nanushka

I'm not convinced he is the only one available. We've seen this before from ABT — e.g. those years when Hee See was the one to fill in for virtually every opening that arose due to injuries, etc. Management seems to fixate on a particular dancer as the newest solution to all their problems. Sometimes the dancer is more worthy than others (e.g. Bell in comparison with Seo), but regardless it doesn't seem like a very good approach, even for the dancer who's getting all the "opportunities." And as @abatt points out, it can be unfair to the audiences. The prince has one big solo all night, and it's quite an exciting highlight of the piece; it's really unfortunate that Bell has been so overworked that he couldn't perform it. (We don't know, of course, whether that was the plan going into the evening or whether he decided partway through the performance that he needed to drop the solo; either way, the fatigue of this week, at the end of a long big season for him, was almost certainly a factor.)

There are a few ABT roles that Marcelo Gomes still owns, despite his absence, including the ballroom Rothbart and Ratmansky's Carabosse. Roberts may well be taking over the latter.

That's too bad. Yet another sign that their commitment to dance coverage is decreasing. Macaulay's Instagram announcement of his departure had led me to hope otherwise:

Ah, gorgeous! So wish I were seeing this:

But she refuses to tell him how to wake her — and this part felt particularly significant on Tuesday, with the freshly invigorated mime. His (very small) task is to figure it out for himself. I take your point, but by its very nature and since its premiere (except when heroic episodes have been interpolated, as in the Kirkland staging IIRC), Sleeping Beauty has differed from many of Petipa's other works in eschewing the melodramatics of plot. The basic developments of typical Romantic/Classical ballet plots are there — e.g. we have an Act I followed by a "mad scene" (the pricking of Aurora, comparable to Giselle's mad scene or Nikiya's snakebite), followed by a vision scene (comparable to Albrecht's night in the forest or Solor's opium dream) — but everything is gentler, subtler, with more of the emphasis on the pure dance. The plot unfolds almost without the need for human motivation and energy; there's just a pang of desire, a token gesture of masculine ingenuity ("Ah — kiss her!") — and otherwise the fairies do all the work. Like those passés, it's all more courtly and elegant and understated than in other productions, and in other ballets. That's innate to the work, I think, and Ratmansky gets us back to it. He helps us see how this ballet is truly unique. (And, very much like its original audience, we may be both intrigued and put off by that.)

The one stylistic element out of these that I truly love, in aesthetic terms, is the low passés (at least in this particular context). They look so gentle and elegant; they really suit the flavor of the work, to my eyes. The others are historically interesting, I think, but not particularly appealing in and of themselves.

I noticed some angular poses in the vision scene partnering that were also a bit reminiscent of the pose replacing the conventional fish dives (i.e. Aurora in various poses off the perpendicular). Granted, these may have been there before, and I may simply not have remembered them — but given that the changes were based on the Gerdt sketches and that Ratmansky says it's specifically the partnering that was recorded in the drawings, I suspect some of those were added.

Blaine Hoven did indeed dance Bluebird. (See below.) I too missed the other announced replacements, though. I suspect it was Zimmi Coker who caught your eye, as she often has mine in the past few years — and not only due to her striking red hair.

Enh. Other than Brandt as Canari, I personally wasn't too excited about any of them, really. Paulina Waski was Sincerity, and although she danced perfectly well I was really noticing (given how much the production's style draws extra attention to them) that she doesn't have very lovely feet. Stephanie Williams was decent as Wheat Flower. Rachel Richardson was probably the weakest as Breadcrumb, with rather heavy legs and feet. April Giangeruso certainly gave Violente her all; it was a bit overly intense for my taste, but I imagine some might have liked it more. (There were a few substitutions announced before the program, including Keith Roberts for Nancy Raffa as Carabosse; I didn't hear the others that followed and it's possible one might have been a fairy, but I don't think so.)

I don't love the chaînés on demi-pointe either, and some dancers look better in them than others (but then again, with what step is that not true?). I'm a sucker for good chaînés, and so I'm kind of starving for them by the end of the night — but then there's that moment in the Wedding PDD when Aurora finally does a last diagonal of them on full pointe and it feels so revelatory and so exciting after all the wait! It kind of makes the demi-pointe worth it after all.

Sarah and Herman tonight made the strongest possible case for Ratmansky’s Beauty, I think, demonstrating just how much this original Petipa style (if indeed he has been reasonably successful in accurately recreating it) suits the choreography — clarifying just how musical and vibrant that choreography is. The mime has clearly been superbly coached this year as well. Shevchenko was a particular standout in this (which she wasn’t, I felt, as Odette), but all the principals and Keith Roberts as Carabosse were excellent. ETA: Sarah also looked gorgeous in the costumes, and especially in Acts I-II. I forgot how beautiful the vision scene costumes were. That’s a place where the ornate style is a bit more understated but still present, and I think it really works. (The Act I dress has really grown on me as well.) I also love the briar curtain that comes down during the interlude and that hovering bird.

Tonight’s prologue and first act were excellent overall. Shevchenko’s Lilac variation was near perfection — amazing fast pirouettes, just one of which wobbled the tiniest bit. Exquisite clarity and strength through elegance. Sarah was gorgeous. She has such grace. A wonderful entrance solo (baby goat indeed), a radiant rose adagio (even when she couldn’t manage a very long balance before the final promenade she carried it off with a lovely little nod to her husband/suitor), and an excellent variation with near Shevy-quality pirouettes. I noticed that the pose that will later replace the fish dives is actually prefigured in the adagio, near the beginning as she’s dancing with the suitors across the front of the stage, much like the adagio promenades and balances prefigure other later moments in the wedding PDD, which I’ve always thought a lovely gesture.

I think the pose looks quite lovely as Sarah does it, and not at all awkward. I look forward to seeing how it comes across in full context. It’s definitely a much different sort of effect being aimed at, and so good to keep in mind that in original context the audience wouldn’t have had the fish dives in mind as a go-to comparison. (Obviously we can’t help having them in mind ourselves.) Her backbend balance looks breathtaking, and Herman looks fantastic in his variation.

I love what Boylston says about Ratmansky’s instructions here: Its one of my favorite moments in all of classical ballet.

I hadn't known that was a self-portrait!

Thanks for your report. Great to hear that Bell's debut went so well. I too love Brandt, especially in roles like those, and Hurlin. I'm curious about your reaction to Act II in particular, as I would have thought many would find Acts I and III to potentially feel like the overly long ones. I think Ratmansky has even left out some of the hunting party court dances. Was it just a desire to move on to the Act III highlights, or was there something else about the act that felt long?

Hasn’t ballet typically perceived itself as being stuck in the middle: too lowbrow to be taken seriously by the serious arts connoisseurs, too highbrow to appeal to the masses?

I don’t find it puzzling. This is “curating content,” and it’s a major part of the media and social media structures that organize consumption nowadays. A few causes: the need to sort through and select from the massive amounts of content now available; the ease of having something pre-selected, pre-digested, pre-interpreted; the desire to feel like (or even be) part of a consuming community (e.g. Times readers) rather than just a person alone with a laptop; etc. FWIW, I’m not judging, just offering a possible set of explanations.

True. After all, no reconstruction of history is definitive. I like that Ratmansky has remained engaged in it — and that continual engagement surely pays off in the quality of the performances in successive years, unlike with productions where the original creator takes a back seat in revivals. Thanks for the FB posts btw. I’m not on there anymore so would miss these.

I could be wrong but I believe the more substantial wedding scene changes were not done when the full ballet was revived but rather when Act III was done as Aurora’s Wedding as part of the Tchaikovsky program in 2017. My guess is they will not be included as part of the full ballet.

Sarah Lane rehearsing her rose adagio:

I remember always being dissatisfied with the male variation in the Kirkland production because there was so much "standing around" in the preparations for steps (turns, jumps, etc.); it always seemed like the clearest example for me of a common weakness in a certain style of classical male variation, which seems more like sequences of steps rather than actual dancing. I really appreciate the musicality and kineticism of the reconstructed variation. ETA: I'll be very curious to see how Bell does with it, as it's true that it's tended to best suit mostly the shorter dancers. Of course, every variation in every production (at least those in which substantial changes aren't made from dancer to dancer) suits some who are cast better than others. I think the dancers (from corps up through principals) have really grown into the style since the first year, and I've heard some of them comment in various contexts on the benefits for their dancing generally of the necessary learning they had to do. I think it's a type of rigor that has been good for this company especially — all studying a common style and striving to recreate it. For me, as others have noted, the physical production is the least likable thing about the overall production. Too many of the costumes feel too heavy. I get that this is attributable to the lavishness of both the Bakst designs and Florestan's court, but it's not to my personal taste as a dressing for dance.

OT, but there's currently an exhibition at New York's Morgan Library of Sendak's stage designs. Zachary Woolfe has a write-up in the Times.

What about it would make it so much more unappealing to first-time viewers than a more typical production? In either case, there’s a lot about the general idiom of 19th-century ballet that would require some getting used to. I’m not sure what it is about Ratmansky’s reconstruction that is so much more off-putting. (I’m genuinely curious why some find it so — I don’t at all mean to sound dismissive toward that perspective.) I’d think that first-time viewers so inclined to be turned off by something so old would also be turned off by typical productions, which to such viewers must also look terribly old-fashioned. A reasonably traditional production of a 19th-century ballet is not really the thing to see if one is turned off by the idea of something from more than 100 years ago.

Lane and Cornejo were actually the pair that didn't do fish dives when everyone else did. Ratmansky's plan this year seems to be to have everyone forgo the fish dives and do the pose above (which is different from the pose that Lane and Cornejo did, as I recall) in lieu of them. (It's also possible the pose above is the one he has planned for the end of the PDD, in place of the fourth fish dive, in which case the earlier pose may still be what Lane and Cornejo did.)