nanushka

Short answer: she sells tickets!

Thanks for the info @California. I’m pretty sure by 2008 I was seeing most every production at least once, so I’d guess there was a lapse between the 2007 and 2014 runs. I know I had to wait quite awhile to finally see it at ABT.

And I believe they hadn’t done it for quite awhile before that. I started seeing ABT regularly around 2007/08, and I don’t think I saw them do it until the 2014 run.

Maybe he was scheduled to but pulled out? Given that it's Hallberg, that doesn't seem unlikely.

I assumed from “Say what you will about her dancing, but...” that @pherank would agree the two talents are best assessed independently.

The complete ABT production (as of 1999) is available on YouTube in a series of videos beginning with the one below, in case anyone is interested in checking details (which I may do after seeing this week's iteration in a few days).

Just curious: was the "inserted note" literally an inserted slip? (That would indicate that these were rather late changes.) Or was it printed in the program itself?

Ah, ok. Mystery likely solved, then. Here I was hoping for a surprise role debut (wishing no ill to Hallberg or Hoven, of course).

I deleted her in one of my feed purges (just to keep things streamlined) after she left ABT. Totally following her again after seeing this!

Oh, interesting — I was just thinking about this when describing the ballet to a somewhat-newbie who's going later this week. I eagerly await your report!

Yes, apparently he does, or at least has. I forget the role — does he partner Manon?

Perhaps Monsieur G.M.?

That seems to be correct, but here's a review of him dancing it (not with NYCB) in California in April 1995:

There's an interesting exchange between Isabella Boylston and Thomas Forster (both from their personal, public-facing accounts) in the comments on her most recent Instagram post (copied in full at bottom). I don't see Forster on the schedule as either Des Grieux or Lescaut. As of now, for Boylston's two performances, David Hallberg is scheduled to dance Des Grieux and Blaine Hoven is scheduled to dance Lescaut.

Well I'll be darned, I did not expect to like Jane Eyre at all, but I really did. I have to thank @MarzipanShepherdess and @JMcN, as I think your comments here really helped me to go into it with the right mindset to get the most out of it — viewing it not as a ballet, really, but as a piece using expressionistic dance, movement and gesture to convey characters (often really vividly and immediately, as noted above) and to tell a story (very clearly and effectively, I thought). It's not a piece I feel the need to see again anytime soon. If ABT keeps it in rep, I might go back in 3 or 4 years. But I wouldn't mind at all if ABT were to do one piece of this sort per Met season, assuming it were of similar quality. The literary spirit of the piece, and the use of movie score-style Mendelssohn (both) and Schubert melodies, made it quite appealing. I'd be interested in seeing more of Cathy Marston's work. There were, as others have noted, a lot of PDDs/duets, but I found that they really developed in tone, style and movement content over the course of the piece, to illustrate the development of Jane's relationships. I think there could be more variety in styles of lifts, but the gestural vocabulary was surprisingly rich — and not only with the hands/arms. (Thomas Forster's feet! No wonder they kept stopping Jane in her tracks.) I particularly liked Marston's use of stage space, as many scenes seemed to move across and down/up the stage in meaningfully patterned ways. This was apparent right from the start, as Jane attempts to make her way from upstage left to downstage right, inhibited in various ways by the D-Men. They, I thought, were also very effectively used throughout the piece. It's true the set was fairly grim, though I did quite like the costumes. The lighting was often rather stark, but this made the very last moment of the piece — when Jane steps forward into a final illuminated pose — quite affecting. Skylar Brandt again stepped in for Breanne Granlund this afternoon, and she was excellent. (I'm curious to see Granlund sometime, as I don't have any particular memories of her from past performances, and it's always interesting to see which corps dancers get their first billed roles on the calendar.) Isabella Boylston was great as well; the role really suits her. And Thomas Forster was everything I'd hoped. I really want to see him get a few more leading roles next Met season (I'm a broken record on that). Even if Kevin never ends up giving him a Siegfried, an Albrecht, or the like (though I'd love that!) — at least some more roles like this one or like Dnieper. In the past year he's also gotten Symphonie Concertante (including at City Center for the big Balanchine series) and Nutcracker, so I do have some hope. Cassandra Trenary was wonderful as Mrs. Fairfax, and I also really liked Erica Lall as the pupil/ward Adele. I particularly loved the early encounter between Jane and her, when Jane seems to show her young new pupil, who is full of energy and spirit (as was the young Jane), how to channel and express those qualities in a more effective manner.

So interesting to read this. I wonder: are there any other story ballets that might pass the Bechdel test?

Personally I'd almost always rather see great choreography performed badly than see terrible choreography performed well.

I'll be very curious to see if this gets scheduled again for next spring season. There seems to be a strong tendency for the company to repeat new productions for a second year, except in a cases where the first run has been really widely viewed as a dud.

Given the relative brevity of Greskovic's treatment of The Seasons — which I think is a major new work by a major contemporary choreographer (unlike Jane Eyre, based on most reports) — I find it unfortunate that he spends a quarter of his words on the piece praising Boylston (who seemed to me to be the weakest link in that cast) and another quarter criticizing the costumes (which, sure, weren't great — but did it really matter that much?). Just my opinion, of course, and a critic must focus on what he or she found most pertinent — but I think there was so much going on there that was so much better and more important than those two elements.

I agree it's worth seeing. There are a good number of highlight sequences. None are quite so great as the R&J balcony scene, for instance, but I find that Manon doesn't have as many portions that drag quite so much. In other words, R&J has higher highs but also lower lows. Definitely don't go in expecting classical ballet — but it is recognizably ballet, which it sounds like Jane Eyre really isn't quite so much.

Same here. I am going solely to see Thomas Forster finally get a crack at a full-length lead role on the Met stage. I don't have high hopes for the piece, but I do look forward to hearing what others think of it.

It's also not consistently a problem, which suggests it's fixable. I saw her a few weeks ago as a demi-soloist in Theme and Variations and she looked dreadful — black(?!) lipstick and a scowl. But then last week in Stars and Stripes she had a perfectly good expression (though with the same lipstick). I get that some of this is just facial features, and she may have to work extra hard to achieve the right look. (And I do feel kind of icky playing into that old "you should smile more, you'd be so pretty!" trope.) I'm not looking for a big grin here. Just a decently soft expression. Really, it's the sort of thing that one would think she'd have worked out years ago in her training.

I largely concur with @CTballetfan‘s review except regarding Bouder’s squeaking — I was in orchestra G and heard many throughout the PDD. It was terribly mood-killing. Otherwise she and Adrian danced rather well.

Garcia danced Oberon (fairly well), while La Cour replaced Janzen as Titania’s cavalier.

I found it interesting that Brian Seibert referred, in his review of the Tharp program today, to "the company's deep bench" — which, I guess is true? There are a lot of talented dancers worthy of top soloist-level status (some of them are, indeed, soloists; some are still in the corps; some have made it above soloist level). There aren't, in my opinion, a lot of dancers worthy of top principal-level status.