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SFB 2014: Shoshtakovich Trilogy


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Casting is up for the entire run. Plenty of Messmer and Froustey!

I am a little curious about the casts for April 5: exactly the same for the 2:00 and 8:00 performances. I've got tickets to both because it seemed likely that there would be at least a few differences between casts on the same day. Odd.

SHOSTAKOVICH TRILOGY

Choreographer: Alexei Ratmansky
Composer: Dmitri Shoshtakovich

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2—7:30PM—OPENING NIGHT

Symphony #9

Sarah Van Patten*, Carlos Quenedit*
Simone Messmer, James Sofranko*
Taras Domitro*

INTERMISSION

Chamber Symphony

Davit Karapetyan*
Sasha De Sola*, Mathilde Froustey*, Lorena Feijoo*

INTERMISSION

Piano Concerto #1

Yuan Yuan Tan*, Damian Smith*
Maria Kochetkova*, Vitor Luiz*

THURSDAY, APRIL 3—8:00PM

Symphony #9

Sarah Van Patten, Carlos Quenedit
Simone Messmer, James Sofranko
Taras Domitr

INTERMISSION

Chamber Symphony

Davit Karapetyan
Sasha De Sola, Mathilde Froustey, Lorena Feijoo

INTERMISSION

Piano Concerto #1

Yuan Yuan Tan, Damian Smith
Maria Kochetkova, Vitor Luiz

SATURDAY, APRIL 5—2:00PM

Symphony #9

Sarah Van Patten, Carlos Quenedit
Simone Messmer, James Sofranko
Taras Domitro

INTERMISSION

Chamber Symphony

Davit Karapetyan
Sasha De Sola, Mathilde Froustey, Lorena Feijoo

INTERMISSION

Piano Concerto #1

Yuan Yuan Tan, Damian Smith
Maria Kochetkova, Vitor Luiz

SATURDAY, APRIL 5—8:00PM

Symphony #9

Sarah Van Patten, Carlos Quenedit
Simone Messmer, James Sofranko
Taras Domitro

INTERMISSION

Chamber Symphony

Davit Karapetyan
Sasha De Sola, Mathilde Froustey, Lorena Feijoo

INTERMISSION

Piano Concerto #1

Yuan Yuan Tan, Damian Smith
Maria Kochetkova, Vitor Luiz

TUESDAY, APRIL 8—8:00PM

Symphony #9

Mathilde Froustey*, Luke Ingham*
Lorena Feijoo*, Pascal Molat*
Hansuke Yamamoto*

INTERMISSION

Chamber Symphony

Jaime Garcia Castilla*
Dores Andre*, Simone Messmer*, Sarah Van Patten*

INTERMISSION

Piano Concerto #1

Sofiane Sylve*, Tiit Helimets*
Frances Chung*, Joan Boada*

FRIDAY, APRIL 11—8:00PM

Symphony #9

Mathilde Froustey, Luke Ingham
Lorena Feijoo, Pascal Molat
Hansuke Yamamoto

INTERMISSION

Chamber Symphony

Jaime Garcia Castilla
Dores Andre, Simone Messmer, Sarah Van Patten

INTERMISSION

Piano Concerto #1

Sofiane Sylve, Tiit Helimets
Frances Chung, Joan Boada

SUNDAY, APRIL 13—2:00PM

Symphony #9

Mathilde Froustey, Luke Ingham
Lorena Feijoo, Pascal Molat
Hansuke Yamamoto

INTERMISSION

Chamber Symphony

Jaime Garcia Castilla
Dores Andre, Simone Messmer, Sarah Van Patten

INTERMISSION

Piano Concerto #1

Sofiane Sylve, Tiit Helimets
Frances Chung, Joan Boada

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Messmer is listed for the same role in Symphony 9 tha tshe had at ABT. She was never in Chamber Symphony at ABT.

The trilogy was only perfomed 4 times at ABT during the Spring 2013 season. ABT then gave a few performances of Piano Concerto 1 in the Fall of 2013 at the Koch Theater as part of mixed rep programs (without the rest of the trilogy). I wonder if ABT will ever bring back the trilogy, or any portion of it.

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So great to see Messmer is getting so much stage time in good roles!

Were these the roles she danced at ABT? If not, which ones did she perform?

She danced one of the roles at ABT (I don't remember which one), but she was never given so many chances to dance the role at ABT anyway.

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We don't often get to see these four dancing on stage at the same time:

Yuan Yuan Tan, Damian Smith, Maria Kochetkova, Vitor Luiz

We'll be seeing them onstage again in Helgi Tomasson's new piece, Caprice, which opens on April 4th; just substitute Damian Smith for another Australian, Luke Ingham. I'm very curious as to the dynamic between Yuan Yuan Tan and Maria Kochetkova - one is the company's prima and is now its longest serving principal, while the other hasn't been with the company so long but is rapidly eclipsing all others in prominence (thanks in no small part to her fantastic social media skills). I've been reading reviews of Ratmansky's Piano Concerto #1 (the last piece in the trilogy) as performed by ABT, and it looks like Diana Vishneva did a lot of dancing with Natalia Osipova and that the choreography involves them being very protective and conspiratorial with one another. I'm just very interested to see how Tan and Kochetkova replicate that kind of partnership in light of the dynamic that must exist between them.

This new article from the San Francisco Classical Voice on Helgi Tomasson and his new creation also picks up on the dichotomy between these two ballerinas ("[they] can inspire a study in contrasts"):

https://www.sfcv.org/article/helgi-tomasson-master-of-dance

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Messmer is listed for the same role in Symphony 9 tha tshe had at ABT. She was never in Chamber Symphony at ABT.

The trilogy was only perfomed 4 times at ABT during the Spring 2013 season. ABT then gave a few performances of Piano Concerto 1 in the Fall of 2013 at the Koch Theater as part of mixed rep programs (without the rest of the trilogy). I wonder if ABT will ever bring back the trilogy, or any portion of it.

ABT did perform the Piano Concerto in their Japan tour in February, so there might be some chance of reviving it.

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This is the first time I’ve found myself being so fascinated with a casting sheet. It’s like looking at a hand of playing or tarot cards laid out on a table, with all sort of potentially interesting combinations.

It looks as though in Chamber Symphony Davit Karapetyan and Jaime Garcia Castilla are doing the role that was set on David Hallberg – the part of the artist/visionary, according to Alastair Macaulay. And in Symphony #9 Taras Domitro and Hansuke Yamamoto are doing Herman Cornejo’s wild card part – “a role unresolved until the final curtain”.

As Eshana points out, it will be interesting to see what the combination of Maria Kochetkova and Yuan Yuan Tan brings in Piano Concerto #1, what sort of protectiveness one offers the other. I always think of them both being very independent dancers, each with her own world – in Kochetkova’s case, inwardness onstage somewhat balanced out by her Instagram antics off (Ginger to her own Fred). And Simone Messmer and Mathilde Froustey are both set to dance the same role (Messmer's original) on different nights, which could make for a significant change in tone and style – ABT v Paris Opera Ballet.

I’m also looking forward to seeing Sarah Van Patten and Carlos Quenedit (Anna Akhmatova & Osip Mandelstam?) who were so good in Symphony in Three Movements last spring.

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Love this imagery!

This is the first time I’ve found myself being so fascinated with a casting sheet. It’s like looking at a hand of playing or tarot cards laid out on a table, with all sort of potentially interesting combinations.

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What a great ballet Alexei Ratmansky’s Shostakovich Trilogy! – one of the best things I’ve ever seen in San Francisco, or New York. It was like a triple bill of The Four Temperaments, Rubies and Ivesiana – but as fresh as when new.

But it’s a real ballet, not a pastiche, with real structure and depth. It moved again and again from community to some sort of personal existential crisis, or to a crisis between a couple separated from community. And what changes of narrative and moods, and how the corps dancers had so many figures to work out, and what different shades of tone and “color” they go through.

The narrative of the Sarah Van Patten and the Carlos Quenedit couple in Symphony #9 were the most interesting to me, how it describes the phases of a relationship, very sensitively drawn by the two dancers. They have some relation to the wild card character, Taras Domitro, who is dressed in the same gray velour costume, and in one part begins jumping straight up and down while moving laterally point to point, like a stone skipping on water, wildly beating his feet in the air, until he has disappeared stage left and some new business begins stage right. I noticed Simone Messmer’s character only towards the end and then was sorry I was just beginning to focus on her. Vitor Luiz’s performance in Piano Concerto #1 was especially strong and his character so inventive and dazzling. The slightly lopsided dance between Maria Kochetkova and Yuan Yuan Tan was brilliant too. And Davit Karapetyan in the black velvet evening jacket in Chamber Symphony reminded me of some of the great Tadeusz Kantor Krakow Theater improvisatory work I saw years ago.

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Did you like the design elements? I thought they were almost as interesting and full of meaning as the choreography. That's rare.

Yes, I thought they worked perfectly. Originally I was apprehensive because the heft of some of George Typsin's designs I had seen online seemed as though they might overwhelm the ballet. But they had just the right amount of visual weight. I kept trying to make out who the masks might represent – at times one or two of them looked like Yevgeny Mravinsky, Balanchine's classmate at music school, who conducted the premieres of some of Shostakovich's symphonies. And for a moment Putin.

And the Chamber Symphony came off as well as the other pieces. I think that's the ballet (I'm trying to sort out all the pieces this morning) where one of the wives (Mathilde Froustey) of the DS character (Davit Karpetyan) is tossed to back to him by the corps, like Maria Tallchief in Scotch Symphony, but this is even more effective, more mysterious.

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Saw the same ballets at the matinee and evening performances with identical casts at both performances, and the second viewing was every bit as fresh and surprising as the first, just a few hours earlier. What a pity we won't be seeing the entire trilogy next season.

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Saw the same ballets at the matinee and evening performances with identical casts at both performances, and the second viewing was every bit as fresh and surprising as the first, just a few hours earlier. What a pity we won't be seeing the entire trilogy next season.

What a long day, I was wondering why they hadn't split casts or programs.

I've noticed the audiences have been so quiet and so focused on what's going on in the ballet that there have been none of the usual rustlings of programs and little papers, and no coughs, except for one or two towards the end of the last Concerto Pdd. I've been able to hear dancers' footsteps onstage - and even a dancer one night running backstage to catch up with the corps just before they entered stage left - a la Serenade.

Are you still going to see the second cast?

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I've noticed the audiences have been so quiet and so focused on what's going on in the ballet that there have been none of the usual rustlings of programs and little papers, and no coughs, except for one or two towards the end of the last Concerto Pdd. I've been able to hear dancers' footsteps onstage - and even a dancer one night running backstage to hook up with the corps just before they entered stage left - a la Serenade.

You know, it's funny but now that you mention it, with a few exceptions at the matinee (a cougher, a cell phone that went off and then rang about 10 times before it was shut off, plus a gaggle of what appeared to be ballet students sitting just behind me who found it necessary to express their opinion about everything and everybody throughout; ballet schools should teach their students not just how to dance on stage, but how to behave in the audience mad.gif ), you're right: it was an attentive audience, although they certainly expressed their appreciation full voice at the end.

Are you still going to see the second cast?

I have a ticket for Sunday, the 13th, and I hope circumstances permit me to go (sick kitty at home, although he survived my being away Saturday, so I'm hopeful). I especially want to see Froustey in Van Patten's role in Symphony #9. And I want to see Messmer again in anything (I think she'll be doing the Chamber Symphony): what a beautiful dancer she is.

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