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Veronika Part


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I am not knowledgeable as a critic and have absolutely no formal training, but I do attend ballet and was at the ABT's Gala last evening.

My impression of Ms Part was that she was well matched with Ms Wiles in the Symphonie Concertante, but seemed a bit "heavy" and unsteady... as if she was working too hard to look soft. The Balanchine choreography was lovely... My impression was that it would really take a super ballerina to really shine in that piece.. and neither Wiles or Part pulled that off. It seemed well tuned and safe. Does this make sense? Having said that.. Part certainly seems destined to become a principal in the future. She needs to make dancing look easy (which it is not of course).

I was not impressed with Part's port de bras last evening... that would go to Julie Kent or Paloma Herrera, both who were outstanding in Melody and a Swan Lake Pas de Deux respectively. Herrera can dispense with the bones in her arms at will... perhaps her strong point? What a swan!

Ms Kent, in my opinion, shown last night as the shining star of the ABT's female roster.... her performance with Marcello Gomez was one I will never forget. The audience seemed to agree. Julie Kent is a gift from the gods of ballet.

Our seats were wonderful in the 3rd row Grand Tier. What a perch to view ballet. It was so intimate and superior to a similar seat at the Met. There were no sets the entire evening and only bare stage (which is smaller than at the Met). The staging, therefore was "sparse" and so the focus was on the dancing. The dancing was inspired...

The entire company performed the very athletic Upper Room by Twyla Thorp with music by Philip Glass. The corps was amazing.. every last one of them, but I felt the piece was a too long. The music seems to be a continuous crescendo that never comes!

Xiomara Reyes seems competent but not an elegant ballerina figure... She appears diminutive and her arms seem short.

The overall feeling was wonderful. The ABT is a terrific company, but this evening did not give the men much to work with except perhaps in Sinatra which Cornejo danced. He was great with Sarah Lane... but this piece was far afield of ballet... in my opinion.

Sorry for the awful review! We had a wonderful time...

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I was at last night's gala too. I'll add comments at the other thread...

Re Veronika Part.... Last night I thought she danced nicely in Symphonie Concertante but too tentatively.

Part is beautiful, tall, curvey, but not technically strong. In slow adagios her lines are huge and she is wonderfully emotional. She's also gorgeous in parts, such as Emeralds, wherein she captures perfectly the bedroom feel of the lush choreography. Her Emeralds performance while visiting here with the Kirov a few years ago was unforgettable.

Symphonie Concertante craves two female principals who are strong, clean, bright, elegantly lovely, skilled in allegro (jumps as well as turns). Neither Michelle Wiles or Veronika Part were well cast in this ballet.

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Symphonie Concertante craves two female principals who are strong, clean, bright, elegantly lovely, skilled in allegro (jumps as well as turns). Neither Michelle Wiles or Veronika Part were well cast in this ballet.
Maria Tallchief, who was a star by the time the viola role was made on her, and who was paired with the young Tanaquil LeClerq in the violin role, said that Balanchine created this ballet to teach her how to dance. Critics like Croce noted that it was to teach everyone in the ballet.

Maybe it will have a similar, educational effect on Part and Wiles, after they've had a few attempts at it.

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I just received an email from Ms Part who said she sustained an injury in class this morning and would not be able to appear in the rest of the season. She did not elaborate and the email was apparently sent to all who had emailed her in the past... as it was addressedwith the salutation: "Friends".

Never a good thing when this happens. Hope she has a speedy recovery.

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I just received an email from Ms Part who said she sustained an injury in class this morning and would not be able to appear in the rest of the season. She did not elaborate and the email was apparently sent to all who had emailed her in the past... as it was addressedwith the salutation: "Friends".

Never a good thing when this happens. Hope she has a speedy recovery.

The message was apparently sent to four of us. I also join SanderO in wishing her a quick recovery. If anyone wishes to e-mail her their good wishes it can be done at...

vpartnyc@gmail.com

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Clement Crisp has rediscoverd Veronika Part and what a rediscovery it is !

"Symphonie concertante....it was the presence of Veronika Part (as the viola’s representative) who brought the piece, and the evening, to glory.

"We remember her as a young divinity with the Mariinsky Ballet – her Lilac Fairy sublime – and the dignity and amplitude of her St Petersburg style, the voluptuous, luscious grace of her every action, pouring some noble and heady wine for us, breathed life, meaning, into her role. "

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/dcfa7342-bd0a-11db...00779e2340.html

Welcome back, Veronika Part !

(PS Please don't forget to read about Tamara Rojo as just mentioned in this topic ("Dancers") by leonid)

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I noted on the ABT website that Veronika has been given a Detroit Swan Lake performance on March 18th with Gomes!

Hi Haglund,

You may have been aware that I live in the Detroit area. If so thank you.

I may not be in Detroit at the time, but will really try to be. If so I will definitely try and tell Ballet Talk all about the performance. Would you hazard a guess as to the probability of Veronika Part actually appearing that day ?

(spelling error later corrected)

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Buddy, I had the feeling you lived in the area, and that you would be very pleased with this news.

Barring injury, I see no reason why Veronika will not appear on March 18th as scheduled. I generally check the ABT casting web pages daily for changes; so, I will let this board know if anything changes on their site. My only concern is that the Motor City will experience a meltdown from the heat generated by this Part-Gomes performance. You should try, by all means, to get to this performance and take all of your important friends and relatives. You do not want to miss this Swan Lake. I repeat, you do not want to miss this.

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Buddy, I had the feeling you lived in the area, and that you would be very pleased with this news.

You should try, by all means, to get to this performance and take all of your important friends and relatives. You do not want to miss this Swan Lake. I repeat, you do not want to miss this.

Hi again Hagland,

Following your important instructions I have rescheduled travel plans and will be sitting in the second row March 18. I hope to tell you all about it.

Best Wishes, Buddy

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Based on her performances in Paris, I have a hard time picturing her in Swan Lake. Can she really manage it technically at all ? She was so insecure in Symphonie Concertante and Bayadère that I wondered if she was still suffering from her injury. There was something constrained about her - you can tell she is Kirov-trained, but she doesn't seem to compare to her Russian colleagues right now (Lopatkina, Pavlenko, etc). Her expression (half-closed eyes, as if not entirely present to what she's doing) got annoying, since the dancing didn't quite match the diva look... So what makes her Odette/Odile so special ? I'm looking forward to Buddy's comments on her upcoming performance !

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I am sorry she disappointed you, Azulynn.

To me, Part (while still not a principal :angel_not: ), is the most compelling of ABT's ballerinas. Her musicality and passion, on top of the exquisite Kirov training, are rare on today's ballet stage. Add to that her extraordinary beauty of face and form, and I just sit back and drink in the vision before me.

She lacks the brilliant technique and strength that ABT's other leading ladies display, and stamina is sometimes a problem, but what she gives is so rare that I find it very easy to forgive the fatigue at the end of the Black Swan pas. Her partnership with Gomes is pure magic.

I should also add that she is not the most consistent dancer. She can give very different readings of a role in consecutive performances. She takes artistic risks -- another fascination.

I eagerly await her performances at the Met this spring. :huepfen024:

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Based on her performances in Paris, I have a hard time picturing her in Swan Lake. Can she really manage it technically at all ?.... So what makes her Odette/Odile so special ? I'm looking forward to Buddy's comments on her upcoming performance !

I have seen her four New York Swans. Each time her Odile has improved. But she really embodies (emdisembodies?) Odette. Each performance was radically different, alive. She isn't one to refine a role over time, rather she recreates it, as if she's a real creature reacting in the moment. Her back to Siegfried, the slightest brush of his leg with her wing. The house exploded with silence. Which became a roar when the variation ended. My favorite of all was her July 4, 2005 performance. Indeed, the finest O/O I've seen since Makarova in her prime. James Wolcott of Vanity Fair saw that performance and wrote the following:

I went to see her at the Met as Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, and felt resurrected. I haven't been this knocked sideways at the ballet since Baryshnikov exploded from the cannon. Not that Part indulged in pyrotechnics. She isn't Sylvie Guillem showing off her leggy Rockettes kicks. It's that she has the super-alive sharp focus of an artist incapable of betraying her artistry with false moves and conditioned responses. She savors every moment on stage as if it were newly minted.... No dancer alive uses her wrists and hands with more calligraphy than Part, their elegant air-tracings suddenly whipped into force when she swoops her arm away from a suitor in a tai chi semicircle--yin instantly tranformed into yang. In act two in an allegro passage, her swan arms beat as her toeshoes stabbed the floor with diagonal slashes.

.... as Odile, she was an imperial presence, her eyes in supreme command, and the fact that I even noticed her eyes was an astonishment--you almost never notice dancers' eyes, they're so doll-like and disciplined.

....When a performer of genius flames new life into an art form, particularly in an art as difficult and evanescent and often ossified as ballet, it has to be seen in person--taped recordings don't do justice...

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/blogs/w...ly_a_reaso.html

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Azulynn, you can find reviews of Part in Swan Lake here and here.
My Lord! Two performances, a little more than a year apart: and such different opinions about her dancing. Are we talking about the same dancer? This dancer's ability to elicit such extremes of response (pro and con) from knowledgeable reviewers remains a puzzle.

P.S.: I saw James Wolcott's love letter when it first appeared. Thanks for linking to it, drb. It's kind of sweet. You want it to be true, for Wilcott's sake.

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I particularly remember that smoldering Swan Lake on the 4th of July. Who can forget all of the loud shouts of brava from male audience members from every corner of the house after the Act II pas. Part's appeal is in no small way her incredible sensuality. But her gift is to transport us to that place where we just willingly fall into the fantasy and the belief in this incredible creature. Gomes is a huge part of her success as Odette, and the current which passes between them will be very evident to Buddy and everyone else who sees them on March 18. Take a hankie.

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P.S.: I saw James Wolcott's love letter when it first appeared. Thanks for linking to it, drb. It's kind of sweet. You want it to be true, for Wilcott's sake.

Yes, you do. That piece strikes so rich a chord, it cracks me up. Wolcott is married to Laura Jacobs, who writes about dance for The New Criterion, and who has published her own raptures about Ms. Part. From an essay entitled "Assoluta," much of which is about this ballerina, here's Jacobs on a Part-Gomes Swan Lake:

Part revealed the heart that’s been in lambswool these last two years. Here was an emotional Odette, passionately pitched, her narrative flights clear and momentous, and the delicacies, those trilling entrechat-passés en arrière, for instance, like water singing. When Odette first allows herself to lean back upon Siegfried’s chest, Part tendrils against him in something between rest and wrest. You never forget she’s trapped in feathers, in Rothbart’s spell. And when Odette approaches Siegfried with a full circling swoop of the arms that pulls her up to pointe, Part powers a whoosh so huge we see the danger of her love—she actually startled Gomes, overwhelmed him— the supernatural size of her, it is the conjuring of the spell blowing through her, white rush and strange heart, Wingwraith. This is imagination, wild and precise, rehearsed and released, big, bigger, biggest. This is Veronika Part, making bliss of the art once again.
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P.S.: I saw James Wolcott's love letter when it first appeared. Thanks for linking to it, drb. It's kind of sweet. You want it to be true, for Wilcott's sake.

Yes, you do. That piece strikes so rich a chord, it cracks me up. Wolcott is married to Laura Jacobs, who writes about dance for The New Criterion, and who has published her own raptures about Ms. Part. From an essay entitled "Assoluta," much of which is about this ballerina, here's Jacobs on a Part-Gomes Swan Lake:

Part revealed the heart that’s been in lambswool these last two years. Here was an emotional Odette, passionately pitched, her narrative flights clear and momentous, and the delicacies, those trilling entrechat-passés en arrière, for instance, like water singing. When Odette first allows herself to lean back upon Siegfried’s chest, Part tendrils against him in something between rest and wrest. You never forget she’s trapped in feathers, in Rothbart’s spell. And when Odette approaches Siegfried with a full circling swoop of the arms that pulls her up to pointe, Part powers a whoosh so huge we see the danger of her love—she actually startled Gomes, overwhelmed him— the supernatural size of her, it is the conjuring of the spell blowing through her, white rush and strange heart, Wingwraith. This is imagination, wild and precise, rehearsed and released, big, bigger, biggest. This is Veronika Part, making bliss of the art once again.

This is really a bit much. I have seen Part in many roles and am still looking for the experience that others have had. In my experience she seems tense, flubs steps and under performs. Is it possible that those that love her are taken with her looks, body, Russian training and facial expressions? I just don't get it

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.... I have seen Part in many roles and am still looking for the experience that others have had. In my experience she seems tense, flubs steps and under performs. Is it possible that those that love her are taken with her looks, body, Russian training and facial expressions? I just don't get it

Have you seen her O/O? In other roles my experience is very often consonant with yours.

her looks, body, Russian training and facial expressions...

When you think about it, those are not the worst of things. If you toss in musicality, the ability to sustain character, and managing most of the steps, you can have something.

Since Makarova I have seen many O/O's but very few have touched her level. Other than Part, just (young) Guillem, Nina Ballerina, Ashley Bouder, and (on her way, at least) Sara Mearns. I think Mr. B's one-acter should count for something too. Early Darci Kistler, and Maria Kowroski's last (a while ago...).

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.... I have seen Part in many roles and am still looking for the experience that others have had. In my experience she seems tense, flubs steps and under performs. Is it possible that those that love her are taken with her looks, body, Russian training and facial expressions? I just don't get it

Have you seen her O/O? In other roles my experience is very often consonant with yours.

her looks, body, Russian training and facial expressions...

Since Makarova I have seen many O/O's but very few have touched her level. Other than Part, just (young) Guillem, Nina Ballerina, Ashley Bouder, and (on her way, at least) Sara Mearns. I think Mr. B's one-acter should count for something too. Early Darci Kistler, and Maria Kowroski's last (a while ago...).

I would like to see Part in O/O because I am indeed curious. I hope to see what others see in her and I hear that is her best ballet. The statement about "managing most of the steps" bothers me, because in other ballets I see fear and hesitation from Part because she knows she won't manage all of the steps.

I am thinking more and more that this whole discussion boils down to individual tastes. I was not a fan of Makarova's Swan Lake although I loved Cynthia Gregory. I don't really go for Russian trained dancers on the whole.

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What is happening to the world this week? First, the stock markets suffer mini-collapses, and then I come home after a 12 hour work day to see that Part and Gomes have been pulled from the March 18 Detroit Swan Lake. Substituting will be Saviliev and Herrera. Saviliev also subbing for, I forget, either Corella or Gomes in the Miami Swan Lakes. Oh, Buddy, I am so sorry.

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What is happening to the world this week? First, the stock markets suffer mini-collapses, and then I come home after a 12 hour work day to see that Part and Gomes have been pulled from the March 18 Detroit Swan Lake. Substituting will be Saviliev and Herrera. Saviliev also subbing for, I forget, either Corella or Gomes in the Miami Swan Lakes. Oh, Buddy, I am so sorry.

drb noted on a different thread that the planned Sylve/Gomes performances in La Bayadère with the Dutch National Ballet didn't take place either, which would suggest that Gomes is injured.

http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...topic=24308&hl=

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What is happening to the world this week? First, the stock markets suffer mini-collapses, and then I come home after a 12 hour work day to see that Part and Gomes have been pulled from the March 18 Detroit Swan Lake. Substituting will be Saviliev and Herrera. Saviliev also subbing for, I forget, either Corella or Gomes in the Miami Swan Lakes. Oh, Buddy, I am so sorry.

Thanks for the information anyway. I saw Herrera once in Giselle and she was wonderful. I will look forward to seeing her in Detroit--but maybe, maybe....another partner for Veronika Part....last minute....maybe, maybe ?

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