Kathleen O'Connell

Well, the Yanks may be the exception -- they sell out every game at home and often do on the road as well.

My own favorite wayward pitch came from an upscale coffee roaster in San Francisco (they also have a store in Brooklyn):

A blend of organic Costa Rican and Mexican coffees, Alma Viva excels as a drip or French press. You don't have to be a Flaubert scholar to realize that the Alma Viva is the Emma Bovary of our blends: snappy and forthright, with echoes of orange peel and toasted almonds when no dairy is added, but demure to the point of passivity with milk or cream. Medium to light roast level.

I've been told that I excel as a drip, too

It worked for me, sort of. I got a box inviting me to generate something.

Did you click on the box? (I know that sounds obvious ... but I thought I'd mention it just in case -- it's a pretty plain looking screen.)

Hmm, I couldn't get it to work?

Browser issue, maybe? (I had to enable java scripts to get it to work in mine.)

Let's see. Premium orchestra seats at the Met can go for more than $200-300 depending on location. Lower box seats at a Yankees game go for more than that. Top tickets to Wicked are over $300 at the box office. Other top broadway show orchestra seats run $150-175. So the most expensive ticket at City Ballet goes for $119 for a subscriber, or $149 for single sale. Considering all that, I feel City Ballet is a good investment for seeing a world-renown performing arts company.

Most of NYCB's audience, I believe, is repeat customers who have been attending for years or decades. There are only a few Yankees games per season in New York, whereas NYCB has 16 weeks of rep tickets to sell, 7 performances per week. That's a whole lot of tickets to unload to customers who have seen most of these ballets numerous times in the past.

The Yankees, like all major league baseball teams, play 162 games in a regular season, half of which are at home and all of which are televised. Yankee Stadium seats 50,000 (52,000 if you count standing room), so I don't think scarcity really explains the ticket prices at Yankee stadium. Even a seat at the tip-top of the grandstand will set you back $30.

The sad fact is, live events are expensive -- even when a lucrative television contract provides a substantial subsidy!

Although ... you can see some mighty fine dance (and bona-fide downtown dance stars) for next-to-nothing at venues like Dance Theater Workshop or, for a little bit more than next-to-nothing, at venues like the Joyce. You'll likely get recorded music and minimal sets and costumes, and yes, sometimes the choreography is just plain awful. But it can be just plain awful at Lincoln Center too ...

I'm pretty sure that the perpetrators of some of the program notes I've been subjected to recently have used this handy tool:

Arty Bollocks Generator

Try it for yourself!

Here's what I got:

My work explores the relationship between the tyranny of ageing and life as perfomance.

With influences as diverse as Camus and Andy Warhol, new tensions are crafted from both explicit and implicit textures.

Ever since I was a student I have been fascinated by the traditional understanding of the human condition. What starts out as vision soon becomes corroded into a cacophony of greed, leaving only a sense of nihilism and the prospect of a new reality.

As spatial forms become frozen through emergent and critical practice, the viewer is left with an insight into the possibilities of our era.

After you've given the generator a few spins, it's pretty clear what the basic template is, but it's fun anyway.

They only raised 10 percent of their operating costs through ticket sales? This was very surprising to me, I am surprised they are not doing more joint ventures with other innovative companies, sharing expenses, etc.

I past seasons NYCO regularly shared productions with other companies -- Houston's production of Handel's "Ariodante," e.g.-- and each season almost always included a production or two from the Glimmerglass festival. Some of their own productions might have been shared or hired out to other companies as well, but I haven't checked.

They threw their money at some real clunkers, though. They replaced a lovely and perfectly serviceable production of "Don Giovanni" with a dodo they abandoned after just one season.

Here is a link to a NY Times article on the continued woes of NY City Opera.

http://www.nytimes.c....html?ref=music

And here's one to an article in this week's NY Observer on the same topic: http://www.observer.com/2011/06/why-city-opera-may-bite-the-dust-and-what-that-means-for-new-york/

Must be the topic of the week ...

I don't know if I'm more angry or more sad.

I'm also puzzled by some omissions. Why are Dowager Marchionesses the only Dowagers listed? Surely there must be other titled widows of a certain age who go to the ballet.

(Speaking of "come the revolution," Simon, am I wrong or didn't you already have one? Charles I lost his head, I believe? And then you invited all those titled unemployables back again. Somewhat neutered, of course, but still.)

Dirac,

I think in this case you can assume that the ROH is catering directly to its core subscribers/individuals. In the UK we have several Dowager Marchionesses, which is a title in itself.

So when the current Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury, Bute, Queensbury, Lansdowne etc etc etc books her tickets online (or has some flunky do it for her) she'll get a lil frisson of delight to see that the ROH subscriptions department has catered precisely to her title. Now that's customer service.

There are that many of them? Well, never mind then. It's not nearly exclusive enough. I'll have to pick something else. In the meantime, Call me Madam!

... и пожалуйста, товарищ Симон Г.

Now there's a website that won't be missed come the Revolution.

Not unless they add "Tovarich" or "Citoyen" ...

Tired of plain old Mr., Mrs., Ms., and Miss? The "Title" dropdown box on the Royal Opera House's registration form provides some handy alternatives, and since it is a required field, one cannot, must not leave it blank in a sentimental fit of democratic fellow-feeling. So many to choose from! "Princessin"! "Viscondessa"! "Prof Dame"! "Marchesa" is very pretty, but I think I'll opt for "The Dowager Marchioness of ..." (One presumably fills in the blank with the appropriate fiefdom. Note to self: grab name of fabulous sounding fiefdom before they're all gone, like all the best domain names and email addresses.)

I'm guessing "HE The French Ambassador M" is already taken. Harumph! I see there's no "HE The French Ambassador MME"! Perhaps a Mme Ambassador is expected to know how to type in the rest. There's no Her Hon Judge, either, just His. The patriarchy lives on ...

One may select "Duke of" and "Earl," but not "Duke of Earl," alas.

These folks are so trusting ...

Thanks to all for these fascinating reviews and comments. Several reviewers here, plus Macaulay's review in the NYTimes today, mention how much they enjoyed the music, and I love to hear that, at least, since we on the West Coast probably won't get to see the ballet any time soon.

I've searched everywhere (i.e., iTunes and Amazon, which constitute 'everywhere' these days, I suppose) and can't find it. Bright Sheng, but no Bright Stream. Does anyone know if there is a recording available?

Peggy, I'm not a 100% certain on this , but I think the title is also known as "Limpid Stream" and there are some recordings of that.

Someone who speaks Russian (or knows music better than I do!) may be able to confirm this. It's possible the translation/transliteration has some variables to it.

The work (Op 39) is know as both "the Bright Stream" and "The Limpid Stream." There's a recording of it on the Chandos label with Gennadi Rozhdestvensky conducting The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. (It's available on Amazon as both a CD and a download.)

The Russian title is Светлый Ручей (Svetlyi Ruchyei) -- Светлый is usually translated as "bright" but can also mean "clear" or "light (in color)."

I think that Jewels performance was Rutherford's farewell performance w. the company.

I believe it indeed was. (She's not listed on the roster in the 2011/2012 subscription brochure.) She gave a beautiful performance and took a well-deserved solo bow in front of the curtain.

I still remember her wonderful performances in Part II of "The Goldberg Variations," "Dances at a Gathering" (Mauve), "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (she was my favorite Hermia), and "The Russian Seasons." She took over Ringer's role in the latter for a while, and I was very taken with the way she danced the first of the Autumn songs. (It's the one where the woman in green climbs and climbs towards what seems to be paradise with the help of three men who could be angelic spirits.) The text describes an eden where birds sing and angels sit on blooming flowers and Ratmansky's choreography suggests that the woman in green (or her soul, perhaps) gets a look at it. Rutherford's village maid took it in with the delighted wonderment of a country girl in the big city for the first time, and it was just perfect.

I'll miss her!

Congratulations to Bar! Getting "New York Export: Opus Jazz" funded, filmed, and on-screen was a real achievement, and I'm glad it's opened up a new career for her. According to the article ViolinConcerto linked to, Bar's last performance will be this Sunday in "Vienna Waltzes" -- and I'm more than a little wistful that I won't get to watch her dance anymore! I still remember her performances of the Lilac Fairy in Martins' "Sleeping Beauty," the "Bransle Gay" in Balanchine's "Agon," and the Apache Dancer in Wheeldon's "An American in Paris." She was the reason to sit through Eliot Feld's "A Stair Dance" -- relaxed, self-possessed, and alive to the theatrical possibilities of the simple (or at least simple-seeming) movements Feld had given her to do. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she'll be in the performance of Vienna Waltzes I'm seeing on Saturday ... I for one would have liked to have seen her as the lead in "Gold und Silber Walzer" -- she had the right kind of glamour for the role.

1. The company seems to be having a hard time finding an apt ballerina pairing for this work. Back to the drawing board, folks -- Kowroski + Mearns just doesn't work. They're radically different in style in a way that isn't complementary. Mearns' volcanic 2nd violin made Kowroski's polite1st violin look puny. ( And I'm absolutely shocked to find myself writing "Kowroski" and "puny" in the same sentence!) Asking anyone to dance 1st violin opposite Mearns – a 1st violin if there ever was one – is probably unfair.

I had a similar reaction when I saw this pair at the Kennedy Center last month. I've seen Kowroski in the role before and I love her in it, but the two of them seemed to be dancing on two different dynamic levels. I missed Hyltin's Terpsichore, but I'm not surprised by Macaulay's criticism. The role is not without playfulness at times, but it needs gravitas too, and that doesn't seem to be within her natural personality onstage, at least from what little I've seen of her. Perhaps I'm wrong.

Well, here's a dissenting opinion - I absolutely loved Kowroski, Mearns and Askagard in Concerto Barocco.

Yes, Mearns danced the 2nd Violin with a vitality that we don't often see and with very strong attack but she also showed a wonderful response to the music.

Most importantly, she and Kowroski seemed to be on the same wavelength in the way they heard and responded to the music, something that has been missing in most NYCB pairings in this piece for the past several seasons.

I felt that Kowroski and Mearns also shared enough phsical & stylistic attributes - the expansive phrasing, the endless arabesque - that their appearance was complimentary, and the fact that Kowroski's interpretation was more lyrical and Mearns was more dynamic simply served to differentiate the two violin strains.

Loved it, loved it, loved it!

I also really loved Fairchild & Huxley in Square Dance on opening night (Fairchild's stage presence has deepened and her feet were so beautiful here) and Fairchild & Finlay in Duo Concertant. She brought a lyricism and vulnerability that I just don't see in Hyltin, though she has other gifts.

What kfw said about dissent! In truth, nysusan, I liked both Kowroski and Mearns, too! But I would have preferred to see one or the other as 1st violin paired with someone else as 2nd violin. I always think of the 1st violin as the Queen Bee and the 2nd violin as the Warrior Princess who just happens to be the Queen Bee's best friend. To my eye, both Kowroski and Mearns are Queen Bees -- I want to see both of them in the pas de deux-- and thus putting the two of them together as 1st and 2nd violin somehow throws my ballet universe out of whack. Of course, your mileage may vary, and that's the beauty of multiple casts.

I have lots of fantasy pairings for CB -- Teresa Reichlen and Kaitlyn Gilliand, Ana Sophia Scheller and Brittany Pollack -- though they might not actually work in the theater.

There is an easy, cheap fix to be found across the street at Bed Bath & Beyond. It's a magical invention called Furniture Slides, which are attached easily to chair legs. No more scraping! Use our new $2 per ticket facility fee to pay for it.

I thought Megan and Chase were very good in Duo C. yesterday. Hyltin's reading is more satisfying though, in my opinion.

I'm seeing Hyltin and R. Fairchild in "Duo Concertant" this weekend, and I'm looking forward to it. Duo seems like the kind of ballet that would showcase what's best about her dancing, and I've heard so many good reports about her recent performances in it. I really liked what she did with Mazzo's role in "Stravinsky Violin Concerto" and have been eager to see her in new roles ever since.

Some quick thoughts re NYCB's 5/8/11 Sunday Matinee

Program & casting:

CONCERTO BAROCCO: Kowroski, Mearns, Askegard [Conductor: Sill]

intermission

MONUMENTUM PRO GESUALDO: Reichlen, la Cour [Conductor: Sill]

pause

MOVEMENTS FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA: *Reichlen, Marcovici [Conductor: Sill, Solo piano: Moverman]

pause

DUO CONCERTANT: M. Fairchild, Finlay [solo violin: Hong, Solo piano: Grant]

intermission

SYMPHONY IN THREE MOVEMENTS: A. Stafford, Hyltin, LeCrone, Ramasar, Hendrickson, Scordato [Conductor: Otranto]

Concerto Barocco:

1. The company seems to be having a hard time finding an apt ballerina pairing for this work. Back to the drawing board, folks -- Kowroski + Mearns just doesn't work. They're radically different in style in a way that isn't complementary. Mearns' volcanic 2nd violin made Kowroski's polite1st violin look puny. ( And I'm absolutely shocked to find myself writing "Kowroski" and "puny" in the same sentence!) Asking anyone to dance 1st violin opposite Mearns – a 1st violin if there ever was one – is probably unfair.

2. Two gentlemen from the orchestra's second violin section -- Cyrus Beroukhim and Kyu Young Kim -- were the featured soloists. They sounded lovely together.

3. Three latecomers decided to seat themselves in the row of armchairs at the back of the first ring and proceeded to scrape them noisily across the bare cement floor to get them pulled into position for what seemed like an eternity. If I'd had a weapon I would have been sorely tempted to use it.

Monumentum / Movements:

1. Reichlen's my favorite in "Monumentum" – to my eye nobody looks more gloriously serene in the role – especially in those climactic lifts and tosses. Well, she looked great in her "Movements" debut, too. She was cool without being remote and her attack had just the right amount of bite to show us the angles without hitting us over the head with them. (The audience actually chuckled with surprise at a couple of points—something I don't recall hearing before.) "Monumentum" and "Movements" are good roles for la Cour and Marcovici, respectively.

Duo Concertant:

1. First off, can I just say "thank-you" to the NYCB powers-that-be for casting Megan Fairchild with a partner who's genuinely taller than she is? She always looks scrunched down when she's paired with De Luz; she looked six inches taller dancing with Finlay. (As she does when she dances with Veyette.)

2. Secondly, seeing this ballet performed by dancers who are many years away from the twilights of their careers is a revelation. Honest to god, I thought Fairchild was throwing in some extra steps just for the hell of it, and she still had time to kill.

3. I don't think I've ever seen Fairchild dance with such razor-sharp attack. Her allegro is never less than quick and clean – but yesterday it was like she was throwing ninja stars at us.

4. The age difference between Fairchild and Finlay isn't vast, but there's just enough of one to put one in mind of "Der Rosenkavelier's" Marschallin and Octavian – I liked it and thought it made the sentimental gimmickry of the ending almost work. (I loathe that lighting effect almost as much as I loathe those mimed angel's wings in "Serenade.")

5. Finlay. Hmmm. The company sure is giving him the hard sell. (Oh, Slant, I wish you hadn't mentioned Justin Bieber!) I know I'm the odd one out here, but think his dancing is interesting more for its promise than for what it is in the here-and-now. Don't get me wrong – he's definitely principal material, and is already remarkably self-possessed on stage, but he doesn't yet dance with a fully-fledged principal's imagination and authority. If Martins wanted to cast this role from the corps for the sake of youth and freshness, I can think of several young men I'd equally have liked to have seen in it.

Symphony in Three Movements.

1. This work seems to be in heavy rotation with "I'm Old Fashioned" as the company's go-to closer. It may be time to rest it for a couple of seasons. (Do they ever put "I'm Old Fashioned" away?)

2. Good cast, overall. It was nice to see Ramasar back in the central pas de deux. (The last time I saw him do it he partnered Somogyi. I loved their delightful flower-power, summer-of-love reading of the duet.) Nice to see Adam Hendrickson again, too. Megan LeCrone and Andrew Scordato looked terrific together; more of them both, please.

3. The corps nailed that unfurling chain of rippling movement down their long diagonal at the close of the first movement. Bravi!

I'm looking for a recording of Franck's Violin Sonata. Can anyone recommend a particularly beautiful performance. I'm especially in love with the first movement. Thanks!

I'm no Franck expert, but I really like Sergey and Lusine Khachatryan's recording of Franck's A major violin sonata, which they've paired with Shostakovich's op 134 violin sonata. I heard them perform the Franck sonata live, and they just blew me away. (They're a brother and sister team. Sergey -- the violinist -- is more generally acclaimed, but Lusine -- the pianist -- plays beautifully, too.)

Label: Naive | Cat # 5122. It's available in both disk and mp3 format.

You're right about that gorgeous first movement! I'm going to play it right now!

Composer Peter Lieberson, husband of the late singer Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and son of ballerina Vera Zorina (George Balanchine's second or third wife, depending on how you count Alexandra Danilova) and Goddard Lieberson (longtime head of Colombia Records) died in Tel Aviv yesterday from complications of lymphoma. He was 64.

NY Times obituary here.

A brief appreciation by Alex Ross (the New Yorker's music critic) here.

He wrote two very beautiful song cycles for Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, one to poems by Reiner Maria Rilke, the other to poems by Pablo Neruda. Hunt Lieberson was an exquisite, radiant singer; I was fortunate to hear her perform some of the Rilke songs and I treasure the experience still.

Peter Lieberson and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson were married in 1999. She died of breast cancer in 2006; he was diagnosed with lymphoma shortly thereafter. Carpe diem.

I'm also eagerly waiting to see Tombeau again, Kathleen. No, it has never been a staple. Unfortunately, it has historically been underrehearsed. The last time I saw it, though, it was in good shape, so I have reason to hope that it gets the respect it deserves this time around, too.

The very best performance of Tombeau I've ever seen was at an SAB workshop - everyone looked well-rehearsed and happy to be dancing. It was a real treat.

Ironically enough, I'm frantically trying to re-juggle my calendar to see the one thing you don't need the cast list for: Le Tombeau de Couperin. Beautiful music, beautiful ensemble choreography, and as rare as the proverbial hen's teeth these days -- although In truth, I don't think it's ever been a repertory staple.

I adore Vienna Waltzes. It's wonderfully romantic. I'm not sure when City Ballet will perform it again but I will be interested to see who Peter Martins cast in the final section - Der Rosenkavalier.

For years only Darci Kistler and Kyra Nichols danced that section. With both ladies now retired which current ballerina will inherit role?

I think Maria Kowroski would be a natural and perhaps the most obvious choice. She would need to be coached carefully.

I mean you just can't teach any dancer the steps and then tell her, "go to it." The ballerina must create an atmosphere of pure romanticism. For the first few moments she's alone on stage and she must command that stage in order to grab the audience attention. Without achieving that she's lost. She must have an air of regal nobility; she has to somehow be in a state of creamy aloftness. She's approachable but yet still out of reach...but you remain fascianted. She's captivating and she makes the viewer spellbound. In some ways she's like Balanchine's "Diamonds" but instead of wearing a tutu and toe shoes, she's in a long beautiful grown and is wearing heels.

I think it's a given Wendy Whelan will be given the chance to dance the role...if for nothing else currently she's the senior ballerina of the company and there's something about that role that seems to need a dancer with weight of experience on her shoulder. An air of dignity and grace which you could only achieve with years of dancing. Whelan has that along with Kowroski.

I think Jennie Somogyi may do surprisingly well in the role. But then again I always have a soft spot for Somogyi.

Perhaps Jenifer Ringer - although she's probably best suited in the Gold and Silver Waltz.

Of the more recent promoted principal ballerinas I think Teresa Reichlen, Sara Mearns and perhaps Sterling Hyltin may also be fine choices.

Mearns. But I have a soft spot for Somogyi too.

Don't misunderstand me -- I'd prefer that it were otherwise. But if the company could fill every opening night gala seat at $600 per, should they forgo the opportunity to raise the extra money and let seats go for less?

Perhaps they could find a bigger theater?

Thanks for the correction, abatt.

Or, generous donors might actually subsidize some lower-priced gala tickets. Or -- and this was Rohatyn's point way back in the 80's -- wealthy donors could just make donations and forgo the black-tie folderol altogether. But access and philanthropy have gotten so inextricably linked in NYC that I'm not sure it could ever happen.

You make good points, Kathleen, but tickets to the actual performance run $600, effectively excluding the "little people" altogether. So the company's opening night becomes the private plaything, in more than one sense of the word, of the rich.

Don't misunderstand me -- I'd prefer that it were otherwise. But if the company could fill every opening night gala seat at $600 per, should they forgo the opportunity to raise the extra money and let seats go for less?

I'd be interested to know how much they will actually net from the gala in any event.

George Balanchine and various other choreographers had the benefit of very good legal advice. Their works cannot be performed in any public setting without the approval of a trust which oversees performance quality and standards of the copyrighted choreography. Apparently there is no such quality control over the performance of the Martha Graham works, since socialites with no dance experience or qualifications will be "performing." It is my understanding that the socialites will be a performance in a public space - the Rose Theater at Jazz At Lincoln Center, where people have paid to see the performance. This is not being performed in someone's private living room or private estate. That's why this situation is so outrageous, in my opinion.

Perhaps "Maple Leaf Rag" is indestructible, but yes, if they're going to do actual violence to the work it might have been better to commission a nice little capriccio from a choreographer who was up for the challenge. Sad to say, it would probably cost less than the flowers for the tables.