Helene

I remember being in Spain in 2002 with a small group of friends, and we sat in the hotel lobby drinking cava and popping grapes at midnight! I still have a 20 Euro bill from that trip, since 1 January 2002 was the first day Euro cash was widely available, and made sure to use the ATM that day.

My favorite is the Balanchine, too. It was great to be able to contrast Lorna Feijoo and Jordan Elizabeth Long in the same (Fedorova) choreography. Long's sunny quality reminds me of a young Darci Kistler.

Wow, thanks richard53dog! I remember a number of early discussions about some legal sinkhole that prevented Sirius from publishing the schedule more than a week in advance, but this is the whole season in one place. A definite keeper. According to the Met Opera website, the 16 January is a Toll Brothers broadcast, and it's also the live HD broadcast with Garanca, Alagna, Frittoli, and Kwiecien. The next RealPlayer broadcast of "Carmen" is on 9 February, with Borodina as Carmen, Jovanovich as Don Jose, and Kovalevska as Micaela.

If the casting is posted to the PNB website, it likely will be on this page: http://www.pnb.org/Season/Touring/ There may be a press release as well with the casting, but no guarantees.

2009 2008 2007 Through 2006 2010 Vera Folkina in Early Folkine (Added 1 Jan 10) Street Dancer and Toreadors from 1900 Aleksandr Gorsky production of Don Quixote (Added 4 Jan 10) Yvette Chauvire in Publicity Photo for New Hair Styles (Added 8 Jan 10) Margaret Dale in the Pas de Trois from Lac des Cygnes (Added 1 Feb 10) Program, Including Photo, for "Saying Goodbye to Darci" at the New York City Ballet Annual Luncheon (Added 10 Feb 10) Nijinska's Les Cents Baiser with Basil's Ballets Russes (Added 13 Feb 10) Alexandra Denisova (Added 14 Feb 10) Maurice Bejart, Jorge Donn, and Suzanne Farrell (Added 1 Mar 10) Belgian Stamp Featuring Jorge Donn for Bejart Ballet with Special Postmark (Added 3 Mar 10) Publicity Photo for Vecheslova and Chabukiani US Tour (Added 3 Mar 10) Camargo Ballet, 1932 Season Announcement (Added 25 Mar 10) Herbert Ross Rehearsing Barbara Streisand and Tommy Rail in Swan Lake for the Movie Funny Girl (Added 6 Apr 10) Irina Baronova in Les Sylphides (Added 8 Apr 10) Tamara Grigorieva and David Lichine in a Ballet Russe Publicity Portrait (Added 12 Apr 10) Album Cover for "Electronics", an LP "Produced by The New York City Ballet Company Under the Direction of George Balanchine (Added 4 May 10) Annabelle Lyon as Queen of Hearts, Leda Anchutina as Queen of Spades, and William Dollar as The Joker in George Balanchine's The Card Party (Added 10 May 10) Brochure for Alexis Kosloff's Ballet School in New York City (Added 10 May 10) Nadezhda Pavlova (Added 13 May 10) Back Jacket Text for "Electronics" LP (Added 16 May 10) Caricature of Alexei Dmitrievich Bulgakov by Nicolai Gustavovich Legat (Added 20 May 10) Caricature of Nadezhda Alekseevna Bakerkina by Nicolai Gustavovich Legat (Added 25 May 10) Maria Taglioni, The Younger (II)? (Added 28 May 10) 1939 Photo of Lucia Chase and (Must Read) Caption (Added 4 Jun 10) Marina Timofeyevna Semyonova (1908-2010) as Odile, with Y. Kondratiev as Siegfried (Added 9 Jun 10) Janet Reed in Bouree Fantasque (Added 14 Jun 10) John Prinz, John Clifford, Allegra Kent and Gelsey Kirkland in Dances at a Gathering (Added 14 Jun 10) 19th Century Slides of Le Corsaire (Added 17 Jun 10) Yvonne Mounsey as The Siren in The Prodigal Son (Added 13 Jul 10) Caricature of Mikhail Mikhailovich Fokine by the Brothers Legat (Added 13 Jul 10) Ballet of the Elephants in Ringling Bros - Barnum & Bailey Circus Magazine 1942 (Added 15 Jul 10) Legat Caricature of Ivan Nikolaevich Klustine (Added 19 Jul 10) Legat Caricature of Aleksandr Ivanovich Chekrigin as Genariello in Graziella, or The Lover's Quarrel (Added 21 Jul 10) Legat Caricature of P. A. Pereyaslavstev, Security Officer at the Bolshoi Theatre (Added 21 Jul 10) Legat Caricature of Marius Petipa (Added 26 Jul 10) Yaroslav Danilovich Sekh as Petrouchka (Added 27 Jul 10) Portrait of Marius Petipa (Added 28 Jul 10) Margot Fonteyn and Robert Helpmann in "Aurora Pas de Deux" (Added 28 Jul 10) Henning Kronstam and Mona Vangsaa in Royal Danish Ballet's Production of Frederick Ashton’s Romeo and Juliet on the Cover of Saturday Review, 29 September 1956 (Added 28 Jul 10) Sadler's Wells Theatre Ballet;s Sheilah O'Reilly and David Blair as Coppelia and Franz (Added 31 Jul 10) Baronova and Lichine Lead Nijinska's Les Cent Baisers (Added 2 Aug 10) Margot Fonteyn and Michael Somes in Swan Lake (Added 4 Aug 10) Portrait of Lucia Chase (Added 6 Aug 10) 19th Century Italian Ballerina Rita Sangalli (Added 11 Aug 10) Gordon Hamilton as Hilarion (Added 13 Aug 10) Lubov Nikolaevna Egorova (left) and Elene Mikhailovna Adamovich (right) in Swan Lake (Added 17 Aug 10) Yvonne Mounsey Leads the Pas de Neuf from Balanchine's Swan Lake (Added 19 Aug 10) An Evening with the Royal Ballet Stage Rehearsal (Added 30 Aug 10) Printed Program for The White House Dance Series: A Tribute to Judith Jamison (Added 8 Sep 10) Legat Caricature of Tamara Platonovna Karsavina (Added 10 Sep 10) Legal Caricature of Taisiya Nikolaevna Kasatkina in "The Garland Dance" from The Sleeping Beauty (Added 20 Sep 10) Maria Tallchief, Andre Eglevsky, and Corps in "Pas de Neuf" from Balanchine's Swan Lake (Added 27 Sep 10) Vera Nemchinova and Robert Joffrey (Added 27 Sep 10) Legat Caricature of Agrippina Yakovlevna Vaganova (Added 30 Sep 10) Legat Caricature of Vasilii Dmitrievich Tikohmirov (Added 30 Sep 10) Vakhtang Chabukiani on the Cover of a 1940 Souvenir Booklet (Added 5 Oct 10) Vakhtang Chabukiani as Kerim in Partisan Days and The Slave in Le Corsaire (Added 5 Oct 10) Vakhtang Chabukiani as Vatslav in The Fountain of Bakhchisarai and Djardji in Heart of the Hills (Added 5 Oct 10) Vakhtang Chabukiani as Koloman in Raymonda and Frondoso in Laurencia (Added 5 Oct 10) Portrait of Vakhtang Chabukiani as Honored Artist of the USSR and as Vladimir in Katerina (Added 5 Oct 10) Portrait of Paris Opera Ballet Etoile Christiane Vaussard (Added 7 October 10) Three Photos from PAMTTG (Added 17 Oct 10) Legat Caricature of Lubov Andreevna Roslavleva (Added 22 Oct 10) Legat Caricature of Elena Dmitrievna Polyakova (Added 25 Oct 10) PAMTTG (Added 27 Oct 10) Nikolai Aleksandorvich Solyannikov as Von Rothbart (Added 29 October 10) Three Images of PAMTTG (Added 29 Oct 10) Elsa Ivanova Vill (aka Will) and Mikhail Konstantinovich Obukhov (Added 30 Oct 10) Alla Osipenko as Sari in Path of Thunder (Added 2 Nov 10) Legat Caricature of Lydia Georgievna Kyaksht (Kyakshto) (Added 3 Nov 10) Three Photos of Lydia Georgievna Kyaksht as Sylvia (Added 3 Nov 10) Vera Zorina in Louisiana Purchase (Added 11 Nov 10) Two Steel Engravings of the Premiere of Sylvia (Added 4 Dec 10)

She's the most natural turner I've seen since Nichol Hlinka. Her pelvis is so open and her legs beautifully turned out, and it gave her persona an open, sunny quality, all through body movement. No wonder Siegfried is confused! Even in that last diagonal in the code, where many great dancers look rushed and unwieldy, she extends out into arabesque, with a tad of bend in her knee to make it look almost casual. Their supported pirouettes are superb.

The other way to listen is to get a 30-day free trial of Sirius radio. http://www.sirius.com/siriusinternetradio This is the high-end version that can be streamed to an iPod/iTouch. The Sirius schedule is here: http://www.sirius.com/metropolitanoperaradio There are usually at least three live broadcasts a week, including the Saturday broadcast. For example, next week there will be two "Der Rosenkavalier"s and one "Turandot". There are five-six operas broadcast a day; the rest are from the archives. Juntwait said in her interview with Jovanovich that they'd be broadcasting a performance with his Don Jose on Monday, 1 February. Based on past experience, I would guess that there will be at least one more broadcast before then with Alagna scheduled. I can't find a link to an advanced schedule for RealPlayer. The only references I see are on the Met weekly schedule, which is limited: http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/thisweek/

Here is Alastair Macaulay's preview in The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/arts/dan...look-dance.html In the video, the first section features Carrie Imler and Jonathan Porretta in Opus 111 (Tharp), the second features Jeffrey Stanton and, I think, Louise Nadeau in Liang's Fur Alina -- Imler and Bold had the premiere and were in the reviews -- and the third, back to the Tharp with Ariana Lallone and Stanko Milov, both of whom are in the photo in the Macaulay preview.

I heard it, too, and I loved Garanca, Mariusz Kwiecien, and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Alagna, not so much, although he reportedly has had a bad cold, and Brandon Jovanovich, who was covering him, said in the intermission interview that he sang the last two acts from the side of the stage during the final dress. I would rather have heard Jovanovich, who Margaret Juntwait and William Berger said was scheduled for another Sirius broadcast, or Jonas Kaufmann, who sings the last two performances in April and May. I'd be interested in hearing about Wheeldon's choreography from someone who sees it live or on the HD broadcast, which I'll miss.

Some clips of Paquette: As von Rothbart Not sure, but the audience is laughing In "Lady of the Camellias" (with riding crop) As a coryphee, backstage As Ingo in "Paquita"

Many thanks, cantdance. (And many thanks, glebb, for posting this to YouTube!)

Some more birthdays: Arthur Mitchell (27 Mar) -- Aries Karen Kain (28 Mar) -- Aries Robert Helpman (9 Apr) -- Aries Marcia Haydee (18 Apr) -- Aries Melissa Hayden (25 Apr) -- Taurus Peter Schaufuss (26 Apr) -- Taurus Zizi Jeanmarie (29 Apr) -- Taurus Joseph Duell (30 Apr) -- Taurus Judith Jamison (10 May) -- Taurus Isadora Duncan (26 May) -- Gemini Toni Lander (19 Jun) -- Gemini Francisco Moncio (6 Jul) -- Cancer Natalia Bessmertnova (19 July) -- Cancer Maris Liepa (27 Jul) -- Leo Anton Dolin (27 Jul) -- Leo Sean Lavery (16 Aug) -- Leo Daniel Duell (17 Aug) -- Leo Natalia Dudinskaya (21 Aug) -- Leo Gloria Govrin (10 Sep) -- Virgo Felia Dubrovska (17 Sep) -- Virgo Tanaquil LeClercq (2 Oct) -- Libra Niels Bjorn Larsen (5 Oct) -- Libra Marjorie Tallchief (19 Oct) -- Libra Michel Denard (5 Nov) -- Scorpio Alexandra Danilova (20 Nov) -- Scorpio Margrethe Schanne (21 Nov) -- Scorpio Frank Schaufuss (12 Dec) -- Sagittarius Nicholas Magallanes (27 Nov) -- Sagittarius Alicia Markova (1 Dec) -- Sagittarius Merrill Ashley (2 Dec) -- Sagittarius Alicia Alonso (21 Dec) -- some say Sagittarius, some say Capricorn Noelle Pontois (24 Dec) -- Capricorn Robert Joffrey (24 Dec) -- Capricorn Galina Ulanova (8 Jan) -- Capricorn Maria Tallchief (24 Jan) -- Aquarius Bruce Marks (31 Jan) -- Aquarius Olga Preobrajenskaya (2 Feb) -- Aquarius Alexander Grant (22 Feb) -- some say Aquarius, some say Pisces Jorge Donn (28 Feb) -- Pisces Anna Laerkesen (2 Mar) -- Pisces Lynn Seymour (8 Mar) -- Pisces Tamara Karsavina (9 Mar) -- Pisces Suki Shorer (11 Mar) -- Pisces Valeri Panov (12 Mar) -- Pisces Starr Danias (18 Mar) -- Pisces

to Mr. Paquette and many congratulations!

Happy 2010 to everyone! Seattle Times published a list of New Year's Eve activities in the area, from the expensive to the reasonable, and I was happy to see the following: I love that they have all bases covered: dinner and breakfast!

The program couldn't be more NY-based unless "Mopey" was replaced by "State of Darkness", which was performed last year at the Joyce and is significantly longer. Tharp, Millepied, and Liang are all known entities to NYC audiences, and getting an original Tharp was a coup. (I preferred her "Afternoon Ball", another commission, but that's me.) The works are the right size for the Joyce, they should appeal to both the type of younger audience that Boal is trying to develop in Seattle as well as the NYCB audience, and they fit well into the Joyce season programming. I would guess that the former NYCB contingent will perform if healthy: Carla Korbes was original cast in the Tharp and William Lin-Yee in the Millepied. (I don't remember how the Orzas were cast, and Miranda Weese retired last season.) This was very intelligent programming for the venue. Were the company performing at City Center, I'd expect the company's stellar Balanchine. This is not the misstep of bringing "Jardi Tancat" to last year's Ballet Across America series at the Kennedy Center. The pieces are highly representative of the type of work that Boal is bringing to PNB; the Duato piece was brought in by Russell and Stowell. PNB will perform Millepied's "3 Movements" again at the 2010 Ballet Across America (along with a yet-to-be-announced work from Ballet Arizona and Morphoses in "Fool's Paradise"). "Mopey" is not a great piece of dance, but it's a fine vehicle for seeing (once) wonderful PNB men (and it's thankfully short), especially for the first time. I've never seen the Liang.

Bumping -- PNB will perform at the Joyce from January 5-10. There's a short video on the Joyce Theater site which highlights the Tharp with the Liang sandwiched in between: http://www.joyce.org/performancestickets/c...5&theater=1

I just checked the PNB schedule, and while the company will be in rehearsal for "Coppelia" (and, hopefully, a season wrap-up program), there is no performance conflict near or on these dates. The format in Seattle has been lecture/demo, and if the format holds for these, the Guggenheim audience will see beautiful reconstructions danced by beautiful dancers. Here's hoping that Nakamura and Postlewaite will perform excerpts from "La Bayadere" -- to die for.

Former Houston Ballet members Barry Kerollis is the subject of one of Pacific Northwest Ballet's short video profiles: There are also two 20 second home videos of him in class shot from the studio balcony. Kerollis is in all black: He's towards the top, with Jeffrey Stanton on the left. He's the man closest to the camera at the beginning.

I think I've read descriptions that sound like NYCB has kept up its New Year's Eve performance tradition of being creative. Thank you for reporting on PNB, Jayne -- the performance sounds delightful!

I"m going to be watching it with a printout of DanceActress' post in hand. Me, too. I was actually rather appalled by my reaction, which somehow seemed overly-literal or even anti-cinematic. "God, what a data-dependent, empirically-obsessed Philistine I am!" My name is Helene, and I am a data-dependent, empirically-obsessed Philistine. They could sell 200,000 copies of the DVD if they had the option to display the name of the choreographer (where applicable) and people in each section in one corner of the screen. Lefevre is such a great film subject. Where she turned into a monster for me was towards the end of the film when she comments to the young dancer in her office -- the girl was tiny compared to an overall thin company -- that she noticed the girl's weight loss, clearly in her eyes a good thing. Re: the works, Paquita was beautiful. The minute or so of Manuel Legris partnering in the Grand Pas was one of the highlights for me. Apart from that, I can't believe such a great, beautifully schooled company of dancers has a rep that is knee-deep in merde. I wouldn't have guessed that the Tree Stump and Pails work was based on Medea -- I found it laughable in performance, although I enjoyed the score by Mauro Lanza -- or that the Screaming on a Table work was based on "The House of Bernarda Alba", which kind of grew on me in the parts with the chord strums followed by the drum-beats. Someone noted here before that one of the drivers for the composition of the repertory was the 3-5 year contracts they have with the choreographers, and it was interesting to hear Lefevre say in the rep meeting that some of the modern works needed to be seen again as a matter of course. If she wasn't just performing for the camera, she has one of the finest sets of leadership skills and acumen that I've seen in a long time. I just wish she were using it for decent rep.

Si, Oui, Yes! Always

Maybe his moon was in Zeus?

I misunderstood the process. From the Whim W'him website: The dancing will be to Vivaldi, but one movement of the Vivaldi music will be replaced by Byron Au Yong's score.

I looked up some of the men: Ib Andersen (14 Dec) -- Sagittarius Bart Cook (7 June) -- There's your Gemini, bart Lew Christensen (9 May) -- Taurus Vladimir Vassiliev (18 Apr) -- Aries Yuri Soloviev (10 Aug) -- Leo Henning Kronstam (29 June) -- Cancer Michael Somes (28 Sep) -- Libra Anthony Dowell (16 Jan) -- Aquarius Frederic Franklin (13 June) -- another Gemini Peter Martins (27 Oct) -- Scorpio Edward Villella (10 Jan) -- Aquarius (1 Oct) -- Libra (see below, p.2) Jacques d'Amboise (28 July) -- Leo Mikhail Baryshnikov (27 Jan) -- Aquarius and some of the women: Carla Fracci (20 Aug) -- Leo Ekaterina Maximova (1 Feb) -- Aquarius Cynthia Gregory (8 July) -- Cancer Maya Plisetskaya (20 Nov) -- Scorpio Alla Shelest (26 Feb) -- Pisces Irina Kolpatkova (22 May) -- Gemini Patricia McBride (23 Aug) -- Virgo (although sometimes called Leo) Diana Adams (29 Mar) -- Aries Moira Shearer (17 Jan) -- Capricorn Svetlana Beriosova (24 Sep) -- Libra Antoinette Sibley (27 Feb) -- Pisces (shares a birthday with Elizabeth Taylor!) Irina Baronova (13 Mar) -- Pisces Violette Verdy (1 Dec) -- Sagittarius Gelsey Kirkland (29 Dec) -- Capricorn

PNB dancers in the program are Lucien Postlewaite, Jonathan Porretta, Chalnessa Eames, and Kaori Nakamura. Because of the structure of the piece -- 4 movements choreographed, with three chosen by draw before each performance, as well a draw for which musical score will be used [see below] -- I won't comment on sections, since they may not be performed on a given night, but to generalize, there is stunning work for small ensemble and a great emphasis on arms and hands that in itself should be fascinating for dance lovers. And sophisticated humor. Wow, wow, wow, did I say wow?