Drew

I'm sure some of it has to do with PR but people can't convince people uninterested in ballet that they are interested in it. Misty clearly is reaching an audience that has been untapped here previously. There were a lot more African American patrons in the seats on sat (when she had been scheduled to dance) than normally are seen at the MET. To their credit, they showed up anyway (and from the lobby talk they already knew). But I think to chalk that up to PR alone, or even primarily, is overly cynical (I'm not saying *you* were doing so). An audience that has not seen themselves represented is doing so in Misty, and they are clearly very excited about it. I think that is all for the good. This is not an argument for promotion, nor against it. Just an observation. I admit to cynicism. Opening up and then appealing to a new audience (a good thing) creates economic opportunity, as well. When Nina, Irina, Natasha, Ivan, etc. perform in NY, a large group of audience members speak Russian. I hear a lot of Italian when Roberto performs. I am sure ads are placed in local community newspapers for various performances. I hope the company does place ads in local community newspapers for these performances...I don't think one has to be cynical to think it's a good idea. And it need not be bad for ballet as art. Bad for ballet would be if incompetent and undeserving dancers were promoted, but whether one likes them or not I don't think "Nina, Irina, Natasha, Ivan" are what one would call incompetent and undeserving and neither, from what I have seen, is Copeland. Of course people have different opinions about who should be getting a shot at which roles and when...and some would prefer not to see so many guest artists--and I agree that it would be sign of company strength if ABT could properly develop more talent from within the ranks--but there is nothing scandalous per se about the dancers you mention that I'm aware of. And if/when that is the case, then I don't think it's cynical for the company to 'capitalize' on their appeal to particular audiences. If there is a Russian language paper out there, it would be sort of silly not to advertize "Nina etc." on the grounds that it was somehow infra-dig. I gather the concern is that the tail has started wagging the dog...or more so than usual...I'm not convinced. (Some attention to box office is par for the course, and not always a bad thing artistically.) Re Copeland: this season, she wasn't well matched with Vasiliev in Bayadere, but I thought she danced and mimed the principal role of Gamzatti very well in other respects and I also have seen her dance a very good peasant pas de deux. By all accounts--including the accounts of those who hated the ballet--she was terrific in Firebird; unfortunately I did not get to see her in that myself. The company has not made her a principal just yet and it would be a shame if Acocella's pronouncements--presumably designed to provoke discussions like ours--were used as a stick with which to beat her. For the rest, why shouldn't Copeland get some special attention as a rising African-American dancer at a company that has a very traditional repertory of nineteenth-century classics as well as full-length 20th-century crowd-pleasers--and no very deep history of featured African-American dancers despite some (mostly male) precedent? No cynicism required...even a touch of idealism may be called for...

I also thought Gomez was a better partner for Osipova than Cornejo in Firebird (not that surprising since she had never performed the role w. Cornejo before and presumably they also had not rehearsed together nearly as often since she was replacing Copeland). However, Gomez in any case is certainly the finest partner at ABT...one of the best I have ever seen...and it really adds a luster to all his performances--which is to say of course also to the ballerinas' performances. I thought, for example, that his remarkable grace as a partner made the intertwining movements and unexpected lifts and drops of the final pas de deux in The Dream (with Kent) look utterly fluid and effortless; Hallberg and Murphy were beautiful in the pas de deux and very otherworldly--the lines of their pas de deux were also better harmonized than those of Gomez and Kent--but Hallberg is not the partnering artist Gomez is. It was a tiny difference in the two performances but to my eyes it made a difference in the pure flow of the pas de deux. 'Partnering' almost is an inadequate word for it when it's done this well.

Leaves are Fading and new Ratmansky to Shostakovich--sounds like a very interesting City Center season. I was thinking of trying to visit D.C. in October to see the Ratmansky Cinderella, but I gather it's the same week and a new Ratmansky to Shostakovich (plus Tudor) may be more tempting...

Also, the initial concerns about Simkins' petit size had to do with overall small musculature and bone structure (narrowish shoulder line) and not just height. He was more the delicate type, like Sarafanov at the start of his career. ...My understanding is that Simkin has bulked up, so this may no longer be a problem. He still seems very slight and boyish to me...

I am back from a rather exhausting short weekend in New York--but also very full and exciting dance-wise as I was able to attend Friday and Sat (matinee and evening) performances of The Dream and Firebird. I thought this weekend showed ABT at its best. No matter the casts (and obviously different casts had different strengths and weaknesses), each performance was altogether enthralling: two exciting, dramatic, and highly theatrical works, dynamically performed by everyone on stage. And I thought programming the two works together was a fantastic idea -- however shocking the shift from Ashton to Ratmansky: we have two very different ballets exploring the liminal world between the natural and supernatural that ballet does so well--or, if you prefer, two fairy tale works that enchant as pure stories and resonate allegorically. The program might have turned out to be too much of a muchness, but I thought it worked very well. As you may infer from the above, I loved the Ratmansky. Flawed? Well, yes..but still remarkable. (The Dream is flawless if ever a ballet was. One imagines Ashton and Mendelssohn sitting down together and devising the whole thing measure by measure, so completely does the dance, as it were, arise from inside the music.) What I do think ballet historians of the future will have to mull over is how/why a choreographer whose vision is so profoundly Russian and (I think) even Soviet-inflected as Ratmansky came to bring so much of that vision to life at American Ballet Theater. And how/why it seems to work so well. Could one wish he would somehow integrate his Russian/Soviet obsessions with elements of American culture? Certainly I could. But since his Firebird has been entered into the "controversial" category--provoking a wide range of responses including boredom--I would like to say outright that I found it thrilling. In the theater, costumes and scenery that appear rather campy in photos turn out to be part of a painterly phantasmagoria as important to the ballet's total effect as the choreography. Ivan enters not so much an enchanted garden as a petrified forest--albeit one blooming with flaming red cones and strewn w. green apples. Subtle it's not. (One reason it recalls, to me, what little Soviet ballet I've seen). The flock of firebirds was effective--but not so dreamy and bizarre as the flock of enchanted maidens who make up one peculiarly massed formation after another, the maidens leaning on each other floppily, pushing up against each other, forming asymmetrical pictures that seem to come from another, more painterly era of ballet--then bursting out into dance sequences that build on awkward unbalanced turned-in movements and yet grow unexpectedly energetic and vivid. The dancing is not pretty by any means...and yet becomes something more flowing and exciting than the odd, broken movements it is built on have any right to be. To my eyes, Ratmansky here turns awkwardness into its own kind of grace. When freed from their enchantment, the maidens and young men -- freed as if from the hold of autocratic Czars and/or Stalinist thugs -- dance in very simple, clear patterns; it's almost a little parade-like, a more flowing version of the simple unison movements at the close of Bright Stream, but effective against the bright sonic backdrop of Stravinsky's finale. One critic complained of the ultra Russian ideal expressed by the women's long silvery-blond locks at the end, finding it problematically mono-colored in an American context. I would say it's hardly less so in a Russian context, but very true to the fantastical fairy tale element of the work. Finally, a word and more for Herman Cornejo. As much as he is admired, I am not sure he is admired enough. He was the best of the three Ivans I saw in Firebird, dancing with beautiful silky flow, lively expression, and the utmost classical purity. (As Ivan the purity of his dancing seems the very embodiment of a pure heart.) Several people have commented on the oddity of the opening of this Firebird: the hero has a 'busy' solo to the low evocative music that opens the score. It has seemed unmusical to most--but I thought that Cornejo found exactly the musical line in the solo, not step by step, but in the larger arc of the steps in relation to long phrases within the music. That must be what Ratmansky heard and Cornejo shows. And he can do it because his own dancing is not step by step but a model of dancerly art. Even Gomez was not so musically effective at this point in the ballet. Cornejo was also especially good at bringing out some of the folk elements in the choreography as if they were part of the hero's arsenal against Katschei, striking his heel into the ground as they faced off, as if to show that mother Russia could defeat all evil. The step is there in the choreography but w. Gomez for example it looked less like a folk movement and more like a physical challenge as he angrily dug his heel into the ground. (I should say I quite enjoyed Gomez in the role, and his charming personality infused the ballet with great warmth and even some additional humor, but I would like to pay special tribute to Cornejo here.) Sat evening I saw Cornejo's Puck. I don't ever expect to see the role danced that beautifully again. What I find particularly remarkable in the performance is that although Cornejo's Puck soars effortlessly in flight over the stage--that is when he isn't skimming over it or whirling about in a spiral of light--he still brings a kind of weight, even gravitas (!), to his movement. That is, as several people have noted, he shows you the full three dimensional shape of the choreography. This is not a cute or elfin Puck, but Puck as elemental creature and servant of Oberon. By contrast Simkin's (very enjoyable) and altogether weightless Puck seems a little thin. Like others, too, I also quite enjoyed Salstein's performance in the role, but Cornejo seems to me a very special class of dancer. After having missed so much of the middle part of his career, I feel very lucky to have had the chance to see him give two such wonderful performances on Saturday. [No sooner had I written this than I discovered that Tobi Tobias recently posted her own tribute to Cornejo in a review of Romeo and Juliet on her blog Seeing Things.] And please ABT: more programs like this one. That is, mixed repertory, combining twentieth-century classics with occasional new works. Controversy? I don't think it's a bad thing in the life of a company.

I suspect it is no fun falling down in front of the Met's audience, especially when you are a rising up-and-coming dancer trying to make a good impression on your bosses! LOL Some people have a daredevil personality and they do whatever it takes and will use speed and strength and do amazing things, and that is quite thrilling to watch, but I suspect the vast majority of people are more cautious people. The special stars are special because they are better than average. You can't have everyone dancing like a superstar, b/c then nobody would seem special. I also think that "stars" start to take more risks once established, b/c they are constantly trying to prove themselves. A young, up-and-coming dancer is going to be more cautious. Not all, but I think it is a normal human reaction to the task at hand. When I saw the Kirov (and I do mean the Kirov), many if not all of the featured dancers danced the most difficult variations fearlessly. We doubtless got top-tier casting for tours to D.C. and NY (this was pre-1989), but it's still worth noting and came to me as something of a revelation. Oh yes, that's how it's supposed to look... At NYCB's best many featured dancers dance (or at one time danced) fearlessly: it's seems to have been a trait Balanchine cultivated--Martins seemingly less so. Still, I do see it at NYCB from time to time even now not just from their 'stars.' I would like to see this quality more at ABT-- have occasionally seen it--though I understand (I think) the point Birdsall is making...

I was thinking Shirinkina would be a 'natural' Cinderella type...but I guess it's a long shot to hope she would be cast.

There is a tape of Pavlenko dancing the pas de deux on youtube. I know Mariinsky casting is unreliable (at least on tour) but can Washingtonians tell me from past tours if they can be expected to make any announcements before tickets go on sale (early August according to website)? Thanks--

I'm sorry for this news as well--I remember rushing to the library to find his review of Kirkland's first Juliet with the Royal Ballet. Inevitable of course, but we are losing a lot of cultural--ballet--memory that I know means a lot to me.

I thought Osipova and Halllberg were sensational in Romeo and Juliet when she made her debut in the role a few years back. I rather suspect how one registers her over-the-topness is a matter of taste, but Juliet is a role in which a profoundly lived intensity pays a premium--at least in my eyes it does--and that's how I see Osipova, as someone who brings a profoundly lived intensity to all of her roles. I wish I could have been at Monday's performance. The discussion about the intermission bow is interesting. For me, the unexpected twists and turns of live performance including audience response and the artists' bows are part of the whole experience...and one reason it's so compelling to go to many different performances. Of course I prefer the conventions I'm used to--and am still sort of bemused by European Ballet company bows at intermission and Russian soloists who come out for an extra call if so much as one usher is applauding at the back of the Family Circle--but I roll with it and if there were an exceptional performance and something exceptional were to happen in the way of curtain calls (as happened Monday), no reason I would not enjoy it. (I imagine too that if one were less wowed by the performance than others in the audience, the extra bow would seem all the more irritating especially if one disliked intermission curtain calls anyway.)

I had not gotten around to checking the programming for Fall--and this thread did not leave me feeling optimistic--until tonight. I'm rather excited. If there were ever a block program I could live w. (speaking as someone who usually has to arrange a weekend trip to see any ballet and wants to see as many ballets & dancers as possible) it's Stravinsky Violin Concerto/Monumentum-Movements/Duo Concertante/Symphony in Three Movements. Actually I would under any circumstances want to see that program more than once since it's pretty intense to take in so much at one go...And if I can't make that weekend there is also an Apollo/Orpheus/Agon block which will decidedly repay repeated viewing. I'm not a fan of block programming per se...but I'm pretty pleased about my options in the Fall (assuming circumstances permit travel etc.). I'm afraid to say that it will also be interesting to see if these intense Balanchine-Stravinsky modernism programs really do sell much better than Martins-Millepied or Double Feature--or for that matter than Wheeldon-Ratmansky or Sleeping Beauty. My guess is that the Apollo/Agon one will do well--not so sure about the Violin Concerto program...In any case both are programs decidedly aimed at the "old time" NYCB audience...

Work, in fact, will prevent me from seeing any Paris Opera Ballet performances much to my great distress! I wanted to return this week to see both the new Ratmansky Firebird and The Dream (one of my favorite ballets but not one i have seen that often); several of the scheduled dancers interested me as well -- Copeland among them.

Via Facebook and Twitter (yeah I'm on Twitter) I understand that Copeland is out for rest of season w. injury: I found the following on her Facebook fan page: "Misty has asked that I convey a message on her behalf. It gives her great sadness that due to an injury, she is unable to complete the remainder of her Metropolitan Opera House Performance Season. It is very important to her to make sure that any of her fans who purchased tickets specifically to see her are aware that she won’t be performing. She expresses her deep appreciation and gratitude for your unending loyalty and support." Planned to see her (and others) in Firebird this weekend and am very disappointed...Of course I am accustomed to the vagaries of dancers' injuries/illnesses and what they mean for casting, but it's still a bummer. Anyway, best thoughts to Copeland for a full recovery. (I will say that when I made my plans to come to NY this weekend, my feeling was that three performances of The Dream would be a win-win-win proposition whatever happened w. Firebird and even whatever happened w. casting--not to tempt the ballet gods or anything. I'm very eager to see Hallberg-Murphy in the Dream to say nothing of Cornejo.)

Sounds a very fun evening. Thanks for telling us about it.

Naturally I missed the episode w. Kunakova and focus on Petipa....had the time wrong....

Just got our tix...luckily, as it's almost sold out. Boylston was fantastic in the little 'teaser' at the Kennedy Center this past January, when she & Gomes essayed the 'Black Swan' pdd. I'm only sorry that Gomes won't be her first 'full' Siegfried; instead, it's Danil' Simkin. Here's hoping for a felicitous pairing! For such an important role it seems a shame Boylston could not debut w. an experienced Siegfried or at the very least someone known for his partnering skills. The Mikhailovsky imported Gomez for Osipova's Swan Lake debut, and Osipova is a much more experienced principal dancer than Boylston. (Of course Osipova has more clout!) I assume Boylston is NOT complaining, but I feel like complaining on her behalf. Wish Simkin the best of course and he can dance wonderfully...so, yes, "here's hoping for a felicitous pairing" ...

I am not a huge R&J fan but even so am dying as I follow this thread. For me that's a perfect seat and I practically never get to sit in the like. But I can't make it to NY on that date...Hope you do find a taker for your seat.

Now I will always have something to say (and do) after I see a movie. Okay...maybe not every movie. Maybe not even every Hollywood movie. But almost. On topic? I'm thinking it would take an Ashton to get something like Pushkin onto the ballet stage.

This was lovely--thank you for posting.

Looking forward to reading about it...

Would love to hear about Seo-Hallberg cast if anyone sees it...

Would love to hear about Seo-Hallberg cast if anyone sees it...

Fantastic news! Very deserved, certainly overdue...a magnificent dancer.

Duato? at the Vaganova Academy graduation? Who makes these decisions? If they want 20th-21st century choreography--to show they are not just training Petipa dancers--fair enough: there is plenty of more than genuinely classical, if you prefer neo-classical, choreography to turn to...Heck, even from the Soviet era, they could pull something that would seem less pointless at either training or showing off their dancers than Duato. And I write that as someone who rather liked the one Duato ballet (that is, "dance work") she saw; I am not anti-Duato by any means. But context, please. P.S. One afterthought: perhaps they are trying to make sure their dancers catch the eye of the Duato-directed Mikhailovsky? With the idea that that could be a main source of jobs for them? I could sort of understand that way of thinking. Still, although I try not to pick sides, I think that on this one I'm "team Bolshoi." P.P.S. Big congratulations to Joy Womack...

I believe she is coaching now at the Mikhailovsky... (Lovely dancer, never saw her in Balanchine, but perfect as first of the six fairies in Sleeping Beauty -- Sergeyev version I think -- and in Les Sylphides...)