nanushka

These seem like two very different points, though – Waelsung's being that "the future of ABT is grim" (quoting from memory from the previous page, but that's almost exact) and nana's that there seems to be "good potential" for future stars and that ABT is in a sort of "growing period" (my own summarizing term, not a quote). Having actually seen many of these recent performances and debuts, I'd agree with the latter, rather than the former.

Just one note, Waelsung, since you've mentioned this twice now: there are quite decent $30 orchestra seats available as rush tickets (which can be purchased online day-of) for virtually every performance, other than the sold-out Misty performances.

Four principal dancers and reliable O/Os are injured. Surely this is a pretty exceptional situation. What's the indication here of "what ABT has become"?

Shevchenko looks beautiful in that photo and great in the video!

Wow. Three performances in 4 days for Shevchenko?! She is having a BIG year! I don't think I can remember a time in the last 10 years at least when Part has pulled out of a full-length due to injury. She's always seemed blessedly impervious. I really hope she's back for Swan Lake next week. I already fear how few of those we have left to see from her. I'm glad she's not scheduled until Saturday.

I suspect that Misty will be around for quite some time. Just a guess.

Any guesses (wishful or otherwise) for who might take over Kochetkova's O/O the following week, if she's still out?

This has been a big year so far for breakout opportunities! I guess the era of "Hee Seo Ballet Theatre" is over!

Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. As we've all seen plenty of times before, widespread acclaim on Ballet Alert does not a successful ABT career make!

That's really what it comes down to, though, isn't it? How much more interesting would it be to see Trenary, Lane, Brandt, etc getting shots and second shots at all those roles?

Just the fact that several posters now have said something along these lines is telling, though, isn't it? "A reliable partner." That's damning with faint praise for a principal ballerina, I'd say.

That seems no more presumable to me than any number of other explanations for the piece's appearance. And I say that with no particular agenda or implication in mind. I just don't think we can presume such a thing (indeed, "unless...evidence surfaces to the contrary") about Seibert's or the paper's purpose for writing or publishing the piece -- nor do I particularly think their motivation(s) matter(s) all that much. The piece exists, as a thing to be commented on, regardless of why.

I have mixed feelings about Seibert's piece. On the one hand, it seems unfortunate that Seibert writes so extensively about two apparently (at least to his eyes, as his descriptions suggest) middling performances when other excellent ballerinas are also performing. On the other hand, Seibert's appraisals strike me as refreshingly honest and a valuable reminder to his readers that ballet can be so much more than what now appears on the Met stage approximately twice each week.

I guess these are the "real acting chops" that Gia Kourlas was lauding and that Misty herself said she's come to rely on: “I used to muscle through these things. I can’t do that anymore. There needs to be something more, something else.”

Yes, the float drove south on Columbus right past Lincoln Center at around 1:15 before Saturday's matinee. A bunch of kids from the morning event were about and excited to see it.

And face the wrath of Copeland's disappointed fans? No way. They need them to keep buying up the tickets.

Murphy's post suggests to me that Lendorf will dance with Shevchenko.

Then it fits perfectly as part of the overall ABT "marketing" "strategy"!

Interesting. I wonder if that was always intended, and the calendar just didn't reflect it, or if that was a change. I'm so sorry to have missed Veronika's QofD!

And it's one thing for a dancer to have an area of general technical weakness that results in an occasional slip, but to keep putting the same dancer in the same role before paying audiences when it's well established that she cannot perform one of its most iconic steps (here I refer to the QofD's Italian fouettés...don't mean to relitigate old arguments!) seems to me quite objectionable.

For the dancers' sakes I sure hope they're hiring stand-ins!

Wouldn't the retirement of Martins likely make some difference in that decision (depending, of course, on who would replace him)?

What else would be on people's wish lists for such a project? I would love to see Gounod Symphony. I hope it's not lost again with the imminent end of Suzanne Farrell Ballet.

The recent Allegro B / 4 T's / Symph in C program was a perfect example of that -- and with the dessert itself being, in a somewhat different sense, another app/entree/dessert arc in miniature!

Clearly it was done to earn cred in the hacker world.