Winter 2017 Season, Attempt Deux

[Helene]

The Princesses have to continue the audition circuit and hope that the next Queen Mother thinks their teeth are good enough and that they come from good breeding stock.

Back to the Princes, I remember when the young Lucien Postlewaite was one of the three "other" princes, not the main partner guy.  He has this way of changing his face very visibly to be "on" and to pour out the charm.  He did this as he presented himself to Aurora in one of his presentation bows, but when he turned around to walk back to his spot, and he passed the next Prince in line, he shot him a look that said, "It's in the bag."  And if Carabosse hadn't come alone to spoil the party, it may have been.

[sandik]

1 minute ago, Helene said:

Back to the Princes, I remember when the young Lucien Postlewaite was one of the three "other" princes, not the main partner guy.  He has this way of changing his face very visibly to be "on" and to pour out the charm.  He did this as he presented himself to Aurora in one of his presentation bows, but when he turned around to walk back to his spot, and he passed the next Prince in line, he shot him a look that said, "It's in the bag."  And if Carabosse hadn't come alone to spoil the party, it may have been.

He had a similar moment in the Maillot Cinderella on his first entrance.  He slides down the stairs (just stay with me here) and jumps up to his feet as if to say -- "I'm here, no one else needs to bother now."  With a little bobble of his head, he established his status in the group -- it was fascinating to see unfold.

[Royal Blue]

On 3/8/2018 at 5:18 PM, Helene said:

Back to the Princes, I remember when the young Lucien Postlewaite was one of the three "other" princes, not the main partner guy.  He has this way of changing his face very visibly to be "on" and to pour out the charm.  He did this as he presented himself to Aurora in one of his presentation bows, but when he turned around to walk back to his spot, and he passed the next Prince in line, he shot him a look that said, "It's in the bag."  And if Carabosse hadn't come alone to spoil the party, it may have been.

Usually we do not differentiate between the Four Suitors, and inevitably so. In the final analysis, whether they are portrayed as perfectly respectable young men, or as vain fops and braggarts the point is that none of them is right for Aurora. No matter how confusing it may be, there is no escaping the realization that Carabosse prevents the marriage of Princess Aurora to the wrong individual!

Effectively, Désiré and Aurora meet through the intervention of both the Lilac Fairy and Carabosse! Having the same ballerina play both characters during a run of The Sleeping Beauty, as happened with Sara Mearns in the winter of 2017, is a master stroke. Similarly, it is fascinating for a ballerina who formerly portrayed the Lilac Fairy to enact later in her career the role of Carabosse.

 

[bcash]

On 2/27/2017 at 11:06 PM, abatt said:

 

Hi cobweb. I agree with you about Troy.  He's been in the corps for over a decade, and I'm having trouble remembering a single role he performed.   My take on the Schumacher promotion is that Martins tends to promote in-house choreographers to the soloist level regardless of whether their dancing skills merit the promotion.  Martins did the same for  J. Peck and Wheeldon, neither of whom were distinguished dancers.  Leigh Witchel a few months ago aptly referred to NYCB as a sausage factory with respect to new choreography.  They just keep churning out the product (new ballets) and Troy seems to be one of the new sausage makers.  His two works for NYCB were generally well received in the NY Times.   Every year Martins seems intent on presenting a large number of new works, and the big three (Wheeldon, Peck and Ratmansky) have so many other gigs going that they are not readily available to NYCB every season.  I think Martins may envision more ballets to be created by Troy in future seasons, and promoting him to  soloist  gives him more credibility. 

I agree with this view. I thought this was the case with J Peck when he was promoted, because his dancing certainly didn't improve (and imo has deteriorated since his promotion). Soloists dance less than Corps members so I thought it logical that they want to give him more time to choreograph. Schumacher's choreography seems to be well liked, so the same reasoning for promotion may apply, but interestingly he is not being commissioned a new work for the 18-19 season, and he choreographs much less than Peck anyway.