bingham

And now the other shoe drops. With Matthews and Radetsky both leaving at the end of the Met season, ABT will be left with a decimated soloist contingent consisting of Craig Salstein and oft-injured Alexandre Hammoudi.

Now i dread any tweets from Pointe Magazine...

I agree wholeheartedly with every comment, miliosr, and I thank you for putting together such an eye-opening tally. It is depressing isn't it? Given how mgmt is handling this Met Season, I'm going to have my eye on the roster post-season to see if any corps members (and how many) leave. What reason would they have to be optimistic about their future there, when they see how many talented corps and soloist dancers languish for years without a promotion and aren't fully utilized when there are injuries and hence, opportunities? Giving Matthews, Tamm and Gorak more roles to fill in for the injured is terrific, but not good enough.

And, although it pains me to say this, I believe Hallberg should only be a guest artist at this point. It's clear that his loyalty is to the Bolshoi (and to doing guest appearances worldwide with other companies) and not to ABT. That's wonderful for him personally (I really mean that) but I can't help but think that his principal status is preventing someone else from getting promoted (like Matthews). Doing 7 performances in a year is a guest artist's schedule.

How are the principal dancers paid? Is it based on the performances they do for the season? If so,Marcelo should be the highest paid dancer based on the number of his performances.

I keep confusing Lescaut's Mistress with the Manon Lescaut figure in Neumeier's "La Dame aux Camellias" which was also danced by Veronika Part.

What strikes me as odd here is that once again, ABT has one or two injured male principals and they are scrambling around trying to grab premier danseurs from all over the world to fill in. This happened in 2011 when Maxim Beloserkovsky and Ethan Stiefel were injured or unable to dance at the beginning of the season. Then Herman Cornejo got injured. Malakhov and Bocca were no longer dancing with ABT. Carreno was set to retire at the end of that season. He had to reappear after his retirement gala to sub for an injured Hallberg in one of the last "Swan Lake" shows of the season. Suddenly, ABT was scrambling to get Ivan Vasiliev, Johan Kobborg and Guillaume Coté drafted in. Since then Stiefel, Carreno, Beloserkovsky, Corella and other male principals have retired. Talented corps dancers like Joseph Phillips got frustrated and left and Sascha Radetsky will leave at the end of this season.

Suddenly there is this shortage of male talent in the principal ranks. Ivan Vasiliev with his limited repertory is only dancing a handful of Don Q's. David Hallberg is functioning more like a guest artist than a resident principal. Simkin and Cornejo are limited by their height as to who they can partner. Meanwhile Vadim Muntagirov and Denis Matvienko are regular guests now. Matvienko's injury along with the usually dependable Corey Stearns being out for the first month or so has really precipitated a crisis. Matvienko is not a company dancer but a guest artist yet his injury has the management scrambling - a ballet company should not be dependent on guest artists. Clearly with Stiefel and Carreno retired they need two tall or medium tall star male principals to take their place. Whiteside was fast tracked from soloist to principal and is doing all he can - but clearly ABT needs another male principal. Among the soloists the markedly improved Jared Matthews could be called on to do more. Hammoudi has yet to show that he can carry a soloist's load let alone a principal's.

Eric Tamm, Gorak and Thomas Forster should be groomed to take over lead roles. With Radetsky's and Kristi Boone's departure and Isabella Boylston's almost inevitable future promotion to principal, there is room for new faces in the soloist ranks. These three guys are due for a promotion.

I thoroughly agree these 3( along with Gray Davis and Calvin Royal) should have been given more chances to prepare them for principal roles. I worry that they will get tired of waiting and leave the company. Look at M Golding(now principal at RB )and former Studio Co Members(Isaac Hernandez (DNB) , Sae Eun Park(POB) and Yannick Stephant(POB). ABT-KM better do something soon.

There is still no Solor for Gillian's Bayadere. Maybe, he is the one ?

Happy that Gomes picked up some Don Basilios, but I can't imagine him trying to life Semionova in overhead one handed lifts. In fact, I don't even want him to try, because he is too valuable to lose for the season due to back injuries.

Marcelo can do anything but you are right. What is ABT going to do if he is injured ? This is what happens when you don't prepare the dancers you have.

I hope the folks at ABT are reading this and will act accordingly.

With Stearns out, there is now a shortage of tall men for the season. Since Hallberg is unavailable, this leaves only Gomes and Whitside for all the tall girl assignments. For whatever reason, they don't cast Bolle much. Maybe they are planning to throw the not-yet-ready Hammoudi into the fire and see what happens.

ABT has lots of talented tall men in the corps( T Forster, G Davis, D Mantei ) who have not been given any big breaks.It's time they are given chances to shine or this will always be a problem in the future.

Any mention who will ABT send to MB and RDB as part of the exchange? If Boylston's debut with MB as Gamzatti in April is part of the exchange then ABT got a hell of a deal. Whoever at ABT negotiated the exchange the Commerce Department should poach her/him as part of the trade treaty negotiating team.

Isabella Boylston was part of the exchange with RDB. She danced with them in December for their Nutcracker. I know she danced Dewdrop but I can't remember is she danced any other role in that production with them.

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She also danced the Sugar Plum Fairy. She will dance Gamzatti at MB in April. I hope she gets coaching in the role while she is there.Kevin is probably getting her ready for a promotion.

Boylston's Twitter feed recently showed her getting coached by Tatyana Terekhova in St Petersburg for Giselle. With her debuting in that role next month, along with her past and upcoming guest appearances, I agree she's being groomed to be promoted. She's getting more opportunities (and principal parts) than any other soloist right now. I imagine it'll happen by the Met season (but I also imagined that other promotions - Gorak for one - would have been announced by now).

That is a very good preparation for her debut.It would be wonderful if ABT can get T Terekhova to coach full time the company in addition to Irina.

Surely, ABT/KM should promote several deserving corps dancers before they leave for greener pastures.Look where M Golding and Sae eun Park are now.

Any mention who will ABT send to MB and RDB as part of the exchange? If Boylston's debut with MB as Gamzatti in April is part of the exchange then ABT got a hell of a deal. Whoever at ABT negotiated the exchange the Commerce Department should poach her/him as part of the trade treaty negotiating team.

Isabella Boylston was part of the exchange with RDB. She danced with them in December for their Nutcracker. I know she danced Dewdrop but I can't remember is she danced any other role in that production with them.

She also danced the Sugar Plum Fairy. She will dance Gamzatti at MB in April. I hope she gets coaching in the role while she is there.Kevin is probably getting her ready for a promotion.

And, I can't help but wonder if his time directing the RNZ Ballet (plus his teaching experience globally as well as his position as dean at NCSA) could position him to become the next AD of ABT.

I would support that wholeheartedly.

Same here...

My deepest sympathy to her family. She was very kind in helping me understand questions about ballet and ballet going. May she rest in peace.

Whew! what a relief. For a moment, i thought , Kevin will do the new production.

I just log in and saw the headline'"5 promotions to be announced". I was holding my breath with expectations, when i saw that it was with PNB and not ABT. Are there any promotions coming this season? Maybe in the Spring season?

There are 5 new Corps members listed in the ABT website, 2 promoted from the Apprentice group. I hope K Mc will be promoting some deserving corps members to soloists.

What a loss - an excellent character actor and dancer. I'll miss him as Bottom and so many other things. Best of luck to him in his next pursuit!

In his Facebook, julio mentions ,he is studying at The William Esper Studio, an acting school.Good Luck to him.

No Ashton

Yes, he has moved to Sarasota, Florida.

That was exactly in my mind.

But still no promotions...

I know that ABT has done Patineurs with different costumes, but that the Joffrey used to do it with the William Chappell designs.

Cecil Beaton did the ABT costumes for Les Patineurs.

Macaulay also praised E Obratzova in the same review. She would be a great guest to the spring season.

Yet, I'm sure that they would love to stay in StP and see their daughter performing on the stage of the Mariinsky. The question is: Would they leave home?

Or they can take her with them

The thing I find most disturbing about ABT's treatment of Part is that they have refused to give her certan roles. I always thought that they didn't give her Juliet, Manon, Tatyana in Onegin and Giselle because of her height - maybe she is just too tall for all those lifts. However, they seem to have no problem giving those very same roles to Semionova, who is just as tall and Part. Frankly, David Hallberg's eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head last season during some of the lifts involving Semionova in R&J. Semionova was a very bland and uninspiring Juliet and Tatyana. If you're going to make the guys lift tall girls in these roles, why not give Part a shot too. She's earned it. Not fair.

There are a couple of tall( over 6 ft ) and strong- looking members of the corp, Gray Davis and Thomas Forster,who could partner Veronika if given a chance. Thomas partnered her in S in C in LA last July.

Marcelo, if possible , would,probably, want to dance with himself as partner.

EVERYONE wants to dance with Marcelo, and there isn't enough Marcelo to go around. I suspect that Vishneva has an unwritten rule that she will only dance with Marcelo in full length ballets, since that is de facto what has been happening the last few years.

Why can't ABT or NYCB do a similar free performance in the Central Park? Maybe, PBS can filmed it for eventual broadcast.

Angel Corella?

May be a multi year program to restore, reconstruct, & restage all Petipa ballets. Please pardon my daydreaming.

We just have to continue daydreaming. Mine was Yuri Burlaka's joining as a Petipa stager.

May be a multi year program to restore, reconstruct, & restage all Petipa ballets. Please pardon my daydreaming.

I'll daydream with you.