art076

I did the day seats at the Royal Opera House many years ago - they do go on sale at 10am but if it is a popular performance people often queue up much earlier. I remember getting there at 7:30am and being around the 20th person in line. So just keep an eye on it while you're there and prepare to show up early if need be! And as kbarber says, keep checking the website - I've had luck with the online system for even very popular performances (scored a great, very cheap ticket to the Royal Opera's Il Trittico, which had been super sold out, while checking in hope about 3 weeks before the show).

If you manually adjust the numbers in the Met's calendar URL, you can also view the June and July calendars, linked below: http://metopera.org/metopera/season/calendar.aspx?monthyear=5-2015 http://metopera.org/metopera/season/calendar.aspx?monthyear=6-2015 http://metopera.org/metopera/season/calendar.aspx?monthyear=7-2015

If anyone was not able to grab a ticket, I ended up with an extra - would be great if another balletomane could use it! ($69) Send me a direct message. EDITED (9/25): ticket claimed!

It seems they are holding back online sales for Tsar and Swan Lake - if you call or visit the box office in person, there is more availability (I was able to get several tickets that way yesterday, and she said there were still seats next to me available).

An update! Fathom Events (the company that distributes the Met Opera broadcasts) will be showing three Royal Ballet broadcasts in the United States this autumn. Don Quixote on Oct 16 (the new one, with Nunez and Acosta): http://www.fathomevents.com/#!don-quixote/more-info Alice in Wonderland on Nov 19 (presumably the one from last spring, with Sarah Lamb & Federico Bonelli): http://www.fathomevents.com/#!alices-adventures/more-info The Nutcracker on Dec 17 (not clear whether it will be this year's broadcast, or the one from last year): http://www.fathomevents.com/#!the-nutcracker/more-info Hopefully they will carry the planned Giselle and SLeeping Beauty broadcasts from the Royal this year as well. And this is also nice because Fathom generally has many more cinemas available than Ballet in Cinema...

I was there last night! The production and the company as a whole looked good - in the two lakeside scenes the female corps was fantastic. I really feel that no other company in the world is dancing Swan Lake with the same purity and care that the Mariinsky does - it's a clean and simple Swan Lake, quibble as you like about the happy ending or the jester (easily ignorable in exchange for such sublime lakeside acts in my view). Seeing all those white swans moving together with unity that comes from solid uniform training rather than boot-camp drilling is a joy. Oksana Skorik was just fine in my opinion: she has the long legs and hyper flexibility that seem to be favored by current management, and she's lovely overall. Strong supported pirouettes that go on forever and very beautiful lines. The technical problems referenced on YouTube and discussed here seemed not to be noticeably present - she must have cleaned up a lot in the last few years (frankly Somova was much more concerning several years on in her career than where Skorik is now). She did just seem a bit green in stage presence: she could be more dramatically engaged and present, but these qualities could come with time and experience. The audience around me enjoyed her quite a bit, and truthfully she was beautiful, particularly in the lakeside scenes. Only major technical flub was the fouettes, where she seemed to over turn halfway through and fell out. However, she quickly restarted and finished fine. A big flub yes, but she soldiered on and fixed it, and overall the rest of her performance was fine (in fact her Black Swan adage was strong as well). So even if she wasn't an all-out superstar tonight, she was absolutely not the disaster discussed and predicted here. Schkylarov was a good prince: his virtuoso tricks didn't flash but were impressive. He was a strong partner for Skorik. He does look very young, and it took a moment to adjust to not seeing a typical danseur noble here, but he was great anyway. Maria Shirinkina, Alexey Popov, and Nadezhda Batoeva danced the pas de trois - liked Shirinkina a lot, she was bright and bubbly (she also danced one of the two swans in Act 4 again very brightly). Popov and Batoeva were fine though perhaps a bit sluggish. Alexsey Nedviga was an audience favorite as the jester. Catching the Kondaurova/Korsuntsev cast tonight. Seems like this will be the biggest-name pair for the SoCal run, looking forward.

Also in the New York area, there is a screening on Sunday, February 13 at 3:30pm, at the Kew Gardens Cinemas in Queens.

The listings page of the NYT's fall preview also includes this: "After its Avery Fisher experiment, American Ballet Theater returns to the tried and true for its spring season, including “Swan Lake,” “Don Quixote” and the company premiere of John Neumeier’s “Lady of the Camellias.” But not all business is as usual: there will be a roughly two-week repertory festival, including works by Ashton, Tudor, Balanchine and Robbins, and the flawed but stirring “On the Dnieper,” Alexei Ratmansky’s first ballet as the company’s artist in residence. May 17-July 10."

I too was at the Sunday afternoon performance - I was bummed about not getting to see Osipova and Vasiliev, even more so because the substituted cast was the exact same as the previous evening's, which I also saw (having traveled down from Connecticut for these and the Royal's mixed rep performances). Shipulina was fine as Medora at both shows, I thought she was glamorous and technically accomplished to Bolshoi standards, though perhaps not as dazzling as some of the company's better known stars. However, I just don't think that this production is interesting enough to watch two of the same casts twice in a row. There are many wonderful things about it - there were many funny, delightful details added into the story, and also liked Gulnara's characterization as a more vibrant, lively character was fun. Jardin Anime was an eye-popping spectacle at both shows and only really a huge, great company like the Bolshoi could pull it off so resplendently. But I just didn't feel like sitting through the kitsch of the almost entirely mimed Act 3 one more time, so I left after Act 2. It would have been fun to see another cast, particularly the Osipova cast, try it out, but not the same one so immediately again. (Also disappointed to read here that we did not see the Pas D'evantails, which really would have spruced up the third act with more classical dancing... I might have stayed through had it been there). I'm glad I got to see Osipova dance twice this week in New York, and wish I could have seen her here. But things happen and ballet casts are ever changing, I suppose!

Did all of the rear mezzanine tickets for the entire SF Ballet run at City Center really sell out, as is shown on the web site? I find it hard to believe as I was still finding center row K seats only last week when I still figuring out whether I could go... when I called the box office, they mystifyingly said that I should have bought tickets earlier since events can sell out quickly, like Harry Connick Jr. But SF Ballet in selling out just the rear mezzanine - that quickly and completely for the entire run? (Much as I would like to believe that ballet tickets can sell that fast...)

How was Murphy's Nikiya? This was a role debut, correct?

The documentary was filmed the season after this was recorded, so no botched lift here.

Opus Arte has also released the recent POB Swan Lake in HD: http://www.opusarte.com/pages/product.asp?ProductID=196

Here's an interesting upcoming DVD release - Balanchine's Midsummer Night's Dream at La Scala, with Alessandra Ferri and Roberto Bolle. Anyone know anything about the performances? http://www.tdk-mediactive.com/frame_conten...mp;from_id=2789 Here's the info: Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy A Midsummer Night's Dream Teatro alla Scala, Milano, 2007 Titania - Alessandra Ferri Oberon - Roberto Bolle Titania's partner - Massimo Murru Puck - Riccardo Massimi Hermia - Deborah Gismondi Helena - Gilda Gelati Demetrius - Vittorio D'Amato Lysander - Gianni Ghisleni Hippolyta - Sabrina Brazzo Theseus - Matteo Buongiorno Bottom - Camillo Di Pompo Moth - Sophie Sarrote Pas de deux – Act Two - Marta Romagna, Mick Zeni

Is anyone able to record this for a desperate West Coaster? It's not scheduled to air anywhere here (not even on another day) except in Las Vegas and Sacramento - neither of which are near me!

As opulent and traditional as the Nureyev production is - doesn't it also include a lot of Nureyev's own choreography and a few slight modifications to the choreography as well? (ie male corps dancing in Acts 1 & 2, and Gamzatti's variation being different from the ones usually danced?)

It sure did - a very impressive debut from Sarah Lane as Aurora. She was Aurora in Act I, coming in as an excited young girl. Of course, she probably is an excited young girl herself so this wasn't much of a stretch, but still it was refreshing to see the character of Aurora on stage as well as the dancer. The Rose Adagio balances were very, very secure - so secure, in fact that in the last set of balances, she held the third one for an extended period of time without grabbing for the next prince. So she got her balance applause early. All of her dancing was very clean, very bright and very attractive. The only somewhat unsure part was the Grand Pas de Deux, which looked labored, but the variation afterwards was lovely. What impressed me the most about the performance was her stage presence - already at such a young age she knows how to command the stage and doesn't feel timid about using as much floor space as she'd like to so that she can dance expansively. A very promising debut, and I look forward to seeing her progress in this and other roles! Cornejo did a great job as the prince. He sailed through the air in his jumps, and they were particularly high and impressive during the Act III Grand pas de deux variation. What I liked about it, though, was that he maintained his noble, princely elegance throughout, and it never became blatantly showy. The audience gasped, yes, but I appreciated that he found a way to work this into the character. A great afternoon of ballet. I'm all Sleeping Beauty-ed out... I wish I didn't have to do marathons like this to see ABT's full company, but such is life in a touring city!

I'm with Giannina on Julie Kent - she was great, and really came alive in that Grand Pas de deux at the end. What I especially loved about it was the way she and Carreno looked at each other and responded to each other. It was such a tender, loving relationship between ballerina and cavalier, and perfectly expressed the love that Aurora and the Prince are supposed to be sharing in that pas de deux. At the end of the Pas de deux, when Aurora bows on the floor before coming up for the final promenade, Kent really bowed to Carreno in respect - and when Carreno extended his hand to her, he seemd to say "no, it's you who I adore". I liked that moment a lot.

Sorry, I haven't had a chance to post much, but I've been to all three performances so far... and I will likely end up at the rest of the run, too. I know - I'm completely nuts, but I'm really enjoying myself. The casting is just too intriguing, and having a full length Sleeping Beauty is revealing so much good about the ABT's principal women. I don't think it's that bad of a production, despite the rather poor reviews (they've been nicer here than they have been in New York - the production has reportedly been revised for California). There are plenty of better productions, and it's a bit sad that a company of ABT's stature doesn't have one of the great ones, but I think it's a decent enough one that gives the dancers an opportunity to do a full Sleeping Beauty. New York reviews made it out to be overstuffed and overthought - what showed up on stage in Orange County was actually a fairly straightforward Sleeping Beauty. Many of the strange production elements reported from New York have apparently been cut - no flying faires, the Prologue shower curtain has disappeared, the Prince doesn't hang perilously from a web in Act 2 anymore - he just gets stuck in it on ground level. Kirkland and McKenzie said in an article in the LA Times this past Sunday that they've tinkered with and trimmed a lot of the production. 9 minutes off Act 2, Kirkland said (the article is in the links section somewhere). Plot complications still exist in the program synopsis, but they are actually fairly easy to turn blinders to on stage: The King and Queen still leave the kingdom after Aurora goes to sleep, and the Queen still cries a river of tears - but on stage, it mostly just looks like they ended up on the wrong side of the drop curtain... Performances- Add me to the Veronika Part fan club after Thursday's Aurora - her Vision Scene variation took my breath away with its plushness and musicality. I was in awe. The rest of the performance... well she's not really a natural Aurora, being taller than most everyone on stage, including the Queen, and carrying herself in such a womanly fashion as she does (I can imagine that her Nikiya in La Bayadere would be/was fabulous, as would her Lilac Fairy in Beauty). And there were inconsistencies - she seemd to loose steam during the Act 1 variation, resorting to a tired, low flick of her leg at the end of the diagonal walk-on-pointe bit. But she's a great classicist, with a gorgeous, expressive back and legs that naturally slide into high positions - and a beautiful face that reads to the back of the auditorium. Her Aurora characterization and dancing were just fine, though again, she's a bit too tall and womanly. Those Rose Adagio balances that were the cause of much chatter in New York came off very well tonight, without wobbles, but she did have panicky arms that quickly and nervously switched between supporting princes. My god, though - just those 2 minutes in the vision scene - I was in love for the rest of the performance. At Tuesday's opening night, Gillian Murphy provided a very different type of Aurora - one could say more American in demeanor and technique. While Part was all Russian and glamorous, Murphy was the amiable girl next door. Murphy moves like an American, neoclassical dancer - nimble, quicksilver feet and dancing thrusted forward by a strong desire to move fast. She has solid technique, so the Rose Adagio came off without a hitch. Her fantastic turning ability gave extra sparkle to pirouettes, and she had this amazing jump going on in the Act 1 coda: when Aurora first enters, she does this split-jump thing diagonally across the stage (please forgive my inability to speak in ballet language) - Murphy looked like she was bouncing across the stage on a trampoline. It was quite the effect. Her characterization, though, didn't change too much between the three different acts. One could say she's good enough at playing the girlish Aurora that she carried that through the performance, but Murphy really impressed on every technical level so it didn't detract too much. Wednesday night, Dvorovenko was a very pretty Aurora - secure technically and a very nice performance (It's too bad I didn't write up her performance before tonight, because I'm still gushing about Part's vision scene right now...) It was definitely a contrast to the Tuesday night Murphy performance - it seems Dvorovenko more naturally fits into the Petipa classical nature of the Sleeping Beauty choreography than Murphy. Dvorovenko did look fantastic: The glamor girl persona that she uses for many of her roles actually worked very well for Act I Aurora, coming as a princess to her birthday party, and Dvorovenko is also very capable of turning on the mature form of glamour for the Act III grand pas de deux. All of the Prince Desires were impressive in the new, virtuoso male choreography that was put into the production (McKenzie's choreography?). Marcelo Gomes, with Part on Thursday, was my favorite - he such a natural and easy stage presence, and his prince was strong and yet totally tender and loving. Maxim Beloserkovsky was every bit the handsome prince to Dvorovenko on Wednesday, and Ethan Stiefel added a boyish enthusiasm to his Tuesday night prince. Florine/Bluebird combos: I enjoyed tonight's Maria Ricetto & Carlos Lopez pairing the best, for their clean and bright execution. Sarah Lane & Sascha Radetsky on opening night were good as well, though not as free flowing - Lane already has such a wonderful ballerina stage presence for someone so young, so her Aurora is on Sunday could be very interesting. Lilac Fairies: Ricetto worked the best so far on Wednesday (Abrera was Tuesday, Wiles Thursday), but none have truly impressed me yet. They all danced graciously and expansively, but don't project as much generosity and authority as the Lilac fairy should. Sets & costumes: I thought the sets were, well, big. They're attractive enough, though the color palette thinly straddles the line between colorful and garish. They are more cartoony than opulent, but they work okay. I was very disappointed in the costumes. The Act 1 costumes were very bland, and while the important costumes (Aurora, Lilac, etc) were fine, many of the ensemble costumes looked silly. The choreography is a combination of Soviet and Western/British traditions of Sleeping Beauty stagings, keeping the good stuff from both and merging it when one or the other doesn't work. I liked that, in the Prologue, the corps fairies enter first to herald the arrival of the other fairies - like in Soviet productions - but then the main fairies and the Lilac Fairies enter on the musical cues that Tchaikovsky composed into the score - just like in Western productions (puzzlingly not in the Soviet productions). There was some question on the first ABT Sleeping Beauty thread about where the Vision Scene and Vision Variation came from - it's the Konstantin Sergeyev choreography for the 1952 Kirov production, lifted in full. No Ashton vision variation here. Phew! I will report more as I see the remaining casts... very excited now to see Veronika Part's Lilac Fairy on Saturday afternoon - Herrera is tomorrow night.

Was anyone else at the opening night repertory program in LA last night? I found it a lovely if subdued evening (especially compared to the last LA gala, which featured rock concert hollering from the audience). Symphonie Concertante was lovingly danced, with some gorgeous corps work and assured performances from Michele Wiles and Gillian Murphy in the violin and viola roles, respectively. Not sure if it's among the best Balanchine ballets, but it's a pretty confection dressed out in endless pink tutus. From above it looked like a wonderfully patterned flower garden. The choice of pas de deux was odd: the Corsaire pas de deux was the brief 'bedroom' pas de deux in Conrad's bedchamber, where Medora and Conrad flirt around the cave before she gives him a potioned flower. It's too short to show off much of anything except some acrobatic lifts, and the Conrad has precious little to do in the gala format. David Hallberg nevertheless gave an impressive stage presence, while Irina Dvorovenko treated the thing as a gymnastics routine, showing off big extensions and her bendy back. Her curtain call was a grand ballet of its own... And the Manon pas de deux was the drunken Lescaut/Mistress duet from Act 2 - another bizarre, short excerpt with no context in excerpt. Herman Cornejo made people giggle stumbling around drunkenly, while Stella Abrerra showed she can do quick splits and stuff, but again it was over before much could be seen. There are a bunch of other, much more interesting pas de deux in Manon, so why this one at a mixed rep? The Don Q pas de deux was the only gala-type excerpt on the list, with Paloma Herrera and Jose Manuel Carreno. She didn't look so into it last night, from the beginning some of the bits looked half done - accomplished but with little effort. Kitri needs to own the stage in this pas de deux and really show off - Herrera gave us pretty placement and gorgeously arched feet, but no feeling or pizazz. Carreno did what he could in the context. Despite the understated performance, Herrera's stillness does seem to indicate that her Aurora would be quite nice. Rodeo ended the night and was charming and adorable, with Marian Butler the cowgirl. It's not one of my favorite ballets, but my heart warms to the story when I do end up watching.

Dvorovenko wasn't yet a Principal at the time of PBS' American Ballet Theatre Now: Variety and Virituosity program, which seemed to focus mostly on principal dancers. She was made principal in 2000; the program was done in 1998.

According to ABT's web site, Reyes is no longer down for Othello on July 14th - it's a repeat of the Kent/Gomes cast, and Murphy/Hallberg will take the other matinee. I may be curious enough to go for Lane in Aurora.. (I'll see how I feel about the production at Tuesday's OC opening night. Lane will also now be doing Bluebird on opening, replacing Reyes, so I can get a preview of her then, too!)

Very interesting! Worth adding another performance to my calendar?

I see casting just went up on ABT's web site for the Orange County run. A few interesting things - Two Auroras appear to be cast that were not on the list in New York: Wiles on Saturday afternoon and Reyes on Sunday. Part is not opening the run; rather, Murphy and Stiefel are. Kirkland is traveling with the show! And did Murphy ever end up going on as Lilac in NY? Looks like that currently schedule for OC as well. July-17, 7:30 PM G. Murphy (Aurora) E. Stiefel (Desire) S. Abrera (Lilac) G. Kirkland (Carabosse) X. Reyes (Florine) H. Cornejo (Bluebird) July-18, 7:30 PM I. Dvorovenko M. Beloserkovsky M. Riccetto C. Corella S. Abrera G. Saveliev July-19, 7:30 PM V. Part M. Gomes M. Wiles G. Kirkland S. Lane C. Lopez July-20, 7:30 PM P. Herrera A. Corella S. Abrera M. Van hamel M. Riccetto S. Radetsky July-21, 2:00 PM M. Wiles D. Hallberg V. Part C. Corella S. Lane C. Lopez July-21, 7:30 PM J. Kent J. Carreño G. Murphy M. Van hamel S. Abrera G. Saveliev July-22, 2:00 PM X. Reyes H. Cornejo M. Riccetto G. Kirkland H. Seo S. Radetsky

I have to politely interject... Just because the Orange County Performing Arts Center is in closer physical proximity to Disneyland doesn't mean that it's all theme park fairy tale land on stage. They've made some particularly daring programming choices in the past few years - the sole US engagement of Bigonzetti's Aterballeto, return visits from Hamburg Ballet doing what one would hardly characterize as traditional story ballet, Nederlans Dans Theatre, and a pretty interesting "event" from Merce Cunningham that had the audience going from hall to hall. We do get quite our share of story ballets, but I'd argue that with a strong presenter like OCPAC, Southern California has arguably seen more international dance companies - every year and regularly - than New York City. And we certainly have the money that Disneyland has helped pour into the county to thank for that. And don't forget that this Sleeping Beauty is also going to the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. What could that possibly mean?