Latest news with #RoyalBallet
Daily Mail
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Taina Elg dead at 95: Tony nominee and co-star of Gene Kelly passes away
Taina Elg, a glamorous star to MGM in the 1950s, has died in her native Finland. She was 95. The Golden Globe winner was best known in Hollywood for her versatility, starring in a variety of projects with some of tinsel town's biggest names. Born in 1930 in Helsinki, the budding actress and dancer starred in her first film in 1940. After World War II, she and a small group of Finnish students were allowed to go to Sweden to study dance, and her host family later supported her when she moved to London to study with Royal Ballet. It was there she was discovered by American film producer Edwin H. Knopf and signed to a seven-year contract by MGM. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new Showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. While under contract, she appeared in 1955's The Prodigal starring screen siren Lana Turner, followed by Alice with Turner and future James Bond star Roger Moore in 1956. She won the Golden Globe for best female foreign newcomer for her performance in Gaby with Leslie Caron. In her next film, the musical Les Girls with Gene Kelly and Mitzi Gaynor, she was able to show off her dancing skills as a showgirl. She and co-star Kay Kendall shared the Golden Globe for best actress in a musical or comedy for their work. Elg also starred in Imitation General, a World War II comedy co-starring Glen Ford and Red Buttons. After leaving MGM, she signed with the Rank Organization for a remake of the spy thriller The 39 Steps. She starred as a schoolteacher who gets involved with a British diplomat to decipher and break up a sinister plot against England in the 1959 big screen release. At the ripe old age of 30, Elg turned her attention to TV and the stage. She appeared in guest spots on shows such as Wagon Train and Hong Kong, along wit the daytime dramas such as The Doctors. Elg starred as the title character in a touring production of the musical Irma La Douce in 1962. She made the first of her seven Broadway appearances, in 1970 as a nun in Josh Logan's Look to the Lillies, based on Sydney Poitier's Oscar winning turn in 1963's Lillies of the Field. The multi-talented Elg received her first Tony nomination for the 1974-75 revival of Frank Loesser's Where's Charley? co-starring Raul Julia. Another Broadway success included the musical Nine, where she originated the role of Guido's Mother in the Best Musical winner. Elg also toured in the musicals Two by Two, Gigi, and Titanic. The actress starred in the soap opera Guiding Light as Dr. Ingrid Fisher and originated the role of Olympia Buchanan, the first wife of tycoon Asa Buchanan, on One Life to Live in which her character dramatically and fatally fell over a balcony at a costume party. Elg was married twice and shared her son, jazz guitarist Raoul Björkenheim, with her first husband Carl-Gustav Björkenheim, whom she married in 1953 and divorced seven years later. She wed her second husband, Rocco Caporale, in 1985 and was with him until his death in 2008. In 2004, Elg was awarded one of Finland's highest honors, the Order of the Lion of Finland and was bestowed the rank of a Knight First Class.
Spectator
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Christopher Wheeldon's real gifts lie in abstract dance
Christopher Wheeldon must be one of the most steadily productive and widely popular figures in today's dance world, but I'm yet to be persuaded that he has much gift for narrative. His adaptation of the novel Like Water for Chocolate was a hopeless muddle; his response to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is mere vaudeville; and I'm praying to St Jude that nobody is planning to import his dramatisation of Oscar Wilde's downfall, premièred in Australia last year. But as the elegant craftsman, and sometimes the inspired artist, of more abstract dance, he is without doubt a great talent. The Royal Ballet's programme of four of his shorter pieces showcases his strengths. Let's get the misfire out of the way first – The Two of Us is set to four Joni Mitchell standards, prissily sung live on stage by Julia Fordham (to do her justice, she was struggling against a faulty sound system). Lauren Cuthbertson and Calvin Richardson are wasted as they mooch around in shimmering pyjamas without ever establishing any compelling counterpoint to the implications of the lyrics or the mood of the music: they might as well be extemporising, and there's just not enough interest in the movement they come up with to hold one's interest. But everything else on offer gives much pleasure. Fool's Paradise, first seen at Covent Garden in 2012, is richly melancholy – perhaps subliminally a meditation on how relationships between three people inexorably gravitate into two, but more obviously a beautiful example of Wheeldon's neoclassicism. His aesthetic has been influenced by his long sojourn in America and his choreographic style reflects that of New York City Ballet luminaries such as Jerome Robbins and Justin Peck as much as it does that of his Royal Ballet precursors Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan: sleekly athletic, clean in line, devoid of jerks and twerks, milk and honey for dancers with fluent classical technique.
Perth Now
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
King Charles advocates benefits of good diet amid cancer treatment
King Charles advocated for the benefits of eating well amid cancer treatment at a Buckingham Palace garden party. The 76-year-old monarch - who is receiving weekly treatment after being diagnosed with an undisclosed form of the disease last February - spoke with Stamford Collis, 22, about the student's own experiences of battling cancer at the event on Wednesday (14.05.24). Stamford told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: 'He was asking me about the treatment I have starting in June and spoke to me about food and diet. He also asked me if I had undergone radiation treatment, which I had earlier this year.' The publication reports the king was heard to say: 'It's sometimes about the diet and what you eat. It can help.' Charles was joined by wife Queen Camilla at the event, which was held in recognition of those working in education and skills. Guests mingled in the blazing sunshine while enjoying performances from Royal Ballet school students, the British Army Band Catterick and the Band of The Royal Air Force Regiment. Camilla, 77, expressed her concern for guests being out in the heat. She told one partygoer: 'I hope you aren't too warm. I do hope you have had the chance to put your feet up and have a drink.' The King was "in his element" talking about crafts as he spoke to Patricia Alban, who set up Sammy's Foundation in memory of her son, a keen carpenter and upholsterer who suffered from Prader-Willi Syndrome and autism died in 2020 aged just 13. Patricia - whose foundation helps young people suffering from neurological conditions learn high-end craftsmanship - said: 'I told Sammy, 'One day I will meet the king and tell him about you.' 'And here I am. I can't believe it. He would have been so proud. I feel quite emotional. I feel like he is there. It's been a dream of mine. 'His Majesty was in his element talking about crafts, it is something he is passionate about. And he was suggesting people and organisations I could talk to.'
Times
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Ballet to Broadway review — a fine showcase for Christopher Wheeldon
As the title of this new mixed bill suggests, the British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon is equally at home in the Royal Opera House and the West End. His Alice's Adventures in Wonderland will close the Royal Ballet season at the end of June, while his Like Water for Chocolate will open the 2025-26 season in October. Meanwhile, his Broadway hit MJ The Musical, the award-winning Michael Jackson show he directed and choreographed, is still running in London and New York. It's this versatility that the Royal Opera House showcases with a quartet of creations ranging from 2007 to 2020. Not all of them are vintage Wheeldon, but the highlight — a new staging of the ballet from An American in Paris, the musical
Telegraph
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Ballet to Broadway: Wheeldon Works: An evening of unexpected delights and disappointments
'Wheeldon Works'? He sure does. Extravagantly talented, protean and industrious, the Yeovil-born wonder has a CV that's packed to the gunwales with goodies. With Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2011), The Winter's Tale (2014) and Like Water for Chocolate (2022), the Royal Ballet's 'artistic associate' has done more than any other choreographer to keep the three-act ballet alive and kicking. All the while, has also created a wealth of shorter, rich abstract ballets on both sides of the Atlantic. And, as the 'kicker' to this new programme suggests, he is also eminently at home in the world of song and dance. The fact that the Royal Ballet is now dedicating an entire evening to his cannon shows the esteem with which it (rightly) holds him. What's more, three of these four pieces are company firsts − I can't think of a comparable bill at Covent Garden in my lifetime. The one piece the company has danced before (if only six times), Fool's Paradise also proves the most successful. Not because of the Royal's prior experience of it, but simply because this 2007 work offers dancers and audience alike the most to get our collective gnashers into. A well-judged 30 minutes long, it's the sort of shorter piece that Wheeldon is particularly good at: multi-movement, simultaneously complex and lean, entirely abstract but also hinting at narrative undercurrents. Performing in spacy beams of light and in all manner of contrapuntal permutations, the nine dancers slink and coil in and out of each others' space and embrace, mostly following the mood of Joby Talbot's dramatically cinematic score, occasionally pushing against it. Narciso Rodriguez's pointedly plain, flesh-coloured costumes have an anonymising effect on the performers (all excellent, little Viola Pantuso once again marking herself out as a name to watch), heightening the piece's ritualistic edginess, and it all builds to a climax that's a mini-masterpiece of sculpture-in-dance. A closing, kaleidoscopic knickerbocker glory to that opening, near-monochrome study in moodiness, An American In Paris is the 25-minute work-within-a-work from Wheeldon's Tony Award-winning 2015 show of the same name, which he adapted from the cherished 1951 film. Extravagantly designed and lit by Wheeldon regulars Bob Crowley and Natasha Katz, with the house orchestra clearly relishing Gershwin's jazzy luxuriance, it's a slender but hugely energetic choreographic mash-up of George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, with an astute dash of Gene Kelly's princely-everyman swagger. A stage Billy Elliot in his youth, Cesar Corrales pounces on the latter: not just a fantastic, virile ballet dancer, but also a born showman, he here displays just the right kind of grin-inducing braggadocio. As his innamorata Lise, standing in for his regular and also real-life partner Francesca Hayward, Anna Rose O'Sullivan dances with her usual pin-sharp briskness, but looks slightly ill at ease in this display of old-school Hollywood-meets-Broadway pizzazz. And what of the two shorter, similarly titled pieces that fall in between? With the entire orchestra here lining the back of the stage, and displaying a looser, more contemporary-dance idiom, The Two of Us (2020), is a little, 'variety'-tinged romantic journey that plays out to four songs by Joni Mitchell, here delivered live by veteran pop singer Julia Fordham. Lauren Cuthbertson and Calvin Richardson are super as the couple, though I struggled on Friday with Fordham's fluttery delivery. Technical issues with the sound on the night mightn't have helped, but you craved the original recordings. Us, meanwhile, is a romantic duet for two men − still an astonishingly rare dance trope − that Wheeldon created in 2017 for the BalletBoyz. Intimate and intense, the steps are lovely, generating vivid little vignettes of mutual support and empowerment, and Matthew Ball and Joseph Sissons make a great deal of them. Keaton Henson's score is on the dirgey side, though. So, a bill that shows Wheeldon at his most mercurial, if not always playing the strongest possible hands. Still, the evening flies by, and his Alice returns next month − if you really want to see what all the fuss is about, there's no better rabbit-hole to fall down.
