zerbinetta

Nope but this sounds a lot more interesting than the one I saw. I remember it being en pointe, the ballerina in white flowy costume. I also remember closing my eyes and just listening to Maria.

I remember seeing a not entirely successful ballet solo to Maria Callas' recording of "Casta Diva", the great aria from Norma, but no longer remember who danced it or even what theater I saw it in. Perhaps someone here remembers the event better. There are certainly ballets galore set to ballet music from opera: Balanchine's Ballo della Regina from Verdi's Don Carlos (the French version); Donizetti Variations (from Dom Sebastien); Sonnambula to Bellini music from La Sonnambula & other of his operas (wonderfully stitched together by Rieti for the ballet); Robbins' Four Seasons from Verdi's Les Vepres Sicilienne - the French version of I Vespri Siciliani - along with some I Lombardi & something else which escapes me for the moment. For Ballo, Balanchine loosely used the theme of the ballet in the opera. A ball is given by King Phillip to honor his bride, Elisabetta (Isabella, actually but that's off subject). A ballet is part of the entertainment. It is about undersea creatures who find a great pearl - La Pelegrina - which Phillip then presents to Elisabetta. Centuries later Richard Burton presented La Pelegrina to another Elizabeth.

There is a subtlety (although not in Rubies) and a mystery about Miranda that may not be to everyone's taste. It took my husband a while to "get" her but once he did, he was hers for life. It's also possible that she may take a little more work than a more ingratiating dancer. But you're up to that, helene. You must promise to keep us posted on the Seattle phase of her career. Please.

I'm with Michael & Leigh here. I adore Miranda. I'd heard about this possibility a while back & hoped it would not happen. I'll miss the aforementioned wit & musicality, the graciousness & warmth, and most of all her womanliness. Other than Sylve, there is not what I would call a Real Woman among CB's principals. Another Goddess gone to Seattle.

I doubt anyone here is on the side of the hecklers, Paul Parish. They were a minority of the Scala audience & disrupted the performance for all the rest of the paying audience. That's Scala. However, that was not my point. Alagna left Komlosi onstage, alone, to sing a duet. It would be comparable to a partner leaving his ballerina alone to finish a pas de deux. Placido Domingo (as conductor) was booed last week during a performance of La Boheme at the Met. He was clearly shocked and shaken. It may have been the first time he has been booed, certainly the first at the Met. He did not go into a hissy fit and leave his cast to fend for themselves. Consummate professional that he is, he continued - and finished - the performance. Short of a heart attack or broken leg, any professional performer is required to put aside personal difficulties and go on with the show, for his colleagues' sake if not for the audience's.

Forbes.com has just reported that Teatro alla Scala has announced that Roberto Alagna will not sing the remaining performances of Aida. The theater claims he had broken his contract by leaving the stage during the performance.

The average top ticket for the opera at La Scala is 170 Euros = $240. That higher price quoted is perhaps for opening night of the season. Otherwise ticket prices are quite in line with the Met & other European houses. Alagna is a light lyric tenor & wonderful in roles suitable to his voice - Faust, Romeo, etc. As Richard53dog points out, Alagna would be wiser to stay away from Verdi and Puccini roles which require greater heft than he owns. It will also, eventually, wreck his lovely instrument, a la Richard Leech. There was mention in this article of an interview or interviews in which Alagna apparently criticized the Milan audience. Not a wise move. Milan is notorious for its opera claques. The Pavarotti situation was ludicrous. He was booed on opening night of his first ever Don Carlo because he cracked a high note? Puleeze. I saw the second performance and he was wonderful. If the Milan audience booed an icon like their own Luciano, it isn't surprising that they would boo a French tenor, albeit with Italian roots. That said, there is never a reasonable excuse to leave one's colleagues in the lurch as Alagna did. Divo tantrums shorten careers more than poor singing ever will.

Hoo boy, I pity the poor dancers.

I don't mean to demean Patchogue, bart, but it is not possible to get a decent latte there.

A trip to Patchogue defintely counts. Counts double as it's the boonies. Are you telling me it's 23 years since that Kirov visit?

Just had an e-mail from Rupert Rohan of VWL, Carlos Acosta's management, to say that "owing to other contractual commitments", Carlos will not be appearing with ABT in the 2007 season. Feh!

It's entirely possible that I misunderstood what Dana said. Perhaps her first lessons were with her Mom at home & she went to Olympic from there after showing promise? The room was very crowded & noisy when we spoke but she definitely said Mom emphasized arms. Unless "Mom" was the name of her first ballet teacher?

I will miss Dana Hanson. She had the most beautiful arms. I once remarked on it to her & she said her Mom would be proud as Dana studied with her Mom & Mom always emphasized beautiful arms.

A complex and intelligent fellow, our Damian.

Gelsey Kirkland, without question. Her Basilio was Baryshnikov. Fabulous though he was, he was not my favorite Basilio. That would have been Dowell or Bujones. Dowell's drunk scene in the tavern (sadly gone now, along with other Baryshnikov choreography) was so memorably funny. But the Kirkland/Baryshnikov partnership often produced fireworks and never more so than in Don Q. Gelsey was spitfire from her entrance (with the glorious Plisetskaya jetes which everyone including Heather Watts was attempting to duplicate for years). An explosive performance. Unforgettable.

He was also a powerful opera director. The new (at the time) opera McTeague received fabulous performances from its cast at Lyric Opera of Chicago several years ago & I heard from a couple of them that he was fascinating to work with & they benefited from the experience.

Glad to read Kathryn Morgan is off to a good start. She, above all others, knocked me out at SAB last June.

Well they do share the State Theatre staff - House managers, ticket takers, ushers, security staff, etd. but I think you mean internal staff. I get the same subscription people time after time so they must be regular staff as opposed to temps. What do they do when they aren't working on subscriptions, do you suppose? That can't be a full time job, can it?

The second of my three subscriptions arrived yesterday. Since the box office opens Monday & subscription exchanges can be made then, it is important to have one's tickets in hand. This is especially true this season with multiple subscriptions as there are many repeat programs due to the revamped "theme" programming. It seems so inefficient to me. All my other subscriptions, which include ABT, Met Opera, NYPhilharmonic, Carnegie Hall, arrive about two months before the season begins. Even NYCOpera (one assumes they share subscription personnel) gets tickets out in a more timely fashion.

This La Scala event doesn't sound to me like a sure sell-out, so perhaps you can get a good seat really cheaply just beforehand. They may need bodies to fill some seats. Is the music live or recorded?

Am I alone in thinking that NYCB subscription department mails out the tickets later each season? Today is a mere week before the box office opens & 8 days before season opening & I have received (today) only one of three sets of tickets. They don't close the subscriptions until the end of October which probably causes this late mailing even though the renewal mailings go out in August. One would think they could close subscriptions at the end of September or beginning of October & get us our tickets a month before the season opens. Gripe gripe ....

There were others of us there, yes. The LIRR is an OK option &, had a kind lister not given us a ride back to Manhattan, there would have been plenty of time to get the 10:35 train back, as the timings turned out to be very accurate. Klavier, although Nilas has never been a favorite of mine, it's probably unfair to consider his Principal status as being due to nepotism. If one considers it in its historical context (usually a good idea), when Nilas was promoted, there was a serious lack of danseur noble types at the principal level. Peter Boal was about it. There was Damien, Jock & Albert, all wonderful, but not noble, at least not to Peter M. Peter M had brought in Hubbe & promoted Philip Neal, but the two of them were missing in action more than not. Nilas filled a very large gap & filled it dependably. As far as the Georgia section of Fool for You, Ray Charles played it without choreography. Perhaps Peter M felt, like Balanchine about Mozart, that this would be gilding the lily. Wise of him. I saw no homoeroticism in the choreography here. It seemed to be two guys bemoaning the loss of their girlfriends & occasionally consoling one another. That Nilas doesn't always make the obvious or easy choice of step/mood to music I consider one of his virtues. The Tschai Pas is just that, a stand alone pas de deux using music originally composed for Swan Lake Act III. I would not have thought to cast Ringer & Askegard in this but they were quite wonderful. Another example, perhaps, of Nilas not making the obvious choices. And then there was Monique .. sigh .. You'll be happy to know that it looks like NMDC will return to Patcogue next year.

Very sad, indeed. An elegant man & a strong intellectual presence where one is sorely needed.

Perhaps Murphy is not viewed as fragile, vulnerable, a victim. She's a strong and powerful dancer and I tend to agree with that view but am willing to revisit it by seeing Juliet & Desdemona, She may surprise us.

Last week I made a trip to Pittsburgh for a performance of Pagliacci in which a friend was singing Tonio. He gave a wonderful performance, stealing the show IMO. At the curtain call, three post-retirees in front of me booed him. When the lights went up, I leaned forward and asked "Why would you boo the best singer in the cast?" The reply "Oh he was very good dear, but you always boo the villain".