California

There's a very nice write-up on his extensive career on his faculty page at Barnard College, where he teaches in the Dance Department: https://dance.barnard.edu/profiles/robert-lafosse

Irina Dvorovenko was terrific in On Your Toes in 2013, although she was on her way out at ABT by then: http://www.timeout.com/newyork/dance/ballerina-irina-dvorovenko-talks-about-american-ballet-theatre-and-on-your-toes-1

I'm sure many have noticed that both Royal Ballet and National Ballet of Canada have posted their schedules for 2014-15. Winter's Tale is nowhere to be found on either, which is a puzzle. When they co-sponsored Alice, did NBC wait a year before presenting it themselves? Seems odd to wait so long to show it again, unless Wheeldon wants to rework parts of it, perhaps?

When Bolshoi was announced for Segerstrom (Orange County Performing Arts Center) in February 2010, they were going to do a week of La Bayadere, which I thought was quite courageous for that audience. Without explanation, a few months before the engagement, they substituted Don Quixote. Did Bolshoi decide they couldn't tour Bayadere because of sets or lack of appropriate principals or did the Segerstrom management get cold feet? I never saw an explanation, but my guess would be the latter.

Gomes just sent out this Instagram from the Lubovitch Othello: http://instagram.com/p/qUqiRjCuah/ He says "coming soon" -- as it's not on the fall NYC schedule, perhaps it will be performed in winter touring and/or the Met 2015 season. But now that Radetsky has retired...not sure what message he's sending with this. Maybe that's the only photo he had of himself.

Royal lists this as a co-production with National Ballet of Canada, so that probably explains why it won't be seen in North America in cinema. It's not being done by Royal in their 2014-15 season. Is it listed for NBC next year? I would guess that with all the massive sets and costumes, it's a big deal to move them across the Atlantic. And both companies have a big incentive to recoup their investments, I suppose, by encouraging people to get to a theater to see it in performance. http://www.roh.org.uk/productions/the-winters-tale-by-christopher-wheeldon

She's not on the official faculty list at SAB, but it's certainly possible that she has done a little teaching there now and then. Still, haven't other principals at NYCB taken on some serious teaching responsibilities well before they retire from the stage? Makes me wonder if she will be focussing on coaching Balanchine technique and perhaps setting ballets herself eventually. http://www.sab.org/school/faculty/

Pointe magazine announced that she will be teaching at Ballet Academy East, although she could still perform, of course. The Balanchine connection at that Academy is interesting: http://www.pointemagazine.com/blogs/ballet-academy-east/wendy-whelan-joins-ballet-academy-east-faculty

Kathleen: Your explanations make excellent sense. I was sure I had read reports that NYCB also wanted an exclusive arrangement with Ratmansky, which he refused, but couldn't find a reference for that just now. He seems to be enjoying life with his travels and work with different companies and I doubt he would have been happy in the shadow of Martins. Let me add: the non-exclusive arrangement with Peck makes sense to me. He is young and inexperienced. Working with dancers at different companies should help him grow, as well as building his reputation beyond NYC. Very different situation with an established choreographer like Ratmansky.

According to the NY Times, the negotiations ended because Ratmansky had so many commitments to other companies: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/arts/dance/13ball.html?_r=0 This story has a little more detail: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/arts/dance/11danc.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin

Thanks, Faux Pas. Excellent analysis. I'd only add that Ratmansky seems to have a good eye for picking talent and we can hope that his choices give those dancers a little boost. E.g., he put Calvin Royal in a prominent role in the Piano Concerto a year ago. I assume he also had a hand in picking Schevchenko to replace Murphy. In Symphony #9 (my favorite of the 3), he had Part-Bolle as second cast to Semionova-Gomes when it premiered at City Center. It's also interesting that he doesn't use certain dancers who are not well-regarded on this site...mmm...

Gomes is 34, almost 35 (birthdate: 9/26/79), if Google and Wikipedia can be believed. Hallberg is 32 now, at least according to this PBS story: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/dancer-david-hallberg/ I was amazed to see him Tweet a few days ago that he was on his way back to Moscow. He performs at Lincoln Center next week -- that's a lot of air travel and jet lag. I wonder how long he can keep up that kind of routine. When I saw him on the fall ABT schedule, I wondered if perhaps he is trying to make sure he always can fall back on ABT if things go sour at the Bolshoi.

I was amazed to learn that the Royal Opera House will take your unwanted ticket on consignment at the ticket desk and resell it for you, taking only a small commission of 2 pounds. They credit your credit card if it sells, which it probably will if the performance is almost sold out. You can mail in the ticket if there is enough time, or take it to the ticket desk yourself. The details are here, under "Can you sell a ticket for me...": http://www.roh.org.uk/visit/tickets I had two tickets to one of the (cancelled) Osipova Sleeping Beauty's last spring and wanted to sell one of them. I assumed a lot of people would have the same idea when her cancellation was announced, but it sold and I received the credit on my credit card just a few days later. They even sent me an e-mail to let me know it had sold. I've never heard of an American theater doing such a thing, so it was a very pleasant surprise.

They're skipping Halloween, as they did last year. Hard to compete with the other festivities in town, I guess.

Kennedy Center is still listing Push for the March 2015 engagement. Perhaps they feel they need something extra like that to get more New Yorkers to come down and they'll premiere it in NYC at the Met later in the year. http://www.kennedy-center.org/events/?event=BPBSE

The documentary doesn't specifically give the date when these clips were shot. The voice-overs do make clear a few things: d'Amboise danced the final movement of Western Symphony with her in Cologne in October 1956 and then he flew home to New York, as he was expecting the birth of his son. The next clip is of Mitchell, a very brief clip of the last movement of Western Symphony again, shot in B&W, with Mitchell saying Le Clercq and he did the last movement of Western Symphony in Copenhagen, where she collapsed from polio. This is consistent with d'Amboise's autobiography, I was a Dancer (p. 178), although he doesn't mention Mitchell taking his role in Copenhagen. But the film doesn't say when either of those clips were filmed. The NYPL listing says Paris, so that would have been earlier in the tour. The B&W clip might have been shot in Copenhagen, especially if nobody is finding anything in the NYPL catalog. Did she dance it with Mitchell on earlier occasions when it might have been filmed, perhaps in NYC? If not, was that the very last time Le Clercq danced? Seems possible.

The version on the ABT web site is Lubovitch. It would be odd to spend a lot of money mounting a new version, when they seem to have done Lubovitch as recently as 2007 (at least) and it's quite good. http://www.abt.org/education/archive/ballets/othello.html There's a fabulous clip of Gomes and Ferri from that production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fTbFsZ6mm4

I thought the absence of a Thursday night performance on 7/24 was probably something as mundane as the need to change out the sets from Don Q to Spartacus and make sure everything fit in that theater. The change-over from Swan Lake to Don Q, of course, takes place on Monday, 7/21, when that house is normally dark anyway. But why they are skipping the matinees on Wednesday, 7/16 and Saturday, 7/26 (especially when they are doing matinees on the other Wednesday and Saturday) is something of a mystery. Could they add performances at this late date? When they brought Don Q to Segerstrom for a week in 2010, they reportedly brought 100 dancers with them, so they likely will have enough dancers (although perhaps not enough principals?) in NYC to add performances, if they wanted to.

Novikova stars with him in a wonderful DVD of Don Q, recorded at the Mariinsky in 2006. It was that DVD that made me eager to see him in the theater. Osipova is cast for two Giselles, the 11th and 13th, and I assume she'd miss both if she's performing at Royal on the 12th. I just wonder how long before the Koch web site lets us know.

Wow -- I didn't know about that episode in 08-09. Thanks for posting the details. Even assuming the hospitalization was legitimate (and I have no reason to question it), she learned something about the seriousness of conflicting engagements years ago. I don't know if Ardani was managing her career at that point, but they are clearly managing Mikhailovsky currently and still list Osipova as a "project" (although the tour dates don't go beyond 2013, so perhaps someone else is managing her career at this point). I remember a trek many of us made in the early 80s from DC to Baltimore to see Kirkland after she had been fired from ABT. She cancelled at the last minute and we later learned she had even been at the theater. But her partner at the time, Patrick Bissell, performed and there were no refunds. I don't think I ever again tried to chase down a performance by Kirkland and I doubt I will go out of my way to see Osipova either, given their histories. If anybody goes to the Koch box office to buy tickets to Mikhailovsky, do us a favor and ask them how certain they are about casting. Of course, they always say that casting is subject to change, but you might ask them if they know about the Royal's announced casting. Take a print-out, if necessary!

At least with that cancelled Mikhailovsky NY visit (was that 2012 or 2013?), no tickets had gone on sale yet. I don't think dates had even been announced, so nobody would have made travel plans. At the Royal, for the November 2014 performances, tickets have been on sale since mid-June to Friends and not much is left for the general public when that goes on sale in mid-July. Mikhailovsky in NY this November has been on sale for months and, as of this morning, it looks like a lot of good seats remain, even for the (announced) Osipova performances. We'll have to keep an eye on both sites to see which company blinks first and removes her name! On the Ardani site, they announce another Mikhailovsky US tour in fall 2015, but no details. I have never seen Sarafanov in the theater, so it won't be a total loss, and Vasiliev's Albrecht should have curiosity value. I do wonder how many people at the Koch know about this...

Actually, Drew, I think the cancellations I experienced with Osipova were all injuries or illnesses of some kind (although Sylvia is more of a mystery and I never really knew what the story was on that one). Kirkland's cancellations were illnesses of a sort, too. I only made the comparison because Osipova does seem to cancel a lot -- don't expect her until you actually see her and always be prepared for disappointment. I didn't know that she had a double-booking issue (as Helene notes) before this. But, of course, her agents know and probably others and they just hoped nobody would notice -- true bait-and-switch, as mussel notes. Whether New Yorkers or Londoners are the suckers...I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Interesting. They're both listed as guests with La Scala in Giselle in April 2015. Given how injury-prone they both are, I don't think I'll rush to book a flight to Milan: http://www.teatroallascala.org/en/season/opera-ballet/2014-2015/giselle.html I've had tickets to see her do Bayadere and Sylvia with ABT and Sleeping Beauty with Royal -- all cancelled. She's not in Gelsey Kirkland territory, but she seems to be moving in that direction!

Let's hope Royal is gracious and lets her out of that November 12 performance or there will be some very, very unhappy Americans in New York! This would be her first Giselle in the US, right? London got to see her in that last season!

I just noticed something odd on casting: Osipova is scheduled for Giselle in New York with Mikhailovsky on November 11 & 13: http://www.davidhkochtheater.com/moreinfoMB.html But Royal Ballet is listing her as cast in their mixed bill on November 4 & 12 in London: http://www.roh.org.uk/mixed-programmes/scenes-de-ballet-five-brahms-waltzes-in-the-manner-of-isadora-duncan-symphonic-variations-a-month-in-the-country Even with the old Concorde, that's not workable!