nanushka

Hate to burst anyone's bubble, but when they celebrated KM's anniversary in 2012, he had just signed a new ten-year (yes, ten-year) renewal of his contract. Barring some financial catastrophe blamed on him, he's not going anywhere soon. And as far as considering Barbee as a new AD, that would mean we'd still be seeing Julie Kent dancing as a principal when she's...well, to put it diplomatically, as old as I am.

Golden Idol, do you have a source regarding the 2012 10-year contract? I hadn't heard that before. Thanks!

Any yet, for all ABT's deficiencies (hyperconservative repertory, ramshackle productions), male dancers from Australia, Denmark, Italy, Russia and Ukraine are willing to jet into New York this season for the chance to appear under the ABT banner. So, the old warhorse still has some appeal to it!

I admire your balanced thinking, but I find it hard to share. Is the appeal ABT's, or is it NYC's? Who wouldn't jet around the world for the chance to dance for New York audiences?

Also, the incredible period when Ferri, Ananiashvilli, Vishneva, Corella, Carreno, Bocca, Steifel and others appeared nightly on the Met stage was under McKenzie's leadership. None were "home grown" at ABT, but those were spectacular years when ABT was the envy of every ballet company.

Great dancers may be born, not made -- but they still need great training. The current administration doesn't seem interested in making that investment, so who knows what talent may lie dormant?

How long has KM been the artistic director of ABT? Maybe, it's time for a change?

Since 1992. I think most people would agree it's time for a change.

Unfortunately, it's probably going to have to get even worse before it will get better.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is Vasiliev's last season at ABT as a principal. Does he have some pressing engagements during the rest of the season that only allow him to appear w. ABT for the first week of the season in Don Q? There is no reason he couldn't have done the Bayadere w. Murphy. (He is doing a pas with Murphy from Bayadere on opening night). He and Osipova turned out to be very unreliable.

Since when does rarely performing with the company mean you're taken off the principals roster, though?

Next up: Swan Lake??

… it was probably the most disappointing Nutcracker performance I've seen from ABT since they premiered the Ratmansky production.

I agree. The company looked severely under-rehearsed. It was hard to believe that this performance was coming toward the end of a run. (Grant it, a 12-performance run…but still.) The big climax in the Waltz of the Flowers was truly scary. Throughout, dancers looked as if they were still performing from memory, rather than muscle memory. (Examples: the snowflakes, the Arabian dance.) This did not look like a performance by one of the world's foremost ballet companies.

What happened? The Ratmansky Nutcracker was supposed to become a real alternative to NYCB's, with seasons at BAM extending longer and longer over the first 5 years. Instead, this production seems like a total side-note. Several weeks ago, ABT took out a full-page ad in The New Yorker. 4/5 of the page was devoted to the spring Met season, seeking subscribers; a thin band at the bottom advertised The Nutcracker. Everyone knows about the annual Met season, but an alternative Nutcracker in Brooklyn is frankly just not on most peoples' radars. Why not put it there? I see ads for and features on NYCB's Nutcracker everywhere, but only occasionally is ABT's mentioned alongside it. Frankly, I find the management of this company--both artistic and otherwise--to be more and more depressing as every month goes by. It's sad, because NYC deserves a second great company, a true alternative to the style and mission of NYCB. I just fear that, if things keep going as they are, we soon won't have one.

It's also interesting that McKenzie, unlike Millepied, totally dodged the issue of whether this whole system of relying heavily on guest artists is good for the company. The juxtaposition of their comments was illuminating. McKenzie's line: "Such is the way of the modern world!"

Be careful of front row of balcony at BAM, there's a railing pretty high up that can obstruct one's view. (I believe they're actually marked 'partial view.') I've sat in SECOND row balcony, though, every year, and have always found it to be pretty great for the money.

We're missing some needed pieces of the puzzle. The ABT soloists and Corps dance with great vigor - but much of the effort seemed wasted on a largely incomprehensible "story".

This was my one real complaint about the trilogy -- and it seemed most a problem in the first ballet, Symphony No. 9, with the lead couple. It's strange to watch the melodramatic emotiveness without knowing what it's really in service of. I love much abstract dance and I love the story ballets -- it's what's stuck in the middle that I have trouble with.

Casting changes due to Stearns' injury. Forster is replacing Stearns in Symphony in C. Due to a lack of a tall partner (apparently), they have removed Part from the Corsaire casting. Herrera and Vasileiv move into the July 13 evening and Reyes Cornejo move into the July 14 cast as Medora and Conrad. Joe Phillips replaces Cornejo as Ali.

It's interesting that ABT went out of its way to find a short partner for Cornejo for his SL and SB performances, but instead of finding a tall partner for Part in Corsaire, they dropped her from Corsaire and gave her performance to someone else.

Once again, abatt, it's unconscionable. :-)

I completely agree. This is terrible news.

...it seemed to me that Sarah took a little longer than the ideal in getting that bottom leg into passe in the fish dive balances, so that her leg going up was the last thing you saw, instead of creating the illusion that it all happened at once. I don't know if that was a partnering issue or a Sarah issue. A minor detail in my book.

It's interesting -- that's exactly what Hee Seo did last night.

Many of the works that have not been revived in ages are the shorter works by ABT's founding choreographers: Tudor and DeMille. I am talking "Pillar of Fire", "Fall River Legend", "Billy the Kid", "Undertow", "Dim Lustre", "Les Patineurs" "Dark Elegies" - ballets that ABT established its artistic identity with.

"Pillar of Fire" was done not so very long ago in a City Center fall season -- the year they did the all-Tudor program(s).

the score is not too my liking (it does nothing for me, as opposed to the "Swan Lake" score)

That's too bad. I find the score to be quite charming -- if not in comparison to Tchaikovsky, then at least in comparison to the other typical ballet alternatives (Minkus oom-pah-pahs, etc).

I really miss the times when ballerinas would pull perfect single fouettes on the beat all the way to the iconic 32 and working leg looking in a perfect straight horizontal position a la seconde.

I agree -- those fouettes in the first video you posted are gorgeous. One really realizes what we're missing out on when one sees that.

'Mr. Green Swamp Thing,' alas, has not changed...and the moving turkey in his hands, at the beginning, is still a hoot.

I think there has been some change on that front, this year -- whether in the direction or the prop itself, I'm not sure. In any case, in the two performances I've seen (Tue & Wed eve), Swamp Thing has been less obvious in manipulating the turkey, which now seems to flap its wing rather than (or at least more than) simply writhing at the neck.

All the discussions about Gomes so perfectly inhabiting the role of purple Rothbart made me wonder who created the role back when the McKenzie Swan Lake premiered in 2000. The program notes only mention who danced Odette/Odile and Siegfried, and Gomes's bio on the ABT website does not list Rothbart among the roles he has created. I only began attending ABT's Met seasons in 2004, so I wonder if any ballet talkers recall who created the role and/or who the main Rothbarts were in the early 2000s?

I unfortunately only caught the tail end of Malakhov's career with ABT, but I imagine his temperament would have been perfectly suited to Rothbart, even if his physique is not as big and imposing as Gomes's.

It looks like Gomes was among the original purple Rothbarts:

http://books.google.com/books?id=PuoUYsmSZ-8C&pg=PA194&lpg=PA194&dq=american+ballet+theatre+swan+lake+production+2000+mckenzie&source=bl&ots=PgJE5VI9Da&sig=pgnDkwgNqSRSxK0LtR3RuSsDSUw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MBnDUfyHI7Hd4AO_qIGgBQ&ved=0CDsQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=american%20ballet%20theatre%20swan%20lake%20production%202000%20mckenzie&f=false

"Bowing and gallant, [Rothbart] grabs Odette in a tight embrace. Vladimir Malakhov and Ms. Jaffe were locked in the most erotic image. Marcelo Gomes on Saturday afternoon was more brutal with Ms. Tuttle, who had innocently placed her hands on his chest. Maxim Belotserkovsky and Ms. Ananiashvili offered a desperate struggle full of flying lifts."

(from an NYT review titled "In Full Spectacle, New 'Swan Lake' Tells the Story Straight," May 22, 2000 by Anna Kisselgoff)

A few quick notes on last night's (June 19) Simkin/Boylston Swan Lake:

• This performance confirmed for me that Jared Matthews, like Cory Stearns (though perhaps not to such a great extent) has improved. His purple Rothbart was much more engaging and alive than in the past. He nearly botched the long balance, but otherwise it seemed technically solid.

• Misty Copeland needs to tone down the perkiness. During the 1st movement of the pas de trios she finished every supported pirouette by whipping her head up into a simpering smile. So unattractive. She pulled similar expressions during her (3rd) variation as well, nearly ruining for me what was otherwise an excellent pas de trois. Simone Messmer and Joseph Gorak were superb.

• Last night's little swans were perhaps the best I've ever seen at ABT: Skylar Brandt, Luciana Paris, Sarah Lane, Yuriko Kajiya. I'm sure I've seen all of them do the piece before, but last night they were just completely on and together. There was one 4-bar stretch of music where the ABT dancers always fall behind the beat, and these four did as well. But otherwise, it was truly excellent.

• An unfortunate Neapolitan dance by Grant DeLong and Blaine Hoven -- and especially by the former, who could just not keep up and nearly toppled over at the end. Two years ago or so it looked to me like Blaine Hoven might be on his way up, but he seems to have gotten stalled, and this season is really straining his britches. Still, he was by far the better of the two.

• Daniil Simkin's back is so gorgeously flexible. In many of his poses during Act I solos he seemed to prefigure those famous poses of Odette, in arabesque with arms and head back. It was a really nice effect, signaling something kindred in their natures.

• All of Simkin's solo work was superb. It was touching seeing what appeared to be a mere boy, on the brink of manhood, pushed into matrimony by his mother (who actually looked like a mother, played by Nancy Raffa), and going off into the woods and encountering something far beyond his ken or control.

• I'd never really realized before how very small Isabella Boylston is. Her tutu seemed very large on her small body. I did miss seeing a Swan Queen who stands out from the flock -- as when Veronika Part comes out in front of them and protects them from the encroaching hunter.

• Boylston's Act II was excellent. She does not yet fully embody the role, but there was a lot of gorgeous dancing there.

• Her Act III needs a lot of refining. Again, many fine elements, and some truly stunning technical details (very fast supported pirouettes -- though in one she toppled nearly 30 degrees off the vertical), but at times she seemed to be whipping her arms and legs around to convey passion and force. She has all the elements, she just needs to shape them into a coherent performance. I look forward to watching this happen in the years to come.

• Simkin's partnering seems to have improved. The above-mentioned supported pirouette was the only really obvious flub. But as someone mentioned in a review of their Swan Lake last year, Boylston is so strong as a dancer she probably doesn't need much partnering. All the lifts were solid and most were impressive -- only the ones in Act IV when he runs down the line with her in arabesque and a bent lower leg (I lack the technical vocabulary to name it) looked like a strain.

I especially enjoyed the way she held the balances in the final diagonal in the black swan p.d.d. where Odile hops backward in arabesque. Usually I think this last sequence just looks awkward, but Part prolonged the balances separating the hops, making it seem like she was saying to Siegried, "come, come, come, stoppppp!" I felt like she was going for it technique-wise, and that is always exciting for me to see. Bravo!

Yes! This moment was such a highlight; I'm glad you mentioned it.

You should really give Part some further attention -- she's become much more self-assured and technically proficient over the past 4-5 years. I've always been a great fan of her dancing, but I no longer have to sit through her performances with a knot in my stomach wondering whether she'll freeze up as she sometimes used to.

Last night's (June 18) Swan Lake with Veronika Part and Cory Stearns was excellent. I don't know that I've seen Veronika dance this role with such solid technique, such deep emotion, or such delicate and voluptuous and elegant and perfectly controlled beauty. Her quivering legs; her long, fluid, gorgeous swan arms; her perfect mime; her devilishly sexy black swan smile; her awe-inspiring extensions -- she is an Odette for the ages, and an excellent (if not technically brilliant) Odile.

I have long mourned the fact that Veronika is no longer paired with Marcelo Gomes in this ballet, but while she used to need him to rise to her best performances, she now seems more self-sufficient. At the same time, Cory has much improved. As with a number of other dancers in the company (Jared Matthews, for instance), there's been clear growth since last season. His dancing in Act I was crisp and fluid and more distinctly characterful than in the past. His partnering in the later acts was pretty much rock-solid. To be honest, though, I can't speak much to his connection with Veronika -- for when she was onstage, I was completely unable to take my eyes off of her. (At the same time, certain moments just made me want to close my eyes and savor the echo of the image -- I had to stop the impulse numerous times.)

Cory's leap at the end of the ballet was gorgeous, and a nice complement to hers. He soared; she plummeted. Both were beautiful.

The pas de trois was quite good. Sascha Radetsky substituted for Jared Matthews and I've rarely liked Sascha's dancing as much as I did last night. For one thing, he seemed to restrain his tendency to smirk. Like Cory's, his dancing was very clean and technically solid. Stella Abrera, taking the first variation, was also excellent. Her arms are so gorgeously fluid and artful. Melanie Hamrick seemed a bit messy, but not enough to detract from the overall effect of the piece.

There was an amusing little moment in the danse des coupes (which in this production has no coupes) when the peasants all line up and one girl gets tossed down the line. At the final boy, she's supposed to get "dropped," but in fact this happened for real two boys too early (in the arms of whichever corps dancer looks exactly like Kenneth the page from 30 Rock). Of course, then they had to repeat it just a few beats later, which made nonsense of the already silly effect. If anyone in the company caught this on video, they should study the first fall, because it looked a lot more convincing than it usually does at the end of the line!

The swan corps in Acts II and IV looked very clean, solid and beautiful. This usually doesn't happen until later in the week's run, so bravi to the company. The little swans were unusually well matched, and the only minor slip was at the very end, as they go down into their last position at the front of the stage. This always seems to be a problem spot for this particular corps.

I usually tend to zone out a bit during the national dances (except the Neapolitan), but this time I made a conscious effort to watch more closely. I realized I can actually get some pleasure out of all but the last, the Polish mazurka, which is just simply dull and pointless. Patrick Ogle looked particularly good leading the Hungarian czardas; it was great to see Simone Messmer and Luciana Paris dancing together in the Spanish (I've long gotten the sense that they are kindred spirits); and Joseph Gorak and Luis Ribagorda looked great as usual in the Neapolitan. ("As usual" because they always individually look great, though I don't think I've ever seen them dance this piece together. An excellent pairing.)

Ivan Vasiliev was purple Rothbart. Oy. This was a very poor casting decision. I can imagine it looked great on paper (and I was actually excited to see him), but it just does not work. Rothbart needs to be commanding and controlling and truly overwhelmingly sexually magnetic. I hate to say it, but it's really hard to pull that off when you're the shortest man in the room. Though I know it's (probably) not true, at times it looked like Veronika had a good 6 inches on him. She was his equal, not his subordinate; he was her younger brother, not her father. Not helping the matter was the fact that they kept the costume's thigh-high boots, which unfortunately accentuated Vasiliev's short, stocky legs. (The shoulder pads also looked terrible on such a short, dense figure.) And it wasn't just appearance--his dancing was not up to the part. His leaps, as usual, were high and clean, but he did not come close to covering the entire stage in the manner of (to name the very best) Marcelo Gomes in this role. His balance on one leg was very short, and there was an unusual (for him) amount of effort apparent in his manipulations of the princesses' bodies. I know it was his debut in the role, but I really don't think this is fixable; he should not be assigned it again. I just found him completely unconvincing, and it really broke the whole performance for me.

Luckily, an excellent Black Swan pas de deux was immediately to follow -- perhaps the best I've ever seen Veronika dance this piece. There was so much palpable pleasure in her character's deception and seduction.

Last year, dancing Swan Lake with Cory, Veronika seemed to push too hard to make up for the void of his character. This year, with his improvements and their continued experiences dancing together, the overall effect was far more satisfying.

I'm looking forward to a very different experience tonight seeing Daniil Simkin and Isabella Boylston. If nothing else, it's sure to be fun!

Your comments, mimsyb, make perfect sense and are written with a clarity that commands respect, whether one agrees with you or not. That is not the case with Ms. Kourlas.

This is exactly the problem. She writes: "In the Act III pas de deux, as Odette [sic], Ms. Semionova possessed more glittering allure, whipping off multiple double pirouettes in her fouetté turns. But it required effort to sense her body breathing inside of the music."

What does that last sentence mean? What did you see?

Well heaven forbid ABT actually give that O/O to one of their own dancers. We've recently heard from Irina D. the effect all these guest artists are having on company morale and cohesiveness.

So the Ratmansky reunites Bolle/Part--great. Nice to see Marian Butler managed to keep her role in Rodeo

I thought Marian Butler had left ABT or even retired??

Does anyone have any idea when the casting will be announced?

Last year it was after tickets went on sale.

I know she isn't dancing SL with Hallberg anymore, but they were ravishing together a couples of years ago in a last minute cast change substituting for Irina and Max.

The lifts were truly scary, though. With Hallberg's bad shoulder(s), I'm afraid that's a partnership that's just not meant to be. I'm hoping for Marcelo (esp. if Vishneva skips SL again) or, at least, Bolle (whose dancing I don't find to be all that great -- but at least he and V. look beautiful and glamorous together).