Kathleen O'Connell

Thanks for this, Drew; I wish I was fluent in Russian, but I enjoyed this too. Little Alexey is so adorable!

Just catching up on this topic today ... It is possible to watch the video with subtitiles via an auto-generated translation. First, click on the little "CC" (for closed-caption) box in the lower right hand corner. Then go to the adjacent settings gear (the one with the HD on it) and select the language you want in the cc settings section. It's not a very good translation (at times it's pretty hilarious -- it put me in mind of the oeuvre of the great Buffalax) but you can get at least some idea of what they're talking about. The auto-generated Russian captions don't seem that accurate either ...

What's up with this 'in-grown home talent' obsession?

Because a focussed, well-wrought, and sustained commitment to developing and showcasing talent in-house — ideally starting with a school of one's own or a feeder system of schools that understand one's aesthetic and programming objectives — helps foster that increasingly rare thing: an actual company style.

To each his own, but I'll take a company with its own coherent style over a company stuffed with stars who look like they came from different planets any day.

Now that ABT has a school and a resident choreographer, who — and this is important — has the care and maintenance of his own rep among his responsibilities it may develop a clearly identifiable style of its own. Carefully nurturing its Ashton and Tudor rep will help, too.

One of the MOST GLAMOROUS to dance Carabosse was Merrill Ashley at City Ballet. Oh my! She was enough to want to go over to the "dark side".

I was there for her debut in the role, and the whole audience was like OMG!!!!! because we'd never see her like that before. She was so deliciously wicked and looked to be having the time of her life.

And here is a fascinating aspect of this production. We're all talking about Martins' Puss-in-Boots, Ratmansky's Precious Stones, deValois's this and Ashton's that -- in the end, isn't this supposed to be Petipa's ballet? So what does it mean when we're frustrated with the source material?

All source material is equal, but some source material is more equal than others.

For me, it might be the puppet heads/masks

Overall I liked the production and the choreography very much —I was mighty pleased that the design team kept the sequins and spangles to a minimum — but I loathed loathed loathed the puppet heads and animal masks — so you're not alone on that score. I was glad that Cinderella and Prince Fortune got to dance, but if it had been my show, I would have cut the walk-on fairy tale cameos. (For the record: Ogre and Ogress, Bluebeard and Ariana, Porcelain Princesses, Mandarin, Scheherezade, Shah and his Brother.) I might have kept Hop-o'-my-Thumb sans the puppet head to give the kids at the JKO school some more performing opportunities, but as it stands it's relatively charmless. Frankly, I prefer the Puss-in-Boots and Red Riding Hood material that Martins crafted for his version of SB. But I'll keep Ratmansky's Precious Stones, thank you very much.

I prefer a glamorous Carabosse myself, but a more obviously and conventionally scary one may be preferable for the kids in the audience.

Even later to the party! There's little I can add to what fondoffouttes, abatt, nanushka, and Birdsall have already posted re Cassandra Trenary's superb debut as Aurora. But what the heck!

More later, but Lordy! What is there not to like about Cassandra Trenary's Aurora? A perfect match of dancer and role if ever there was one!

From PNB's financial statements on their websites, these are the total artistic fees (licenses, royalties and staging fees) for the last few seasons, along with the works they paid for.

First, can I just say that PNB's willingness to post its financial statements both promptly and in an easily-accesible manner is a model every non-profit should follow, especially those that like to bang their tin cups any chance they get.

Secondly, an interesting thing to look at is how much of a company's endowment is restricted (i.e., explicitly earmarked) for one thing or another. For example, per NYCB's audited financial statements, as of June 30, 2014, $4.6 million of its $187 million endowment is earmarked for "Martins Repertory" and $1.4 million for "Nureyev Repertory." $24 million is restricted to the Choreographic Institute, and $1.8 million for Symphony in C (the only named work on the list.) Other restrictions: Capital Campaign, Wallace, Martins' 25, Martins' 30, Balanchine Repertory, Robbins Repertory, Touring, Education, Levin Dance, Dance On, Musical Leadership, Scenic Design Maintenance, Kirstein Memorial, and Stepping. All in all, about 88% of the endowment has been restricted for one use or another. This isn't necessarily a bad thing: it throws some obstacles in the path of anyone who might want to squander the endowment on some hair-brained scheme.

Details regarding restrictions on an organization's endowment are generally provided as a note to it audited financial statements; unfortunately, not all organizations are as transparent with these as PNB is. To find NYCB's, for instance, you have to scrounge around their filings on the the New York State Charities Bureau website.

The definition of "key employee", linked to above, states "Officers, directors and trustees are not considered key employees."

Is Artistic Director not a director as defined by the IRS?

Tax law details are such an arcane field!

For IRS purposes, "director" means a Director on the organization's Board.

ETA: as a practical matter, a major performing arts organization's Artistic Director, Executive Director, and Chief Financial Officer are likely to be among its officers.

PS: This might help clarify the distinction between a Director (in the Board sense) and an Officer.

Kathleen, thanks so much for doing the digging (I've got limited time right now, so am just going to have to admire from afar). This is fascinating stuff!

Can you tell I would rather do anything than the chore I was supposed to wrap up today?

Re the terms of Ratmansky's contract with ABT, I just found this in the New York Times' archives:

"Ballet Theater announced Wednesday that Mr. Ratmansky, who had been committed to the troupe through 2013, agreed to the extension two years before his previous contract was up. The terms remain unchanged: he is to spend 20 weeks a season with the company and choreograph at least one new work a year or restage one of his older dances."

So, 20 weeks per year and at least one new work or restaged older work per year.

I did a little digging around on both the IRS website and in ABT's recent 990s. Since ABT doesn't list Ratmansky as a "Key Employee" as defined by the IRS, they aren't required to report separate business transactions with him on Schedule L to Form 990. (Everyone in the dance world might think he's artistically critical to ABT's mission, but for form 990 purposes, he doesn't fall within the definition of a Key Employee.) Per the Schedule L rules "business transactions" include license agreements, but if Ratmansky's not a Key Employee, his licensing agreements with ABT wouldn't have to be reported there.

So I think there's no way to tell from ABT's 990s alone whether Ratmansky gets paid additional fees and royalties on top of his salary -- whether for newly created works or revivals of works he created for other companies. I believe that there are only two of the latter in ABT's rep, however: The Bright Stream and The Golden Cockerel.

I have no doubt that McKenzie receives an agreed up royalty check every time SL is performed at ABT, just as the MacMillan estate receives a royalty check every time MacMillan's R&J is performed. I don't think that the amount of the royalty McKenzie gets is so large that it is a motivation to keep or dump his SL. His primary source of income is as artistic director of ABT, and the royalties are probably a very small percentage of his total income. I don't know if this information is reflected on company tax returns or financials as a separate item, or if that info is publicly available.

For people like Ratmansky or Wheeldon, their royalties are probably much more significant in terms of their overall annual income because their works are being licensed to numerous companies around the world. (In contrast, McKenzie's SL is not being performed anywhere else (because nobody wants it?)). Also, I'm sure that both Wheeldon and Ratmansky can command a high price for licensing of their works because of their acclaim and popularity. Mrs. Ratmanksy is a primary stager of Mr. Ratmansky's works, I believe. I'm not sure who is staging Wheeldon's works. Mrs. Ratmansky is also bringing home the bacon by appearing in character roles at ABT.

It depends on the terms of McKenzie's AD contract and / or commission agreement(s) with ABT. In the case of the former he might have been obligated to deliver a certain number of ballets over a certain period of time, with the understanding that the commission fees and royalties that might otherwise have been due to him were instead built into his annual compensation. In the case of the latter, the company might have paid him a commission fee and in return gotten a royalty-free right to perform the works in the future, either in perpetuity or for some stated period of time. The company might have retained exclusive rights to the works in perpetuity or they may have given McKenzie the right to license them out to other companies after some reasonable period of exclusivity.

If I recall correctly, ABT pays Ratmansky an annual salary in return for a steady stream of new work -- either new as in world premieres or new as in "new to ABT" -- as well as assistance with rehearsal and staging. His salary is almost as high as McKenzie's, so I'll hazard a guess that the company has a royalty-free right with some measure of exclusivity for at least a portion of what he delivers to them.

I'd expect to see royalties and fees paid to a ballet company's AD (or to any of its other employees or employee relations) listed in Schedule L to IRS form 990, which covers "Transactions with Interested Persons." If you look at Schedule L, Part IV of NYCB's 990 for the year ending 6/30/14, for instance, you'll see that Peter Martins was paid $10,125 in choreographic fees / royalties in addition to his AD salary. This might have been for works he created specifically for NYCB, or it might have been for work he created for another company and re-staged for NYCB. I couldn't find a similar item on ABT's most recent 990 (for the year ending 12/31/14), for what it's worth, which suggests to me that neither McKenzie nor Ratmansky received royalty payments from ABT above and beyond what they earned as AD and Artist in Residence, respectively. (Well, that or they interpreted the rules regarding what should be reported on Schedule L differently than I have ...)

On a related note, the IRS has FINALLY begun to make Form 990 data publicly available in a machine-readable format. The information will be housed in Amazon Web Services' Public Data Sets repository and is freely available to anyone with an internet connection and the skills necessary to parse an XML or JSON file. This is a big deal for organizations like Pro Publica, Guidestar, Charity Navigator, etc who to date have had to rely on brute force to gather, warehouse, and analyze 990 data. (I took a test drive was able to extract and download a couple of recent ballet company filings pretty easily. Doing something useful with the XML files is another matter altogether, but hardly rocket science -- it's something hobbyist could manage with time a few free tools. )

I agree with his point, however I think a comparison between actual performances would have been more appropriate than using a clip that was likely done "for fun". Though maybe his intention was merely having a visual example of any kind and not passing judgment.

He might have used this clip instead, in which Murphy demonstrates that the variation can be executed with both musical sensitivity and technical brilliance. I especially like the way she times her triples to coincide with the galloping little da-da-yump-dum-dum in the music's "A" section and switches to single fouettés when the "B" section begins. Having one's heel hit the floor right on the beat every time is just table stakes as far as I'm concerned.

I pretty much loathe this variation, but Murphy makes one of the best cases for it that I've seen.

An essay on Copeland in the current issue of Ballet Review suggests that perhaps she should go the route of Plisetskaya and replace the fouettés with pique turns around the stage. What will she do?

I hope she will do what any good Odile would do: something as sparkling and seductive as possible, whatever that might be.

Per the MTA and NYC's Department of Environmental Protection, 10 peregrine falcon chicks have hatched atop three of the MTA's area bridges. They've all been given names, among which are Princess, Roger, and Nelson, which I'm going to take as a tribute ...

(FYI, the rest are named April, May, June, Huey, Daisy, Little Bob and Freddy.)

Re JKR's post, for Midsummer I would go with any cast that has Tiler Peck and Tyler Angle doing the Act II divert. Thus, I would aim to go on Tuesday evening or Friday evening.

I too tend to make my Midsummer ticket-buying decisions based on who's dancing the Divertissement. That being said, every cast posted so far has at least three dancers worth seeing in their respective roles, if not more. While I might not race to the theater to see A. Stafford in the Divert, Troy Schumacher is absolutely my Puck of choice, Ashley Laracey is loveliness itself as Hermia, and I'd be interested to see if Miriam Miller and Anthony Huxley are ready to realize the promise both showed in their debuts as Titania and Oberon last year. (And I wouldn't necessarily dismiss Stafford: I've seen her dance Verdy's role in Emeralds with aplomb, which I certainly didn't expect but was mighty pleased to have seen.)

I'm a big fan of Teresa Reichlen's Titania, and am very much looking forward to seeing Sterling Hyltin and Amar Ramasar in the Divert -- not to mention Daniel Ulbricht's Oberon and Indiana Woodward's Butterfly. Andrew Veyette's Oberon is the best acted, which is to me more important over the course of a long first act than nailing every bit of pyrotechnic display in the Scherzo, but your mileage may vary.

Really, there are riches in every cast.

Nycb has announced via Twitter that tomorrow's performance of After the Rain will be Craig Hall's farewell to the company.

Oh I will miss him! I didn't think anyone could replace Jock Soto in "After the Rain" until I saw Craig Hall take on the role. (Talk about a tough act to follow!) I thought he was a perfect foil for Wendy Whelan both in that ballet and everything else they danced together. I don't make much of an effort to catch final performances, but if I weren't out of town, I'd probably try to rustle up a ticket to this one.

Per another NYCB tweet, Hall will tour with the company this summer and then serve as one of its ballet masters. I wish him every success in his new role.

Wouldn't Martins have needed approval from the board (for any promotion) beforehand?

I'd be very surprised if the NYCB Board had to approve promotions on a dancer-by-dancer basis. More likely the Board has to approve the Company's overall budget and how it is allocated amongst dancers, musicians, technical staff, administrative staff, production costs, etc etc etc. I would expect it to be Martins' job to figure out how many dancers he can afford to promote and when.

I'm glad to see that Stanley was promoted in any event -- it's well deserved and maybe even a bit overdue.

I've heard this before, and it sounds more like a crazy rumor. Being offered $1 million to run ABT is ludicrous (whether that's an annual salary or a combo of salary and signing bonus to lure him away from Argentina). ABT doesn't have that kind of cash. McKenzie makes less than 300K and even across the plaza, Peter Martins makes less than 700K and NYCB has a LOT more money than ABT.

Per the relevant IRS 990s, Peter Martins made more than $700 K during NYCB & SAB's 2014 fiscal year. (For NYCB, that's the year ending 6/30/14.) Here's the breakdown:

Base Compensation, NYCB AD = $733,333

Non-taxable benefits, NYCB AD = $39,352

Royalties / Choreographic fees, NYCB = $10,125

Base Compensation, SAB Director / AD = $114,704

Non-taxable benefits, SAB Director / AD = $5,735

Total = $903,249.

It's not exactly an apple-to-apples comparison if you throw in choreographic fees and SAB, but the NYCB AD chunk is in excess of $700K, even before benefits.

That being said, $1 million to run ABT is insane. Heck, there are college football coaches who don't make that much.

ETA: For the record, I'd like to think that the AD of a major arts organization isn't in it for the bucks.

Week 6 Midsummer's Casting Posted: http://www.nycballet.com/casting/

Lovette debuting divert. Catazaro and Farley Cavalier. Maxwell Butterfly and Ball Puck. Miriam Miller has 2 Titanias. Has Megan Fairchild ever done divert? She's not cast (Hyltin, Peck, and Stafford are)

Yes, M. Fairchild has performed the Midsummer Divertissement. I am a fan, but it's not a role she's ideally suited for. In the pas especially, the Divertissement ballerina has to be able to fill up a ton of ballet "white space" with an equivalent ton of expansive musicality. Fairchild is very musical in allegro; less so in adagio.

I was hoping they would give Tiler Peck and Robbie Fairchild a Duo Concertant.... sigh....

but hopefully Wheeldon's new Gershwin will be a big success.

I actually think R. Fairchild and S. Hyltin have better stage chemistry than R. Fairchild and T. Peck do. Real life doesn't always look as compelling in the theater as make-believe does.

This L.A. Times article, although nearly 30 years old, gives some useful background information about who established the Balanchine Trust, why, and what it sees as its mission. (It's also worth visiting the Trust's own website to learn more about its mission as well as the particulars of licensing the ballets.)

Keep in mind that 1) the Trust's mission is to preserve the integrity of the ballets and their associated copyrights and 2) to protect the interests of the people who now own the copyrights, most of whom are former Balanchine ballerinas. It's primary goal isn't to broaden the audience for Balanchine's ballets or ballet in general, as lovely as that might be. That's more the objective of the George Balanchine Foundation, an entirely different organization.

I've seen both Teresa Reichlen and Sara Mearns as Liberty Bell and liked both of them in the role.

Yes, I think Isaacs needs some time to work out the kinks in her performance of Tschai pdd. As discussed above, there were problems with Finlay's partnering in certain areas during the pdd. Also, in the coda, in the section where she does the fouettes, she played it very safe. She did not do continuous single fouettes. Instead, after each fouette she simply did a spin instead of a fouette. Perhaps someone with better knowledge of the terminology could elaborate better. Anyway, it is definitely a work in progress.

Didi Isaacs do what McBride does here in the version recorded for Dance in America?