Royal Opera House Live Screening - Giselle

The Royal Ballet's Giselle

Last night I went with my flatmates to see the Royal Opera House's live screening of the Royal Ballet's Giselle and thought it was just wonderful! I love the live screenings as people from all over the world can watch the same ballet as you. A lot of companies are doing this now. I know English National Opera are showing Peter Grimes tomorrow evening. I think this is changing the face of theatre and making it even more exciting.

I think Giselle was probably one of the most emotionally draining ballets I have ever watched. Giselle was performed brilliantly by the Russian principal dancer Natalia Osipova. She danced with precision, speed and  a way that made classical ballet look so natural and effortless. Of course I couldn't help notice the beautiful costumes. The silk skirts in particular moved so gracefully and really complimented the way she moved. It was really aesthetic to watch.

Natalia Osipova as Giselle

Natalia Osipova as Giselle

One of the things I really love about ballet is it's ability to tell a wordless story through dramatical music and body movements. To be a ballet dancer requires a skill like no other. Not only must the dancer concentrate on the choreography which requires a huge amount of balance and strength but also the ability to really become a character and tell a story solely through the way you move. I find it really fascinating.

Natalia Osipova brought a huge amount of emotion to the role for both the audience and the performers on stage. I was sat in the theatre just completely blown away with how the performance made me feel. Of course I could go on about the other dancers as they were all fantastic but I really felt Natalia was probably one of the best principal ballet dancers I have ever seen!

Giselle is on at the Royal Opera House until 10th February 2014.

Click here to see more of the Royal Opera House's live cinema season. Don Giovanni is screened on 12th February 2014 and looks fantastic!

Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty

Ballet, in my opinion, is one of the worlds greatest art forms and I just find it amazing how much it emotion it can bring to the audience and how it can manage to tell a story with dance, set, costume and no words.

This Christmas BBC2 played the New Adventure’s Sleeping Beauty. Although I went to see this last year with some girlfriends it was also lovely to watch it in my sitting room with family and to me it really showed a dramatic difference between live viewing and TV. On one hand I would say going to watch it live, like anything, is so much better in the sense that atmosphere from the audience is buzzing and there is nothing more dramatic than listening to a live orchestra play Tchaikovsky’s score- it never fails to give me goose bumps. However, watching it on TV was great as it allowed me to see the close up details of costume which, as a student studying costume for performance, is something I really appreciate. The costumes really do look different close up and from a distance which is helping me understand more why there is such a difference between designing for theatre or film & TV.

A few months ago I went with my classmates backstage to see the costumes (designed by Philip Prowse) for Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Sleeping Beauty and then to see it live the following evening. It was fun to see the costumes in the flesh and then on stage but also incredibly interesting to see how different they looked from a distance. The classical ballet costumes were stunning but completely different compared to Lez Brotherston’s for Matthew Bourne’s choreography.

Birmingham Royal Ballet's Sleeping Beauty.
Note the use of block colour in the costumes to create distinctive shapes that can be seen from a distance and that compliment the choreography.

Birmingham Royal  Ballet's Backstage Costume Department.
Even in costumes for stage, designers include stunning
embellishments and trimmings that are picked up in the light when
on stage.

Birmingham Royal  Ballet's Backstage Costume Department

Matthew Bourne finally finished his trio of Tchaikovsky’s ballets with Sleeping Beauty last year and his interpretation of The Nutcracker 1992 in and Swan Lake in 1995. I went to see was Swan Lake I think in 2007 and I was absolutely blown away by his innovative and genius choreography combined with Tchaikovsky’s score. Instead of the classical female swans in pretty white tutus he uses male swans in tasselled breeches to resemble feathers and a bare chest which not only adds a particularly raw quality to the performance but enhances the dance moves as the lighting reflects on their muscles as they move. This one of his in particular is a must see!

Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake.
Tasselled breeches are cleverly used to resemble feathers and the bare chest adds a particularly raw quality to the performance.

His take on Sleeping Beauty involved vampires and fairies with a gothic twist that spreads from the Victorian era through to the 21^st Century in three acts. His contemporary choreography isn't too out there so it is good for a younger audience. I couldn't help but notice elements of Michael Jackson's Thriller in the production, particularly in the third act! It is elements like that which makes Bourne's productions so easy and fun to watch and suitable for any audience.

One of the things I love most about Matthew Bourne is the comedic element he brings to all his productions. It must be so difficult to make people laugh at a ballet without it coming across as tacky so I really applaud him for that. So often when I go to watch ballet I usually don’t follow the story and I find myself distracted by the set and costumes – how can you not?! But I always find that I understand the story line a lot better for any of Bourne’s productions.

Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty

Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty
Costumes by Lez Brotherston

If you are new to ballet or have never been that interested by it, going to see one of the performances by New Adventure’s would be a great place to start. Swan Lake is on at the moment at Sadler's Wells until January 2014. Buy tickets here quick as they sell out fast! Their production of Lord of the Flies (choreographed by Scott Ambler and adapted and directed by Scott Ambler and Matthew Bourne) starts touring in Spring 2014. Check their website for more details.

I leave you with a clip from the BBC with Matthew Bourne and the history of his work.

The Royal Ballet School - Work Experience

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to get to have a weeks work experience at the Royal Ballet Lower School which I really loved. The school itself is just stunning and is situated in Richmond Park amongst deer and greenery. My first day was really exciting as the gates were opened and a beautiful 18th Century Building (White Lodge - shown below) was in front of me.

The Royal Ballet Lower School, White Lodge

The boarding school is for students aged between 11-16 years where they will take their GCSE exams in their final years. Their afternoons/evenings are spent learning dance - mainly classical ballet but additionally contemporary, Scottish and Irish dance. If they are successful in the audition process they will continue on to the Upper School in Covent Garden.

The Wardrobe Department

The Wardrobe Department

During the few days I was there I was working with Caroline Hume, the Wardrobe Mistress, where we were adding final touches, organising costumes, attending rehearsals and fittings and making final alterations in preparation for the Summer Fair at the end of the week. It was a lot of basic skills but it was sew useful to put what I had learnt in my first year at uni into good practice.

Costumes that aren't machine washable have sweat pads sewn
under the arms which are removed after the performance
and machine washed separately 

Pattern cutting tiny bodices! Generally, classical ballet
dancers measurements are all quite a similar so their bodices
rarely need altering from one year to the next so can be reused.

As well as this I was lucky enough to meet and work with many talented staff including rehearsal pianists and dance teachers who have danced professionally and had incredible experiences.

Tutus are stacked on top of each other on a tutu pole

I felt so privileged to be around such talented and hard working students. Everyone at the school was such an inspiration but I particularly liked how it really felt like a family. It was also so exciting to watch them rehearse and perform to such a high standard and to know that one day they may be performing on the most famous stages in the world!

The students on the Royal Opera House Stage

I am now following one of the student's blogs who has graduated this year and starting in the Upper School in September. Prisca Bertoni (www.all4ballet.com) describes what it is like to be a student at White Lodge - a pleasure to read and I am so excited to see where she ends up in the future - same as I feel about all the students. It is such a tough industry but I really hope they all get the future they deserve, hope and dream for.

Prisca Bertoni

See Prisca's blog post about leaving White Lodge and her final performances here. She posts photographs of wearing the bodice/tutu that I worked on.

Picture 10 on The Classic FM website also shows the tutus being worn on the Royal Opera House stage at Linbury Theatre! I got far too excited about this!

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

I recently went to see the live screening of the Royal Ballet’s production of Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at the Royal Opera House and I absolutely loved it! My boyfriend actually turned his nose up at the idea of going to the cinema to watch ballet but I think it’s a really great idea that’s affordable. Although you don’t get the same experience as dressing up and going to the magnificent Royal Opera House, you still get the exciting atmosphere off of the audience which you wouldn’t get from watching it on the television at home. I would very much recommend it!

The wonderland was brilliantly imagined by Christopher Wheeldon (choreographer) Joby Talbot (composer) and Bob Crowley (set and costume designer). There is something very fashionable at the moment about Alice in Wonderland, particularly tea parties, whether it be cupcake merchandise, teapot jewellery, baking television shows such as The Great British Bake Off, fashionable pottery such as Emma Bridgewater or just hosting your own Mad Hatter tea party. I thought the ballet was very “on trend” if you like so I’m just going to share with you just a few of my favourite moments because there are just too many to write about!

Set Design by Bob Crowley

Alice in wonderland visual world was created by Bob Crowley who ingeniously designed the inventive costumes and sets. Whilst still keeping the traditional Alice in Wonderland basic themes Crowley upgrades the basic designs in a 21^st century manner as well as using set to solve seemingly impossible design problems for a live ballet such as the shrinking and growing of Alice in act 1.



The belly dancing sensual Caterpillar



Performed by Eric Underwood

365 crystals encrusted onto the Caterpillar's ballet shoes

In the ballet the different character’s personalities are reflected through their dance style, which are then further complimented with costume and set. For example the Caterpillar, played by Eric Underwood, is cleverly portrayed through sensual belly dance and (to use the hip hop term) ‘the worm’ where he almost seduces and hypnotises Alice. He is one of the eight dancers who has custom-made shoes encrusted with 365 crystals. Read about it here.

The energetic and quirky Mad Tapper
played by Steven McRae

The Red Queen
played by Zenaida Yanowsky

The Red Queen, played by Zenaida Yanowsky, wore a hard, dominant costume on wheels where she rolled around the stage. This was complimented with strong, aggressive choreography and un-elegant movements in her arms which was a complete contrast to Alice’s delicate traditional and contemporary ballet dance.

The ingenious flamingo costumes were easily my favourite from the entire production

The Royal Ballet’s production of Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is truly magical, visually and technically excellent, and suitable for all ages. If you have never been a fan of ballet I would really recommend this one as it is modern, entertaining and exciting to watch – one that is hard to beat!

To find out more about the Royal Opera House's live screenings at your nearest cinema click here.