Golden Idol

Re the comment: "stars"--an extremely relative term given the modesty of ballet's popularity. And to think I just heard a commercial on NY1 this morning for On the Town, "featuring ballet superstar..." who shall remain nameless. Obviously, they didn't promote Megan Fairchild that way.

You're quite right. And certainly not while his wife is still in the company. I was just being naughty. (Still, one can imagine...)

Well deserved. From his Vogue articles, I thought him a flavorful and reflective writer, and I look forward to the novel that comes from the time of his fellowship. Is it too much to ask, or too undignified of me to wonder, if it will be a rather saucy roman a clef about a certain ballet company?

Thank you, Faux Pas. Now, may we have a welcome repeat of last year's memo? (As I said I couldn't remember whose post that was...)

Absolutely. (Though I didn't see her with ABT; I saw her in the Royal's Don Q and mixed bill.) And yes, PCB Steven McRae!

Now that the Met season is over, will we be getting a new edition of that wonderful post--Is it by Abatt? or someone else? My little gray cells fail me--that takes the measure of all the guest artists from the season now ended. It's the line-up that reads something like "Please come back" or "We love you but do not re-hire." (The latter I recall being in reference to Andy Veyette.) I would enjoy its return to Ballet Alert.

I'm tired of reading about her, I'm tired of hearing about her, and I have nothing more to say about her, good, bad, or indifferent, even her name. Let's move on. I regret the time I've spent writing the words I already have. There are other dancers out there, worthy of commentary, and I think from now on I'm going to focus on them. If you find my opinion and words disrespectful, so be it. Helene could have deleted my comment if she found it objectionable. Any further discussion of the topic is all yours, and on other subjects I have found your posts to be very interesting and insightful.

I would welcome any revival of Sylvia, and would enjoy seeing Part dance it, with or without Bolle (who is a sublime Amintas), though I must admit Gillian may own that role at ABT for the time being. Rarely have I seen her dance more brilliantly. (Come to think of it, I guess Gillian is my all-around preferred ABT ballerina; no disrespect to Veronika. I still think of Vishneva as more of a guest, rather than a homegrown talent.) No, I would not pay money to see that other one dance it, no matter how many whooping and hollering fans she attracted to the Met, good for ABT's finances as that may be.

If that was intentional, "asside" was a very nice pun in connection with Nikiya and the snake. Yes, Stella as Nikiya is a mighty fine idea...

Yes, abatt--that's definitely a goose bump prospect! Hope we will see it.

In light of the promotions to principal, let's speculate a little. What roles do you think the new ballerinas will be given to dance? Can Stella do Kitri? Kochetkova, I don't care much about one way or another. Copeland--can you even imagine her as Nikiya? She'd bite the snake back!

Thank you, Miss O'Connell, for the background info on "Age of Anxiety"--much appreciated. And I agree, the resemblances to "Fancy Free" are there, but aren't much more than superficial. I neglected to mention above that I also enjoyed the Carousel medley PDD, seen with Acosta and Lamb. So call me middlebrow. No, actually, as Ernie Kovacs might say, Don't nobody call me middlebrow!

Please send Infra to the ballet graveyard immediately. The dancers' bodies did incredible twisty things, but to no effect other than to look backbreaking. Absolute bore. When the video cartoon people in the area above the stage are more interesting than the dancers you know you're in trouble. Despite the excoriating review in the Times, I enjoyed the balance of the program, although I'd call "Voices of Spring" (however charming) slighter than the "Beau Gosse" excerpt. Brief as it was, it was certainly nice to see Muntagirov looking more animated than he did when he danced Solor with ABT a couple of summers ago, where he seemed zonked from jet-lag, or in a trance, or both. I thoroughly enjoyed "Age of Anxiety," to my surprise. Yes, it's "Fancy Free" turned inside-out, and no, its narrative is hardly incoherent (unless you are unable to follow a story), and yes, how can I not enjoy watching Steven McRae. By the way, although Alastair thought the men were English bisexuals, not Americans (does he know something I don't?...hmmm), the young gay man (Tristan Dyer, I believe) who was attracted to McRae clearly had a patch on the shoulder of his jacket that read "Canada."

If ABT revives that Firebird, yes, fix the bloody squeaky flooring! Or change the danseur's slippers so they don't squeak. It was very distracting. As for Tempest: Nice try, Ratmansky, but off to the ballet graveyard with it! (What an unmemorable piece of music, too.)

Makarova is always there when Bayadere is revived; she coaches the dancers. i've seen her in the audience too, and she looks great!

I recently went down to DC because I wanted to see Acosta and Nunez dance Don Q and it was worth it--even if Acosta is at the end of his career and is of diminished power; and Nunez was absolutely first-rate. For someone from DC to come up to NYC to see... Copeland? Well, it's their time and money, and as Miss Brodie would say, for whose who like that sort of thing, that's the sort of thing they like. As for audiences cheering and squealing over her, I've seen this for myself at the Met when she has been in a featured role and--although I don't know whether it can be considered a claque--I'm glad they enjoyed themselves but I think they'd react to her the same way if all she did was she dance the Twist. They see a role model on stage more than they see a ballerina. I have never heard such hooting and screaming for any other dancer or from any other audience.

Question for Abatt: Why no Company B? What don't you like about it? I must say, it's my favorite Taylor piece, and I find it very moving. As I said in another thread, it's ironic that although it was created by Taylor, and when his company performs it the dancers are no slouches, ABT's dancers do it much better. Gillian was very poignant in I Can Dream, Can't I and Cornejo absolutely brought the house down as the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (Sascha wasn't bad, either). And Craig always nails Oh, Johnny! with his comic timing. You're perfectly entitled not to want to see it again (I have my own "never-again" list); I'm just curious why.

Yes to Paquita and to Raymonda (though no new production needed, the old one is just fine, thank you); a resounding NO to Flames of Paris. Having seen the Mikhailovsky production last year I can say: Glad I've finally seen it but never again. Wretched story, one-dimensional (at best) characters, ridiculous Soviet propagandistic theme, forgettable music. Only the bravura variations in the third act are worth staging; if ABT's dancers are equal to the challenge, the last act can be entertaining. The rest of it can go to the ballet graveyard. Oh, and I wouldn't mind reviving Company B on a mixed bill. Ironically, even though it's Taylor's creation, and his dancers are no slouches, ABT's dancers perform it better!

It was shown here in NYC at the Walter Reade as part of their annual dance on film season. The actual ballet part of the film was lovely but the cutaways to... what? I don't know how to describe them because they didn't really make any sense to me... were expendable. But Gilliian gave a lovely performance. Well worth watching if you can find it on videol.

Well, her chutzpah worked; MC got her pic in Town & Country. This makes me wonder, although some on this site certainly aren't shy about deploring her behavior (and style and body and technique and...), what do other members in the company think of her? That is, what do other soloists and members of the corps, who are also working hard and hoping for casting opportunities and promotion, and presumably the principal danseurs who partner her, say about her when no one's listening? Wouldn't we just love to know...

Rats! I missed him!

Angel was there and he didn't come out at the end with the other retired dancers? Odd... Does anyone know who was the girl in the corps who ran offstage during the first (Billy the Kid) number?

KM must really be besotted with her, but apart from that, the work load will be exhausting for her--how can it not be?

Was just checking on something at the ABT website, and noticed a photo on the splash screen of the wonderful Joey Gorak as the Golden Idol. This may be viewed as silly by some, but I do wish ABT listed among its cast members on the site who's dancing the Idol, just as they now list who's the Ballroom von Rothbart. Some of us--well, me, actually--might make a point of going to a particular perf if it were known who in advance would be doing it. It's the flashiest novelty variation in the whole work, after all, and as you might expect I always look forward to it. I hope I'll catch Gorak or Arron Scott doing it this summer.

I had a ticket for the previously announced farewell (cast now TBA), and now will have to miss her, as it's her only performance at the Met this summer. Odd that the rescheduling also causes there to be a farewell at both that day's matinee and evening perfs. That's going to take a lot of confetti!