California

Private fund-raising has gotten ever more urgent as government funding has continued to decline dramatically. The NEA request for FY 2014 is only $154 million (see p. 4): http://www.arts.gov/about/Budget/NEA-FY14-Appropriations-Request.pdf The "high-water" mark in NEA funding was $176 million back in 1992 (and remember that these are actual dollars, not inflation-adjusted): http://www.nea.gov/about/budget/AppropriationsHistory.html Support from almost all states and cities has also declined over the past two decades. I don't have a problem with dancer sponsorships, although some of the techniques are really creepy (e.g., auctions) and it seems at least some companies are avoiding such approaches. Wealthy donors sponsor productions, performances, special events, costumes, rooms in buildings, etc., etc. Why not dancers?

Colorado Ballet does this. In the spring 2013 print programs, every single principal and every single soloist is sponsored by a named individual. They don't include that information on their current web site, but I'm thinking that they might still be lining this up for the 2013-14 season (which opens in October 2013). In the 2011-12 print program, all three female principals were sponsored, but none of the three males and none of the soloists. EDIT: Let me add that in the 2010-11 print program, nobody is sponsored. But the Colorado Ballet hired a new Executive Director and new Development Director in 2011, so that probably explains this. I have no idea what they charge for that kind of sponsorship and it's not indicated on their web site as an example of "sponsorship." Development officers are always looking for new incentives for donors and this one seems like a good idea if they can manage it so nobody is embarrassed by omission. Is it the Royal Ballet that has a policy that nobody gets flowers on stage unless the principal that night first gets them, so somebody set up an endowment to ensure that principals always get flowers? Something along those lines to avoid embarrassment to anybody seems like a good idea.

Just curious: at the public presentation, did Freedman himself say anything about what he's doing next? (I'm not asking for gossip or speculation - just whether he himself said anything to the public audience at this event.)

"Wow" is indeed the word! What an impressive first year -- and that gala! That rep would be challenging for an experienced, well-established company. I certainly hope he can pull this off.

The article cited above mentions the new Colorado Ballet building. I don't know if this has been posted before (apologies if it has), but here's more information on it: http://www.coloradoballet.org/newhome

Another source on the Balanchine Swan Lake: Nancy Reynolds' wonderful Repertory in Review (1977). On p. 131, she includes a photo from the mid-1950s, with Tallchief and Eglevsky. Odette is in a short white tutu, and the corps is in knee-length white tutus with atrocious swan-wings (or whatever they would be called). Also on p. 131 is a photo from "mid-1960s (new production)" with McBride and Villella. All the women are in white again. The corps tutus seem to be just above the knees and the swan-wings seem to have disappeared. I don't find any discussion of the black tulle mentioned on the NYCB site, again suggesting that this idea came later. An intriguing footnote on p. 130: "Balanchine staged a Swan Lake for Spessivtzeva in 1929 (Diaghilev's Ballets Russe)." It would be interesting to learn what that looked like. Was it all the acts? How was Odile dressed (if she was included)?

The 1940s is interesting for the timing of the black swan. Balanchine's one-act Swan Lake dates to 1951. He put all the swans, except Odette, into black and gave a puzzling explanation: "there are black swans as well." I wonder what influenced Balanchine, both in Russia and elsewhere. Had he seen (or heard about) another production that used black? Do we know which production first put Odile into black? Here's the NYCB site on Balanchine's version, with that quote: http://www.nycballet.com/ballets/s/swan-lake-(balanchine).aspx

Am I understanding this correctly: Odile is in a white dress? Was this modeled after an historic production that used a white dress? Or was Samaritani just trying to come up with something new and startling?

It's Odette the person/princess, not Odette the Swan Queen. I once saw a version that had all the swans and Odette revert to human status with long flowing gowns, after Rothbart was killed off (the Soviet ending). But that hasn't caught on, for better or worse...

Even worse, I've been to far too many theaters where ushers think it's fine to seat people during the overture, right up until the curtain starts to go up.

I'm always wary of the accuracy of Wikipedia, but I found a pretty impressive and detailed list of all the changes Drigo made in 1895 to the 1877 Tchaikovsky score. Apparently, Tchaikovsky, before his death in 1893, liked Drigo's idea of importing several other Tchaikovsky works into Swan Lake -- music not originally intended for Swan Lake. But it doesn't appear Tchaikovsky knew about the extensive re-ordering of the score Drigo eventually settled on. The version we are most familiar with today is the Drigo version, which is why it's so startling to hear a recording of the 1877 original. I don't think we know what Tchaikovsky was thinking dramatically when he wrote his original score and apparently Drigo thought the score wasn't working well, which is why he did such extensive reworking. Whether or not overtures should be performed exclusively with music intact and no choreography ever is a specific question worth discussing, I suppose. But I don't know that overtures have to be sacrosanct. In the film version of West Side Story, we see some very interesting visuals during the overture, e.g. Why do we have the tradition of applauding Odette's entrance in Act II? Because she is entering as Odette The Swan Queen -- a character we haven't met before, who dominates the rest of the ballet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Lake_(1895)#Drigo.27s_edition_of_Tchaikovsky.27s_score

Are the Wilis appropriately called "vampire women"? The PNB site quotes Gautier's source on the Wilis: PNB refers to them as "Vampire-like." Yes, they come out after dark, but they don't have the literal blood-sucking quality we associate with vampires. Also, Heine says they just died before their weddings. I thought they had a more tragic end -- brides jilted on their wedding day and thus dying of grief. But perhaps that nuance was added later in the retelling of the Wilis story. I do think it's interesting that we still have an expression today: "That gives me the wilis." I've asked people if they know where that expression came from and non-ballet-lovers generally don't have a clue!

PNB did a reconstruction from historic sources in 2011, but I was not able to get to Seattle to see it. Do locals there know if they recreated the fugue scene? They have a lengthy report on the reconstruction, but don't mention that specifically: http://www.pnb.org/AboutPNB/Repertory/Giselle.aspx I vaguely remember seeing somebody else reconstruct the fugue, but can't remember where that would have been. Do others remember it?

I like some things about ABT's version, especially the interpolated dancing for Purple Rothbart in Act III, which gives some great male dancers a chance to show off. I also like the prologue showing how Odette is trapped by Rothbart. (Too many versions leave that unsaid.) The overture was meant to be just that...an overture. No dancing, please... That silly modern prologue is one of the lowest points on ABT's staging. I mean...after all the work done by both the composer and the choreographer to give the Prima a grand entrance in Act II , it all goes down the drain with this number...and that even without getting into analyzing the stuffed bird segment... I don't know if others saw the live streamed Swan Lake Friday and Saturday nights from Uruguay, Julio Bocca's company. That version also starts with the prologue showing how Odette is captured by Rothbart. Bocca was with ABT when McKenzie's version was being performed, and apparently he liked the idea. McKenzie's version, despite its faults, does show us how Odette could be seduced by Rothbart, first with that opening scene and then with the Rothbart dancing in Act III when he seduces the princesses vying for the Prince's hand. I'm not sure about the sanctity of the score. I used to own a "complete" orchestral Swan Lake on old 33-1/3 records (dating from the 1950s) and it was startling to realize how much the music had been rearranged for ballet productions. E.g., music we associate with the black swan PdD was originally in Act I. My memory is a little vague at this point, but isn't some of the contemporary ballet score taken from other Tchaikovsky work? Tchaikovsky himself took some of what we consider Swan Lake themes from the overture to a failed opera he tried earlier. We do know that the earliest productions of Swan Lake were a mess, with interpolated music from other composers, and Tchaikovsky went to his grave thinking it was a huge failure.

That ABT page on the history of their Swan Lakes is nicely ambiguous -- "Swan Lake was revived, with staging by Kevin McKenzie..." and no hint of which of the several versions in ABT's history he was reviving. I suppose that was the politically judicious way to put things!

Somebody asked about dates of the ABT's Swan Lake. McKenzie's version premiered in 2000. Baryshnikov did a new version in 1988 that McKenzie revived in 1993. http://www.abt.org/education/archive/ballets/swan_lake_mckenzie.html

I like some things about ABT's version, especially the interpolated dancing for Purple Rothbart in Act III, which gives some great male dancers a chance to show off. I also like the prologue showing how Odette is trapped by Rothbart. (Too many versions leave that unsaid.) But the seriously truncated last act is a big problem. Some really haunting segments for the corps are left out and the short race to the suicides is unfortunate. Also, the goings-on in front of the main curtain between the last two acts are seriously muddled. I think it's a good idea in principle to leave out that intermission, but the groupings are a mish-mash.

I stumbled into the complete Baryshnikov in Hollywood -- dubbed in Russian! -- on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pCOrNQLs0I This was the "sequel" to the very popular Baryshnikov on Broadway and it has some pretty awful sequences. But there are some gems, too, if you have never seen it.

I also loved the surprised looks from oh-so-sophisticated New Yorkers! The whole thing is very clever.

Channel 13 has posted the full episode of NYC-Arts from August 15, 2013. The first half is a nice profile of the School of American Ballet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DT2UpJVRSoM&utm_content=buffer3333b&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer#at=788

Steps on Broadway just tweeted a link to a charming mini-documentary on David Howard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXt8Fdm5ya8

Casting also just appeared on the ABT web site: http://www.abt.org/calendar.aspx?startdate=12/1/2013

Is it possible that you took a class with Stanley Williams, another legendary teacher?

The Colorado Ballet posted a nicely re-designed Web site today. http://www.coloradoballet.org/ Among other things, it lists the dancers for the 2013-14 season: http://coloradoballet.org/company/dancers I compared the roster with the dancer list in the print programs for 2012-13. One new soloist has been added (Domenico Luciano). Three new corps members have been added (Kevin Hale, Charlotte Lanning, Kelsie Nobriga). Five corps members from last year are no longer listed (Gregory DeSantis, Olga Prikhodtseva, Christina Schifano, Rylan Schwab, Sally Turkel). I googled the ones who left, but can't find out what they are doing next. The net change is a decline from 31 dancers to 30. (I have no idea what the story is on any of this.)

What are your seating recommendations for Covent Garden Theatre? I've studied photos of the interior on Google images and am not sure about what would be ideal (assuming available seats and plausible price...big assumptions, I'm sure). Is the orchestra sufficiently raked/sloped that you don't have to worry about tall people with big hair blocking your view? The tiers seem very far back in the center and somewhat obstructed views on the side. My main comparison is the Met Opera House, which has no perfect seats for dance. How does Covent Garden compare?