Michael

Friday night will be a good show too - Lauren Lovette going into Ansanelli's old role (that Peck's been dancing lately) in Wheeldon's ballet, plus Lydia Wellington, Brittany Pollack with Lauren King as the first trio Robbins.

What is left of this season, are performances programmed for the March and April coming up immediately? (I take the above schedule to start this fall and extend to a year from now). mp

Oh I think that you'd have a hard time convincing your average subscriber to the NY Philharmonic that Tchaikovsky isn't a classical composer. I think the vernacular meaning of "classical" music probably trumps all else today and that the more specialized, nuanced, historically informed one is rarer. But I don't mean to take this off topic. The applied idea is that the Classical - Romantic nomenclature is probably not that useful today in Ballet except for a more specialized discussion like this one, or if there's a reason to use it - for instance, a ballet master or mistress trying to make a stylistic point in directing a performance.

How old is Alonso, do you think in those videos of Pas de Quatre and Robert le Diable? Re romantic vs. classical. The source of the confusion is the use of the words in multiple senses. The original distinction, historically, was in French literature of the 18th and 19th centuries. Classical was Racine on the stage or the Gardels in dance. Anacreontic ballets like Pshyce or Telemaque. In the 1830s Century, revolting from these, come Hugo on the stage and ballets like Robert Le Diable, La Sylphide and Giselle. But people most often today employ "classical" in their daily speech to mean something adhering to an accepted cultural canon of any kind. They use the words more loosely. As in, for example, "Classical Music." If we mix up the two senses of the word to demonstrate: "Classical" music today includes "Romantic" composers like Tchaikovsky. "Classical" ballet includes "Romantic" ballets like "La Sylphide." Lots of confusion here.

and also to Pereira opposite him as Princess Florine (note I saw them Friday, not yesterday). She danced strong, big, and with detail; looked happy to be doing it and projected. mp

Russia is generally lawless at the current moment - the Filin incident (tragedy, shocking attack) is just a very prominent, very extreme example of a widespread phenomena. Someone with money, power, an agenda, whatever doesn't like you, wants something from you that you won't deliver, anything like that . . . you get threatened or worse. This is not an isolated incident.

So is Claire von Enck the petite blond woman who's been down front in every Balanchine ballet this week? Great facility, sense of rhythm, beautiful feet, instantly recognizable? Traditionally NYCB's women' corps is classed as tall, middle and small women. They restocked tall a couple years back, this year they've aded a couple of striking small. mp

Does anyone out there know who the apprentices are at this point? And who has gotten contracts during and after Nutcrackers season. The youngest dancers are a strong group and a couple of them were down front in Piano Concerto last night, dancing up a storm and getting their first dose of the big room spotlight but alas who are they? Some sister, mother, classmate or friend must be able to provide some guidance? mp

Too bad they don't seem to planning to renovate the theater seating and access - the seats are uncomfortably crowded with no leg room, the sight lines are horrible for dance in the orchestra seating (you can't see over the people in front of you) and, worst of all, access to and from the orchestra eventually funnels everyone - the entire downstairs audience - through a single, pinched stairway that would be a deathtrap in the event of a stampede. It takes ten minutes of shuffling in a stuffed in crowd to get into and out of the place. The Met is the paradigm of how not to design a theater and after nearly 50 years they should do something about it. MP

When done right, it looks to me like the dancer is responding to the music throughout their entire body - the back, shoulders and arms look fluid - they are looser, less pulled up, less "posed," kept less "composed" than in Vaganova training and, removed one step still further, than in French schooling. This is a personal take. I don't know what the pedagogues say officially. MP

Note after reading last night's Playbill: Stephanie Zungre has left the corps de ballet. Beautiful dancer, except for Faye Arthurs probably the senior-most woman in the company. Also note that Kaitlyn Gilliland has joined the artistic staff as Assistant Children's Ballet Mistress, assisting Dena Abergel who's now in charge of rehearsing the kids. (Meanwhile Garielle Whittle continues to teach at SAB but is not listed as company staff).

Agree completely, she and Hoffalt were phenomenal - her range is amazing. In the Balanchine repertory you'd love to see her in all four movements of "Symphony in C."

Dupont can jump, the low elevation was because she chooses to do it, because that's the way the production is choreographed. Low chassees off the stage in diagonal exit, not jetees. It's part of the deliberately self effaced, non athletic and restrained aesthetic that they dance it with. It's a conscious choice, along with Cozette's Myrtha. (Which I find oh so lovely, I wouldn't miss a step that woman dances this week). The bourrees are stylistic too, it's a totally different formation to the step, much smaller, rapid, traveling less, keeping the ankle more locked. Where she got elevation was in the lifts. And what lifts, Ganio's partnering was very strong, did you see the way Dupont lay back in the first one? And during the second series, that's where her elevation was low, but when he took her over, she soared. It's a detail in the blocking. What people are reacting to is a different training and approach. Good or not, these details are intentional. I found Dupont's effacement not just of her personality, but her humanity in Act 2 unprecedented and amazing. It was not just that she wasn't herself, but that, with the blue- grey makeup and staying completely frozen from the shoulders up, and never meeting Albrecht's eyes, she wasn't even human. And that's the dramatic point.

I like the programming because it's good to see things you'd otherwise never get a look at. Everything has been danced sincerely, they believe in this. L'Arlesienne, the Lifar, and Bejart etc. - There's a certain company aesthetic they're proud of and own to - it's certainly not our contemporary ballet aesthetic, it's Euro-Art from 1930's to the 70's and it's most interesting to see and understand. The Euro-dram thing today relates to this, look at it on a continuum that includes Kylian and, yes, even Ratmansky, given his years in Denmark. Ratmansky's new Firebird and some of the other whacky stuff he's done, and Russian Seasons too fits right in with this stuff. I'm not saying I love it all, or like it better than the what we see here all the time or the usual Russian stuff that gets brought here. But except for the Lifar, which is where Russia meets the Paris style (with less or more continuity, a strange hybrid it is!), it's a company training and repertory we just don't see. So: Vive la différence. MP And then there was that extraordinary Giselle last night.

Everybody notices her - whether friends and spouses who don't often go the ballet, or visiting balletomanes who don't see the company, it never fails, Lauren King is the dancer commented on and picked out. "Who is that girl . . . ?" She dances and it's never just steps. And she looks like she's feeling it. She's had some soloist roles, I hope she gets more. There's always pressure to hold a gifted demi-soloist in the corps de ballet but the way she projects she's naturally a soloist. MP

I think that the several productions of Coppelia are fairly close to each other - or, better said, that there is less difference between the various Coppelias than, say, between various competing Swan Lakes and Sleeping Beauties. I fully agree with you, Mary, about the details. But I am struck that this is a work where I doubt that anyone but the most passionate followers of ballet would understand much of Kirkland's issue. I like to split hairs but these are hairs being split. Whereas if you set McKenzie's Swan Lake beside Macmillan's; or Kirkland's own Sleeping Beauty beside the Royal Ballet's - even outsiders would see what we are talking about immediately. Maybe this is because Coppelia represents a distinct genre, where the types and events of puppet show Italian Comedy hold strong and no one has decided to change that yet. Unlike Swan Lake or Parsifal, no directors yet setting Coppelia on a space station.

I agree. I also like the sets and costumes, that are so part of the ambience. I have to mention the fey, whacky humor - Ivan the Fool's Charlie Chaplin/Buster Keaton streak and the Tsar Maiden's screwball comedy Mae West. Pouting and swinging her pony tail around. Then the totally sick humor of the major domo - with his baboon red bottom - of his mime when the Tsar gets boiled. The whole thing has great energy and spirit and at the same time you're sentimentally a little moved when Ivan and the Tsar Maiden finally prevail. It's a pleasure you don't want to analyze - the best kind. Very relaxing to watch, you just switch your mind off. No need to take a scalpel to this wonderful comedy - the flow, pacing, content just work perfectly right now.

Absolutely - Sarah Lane has leapt to another plateau. She holds the stage and projects and appears to have found out that less is more: that she is "bigger" just doing her thing instead of punching herself out and trying to be "big." Of which principal in operation Alina Cojacaru is Exhibit No. 1.

Kajiya was miscast as the Lilac Fairy. Lilac needs to be a taller dancer, and one with the force and power to hold the stage, face down and defeat Martine van Hamel's Carabosse, and virtually rescue civilization from the edge of the abyss repeatedly. Stella Abrera was a better Lilac the other night. But neither subsidiary casting, nor the shortcomings of the production, could obscure the brilliance of this performance. What a night.

To keep to Vernonika Part then, the Times review if you read it carefully is appropriately balanced and factually detailed. Some things she did very well; some others that made the role very difficult for her.

Osipova also pulled out of the Sunday matinee of the Bolshoi's Corsaire in DC two springs ago, citing "exhaustion" after she'd danced Medora the night before (and missed an entrance during the Jardin Animee during that performance too, if I recall correctly - I mean completely missed, corps dancing around, no principle dancer for twenty to thirty seconds of what was supposed to be a major variation, everyone wondering what was going on (it was the spring before this one, a couple of nights after her Sylphide at ABT)). With Cojacaru stepping in, few viewers will complain, we've actually stepped up for this particular role. Beauty is not Osipova's ideal range at this point. All the same this isn't presumably the kind of thing that endears one to company directors.

The gala was pretty fun I actually thought - about what you'd expect - a crazy mix of things, from lovely moments (Vishneva, Cojocaru and the new Nutcracker pas too in my opinion), to circus atmosphere, and to ridiculous ones (Max Beleserkovsky and Irina Dvorovenko) with a rainbow of shades in between. A little too long for sure. (For those upset with Sulcas, a couple of years ago Macauley actually called their gala "Pig Slurry" if I remember it). In all, Monday was a pretty fair image of the range of contemporary ballet that you'll see nationwide, which has about the same mix of stuff if you were to weigh it by type, aim, etc., etc. at a random basis just by walking into shows here and there. Something for everybody, from the fans who want "art;" to those who want to see Max Beloserkofsky stripped to the waist. The gala crowd - which was half the spectacle, some nice gowns and tuxs and nice looking people in them - seemed to enjoy it and so did I. Particularly liked the kids, meaning ballet school teenagers in the back of the house, who were whooping it up. Am I developing low brow taste? Probably. Depends on my mood and the particular evening I think. I actually found it a relief for an evening from watching NYCB.

You make an really good point 4mrdancr - which aptly shows that being 30 something and inexperienced is not what matters most - the crux is the qualities and character of the person, i.e., valuing the repertory, growing dancers, being fair - and when these are present they override inexperience. Experience is a plus all the same; and it also gives you a good read on whether the candidate possesses the qualities we mentioned.

McGregor is much too young and inexperienced even in his own metier; and has no experience whatsoever in administering an organization, fundraising and politics. No one who is thirty something and has no administrative experience should be promoted to such a job. Being a choreographer yourself is not a requisite for this job; it's even a shortcoming as you can see from other companies. You don't want someone who is by definition competing with the institutional repertory and who has every motive to downplay it in relation to their own ambitions. Mason has been ideal. She comes (I think) in the wake of the Ross Stretton fiasco? They should use Mason as an ideal and build on what she has started, the restoration of the companies' values, identity, and institutional health. This means someone who: (1) values the artistic legacy of the house, its staff and repertory - someone who can stage what they've got and who will love to do it; and, someone who - (2) has integrity - personal and institutional (who comes not to loot and exploit the company) - whom the dancers, the artistic staff and company staff (lighting, costume) will respect, appreciate, even love to work for. Someone fair in institutional and employment matters. (3) someone who can run company class and grow dancers.

In addition to the criticism, there is a lot to love about Boylston in that video - particularly her response to the music (which is a high pre-requisite for T & V) - She flows very nicely through the melody, finishes everything right where you want to. That adagio is pretty fast. I like her legato phrasing very much. That's a huge gift. You are quite right to point out that she's got a perfect ballet body; also, having recently seen her in The Bright Stream, a beautifully light jump: elevation, the ability to float in the air and breathe. And an effortless jump, very fleet footed. She was also a very witty and clear comedienne in that ballet. She's clearly caught the eye of Artistic Direction at ABT and is ticketed for stardom. I would like to see more passion expressed in her body, more feeling, less caution. The time I really saw her dance with passion was in the ballerina role that Ben Millepied made for her in his piece that ABT debuted at Avery Fisher Hall about a year and a half ago - can't remember the name of it. She had tremendous emotion in that and not inconsiderable sex appeal. He got that out of her and the effect was galvanizing. A lot of ABT's rep is the classics, and how she will find emotional meaning in those roles, real immediacy and vital presence, is I think the challenge. A ballerina though has got to bring meaning and emotion to what they interpret.