California

Single tickets go on sale August 2 at 12 noon EDT: http://www.nycballet.com/Season-Tickets/Calendar.aspx#family

To all you lucky people seeing Cinderella this evening: Leanne Cope just tweeted that she'll be there.

I saw that story on Facebook a couple of days ago, and I'm glad it's getting attention. Let me add that Colorado Ballet has a really nice program for Down Syndrome children, "Be Beautiful Be Yourself." It's great when people see the many values of the arts. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other programs like this around the country. http://www.coloradoballet.org/education/bebeautifulbeyourself

A little more patriotism on the last day of the season: final company class with fouettes to the Star Spangled Banner. According to Gillian's Instagram, all-American Ethan Stiefel taught the class: https://instagram.com/abtofficial/ You can catch a glimpse of him in the far left of the clip. Oops! That music is Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever. Sorry!

I understand that MacMillan was fascinated with pairs figure skating and was inspired by that in creating Manon. Once you are aware of that historical tidbit, you start noticing other skating-like moves in this ballet.

Many of us saw Nunez last fall in the World Ballet Day rehearsal of the final PdD of Manon: (I'm very jealous of those of you seeing her in Cinderella.)

I just watched this 56-minute documentary, released in May of this year. I appreciated seeing Ashley in some dance clips I had never seen before (e.g., Flower Festival with Martins, rehearsing fishdives with Meehan, Madge with Royal Danish), but most are familiar clips (especially from the late 1970s Dance in America programs - Four Ts, Ballo). It also includes some historic stills I had not seen before, but, unfortunately, way too much of the time is devoted to talking heads. They include interesting and historic figures (e.g., d'Amboise), talking about the difficulties retiring and finding a second life after being a dancer. But I wish the interviews had more frequently been shown over dance footage, which is so difficult to come by. We get a little footage of her teaching at SAB and St. Petersburg, but I'd love to see more of her coaching Balanchine ballets at other companies, especially the details she thinks important to coach. We see a little of her coaching Ballo in Cuba, but that's it. http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Goodbye-Merrill-Ashley/dp/B00U1U2SL8/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1436023489&sr=1-1&keywords=the+dance+goodbye

Thanks to all who posted details on the Part and Abrera lilac fairy differences. Very enlightening! I don't see that in "contest" terms, but as choices to work to their strengths. It's interesting how much variation Ratmansky allowed (or perhaps even encouraged) in his reconstruction. It's too bad Part hasn't had more opportunities to dance with Gomes. Perhaps he's just too busy with other partners. He was her partner in the Ratmansky Symphony No. 9 when it premiered at City Center (fall 2012?). And their White Swan PdD is really lovely on the DVD Ballet's Greatest Hits (taped at a YAPG Gala in Tampa -- 2012 or 2013?)

Several of you have mentioned different choreography performed by Part and Abrera in the Lilac Fairy role. I saw two performances of SB, both with Part. Can you give us a couple of specific examples?

David Hallberg sent out a couple of tweets within minutes after the decision was announced Friday morning: https://twitter.com/DavidHallberg

Whatever happened to Project Plie, which ABT announced in September 2013: http://www.abt.org/insideabt/news_display.asp?News_ID=460 I would guess that Payless Shoes and the Boys and Girls Clubs sponsors would be among those sorely disappointed if she doesn't get the promotion - soon!

Whiteside was a principal at Boston Ballet and was hired by ABT as a soloist, then promoted one year later to principal: http://www.abt.org/dancers/detail.asp?Dancer_ID=300

Isn't the School in lower Manhattan? They are opening another school tied to Segerstrom in Costa Mesa, but I didn't think that meant they would close the NYC school. And don't they have studios at 890 Broadway? It's certainly been a problem that they haven't had their own residence theater, but it's not clear how they could solve that.

Somebody with the screen name "Vic Toriya" posted these curtain calls on YouTube. The wrapping aurora noted occurs about 3:33.

Much as I love to see well-done fouettes with lots of flourishes -- Murphy and Osipova come to mind -- it's not hard to find examples of major performers who had a terrible time with these. When Julio Bocca's National Ballet of Uruguay did a live stream of their Swan Lake last year, Maria Riccetto bailed at 24. Makarova notoriously loathed the fouettes and didn't always get through 32. It would be better if they just planned a nice finish, perhaps chaine turns, than struggle to finish. I think it's more important to look at the overall technical quality in a performance than just this one thing. So I'm curious about the rest of the performance people saw at today's matinee.

I sat through Tempest twice at the fall season when it premiered and that's it for me for that one. But I do think it was interesting that it was a co-production with the National Ballet of Canada and they keep postponing their showing of it. Not on the schedule for 2015-16. Perhaps they came to NYC to see it!

Actually, it looks like a very successful ballet academy that does Nutcracker and maybe one other thing each year. https://www.baltimoreballet.com/ I am not in any way disparaging such "companies." Everybody needs performing opportunities and the local communities need to see ballet live and in person. Perhaps some will be motivated to support their local arts council or write to their members of Congress to support NEA funding! "Regional company" is a little vague. I hope as BAers travel this country, they take a look at the local companies, if their schedules coincide, especially the ones I've named. I suspect you'd be pleasantly surprised at the quality of the productions and dancers.

For ballet academies, yes, that seems to be common. But for the companies I list by name (and others I forgot to include), they have plenty of their own dancers to handle Nutcracker duties and do it well.

A very small point, and I'm not sure how you define "regional company," but they typically do not fly in stars. I do see notices for Nutcrackers offered by ballet academies that fly in stars and call themselves "Small City Ballet Company," but not otherwise. This country is fortunate to have a wealth of very worthwhile regional companies -- Atlanta, Houston, Colorado, Cincinnati, Sarasota, Ballet West, at a minimum, and others if you broaden the definition to include Joffrey, PNB, San Francisco, Boston. Many of them got their start from early help from NEA or the Ford Foundation or just very determined founders. I've seen many of these companies and am rarely disappointed. The caliber of talented dancers all over the country is very high and it breaks my heart that so many of them don't have more opportunities for long contracts, touring, etc.

In one of the interviews on the links page here, Kent gives as another reason to retire MacKenzie ' decision to cut back on full-length ballets like Manon, R&J, and Camellias. I haven't seen that mentioned elsewhere. What will he program instead?

Wow! Ferri is gorgeous in that lift. Thanks for posting. I don't remember seeing anybody else do that this week.

I spent a week in Krakow last year and visited Schindler's factory (now a high-tech and very chilling portrayal of life under Nazi occupation,the Holocaust, etc.) Also visited Auschwitz-Birkenau and other memorials. The tour guide reminded us that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, which I also saw there on plaques. University students today are keenly aware of their history, the Holocaust, and the betrayal by Nazis, Stalin, and then the western allies they helped during the war. And no way was the choice of music a coincidence. But people can see different things in an abstract ballet, perhaps the intent of that program note.

He is doing "Car Man" at Sadler's Wells. Earlier this spring, he was apparently in London rehearsing, judging from his Instagram and Twitter accounts. I hope they find a way to bring it to City Center some day. I'd love to see it: http://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/2015/matthew-bournes-the-car-man/

While many of you were at the met for Misty's R&J matinee, I decided to try the matinee of the Polish National Ballet at the Joyce. They have one more performance Sunday afternoon and I would recommend it: http://www.joyce.org/performance/polish-national-ballet/#.VYXbWdHbLIV The most expensive seat is $49 and they have tickets on the TDF site for half that. This matinee was almost sold out, although I have no way of knowing how many were there on TDF tickets. At home, they have 90 dancers (!). I am always amazed at the talent in these little eastern European countries. I attribute that to the classical arts in the bloodstream in that part of the world - along with their heavy subsidies from the state government. My favorite was the final piece, Moving Rooms, made for the Dutch National Ballet in 2008 by the Polish company director, Krzysztof Pastor. Very contemporary/post-modern music is by Alfred Schnittke. The 11 dancers showed us very avant-garde neo-classical ballet, with a tinge of Kylian in the movement and Glass in the music, at least in the final movement. It's a great finale and real crowd-pleaser. I also liked the opening piece, Adagio & Scherzo, also by Pastor, premiered last year. The music (recorded, alas) was the 2nd and 3rd movements of Schubert's String Quintet in C major. That same Quintet was used as the only music in HBO's extraordinary film Conspiracy, which re-enacted the infamous Wannsee Conference that planned the Holocaust (filmed on location with a host of famous actors from Richard Branagh and Stanley Tucci to Colin Firth). It is inconceivable that this was a coincidence. Although Wannsee is outside Berlin, Poland was the location of many death camps, most notably Auschwitz-Birkenau outside Krakow. The background images shifted among horizontal lines in bright red then to blue, back to red. (Nazi swastikas to Communism?) The program is very discrete: "I am not telling any story in this piece..." But if you have seen Conspiracy, you can't help but see the entire ballet through that lens. This is neo-classical ballet again, in pointe shoes for the women, 8 dancers in all. http://www.amazon.com/Conspiracy-Kenneth-Branagh/dp/B00005YUO1 I had difficulty connecting with the middle piece, Rite of Spring, choreographed by Emanuel Gat in 2004. Five dancers, three women and two men, were in bare feet in a harsh red light. I think because the music and previous choreography are so familiar, it was harder to grasp what this one was trying to do.

When I bought tickets on March 22, the day single tickets went on sale, I was as excited as anybody over the trifecta of Osipova-Obratsova-Vishneva in R&J. Well, we only got one out of three. But what we did get, as promised (after Hallberg was injured), was Marcelo in two of those three performances. It amazes me that people would walk out and not want to see what he does in the ballet. I think Nureyev was the first Romeo in this choreography (even if that was not MacMillan's original intent) and the ballet is chalk full of challenging variations for Romeo, along with some pretty amazing partnering. Maybe New Yorkers who get to see him a lot more than I do take him for granted, but they shouldn't. And at the curtain calls, he is always the gentleman - gracious to his partner (especially after the last-minute substitution) and gesturing with appreciation to the dancers behind him. Friday afternoon, I went over to the NYPL dance collection and watched the tape of Manon with Ferri and Bolle from June 14, 2007. I don't know if this was her retirement performance (lots of curtain calls but no crowd scene of admirers and former partners on stage). It's fascinating to compare Manon from 1974 with R&J one decade earlier and MacMillan's evolution. In making Manon, e.g., he was reportedly fascinated with pairs figure skating and you can see "moves" like that in much of the partnering, such as the throw-triple-twist. And both ballets end with an odd PdD -- one with a dead body and the other with an almost dead and dying body. MacMillan seems to be fascinated with the dynamics of how that would work. I don't believe this was ever released on DVD, but it should be. I don't recall it being shown on PBS, but the quality of camera work was certainly sufficient for them to release that tape some day. It was decidedly not the rough archival tape quality in many of the ABT recordings at NYPL. Do all those people who just don't show up know that they can call the box office to cancel the ticket and get a charitable deduction? The number is on the printed ticket: 212-362-6000. (At NYCB, you can do the same thing on their web site at least two hours beforehand.) Some consolation financially. PS: In the ultra-trivia department, I noticed that several corps members in Act II know how to play a mandolin. Both hands move! Maybe they're amateur guitar players who grasped that basic point.