17 replies to this topic

[California]

Casting has been announced for ABT's Sleeping Beauty July 15-18, 2010 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion:

http://latimesblogs....ing-beauty.html

July 15: Gillian Murphy and Jose Manuel Carreño
July 16: Paloma Herrera and David Hallberg
July 17 matinee: Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Beloserkovsky
July 17 evening: Xiomara Reyes and Herman Cornejo
July 18: Veronika Part and Marcelo Gomes

[ksk04]

Thrilled to see Veronika and Marcelo get an outing together! Will be there with a huge grin for them (and with sunglasses to tone down the garish costumes/sets)

[vipa]

Sorry that Sarah Lane isn't getting a shot at it.  Last year her California performance was well reviewed and I loved her NY performance.  

I do understand that there are really too few performances to go around and even principals have limited opportunities.  It would be great if each could have many more chances in a role to really develop.

[Rosa]

Gomes replaces Carreño on the 15th, and Stearns will partner Part on the 18th. *sigh*

[ksk04]

Rosa, on 04 July 2010 - 01:16 PM, said:

Gomes replaces Carreño on the 15th, and Stearns will partner Part on the 18th. *sigh*

What luck.   I've been dying to see Gomes and Part together.

[ksk04]

More complete casting from the Dorothy Chandler site:

July 15         Gillian Murphy/Marcelo Gomes/Michele Wiles/Nancy Raffa
July 16         Paloma Herrera/David Hallberg/Maria Riccetto/Nancy Raffa
July 17M Irina Dvorovenko/Maxim Beloserkovsky/Stella Abrera/Maria Bystrova
July 17E Xiomara Reyes/Herman Cornejo/Maria Riccetto/Nancy Raffa
July 18         Veronika Part/Cory Stearns/Michele Wiles/Maria Bystrova


An email from ABT today also stated Simkin is on for Bluebird opening night.

The Sat mat is looking awfully tempting to see Stella!

[aurora]

Nice that Michelle Wiles is doing lilac to Veronika's Aurora--I think one needs a stronger Lilac with Part than Stella, who was beautiful but just not authoritative enough to compare to Part.

[strikermcgee]

LA Times has a review of opening night.

http://latimesblogs....sic-center.html

[ksk04]

strikermcgee, on 17 July 2010 - 07:37 AM, said:

LA Times has a review of opening night.

http://latimesblogs....sic-center.html

Yikes. Not surprised. Though this production has been seen in SoCal at least twice before, we get that it's not ideal, it's been talked about in reviews ad nauseum - talk about it for a paragraph and move on.  This whole "the dancers are clearly dancing not at their best because they hate the production" thing is really weird angle to take a review.

Regarding the pictures in the article: Can't they pick pictures where people are not coming down out of a jump (Gillian) or half the line of fairies is coming off pointe? If these were the best of the bunch, I guess I understand, but if you photograph dance you have to know how much these suck.

[bingham]

Terrible pictures. Surely, there are professional dance photographers in La-la land.

[richard53dog]

bingham, on 17 July 2010 - 12:49 PM, said:

Terrible pictures. Surely, there are professional dance photographers in La-la land.

The pictures are really mediocre, aren't they? But then I thought the review was pretty uninteresting, so maybe the photos and text are of a piece.

[GianninaM]

I thought the LATimes review was right-on, espcially about the costumes.  You just go and see Sleeping Beauty; period.


Giannina

[PeggyR]

I especially enjoyed this comment about Gomes:

Quote

The comfortable pro made small work of his ménage of leaps...

[emphasis added]

No copy editors?

[Arizona Native]

We went last night, seeing the Hallberg/Herrera pairing.  Acknowledging the faults of the production, there was still much to enjoy. Not least of the pleasures was Hee Seo as the Princess Florine.  We assumed she was a principal and were floored to learn she is a soloist, and that, as of a mere two weeks ago.

[ksk04]

Saw the Part/Stearns/Wiles cast on Sunday.  Veronika was wonderful, the Vision scene was probably the best I've seen.  She did seem to be have problem with her jumps, it seemed like something was bothering her and she didn't want to risk anything by taking a landing badly.  She won the entire audience over during the first section of balances in the Rose Adagio...it looked like she was a little shaky and then on the last attitude she stretched out into a balance that lasted forever with a giant grin on her face. Her Act I variation was beautiful, also.

I continue to wonder about Michele Wiles. Technically she's obviously great and when I saw her in Etudes two years ago she burned up the stage, but she is so uninteresting--she barely looked at the audience- and was upstaged personality wise by most of the other fairies/female soloists (Copeland, Kajiya, Underwood, Boone, and especially Maria Ricetto as Princess Florine-she just keeps getting better and better). Hee Seo was completely wasted in this performance as a Lilac Fairy Attendant- when does that Soloist contract kick in?

Stearns was fine, he danced well with the other men in the hunt scene. Completely botched the fish dives, though - he used both arms to turn and dip Veronika, and even with doing that couldn't release his back arm to showcase the position during the swell of music. Just looked awful. I don't know if he had to do this with other dancers or if Veronika is just too tall for him, but it would have been better to just do the pirouette and dip combo that Russian companies do.