nanushka

9 hours ago, SusanB said:

California, Thank you! We saw this and it's exactly what we want, but in a CD or mp4 format.  We've searched and can't find anything. Can anyone suggest a resource?  THANK YOU! 

If you just need an mp4 for private use, you can just download that from the YouTube link using an app such as Airy.

ABT used to take over the Met just a day or two after the final opera performances of the season. I don't know a reason why that would no longer be possible, and doing so again could allow them to lengthen their season without overlapping with NYCB.

1 hour ago, ABT Fan said:

Isn’t it September 1, when the new season starts?

That’s certainly possible as well. I don’t know for sure.

Anything's possible, but we don't really know what Jaffe's preferred approach to promotions is, do we? ABT contracts renewed August 1st, I think? That would seem to have been a logical time. Since it didn't happen then, who knows?

16 minutes ago, TheAccidentalBalletomane said:

Bell, Ahn, Royal and Forster are relatively young.

It depends what you mean by "relatively." Forster is 36 or 37.

As it turns out, the service fees are waived only for subscribers, not members:

Quote

Thank you for contacting the New York City Ballet. Service fees are waived for current ballet subscribers only. Unfortunately, this does not apply to current members, I'm very sorry. Your order was charged correctly. 

30 minutes ago, nysusan said:

I don't believe fee was supposed to be charged to donors or subscribers. It was a glitch they fixed within a couple of hours.

Great, thanks for the info! I'm a donor but not a subscriber, so I'll try to call for a refund as well.

Of those ordering tickets with early access, was the fee supposed to be charged to donors but just not subscribers?

There's a nice interview with Hallberg in the Times, about his first few years as AD of the Australian Ballet. (Non-subscribers can try this link.)

I would guess it was just a live feed from the stage for in-house viewing. Courtney Lavine's story is captured in one of Skylar's own stories, with the caption, "Wolftrap has the best filming equipment. Felt like we were watching a movie." (And with perhaps Courtney herself saying, "Eat that stage, girlfriend! Wow, wow, wow!")

ETA: I see @maps has confirmed, just as I was posting.

9 minutes ago, TheAccidentalBalletomane said:

Brandt's instagram has some great footage.  I heard that she danced masterfully. Forster is the tallest male principal I believe, taller than Bell.   I do not mind Brandt dancing with the taller dancers and she has successfully performed with Bell.  I assume Forster was the most experienced Albrecht available, so there was no choice in the matter.  I know it is hard to partner with someone that you have not rehearsed with.  Credit to both of them. 

Thanks so much for the heads-up, as I don't regularly catch what's on IG. The clips looked great — particularly the pas seul, where she didn't rush the dedans/dehors turns (as she did at the Met), even seemed to luxuriate in them a bit (though I'd have liked the second one to be more on the music). I love the commentary in the backstage viewing room! And the shots of her playing pool with Tom!

1 hour ago, On Pointe said:

I  wonder,  why did the august New York Times  gift its platform to someone who is basically just a disgruntled employee?  A low level employee in a private company at that,  not some governmental whistle blower.  It makes no sense.  

I didn't find it particularly surprising, in the context of the past few years, and perhaps especially from the Times. He was making bold claims about issues of equity and representation in the arts, asserting that he'd been relegated to "subservient, exotic roles" in which he had to "do a shuck and jive." Juicy stuff. Unfortunately, when the claims are weak, that only serves to undermine recognition of the valid issues. But many of the paper's subscribers probably accept the claims, so it's a win for the publication. "Culture war" issues (for lack of a better catch-all term) get clicks — even (especially?) from those who don't buy the claims.

31 minutes ago, fondoffouettes said:

And ABT's comment has now been liked by Principal Conductor Charles Barker and corps members Duncan McIlwaine, Michael de la Nuez, Scout Forsythe, Jacob Clerico, Alexandra Basmagy, and Nathan Vendt. I have no doubt that ABT's statement is accurate.

Out of curiosity, have many company members liked or commented on Gabe’s post itself? I’m not active on IG so am unfamiliar with their accounts.

She’ll look so tiny next to him! If you’re there, please let us know how they do!

3 minutes ago, eduardo said:

What I find surprising about that comment is that it was done with the account "abtofficial". If you look at that profile, it states clearly that it's "The official instagram of the Dancers of American Ballet Theatre", adding that "posts are our own opinion and not official statements of American Ballet Theatre".

So, I wonder whether that's an ABT statement.

Is it known who took over the @abtofficial IG account after Connor Holloway stopped managing it?

I wonder if he conferred with Susan Jaffe before he published his own Times remarks. How much has he even been present since she took over, I wonder.

9 minutes ago, abatt said:

I don't recall that Misty did Manon.  I thought she had a secondary role, but my memory could be faulty.

Her bio page lists both Manon and Lescaut's mistress.

32 minutes ago, California said:

I went to "manage tickets"...

Where is "manage tickets" located on the site? Thanks!

ETA: Never mind, I just found it!

13 minutes ago, California said:

Agree with @cobweb that the site is difficult to use, especially to continue shopping. I usually delicately use the backspace arrow on my browser to get back to the calendar listing.

I've had a similar problem with the site, and one trick I've used in the past is to command-click from the calendar into a new tab, where I then choose my tickets for a given performance; I can then return to the previous tab, which has the calendar still open. Because my login transfers from tab to tab, the system retains each new ticket order for final checkout.

5 minutes ago, pirouette said:

I spent thirty minutes confused on how to purchase tickets. Clicking 'Access Priority Sales' sent me to the informational page without allowing me to actually buy the tickets. When I went to Season & Tickets and clicked to filter By Date, no dates showed up. For some reason, I only got the dates to show up when I logged in with an incognito window.

That seems very odd — especially because tickets are only available at this earlier date for subscribers and members, and your personal login wouldn't have carried over to an incognito window. Hunh.

4 minutes ago, California said:

Experiences so far in trying to buy tickets on-line for the 2023-24 season -- are others having the same experience?

I managed to buy October 11 and paid for the ticket.

 

But when I went back to buy the rest of the week, I was told I was in the waiting room for "suspicious activity"! What??? My only activity was paying for Oct 11 to be sure I had that nailed down, as I thought it would be first to sell out. 

 

How is it going for others?

The membership office did not process my membership quickly enough to give me access to online purchasing. So they instructed me to call their office and they'd connect me with the box office to purchase by phone. Now I've been on hold for 30 minutes.

Relatedly, the membership office — up until today — has been unreachable by phone. My calls always went to voicemail, with a message saying they're all working from home and would return my call. They never did, nor did they respond to emails, until finally yesterday I got my first response in weeks.

I have no inside knowledge, but I don't see ABT's marketing strategies being that sensitively refined (e.g. delaying some soloist promotions so the public can "absorb" previous ones), and I can't imagine they'd keep on the payroll a soloist like Paris who currently seems to perform no really significant featured dance roles just for the sake of giving her a "graceful, visible exit." (She's not going to get a major farewell performance, after all.) If current soloists are staying on, I'd assume it's because they've simply chosen not to retire yet and the administration has agreed to continue renewing their contracts. And even for principals, I find it difficult to believe that a fear of "shifting the marketing focus" would be a primary consideration in the timing of most retirements. (Maybe for someone really big, like Copeland. But I think there are other factors at play there.)

I certainly could be wrong, though.

18 minutes ago, ABT Fan said:

Did he do Neapolitan in any SL that anyone saw?

He was scheduled at least twice with Roxander that I saw (Wednesday and Saturday evenings), but in both cases he was replaced by Klein.

20 minutes ago, onxmyxtoes said:

I don't see any reason to not promote Jake Roxander even though he joined the company in 2022. If someone is clearly a star, performing at a level higher than one's rank and higher than the level of people at the rank above... it sounds like good cause to promote.

I agree as well. I was delighted to read Kourlas's opening tribute to him, and it effectively expressed all that's great about him. He seems to have the complete package. I think my order of preference would be Curley, Roxander, Frenette, Klein, Ischuck, Gonzalez.

39 minutes ago, BalanchineFan said:

In 1976 I saw Nureyev dance R&J at the Met. I can't remember if he was with Royal or a guest with ABT. Is this that same, exact production?

In April of that year, Nureyev danced MacMillan's Romeo at the Met with the Royal.