SimonA

I attended both the Tuesday and Thursday night performances. Natalia's observations from Tuesday are spot-on: Kondaurova was scintillating in the Firebird, while Lopatkina was uninvolved and uninteresting as Zobeide. On Thursday, I thought Chopiniana and Firebird weren't quite up to the level of Tuesday (I missed Igor Kolb in the former and Kondaurova in the latter), but Kondaurova's dancing in Scheherazade was absolutely spellbinding.

Jack, agreed, I greatly admired Heather Ogden's dancing last night, and Serenade generally. Otherwise, I was disappointed with the dancing in Concerto Barocco (aside from Angelova's), which I thought lacked precision. And I'm looking forward to seeing Diamonds again with Ogden Saturday night. I didn't love Danielle Brown last night.

Jack, does your program list who's dancing in Diamonds tonight?

Just got the Blu-ray today. Staging is credited to: Karin von Aroldingen, Sarah Leland, Elyse Borne, Sean Lavery.

Hello -- I am a relative novice to ballet, and have seen the Kirov only once before (the Fokine Triple Bill, some years ago on tour in Boston). I'll be in New York for a few days next month when the Kirov will be in town. If I had to choose one performance to see, between Vishneva in Anna K and Obraztsova in LHH, which would you recommend? I know that's probably not much to go on (in terms of making a recommendation), but I am a fairly blank slate when it comes to ballet, with no strongly defined tastes -- yet. I'd appreciate your thoughts.