's first solo in 'Biche' with careful precision, Galeazzi making her entrance on stiff, stalking pointe wearing white gloves. (I can hardly wait to see the whole of this deliciously daffy ballet). Of 'Firebird' (which Galazzi is understudying) she was equally revealing; Fokine, it appears, lost sight of his ballet for some years and by time he saw it in Paris the costumes and scenery had been radicaslly changed - the girls were in tutus rather than harem pants and their hair had been cut into fashionable 20s bobs, making nonsense of the movements he had choreographed for sensuous running-of-hands-through-long-hair moments. Philip Gammon played sturdily throughout, apologising for his inability to sound like an 80-piece orchestra in 'Firebird'!

MM was a hard act to follow, but Ross Alley, a lecturer in opera and ballet at London University didn't disappoint with his brilliant discourse on Stravinski's 'Firebird' music. No music lecturer I have ever heard before has explained with such clarity and brevity the mathematics of music, and its emotional relevance to its subject. With the short time left, he drew our attention to the eroticism of Debussy's L'Apres Midi d'un Faune and went some way to explain the mechanics of how this was achieved. Remarkable.

Congratulations to all at the ROH involved in organising this very satisfying event. I hope there will be be many more like it.