California

Terrible news! I hope it's not serious and he's back in good health for the spring season in the U.S. He's still listed for the April Kennedy Center engagements, although they'd probably not be in a hurry to announce a substitution.

I don't know the specific practices of WB, but availability of seats can be very unpredictable at most theaters due to several factors. (1) Theaters typically hold back excellent "house seats" for guests of the company, big donors, and critics and only release those near to performance date. (2) If the company allows subscribers to exchange tickets for different performances, excellent seats can open up late in the game. A swing from 30% available to sold out and back does sound a little extreme, though.

Baryshnikov will be performing with the Mark Morris Dance Group at Morris' Brooklyn dance center April 3-14: http://markmorrisdancegroup.org/performances/629 I hope the New Yorkers who attend will tell us about it. I believe the piece Baryshnikov will perform (The Wooden Tree) was premiered in Seattle last fall.

I went back a few entries when this thread re-emerged, and found your query -- I've always heard them referred to as arabesque voyage, and thought the idea of an arabesque taking a little trip was so sweet... Isn't the arabesque voyage the movement for the corps starting at 6:03 where they scootch across the stage in lines in arabesque?

I've tried sitting on many occasions in the side Grand Tier boxes and also the Side Parterre boxes close to the stage and like them a lot. It's imperative that you be in the first row (seats 1-2-3). The second row is unacceptable everywhere in the boxes, mainly because they cram too many chairs into those boxes. I like being close to the stage and you can often see well into the wings, which is fun. You'll almost certainly have a blind corner closest to you, so be prepared for that. But the biggest advantage is just getting a very close-up view of the dancers, which you can't get from the Grand Tier, even in the first row, as it is quite some distance back. Another little bonus with the Grand Tier boxes: one closest to the stage is the "company box" and the other the "director's box." Dancers from the company sometimes sit in the company box, especially for high-profile performances, and it's fun to see their reaction. Others can speak to the orchestra. The only times I sit there is for the open rehearsals and I really don't like it. Unless you're lucky enough to be on the aisle in the outside section, you'll have people in front of you, some rather tall and/or sporting big hair that interferes with your view. Be sure you have printed out the seat diagrams from the on-line ordering site to see exactly where you are.

I don't know the count story, but in French sissonne means "split," which also seems apt for that movement.

I'm sure that's part of it, but attracting younger audiences surely is a problem, too, for both opera and ballet. Major companies seem to have all sorts of programs to attract younger audience members, but I don't know how successful they are. And people of limited income at all ages can only experience the arts in these secondary ways. The big companies need to figure out how to exploit the new technologies without destroying their major revenue sources. (But this is also a problem for newspapers, book publishers, and music studios.)

I don't know about support for the Kennedy Center visit, but doesn't Glorya Kaufman underwrite rather generously the dance series in LA? http://www.musiccenter.org/about/Our-Programs/Glorya-Kaufman-Dance/

I used Internet Explorer 9 and the form worked just fine.

Maybe the Opera (and Ballet) HD cinema need to look at other models. I'm not a sports fan (except for figure skating and gymnastics) but don't some local teams ban local TV broadcasts of games that are not sold out? The Opera/Ballet might adopt the same rule for broadcasts within, say, 100 miles. I suppose one problem would be the movie theater owners who wouldn't commit to something like this. (Not great for fans, but better than abandoning that mode of delivery altogether.) Another model: the traditional release of books was hardcover first and cheaper paperback much later, sometimes a year or so later. (The book publishing model is in chaos right now, of course, because of e-books, but that was the old model. If you just couldn't wait, you'd pay premium price for the hardcover -- or get onto a waiting list at your local library.) Opera/Ballet HD might show things on delay -- perhaps months later, so if you were eager to see something special, you'd get to New York, but otherwise wait a while to see it in the movie theater or on PBS. I'd hate to lose this new delivery mode and wish ballet would do more of it. So many people can't afford to ever get to New York (or Moscow or London or St. Petersburg) to see these in person and some compromise that balances accessibility with the continuing need of companies to sell tickets to live performances should be possible.

This reminds me of the David Gordon piece to the Shades music in 1972 at the Judson Church. It was excerpted in a 1980 PBS special on post-modern dance. Last year he recreated some of this. Here's a NY Times story about it: http://www.nytimes.c...oject.html?_r=0 He commented in 1980 that he loved the repetition of that music as much as ballet audiences did. He used ordinary people walking across the stage, with a "janitor" busily sweeping in the background. One of the performers was an NYCB dancer, Bart Cook.

The 2013-2014 season schedule has just been posted: http://www.bostonballet.org/2013-2014-season/

Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo lists Princess Caroline as its "president." Even if she doesn't donate money, her sponsorship must count for something in fund-raising. http://www.balletsdemontecarlo.com/?lg=en

That struck me as odd, too, but I think he's saying he'd like new productions, along the lines of the "new Don Q" next season, which still uses the Minkus music, choreography "after Petipa," and presumably the same general libretto. So it's not "entirely new," but more refreshed, updated, etc.

The new season was just announced: http://www.roh.org.uk/news/201314-ballet-and-dance-season-announced

This isn't much, but the (slightly) revised subscription brochure I received in today's mail says that the fall season October 30-November 10 will feature "an eclectic repertoire of one-act ballets," so I guess they're saving all the full-lengths for the Met seasons. It also says that on-sale dates for performance tickets for the fall season (and the Nutcracker Dec 13-22 at BAM) are TBA.

That's good news -- I was wondering how this might conflict with Easter Sunday plans. Looks like they'll see how single ticket sales go for a couple of weeks before instituting "dynamic pricing" on April 8. Do you know if subscribers can make a purchase of a particular seat from the seating chart in that early week or just from a general section, as they can do now?

Does anybody know when single tickets go on sale for the 2013 Met season? If it's roughly the same as recent years, it's Sunday, March 31 or April 7. I've looked all over the ABT site, as well as the Met Opera ticket-buying site for ABT and can't find anything. I did find several notices that ticket prices MAY go up on April 8, depending on demand. That's earlier than last year and perhaps they are waiting to see how subscription sales go. Or that might be the end of the first week of single-ticket sales.

Alas, it appears this will only play in Europe. I hope they release this for U.S. DVD players. Nothing on the U.S. Amazon site today. I'm confused...this has already been released in the US: http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Beauty-Svetlana-Zakharova/dp/B008MMFBES/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1362838582&sr=1-2&keywords=hallberg

I'm not a dance historian, but a lot of work has been done on the many changes in Swan Lake, including the many different endings. I'd recommend Selma Jeanne Cohen's book, Next Week, Swan Lake (Wesleyan University Press, 1982). See, e.g., p. 8, which lists a wide variety of endings used by different companies. http://www.amazon.com/Next-Week-Swan-Lake-Reflections/dp/081956110X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362791916&sr=8-1&keywords=next+week+swan+lake (If you buy it, remember to go through the Amazon box on this page, so Ballet Alert gets some revenue.) Historians have also done a lot of work on how the Soviet government impacted the arts. Right after the revolution, some Soviets thought ballet should be shut down as "elitist," but they quickly recognized they had a powerful propaganda tool to show Soviet "superiority," so it was nurtured, albeit under rather heavy-handed dictates about what was allowable, consistent with overall Soviet ideology (including atheism).

This is an interesting question, though. People might remember that the late John Curry (who won the Olympic gold medal in about 1980?) commissioned several ballet choreographers for an ice show. I remember both Twyla Tharp and Peter Martins being asked to contribute. But it never caught on.

But this is generally the new ending commanded by the Soviet government long ago so it was consistent with Soviet ideology -- no religion, no afterlife, good triumphs over evil in this life. Balanchine used the pre-Soviet original, in which Siegfried and Odette find happiness in an afterlife, the version he was familiar with from pre-Soviet Russia. (And Balanchine was also reportedly very religious throughout his own life, so he would be comfortable with the notion of a happy afterlife.) The Cubans were supported by the Soviets for decades until the fall of the Soviet Union, so it's understandable they would use the Soviet-prescribed ending. The newly revised ending for the Bolshoi is still consistent with Soviet ideology, as there is no reliance on happiness in an afterlife.

Whether or not Vorontsova or her boyfriend were justified in being angry at Filin is irrelevant to what happened. Violence is never the answer. Not only is it completely unacceptable as a way of resolving conflict, but it also is a career-ender once its perpetrators are discovered. I keep thinking of Suzanne Farrell's anger that Balanchine would not give her husband roles she thought he deserved. Their response was to resign from the company and perform elsewhere. Whether or not her anger was justified is not relevant. Her response was appropriate in this kind of situation.

A word of caution on the Bolshoi: when they came to the Orange County Performing Arts Center (now Segerstrom) in spring 2010, they announced they would be doing La Bayadere for the entire week. Late in the game (although before single tickets went on sale), they switched that to Don Quixote - probably a better choice for that audience, although they never gave any explanation for the change.

I found the page listing the companies. Has anyone found more information, most especially, dates? http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/newseason/#DBC