Dreamer

Shklyarov is back at the Mariinsky. He remains a guest artist at Bayerisches Staatsballett. Matthew Golding is also a guest there. ABT could have hired Igor Tsvirko who is now with the Hungarian National Ballet or Nikita Chetverikov, who left the Perm Ballet a couple of months to join the Czech National Ballet. But both of these dancers have spouses who require an employment contract as well. Maybe this limited their choices.

I have not seen any review by professional critics. The press was there for the opening night and with so much publicity generated before the premier the silence is somewhat surprising. There is few reviews by the members of this forum in another thread: SCFTA 2018/2019 season.

I attended two performances—the opening night and Saturday evening. The second viewing was more enjoyable because I was over my initial shock and able to find some positive moments in the overall underwhelming piece. I always avoided Ardani’s productions but this time I gave in to my curiosity of seeing one the most celebrated and highly praised Russian choreographer. Overrated, to keep it succinct. Varnava’s choreographic vocabulary is extremely limited and highly repetitive. It was so boring that my only consolation was that at least I was treated to sounds of the always impeccable Mikhailovsky Orchestra conducted by Pavel Sorokin. The only time this ballet became engaging and interesting was the section that told the story of the relationship between Isadora and her Russian husband, the poet Sergei Yesenin danced by hyperkinetic Vladimir Dorokhin. Why did Varnava feel necessary to include Lenin in the libretto? What was the meaning of Lenin as a dragonfly? Or was he a fairy? Too much symbolism that would be more appropriate in a play about Soviet history but not in a ballet. I did not feel that the opening night performance was well received by the audience. People did get up but there was no roaring appause or extended cheering. There was more enthusiasm after the Saturday’s performance though. Both night the house was undersold with lots of empty seats.

It was reported in the Russian presss that Mikhail Messerer would leave the company at the end of the season. He has been Ballet Master in Chief for ten years. Mr. Messerer indicated that he wanted to spend more time with his family and would be returning to London. No announcement on who might replace him has been made.

Carlos Quendit has joined the Houston Ballet. I so happy he has not quit dancing. Time to start planning a trip to Houston.

I don’t know which version is performed at Mariinsky—I’ll be seeing it for the first time at Balanchine: The City Years festival in the fall. I wish Hallberg or Gomes would be invited. Nothing against Xander Parish, who is most likely to be cast, but he is just not the type of dancer that excites me.

David Hallberg danced Apollo on July 20 with Kristina Shapran (Terpsichore), Nadezhda Batoeva (Poyhymnia) and Yana Selina (Calliope).

Racism in soccer games has a long history with the most outrageous examples taken place in English and Italian clubs. Incidents during the FIFA world cup in Russia included English fans giving a Nazi salute and singing an anti-Semitic song. I don’t see how the links provided above can prove institutional racism in Russia but I can understand how people can be swept by anti-Russian paranoia building up in this country. I don’t mean to offend anyone on this board but I think we don’t know enough about other people’s cultures, traditions and customs so we tend to project our own experiences and impulses when judging them.

There are private sponsors as well. Their names can be found in dancers’ bio.

Watching Christine Shevchenko made me think of a young Maria Alexandrova. Shevchenko has similar quality of drawing all the attention to her character and displaying a commanding stage presence. She is becoming an artist whom I would travel a distance to watch.

I saw Marcelo Gomes dancing La Bayadere with VIshneva in the 2014 Met season. Solor's variation in Act 2 of Makarova's version is watered down. Two of the three Solors I saw last week did a manege of only five (very labored, too) double assemble turns. The conductor had to slow the tempo to give them enough time to catch the breath between the jumps. I remember Shklyarov and Kim doing 8 or 9.

I am happy to report that the opening night performance of La Bayadere at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was almost perfect. The descend of 24 shades from the Himalayas led by Rachel Richardson was flawless, no shaking legs, no wobbles. Twenty four shades moving in unison with legs lifted to the same height created a mesmerizing image. Does Makarova’s version has more arabesque steps? To me, the snaking of the lines of shades before the front group could assume their downstage position seemed longer than in the Mariinsky’s staging. I did not want to count the steps as I was afraid it would ruin the magic. I wish this performance had a different Gamzatti instead of Misty Copeland. To say that she was underwhelming would be an understatement. Her broken wrists and splayed fingers made a very unattractive look. Nonexistent jumps and extremely low arabesques (did she recently have a back injury?) were adding to the negative impression. On top of that she botched her Italian fouettés executing a sequence of four battlements to the side—sous sus turns. She did managed to do about 10 regular fouettés but they were unimpressive and travelled to the left as usual. The audience went wild nonetheless. It was Cirio’s last performances with ABT and Boylston handed him the bouquet of flowers she received. Both she and Misty kneeled in front of him. And lastly, can we please replace Lanchbery’s orchestration? His peculiar arrangements make the score sometimes unrecognizable.

All three performances are sold out. I am happy that ABT can still fill an auditorium of over 3,000 seats.

My apologies to California for duplicating the news about Aaron's return. Thank you for reporting this. I was so excited to share this that I didn't even check if someone else had already posted it.

Per English National Ballet website, Aaron Robison is leaving the company to re-join San Francisco Ballet. When he appeared as a guest artist in Frankenstein this spring I had what seemed to be a hopeless dream of him returning to California. Now I can scream from joy. Welcome back, Aaron!

Tickets are quite expensive: $150-$275 Orchestra $50-$275 Grand Tier/Mezzanine $35-$75 Balcony

Can someone comment on the front row (row A) Orchestra seats? For some reason these seats are significantly cheaper than those a couple of rows behind. I have never been to theCity Center fro a dance performance and would appreciate any input. Thank you.

I hope Cirio doesn’t depart to London straight at the end of the Met season and will still appear in the opening night of La Bayadere in LA on July 13 as scheduled.

I believe Zagrebin and his wife, who is also a dancer, spent the entire summer in SF. I remember seeing instagram photos of them and Gennadi Nedvigin touring wineries. Why he decided to leave after a couple of months remains a mystery. Would he have broken his contract? Or are foreign dancers allowed to sign up on a temporary basis?

Flowers for the leading ladies and Ms. Alonso were brought out during the curtain call on the opening night performances, May 29 (DQ) and May 31 (Giselle).

Zagrebin did arrive in San Francisco and even performed with the company at the annual Stern Grove festival in July. He never made it to the repertory season, though.

I have a ticket as part of my SCFTA subscription. Unfortunately, there were no subscription packages offered without Osipova's program. I comfort myself with the fact that I'll get to experience Varnava's choreography as I have never seen his works.

I was hoping for a Cuban. With DQ returning next season, who from the current roaster can be a match to previous Basilios of the likes of Joan Boada, Taras Domitro or Carlos Quenedit. Having just seen the National Ballet of Cuba in DC, I am still in awe with the young generation of their male dancers—Rafael Quenedit (the younger brother of Carlos), Patricio Revé and Raúl Abreu.

SFB sent out an email announcing company’s roster for 2018-2019 seasons. The biggest surprise is the recruitment of Vladislav Kozlov, a former corps de ballet dancer with the Bolshoi, who will be joining as a soloist. New corps members are Cavan Conley, Lucas Erni and Nicolai Goridiskii.

I wish I were Cuban 😪. I wouldn’t say NBC dancers are not exactly great jumpers. The only person who had difficulties with jumps was Valdés but she more than compensated for this deficiency with her incredible balances. Everyone else was pretty much flying. But then again, it is probably my poor judgement abilities as, for example, I could never see anything spectacular about Osipova’s jumps. Maybe I always get distracted by her lack of turnout or beat up pointe shoes?