Principal Casting Announced for English National Ballet’s new production of Le Corsaire
Tag - Alina Cojocaru
Words with the man and thoughts on the Behind the Scenes at The Royal Ballet book from Graham Watts. Details of his next book too - on Natalia Osipova...
Alina Cojocaru, one of the world’s greatest ballerinas, is to join English National Ballet.
The previous night had been dominated by Gillian Murphy’s performance. She is an absolute powerhouse in this role, a kind of super-stylized, inhuman creature, an art-deco distillation of speed and daring.
Johan Kobborg and Alina Cojocaru said farewell to the Royal Ballet in Mayerling. Jann Parry was there for an emotional night, flower throw and standing ovation...
Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg have announced they will leave The Royal Ballet at the end of the 2012/13 season to pursue other artistic challenges.
Picture above is from
Dave Morgan: Alina Cojocaru Gala – Preparations and Rehearsals – 30 pictures
These are pics of the preparations and practise runs in the afternoon before the show. Many thanks to Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg for allowing us access.
"Vadim was the first partner to make me feel like I was 16, even though I was approaching 40 when we first danced together."
An evening of artists celebrating the past present and the future, with highlights from the classical repertoire along side new or rarely seen pieces including choreography by Marius Petipa, John Neumeier, Tim Rushton, Johan Kobborg and others.
First thing to say is that it's a peach of a production, coherent, dramatically satisfying... It still feels fresh and vibrant... The three leads did well... Elsewhere it was a mix of good and ragged steps...
Though this year it was Nijinsky’s turn to be reclaimed as a Russian icon, the contents of the gala had little to do with him. Very probably the choice of items – mainly pas de deux - depended on which dancers were available to perform whatever was in their repertoire.
On Sunday 10 March the Russian Ballet Icons Gala, this year dedicated to the legendary Vaslav Nijinsky, will take place at the London Coliseum.
This triple bill, with two world premieres, shows how ably choreographers 85 years apart can refresh the language of classical ballet without distorting it beyond recognition.
During the season, and over five nights, I saw each of the five Giselles – Dorothee Gilbert, Myriam Ould-Braham, Ludmila Pagliero, Isabelle Ciaravola and Melanie Hurel, and four Albrechts...
Cojocaru is as great a dance-actress in the final scene as any I’ve been privileged to see – and that includes Lynn Seymour, Natalia Makarova and Ekaterina Maximova.
It's the Royal Ballet's varied and unique repertoire that has kept me loyal to the company through some very thin times as well as the golden seasons, and this programme is a nice example of what a flick through its back - catalogue can produce.
Well, performing for me is really about that experience of giving to the audience. In the studio you work and perfect things, you collaborate with your partner, but for me it’s about what happens on the stage, the ability to give something, to your partner, to the audience.
Hubbe - handsome and captivating as ever in tight black jeans and an Errol Flynn mustache - assured the Works and Process audience that the famously elegiac Shades scene has not been tampered with...
Balanchine famously described a choreographer's job as being like a chef's, and his Ballo della Regina perfectly fulfils the role of amuse-bouche in the Royal Ballet's latest double bill, waking us up and sharpening our appetites for the more serious fare of Bournonville's lovely La Sylphide. It's the fourth ballet the company has tried out in this role and I think it's the most successful.
...with Cojocaru the steps are sublimated into the character and the situation. She seems to be experiencing the ballet anew, moment by moment, with the audience. No surprise, then, that her mad scene is hypnotic, and changes from performance to performance...