canbelto

I saw this on PBS the other night. Like everyone else, I really enjoyed the footage of LeClercq dancing, and had no idea how much of it existed! I enjoyed the reading of the letters between Robbins and LeClercq but thought it was odd that they didn't mention that a huge part of the reason why Tanny "chose" George was that Robbins was gay? It was like they ignored a big elephant in the room. In this day and age, why be so delicate about something that's been discussed many times in books and documentaries about Robbins?

Cojocaru is very light, ethereal, and sometimes seems to vaporize into thin air. But she's also very loving and human, if that makes sense. She's sort of like Galina Ulanova, who also didn't seem like a "ghost" in Act Two.

I was at the Cojocaru/Hallberg performance last night. I really loved it. Yes Cojocaru's hops on pointe are not her strong point, but I loved her ballon, her extension, the airiness of her jumps. Most of all I loved her characterization: not many Giselles will hug their mothers with any real affection, or girlishly peek inside the hut. Cojocaru's sweet, unaffected innocence contrasted sharply with Hallberg's remote aristocrat and it set up a real tension in the story from the start. I also like how in Act Two Cojocaru doesn't make her Giselle "ghostly." She's not like Vishneva and Osipova who seem like possessed spirits. Cojocaru's Wili is the same sweet, loving girl of Act One. The finale was heartbreaking -- she left Hallberg with a single daisy petal. It echoed their earlier moment when he tossed away the daisy. I thought Hallberg was much finer with Cojocaru that he was with Semionova. For one, their partnering was much easier. Second of all, the contrast in personalities worked so well. Stella Abrera was very fine as Myrtha too. Overall a great performance.

I remember two years ago there was an an afternoon performance with Osipova/Hallberg, and an evening performance with Vishneva/Gomes. Both of them blew me away, even though they were very different interpretations. One didn't make me appreciate the other less. I feel like Semionova is a dancer a company needs to have: she has solid technique, is pretty reliable, and doesn't seem to be picky about roles. A sort of house ballerina type, if you will. However she never in my experience does anything extra with the steps. For instance in the great adagio in Symphony in C she moved from one step to another with a metronomic carefulness. Her facial expression tends to be rather neutral -- she neither looks very happy nor very sad. Just kind of there. Maybe some coaching and rehearsal time and focusing on fewer roles would help her develop beyond being the kind of jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none dancer.

They should have been doing this weeks ago. All season I've seen swaths of empty seats in each section, even for the big-deal events like Vishneva's 10th anniversary gala.

I just returned from the Semionova/Hallberg Giselle. It was overall a very disappointing experience. It was so well-danced, and so so boring. Semionova is odd — she has such great technique but she never does anything extra other than the steps to show off the technique. Everything is just steps, steps, more steps, done in a kind of straightforward, vanilla way. Her variations were solid, she hopped across the stage without any issues, in act two her entrechats were fast and crisp, her developpe steady and controlled, but she just doesn’t do anything more to make herself stand out. In Act Two there were several times where the audience LAUGHED — the bunny hops for one elicited laughter. It’s because she made the whole act like she was this happy dancing doll. No sense of drama, no gothic mysteriousness, just checking the boxes of all the steps she should execute. David Hallberg is such a danseur noble but for the first time there was an element of narcissism to his dancing. In Act Two he made a point of sprawling on the floor numerous times with his beautiful legs and feet perfectly straight and feet pointed. It was like he was more interested in showing off his legs and feet than showing any desperation. He had trouble with the overhead lifts and only sort of lifted Semionova halfway above his head, so there wasn’t that feeling that she was like weightless. Oh well, sometimes you sort of need to check off who you DON’T need to see in the future. Semionova is definitely on my list of dancers I won’t go out of my way to buy a ticket for in the future.

I thought Forster/Easton were a much funnier pairing than Zhurbin/Salstein. Zhurbin/Salstein seemed to just play the sisters as campy men in drag. Forster/Easton were much zanier, sillier, and more endearing. Easton in particular really made something sweet and touching out of the "timid" stepsister.

David Hallberg also did the double tour/pirouette combo in his variation on Thursday night so maybe that's just how it was coached.

I saw both the 6/11 and 6/12 casts. I enjoyed both casts very much. Gillian Murphy and David Hallberg are both technical wunderkinds, and Veronika Part was as always gorgeous as The Fairy Godmother. This is the kind of thing she does so well. But I thought Gorak and Reyes generated more warmth and chemistry. Murphy and Hallberg are both a bit aloof. I agree with Faux Pas was the huge difference between the sisters. Thomas Forster and Kenneth Easter were so zany, funny, and even endearing that we ended up laughing with them, and not at them. Zhurbin and Salstein were just campy men in drag. I thought Forster and Easter really carried the earlier evening into something magical. Devon Teuscher was also a standout as The Fairy Godmother.

I know MacMillan's widow is very vigilant about his ballets being performed intact but I always think the prostitutes' dancing (in every act) could be trimmed by a few minutes and no one would notice or care.

I like the color scheme but I don't like the fit of the tutus. They're too fluffy and floppy for my tastes.

I was at the last performance of the season. I thought Reichlen has grown so much in the role. When I first saw her do it she was beautiful but too cool and remote. Now she's sexier and funnier. Another standout was Troy Schumacher as Puck. Absolutely amazing, charismatic performance. I usually worship at the throne of Ashley Bouder but I found her a bit miscast in the second act divertissement. She has a habit of turning her head towards the audience too much when she dances -- this is wonderful for the bravura pieces, but when it's a romantic reverie like the second act pas de deux it looks like mugging. Overall, great show.

I can only put myself through one Manon every six or seven years, and so I'm glad I saw the best possible version. I really think Vishneva and Gomes are the very best in this ballet -- they make this ballet worth seeing through their own magic. Marcelo is such a great partner, I noticed how at all times he held Diana in such a way that she could show off her legs and feet. Diana really was so convincing as the selfish courtesan. It was a wonderful afternoon.

Wow the second and fourth movements almost unrecognizable ... so many iconic movements not there. Interesting to see.

Cojocaru or Vishneva.

It's so funny, Filin just said in an interview that the Bolshoi audience is becoming more conservative, not less, and all they want to see is the Grigorovich spectacles: http://www.ismeneb.com/Blog/Entries/2014/5/12_Filin_speaks_of_life_before_and_after.html

I've noticed that ABT dancers as a whole also tend to be quieter on social media than dancers from other companies. There are a few exceptions but as a rule they aren't on twitter/instagram as much. I wonder if this is company policy.

I saw this afternoon's performance. I think Concerto Barocco was simply okay -- Krohn has a beautiful dancer but I wish she'd stop grimacing when she dances. It's very distracting. The contrast between Krohn and Stafford was rather muted. Other Dances was fun but I don't really like this ballet. Neverwhere is a ballet that goes nowhere ... you would expect with all the dark lighting, the black pleather costumes and the Nico Muhly score that the choreography would be edgier, but instead it's the most generic, bland partnering/pas de deux choreography. Lots of mild twirling of the women. Who Cares? with Peck and Fairchild is always a treat, and Ashley Isaacs was delightful as the turning girl, but Savannah Lowery was graceless and charmless. An okay, but not great afternoon.

I hope Aurelie Dupont will bring a different tone to the coaching staff since she's been an outspoken critic of the training methods of both the POB school and the POB itself, citing the harsh criticism and lack of empathy among the teachers and coaches. And when I watched La Danse, I couldn't help but agree with Dupont. I remember the cold smile Lefevre gave a skeletal girl when she said she had lost weight, and I really got the chills.

I saw both the Wednesday and Thursday performances. I think Smirnova is a lovely dancer with silky smooth technique, but she has a ways to go in terms of characterization. She wasn't the proud temple dancer, just Beautiful Russian Ballerina. Her chemistry with Muntagirov was non-existent. Add to that the rather lady-like Gamzatti of Hee Seo and you had an aesthetically pleasing but low-impact performance. Tereshkina/Shklyarov/Boylston performance was much more exciting. Tereshkina doesn't have Smirnova's beautiful tapered limbs or her china-doll delicacy, but she has such superhuman strength. As mentioned she did much of her betrothal variation on pointe. In the lifts she has such a strong core that she seems to lift herself -- I don't know how to explain it, but there was no sense that Shklyarov was using his weight to hold her up. She held such a strong pose that it was as if she was holding herself up in the air. Shklyarov has such ballon and in his double assembles in his variations he was able to make each successive one go higher in the air. Boylston was a bit sloppy in technique and posture but more exciting than Hee Seo. It really broke my heart to see Stella Abrera dancing the third shade variation.

I'm going to have to respectfully dissent here. I don't find Farrell's comments in this interview particularly insightful. She doesn't seem to get at all that the vast majority of dancers, even the most successful ones, do not grow up, enter a company, and instantly become the muse of the greatest choreographic genius of the 20th century. That was her experience, it is not the experience of the vast majority of dancers. Farrell actually sounds like a lot of CEOs who have no empathy that not everyone has their combination of talent, luck, and being at the right place at the right time. I found this to be a disappointing interview compared to her book, Elusive Muse, and other interviews she's given, where she's gone into more detail about the struggles she DID have to face.

I saw tonight's performance. Amar Ramasar is an awkward fit for the Emeralds role -- too athletic and bulky in build, not enough of a cavalier type. Ashley Bouder was great although not a natural in Emeralds. Abi and Jonathan Stafford were also okay as the second couple, but Abi doesn't exude enough mystery. Rubies was much better. Fairchild and de Luz are old hands at this and it shows. Tess Reichlen is maybe the best Tall Girl I've ever seen and I reckon I ever will see. Those legs! The way she uses them almost as weapons. Diamonds was gorgeous with a stunning pas de deux between Kowroski and Fairchild until disaster happened in the Scherzo. Maria took a sudden fall with her butt on the ground and legs in the air and for a second I didn't think she'd get up. But she snapped up and finished the rest of her scherzo solo albeit a bit carefully and she was fine in the finale.

I think ABT would do better if it didn't insist on its marathon block programming. 8 Don Quixotes is a lot even for the most hard-core Don Quixote fan. Mixing the programming (4 days of Don Q's, 4 days of Coppelia, with maybe one or both returning later in the season) would give balletomanes less burnout. The thing about ABT is it's never gotten over its touring company structure. When company's pop into town for a week, they'll bring one ballet, and maybe a mixed bill. ABT plans its Met seasons like they are one big tour gig.

I agree about Wendy. I loved Sterling Hyltin and Joaquin de Luz in The Concert today. So charming and funny. And what beautiful hair Hyltin has.

Well this leaves me in a bind. I really want to see Olga Smirnova/Semyon Chudin in Swan Lake, but on the other hand I consider Grigorovich's Swan Lake the ugliest, most offensive production, with the Tchaikovsky score re-arranged/massacred beyond recognition, and not only is there no lake, there is not even a swan, as the whole thing is some weird spell arranged by the creepy Evil Genius.