Drew

Well, if any ballerina could impress as Solor, surely Alexandrova would be it. I confess, though, that Zakharova as Nikiya is enough to make me less than enthusiastic about trying to catch this. I saw her dance it with ABT and though moment by moment she can be very striking and even, at times, beautiful, the performance as a whole was not memorable. Since that is how I have felt about almost everything else I've seen her do... Generally, I also wish they would cast Obraztsova or perhaps Krysanova in one of these theatrical broadcasts...I'm curious about Smirnova too but accept seniority playing some role here. She is very young.

I agree that NYCB Sleeping Beauty is superior to ABT's, but it is NYCB flavored: danced very uptempo and with a minimization of much of the mime. The arms and accents are not in a pure Petipa vein. It's beautiful and traditional but very much NYCB honoring Petipa. However, if the only Sleeping Beauty you have ever seen in the theater is with ABT or a smaller company, then I would say that you should certainly try to see it. (I haven't seen the current generation of NYCB Auroras in it--loved Jennifer Ringer as Aurora quite a few years back. One of the best I have seen in any production.) One supplement to Kathleen O'Connell's remarks: Croce thought that Theme and Variations (now, at NYCB, the last movement of Tchaikovsky Suite no. 3) was a kind of distillation of Sleeping beauty, something I think one can see in variations like the one with a row of women, the ballerina in the center, the women all linked arm in arm, and she traced the reference to the original ABT request to Balanchine for something in the spirit of Aurora's Wedding (not the exact wording, but roughly). She also speculated once that Piano Concerto no. II had echos of or riffs on Swan Lake, something that I never really saw until I read her essay...

Puppytreats: this season (like the early Fall season) is unusually high quality in terms of repertory. However, if you can only see one of the programs and you have never seen Serenade then I strongly recommend you go see that. I think that overall the program with Serenade is one of the strongest of the Balanchine/Tchaikovsky programs in any case--certainly the one that interests me the most--but Serenade is simply is one of Balanchine's absolute greatest ballets and though of course casting matters, I think that even in lesser performances much of its greatness comes across. I think the other programs are more uneven in quality overall...sometimes even within a single ballet such as Divertimento from Baiser de La Fee (which begins rather dully in my opinion and gets much better). The one Act distillation/revision of the Swan Lake White Acts is rather remarkable, but if you are seeing it for the first time and are generally less familiar with NYCB and attached to the traditional Ivanov Act II I recommend you treat it almost as an independent work, a distilled reflection on Swan Lake. But I agree with what has been said above about trying to see more than one program if you can. It's not every season this much serious Balanchine is on offer. (You can get cheaper seats that are quite good at NYCB...unlike the Met.) Like most companies City Ballet grows on you and Balanchine, too, becomes "clearer" and more exciting when you see more of it. For myself, I would certainly trade in a lot of what's on offer at the Joyce to catch at least two of the programs. In fact, I rarely come up to NY for winter season but have plans to come up specially to see the program w. Serenade (twice) and the one w. Swan Lake.

Leonid: I would dispute the term "higher" as applied to the aesthetic of the Mariinsky versus that of New York City Ballet...and do so not on relativist grounds...but perfectly traditional, even conservative, aesthetic ones. I consider the great Balanchine modernist works to be as "high" as it gets in the dance art and ditto for his distillations of classical dance in Theme and Variations or Serenade or Concerto Barocco. And I think these works are at their greatest when danced with the qualities that Balanchine cultivated in his company. I'm delighted the Mariinsky dances Balanchine and have no problem with the Balanchine Trust's letting them do so. I dispute that the case for the Mariinsky as the world's best company can be made on the basis of the way they dance it. And however much one may like the way they dance it, I also think it's dubious to claim that they dance it better than NYCB. I would go further and say that the "different" way they dance it, often misses (or messes) crucial aspects of the work. I spelled out some of my reasons in my earlier post and won't repeat them. I think of myself as rather a strong defender of the Mariinsky. The first ballet I ever saw was a film of Sizova and Soloviev in Sleeping Beauty. I was smitten and those dancers hold a privileged place in my life and being. But one can think highly of the Mariinsky of the 60's and even of the Mariinsky of today without thinking that the way the company currently dances Balanchine captures all (or most) of the key elements of his work. From what I've seen it doesn't.

Someone who loves the way the Mariinsky dances may well love the way they dance Balanchine. Or not. I often love the way they dance, but not usually the way they dance Balanchine. (I quite llked Pankova in Scotch Symphony back in the day.) Either way, that doesn't make it great Balanchine. Balanchine in the 1960's? Greeted on his arrival in the Soviet Union as having come to Russia, the "home" of classical ballet, Balanchine responded that it was rather the home of the "romantic" ballet and that the United States was now the home of classical ballet. (By which presumably he meant his own work.) But I could not agree more with rg when s/he says that speculating on what Balanchine may or may not have liked/approved is a dubious business--I would add: including when it comes to NYCB today. Of course, there can be great interpretations of a work that the original artist might not have intended or planned or even liked. Then again, there can be interpretations that some audience members happen to like that really have nothing to do with how the ballets are supposed to look. I myself loved Lopatkina's beautiful port de bras in the second movement of Symphony in C as she last danced it in New York two summers ago, but beautiful port de bras are not the essence of that choreography and I have seen that movement danced more effectively by others. What we do know is that Balanchine did not look down on American mores and style. Or on American dancers. He cultivated and assimilated all of these things into his art. We also know that he made deliberate choices about the port de bras of his company--choices that people have been criticizing/debating for decades (since long before his death). Would he have done differently had he stayed in the Soviet Union and somehow avoided the fate of Lopukhov or worse? Well, the point is that that is exactly what he didn't do. And as an artist he never looked back without also looking forward. As for what many of us miss in the Mariinsky's Balanchine, it's not just whether this or that dancer has "footwork, speed, and attack" -- even if they did have it and a lot of them don't -- it's putting those things ahead of other things -- letting them shine through "transparently" as it were--and, just as importantly, it's a certain relation to the music, so that it appears as if the musical impulse is driving through the movement. It's an ability to dance off-center that makes off-center look natural not "distorted" (something I definitely miss when Mariinsky corps dancers jut out their hips as if to say 'look we're being jazzy'); it's a quality of spontaneity on stage. Can some Mariinsky dancers pull this off? from what I've seen one or two here and there; some of them some of these qualities and not others etc. But the company qua company? That's not how they dance. And who wants them to dance that way or needs them to dance that way? Not me. That's not who they are. That is, they aren't a Balanchine company. (New York City Ballet doesn't pull everything off all the time either: but they get the style as a matter of course. It's their "home" even when the housekeeping gets a little slovenly. Jewels, by the by, which has come to be an international banner for "Balanchine" is not one of his greatest or most important works. I notice that the Mariinsky has -- perhaps wisely -- not tried to stage Balanchine's most substantive modernist works, say Agon or Symphony in Three movements: Stravinsky ballets that are to Rubies as -- to steal from Croce -- an authentic ruby necklace is to one skillfully made of paste.) But, in my opinion, the greatness of the Mariinsky does not depend on whether or not it can dance "every" style of ballet equally convincingly or even on whether one finds their version of classicism the most beautiful in the world or not. It depends, I should have thought, primarily on the stamp they put on their home repertory: the nineteenth-century works, however Sovietized, along with the works created for them especially when the latter have more than local currency. (There are not a huge number of the latter, but perhaps recently something like Ratmansky's Little Humpbacked Horse.) I think it's also important they be able to work in other idioms, including Balanchine, even if one allows those idioms will not necessarily be their greatest strength. But insisting that the case for the company as the "best" in the world includes the way they dance Balanchine seems far-fetched to me.

My experience of Balanchine with the Mariinsky is similar to Helene's. And while I have never seen the Mariinsky dance Bournonville, I don't think anyone would opt for their Bournonville over the Danes'! (Even today when the Danes are probably not dancing it quite as they once did...another thread.) I have never seen Dupont or Novikova, but the line Tiara quotes as famously said by Novikova - that a woman in the corps of the Mariinsky would be a soloist anywhere else - is an old chestnut that I was hearing repeated by my mother (as already a familiar 'saying') more decades ago than I will admit to on the internet. The fact that Novikova or any other Mariinsky dancer believes it/says it -- while perhaps very fine testimony to their faith in the company and its traditions -- is hardly evidence that it's true. Indeed it might be read negatively as evidence of a certain insularity, though in this case I personally am not sure I would mind insularity all that much if it really were helping to preserve a great ballet style in all its greatness. Certainly, even in its home repertory the company has competition in a way that perhaps did not always used to be the case. Is it, with all its problems, a great company? One of the greatest in the world? For myself, I don't doubt it for a moment.

I think you may be alluding to a post I wrote (?) which does make me feel that perhaps I should re-underline that those comments were based solely on seeing the company intermittently on tour. Perhaps I should have taken into account too that cold-war era tours of the major Russian companies to the U.S.were, in all likelihood, cast to the hilt. I think it's fair to say THAT era is over except perhaps for New York. But yes, I did feel that the standards were consistently very high. But that was some time ago and I don't see the current problems/controversies as something that only began in the last few years. I'm not saying there are not real problems now. I'm persuaded there are and that they are serious. Only that it seems to me that some of the problems the company is struggling with can't be solved by getting rid of this or that person or more casting of this or that talented ballerina, because they arise from the complexities--artistic as well as financial--of the post-Soviet reality. (And all great companies seem to have ups and downs, waves of good leadership and good luck and waves of bad.) By the by: I saw some exquisite performances of Les Sylphides during two different tours in the 80's--didn't necessarily think all the leads were geniuses, but did think they all had a profound understanding of the ballet--and then I learned that fans who had seen the company in the 60's were decidedly underwhelmed. They thought the company's performances of Sylphides had declined: an anecdote that allows for several different interpretations when thinking about the current era from 'fans are always dis-satisfied' to 'gee I wish I had seen them in the 60s' to 'companies must change over time, it's not necessarily good or bad' to 'ups and downs are part of a company's life' and I'm sure several others. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I think obituaries for the Mariinsky are decidedly premature. Skorik: I recently tumbled over the documentary about her on youtube. I watched the first few minutes, but the rather overwrought opening credits were a bit of a turn off. It almost seemed like a parody of a movie about the horrors of ballet and ballet mothers--I guess Gypsy didn't know how lucky she had it...

Ooh I'm embarassed, but also pleased to learn about this...

Olivia Hussey was Juliet in the Zeffirelli movie--but yes, definitely young. (Julie Kent is a beautiful woman. I didn't notice-or give a thought to- how old/young she looked compared to Hallberg at the Ken Cen honors. I can't say I never notice that sort of thing...but in this case, no.)

I don't think the issue is whether or not Slaughter on 10th Avenue is Balanchine worth taking seriously--let's say it definitely has a place in the repertory even if not everybody would agree on what that place should be--but whether it would have been a better choice for the Kennedy Center honoring Makarova than what we saw on television. For myself, I was delighted to get the four classical excerpts we got since each one honored an important aspect of Makarova's career. Bits from two nineteenth-century classics didn't seem too much given the honoree: she was the Odette/Odile for me and many others growing up and, of course, was considered by many to be the Giselle of her generation too. These roles are a huge part of her legacy. Add to that: excerpts from a twentieth-century dramatic ballet --with the added frisson of including an American Romeo who now dances with a Russian compay--and the one quality ballet created on her in the west and I think we did get a miniature portrait of the most important parts of her career. (The straight, male, sports-loving, Letterman loving, occasional ballet goer with whom l watched the telecast greatly preferred the Giselle excerpt to the others. As it happens, he didn't care a straw for Slaughter on 10th Avenue when we saw it in the theater. However, he may not be representative. Probably isn't.) I admit, though, that the quick bit of Black Swan ended up being pretty ineffectual: I don't now how much was danced at the live performance--certainly more needed to have been for the excerpt to have much impact--but in principle ballet bravura is accessible to everyone and "black swan" now has pop cultural currency of a sort. It was not necessarily to have been predicted that Gomez/Part would turn out seeming a little lame (maybe potential problems with Part's fouettes could have been predicted). It also seems appropriate to have invited a Kirov/Mariinsky ballerina now at ABT and one who has been on Letterman no less...(I found myself wondering if Makarova had any say or influence.) In any case, despite her success in the work, for me an excerpt from "On Your Toes" would not have had the same resonance as a way to honor Makarova. So, on the whole, I give the organizers of the tribute good marks. I will add that just as the evening began I found myself thinking that the best way to honor Makarova would be with the opening of the Shades scene from Bayadere (though I did not come up with Helene's lovely idea of mixing students with professionals): I actually think this could have worked in the theater even for an audience of non-ballet fans, IF the producers didn't lose their nerve and included a full corps-de-ballet--but...uh...I don't think it would have worked on television at all. So...

I think I enjoyed the classical dancing on this broadcast more than many others. It was real classical ballet with major artists. Perhaps my expectations are too low, but that was my reaction. Also, I couldn't help but wonder if cutting away from Part during the fouettes was an act of politeness. (After all it's a celebratory evening and some reaction shots were required anyway). Certainly when the camera returned to her it looked as if she had done some traveling. But I liked all the excerpts including Cojocaru whose purity of approach quite appeals to me. More film of Makarova would have been nice, but the evening does not seem to be designed that way for any of the honorees. At least the broadcast isn't. My one caveat was rather some aspects of the text already alluded to by Dirac. For whatever reasons, choreographers did not exactly line up to create a slew of works for Makarova. (Later in her career, she even publically complained about not having a full length ballet created for her.) So emphasizing that seemed a little...well, wishful. On the other hand, I thought that for younger members of the (21st century) audience perhaps one or two more sentences could have been said about just what bravery it took to defect and the kind of sacrifice it involved. But basically I found this a nice tribute. Uh...I even enjoyed the joke about the "the ballerina" from Jimmy Kimmel.

From mid-May through mid-July there is a festival of opera and ballet in St. Petersburg (The "White Nights" festival) - and the Mariinsky performs as part of that festival. I believe guest artists also sometimes are invited to appear. I don't know the exact dates of any performances. Apparently the program may not get announced until as late as March. (I don't know about Moscow performances, but this website has some performances posted for June already--the information may or may not be reliable this far out: http://www.operaandballet.com/index.html?sid=9Pw6h47v0Lp95J5Yf3N1〈=eng) .

Any performance can raise an outcry, especially when fans already despise the Director doing the casting and thus have no trust he knows what he's doing when casting a young untested dancer (in this case, too, an "outsider") in a major role. Anyway, here is one bit of Kampa's performance (a debut) posted on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iYYDFkcwUU

Best (of my rather limited ballet going): 1)Ashton's Dream at ABT--all three casts, but special mention to Herman Cornejo's Puck,Gillian Murphy's Titania, and (a Titania at a different performance) Julie Kent's magical balance in the final pas de deux -- out of nowhere, not really a balance at all: she just stopped time. 2)Ratmansky's Firebird at ABT--All three casts (minus Copeland due to injury): but special mention to Herman Cornejo's Ivan 3)The Balanchine-Stravinsky Festival program at NYCB w. Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Monumentum/Movements, Duo Concertante, and Symphony in Three Movements--both casts I saw, but special mention to Sterling Hyltin in Symphony in Three Movements and Robert Fairchild in Stravinsky Violin concerto 4)Osipova-Gomez sailing across the stage in perfectly attuned tour jetes in the classical divertissement of Bayadere Act I. 5)Osipova-Hallberg Giselles (Chicago and New York) 6)Cojocaru's Nikiya 7)Twyla Tharp's The Princess and the Goblin with the Atlanta Ballet Overall, a very fortunate ballet-going year for me and I am leaving several excellent performances off the list because I consider it cheating if one includes everything one liked! Worst: 1)Missing the Paris Opera Ballet's visit to the U.S.-- though, more precisely, that would be my biggest regret 2)I have seen several movements of Symphony in C and Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet at NYCB in better shape and remember a time when, at ABT, the Golden Idol in Bayadere was something of a highlight and the corps, whatever their weaknesses, did not make silly mistakes in the Shades scene.

I remain a little puzzled by the claim that Western audiences loved Somova on those early tours as I never saw much evidence of that..

Even at ABT Kirkland danced the revised version done for her when Balanchine reset Theme and Variations as the final movement of Tchaikovsky Suite No. 3. Gargouillades were added to that version--a case of the ballet being made (from a certain perspective) more difficult. I assume that Alonso stages the ballet as it was staged for her and I believe that at ABT the dancers also dance the Alonso/ABT version though Kirkland did not do so. Whether that version has been simplified or not at ABT over the years I couldn't say; I always found Theme and Variations one of their better efforts--certainly my favorite ABT Balanchine and presumably not a coincidence the ballet was created for ABT, since the company had people who knew how to keep it alive. However, I haven't seen it done there since Gillian Murphy made her debut as the ballerina which I'm guessing must be well over 10 years ago. And I also don't know what version the Balanchine trust 'authorizes' or what version San Francisco dances.

Thank you Natalia and Helene for posting these clips...

It may be that I went overboard with questions about ballet travel to St. Petersburg during White Nights. In the meanwhile I have resolved my hotel dilemma by making reservations more or less in between the Mariinsky and the main tourist areas and hoping the walk and/or transportation won't be too onerous either way! But seriously if anyone has experiences or advice to share of any kind regarding ballet attendance especially, whether responding to my earlier questions or not, that would be great....Of course I'm checking/reading guidebooks, but I trust ballet fans more when it comes to ballet-related questions and experience. (Timing of our trip is dictated by Mr. Drew's work taking him to Finland, so we are talking about the first week of June.)

The Mariinsky management is accused of playing even with Maternity Leave funds? Gee, I wonder ....consider the possibilities.....awwww, I'll just shush-up & let the facts come to light. Seriously, these are horrendous allegations. ITA with Cygnet re. Gergiev's petty comment on Pavlenko. I would have expected tha from Fateev, not Gergiev, who doesn't seem to know or care much about the ballet troupe. Perhaps Gergiev was given "talking points" to simply read before the cameras? ITA also. I am not a Pavlenko fan, but as the spokesperson for the dancers she had the right to be treated with respect, and Gergiev's comments about her were not just petty, but deliberately humiliating. However, whether or not he cares - and plainly he doesn't - by showing such disrespect of a dancer and dismissing the concerns of the company , he is only showing himself in his true, unpleasant colours. His remarks are a disgrace; the way in which he has allowed Mariinsky Ballet to be mismanaged even more so. I can only hope that the ball has now started rolling and all the allegations and rightful grievances voiced by the dancers will finally be addressed. This situation has been going on for far too long. I was really disgusted by the Pavlenko comment -- and I have no opinion about her as a dancer at all and did very much enjoy the one time I heard Gergiev conduct and believe him to be a great musician. It is more dignified to ignore it, but I'm not that dignified. In a way, the comment convinced me (more than a 100 videos of Somova or Skorik with twisted torsos ever could) that there are fundamental problems with the way things are being run at the Mariinsky. Do I exaggerate? Perhaps...perhaps not. When the top guy talks that way, something is wrong.

This made me laugh on principle, but I'm afraid I actually haven't seen any of the Anna Karenina movies....but MakaravaFan--I DO remember Nicola Padgett as Anna in the television series and how much I loved her in the role. Oddly (or not so oddly on this message board) my favorite embodiment of Anna Karenina is now Ekaterina Kondaurova in the admitedly not altogether successful Ratmansky ballet.

I suppose you are right, but it was by far my favorite Wagner when I was a child, along with the "Ride of the Valkyrie". Come to think of it, my favorite Tchaikovsky in those days was "Francesca di Rimini," which has a certain crassness of its own.. Fokine choreographed something to Francesca di Rimini but I don't know if it survives. Has any ballet composer ever choreographed to Rienzi? I just tumbled over this thread this evening and I suppose you may have long since gotten the answer, but Roland Petit used the Rienzi overture for his Proust ballet. As I remember, he used it for the closing scene, but it's a dim memory...and he may have wanted a bit of bombast. I recently attended a concert with Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony on the program and I'm afraid bombast is very much how it seemed to me...though often as if on the verge of becoming something greater and more moving...but it never quite happened. That it happens in many of his other works, I certainly find...and it may be I simply failed to 'get' the symphony on this hearing. Regarding lists or announcements of the "10 best" or even one's "favorite", I sometimes think that if one is going to start down that road (and probably one ought not) it's best not to hedge with humility or subtlety: "my opinion..." or "from the perspective of a ballet lover...." Just go for it and be wrong rather than mealy-mouthed! It makes it more of an intellectual challenge for everyone and second it's...uh...more fun--possibly just because it is "aesthetically incorrect" to be ranking things that can't always be ranked. I love to shock people when they ask my favorite novel by giving them an immediate unequivocal answer (it's almost always Middlemarch) because it's obvious they expect a much more refined answer about the "impossibility" of having a favorite, or about how different traditions have different strengths etc. Of course, on the internet one always tries one's very best to be polite!

I have some additional queries and hope people won't mind my floating them here: When are White Nights performances announced usually? I did a search on this sight for "White Nights" I found a thread from last year posted in late March that had some announcements...I'm hoping that is not really the earliest we can know anything. I gather the Mariinsky is in a slightly different part of town than the main tourist places to visit. Do people find they prefer to stay near the Mariinsky and/or nearer to mainstream sights? I realize the answer is likely to be very personal but am still interested in responses/experiences. Normally, when "ballet traveling" I myself prefer to stay near the theater, but I also wilt easily and am a little worried that by the time I get to, say, the Hermitage from a different part of town I will already be half wilted... Are taxis available at the theater after performances? (People may be thinking "of course" but for example I have waited for half an hour after a performance at Covent Garden and found myself on an empty street w. no-one around so I don't take anything for granted.) Seats: I have been to Tripadvisor and found a few reflections on seats and sight-lines at the Mikhailovsky and the Mariinsky, but would not at all mind hearing more about both theaters. (I'm short; I am also willing to consider all prices including the more expensive.) Obviously no-one has any experience with the new Mariinsky that is supposed to open this season, but any information/rumors would also be welcome. I believe Natalia and others recommend buying directly from the theater websites and not dealing with middlemen, but if anyone has any experiences with the "BalletandOpera.com" website or other middlemen I would be curious. Reliability? quality of seats etc.? Is there a quality company or a particularly ravishing theater I'm missing out on by focusing exclusively on the Mariinsky and Mikhailovsky? These are a lot of questions and I fear must sound very naive to many...so, thanks for reading/responding.

Like you, I simply don't know very much about the internal situation of the Bolshoi. I can say that I think Ratmansky had a creative way of looking back at earlier moments in Bolshoi ballet history (the new Bright Stream and Flames of Paris) and w. Burlaka honored the classical past in productions like the reconstructed Corsaire and, more of an absolute success in my eyes, the post-Ratmansky Coppelia. As I understand Tsiskaridze has had some reservations about these regimes; I'm not sure all fans would agree. In any case, I have no sentimentality whatsoever about the OLD "old" Bolshoi being revived in 2012--if that were to mean Grigorovich productions ruling over all. I am not opposed to honoring Soviet ballet by any means (I always liked Sergeyev's Sleeping Beauty) and I was pleased that the Bolshoi could still make Spartacus 'work' in London a couple of seasons back. But it seems from the outside as if the company has had a lot of success in recent seasons, even following up the losses of Osipova and Vasiliev with the hiring of Obratzova. (All credit to Filin for hiring and developing Smirnova as well.) So whatever changes happen there are a lot of recent developments at the Bolshoi one would hate to lose. (I believe Tsiskaridze also objected to Hallberg being featured in the HD Sleeping Beauty broadcast: I would not like to see the Bolshoi lose its "Bolshoiness" but I don't think there is much risk of that--and could wish Tsiskaridze had felt differently about that one broadcast performance as well.)

I think one reason there is such a lively discussion is that most of us feel there is a difference between saying you prefer Verdi to Madonna and saying you prefer Verdi to Stravinsky...just as there is a difference between saying you prefer Raphael to Rockwell and saying you prefer Raphael to Picasso. (Apologies to Rockwell and Madonna fans: they are doing something completely different--not writing bad operas or messing up the Vatican walls.) There is also perhaps an in between range too--where one might indeed rank Raphael higher than Picasso or--to choose a less historically crucial figure--say, Rothko--but still feel one's soul needs some Rothko or (to name a more contemporary figure) Robert Ryan. And indeed that one's soul is at least curious to see other newer artists even if not necessarily to return to see their work again. For myself I take for granted that to cite Cubanmiamiboy, only a "handful" of brand new dance works that I see in any given decade are going to be works of substance. Actually, that would be a very good decade. With limitations of circumstance (time, money, energy) of course one focuses on what one loves best. For me, with performing arts there is another dimension too. Given the choice between a third-rate or even second rate performance of Swan Lake and a first-rate performance of Balanchine or Ashton...I would almost always choose the latter AND given the choice between a first rate performance of Swan Lake and a second or third rate performance of Balanchine or Ashton, i would almost always choose the former. When it comes to third or fourth tier ballets/choreographers vs. classics (including Balanchine and Ashton), the choice would be more complex (e.g. is it a choreographer/company I have seen before, what other works have I seen most recently, what is the music etc.). Of course, mostly our choices don't come in such neat packages and one balances things off based on circumstance, budget, time etc. Even first-rate, second-rate is complicated by the fact that one often sees great dancers in crummy productions, great corps-de-ballet with mediocre principals etc. But certainly Miami City Ballet has a great--internationally recognized--strength. Losing that would in my opinion be a mistake. And it can be lost. (Atlanta ballet was once a respected Balanchine satellite--not nearly as acclaimed as MCB but solid enough to earn a season in New York that was respectfully received: they deliberately threw that part of their tradition away. I have already alluded to what I think of this season.) Historically, I think there have always been ballet fans whose hearts are first and foremost with nineteenth-century works. And they are great works. But Ballet as an art form is much bigger than that (and...uh...not because those of us who like to see newer or even new works have small souls). That said, is there a lot of mediocrity out there? Oh yes. Lightweight fare that even the greatest dancers can barely make interesting and plain old "meh" -- no-one wishes that on MCB or any company. I completely understand losing one's tolerance for a lot. I could not talk myself into Eugene Onegin last year with Vishneva (and Osipova as Olga!) on pretty much those grounds. But one has at the same time to distinguish between losing one's tolerance for mediocrity and assuming that all works one happens not to tolerate are as a matter of course mediocre. (As possibly some Cranko fan is now thinking with some irritation as they read my post!)

Off topic but I cannot let this pass without responding: At NYCB Sarah Mearns, Ashley Bouder, Tiler Peck, Sterling Hyltin, Robert Fairchild--in my opinion even a less heralded principal such as Teresa Reichlin or more limited talent such as Megan Fairchild--are decidedly making upward spirals. In a few of those cases way, way, way upwards right into the pantheon of world's great dancers. And it's not due to dancing Peter Martins' version of Swan Lake...(which I don't even hate as much as many others do). Mearns' solo in Ratmansky's Namouna--I would put that performance right next to any in the pantheon of performances in 19th- or 20th-century classics; Hyltin in Symphony in Three Movements--all due respect to earlier generations, I thought she was better than anyone I have ever seen in the role. Etc. And these are (in my judgment) ballets that matter. Maybe it's a little soon to pronounce on Namouna--but Symphony in Three Movements? Whether or not it's to everyone's personal taste--no great art is--it matters. I do indeed love the nineteenth-century classics; I believe strongly that the "major" companies that give them attention and quality performances and productions are keeping the art of ballet alive. (Swan Lake in particular has suffered from productions that tinker with it excessively, even -- if not especially -- at the major companies.) And less than major companies play an important role in introducing people to these great works of the tradition. I myself saw my first La Sylphide, my first Giselle, and my first Coppelia with the National Ballet of Washington (not, though my first Swan Lake which they did not dance). If MCB wants to take on Swan Lake, then best of luck...Certainly they have better resources than many companies. But I also remember that when dancers such as Nureyev, Baryshnikov, and Makarova defected from the Soviet Union they made it clear that they did not want to be restricted to dancing nineteenth-century classics plus what they evidently judged to be the very limiting and limited Soviet repertory. They weren't leaving the classics behind, but they did want to try other choreography whether Ashton, Balanchine, Graham, Macmillan, Tharp or...well, you name it. And they did so, with varying degrees of success. As an audience member, I too want the twentieth-century classics next to the nineteenth-century ones--and not by any means always danced by the same companies (sometimes yes, sometimes no: depends on the company)--and I have to say that after a middle-aged lifetime of attending the ballet, ballet today feels a lot more thrilling than it has in decades because some substantial new choreographers are on the scene. Particularly Ratmansky. ABT with Ratmansky premiers and revivals of great 20th-century works (by which I mean Ashton and Tudor) is a great deal more exciting than ABT without. I write this as a someone who is genuinely passionate about getting the chance to see fantastic ballerinas in Giselle and Swan Lake etc. I will add, too, that I would KILL to have a local company with the fabulous repertory of MCB. (Okay, that's an exaggeration, but not by much.) This season the Atlanta ballet is treating us to Dracula, Nutcracker, a children's Cinderella and an evening of modern dance. There is a program with David Bintley's Carmena Burana that I may try to see. Otherwise, I'll save my ballet budget for travel. As soon as I find a date that works with my life, MCB is on the list--and I won't be traveling to see them dance nineteenth-century ballets but to see them dance Balanchine, Ratmansky, and Scarlett. Of course, the local audience matters much more than I do -- absolutely -- just trying to say how it looks to one outsider.