What were the High Points of your 2007-2008 ballet season?

[bart]

The regular peforming season for many companies is over or almost over. Now's the time to reflect on what you likedbest about the ballet year. It could be a performance, a series of programs, a dancer in a single work or over a number of works, a group of dancers, a choreographer, a journey to see something you always wanted to see, etc., etc.. You decide. So ....

What were the High Points of your 2007-2008 ballet season?

(If you want to add a couple of Disappointments, or even Low Points, please feel free. But also be as kind as you can ???)

I'll start with a couple. For me, Number One has to be Villella's stunning revival of Jewels for Miami City Ballet. I got to see several casts and to look at it from different parts of the theater. Moving up higher made a big difference, especially in Diamonds. It's a masterpiece that grows in stature as time passes and as new companies take it on.

Biggest disappointment: ABT's Sleeping Beauty, cut and pasted, awkwardly staged, overly pastelly in color, with an indifferent Aurora, a fine Prince falling in love in a vacume, and a few smashing solists.

[Alexandra]

Great topic!

This wasn't a particularly great season, for me. I didn't see everything available -- I missed Washington Ballet's interesting Tharp/Wheeldon/Morris triple bill that was both a popular and a critical success.

Highlights were the Shades act (and only the Shades act) from the Kirov Ballet's "La Bayadere," although I also enjoyed Vishneva's and Lopotkina's performances as Nikiya. The most surprising performance for me was the New National Ballet of Tokyo (and I'm blushing to say I'll have to check that name!) in "Raymonda." For a young company, I thought they did an excellent job, and it was a pleasure to see dancers breathing life into classical style.

I'm looking forward to a lot of responses on this one -- what did you like, or not, from this season?

[4mrdncr]

Had to think (is it old age, or is it starting to blur?)...

2007:

FEB: Returning to England after a 25yr absence, and seeing the Royal Ballet at the ROH, after a major refurbishment. I saw Swan Lake and remember the dancers, but even if the performance had not been good, I still would have smiled all night. I also saw ABT at Sadler's Wells, and no they were not as good. (I reviewed both perfs for BT).

MAR: Chicago: ABT Romeo & Juliet - Corella/Reyes. A perfect seat, and a perfect performance. And I was able to do a 'good deed' for a dancer later.

APR: Seeing ABT in rehearsal at their studios, and picking up mistakes and fixes before or at the same time as the coaches--proving (to me at least) that I hadn't forgotten everything I knew about dancing. And afterwards, a chance long subway ride with an ABT dancer, and an amazing, interesting, conversation.

MET SEASON:

ABT:

"Manon" Wednesday matinee: Corella/Ferri.

What a surprise program insert (Ferri filling in for injured Xiomara), and what an amazing performance, by Corella especially. And Ferri's consequent response to it. I was sorry it wasn't duplicated on Saturday.

Ferri's retirement/ last R&J with ABT:

Memorable for SO many reasons: She has always been my favorite Juliet, but I hadn't seen her do it live in nearly 20 years, (b) was interested to see how Bolle danced, but really missed others in the role, c)and of course, so saddend I would not see her perform again.

"The Dream" performances (Cornejo's of course) and debuts.

The horrors of ABT's Sleeping Beauty, and the gleefully wicked reviews by BT and others that made me laugh. Also the fact that someone, somewhere, must have read my post, and took my advice to revise it, so by the July OCPAC peformances, Prince Desire didn't sleep in the fog for most of the vision scene, and actually used a sword to escape from/kill Carabosse, thereby no longer just a passive prince (like his sleeping princess).

NYCB:

All the times I went to see NYCB, whom I had never seen live (as they never toured to "the provinces" where I lived many long years.) And seeing Benjamin Millepied sitting across the aisle listening to my conversation with an usher. Also my grimacing thru much of R+J, and longing for MacMillan.

JULY: ABT at OCPAC, Costa Mesa CA.: I won't soon forget the radiant joy and control of Sarah Lane's debut as Aurora. Or Herman Cornejo's virtuosity. (And through sheer luck and long hours in the standby line, I got nearly the last ticket and happened to sit with S.L.'s aunt on one side, K.McKenzie on the other, and her mother in front of me. Evesdropping was most enjoyable.) It was good to be back in California again.

SEPT: London, Christopher Wheeldon's Morphoses at Sadler's Wells. Observing & analysing the lighting, setting, dancers, and choreography of Fool's Paradise. I love how CW uses symetry and space and bodies to create tableaus amidst the movement(s). Also thanks for giving me a chance to see more Forsyth live. And finally, watching the contrast in training/styles/dancing between Corella and Ansanelli in Allegro Brillante.

Oh yeah, the London weather was fine on the most important day, when I actually began a new dance adventure for 2008.

Thanks bart for being interested, and starting this thread, which helped to remind me of many enjoyable moments.

[Alexandra]

Thank you for posting in such detail, 4mrdncr. I think you could convince someone to become a ballet fan, if someone who was about to test the waters read that post! You really did have an interesting year. I can't imagine what it would be like to see the Royal Ballet after so much time. How did it look to you? Did it measure up to memories, or surpass them, or otherwise? I'm curious.

[PeggyR]

Here are my San Francisco Ballet high and low points for the 2008 season:

I've always thought I could spend the rest of my life watching an endless succession of Swan Lakes and Giselles; anything that didn't involve a romantic tutu made me more than a little nervous ( I've never forgiven 'them' for putting the SL corps in pancakes ). But now, thanks to Helgi Tomasson's excellent programming, my mind has been opened up to a variety of contemporary ballet. Instead of drooling over next season's new production of Swan Lake, I'm drooling over Russian Seasons and Jardin aux Lilas. (OK, there a little saliva running down my chin for the SL .)

As for disappointments, the biggest was Paul Taylor's 'Changes' during the New Works Festival. I've only seen snippets of his work on television; based on those bits and his reputation, I was expecting a lot more than this unimaginative fluff. I look forward to seeing something more representative of Mr. Taylor's abilities in future seasons.

[bart]

Instead of drooling over next season's new production of Swan Lake, I'm drooling over Russian Seasons and Jardin aux Lilas. (OK, there a little saliva running down my chin for the SL .)

Ah, the salivation reflex! I know it well. No matter what happens during a season, I start drooling (only emotionally, of course ) and fantasizing when I see the list of things coming up next year!

Sorry about the Paul Taylor disappointment. A number of his works seem particularly adaptable to ballet companies, but I'm not familiar with Company.

[Marc Haegeman]

High points:

- Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev in "Don Quixote"

- Carlos Acosta in "Spartacus"

- Osipova's debuts as Giselle and La Sylphide at the Bolshoi

- Ashley Bouder in the NYCB season in London

Low points: too many...

[Giannina]

High point: Marianela Nunez!

Giannina

[bart]

High point: Marianela Nunez!

Giannina, you're tantallizing us by just giving us a name. What did you see Nunez dance? It was during your London trip, wasn't it? What made her so special to you?

[cargill]

For me, one of the very highest points was Sara Mearns in anything. She was so good in both Emeralds and Diamonds, and made me cry in her Davidsbundlertanze debut. She didn't seem to copy anyone in that, which is amazing, since it has been so closely identified with Kyra Nichols in recent years, and presumably that is the only one she saw. She was much younger, and seemed more rebellious, thought that isn't the word I mean--more determined not to accept the inevitable, so that when he did go off, the final grief-stricken pose was so powerful. She is one lovely dancer.

Low points, well, the ABT Sleeping Beauty has to be one of the low points of my entire ballet going life. What an inexcusable and unnecessary mess. All anyone has to do is to follow the Petipa outline, and keep to the time periods, and you will have a decent production.

[printscess]

Fabulous topic.

The highlight for me was Oregon Ballet Theatre's "Midsummer Night's Dream and "Slaughter on 10th Ave".

I love the recent NYCB Jewels, especially Rubies. Ashley Bouder owns the roll of the short girl. I found Diamonds a little sloppy and too similar to the Snowflakes in Nutcracker in some parts. This year, Les Gentilehommes, which I went to the ballet especially to see, was hard to watch in spite of its stellar cast of men.

[SanderO]

I was thrilled to see the Kirov at City Center... a definite high and high point.

And of course taking my twin nieces to the Nut at NYCB was a thrill for all.

If memory serves me correctly didn't Gergiev do the Firebird with Ashley Bouder last year? That performance was electric.

Was it last year that the wonderful Ms Ferris performed her farewell perfomances? The one I attended was unforgettable as was a talk she gave about Shakespeare and ballet. I so miss her on stage.

ABT's Beauty was a let down, as was Vishneva's Beauty (in Motion).

But even seeing less than perfect ballet is wonderful and preferable to almost anything else I could be doing.

[bart]

Had to think (is it old age, or is it starting to blur?)...

Old age? No, no no. It's just that we come to value thinking more. And, as you mention, "remembering" is something well worth doing too.

Was it last year that the wonderful Ms Ferri's performed her farewell perfomances? The one I attended was unforgettable as was a talk she gave about Shakespeare and ballet. I so miss her on stage.

4mrdncrand SanderO, you both count Ferri as a "High Point." What a long and remarkable career. Just yesterday I came upon a reference to her dancing Marie in Mayerling at the Royal -- in 1983!

Nineteen-year-old Alessandra Ferri is the best Vetsera I have seen since the role's originator, Lynn Seymour, whom she resembles, not only physically -- in the shape of her legs and the ligh arch of her points (whare are emphasized in the choregraphy) -- but in the combination of headlong impulsiveness and implacability which makes us see Vetsera as Rudolf's dark angel.

25 years later, bringing those qualities to Manon and Juliet. A miracle.

High points:

- Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev in "Don Quixote"

- Carlos Acosta in "Spartacus"

- Osipova's debuts as Giselle and La Sylphide at the Bolshoi

- Ashley Bouder in the NYCB season in London

We're lucky to have you there writing about them and photographing. Thanks, Marc.

The highlight for me was Oregon Ballet Theatre's "Midsummer Night's Dream and "Slaughter on 10th Ave".

Dirac posted a good review of MN'sD on Links, I believe. I hear they had a super Puck.

[printscess]

Had to think (is it old age, or is it starting to blur?)...

Old age? No, no no. It's just that we come to value thinking more. And, as you mention, "remembering" is something well worth doing too.

Was it last year that the wonderful Ms Ferri's performed her farewell perfomances? The one I attended was unforgettable as was a talk she gave about Shakespeare and ballet. I so miss her on stage.

4mrdncrand SanderO, you both count Ferri as a "High Point." What a long and remarkable career. Just yesterday I came upon a reference to her dancing Marie in Mayerling at the Royal -- in 1983!

Nineteen-year-old Alessandra Ferri is the best Vetsera I have seen since the role's originator, Lynn Seymour, whom she resembles, not only physically -- in the shape of her legs and the ligh arch of her points (whare are emphasized in the choregraphy) -- but in the combination of headlong impulsiveness and implacability which makes us see Vetsera as Rudolf's dark angel.

25 years later, bringing those qualities to Manon and Juliet. A miracle.

High points:

- Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev in "Don Quixote"

- Carlos Acosta in "Spartacus"

- Osipova's debuts as Giselle and La Sylphide at the Bolshoi

- Ashley Bouder in the NYCB season in London

We're lucky to have you there writing about them and photographing. Thanks, Marc.

The highlight for me was Oregon Ballet Theatre's "Midsummer Night's Dream and "Slaughter on 10th Ave".

Dirac posted a good review of MN'sD on Links, I believe. I hear they had a super Puck.

Oh you........

[Drew]

If I include last July/August in my 2007-2008 year, then I have seen just six performances all 'season.' None of them go on my list of most memorable or truly great, though many bits and pieces linger pleasantly in memory. I especially enjoyed Wheeldon's "Rococo Variations" at NYCB last week; for me, it was like an exquisite piece of chamber music and slightly under-rated by the early reviews. I got a mere glimpse of Osipova in the Bolshoi's Corsaire last summer, but that little sticks with me along with the fabulous character dancing of the super beautiful Anna Rebetskaya -- she and Merkuriev as dancing pirates were one of the few genuine highlights of my admittedly rather thin dance-going year.

Other nice memories include one particularly stunning overhead lift in Act II of Swan Lake with Gomez and Ananiashvili, Part's stunning lines (or, rather, sculptural forms) in Act IV of Swan Lake, Teresa Reichlen's simple, sensual beauty in Martins' River of Light and, last summer, Alexandrova's assurance in the Bolshoi's Corsaire...and a chance to see Ratmansky's version of the Jardin Anime sequence--albeit on a very crowded stage.

Lowlights? Well, with the partial exception of the Spanish Dance (which had some life at the two performances I attended), the Act III character dances of ABT's Swan Lake this spring were very, very weak--even allowing for the generic weakness of American dancers in these dances generally. I thought the performances I saw were among the weakest I had seen at ABT. Just one example: the Hungarian dance ending at both performances (both!) with the lead woman turning under the arm of her partner and, despite a far from brisk tempo, seemingly bumping into him as she did so. Fortunately the costumes are very pretty. I was also dismayed by NYCB sloppiness in Interplay--Clive Barnes used words like "shoddy" to describe the same performance I saw and while that's harsh, I'd have to say fair.

[MakarovaFan]

Dvorovenko's Odile in ABT's Swan Lake last Summer.

Vishneva's Juliet at the same

My acquisition of Romeo & Juliet DVD with Maximova & Vasiliev!

[cubanmiamiboy]

Yummy topic! My ballet season was divided between 3 ballet companies, Miami City Ballet, Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami and Ballet Gamonet.

MCB

Highs:

This season was a truly Balanchine revelation for my non accustomed eyes. Villella worked hard, and the results were highly satisfying. Aside from his magnificent staging of "Jewels", i have great memories from "Bourree Fantasque", as well as "Square Dance" and "Serenade". Jeremy Cox and Jeannette Delgado are now among my new favorite dancers.

Lows:

"Aurora's Wedding". Her suffering for getting married was too obvious...

That and "Nightspot". Boooooooooring.

CCBM

Highs:

Their cubanisimo "Swan Lake" with Hayna Gutierrez. Great effort, hard working dancers, an ex Havana Prima as Odette/Odile, hops on pointe delivered like in the old days. The perfect evening. I couldn't ask for more.

Lows:

The choice of casting for their "Flames of Paris".

BG

Highs:

"Carmen", and the opportunity to see the dancing of the ex MCB Prima Ileana Gonzalez. Beautiful.

Lows:

Oh, some of their restagings...like "Pas de Deux Classique". Please, stick to the original!

[carbro]

My 2007-2008 has a month yet to go, but I have to cite the Kirov's Fokine program for three revelatory (a word not used lightly) moments.

In Le Spectre de la Rose, for the first time I realized that The Girl is the protagonist and not a mere device to justify The Specter. I was always baffled that Fokine would use so important a dancer as Karsavina for such a nothing role. It isn't a nothing role. She makes the ballet happen, and we have to see her imagination at work. The Kirov is the only staging I've seen that makes this clear.

In Chopiniana, the corps lived up to every bit of their reputation. In the last waltz, seeing them balancé, balancé, step, jeté gave me the lovely feeling of being in a boat on gently rolling waters. I've only had that feeling once on dry land, and that was at a party in the '70s, people passing . . . never mind.

And Balanchine got a whopper of a moment as curtain rose on seventeen women standing like trees in an orange orchard. I thought, here is Balanchine's company of origin, dancing an iconic Balanchine work in a Balanchine theater. I wondered what he would think. Oh, sure, he'd have "suggestions" for them, but I felt that I had witnessed the completion of a cycle -- even though I know this is not the first time they've danced Balanchine in New York. It was just the first time the full impact of it hit me. I admit, I teared up.

[bart]

Carbro, those really do seem like experiences to treasure.

In Le Spectre de la Rose, for the first time I realized that The Girl is the protagonist and not a mere device to justify The Specter.

[ ... ]

I've only had that feeling once on dry land, and that was at a party in the '70s, people passing . . . never mind.

[ ... ]

And Balanchine got a whopper of a moment as curtain rose on seventeen women standing like trees in an orange orchard. I thought, here is Balanchine's company of origin, dancing an iconic Balanchine work in a Balanchine theater. [ ... ] It was just the first time the full impact of it hit me. I admit, I teared up.

It's the last I identify with 100%. When the curtain rose on the same ballet at MCB this season, I was stunned by how much I had missed this image. Since Serenade was the first step (but what a step!) in Balanchine's American career, I also began to tear up, with gratitude. I sank back a bit into my seat in the darkness and knew that all was well in the world, no mater what we think.

[cygneblanc]

High points

The Corsaire by the Bolshoi

POB's school performance

ENB's Swan Lake

Sylvie Guillem's sacred monsters

Low points

POB's Nutcracker

POB's triple bill Noureev/Balanchine/Forsythe

Hamburg Ballet the Death of Venicce

[SandyMcKean]

If you are a PNB fan, this entire year has to be a gargantuan highlight.

This company took a quantum leap this year from extremely good, to beyond what anyone imagined. The change in this company since the mid-season Romeo and Juliet (Maillot) program has been nothing less than astounding. I give full credit to Peter Boal for his leadership, his belief in his dancers, his willingness to take risks, his use of his ballet world connections, and most of all, the inspiration he produced in the dancers and in the audience that there were still higher levels yet to be reached.

Ballet in Seattle is exquisitely exciting right now. You could have cut it with a knife in the packed house at last night's special one-time encore performance that closed this most remarkable season.

[sandik]

My 2007-2008 has a month yet to go, but I have to cite the Kirov's Fokine program for three revelatory (a word not used lightly) moments.

In Le Spectre de la Rose, for the first time I realized that The Girl is the protagonist and not a mere device to justify The Specter. I was always baffled that Fokine would use so important a dancer as Karsavina for such a nothing role. It isn't a nothing role. She makes the ballet happen, and we have to see her imagination at work. The Kirov is the only staging I've seen that makes this clear.

Ah, you've made me very curious to see this production -- I've had similar questions about the balance of power in this ballet. I've always heard that Karsavina was an extremely intelligent dancer, and I wondered about her interpretation of the Young Girl.

To answer the question for this section, though, I think the most stunning ballet event I've been to this year was the "Balanchine's Petipa" lecture-demonstration at PNB last autumn. Doug Fullington (who appears on this site from time to time) did a wonderful job pairing excerpts from the Balanchine repertory with materials from Petipa that Balanchine knew from his youth in Russia and that seem to be influential to his development. I don't have the program details at hand, but it was a revelatory experience for me.

[Quiggin]

[longish]

For me it was a conservative and flat year in San Francisco, temperamentally on my part perhaps as much as what I saw--with the San Francisco Ballet at Civic Center and Miami at Zellerbach.

My thoughts were rebellious on the night I saw the Miami. I liked Sinatra Songs but focused on how much Guerra looked looked so young and like the subject of a Julio Galan painting. And Deanna Seay with her long waist looked like a figure from a Paula Rega painting (in turn out of Balthus). She always possesses the stage in a quiet and intense way; I never can look away from her. “In the Upper Room” was cruel and relentless, and “Agon” didn’t quite gel for me though Jeremy Cox and later a dancer who looked like Richard Widmark were very magnetic; you couldn’t quite figure Jeremy Cox’s game. “Agon” needs to look like a jumble of Fernand Leger elements, all cylinders and cones, with everything depending on the upper thigh, as if everything were being done from just there. So "Agon" didn't happen as sharply as it could have been, the dancers didn’t make all of it they could have or have done so on other nights, but it was very good.

Sarah Van Patten’s retelling of “Diamonds” was a highlight of the SF Ballet season but the setting by the rest of the company was a bit bland. It made an odd and samey pairing with the difficult Divertimento #15 as the only Balanchines of the season. (I always want the mid section of Divertimento to look more vulgar and burlesquey, as if Rodin’s Iris figures were being carried forward by stiff archaic Greek figures; the old PBS tape was more like that.)

Joan Boada’s sense of timing is always miraculous even when the sleeve of his jacket doesn’t come off as it almost didn’t in Nutcracker.

The New Works seemed somewhat conservative to me, as if they were trying to reaffirm and consolidate the thin post-modernist and neo modernism gains of the last 25 years. “Hedda Gabler” was a something of a hit despite its overcooked Masterpiece Theater existentialism, with a touch of Liebeslieder, simply because you could to see a couple at a time on stage. Other pieces, such as Margaret Jenkins potentially modest work, were smoothered in production value. I liked the Paul Taylor work because it was a simple conceit, full of Petrushka dolls from the sixties, each with her or his own pecularly rubbery movement.

The Wheeldon piece was snippy and vinegary, with lots of quick movements in twos and twos and twos against fours The men carried the women, frozen in X shapes, offstage overhead, like lawn furniture or barcelona chairs. There were cut and paste flashbacks to “Apollo” and “Orpheus,” which I found witty and slightly disconcerting. At one moment the woman was fluttering back on pointe as she would in “Sonnabula” while the man was on all fours doing a round of Bart Cook Violin Concerto barrel rolls. It ended against a 4 Ts tomato red backgound.

* * *

There was a heavy sense of loss of several very important dancers this year--a question to this effect was put to Helgi Tomasson at a Q & A session--that the company hasn’t really adjusted to. Without them, there seems to be a shift to a more willowy and supple company style, brilliantly acrobatic and well finished, hands held perfectly when leaving the stage; but less astringent, articulate and cubistic and interpretatively less chance-taking than it seemed before.

[bart]

Good to h ear from San Francisco! Quiggin, thanks also for your impressions of Miami. It's always very useful to see things dancers and programs through eyes not over-familiar with a company you yourself know very well. Off topic: that's another argument why, in an ideal world, companies would tour a lot more often.

To answer the question for this section, though, I think the most stunning ballet event I've been to this year was the "Balanchine's Petipa" lecture-demonstration at PNB last autumn. Doug Fullington (who appears on this site from time to time) did a wonderful job pairing excerpts from the Balanchine repertory with materials from Petipa that Balanchine knew from his youth in Russia and that seem to be influential to his development. I don't have the program details at hand, but it was a revelatory experience for me.

This is something I'd really consider flying across the continent to see. Buckle's biography of Balanchine quotes Dalinova asking him why he didn't want to revive Paquita (c. WWII):

Because if we do Paquita everybody will see what I stole for Ballet Imperial.

Also, to Todd Bolender:

I steal a lot from Petipa.

And Balanchine, referring to a part of Cortege hongrois in ending with 4 boys doing tours en l'air:

That is pure Petipa. It is marvelous. So I used it. The rest of the ballet is me, but that is Petipa.

Sandik, will this be demonstration be shown or published anywhere? Or your or others's descriptions of it?

[SandyMcKean]

Sandik, will this be demonstration be shown or published anywhere?

I'm not quite the right Sandi, but I saw this presentation too. It was very informal and presented in a studio with live dancers in warmups. As the other Sandi says, it was fascinating. sandik did a write up on this for DanceView Times (a snippet and info can be seen here).

I can't imagine it will be done again, or somehow "captured". This 2008 demonstration program came up in a Q&A session just a week or so ago. Peter Boal said nothing about "capturing" it, but he did mention that Doug Fullington is working on another session like this for 2009. Doug has the ability to "read" Stepanov notation, and he has mentioned that he likes to explore "lost" dances as he did for the 2008 demonstration sandik mentions; so he might end up doing something along those lines again for 2009. It looks like he is going to prepare something.

So bart, come on out in 2009 to see Doug's next installment . The Seattle BT contingent will buy you a beer or two!