Birdsall

Cristian, yes, there are definitely good things happening in Miami. The Cleveland Orchestra, however, has its winter residence there and it really isn't a homegrown orchestra. The original orchestra that serviced most of South Florida went under years ago, and I think Miami enticed Cleveland to come perform shows b/c it has been hard to re-start an orchestra from scratch. Nobody wants to donate to a new, unknown venture. Many people got burned with the previous orchestra. I do like the New World Orchestra. It is a unique thing, b/c it is a school that also performs professionally. It filled the void. I have been to several performances and always been impressed. So, yes, there are good things. I really shouldn't knock everything, but I do know that arts organizations struggle in Florida both financially and artistically. Miami is probably our largest and most cosmopolitan city, yet the arts don't even flourish there the way they do in NY or Chicago or SF. Of course, Miami is smaller... It is truly a MIRACLE that Miami has such a ballet company. This is my main point. I don't think the board of MCB understands this. So many things have to come together: someone with a vision and people who follow that vision. Just money and donations does not make a great company. I hope the board of MCB understands this. I hate to buy into the "star system" but famous names associated with a project or company help to sell. If Villella's name is gone they better find an equally important name to replace him. That is my personal opinion.

You are a trip!!! LOL I don't know, but I suspect when they are doing these athletic lifts it is almost impossible to make sure the female dancer's body is not showing. Just my personal guess. The male partner is concentrating on lifting without looking like he is straining, so his partner's tutu is the least of his worries. The female is concentrating on her arms, seated position, and hoping to God the skinny guy lifting her doesn't drop her on the floor! LOL So she is less concerned about her modesty. I tend to think we see much more on the beaches nowadays so it is not a big deal to see a ballerina's undergarment or whatever it is called that is under the tutu. Maybe it helps more straight men to come to the ballet, so don't knock it! LOL Whatever gets more men into ballet is okay with me! LOL I had a friend who used to dance and still dances baroque dance sometimes, and she was one of the original gyro tonic/gyrokinesis instructors. I took some gyro lessons from her. She once told me young dancers are less self conscious about their bodies when on stage, so I assume a female dancer's tutu flying up in an awkward position is not a big deal to them, but that is just a guess.

I have lived in Florida most of my life and know that Florida does not have a good reputation as far as the arts are concerned. We have tons of snowbirds who come down from the Northeast, but somehow not enough to support and donate to the arts, because the arts are always suffering here. Miami started to be a "hot" and "trendy" city in the 90s and continues to be a tourist destination but not so much for the arts. I know the opera company was getting better in the 90s but since the economic collapse things have taken a huge nosedive, in my personal opinion. But not with MCB. So it spoke volumes that I was sitting next to New Yorkers at MCB's performances who knew Villella as a dancer and were mainly interested in MCB b/c Villella started it. They say they love MCB, but they also think he is the only reason that MCB is even on their radar map. I don't think the board fully appreciates what Villella has done. The majority of opera lovers would not take a trip to Florida just to see Florida Grand Opera, but I think the majority of ballet lovers would consider a trip to Florida to see MCB. That says a lot about the quality and what Villella has achieved. Coming to ballet from opera I find it absolutely amazing that Florida has a top notch ballet company. That is like a miracle, b/c nothing else is top notch!

One of the articles I read seemed to say Villella was looking to relocate in NYC (like looking for an apartment as the retirement hit the press). In past seasons when I attended Villella would do the talks before the shows at the Kravis, but he's no longer doing that. I wonder how much he is involved even this season. I hope he continues to work with the dancers. So far this season has been wonderful, so I suspect he has. It really seems a shame about this forced retirement, because MCB is just now becoming "international" with the triumphant Paris performances. I think MCB has an excellent reputation in the US, but I don't know if the rest of the world really knows much about MCB. It seemed like the rest of the world was about to know them well. But now I worry. There are top notch international companies that do the traditional story ballets well. MCB does more than just Balanchine but is considered a Balanchine company due to Villella's influence and all the repetoire. I wonder what will happen now. Audience members that sat near me so far this season are very worried too. Some questions we were asking each other were, "Will some dancers leave and go elsewhere without his presence?" "Will standards decline?" etc. I personally think the public is very worried. The board says that it is no one person's company, but 3 audience members next to me exclaimed it is Villella's name that has brought attention and prestige to the company. They were from New York.

Isn't most of the original choreography for Paquita lost? I thought just the Grand Pas and children's mazurka were the only pieces that are original. Everything else Lacotte had to choreograph on his own in the style of the time. I could be totally wrong. If someone knows more about Paquita, please inform us!

I think the bigger question that MCB needs to worry about: will the Balanchine Trust continue to let them perform all those Balanchine ballets? If the licenses were contingent on Villella staging them or if they expire in the next few years, they could be in trouble...I haven't seen that discussed in any of the news accounts. Do any of the locals know what the story is on this? Never thought about that. I wonder if the board realizes that Miami City Ballet has such a high profile and reputation because it is a Balanchine company. Often boards are just full of wealthy people who only got into the arts for some social cache late in life once they made it in life.

I forgot he did Flames of Paris. I have that dvd with Osipova and Vasiliev. Will have to watch it again. Thanks for the reminder! I enjoyed that!

I hope Ratmansky is on his game. I watched excerpts of his Humpbacked Horse on YouTube, and it seemed like very little actual dancing!!! But that was because there was so much mime and narrative. So hopefully, Symphonic Dances ("dances" being in the title) will have lots of actual dancing!!!! LOL

Is anyone on the MCB Board listening to comments like this? There's only one performance, at the Arsht Center in Miami on March 1. I assume (or hope) that Symphonic Variations will be included in the regular season next year. http://www.miamicity...onic_dances.php I remember reading somewhere that the Symphonic Dances will be included in next season's offerings. However, March 1, 2012 (the world premiere) will be with the Cleveland Orchestra (as opposed to the Opus One Orchestra) which is one of the Big 5 orchestras in the U.S. It should be great to see a top notch orchestra perform with MCB. It will be interesting to compare the world premiere with the later performances next season too.

A good friend of mine (who works in an orchestra) got furious when he criticized me for being a canary fancier and only caring about the singers on stage, and I made a joke that opera lovers are not there to watch the servants! And the truth is somewhere in between. If an orchestra is terrible, an opera audience will notice and the work will be ruined. The orchestra is a necessary and important part, but, let's face it, the average person is there to see the stars on the stage.

I think it was common to do encores in the 19th century. The idea was that people were there for the ballet dancers or the opera singers (and they probably still are), not for the specific work or for the orchestra, etc. But Wagner might be the reason things changed. Wagner is credited as the composer who placed the orchestra in a pit and made the auditorium dark to focus on the drama on stage. He was so adamant about the work being the main focus and not individual performers, and his influence has been profound in music. His influence changed many things. Suddenly, individual performers taking too many bows or doing an encore was stopping the drama and was seen as hogging the spotlight at the expense of the work which was THE important thing, in his mind. Conductors started viewing Wagner's music as ultra important (and they still do). Audiences are much more rabid to hush a noise at Wagner than at Donizetti. Anyway, I think this has caused many conductors to discourage encores usually. This is a guess on my part. I am pretty sure Karajan was against encores. Wagner was also the reason bel canto fell out of fashion, I believe. Bel Canto opera was very showy and showed off a singer's technique, so the singer could throw in all sorts of vocal ornaments/embellishments and practically change what the aria sounded like (an exaggeration but some composers felt that way). Basically, opera (and I suspect ballet) was ruled by the individual performers (star system), and the winds of change made it a crime against the music to show boat and take over the spotlight when the composer's music was supposed to be the Holy Grail. As recent as the 1980s some conductors would not allow singers to embellish music that historically always required embellishing by the singer. Things have changed again. You have singers embellishing in Mozart now (which for a while was a big no-no even though there is a historical precedent). Baroque is in style where a singer must embellish. So I think today people are starting to go back to loving individual singers and wanting embellishment and show boating again. Personally, I love it, but I personally think most singers today can't even sing the notes on the page, so they are better off forgetting about the embellishing of arias! LOL Anyway, I know more about opera, but I suspect that ballet has followed along the same lines. It was probably common and normal to do encores in the 19th century and before that. The late 19th and early 20th century became very prim and proper about show boating and wanted to have a religious view of the composer's works (not to be touched or not for anyone to take attention away). It became the norm to view encores as disrespectful toward the composer's music, drama, and even to the fellow performers. But things are swinging back toward the actual performers, and I suspect we might see more and more encores. Personally, I hope so. When someone is extraordinary, the audience should demand it!

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I did not even go which is unheard of for me if we were talking even 5 years ago. I thought about going to see Fabiano's Duke in Rigoletto while down in South Florida, b/c he has a certain amount of buzz going on, and what I have heard from his singing I have liked, but I decided against it. I know he's not going to be a new Pavarotti or even a Beczala, so I didn't bother. I just can't get enthused about opera anymore as horrible as that sounds. I am almost always disappointed. Nina Stemme's Brünnhilde in San Francisco was wonderful, but the rest of the cast in that Ring were pretty mediocre, and the Met's new Ring judging from the live HD transmissions into movie theaters is a total waste of time and energy, in my opinion. Lousy sets, singers all wrong for their roles, etc. If the Met's live HDs of its new Ring had made me happy I would be attending a Ring Cycle there, but I don't think I would fly up there to see it if someone handed me free tickets including a free flight to NY. I personally think opera is in dismal decline right now, and this is why I have turned to ballet. Ballet seems to be experiencing a golden age. Not so in opera. It is pretty sad when I am wishing we had singers like Cheryl Studer and June Anderson around still. They couldn't hold a candle to people like Joan Sutherland or Montserrat Caballe, but things have gotten so bad that I would LOVE to see Studer or Anderson or Aprile Millo or Carol Vaness in almost anything compared to anyone today. I just can't believe I am longing to see mediocre singers!!! It is because things have gotten so bad that the mediocre ones seem like goddesses now! Sorry to be so negative. I have just gotten too excited too many times in the last decade only to be disappointed. Here I thought the 80s and 90s were bad for opera. But in 2012 things are even worse!!!! I sit in total disbelief as people around me will cheer and give standing ovations to Natalie Dessay in her current vocal state. Even Renee Fleming who is a superstar in the opera world has too many swoopy mannerisms. I could go on and on......I love Angela Gheorghiu, but she cancels at the drop of a hat, so I never bother to fly anywhere to go see her. Anna Netrebko has a beautiful voice, and she was pretty good in Anna Bolena this past season, but I don't think someone who can barely trill should be singing bel canto repertoire. She's one of the top sopranos around today, and deserves the fame, but there's something about her singing that just doesn't do it for me. No chills down the spine. There is nothing at Florida Grand Opera or Palm Beach Opera that I have any interest in seeing this season. I really can't believe it, b/c I used to go to everything down there. Oh, well.....maybe one day I will return to watching opera....

I can't wait to see the casting for Giselle. Last time MCB did it I saw Guerra and Kronenberg and enjoyed it very much. This time I am hoping for a Delgado Giselle!

I agree with you! Loved his Paquita, Sylphide, and Fille du Phraon! I suspect that the problem some people have is that these works are billed as reconstructions but in some cases are really new works with only one or two dances actually accurate or "original"...at least the notes I have read say that it is mainly his own creation. Regardless of how much is original and how much is new I still enjoy them!

Kfw, The title is a little odd. From the title I expected a work with the energy of The Golden Section or In the Upper Room. The dancers probably work as hard but it did not have a relentless drive that I associate with Tharp's works. So I have to admit that I felt the title was misleading. I also had to stare through binoculars despite being in a box which was not that far away, to make sure it was Delgado, b/c her omnipresent smile that practically lights up a stage was nowhere in sight during Viscera. It showed she can be very serious, but it made me doubt I was watching her, so I sort of understand the reviewer's comments. At the second performance that I attended on Sunday people near me and I were discussing our worries that next season is Villella's last season with the company. Miami City Ballet is finally top notch due to his work! What will happen when he's gone?

Thanks for the heads up, Kerry! I will check that out!

Juan Diego Florez is a marvel. After 20 years of opera listening and attending and every year shaking my head at the decline of the art form he is one of the few singers that excite me. This sort of thing is rare in an actual opera performance. When a famous singer sings a concert of arias or a recital you usually get anywhere from 1 to 6 encores depending on the applause but encores during an actual opera is extremely rare today. I saw a YouTube video of Osipova encoring her 32 fouettes so it apparently happens in ballet too, but I suspect it is rare also. During an actual opera or ballet it is really an ensemble effort and not The Juan Diego Florez Show, for example. So it could be interpreted as a slap in the face to the other performers to hog the limelight, and that is why I suspect this sort of thing rarely happens today no matter how much the audience would love it! LOL Please, someone correct me if I am wrong about this concerning ballet!

Problem is that often ushers are volunteers who are like you and me...not really wanting to get into an argument b/c nowadays people have no shame. You tell them to please take phone conversation outside, and they curse you out and go back to talking. Ushers are supposed to handle things like this but here in Florida they are often over 60 and not equipped physically or mentally to deal with belligerent people and they don't get paid so they often look the other way.

Cristian, I liked Viscera 2nd time better. It's not the best work I've ever seen but not bad.

Cristian, I wasn't sure I was going today and decided to go at last minute. I didn't have a ticket and figured I could get it last minute. Loved it second time also, but Kronenberg and Guerra were replaced by Albertson and Cerdeiro in Ballet Imperial. Carranza danced the solo role. Preferred the Friday night cast for Ballet Imperial. Delgado was revelatory in the 3rd couple of "In the Night" for me today. Instead of seeming like a tantrum throwing woman she was a fiery woman. Also loved her in the pas de deux for Viscera today (she was the soloist on Friday). She's my favorite at MCB! BB

Hey...and be grateful that she was wearing heels at least. It could have been worse, like flip-flops... Cristian, I actually think the bizarre element of her outfit would have vanished if she had worn flip flops. It would have been inappropriate still but at least the shoes would have matched her outfit! LOL To me an equivalent outfit would have been if I showed up in a speedo, tshirt and sport coat!!! That's how bizarre I found her outfit! LOL Bart B.

bart, I find that Guerra has an aristocratic bearing simply when he walks and takes a bow which I like. Kronenberg is wonderful, and maybe it is because they are married it makes me read more chemistry in their interactions because I want to believe it makes a difference. Part of me wishes I didn't know it because I think it keeps me from being objective and keeps me from judging their on stage pairing the way I would other partners. I am going today again. Kronenberg and Guerra dance together in Ballet Imperial. Delgado and Trividic are doing the pas de deux in Viscera. I like Viscera and will see if I see new things I missed the first time.

By the way, I met Cristian and his beautiful mother! Don't pass up a chance to meet him! Very nice and knowledgeable guy!

No cell phones went off last night at Miami City Ballet's Program 2 at the Kravis Center, but I noticed a woman wearing short shorts or Daisy Dukes with high heels!!!! I think she had a t-shirt style shirt, Daisy Dukes that had a jean texture, and red high heels. How does someone dress like that and think it is appropriate for the ballet??? In my opinion, that wasn't an outfit appropriate for any event. It isn't what you'd wear to the beach, the mall, the movies, or anyplace. Not even a bar or nightclub! I think it goes to the top of fashion flops I have ever seen! Maybe different shoes would have made it okay for yard work!

Didn't know if I would like Viscera, but it was lovely. Still based on classical ballet but modern also. Of course, it doesn't compare to Ballet Imperial! I hardly recognized Jeannette Delgado without her smile in Viscera, because it was a more serious role. I think it shows her versatility. I love her in everything she does! I feel Carlos Guerra and Jennifer Kronenberg make a regal couple in the 2nd movement of In the Night. Overall, a lovely program that showed off the corps and soloists. Might try to go to Sunday's performance also.