Institutional Racism & Swanilda’s Friends
Another day at the University of London Library [see earlier post on Czerny], this time, to retrieve some dances from Tchaikovsky’s opera Cherevichki which were used in Cranko’s Onegin. I…
Italian ballets
That old party game ‘name five famous Belgians’ is a little unfair on the Belgians. A more difficult game is ‘name five Italian ballets’, I’ve discovered. Until, that is, I…
Skip, change of step
I often feel extraordinarily privileged to have such illustrious friends in the ballet world, particularly when I want an answer to a simple question, and can just pick up the…
The joy of libraries and my Czech mate Czerny
It’s not often that I get goosebumps sitting in a library, but I came pretty near to it yesterday on a trip to the University of London Library. I have…
Magic and Mazurkaphobia
You’d think I made it up, wouldn’t you? Well I didn’t. Taming a Tartar; or, Magic & mazourkaphobia, “an operatic, romantic, magical, semi-burlesque, terpsichorean burletta, in two acts, founded on…
History of a song & Vejvodova Zbraslav
Amazing what you can turn up from a simple question. Is Roll Out the Barrel still in copyright? Like me, you may have thought it was one of those diehard…