Camilla Williams, the first black woman to appear in a leading role with a major US opera company, dies at 92

 obituary, opera  1 Response »
Jan 312012
 

, the first black woman to appear in a lead­ing role with a major US opera com­pany, aged 92. She made her debut in May 1946 in the title role of Madam But­ter­fly with the . Wil­li­ams’ debut per­form­ance came nearly nine years before became the first African-American singer to appear at New York’s more pres­ti­gi­ous Metropolitan Opera.

The New York Times review of that per­form­ance said the singer dis­played “a vivid­ness and sub­tlety unmatched by any other artist who has assayed the part here in many a year”.

The fol­low­ing year she played Mimi and in 1948 she sang Aida. In 1951 she sang  in first com­plete record­ing of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

Wil­li­ams became a strong sup­porter of civil rights. A life­time mem­ber of the National Asso­ci­ation for the Advance­ment of Colored People (NAACP), the singer per­formed in her homet­own of Dan­ville, Vir­ginia in 1963, to raise funds to free jailed civil rights demonstrators. She also sang the national anthem before 200,000 people at the 1963 civil rights march on Wash­ing­ton, imme­di­ately before gave his fam­ous I Have a Dream speech.… con­tinue reading

Janet-Street-Porter on the three ballerini: Polunin, Proietto and Putrov break the mould

 ballet  1 Response »
Jan 292012
 

The Three Ten­ors, says , brought opera to an entirely new audi­ence, using pop­u­lar mater­ial per­formed in arenas, not con­cert halls. Can former star do the same for ballet?

His bril­liant idea is an even­ing of spec­tac­u­lar dan­cing, Men in Motion. The biggest draw, after a tumul­tu­ous week in which he walked out of star­ring in the Royal Ballet’s next pro­duc­tion, was 21-year-old , in Nar­cisse, a spec­tac­u­lar tour de force that showed off his ath­leti­cism to per­fec­tion. Ivan Putrov is a lyr­ical per­former, who, like Polunin, came to find the Royal Bal­let too restrict­ing. He is enchant­ing in a solo set to Gluck and in a new work, designed by Gary Hume, which he also choreographed.

The show-stealer is the subtly hyp­notic , in the beau­ti­ful After­Life (Part One). The run­ning order is a bit odd and the event needs to end on more of a high note, but it’s a step in the right dir­ec­tion, and shows that clas­sical bal­let needn’t focus around anor­exic women in tutus.… con­tinue reading

Thomas Allen on Jenkins, Watson & Co: ‘These people have never sung an opera in their lives’

 opera  No Responses »
Jan 292012
 

In today’s Inde­pend­ent, Sir speaks his mind about the  and school of singing:

I refuse to give in to this fake pop­ular­isa­tion and low­brow qual­ity, and people claim­ing to be opera sing­ers when they’ve never sung in an opera – it’s a deceit. Those sing­ers could never do the real thing, here in the , where the non-bastardised ver­sion takes place.”

via The Inde­pend­ent… con­tinue reading

Polunin speaks! “It’s a confusing time”

 ballet  2 Responses »
Jan 282012
 

, who stunned the bal­let world earlier this week by walk­ing out on the , has broken his silence by speak­ing with the Sunday Telegraph:

Polunin told the paper that he planned to spend the next few days “alone” before com­ing to a decision about his future.

It’s a con­fus­ing time at the moment, I have made a big decision and the next one will be import­ant so I don’t want to rush it. For the moment I’m con­cen­trat­ing on bal­let and on rehears­ing. I need a few days alone to think about what I’m doing as I haven’t decided yet.”

Polunin has spent the past few days at his home, a Vic­torian ter­race house in north Lon­don, where he lives with Mari­nos and Arlene Chris­tofi, who have adop­ted the role of his ‘sur­rog­ate par­ents’, and their son , 25, him­self a bal­let dan­cer and occa­sional model, said The Telegraph.

… con­tinue reading

Edward Watson on the advantages of being a principal with the Royal Ballet

 ballet, other  1 Response »
Jan 272012
 

image , prin­cipal dan­cer with the and now ex-colleague of , the dan­cer who walked, who may not be an artist (accord­ing to Ivan Pet­rov, another ex-colleague, in his extraordin­ary state­ment yes­ter­day to the BBC) but, accord­ing to today’s Times,

“Watson’s per­form­ances are sparked by an extraordin­ary phys­ical pres­ence (pound for pound, stronger than a rhino, once pro­claimed an Opera House mar­ket­ing cam­paign with him on the poster) and a fierce dra­matic con­vic­tion that make him utterly com­pel­ling on stage. Not for him a diet of bland Princes — he’s enjoy­ing a career that embraces everything from tor­tured romantic hero and blaz­ing mod­ern­ist to Kafka’s giant insect. For him it’s obvi­ously a splen­did time to be a male dancer.”

Watson’s reas­ons for not walking?

I have stayed here for 17 years, because there is more going on here than any­where else. Lots of new stuff is being made all the time and if I’m not needed in Sleep­ing Beauty and Swan Lake I can work with other cho­reo­graph­ers… Often I think that I have the best of both worlds.

… con­tinue reading

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
 

Com­ment­ing on Sergei Polunin’s sur­prise exit from the Royal Bal­let, fel­low Ukrain­ian and ex-Royal prin­cipal , 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 , Lauren Cuth­bertson, , , Edward Wat­son and , will be sur­prised to learn that Putrov doesn’t con­sider them to be artists. Gen­eral Mason gives her orders and they just do as they’re told.… con­tinue reading

Young ballet star Sergei Polunin’s shock resignation from the Royal Ballet

 ballet  No Responses »
Jan 252012
 

It was with con­sid­er­able sur­prise that the bal­let world received the news of the depar­ture of 21-year-old Ukrain­ian from the . He was pro­moted to prin­cipal just two years ago, and was mak­ing leaps for­ward in his career with the com­pany, includ­ing the recent live relay of The Sleep­ing Beauty with his ‘part­ner’ .

Polunin was due to appear in The Dream next week and had given no indic­a­tion in rehears­als that any­thing was amiss, said The Tele­graph, but told Royal Bal­let dir­ector Dame today of his decision to quit.

2 hours ago on his account, @sergei_polunin, he wrote,

Just have to go through one night!!! then will make my next moves.

Dame Mon­ica said,

This has obvi­ously come as a huge shock, Sergei is a won­der­ful dan­cer and I have enjoyed watch­ing him tre­mend­ously, both on stage and in the stu­dio, over the past few years.

… con­tinue reading

Oscar nominations 2012

 awards, cinema  No Responses »
Jan 242012
 

Mar­tin Scorsese’s Paris adven­ture “Hugo” leads the Academy Awards with 11 nom­in­a­tions, among them best pic­ture and the latest dir­ector hon­our for the Oscar-winning filmmaker.

Also nom­in­ated for best pic­ture today: the silent film “”; the fam­ily drama “The Des­cend­ants”; the Sept. 11 tale “Extremely Loud & Incred­ibly Close”; the Deep South drama “The Help”; the romantic fantasy “Mid­night in Paris”; the sports tale “Money­ball”; the fam­ily chron­icle “The Tree of Life”; and the World War I epic “War Horse.”

“The Artist” ran second with 10 nom­in­a­tions, among them writ­ing and dir­ect­ing nom­in­a­tions for French film­maker , a best-actor hon­our for Jean Dujardin and a supporting-actress slot for Berenice Bejo.

Dujardin, who won the Globe for best actor in a musical or com­edy as a silent-era star whose career goes kaput with the arrival of talk­ing pic­tures, will be up against Globe dra­matic actor win­ner George Clooney for “The Des­cend­ants,” in which the Oscar-winning super­star plays a dad try­ing to hold his Hawaiian fam­ily together after a boat­ing acci­dent puts his wife in a coma.… con­tinue reading

Rudi Van Dantzig, Dutch dancer, choreographer and writer, dies at 78

 ballet, news, obituary  No Responses »
Jan 212012
 

The Dutch bal­let dan­cer and cho­reo­grapher , one of the fam­ous names in the world of con­tem­por­ary dance, has died in a hos­pital in at 78 after a long ill­ness. He was born in August 4, 1933.

Rudi van Dantzig took up bal­let les­sons in 1950, at the rel­at­ively late age of 16, and in 1952 engaged him in her com­pany Bal­let Recital.

He cho­reo­graphed his first work, Nachteil­and, for the Neder­lands Bal­let, a com­pany that had grown from Gaskell’s Bal­let Recital. This was fol­lowed by the found­a­tion of the , under the lead­er­ship of Gaskell, where Rudi van Dantzig became res­id­ent cho­reo­grapher and in 1965 one of the three artistic dir­ect­ors. In 1971, he was the only one left and he remained sole artistic dir­ector of the com­pany until 1991.

Through­out his career, he cre­ated over fifty bal­lets, which are still reg­u­larly per­formed by com­pan­ies in the Neth­er­lands and all over the world.

… con­tinue reading

 Older Entries

Switch to our mobile site