Melissa Hamilton in "Manon"; wow...

Isn't a "Manon" a kind of chocolate?  Something with praline and whipped cream enrobed in fine belgian choc?  Delicious.

"Manon" the story is not exactly delicious; it's bittersweet even at its happiest moments, and deeply tragic by the end.  At the moment the Royal Ballet are doing MacMillan's magnificent version and I've been twice, sad balletomane that I am.

I went with the DipGeek, a planned outing; we saw Laura Morera and Nehemiah Kish, innocent and unhappy as the lovers, and Riccardo Cervera as an insouciant Lescaut.  But then on Monday I managed to get a returned ticket, to see one of my current dance idols, Melissa Hamilton, making her debut in the lead.

So if I am a sad balletomane? - so what.  This was something not to be missed.  And boy, do we have a Manon here!  I know I'm one of her fangirls, but Ms Hamilton simply seized the part with both hands and made it her own.  I was completely blown away.

She was going absolutely flat-out, technically - not a foot wrong, not a risk fudged - while dramatically, emotionally, this was as subtle and truthful an interpretation as I've ever seen.  Her performance was alive with flickering feelings, right to her fingertips.  She brought out little nuances, like the way the innocent girl, arriving in Paris in a pell-mell hurtle of excitement, cannot resist trying to show off her pretty new frock to her brother - only to realise within minutes that next to the glittery finery of the local whores she looks provincial and frumpy.  And bang! she goes, like the kid she is, straight from unthinking happiness to frustrated dissatisfaction.

This was a very young Manon, in love but also very much swept up with being in love, and visibly steeling herself to the touch of Monsieur GM with his creepy fetishes and bullying dominance.  Right through Act One there was a vividly real sense of someone trying to keep abreast of things, trying to make decisions on the spur of the moment, trying to stay ahead without really knowing what she's doing.  Circumstances keep changing, complications keep arriving, and she is too un-worldy-wise to realise she cannot have it all, despite the deepening mess, until it is horribly, painfully too late.  By the end we were going full-on for raw danger; the famous flips and plunging lifts of the last pas de deux were taken right to the line, as they need to be, to give the last scene the utter desperation it needs.  Seriously; it needs to be scary, that scene, and it was.  I haven't seen a Manon come that close to dashing her brains out on the stage for a while...

She had an excellent Lescaut in Bennet Gartside, who I didn't know would be dancing this role until I opened my cast sheet; that was a nice surprise to arrive to.  He's matured into a terrific actor and still has the dancing chops to pull off a superbly naturalistic, tumbling drunk scene, making all those horrendous off-balance leaps look easy - and phenomenally real.  If anyone in the company is going to step into Gary Avis' shoes in time, Mr Gartside might be the one to do it.

Mr Avis was excelling himself as usual (if that isn't a contradiction in terms) as an utterly repellent Monsieur GM.  I wouldn't ever have expected to say this as a compliment, but he was rape culture personified.  Through great chunks of the brothel scene my eyes kept straying from the merrymaking of the whores and their clients, to watch the interactions between him and Manon.  This was a real relationship, subtle and full of tension, a constantly-shifting unadmitted power struggle going on.  One got a very clear sense of what has happened to Manon in the last few weeks, and a real premonition of what might have happened in the succeeding months, if she hadn't taken another spur-of-the-moment gamble and tried to have it all.

I would have liked to see Miss Hamilton paired with a more emotionally responsive Des Grieux.  Matthew Golding certainly seems to be a strong, safe partner (& my god, you need one with some of the lifts in "Manon") but his acting was a bit one-dimensional for my tastes.  Mr Kish, a couple of weeks before, brought a low-key sincerity and an air of innocent, well-intentioned sweetness to this foolish young man; one watched his characterisation and thought "By gum, Des Grieux is an idiot" but one also felt for him desperately.  I didn't really feel for Mr Golding, and that's a pity. 

But by and large it was a tremendous performance.  As usual all the bit parts were beautifully done.  As usual Gary Avis acted his socks off.  And as usual Miss Hamilton left me stunned, by her wonderful dancing and her heartfelt dramatic instincts. 

The rest of my week has been busy at work and I am tending to flop at home.  I'm still very tired.  I've just been for a drink after work with the Press Office team, followed by pizza and salad 'cos it's Friday.  My internet connection at home seems to be okay tonight, after being distinctly off-colour lately.  And I have kitten-sitting duties this weekend.  So things aren't too bad at all, all things considered.  And now I am going to bed.

Should I wind down?

Should I wind this blog down?

I hardly ever post anything on it any more.  My evenings of late have mostly been spent either getting on with some creative writing, or messing about chatting to people on tumblr and posting my photogaphs there (& making dirty jokes about fanciable actors >ahem< sorry folks, I'm only human).  And work is so hectic at present that in my lunch break I want to flee and sit outside in the fresh air, not sit blogging at my desk and hoping no-one makes an issue of the fact I've taken a break from working while I eat my lunch.

More of all of that anon.

I'll start by answering my own question, though.  Although I'm fairly sure very few people read this blog (apart from robots in Russia trawling for Russian opera singers' names) I don't think I will wind it down after all.  In very large part, because there seems to be too much winding down going on around me and to consciously decide to add to it myself depresses me in a vague unquantifiable way I can't explain.  It feels too much like going with the flow, when this particular flow is one I want to fight.  I do not want to wind down.  I shall not go gentle into that good night.

I am aware of my body getting plumper and slower, and it being harder to fight that progression into middle-aged spread and torpitude.  I am aware that the tipping point has been passed for some of the things I've always wanted to do; I doubt very much, now, that I shall ever direct a play, or see one I have written performed.  I know I will never be a successful artist, or run that cafe I used to talk about, and I wonder if I will ever get to bum around Greece writing "The Modern Pausanias"...  I am painfully aware that my brain isn't quite what it was, either; tiredness and tension don't help, of course, on that front.  But if I went to live in another country nowadays, the way I blithely did fifteen years ago, I wonder if I'd pick the language up as easily as I picked up Spanish, back then in 1999?

But I remind myself, I am tired and tense; and have been badly depressed, this winter.  As per usual; but still hard going for all it is a familiar pattern.

It's been a rough six months, and there's no sign of that easing up for the foreseeable future.  I was thoroughly ill twice in the autumn, with a horrendous fluey cold followed by a bout of gastroenteritis that had me off work for a fortnight.  All sorts of things since then have been tiring and stressful, too.

There's a massive staff restructure going on at work that will mean roles being lost, and that in turn may mean facing the propect of being out of work.  I hope it doesn't mean that for me; my job makes money, so I'm possibly safer than some, but no-one is really safe when these things happen.  I understand the operational thinking behind it, and it does make sense, sadly; but that doesn't make it any less alarming to contemplate.

At present we're in the throes of implementing a new ticketing and customer relations management database system; damned hard work, let me tell you.  I had no idea how flipping complicated these big organisation-wide projects were to bring in.  In my particular area we are just beginning to make some real headway and I can believe now that in time this will all work, and do what it's meant to do; and it will be tremendous when that happens.  A good visible sign of this progress is that the long email I stayed late at the office tonight to write, detailing the latest list I've made of queries, issues and general peculiarities, was mostly detailing non-urgent things this time - the previous three or four have all been about things that were vital and that needed to be sorted out NOW!  I have complete faith in the person who I know will be doing most of the sorting-out, who is one of the most capable people I've ever had the pleasure of working with.  But I also know he has a lot on his shoulders at the moment.  I'd prefer not to add to that if possible, so I'm even more glad that the queries on my list are now relatively minor ones.  Man deserves a break.

Heck, Man deserves a ruddy medal.  In my humble opinion.  But that's another story.

Paul, my lovely boss, left us ten days ago to go to pastures new, working for a marketing company that has been running less than two years and is apparently going to all sorts of exciting places.  He deserves every success and I hope he finds it; he's been a fantastic manager and I shall miss him.  But I could also thump him, because he's left me at the busiest time of the year for my regular job, with all the extra workload from the new database implementation, and until his replacement is fully run-in I can't ask for too much support from him.  Apart from anything else, he won't know the job or the people well enough to do much.  But meanwhile I am terrified of getting behind and feel as though I'm juggling cats.

I come out of the office at the end of the day and walk home, and tell myself to put it behind me.  I have a cup of tea and a proper meal (I am determined not to fall-back on cook-chill meals, so am making sure I buy real raw ingredients and cook them; I know I need the real nutrition just now).  Then I write, or mess about, as mentioned above.  I've been doing a lot of writing; my Western is progressing nicely and looks to be going to end up at well over 100,000 words.  And every now and then I go out.

On Monday night I was out; at, guess what, the ballet.  Seeing the Royal Ballet's "Sleeping Beauty" for the umpteenth time (well, fourth, or fifth possibly? - it's a gorgeous production, anyway, and I don't feel the slightest bit guilty).  There were some problems in the pit at the beginning - someone needed to have a quick word with some of the brass section, who were all over the shop - but on stage it was sheer heaven.  One of my favourite dancers, Hikaru Kobayashi, was dancing Aurora.  I've seen her in the role before - I made a beeline for this performance precisely to see her in action again.  She has beautiful feet and a lovely luxurious sense of space and scale.  She's one of those dancers who can make it look as though she has all the time in the world, although she has exactly the same number of bars of music, and beats in a bar, as anyone else would.  And she can act.  It was simply lovely to see her dancing a leading role opposite her husband, too; no need to worry about onstage chemistry between this prince and his beloved... 

There was more chemistry between Princess Florine and her Bluebird; Melissa Hamilton being wonderful (as usual) and Fernando Montano (ditto) ; flawless virtuosity from both and a sort of sparkling sexiness that made one really feel this was a fairytale indeed.  And between the King and Queen (Gary Avis and Genesia Rosato) not only chemistry but also a series of object lessons in telling, simple, spot-on mime, using the set conventional gestures and the chances to add one's own elements of expression alike superbly.  Not to mention demonstrating wonderfully how to manage a long trailing cloak with aplomb.  Christina Arestis was a splendid, beautiful, evil Carabosse and I think every fairy was a standout (though the lilac fairy was rather more of an implaccable spirit of justice than the personyification of goodness that I'm used to seeing).

I wish sometimes at the theatre that it were possible to make notes as the evening went on; but of course it would be the most horrible bad manners.  Only one finds oneself afterwards thinking "There were so many great moments last night, and now it's all one wonderful happy blur...".

But a wonderful happy blur is by no means a bad thing.

I shall have to stop writing; for now.  But not forever.  There is still too much to tell, too much to do, too much to say.  Even if I'm more erratic, more chaotic, I cannot stop now.

Catch-up, Pt 2: Mayerling 2013 – what a way to go!

One of the most extraordinary things I’ve seen this summer was the retirement performance of Johan Kobborg, quitting the stage with a bang (in every sense) in “Mayerling”. 

I hadn’t made any special plans to be at his farewell.  I’d been meaning for ages to see if I could catch him in action next time the Royal Ballet revived this phenomenally dark and powerful piece, as I’d heard he was a really tremendous interpreter of the lead role of Crown Prince Rudolf.  So; they brought it back this summer, and I booked a ticket; then a very short time beforehand – I think it was no more than a week or two – he announced his retirement, and his onstage and off-stage partner Alina Cojocaru announced she too was leaving the company – and this particular performance was to be their last appearance at Covent Garden.

Getting a seat for a beloved dancer’s farewell can be pretty tricky; getting a seat for two of them leaving at once would I imagine be proportionately harder still.  But I had managed it, by sheer random luck.  Even without that, I would be glad I’d been there anyway, since it was a terrific performance and both leads were on absolutely smashing form (as God knows they need to be – on top of this being a very demanding ballet, some of the lifts in Rudolf’s series of big pas de deux look bloody dangerous to me).  The added poignancy of ending with a long, long sequence of increasingly emotional curtain calls just added to an already dramatic atmosphere.  All in all it was a memorable evening.

And as for Mr Kobborg – well, to be able to retire at 40, and go out dancing this role, possibly the toughest thing in the repertoire for a male dancer (physically and I would guess also psychologically) this well, well, that’s an impressive way to go.  Not sliding off quietly into the shadows, half-unnoticed, but going with a full-on, explosively physical, high-drama thump to the guts to everyone in the audience.  I think that’s called stopping while you’re at the top; good on you, man!

I gather there are wheels within wheels in the background to this story (if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor!).  I suppose that’s inevitable sometimes in any large organisation.  Being as I am easily as much of a balletomane now as I was as a little girl, I hope very much that any problems behind the scenes at the company can be resolved sensibly and without ill-will on anyone’s part, since all I want is to go on getting lashings of top-class ballet in London.  I’m not going to look online to see who’s been washing whose dirty linen in public! 

So long as things don’t reach levels of animosity of Bolshoi proportions I’m fairly hopeful...  I don’t really want to know the nitty-gritty of company politics, I’m afraid; I feel it’s rather like wanting to know the ins-and-outs of an actor’s personal relationships.  There’s a reason why it’s called a “private” life, after all.

Just let them do the work, and do it well; just give them the means to go on doing that.  I don’t mind who’s shagging who, or any other personal matters, for dancers, for singers, for actors, or indeed for the people who invent new flavours for Ben & Jerry’s.  I don’t want to know if there are managerial disagreements, or who is misbehaving or exceeding their remit, or anything, and while I’m sorry for anyone who’s losing out or feels hard-done-by (and I’d much rather they didn’t feel that way, simply because no-one likes to), nonetheless, unless it’s ruining their work  I don’t actually mind if I don’t know about it.  

Is that blinkered of me? - or, perhaps, cold and uncaring?  Perhaps it is.  It’s the work I admire them for, these performers.  Okay, I admit occasionally the eye candy aspect comes into it! – but basically it’s the work I love them for, and it’s the work that I want to see going on, long after any individual performer's career winds down; handed-down in good shape, revivified with each new generation.   

Knowing that people are airing their grievances in public leaves me feeling I'm expected to take sides.  And I can never know the whole story, since the most I’d ever see would be twitter messages and the like.  So I don’t want to be called upon to make that judgement.

I don’t want to see established company principals, most of them real heroes and heroines of mine, departing in umbrage, or sticking around but feeling underused and resentful.  That would be simply awful.  I also don’t want to see talented dancers lower down the company feeling under-used, or over-used and taken for granted, for that matter - that would be awful, too.  I’m human, I can feel sympathy for anyone having a rough time at work.  But for me the bottom line is that I want to be able to go on going into the West End and seeing tremendous performances by great dancers in wonderful rep.   So long as the RB (and not forgetting the also-excellent ENB) can continue to supply that, I’m happy. 

I’ve also missed the goodbyes of Mara Galeazzi and Leanne Benjamin.  Big sighs of regret for both of them, as I shall miss them.  I did at least get to see Ms Benjamin one last time, as she was doing a stint with Carlos Acosta’s latest summer venture at the Coliseum last week, Classical Collection; a lovely mixture of high-classical and high-dramatic excerpts, and a cracking cast giving it their all.  So at least the last thing I saw the wonderful Ms Benjamin in was the almost unbearably-lovely “Pie Jesu” from Macmillan’s “Requiem”.  >Sob< - but again, that’s a good way to go.

And as one chapter closes (& Ms Benjamin's chapter has been not only glorious but also splendidly long!) another is near the beginning; and that is right, that is as it should be.  That same evening of excerpts brought me the chance to see Melissa Hamilton dancing the "Dying Swan"; and I honestly don't think I shall ever forget that sight.  By gum, that lass has IT, and in spadefuls.  Oomph, stage presence, pizzazz, grace, command, call it what you will.  I've been a fan of hers for some years now and last week she bouréed her way still further into my heart, and left me crying like a silly kid into my binoculars.  So, so beautiful...

Singing, writing, and ballet

It’s raining again.  It occurs to me that I’ve probably been rained on, either coming in to, or going home from, work (or both) about 40% of this year.  That is way too much rain.  My brother Steve, down in Bath, has seen the river Avon flood his garden three times in as many days this month.  It’s cold and wet and it seems to be dark all the time, and it depresses me.

We had another choir rehearsal today for Kew's Christmas carol Service; Nigel has rejoined the choir and is alternately playing the piano and booming away richly from the back, while a chap called Tim with Burne-Jones hair, has taken over the conducting.  I am now in my regular annual state of nerves regarding my singing, coupled this year with a vague desire to throw something at John Rutter.  He cannot leave a tune alone!  Why can’t we all just sing parts and harmonise in a normal way?  I have enough trouble with that, after all.  But no, Mr Rutter wants us altos to do a syncopated descant with massive intervals and lots of sharps and flats.  I know it isn’t in the Christmas spirit of me at all, but drat the man! 

I’ve been looking at my notes for “Gold Hawk; the nameless sequel” and trying to be realistic about them; there are some fun ideas there, but it isn’t cooked yet and it’s silly to pretend it is.  I want to spend more time with Thorn and Anna, but I’ll lose them if I try to force them into a story they’re not ready for.  So my next projects, when I get back from my week in Cyprus (can’t wait can’t wait), will be a) start typing “Gold Hawk” up, and revising as I go, and b) go back to either “Midnight in the Café Tana” or “Fortitude” and finish one or both of them.  Probably starting with “Café Tana”, since that’s the most coherent.  I’ve left Mel, David and Yaz in rather a ticklish situation, and things are due to get worse before they get better.

I sent “Gabriel Yeats” to the last agent on the initial shortlist 2 months ago, and have heard nothing back.  Sigh.  I wish I were getting somewhere with this agent business.  The idea of dispensing with one altogether and trying to do my own thing lurks in the back of my mind, tempting me.  My relative lack of computer skills holds me back (I have never figured out how to drive eBay, after all, so the idea of me producing a properly formatted e-book is frankly asinine).  And I know that for 99.9% of electronic publishing, this is the quickest way to sink your work without trace.  The odds are worse than the odds for keeping going as an artist (apparently an average 96% of Fine Art graduates – that’s me, folks - give up practising as artists within two years of leaving art school). 

The first thing, the foremost thing, the thing that drives me, is the writing itself.  If I can keep going with that, then at least I am generating new work.  Hopefully the more I write the more fluent I get as a writer; hopefully...  Meanwhile I guess I need to find another agent to try.

What else is going on?  I had an evening at the ballet last week; a triple bill, and the second cast, so a chance to see several young hopefuls in action.  Much though I love Marianela Nuñez, in “Concerto” she gets partnered by that sweet-faced blank Rupert Pennefather, and I find his gently void expression distracting (at least in the second movement of “Concerto” the chap is meant to be blank).  Besides, when Melissa Hamilton is on stage my eyes always slide towards her; she is completely electrifying whenever and wherever she turns up.  The final movement brought another bright spark in Claire Calvert, one of those dancers who make everything look easy.  I am quite certain it isn’t! – but there is a casualness in her grace that conveys almost luxurious confidence.  

The second item on the bill was “Las Hermanas”, featuring plenty of MacMillan’s signature ballet sex-and-violence.  It’s based on “La casa de Bernada Alba”.  Mysteriously the sisters have lost their names  - Angustias, Martirio and Adela have become simply The Eldest Sister, The Jealous sister and The Youngest Sister, which feels odd when you know the play – I kept thinking of them as Angustias etc.  No matter; it was still a striking distillation, though the introduction of Pepe as an on-stage figure weakens the sense of bottled-up tension Lorca creates.  But of course, one couldn’t have the aforesaid signature sex/violence without a male character on stage, and Thomas Whitehead overcame his very unpleasant wig to make a striking icon of machismo.  It’s lovely to see Alina Cojocaru get to sink her teeth into something dramatic occasionally – she embraced Angustias’ repression and agony with poignant force. 

The final item was “Requiem”, heart-breakingly sad with its dying Everyman and floating consoling angels, led by the luminous Yuhui Choe.  Not much one can say about “Requiem”; at the risk of sounding facetious, it does what you’d expect.  And at the risk of sounding kinky, it’s always great to see Edward Watson suffering (blimey, yes, that does sound kinky; oh dear, what a pity, never mind).

I haven’t much else to report.  Off to “Carmen” tonight; possibly to a talk tomorrow night; probably to another talk Thursday night; packing Friday night; off to Cyprus at crack of dawn Saturday.

Metamorphosis

Last night I went to the extraordinary "Metamorphosis Titian 2012" at the Royal Ballet.  Three new pieces, all with amazing design, wonderful new music, and great dancing.  Fab-u-lous! Several of my favourite dancers going flat out with utter genius.  A farewell role almost worthy of her for Tamara Rojo (unless she makes a come-back or does guest spots - you won't hear complaints from me if she does either or both!) as an imperiously beautiful, invulnerable-yet-fragile goddess, battling Ed Watson even as she reached out to him...  A well-deserved chance for the marvelous Melissa Hamilton to be a goddess, too; a glacial, sphinx-like one, curling and uncurling her feet like a lioness's claws.  Wonderful conjunctions and twistings-together of different choreographers' styles; Brandstrup + MacGregor making a particularly juicy combination.  A giant dancing machine like Epstein's Rock Drill come to life, whirring and stabbing at Carlos Acosta as he leaped and stretched himself out before it.  I could go on (and on...) but you get the idea.

Cracking good stuff, and a fine end to the RB season.  Since it was broadcast to the Big Screens as well, I can even hope they might release it as a dvd some day...

Wrote on the tube there and back, and in the intervals, and at Patisserie Valerie while I ate my salad. Would have written more when I got home, but was too tired - so went to bed and then couldn't sleep, wired with images of Acosta and the Machine, Ed and the Goddess, and all the colours and reflections and shapes and sensualities and dangers of three really terrific new ballets in one evening..

Hectic, but with ballet and more ballet...

Well, it’s been a hectic couple of weeks since I got back from my holiday. Work is at a busy time of the year and our department as a whole is still very short-staffed, although my team is slightly less stretched now that someone has come back from a long period of sick leave. The new computers are still causing hiccoughs assorted; every time I think I’ve got the hang of things I am brought up against another baffling change to the simple “how you do this” issues, with the result that I still feel like a cat chasing my tail a lot of the time. Fire-fighting the illogicality of Windows 7 is a big draw on one’s time and energy.

I haven’t been completely without fun, though. I’ve had a lovely trip to the Wetland Centre, some ballet outings and concerts to go to, plus a trip to the cinema (“Thor”, totally daft but entertaining; nice to see Tom Hiddleston, one of my ideal Gabriel Yeatses, getting a good high profile job, too) and a highly enjoyable birthday party – the sort where intelligent people talk about intelligent things and laugh a lot over a few pints. I’ve been trying to keep on top of the garden, not an easy task in this drought. And I’ve started the tricky and rather emotionally-draining business of giving “Ramundi’s sisters” a third revision. >sigh< It needs to be done, but it’s a job that gets slightly more sticky with each turn around the block.

My ballet outings were all very enjoyable. The latest Triple Bill at the Royal Ballet was a lovely package, except for being too short – none of the three pieces was particularly long, and the first came in at under twenty minutes. Even with longer than average intervals to pad it out, I was home soon after ten pm; but it was a good enough evening that I didn’t feel short-changed. “Ballo della Regina” was the “please sir, I want some more” opener, with Lauren Cuthbertson in lovely, shiny, smiley form as the lead ballerina, skipping through some fiendish footwork as if it were a playground game. She had a scrumptious quartet backing her up, and Sergei Polunin, all huge leaps and cheekbones, was classy as the sole fella.

Next up came a new piece by Wayne McGregor, which has got the critics all at sixes and sevens; like retsina, it seems, you either love it or loathe it. I was high enough up in the house not to be overly distracted by the video backdrop of exploding trucks, and could concentrate on the dancing. I’m never entirely sure I’m convinced by McGregor’s intellectual ideas, but he certainly choreographs incredible stuff from the dancing point of view; elastic off-centre bends, weird shapes, strenuous lifts and general frenzied athleticism all round. Ferociously tricky, it was danced by the small cast with a bravura that was slightly scary.

For a finale we got a revival, much longed-for by me, of Christopher Wheeldon’s “DGV”, a gorgeous non-narrative piece whose lack of a story does not preclude a heartfelt warmth in its series of fluid duets and final, powerfully uplifting ensemble. It’s a thrilling ballet that I could happily watch over and over; and with a cast like this it simply sings. Duet number one brought us a sensuous Laura Morera and Steven McRae’s customary febrile dynamism, duet number two, Zenaida Yanowsky’s long limbed elegance and the steady, modest strength of Eric Underwood. For duet number three I was lucky enough to see Gary Avis and Melissa Hamilton again; this is a luxury partnership of astonishing chemistry, and their ease with one another in this tender, soaring, probably hideously-difficult material is simply dazzling. To finish off, replacing Sarah Lamb and Federico Bonelli, came a decidedly high-calibre piece of back-up casting in the form of Itziar Mendizabal and Nehemiah Kish, two new recruits both of whom I am warming to rapidly. They hadn’t originally been slated to dance this at all, seem to have been put in fairly late in the day, and both looked as though they were loving every minute.

Then came the saga of the “Manon”s. MacMillan’s “Manon” is one of my all-time favourite ballets, and I went to see it back at the beginning of the run in April for a performance featuring the sexy Steven McRae, passionately intense and technically dazzling, and his regular stage partner, the beautiful and elfin Roberta Marquez. Gorgeous!

When I discovered that a performance featuring Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg was being put out on the Big Screen in Trafalgar Square last week, though, I decided I had to go to that – after all, Cojocaru and Kobborg are pretty damned special together, and it was free, and Big Screen screenings are tremendous fun in a slightly surreal way (double decker buses circling, sirens wailing by, aircraft heading into Heathrow as the night sky darkens to deepest phthalo blue…). So I went along, with a fleece and a picnic, and failed to link up with a friend who cried off at the last minute, and was thrilled all over again.

It was a totally different interpretation of the leading roles, with Kobborg playing Des Grieux as an intelligent, mature man of almost heroic decency, and Alina’s Manon the most thoughtful, even moral, I’ve ever seen. I know it sounds odd to call a girl who elects to become a rich man’s kept woman “moral”, but really, you could see her struggling between the choices facing her, knowing that both are, in one way or another, wrong – forswear the man you love and become a whore, or let-down and disobey your beloved brother (and know you are losing your one chance at financial security as well)…

And then my mum called me on Friday to say the friend she was going with to the Saturday matinee (scheduled to be danced by Laura Morera and Federico Bonelli) had called to say she couldn’t come after all, and would I like to join her? Well, Morera and Bonelli were a stunning Tatyana and Onegin last autumn, so I was delighted to say yes. Only to find, on arriving at the Opera House, that Mr Bonelli was injured and was being replaced by Mr Kish – who’s only danced the part once before, and that not with Ms Morera.

Mum was vocal in her disappointment (she feels about Mr Bonelli rather as I do about Messrs Watson and McRae, tall dark Italians being catnip to her in the same way ginger toms are to me); “Who’s this Nehemiah Kish, then? Never heard of him. Where’s he from? How long's he been kicking around?” etc etc – rather embarrassing as one cringes and hopes her well-pitched and rather carrying voice will not reach the ears of a parent, wife, girl~ or boyfriend, or anyone else who’s there to support Mr K... I tried to reassure her but as I hadn’t seen him in action very much, all I could say was fairly bland things about him being tall and a good partner.

So into the theatre we went, and the lights went down, and we were treated to what was for me, completely out of the blue, the best of the three “Manon”s I’ve seen this year, by a good margin.

It’s always hard to explain it, when it happens, but it was one of those performances when everything just comes together. By the time they got to that final terrifying pas de deux, hurtling into despair and death in the Louisiana swamps, I was crying helplessly into my binoculars, totally harrowed.

With two leads who hadn’t been set to dance together, and who therefore can’t have had much rehearsal together, one could have forgiven the odd hesitation or over-careful lift, but in fact they seemed pretty much unfazed by it; there was hardly any sign that they hadn’t been dancing together for years. To my eyes they were well-matched physically, technically and emotionally; their acting styles were complementary (both are subtle and inward actors rather than grand-standing and full-on) and they brought the whole thing alight for me.

The rest of the cast was batting down the order, too, and there were lovely little touches all over the place. José Martín was an excellent Lescaut, perhaps less virtuosic than Ricardo Cervera had been but more complex as a character; Valentino Zucchetti was a terrific Beggar Chief, Gary Avis a really nasty Monsieur GM, Bennett Gartside a really nasty Gaoler – I could burble on for ages listing every bit part who got a credit, as there wasn’t a duff performance to be seen. And from our leads there were lovely clean lines and confident sweeping lifts, kisses that looked as if they were really meant, and all the time that sense of real feeling, of something not thought-thru’ and rehearsed but fresh and immediate.

Laura Morera’s Manon came across as a girl who at the beginning is only just discovering the power her allure gives her, making a journey from innocence to a painful adulthood – a Juliet-like character, trying to make the right decisions, to solve the pull between irreconcilable longings. Mr Kish’s Des Grieux was a classic nice guy, simple and straightforward, kind-hearted, devoted, even perhaps not terribly bright; exactly the sort of decent, honest boy-next-door type she ought to have been able, in a better world, to marry and be happy with.

She knows how to use her stillness to say more than one would think possible; he knows how to use his very beautiful hands and wrists to finish a long, aching line; they both have the technical skill to let the choreography do the talking, rather than trying to over-characterise. The final pas de deux was about as no-holds-barred as I’ve seen it, Manon’s death a shattering moment, Des Grieux not screaming silently as most do but slumping back on his heels, staring at her body in shock; exhausted, bereft, and knowing he’s next.

I’ve been haunted by it ever since.

Playing catch-up...

There's never enough time in the day, it seems sometimes (for example, I wrote most of this in my lunch hour but have had to save it & finish it after work). Yesterday in my lunch break I had meant to write about my first ballet outing of the season, the Royal Ballet production of Cranko's "Onegin"; and about gardening, and about the Muse having popped up and given me a wee nudge which may, just may, develop into something interesting. But I didn't have much time after picking up calls because it was busy, and then I got sidetracked into writing a hymn to the beauty of the Wetland Centre. Which is beautiful (and I'm happy to promote it - I don't feel obligated to avoid mentioning other west London visitor attractions just because I work at one) but my glorious Sunday afternoon there was not my whole weekend by any means.

"Onegin", on Friday evening, was terrific. Although they've had it in their repertoire for eight or ten years the Royal Ballet don't do it very often for some reason. Perhaps it doesn't put bums on seats the way "Romeo and Juliet" does, and the big nineteenth century classics obviously do. Also, unlike most of these, it doesn't have many of those juicy bit parts that give soloists a chance to step up and shine briefly. It does need five strong dancers who can not only dance but also act, though. With the best will in the world, some of the RBs current principals (naming no names!) can't act for toffee. Luckily I got some who could.

The plot of the ballet follows the opera fairly closely (I've never read the original Pushkin poem, so can't comment on how closely either adaptation resembles it). But it is such an eternal and human story that it bears repetition and re-rendering in different genres. A naive girl falls catastrophically in love with a man who isn't interested in her. Years later, they meet again and he realises what a fool he was to reject her love. He appeals to her, only for her to reject him this time. There's also an even more tragic secondary plot about her sister and his friend, whose lives are destroyed as a result of this primary plot situation. It's all pretty emotional stuff.

I was incredibly touched by the Tatiana of Laura Morera; she may not have the fame, or perhaps quite the diamond technique, of Alina Cojocaru, but her acting is if anything even more nuanced. Watching her grave, quiet face slowly come alive as she succumbs to the fascination of the attractive stranger, and her tight, reined-in desperation in the Act 2 party scene, when she has to put on a social face in front of the man who has broken her heart, my usual identification with the character moved up several notches. I am Tatiana (as poor Tchaikovsky said at one point) - I've been there, I know exactly what she is going through, and my heart bleeds for her every time I see this story. And it's quite an achievement, incidentally, to be so credibly gauche at the beginning while still dancing superbly. I've also never seen the tenderness in the pas de deax with Prince Gremin come across so strongly, or the absolute agony of the final duet with Onegin. I didn't expect it, but I think I have now found my definitive Tatiana. She was wonderful.

It was good, too, to see Federico Bonelli get his teeth into something with a bit of dramatic potential. I've previously seen him either in abstract work or in pieces where he plays the Handsome Prince and has nothing to do except look gorgeous and rise above his wig (I'm thinking "Nutcracker" here), and partner the ballerina beautifully. Given a part that requires him to do more, he seized the opportunity; he is a lovely dancer, clean and smooth and strong, and I now know he is also a very capable actor. That pirouette-ending-in-a-stamp move just before the duel in Act 2 scene 2 can look silly - or creepily childish - here it was a real outburst of bodily fury. He managed to convey both Onegin's charm and attractiveness to Tatiana and at the same time the self-absorption that she is too infatuated to see.

Part of the way through the letter scene someone in the audience began to shout and scream (apparently it was a woman whose husband had been taken ill); although the noise must have been deeply disruptive to their concentration, both leads carried on their duet with admirable aplomb. Bravo to both for that, too.

Olga was danced by Melissa Hamilton, and she was a delight. Each time I see her in action she seems to grow, both technically as a dancer and in stature and feeling as a dramatic performer. Luckily not physically, though - she's on the tall side to begin with. But her fresh beauty and her youth and enthusiasm suited Olga beautifully, and I was struck by the way that at Lensky's death, instead of the regular ballet-swoon posture, she really collapsed to the stage, then slowly curled into a foetal position - it was painfully realistic.

Her Lensky was my one doubt; Sergei Polunin is technically terrific, but I found him rather uncertain dramatically. He just didn't really seem to be as emotionally involved as the other three principals. By gum, he can't half dance, though. Very ornamental, too, especially if you like a fella with cheekbones! Still, on the ornamental front, I'll take Prince Gremin - my favourite, Gary Avis, giving his usual superbly nuanced and detailed performance and looking thoroughly noble in uniform.

The other main activity of the weekend, apart from that blissful afternoon at the Wetland Centre, was planting about 300 spring bulbs in the garden, and taking down the bean bines. Apart from pruning and tidying, that is my main autumn garden jobs done. I found about fifteen fat, woody, over-ripe bean pods, enough to get plenty of seeds for next year and hopefully some spare to share with friends (so let me know if you want to take up growing climbing French beans).

The Muse resurfaced briefly and has left a little idea fomenting in my brain. It's an opening line. A single sentence; but I can see where it leads (= to something running to three volumes or more) and I'm not sure I feel strong enough. I thought I had worked the urge to write multiple-volume heavy-duty fantasy novels out of my system as an adolescent, and it feels a bit strange to have one coming to a simmer like this.

It fascinates me, when I step back and detach from worrying about the actual creative activity itself, how many ideas my brain is capable of storing on the back-burner at once. Well over thirty ideas are sitting there biding their time; novels, drawing and painting projects, even a couple of arty videos I'd like to make. And I talk about there not being enough time in the day already! It's alarming, and bizarre.

And then I end up, as I did last night, putting the tele on, channel hopping and finding a good movie - "Aeon Flux" - on Film Four, and just sitting on my btm allowing myself to be entertained. I gather that if you were a fan of the animated original show or the computer game version of "Aeon Flux" it is considered correct to loathe the film. I'm not, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It looked great (and isn't overloaded with CGI effects, which is refreshing in a contemporary SF film); the script wasn't too bad and the basic ideas were actually quite good; it has lovely strong capable women characters and plenty of eye candy for everyone (Charlize Theron and Sophie Okonedo, both periodically with not many clothes on, as a splendid team of female assassins; Marton Csokas looking rumpled and sexy as a troubled dictator) and it's very well acted. It's just a pity about the main characters' names. To me, "flux" is a slightly archaic term for dysentery; and no-one, surely, can take entirely seriously a dictator called Trevor...

I can't reject letting myself be entertained; films like this leave me with mental images that go into all those metaphorical pots on the back of the stove of my creative mind, and meld their juices together (what a terrible extended mixed metaphor!). And it was good fun, anyway.

The Immies 2009; my cultural highlights of the past year...

It's been a quiet day at work.

Thinking about "Les Patineurs" I was reminded of how, a bit less than a year ago, I came out of Covent Garden after seeing "Isadora" (a muddle, I'm afraid, and a waste of the very considerable talent performing it) and the magically wonderful "Dances at a Gathering", practically walking on air because the second piece had been so brilliant. It was definitely one of my highlights of 2009, and I have been wondering what, with hindsight, I would classify as the others.

I must emphasise that this is a purely personal collection of things I attended during 2009 which have stayed with me and which spring to mind instantly when I think "What were the big highlights of last year?" SO - not necessarily the greatest, just the particular things that hit my cultural g-spot; highly influenced by my current tastes and passions and by the fact that for some reason, I went to a lot of concerts and relatively few exhibitions last year; and certainly not selected through democratic decision-making processes. And if I had to think too long about why something was good, then I didn't count it; it had to be right there in my memory, leaping about like a spring lamb, bleating "Remember me?!"

So here, anyway, are the winners of the Imogen Awards - The Immies 2009.
Tum-tata-taah!

Albums of the Year (by which I mean, the top-played recordings among those I bought in 2009; I'm excluding things bought in the past but played a lot last year, like "The Cunning Little Vixen"):
Spiro "Lightbox"
Michael Nyman "MGV"
Edgar Meyer, Joshua Bell and friends "Short Trip Home".

Exhibition of the Year:
"Wild Thing" at the Royal Academy. The Gaudier-Brzeska and Epstein works are simply astonishing (though Eric Gill I can walk away from without a backward glance).

Concerts of the Year:
Mahler "Symphony no. 2" in Westminster Cathedral; Philharmonia Orchestra cond. Benjamin Zander.
Berg "Violin Concerto" & Mahler "Symphony no. 6"; Philharmonia Orchestra cond. Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Janácek "Sinfonietta", Lindberg "Graffiti", Stravinsky "The Firebird"; Philharmonia Orchestra cond. Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Orchestra of the Year:
The Philharmonia (in case you hadn't guessed).

Theatre Performance of the Year:
"War Horse"; Royal National Theatre. Unmissable.

Dance Performances of the Year:
"Dances at a Gathering", "DGV" and "Ondine" - all at the Royal Ballet, all terrific, all perfectly cast, perfectly danced, and perfectly played in the pit. "Dances at a Gathering" even gave me three gorgeous ginger men all on stage at once.
"Akademi Daredevas '09" at the Purcell Room - breathtaking Indian classical dance and contemporary dance drawing on Indian classical models.

Opera Performances of the Year:
Verdi "Don Carlo"; Royal Opera.
Adams "Dr Atomic"; English National Opera.
Berg "Wozzeck" (concert performance, part of the "Vienna, city of dreams" series at the South Bank); Philharmonia Orchestra cond. Esa-Pekka Salonen, soloists inc. Favourite Baritone in heartbreaking form.

World/Folk Performances of the Year:
WOMAD 2009 at Charlton Park. Sheer music-festival-bliss, despite the rain, and so much good music it is hard to single out individual performers or groups.
Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers at the Royal Festival Hall.

Unclassifiable Cultural Event of the Year:
Re-Rite at the Bargehouse.

Individual Performers of the Year:
Instrumental; Nikolai Lugansky playing Rachmaninov Piano Concerto no. 3 at the Royal Festival Hall.
Vocal; Stuart Skelton in "Peter Grimes" at English National Opera.
Roderick Williams in "The Magic Flute" at English National Opera.
Dance; Miyako Yoshida and Edward Watson in "Ondine", Royal Ballet.
Melissa Hamilton and Gary Avis in "DGV", Royal Ballet.
Theatre; The horse-puppetry teams in "War Horse", Royal National Theatre.

Haven't vanished...

...just rather busy. And I have had a bad attack of cystitis (you all really wanted to know that, didn't you?!). The constant nagging discomfort, verging at times into real pain, is beginning to get me down after four days.

Think positive, Dent.

I had a wonderful Drawing Day last Friday - I booked a day off work so I could indulge myself totally. I went back to "re:Rite", used up almost a whole A5 sketchbook, and worked a brand-new 4B pencil down to a stub, drawing musicians. I managed to get everything from detailed portraits to the most flailing Zen-Spaghetti drawings; to me, these all say something worth saying. There are no failures; there are only interesting experiments. Everything takes you somewhere, even if only to a place of knowing that "That didn't come off". Most of it, at least to me, carries so much resonance - of the music and the energy of the performance - that it fairly zings on the page, whether the image is a recognisable face and identifiable instrument, or Zen-Spaghetti loop-lah chaos.

I listened to the whole of the conductor's commentary on the headphones provided (& it was absolutely fascinating) and took advantage of this to also draw The Maestro, about fifteen times - again, managing to produce everything from a proper thumbnail portrait to a couple of Zen-Spaghettis. As he is a moving target, to say the least, the Spaghetti drawings were only to be expected. Some musicians sit comparatively still, others move about a certain amount, but in most cases they were moderately simple subjects, with at most face and hands in movement. The Maestro bounds about like a dancer, grinning, pulling faces, and waving his arms, never stopping the entire time. Wonderful to watch - and his commentary was illuminating, funny and oddly touching - but a tough challenge to draw.

I've done one large drawing since (cello section, focussing in, as it developed, onto the figure of principal cellist Karen Stephenson) and begun a second last night. It feels good to be doing some big drawings again.

I also danced my feet off a concert by Vieux Farka Touré (who was corking) and Rachid Taha (who may have been drunk; but his set was great fun, like a north-african-inflected early Rolling Stones). And I did some useful domestic things like grocery shopping and cleaning as well. And defrosted the freezer. I don't think this had been done for about two years. It took five and a half hours. Ugh. I deserved my whiskey and my drawing session, after that.

I also went to the triple bill at the Royal ballet. Melissa Hamilton is wonderful. Yuhui Choe is wonderful. Eric Underwood is wonderful.

So are quite a lot of the company, actually.

"Agon" looked a bit untidy at first - Balanchine needs precision and clarity and both were lacking somewhat in the opening ensemble - but then they got it together and the second pas de trois and the pas de deux were spot-on. The score is Stravinsky at his most spare and taut and spiky, the choreography appropriately a back-and-forth shifting, between lyrical beauty and angular abstraction. "Sphinx" was bonkers but terrific, Edward Watson was as stunning as ever despite a very silly mask, and the playing of the Martinu Double concerto was a treat. "Limen" was also slightly bonkers, and I'm not too sure it meant as much as it meant to mean, if you know what I mean. But it was splendidly danced, the staging was weird but very effective and the music (Kaija Saariaho's Cello concerto) was simply amazing.

On the way home, I found myself walking into the tube station just behind Gary Avis, also of Royal Ballet fame. I don't know if he'd been at the performance or doing something else (he wasn't dancing that night, at least not in the triple bill). He is less tall, handsomer, and more melancholy-looking in person than he appears on stage. He got on a different train to mine and stood there waiting to go, with a sad, downcast gaze. It would have been rude to bound on board and grab his arm and tell him I think he's wonderful; but I do. Gary Avis, you are wonderful; and I hope whatever was making you feel blue on Tuesday night is soon sorted out.

Now I'm off home to reheat last night's fish stew and get some more charcoal under my fingernails. Drawing board, "re:Rite" sketchbook, stinking fixative and all; here I come...

Friday evening

Whoof, Friday already, thank goodness…

I’m on a list of volunteers for a clinical trial at the moment and am drinking a pot of sickly-sweet orange-flavouring-flavoured liquid each morning before breakfast – it’s a new health drink, supposedly intended to reduce hunger pangs and cravings between meals. Which it does, for me, by dint of giving me vile indigestion. I’m having trouble stomaching food at all, I feel so dreadful; I’m blown up with gas, am unable to help periodically belching like a marine, and am permanently uncomfortable with heartburn. If I’m in the control group, gods help me…

But I get two days off at the weekend. Thank goodness.

Let’s talk about something else.

Last night I was at the Royal Ballet; a triple bill, and a mixed bag. I’m a big fan of Zenaida Yanowsky, and “Seven Deadly Sins” was made on her; she’s just come back to work after a few months off, post-baby, and I was glad to see her in action again, but frankly I’m not that impressed with the ballet. It looked an awful lot to me like one deadly sin (guess which) in seven semi-differentiated forms. A very good cast, but basically uninvolving, and less-than-inspired choreography with far too many splayed legs.

The second piece was Mats Ek’s “Carmen” which was weird. Effective, but weird. A completely, deeply bizarre piece of work, a very peculiar set, thoroughly strange costumes, and very in-your-face, I-have-to-be-different choreography; but, in the end, powerful and convincing. Tamara Rojo was born to play Carmen, Lauren Cuthbertson was severe, snakily sinuous and creepy in the Micaëla role, and the blokes were all good. Oddly enough, though, the highlight of the piece was a terrific solo for a woman mourning the officer murdered by José, danced with riveting passion by a young lass called (I think) Melissa Hamilton.

Finally, and fabulously, Christopher Wheeldon’s “DGV - Dance à Grande Vitesse”. This was a real wow, a knockout, glorious piece of beautiful, exciting, almost totally non-narrative dancing, with a dazzling score by Michael Nyman. The corps were on the top of their game, and the octet of soloists I saw was to die for. Eric Underwood and Sergei Polunin are two bright young up-and-comings with great futures ahead of them. Leanne Benjamin was as wonderful as ever; Edward Watson was athletic and intense as usual and a joy to watch. Mara Galeazzi and Lauren Cuthbertson were also both excellent. For me the cream of the crop was young Ms Hamilton again, breathtakingly good in a big rôle full of twisting stretches and difficult balances, originally made for Darcey Bussell, and the marvellous Gary Avis partnering her with his usual excellent and attentive care. I’ve never understood why he isn’t a huge star; he’s tall and powerful but possessed of tremendous natural grace, has both strength and tenderness as a partner, can act, and is, in a quirky sort of way, very good looking, with strong facial bones and large eyes, and a sudden broad smile full of delight – a smile which came out rather a lot last night. This particular duet he and Melissa Hamilton danced was simply gorgeous. “DGV” lifted the evening from hit-and-miss to solid hit, and Mr Avis and Ms Hamilton lifted “DGV” from hit into absolute stunner.