California

Just a reminder that the live stream starts in a few minutes at 9 am EDT. http://www.operlive.de/ I see in the credits that Doug Fullington of PNB did the reconstruction of the Petipa choreography.

I'm glad Ratmansky reconstructed this ballet for the sake of dance history. It was one of several Fokine ballets that showed us new possibilities for ballet after Petipa. But having seen it once, I can't imagine going to the trouble of seeing it again. What dancing there was, was boring, with rare exceptions. I hope the cost of the lavish sets and costumes was split with the Danes. It's hard to imagine it will become an audience favorite or even that it will be shown again.

I saw the Saturday matinee and it was mostly a huge improvement over Thursday night. Simkin, as Ali, was beyond astonishing. We have come to expect his amazing tricks, but he is outdoing himself. In the second act Pas de Trois, he did a series of four revoltade (the 540) on the diagonal - I've seen him do one or two, but four (!) and one right after each other, pow-pow-pow. Turns, leaps, all seemed to have extra embellishments I haven't seen before. Not a great place for Heymann as Conrad, who was fine, but paled next to Simkin in fire power. (Cornejo would have been a better sparring partner.) Murphy and Abrera were Medora and Gulnare - both seemed much more secure than Kochetkova and Lane Thursday. I thought Gabe Shayer as Lankendem was quite good, especially in the PdD with Abrera in Act I. His short stature makes him an odd choice for that role, I suppose. The audience seemed well-sold - 80%? Julie Kent and her daughter watched the first two acts from the orchestra.

Don't underestimate the great work by regional companies with 30-40 dancers - Washington, Pennsylvania, Kansas City, Colorado, many others. They fill in with studio company members, pre-professional students, etc. Principals and soloists take multiple roles. They rent costumes and sets from major companies and each other. There is wonderful ballet all over the country that is worth seeing. EDITED TO ADD: As most here recognize, with the near-complete disappearance of classical ballet from PBS and the sharp decline in touring by major companies like ABT and NYCB (at least compared to the 70s and 80s), these regional companies keep classical ballet alive across the country - and they provide paid professional performance opportunities for many dancers.

I saw the Thursday evening performance and thought the main fireworks and excitement came from Cornejo and Simkin. I would like to like Kochetkova, but just when you think she'll push the limits and astonish us - she doesn't. I see a lot of discussion here from people yearning for some sizzle and excitement from this ballet. I have a hunch you will find it next March in Philadelphia, when Corella stages Le Corsaire for the Pennsylvania Ballet. I say that having seen his production of Don Q a few months ago and being stunned at the several young dancers he has entrusted with lead roles. Corsaire just seems like a natural for them and I suspect Corella will make the most of this opportunity to show them off. http://paballet.org/le-corsaire Subscriptions are on sale now. I don't know when singles will go on sale.

I have the same problem. I tried to sign up to follow his Instagram page, but it requires that he give permission for you to follow him. I haven't encountered that restriction with the numerous ballet dancers and companies that I follow on Instagram, as they seem eager to have more followers. Very strange...

In that DVD, Gomes is Purple Rothbart in the ballroom scene -- one of the few opportunities to see him on DVD, alas. And he set the standard for that role ever after.

I'm slow to post after a few days in NYC... I saw the entire Trilogy twice this trip and saw it several times in 2013. I still love Symphony #9 best, especially with Gomes (and that unbelievable one-armed lift toward the end - which Bolle always does with two hands). Charming, clever, surprising, interesting...my favorite. But my frustration with all of them is that I suspect there are just so many layers of meaning understood by Ratmansky (and perhaps other Russian expats) that we Westerners don't grasp. I wish we had a "tour guide" (a "dance docent") of the caliber of Arlene Croce, with the extensive length she had in the New Yorker, to help us see more of what's there. Ratmansky has spoken of Shostakovich's angst in Stalinist Soviet Union in the 30s and we know a bit about his situation. We can imagine what it must have been like to grow up under Communism and then experience its fall as a young adult and all the insights and adjustments that would involve. We can speculate on the symbolism of that scenery with its disjointed hammers, sickles, airplanes and what not. But I would love to have somebody tell us more about what we are seeing. I didn't always agree with Croce (for sure), but I learned so much. It would help me (and I'm guessing others) to have a more detailed perspective to respond to and perhaps disagree with. One can appreciate these works as "pure dance" (sort of), but there is obviously so much more packed into them that I'd like to understand. I had a similar frustration with the Plato Symposium, which I was only able to see once (alas!). It was ironic that Firebird got extensive program notes and character names, even though we mostly know that story. Anybody who has studied Plato's writing knows there are names, characters, development in the Symposium, as there are in all his dialogues. So it was exasperating that the program notes consisted of a brief, vague, general statement that it's about different love relationships. Again, I'd like a tour guide (Ratmansky or a latter-day Croce) to help us unpack all that's there. And perhaps this is a situation where knowing a lot (studying the actual Symposium) can be a hindrance, rather than a help. I can appreciate this one as "pure dance" (sort of), too, but there's much more there that I wish I understood.

Some very interesting programs next spring. Having seen this company just once this spring (for the Bowie-Queen tributes), it does have some really impressive dancers. But it seems like a lot of new rep for them to learn and well-known pieces the audience will likely know. And it's not clear that they will have live orchestra when they move to the Opera House - a much bigger house to fill than their current venue at the Eisenhower. I'm sure there will be a lot of good will and curiosity during Kent's first year, and I'm guessing there is a line-up of major donors to make this possible, but still...

I see that exact dates for each program are now on the web site: https://www.sfballet.org/tickets/2017_season Scroll down to see each program or click "calendar view" in small type in the upper right. Programs #1 and #2 include some very interesting new work (including Peck's newest, which just premiered). Two weekends when you could see multiple performances of each. Very helpful for out-of-town visitors!

Yes - I was really pleased to see that. They did Tudor's Echoing of Trumpets in 2010, also set by Amanda McKerrow and John Gardner.

The National Endowment for the Arts has announced the awarding of 68 grants for dance, totaling $1,470,000. Many are for ballet companies: https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/Spring_2016_Artistic_Discipline_Grant_List_FINAL_FINAL3.pdf

If tickets are available on TDF and Goldstar, a half-empty house is even worse than it seems!!

These half-empty houses are troubling. ABT does have a student rush at good prices on the day of performance ($29 and $11): http://www.abt.org/performances/popstudentrushpolicy.asp But some theaters (Segerstrom, e.g.) do more and include seniors and active military in the same-day rush. With these dreadful houses, I wonder why they don't also use Goldstar or TDF or TKTS to fill the house. Isn't half price better than nothing?

Jaffee did not debut in Push that night. She debuted in "Pas d'Esclave" with Godunov, replacing the planned PdD for Kirkland/Bissell. At this point in history, Push was still performed with Tcherkassky and van Hamel. Later, Baryshnikov did it with Elaine Kudo and Jaffee, but not that night. Kirkland never did Push at all. She pulled out early in rehearsals because she thought it was silly. "Jaffe recalled the events leading to her debut with principal dancer Alexander Godunov in the ABT premiere of "Pas d'Esclave." "It was about 2 p.m. Tuesday and Gelsey hadn't shown up. I was walking down the hall to rehearsal -- I'm an understudy in 'Push Come to Shove' -- and Charles France [Abt Artistic Director Mikhail Baryshnikov's assistant] pulled me aside and said I was to go on."

At the Alonso birthday celebration in June 2010 at the Met, they had three pairs of principals for Don Q, one for each act, and it was great fun to see. I don't remember all the casts, but Gomes did Act I and Osipova Act III.

Murphy is listed as performing excerpts from Sylvia next Monday for the Gala, so I'm wondering if this might be prepared as a substitute, as needed. What a treat, if it is!

While in town for a conference, I was able to squeeze in one visit to the Kennedy Center to see the Washington Ballet's Bowie & Queen. It looked to me like a sold-out house at the Eisenhower Theater and a very enthusiastic audience. (The Eisenhower holds 1100.) Before the program started, retiring AD Septime Webre came out in front of the curtain to say a few words about the program and also his sadness at leaving after 17 years. The audience gave him an instantaneous standing ovation and loud cheers. Clearly he will be missed by this group. This had been programmed long before Bowie's death and both ballets had been created several years earlier. But the timing made for a nice season closer. Dancing in the Street is by Edwaard Liang. The score alternated actual excerpts from less familiar Bowie music with two live musicians (violin and cello) on-stage with a score by Gabrial Gaffney Smith in the style/mood of the Bowie. With the men in street clothes and the women in colorful, swingy dresses, it vaguely made me think of an updated Robbins ballet - street dance, Broadway-esque, women on pointe. Interesting enough. Mercury Half-Life by Trey McIntyre brought the house down. Made in 2013 and almost an hour long, it uses entirely a long medley of Queen's recorded music. The ten dancers were in various white costumes with red trim or linings. I haven't seen much McIntyre, although I know he has a devoted following. So much energy, risk, innovation...great fun to watch. He has a way of throwing in little humorous touches throughout that make for interesting surprises. I kept thinking, though, that this could just as easily be on Broadway -- some dazzling tap, no pointe shoes, lots of ensemble surprises. Is this ballet? I guess it doesn't matter. The dancers need extraordinary training to pull this off and ballet seems an essential grounding. I know some here hate the way smaller companies resort to these extravaganzas to attract audiences, but if some of that audience come back for another look, it's worth it. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. They have five more shows next weekend, Friday-Sunday. If people are in the area, it's worth a visit. For our collection of most annoying audience members: I was stuck next to an older woman who alternated between endless coughing and singing along to Queen. Can't decide which was more annoying.

I see date ranges for programs in 2017, but not specific dates. I am especially interested in programs 1 and 2, and it looks like one could see both (perhaps a couple times) in a long weekend. Have subscribers been told specific dates? Are they on the public site somewhere?

I'm not sure about this. If fear of works being staged without permission were the explanation, then the Trust would not have given permission to release so much work on DVD. Not just the Dance in America series from the late 70s (when Balanchine was alive) but more recent releases, such as Jewels by POB, Midsummer Night's Dream by PNB, and The Nutcracker. And the Trust would not have posted the tapes of coaching sessions, which they did recently. (I don't know how VAI was able to release so much from the 50s, other than permission back then to Canadian Broadcasting which outweighed any efforts the Trust might want to make to restrict distribution.) It still seems to me like an old-fashioned bias that, if people can't see things on YouTube/DVDs, they will be more likely to buy tickets to live performances. And as we've discussed before on this site, it would be great if most people really had that option, but they don't, either due to geography or economics or both. For YouTube postings of DVDs, I can understand that they'd prefer you buy the DVD (or get your local library to buy it).

Sounds like the Pennsylvania dancers have a much better contract than the ABT dancers in 1980 -- a full year to impress the AD and look for other work, compared with a few months.

While most welcomed the arrival of Baryshnikov as AD, that transition was not without its bumps either. Peterson was just one dancer not welcome. Kirkland was quickly removed, too, although she returned later.

I believe Baryshnikov moved switftly to terminate Peterson when he took over in 1980 as artistic director. I was trying to find a report specifically on that episode, but could only find hazy references to Peterson's early career as a principal at ABT: http://www.abt.org/education/archive/choreographers/peterson_k.html

The mixed bill on Sunday afternoon was spectacular - anybody who claims ballet died with Balanchine needs to see this. Estancia: I saw this in spring 2010 at that big festival, most notable for Call Me Ben (which seems to have launched Robert Fairchild's Broadway career and then disappeared from the rep). I remember thinking this was one of the few pieces I'd like to see again - sort of a South American Rodeo. Tiler Peck makes anything sparkle and the PdDs with Tyler Angle were the highlight; the bits with the horses were cute. Interesting history with the Ginastera score that Kirstein commissioned, but Balanchine never used for whatever reason. Pictures at an Exhibition: I hadn't seen this before and I'm glad I had the chance. More evidence of Ratmansky's genius and exploration of his Russian heritage. And such a treat to hear the glorious piano score live on stage. I gather there was criticism of the ever-changing set and costumes, but they seemed appropriate for that music and at least the costumes didn't interfere with the movement. Everywhere we go: I hadn't seen this one before either. I've now seen three of Peck's works (Rodeo, this one, and Year of the Rabbit this spring at PNB) and I think I now need to see everything he has done and will do. His genius in moving large groups around in surprising and interesting ways is unmatched. Four new ones next year? Will he burn out or will we start seeing the same thing again and again? Who knows, but his work is so exciting to see, I suspect he'll be impressive for a long time to come.

A belated posting on the weekend performances: Symphony in 3 Movements: I saw both performances, Friday night and Saturday matinee. This is one of my favorite Balanchine ballets which is not available in any complete recording (except at the NYPL dance library). I'm intrigued with the history of this piece, starting with Stravinsky's view in the mid 40s that this reflected his sadness over the devastation to Europe during WWII as he was living in southern California. Balanchine clearly picked up on that, with the images of the front, airplanes, helicopters, etc., making this an unusual programmatic work compared to his other leotard ballets. And that music! Just glorious! Stand-outs: Sterling Hyltin and Daniel Ulbricht: both were so invested in the energy and shapes of this work. Confident, in command, they made the sometimes idiosyncratic choreography their own. Their partners, Taylor Stanley and Ana Sophia Scheller, were close seconds. Biggest disappointment: Megan LeCrone. I know she has a lot of fans on this board, but...I was near the front on Friday night and her pasted-on grin was appalling. Her variations alone were limp and uncommitted. In this ballet, as with many others, Balanchine interwove non-ballet moves with classical steps and positions -- jogging, arm pumping, odd shapes, etc. LeCrone almost seemed embarrassed to be doing them. Saturday afternoon, the grin was dialed back, but the movements were just as limp and uncommitted. She needs to OWN that choreography and I just didn't see it. Joseph Gordon had the thankless task of partnering her, but couldn't compensate for her flaccid performance, to my mind. Sorry! Moves: Interesting to me that this work was created in 1959 for Robbins' own company, but not premiered at NYCB until May 2, 1984, almost exactly one year after Balanchine's death. There must be a story there. I wonder if Balanchine didn't care for it, as it rejects his "see the music" theme. Or perhaps Martins and Robbins felt the need to show new choreography that NYC audience hadn't seen after Balanchine's death. I've seen this several times over the years. I'm intrigued with hints of moves he used in other works - the ensemble of men with arms to the side, palms up, reminded me of sections of Glass Pieces, which he made in 1983, e.g. The dancers seem to enjoy doing it, but I'm about done with it. Bournonville Divertissements: I'm glad they revived this last year, as it was Stanley Williams' lovely tribute to his heritage, an important piece of dance history. But after seeing several performances, I think I'm done with this one, too.