I've just seen Manon for the first time. I had good seats and I was completely knocked out. It seemed such a modern story although set in pre revolutionary France. (People tell me the Aust Ballet DVD is as good as the live performance so that's next for the piggy bank)
As well, the choreography was so fresh and the mixture of humour and tragedy was very acutely resonant for aspects of our times. As I trawl through this site I'm not finding much comment. Also I wonder whether the Bolshoi, Maryinsky or POB, DO manon? None of them feature on u tube.There is a great Bolle Ferri last scene there though.Do people generally like this ballet?

For me, it's one of MacMillan's best*; I've only seen the Royal Ballet's version, but I've always enjoyed it, and I think it's well received in London every time. I think it's important for a full-length ballet to have a strong story to tell - and Manon certainly does.

"Ironically, the ballet contains none of the music from Massenet's opera Manon, with which it shares an almost identical story. The music ... is drawn from other works by Massenet" - Wikipedia

*I'm not a great Macmillan fan, I have to confess!

I absolutely adore Manon. For me it is a timeless joy to watch. I've mostly seen it with the Royal Ballet. My first, and never forgotten, Manon was Lesley Collier with the late Julian Hosking as her Des Grieux.

For me, it's a very well structured ballet with lots of exciting choreography and a vividly told story. There is plenty of opportunity for the leading dancers to build their characters. I love the orchestration of Massenet's music.

As well as the RB, I was also fortunate to see the RDB in a couple of performances just over two years ago. They had different costumes and I've got to say that the girls' costumes in the brothel scene were amongst the most hideous I have ever looked at! The others were fine though. One thing I really liked about the RDB production was that in the final pdd there were no mangroves hanging down, just the stage as a black box. It allowed us to see every nuance of this climax. I will never forget the performance that Caroline Cavallo and Andrew Bowman gave. My friend and I were completely beyond the power of speech for quite some time afterwards. I was similarly affected by a performance by Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg at RB a few years ago.

Manon is more popular and liked in Europe than in the USA. It is not as well liked as Macmillan's Romeo and Juliet.ABT and Houston Ballet has done the ballet in the past.
American critics are usually dismissive of this ballet except for the main duets of the main characters.

Manon is massively popular almost everywhere and I'm given to believe it is now the ballerina role that is most aspired to. Rather amusingly I remember going out to dinner with some friends a couple of years ago when one of them unexpectedly brought along with him one of the Kirov's principals, when complimented on her performance in one of the classics, she replied "I don't like dancing it, my favourite role is Manon". I'm told that's typically now.

Makarova, Guillem and Seymour have all given incredible performances in the title role, but I always feel that De Grieux is harder to bring off (Nureyev was hideously mis-cast in it).

JMcN, you have just ruined my day as I'm now sitting here seething with jealousy. Caroline Cavallo and Andrew Bowman - what a cast!

English National Ballet will add Manon to the repertoire later this year, another company to add to the list of those dancing this work.

Mashinka - I'm sorry to have ruined your day - yes they were totally wonderful!

I'm seeing ENB perform Manon in Manchester on 11th November. I'm hoping they'll be bringing it to Liverpool next year.

Wetherwax, are you are able to watch NTSC, non region 4 dvds?

My suggestion is to look on youtube at the two versions available on dvd before you buy:
Massenet - Manon / Penney, Dowell, Wall, Royal Ballet, Covent Garden
Massenet - Manon / Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Australian Ballet, Justine Summers

My favorite is the Penney and Dowell version.

There is a clip on youtube that is "Part 7". I am sure that is not Dowell and Penney. But there are at least two other clips if you search Penney Dowell Manon.

Both are available on Netflix

'..>Manon is more popular and liked in Europe than in the USA<...'

A bit of an understatement, Bingham. As far as I can recollect from much earlier threads here, 'Manon' is (to put it rather mildly) actively disliked in the US, as is most of MacMillan's work apart from 'Romeo & Juliet'. I can only suppose that this is because MacMillan is too starkly realistic for American tastes, at least as far as classical ballet is concerned. A pity, and an especial pity in the case of Manon, because no matter how many times I have seen this often luridly over-the-top ballet, I find myself heedlesly swept along its drama, and never fail to find new and surprising things in it.

A younger, newer US ballet audience will judge Manon quite differently, I think.

Ann, I know very little about MacMillan (I wish I did). I am very curious about what you mean by "starkly realistic". Maybe I could learn something here. Thanks.

Sandy, I simply mean that he deals in the reality of human life instead of the fairy-tale stuff which makes for most of classical ballet. His ballets (some of them anyway) show sex, violence, jealously, death etc. - he's interested in the dark side of life, and he can choreographic it stunningly. Even his lovely 'Romeo & Juliet', which has to be one of the most swooningly romantic ballets ever choreographed, didn't shirk from violence and bloodshed nor, I have to say, from the subjugation and humiliation of women, another aspect which - regrettably - was never far from MacMillan's work.

I could go on, but it's 1 a.m. here in the UK and past my bedtime....

That's plenty....thanks. I get the distinction now.

Curiously, what you say captures my interest in spite of me being an American . I'd like to see some themes like that. (Lately here in Seattle we had an fantastic stage production of Streetcar Named Desire. I thought at the time how much I'd like to see a ballet based on those characters. I guess MacMillan would be my man.)

I have read elsewhere comments that the degradation of women is one of the confronting aspects of MacMillan's work. But it seems to me that he is true to the subjects that he chooses.

If Manon, Mayerling or Judas Tree were plays or novels wouldn't the same threads of sexual desire and subjugation run through them if they were to be historically and psychologically real?

Is part of the issue here that MacMillan chose subjects that people feel are not appropriate to ballet?

What an interesting topic. Maybe it will, indeed, tell us something about the differences in the way American and European audiences (and possibly men and women?) approach story ballets. Please ... keep your thoughts coming!

Of the full-length MacMillans I've seen, it seems to me that those which demand the least narrative exposition are the best.

R&J's story is familiar, so the story-telling is less detailed and literal.

Mayerling is a much inferior story, not at all familiar to most in the audience, so there's a great deal of uninteresting exposition and padding, use of stock characters and dumb-show gesturing, etc. I've seen this turgid melodrama once on stage and once on video and both times could not wait for it to end. (The virtue of video is that you can stop the action and do something else for a while.)

Manon, which I've seen several times on stage, is somewhere between those two. For me, it's dramatically effective, especially in the creation of subsidiary characters. However, when it comes to the presentation of Manon and Des Grieux, the whole thing was curiously unmoving. A major problem is the score. The stitched-together, sort-of-familiar Massenet music seems like something added afterwards to support the action. Or vice versa. Somehow, it makes no difference.

By the time Manon and DeGrieux find themselves in the swamp, where she relives her life and meets her fate, I find myself feeling that everything has already gone on too long.

The story of Anastasia is more interestisng than Manon and more effectively told. The music -- and the way MacMillan uses it --is powerful and better integrated with the story than is the case with Manon.

I care about Juliet; I care about Anastasia. I miss them when their ballets are over. But I don't care much about Manon.

Bart, I agree. He tried to cover too much. MacMillan crammed drug abuse, deviant behavior, sexual obsession, political activism & revolutionary intrigue, oedipal tendancies, sexual assault, body-snatching/fraud, and other things, that quite frankly, are just too much to digest in three acts. It's based on historical cover-up/scandal/conspiracy and deals with people who actually lived rather than fictional characters. It's like a "Nixon in China" of the ballet - historical facts vs. legend and speculation. I've always thought that this ballet was more a danseur actor's ballet than a ballerina's showcase. It's one of the few ballets where the male is the tragic lead. After all that's come before it, the offstage gun-shots at the end of the final pdd always seem to me like anti-climax. You say to yourself, 'thank God it's over.' That said, the prologue and epilogue at Heiligenkreuz cemetary is just too macabre for words. In my experience, only Seymour/Wall (the originals), Ferri/Jeffries, then Durante/Mukhamedov successfully pulled this ballet off. It's not a work that one wants to return to over and over.



"Manon" stands and falls on the leads. If the Manon and Des Grieux do not grab you with their instense passion for one another in the very first pdd, it's a marathon to the Bayou. I remember that one of the earliest criticisms of "Manon" was that the music, though beautiful in certain moments and segments, was piecemeal and rhythmless for dancing. If you listen to the Bonynge CD, it doesn't seem completely cohesive as a ballet score. It sounds more like a movie soundtrack before the film gets to the cutting floor. Contrast the Manon score with the Tchaikovsky works put together for "Onegin;" - there's a huge difference, but it's also a comparable tale, derived from great literature, that's just as powerful and tragic. Massenet didn't compose for the ballet; Tchaikovsky's general output as a composer always seemed more conducive to dance, being rhythmic, lyrical and dramatic, ("Onegin" & "Anastasia," etc.). This is true
as well for Prokofiev ("R & J," "Cinderella," "Ivan the Terrible," etc.), very rhythmic, syncopated and non-syncopated, lyrical and dramatic.

Cygnet, Bart, I absolutely agree with you about ‘Mayerling’ – an over-complicated mess of a ballet - MacMillan’s ambition outstripped his abilities here. I have no idea why it ‘s still so popular with UK audiences, but it is.

Whetherwax, As far as I know, the Kirov (Maryiinsky), POB , Australian Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet all do Manon , though I understand it has now been withdrawn from the Kirov repertory because of problems with the rights holder. Apart from the Royal Ballet, the Australian Ballet is the only company to have issued a commercial recording (the Royal’s is by far the best, in my opinion). The POB performance I attended several years ago was a huge disappointment; despite wonderful dancing the whole thing was over-polite and rather gutless – as one critic aptly put it, they danced it ‘as if they were dancing ‘Sleeping Beauty’ ‘.

Next month, the Royal will be starting a run of ‘Manon again and I’ve booked to see two casts; this Autumn English National Ballet will be performing it for the first time. I can’t wait.

This is so interesting.! As far as the music goes I hadnt encountered Massenet and although I see that there is no integrity in the overall score , I like the way there are little motifs used with each character. I love the sumptuousness of the score. I have bought the Aust DVD although Innopac and Ann both like the Royal one ( Only AUS 29 dollars!! enchange rate appalling and likely to remain so). I do find that Aust Ballet has lots of brio and looks marvellous . Nigel Burley is a great Lescaut , Justine Summers is breathtakingly pretty and dances well but was a little too young when it was filmed for the acting skill to have kicked in. Stephen Heathcote does wonderfully ( He played Monsueir GM in the live version ) but he too is a little unconvincing in the acting at the end. I was impressed by Ferri and Bolle on U tube. Because he is so tall and she so small the dancing had a very powerful feel in the last moments - an emotional blast.
As far as the degradation of women goes I admire MacMillan for trying to deal with such issues. It is not as if they dont exist and certainly in the past when women had no economic security they were certainly at the mercy of degrading forces. Actually many ballets - even the fairytale ones - deal indirectly with female degradation. Giselle and Swan Lake come to mind - the heroines were dead keen to get their men to swear fidelity ( read economic security).

Mayerling and Anastasia both came along after popularly successful films with Omar Sharif and Ingrid Bergman with Yul Brynner and I've often wondered if they had some effect on MacMillan. Both were close to being real stories, but both were prettified versions of the truth. Neither ballet works for me: Anastasia's last act is completely at odds with the previous two and Mayerling is lumbered with too many characters that are impossible to identify on stage until about your fifth viewing.

I gave up watching MacMillan's R&J years ago as it has changed radically over the years and no longer has any dramatic impact, also for those familiar with Cranko's earlier version, it did seem that MacMillan was guilty of a spot of plagiarism where R&J was concerned. Manon is a different story though, remaining stubbornly popular with dancers and public alike in spite of the shortcomings already outlined. His other full-lengths were Isadora, the worst ballet I have ever seen and soon to be revived in a shortened version, and Prince of the Pagodas, not a popular success, but in my view his best 3-acter.

Frankly I'm baffled as to the dislike of MacMillan's work in America as he was a prolific choreographer and there is as much to love among his works as there is to hate. Song of the Earth, Gloria and Requiem for example are masterpieces though not so well known as his full-lengths. a great deal of his best stuff is rarely performed or even forgotten while dross such as The Judas Tree and My brother My Sisters are still performed far too often - it's enough to make you weep.

Mashinka – Surely ‘The Judas Tree’ is not performed ‘far too often’? It‘s scarcely performed at all as far as I can see - hardly surprising considering its subject matter. It’s a shame that this was the last full-length work MacMillan created – personally I prefer to remember him for another late work, the lovely ‘Winter Dreams’.

Although I didn’t entirely like his ‘Prince of the Pagodas’, I can’t help wondering if Americans ballet audiences might have felt differently about MacMillan had they been given a chance to see this work . With its often lovely choreography, it’s stunning sets and its other-worldly fairy-tale theme, there would surely have been nothing for them to dislike (though admittedly the Britten score is not to everyone’s taste).

Whatever the reason, I do think it ‘s sad that this uniquely gifted choreographer is so dismissed by the important American audience.

I often wondered why MacMillans Ballets were not discussed more often in this forum, but I can see that there's plenty of interest, as soon as the topic pops up! Sometimes MacMillan's ballets are dismissed as bad taste, and after having seen Mayerling on video I somehow understand why. Like Bart wrote, one only waits for it to end! But with Manon it’s quite another matter, I simply think it’s one of the best story ballets in recent years, only equalled by Cranko’s Onegin and Neumeier’s Romeo and Juliet. And I love the music, though there's not much left of Massenet in it!
The only weakness is it’s overlength, many of the crowd-scenes in the street or in the brothel could easily have been shortened.
My first encounter with Manon was a performance with the RDB with Rose Gad and Mads Blangstrup. She had all the right qualities for Manon: the perfect looks, exuding this confusing mixture of naivety and calculation, which is necessary to make the story believable, and then of course great dancing. Blangstrup was a bit blank in the role as des Grieux and had some difficulties with the many adagio solos, which aren’t exactly his field. I thought these solos were boring until I saw them performed by Anthony Dowell on the RD-video. It is so obvious that these solos are made for him, suddenly they make sense and he can fill these steps with meaning. He is not my favourite dancer (his lack of turnout always disturbs me, but I love his lightness and seeming effortlessness), but he has all the right poetic qualities for this part.
I have seen the Australian dvd too, and I think it has some good qualities, but it’s not half as good as the RD-version. It has a lot of smooth dancing, but when it comes to characterization and timing it’s far behind the older version. Especially the first pas de deux of Manon and des Grieux is beyond all comparison: when one has finally got used to Jennifer Penney’s long and ”flaky” arms and her 70’es looks, most other performances seem pale and insignificant. What is also good about their perfomance is the timing, especially in this pas de deux and in the next one in the flat of des Grieux. It is so close on the music, it’s thrilling.
Thrilling too is the drunken pas de deux of Lescaut and his mistress in the second act: What David Wall and Monica Mason can do togehther is a small wonder in elegant timing, all these nearly-catch-the-hand-and-missing-it and all the nearly-stumbling (not to mention the final black out where he falls flat on the back, I still don’t understand how he manages without getting hurt) are so hilarious, I can see it again and again! Compare that pas de deux with the Australian version, and the Australians fail completely.
But I think the Australians win in the third act of the ballet. Justin Summers and Steven Heathcote
are much more moving in the final tragedy than Penney and Dowell (one just doesn’t believe it when Dowell takes to the knife!), and their dancing is more passionate and effective too.

Some might argue that 'scarcely performed at all' is still too often.

I'm disposed to agree with you.

Bart also had another clever little question about the differences in male and female responses to Manon. In some ways the ballet could be seen as a little chick - lit except for the tragic ending. (The romance is clear to see.) One's response can only be abstract here but I would have thought this was a ballet for everyone.

I guess I'm unregenerate in my ambivalence about this ballet. Having just seen Rene Fleming and Ramon Vargas in the Cour-la-Reine and St. Sulpice scens (HD-Live performance of the Opening Night Gala), I realize that I am similarly conflicted about the opera. Can it be the curate's egg qualiti of the music -- "good in parts"?

Whetherwax, concerning the posibility that men and women respond differently to the Manon story: I thought I'd test my hypothesis at the Met performance. I asked 4 women and 3 men what they thought of Manon the opera, both story and music. 2 of 4 women loved dit; 1 liked it but had reservations; 1 had never seen it but thought Renee Fleming wonderful in these scenes. All 3 men had seen it several times and did not look forward to seeing it again. Not a scientific study of course, but I wonder how typical these results might be.

Question: which dancers not ordinarily associated with this ballet (or even with this kind of ballet) might be especially effective as Manon? At Miami, my local conpany, I can't think of any.

I think Manon as a character is very hard to quantify and, over the years, I have seen a number of interpretations.

She needs to be an innocent cocquette who is manipulative but greedy!

I saw Sylvie Guillem once in this role and I couldn't believe how different she looked to the other dancers - she looked SOOOOOO French (don't laugh!).

Whoever dances Manon, she needs to be a supreme actress who, most importantly, can act young.

Dancers I would like to see as Manon (I am very biased by the way):

Nao Sakuma (BRB)
Ambra Vallo (BRB)
Georgina May (NBT)
Pippa Moore (NBT)

Dancers whom I would like to have seen and will never get an opportunity

Trinidad Sevillano

I haven't seen the ballet here in US but yes, MCB definitely lacks Manon material...but there's somebody nearby who i DO associate with this role-(and who iI've seen as a great Odile...coquettish, seductive, manipulative, but not overdone)-, Hayna Gutierrez, from CCBM.

Whoever dances Manon, she needs to be a supreme actress who, most importantly, can act young.

I wouldn't call Jennifer Penney, on whom MacMillan created a good deal of Manon, any great shakes as an actress, but she was able to create a touching, seductive character through the delicacy and beauty of her dancing -- isn't that what the art of ballet is about?

Managed to get a copy of the RB version for under $30 in Melbourne - magic at work I think. ( I know you are all sick of my whinging about the cost of imported DVDs in Australia and the lack of titles generally but i had to have my last say on the topic).
I totally agree with everyone abpout the dancing of the principals. Penney's fragile delicasy(sp) and Dowell's precision and grace are a revelation. I take Anne's point about the steps being created on Dowell. I do however enjoy the drunken and louche antics of the Australians - they are not so obviously playing for laughs. Heathcote and Summers ARE much better than Dowell and Penney in the last act - I think because it needs RAW energy and Dowell and Penney are too elegant.
I like the look of the Aust ballet staging too. Colour and clarity.

True! Dowell and Penney - especially Dowell - are very English and lack the rawness as you put it so well. And you're right to about the staging too, the RD-version is a bit muddy in the colours and the costumes, especially the women's, are not very flattering.
I wonder why you don't buy dvds over amazon. I got my Manon (new!) for about 10$ + shipping costs from the American amazon. You might have the problem with the codes then because you live in Australia, but if you have a dvd-player with a decoder that shouldn't be a problem. Just a friendly suggestion - you might already be aware of that possibility.

I think the ballet is uneven; I always enjoy it, but at the same time, I'm always a little disappointed. With a great ballet, the 'whole' must be greater than 'the parts', and Manon doesn't pass that test. I suspect the problem is not just the music, and not the choreography so much as a story that is unevenly paced and does not do justice to all the key characters.

It's never fair to judge a ballet after seeing Sylvie Guillem; you'll always come away feeling it was great

Anne, thanks. The problem in Australia is the exchange rate. Au$ 73cents american at present and the postage is fierce. We are a long way away here. When the au dollar is up I have a little amazon frenzy.

I'm quite familiar with these "amazon frenzies" . It's dangerous if they last too long!

I remember when Alessandra Ferri danced it with Carlos Acosta in Havana in 2000. They were the talk of the balletomanes for a while...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLmsHnlc6U0

How come no one has linked to ABT's MET performances in 2007? There was much discussion of Macmillan, Manon, and the dancers as I remember. That year I saw Vishneva do it once (or was that '06?). Ferri & Bolle do it twice, Ethan Stiefel's Lescaut before his injury, a surprisingly funny Gillian Murphy as his mistress, and an unexpected, unannounced, but astonishing Ferri-Corella matinee.

I've always loved Macmillan's R&J (though I do recognize the many "borrowed" elements--or dare I say some choreography?--of the Cranko version) for its fluidity, and ability to accurately illustrate both the music and Shakespeare's text through both choreography AND dramatic detail. I've seen many other versions, but that is the one I always return to in my mind.

I also love "Manon", and totally agree that it needs a strong Des Grieux to make it resonate because he has less chance than Manon to illustrate the character through choreography. Also, the more corruptable characters of Manon & Lescaut need the innocence of Des Grieux to play off of. So though everyone talks about the evolving character of Manon, I also think it is very hard for someone to make Des Grieux's innocence likeable or understandable without causing contempt for his gullability or pity. So yes, good dancers are required, but also great actors are needed to make this ballet work.

And again, I am facinated by the way Macmillan can translate text and emotions and even lurid details into choreography both recognizable and understandable. Unlike the more simplistic emotions of "R&J", "Manon" has some very "adult" emotions and action, all distinctly visible in the choreography. Having never seen or heard the opera, I only know the music of the ballet, and so do not have a problem with it, but rather was more impressed by how a "pastiche" was assembled to cohere with the action/choreography.

I've only seen excerpts of "Mayerling", because I haven't had the time (or incliniation yet?) to sit through the entire dvd--since I've never seen it live. I have, however, seen "Gloria" and "Requiem" which I liked very much. Didn't he also do "The Wild Boy" for Baryshnikov way back when?--which I was rather bored with. I would very much like to see the full-length "Prince of the Pagodas", even though Britten is not a favorite composer.

All the above only IMHO.

You're right about Des Grieux: you need a believable Des Grieux as a counterpoint to Manon and all the the other dubious yet more colourful characters to outbalance the drama. The difficulty is probably to find a dancer who can make us believe both in his innocence AND in his corruptability. He actually ends up committing murder and that can be hard to believe if the dancer is too "milky".
But if well done it's a fantastic story about how fragile we all are if our life gets caught in the storms of passion. Des Grieux's gullibility always makes him realize too late what he's been trapped into, but he hasn't got the strength to free himself again, and because of his education and upbringing he's always painfully aware of the sins he commits, which makes their devastating effect on his character even worse. It's like operations without anaestetics.

One of the big recurring themes in almost all MacMillan ballets is prostitutes of various stripes from the streetwalker to the brothel girl to the elegant courtesan. Almost every one has a grand pas for the corps du whore in one act at least. For example, in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" there is no real indication or mention that Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio et al. are carousing with whores in the street. Romeo has a childish unrequited romantic crush on Rosaline but that is the only indication of previous involvement with women. However, those frizzy-haired harlots are ubiquitous in almost every act of MacMillan's "Romeo and Juliet" (and blessedly absent from the Cranko). Their role in the group dances is really way more prominent than their importance to the story would warrant.

Meanwhile "Mayerling" has that Mitzi character and a big dance in the brothel which has some historical significance since Prince Rudolf was a fast-living sybarite. I think that the prima ballerina/courtesan Matilda Kschessinskaya has been shoehorned into the full-length "Anastasia". MacMillan's really conflicted feelings about women's sexuality is fully exposed in "The Judas Tree" where the woman basically provokes the men to gang-rape her. I think either Jennifer Dunning or Anna Kisselgoff said in the NY Times that it would be a terrible thing to have a ballet like that on your conscience when you went to meet your maker.

BTW: the Royal Ballet did bring over "The Prince of the Pagodas" one summer for the Lincoln Center Festival. I saw it with the first cast of Darcey Bussell, Deborah Bull and Jonathan Cope. The original fairy tale has a convoluted story that doesn't lend itself effectively to exposition in dance. The score by Britten is not immediately appealing - rather dank and difficult in places. Bussell was enchanting but I had no desire to see the work again.

As for the dislike of MacMillan - Boris Eifman has come across the same disdain. The critical fraternity in the United States is brought up on the Balanchine "there are no mothers-in-law in ballet" dictum. Story ballets are looked at with distinct suspicion as being artistically retrograde and kitschy. I remember one critic saying that MacMillan wanted to choreograph all the ballets they that didn't get around to (or didn't dare) choreograph in the nineteenth century. Essentially that group has the opinion that MacMillan's taste was old-fashioned with derivative choreography including showy overhead lifts stolen from Cranko decorated with an overlay of cheap psychology and melodramatic mime.

BTW: a friend of mine said that she felt that while the Cranko "Romeo and Juliet" is better overall in the group scenes, the MacMillan version has the better pas de deux. She felt the best solution would be to interpolate the balcony pas de deux, the farewell pas de deux and the tomb scene into the Cranko overall structure.

"Manon" is one of the great stories of a prostitute - the bible of courtesans like Marguerite Gautier in "La Dame aux Camellias" who keeps it by her side always. Somehow MacMillan and the Prevost novel seem fated to meet.

I don't know about the popularity with audiences but major ballerinas have coveted the part of Manon. Natalia Makarova found it her best and favorite contemporary ballet role and this was backed up by many astute observers. Diana Vishneva has also made it a specialty role as did Alessandra Ferri. Sylvie Guillem was a major intepreter in London and in Paris as well - one of her best dramatic ballet roles as well. I saw Nina Ananiashvili in it with ABT and found her less than revelatory - she is really not a MacMillan dancer at all. Alessandra Ferri, MacMillan ballerina nonpareil was also dancing it with a young Bocca that season and that was the standard by which others were judged.

Anyway, no matter what audiences or critics think, major dancers want to dance the main roles and get the ballet produced. Wasn't Vishneva a major force in getting the full-length "Manon" into the Mariinsky repertory? Certainly Ferri and Bocca were major factors in getting the ballet done at ABT.

I, too, have noticed the ubiquitous presence of prostitutes/whores/courtesans in Macmillan and wondered. And since I am sensitive to re-arrangements, interpolations, re-interpretations of Shakespeare, I at first disliked their presence in R&J, until I understood why they are there...
I believe they are there to provide a contrast between the more carefree (careless?) youthful amour(s) of Romeo's past to the mature, committed love he has now for Juliet. (Notice Romeo rejects the advances of one of the whores in Act2, though he is still friendly enough to dance with her.) Another interpolation, the passing of the wedding party in the second act, makes Romeo pause and consider marriage himself; whereas in the play, we know he and Juliet have already discussed marriage and how they would meet the next day. Finally, I've seen productions of Macmillan's R&J, where the "prostitutes" were changed to 'gypsies' and didn't wear frizzy hair, so their presence in Verona was a little more understandable. (I didn't check to see if they still had red heels.)

I am currently reading 'Never Mind the Moon: My Time at the Royal Opera House' by Jeremy Isaacs, who ran Covent Garden for about nine years. Mr Isaacs is a very good writer and I'm enjoying the book a lot. I'm not sure about quoting from books here, so if a moderator takes this off, so be it.

This is an account of Mr Isaacs's first encounter with Mr and Mrs Kenneth MacMillan, neither of whom he had met before. I think this is very relevant to much of this thread



Isaacs goes on to praise R & J and Manon, although pointing out that the latter wasn't universally admired at the beginning. Then:



Was it at this point I wonder, that Ashton and the English style were swept under the carpet?