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Onegin Reviews? New Principal?


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Hello everybody!!! Sorry I haven't posted for a long time. I have two questions: 1) Has anybody seen Onegin of the first week of ABT at the Met? If you have, can you please post some reviews? I am really interested, and 2) You know Carlos Acosta from Houston ballet? I went to abt's page in the dancers section and I saw his name on the principals section. Is he the new principal of ABT?:( thanks in advance. BYE!!!!!:)

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I don't have a lot of time, so I'll just quickly write my views on last

Saturday's (May 18th) matinee of "Onegin". Tatiana was danced by Susan Jaffe and she was really magnificent. What a wonderful actress and dancer she is! I went to the ABT talk on

"Onegin" before the ballet and the speaker talked about Susan having attained a new level as a ballerina since she began working with Irina Kopalova (I think that's the right spelling). I saw Irina Dvorovenko dance Tatiana last year, and though she was excellent, Jaffe's performance was much richer and fuller.

I did know, however, that Jaffe was an excellent actress, and I was expecting a wonderful performance. The real revelation was

Carlos Molina as Onegin. He's a very powerful dancer, and I think

an even better actor. And his chemistry with Jaffe was electric, especially in the two main pas de deux. The speaker at the the ABT talks also said that Susan Jaffe picked Molina out of the corps

a couple of years ago (he's now a solist) and has been working with him ever since. It's obviously worked wonders.

Angel Corella was a much better Lensky than Ethan Stiefel who I saw in the part last year. Stiefel is a virtuoso dancer, but not a great actor (as I think the film "Center Stage" clearly shows). With Corella as Lensky I understood how the young poet could feel so betrayed by both his fiancee and his best friend that he challenges Onegin to a duel. Olga (danced by Ximora Reyes) I still don't get. Why does she keep flirting with Onegin when she sees how much it bothers Lensky? Doesn't she care about him at all? Is she just shallow or what? I think Reyes is a very good dancer, but her acting did not delve into Olga's character at all.

But I really enjoyed the ballet, even more than I did last year. I found Crankos' choreography overall to be quite good, and the story was very clearly presented through the dance. And those incredible pas de deux - to me they were just perfection. Images

from both pas de deux accompanied by the sound of Tchaikovsky's music have been going through my mind this whole week. I found myself so moved by the final pas de deux that I was in tears.

I really hope ABT keeps this ballet in their repetory. Did anyone see Ferri and Gomes dance "Onegin"? According to the New York Times the Wednesday matinee of "Onegin" was a once in a life time perfomance.

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Welcome back, Colleen !!!!!! I'm so glad you took the time to post and hope to hear from you often during the season :D

I've been impressed by Molinas as well. He seems more mature than some of the ABT wunderkinds, and I'm grateful for that :)

More Onegin reviews for Maria, please!

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