carbro

Thank you very much, DocM, for your quickie review. I look forward to whatever details you'll provide. I so envy your having seen Marcelo Gomes' Apollo. I don't know that he's ever done it in New York -- my hometown. I imagine he gave a magnificent performance.

Welcome to BalletAlert!

It hasn't yet aired here, but here's the link, anyway: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2013/07/dancer-david-hallberg.html

Many of us ABT watchers miss Erica terribly. What a gorgeous dancer!

In the 1970s in New York, a Midsummer Night's Dream would have been NYCB's, as ABT had not yet acquired Ashton's The Dream. The Balanchine is a huge favorite of mine.

Helene Alexopoulos of NYCB is a grad of Columbia University's School of General Studies. I believe other members of NYCB have been enrolled at Columbia.

This NYTimes article from 2006, describes a program ABT had at the time where dancers were able to take -- for college credit -- courses offered at Long Island University. Faculty would come to the studios to teach. I don't know if the program still exists. It would be a shame if it were discontinued.

Last fall Ballet Theater joined forces with Long Island University to give its dancers an opportunity to take college courses taught by university faculty members, most of them held at Ballet Theater's studios on lower Broadway. This venture, called LIU@ABT, places Ballet Theater among a small group of American companies that help their dancers get college educations.

About a third of Ballet Theater's 91 dancers enrolled this year: among them, Gillian Murphy, Stella Abrera and Sascha Radetsky. Susan Jaffe, a former principal dancer who is now an adviser to Lewis Ranieri, the chairman of Ballet Theater's board, helped set up the program and has taken classes herself.

"By the time I'm 75," Ms. Jaffe said, laughing, "I'll be: 'I got my degree. Now I can get a real job.' "

The dancers pay only a third of their tuition. The university offers a one-third tuition scholarship, and Mr. Ranieri pays the rest. Classes so far have included art history, English composition, anthropology and physics. Next fall the company plans to add English as a second language to the curriculum. With credits offered for life experience, a dancer could earn a bachelor's degree in five or six years.

FYI: The two programs are listed in this video: http://www.bostonballet.org/london-tour-preview/

Welcome to BalletAlert!, Caesariatus.

As you may have gathered by now, we have lively discussions on the NYCB and ABT forums. We hope you'll pipe in as your viewing -- and comments -- warrant. Same goes for Ballet In Cinema.

Unfortunately, our Boston Ballet forum is much quieter, so please, please let us know what you're seeing there.

I'm interested in learning what it was that sparked your balletomania six years ago.

Happy Birthday, Caesariatus, and welcome to BalletAlert! We'll look forward to your reaction -- and to those of any others who see the performance.

Doesn't ABT have the Lubovitch Othello in its rep? ... Would all three ballets be too long?

The Lubovitch "Othello," which was released on DVD with San Francisco Ballet, is too long, ...

The Lubovitch Othello is an evening-length ballet.

More Tudor, especially The Leaves Are Fading and Lilac Garden.

And I'm always game for La Sylphide. Can't get enough of that ballet!

That's a matter of taste. I'd much prefer seeing Korbes over Murphy. I hope whatever the problem is, it's over quickly. But best wishes to Gillian for some great performances.

My Mac with Firefox shows it as the single drop-down under "More." Odd, because it looks like there's more than enough space for "BT4Dancers."

Thanks for introducing yourself, Janneke. My impression is that if we must categorize our membership, most posters (self included) tend to be conservative while acknowledging the need for new works. It's good to have a new voice that reflects a preference for the opposite emphasis.

Welcome to BalletAlert!

As write this, there are excellent seats in the rear orchestra @ $57 (+ $2. "facility fee") in Row O, seats 29-33. Because of my strong preference for seats elevated above stage level, if I were looking for a GREAT seat but not willing to pay anything like $155, I'd check out the Second Ring*, Row D, seats 212-27 or Row E, seats 13-23. The Row E seats are more central, but the difference is not significant. All the ones I've mentioned here -- both in Orchestra and Second Ring -- offer a full view of the stage.

Better hurry!

_______

*I'd even opt for the Third Ring, but I understand your reluctance, at this point, to go that far up.

I'm with canbelto. Go see Bouder or Peck at NYCB. And the theater offers more comfortable viewing.

But if you really insist on ABT, I would send you to see Marcelo Gomes in anything. IMO, Romeo & Juliet is more theater than dancing, which is certainly valid, but it's not what I go to ballet for. (Tchaikovsky Suite #3 -- one-third of NYCB's program -- probably has more dancing than R&J.) However, if I were to choose one R&J, Vishneva and Gomes is without a doubt the cast that I'd go for.

I don't take Corsaire too seriously, but it does offer a lot of dancing (but not as much as you'll get in NYCB's program).

As for Sleeping Beauty, it is a much better ballet than ABT's production would lead you to believe. I'd suggest that you wait, if you're able, until it rolls around into NYCB's repertoire again and see their beautiful (albeit imperfect) version as an an introduction.

You'll let us know what you decide, won't you?

Thank you, balletpress, and welcome to BalletAlert!

This looks like a very impressive line-up. Best wishes to FCB for a successful event.

Romel Frometa, Cincinnati Ballet, ex Principal Ballet Nacional de Cuba-(how come he's in the corps at CB...? )

Thank you for reviving this thread, Cristian.

I totally agree with Cubanmiamiboy, what in heavens name is Frometa doing in the CORPS at Cincinnati Ballet (nothing against the city). Surely he should be at least a principal. I keep hoping that Tamara Rojo (with whom he has danced a number of times) might make him a principal at ENB. That is the level where he (I think) belongs. Surely he has worked hard enough to deserve the right.

Sometimes the only job open comes with a corps contract. I don't know that this was the case for Frometa, just suggesting that maybe ...

Good to see you here, meunier fan. Welcome to BalletAlert!

So I guess what I'm driving at is - why $91 for one at a particular moment and $59 another?

The theater does not publish a chart of seating prices. It used to be that we'd see two prices for orchestra seats (prime and less prime), then for Rings 1-3, one price for the seats in the main section, a lower price for the seats in Row AA along the sides, and in the Fourth Ring, a price for rows A & B, another for Row AA (before the construction of Row BB), one for Rows C-K, and the cheapest for Rows L-O. As I understand the current pricing system -- in addition to the dynamic upping of prices (and I may be a bit off in this) -- it works from the center outwards, so you might conceivably pay less for a side-ish seat in the Second Ring than you would for a center seat in the fourth. Or, the person sitting right next to you may have a significantly more or less expensive ticket than you do. It's a very confusing, and terribly unfair to the budget-conscious in the audience.

SingerWhoMoves, I refuse to call the the Koch, too!

If you're still inclined to go for close-up orchestra seats, I'd point out that you don't want seats too far to the side. You'll miss a LOT of what's going on. On the other hand, dead center will have you directly below the conductor, who is probably not who you came to watch. The rear orchestra -- roughly around Row M, I think -- the floor is nicely raked, lessening the chances that the head in front of your will obstruct your view.

I'm with those who have been recommending seats that are elevated above stage level. If you're too close, it's like being at an opera and hearing only the lead singers, missing out on what the chorus and minor characters are up too. You'll want to be able to take in the whole stage. And a bit off to the side, too. Until you know the house, though, I'd advise against seats in any "AA" or "BB" row.

Well, he's certainly demonstrated creativity in the past. It would be nice if he could strengthen the financial status of Lincoln Center in the way that he boosted Broadway's.

But this

“We need to be approachable,” Mr. Bernstein said. “There should be nothing ivory tower about it — except the stone.”

gives me trepidations that we may be in store for a lot more Ocean's Kingdoms-like panderings.

Not sure why I'm suddenly spending all this money for ballet tickets, but we shall see...

I'm going on 40 years of spending my money on ballet tickets, and I often ask myself the same question. And then buy some more.

Thank you, rg. That's sad.

Just wondering if, despite the celebratory mood of the evening, Kevin (or anyone) took a moment to honor the passing of Freddie Franklin. I wasn't there.

I second pretty much all of Helene's recommendations with the caveat that Boylston is still a relatively junior soloist -- clearly on the way up, mind you -- and more than a more seasoned dancer, her Odette/Odile is probably still a work very much in progress. The flip side of this is that this may give you the opportunity to watch the development of a young dancer.

I worship Alina Cojocaru. As someone who habitually has bought standing room tickets (available on day of performance only), I "treated" myself to five tickets for seats in advance, making Cojocaru's dates the top priorities.

As for location, my preference is to be above the stage, so I can have a view of everyone and everything. When you're in the orchestra, you see the dancers who are in the front row. I know a lot of people like to see facial expressions. My take is, a dancer spends 10 years working to make her/his body an expressive instrument. If I need the exact qualities of the smile or the glance, the body is not doing its job.

Let us know what you decide and how you like the performance.

I just saw this thread, thanks to Helene's post on a newer one, here.

I think it's great that Arpino says what he thinks.

Interesting. The impression I got from Mel's post was of Arpino whipping up the audience, regardless of the quality of the performance. I almost imagined his public whoop-whoopings followed backstage by a stern recounting of unfortunate performance moments.

There's bad behavior all over, I'm afraid. At a diner this very evening, someone was playing a game on her phone, and the tones were loud and intrusive. Finally, when a waiter asked her to lower the volume, she took great offense, oblivious to the other customers who didn't appreciate the noise.

We have several threads around the board about bad audience behavior. I suspect that if the ushers were lax at ABT tonight, it was because the audience was full of donors, and the company didn't want to offend anyone who might be a major donor. Of course, there are others, like you, who might leave the performance having had a bad experience. I hope this doesn't get in the way of your returning to ballet.

Welcome to BalletAlert!, ord7916.

I much preferred the Spaniard's Russian accent to the Ukranian's -- I could understand DeLuz (who really did sound Russian!) much more easily than Dvorovenko. I lost too much of her dialogue, understanding something around 50% of it. It may have been as much the fault of the amplification system as the actress, or perhaps even my own aging ears . And while I agree that she vamped vampiously, and diva-ed diva-ishly, she is not on my list of favorite Striptease Girls.

I'm so glad I bought this ticket. I've enjoyed every Encores production I've seen (not enough). If this one, which boasted such top talent (besides our ballet dancers) as Karen Ziemba, Walter Bobbie and Christine Baranski, as well as some of the past ones (Kismet with Brian Stokes Mitchell comes to mind) are any indication, I've been a fool not to grab tickets for all of them as soon as they go on sale.

I was especially impressed by Warren Carlyle's ingenious solution to staging the Princess Zenobia Ballet on half of a small stage. He put the dancers on benches and has the male dancers change the direction of the benches, changing the dimensions of the space and making it work as a semi-duplex, as well.

Tonight's was the last show of this production. Otherwise, I'd urge New Yorkers who haven't seen it to go, GO, GO!