Helene

I was at a performance of "Much Ado About Nothing" by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London, and a woman, who was trying to tell the usher she'd rather sit in an empty seat close by, was pushed down the aisle towards the front -- her actual seat was in the middle of that row -- while the actor playing Benedict interrupted the show to seat her, in character. She was mortified.

In her article for the Summer 2009 Ballet Review on Todd Bolender and Kansas City Ballet, she notes that for the closing performance of his first season, guests Patricia McBride and Alexander Godunov danced pas de deux from "Giselle" and "Le Corsaire" and Balanchine's "Pas de Dix".

In the new Ballet Review Martha Ullman West has written an article "Todd Bolender: Kansas City, The Early Years", and the photo on the opposite page shows Bolender, in a suit, coaching two dancers in costume: Louise Nadeau and Deena Budd.

Since so few dancers reach 30 years, it's hard to imagine that 30 years is the magic number, or there would be incentive for more dancers to try and the possibility of lawsuits if dancers were "encouraged" not to meet that.

In a different thread, leonid posted an article on Valeri Gergiev from The New York Times. This is a job description that I think should earn this kind of money: 2,000 people -- that's huge. From the same article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/magazine...ml?pagewanted=1

A friend rented a condo on the beach in West Seattle, and not having a TV at home, I immediately turned on his TV and channel surfed. Luckily, the "Four Seasons" section from what I think was the 1957 TV version of the Ashton "Cinderella" was being played on the Classic Arts Showcase. As I was watching the seasons dance, what struck me most was how strong their center was, no limbs reaching only out into space. I think Ashton is doomed without dancers with that kind of center from which the limbs move naturally.

While I mostly agree with you, richard53dog, I think he may have saved the Kirov/Mariinsky after the fall of the Soviet Union with his energy and willingness to raise private money when the bottom dropped out of state subsidies, and I also heard an excellent "Tristan und Isolde" from him in Paris. I didn't get to see the "Ring" the company brought to NYC a couple of summers ago; I got sick on a plane returning from India the day before it started and couldn't risk coughing through it.

The article says that Martins "took a 1 percent cut from the previous year’s $706,000", and I think this is misleading. Based on this statement, he have taken a larger % cut in pay, but increased his royalties from other companies, or he could have had a salary increase and a serious drop in royalties, or any combination of the two. The article also states that "Damian Woetzel, the senior male principal dancer, was paid $278,000, up 24 percent. It was his 23rd and final season with the company; Daniels said the sum includes exit pay, which long- time dancers receive." "Long-time" isn't defined, but might explain why the long-time corps member is pretty much a thing of the past.

Based on the bing translator (Microsoft's newest search engine), he decided to move back to Canada and NBoC to spend more time with his family, but as his last performance drew closer, he realized he wanted to stay in Stuttgart. bing translates his quote as "I have understood increasingly in recent months, there is simply no perfect solution, I must accept a certain amount of dividedness as part of my dancer career", says Jason Reilly." The article is using the metaphor "Home is where the heart is" to describe the shift from Toronto to Stuttgart. http://www.microsofttranslator.com/BV.aspx...-ausschlag.html It takes 15-20 seconds for the translation to resolve to English. The "percent completed" is shown in red in the left hand corner.

My main problem with the radio ads on stations like WQXR and KING is that they use horrific, loud music that is jarring compared to any of the classical music they play (which is, generally, less than risky). It's rarely rock, but it's often muzaky or pseudo-jazz, like most commercials it's louder, and it makes me switch the station off immediately, maybe or maybe not to return. I used to listen to WQXR over the Internet, and they used to pick a piece to play during the commercials over the radio waves. I was amused though when my dad, who used to tape "The Vocal Scene" onto cassette when he was home, forgot to turn off the recorder for the few minutes of commercials in the middle of one program, and there was an ad for Swiss Air business class that was a throwback to the 70's.

The account takes less than a minute to set up/click the verification link from a confirmation email. I'm listening to the start of "Don Giovanni" now, waiting for the Lang Lang concert to start in 10. Thank you so much again, volcanohunter! At this rate, I don't think I'm every going to buy a CD again. There's too much live music on the Internet, and not enough time to listen to it all.

I thought most of them were playing dress-up in "Titanic", but I didn't go in expecting BBC.

Thank you so much! I was able to watch through "Dalla sua pace" before I had to head out. It was such a treat to hear Schade sing it.

This is one of the scenes that rings to the back of the theater. I don't think anyone will be disappointed (And Boal confirmed that Korbes is one of the Juliets this year, after having to pull out of the first run with an injury.)

Oh, I'm laughing and laughing! And crying at the same time...

I used to donate $25/year to the school, which allowed me to watch one class a year. The first time, I watched Stanley Williams' advanced boys class, and there were several NYCB men there -- I remember Christopher Fleming -- and so was Darci Kistler, who was coming back from an injury. A lot of NYCB men have said in interviews that they returned to Stanley Williams' class; Gold notes that he once took Company class and Williams' class.

(Oh, that could get ugly ) I just don't like Sturm und Drang. I'm never going to like the Friar bits, which remind me of Eifman. By the way, I agree 100% about the new seating charts. The old ones were impossible to decipher, given how many pricing sections there are.

Alright, I won't either then While I think Maillot's "Romeo et Juliette" is very good theater -- I would rather watch it 1000 times before seeing the Macmillan again -- the choreography isn't that great -- although I would rather watch it 1000 times before seeing the Macmillan again -- and the choice of clips was good marketing strategy in more ways than one, and not only to the new target audience.

(Resist temptation to respond. Resist temptation to respond )

That kind of consistency is a curse. I remember that one of my father's common gripes was about how he'd hear Richard Tucker sing brilliantly, and the next day, the reviewer would give him one line at the end, a mention that he had sung typically well.

I think this is one of the triumphs of the Met broadcasts on Sirius/XM/Rhapsody: when I was on the Opera-L list, the curtain hadn't even hit the stage before the emails would start to fly to discuss the previous act. In those days, you knew you were part of an audience by feel. With the Internet, there's an immediate, direct response.

On a New York City Ballet thread, there was a discussion about how not taking company class (at least all the time) might have affected Sophie Flack's career. When doing a Google search, I found this interview in Time Out New York with Tom Gold, just before his retirement, and he comments on company class: http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/dance/...d-all-that-jazz I found this a fascinating read. Given the limited number of hours in a dancer's day, especially at the end of the season when dancers are overworked and replacing fellow dancers who are injured, it makes a great deal of sense for them to invest that time in a daily class that keeps them at their best, which is not the same thing as being politic.

I would not be surprised if most new websites were built to be compatible with three browsers which make up the vast majority of the market: Internet Explorer (7 & 8), Safari, including for iPhone, and Firefox. Sometimes it's a deliberate decision, as testing and development are cost-prohibitive for the last x% who use other browsers exclusively, sometimes testing and/or development for other browsers is postponed until after the launch, and sometimes there's an intention of getting to it, but it ends up in V.Never.

The piece was "Valse Triste". It was broadcast on Dance in America in a program with several other Martins pieces -- a Beethoven violin and piano piece for Kyra Nichols and Adam Luders, the slow movement of "Ecstatic Orange" for Heather Watts and Jock Soto, "Sophisticated Lady" for Suzanne Farrell and Peter Martins, and "Barber Violin Concerto", with Merrill Ashley, David Parsons, Adam Luders, and Kate Johnson. I'm pretty sure McBride danced it for her farewell program. I'll have to try to remember where I read the Kirstein quote. It, too, may have been in "Dance as a Contact Sport". He may have been referring to the period when Farrell left NYCB, and Balanchine was bereft.

If I remember correctly, it was PNB that sent out a questionnaire about the old website. I assumed changes would be coming, but I didn't realize that it would be this quickly.