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Les Patineurs (ballet)
''Les Patineurs'' (''The Skaters'') is a ballet choreographed by Frederick Ashton to music composed by Giacomo Meyerbeer and arranged by Constant Lambert. With scenery and costumes designed by William Chappell, it was first presented by the Vic-Wells Ballet at the Sadler's Wells Theatre, London, on 16 February 1937. It has been called "a paradigm of an Ashton ballet, perfectly crafted with a complex structure beneath the effervescent surface." Synopsis The ballet, in one act, depicts a Victorian skating party that takes place on a frozen pond on a winter's evening. A semicircle of arched trellises painted white separates the pond from the snowy woods behind. Suspended above are colourful Chinese lanterns, shedding light on the white canvas stage covering, simulating ice, and dimly illuminating the dark trees silhouetted against the starry night sky. The first skaters to enter are four couples dressed in matching brown jackets. They are soon joined by others: two girls wearing blu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederick Ashton
Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton (17 September 190418 August 1988) was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. He also worked as a director and choreographer in opera, film and revue. Determined to be a dancer despite the opposition of his conventional middle-class family, Ashton was accepted as a pupil by Léonide Massine and then by Marie Rambert. In 1926 Rambert encouraged him to try his hand at choreography, and though he continued to dance professionally, with success, it was as a choreographer that he became famous. Ashton was chief choreographer to Ninette de Valois, from 1935 until her retirement in 1963, in the company known successively as the Vic-Wells Ballet, the Sadler's Wells Ballet and the Royal Ballet. He succeeded de Valois as director of the company, serving until his own retirement in 1970. Ashton is widely credited with the creation of a specifically English genre of ballet. Among his best-known works are ''Façade'' (1931), '' Symphonic Varia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ninette De Valois
Dame Ninette de Valois (born Edris Stannus; 6 June 1898 – 8 March 2001) was an Irish-born British dancer, teacher, choreographer, and director of classical ballet. Most notably, she danced professionally with Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, later establishing the Royal Ballet, one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century and one of the leading ballet companies in the world. She also established the Royal Ballet School and the touring company which became the Birmingham Royal Ballet. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of ballet and as the "godmother" of English and Irish ballet. Life Early life and family Ninette de Valois was born as Edris Stannus on 6 June 1898 at Baltyboys House, an 18th-century manor house near the town of Blessington, County Wicklow, Ireland, then still part of the United Kingdom. A member of a gentry family, she was the second daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Stannus DSO,Montgomery-Massingber ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samantha Raine
Samantha Raine is a dance teacher and an English retired ballerina. She is the ballet mistress of the Royal Ballet, at the Royal Opera House, in London's Covent Garden, having previously been a soloist with the Company. Early life Samantha Raine was born in Yorkshire and began dancing at the age of two. She learned to dance, along with her sister, at the Kirkham Henry (KH) Performing Arts Centre, in Malton. Raine's sister, Pippa Raine, also dances professionally, usually in West End musicals. Raine trained at the Royal Ballet School from the age of eleven, beginning in the Lower School, at the White Lodge in Richmond. Whilst a student, she won the Kenneth MacMillan Choreographic Award, in 1995, and the inaugural Dame Ninette de Valois Award, in 1998. Career Ballerina Raine graduated into the Royal Ballet in 1997. The Company is based at the Royal Opera House, in Covent Garden, London. She was promoted to First Artist in 2001 and to Soloist in 2006. Raine also has IM ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laura Morera
Laura Morera is a Spanish ballet dancer who was a principal dancer with The Royal Ballet until 2023. Early life and training Morera was born in Madrid. She started going to London to attend Royal Academy of Dance's summer programme when she was seven, and when she was 10, she auditioned for The Royal Ballet School by dancing a solo from ''Paquita'' in pointe shoes. She graduated in 1995. Career Morera joined The Royal Ballet after she graduated from the school. She became First Artist in 1998, Soloist in 1999, First Soloist in 2002 and Principal Dancer in 2007. She had performed lead roles ballets such as in the title role in the title role in '' Giselle'', Sugar Plum Fairy in ''The Nutcracker'', Natalia Petrovna in Ashton's '' A Month in the Country'', Gypsy Girl in ''The Two Pigeons'', MacMillan's Juliet in '' Romeo and Juliet'', the title role in '' Manon'', Mary Vetsera in ''Mayerling'', the title role in ''Anastasia'' and Ttiana in Cranko's '' Onegin''. She won the 2015 Cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rupert Pennefather
Rupert Pennefather is a former principal dancer of the Royal Ballet Company. He joined the company in 1999 and was promoted to principal status alongside his pas-de-deux partner Lauren Cuthbertson in June 2008, following well-received performances in Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Opera House. He left the company in August 2015. Pennefather has gained acclaim despite several setbacks, including failing the annual assessment at the company's White Lodge school at 12, and 'being asked to leave' The Arts Educational School in Tring at 15. Pennefather continued his training in his home town of Maidenhead under Julie Rose, a former Royal Ballet member, and his tenacity saw him accepted into the Royal Ballet Company in 1999. He sustained a tendon injury as a soloist in 2002, and was out of action for 18 months. Upon full recovery in 2004 he was selected for the principal role of Paris in Romeo and Juliet by prima ballerina Sylvie Guillem, and Aminta in Sylvia by director Dame Monica Mas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Lamb
Sarah Lamb (born 17 October 1980) is an American principal ballet dancer with The Royal Ballet, London. Early life Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Lamb is the second of three daughters born to Kathleen and John Lamb. Her father is English and moved to the United States in 1950 as a child, after the death of his father. She first started with tap, then modern dance at age four and at six, started proper ballet at the Boston Ballet School. She was chosen to star as Clara for Boston Ballet's 100th anniversary performance of ''The Nutcracker''. Lamb began training with Madame Tatiana Legat, at the Boston Ballet School aged 13. She trained with Madame Legat for four years and continued to be coached by her for a year after she joined Boston Ballet's second company. She was awarded a gold medal in 1998 by U.S. President Bill Clinton after being named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. With Legat's coaching she won three silver medals in 1999 at the International Ballet Competit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steven McRae
Steven McRae (born 19 December 1985) is an Australian ballet dancer and tap dancer. He is a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, London.Steven McRae website of the Royal Opera House. Early life Steven McRae was raised in the Sydney suburb of Plumpton the son of a .Steven McRae: Dancing at full throttleby Mark Monahan, 26 April 2011, The Telegraph. He started ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugo Rignold
Hugo Henry Rignold (15 May 1905 – 30 May 1976) was an English conductor and violinist, who is best remembered as musical director of the Royal Ballet (1957–1960) and conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1960–1968). After playing the violin and recording with many jazz and dance bands, and leading his own London Casino Orchestra, in the 1920s and 1930s, during World War II, Rignold began to conduct classical orchestras. Thereafter, he conducted opera at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and then the Liverpool Philharmonic, beginning in the late 1940s, followed by the Royal Ballet and his long tenure with Birmingham. Biography Born in Kingston upon Thames, England, the son of conductor Hugo Charles Rignold and opera singer Agnes Mann, Rignold was taken to Canada when his parents emigrated to Winnipeg in 1910. He began studying the violin as a child with John Waterhouse (violinist), John Waterhouse in Winnipeg and played in the orchestra of the Winnipeg Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Irving (conductor)
Robert Augustine Irving, DFC*, (28 August 191313 September 1991) was a British conductor whose reputation was mainly as a ballet conductor. Born in Winchester, England, the son of mountaineer and author R. L. G. Irving, he was educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, graduating with a degree in music. He studied with Malcolm Sargent and Constant Lambert at the Royal College of Music from 1934 to 1936. During World War II, he served with the Royal Air Force, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC) and bar. He then became assistant conductor with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and was conductor and musical director of Sadler's Wells Ballet from 1949 to 1958, working closely with Sir Frederick Ashton on several ballets. Having assisted Ashton in choosing music for his ''Picnic at Tintagel'' for New York City Ballet in 1952, Irving helped the choreographer to surmount musical problems in the last act of his '' Sylvia'' in September the same y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antal Doráti
Antal Doráti (, , ; 9 April 1906 – 13 November 1988) was a Hungarian-born conductor and composer who became a naturalized American citizen in 1943. Biography Antal Doráti was born in Budapest, where his father Alexander Doráti was a violinist with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra and his mother Margit Kunwald was a piano teacher. He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy with Zoltán Kodály and Leó Weiner for composition and Béla Bartók for piano. His links with Bartók continued for many years: he conducted the world premiere of Bartók's Viola Concerto, as completed by Tibor Serly, with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in 1949, with William Primrose as the soloist. He made his conducting debut in 1924 with the Budapest Royal Opera. As well as composing original works, he compiled and arranged pieces by Johann Strauss II for the ballet ''Graduation Ball'' (1940), premiered by the Original Ballet Russe in Sydney, Australia, with himself on the conductor's podiu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy (born Jenő Blau; November 18, 1899 – March 12, 1985) was a Hungarian-born American conductor and violinist, best known for his association with the Philadelphia Orchestra, as its music director. His 44-year association with the orchestra is one of the longest enjoyed by any conductor with any American orchestra. Ormandy made numerous recordings with the orchestra, and as guest conductor with European orchestras, and achieved three gold records and two Grammy Awards. His reputation was as a skilled technician and expert orchestral builder. Early life Ormandy was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, as Jenő Blau, the son of Jewish parents Benjamin Blau, a dentist and amateur violinist, and Rozália Berger.Birth Record of Jenő Blau (translated). Budapest, Kerület VII, Születtek, 1899, No. 3873: Reported November 22, 1899, born November 18, 1899, Jenő, male, Israelite, son of Benjamin Blau, Israelite, 29, occupation fogmüves (dentist), b. Pósaháza (Bereg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Mackerras
Mackerras in 2005 Sir Alan Charles MacLaurin Mackerras (; 1925 2010) was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. He was long associated with the English National Opera (and its predecessor) and Welsh National Opera and was the first Australian chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He also specialized in Czech music as a whole, producing many recordings for the Czech label Supraphon. Early life and education Mackerras was born in Schenectady, New York, to Australian parents, Alan Mackerras and Catherine MacLaurin. His father was an electrical engineer and a Quaker. Mackerras grew up in a very musical family and his mother was immensely cultured. In 1928, when Charles was aged two, the family returned to Sydney, Australia. They initially lived in the suburb of Rose Bay, and in 1933 they moved to the then semi-rural suburb of Turramurra. Mackerras was the eldest of seven ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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