The Prince Of The Pagodas (MacMillan)
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The Prince Of The Pagodas (MacMillan)
''The Prince of the Pagodas'' is a ballet created by Kenneth MacMillan in 1989 for the Royal Ballet, London, based on the original 1957 John Cranko version. The music is by Benjamin Britten. The scenario was by Colin Thubron, the set and costume designer was Nicholas Georgiadis, and the lighting designer was John B Read. The first performance was at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on 7 December 1989. The lead roles were danced by Darcey Bussell and Jonathan Cope. Original cast * Darcey Bussell * Jonathan Cope * Tetsuya Kumakawa * Fiona Chadwick * Anthony Dowell See also * ''The Prince of the Pagodas ''The Prince of the Pagodas'' is a ballet created for The Royal Ballet by choreographer John Cranko with music commissioned from Benjamin Britten. Its premiere took place on 1 January 1957 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, conducted ...'' References Ballets by Kenneth MacMillan Ballets by Benjamin Britten 1989 ballet premieres {{ballet-stub ...
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Kenneth MacMillan
Sir Kenneth MacMillan (11 December 192929 October 1992) was a British ballet dancer and choreographer who was artistic director of the Royal Ballet in London between 1970 and 1977, and its principal choreographer from 1977 until his death. Earlier he had served as director of ballet for the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. He was also associate director of the American Ballet Theatre from 1984 to 1989, and artistic associate of the Houston Ballet from 1989 to 1992. From a family with no background of ballet or music, MacMillan was determined from an early age to become a dancer. The director of Sadler's Wells Ballet, Ninette de Valois, accepted him as a student and then a member of her company. In the late 1940s, MacMillan built a successful career as a dancer, but, plagued by stage fright, he abandoned it while still in his twenties. After this he worked entirely as a choreographer; he created ten full-length ballets and more than fifty one-act pieces. In addition to his work for bal ...
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Royal Ballet
The Royal Ballet is a British internationally renowned classical ballet company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, England. The largest of the five major ballet companies in Great Britain, the Royal Ballet was founded in 1931 by Dame Ninette de Valois. It became the resident ballet company of the Royal Opera House in 1946, and has purpose-built facilities within these premises. It was granted a royal charter in 1956, becoming recognised as Britain's flagship ballet company. The Royal Ballet was one of the foremost ballet companies of the 20th century, and continues to be one of the world's most famous ballet companies to this day, generally noted for its artistic and creative values. The company employs approximately 100 dancers. The official associate school of the company is the Royal Ballet School, and it also has a sister company, the Birmingham Royal Ballet, which operates independently. The Prima ballerina assoluta of the Royal Ballet is the late Da ...
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The Prince Of The Pagodas
''The Prince of the Pagodas'' is a ballet created for The Royal Ballet by choreographer John Cranko with music commissioned from Benjamin Britten. Its premiere took place on 1 January 1957 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, conducted by Britten. In February 1957 a recording of a slightly cut version of the score was made by Decca with Britten conducting thOrchestra of the Royal Opera House The ballet was revived at the same venue on 7 December 1989 in a new production by Kenneth MacMillan, achieving acclaim for Darcey Bussell's work in a principal role. Another production, set in Japan, was created by David Bintley for the National Ballet of Japan and premiered by that company on 30 October 2011; this was adopted by Birmingham Royal Ballet and danced in 2014 at The Lowry, Salford. Background In January 1954, Sadler's Wells Ballet announced that Cranko was collaborating with Benjamin Britten to create a ballet. Cranko devised a draft scenario for a work he originall ...
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John Cranko
John Cyril Cranko (15 August 1927 – 26 June 1973) was a South African ballet dancer and choreographer with the Royal Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet. Life and career Early life Cranko was born in Rustenburg in the former province of Transvaal, Union of South Africa. As a child, he would put on puppet shows as a creative outlet. Cranko received his early ballet training in Cape Town under the leading South African ballet teacher and director, Dulcie Howes, of the University of Cape Town Ballet School. In 1945 he choreographed his first work (using Stravinsky's Suite from ''L'Histoire du soldat'') for the Cape Town Ballet Club. He then moved to London, studying with the Sadler's Wells Ballet School (later called the Royal Ballet) in 1946Dromgoole, Nicholas"John Cranko" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', retrieved 19 March 2015, and dancing his first role with the Sadler's Wells Ballet in November 1947. London Cranko collaborated with the designer John Piper ...
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Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other vocal music, orchestral and chamber pieces. His best-known works include the opera '' Peter Grimes'' (1945), the '' War Requiem'' (1962) and the orchestral showpiece ''The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra'' (1945). Born in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the son of a dentist, Britten showed talent from an early age. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London and privately with the composer Frank Bridge. Britten first came to public attention with the '' a cappella'' choral work '' A Boy was Born'' in 1934. With the premiere of ''Peter Grimes'' in 1945, he leapt to international fame. Over the next 28 years, he wrote 14 more operas, establishing himself as one of the leading 20th-century composers in the genre. In addition to large-sca ...
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Colin Thubron
Colin Gerald Dryden Thubron, FRAS (born 14 June 1939) is a British travel writer and novelist. In 2008, ''The Times'' ranked him among the 50 greatest postwar British writers. He is a contributor to ''The New York Review of Books'',
New York Review of Books,
'''', '''' and ''''. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Thubron was appointed a CBE in the
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Nicholas Georgiadis
Nicholas Georgiadis CBE ( el, Νίκος Γεωργιάδης; 14 September 1923 – 10 March 2001) was a Greek painter, stage and costume designer, best known for his work in ballet, particularly in collaboration with Sir Kenneth MacMillan. Early life Georgiadis studied architecture at the National Metsovian University, receiving his degree in 1946, and later won a Fulbright Post-Graduate Scholarship to Columbia University, New York (1952). The following year, he came to London to study Painting and Stage Design at the Slade School of Fine Art, on a grant from the British Council. Professional career In 1955, he won the school’s First Prize for Stage Design, which led to his discovery by Dame Ninette de Valois and his commission to design for the Sadler's Wells Theatre, London. This marked the beginning of a professional partnership between Georgiadis and Kenneth MacMillan that was to last for almost four decades. From 1956 to his death in 2001, Georgiadis worked on ...
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Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there. The current building is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The main auditorium seats 2,256 people, mak ...
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Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and with the Royal Opera House, itself known as "Covent Garden". The district is divided by the main thoroughfare of Long Acre, north of which is given over to independent shops centred on Neal's Yard and Seven Dials, while the south contains the central square with its street performers and most of the historical buildings, theatres and entertainment facilities, including the London Transport Museum and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The area was fields until briefly settled in the 7th century when it became the heart of the Anglo-Saxon trading town of Lundenwic, then abandoned at the end of the 9th century after which it returned to fields. By 1200 part of it had been walled off by the Abbot of Westminster Abbey for use as arable l ...
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Darcey Bussell
Dame Darcey Andrea Bussell, (born Marnie Mercedes Darcey Pemberton Crittle; 27 April 1969) is an English retired ballerina and a former judge on the BBC television dance contest '' Strictly Come Dancing''. Trained at the Arts Educational School and the Royal Ballet School, Bussell started her professional career at Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet, but after only one year she moved to the Royal Ballet, where she became a principal dancer at the age of 20 in 1989. Bussell is widely acclaimed as one of the great British ballerinas. Bussell remained with The Royal Ballet for her whole career, more than two decades, but also performed as a guest artist with many leading companies including NYCB, La Scala Theatre Ballet, the Kirov Ballet, Hamburg Ballet and the Australian Ballet. She retired from ballet in 2007. Bussell is also pursuing parallel careers in television, books and modelling, and supports numerous British and international charities and dance institutions. Early life Da ...
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Jonathan Cope (dancer)
Jonathan Cope (born 1963) is a British ballet dancer. He was a principal dancer at The Royal Ballet until his retirement in 2006, then served as a ''répétiteur'' with the company until 2019. Early life Cope was born in Devon. He started ballet at age six and trained in Wales. He later enrolled in The Royal Ballet School in London. Career He joined The Royal Ballet in 1982, at age 19, was promoted to soloist in 1985 was named a principal dancer in 1986. He created the role of The Prince alongside Darcey Bussell in Kenneth MacMillan's ''The Prince of the Pagodas (MacMillan), The Prince of the Pagodas'' in 1989. In 1990, at age 27, Cope retired from the Royal Ballet due to physical stress. He went to pursue "a lifestyle more in tune with that of the majority of the population" and a career in property development, but returned to the Royal Ballet in 1992. His repertoire include works by MacMillan and Frederick Ashton, and originated works by choreographers including MacMillan, Da ...
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Tetsuya Kumakawa
is a Japanese ballet dancer and a former principal dancer with the Royal Ballet. Early life Tetsuya Kumakawa was born on 5 March 1972 in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan. He began studying Ballet at 10 years old; aged 15, he moved to the UK and trained at the Royal Ballet School, before joining The Royal Ballet in 1989 and becoming the youngest soloist in their history. He was promoted to first soloist in 1991, and principal dancer in 1993. Career Kumakawa won the gold medal and the then newly established Prince Takamado Prize at the 1989 Prix de Lausanne and returned as a jury member in 2013. With The Royal Ballet, Kumakawa has danced roles such as 'Lead Mandolin Player' in Romeo and Juliet (MacMillan), Act 1 pas de trois in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, The bronze Idol in La Bayadère and 'The Fool' in the premiere of Kenneth Macmillan's The Prince of the Pagodas. In 1998, Kumakawa and five other leading male dancers from the Royal Ballet, Stuart Cassidy, Gary Avis, M ...
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