(no subject)
I am currently internally debating how much heavier this snow needs to get before I can legitimately leave early "in case I get stuck"... sadly the wet pavements mean it's going to have to snow a LOT for that to be a real excuse. Now getting into work tomorrow? That could be fun.
Anyway it's probably for the best. I like to think if I was at home I would do useful stuff but I would probably just be reading ALL the Golden Globes recaps and looking at all the pretty (and less pretty dresses). That is in fact my plan for this evening *g*
Anyway I've just turned up the radiators so whilst I'm waiting for my fingers to defrost this weekend has left me owing a couple of reviews again *g*
Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty @Sadler's Wells
In the programme Matthew Bourne described this as being the 3rd part of his Tchaikovsky trilogy of ballets, with Swan Lake and the Nutcracker as the first two, and I think actually that's very fair because I liked this a lot more than some of his intervening ballets.
(well Cinderella was alright, Edward Scissorhands was different but good and I did like Dorian Gray but none of them have been as good as Swan Lake, mind you nothing ever will be probably).
Anyway hes taken Disney's solution to the problem of the love story in Sleeping Beauty and introduced Aurora's lover before she falls asleep, Leo the gardener this time *g*, and then to solve the whole sleeping for 100 years thing Leo gets bitten by one of the fairies who are sort of vampire!fairies.
The whole thing was just really beautifully thought out, the costumes moving from Aurora's birth in 1890 to her coming of age in 1911 (with lots of tennis & garden party outfits) then the grey of the sleep world and then actually modern clothes for when she'd woken up. Plus the fairies with their pale faces and dark eyes already halfway to looking like vampires and then in the modern scene absolutely in disguise with glittery wings painted on the back of their costumes. And Leo's tiny little wings because he's only recently a fairy.
And of course, very importantly, the dancing was gorgeous too. The waltz to that famous Sleeping Beauty music and the Rose Adagio where she was actually taking and rejecting roses all from Leo plus the dances from each fairy- one of whom was called tantrum and danced exactly like a small child having a tantrum- first stiff as a board and then annoying floppy *g*
Also they gave Carabosse a son, Caradoc, who tried to steal Aurora after she awoke and he was very much in the mold of the Black Swan.
The best bit though was quite possibly the little puppet they had for baby!Aurora. It was being operated by stagehands who you could barely see but she appeared crawling across the stage and then straight up the curtains much to the horror of her governess <3 and then all the way through the fairy dances she was watching and moving and stroking the feathers they gave her and it was just really cleverly done. And it gave her a personality right from the start of being a wildchild, maybe not quite the perfect princess her parents hoped for.
It just all came together really well and I liked what he'd done with the story and the music despite some slightly sniffy reviews in the papers. What do reviewers know anyway :-P
Still snowing...
Anyway it's probably for the best. I like to think if I was at home I would do useful stuff but I would probably just be reading ALL the Golden Globes recaps and looking at all the pretty (and less pretty dresses). That is in fact my plan for this evening *g*
Anyway I've just turned up the radiators so whilst I'm waiting for my fingers to defrost this weekend has left me owing a couple of reviews again *g*
Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty @Sadler's Wells
In the programme Matthew Bourne described this as being the 3rd part of his Tchaikovsky trilogy of ballets, with Swan Lake and the Nutcracker as the first two, and I think actually that's very fair because I liked this a lot more than some of his intervening ballets.
(well Cinderella was alright, Edward Scissorhands was different but good and I did like Dorian Gray but none of them have been as good as Swan Lake, mind you nothing ever will be probably).
Anyway hes taken Disney's solution to the problem of the love story in Sleeping Beauty and introduced Aurora's lover before she falls asleep, Leo the gardener this time *g*, and then to solve the whole sleeping for 100 years thing Leo gets bitten by one of the fairies who are sort of vampire!fairies.
The whole thing was just really beautifully thought out, the costumes moving from Aurora's birth in 1890 to her coming of age in 1911 (with lots of tennis & garden party outfits) then the grey of the sleep world and then actually modern clothes for when she'd woken up. Plus the fairies with their pale faces and dark eyes already halfway to looking like vampires and then in the modern scene absolutely in disguise with glittery wings painted on the back of their costumes. And Leo's tiny little wings because he's only recently a fairy.
And of course, very importantly, the dancing was gorgeous too. The waltz to that famous Sleeping Beauty music and the Rose Adagio where she was actually taking and rejecting roses all from Leo plus the dances from each fairy- one of whom was called tantrum and danced exactly like a small child having a tantrum- first stiff as a board and then annoying floppy *g*
Also they gave Carabosse a son, Caradoc, who tried to steal Aurora after she awoke and he was very much in the mold of the Black Swan.
The best bit though was quite possibly the little puppet they had for baby!Aurora. It was being operated by stagehands who you could barely see but she appeared crawling across the stage and then straight up the curtains much to the horror of her governess <3 and then all the way through the fairy dances she was watching and moving and stroking the feathers they gave her and it was just really cleverly done. And it gave her a personality right from the start of being a wildchild, maybe not quite the perfect princess her parents hoped for.
It just all came together really well and I liked what he'd done with the story and the music despite some slightly sniffy reviews in the papers. What do reviewers know anyway :-P
Still snowing...