drb
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Posts posted by drb
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Professional critics are going to differentiate between the production and the current abilities of the cast, and if the semi-professional leads fall short, we'll all know who ticket holders have to blame.
Exactly. A critic doesn't need to bash a kid in order to say that Mr. Martins made a faulty casting decision. And we know who will be reviewing it from the Times! My guess is that when we see the ballet the judgment will most likely rest on something else, the sets for instance, or choreography.
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The company is still paying the full yearly salaries for all its dancers, so they won't save any money by having Juliet played by an advanced student. Indeed, if they are made apprentices for this job they will be paid according to the union contract, in which case it would actually cost the company more. So I've got to conclude that this is an artistic decision of the choreographer. If I'm going to pay for a ballet, I'd wish to see it presented with as good a cast as the choreographer can offer. Also, isn't it true that some casts will have Juliets from the regular company? If so, one could vote at the ticket booth.
Oh, it will save wear-and-tear on the part of the regular dancers, perhaps cutting down the company's horrendous injury rate.
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In today's e-mail from the Met:
FINAL THREE PERFORMANCES OF THE MET'S 2006–07 HD LIVE SEASON – DON'T MISS OUT!
Don't miss Puccini's Il Trittico, live to theaters around the world on Saturday, April 28th. Tony Award–winner Jack O'Brien stages a powerful new production of this ambitious triptych of one–acts, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and featuring a cast of renowned international singers.
• Saturday, April 28 at 1:30 PM ET / 10:30 AM PT
In addition, due to popular demand, encore transmissions have been scheduled for Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin starring Renée Fleming as Tatiana and Dmitri Hvorostovsky in the title role. Don't miss the rebroadcast of this wildly popular transmission, featuring one of the most gripping final scenes in opera.
• Sunday, April 15 at 1:30 PM, in all time zones
The final performance this season will be an encore performance of Rossini's The Barber of Seville (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), starring Juan Diego Flórez, one of the great bel canto tenors of the day, as Count Almaviva, rising mezzo–soprano Joyce DiDonato as Rosina, and the dashing baritone Peter Mattei in the title role.
• Tuesday, May 15 at 7:00 PM, in all time zones
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Opening Night, April 13
Well, it was Friday the 13th, and the Eifman Ballet was very unlucky with its world premiere, Cassandra
(Dmitrievsky, Holst). The story involved the Trojan daughter of Priam and Hecuba. After some serpents give her the gift of prophecy, she rejects advances of Apollo (an MCP, apparently without benefit of proper Muse training, a la Balanchine). Apollo changes her gift, so no one will believe her. Troy falls. Agamemnon (same dancer as Apollo) wants her. His wife spots this interest and kills them both. Barely any applause. Dancers go off. Applause stops. Eventually the soloists and corps return to the silent stage and get some sporadic applause. The mostly Russian audience did not distinguish itself, the dancers deserved more respect.
This is the first time I've seen the company. In the second half of the evening it was very attractive in a mix of Eifman excerpts. Only one of the works on display is part of this season's rep. I don't know the full works, but Eifman surely put his best foot forward. The obvious Prima, Maria Abashova, made three appearances. First, in Who's Who, she appears with one toe shoe in hand, sits and puts it on. A Prince Charming (Yury Smekalov, her partner throughout the evening) confronts her with the other. It seems this is her first time going en pointe, so he tries to help her. She finally gets on one toe, but not up, as she is sitting on the back of the shoe! Gradually her wobbling lesson turns into a lyric PdD. She's a beauty, sort of like Farrell in Bejart. The corps dances more of the ballet. High-spirited. Next a substantial portion of Karamazovs, very strong political statement, text spoken in English. Abashova back for a bit of Anna Karenina, then the American premiere of Eifman's Pink Floyd PdD Double Voice. Then Abashova returns for Don Quixote, the Don a big part for Yury Smekalov. All of this very lively, or lyric, or terrifying (K). He moves the corps well, makes it interesting. The audience came through with significant Russian rythmic clapping (although these ex-Petersburgers are not quite up to Moscow's persistance). Boris Eifman then joined his company to perform Don Juan and Moliere. He appears to have a warm connection with his dancers, again a la Maurice Bejart.
I really enjoyed the company's emotion, and the choreography did not flag. A number of the men were virtuosic jumpers, big and accomplished partners. The star of course was Abashova. The program included detailed casting for the entire season. Here are the Abashova performances. She should be seen.
Seagull, the young ballerina (Zarechnaya): 18, 20, 21 at 8PM; 22 at 7PM.
Russian Gamlet, Catherine the Great: both performances.
Anna Karenina, Anna: 27, 28 at 8PM; 29 at 7PM.
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Now, if only work will send me to Europe this summer...
I hope it does! Here's the casting for the three-week London Season, from The Bolshoi's press release of March 14:
http://www.bolshoi.ru/en/season/press-offi...ex.php?id26=621
I see no listing of the Princess Diana ballet referred to on today's links. The composer seems to want the Bolshoi to do it in London this summer. No choreographer, no mention on the Bolshoi site, and a very odd home site:
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There's more to dance than dancing.
Here are about 20 such photos taken of Bolshoi dancers and students from 1947 to 2004, some famous photographers, mostly anon. dancers, except for Bessmertnova (in school, 1963) and Plisetskaya (1967).
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Sang-Yi Han, out.
Philip Neal (partnering Bouder), in.
Desmond Richardson, M.C.
Finalists will also dance.
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In the April 16 issue of the New Yorker, online and in print, there is a very long and dense review of the book by Claudia Roth Pierpont. I won't quote from it (I'm terrible at touch typing) but I'll say that Pierpont deems Duberman equal to the task of writing about Mr. K., while slashing through the underbrush of what apparently was a jungle created by Kirstein's tendancy to "obfuscate, exaggerate and lie."
It sounds marvelous!!
Here's the whole article, almost a book in itself!
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/16/prince-of-the-city-2
[Admin note: the New Yorker changed the URL, and it's been updated here]
His view of the importance of technique, or lack of it, in modern art:
...“It is not enough to be able to see, to have personal vision, an original eye, and the ambition to be an artist,” Kirstein wrote in 1948...about the general state of modern art. The all-important missing element was technique: “digital mastery,” as he later put it.... But for all the awe this anxious and awkward man expressed before any sort of technical virtuosity, he did not regard technique as an end in itself. It was, rather, the necessary start of an internal chain reaction: technical precision implied a respect for tradition, which in turn presumed a reverence for the masters who had come before, which defeated the common tendency toward romantic narcissism (the ruin of so much modern art and dance) and opened one’s eyes to the world and to the God-given nature of genius—which, in culmination, made the truly great artist a truly moral human being. -
Keeping in mind that Gomes is coming back from an injury, I thought the following performance tally for the Met season (extracted from bios on the website) was interesting:
... 19 - Gomes
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It just doesn't look final to me.
Very good point. And this doesn't count the Gala, nor two or three Rothbarts, his great role in Swan Lake, that is nearly comparable to dancing Siegfried. Moreover, he gets to lift some of the heaviest ballerinas. I recall Hallberg's comments last year on The Winger as to how killing dancing the male lead in Cinderella was for him and Gomes. And that comes at season's end.
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For worried web-buyers, ABT's web casting is now in 100% agreement with the cast sheet at The Met this morning.
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I tried online sales this morning, but it is just like last season: no selection process is in effect.
Are you surprised?
You've got it, Klavier! But I was a little bit surprised this morning, the first day of Box Office sales, and of "availabilty" info for web sales. Of course, no seat selection on site. Except that availability does tell you if you cannot buy in a given section. It is NOT even as good as last season, when the little shaded-in 0's gave some sense of how near a given section was to being filled. Hence, ...
The line was nice and long at the NYST. Even one little folding chair for whomever was most elderly. The ticket sellers were efficient, even prompting "Thank you's", and when I left, some Lincoln (a/k/a Balanchine) week (where you are not locked into that catastrophic "theme" stuff), Union Jack, and Jewels safely in pocket, the line was still the same length. Hard to get close to centered already.
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Just for information.
A farewell gala for Alessandra Ferri will be held on August 2nd,3rd and 6th in Tokyo.
Ferri will be dancing the balcony scene from R&J with Roberto Bolle and extracts from Giselle act 2 and some more which is not annouced yet.
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Wow! Japan is really doing it right! Thanks for the information, naomikage. I hope you will be able to attend, and, PLEASE, if you do , WRITE ABOUT IT ON BT!!!
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More bargain-priced Handel. Looks like 20% off, plus the new Met Museum Gallery (link to a guided tour on the Met Opera site):
Giulio Cesare...
Today's Times has a quite favorable review of Handel's Giulio Ceasar, including complex audio/video with Ruth Ann Swenson singing and discussing her battle with breast cancer and concerns with her future at the Met. Rather emotional material.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/arts/mus...rts&oref=slogin
...And what a stunning opera. In Act II, when Ms. Swenson’s Cleopatra, disguised as the queen’s attendant, spins entrancing lyrical lines in an act of seduction, Mr. Daniels’s captivated Cesare sings, “Not even heaven has a melody to equal such a song.” He was right. -
Another dancer of some stature has also danced in Russian Hamlet a number of times: Julio Bocca, who devotes substantial space on his website to it, including a video of his performance with the company in Petersburg:
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Sadly you are correct, Artist. I'd hoped this would be like Julio Bocca's retirement last summer, just ABT-specific (indeed, America will see him soon on tour). But La Republica reported on March 19 that her last performance at La Scala would be on March 30, and the ABT retirement of June 23 would be her final final one, as her plans primarily revolved about her children. From a review of her final Italian performance on March 30:
Milan: La Scala, the Farewell of Alessandra Ferri, her last official appearance, ... in the dramatic leading role of Dame aux Camelias[John Neumeier]. She, in this intense performance with Roberto Bolle and directed by John Neumeier received a "double" standing ovation and a true rain of flowers. Affected until tears from the applause from the public, the etoile embraced partner Roberto Bolle and from the theater box received warm thanks from supervisor Stephane Lissner: “We do not succeed to imagine our location without the name of Alessandra Ferri to cover the place of honor under the title, to ignite the passion of the public one more time to see her on display. Many years of art and passion are in our memory, gone, but will not be forgotten.”Please forgive my weak Italian translation: From Radio Lombardia, with photo:
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Angel of Merce: The extended web version of TONY's Gia Kourlas interview with Ms. Brown:
http://www.timeout.com/newyork/Details.do?...el_of_merce.xml
What do you want young dancers to take away from this book?Courage. Fortitude. I’m going to sound like a pissant here, but I’m tired of seeing brilliant technique. I just look for something more. You never saw just technique with Merce dancing. There was this amazing person with amazing energy and something that went beyond steps. I never saw Merce do any steps. He was dancing. And what I see so often—even though I don’t go to dance so much anymore—is a lot of incredible technique and it touches me not at all. I’m not moved. I don’t care.
An aside regarding the Bell Labs discussion above: Eons ago as a grad student I had a summer job there on (math theory behind) decoding messages sent from space missions, many years before our first real one. Signals would be weak and full of garble/static. How to read the true sequence of 0's and 1's when the received copy was full of typos. What I took away was a deep appreciation of the great wines of Bourgogne and Bordeaux. But no forthcoming job offer.
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Completeness: for a or o, a great partnership.
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This arrived Friday. I haven't yet looked at the Plizetskaya excerpts, because I can't stop playing the Dream Team of Nadezhda Pavlova (22) and her husband of three years Vyacheslav Gordeev (30) over and over again. In terms of the greatest of today's ballerinas, she is an amalgam of Ashley Bouder and Natasha Osipova.
The video quality is mostly wonderful, true and saturated colors, no MTV editing. The editor is very unobtrusive, only a handful of reaction shots, you can see the dancers' feet when you want to ...
This has got to be a Kitri even younger than a Peter Martins Juliet, as played by Nadezhda. She is in fact tiny and she pulls out all her shape-shifting talent to look even smaller, as she enters, one minute after the show begins. She is a humming-bird, and the brilliant Alexandr Kopilov conducts the fabulous Bolshoi musicians accordingly. There is hardly a clue that this is a world-class ballerina, as this giddy child flitters through the crowd, but then the great Gordeev (if memory serves he was in recovery from a serious injury, still dazzles yet had not reached the almost Baryshnikov perfection I saw a year later) arrives and you know she is twitter-pated with both her Basil and her husband! He greets her wild spontaneity, she darts away and back, and they're off to the races. Earlier the awkward girl dropped her fan; now, she flings it away for a better partner.
When she spots DQ, she shows her respect with some more classical graces, and shades her dancing with Basil accordingly, still the little girl but one who can convince a Knight to come to their rescue. Later, the one-armed lifts gain their effect not as any show of strength, who can't lift a little bird, but because of her wild carrying-on with her tambourine while up there.
The video is too dark during the short Act 2 when the Don tilts with the windmill (perhaps...I couldn't see one). A minor flaw, erased by a beautifully lit Act 3 Vision Scene, all pastel, yet fully color-saturated. Who was that ballerina in pink? Usually played by the Kitri dancer. Of course it was Pavlova, she'd done her magic trick: become taller, lengthened and thinned her arms and legs. This is a Ballerina! Were those triple pirouettes interpolated between the French fouettees? The live audience stopped the show accordingly. There followed her Osipova grand jetees. The ones where an invisible Angel follows above Natasha, shielding her from the laws of gravity. Evidently the Angel's been at the Bolshoi for at least 30 years. The humming-bird transformed, into a small but soaring eagle. The Act ended, even some early flowers from the crowd, cheering plus the rythmic clapping that we should learn from the citizens of Moscow.
The last Act dumps the whole story. We're in a castle. Amour/Cupide from the Vision Scene is there, with a corps of replicates. Others from earlier Acts appear, replicated as well. Kitri, a Princess, is borne in to enjoy the show. Has the Don's earlier dream continued on as one for the village girl? Had the ballerina-in-pink been her, both in the Don's dream and in Kitri's own? At any rate, in dashes her Prince. At a point in the PdD the one-armed lifts are repeated, but in all nobility, now a grand ballerina rides his hand. With so much BT discussion about what are and aren't proper fish dives.... He flings her sky-ward into a triple spin, and she floats down into his arms a fish. For those who've seen Ferri or Vishneva in Manon, spins a little like that.
As one who usually is unhappy with ballet videos, this one I love, probably more than any other. For all its live performance little bobbles from perfection, the compensation was extraordinary. So much of the magic of a real performance, with an incredible artist, a unique interpretation. Of course she was my favorite classical dancer at that time, and they were my partnership of choice.
So many dancers not named on the box, nor on the film's closing credits. There's splendid character dancing, especially in the Tavern Scene; the two girls in yellow looked like future stars. I hope some of BT's Moscow friends can fill us in.
Are there other Pavlova films still hidden from view? Their Giselle, Juliet, the perfect Spartacus?
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What has gone wrong with PBS, are they giving up on such sure shots as Yawnie and teenie soprani? Starting this weekend in some places, April 13 on NYC's Ch. 13, live young musicians from Carnegie Hall. On your computer too! Here's a preview:
http://www.carnegiehall.org/article/box_of...om_the_top.html
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[Moderator Note: During a discussion on a thread devoted to Handel's music and ballet, an interesting off-shoot discussion developed concerning joint-marketing of projects by different arts organizations. In this case, drb started it off by descrdibing an alliance between the Met Opera's production of Giuliio Cesare and the Roman art section of the Metropolitan Museum.
This seems like a great topic for Issues in Ballet, so I've split several posts from the Handel's Music thread and started this new thread. What do you think about projects like this? Have you any examples from your own experience? Or any ideas of how it could be done in the future? Even hypothetical suggestions are welcome !!! From Bart
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More bargain-priced Handel. Looks like 20% off, plus the new Met Museum Gallery (link to a guided tour on the Met Opera site):
Giulio CesareApproximate running time 4 hrs. 0 min.
The Metropolitan Opera and The Metropolitan Museum of Art invite you to experience Roman history in two unique ways. Spend an evening with Julius Caesar at the Metropolitan Opera House and a day exploring Roman culture at The Metropolitan Museum of Art when you order the new Roman Package.
This exclusive offer includes a Prime Orchestra seat for a performance of Giulio Cesare at the Met Opera and a VIP pass to The Metropolitan Museum for the special price of $137.50. Enjoy a great night at the opera and gain entry to the spectacular galleries without waiting in admission lines. The museum VIP pass is good for admission through June 30, 2007.
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/museum/index.aspx
The opening of the new Hellenistic, Etruscan, and Roman galleries—an entire wing housing over 5,300 objects in more than 30,000 square feet—completes the reconstruction and reinstallation of the permanent galleries of Greek and Roman art.... -
There is now a huge photo gallery on the company's site. This large company seems full of very expressive dancers. While you cannot be sure from still photos, it looks like there are a number of virtuosic power dancers among the men. There's lots of Balanchine (but then, is it possible that they have the second largest active Balanchine rep?), even a couple of Apollo sets, but also Ashton, Bournonville, the classics, and some unfamiliar works.
http://www.opera.ge/eng/photo-gallery.php?...=administration
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While one general review of the USC program was posted on Links a couple of days ago, a weekly paper, Free-Times, just published a review that went into detail about each dancer, in particular taking us back to the question of Ashley Bouder:
... [in] Allegro Brillante... Bouder flaunted her incredible strength and lightning-fast reflexes........ The evening concluded with Balanchine’s Serenade ... led by Ashley Bouder, who made it nearly impossible to watch anyone else with her electric stage presence.
Sounds like our Ashley is back and ready!
"Graceful yet spirited" Maria Kowroski and "steady" Albert Evans were admired in Ratmansky's Middle Duet. As was Ms. Bouder's partner Amar Ramasar. Red Angels featured Kowroski, Evans, Wendy Whelan and Craig Hall. The latter two starred in the evening's highlight, Wheeldon's After the Rain, which was "spine-tingling" and left the viewer "breathless".
http://www.free-times.com/index.php?cat=19...000404073180191
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Over on BT4D, there has been conversation about the fairness (or lack thereof) of casting students ahead of established company dancers. The argument is, essentially, that it is an affront to dancers who have worked hard to land a paying job to have a student hopscotch over them. ...
From an audience point of view, what matters is having dancers who can do what the choreographer wants, who turn the choreography into beauty, who tell the whole story with their whole hearts, and who we believe. Merit, not seniority. Art, not business. Hard work is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for the making of a ballerina. Of course we have our established favorites. I'd wished for a Bouder Juliet. That, I would have loved even with my eyes closed. Or a Hyltin, or a Morgan...
One wonders what City Ballet's ballerinas will be doing for two weeks. Even if it were traditional, there'd only be one ballerina job per show.As the Alastair Macaulay piece in last Sunday's Times emphasized, this is a star-driven piece. Not that you have to cast established stars, but you need two dancers who can carry an evening's drama. A tallish order.
In the past few years, the only Romeo and Juliet in town has only cast one under-30 dancer as Juliet. Diana Vishneva, just two days prior to her 30th birthday. Finally this season ABT is giving youth a chance, with baby-ballerina Gillian Murphy. I admit nearly all my favorite Juliets were over 30 when I enjoyed them most.
NYCB dare not produce a copy-cat version of a classic, must not become just another big ballet lump. NYCB has the opposite tradition. Farrell would have had to wait till her ABT retirement Gala to get a leading role... It is good that Peter Martins is willing to cast young. I wish he'd done it in the first week of the recent Sleeping Beautys. So, let's get ready to have a look at our company's future.
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It was a Friday night in June, the year 1998, and I'd taken my then little dancing niece to The Met to see the local premiere of a full-length ballet made for the great Nina Ananiashvili. It was a pretty show, but sans choroegraphic craft. We both knew it was a flop, but at least she'd seen her favorite "little Angel" partnering Ananiashvili, and Nina believed in it and gave it her considerable all.
As we were standing up to face the crushing egress from the hall, she turned to me and said "wasn't it wonderful having (she named the great ballerina) sitting in the row behind us?" I turned, but the woman had left her seat. I looked toward the crowded aisle. Merging into the crowd, there was the back of a head, the hair still long, the movement undeniable. It was Suzanne, Farrelling up the aisle. Something in the way she moves... We were both transfixed as we followed behind. It was dancing of that higher order: in itself well worth the price of our tickets. It is (not was) the only dancing I remember from that night. Without steps, nor music, it had the power of Proust's madeleine.
A decade later, "little dancer" is now a dancer, and the world of ballet has even more comets blazing on its stages, stars we call them, and rightly so. But this is a Star.
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Romeo & Juliet
in New York City Ballet
Posted
Regarding Paloma Herrera's first Juliet, it was with ABT in their Fall 1995 Chicago season. Since her birthday is December 21, l975, that would imply she was 19. She was already a Principal Dancer. Photos:
http://www.life.com/Life/essay/paloma/performance.html