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ABT in London


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The RB is dancing their (much more coherent) version of the production at the same time - Ansanelli is dancing the Saturday matinee so I'm going. The alternative at Covent Garden for the Friday Part/Gomes performance is Yanowsky/Bolle, and since I can see Part in NYC, I'll go to the RB as well instead, but may try for the Sat night or Sunday performances.

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Why does every company bring Swan Lake to London. Coals to Newcastle? Or some kind of Rite of Passage, along the lines of: "If you can make it there you'll make it ANYwhere.")?

Without a mega-star name or a famous name company, I think it is simply that it is easier to sell Swan Lake rather than any other ballet.

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Why does every company bring Swan Lake to London. Coals to Newcastle? Or some kind of Rite of Passage, along the lines of: "If you can make it there you'll make it ANYwhere.")?

Without a mega-star name or a famous name company, I think it is simply that it is easier to sell Swan Lake rather than any other ballet.

This seems an odd response considering the topic here is ABT in London. I know you were responding to a question not directly about ABT, but the implication is that they are not a famous name company, which, if not perhaps in the top 5, still seems inaccurate.

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Famous name or not, they don't seem to be selling like hot cakes at the moment. (You get a slightly false impression by looking at the Coliseum booking plan as some of the seats marked as unavailable are those allocated to Sadler's Wells, who are jointly arranging the visit, for separate sale.) I'm afraid they may suffer from the memory of the NYCB visit to the same theatre last year, when those who paid upfront for the extremely expensive seats found they could have got in very easily on the night at greatly reduced prices. Also I don't think the general public knows many - if any - of the ABT dancers, and of course they may already have booked months ago to see the RB's Swan Lake in the same week. And then there's the economy.... But maybe some clever publicity will liven the box office up a bit in the next few weeks.

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Why does every company bring Swan Lake to London. Coals to Newcastle? Or some kind of Rite of Passage, along the lines of: "If you can make it there you'll make it ANYwhere.")?

Without a mega-star name or a famous name company, I think it is simply that it is easier to sell Swan Lake rather than any other ballet.

This seems an odd response considering the topic here is ABT in London. I know you were responding to a question not directly about ABT, but the implication is that they are not a famous name company, which, if not perhaps in the top 5, still seems inaccurate.

How do you measure famous? How do you measure status? To me personally as a seasoned ballet go-er in London and a good number of other countries I would say that ABT is not famous (by which I mean audience appreciation) but was once on an international basis much admired in the period of the 1940's to the early 1970's. The ABT on their last visit to London at the Sadlers Wells Theatre (a smaller venue than the Coliseum)they were not generally well appreciated by audiences or critics due in part to repertoire but more so the quality of the performances especially by the corps in 'Bayadere'. At the Royal Opera House ABT have not sold on their last several visits. The Coliseum does not have the same cache as the Royal Opera House so is not a theatre of choice for the fairly casual ballet goers who are necessary to fill seats. However 'Swan Lake', due I believe to the general popularity of the Tchaikovsky music, almost always sells well no matter which company in London performs the balletand of course everybody has heard of it so it must be good. I spoke to two of my oldest ballet friends and we all agreed that the ABT was a company with more style and real theatricality when Lucia Chase was in place.

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ABT is unquestionably 'famous' in the U.S., which means it's famous, even in the 'top 5.' 'Famous' doesn't necessarily refer to 'high quality' (even though ABT is reputed to occasionally achieve this, like last season I think there was some Marakova polishing going on here), but ABT does have mega-stars, that's what it's all about. That's mainly what it has, and it's got Gomes, Hallberg, Part, any number of others and all the big guest stars. You could say 'ABT is not famous in England', but it's then also true that ABT is far more famous in the U.S. than is RB. Has nothing to do with quality of perfomance, I'd rather see RB any day and in almost anything (except maybe Corella in R PLUS J) Come on, Leonid, didn't you see Clive James's PBS special 'Fame'? That's where you find out what FAME is :flowers: I think it even had music by Carl Davis, at least the theme had that 90s 'English-glamour sound' that used to be in some of the Masterpiece Theaters and Ken Russell's 'The Rainbow' to express English-pastoral the way D. H. Lawrence is said to have thought of it..(I'm not knocking this--I thoroughly love the sound, no matter how hackneyed...) But he spends most of his time on 20th century fame as an American phenomenon. Anyway, if ABT is not famous, and yet is one of the two most famous American companies, then we have no famous American company except NYCB, and they're not the ones getting Ratmansky. I definitely understand why ABT wouldn't sell at the Royal Opera House, and I won't spend any money on their Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty no matter where they do it, but that isn't what famous is. Look at all the BT people who have to settle for ABT at the Met every summer and dreadful City Center, while complaining about some of the awful productions.

I'd pay for RB or POB long before ABT, but I don't think that means they're more famous. As to 'status', that's not exactly the same thing, and that may be what you are more accurate about, as their status has sunk rather inexorably, while they still sell tons of tickets in the U.S., and for all the old pieces, not just Swan Lake. Your judgment of their 'status' among intelligent ballet-goers I trust entirely, as you've seen as many of the greatest performers as anybody I know of. And almost anybody would rather see RB's Sleeping Beauty than ABT's.

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I don't mean to offend American balletomanes who are loyal to their American companies, but I also agree with Leonid.

Doesn't have a thing to do with loyalty for some of us, I have very little interest in ABT, given the choice of other companies in all areas of dance.

I don't mean to start a discussion here, but I personally know many Europeans who will dispute ABT being in the "TOP 5" category. I know quite a few international balletomanes who would immediately place non-RB/POB companies like Stuttgart, Hamburg, ahead of ABT, in terms of overall quality of dancers.

Definitely not in the 'TOP 5' in terms of quality--and I don't think the expert American balletomanes on this board would usually say there were either, and they go to all of their performances and nearly everybody else's as well. But they are, for whatever reason, big in New York and big in the U.S. in general, and that kind of fame is as important in terms of fame as anything European. This has nothing to do with national loyalty. For example, you could say Hamburg is a greater ballet company, but it doesn't mean much to say they are more famous than ABT--of course they are not. Frankly, if ABT isn't famous, then NYCB isn't either, and in New York, you get almost as many complaints about Martins's company--if not more--than you do about ABT. They're neither one as good as they used to be. But they are both famous, or neither is. RB doesn't come to New York and neither does POB, even if they used to. So people have to travel to D.C. for RB, and I guess Australia for POB, I don't remember the scant POB touring schedule.

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All very true but isn't that just the way ABT now works? And in the 'peak' you cited, with Misha, Makarova, and Nureyev, they were already doing that. ABT is a big importer, and the imports like to work there, for several obvious reasons. Lots at BT has been said about ABT's having no school, I'm sure that's very vital in terms of ABT's always glittering roster of imports, with little homegrown. Could explain why they do sometimes seem so superficial.

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And my other point, perhaps it's been echoed here before is, WHY is McKenzie bringing his SL to a mega-culturally competitive city like London, when he has so many other repertoire choices to pick from??? I'm sure seasoned London balletomanes would much prefer to see works by Tudor, whom they did a celebration for this past season at City Center.

Oh my goodness, such good sense as that surely never crossed his mind, I daresay :flowers: Believe me, 'seasoned London balletomanes' aren't the only ones who'd much prefer something else.

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I think NYCB is a famous company for its tie with Balanchine. As Balanchine becomes more important and sought after, NYCB becomes more famous, as the audience for any other company that performs his work, with rare exceptions, is interested in seeing how their company's performances stack up against Balanchine's company's.

Of course, bringing Balanchine to NYC and getting the approval of NY critics is often a pre-requisite for believing in one's home company.

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I think NYCB is a famous company for its tie with Balanchine. As Balanchine becomes more important and sought after, NYCB becomes more famous, as the audience for any other company that performs his work, with rare exceptions, is interested in seeing how their company's performances stack up against Balanchine's company's.

I don't see how this can really be true, because it seems to say that Martins's company, with Balanchine's now-greater fame even than when he was alive, is in fact, more famous than NYCB was when Balanchine was alive and at the helm and running things. But also, since there is so much good Balanchine at MCB and PNB and elsewhere, I don't see NYCB as getting more famous than it was in its glory days, except in a superficial way. In any case, here in New York, NYCB and and ABT are both hugely famous, whatever else they are not. And even if NYCB is at least as famous now as it was under Balanchine, it isn't filling up the auditorium the way it once was. Maybe you mean famous within the dance world itself, but in that case, NYCB has always been hugely famous, as has ABT. NYCB has not only been undercut by the other good Balanchine companies, but it has a small percentage of the magic it had in the 70s and 80s and before. Of course, that in itself wouldn't make it less famous, but it's definitely different now that it's Martins's company, as has been discussed both ad infinitum and ad nauseum.

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And my other point, perhaps it's been echoed here before is, WHY is McKenzie bringing his SL to a mega-culturally competitive city like London, when he has so many other repertoire choices to pick from??? I'm sure seasoned London balletomanes would much prefer to see works by Tudor, whom they did a celebration for this past season at City Center.

A wild guess: 1) McKenzie is proud of his version, and wants to make a case for it wherever he can. 2) He's banking on seasoned London balletomanes being curious to see it for themselves, despite what they've read, and more casual balletgoers, who haven't read the critical drubbings, not wanting to miss their chance to see ABT dance a classic.

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"Swan Lake" I understand, I'm not sure what would make Londoners want to see ABT. Perhaps casual balletgoers still associate ABT with Baryshnikov and Makarova, and that would account for it, but I don't see ABT having an internationally known, compelling roster at the moment. Royal Ballet, sure -- Cojocaru, Rojo, for example -- but ABT? As fine as the male roster is, I don't think it's the men who sell ballet, unless there's a superstar like Baryshnikov, and the men rarely sell "Swan Lake".

I'm in Seattle, so I would see the Podunk Ballet if it toured to my city, assuming it wasn't the Podunk Contemporary Ballet :flowers:, but Londoners are spoiled, at least recently, by all of the touring Russian companies, as well as the Eurostar to Paris.

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"Swan Lake" I understand, I'm not sure what would make Londoners want to see ABT. Perhaps casual balletgoers still associate ABT with Baryshnikov and Makarova, and that would account for it, but I don't see ABT having an internationally known, compelling roster at the moment. Royal Ballet, sure -- Cojocaru, Rojo, for example -- but ABT? As fine as the male roster is, I don't think it's the men who sell ballet, unless there's a superstar like Baryshnikov, and the men rarely sell "Swan Lake".

I might be a chump but I'm traveling from NY to DC to see Part in SL--and I'm not the only one on the board who is doing so...

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I wonder why ABT hasn't been able to produce their "own" MEGA-STARS. You have dancers like Ferri, Ananiashvili, Vishneva, all BIG international superstars who join after their careers are already blooming, but no REAL stars who get produced from the bottom-up.
You can't have superstars without a cooperative press. The press is excited by the "exotics", especially when their presence has international political implications. I watched David Hallberg and Herman Cornejo, surely two of today's greatest male dancers, progress from the junior company, through the corps to their present status. IMO, Cornejo is the single greatest male dancer I've ever seen, and that includes the likes of superstars Nureyev, Baryshnikov, Dowell, etc. Why he isn't generally placed in their category is a mystery to me.

On the other hand, no one has had much to say about ABT's knack for producing interesting, home-grown ballerinas.

And my other point, perhaps it's been echoed here before is, WHY is McKenzie bringing his SL to a mega-culturally competitive city like London, when he has so many other repertoire choices to pick from??? I'm sure seasoned London balletomanes would much prefer to see works by Tudor, whom they did a celebration for this past season at City Center.
Well, there's a good question. When visiting companies come to New York, audiences are attracted to seeing them in the works that show their unique heritage. You'd think it would be pretty much the same elsewhere. ABT doesn't seem interested, in this tour anyway, in looking back beyond the McKenzie era.
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I'd go for Part in Swan Lake and either the Murphy or Dovorovenko cast in Corsaire.

It's frustrating to jump on tickets early for fear they'll sellout but then watch as others get deals.

Thanks Dale they are the casts I shall want to see.

The best seats range from £60.00 to £80.00 to £95.00 full price. In the past I might not have worried so much about the cost. But with the recession undoubtedly deepening across the world and the effect it is going to have on the cost of day to day living, like others I shall wait for the deals.

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. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when ABT made its decisions about this tour, which I assume was planned long before the current financial slide. Hope all goes well. :P

Jane Simpson said:
Famous name or not, they don't seem to be selling like hot cakes at the moment. (You get a slightly false impression by looking at the Coliseum booking plan as some of the seats marked as unavailable are those allocated to Sadler's Wells, who are jointly arranging the visit, for separate sale.) I'm afraid they may suffer from the memory of the NYCB visit to the same theatre last year, when those who paid upfront for the extremely expensive seats found they could have got in very easily on the night at greatly reduced prices.

Jane, you put your finger on what seems to becoming a big problem for performing marketers everywhere. Discounting can and does have a harmful effect on full-price sales and advance purchasing, even though it may be necessary to fill the theaters. When -- for whatever reason -- a company or production is not "hot," purchasers may tend to hold off and .... possibly .... eventually forget about it. I admit this has happened to me more than once in recent years.

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Re: ABT's lack of home-grown stars. Having just seen a performance of their ABT II company, I noticed that most of the dancers were now trained at (or finished at) the relatively new company school. Perhaps they now have a mechanism for training future stars, and not just corps members?

Don't worry about the :P If this quite interesting diversion develops, I'll start a new thread to accomodate it, so that the ABT London visit can be the focus here. :)

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Papeetepatrick, when you talk about the differences between NYCB under Martins and Balanchine, could you elaborate on the issue of whether the seasoned NYCB balletgoers think the overally quality of dancing at the principal level has waned during Martin's era? I ask this because I think NYCB has recently produced some excellent Balanchine dancers who have also been able to tackle the non-Balanchine repertoire just as well as any of the top dancers in the more "classical" companies today, which makes me think that they are pretty "complete" dancers overall.

Ashley Bouder is one, and obviously, it is no surprise that she is getting her Kitri debut at the Kirov. Ansanelli has impressed me in works like Ondine. I would be very interested to see her in more dramatic roles like Juliet and Giselle, which I am sure she'll get a shot at very soon. Of course, I heard Gelsey Kirkland was a legend, even when she danced with Dowell at the RB in the mid 80s, though I guess one could argue she was partially an ABT product. (Do people view her as more of a NYCB or ABT type dancer or just both, in retrospect?)

Yes, that's not mainly what I was talking about, and what I was talking about is a bit unfair, because the Balanchine Era as such is over, in that he is no longer there to make works on chosen dancers. I've seen a fair amount of Ashley Bouder and Maria and Nikolaj (while he was there); sure, there was lots of great work to see. What I'm talking about with the 'magic gone' is normal, things die; Petipa is long-gone too, and there's no way that the beginnings of these opening works don't have a special innocence and exceptionalism to them that can never be recpatured; and there's nobody around to tell us about those first perfs. For example, not announcing casts so that the NYCB seemed to have no 'star system' actually had a mystique back in the days of Villella, Farrell, McBride, Hayden, P. Martins, Verdy, etc., by now it really doesn't have any substance--which doesn't mean I haven't adored performances by Ms. Bouder. And Macaulaywrote about how Von Aroldingen danced with much personality but would probably not be chosen today as a result of higher technical standards (I'm not sure I understand this, and I can't find the exact quote.) It's the company as a whole is a continuation of the old company--so it cannot have the power of exclusivity it had when Balanchine was alive, and yet since it's mostly about Balanchine anyway and not Martins, nobody wants a 'pure Martins company', for heaven's sake (there's quite enough of it even without any more.) This is something people are very opinionated about, so cannot be answered exhaustively here even if I had the chops to do it. Gelsey not an 'inner circle' NYCB dancer, but she was dancing there in the Golden Age as well, but the others I named are more a part of the time that those of us who saw it extensively are doubtless always going to prefer to what we see now at NYCB. But if you mean purely technical standards of the principals, obviously these are kept high, but carbro and nysusan and faux pas and other regular NYCB-watchers can be more specific about this. My only point is that, as Helene says, yes 'this is the Balanchine house', but it is more accurately only 'originally the Balanchine house', it is now the Martins house whether or not anyone likes it, and it's not going to ever be a 'pure Balanchine house' again. While it's true that NYCB still has enough from the past to make if more 'famous' than PNB and MCB, this doesn't mean that a lot of what people are reporting, both at BT and Macaulay I believe was talking some months back about Villella's work at MCB, and then more talk about PNB's Jewels recently--these developments are valuable and should be celebrated; but they do mean that NYCB under Martins has no monopoly on 'excellence in 'Jewels', and the Kirov production of it last April at dread City Center I preferred to what I saw at NYCB in 2004, even with some terrible sets (these are best at POB). And recordings of Jewels, like the POB, very good except for Diamonds, Ms. Letestu may do it better now, I don't know. So all this spreading out of Balanchine all over the coutnry and the world inevitable means NYCB cannot be the kind of magnet it was when all eyes were on it. They're not anymore.

Things like that. There's just no mystery at NYCB anymore, even though there are great talents. It's not some thing you go to as to a rarefied pilgrimage into an inner sanctum, it's rather prosaic while also being excellent.

Don't know if I agree with Helene that the men don't drive ballet in some cases. I'd go to ABT just to see the men, because they are more interesting than in NYCB, they are big stars, whether Cornejo, Hallberg, Corella, or Gomes. I was interested in Carbro's assessment of Cornejo, but have only seen him on tape, because I hadn't heard of any contemporary dancer being thought to be the 'greatest male dancer they'd ever seen'. I think it's all right that ABT is mainly great male mega-stars, not everybody goes primarily for the women, except in some ballets. I also wouldn't care, for example, that Corella is not 'home-grown', nor Gomes either. It's the productions I have a harder time with, that Mackenzie Swan Lake on TV was enough for me forever. But I might go see an ABT R & J or a couple of other things, just not SL or SB--too tacky.

Sketchy and a mess, but I don't have time to polish it. Probably full of inaccuracies, hope the gist of your question comes across.

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Hello all! I 'm not going to comment here on the merits of the current NYCB vs the Balanchine era NYCB – that's a very polarizing topic, and a very complex one. I will say that I think ABT is a well known company with an international reputation, and I think Mr. McKenzie believes in his Swan Lake, and the power of any SL to sell tickets.

I don't think his SL is awful, I just don't think it's great. I find the costumes & scenery beautiful, and I don't object to his most obvious change which is turning Von Rothbart into a split role. I don't think the ballet needs this change, but I think it's an interesting idea that kind of fits in with all of the philosophical dualities of the ballet. It becomes a really interesting idea when von R is danced by Gomes or Hallberg. For me, the major problem with this staging is that McKenzie is obsessed with "streamlining " Petipa, he's shortened everything but the 4th act has taken the worst beating and I find it robs the story of much of it's pathos.

I agree that Part/Gomes/Hallberg is the only SL cast to see UNLESS you require technical fireworks from your Odile – Part is not a virtuosa. You can expect 32 singles and not much more - her Odile will dazzle you with her personality, but not with her fouettees. If you want technical fireworks then you may prefer to see Murphy with Corella or Carreno. However the Part/Gomes/Hallberg cast is very strong – all 3 are wonderful and as good as Part & Gomes are on their own, they have a chemistry together that makes their partnership something very, very special. BTW, I am heading to DC to catch this cast in SL since ABT seems detemined not to let Part & Gomes dance it together in NY anymore...

I also feel that ABT's men are much, much stronger than their women (with the exception of their guest ballerinas who are not scheduled to appear in London). For that reason I would choose Corsaire casting based on the male roles. Typically they list the casting in this order: Conrad, Lankadem, Ali, Birbanto. Corella is my favorite Ali but you really can't go wrong with Stiefel, Cornejo or Carreno in the role either.

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I agree that Part/Gomes/Hallberg is the only SL cast to see UNLESS you require technical fireworks from your Odile – Part is not a virtuosa. You can expect 32 singles and not much more - her Odile will dazzle you with her personality, but not with her fouettees.

Your description of Part as Odile is exactly how an academic classical ballet dancer should perform Odile.

Unfortunately the vulgarity of multiple turns in many academic classical ballets in my opinion appeals only to those that go to ballet for entertainment.

Whilst classical ballet as an art can entertain it is not entertainment,

In a Gala or concert performance when a pas de deux is out of context and the evening is meant to be one of entertainment, of course it is great fun when you see someone start with a multiple pirouettes and end with them but whilst they can be on the music, they are also above the music and therefore have no place in being called an academic classical ballet performance.

I well remember the multiple pirouettes and fouettes of Lupe Serrano with ABT an outstanding dancer but perhaps not a natural Odette/Odile but she for me at least, never offended my appreciation of the performance whilst many modern dancers do so. It is a myth that dancers are stronger today. There have always been exceptional virtuosi but they were cast in the roles that they were classified to perform. As Prima Ballerina Assoluta of the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg and her otherwise status, she was allowed to spew pirouettes all over the place and it helped to distract the audience from her other shortcomings. They were her trick and not Petipa's or Legat's who were the balletmasters of the company.

For me it would take a very great interpreter of a role to make the sort of 'fireworks' some people enjoy acceptable.

I have many fond memories of Veronika Part with the Kirov and I am really looking forward to seeing her in Swan Lake.

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