New record: Afternoon of a Faun

Jerome Robbins's Afternoon of a Faun was first performed in Australia by the New York City Ballet in 1958. This pas de deux, of approximately ten minutes, is performed to the Debussy score that accompanied Vaslav Nijinsky's 1912 ballet of the same name. The content of the Nijinsky original, which incorporated themes of narcissism, sexuality and voyeurism, is also reflected in the Robbins version. It is set in a ballet studio, with the male and female dancer facing an imaginary mirror between them and the audience.

The Australian Ballet’s premiere of Robbins’s Afternoon of a Faun took place on May 15, 1978, in Sydney, featuring Marilyn Rowe and Gary Norman...more...

New record: Leanne Benjamin

Leanne Benjamin was born in Rockhampton, Australia and trained with Valerie Hansen in Queensland before being accepted into the Royal Ballet Upper School at the age of sixteen. While at the School she won the Adeline Genee Gold Medal (1980) and the Prix de Lausanne (1981).

Benjamin joined the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet in 1983 and was promoted to soloist in 1985 and principal in 1987. In 1988 she joined the London Festival Ballet as principal, and in 1990 joined the Deutsche Opera Ballet in Berlin. Benjamin joined the Royal Ballet in 1992 as first soloist, being promoted to principal by the spring of that season...more...

New record: Onegin

Onegin was first performed in Australia in 1974 by the Stuttgart Ballet, the company for whom John Cranko had created the work in 1965. A large-scale dramatic and emotional work in three-acts, Onegin is one of Cranko's most popular ballets, particularly acclaimed for its pas de deux choreography. Its libretto, an epic tale of love and revenge, is based on the Alexander Pushkin novel-in-verse that also inspired the 1879 Tchaikovsky opera of the same name. While not using music from the opera, Cranko set his ballet to a number of Tchaikovsky's piano and orchestral works, arranged and orchestrated by Kurt-Heinz Stolze. At the Australian premiere, which was greeted with a standing ovation, Heinz Clauss danced in the title role, with Marcia Haydee as Tatiana...more...

New record : Manon

Kenneth MacMillan's Manon, based on Abbe Prevost's novel Manon Lescaut and set to music by Jules Massenet, was created in 1974 when MacMillan was artistic director of the Royal Ballet. It was first performed by the Australian Ballet in 1994, staged by Monica Parker and Patricia Ruanne....

Set in eighteenth-century French society, Manon is a large-scale dramatic and emotional work, a tale of romance and betrayal that explores the conflicting forces of money and love on the central character, Manon...more...