California

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!

In all these Ratmansky discussions, it's interesting that nobody has mentioned his Nutcracker at BAM. I've only seen little clips from the old Works and Process program at the Guggenheim a few years ago, but it sounded like there were some nice segments for principals. He does seem to do well at refreshing full-length classics. His reconstruction of the old Shostakovich Bolt for Bolshoi is enormously interesting from the perspective of dance/cultural history, but I'm glad it's available on DVD, as it would never play with American audiences. (It ridicules the Soviet approach to industry as Bright Stream makes fun of the communal farms.) The Soviet imagery in the Trilogy makes more sense when you look back at Bolt and Bright Stream, but I'm not sure Western audiences really understand much of it.

I would urge anybody interested to move quickly. That theater only holds 1074 and my guess is that tickets will go fast. They use that theater for things like convocation and other campus events, and there's a very steep rake in the seats. Most seats should be fine. If you use Google-images for "Carpenter Center Long Beach" you can see the interior. Parking in adjacent lots is convenient on the weekends.

I loved Symphony No. 9 (the first of the trilogy) when it was presented by itself in fall 2012 at City Center, and I think it stands on its own. I hope they are not under performance restrictions that they have to present the entire trilogy or nothing at all. Bright Stream seems to have run its course -- it's the sort of ballet that's fun to see once or twice, but that's enough. Not enough serious dancing to want to go back again and again. I have a hunch his SB will do well, though, as he seems to have had success restaging classics for other companies.

I've been reading with some amusement the scathing comments about "The Tempest." I saw it twice last fall across the plaza in its premiere week, with both casts, and decided then and there that I was done with that ballet. What a waste of so many talented dancers, as others have noted. Was this co-produced with another company, so at least the (apparently) extravagant cost could be shared? Perhaps they could recycle that boat for another ballet. At least we know that Ratmansky (as with Balanchine and other notables) is not perfect. They all make mistakes. It's just too bad so much money apparently went down the drain.

The review by Robert Gottlieb (for me, a must-read critic) is also pretty brutal. The link just appeared in today's "links": http://observer.com/2014/07/a-disheartening-week-for-dance/

For much of the country (indeed, much of the planet), the only way to see serious ballet is on DVD. I've been impressed to see the extensive collections in public libraries that people who can't afford the DVDs can check out. And some of them make their way (unauthorized, of course) onto YouTube. I had understood that the renovation of the State/Koch Theatre included high-tech installations so performances could be broadcast, live-streamed, etc., but that NYCB can't afford to do that. I vaguely remember that ABT has made the same excuse. It's true that European governments provide much more generous subsidies for this kind of thing, but wouldn't this be a nice project for some US Foundation?

Agreed! I would add that the availability of DVDs is also relevant. Thanks to La Scala's release of performances videotaped live, I have DVDs of Bolle in Bayadere, Giselle, and Swan Lake (partnering Zakharova in all three). What's available commercially for Gomes? Purple Rothbart in the ABT Swan Lake, from 2005 (with Corella and Murphy in the leads). Serious fans can find snippets on YouTube and the NYPL/Dance Collection has archival tape of several ballets with him you can watch there, but none of that has been released for commercial distribution. This is a raw nerve on this site, for sure.