nanushka

I completely agree with both of these ideas. I like the Brahms music — just not for dancing. I can see the appeal in theory, but in practice I don't think it works well as a basis for a ballet. I did quite like Shevchenko's costume; the others, not so much.

Pretty underwhelming T&V tonight. Those tempi are just awful — everything ends up so disconnected, step pause step pause step. No sense of the phrasing, which was especially deadening in the PDD. Gorak looked seriously underpowered. Ronds de jambs with the top of the leg angled way down, double tours that were really one-and-a-halves (cheating on both ends), two-handed lifts that should have been just one, etc. He got her up at the end but his leg almost buckled a few times before the curtain came down. Lane was lovely and looked plenty secure, but especially at such a slow pace the whole performance just didn’t make a big impact. I do really like ABT’s costumes for the ballet, and I like it done against a black backdrop. The Tharp I just found annoying. Too much running off and onstage, nothing really settled. The best part is a still-too-short duet for Cornejo and Brandt during the second movement, when for once there’s actually a connection made and a chance to settle into some dancing. The choice of the Brahms quintet doesn’t help, imo. The Seasons, on the other hand — I could watch that piece every night.

Yeah, I also don't see anything reported here that suggests Lane was showing her nerves onstage. Some of us may may have recollections of her doing that on past occasions, but did she do so last night? I've certainly seen numerous dancers get the timing wrong for the turns at the end of that second variation, just before the PDD. (If that's the part @laurel was referring to — the report said "in preparation for her exit," but the dancer doesn't exit there — the male dancer comes on.)

The @abtofficial IG account has a story up announcing that tonight’s performance is dedicated to Alonso. ETA: ...and Hammoudi has a story up now with audio of KMcK giving a curtain speech about her.

So Tharp puts Hoven in a dress and then makes a joke out of Cornejo refusing his invitation to dance? Ugh. I'll obviously have to see it to judge, but sounds like that could be a really unfortunate creative choice.

Right. I think that in itself is a type of (implicit) comment, of a sort.

Maybe just by me! (And Adrian, it would seem.) Thanks for the link. I guess in my experience such names are common enough that I just wouldn't ever think to comment on them in the way Macaulay has, then.

This is an idiom you’ve heard before?

Also, Macaulay has something of a history of odd and at times unseemly comments on physical details. So no surprise if he isn’t given the benefit of the doubt. Plus it’s kind of just a (IMO) dumb nickname. It sounds nothing at all like AD-W’s name and just seems....a bit weird. (And really, you can’t pronounce Danchig-Waring?)

Fewer in total numbers, but the women who are principals are generally stronger, more versatile, and dance a much heavier load than their male counterparts. Now, perhaps that's a problem — but I'm not sure it is, given the quality we see from them. There are a lot of men filling out the roster who don't dance nearly as much as the women. To my mind, there's more of a feeling of scarcity on the male side, even if the numbers seem to belie that. I don't think Gerrity, Woodward or Phelan are dancing so many leads that it seems like an inequity not to promote them immediately — just that they'll most likely get there before too much longer. Perhaps, though what he wrote in that IG post sends a pretty strong message that this may not just be a temporary leave.

Yeah, looking at the roster, I can't say I see a need for more female principals at this particular moment. There's a need for one or two more male principals, I think — especially given some of the diminishing (or at least inconsistent) abilities of some of the older men — but I don't think any of the male soloists is quite ready to move up. Harrison Ball is closest, I think, but it would seem odd to promote him right now, and I think he could use another few injury-free seasons to really show his depth and range. I was much more impressed by Emilie Gerrity in Serenade and Summerspace on Saturday than I had been in Dances at a Gathering on Tuesday.

I'm happy that Susan Walters got featured, with Lauren King, in this new video from NYCB (below). I particularly love her last comment: I thought Walters sounded quite good Tuesday night in Dances at a Gathering. Looks like she's not playing the Tchaikovsky this season, though. I'm sorry to be missing King tomorrow in the role, but curious to see MacKinnon's debut — and excited to see Mearns in it again.

Yeah, it started as Pereira, but then it was definitely Bouder for awhile.

It doesn't much impact the broader point you're making, but if the ABT spring season gets shortened (and that's not a sure thing, so far as I'm aware), it's because the Met Opera will be using the house until early June.

Some others are listed on this page from Indianapolis Opera (once you skip past Aida).

It was Kent and Villella. McBride and Bonnefous danced it together, as they're on the NYCB in Montreal, vol. 5 DVD.

FWIW, in Repertory in Review Reynolds lists under "other casts" Farrell, Mazzo, McBride and Paul for the women and Bonnefous, Blum, Clifford and Mitchell for the men.

Maybe if we had numerous ballet choreographers of Balanchine's greatness churning out top-notch ballets I'd be able to view his ballets as expendable in this way. His works may not be "the same ballets" with other dancers, but they're still darn good ballets. Maybe it's because I wasn't around for any of the original casts, but I don't get the purist impulse toward thinking that, if it's not like the old days, it shouldn't be done at all. These works are great enough to stand up through even second-rate performances by imperfectly cast dancers, in my opinion, and are still well worth preserving, producing and seeing. When dealing with a performing art, one has a variety of options, I think, in terms of how one defines "the work of art" itself. One can define "the work," in its essence, as (1) the initial performance by the initial creators, never to exist again in its truest form; (2) the ideal conception of the primary creator (e.g. choreographer, playwright, composer), never to truly exist at all because never perfectly realized; (3) the whole history of (what director Jonathan Miller has called) subsequent performances, a tradition of performance practice that accrues over time as the set of instructions (the script, the score, the oral tradition) for realizing the work gets passed along among performers over years or generations. (There may be others.) I tend toward the latter.

😀 Me too, usually. But on this one I find myself unusually firm!

It could be made, but I don’t imagine it would convince me in the least.

I saw Dances at a Gathering for the first time (finally) tonight. Russell Janzen and Lauren Lovette were so impressive, individually and together. Jovani Furlan looks already so much at home. Indiana Woodward is an evocation of mid-20th century ballerina charm. Joe Gordon is such a mature artist already; I'm excited to watch him for many more years. Gonzalo Garcia impressed me more than he has in the past, with more depth, but still...something lacking. Brittany Pollack danced well enough; Emilie Gerrity did not, for the most part. I wished Sebastian Villarini-Velez had a larger role. I waited and waited for Sara Mearns to come out, eagerly anticipating what I'd read about her two solos, and she was so good in both. What a wonderful company piece, and how wonderful to see it danced by this company. ETA: Oh, and Susan Walters' 👠: 👍👍.

From social media, it looks like Tyler has more hair loss, and it was definitely him I was thinking of (the image of the back of his head from the opening of Diamonds was fresh in my mind), but I’m sure LaCour supplements as well.

Some of them do undoubtedly have that privilege.

Not the same on video, of course, but the Royal Navy section has been available on YouTube, as an excerpt performed at the 1993 Balanchine festival.

It's interesting to watch old Met Opera videos now: front-of-curtain bows after every act for every solo singer. Definitely going overboard!