nanushka

I'm not seeing that in what's currently up for May 23-28 (marked as updated 5/15), where Miller is still listed for Agon and both Miller and Chan for Copland.

I completely agree about the excellence of Peck's and Gordon's (and Laracey's) performances! I came back to see this program again specifically for them, and they did not disappoint. I also had the same thought about the final fish dive — so exciting! I have to disagree about the traveling hops. The early (much shorter) sets did travel, as with Claire von Enck's in the other cast I saw. But the main longer set toward the end of the variation was done pretty much in place, I thought. The latter were done facing stage right, and I recently noticed in the old 1965 video of Marnee Morris doing that variation (available at times on YouTube), she was facing stage left [sorry, I typed that wrong at first!], and the hops traveled quite a bit.

Brandenburg was swapped onto another program this spring. It’s being done with Agon and Fancy Free. There's an article in the Times about the revival.

It will be posted eventually, yes, but probably not before single tickets go on sale Monday. You shouldn't have trouble getting tickets later, though, once the Myrtha casting is up.

I’ve got to admit I’m a sucker for those send them home happy closers, and the Western finale does it. I do really appreciate that they’ve packed in a good diversity of Balanchine styles next fall. So I don’t begrudge them for leaning on some they’ve programmed recently, like Orpheus, even if it may not yet deserve a repeat.

Those are three I was thinking of too. Mozartiana especially, as it feels like it's been awhile (and doesn't seem to come around quite as frequently). Totally agree about Slaughter — once every 5 years is more than enough for me.

4 weeks, 6 weeks and 6 weeks — pretty standard, no?

See All Balanchine III, in the fall.

Full programming info is now on the NYCB website for all of 2023-24.

Thanks for the info. Was there any clarity on what "a year from now" meant? — i.e. their usual fall season (Oct 2024), or would this be a new spring engagement at the Koch?

I agree. She made a considerable impact in the role of Lady Capulet, for instance — definitely not one that relies on "competition tricks."

Most, in fact. The year it premiered, Lane and Cornejo were the only couple to do the notated choreography in place of the fish dives. I'm not sure if anyone did the same in later years, but it definitely wasn't the norm.

It would be one thing if ABT had a highly competent marketing operation, but I think we all know that's not the case. I agree, entirely predictable. With this company, it seems like it's just one unforced error after another in recent years. I'm really hoping Susan Jaffe can turn things around.

Yes, that's correct. It's well-documented in the archives of their Instagram feeds. I'm pretty sure the offer from SFB would have come while he was away from ABT — as he was for a good number of years until he returned not terribly long ago. That said, we can't possibly know Lane's reasons for not having accepted the offer. It could have been about not wanting to leave the NYC area, but it could have been about innumerable other things.

April 24, according to the ABT website.

Gia Kourlas has the story:

An article in the Times anticipates the publication of Alice Robb's "Don't Think, Dear": On Loving and Leaving Ballet. Though Robb sounds reasonably even-handed in many aspects of her critique, I have to say her repurposing of the Balanchine quote for her title rubs me the wrong way — giving potentially a very false impression of what Balanchine seems to have meant when he said that. (And also, perhaps, the impression that "dear" was his patronizing way of addressing female dancers in particular, when in fact he used the term with men as well, including non-dancers.) In the article, she has this to say about Balanchine himself: From all I've read about him, I don't get the sense that Balanchine would have wanted to be worshiped as a hero or have everyone in thrall to him after his death. Patricia McBride makes this point in an interview quoted in the article:

I don’t think ABT has had a particular tradition of holding farewells in the final day or two of the Met season in recent years, and when there have been major farewells they’ve tended to be announced well in advance. Neither of which is to say it won’t happen for either dancer, just that the timing of their scheduled performances doesn’t make me think it’s especially likely.

Dominika Afanasenkov was in the Disney+ series On Pointe, during which I believe she was made an apprentice with the company.

They can't possibly be planning to do R&J and Giselle again in NYC in 2024, can they? After this summer, they'll have done both ballets twice already in the preceding two years. Especially for R&J, that is way too much.

ABT has only 4 weeks at the Met now, and mixed programs do not generally sell at all well there. I think it makes sense for them to focus on full-length ballets and save the mixed programs for the Koch. And even there, I hope they'll continue to do one full-length each fall. I also hope that under Jaffe's leadership they'll find some additional opportunities to perform in NYC — and to perform more in general. Maybe then they can return to more of the shorter pieces they used to do.

Not this afternoon, at least. I left the auditorium right after Tiler Peck brought on Andrew Litton, and I remember it was 3:36 when I checked my phone. The first three fairy variations were fine, but the fourth and fifth were definitely too fast, distorting the choreography. The Lilac variation was faster than I like, but not as bad as the previous two. Parts of the final act were also too fast — one or two of the jewel variations, I think, and part of Bluebird (I think it was the coda where I noticed similar distorting effects on parts of Florine's choreo).

I loved Marcelo Gomes' Carabosse in Ratmansky's production at ABT.

I don't think of them as expectations; I think of them more as standards of excellence and personal taste. I think they're an important part of what makes some dancers become excellent and makes certain rare dancers become exceptional.

It doesn't read as potentially violent to me, but it's definitely something. Arthurs suggests that the size difference of the traditional casting gives it a "creepy kid-sister feel." That's a little closer to my feeling, but still a bit different.