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Helen Crawford, Hikaru Kobayashi, Emma Maguire, and Camille Brancher will all also be leaving the company. Gary Avis has been appointed to Senior Ballet Master, and Samantha Raine to Senior Ballet Mistress.

Promotions for the upcoming season have been announced! https://www.roh.org.uk/news/the-royal-ballet-announces-promotions-leavers-and-joiners-for-the-2019-2020-season Anna Rose O’Sullivan and Luca Acri have been promoted to First Soloist. Romany Pajdak, Isabella Gasparini, Thomas Mock, and David Yudes have been promoted to Soloist. Annette Buvoli, Mica Bradbury, Ashley Dean, Chisato Katsura, Leo Dixon, and Lukas Bjørneboe Brændsrød have been promoted to First Artist. Katharina Nikelski, Amelia Townsend, Yu Hang, Harris Bell, Harrison Lee, Taisuke Nakao, and Sophie Allnatt will join the company as Artists. As previously mentioned, Marcelino Sambé has been promoted to Principal, and Nehemiah Kish will be retiring.

MARIINSKY 2019 HIRES (from the official website): Women- Alexandra Khiteeva (will be debuting Flower-Sellers on July 17th, officially) Marina Pak Svetlana Savelieva Yulia Spiridonova Daria Ustyuzhanina (debuting Amour on July 16th) Men- Yevgeny Bolotskikh I could be missing a few names, as I wasn't too familiar with the grads of this year.

Agree. Which is why I think it’s frustrating this whole situation happened.

Bravo for Lane! This is all absolutely bizarre though. She was given a few hours notice, so this obviously was not something ABT planned out, yet FauxPas said Copeland clearly did not look injured... I wonder if this will be the case for the Wolf Trap performance? Does Misty have another go at SL this week? I for one find it kind of frustrating-- wonderful for Lane, however. We all know Odile has given Misty trouble in the past, so I am curious to know if this has something to do with that.

She is no longer listed for this role. Kirill Sokolovski confirmed he will be joining the Bolshoi Theatre:

It would appear that Alexandra Khiteeva is joining the Mariinsky, as her name is listed as a Flower Seller in the July 17th performance of 'Don Quixote': https://www.mariinsky.ru/playbill/playbill/2019/7/17/1_1900 Svetlana Savelieva herself confirmed she would be joining the Mariinsky in an Instagram post:

They're more alike than they seem. And while it's not the only reason why the ABT Principal roster, it's a general ballet fact. Lots of different ballets over a long period of time means more dancers are required to perform them. For example, funding and financial reasons aside, it's why Mariinsky has 200+ dancers. They dance a different ballet practically every single day, or every three-four days, six days a week. You can't have the same seventy dancers doing all that dancing. It's a simple matter of supply and demand. NYCB has 18 ballets going in the upcoming Fall Season, over a time span of about a month. ABT would struggle to do that with their 15 Principals (including Bolle, Hallberg, Simkin, and Murphy) and 13 Soloists, compared to NYCB's 21 Principals and 20 Soloists.

Yeah, I don’t see that being a massive issues. I’ve always thought the dancers had set salaries, but the sponsors merely help support needs for the performances such as shoes, costumes, sets, etc. I could be wrong, however, I haven’t read too much into the salaries of Principals. And, I doubt that a lack of sponsor for a principal dancer isn’t an issue. I think (and hope) there are plenty of people who’d want to sponsor an ABT Principal.

I think part of NYCB’s ability to keep a larger Principal roster comes with NYCB’s rep. It’s mixed bills of short, 20-ish minute ballets on rotation for so many weeks. The occasional full length, like “Jewels”, or recently, Midsummer, which gets quite a few goes, and of course “Nutcracker”. I think simply due to the amount they dance and all of the ballet’s that go during a single season allows them to have such large Principal and Soloist ranks, whereas comparatively, ABT dances less.

Highly agree. While Shayer may be one to watch to some people, I don’t think he has been in the same essence that Bell has been. I just can’t see him carrying a full length (Shayer, that is). I think he could be a strong soloist in time, and I hear that he’s a strong actor, which is always a good characteristic to have.

I feel like Shayer would understand that his injury would set him back. Companies don't usually promote dancers who've only just come back from serious, long-term injuries. Unless they had some serious star-power. Plus (not to seem rude) where would we be if companies casted and promoted based on hurt feelings? It's just not really how management functions.

I definitely think Bell to Soloist. I hadn't thought much about the Soloist men to Principal but based on all the chatter, I think Forster, though I haven't seen him in action so I can't really form an opinion, same with Hoven. I definitely think Trenary and Brandt are up there to get promoted, but I hadn't even thought of the already larger number of Principal women-- though LadyBubbles is correct about retirements likely looming-- Abrera is 41 and Gillian Murphy is 40. Agree with the general sentiment of the men; Bolle leaving this year certainly makes way for others to leave, and therefore more to follow. I think Shklyarov would be wonderful, but unlikely, in my opinion. And yes, his wife is Maria Shirinkina, a Second Soloist at Mariinsky.

Some clips from the graduation performances: "Underwater Kingdom" (Viktoriya Mokrousova, Anastasia Uzhanskaya, Valeriya Bespalova, Julia Spiridonova) (Ivan Poddubnyak) (Aaron Osaka-Horowitz) (Elizaveta Avsajanishvili) (Coda) "Napoli" (Mikhail Barkidjija) (Ivan Poddubnyak) (Aaron Osaka-Horowitz) "Paquita" (Anastasia Smirnova, Marko Juusela, Valeriya Bespalova) (Alexandra Khiteeva, Mikhail Barkidjija) (Svetlana Savelieva) (Daria Ustyuzhanina) (Elizaveta Avsajanishvili) (Alexandra Khiteeva) (Mikhail Barkidjija) (Coda & Bows)

Marcelino Sambé has been promoted to Principal!

Such a shame there have been so few good reviews! There seemed to be quite a bit of promotion and excitement around it.

I wasn’t sure whether or not to put this here or in the Corsaire section. But anyways, Does anyone know what this piece of music is called? I can’t seem to find a name for it. Thanks!

Due to injury, the Sklyarov Gala has been postponed and 'Swan Lake' will be performed instead.

Some casting has been posted on the dancer's repertoire pages. McRae, Bracewell, Corrales, Sambé, Acri are listed for Franz in 'Coppelia' Morera, Nuñez, Takada, Choe, and O' Sullivan are listed for Swanhilda. I think we definitely should be keeping an eye on O'Sullivan this upcoming season. She's also got Princess Aurora in 'Sleeping Beauty' listed for the upcoming season, as well as 'Concerto', and Dorabella in 'Enigma Variations'. As mentioned before by Ashton Fan, I think this is going to be a very interesting and important season for those younger and upcoming dancers due to the approaching retirements of the leading dancers. This could also be just me, but I find it interesting that older, more senior dancers like Cuthbertson or Nuñez aren't slated for Aurora. Of course, like always, casting is subject to change. (Also, hello! I believe this is my first post in the Royal Ballet section, but I've been monitoring occasionally over the past few months.)

Despite not being done with the 2018-19 season, Mariinsky's website has released Principal casting for quite a few performances in the 2019-20 season (only on the Russian version of the site). I find this incredibly bizarre, and also risky to post this early, seeing as injuries and casting changes are incredibly possible. But, there are some interesting details. Anastasia Matvienko has a scheduled return for February 4th, 2020 in Spartacus. Maria Khoreva has scheduled debuts for Raymonda (Dec. 18th, 2019) and Princess Aurora (Feb. 23rd, 2020) Anastasia Nuykina has a scheduled debut for Sylvia on April 23rd, 2020. Obviously, casting is always set to change, and the announced performances are just a select few within the next season. I think it will be interesting to see where this season goes.

Olga Smirnova will be performing 'Carmen' on the 26th, which will be exciting, seeing as she pulled out of 'Giselle' during the festival.

Mariinsky's website has a performance of 'The Fairy Doll' for the 19th of May. I assumed this would be a Vaganova performance, but the webpage has 'Cast Yet To Be Announced', which is typically not there if it is indeed a Vaganova performance (I could be wrong). Does this mean the actual company might be performing the piece? Or is it another VBA performance? If it is company, I think it'd be very interesting to see who's cast in what roles. With all of the original VBA cast now in the company, I think it would be exciting to see them re-visit those roles now with some being season professionals in their second or third years with the company, i.e Illiushkina as Japanese, Borodulina as Spanish, etc, and also of course seeing some of the older company members do it. Though if this is the case, it's very likely to see Khoreva as Fairy Doll, seeing as she seems to be doing everything now, but I would love to see Shirinkina, Lukina, or Evseeva do the lead. Then again, this could just be a Vaganova performance, but I would very much love to see the company do it! https://www.mariinsky.ru/playbill/playbill/2019/5/19/1_1200

Exciting news for Granlund! She is also doing Young Jane in a few shows of “Jane Eyre”.

I actually really enjoy the current Giselle at Bolshoi. I hope Ratmansky doesn't change too much, I really can't stand his Sleeping Beauty at ABT.

If anyone catches the Wednesday night Scotch-Valse-Sonatine-Violin Concerto, please let me know what they thought of Macgill in her 'Scotch Symphony' debut! I think she's got something special, but she hasn't really done many leads or soloist parts this season, from what I can tell. I think she was out for injury. Love Emma von Enck & Olivia MacKinnon also.