nanushka

Thanks so much for laying that all out so clearly, @Kathleen O'Connell. I found Gottlieb's criticism of the use of a search firm to be oddly narrow-minded, literal and out-of-touch, especially this bit: It's a mindset that breeds institutional stagnation of the sort NYCB does not need.

Thanks so much for the update, @Josette! (Great news about the torch lift!) Would love to hear more reports from any others who were lucky enough to be there. I’ve been loving all the rehearsal footage of Forster and Shevy on various dancers’ IG posts and stories. Such a beautiful partnership! (C’mon Kevin, give us a Swan Lake with these two!)

So wish I could see this:

Well not all injuries are last-minute, and there's a long time between now and May/June/July for a lot of things to potentially change — but yes, an "immediate" replacement with one of those three would not be ideal. As for Hammoudi — been there, done that, no more please! He's gotten enough Met chances, and has never (to my knowledge, in my opinion) risen to the occasion.

If not heaven, maybe Forster, Hoven and Royal could help them! (And Gorak — though probably not filling in for either of those two specifically.)

Exactly my thought! Talk about professional courtesy.

None is needed, but apparently yet more proof that Clifford is unfit to lead. Seriously?

I wonder if the impression in such a case could be that the dancer has the music within her, and that the musicians' playing is the heard manifestation of that. That doesn't necessarily seem at odds with the idea of "musicality."

Well for some that could be precisely the motivation — the desire to have a personal life somewhat separate from one's otherwise so consuming work life. Even if it's not the choice that many make, I don't see it as really weird. To me, it seems quite understandable, even if not professionally advisable. (Her stated desire for a clear division between her professional and personal lives would, in many other professions, be considered quite professionally advisable. Perhaps not in the dance world, though.)

Yes, this is being done all over — more info is here. I can imagine it being an engaging experience, but I wonder if I'd feel I'd had enough after a couple arias. I suppose a lot would depend on the crowd, the vividness of the sound (especially for opera, which is all about no amplification), etc. I definitely don't think it would creep me out or anything—just another step up from video, really.

Perhaps not:

Yes, I believe he also refused to let the company perform in venues that had a problem with Mitchell being onstage.

There's a new article in the Times focusing on the issue of Asian stereotypes, primarily in Nutcracker.

Out of curiosity, because I genuinely don't know enough about Clifford's early career in those "certain directions" to judge, what is the evidence that Balanchine pushed him "regardless of the actual ability" in those areas? One can see that Clifford didn't end up being a great choreographer or company director; but is there evidence that he wasn't up to the tasks that Balanchine "pushed him into" at the time when that encouragement was actually being given — i.e. that the degree encouragement was indeed out of balance with the degree of talent that was being shown?

Good point. At the very least, we probably don’t have enough evidence to cast such blame. And Clifford should know that too.

Perhaps. If so, I misunderstood the sentence. I read it to mean that each was disqualifying in itself, not all collectively.

Just adding a further point to what @Balletwannabe and @Helene have written above, I think this is also not what Clifford was conveying with that post. He's written about this on IG as well, and I believe his point was, basically, "I messed up. Jared watched the video of me and danced it like I did there, but when I did it that way it was because of a balance problem; when I corrected Jared, I didn't realize that he'd actually been emulating my performance in that video. Nonetheless, my instruction to him was more correct than my performance in the video." That seems very different from "you're doing it ALL WRONG EVEN IF YOU WATCHED MY VIDEO AND EMULATED ME." I don't think a single quote from a subjective observer can reasonably be characterized as "disqualifying." He said this a long time ago, at a time when Balanchine was living, and he seems to me to have meant, "If I were going to work for anyone at this time it would be for Balanchine, and as an alternative to that I've chosen to start my own company." I don't think we can necessarily assume he'd still "only" work "for Mr. B." (That may well be true, but I don't think it can be assumed simply from the evidence of that IG post. That would, I think, be a misreading.) I say all of this as someone who thinks Clifford's comments are frequently very problematic and that he'd be all wrong as a choice for NYCB's new AD. I also think he has no chance, because there are just so many problems—so many, in fact, that I don't think there's any need to exaggerate them.

Ah, perhaps, if that's what you were referring to. But you wrote: Is the "mental torturing of a senior" that @manhattangal referred to in the ballet an abuse performed by the character of Dulcinea herself? I didn't realize that was the case; that's why I didn't find your referent to be obvious.

Right—that's what's "obvious." What I don't see is what makes that "bizarre." That was the claim @l'histoire and I were responding to.

I actually wouldn't be surprised; the Met site's info has often in the past been ahead of ABT's direct info (though not, that I can recall, in terms of revealing a specific guest artist—but it just doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility and seems like the most likely explanation for what you saw). That's a lot of performances for a guest artist, over a good number of weeks.

I think those were the same two criticisms @vagansmom may have been referring to, both made above (one by @nysusan and the other by @abatt) but could be wrong)

FWIW, my thought was the same as @l'histoire's — i.e. "the obvious" wasn't obvious to me, particularly given the basic gists of the Don Q / Dulcinea relationship and the Balanchine / Farrell relationship — and given Balanchine's lifelong interest in playing out onstage, even in "plotless" ballets, ideas about relationships between man and woman, artist and creator, that had both aesthetic and biographical resonance. (That story about Balanchine casting himself as the allegorical personification of Polio attacking the young Tanny in some long-lost one-off benefit piece he created when she was like 15? Now that's bizarre.)

According to Lincoln Center's "Accessibility" page, "Service animals are welcome at Lincoln Center." (So-called "seeing eye dogs" are not the only type of service animals.) I can't imagine she'd have gotten the dog through the front doors or avoided the interference of the Koch's rather officious ushers (who won't even let one walk five feet toward one's seat, ticket in hand, without intervention) if the dog weren't cleared to be there. But then, I suppose, in New York anything is possible.

Yes, it's almost like they know Swan Lake will be among their biggest sellers no matter what, so why bother making it more exciting? This is the sense I've gotten for the past several seasons. Swan Lake used to feel like one of the more exciting parts of each Met season, which more or less justified its being given every single year. Now that it's not, its annual return has begun to feel like kind of a drag, and the season as a whole has lost some of its former spark. (I admit that I write this very much from the perspective of one whose favored dancers haven't generally been given as many opportunities in this ballet in recent years. So of course one person's blah may indeed be another person's spark. But this is just the sense I've gotten.)

Nice to see that Lane finally gets more opportunities when "the favorites" aren't able to dance, but it's too bad that's what it takes!