Coryphée

I don’t understand casting Ashley Bouder in Scotch Symphony. She is anything but an ethereal sylph and drained the poetry from the ballet. La Sonnambula was suitably mysterious with its Gothic-novel scenery, haunting music and strange story. Taylor Stanley and Sara Mearns were perfect. I was sorry to miss Hyltin in this role, but Unity Phelan was very good. As everyone has said, Ulbricht is a fantastic Harlequin.

When will casting be announced? I bought a ticket for opening night hoping they will put est foot forward.

On 7/8/2019 at 4:18 AM, Sebastian said:

I could not agree more. Modern audiences have come to expect ballet to deliver “a psychological journey" or "gymnastics" (misnamed as "dancers are so much better these days": as someone who has watched many dozens of hours of recordings, official and unofficial, of British dancers performing many different versions of Sleeping Beauty from the 1930s to the present day, the experience is far more one of a gradual decline in technique, pace, musicality and meaning).

This combination of (ahistorical) expectations produces a rather simplistic and low-grade set of metrics for judging performances when set against the more sophisticated audience of St Petersburg in the 1890s, still in touch with the roots of ballet in Louis XIV and his court, and able to catch the many and various allusions packed into the text of Sleeping Beauty. Ratmansky's experiments are probably the most serious attempts in the world today at re-educating dancers, managements and the public. Bravo!

I have joined this forum expressly for seconding this opinion! Both Sleeping Beauty and Harlequinade are TREASURES! We are so lucky to have them, lovingly (and expensively) reconstructed. They have so much to teach us about Petipa, about classical style and technique, about all that Balanchine learned from that tradition. Petipa was a great choreographer. We should respect his works as we do Balanchine’s, not try to bring them « up to date » with little tweaks. Other companies have more modern SBs. ABT is so lucky to have the original and we should all rejoice!

I have been a longtime reader of Ballet Alert and am delighted to join this community. I live in New York, I love classical dance and I regularly attend NYCB, ABT, the Mariinsky when they come to Washington, and other companies when I get the chance. I also have a deep interest in the history of ballet and dance technique. I look forward to commenting on this forum.