Helene

It's like watching the animated version of comic strips or the film/TV/theater version of books: they rarely sound or look like the characters in your head. (Snoopy does not sound like that.) I spent most weekends with my maternal grandparents until I was about 12. When I was 4, my grandfather bought a store that was open until 10pm. By the time he locked up, and we drove to their apartment, it was time for the 10:30pm commercials. I spend nearly every Saturday night of my childhood watching the second half of "Gunsmoke". (I don't know when I had time to follow all of those soaps!).

The blinding blond hair may be a generational thing -- funny since it is a staple of ballroom dancers and ice dancers, who are as stylized as they come -- like the not-found-in-nature blue/purple/orange hair that older generations of women sport. (I think the demise of hair dates back to Heather Locklear showing her dark roots on "Melrose Place". That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.) I think Somova is very, very pretty in the ways many of her film contemporaries are pretty. She's got the preferred look of her generation, a bit Disneyfied, which can turn vacant, something I noticed and found very disconcerting during the City Center run last April. Danila Korsuntsev reminded me of Patrick Dempsey in "Enchanted" when partnering her in "Ballet Imperial", with a similar look, but not with other partners or in the "Swan Lake" DVD. Watching their faces, I thought I was watching a Disney romance movie. I think that's one of the reasons I like Tereshkina so much: she looks like she knows where's she's going next, and like there's a brain ticking.

I hope Bold recovers quickly and fully. It's a shame that Imler won't be able to perform Odette/Odile this season.

Marg Helgenberger cut her teeth as Siobhan Ryan in "Ryan's Hope". An assistant dean at my college, Lorraine Broderick, left to become a writer on "All My Children" while I was still in school and eventually became Head Writer for a few years in the mid-late 90's. The theater people thought this was great, because it was show biz and a well-paid position, but I thought it was the absolute coolest thing in the world in itself, having been a soap opera lover my whole life.

You should see Revelations. It's an American classic.

That article was posted on a double-digit long thread on Ms. Part, and there was a discussion on that thread that asked the same questions: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...st&p=222673 Did I mention to Ms. Part?

to Mme. Ciaravola and M. Heymann.

I've got my fingers crossed for you, Cristian!

Just to veer off for a minute, one of the great things about radio is that the actors need to have great voices, but it doesn't matter what they look like. I remember watching an episode of ER in which Mark Green's first wife told him that she'd found a job in Milwaukee clerking for a judge at the time his initial residency was up. Watching the show, and thinking he was a great guy, and loving him from "Revenge of the Nerds", I thought she was being selfish -- she was already being set up to be uptight and status-conscious, as opposed to our hero working in a city hospital. When the re-run was on, I was on a work trip, in my hotel room at my computer, and the layout of the room had the desk facing the wall, and the TV behind. I could only listen, and that time, I actually listened to the conversation, even though I was on work email at the time: they had made a deal that she'd go to law school in Chicago because his residency was there, but as soon as law school and the residency were over, they'd move to whereever she needed to start her career, and he was being the selfish one. I never would have come to that conclusion with the visual, but just listening to the dialogue, it was very clear.

Rachel was a very interesting character. She started out with the exact same trajectory as Erica Kane on "All My Children": raised by a working class single mother, and determined to marry out of her class into money. In both cases, they married interns who adored them, but neither realized how long it would be before the husbands would be wealthy and have the time of day for them. Then Rachel went after entrepreneur Steve Frame, who did have the bucks, much to the chagrin of the long-suffering blond woman whose name I can't remember. By the time the older Iris Carrington showed up to terrorize her prospective step-mother, Rachel was turning into a sympathetic character, and not from a typical, contrived soap opera situation (coma, plastic surgery, amnesia). Instead, they just let her grow up and stop being so needy. That she had discovered artistic talent as a sculptor, a rather solitary pursuit, helped develop her character. It always helped that "Another World" had a terrific core of adult actors on the show who carried the main storylines. It wasn't a show of kids. Morgan Freeman and Joe Morton were also on that show, the latter in dual roles playing a straight-laced doctor and his cousin. Jackee was also on the show. "Another World" had one of the deepest sets of story lines for black actors on soaps, and there was more than one token family, although they pulled the Joe Morton one abruptly and seemingly inexplicably.

If I remember correctly, there are no Q&A's after "Swan Lake". It's a long, long ballet, and especially with back-to-back performances on weekends, I think everyone involved would collapse. I can't remember if there are Q&A's after "The Sleeping Beauty", but I suspect not. I do remember people referring to "Swan Lake" in the Q&A after the program that followed SL last time.

Only in soap operas do the "good" girls, like Victoria on "One Life to Live", get to marry a dozen times in three decades (and most of them were when she was Vicky, not one of her other personalities). And forget about the men: good, bad, indifferent, for all but a few select patriarchs, they marry so often that if they changed their names, they'd have their own dozen. (Except when they accidentally marry their long-lost relative.)

Bravo! to Ms. Part.

At "Les Sylphides" in Phoenix last weekend, during the opening tableau, before any dancer had moved, the 70-something behind me announced to her friend (and the entire main floor) -- "This music is so beautiful. I could just come to listen to the music." A little later in the Wheeldon, she informed us all that "That must be what's-his-name."

I'm not sure, but I'll be thrilled to find out, if the casting holds. I would have loved to see her Gamzatti, but I can't go until Saturday.

I'd be the last person to say that the only good dancing comes from big institutions or major companies, or that a dancer must stick to a company to be effective. What you described of what the company performed, though, sounds like a direct result of the attitudes about ballet he expressed in the Q&A. I'll take a pass on that.

It's a growing city; in some ways, it's the New Seattle, less expensive than Seattle is now, and, like Seattle, is a city on the west coast to which many who could not afford California (and now Seattle) or wanted a more "small town in a city" have migrated. Although the newcomers are still driving up housing price, it's still more affordabled, and if I had been about to retire in the last 5-7 years, I would have moved there to an apartment in the center of town. It's relatively flat, and public transportation is excellent. Here's hoping that some of the newcomers bring some money with them and support the arts once they settle.

Oh, dear. From what you've described from his comments, I guess that neither Wheeldon nor Ratmansky nor Robbins, for example, rock his boat in a way that dancing with inflatable dolls to Callas, and not "regurgitating steps so old" -- I think that is what is known as "vocabulary" but I could be mistaken -- does.

That's a lovely photo, rg!

To the best that I can recall, Calegari danced that role exactly once, her first performance after the suicide of Joe Duell, to whom she had been romantically attached, and her only performance for the remainder of that season. I had been a very careful Calegari watcher, but I might have missed a performance in 1986. She had fallen off point in the iconic developpe in second as her partner went behind her to switch the hand-hold, and she shot him a look of death that would have made ice dancer Barbara Fusar-Poli proud. I thought that the review of this, the only performance I saw her dance Second Movement, which was almost two years later, on 18 January 1988, noted that despite this, she didn't have to be so ungracious to her partner. That could be my mind playing tricks, though. The only performance of "Symphony in C" I saw right after Duell's death was a week later, with Kistler in the Second Movement. Calegari danced with Duell in the First Movement a few days before he died, on 11 February 1986, and then with Soto in the performance on 23 February. That describes the performance I saw, and I was very surprised, since watching her dance Dewdrop was the first time I got of glimpse of the role's creator, Tanaquil Leclerq -- it wasn't until the Balanchine biography that I had seen any footage of TL's dancing.

A number of us seem to be following the Osipova Saga to Washington, DC on Sunday 21st, to see "Le Corsaire" at the Kennedy Center, where many of the better seats are less expensive than at the Met, but where they don't have the cheapest seats ($36 in the Family Circle). With the cheap bus fares mentioned above, it isn't necessarily more expensive to take the day round-trip on Sunday (matinee begins at 1:30) than to attend a performance in NY, and there are no conflicting ABT performances on Sundays. The "Le Corsaire" on the 19th would require a stayover or driving home in the wee hours of the morning. (The last cheap bus leaves at 11:59pm, which might be impossible to make, given the length of the ballet.) I'm starting to feel sad for "TBA" on the 19th.

There was great promise in the pairing of Kaori Nakamura and Lucien Postlewaite in Doug Fullington's reconstructions of excerpts from "La Bayadere" in his Balanchine's Petipa presentations, and it was realized tonight in the opening night of "Swan Lake". Postlewaite's Siegfried is a young prince, and as ardent as his prince is, he's out of his depth with both Odette and Odile. There were two things that were most remarkable about Postlewaite's performance: there was not a second of stage time that he did not account for dramatically -- including his variations, which were abstractions of character -- and he never broke line or character for virtuosity. When he floated jetes into a scene, he showed ecstacy and flight. When he partnered Nakamura in the White Swan Pas de Deux, he didn't just walk at her pace and follow her when she moved from turn to supported hold, he watched her move away, enchanted, and then he did a gentle rush towards her. He looked continually astonished that she gave him the time of day, and that she let him touch her. One great moment was at the very end of Act II, when he's reeling by what just took place, including von Rothbart's powerful dismissal of him, and then, suddenly, his face lights up as he runs back to the palace: he's completely, madly in love, despite the swan thing and Odette's baggage and the weird monster to whom she's attached, and it explains exactly where his head is at the opening of Act III. Nakamura's Odette was soft and deep, her movement originating from the sternum. It's rare for me to see a performance of the Act II solo in which the arms and legs had equal importance and emphasis. Her Odile was sharper, and she clearly loved playing Siegfried every second. In her solo, she gained momentum on the attitude turns in the beginning, and then stopped on a dime. What bound the two was the silken clarity she brought to both roles. Her impeccable technique was invisible and submerged in each character. Carrie Imler was the Mom from Hell, controlling, controlling, controlling. In Act III, after introducing all of the foreign dancers, the Jester sits at the feet of the Queen, and Imler shot Jonathan Porretta such looks of affection, as if she were saying, "See, you listen, why weren't you my son?" It is such a vivid characterization. Olivier Wevers overcame the von Rothbart costume, and even gave up being imperious for a second to toy with Siegfried: when he summoned him to join hands with Odile and swear his love to her, he did it with an uncharacteristic, avuncular "Come here, Young Grasshopper" gesture, only to squash him a moment later. Between Carrie Imler's controlling mother and Olivier Wevers virile von Rothbart and Nakamura's Odette and Odile, Postlewaite's Siegfried didn't have a chance: he was being drawn and quartered. Without any shadowing von Rothbarts or dream sequences or hair pulling or Lady Capulet-like Queen Mothers or angstful Act I solos, this performance might very well have been called "Siegfried". After three performances of "Les Sylphides" last weekend, arms and hands have been on my mind, and Benjamin Griffiths' rounded arms and expressive fingers were exemplary in the Act I Pas de Trois and the Neopolitan Dance, in which his energy was beautifully matched with Jodie Thomas'. (The Danes are in for a real treat next season.) His partners in the Pas de Trois were Lesley Rausch, whose attention to epaulement in classical roles is always a pleasure to watch -- following her, you realize that a part of a variation is a soft nod to four distinct corners, not just some vague gestures in random directions -- and Maria Chapman, who got wonderful loft before beats, paused a second in the air at the top, and continued with a flutter. Chapman was also a knockout in the Persian Dance in Act II, with especially expressive arms, particularly in the slow intro. (The dance is to the "Russian" music.) In the Spanish, Lindsi Dec showed great style, with snap and attitude, sandwiched between her beautiful, expansive swan in Acts II and IV. Her versatility is a joy to watch. She was joined by Kylee Kitchens, Josh Spell, and Jordan Pacitti in Spanish, all three showing spark, and Pacitti also gave a rich and satisfying portrayal of Wolfgang in Act I. Jonathan Porretta's Jester did not stop moving when he danced -- there were no pandering-for-applause stops -- and his mime and characterization as part of the royal household were a great complement to his virtuoso dancing. Stacy Lowenberg glowed in Czardas, and her partner, whom at first I didn't recognize, smoldered, channeling his inner Gedeminas Taranda. (It was Jerome Tisserand.) In the Act II Valse Bluette #1 demi-soloist Sarah Ricard Orza lowered each leg after developpe in second on point as if it were on a cloud, just lovely, to match her expressive arms. The swans were an equal star in this production. Having seen the overly aerobic entrance in San Francisco last month in an otherwise wonderful swan corps, this corps differentiated between the energy of the opening hops and the softness of the arabesque in plie, making each rendition of the combination into a meaningful visual phrase. The swan corps was at its best in Act IV, opening in a circle, magically shifting into two lines, and then becoming Stowell's kaleidoscope of patterns to what my Mariinsky Complete Swan Lake calls "Act IV Dance of the Little Swans". I find the Act IV Pas de Deux, to the plaintive music that's noted on a number of recordings as "Pas de Trois: Andante Sustenato (4b)", one of the highlights of the ballet, a heart breaker, and a beautiful balance to the rest of the act and the ballet. (In Tomasson's version for SFB and several others I've seen, Siegfried dances to this music as a solo towards the end of Act I.) Stewart Kershaw led the orchestra. During the overture to Act II, as the strings played the famous theme, I was jolted by a sound I hadn't heard since childhood, when I wore out the grooves on my Philadelphia Orchestra recording of "Swan Lake": the clear sound of many strings playing as one.

The principal casting for the Bolshoi's "La Bayadere" performaces in Berekeley has been posted to the Cal Performances website: Casting* : http://www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/presents/...08/dance/bb.php To reformat that by performance: Thursday, June 4: Nikia: Svetlana Zakharova Solor: Nikolai Tsiskaridze Gamzatti: Maria Alexandrova Friday, June 5: Nikia: Nadezhda Gracheva Solor: Andrei Uvarov Gamzatti: Yekaterina Krysanova Saturday, June 6 matinee: Nikia: Maria Alexandrova Solor: Alexander Volchkov Gamzatti: Yekaterina Krysanova Saturday, June 6 evening: Nikia: Svetlana Zakharova Solor: Nikolai Tsiskaridze Gamzatti: Yekaterina Krysanova Sunday, June 7 matinee: Nikia: Nadezhda Gracheva Solor: Andrei Uvarov Gamzatti: Yekaterina Krysanova

Your reviews of this, Natalia, and Marc Haegeman's photos made me very anxious to see it. If nothing else, the ABT Osipova "in or out of 'La Sylphide' discussion made me aware of how the close the dates were, and that I could hop down on the train and see ABT and the Bolshoi on the same trip. I had filed "Le Corsaire" in my "too bad they're not bringing this to Berkeley" envelope. I am looking forward to seeing all of the dancers in featured roles. When the Bolshoi visited Seattle, I guess five years ago now, they brought "Don Quixote" and "Romeo and Juliet", and while it was interesting to see Juliet bite and scratch Romeo, I'm much more interested in seeing the Company in the classical rep, and in a ballet that has so many roles for soloists. I know how unreliable the programs can be, and with a company in the women can look so physically similar, I'm pretty much restricted to "the taller/shorter dark-/light-haired on the right", which is about all I'll be able to report on the Berkeley "Bayaderes". I'm hoping that Ballet Talkers who are familiar with the dancers in DC can set the record straight

I've made plans to see Osipova in DC in "Le Corsaire" on Sunday, after the Part "La Sylphide" at ABT. I'm looking forward to seeing both.