Cliff

But who would want a job like that? Worse, who would read the product, and what could they make of the stats?

Fantasy ballet leagues would use the stats. Plus it would enhance interest in non-local dancers.

Every ballet collection ought to include the two choreography by Balanchine DVDs.

Nacho Duarte

Warhorses:

Nutcracker or Swan Lake

I saw the thursday evening performance with Sarah Lane, Herman Cornejo, and Maria Ricceto. The theater was packed and there seemed to be a greater than usual number of children.

Sarah Lane looked happy to be there, often smiling, and dancing beautifully. The Rosa Adagio was graceful. There was some wobbling in the vision scene. Cornejo was impressive. Ricceto was an unmemorable Lilac fairy. Gelsey Kirkland failed to show, so Maria Bystrova was suitably menacing as Carabosse,

At the wedding celebration the fairy tale characters put in a brief appearance. They hardly danced, which was ok by me.

Overall I liked the costumes. Usually dancers are clad in pale yellow, pale blue, pale white... Here the brighter colors were striking. The corp costumes matched either Lilac or Aurora. Carabosse's minions looked like headless insects.

The sets were sets. I didn't see what all the fuss was about.

Cliff

Maia Wilkins is one of my favorites. Over the years I've watched her dance in many roles. I'm shocked and disgruntled.

The Chicago Tribune article mentioned that Wilkins was a potent muse of Arpino. Pure speculation, but in the corporate world new CEOs often replace people who were close to the former CEO.

In Chicago La Scala canceled due to a funding problem, but was replaced by Diane Vishneva in a "Beauty in Motion" program.

I'd reserve judgment. An excellent movie was made about insane mathematician John Nash, "A beautiful Mind." Mathematicians being well known for their sartorial sense.

I got an email update... my copy of Raymonda may not be shipped until 2/1 - 2/15.

King Lear. A classic story and there ought to be more ballets from Shakespeare. Plus it has multiple female roles.

Joan Acocella in The New Yorker wrote:

No art, not even opera, is more clad in snobbery than ballet.

Its hard to imagine an art that all to often features a score of children in the Nutcracker as snobbish. Opera on the television show Frasier indicated snobbery. Does ballet really surpass opera as the most snobbish art?

What exactly is the difference between purchasing at the BT mini-store and purchasing via the Amazon.com link?

A related question would be, what is your favorite book of ballet photos? Mine is Balanchine, Celebrating a Life in Dance by Costas. Although I've only seen a few books of photos.

Were pre-VHS era ballet films made strictly for television? Were any shown in movie theaters?

Video requires a lot of space when stored digitally, so an assortment of lossy data compression methods are used. Data compression greatly reduces the space needed to store a video with the cost of some loss of picture quality. DVDs commonly use MPEG2. MJPEG2000 is higher quality and requires more storage space.

The Wilis?

Other art froms have prestigous awards, such as the Tony, Academy, Pulitzer etc. Shouldn't there be a big, newsworthy award show for ballet? There could be awards for best set, best costume, best music, best new choreography, best revival, plus something for the dancers. The publicity would be good as it would raise the stature of ballet in popular culture.

This newly released DVD with Ulanova might be it:

Bolshoi Ballet

According the Chicago Tribune article linked above, next year ABT is bringing Sleeping Beauty to Chicago.

ABT has had a lot of cast changes in Chicago and not just in this year. Do they have as many cast changes in NYC? Its annoying when one purchases tickets in advance with a goal of eventually seeing all of the ABT principals.

In the first act, the dancers were often in profile with arms angular and bent. It reminded me of the stereotypical Egyptian walk. Is this an intentional reference to Egypt?

The only good reason to park across from the Auditoreum theater is that you're running late. There is a huge underground parking garage (Grant Park?) just a few blocks away and its cheaper.

Herrera and Murphy also swapped the weekend matinees. Are they regular partners with Gomes and Hallberg?

Dancing for Dollars sounds like its targeted to the reality TV crowd.

I'm not a music person, primarily listening to music in my car. I like Rock. Talking Heads, The Clash, early U2 and REM. By the mid-nineties new Rock had vanished and I began listening to the classical music stations. This led to the Classic Arts Showcase cable program. After various ballet clips I decided to see a live performance and became hooked. I like Vivaldi and Stravinski.

Robert Gottleib on Sleeping Beauty, mentioned his ideal Beauty and then added

http://www.observer.com/20070122/20070122_...ttliebdance.asp

When that production, designed by Oliver Messel, deteriorated, the Royal replaced it with a whole series of versions, none of which measured up to what they were replacing. (Its current staging is sadly pallid.) The Kirov Beauty, already in trouble, gave way recently to a fussy historical reproduction of the 1890 original—a fascinating curiosity if not a living work of art.

Now, he doesn't seem to be referring to deteriorating sets and costumes, but to the choreography. Is this an intentional process of gradual tinkering that Gottleib calls deterioration? Or is it a result of forgetfulness? In what ways do productions change over time?