Drew

Thank you for the link....

He did pull away the second time leaving lots of extra space in a way that (to me) would have seemed comical had it not followed on a real mistake that interrupted the adagio just as it was reaching its climax. I like Parish and partnering mistakes happen....but this one was plenty awkward.

Tragedy doesn't mean "sad" in any conventional sense--tragic emotion is more complex. The Oresteia resolves itself in favor of Orestes, the founding of a jury system, reconciliation between different gods/values etc. and it's one of the foundational "tragic" trilogies of the Greek tradition. One can judge the ending of Swan Lake with the double suicide, Rothbart defeated, and the lovers united in the land of the dead to be "tragic" without thinking it's simply sad or unhappy. I think it's also not exactly "happy" in any earthly, ordinary sense--certainly evil isn't banished by laughter (or the "happily ever after" of procreative sex) as in classic comedy but by sacrifice and forgiveness. It's something more profound than earthly happiness, at least for the lovers.

When they initially danced together at ABT—I saw them pre-Hallberg-injury—Hallberg and Osipova had great chemistry and their contrasting styles also created a rather wonderful spark. Audiences went pretty wild and to me it was understandable. Hallberg himself came to life in a new way when dancing with her, and has said he joined the Bolshoi partly to pursue that partnership. (She departed the company very shortly after he joined.) Maybe their chemistry is no longer happening and she is merely loyal to the old connection; maybe it will happen again. But at one time, Osipova-Hallberg was a ‘real’ and quite exciting partnership.

I seem to be in the minority on Khoreva's performance--but I'll go ahead and write up a "minority report." I thought this was a decided step up from her Medora. In Paquita, she didn't just come across as a talented young dancer with a fine technique and high extension; in the grand pas in particular, to me it felt as if she was coming into her own as a ballerina-in-the-making and her performance had more than touches of brilliance in the showier sections including wonderful speed. (I thought she had better speed in turns than either Tereshkina or Batoeva.) Her beauty in the adagio was certainly greatly abetted by Zverev's fine partnering. Everything between them just flowed. The adagio Friday night (when I attended) looked relaxed and pure and spacious and grand all at the same time. I agree that she still has to develop. Goodness knows she does not have Tereshkina's grandeur or Batoeva's acting skills. (And, on the technique front, she did not articulate her gargouillades as they did.) I also agree that her shoes are a touch distracting. But I enjoyed her performance and not just for its "promise." As for acts I and II: in this ballet her light personality and charm seemed more than adequate. As Medora she was still something of a blank to me...in Paquita I didn't find her a blank. I don't deny that Batoeva and Tereshkina were able to do more with the ballet's story . . . such as it is; but the story is so slight dramatically that the "more" didn't make the difference to me that it might in another ballet. Have I drunk Instagram Kool-aid? At any rate, I'm looking forward to seeing how Khoreva develops further. Where I am happy not to be in the minority, at least among those posting here, is ... Shakirova!! I can't put into words how wonderful I found her; I was not quite anticipating such a strong reaction though of course I know her to be an excellent dancer and expected to like her performance. I loved it! She is a natural actress and, for want of a better expression, a natural dancer. That is, during her variation and the partnered dance sequence with the men of Andres's band, I never felt I was watching ballet steps just as I never felt I was watching dramatic posing during her mime; her variation was a flash of movement, a dance, and every moment of it and of her entire performance expressive. Can't wait to see more of her. I had a few disappointments this trip--dancers I had thought to like more than I did and dancers I missed entirely due to cast shuffling--and many pleasures, but I think I will stop with the two pleasures discussed above. I very much love the company.

In the Smekalov version, it vaguely seems odd to me that the hero is not in any potential trouble for desertion...nobleman or not. (He could still be pardoned for it at the end.) I did, though, enjoy many aspects of the production which I saw for the first time this past evening, and I am looking forward to seeing it again tomorrow.

I think that sometimes an ankle "sprain" can be worse than a clean break, and it takes time to heal fully. With time though, I trust your ankles will get 100 percent back to normal. Sending healing thoughts...

Copeland was well into her thirties when she was promoted --thirty-three/thirty four maybe...doesn't that mean her rise through the ranks was considerably slower than that of Teuscher or Shevchenko let alone Seo? At least to me, it doesn't seem all that quick. At the time of her promotion, she wasn't just in her mid-thirties she also had been through a very bad injury/surgery etc. If I had to speculate, then I would wonder if the injury she suffered not that long before the promotion -- an injury that kept her out for something like a year -- might have played a bigger role in limiting some of her purely technical accomplishments than any endorsements she did. (Heck, if Copeland had been promoted sooner, we would have seen more of her in the big classical roles pre-injury and could have evaluated her in that context.)

Thanks for your post. I very much wish I could see this production or at least that a DVD would be made of it so as to get a taste of it. And oh dear...to the bobbing scarf. (I have to say the snake jumping out of the bouquet early did make me laugh a little--reading about it anyway. I'm sure it was, as you describe, a test of the dancers' professionalism.)

I often have exactly the same question when I see this ballet--no matter how cruel Gamzatti is being, it's not she who picks up a knife and tries to stab her rival, it's Nikiya. (Nikiya also disdainfully tells off the high priest for ignoring his vows when she herself is conducting an illicit secret affair.) To me her actions suggest a passionate, impulsive figure--maybe desperate? or pushed to the edge?--but I haven't done any formal research into how this scene may have been intended by its creators or the different possible ways of playing it. And much of the ballet and people's informal commentary on it emphasize Nikiya's spiritual nature...which in fact is how the best Nikiyas I have seen seem to approach the role, attempted murder notwithstanding. Anyway, I, too, would love to hear people's thoughts on this.

I only know Ratmansky's via video so I can't make a fair comparison. Watching on video I did think that Ratmansky's attempt to update and refresh the story led to a certain incoherence or at least oddity in the ballet--I'm not sure you can superimpose a post-Soviet critique of revolution onto a Soviet celebration of revolution without it leading to some tonal mismatches. At least that was my reaction. Keeping to the original libretto (and using real character dancers for the character dances) Messerer created something exciting and joyful for the Mikhailovsky that also honors the ballet's Soviet origins in a less equivocal way than Ratmansky's does. To take a simple example: the martyr in Messerer's version is one of the revolutionaries--which I assume is true to the original libretto--not a sweet aristocrat guillotined by the revolution. The Mikhailovsky production is just a fun, optimistic work that celebrates the power of a popular uprising with all the energy of Soviet ballet. (I no more have a problem with that than I do with Sleeping Beauty's celebration of absolutism.) And I found seeing the Basque dance danced by character dance specialists alone worth the price of admission--though that was more true of the "first" cast than the alternate cast I saw. My understanding is that a lot of the ballet had to be worked up from second hand reports, memories, or just the music/libretto, though there is a chunk of it on film. Both Ratmansky and Messerer were bound to invent and update in some fashion, but clearly Messerer saw his job differently from Ratmansky. Incidentally the Mikhailovsky production also uses some projections etc. -- so he was already showing interest in technological updates. I do have a lot of respect for what Ratmansky tries to do with his version--anyone interested in how post Soviet Russia has been coming to terms with its past could do a lot worse than study all of Ratmansky's ballets--and I would love to see it in the theater one day. Very possibly in the theater I might have a different reaction to it too.

I have seen quite a bit of video on youtube of this Mikhailovsky production -- not all of it official. It looks rather wonderful, though I had been wondering if the special effects might not end up distracting from the choreography. It sounds from what you say @EricMontreal as if that may sometimes be the case. I'm afraid I can't say that I ever saw any Soviet Cinderella even on film. I do think that in interviews Messerer speaks very convincingly of the need for something more than a merely pious approach to revivals and reconstructions and I very much enjoyed what he did with Vainonen's Flames of Paris--not that much of which survived to be the basis of Messerer's revival. (The Mikhailovsky brought their Flames of Paris to New York which is where I saw it; unfortunately, I've never seen the company in its home theater.)

Those are beautiful -- and even just a glimpse of the super fine craftsmanship that goes into preparing them is a pleasure.

You are right -- in a short Q&A posted on the Atlanta Ballet website, he says that Love, Fear, Loss premiered with the Royal Ballet of Flanders (You probably know that he danced for many years with them--but maybe not everyone reading this will.) He also created a new work, The Premiere, for Atlanta Ballet last year. I had a mixed reaction to it on just one viewing but at any rate it had a clever hook rather similar to Wheeldon's Variations Sérieuses which was done for NYCB relatively early in his career -- a ballet company preparing a premiere for a performance. However, Wheeldon had a whole comic backstage story about divas and debutantes, Amarante's work wasn't narrative in that way. Here is the Q&A with Amarante posted on the Atlanta Ballet website: https://www.atlantaballet.com/news/q-a-with-choreographer-ricardo-amarante Here is the Q&A with Schreier the company posted: https://www.atlantaballet.com/news/q-a-with-choreographer-claudia-schreier

If it is on the Mariinsky website, then it seems unlikely to be "misinformation," though that perhaps is not quite the same thing as saying it's absolutely reliable. Still, they revived this version recently...I did read complaints about the revival of the revival, but I would imagine it's still well worth seeing if only for the spectacular physical production. I saw it when they brought it to the Met and...well...I'm very glad I did! As for casts: have you seen Somova or Novikova in other works? If so, then I would trust your own impressions of those dancers. Otherwise...If it were me, and I could only see one performance, then I would choose Novikova and Parish over Somova and Askerov in this particular ballet. But the choice strikes me as very much a matter of personal taste and I would be happy to see both of the casts you mention. As it happens there are recent performances that have been posted on youtube of both Novikova and Somova not only in Sleeping Beauty but in this reconstruction-production of Sleeping Beauty and quite recently. (Others will know, but I think Somova only danced its final act at a gala. She has been filmed professionally in the Sergeyev production.) Perhaps it would make sense to do some youtube investigation and decide on that basis. I'll add that Novikova worked closely with Vikharev as he was her coach at the Mariinsky: here is a little feature about her published in 2018 that mentions her dancing in the recent revival of his reconstruction: https://www.pointemagazine.com/the-standouts-of-2018-mariinsky-ballets-olga-novikova-2623791497.html If you do go, then I hope you will post about your experience.

This came out long--I would very much enjoy hearing from others who see Atlanta Ballet. (I know mileages vary...) Atlanta Ballet's closing program last season--at least the matinee performance I attended--seemed to me...well...not one of the company's strongest outings. So it is with some relief and more pleasure I can report that I very much enjoyed this season's opening program which concluded with a new work choreographed for the company by Claudia Schreier: First Impulse. I am probably too much under the immediate impact of the performance to make a cool judgment about it, but I'll act on my own first impulse and say I think First Impulse is a terrific, genuinely neoclassical work well deserving to be taken into the repertories of other companies. The program opened with Liam Scarlett's Vespertine which was created for the Norwegian National Ballet and had its North American Premier with Atlanta Ballet two seasons ago. I wrote about it then and my impressions of it have not changed on a second viewing. Set to an assemblage of baroque scores the ballet plays on the tension between formalized/courtly "baroque" manners and the more private/intimate sexualities underneath. The most emotionally raw and viscerally engaging of the more intimate moments is a pas de deux for two men that feels like the emotional core of the work. The choreography draws on modern dance as well as ballet and more or less blends them together. I did think it held up well to a second viewing, though the shadowy, moody lighting is at times a bit too shadowy both for my taste and for my eyes. I enjoyed all the performances, but I will mention Jackie Nash in particular. Her dancing wasn't just technically accomplished--though I should think she must be one of the most technically accomplished dancers in the company--but looks natural and authentic in a way that especially suits Scarlett's choreography. The program as a whole took its marketing moniker--Love, Fear, Loss--from the title of the next ballet on the program which was a company premier by Brazilian choreographer Ricardo Amarante set to songs by Edith Piaf and Jacques Brel and said to be inspired by episodes in Piaf's life. I had assumed this meant that the music would include recordings of Piaf and Brel, but was wrong about that. Rather, the ballet used a live pianist and no vocals. This was a short lyrical work -- three pas de deux on the ballet's three themes set to piano adaptations of three songs. The choreography stayed well within familiar, lyrical "piano ballet" territory, but I appreciated what felt like a certain modesty and good taste. It was also the one work on the program with live music. And, like the Schreier, it was very warmly received by the audience. (As indeed the whole program was, but those two works--perhaps not coincidentally the most balletic on the program--also seemed the most warmly received.) Like last year, the company included a guest performance from another company in its September program. This season it was a performance of excerpts from Dwight Rhoden's "Woke" danced by members of his company Complexions Contemporary Ballet -- and early next year Rhoden will choreograph a premier directly on Atlanta Ballet. Rhoden describes "Woke" as "a physical reaction to the daily news" and is explicit about the range of topics and issues it addresses, but the ballet's interpretation of its themes (at least in these excerpts) is not at all literal, and its "physical reaction" is one of power and vitality. The music assembles different contemporary works including vocals and none of it identified in the program. (The most clever and stirring of the vocals riffed on all the possible phrases for which the letters R.I.P. can stand and made those phrases into a kind of manifesto. I am trying to track this down on google--but there are a number of recent "RIP" songs and...uh...they aren't the one I heard.) In a perhaps fortuitous symmetry with Love, Fear, Loss, which it followed on the program, the excerpts from Woke also featured three couples exploring different experiences and emotions but if the former was lyrical and gentle even at its most intense moments, "Woke" was explosive -- intense (and technically challenging) even at its most gentle moments. I look forward to seeing what Rhoden creates for the Atlanta Ballet dancers. Schreier's First Impulse closed out the program. In the video featurette that introduced the ballet, she speaks about selecting the score by Eino Tamberg which she discovered on Spotify. I had never heard of Tamberg and from the first seconds of the ballet I found it to be a brilliant choice--the best kind of 20th-century "musique dansante." The music is itself neoclassical I suppose, though I guess I should leave that to experts--rhythmically lively, modern and even modernist at times, but accessible with lyrical, lilting passages, even a waltz. In the same featurette, Schreier talks about having looked for music that answered to the company's youthful energy as Nedvigin had described it to her -- but also wanting a score with emotional fluidity. Well, she found it. I guess I'm spending a lot of time on the choice of music, but Schreier's choreography for First Impulse is very musical -- even the transitions in the ballet as dancers enter and exit the stage in varied groupings captures the music's shifts in phrasing, tone, and instrumentation. Some of this is craft that one should expect from any professional choreographer, but I found Schreier's musicality to be at least a notch above the level of "craft" -- I feel that I was indeed "seeing the music." The costumes By Sylvie Rood helped set the tone as well--white leotards with geometric shapes painted on them, and white "practice clothes" type outfits for the men--all imagery that was clean, bright, and (neo)classical, complimented by mostly very bright lighting by Nicole Pearce though with a few more moodily lit sequences. Beyond "neoclassical" I'm afraid I don't find it easy to describe the choreography. First Impulse is a high energy ballet with occasional freeze-frames of images--striking groups or lifts. But it is "emotionally fluid" and theatrical as well. The audience audibly ooh-ed and aah-ed at a sequence of dimly lit and very fast bourrees that opened the adagio. Dancers were gliding forward across the stage--gliding one by one or spaced irregularly--in such a way that they seemed like ghosts floating above the ground or 21st-century Wilis . (I oohed and aahed too but silently.) Here and elsewhere the occasional play with lighting effects worked for me. Perhaps because I never felt I was getting shadowy for the sake of shadowy or atmosphere in place of choreography. Likewise, choreographic shifts between extroverted and introverted moments felt organic, probably because of the overarching musicality of the work. Some of the ballet's effects have been used by others, in particular silhouetting the dancers at the beginning and end of the ballet, but I thought Schreier always handled these astutely. In other passages I saw a genuine dialogue with classical ballet tradition and in particular, with Balanchine. In one passage she has the dancers twice organize into diagonals (first facing in one direction and then in another) and the second time the dancers along the diagonal assume shapes with their bodies that make it seem as if the choreography is deliberately superimposing shapes evoking those that the dancers assume at the close of Symphony in Three Movements onto the stunning diagonal that opens that ballet. (Intentional? Something I'm just projecting onto what Schreier has done? Well, at any rate, there seemed to me a serious conversation with Balanchine.) And though the ballet was without any story, the way a single woman was sometimes surrounded and held aloft by men in different groupings also somehow came across as something other than another unattainable Ivesiana female, but rather as somehow about that woman and her role among those men. Technically the choreography was more classical than the Schreier I have seen posted online (which isn't much); artists don't like to be put in boxes, but I must admit I am hoping this is the real Schreier. Her classical choreography pushed the Atlanta dancers too. She herself comments on the fast footwork of the ballet. (It looked very much as if one of the passages had a gargouillade in it, though the dancer didn't quite articulate the circular leg movement enough.) But I thought the dancers kept up well and/or kept up enough to enable the whole ballet to resonate. And of course some of them did much more than "keep up"--I'll mention Airi Igarashi in particular. She continues to impress and move me with her beautiful dancing. Anyway, this was a very enjoyable opener to AB's 2019-2020 season.

I just saw this on Instagram--congratulations to her!

Sounds like the right word to me --

A fabulous feature/interview with Robert Barnett -- who recently published a memoir. After serving in World War II, Barnett studied with Bronislava Nijinska and later worked closely with Balanchine before moving on to play a crucial role in the development of ballet in Atlanta-- including, in particular, the professionalization of Atlanta Ballet. And at 94, he is still teaching ballet today: https://www.artsatl.org/from-balanchine-to-atlanta-ballet-bobby-barnett-casts-an-influential-shadow/?fbclid=IwAR2DjWTo60DF2_ydvXnELksjxMKj4lT4A0UzrxBRLfO7HbuYcpe4tRDV7EY

Welcome to BalletAlert -- it's great to read your impression of the NYCB corps in Jewels! (Waaaay back, when I was able to see the company regularly, one didn't necessarily look to NYCB for super synchronicity.)

I wonder if Illiushkina will be dancing the other ballerina role in one of the Emeralds casts .... she has danced the role and she is cast in the D.C. Paquita. (I am hoping I get to see her in D.C.)

For my taste, each cast has pluses and ...not minuses...but, I would say, question marks. And of course even the best Mariinsky casts don't exactly dance Balanchine idiomatically (a word I'm borrowing from @Helene ). There is also the problem that the company has a habit of shifting casts around on tour. But if I had to pick one cast based on what has been announced I would definitely go with the opening night/Sat night cast with Kondaurova in Diamonds, Batoeva and Bulanova in Rubies and Shirinkina in Emeralds. I personally would also be pleased to see the other cast which has a number of terrific dancers and several very promising ones. But in that cast both Emeralds and Diamonds are led by very young dancers still "underway" as artists so to speak. At the same time, if you are a fan who likes to see the newcomers, then in the opening night cast you still get to see one of the youngest dancers the company has been casting in featured roles and arguably the most glamorous of them, Bulanova. And with the "opening" cast you are also seeing an experienced major ballerina in Kondaurova. All that said, there is video of many of these dancers in Jewels on youtube --while video doesn't do anyone justice and in the case of the youngest dancers what is recorded is often a debut performance--still the video gives you a flavor, so you can judge based on your own tastes.

Absolutely...and that program seems like a good choice also...

Thank You for filling me in @vipa —I think Kammermusik no 2 is asking a lot of a newcomer to ballet (more than many other modernist works by Balanchine) unless they love mid-20th century classical music in general or Hindemith in particular. And the vernacular/character dance based Union Jack is maybe not what people mean when they have “ballet performance” on their bucket list, though it is very fun. I really do think Jewels is the better option —and you still get some modernist Balanchine with Rubies. Fortunately NYCB’s dancers are so strong that whatever program one goes to see, one will see fantastic dancing —and with Balanchine, great choreography. So you can’t go wrong exactly. (Oh...and if you do go to “classic NYCB”, @Mairead James, then make absolutely sure to stay for the final work on the program - Symphony in C. That’s the real classic on that program and shows you what great ballet can be. But for an overall beautiful evening with three quite different ballets and especially for someone who wants to see their first ballet performance—I’m sticking with Jewels.)

I'm not a fan of Nutcracker as an introduction to ballet -- though that is probably an unpopular opinion. (Think of all the people who go to Nutcracker every year, year after year, but never attend another ballet. And it plays into the incorrect idea that ballet is somehow especially linked to recitals by and for children.) If I were choosing, then from the programs you list I'd probably pick a classic NYCB program (depending on the ballets). But what about Jewels? Jewels has three "different" ballets, different in mood, music etc. Your friend gets exposed to different ways ballet can appeal. And all of the ballets--Emeralds, Rubies, Diamonds, are "accessible" and sophisticated at once. And it has always been a very popular ballet with audiences. I know NYCB is dancing Jewels this Fall season at least....