Swanilda8

I'm traveling to Paris for Dec 13 and 14 for a conference, and I really (really really) want to see the POB while I'm there. They're performing both nights, Sleeping Beauty on the 13th and Preljocaj's Le Parc on both evenings. Sadly, there seem to be no tickets available!! Is this because it's all sold out? Or because there are more tickets that will be released soon? Or because there are some tickets that are just available to people in France?

If tickets are sold out, does anyone know how to find one (actually two)?

I actually think that Serenade makes a great closer. It's such a powerful piece that it can overwhelm the remaining items on the program (even two that are as good as this).

Also - looking forward to hearing about it. I desperately wish I could go.

I'd guess it's a reference to the Spartak soccer team.

Oh of course! Can't believe I didn't think of that.

Thank you so much! This is so helpful, and the picture is excellent.

Thanks for the link to such an interesting video! The final image, of the ballet projected into a stadium, was particularly striking. I wonder if this has ever happened? Or is it just an imagination of how popular and widespread the ballet is, and how the cinema projections will make the ballet available to everyone.

I'm working on a presentation right now about Ulanova and her relationship to Soviet feminism/ideas about women during the mid-century in Russia. This is partly because I think her roles and her public persona are both endlessly fascinating.

To that end, I have a somewhat small question about her for my presentation. How many times was she married and to whom? I know she was married to Bolshoi lead designer Vadim Rindin during the Bolshoi's tours to the US. I've read a somewhat catty American newspaper article that suggests she was married 4 times. But this is during a period of American press when people are saying anything and everything about the Bolshoi, especially Ulanova, so it might just be gossip (vicious gossip since many of the newspaper reporters seemed antagonistic to Ulanova, who was relatively distant in her interactions with them). I've never seen any other indications that she was married more than once, but books about her tend not to mention her personal life at all. Does anyone know the truth of this statement?

I feel almost embarrassed to be asking this question, since there are so many more interesting things about Ulanova. I'd be equally happy if this discussion just moved on to talking about how wonderful her dancing was.

I saw Contemporary Choreographers and Balanchine Black and White this weekend. I'm somewhat late on posting my review, but here are some of my thoughts:

Robert Fairchild had a hell of a weekend - he stared in three of the ballets, and was wonderful in all of them - and had a completely different character in each one as well.

Spectral Evidence didn't upset me as much as it's upset some people here, but I wasn't overly fond of it. I thought it worked better when it was behaving in the rather hammy gothic style (a la True Blood). But I'm not sure the choreographer would be happy to think that it might be a comic work.

The Balanchine's were of course danced to perfection, especially the two Stravinskys. I have to say I've never really loved Four Temperaments, and this weekend's performance didn't convince me otherwise.

Full review here:

http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.com/2013/10/new-york-city-ballet-past-and-future.html

Is this from the Kremlin Palace of Stars performance?

-- ballet is bigger than opera. Possibly "theater attendance" includes all those ballet school recitals

It shouldn't. The survey questions were prefaced with the statement "With the exception of elementary or high school performances..." I would guess this was intended to exclude school recitals in the respondent's mind.

http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/SPPA-Questionnaire-2012.pdf

I would imagine that most of the difference between opera and ballet is made up of Christmas trips to the Nutcracker.

It's pretty low on the Russian companies as well.

I have seen Yakobson Spartacus many times, but never Moiseyev..

I've never seen it either! I was hoping it would be captured on film somewhere, but so far I have not found any evidence that it was.

The Bolshoi October casts reveal that the movie version of Spartacus on October 20, will feature Mikhail Lobukhin as Spartacus and not Ivan Vasiliev.

What a disappointment. I haven't seen Lobukhin star in a Grigorovich ballet yet, but I was not impressed when I saw him as Albrecht in Giselle. Very different part, I realize, but not a good sign nevertheless. I had been hoping to see Vasiliev in his element.

Thank you for these photos! I haven't seen such high quality publicity pictures for this tour before.

Interesting tidbit in that caption: they were the first Soviet dancers "allowed permission by their government to visit America." That makes me wonder which other dancers left the Soviet Union without permission between 1922 and 1934 - the earliest defectors?

regarding the caption's wording, something tells me that perhaps one or two solo dancers did appear in the US from the USSR prior to this on some mixed program, but not nec. as 'official' representatives of Soviet ballet, but i can't recall just whom i might be recalling.

almost certainly the caption doesn't mean to imply that previously there had been 'defectors' from the USSR.

I would agree with rg that it's unlikely there had been 'defectors' prior to this. Although many dancers (like Balanchine) left the Soviet Union in the 1920s, often without informing the government what they were doing, it wasn't seen as such a political statement. It was more a result of the economic circumstances of living and dancing in Russia in the 1920s - if you could get out, you did. The Soviet Union tried to get a lot of those who left in the 1920s to come back in the mid 1930s (Prokofiev is the poster child for this policy). Of course, many of those who left either already hated communism or would come to hate it.

I'm not sure, but I would guess the caption is trying to differentiate between this tour, officially sponsored by the Soviet government, and other Russian dancers touring the US like the Ballets Russes performers.

Thanks, its the mom, I'm glad you liked the review. And I appreciate your comments about La Bayadere. I'm trying to withhold judgment on the ballet until I actually see the full program. My worries aren't actually about sexual content inappropriate for children or boredom, however, but rather about the kind of racism that setting ballets in 'exotic' locals tends to promote - where we use these other worlds to dream up fantasies about another life, more exciting than our own (more sexy or more dangerous or more criminal). I believe that it encourages us to imagine that people from those places actually live those lives, and therefore encourages and reflects various prejudices people in the US have about other cultures. I think that ballet companies in the US should exercise better judgment regarding these ballets than they normally do. But again, I haven't seen this production yet, so perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised when I do see it.

Last night was the big night!

It was honestly so exciting to participate in this event. I'm so grateful to the company. To give such a wonderful performance to the community for its 50th birthday really marks Boston Ballet as a special institution.

The place was packed. I got there at 4:45 pm and it was already hard to find a seat. Obviously the venue wasn't perfect for seeing ballet performances, but the excitement of the crowd and the feeling of community and participation made up for it.

The company turned in some excellent performances - especially Misa Kuranaga and Jeffrey Cirio in the Don Quixote pas de deux and Lia Cirio and Lasha Khozashvili in Symphony in Three Movements. Serenade was excellent as well (performing on the windy stage made the skirts fly around and I was actually worried about the final lift, but the dancers handled the elements with professionalism).

I wasn't a fan of Rooster, either on stage last year or in this concert. Jorma Elo's Plan to B was a much better showcase of the company's contemporary dance skills.

Full review here: http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.com/2013/09/better-than-perfect.html

When I first started watching ballet, I also found Giselle confounding - I went to it twice in Berlin and watched it online and I just didn't get what the fuss was about. Since then, I've seen it in video on youtube and in performance many times and I now regard it as one of my favorite ballets; I would go far out of my way to see it.

What changed for me, then, was two things: one, familiarity with the ballet. It can be more fun to know a ballet well and compare the performance you're seeing to other performances you know. So, watch a bunch of the youtube clips recommended.

But the other thing that changed was my understanding of romantic ballets. I used to watch for the action, assuming that all the dance would contribute in some way to the plot. But Giselle, like many of the 19th century ballet, uses the story to set up an emotional and artistic atmosphere. Then, the dancers perform within that atmosphere, filling it in, enriching, suggesting other things. The second half of Giselle sets up these contrasts between revenge and forgiveness, between death and life, between the earthbound and flight. So I would recommend not hanging on too closely to your libretto and just enjoy watching the dance (for instance, does it matter that Giselle's love for Albrecht causes Myrtha's wand to break? I don't think so - instead, look at Myrtha's anger, Giselle's forgiveness, the softness of the dance that comes out).

One more thing, I also believe that a knowledge of the score enriches this particular ballet. There are lots of leitmotivs, little melodies associated with a character or action, that come back to comment on the performance. The most important (IMHO) in Giselle is the flower motive; it first accompanies Giselle in Act I when she counts the daisy petals to find out if Albrecht loves her (http://youtu.be/GSBomZcDEuk?t=4m32s). Then it comes back in the mad scene when she performs the same act but this time in her insane inner world (http://youtu.be/IiepFSwIMZQ?t=3m35s). It comes back again in Act II when she tries to offer Myrtha lilies to get her to forgive Albrecht (http://youtu.be/vH6_tFRdpy4?t=2m54s). Flowers show up all over the place - the ones mentioned, plus Albrecht's flowers for Giselle's grave, Myrtha's wand (decorated with flowers). I hesitate to pin down a meaning to the symbol - the point is that the flowers have lots of meanings - but I believe that unite Giselle's innocence with love and death and remorse - the main themes of the ballet.

Finally - it's Osipova! She's one of the best Giselle's out there. I would kill to get a chance to see that. Also, the Mariinsky corps should be great as the Willis. A good performance can make all the difference.

In addition to the previously mentioned clips, I would recommend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSBomZcDEuk

It's a recording from the Bolshoi's first performance in England in 1956, starring Galina Ulanova (one of the best dancer-actresses ever) and Nicolai Fadeyechev.

With kfw, I am, as always, looking forward to TSFB's too-short season in November; and I've just put together an expedition to Fort Lauderdale to have a look at Merrill Ashley's staging of Ballo della Regina on MCB, on a program with Serenade and Wheeldon's Polyphonia, in October. Maybe I'll go back in January to see if their realization of Balanchine's Nutcracker still has the vitality it had in 2011, when it benefitted so much from comparison with the NYCB PBS broadcast. (Living in Chicago is apt to give me additional reason to head south that time of year.)

I'm jealous- I really was hoping to see Miami sometime this year (the October program looks great, so does their January program with Concerto Barocco, Ratmansky's Symphonic Dances, and a new Peck) but it doesn't look like I'm going to make it to Miami this year. Their Nutcracker is wonderful - I saw it last year.

Great topic! Something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

I'm looking forward to this Saturday's Night of Stars from the Boston Ballet. It seems like a great line up and I'm very proud that Boston is celebrating its 50 anniversary with a free event for the public. I'm also looking forward to seeing NYCB perform 'Dances at a Gathering' in January. I've never seen that piece and I love Jerome Robbins' solo Chopin works.

I'm also excited about seeing Paris Opera Ballet (Sleeping Beauty and Preljocaj's Le Parc), English National Ballet (Nutcracker and, fingers crossed, Corsaire), and the National Ballet of Canada (who knows! but Swan Lake or Onegin look possible). It will be my first time seeing each of these companies live.

This is such a wonderful idea! (And so much better than any of the things I imagined the 'new initiative' was going to be). Congratulations to ABT for taking a lead on such an important issue.

May be a multi year program to restore, reconstruct, & restage all Petipa ballets. Please pardon my daydreaming.

If we are daydreaming - I'll daydream about re-staging Tudor. I think we are all overly optimistic.

I second that dream, if we can add all the de Mille ballets too.

ABT just tweeted,

Tomorrow is the day! We are launching a major initiative and can’t wait to tell you about it.

which doesn't sound like promotion announcements to me.

Maybe this is something to do with the new $2 million grant for the JKO school. "A major initiative" has the ring of money to me.

Replacing the orchestra with a recording? Ridiculous, and I hope not a real argument. San Francisco has one of the best ballet orchestras in the US in my opinion. Presumably, they get those musicians because they pay them well. If they get rid of that orchestra, or even reduce their salaries (thereby degrading the quality of the music) they'll rapidly lose all claim to being one of the major American, or world, companies.

Argh. This makes me see red.

I have no idea what has to happen to make NYCB broadcast or record its ballets, but I would cry with joy if it happened. There is so much Balanchine and Robbins repertoire that needs good recording.

The article itself, though, makes a bigger deal out of social media attracting audiences. So, congrats BalletAlert for being part of the revolution!

I like Semenyaka's actual hand clapping much better - Tereshkina's seems a little dainty for the variation. But I would argue that Tereshkina's having to fight against a pretty bad musical performance (including some horrendously out of tune notes in the winds and some unclear passagework in the piano). Semenyaka's orchestra is in top form, and so her very musical movement is enhanced by the playing. Poor Tereshkina - to be given such a slipshod orchestra performance! And sadly not uncommon at all for the Mariinsky orchestra.

The pictures are a little different from a fashion photography perspective in that the models can't usually move like that, so images like this would normally be impossible to get. I have to say I love the second image (and those must be some seriously stretchy pants!), but I dislike the rather banal orientalism of the third picture.