One Favorite Moment

[Paul Parish]

Mme. Hermine, oh yes!! isn't that magnificent?

And you remind me, I'll never forget how stunned I was, when Makarova first appeared in SF and did Swan Lake at the Opera House, back in god knows? 74? when could that have been? in any case, as Odile, the first indication she gave of what wwas coming was in her reverence to the queen, which was a DEEP swan fondu, and when she came up from it she gave her a stripper's bump -- not huge, but unmisunderstandable.... the queen took no notice, nobody took any notice -- but I was SHOCKED

[Hans]

Cargill, if the entire Sleeping Beauty can count as a favorite moment, it is mine, too.

[Guest easystuff]

I would have to say the russian dancers doing all the huge jumps in the nutcraker!

[bobbi]

My pick for "one favorite moment" would be in the divertissement in Act II of Balanchine's Midsummer Night's Dream. The moment when the cavalier shifts the ballerina from one arm to the other and she "falls" through the air never fails to quell the audience into total silence and awe. It's just an exquisite little moment to which I always look forward. Many a time I have almost heard a collective sigh and an in-take of breath from those sitting around me.

[Mary J]

There is one moment that always takes my breath away. In Kenneth Macmillan's Romeo and Juliet, after Romeo's death, when the music surges, and Juliet starts to waken. Some Juliets take a deep breath; others, the hand flickers. The timing and the incredible Prokofiev music - if the rest of the performance has been at all engaging, I start crying.

[Ari]

The moment in Phlegmatic in The Four Temperaments when the dancers retract their outstretched arms and then move them to one side while they tilt their heads. No matter how many times I see it, it always thrills me.