Olga

Thank you. The Arts Journal link to that Times article is captioned "Who's Bravee Enough To Redo Jerome Robbinss Choreography For Fiddler On The Roof? Hofesh Schechter"

I for one am shocked that Shecter is changing Robbins' chireography, even the bottle dance. How do other people feel about that?

Thanks, Cygnet.

Does anyone know how old Plisetskaya is in the version of Her dancing Bolero that is on YouTube?

Could not agree more with FondofFouettes: Shklyarov is a real pro and a star dancer. I will probably be ruthlessly castigated for this, but Stella got an enormous lift from his partnering - literally and figuratively. He is probably the best Romantic male dancer around now. "If ABT feels like it needs to bring in a guest artist, the one I'm most eager to see again is Vladimir Shklyarov. Such beautiful dancing, and so supportive of Stella on her big night. He did a very good job of integrating himself into the company."

Unfortunately, a very blaah evening. The Morris choreography is professional but doesn't have any excitement . Except for Veronika Part, Monotones was not particularly well danced. The Tharp ballet was also lackluster though individual dancers executed well. Disappointing.

Thank you for that casting info - very helpful. Jenny was gloriously fluid on Sunday.

I pretty much agree w Drew's interpretation of the plot. I think the Adrian character is more innocent than the rest - he offers Sara solace to smooth her rejection by Amar, but the ballet ends w Sara starting to play the 'dark' games on him. A highly theatrical ballet. I thought the narrative and themes were quite clear. The Times review discussed the plot as well.

While I agree the first half of last Night was pretty depressing (except for Justin Peck's ballet) I think Jeux was head and shoulders above most of it. The narrative was quite clear - a play on play, serious and not serious games people play on each other, what people choose or are permitted to see etc, with references to Nijinsky. It was more of a dramatic and less of a technically demanding work than the company usually does. I agree Martins' ballet was more suited to the gala, but not because it was a more serious or credible work. I think these nights of a few novelty ballets accompanied by fashion designers might be a nice thing for a gala but having five rep nights exclusively devoted to this programming needs to be reevaluated. Want to add that Happel's dress designs were fab. Better than most of the evening's other designers, particularly the way they worked with the women's' movement. Again though the designs in the Peck were also well suited. My opinion.

Totally agree, Abatt. Everywhere you look, it's B and Green Table. At least I will likely want to see Morris and Monotones more than once. As I said, I don't care for the way they program mixed bills.

Another annoying aspect of ABT: The way the mixed bills are organized, if you want to see most of the ballets, you have to see some of them many times. Every time I try to organize what tickets to buy, I realize I will have to see other ballets time and again. City Ballet doesn't usually do this. For example if they are running a few Balanchine programs they don't interchange them - Program 1 tends to have dedicated ballets, and Progeam 2 , other dedicated ballets. While I might choose to see some of these ABT ballets more than once I'd rather not be forced into multiple viewings by a tie in to something else. And worse, some ABT ballets that I might not want to see at all, I may have to see more than once.

It would be a terrible affront if that ballet was intended to be on the theme of the Holocaust. My guess is he learned afterwards about the HBO movie, which is why he has the disclaimer in the program notes about the ballet not "telling any story." I am not going to go into the long and sorry history of the Polish relationship to anti-semitism and the Holocaust. If you are so inclined, there is ample source material to be read if not studied. Suffice it to say, I don't think an Auschwitz tour guide is necessarily representative. I'm sure there are quite a few people in Poland, particularly among the educated, as you point out, who are appalled by it all, and there is no doubt that the Poles suffered terribly during and after WWII. But there is another side to all of it. I think it best we do not continue this line of discussion in this place.

I thought the dancers were very, very good. I'm surprised by California's post -- that the music is so related to this film about the Holocaust. I don't see that at all in the choreography. Then again, I don't see that the Poles make very much of a connection at all to their relationship to the Holocaust.

Thanks for the subscription advice. I think I will do a make your own.

Thank you Amour for your calm and reasoned response to Perron's review. I thought Perron raised some of the deepest and most interesting questions about this production of any review I have read.

What I was trying to say about the toe shoes being different in Petipa's time is that relative to today, those shoes placed a limitation on what could be done choreographically and made what was danced more impressive. Similarly, Gerdt's age also placed a limit on Prince Desire's dancing. To transpose all of this to now, with these dancers, their training, their shoes, their bodies, can never be a true transposition. As Drew said, there is room for middle ground -- but I don't think the ballet has been presented as such. Taking the balances with the four suitors as an example, I think we can see it would have been more impressive with less physical support for the pointe work. So, I wonder whether the four suitors grouped anxiously a few inches from Aurora in this production is in the original notes, and the increased distance employed in Fonteyn's adagio was a modification. Let's say it was a modification. Given the modification on the shoes, maybe the modification vis a vis distance is warranted. In any event, Fonteyn's adagio is many orders of better than the Auroras I saw. Maybe this production's spacing is the original, but in that case it would have been more impressive in the original and the audience would have felt that. In the end, maybe it does come down to the level of dancing in this production. I didn't think those balances were very good. And what exactly is the point of so significantly limiting Desire's dancing? Maybe it was necessary for Gerdt, but does it really add to the production other than that we can see how it looked originally? That is why I think this production is academic. It is of interest to see how the ballet was choreographed originally. It is of interest to see Bakst's costumes. But it is not a ballet that most of us will want to see many more times, unless changes are made and that would go against the grain of the articulated purpose of the production. On the other hand, one could argue that this ballet is presenting an aesthetic and that aesthetic doesn't require so much virtuouso dancing. That is a valid idea, and those people who enjoy the ballet on those terms are free to do so. I even agree with it to some extent, ie, the ear height extensions and other gymnastic feats could easily leave the current ballet vocabulary as far as I am concerned. For me, this production is of academic interest, but I think it is too precious, not to mention indulgent to have spent all that money on it. I will say we are now on p. 27 of the ABT Sleeping Beauty thread, and most of the posters have seen it more than once, so the ballet has certainly grabbed our attention and generated publicity which I guess is at least in part the intention.

I have been thinking about the pointe shoes for some time now and it seems to me the fact that modern shoes were used undermines the whole concept of the restoration and basically shows that it can't possibly be a complete one. By this I do not mean that they should have used the old shoes, only that it just points up the inherent contradictions of the "restoration.". In the end I think this restoration is somewhat academic, and of interest primarily to people like us. And many of the old productions that have been restaged do indicate they are done by a new choreographer but based on Petipa. Time marches on. When I think of what was spent on this production, and, forgive me folks, how poorly it was danced by many, it seems like a waste. Sure, a few dancers did a great job. Simkin, for one. Admittedly, I only saw two casts, so my opinions are circumscribed, but I did see opening night which presumably had one of the stronger casts. What a waste of Marcello. Honestly, he was pretty awful, though some people say he improved with Vishneva. Glad to hear. We can analyze and talk about this production ad infinitum but when you think of what could have been done with the money.... Maybe if Ratmansky had better dancers to work with it would have been more successful. Not sure. I think the production is inherently problematic.

What are the advantages of getting a make your own subscription as opposed to single tickets? I would get the sub for at least six performances, and will likely see many more performances than that. Normally I just buy a lot of single tickets. Not sure what to do. I would appreciate any insights you could offer.

I was thinking the same thing.

re Instagram linked to by DECoster: Shklyarov's Albrecht was monumental. As Stella posted to his instagram account "I will never forget it." And even we, the fans, will never forget it.

Miriam Miller: http://nycdanceproject.com/miriam-miller/