meunier fan

Thanks, California. These are the non-subscription evenings where the tickets are all sold - every ticket - at the same low price. I believe last year it was something like $42.50 inclusive of tax. They are in the Winter Season and, I believe, often have a open reception following them for those who are interested in such. (Hope this description makes some sense.)

I'm a both a subscriber and a patron so am grateful for the early access in a couple of days. Does anyone know if you can buy single tickets to the Winter Season 'access' performances at that time? If not, do you know when those go on general sale? Seems an aging brain would like to know. Much thanks for your kind advice.

Yes. It was an extremely apt fare-thou-well. Each element tastefully unfolded with a warm and benevlovant demeanour.

Thanks so Josette. I did know that as it happens. Also after speaking to a charming gentleman at NYCB Customer Care I'm feeling much better about the entire situation than I was this morning in London.

I am heartsick, Now that I've finally reached retirement age I was planning to come to all three seasons and see my favourite company in the world - NYCB - really the ONLY thing I truly miss about NYC from the 19.5 years that I lived there. I came to ALL of the 2023 winter season performances - each and every single one of the them. I also contributed as a Member in order to go to multitudinous rehearsals. When I saw the 2023/24 season I was overjoyed and started to plan my life around attending. The only catch is I live in London. (That's London, UK not London, Ontario.) I've just seen the price increases and I'm sorry but I just can't justify the virtually 100% increase over the $38 seats for which I was so keenly appreciative. I'm someone who for years spent their life in Standing Room on the 4th Ring. That's where my appreciation was built - and where I fear now that it may well remain as a cherished memory. Sorry NYCB but I've been priced out of your game. You have been an important part of my life; a VERY important part of it. I also volunteered. Indeed, I'm in NYC next week to see all of the performances. I realise those may well be my last - short of tours they might do to foreign climbs. I remember going to all the performances for the three week NYCB season at the Chatelet in 2016 and to Copenhagen the year following. I will again assuming I can get to them - and should they be what I deem remotely affordable. Sorry, NYCB, but I can't fly over and pay for ever more expensive accommodation in NYC on a whim that the '3rd or 4th Ring MIGHT be open'. You've got to be joking. Do you care? Of course not. Why should you? That too I understand. I did have a membership in the Fourth Ring Society - but what's the point if it no longer truly exists. How times change. I'm just going to have to find other dedications short of this Company. I have been ridiculously - well, unreasonably it now appears - loyal. Sitting here I feel bereft. Their loss as far as I'm concerned. I had left NYCB a hefty amount (well, hefty for me) in my will. Gotta feeling that's gonna change. Sorry, folks. Whinge is NOW over. Gonna spend my time moving on in as positive a light as I can.

I have to agree Cubianmiamiboy. Thought Fairchild/Gordon a true delight the evening before. They, Peck/Chan (who has it ALL it must be said) and Woodward/Huxley clearly are the SB pairs to aim for. Just so many glories to behold. Last night held just so many embarrassing moments. Can't conceive this lady may be considered for promotion to NYCB Principal. Highlight for me in that performance was Emma von Enck as a most delightfully saucy cat - as ever magnificent in her placement. Takahashi was solid but needs to mature in terms of the overall weight balance of the BB PDD. That said, the end of his second solo/coda variation was supreme but earlier in that same the forward brises clearly lacked definition - and why I wonder was the blue dye chipping off of his slippers? Fingers crossed he can grow into the marvel that is Meija in the same role. When the aviary pairing is Meija/von Enck it is total world-class dynamite. Ka-BOOM!

I believe she was intended to be one of the opening fairies - and if that was the case, Fernie, - then, sadly, no, she did not perform. Nadon was, however, a truly radiant Lilac Fairy and Emma von Enck, a stupendously insolent White Cat. No question on those scores.

I am attending every performance of the NYCB Winter Season - simply because NYCB is the one - single, solitary - thing I miss about NYC - having lived here for 19.5 years at the end of the so called 'Dance Boom' and a bit thereafter. Please add me to the Emma Von Enck Fan Club - I thought she was simply ravishing last night - and have hugely enjoyed Mira Nadon - the girl simply sizzled in SVC last week; her devoted audience being held firm within her winsomely charismatic palm. Woodward is enchanting in the intelligence of her work; Fairchild - always a different dancer post-Broadway has now melted into an even greater artist post-motherhood x2; one whose eyes not only hold aloft (they used not to I seem to recall) but continually scan the audience in their buoyant welcome. Tiler Peck refreshingly has found a calm that is almost regal in amongst the always fanciful dash. Mejia has come such a distance and remains a chip BEYOND his father's old block - and Gordon seems almost a different dancer now that his balletic persona has begun to match his musicality and precision. Huxley. of course, holds firm - what a fine artist. Lovely too to see Ulbrecht staying the course replete with his untarnished ghee-whiz muster. Chan and Furlan proverbially have it all - in each and every different direction - and I have noticed David Gabriel (stunning entrechat) and Abreu (with his miraculous port de bras and glorious partnering technique) in the male corps which is generally strong. So looking forward to more of Kikta, LaFreniere and Miller, all towering in the radiance department and Maxwell and Adams whose equally long lines seem to push through atop a pungent ruler straight through to its heart. Just so, SO much to celebrate. Be proud.

I was there last night for Salome and that is indeed correct. It comes as a bit of a shock when you step inside. God save the King.

Her mad scene is up as well ...

Touching mention of NYCB's Harrison Coll by his WSS film colleague, Mike Feist (Riff), in the NYT yesterday - Did you film that sequence on a soundstage? That was a set in Sunset Park in Brooklyn over the East River. One of the Jets, Harrison Coll, who’s in that number, his father had passed away recently. We had been rehearsing that number for four or five months at this point, and when we finally finished, on that last day of shooting, Harrison brought his dad’s ashes and we went to the East River right there. We actually sang “Jet Song” and Harrison said a little something and thanked his dad and then he released his dad’s ashes into the East River. It was something that was transcendent and we really valued the experience.

Thanks so for your reports. They mean much. SO excited by these well deserved promotions. I can't wait to get back for yet another beloved NYCB Balanchine fix. It is - for me - the prime reason to LOVE NYC. In the meantime I did yet another Zoom session with the British lads inside, (my 146th since May of this year), and used W B Yeats' incendiary sonnet, Leida and the Swan, as a lift off point to inspire their imaginations. In the recording I made for this purpose I used the opening of the primary Agon PDD to feed; being rich - as it so clearly is - with Balanchine's magnificently poetic fire. The original cast of Diana Adams and Arthur Mitchell were just SO engrossing. The lads asked to see this little film three different times which really touched me. One of the chaps said it was 'the most beautiful thing I've ever seen'. They wanted to know where they could see it live. I do so hope the Royal does Agon again soon. If these guys are anything to go by, they could have a whole new audience. (A word of warning - if you are listening to/watching this on a mobile/cell phone or tablet - you will need to reduce the volume by at least a third. If you are on an old PC - as in the prison system - you can leave it as is. Technology has yet to achieve maximum equalisation in all quarters. It promises to get there soon, I'm sure.)

Just watched the new Peck PDD, ‘Bloom’ in the second part of Vail’s NOW PREMIERE’s programme. (I should be working but couldn’t resist.) I predict this will become every bit as much international balletic standard gala fare as Balanchine’s Tschai Pas – which both ‘Bloom’s music and choreography quote - has been for decades. I - for just one I'm sure - can't wait to see it live. Assuredly I bet this will soon be part of the established NYCB rep with resplendent justification. The phantasmagorical score by the very talented Caroline Shaw springs forth as if the glories of Tchaikovsky had been passed through a Copeland strain and moistened with Shaw’s own key dramatic salt. Peck’s choreography – here created for two internationally loved senior ballet artists – Tiler Peck and Hermann Cornejo – is not only reminiscent of the 20th Century Ballet Master in whose shadow he was wrought but one where the prism is cut through with notations to De Mille, Tudor and Robbins. What a gift! This is American balletic artistry edging towards its pinnacle. How fortunate we are to be able to gaze upon the original creative/creators’ impulse of this rapture. This is a sorely needed gift for our troubled times. Thanks so, Mr. Woetzel, for your extraordinary vision in making this all come together. You and your entire team are visionaries to venerate. Together you champion humane wonder; animate heartfelt bliss.

Watched the first half of the above referenced Vail 'all premieres' progamme and really enjoyed it. Glorious to see Robbie Fairchild back on a ballet stage (dare I say where he belongs?) and paired again with the wonderful Unity Phelan in the opening Whiteside - 'A Perpendicular Express'. It veritably prances; gambolling with as many de facto references to Hungarian folk dance as to the swish, swagger, stalk and flounce of Balanchine. This wittily administers such a glorious uplift I just had to watch it a second time. Refreshing indeed. Well worth the standing ovation that the dedicated (and capacity) Vail audience gave it. Boylston also radiates jubilance here. Lovette and Lil Buck poignantly mash bouree with moonwalk in their 'Until We Meet Again' and the very young Mira Nadon mesmerises in Tiler Peck's haunting 'And So' to a persuasive new score by Caroline Shaw. The obvious influence of the mighty Woetzel - the Nijinksy/Kirstein combo of our times - is obviously having a persuasive effect on Roman Mejia's ever prevailing dynamism. His is one that does not need to shout. It merely is ... and only ever seems to bud in its euphoric vigour.

My experience having attended ballet performances in London recently - and this city now seems to be on a mounting Delta horror story well beyond NYC's current imagining - is that even when people are reminded to put their masks on - on those rare occasions - they only do so in order that they might rapidly remove them again. But given that, as one ROH usher so kindly reminded me, 'three quarters of the House staff have been let go', that is I suppose the most we can now reasonably expect. In London we used to hear the dictum - even from the lips of the PM - 'We're ALL in this together'. Now it seems - certainly by current British government dictates - we're ALL responsible for ourselves. Some term this to be: 'freedom of choice'. Where there are to be failures in terms of our own personal health and safety we can be confident of one thing - and one thing only as far as I can see it: It will have been our own fault. We will have put ourselves at risk after all is said and done. Recently a woman fainted at the top of the ROH's Amphitheatre landing. I went to get a staff member to help. I had to go down two levels. Even then the staff member - rather than running to assist - had to run in an opposite direction to her Manager to see if she should. I didn't wait. I didn't see the point. I dutifully returned. It really is a different world now methinks.

I see there have been some further notifications - although not obituaries from major broadsheets - which I'm sure will follow ... https://newdeaths.com/2021/07/20/patricia-wilde-obituary-death-balanchine-ballerina-patricia-wilde-has-died/ https://insideeko.com/patricia-wilde-obituary-death-pittsburgh-ballet-dancer-patricia-wilde-has-died/

I wonder if another reason - in respect of NYCB - might be that they wanted to reconcile their dedicated live audiences following the pandemic respite - and convert possible new 'live' converts - ALL PRIOR to offering a seasonal digital slate wherein they could capitalise on other (new and old) international / national followers who in most likely instances would not be able to physically attend - as much as I'm certain they'd love to. To my mind that would be prudent.

I did have a goodly number of opportunities to see Nureyev dance with other partners; some very fine ones I seem to recall. (I'm not sure why but the blazing glory of Yoko Ichino seems to be calling out to me at this immediate instant.) Still talking of a ballerina and an event, I was in the audience during one of 'those nights' at what was then known as the O'Keefe Center in Toronto when a then relatively unknown young dancer called Karen Kain was pulled from the NBoC's corps and thrust by Celia Franca into Erik Bruhn's two act production of Swan Lake as Odette/Odile opposite Nureyev's Siegfried as a replacement. One heard the sigh of disappointment when it was announced pre-performance that the promised principal would not perform and her name was called out. I would later learn she had never danced the role before. I, myself, was very young at the time - and certainly impressionable -, but I have never forgotten the electricity that was generated - nor the great male dancer's somewhat obvious displeasure that this truly extraordinary young female artist was getting so much deserved attention at the curtain calls. I remember dashing about trying to find out her name at the end of that revelatory outing. No one seemed to know. In the end I had to go to the stage door to actually discover it. Once learned it was never forgotten. Of course Nureyev himself would later hone in on Kain's balletic majesty many times over, much to his - and our own - concerted advantage. Ah, memories ...

It has been announced that Carla Fracci has passed away at the age of 84 after a long illness. https://www.gramilano.com/2021/05/ballet-legend-carla-fracci-dies-at-84/ She was a truly extraordinary artist whose gossamer gifts I was privileged to witness on any number of occasions. I cherish those memories.

Reasons to celebrate the 21st Century (in so many ways on temporary global hold just now it seems) are certainly here. Nowhere else do Ratmansky, Wheeldon and Peck do better work. Nowhere. There are also embedded within these 54 minutes (and 33 seconds) some glorious performances to savour. For a moment in Mercurial Movements when the ever exquisite Tiler Peck dashed on I thought it was Patricia McBride reborn in dance. Entirely enervating. The eternally evocative Taylor Stanley - those eyes; those eyes - is mesmeric in 'X' from Ratmansky's witty Russian Dances and how wonderful to be able to see the choreographer himself (i.e., Justin Peck) proudly revel in the PDD and final movement of his thrilling Rodeo, encapsulating the very definition of 'Community' such as Balanchine and Robbins would see (and hear) define NYCB every bit as much as Shakespeare did his best plays. Happily - and gloriously - it still does. It reigns. This is - IMHO at least - a feast. Enjoy.

Final Schedule for the NYCB Digital Fall Season '20. (So pleased Abreu is being featured in Water Rite. I have very much enjoyed his dancing.) Schedule Tuesday 27 October at 8pm NEW WORK BY SIDRA BELL pixelation in a wave (Within Wires) Original score by Dennis Bell (pixelation in a wave (Within Wires)) (Commissioned by New York City Ballet) Choreography by Sidra Bell Directed by Ezra Hurwitz Director of Photography Jon Chema Costumes styled by Caitlin Taylor “The exquisitely tenuous correspondence between structural and human forms.” Dancers Ghaleb Kayali, Emily Kikta, Mira Nadon, Peter Walker Violin Michael Roth, Violin Lydia Hong, Viola Katharina Kang, Cello Eugene Moye Wednesday 28 October at 8pm NEW WORK BY PAM TANOWITZ Solo for Russell: Sites 1-5 Music by Alfred Schnittke (Klingende Buchstaben For Solo Cello) Choreography by Pam Tanowitz with Russell Janzen Directed by Ezra Hurwitz Director of Photography Jon Chema Costumes by Reid Bartleme and Harriet Jung Dancer Russell Janzen Cello Ann Kim Thursday 29 October at 8pm NEW WORK BY ANDREA MILLER new song Music by Victor Jara (“Manifesto”) Choreography by Andrea Miller Directed by Ezra Hurwitz Director of Photography Jon Chema Dancers Harrison Coll, Unity Phelan, Indiana Woodward, Sebastian Villarini-Velez Friday 30 October at 8pm NEW WORK BY JAMAR ROBERTS Water Rite Music by Ambrose Akinmusire (“Inflatedbyspinning”) Choreography by Jamar Roberts Directed by Ezra Hurwitz Director of Photography Jon Chema Dancer Victor Abreu Violin Michael Roth, Violin Lydia Hong, Viola Katharina Kang, Cello Eugene Moye, Bass Ron Wasserman, Flute Scott Kemsley Saturday 31 October at 8pm NEW WORK BY JUSTIN PECK Thank You, New York Music by Chris Thile (“Thank You, New York”) Directed and choreographed by Justin Peck Director of Photography Jody Lee Lipes Costumes styled by LaJeromeny Brown Dancers Christopher Grant, Sara Mearns, Georgina Pazcoguin, Taylor Stanley

The Royal Ballet is Back on Stage and returns for a special live-streamed celebration performance on Friday 9 October at 7.30pm BST. I am assuming this will be via the ROH's Vimeo channel as it is a charged stream @ £16 per household much as the recent opera gala was.

The Royal Opera and Royal Ballet have announced an Autumn/Christmas schedule (including a slightly revised 'Nutcracker') of live events within a socially distanced regime: https://www.roh.org.uk/news/the-royal-opera-house-unveils-programme-of-new-work-alongside-much-loved-classics-for-live-audiences-this-autumn https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e71f7a7a-ff63-11ea-8388-5bae8b4ec9a9?shareToken=5807070bba5f5e2b38227d896e6a35c8

Saw this listed and thought it might be of interest to some: All Arts: In This Life - Wednesday 8pm EDT / 1am BST (then online) - The terrific dancer Robbie Fairchild has been on an odyssey of self-discovery in the past few years that has taken him, among other things, from New York City Ballet principal to Broadway leading man (An American in Paris) and cinematic Muskustrap (Cats). Now he ventures into the realm of digital short films with In This Life, an exploration of grief that he has co-created with director Bat-Sheva Guez. The piece is divided, à la Kübler-Ross, into five sections, with a different choreographer for each: James Alsop, Warren Craft, Andrea Miller, Christopher Wheeldon and Fairchild himself ...

I've just been watching the new set of Alan Bennett 'Talking Heads' on the BBC ... This sentence made me giggle. Perhaps it shouldn't have .. but it did. (Blame 'Bed Among the Lentils' ... I know, I know ... That's old ... but still .... It's hard to beat Maggie Smith ... but Lesley Manville does give it a fair crack.) I could just picture this Washington doyen ... and her darkening roots ... as a subject for Bennett's beady pen. Bennett does isolation ... and rain ... oh, so well ... There's always something sad that lets you smile ... And there she'd lounge blowing yet another longing kiss ...