Birdsall

I suspect Jeanette Delgado, who is getting choice roles all the time now, is likely to get the first cast Kitri. And Arja might get a shot at it in a later performance, since she is still an up-and-coming dancer. I would enjoy seeing either one. Both have a fiery onstage temperament, in my opinion. Catoya could do the role justice too. I think she would be a somewhat softer Kitri personality, but that can also work.

The Stravinsky story you told made me laugh. I sat next to someone at MCB once who told me she only likes story ballets and doesn't like the ballets where they are just in tights because she doesn't want to just watch what looks like a rehearsal. Yet she claimed to love MCB. I was a little confused! Of course, there are often costumes in Balanchine but you can often get what the lady didn't want.

Arja might be a fabulous Kitri! She probably wouldn't be a first cast but I bet she would be exciting.

Even though they are doing Symphonic Dances 3 seasons in a row, last season was a one night only world premiere and only in Miami. It was not part of subscriptions either. I think they are not counting that. And I suspect Ratmansky's name is prestigious for a small-ish company, so in a sense they are milking it, and who could blame them? It is more interesting than the average "new" work, and a lot is going on, as Bart says above, so I think it deserves multiple viewings.

I see. I didn't feel like he was stiff like an old man. He did seem reserved. Maybe Bart saw more than I did.

Even though death is a pivotal figure in La Valse it doesn't seem like a big dance. He is a large man and supported Tricia Albertson well in the sort of enticement yet "let me go" dancing. So my eyes were more on her dancing than his. Please enlighten me on what I should look for in Death's dancing next time!

I attended Miami City Ballet's Program 3 at the Kravis Center last night. Three Balanchine ballets: La Valse, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, and Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux And Ratmansky's Symphonic Dances I have only seen La Valse once before and like it much more the second time around. To me it captures the feel of society breaking down and changing. For me the woman in white's death is like the death of things we previously held dear and we are in a vortex caught up in changes that are attractive yet dangerous. It is fascinating that Balanchine was able to create such a beautiful ballet that has an "ugly" aspect. Tricia Albertson was a lovely woman in white. Zoe Zien, Nathalia Arja, and Jeanette Delgado were all wonderful as the 3 main women apart from the Woman in White. Kleber Rebello and Jennifer Lauren were so cute in The Steadfast Tin Soldier. Mary Carmen Catoya and Renato Penteado were fabulous in Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux. To me they were back in immaculate form after last program's slightly off form DQ PDD. They proved to me that they are normally excellent. I like Ratmansky's Symphonic Dances. It is modern yet has plenty of nods to good old fashioned Russian ballet (a big plus, in my personal opinion). There seems to be a theme running throughout of outsiders being accepted or rejected from a group and different dancers breaking out of the group to form alliances. I think It is a ballet that keeps you wondering, plotless yet still stories going on. I saw the world premiere last year in Miami and enjoyed it then. The two stand outs are Jeanette Delgado and the very energetic Nathalia Arja. Near the end Arja is on the floor like a cat ready to pounce, and pounce she does. To me this dancer has an energy and charisma not unlike Osipova. I don't mean to leave out all the other great dancers but have to run. Parents are taking me to Christopher's Kitchen which is a restaurant not to be missed if you find yourself in Palm Beach Gardens! All raw vegetarian but even the most hardcore meat eater would not miss meat at this restaurant! I am trying to think of a restaurant I like better in the entire world, and I cannot!!!

Does this mean the Mikhailovsky might close?

She is a lovely dancer who should have a much higher rank in the company. Be grateful you're not seeing Skorik or Somova, since they are given anything and everything-- the more unsuitable the better. I am basically happy with the casting of all the ballets I will see while there, but I have to say that Shirinkina as Raymonda raised my eyebrows. I'm not saying it will not be lovely. It just seems sort of like giving Bellini's Norma to Kathleen Battle or Diana Damrau to sing. Both are lovely singers and sound beautiful but they are all wrong for Norma. But maybe I am viewing Shirinkina in a different light than I should. Just asking for others to tell me what they think. But I am overall pleased with the casting of Sleeping Beauty (Osmolkina and Sergeyev and Vasnetsova), Carmen Suite (Kondaurova), Symphony in C (Batoeva, Lopatkina, Osmolkina, etc.) and Raymonda. I will have a great time. I will see the opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan also which is rarely ever done in the West but includes the famous Flight of the Bumblebee. That should be fun!!!!

Casting is up for March (speaking of casting), and I was surprised to see Shirinkina cast as Raymonda on March 28. I think she is a lovely dancer but doesn't seem like she is right for Raymonda. What does everyone think? It seems a bit of a wild card decision (which is now normal). I am not sure she will have the gravitas for the role. I picture her in things like Juliet and Masha. But I am hoping she will surprise me. I am going to the Mariinsky in late March and that is one of the shows I will see.

She is Queen of Balances. Don't know how she does it. I love balancing when I do the yoga poses that involve balancing. But for some reason we do them so seldom in yoga. I think instructors and people avoid them. Not sure why. I would think it is important for everyone to practice balance b/c the worst thing we can do as we age is fall down and break a hip.

I suspect that they are probably encoring the Ratmansky piece (actually doing it 3 seasons in a row if you count last season's one time performance world premiere) b/c Ratmansky is the big "hot" choreographer that gets a lot of attention. They are milking his work to keep his name attached to theirs, I suspect. I actually liked Symphonic Dances and look forward to seeing it again at the end of this month. The only odd thing in that article is how she says the Latin American community will relate to the piece about praying for rain. I have had many Hispanic friends, and I have never gotten the impression that their background is in farming and praying for rain.

I wouldn't even know the dancers. When I taught Pilates we had the Bucs quarterback training there (and it was the year they won the Superbowl I believe) and I had no idea who he was. I found out later and still didn't care. LOL

I still do old school whenever I go. I never buy tickets in advance-(at least ever since I got out of Cuba). I have NEVER been in a sold out ballet performance anywhere I've been here, and so I just wait for my days off and right in the morning I decide where I want to go...say opera, ballet, concerts, etc. Actually when I went to see the non show performance of Vishneva/Osipova in Bayadere, I got to my hotel just an hour before that evening performance-(Seo/Muntagirov), and just took the subway and got to the MET right in time to buy an excellent discount ticket in orchestra, waaaaaaaaay cheaper than the Arsht Center. I was still wearing my ripped out traveling jeans. In Miami that would be a cute fantasy to dream about. Yeah, but don't you already know (from online) what is playing and you simply decide at the last minute and drive over there and get a ticket at the last minute? I just don't think people walk by a theatre nowadays and get surprised and buy a ticket. I could be wrong. Even if I lived in NY I would know from online sources what is playing. I would never walk past the Met and be surprised and decide to buy a ticket b/c I just saw a poster in front of the theatre. I think most people are already looking online for things to do. I don't think most people walk by the Met and scream, "OMG! They are playing La Bayadere tonight! Let's buy a ticket and see it right now!" Maybe this happens, but I have my doubts. Maybe tourists who are totally out of it or on drugs might do this. I don't know.

Bartoli not only has a ravishing voice, she understands what she's doing! Wonderful! That concept of visiting a special world is what it's all about. The idea keeps recurring in my experience. The critic J.W.N. Sullivan wrote that to listen to "late" Beethoven is to set sail on strange seas of thought where you encounter unsuspected islands and even continents. (Getting on well with "middle" Beethoven years ago, I found at first I could not make the voyage, but Beethoven himself didn't "go there" - as we say today - right away, either.) More recently I have heard Suzanne Farrell explain that she sometimes changes some steps to preserve the world of a ballet (emphasis hers). Farrell knows what she's doing, too. Degrading it seems to come naturally to some marketers - to increase sales, go downmarket. What angers me is the willingness - eagerness - to deprive people of the experience of leaving the everyday world for that special one. The idea seems to be, as one put it to me once, "Get 'em in and hope they like it!" Some of them who come in are prepared for something else. "That didn't look hard," said the man next to me one evening. "You thought it would?" "Yeah, they told us it was hard." (Got that? "They told us") "Well, it is hard, but they're so good, they make it look easy." "Oh." I'm sorry I was too stunned to take it from "easy" to "graceful" and "beautiful." Is the current emphasis on personality healthy? No big ideas, no great adventures? Just what this person happens to say, or that one, it doesn't matter, right? As for Balanchine and horses, I think it was, "Dancers are like horses, they don't think, they just go." He feared his dancers would think, or look like they were. Horses aren't self-conscious and don't ham or show off, either; linking dancers to personalities may be another way to present their art as something it is not. I'm glad you liked that word, Birdsall; I thought at the time they might have lifted it from one of my "reviews." (Susan Reiter, a real reviewer, took issue with their use of it, saying MCB was very good, excellent even, but not superhuman, IIRC.) My point back then (and now too) was yours, I think, part of how I see dance and how I am drawn into it: That these people are human, made of the same kind of flesh and bone as I am, but they do, with evident ease, what I can't do. (Want to see me get up there and try? Just imagine.) What humans generally don't - can't - do. So they are human, but better than human, superhuman. So there is - apparently, and we are talking about what we see and how we feel about it when we see it - a little miracle here, a nice mystery, perhaps akin to religious mystery. How can what we are seeing actually be? We know without a doubt that it is. Yes, they are higher up for me too - maybe not up the food chain as higher up that stairway to Paradise we build "with a new step every day." (Apologies to Ira Gershwin.) Is the experience of dance watching alone? I think all art experience is akin to spiritual experience. (I wonder sometimes if those marketers resort to zany promotional strategies who deny the spiritual.) Anyway, I want anyone susceptible to this experience to have it, pure, undiluted, and strong; let them see artists wholly, as the artists they are; let them come come to the world of each work of art. So it's not just you, Birdsall. And kids, with fewer preconceptions to interfere, perhaps, get on their way more easily. I like everything you say. For me the marketing should be about how beautiful or amazing these dancers are, not how much they are like other things. I do think the "spiritual" element should be stressed as you say. As for the person who thought it looked easy.....ironically, that type of thing usually comes out of mouths of people who can't even touch their toes! People with no idea of body movement think it is easy. People who do any type of body movement (I do yoga) knows how hard it is to Ardha Chandrasana. Yes, it just looks like you are standing on one leg and letting your torso fall to the side.....but those of us who do it KNOW how $%&ing hard it is to do!!!! Ballet is probably 100 times harder.

I don't mean this as an argument, just food for thought. I tend to think the days of walking by and saying, "Oh, wow! Maybe I will get a ticket to that right now!" are over. I could be wrong. But I think most people look online for what is happening in their city or if they follow ballet or opera, they go repeatedly back to the websites and buy tickets or even get emails about it. Even if you have gone ONCE to something you get bombarded with that company's email announcements. I get notified about L.A. Opera and SF Opera quite often b/c I went to Ring Cycles out there. So if I lived in those cities I would know what is playing even without walking past.

When I used to go to FGO's operas I never had trouble getting there from either West Palm (when staying with my parents) or from Marco Island (where a good opera friend lives and where I would sometimes stay). I am sure there are times when the traffic is crazy, but there is an exit that lets you off right near it.

Will the new theatre be mostly for opera? Or will the ballet also perform there? I assume they needed more modern backstage facilities and equipment to stage operas with complicated sets. Ballets, on the other hand, need to keep the stage fairly clear so sets are easier to do with older backstage areas for ballet, so I am hoping the ballet mainly stays put in the old theatre. Does anyone know? I agree with Helene that the outside of it is not inspiring.

Your comment about bus terminals isn't as off the wall as you might think -- Oregon Ballet Theater did a publicity campaign a few years ago with profiles of the dancers in the company -- some of the ads were placed in bus kiosks around town. The general theme was getting to know the individuals in the company, and although I wasn't really impressed with some of the profiles, I had to admit that it was taking advantage of the current emphasis on personality in our culture. And as far as the connection to sports figures is concerned, Balanchine used to compare dancers to race horses all the time... A year or two ago MCB had its pamphlets calling the dancers "superhuman" or something like that. I actually liked that marketing tactic, but maybe it did not work. I do think there is a sports connection, but the difference, in my opinion, is that ballet dancers are artists as well as athletes which puts them higher up in the food chain in my own view of the world. I was at a local dance performance last night in which there was a Question and Answer session, and audience members felt the need to keep bringing up that they were like athletes. I liked one dancer's comment that the difference is that a football player can grunt when he hurts himself. They have to continue to smile and pretend they are not hurt if possible. Another audience member said he was amazed they get the same injuries as football players, and a dancer made a great come-back, "Well, we have the same human body, so a knee injury is a knee injury however you get it!" That made me laugh! They are very athletic, and maybe for younger generations it is a good tactic to present them as athletes since athletes seem to be Gods for the U.S. My own personal feeling is that I want them seen as artists, but that is just me. Too bad I am not Tsar!!!! LOL I would not let my dancers have posters in bus terminals!!! LOL

Yes, kind of weird, b/c we do tend to think of classicism as being in line with the Enlightenment in Literature and Music and then Romanticism was a reaction to that. It was anti-rationalism and put mystery and emotions and passion as the important thing, not the brain........this is all general and not saying anything everyone doesn't already know. But you can also use classical to mean antiquity...... But I had the same reaction as you did......the ballet terms do not quite fit with the periods in Literature or Music as strange as that seems. But Giselle and La Sylphide do seem very romantic containing the same style as Romantic literature, in my personal opinion. It is mainly the term "Classical Ballet" that confuses everything, b/c to most students of any of the other arts they would assume classical comes before Romanticism......Maybe it should be called Post-Romantic! LOL

I do hope that you guys are right and that this is a good direction to expand audiences. As far as bus terminals, I was sort of joking with that one. A good friend of mine who is an opera lover is always saying that a certain opera company must be picking up their singers at bus terminals. And recently I just got an email about an opera company that claims to be performing in NYC and then down below when you read further you find out that they will be performing at one of JFK's airport terminals. So "terminals" are stuck in my mind, and I used that term as sort of a joke and exaggeration of what things can devolve into. I don't pretend to have any answers here, and Lourdes Lopez or whoever is making marketing decisions may know much more about how to sell ballet. In fact, I'm sure they know more than I do. I guess I just hate to see such a beautiful art form seem to grovel for audiences, but this is 2013 and the Age of Madonna and reality shows, so I guess I can't blame them. They have to do what they have to do to survive and thrive. I really shouldn't knock them for trying new ways.

One of the things I like about Cecilia Bartoli is that she says her version of "crossover" is to bring the masses to Vivaldi and not the other way around. She is a top selling opera singer, one of the few who can sell like Pavarotti did (and still does after his death). She says she does not want to do stadium concerts like he did despite many offers. She would probably sell them out here in the U.S. Her goal is not to come to the masses but to entice them to come into her world of discovering Vivaldi, Gluck, etc. And each CD she releases seems to sell very well for a classical artist. I think part of the allure of opera and ballet is the fact that they are refined, gorgeous art forms that have withstood the test of time. I think people who are attracted to these art forms are attracted to the fact that they take us out of the normal everyday and help us view the world/universe/life as something special. I could be totally wrong but I think making opera or ballet seem as "cool" as basketball or rap music or whatever is the wrong direction. I don't think anyone is convinced. The truth of the matter is that most people who like ballet already have the personality to enjoy finer things in life like good wine, gourmet meals, etc. I have my doubts about the success of going out to malls or basketball games. With all that said I hope it helps MCB, and I hope the audience expands. I just don't know about this way. I think it would be most ideal for the arts to be stressed in all schools despite budget cuts. We need to think of the luxuries in life as essential to us as human beings as air is to breathe. I took inner city kids to ballet and opera when I taught, and they loved it. The other teachers thought I had lost my mind. Even children with no background in the art forms recognize excellence when they see it, and they applauded like a Cuban audience. It was delightful. I think taking them into the world of theatre is much more effective than trying to bring theatre out to malls, fairs, and bus terminals. I think the essential experience is totally watered down and degraded when it is made to seem like something it is not. But this is all my opinion. Shoot away at me! LOL

I tend to view Nikiya's "happy dance" in Bayadere as sort of a cabaletta. Many of you may know that in bel canto opera, singers will sing a slow cavatina/aria and then some minor character brings them a letter to read and their mood changes from melancholy to happy and they sing a fast paced cabaletta with embellishments galore thrown in. Sometimes it is a BIG STRETCH for the character's mood to change 180 degrees like that, but it was part of that time period's formula for arias. So I tend to view Nikiya's basket dance as sort of like that change of mood cabaletta. She was sad and danced slowly. Then, Aya gives her flowers from Solor, and she suddenly thinks, "OMG! He loves me after all!" and her mood does a 180degree turnaround. It is not very realistic dramatically but it makes for a good show! LOL This could be why Makarova left out the "happy dance" when she staged Bayadere here in the West. She knew it was not realistic and did not help the drama and made no sense. In fact, she took out a lot of the things that could be considered silly (like the manu dance) and her version is actually much more serious, in my personal opinion. But I do enjoy the "happy dance," so I prefer it to be left in no matter how unrealistic it is at that moment.

I was going to click on Grand pas de quatre, but Cristian told me Les Trockaderos does not count! LOL LOL

I just saw that Osmolkina is replacing her. That should be good.