Helene
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Posts posted by Helene
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PNB is continuing for at least one more year. For 2023-24, full season subscribers can add on the digital subscription for $30. (I'm not sure about partial season subscribers.) There is also a stand-alone digital subscription and per performance streams.
For me the 99GBP yearly subscription to the Royal Opera House is worth it for the operas. (I wouldn't do it just for the Royal Ballet.) I know the catalog is not very deep, but 99GPB is like 4-5 Met Live in HD tickets, and I'm not going into movie theaters any time soon.
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Same here, after seeing Fogo in Sylvia when Vienna State Opera streamed it.
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In that first trip to the Kirov, Farrell staged Scotch Symphony; she wrote about it in her memoir. Francia Russell staged Theme and Variations.
Wikipedia says that Russell staged for the Shanghai Ballet in 1987 and the Kirov in 1988. There's no numbered citation, but it might be in one of the articles linked in the article on Russell. ' But I do remember that she said she went to China during another staging trip.
Edited to add: in a search for the ballet(s) and year she staged in Shanghai, I found the Dance Magazine article that places it in 1987:
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If you scroll to the bottom of the link, casting is up, and the stream cast shoudl be the one from Opening Night, Friday, April 14 at 7:30 PM.
Lesley Rausch, who dances the Divertissement with Dylan Wald, is retiring at the end of this season.
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Francia Russell said in a Q&A, if I remember the timing correctly, when she and Stowel were AD's, that she was asked to work to stage something in China, because The Balanchine Powers That Be at the time learned that at least that one Chinese company was learning the ballets from videotape, and they thought it was a good idea to have one of their people help.
Chinese figure skating coaches used to reverse engineer Pairs skating especially from Soviet videos, which is how Luan Bo and Bin Yao's coaches learned.
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Welcome to Ballet Alert!, nycgal! We hope you'll post about what you see in San Francisco.
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4 minutes ago, maps said:
There were no protests at the Kennedy Center for Anna Karenina.
That doesn't surprise me, as I haven't seen don't remember seeing protests against Nutcracker -- which finances so many North American companies -- Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty from the classic rep, or Onegin or A Month in the Country (although performed relatively rarely). Criticism against La Bayadere and Le Corsaire has been content-based.
There was a protest at the 2013 Met Opera opening night after Putin's homophobic legislation was enacted, but that was a decade ago, and the protest seemed to be targeted against Netrebko for remaining silent, and Gergiev, whom no one expected to speak out.
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What sad news. My condolences to her families, including her ballet family.
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The 2023 Roster Change topic is located here:
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I just thought of two instances where dancers questioned if they were ready for a Balanchine role. In the Six Ballerinas film, Kistler didn't think she had the experience to dance in Balanchine's one-Act Swan Lake on the NYST stage -- she performed it at 15 with Cornel Crabtree for an SAB year-end performance -- and he told her (paraphrasing) that he thought she was, and that was enough. Similarly Farrell questioned readiness, and he said (paraphrase) to leave it up to him to decide, and she said (paraphrase) and that's what i did.
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It might be different, or it might not. It's entirely up to the the AD, and there's a new AD, not Tomasson with his way anymore.
I would hope that Rojo spent at least some time getting to know the dancers and got some insights into their wants and will take them into consideration. But there's nothing obligating her to do anything.
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Sometimes dancers do seem to have that choice, if they are able to let the AD know, and the AD takes that into consideration. There have been dancers at PNB who have said in Q&A's that they don't see themselves in particular roles that are appropriate for their rank -- even iconic roles -- and they never danced them. But that doesn't mean that their preferences were taken into consideration, just that they weren't cast.
There are more examples in Balanchine literature of dancers asking for specific roles and being turned down, but not as much about dancers not wanting to dance roles. Dancers make careers out of being useful, and that's whatever the AD and staff decide it is.
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Just now, Maromeo said:
Is that how casting works?
That depends on the company, the dancer, the staff and situation. There are many things that can go into these decisions, many more than these two possibilities. Usually Artistic Directors, Artistic Staff, and choreographers don't give reasons for their decisions, and it's up to the dancers to decide whether to explain.
At some point, there may be official news that can be posted here, sourced from public social media by ballet professionals, in mainstream media, etc. Or it may never be, and we may never know.
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There are many reasons people leave their jobs, some of which have nothing to do with the jobs themselves, and, perhaps one day, a reason from official news will be given.
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She's been on the faculty since last year. She left PNB after Romeo et Juliette to take the position.
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Welcome to Ballet Alert! Pointe533, a fellow tech person!
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I only saw the digital stream, and I also thought Malek was a standout in the Lang.
I love the Pergolesi, but I preferred Oliver Wevers' work for Whim W'him to the same music.
While I loved seeing Postlewaite, I was sad to miss most of what Cuddihee was dancing in the opposite box, since the camera had to make a choice for the close-ups.
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Pacific Northwest Ballet rents McCaw Hall.
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AD's and General Directors of opera and ballet companies have spoken about how, even if they own the rights, they have to negotiate with all of the unions involved, which is complex. I remember getting an email from one of our local (Seattle) companies that things were in place for streaming pending resolution with one of the unions, which eventually happened. I would hope that digital is on the table when contracts are renewed.
Some European and Russian companies have production companies that produce their content, and it certainly helps to have sponsors. When Key Arena was being renovated and morphed into Climate Pledge Arena, the arena video equipment was housed in McCaw Hall where PNB and Seattle Opera were able to use it. People used to as Speight Jenkins regularly at post-performance Q&A's why they didn't release DVD's of the Green Ring, and he always answered that it would take over $1million to produce it. If money was the only object, there wasn't donor or foundation money or an independent producer.
Without looking at the financials of individual companies, though, it's hard to say whether streaming is profitable for that company, whether it subsidized by a sponsor(s), whether there are grants specific to media that subsidize them -- PNB's original pre-pandemic upgrade in media in general came from a multi-year grant, for example -- through designated media fundraising campaigns, or any combination of the three.
Some opera companies, like Lyric Opera of Chicago and Seattle Opera offered streaming last and this season only if your ticket isn't scanned; LOC said in the fine print of its 2023-24 season brochure that it would not strean next season, because usage is so low. (I haven't seen anything to indicate whether SFO or SO will continue streaming next season.) PNB has offered stand-alone and add-on digital subscriptions for the last few years, and San Francisco Opera offered streams for each opoera this season and two of their 100th anniversary programs for $27.50/stream. Met Opera has extended Live in HD to people who are outside a certain radius of movie theaters. (I'm not sure how they validate it -- IP? Billiing zip code?) For at least a year, Houston Grand Opera was part of marquee tv, but I'm not sure if that's still true. Philadelphia Opera has had streaming for at least a couple of seasons. In Europe, there have been variations of streaming services and premium TV packages for many years, and Vienna State Opera had the Lamberghini of all monthly streaming services before the pandemic, with mutliple live streams available for 72 hours afterwards and three archival selections/mo. They, like the Met, offered daily streams for free in the first year of the pandemic, include the ballet, but Vienna never started that service again
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Former and much-missed PNB dancer Barry Kerollis is in Seattle this weekend for the 50th Anniversary celebration along with other PNB Alumni, and he posted this video clip of him performing Puck, one of his best roles and finest performances at PNB:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq8OI3CgodX/-
Other alumni in told included Angela Sterling, Deborah Hadley, and Eric Hipolito, who will appear on a panel led by Kyon ross for the Rep V Conversations on Thursday, April 14 at 5:30pm (ticketed) before the Dress Rehearsal, according to the email.
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Second weekend Saturday matinee and evening and Sunday casting is now up, too, and the first two "Meet the Artist" guests on April 14 and the April 15 matinee:
https://www.pnb.org/season/midsummer-nights-dream/
Link to the downloadable Excel sheet:
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When Alexandra accepted a position teaching ballet history at the Kirov Academy of Ballet in 2005, it was at mid-year, replacing a faculty member with little notice, and having to develope a curriculum of her own from scratch in less than one month, and she told us that she couldn't continue to run Ballet Alert! while in her new position. She decided to transition it rather than close the site; instead, this year marks Ballet Alert!'s 25th year.
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From PNB's IG, a clip of Cecilia Iliesiu rehearsing Helena, one of three roles she'll dance:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq1ILBlM-co/
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Deborah Hadley 1951-2023
in Ballet Obituaries and Memorials
Posted
I wish I had seen her, but she retired just a few years before I moved to Seattle. I learned of her from a dance magazine where she was on the cover, but I don't remember if it was Dance Magazine or the long-defunct Ballet News.