choriamb

[Apologies, I'm fighting a cold and can do nothing constructive for work presently, so I drone on a bit here.] I'm a bit less worried about how suitable the repertory is to the dancers: dancers rise to the occasion in amazing ways when they're plunged into new styles and training. And sometimes artistic staff introduce those changes precisely so that their dancers CAN grow in a new way. Seven years ago, the Pacific Northwest Ballet on the whole seemed hard, leggy, athletic...and rather inarticulate: engineered for abstract contemporary repertory. When I returned to see them for several different productions this spring, I was surprised to see the effects of a few years of dancing those Fullington reconstructions, performing more full-lengths, and having a ballet master of the Stanley Williams, Danish-inflected school. I'd bank that the company now has the most fluid, articulate arms in the US (something I never would have imagined saying about a Balanchine company) and has developed an unexpected sense of theater. On the other hand, they've also become less viscerally muscular in the sweaty contemporary pieces. So, do we think ABT's dancers need more of the lightness and articulacy that tends to arise from dancing in older ballet styles? Or more of the energy and reach of recent ballet styles? I vote for articulacy.

Thanks for this, mussel: I had been wondering if the production touched on any of the ballet's political commentary!

Totally agreed. Setting aside any casting conflicts and partner height and language requirements which might also support the use of Seo, there's one other reason why McKenzie might have chosen her: he thinks that a promising but incomplete artist would benefit from a heavy dose of stage time in these roles at this early point in her career. He's not favoring her: he's sending her to bootcamp. After all, the retiring ABT ballerinas specifically mentioned the difficulty of improving in roles that one performs only once a year in the Washington Post article mentioned in other threads. It may be less-than-ideal for us in the audience, but McKenzie has few other ways to foster his artists. There's no substitute for stage time. It's easy to forget that one reason the current generation of NYCB ballerinas is so good is that many gained an disproportionate amount of stage time at a key point in their careers in the wake of a huge talent drain in the mid-to-late '00s (Meunier, Korbes, Ansanelli, Sylve, Weese). As good as Sterling Hyltin looks in many roles now, it took every minute of six years after reaching principal status for her to begin commanding the stage (and she was dancing the cream of the repertory the entire time). Likewise, as much as I love Maria Kowroski, I don't want to see her in anything in which she hasn't logged at least two seasons: would she be as good as she has become in much of the Farrell repertory if she had been sharing the roles with more dancers? Even a quick study like Ashley Bouder is routinely criticized for being too harshly energetic in her first performances in NYCB's full-length productions (Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty) whenever they swing into the repertory--all of which is equally routinely smoothed away by her second performance. What would her performances be like if she had only one per season?

I'd questioned this revival too. But I remember hearing an interview with McKenzie (the PBS documentary?) in which he pointed out that Othello was the first full-evening-length original ballet that ABT had ever commissioned (all other new commissions up to that point had been short works; all other full-evening-length works were revivals of classics). Given the 75th anniversary, they might have felt that it was a landmark they couldn't ignore. (The fact that they only tacked four performances onto the week of other heritage works suggests that their estimation of the work isn't too high, either.)

Just a late appreciation of last Monday's Giselle: I don't think Kent gave the performance she would have wanted for her last Giselle, but there were many bright stretches: she made the Act 1 peasant dances really came alive; her interpretation of the mad scene was the best I've seen; and she danced the last 10 minutes of Act 2 with control and beauty. Bolle was world-class in every way. I adored Luciana Paris' peasant pas de deux. I've seen plenty of dancers perform it with steelier technique, but Charline Giezendanner of POB is the only other dancer I've seen who hasn't looked downright brittle. Paris made it a conversation with the other dancers on stage. I also love Gillian Murphy, but agree with some other posters about her interpretation of Myrta: it's a storm with lightening, but no clouds. It's striking (and her technical command is a joy), but I prefer occasional softness to add some contrast and mystery. Likewise, I'm not enamored of this production's "vision-struck" Berthe and "petulant" Bathilde, but Susan Jones and Leann Underwood were both standouts. Underwood, in particular, really articulated the relationship between herself and Albrecht. I'll be interested to see how Thomas Forster's Hilarion changes. His Act 1 mime was too restrained (too refined, maybe?) to read clearly. In Act 2, where he just had to show unrestrained panic, he looked great (beautiful technique, I thought). Cassandra Trenary sparkled from the corps.

Eh, NYCB has its share of replacements...and similarly fails to supply dancers with similar qualities. For instance, I attended last Tuesday's NYCB Goldberg Variations/West Side Story bill specifically for Sara Mearns, Ashley Bouder, and Joaquin de Luz all of whom received last-minute replacements. (Who were all accomplished, but not my cup of tea in this work.)

I'd wondered about the State Ballet of Georgia dances, too, but they all seem to be non-Shostakovich. The Yurliberlyu and Whipped Cream are still question marks though. ["Self, is it wrong of me to hope against hope that the world contains a ballet scored to Herb Alpert? Yes, self, it is.]

It's been OK for me, too (but I'm in Seattle at the moment).

I wonder what Burns considered his brief. If he was trying to create a history specifically of ABT's dance performances and dancers, he accomplished little. If he was trying to create a 10,000 foot view of the mechanics of how ballet arrived in America and progressively changed, he fared somewhat better (although in either scenario he could have afforded to lose the slow-motion voice-overs). I rather think he was less interested in ABT qua ABT than ABT as example of American dance, if that makes any sense. (Unfortunately, we all are interested in ABT qua ABT.)

The Golden Age is the only other one I can come up with. I think you might have to start digging into earlier and more obscure pieces. The Mariinsky has a nice list at http://www.mariinsky.ru/en/company/choreographers/ratmansky/ and his wife Tatiana's ABT page includes some early works that I've never seen listed at http://www.abt.org/education/archive/choreographers/ratmansky_t.html . Update: It also occurred to me that he might have provided incidental dances for Bolshoi productions of Shostakovich's operas.

Oh, I didn't mean that Kowroski had a harder journey in terms of career advancement...just that she's had to figure out how to present a wider swathe of the repertory. Although this does remind me of another way that bios color my views: scarcity. Kowroski was one of the few bright points in NYCB's early-to-mid-2000s ballerina drought, whereas Reichlen arrived with a cohort of great dancers. I sometimes wonder if even Wendy Whelan would have been quite so beloved had she not supported the company through that same time period: I definitely don't think that she and Kowroski would have danced the rep they ended up with.

It's funny how a dancer's bio colors your estimation, too. Neither Kowroski nor Reichlen immediately came to grips with their shared slice of "muse who refuses" Farrell roles. But as I've watched them slowly grow into them, I think I favor Kowroski simply because she had the harder journey. Reichlen is a shy dramatic presence, but her impassivity reads as a kind of contained, disdainful control: it worked as a projection of authority in both her early abstract rep and the present day. Kowroski, on the other hand, has had to turn herself from a playful or contemplative Robbins dancer into a figure of command...in more technically difficult roles, no less. It's just fascinating that such dissimilar dancers occupy the same rep. One warm, one cool. One progressively less interesting the further you get away from her marvellous head, the other progressively less interesting the further you get away from her marvellous ankles. And on and on...

Call me crazy, but it will be funny if all of the wrangling over Copeland "stealing" a promotion from Abrera and Lane is moot when ABT announces promotions after the Spring season. I was previously unable to imagine ABT supporting all three of these dancers as principals. But when Kent, Herrera, and Reyes announced their retirements in tandem, ABT lost a lot of repertory knowledge and gained a lot of money back in the bank. If you're a fan of conjecture, there's at least as much reason now for optimism about all three women's prospects (together) as pessimism. If I remember correctly, both Hee Seo and Isabella Boylston received one titular role at the Met two seasons before their promotion, followed by two titular roles in the season immediately before their promotion. Well, over the past two seasons, Copeland and Lane's casting has followed the same pattern...and Abrera is getting two leads this season, too. Kevin McKenzie has absolutely no reason to give leading roles to in-house dancers in whom he is uninterested: he could always choose to fast-track Shevchenko or Teuscher. Likewise, Lane is closing out the Spring gala in one of the company's signature works, and both she and Abrera played prominent roles in those balletomane/donor-heavy Guggenheim presentations. (And I haven't heard anyone ask whether Stella's appearance with the Australian Ballet was actually part of the "artist exchange" that McKenzie and that gaggle of other artistic directors cooked up a year ago to give their on-the-cusp-of-fame dancers more international exposure...) Given all the experience they're losing, even making Abrera a late-career principal--perhaps with the tacit understanding that her career would only extend long enough to groom a younger soloist for promotion--begins to make financial sense (as well as its undoubted artistic sense): the management must have counted on having Herrera for at least three more years.

See http://metopera.org/metopera/season/abt/opening-night-gala I was also intrigued to see Billy the Kid listed, but pleased--it's a part of the historical rep that I've always heard about but never seen. EDIT: And the more I read about Robbins' Les Noces, the more interested I get: I didn't know that he'd originally done it for ABT or that it was the last ballet he restaged at NYCB.

Exactly...particularly your second point. If I'm grateful to Ratmansky for nothing else, it's that he reminded the dance world that characterization was something that "serious" choreographers did.

Jumping back to the "wishful thinking about ABT moving to the Koch/State Theater" thread: I know that both Sleeping Beauty and Le Corsaire were grandiose...but did anyone notice if they were noticeably flatter or less deep? (i.e., are there any signs that ABT has begun slowly reworking its productions so that they don't require a stage of the Met's depth?) Tangent to the Cojocaru casting thread: after Herrera and Reyes retire, are there ANY in-house soloists or principals who can dance with Cornejo or Simkin other than Lane and Copeland? I assume that one or both will be first-in-line to cover his partners for every performance after week #3 (unless ABT wants to replace BOTH leads).

I think both of the ballets are gorgeous, but I suspect that Piano Concerto #1 will lose its perfume more easily. All the "early Soviet idealism come to naught" accents--the holiday backcloth, the gym exercises, the "death", etc.--in Symphony #9 are explicit enough for audiences to see them and dancers to understand them. But although I think that Piano Concerto #1 could hold its own for years as a really exciting, fast, flashy closer, I wonder if it suggests the same meanings without the original cast. When you saw (dark-haired, pale, and adagio) Vishneva cradling (dark-haired, pale, and allegro) Osipova, it read a lot like a metaphor: older, cautious freedom-seekers who emerged from the Soviet world coming to terms with the dangers of a system with no rules while watching their reckless children zipping through the oligarchy...with equal danger. The flashiness of the red set and costumes seemed very deliberate.

Props for their calendar function, too: the full-month view is far more useful than NYCB's. (Although every time I click on the "Buy Tickets" link for a single performance and DON'T land on the individual page for that performance...) But on the off-chance that this thread has struck a chord with anyone from 890 Broadway and they're looking for a lightly-used UI/UX designer/programmer with a mess of e-commerce and subscription funnel experience...

FWIW, a video of Comaneci is mentioned in Copeland's bio as one of the first ways she discovered the visual power of movement as a child.

...and there's this ballet called Caligula(!) ;)

Did someone mention an opportunity for giddy extrapolation? I'm in. Ratmansky's Psyché -- I don't think this was a hit at POB, but given the success of the Shostakovich Trilogy and the great press over a recent Sleeping Beauty just to the south... Mats Ek's Appartement -- Unlikely, but fun to imagine. Lacotte's version of Paquita -- Suitable for several of his dancers and see, again, the good press over another historical reconstruction just to the south. Otherwise, the only folks who I think might be called "living legends" are Neumeier, Kylián, and Hans van Manen. (I'm assuming Morris and Taylor are out as they co-opt all of their choreography for their own companies too.)

Thanks for reporting on Misty and the new production, Natalia and YouOverThere. I'm glad to hear that Misty had the sort of performance that will give her confidence to face the cavern of the Met. (And that we have another solid Swan Lake production in circulation, as there's a dearth of those.) Ballet falls within the media's spotlight so rarely...it's great to hear of instances when it holds up well. ;)

As a NYC and Seattle type, I've only seen Possokhov's Classical Symphony and Bells, so I'm wildly curious about all his character-driven pieces that I read about on this board. Since MacMillan, ballet hasn't really been in the business of meaty, twisted dramatic roles for men. I wonder if Hallberg will be cast?

Query: Symphony #9 and Piano Concerto #1 were critical and popular hits in NYC, but Chamber Symphony didn't really cohere (except for a few nice moments at the end). Did Chamber Symphony fare any better in SFB's performances? Did Ratmansky rework it?