Drew

I saw (and even remember bits of) that Wolftrap performance...

I don't know if she has made any guest appearances with other companies, but she has danced in the U.S. (including New York and Washington) on tours with the Royal Ballet.

Completely agree with the first sentence. I think Misty Copeland's aspirations are great...and presumably make her all the better a ballet dancer! For the rest: I still don't see why love of (some) Russian Ballerinas and admiration of Balanchine ticks off so many people...who also seem to take it personally. I assume the answer is something like 'lt leads to unfairness to others...' but I don't think that's fair.

With your list above in mind and for (what I judge to be) really "must see"--and in the theater--Balanchine's Serenade--already mentioned above, but I wanted to underline.

As noted above, I thought it was uneven...some parts quite off (in part, I assume, because the variation is new to her) and other parts quite lovely such as the turns in attitude en arrière, still other parts in-between...I thought she danced much better in the Bolshoi version of the "black" act when she danced in New York this past summer (those two performances I saw in the theater).

Thanks for posting this...

I saw these video bits as well. I thought Chudin looked gorgeous especially in the opening sequence of jumps but less preternaturally perfect in his finishes for final part of variation than he did at his first August performance in New York (which I saw in the theater) and where he seemed to me to show an almost Bruhn-like level of control. As for Smirnova--in this video when she really 'hits' something, it does look gorgeus and indeed much of this is very beautiful--at the best moments really dancing the difficulties rather than showing them off--but I think she is still smoothing out rough edges in parts of the variation. Not surprising in what is for practical purposes a debut (the variation is not the same as what she does at Bolshoi) and I think, too, she may have been a touch nervous. I like the fact that she opts for single fouettes at a decent speed/height and in place (though she seemed to lose a bit of control at the very end). None of this is meant as "faint praise"--rather what I think of as honest praise for two very appealing and talented dancers I like and admire a lot -- and hope to see again. I am also hoping some of the first two scenes turn up on video...Though one thing I don't think video will ever be able to capture is the warmth and charisma that Smirnova-Chudin bring to the stage in this ballet. It's an elegant, high-style, classical warmth--but warmth still seems to me the right word.

I was puzzled by one thing you said...I think the outside world you see through the window is the sylph's "magical realm" -- that is, her forest is not exactly a special supernatural place just for sylphs, and her sky is not a different sky from that of Effie and Gurn and James -- but she inhabits her "realm" in ways the humans cannot, is connected to it in ways they aren't. That's what makes it "magical." I think it speaks well to the Mariinsky's corps that you couldn't choose a sylph who "stood out"... Very enjoyable reading about these performances. Thanks for taking the time to describe them in such detail.

Thank you. I'm looking forward to the day I can seem him live...

From the interview: "It's not about how high your legs go. It's what you tell the audience with your movement."

This was kind of my reaction too...though I would be happy to see Lendorf dance anything. (Haven't seen him yet...)

How disappointing for your friend. I do think that in a lot of theaters the box office closes once the performance is underway. (Usually box office hours are indicated somewhere on the theater's website, but I understand that one might just head for theater assuming one had enough time to purchase the tickets...)

Thanks for posting...

I could barely see much of Acheron. At least there the darkness corresponded to the theme announced in the title. But in general I'm not crazy about ballets I can't see...

Thank you very much for all of these links. I think this last one got switched with another (New Yorker one)--maybe the one below will work: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/11/wendy-whelan-ballet-restless-creature

The situation seems too volatile for Gelb to be pleased (especially given what must be his concern over what donors will do).

Peck is very "hot" right now, but "old [and] overextended?"--he has only been prominent for about a year...In many ways, he and his audience are still figuring out what kind of choreographer he is going to be...

Very interested in reading your impressions of the Mariinsky in this and other performances. I think their corps is incomparable in Swan Lake.

In response to some comments above re Osipova's return to dancing with ABT: I think Osipova offers the company considerably more than $$. She has cancelled several performances (I had tickets for them), but so has Vishneva during more or less the same time span (I had tickets for them too) -- and, in fact, I actually saw Osipova replace an injured Copeland in Firebird. More importantly, she has also brought tremendous artistic excitement to the stage and, by the by, helped generate a fresh performing intensity from Hallberg. I'm not sure who people think is a better partner for him (unless maybe in The Dream in which I thought he paired well with Murphy). And whatever comments she has made about dancing with ABT only at the Met--one was referred to by Plisskin--in the past she also toured with the company more than, say, Vishneva; we can assume that now she will only dance at the Met--but that puts her in company with a lot of ABT guest/principals however much more tactful they may be in interviews. Osipova may not be everyone's cup of tea--well, obviously she isn't--and if she continues to cancel here and there, the company can decide if it wants to revisit its relationship to her, but the performances I have seen her dance count among my happiest and most memorable ballet-going experiences. (Uh...if not an 'old-timer' I am at the very least a middle-aged timer, so I can compare her to a lot of great dancers even if I don't see as much now as many balletomanes living in NY do.) For the rest, I'm excited and torn about the upcoming season because I will only be able to see about half of what is on my "cannot miss/must see" list and will have to forget entirely about performances that only rank on the "I really wish I could see that" list ... (As excited as I am about Sleeping Beauty with a wide range of appealing casts including possible chances to see Lane's Aurora and Boylston's debut alongside Vishneva's or Murphy's Aurora, I must admit that my heart skipped a beat when I saw a Smirnova-Chudin Bayadere on the schedule.)

Does Simkin dance Mercutio? (It's casting I can picture...)

Tereshkina did one as well that people on this website liked a lot (w. Shklyarov). I think Smirnova danced with Muntagirov. I was not able to see either performance, but if I had the opportunity would be especially thrilled to see Smirnova/Muntagirov in major roles w. ABT. I would be surprised to see ABT get through this season without some guest artists whether returning or new.

I have been an internet reader rather than a print one, but still want to voice my appreciation for the entire project. I will be very happy to continue to check out the online version!

I thought Bouder was fantastic in Square Dance Friday night (it was my first time seeing her dance it)--I liked the way she "built" the role, too, moving with greater and greater freedom and playfulness--musical playfulness too--as the ballet continued. It was a dazzling performance but also one with variety and charm. It was interesting to see Everywhere We Go on the same program as Interplay (Sat afternoon) because Justin Peck's ballet is like Robbins on steroids. For one, It seems to have something like 4 different finales. I guess the ballet's flaws have been pretty well aired on this website, but I enjoyed getting a look at Peck's work and, more than that, enjoyed the ballet's overflow of high spirits and its affectionate portrait of dancers. And I most especially enjoyed Sterling Hyltin's vivid, high energy performance--she looked like she was having fun and was certainly fun to watch. I thought Krohn, too, looked very good. She also looked lovely in Peck's new ballet Belles Lettres--and, in my eyes, she looked more than lovely in Morgen esp the Sat night performance. Though she was already compelling to me in her debut on Thursday, Saturday I found myself waiting for her to return to the stage. I have seen her a few times before, but never had that reaction to her...so that was quite nice. I thought Scarlett's Funerailles looked like an outtake from an unknown Macmillan ballet, but Thursday night Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild were so intense and so sensual and so...well...beautiful it scarcely mattered. (Uh...I am something less than a fan of Macmillan.) The "Sarah Burton for Alexander Mcqueen" gown for Peck gets my vote for most gorgeous gown designed for a ballet EVER. At the beginning of the ballet, the gown itself made it seem as if the ballerina were rising from the mists--and better than any dry ice could do. Zachary Catazaro and Gretchen Smith brought intensity to the same number as well Saturday night and when I heard the audience cheer them wildly I wondered if there were some unconscious yearning among NYCB-goers to see the company dance Mayerling. (That's a joke, but still...and since there is no "spit to ward off the evil eye" icon, please imagine one.) Anyway, I'm only able to see the company in spurts--the last time was in January--but certainly in the four performances I saw, they seemed to be dancing (mostly) spectacularly: Chaconne Sat afternoon was a partial exception, marred by uneven performances up and down the ranks...but Mearns, making her debut in the ballerina role, was simply fabulous. (I tried to write about it above...) Mearns, Peck, Bouder, and the retiring Whelan: these seem to me to belong to any list of the best ballerinas in the world today.

I don't think it's comparable--whether or not there are other ballet adaptations of Taming of the Shrew. Taglioni's La Sylphide and Bournonville's--for me that's two versions and I would have no problem with a company doing Taglioni's if we had the choreography. (We don't though we do have Lacotte's imagining of it). Cranko's Romeo and Juliet and Macmillan's and Lavrosky's (and Nureyev's and Ashton's and Ratmanksy's and Maillot's and Pink's and Araiza's and Neumeier's etc.)--just to stick to versions done to Prokofiev's score--this would be an example of people being happy with multiple versions, but it's not multiple versions of the same choreographic text at all, not even in the rather loose sense that Mckenzie and Martins are both doing versions of Petipa/Ivanov when they stage Swan Lake. It's just the same source material and the same score. I don't think anyone objects in principle to a company doing one version of Romeo and Juliet or another...though people may have favorites and think a company should be doing version x or y. But what if one said one was staging Macmillan's and then redid one of the big pas de deux to make it sexier or because it suited the dancers better? Or, perhaps a more realistic notion, just cut some portions of Macmillan's crowd scenes because many critics seem to agree that they go on too long? That's bound to be more controversial and, in my opinion, should be because there is a choreographic text that is being claimed as the basis of the production. By controversial I don't mean "bad" or that it should never happen, but something different seems to me at issue than is the case with different versions of a particular story that happens to draw from the same source material or even drawing the same title from that source material (eg Taming of the Shrew) or different ballets to the same score. When there is a version of Bournonville's La Sylphide that revises and rechoreographs--whether you are for the changes or against them or neutral--the 'text' matters: when the Royal Danish Ballet in particular, does La Sylphide, Bournonville's choreography is at stake. Revising Bournonville's La Sylphide, while basing your work on it, is (I think) in that sense something different than Maillot doing a completely new version of Taming of the Shrew to a fresh (well, freshly assembled anyway) score...

From the Guardian article--and alluding to a theory that should not be dismissed out of hand (cough): "There are lots of theories about Nobel 'bias', few of them involving the possibility that writers from non-English speaking countries...might actually be quite good."