Drew

At ABT Fancy Free has been an opener and many years ago I saw a performance by the Israel Ballet with Serenade as a closer...In other words, I think there are or need be no rules on mixed bill programming. And appetizer/main course/desert is, I think, sometimes a bit worn out as a model. Would love to see Messmer as Odette (or, indeed, in a different production, as Odette/Odile)! I really envy MCB having this remarkable dancer.

He has been offered a position--I believe in developing/overseeing new choreography in the theater. However, to my knowledge he has not accepted (or rejected) it yet.

I liked this production when I saw it with ABT but also was disappointed with the scenic effects--the transformation of the castle at rhe end of Act I especially held little magic. I gather some of the scenery, like the costumes, was based on Bakst...but that knowledge doesn't help...

I was very (and pleasantly) surprised the segment was at the beginning of the show and as long as it was. It's ... uh ... not really my sensibility but I did laugh a bit at Kimmel claiming Copeland was so critical of his ballet dancing because she was jealous of his remarkable talent etc.

I hope to be able to see both the Shostakovich trilogy and the new Ratmansky premier program with Seven Sonatas and Firebird (both ballets that I have enjoyed). I doubt I will be able to see Golden Cockerel as well--but would certainly like to do so. Re the premier: I'm intrigued that Ratmansky has opted for an American composer for a change... (I am also very excited the company has chosen to do two Ashton full lengths in one season.)

Thanks for posting this. A lovely piece.

I am hannging on to my admitedly now fading hope that Lopatkina will perfrom late in the week, perhaps even over the weekend.

Always a pleasure to see Soloviev--I quite liked Evteyeva too who, I thought, really looked to be in a kind of sleepwalking trance. (Lesser dancers could not have kept me watching slightly fuzzy black and white...)

I don't think it was her most tactful public statement, but I didn't find it bizarre. I think most major ABT debuts get a review in the Times and a handful of other formal reviews in some cases (not others); though even Times reviews of debuts are sometimes integrated into an overview of several performances etc. Still, I admit I would be very surprised if Copeland's Swan Lake NY debut didn't get more reviews than others' as well as more prominent general audience coverage. Even if I'm wrong about the reviews--I haven't researched how many reviews there were of Boylston's Swan Lake debut vs. Seo's vs. Copeland's--certainly few debuts get all the 'extra' coverage Copeland's Swan Lake did; she may also be conflating professional criticism with public commentary in blogs, message boards, etc. That is, perhaps she could or should have expressed herself differently about debuts and critics--I'm not usually inclined to parse dancers' words that carefully--but if she feels more scrutinized in her debuts than some other dancers...well, I don't think she's wrong to do so. As far as ABT and press seats go: she did not say that she wished critics wouldn't come, just that she feels, as she puts it, in an "interesting position." And she is. (I agree, though, that all ABT dancers making major debuts in NY are usually covered in some fashion or another in the Times at least. It goes with the territory...)

I assume Stiefel and Murphy didn't have to participate unless they wanted. (Shows Murphy is a good sport since it's been some time since she has been relegated to the corps!) I thought Copeland was charming and danced beautifully for the context. As noted above, the goofy schtick is not surprising when it's ballet on Jimmy Kimmel. The Bell Telephone hour he's not. For now, I'm inclined to think it a good thing that ballet is getting some more attention on late night television.

I would like to like this ballet more than I do, but the music has, for my ears, nothing like the delicacy and dreaminess of the story. Still, I would be eager to see both ABT casts this coming season (Cornejo/Lane and Simkin/Trenary) and look forward to reading what you and others think of their performances.

I was delighed to hear this news about her Bolshoi debut and would enjoy a chance to see her in Ratmansky's ballet. As for taking her husband's name--maybe it's a personal choice, and maybe she would like to get a bit of distance from all the controversy surrounding her earlier career. I would have no trouble believing either explanation.

Bart Birdsall -- Glad your healing is going well and that there have been at least a few benefits to go along with all the distress and inconvenience. (Massive dental work is no fun--laughing gas notwithstanding.) It shows what a great spirit you have that you are able to point out the positives. I may try to see Raymonda in D.C. as well, so perhaps we will meet again!

Program looks very interesting and varied...Thanks for posting.

I agree with many of the thoughts expressed in various posts above--including how interesting it would be to see certain Mariinsky dancers in Ratmansky's productions. But I still take exception to whole-sale dismissal of Soviet ballet and its meaning for Russian companies. Like it or not, Soviet Ballet is part of the "true" Russian ballet "heritage." I think it would be artificial and ahistorical for Russian companies to try to erase the Soviet past. That doesn't mean there isn't value in "reconstructions" and also value in attempts to recover some theatrical aspects of the imperial past. But just dismissing Soviet Ballet tradition tout court seems problematic to me. Ballet tradition is just that, a tradition: it gets handed down and it wears the traces of that process. Living tradition makes ballet ballet. And, despite globalization, audiences still can experience different traditions in the US, the UK, France, Russia etc as well as traditions elsewhere in the world (Latin American, Asia). That seems to me a good thing, though I realize we may lose it in the coming decades. Since imperial productions were, pre-Soviet times, themselves subject to revision and tinkering (and not always by their original choreographer), other questions can be raised as well. Ballet lives, breathes, grows, decays, gets reborn etc. in the theater. If "piece of the true cross" Petipa or Ivanov can be recovered legitimately then I am all for it. I liked and publically defended the Ratmansky Sleeping Beauty. But I wouldn't want to lose much of what Soviet Ballet has also brought to the table. The Soviets a)kept alive a lot of choreography completely ignored and unknown in the West b)produced remarkable, standard setting dancers c)produced at least a handful of important ballets that are still engaging and enthralling on stage--and musically many more, as in the scores that Ratmansky dug out for The Bolt and Bright Stream d)included technical innovations in elements like partnering that had an important influence on the West as well. A real Soviet ballet historian could say more. My own tastes are formed by Balanchine and (to a lesser extent) Ashton and in the classics, British and British influenced productions such as the David Blair Swan Lake for ABT. But that's not the same thing as saying that I see nothing of value in, say, the Sergeyev Sleeping Beauty, or the Kirov/Mariinsky way of dancing Les Sylphides. Or the Bolshoi Don Quixote with all of its hokey later additions. And the way dancers danced in the 19th century would, I think, look rather foreign to me, however charmed I might be or however much the historian in me was intrigued. I also find myself thinking of the D'Orsay museum in France (when it first opened, it may be different now) which made a great point of featuring popular 19th-century taste and relegating much impressionist and post-impressionist paintings that late-20th-century audiences liked, to smaller rooms; when I was there all the tourists, including myself, were crowding in to see Monet and Van Gogh, not dreamily looking at academic painters prized in 1870. I remember thinking, this museum is an art historian's fantasy, not an art lover's. One difference is that Petipa is a master that we all do want to see, but how Petipa is danced has changed and I can't quite agree that all of those changes are simply 'bad.' In fact, I think some of them emerge from a logic inscribed in the choreography itself. Ratmansky has said he no longer likes to see Petipa danced except in the manner he recreated for his Sleeping Beauty. I liked his Sleeping Beauty a lot--and I would love to see his Swan Lake--but I can't agree.

Rest in peace...

I've wondered about this, especially as I'm under the impression Vishneva (who is listed) doesn't dance that much with the Mariinsky. But based on casting, I have the impression that the Mariinsky "first soloists" are all sort of "quasi-principals" -- that is they regularly dance principal roles-- though perhaps also occasionally the kind of soloist roles that in many classical companies are sometimes taken by principals or soon-to-be principals. Being promoted to officially designated "principal" seems to mean precisely "prima ballerina" or top of the top. Almost like an honor. But, say, Shirinkina, Kolegova, Novikova, Osmolkina, and even Shapran all dance ballerina/principal roles on a somewhat regular basis as best I can tell. (Pavlenko, on the other hand, seems to have been de facto demoted--casting-wise--in recent years even if she is still listed as a principal. ) Closer Mariinsky watchers than myself may have other perspectives.

This is a rare ABT season for me in being more intriguing for repertory than casting. I will at least try to come up for the Ratmansky week when they are doing Shostakovich Trilogy and the program with Seven Sonatas, Firebird, and a premier. I am also eager, if possible, to see Fille with pretty much any cast, though I am especially looking forward to seeing Lendorf as Colas. (I was also wondering if they would bring in Nunez or Cojocaru to guest in that, but I see they are not.) Excited that Trenary is getting major opportunities. Very unhappy not to see Hallberg scheduled--perhaps he is TBA; certainly I hope he is back on stage somewhere by this spring.

I would have rushed to see the Frankenstein. Sleeping Beauty...not as interesting to me. And I'm nowhere near the Canadian border. (I see, from the synopsis on the Royal Ballet's website, that Scarlett and/or his librettist have substantially revised the novel's plot to make it more ballet friendly. And not just ballet friendly. The novel gets you to sympathize with a figure who murders deliberately and repeatedly; evidently Scarlett decided not to take that on...)

From an academic point of view, I kind of wonder if the Yale School of Music shouldn't be doing ballet residencies (and live-streams) on subjects like the Balanchine/Stravinsky collaboration, and I found the documentary ballet history offered as part of Lopatkina's performance-tribute to great Russian ballerinas cringe inducing (if also kind kind of touching in its earnestness)...but I'm 100% with Cygnet anyway. Lopatkina is a sublime artist... Every opportunity to see her is a gift. (Yermakov, too, did a fine job--largely in support. When they brought both Lopatkina and Yermakov bouquets at the end of the performance he pretty much immediately handed his to Lopatkina. That's what I call a good partner.)

I was unable to watch anything other than the first few minutes and they began by introducting a documentary on Lopatkina--the livestream of the speakers introducing the documentary seemed good quality to me, but stream of the film -- where we were watching a video of the film being shown in the concert hall -- was less than ideal. I had to depart after five minutes anyway. As I understand Lopatkina was going to come out later... I'm cautiously looking forward to the performance tomorrow evening.

Edited to add: I misread Macnellie--though I bet Sunday afternoon was wonderful! However, I quoted Macnellie originally because these words express exactly my reaction to Saturday afternoon. In fact, Saturday had to serve as my 'farewell' to Jenny Somogyi who danced beautifully in Episodes at that performance. I loved the way the Saturday ('Balanchine Black and White') program musically and, in a sense, 'thematically' had a distinct continuity not just in certain patterns and approaches to movement but in the way Balanchine's clean, modernist breakdown/reinvention of classical ballet (whose sources are early modern/baroque) take up a whole series of pre- or early-modern musical and other motifs (Medieval humors, Renaissance music/dance, Baroque music (in Episodes as well as Concerto Barocco). For me, it was like finding myself at the absolute center of what classical ballet is and yet simultaneously at the most extreme point of where it can go. (As for the dancing--altogether, it was worthy of the ballets. I don't think I can give the company higher praise than that.)

I thought the ball in Jeux was an allusion to Nijinsky's choreography which began with a tennis ball landing on stage...In Brandstrup's work I thought the ball playing was a lightweight counter-game to the rather darker blind man's buff game taking place. I didn't care much for the ballet as I found the implicit story a touch banal, the actual dance material only occasionally interesting, and the tone hard to fix. But I felt like I 'got' the ball and I thought Sara Mearns gave a gripping performance as a deceived/disappointed in love protagonist taking on, at first tentatively, a different kind of relationship. (That's the narrative I inferred...) After the first time I saw it I wasn't sure I would find it easy to sit through a second time--but Mearns more than kept my interest. Without liking every ballet equally, I enjoyed the premier evening altogether quite a bit, not least because I thought there was scarcely a dancer on stage who wasn't outstanding. (In the all Balanchine program that I was also able to see, I also found the dancing excellent--albeit with a minor caveat or two.) I am unable to write more now, but will try to write a little more later about the other premiers.

I'm sorry I missed the original topic; will remember to do search next time.

Announcement of Lopatkina in New Haven this coming week for a residency at the Yale School of Music. Article says all events will stream live. I would love to hear from anyone who attends in real life 'live.' http://news.yale.edu/2015/10/06/yale-school-music-presents-prima-ballerina-performance-and-conversation