5 replies to this topic

[Old Fashioned]

Looks like Stanton Welch caught the Swan Lake tinkering bug.

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The biggest event will be the February 2006 premiere of Welch's new Swan Lake, replacing Ben Stevenson's hallmark 21-year-old production. The famous white tutu scenes of dancing swans and Odette-Odile's solos won't change, Welch says, "but everything else is up for grabs."

Other ballets (or "ballets") included in the season are:

Cranko's Onegin
World Premiere by Christopher Bruce
Kylian's Forgotten Land
Welch's Wildlife
Welch's Velocity
Welch's Play
Welch's Indigo
Welch's Divergence
World Premiere by Brian Enos
a December gala
guest company Les Grands Ballets Canadien in Ohad Naharin's Minus One

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Traditionalists get their candy, too. George Balanchine's Western Symphony, Sir Kenneth MacMillan's Gloria and Stevenson's Don Quixote are also on tap.

Oy vey!  That sounds almost condescending, and the classics are NOT candy.  Why not take the metaphor to the next level and give us pacifiers?

And slowly the Stevenson rep gets phased out while newer works take place...

Perhaps Mr. Rockwell might like a job at the Chronicle.  He would be in good company.

[Marenetha]

Hmm. I'm still uncertain about Welch. Some of his choreography has seemed extremely clever; some of it has seemed absolutely mind-numbingly boring. I hope that the works he does for 2005-2006 are of the first order ...  

I am excited about Cranko and Kylian, however. And about Balanchine, MacMillan, and Stevenson - I assume that that's for the gala?

[Old Fashioned]

Anyone received the season brochure yet?  The cover image shows Mireille Hassenboehler lying in a pool of water with white feathers scattered around her.  The only thing you see her wearing is a flesh colored tube-top.  Give up?  It's a promotion of Welch's new Swan Lake.

[BalletNut]

Oy. Can't they leave the poor ballet alone, already? Pretty soon we'll be left with no "traditional" versions of Swan Lake at all, just these new "hip" versions designed to get the young 'uns into the theater.

--written by a young 'un who's never seen Welch's version, or the Houston Ballet...

[Old Fashioned]

It's just a silly marketing strategy.  I'm pretty sure the new SL will still be danced in classical white tutus (unless Welch has decided to tack on an Act V: an underwater pas de deux of death for Odette and Siegfried!"  BTW, there's another SL image inside with Sara Webb and a topless Zdenek Konvalina lying in the pond).  Houston Ballet has been trying to promote an image of "Ballet is sexy!" these past two seasons.  The 03-04 brochure featured Naomi Glass on the cover wearing a black body tight in a straddled position on the ground (see picture in link above- like that) and the 04-05 season brochure cover had Romeo & Juliet lying in bed together.

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--written by a young 'un who's never seen Welch's version, or the Houston Ballet...

Funny you should say that; the title of the article is "Shout-out to youths," and it quotes Welch saying he wants to hear more "hootin' and hollerin" at performances.

[BalletNut]

Hootin' and hollerin'...funny, I kind of like the fact that I can escape from hootin' and hollerin' when I go to the ballet...

If the Welch Swan Lake is indeed "traditional" (more or less), then this sounds like the kind of thing SFB tried to pull a few years ago when they'd have these apparently "irreverent" advertisements with dancers in studio shots and captions like "Drinking, Debauchery, Violence: A Real Bible Story" for Balanchine's Prodigal Son. God forbid all the young whippersnappers should get the impression that we're a bunch of stuffy old-fashioned snobs with tutus and tiaras! Imagine the disappointment on the young audience members' faces when they discover that it's real, old-fashioned ballet, not the super-hip subversion of dominant paradigms that's being peddled in the ads. I find it incredibly condescending, myself. And I don't hoot or holler, either.