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Gottlieb on ABT and NYCB


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Victoria, the POB often performs at two venues at the same time (and often with works requiring a large corps de ballet): for example, recently one part of the company performed Neumeier's "A midsummer night's dream" at the Opera Garnier, while another part performed Nureyev's "Romeo and Juliet" at the Opera Bastille (some soloists and principals performed in both). I don't know if they perform more regularly than ABT, but the number of performances every year is quite large (and I think it has increased in the last few years- though it might be a bit lower next season).

Actually having two programs at the same time in Bastille and Garnier (or one in Paris and one on tour elsewhere) is convenient for people like me who don't live in Paris and just stay there from time to time, but it has raised more and more criticisms among the dancers and people interested in the company: at the end of the season, the injury rate is getting quite high, the casts are likely to be modified about every day, and it is detrimental to the quality of the performances, especially as understudies often lack rehearsal time and coaching- but well, it seems that it's a problem with about every company!

Also some dancers of the company don't dance much, especially among the coryphees or quadrilles. But I don't know at all if it is because they are injured or in bad shape, or if the direction doesn't like them, or something else...

The problem of "too many casts for one ballet" exists at the Paris Opera too- however, sometimes the number of casts has to be reduced very much because of all the dancers who are injured and can't perform (for example there were supposed to be 5 Juliets recently, but two of them- Guillem and Guerin- couldn't perform and finding suitable casts was not easy, as one of the other ones (Gaida) was going to have her farewell performance and another one (Maurin) was performing also in Neumeier's work). And the number of principals has decreased quite a lot in recent years (many retirements and not many new ones) so perhaps the opposite problem is more likely to take place...

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Estelle,

Do some POB dancers tend to concentrate or perform more frequently and specialize in contemporary roles because of the number of dancers, performances, and 2 different venues? I wonder how that part of the system works...

Thanks in advance.

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Terry, it seems to me that in general all dancers have a rather large repertory (and also most of the contemporary works which are performed have smaller casts than classics a la "Swan Lake", so not so many quadrilles perform in them). I don't think that there is a "contemporary subcompany"... But I don't see the company so often, so perhaps you should ask people who attend more performances.

However, some dancers are cast more often than others in contemporary roles, but I don't know if it is their choice or if it is the direction's choice. For example the quadrille Peggy Grelat danced a lot of contemporary roles- but now she has left the company and has joined Forsythe's Frankfurt Ballet. Delphine Baey has been cast quite a lot in contemporary works (Forsythe, Bagouet, Carlson, Gallotta...) but as far as I know it's not a personal choice, but simply the direction prefers to cast her in such roles (perhaps partly because she's very tall and sometimes she's lacking tall enough partners for classical roles).

But we're getting a bit off-topic now...

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