Kathleen O'Connell

18 minutes ago, mille-feuille said:

Is there a recording of this?

To the best of my knowledge, no, aside from the archival performance videos available for viewing in the NY Public Library's Performing Arts research collection.

4 hours ago, BalanchineFan said:

If the cast was Tiler Peck, Rebecca Krohn, Sterling Hyltin and Megan Fairchild does anyone know which of them would have danced that duet? 

Most likely Sterling Hyltin. My mental model for tracking who's dancing what in Liebeslieder is to name the roles after who originated them since there seems to be no other convention such as "The Waltz Girl" or "Rubies Tall Girl" or what have you. So, here are the originators:

Diana Adams – Bill Carter
Melissa Hayden – Jonathan Watts
Jillana – Conrad Ludlow
Violette Verdy – Nicholas Magallenes

I've seen all of the dancers BalanchineFan referred to dance Liebeslieder, but never that exact cast. From my experience, here's who generally dances what:

Tiler Peck = Violette Verdy

Rebecca Krohn = Diana Adams

Sterling Hyltin = Melissa Hayden (the Nein, Geliebter role)

Megan Fairchild = Jillana

Unity Phelan has indeed danced Hayden's role, as has Lauren Lovette. 

Although I've seen the men move from one role to another when the ballet is recast, I don't recall seeing any of the women move from one role to another, which is not to say that it doesn't happen of course.

I think we've all had the experience of finding a particular dancer's stamp on a role practically indelible. For me that's Whelan in Hayden's Liebeslieder role. (Teresa Reichlen as the Rubies Tall Girl and Heather Watts in the Midsummer Divertissement are two more.) 

5 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

I would gladly pay to watch a complete stream of Liebeslieder. That is all.

Take my money! I'd like a recording featuring Whelan and Hübbe performing the second half pas to "Nein, Geliebter."  I cried every single time I saw them dance it.

Here's a clip of Laurent Lovette and Jared Angle performing that duet in 2019:

42 minutes ago, pherank said:

It must have been fun leveling out that stage.

I had that exact thought!

6 hours ago, BalanchineFan said:

Do they wear soft ballet slippers in the other two early movements?  I really don't remember the women wearing pointe shoes before T&V.

If I recall correctly, the principal women wear pointe shoes for both the Waltz and Scherzo and the corps wears pointe shoes in the Scherzo as well. I am honestly drawing a blank as to what the Waltz corps has on its feet, but I think it's slippers at least.

15 minutes ago, Helene said:

I loved Heather Watts in the Pas de Trois, and based on the way she was dancing at the time and the gorgeous performances I saw her given in the Midsummer Night's Dream Divertissement and in the Hayden role in Liebeslieder Walzer, especially the last slow pas de deux in Part 2 -- I would have loved to have seen her in the Verdy role in that telecast. 

Me too! I'm sure this sounds heretical to anyone whose only memories of Watts comes from the last half decade or so of her career. No one has moved me as much in the Divertissement pas de deux as Watts did. I'm an Ashley fangirl, but I've always been grumpy about the fact that it was her performance of the Divertissement that got broadcast, not Watts'.

16 minutes ago, Helene said:

Ashley wrote in her book about how he would change parts of the ballets when filmed because they didn't look good on film, like substituting pique turns for fouettes in Ballo, and that's been written about elsewhere.  I've never read that he chose his excerpts on the basis of how he thought they would film or that he'd remove parts entirely if he didn't think they worked, but he had so much experience thinking about the dance on film his Hollywood years, plus TV, including the Montreal series, that he likely knew most of what he wanted before filming started and adjusted from there.

I wouldn't be surprised if Balanchine omitted the Emeralds solos if he thought they wouldn't translate well to the small screen. (I don't remember if Paul's solo was included or not. I'll check my DVD at some point because now I'm curious ... ) It's important to remember that TV screens were w-a-a-y different back then. They were smaller, the broadcast quality was low-def, and some of us didn't even have color, even at that relatively late date. 

10 hours ago, Quiggin said:

Balanchine left out some of Emeralds (Violet Verdy's solo?) from the Dance in America broadcast but on the other hand he did create an additional ending which retroactively gave the piece a different, graver, tone.

Yes, Verdy's solo was omitted. I always thought it was odd because it's one of the ballet's highlights and, along with the "walking" pas de deux, one of its iconic moments. (Maybe this wasn't the case at the time of the broadcast and it's just me thinking that with 40 years of watching the ballet under my belt?) The broadcast was made not so many years after Verdy retired the role. Perhaps Balanchine thought it was too soon for another ballerina to assume the role for a national audience.

PS - I know Balanchine made a number of changes and additions to Emeralds over the years, but I didn't realize he added that gorgeous ending for the broadcast. Another reason to be glad these broadcasts happened!

2 hours ago, Drew said:

I was thinking of Wheeldon’s Variations Sérieuses....I think it dropped out of the rep so people don’t remember it much...,

Such a fun ballet ... I don't know why it fell out of the rep. But yes, Kowroski's comic chops were on full display. The tender little pas de cinq for Kathleen Tracey (as the stage manager) and four stagehands with big push brooms is one of the sweetest things Wheeldon has ever choreographed.

14 minutes ago, BalanchineFan said:

I appreciate, for instance, that we only got the Elegie from Tschaikovsky Suite #3. Once you've seen one of those early movements you really don't need to see the others. It's three movements of barefoot girls waving their long hair around before we get to Theme & Variations.

I hate to be that "well, actually ... " person, but I believe the women only dance barefoot in Elégie. But yeah, it's an awful lot of minutes of unbound hair and swirling tulle cocktail dresses to sit through  until we get to T&V. If they had to televise a movement other than T&V, Elégie is definitely the one.

21 hours ago, cassieallison said:

As someone who can rarely get to NYC I have LOVED all the digital programming, but would definitely like to see whole pieces. For instance Diamonds last year took my breath away I can't remember how many times I watched it. IF it was only presented in excerpts it wouldn't have been able to truly appreciate it.

I too prefer whole ballets to excerpts. That being said, Balanchine himself elected to present excerpts from his ballets for the Dance in America series featuring his choreography. There was no Jewels in its entirety, only excerpts from Emeralds and Diamonds. (And not even the entirety of those two ballets, either, just excerpts.) Only excerpts from Chaconne. Only the Andante from Divertimento No. 15. Only Elégie from Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3. 

I have no idea why Balanchine chose to have only excerpts of those ballets televised, but he did. 

A video of Natural History, a new ballet choreographed in the time of Covid by Troy Schumacher, for his company, Ballet Collective, performed on an outdoor stage at The Mashomack Fish & Game Preserve Club in upstate New York. Brian Seibert's New York Times review: City Dancers Unleashed in the Wild. 

There are eight dancers, six from NYCB and two from the Martha Graham Company: Devin Alberda, Anthony Huxley, Ashley Laracey, Lorenzo Pagano, Erica Pereira, Davide Riccardo, and Leslie Andrea Williams. Per Seibert's Times review, they quarantined together nearby and rehearsed on a local school's basketball court.

Today (9/13/20) may be the last day that the stream will be available, so check it out if you are interested.

As far as I'm concerned, the announcement of Ahn, Bell, Brandt, Forster, Royal, Shayer, and Trenary's promotions is a ray of sunshine in a dark time. It's heartening to see a U.S. arts organization embrace its future in the face of so much uncertainty. I've enjoyed watching each of these dancers perform and have gone out of my way to catch some of them when they've been cast in featured roles, so I'm delighted to see their careers advance.

22 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

After visiting the main site, I see that Vienna State Opera streams will be available "with 72 hours of catch-up."

That is great news! I'm rarely in a position to consume a live stream from start to finish, so being able to dip in and out over the course of a few days is a real gift.

21 hours ago, Dale said:

You know, it's free and on easy to use platforms, so I'm pretty happy with what we can get.

I too would prefer whole ballets to excerpts, but I am also delighted that NYCB has decided to make their digital season free and available on whatever screen the audience has available to them. I'm not inclined to watch ballet on my phone while I'm waiting in line at the grocery store, but someone else might be and I think it's a fine thing that they can. 

18 hours ago, GB1216 said:

Ballet is obviously at its best in person and doesn’t always translate to video well in long(ish) segments.  I work in content marketing and balance is always hard to find but possible to strike with enough testing, and I think that is what they are trying to do here. 

I absolutely agree about the need to tailor the content to the platform so that the art on offer is shown to its best advantage. I'd be shocked if NYCB doesn't have pretty robust data from its digital spring season regarding which programs got the most views, which got the most repeat views, which platforms—e.g., Facebook, YouTube, etc—the audience used most often, and what devices the audience used to watch. (And if they don't have this data, they need to bring the right talent onto the team.) The percentage of the audience that watches via YouTube on a laptop, vs the percentage that watches via their phone on FB, vs the percentage that watches it on their TV via the YouTube app on their Amazon Fire Stick may help them think about what will best showcase the company's rep and its dancers.

Another thing that might be driving the use of excerpts: the ability to showcase as many dancers as possible in roles that suit them best. And we've all been to enough performances to know that on any given night for any given ballet you might get an absolutely world-beating performance by half of the cast while the other half looks like they're dancing it for the first time to music they've never heard before. Excerpts allow the company to shine a light where they need to and tactfully tuck the rest of the tape away in the farthest reaches of the archive. 

More out-of-the-ordinary opera, this time from Bard College's Fisher Center Upstreaming project. The Bard Music Festival and Summerscape programs are always inventive and very well produced. (It helps when your college president—in this case Leon Botstein—is also a very well-regarded conductor and musicologist.)

Richard Strauss - Die Liebe der Danae

Antonin Dvořák - Dimitrij

Emmanuel Chabrier - Le roi malgré lui

Ethel Smyth - The Wreckers

Carl Maria von Weber -  Euryanthe

Sergey Taneyev - Oresteia

Anton Rubinstein - Demon

Erich Wolfgang Korngold - The Miracle Of Heliane

All well-produced video, with subtitles and downloadable programs. Upstreaming's non-opera offerings are worth exploring, too, including choreography by Beth Gill, Tere O'Connor, and Pam Tanowitz. I don't know how long these programs will remain online.

1 hour ago, Helene said:

I've moved Kathleen's post about Operavision into the Opera Streaming thread -- the thread had been buried:

Thank you! I knew there had to be one ...

Is this where we put Opera?

Not covid-19 motivated streaming, but free streaming nonetheless: OperaVision, sponsored by the EU and under the editorial supervision of Opera Europa, the European association of opera companies and festivals.

These are well-produced videos of live performances from a variety of European opera houses and festivals. The videos are available for viewing for between three to six months after they've been posted. They are subtitled and come with some nice ancillary materials. There are some popular favorites—e.g., Tosca or The Marriage of Figaro—but many, many more less well known and / or infrequently performed works, such as Frank Martin's version of the Tristan and Isolde story Le Vin herbé or Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria. 

Right now I'm working my way through Mozart's Lucio Silla in a performance at Brussels' La Monnaie. Yeah, the production is vaguely eurotrashy (it's La Monnaie after all), but it features the very wonderful mezzo Anna Bonitatibus as Cecilio, and is worth it for that alone.

A few of the operas on offer come down in a few of days (Halévy's La Juive, Korngold's Violanta) so if you are interested in either, don't delay. Note: the dates are shown as they are in Europe and elsewhere: day-month-year. 

PS: OperaVision is where Close, posted a few messages above, is from

2 hours ago, Tapfan said:

It's about time.

Long past it. 

17 hours ago, pherank said:

The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine never proved itself to be effective against the Covid-19 virus. Which isn't really surprising given the vast difference between malaria protozoan parasites and viruses of any kind. Not the same kind of entity, so why should the treatment be the same?

Perhaps the hope was that hydroxychloroquine would mediate the immune system's potentially deadly inflammatory response to the virus—the now infamous "cytokine storm"—rather than target the virus itself. I think that's why the drug is given to patients with certain autoimmune disorders such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. 

21 minutes ago, pherank said:

Not to mention no restroom break.  😉

In deference to Wagner's intentions and in defiance of human biology, The Metropolitan Opera stages Die Fliegende Hollander and Das Rheingold without intermissions. (The operas are each about two-and-one-half hours long.) Lots of critics and scholars have tried to justify this on the theory that the resulting continuity from beginning to end is a better musical and theatrical experience. Of course, it's a pretty lousy musical and theatrical experience when one's bladder or one's back—or both—are clamoring for your immediate attention RIGHT NOW barely two-thirds of the way through, and this has apparently never occurred to the opera powers that be.

26 minutes ago, Helene said:

Given the pandemic, I hope there is grant money to amp up the equipment and filming budgets, because they could at least start to pay themselves off for companies who either charge or offer films to donors.

Many of the organizations that fund dance-related non-profits are making efforts to address the impact of Covid-19, either by providing additional funding or by allowing their grantees to use their grant money to meet general operating expenses rather than for the artistic projects they'd hoped to pursue in 2020. At the moment, funders may see their immediate mission to be trying to keep their grantees afloat in the short term, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was heightened receptiveness to matters like resiliency or cultivating digital audiences going forward. 

Thanks for the heads up! The interview is also available via The Drawing Room's podcast, so I'll be able to give it a listen while I attend to some chores.

11 hours ago, Helene said:

I do know that when San Francisco Opera offered on demand access to the videos they've been making accessible for one weekend for a certain level of donor, I jumped on it, and they delivered.

I found this prominently displayed at the bottom of SFO's page for today's The Makropulos Case stream, which suggests that they secured buy-in from every union involved in making opera seasons happen, including the Box Office and Front of House Employees Union:

San Francisco Opera extends its gratitude and appreciation to the following labor organizations whose members, artists, craftsmen, and craftswomen greatly contribute to our performances:

American Federation of Musicians, Local 6
American Guild of Musical Artists, Inc.
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Local 16
Theatrical Wardrobe Union, Local 784, I.A.T.S.E.
Make-up Artists and Hair Stylists Union, Local 706, I.A.T.S.E.
The Art Directors Guild & Scenic, Title and Graphics Artists, Local 800
United Scenic Artists Local USA – 829, I.A.T.S.E.
Box Office and Front of House Employees Union, Local B-18

In addition to the text above, they've also included three of the unions' logos, much as arts nonprofits often prominently display the logos of the foundations and governmental agencies that support them. Good for SFO. 

Their pitch for making a membership-level donation to gain access to their past streams is clear and persuasive.

The Makropulos Case is one of my favorite operas, so I'm definitely tuning in.

2 hours ago, nanushka said:

Even if they were going to hold firm on the minimum $100 donation to become a member — why not spread the word on that?

I also think that it would be perfectly legit for ABT to reserve the video to those donors who elected to give at some specified level, e.g., the member minimum of $100. There aren't very many perks they can offer their members right now, and offering a special video as a thank-you isn't on the face of it out of line. 

44 minutes ago, California said:

I'm guessing that everybody who bought a ticket with a working e-mail address got that message.

Nope.

I don't subscribe, but I do buy at least a ticket or two for most NYC seasons — and that's usually full-price orchestra tickets for the Met and first ring tickets for The Theater Formerly Known as State. 

If they can't figure out that I'd be a likely target for some Crisis Relief Fund digital content they need to bring some new talent into their marketing and development departments.  Oh, and get a few board members and / or a foundation to fund a targeted engagement of a law firm specializing in digital rights negotiation and management.