orangerose

Interesting. The "artists" have now been removed from the Michigan Opera page.

I am genuinely shocked that Copeland is not among the artists here. She was the primary marketing hook for both Sleeping Beauty and Romeo and Juliet when they came to the point that they added additional shows with her Florine when she was originally only cast for one. I think Romeo and Juleit's Detroit cast was announced towards the end of October/beginning of November, so maybe we'll see the final cast with dates soon.

12 hours ago, Balletwannabe said:

Most of the DVDs (not ballet) that are in my wishlist, now say they're only in stock for prime members.  They changed something recently; it's never said that before.

They've done this for a few years now. Occasionally certain DVDs and other items will be made exclusive to Prime members for a while. Usually it's DVDs available for a cheap price, in order to encourage people to just plunk down and buy the Prime membership.

Don't worry, they're not stopping ballet DVD sales!

On Amazon "(#) in stock - order soon" means that they still have stock available and that a restock hasn't been ordered yet. "More on the way" means there are currently none in stock, and a restock has been ordered.

The "Shero" line is 99% OOAK dolls that Mattel creates to put a spotlight on various women who are prominent in sports or professions. Mattel makes quite a few of them. Only a handful ever make it to the stage of being mass produced as collector dolls, unfortunately. The ones they release are based on Mattel's research of which are most in demand/marketable.

Also, the Kahlo doll definitely has her unibrow, you just can't see it in those photos:

Has anyone seen "Marie" before? Any thoughts?

The show is going on tonight! But I won't be able to make it, I'm out in the 'burbs and the hour drive (more like 2-3 hours in these conditions) is too dangerous because of the snowstorm. There's been accidents all day. Super super disappointed, I've been preparing to see the show with lots of reading and research... I guess it's a night in with popcorn and a ballet DVD for me.

Here's the Patron Review page: http://www.michiganopera.org/dance/romeo-juliet-reviews/

Hopefully people will post their thoughts on the rest of the performances this weekend.

I sure hope the dancers don't have to walk, because there's a snowstorm watch Friday! Crossing my fingers it doesn't get so bad I can't make it to the theater...

edit: aaaand it's become a snow emergency with 5-9 inches expected!

There's really no excuse for this, what a shame. The Hilton Garden is only a 5 minute walk from the theater, is much nicer, and is a whopping $5-10 more expensive than the Holiday Inn...

9 hours ago, Drew said:

I had to miss the Romeo and Juliet broadcast Sunday and was pleased to learn that the Bolshoi has put it up on their website -- I don't know for how long. Allowing that my reaction to stagings of Prokofiev's score are mixed -- it's a dramatic, engaging score, but as Helene has written, it just seems long and, I would add, to generate ballets that aren't able to transcend the 'too longness,' but just reproduce it  -- Ratmansky's version still has any number of elements I like and even like a lot including some of the complex Ratmansky-esque details in the choreography for the leads. And the ending: I find it very moving to see the two families reconcile at the end. (That's in several other productions, too, I know.)

I also liked the dancers including Krysanova and Lantratov. (Though I must admit that if it weren't for his being a murderous bully, I think I would sooner kill myself over Biktimorov's Tybalt than Lantratov's Romeo.)  I thought Krysanova danced with great freedom and fierceness which I liked a lot. Here is the link--you have to register, but that's not hard:

http://media.bolshoi.ru/play/

Darn, has it already been removed? Or is it only available to certain countries?

6 hours ago, abatt said:

I also liked that moment between Juliet and her mother.  I thought of it in broader terms, not just an important moment between a mother and her daughter. To me, it was a commentary on the plight of women who are subjugated to the will of societal norms in a world run by men.

That's a really interesting take on it. When I think about it that way, it does seem to fit in with other touches in the show which depicted the women suffering because of the men's decisions--like the duel in the beginning which depicted the women constantly trying to soothe the men out of finding, but ultimately ended with two women prostrate with grief over the dead men.

This was my first live cinecast, I'm very glad I went.

I was also perplexed by the lack of reaction to Juliet regarding Tybalt's death. At first I thought perhaps she didn't know he had died, and would find out after Romeo fled the scene, but no... just left in the air.

One touch I can't stop thinking about is when Juliet first refuses to marry Paris and her mother ends up crying on Juliet's bed. Juliet puts her head to her mother's dress and her mother reaches out to comfort her--only to take her hand back, pull her dress away and resume the distant persona of a noble woman again.

I was mesmerized by the scene where Juliet "submits" to her father's demand to marry Paris and all four dance together, with Juliet as a heartbroken, stunned and almost puppet-like while being manipulated in a dance. I've been searching all night for any filmed productions that went a similar route but nothing comes close.

I'm not surprised that Copeland was given 2 shows (out of originally 4) because I think (and this is just speculation of course) that the Michigan Opera Theatre is trying to make up for the PR fiasco that occurred when ABT brought Sleeping Beauty to Detroit, and Copeland was only performing in 1 show initially, and as Florine. In the end they added an additional performance, 2 more Copeland Florines, and let people join a waiting list to swap tickets since by the time the cast was revealed 98% of the seats were sold out--they had even opened up the back mezzanine, which is very rare for the ballet/opera season!

Still, it's very disappointing Lane won't get to perform as Juliet. I was hoping since she had danced Aurora in Detroit they would have her on stage again.

The tickets I bought when they first came out ended up being for Seo/Stearns... I was pleasantly surprised as Seo as Aurora when they came to Detroit, so we'll see!

Heads up! If you've already bought a ticket through the UMS (University Musical Society) then you should be getting an exclusive email with the cast list. They've (not surprisingly) added a Saturday matinee to the run. I can't post the list yet since it's not meant to public until November 2nd, which is also when the matinee tickets go on sale, but if anyone is looking to see certain performers, PM me and I'll let you know what date to get.

1 hour ago, Helene said:

Welcome to Ballet Alert! orangerose!

 

I hope you'll write about the visiting ballet company (or companies) you see.

 Thank you! I'll definitely be posting about productions I see from now on.

48 minutes ago, sandik said:

It looks like you've got an event coming up in your community, the Detroit Dance City Festival.  From the website, it doesn't seem to be exclusively ballet, but you might check it out anyway, and see the variety in your home town.

Oh wow, thanks for the heads up! I'll have to check this out!

For anyone who's looking for tickets and doesn't want to wait, you can get them early through the UMS site: https://ums.org/performance/american-ballet-theatre/

The Michigan Opera Theatre single tickets go live on August 21st. Looks like they gave UMS 1/2 blocks in each section to sell early.

No cast announcements yet, aside from Copeland being scheduled for 2 out of 4 performances.

Hello! I'm a ballet fan who has liked ballet since I was little, but who has only been able to start attending live productions in the past few years.  So far I have only seen 5 productions live, but I'm excited to see more each year! I live in the Detroit area, and thankfully we've been getting at least one professional story ballet per year as part of the Michigan Opera House season.  We get a lot of contemporary companies coming in as well, and there's a local youth company that puts on 1 full narrative ballet each year (well in addition to The Nutcracker). My first live production was the Houston Ballet's "Giselle" which opened up a new world for me, since I felt I finally "got" ballet after seeing a full production on stage.