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So where is Acosta???

I was not comparing the techniques of A Kent & Farrell, rather only their unique musicality. At the Saturday matinee Part did not hold back. I do hear you about the gala SC but didn't see it so cannot comment.

I'm with Michael & Bart here. I did not see the SC at the gala but at the Saturday matinee & found Part sublime. Yes, sitting close mezzanine, I could see the concern cross her face before the turns but they were brief moments in an otherwise glorious performance. For me Part (like Allegra Kent & Suzanne Farrell & Kim Highton) is the music, pure & simple. The music doesn't come from the orchestra, the impulse does not come from the conductor. It is channeled directly from the composer to Veronika & to us from her. This is a rare gift & I am willing to overlook the occasional blip on an otherwise gorgeous horizon. The Tiger Woods analogy is a good one if one is looking solely for technical perfection, but Tiger doesn't golf to Mozart. Ballet is, first & foremost, about the dancer's response to the music & in this Veronika excels.

I suspect "Starring: Wynton Marsalis" says it all.

We were just discussing Monique at dinner tonight & wondering what she was doing with her career. Glad to hear she's staying in NY. I also notice that Danny Tidwell seems no longer to be listed among the company members of Complexions. Besides the Met Gioconda has there been any word on him that I've missed?

You are not imaging it, Vina. There used to be a Sunday evening performance as well as Sun matinee. To my mind, the three week season has only been an extension of the two week season in that there are two weeks of repertory spread out over three weeks. This season is slightly improved from the last several CC seasons but if ABT did go to four weeks would we really get a real four weeks of repertory?

Maybe "lifeblood" means something different in Danish?

A couple of points to put this into historical perspective: A previous Dance of the Hours was choreographed by Balanchine & Ashton choreographed Stravinsky's Nightingale in the Stavinsky Evening production still current at the Met. Balanchine also choreographed Met productions of Onegin & Boris G. in the past as well as others during his Met "residency". Dowell, Makarova, Bujones, Gregory, McKerrow, Woetzel have all danced in Met productions in recent memory & let's not forget Janet Collins. Nevertheless, it's good news that the audience was enthusiastic. & perhaps Danny Tidwell's 2 performances will sell some tickets for Complexions.

Does one ever "own" a cat? The other way around, in my experience, which is vast.

My particular fantasy would be a Gelsey Carabosse.

Renee Fleming takes her daughters to the ballet. I saw her at the R&J with Kent/Gomes and she mentioned having seen it with the Royal Ballet in London. Noticed it looked very different at the Met, So, one would have thought ...

They are so into theme nights this year, they could have called this "Disposables & Indisposables".

Since the limits are a single company, & V. Part is with ABT, here's my ABT cast: Emeralds: Fang/Lane/Hallberg (yeah, way tall, but so beautiful) Rubies: Reyes/Cornejo/Wiles Diamonds: Part/Gomes, of course Kajiya might also be wonderful in Rubies & Murphy, with her droll sense of humor, excellent as the tall girl. If/wheb she returns, Nina A would be gorgeous in Diamonds, maybe with Carreno. If only ...

I agree, and also notice that I put stars next to Luke Willis and Lauren Alzamora in my program from February. This is the kind of company -- and the kind of dancers -- you would like to be able to "follow" and become familiar with on a regular basis. After posting (finally) I felt it was perhaps unfair to single out only two of the dancers, as any knowledgable balletomane could pick out any one of the others and feel equally enamoured. There are no weak links in the group and each dancer has a distinctive personality as well as fabulous technique. They are all musical & lyrical & well trained & maintained, joyful, enthusiastic & could hold their own in the "major leagues" but have chosen not to go that route. What most impresses, I think, is that this is a true ensemble company, a chamber group of 10 -12 (depending on the rep) who really play well together. I went to a reception following the performance & saw that they are genuinely close offstage, too. And close with the directors of the company as well - AD Tom Mossbrucker & ED Jean-Phillippe Malaty. They are as much a "family" offstage as on, which only makes sense, I suppose. That said, I'm really glad you lliked Lauren & Luke as well, bart. :huepfen024: They will be doing a week at the Joyce Theater in NY in late January. I will post about it when I get the press release.

I was at the end of a long & detailed account of tonight's performance and had to excuse myself for a minute and when I returned the post had vaporized. I'm blaming the weather but I freely admit to being not at all brilliant on the conputer. So, briefly, here is a precis of my thoughts. Three ballets: "sans detour" by Dominique Dumais; "PointeOff" by Jorma Elo and "Two Have & Two Hold" by Dwight Rhoden. And, yes, all three pieces had the women en pointe, for those of you who persist in thinking this is a dance company & not a ballet company. The Elo was rather brilliant, to Bach arrangements by Busoni. The Rhoden, to Bach Piano #5 with a bit of 2 Paganini Caprices skillfully woven in was lovely & heartfelt. Both choreographers are skilled & remarkable in their musical sensitivity. The Dumais, set to a hodge podge of 4 composers (Bach, Pergolesi, Glass & Cote) from 4 different worlds & as good as 4 different centuries made no sense to me, although the audience liked it quite a lot. Besides fudging around with the music because the steps are clearly more important, the most annoying aspect was the Lucia di Lammermoor character wandering through dancers communicating and bonding. You knew the end from the beginning - the Lucia girl reaching out to an exiting Tudoresque couplei n a gesture which, under most circumstances would be considered yearning but, in this case, came off as "Yeah, that's what I want". It got me grumpy, but then Elo came along. The dancers gave strong, vivid & clean performances in difficult & strenuous choreography. My personal favorite is Luke Willis, with his beautiful pure line, stretched feet, open chest & his David Howard style ability to elongate the line from the hip joint. He's from the same school in PA that gave us Ethan Stiefel. My next favorite is Lauren Alzamora, who reminds me of V. Part in her quality of movement. I'm anxious to see her in adagio work. She's one of those dancers who commands the eye whenever she appears. Yeah, this is the short version ..

We found out tonight, from Jean-Phillippe Malaty, Executive Director of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, that Zippora has taken a position as Ballet Mistress at Ballet Arizona. I don't know if she still stages for the Balanchine Trust but I would think the BA schedule would allow it.

My guess is that the casting, even what has already been shown in the NYT, will shift around and change a bit. Richard Yup, ain't that always the case.

There are a lot of TBAs here. Even so, it seems odd no Corella as he is lited for the season.

French "chevalier", Italian "cavaliere", Spanish "caballero" & Portuguese "cavalheiro" all can translate to gentleman, knight or horseman. Interesting that in English it can also mean offhand, haughty or domineering.

I'm a cat person married to a cat person. Our longest living cat, Natasha (no prizes for guessing after whom she was named) lived until her 23rd birthday. I have learned to purr, growl & hiss. This comes in handy from time to time. But there have been doggies who have won my heart, including Carbro's lovely, lollopng, lovable & looney Loretta. One of a kind. Darci had a cat and a mynah bird prior to Peter. I don't see Acosta as a dog type dancer at all. Stalking, prancing, darting, leaping .. especially leaping. He is usually described as pantherine & I must agree.

My memory is slightly different, though not necessarily accurate. I thought the ballet as a whole had only one performance as Mr B wanted the Adagio Lamentosa performed only once, ever. It was then repeated as the final ballet of the final performance of the season (when there were still Sunday evening performances) as a "salute" to his passing.

Yup & enjoyed it enormously .. except for the music. There was no individual composer's voice to my ear, more a pastiche of Bernstein, Wagner, Strauss, a little Britten, a little Schoenberg. I don't know what Goldenthal sounds like, only which composers he favors. And, as I find all too often with contemporary composers, he does not understand the singing voice & what could do damage to it. Not as inconsiderate of the voice as Thomas Ades, whose Tempest I just heard in Santa Fe, but the concept of tessitura is foreign to him. But the production & performances were wonderful & we would have gone back had it not been the last performance that we did see. ' I wouldn't say Graves was the audience favorite as Eric Owens' curtain the night we attended was pretty overwhelming & entirely deserved. Graves was wonderful & managed a few bass baritone notes we didn't know she had (nor did she, I'm thinking, before this role). Desmond Richardson, as always, was riveting. Eric was beyond amazing. Onstage for virtually the entire 2-1/2 hours, required to climb all over the towering set (there were no problems here, as in LA), to dance, to make sense of an enormously difficult role & he sounded glorious. This is a role comparable to the Siegfried Siegfried but composed to take advantage .. & beyond .. of Eric's enormous vocal range. In LA he had 2 days off between performances but in NY he had only one day off between & then ended with 2 performances in a row. "Stalwart" doesn't begin to describe it. There is talk of an LA reprise in late 2007 if anyone regrets missing it. And Eric Owens' performance alone is worth going.

This is an interesting idea but not practical, methinks. Remember how Iago climbs on Othello's back several times whispering his poison in O's ear? I would not want very large Hallberg climbing on Gomes.

Just remembered another enjoyably creepy ballet: Tiller in the Fields, Tudor done for Gelsey Kirland & Patrick Bissell, at the end of which Gelsey is considerably pregnant, which was a rather bizarre sight.

Petit's Coppelia is pretty creepy with the good Doctor C strapping the mannekina to his feet & waltzing with her. Norman Walker's Lazarus was possibly the creepiest ballet ever. Ook! Feld's Under the Pavement. A ballet called Genesis, done by National Ballet of Cuba at the Met many years ago. Prominently featured an amoeba molting. Shudder. I guess Miss Julie is creepy but great creepy. Would love to see ABT do it with Murphy & Cornejo.