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MCB Program II


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Cristian, I like your use of the words "longer, more ample" to describe Kronenberg's stride. I do remember this from 5 years ago.

We're in total agreement about Manning ("the best Coquette -- a super attractive woman who can defnitely turn heads at any party, on or off stage")

I definitely hope to see the Estys. And, following Jack's review, Haiyan Wu, a dancer I have have sometimes had trouble appreciating.

From the three casts I saw in the D&A PDD, I also hope you get the chance to see Rebello in the part. His was the closer approach to the Soviet-type style so needed here-(Actaeon's variation not having been too changed by the choreographer from the standard one). The reworking of Vaganova for the female solo doesn't allow for a lot, and when the old choreography is flashing in your mind as this blander version goes on-(same with the coda)...well, not a good thing.
Which version ( or mixture ) was used in the Feijoo/Acosta pdd we've both seen? The woman's part, as danced by Feijoo at least, was unforgettable, truly great. As were the alternations in the choreography between sharp lines (Diana the Hutntress) and beautifully floating port-de-bras that would not have been out of place in Emeralds.
watch for Patricia Delgado and her big hat in the Rondo. Delicious. :wub:
Will do so. Tanaquil Le Clerecq's boots (I mean, toe shoes) are hard to fill, but it's a great part..
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From the three casts I saw in the D&A PDD, I also hope you get the chance to see Rebello in the part. His was the closer approach to the Soviet-type style so needed here-(Actaeon's variation not having been too changed by the choreographer from the standard one). The reworking of Vaganova for the female solo doesn't allow for a lot, and when the old choreography is flashing in your mind as this blander version goes on-(same with the coda)...well, not a good thing.
Which version ( or mixture ) was used in the Feijoo/Acosta pdd we've both seen? The woman's part, as danced by Feijoo at least, was unforgettable, truly great. As were the alternations in the choreography between sharp lines (Diana the Hutntress) and beautifully floating port-de-bras that would not have been out of place in Emeralds.

bart, that's Alonso's staging after Vaganova. (Mme introduces a little bit of mime in the opening sequence, when Diana asks Actaeon "What are you doing here...?" and he answers..."I'm here to hunt..." and then Diana sort of makes a gesture as if saying "Unacceptable. Stop right there...I've had enough of you" -(feeling that this is her personal domain, you know...? :wink: ). There's also the famous Cuban coda, where Diana comes center stage in a diagonal of 35 traveling fouettes-(counting the double pirouettes in between)-while throwing arrows which she takes from her back, to then change spots and face the audience to finish ON POINTE after a sequence of triple pirouettes. ( :smilie_mondieu: ). Talk about a complicated combination !. Not even Viengsay Valdes has done it as Lorna did, which such attack and cleanness.

In any case, here's the divine Lorna and her best Actaeon, the great Acosta. :clapping:

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I am in awe. The bravura bits like those complex jumps the young Acosta does are unbelievably strong and light, but I especially love the smaller and more subtle gestures and movements which both dancers manage to include amid all the technical difficulties.

I know it's unfair to do any comparisons between this and the efforts of other dancers, from American companies for example, who might spend relatively little time preparing for this kind of repertory. I wish, though, that AD's like Villella would apologize less for including "warhorses" on the program and, instead, help the audience understand that pdd's like this are a great way to learn to appreciate the multiple connections between great technique and great artistry. If you do it right.

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I wish, though, that AD's like Villella would apologize less for including "warhorses" on the program and, instead, help the audience understand that pdd's like this are a great way to learn to appreciate the multiple connections between great technique and great artistry. If you do it right.

What I find is that it is not good nor fair that dancers AND AUDIENCES are not having enough exposure to the very grounds of ballet-(like some rare to find in Miami classic/romantic works and the bravura PDD's). Seay retired and I feel sorry that some great roles were missing from her very last years onstage...roles that could have suited her experienced understanding of the phrasing, which made up for the absences that naturally come toward the end of an active career. Soon enough Catoya will probably follow, and on and on and on...

Meanwhile, Jeanette and Patricia are more than READY for the Odiles and Medoras and the real Dianas...for the endless spinning and pyrotechnics. Will they have the chance to show their technique...? Will Catoya ever be able to put on a romantic tutu and float to Glazunov' orchestration of Chopin and show that there's some beautiful stuff to show even when triples pirouettes can't be achieved any longer...? Will my client ever get the chance to READ that D&A is a Soviet reworked left over of a XIX Century Imperial Petipa...?

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Not to ignore this important discussion, but I want to drop into the thread someplace some of the answers the Villellas (father and daughter) gave to the questions they took after their pre-performance remarks in the Broward CPA last weekend, even if they're not directly in line with the discussion. From my notes, then:

Edward, January 14: I know Twyla Tharp, though she's not very social. She's up at 6, works out for two hours - she has a studio in her home, choreographs all day, has dinner about 5:30. She's in bed by 8. "It's all about the work," she says. [This was in his prepared remarks, FWIW.]

How was it working with Balanchine? For Apollo, I learned it, and I showed it to him. He said, No, dear. Not Apollo. No poetry. Metaphors. Abstract. He - in his sixties! - showed me. Aha! For Prodigal Son, we had 1-1/2 hours together; never saw him again.

Crista, January 15: Edward Villella teaches company class every day at 10... The job of the ballet mistress is to run rehearsals. After a ballet mistress like me gets [the ballets] "on their feet," he comes in and coaches, especially if a role was made on him, then he coaches more.

I studied directing and Shakespeare, and I worked with Christopher Plummer.

I take class, but I don't perform.

It's important to my Dad that dancers come first as human beings.

We have a good relationship with a school in Brazil. The daughter [Nathalia Arja] of the woman who runs it is in Diana and Actaeon tonight.

"Black Swan" is a thriller, with ballet. It over-exaggerates, leaves you shook up. It's too extreme. Neuroses exist, but not so extreme.

Edward, January 16: [in his pre-performance remarks] We have a wonderful ballerina, Mary Carmen Catoya, who had a terrible, terrible injury last season. She needed a second surgery. She's a very determined lady. She did a few Nutcrackers, but I wouldn't program [Diana and Actaeon] unless I was sure she could do it, although we have three casts for it.

Alex Wong requested a leave of absence to do a TV show, "So You Think You Can Dance?" I told him they may not know how to take care of you, you won't have daily class - and he tore his Achilles tendon. (Gasps and moans etc. in the audience) It'll take a year before he can see whether he will dance again.

"Black Swan" should not have been put in the world of classical ballet. It's distortion, complete distortion. It would have been better if it had another theme. It's ridiculous, it's not reality. The guy who made it said he studied George Balanchine. I said, I worked with George Balanchine. It wasn't like that.

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Thanks to brokenwing for reminding us that MCB now posts casts lists. They list casts for only venue at a time, but for all the dates at that venue.

All you have to do is go to the MCB website/ click "Performances"/ scroll down to the venue/ click the date of the performance ... and VOILA !!!

I'm attending the performances at the Kravis Center, West Palm Beach.

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I was especially interested in the glimpse this gave of the various casting choices for Sonnambula:

Friday evening, 1/28: Callie Manning (Coquette); Isanusi Garcia-Rodriguez (Baron); Carlos Guerra (Poet); Jennifer Kronenberg (Sleepwalker)

Sat. matinee: Amanda Weingarten, Garcia-Rodriguez; Yann Trividic; Patricia Delgado

Sat. evening: Tricia Albertson, Didier Bramaz, Reyneris Reyes, Jennifer Lauren

Sun. matinee: Same as Sat matinee.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Diana and Actaeon: 3 different casts: Mary Carmen Catoya/ Kleber Rebello (Friday evening; Sunday matinee) -- Katia Carranza/ Renato Penteado (Sat. matinee) -- Nathalia Arja/ Renan Cerdeiro (Sat. evening)

___________________________________________________________________________________

There are two different casts for Baker's Dozen, one for the evenings, one for the matinees. Principal Haiyan Wu, though not dancing the Sleepwalker here, is in the evening cast for the Tharp.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Interesting casting for Western Symphony includes:

Katia Carranza is back, from Mexico, dancing two Adagios -- one with Renan Cerdeiro (Friday evening) and one with Didier Bramaz (Saturday evening). Mary Carmen Catoya is dancing the Second Movement, Adagio, with Reyneris.Reyes, at the Saturday matinee. Sara Esty gets to dance the First Movement, Allegro, with Cerdeiro (Friday evening) There's also a welcome chance to see corps members Zoe Zien and Stephen Satterfield in the Third Movement, Scherzo ( Sunday matinee).

The 4th movement, Rondo, is shared by Kronenberg/Guerra (both matinees) and Patricia Delgado/ Trividic (both evening performances.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Bad news from the casting front: Jeanette Delgado is still out.

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The list casts for only venue at a time, but for all the dates at that venue.

Indeed, the casting post consists of images exactly matching what's printed on the two sides of the cast sheets handed out at the performances. It probably takes somebody a couple of keystrokes. Which reminds me: At Broward, the ushers will not hand out the casting before Villella's talk, even though stacks of them are handy; we do get the program books as we come in, though. As soon as Edward (or Crista, sometimes) finishes, we get the casting sheets. Is that also the custom at Kravis, bart? If so, do any of the ushers hint at reasons for the practice?

It seems odd, and it's not always been my experience. I used to take notes on the sheets when we got them as we entered for the talk, but now I carry in sheets of scratch paper for that. You don't suppose someone objects to my note-taking and posting, do you? All they have to say is, please don't post what I say on the Internet! I'd still like to note (either) Villella's remarks for the insights they provide. Sometimes, someone asks whether there's any plan to publish the remarks. That shows I'm not the only one who values them.

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At Broward, the ushers will not hand out the casting before Villella's talk, even though stacks of them are handy; we do get the program books as we come in, though. As soon as Edward (or Crista, sometimes) finishes, we get the casting sheets. Is that also the custom at Kravis, bart? If so, do any of the ushers hint at reasons for the practice?

At the Kravis they are supposed to insert them before the talk. Most do, but some did not last season, for their own convenience, leading to complaints.

This season there's been a shakeup in the volunteeer usher program at the Kravis. Some had been there for a long, long time and had given up the parts of the job that they didn't like or had physical difficulty accomplishing. Some ushers have retired and others have replaced them. So far, it's been a big improvement.

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Some quick impressions based on the West Palm Beach (Kravis Center) performances:

1) One of the best balanced programs they've done. Especially in terms of interest and variety for the audience. The Kravis audiences can be a little "dead" at times, but not during Program II.

2) Sonnambula: A huge improvement over 2005, when they last danced this. The corps de ballet (supplemented by apprentices) was the hero/heroine here. They handled the complex patterns and sophisticated footwork as though they had been born to this style-- beautiful epaulement, use of arms and gloved hands, exaggerated but graceful courtliness towards one another. Their reactions to the rather shocking incidents of the ballet were beautifully performed, each corps member an individual, but all sharing the stylized manner of the period. My eyes were drawn especially to to Amanda Weingarten and Bradley Dunlap. One would think, had been dancing roles like these for their entire lives.

The most impressive cast, for me, was Sunday matinee. Jennifer Kronenberg, stepping in for an injured Patricia Delgado, danced with Yann Trividic instead of her usual partner, her husband Carlos Guerra. Trividic is a perfect poet. Tall, handsome, able to convey Romantic passion through the intensity and amplitude of dance movement. He seemed to energize Kronenberg and give new life to a role she has often danced.

I should add that Trividic does seem to have this effect on all his partners. MCB has lacked a dramatic male star for much too long. Bringing Trividic back from France was one of the smartest moves the Company has made this season..

Getting back to Sonnambula, Trividic's sudden, unexpected entrance into the party scene produces emotions. The dancer has to make this plausible just by standing there. Trividic does this. You can understand the Baron's immediate disquiet. You can't miss the effect on the stunned Coquette --an excellent Amanda Weingarten. The Poet and this Coquette clearly have a History. Their eyes lock from across the stage. For the first time in any Sonnambula performance, I could feel the underlying passions in a way that made the rest of what happens between poet and Coquette make sense -- their whispered conversation during the divertissements; the strange fusion of formality and eroticism in their pas de deux. This is a necessary setup for the Coquette's act of betrayal just before the end.

Kronenberg is a superb Sleepwalker. But never so haunting as in this performance with Trividic. I was also, although differently, very impressed by Jennifer Lauren, a new soloist, also dancing opposite Trividic.

I have made up my own back story for each performance. Kronenberg is the Baron's wife, driven mad by her husband's coldness and infidelity and now virtually imprisoned in the tower For the Baron (a dark, dangerous Isanusi Garcia-Rodriquez), this creature is a possession, a work of art perhaps, that he refuses to share with anyone. His sense of honor is bound up in this, which explains his act of violence near the end. Lauren, on the other hand, might be a the Baron's unfortunate daughter. For reasons unknown to us, she has slipped into madness . Her father might be motivated by the need to protect, not the need to possess. Lauren is a physically lighter dancer than Kronenberg. Her bourrees are quicker than Kronenberg's -- and her manner more feverish, insecure. She really does rush towards the brink of the stage as Allegra Kent did.

Back to Trividic. His fascination with the Sleepwalker is as instantaneous and intense as his earlier fascination with the Coquette. But it is deeper, and develops further. Carlos Guerra has always given more of a playful tone to the Poet's various manipulations of the Sleepwalker (raising her to point, spinning her, making her step over his extended leg). There are elements of fraternity boy in this, and I have never liked it much.

Trividic's performance, on the other hand, is Romantic with a Big "R.". This is expressed through eyes and movement: larger, more considered and expansive, gestures and steps. At one point in the strange pas de deux with the Sleepwalker, the Poet creates a circle out of his overhead arms. Turning his back to her, he lowers the circle over her head, moving it down her body and gradually descending into a backbend and sinking to the floor. Trividic makes this unforgettable. The arch of his back is extreme. And, something I've never seen before, his sinking to the floor becomes a kind of de-flation, a surrender that fits the conclusion of the music perfectly.

Sonnambula -- when danced with style and conviction as it was on Sunday -- can be a powerful theatrical experience. When it works, you find yourself identifying with the corps of party-goers who watch, stunned, as the candle flame floating up the tower staircase, moving along the terrace, and rising up in the sky. Wow!

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A few more notes on the rest of the program:

Baker's Dozen: I love this piece and was glad to have the chance to see two casts. The evening performances had the first cast and were the most balletic, the most beautifully danced, elegant, gliding, with effortless switches of direction. The second cast was younger, "rougher," with more swing, in a very engaging way, and just as enjoyable. Both casts understood the humor and had the wit NOT to overdo it.

MCB is a collegial ballet company, so personalities were not emphasized. I tend tor remember the most defined characters: Callie Manning as someone having her share of social and romantic difficulties; Jennifer Kronenberg (Rebecca King in the second cast) who as her own agenda and doesn't seem capable of sticking with the ensemble; Carlos Guerra and Isanusi Garcia-Rodriguez, each of whom gets to take center stage on his own to do a little bit of playful sexiness.

Principals Haiyan Wu and Reyneris Reyes were listed in the first cast list but were replaced, without an announcement.. Neither has danced much this season, for some reason or other.

Francisco Renno's piano music was elegantly played, but a bit too restrained anda classical, as if Willie Smith had spent most of his career at the Plaza, or Esterhaza, instead of uptown New York clubs. A little more swing might have helped.

The local "society" newspaper -- the Palm Beach Daily News, a.k.a. "the shiny sheet" -- had a negative review. the writer, a freelancer, found the Tharp dated and lamented MCB's failure to reach out to newer more up to date choreography. Fortunately, few people outside Palm Beach itself bother to read the shiny sheet or even know of its existence. Anyone who thinks Baker's Dozen is dated is coming from a very strange place -- or a very ignorant place -- which I cannot even begin to fathom. Why do these people agree to review art forms (ballet -- or opera -- or serious theater) if they don't respect or understand the core repertoire? And why do they never take the trouble to tell us what kind of choreography they would prefer a major dance/opera/theater company to perform. Or what the audience might think about it.

Western Symphony. Cristian, Jack and others have said it all. it's a crowd-pleaser. More important, it gives us a chance to see just how fast (but accurate) and light-on-their-feet the MCB dancers, from principals to apprentices, have become. Kronenberg and Guerra own the First Movement. But my favorite is the Second Movement ("Adagio"), in which a dreamy cowpoke meets an assertive but illusive ballerina. Katia Carranza repeats her role from the last time around, and she's a charmer. As the cowpokes, Didier Bramaz had amazing elegance and a sweet gentlements. Renan Cerdeiro played it a bit broader (strumming his hat dramatically as he serenades the girl) but was equally effective.

MCB performs the Third Movement ("Scherzo") which was removed from the ballet a few years after the premiere. Tricia Albertson/ Kleber Rebello in one cast, and Zoe Zien/ Stephen Satterfield in the other, did a great job keeping up with precision. My feeling, however, is that this movement is full of fast action that doesn't anywhere. Speed for its own sake. A compensation is the work for the 4-woman corps. Callie Manning, Sara Esty/Zoe Zien, Leigh-Ann Esty, and Ashley Knox, standing out in emerald green, were impressive.

On Saturday night, Patricia Delgado -- dancing with Yann Trividic -- had an injury towards the beginning of the Finale. She left the stage. Then one of those Show Biz miracles occurred: Kronenberg took over the remainder of her part; Manning (dancing a corps role) stepped in to replace Kronenberg. Everyone had big, exhilerated smiles. The complex patterns of dancers in rows, the rapid batterie, those famous concluding pirouettes: all took place as though nothing painful had occurred. It was different, I'm sure, when the curtain calls were over. But what the audience saw was just what Balanchine could have wished for.

Get well soon, Patricia. Cranko's Romeo and Juliets, with Yann Trividic I hope, awaits you. :flowers:

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Glad to hear about Trividic's Poet, bart! Sorry I missed it. But - as we're going to hear - That's Life! Sorry to hear about Patricia D.'s injury. Yikes!

In Broward, I also felt Renno was a bit "classical" and feared in the numbers played before the curtain the shifting rhythms might actually throw him, surprisingly. But the later ones, once the curtain was up and the dancing began, perhaps ones he had played much more as rehearsal pianist, went better. And the sound he gets from his instrument is always beautiful. Makes you want to hear a concert or a recital.

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