★★✰✰✰ There are dances that one figures out in the first five minutes. Hope as one might that the piece will evolve or turn a corner, it soldiers on in the same vein, section after section, until the end.
Tag - Aurelie Dupont
★★★✰✰ The gala was a well-put-together, briskly-paced affair, a sampler of Graham excerpts dating back to her very first recital, in 1926.
★★★✰✰ Every gala needs a revelation, and this one was provided by Sergio Bernal, a Spanish dancer who dominated the stage in an imperious farruca solo from Antonio’s flamenco version of The Three Cornered Hat...
Graham Watts was at the Palais Des Congres for us to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Rudolf Nureyev's birth...
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...
The company danced Serenade well but the very simplicity in its choreography, created as it was initially for students, ironically makes it hard to produce a perfect performance...
The arrival of the wilis takes one’s breath away. Not only are they individually beautiful, with their soft port-de-bras and milky-white shoulders, but they are all eerily the same, in every way: same size, same build, same arms, same tilt of the head, same gaze, same feet.
Nicolas Le Riche was fabulously predatory in Bolero, a raging furnace of self-love and sex appeal. One imagines that after the show he must have ravaged a hundred virgins, but maybe he simply went home and soaked his feet in the tub, but in any case, he was magnificent, good taste (and choreography) be damned.
With its exquisite staging, and most importantly with its understanding and respect of the Romantic ballet style, and whole-hearted dedication of the dancers to their roles, the Paris Opera Ballet demonstrated just how Giselle should be produced and performed.
The actual Roméo and Juliette sections of Waltz’s work are captivating, but when they stop dancing, it’s harder to remain invested in what’s going on around them. Even in an abstract version of Roméo et Juliette, Romeo and Juliet remain the focal points.
As Manon, Dupont started out as sweet and innocent. Overall, her Manon seemed almost empty, like a vessel for people to put eroticism into or to act upon.
At the end the curtain came up once again, and Brigitte Lefèvre (artistic director of the ballet) and Nicolas Joel (director of the opera as a whole) emerged to announce the promotion of the evening’s Solor, Josua Hoffalt, to the ultimate rank: étoile. There were buckets of tears, from Hoffalt, Gilbert, and Dupont. In fact, it was the high point of the evening. An uncontrolled release of emotion...