Helene

Many thanks, drb! One question though: "After the Rain" is Wheeldon. Would Whelan and Hall not be dancing Ratmansky's choreography, from "Russian Seasons", which was choroegrapher for her, Evans, Sylve, and Ringer? It's great to hear about the beginning of what may another choreographer/composer team: Ratmansky and Desyatnikov.

I think it's perfectly reasonable for a critic to say, "Yes, Dancer X's technique is lacking, but his/her performance transcended that for me, and s/he caught my eye every time, while Ms./Mr. Technical Perfection over there put me to sleep", but I think it's questionable not to admit to the underlying flaws. I don't think Somova's technical flaws are all that difficult to see, especially when she danced with a corps, who behind her, for example, put her feet to shame. That contrast was the most jarring thing I found about her dancing.

I did see her at City Center, and had the same impression of her in the classical rep as I did from film. However, I did think that she was convincing as a lyrical dancer in the lyrical parts of "Ballet Imperial". My reservation even in this is that her facial expression turned from radiant to blank after several minutes of dancing. (In the smaller City Center venue, what has been described as her "deer in the headlights" look was fairly obvious.) I thought she was a talented soloist-level dancer with potential, who did exude a sunny presence when she did not look dazed -- and I do not underestimate the ability to shine and connect to an audience -- who needs coaching to curb her competition-like excesses and try to find her inner plastique, and who needs to work very hard on her technical weaknesses, since given the exposure and prominence in casting she has, everything she is, flaws and all, are up front and center. Again, the parallel to Farrell and what Kistler described in "6 Ballerinas', where she said something like, "You had to do your growing onstage." There are many great dancers who worked very hard to compensate for weaknesses for which they were criticized early: Fonteyn, Farrell, and Ashley come to mind, having worked very hard on their feet, for example, and Ashley, by then considered a technical virtuoso, on her turns. What is Somova does not have that Farrell and Kistler had was an artistic genius and choreographer to mold their careers, Kistler for a very short period of time, or what Fonteyn, Farrell, and Kistler had in the iron-willed founder of a company who took an interest in their development; Fonteyn had the outside influence of Volkova and was later creative muse to Ashton. My question is whether she will grow. I don't see the underlying teaching or creative forces to push her, and given the Kirov's touring schedule, it's not condusive to shoring up technique.

How well known an artist from another generation was or is currently is often a matter of other factors besides talent. We know of some dancers only by word-of-mouth, because they didn't get the recordings or the first performances, and their dancing/singing was not reviewed, but their performances are revered. They might have been quite famous in their time and extensively cast because another famous or powerful person liked them (or was married to them) or because another one had a reason to keep them close to home. They may never have toured, but were instrumental in bringing their art to a new place (middle America, for example), and may be virtually unknown outside their own place. They might have been quite famous, important, and influential in their home theater (in the pre-Internet days), but never toured, and didn't achieve world-wide fame. In addition, some talents transcend their period and training, while others seem period-bound. Comparisons aren't always about talent -- who was better - but about how to understand the context of that person in his/her own time. How was Lepeshkina considered in her own time? Was she the most famous ballerina in the Soviet Union apart from Ulanova then? She's not as famous in the West as Plisetskaya, but that doesn't tell us how she was considered when she danced.

Many thanks, Arizona Native I was sad to miss this, and hope it's revived soon. I look forward to seeing Wilcox and Wozniak for the first time in the spring.

PNB has offered discounts on selected performances, for example tonight and tomorrow night. However, Seattle has been hit with snow, which has turned to slush during the day and freezes at night. I suspect this will put a damper on attendance. We rarely get snow, and even the people who know how to drive in it are rightly terrified of the people who haven't a clue, especially those who think that they can drive their SUVs as if it were 70 degrees (21) and sunny. This is a city where if it's sunny for three days in a row, we forget how to drive in the rain, and are born again all over.

I am wrong about the Balanchine Celebration: it was only issued on VHS. I could have sworn I owned it on DVD, but I'm starting to hallucinate now. Here is a list that Robert Greskovic created for the Balanchine Foundation website: Videography but as he notes, not all are available on DVD.

Please do post a link, 4mrdncr! I look forward to seeing it

volcanohunter, thank you for the correction and more information about the history of Canadian ballet companies. Anne, NYCB has taken many opportunities to be filmed and broadcast: archival footage in the CBC vaults, the appearances of NYCB dancers and Balanchine choreography on "Bell Telephone Hour", "Firestone Theater", and "The Ed Sullivan Show", the All Balanchine "Dance in America" segments in the late '70's, and the ill-conceived trip to Germany in the early '70's, which cause dissent in the company -- this was chronicled by Joseph Mazo in "Dance is a Contact Sport" -- several recordings of "Apollo" in both versions, and after Balanchine, in the "All Martins" studio recording featuring Watts, Nichols, Kistler, and Ashley and the "Serenade"/"Western Symphony", the Robbins special, including "Fancy Free" from the mid-80's, the 1993 Balanchine Celebration two-parter, several live performances of Martins' "Swan Lake" and other contemporary choreography and the gala centennial of Balanchine's death. The only ones to make it to DVD (apart from documentary excerpts) were the Bell Telephone/Firestone recordings, the Balanchine Celebration, which featured every healthy Principal and most of the solists in the Company in 1993, plus guests from the Mariinsky, Royal Ballet, PNB, SFB, POB, and the "Dance in America" performances from the late '70's. I think it's a matter of rights and distribution (cost and logistics), not that the Company has an objection to featuring dancers. Especially now, since all but Kistler were trained at SAB under Martins' lead.

Edwin Denby told the story of the mother and daughter in his review of "The Nutcracker". I don't have the book with me, so this isn't an exact quote, but Denby noted that the girl watched and understood.

Many thanks for the timely news, cygneblanc

I think the dancers have to buy the lake before they can sell it to us. Ballet Arizona included the "mother's mime" in it's production of "Giselle", and it made Act I, emotionally and dramatically. It took maybe a minute to establish the premonition of the supernatural world of Act II. It also goes beyond mime and includes the dancers reactions to it. Is Siegfried responding to "pretty woman" or to the tragedy of Odette's story? Do the villagers look at Giselle's mother blankly when she's done, or does one give it a "silly old wive's tale" look, while the other shivers involuntarily, like I saw in Phoenix?

Just today, from the Washington Post: Iraqi's Hail Journalist Who Threw Shoes at Bush as a Hero Complete with video, after mandatory 15-sec advertisement.

More than the shoe itself, I'm always impressed that faced with a giant mouse king, Masha/Clara used her head and whatever weapon she had; as a girl, her options were limited. Much like Sylvia thinking her way out of the Orion's clutches.

I'm pretty sure when he left PNB he was a soloist, but he was, indeed, a wonderful dancer with superb stage presence, and he really knew how to present a ballerina. He's one of the PNB dancers that I miss the most, and I hope someone has news of him.

Did you purchase tickets using the French version of the website? I purchased tickets to four performances last season, ballet and opera from the website in the English version; sadly, because POB moved the School Peformance dates and Leigh and I changed our dates, I missed the "Wozzeck". I didn't receive a questionnaire, and I open all email from POB, even in French (and hope that Babelfish can help me out).

On the other hand, how many classical companies are there in France today? Paris Opera Ballet, Toulouse, and ? How often does the "national" company of France tour outside Paris? The "national" company in Canada does a big-city Western tour at most every two years with a bow to Ottawa, four hours away but mostly sticks to Toronto. Alberta Ballet, on the other hand, tours, while splitting their season between Calgary and Edmonton, and Royal Winnipeg ballet tours extensively with two-three productions a year, throughout Canada and the northern US, this season venturing to LA as well. Sadlers Wells made itself touring; now it is English National Ballet that performs regularly in Oxford, Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool, and Southamption, in addition to London seasons, while Northern Ballet Theatre tours in the north. State sponsorship is a double-edged sword. In the press in Great Britain, there are numerous calls to take away state funding of the arts, because it is too elitist. What the state giveth, the state can taketh away. US companies had to adjust to drastic cuts from the US government. Now US companies will have to adjust to cuts due to the pounding of foundation assets in the financial meltdown as well as the credit crunch.

Many thanks 4mrdncr. It's good to have the facts about production and PBS rights. This topic comes up repeatedly, and we've been guessing from the outside each time. Speight Jenkins, General Director of Seattle Opera, is frequently asked at post-performance Q&A's why productions like the Seattle Ring are never made into DVD's, and he always says "Money" and moves on, but he's never explained what costs so much or how much would needed to be raised. (Which would, unless a major new outside donor was found or an old was willing to up the ante, scavange funds from the General Ring Fund or the General Fund.) PNB tapes all performances, none at production quality. Francia Russell used to make no bones about it at post-performance Q&A's: the camera was dying and they needed 10K for it. Needless to say, not many people expected PNB DVD's, if the company couldn't replace its video camera.

They use me as a control for what not to program, because for a typical season, I'd pick: Wozzeck Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Elektra Otello Pelleas et Melisande Les Troyens Iphigenie en Tauride Das Rheingold Un Ballo in Maschera Ainadomar La Clemenza di Tito Jenufa War and Peace Nixon in China Katya Kabanova Boris Gudanov and they'd go broke. In Seattle, Speight Jenkins tends toward the Balanchinian: he makes a meal of each season, and for every new or "difficult" opera, there's usually an antidote, like "Pearl Fishers" (French, melodic) after "Elektra" (German, dramatic, some would say strident). I think it's interesting that we're also getting a "Bluebeard's Castle"/"Erwartung" double bill in the same season as "Elektra", but the season was bookended by "Aida", where normally there is a German opera in the summer, and the season ends with "Marriage of Figaro".

One of the things that struck me most about Jensen's performance in the Harlekinad pas de deux clips on YouTube were how lifted and vertical she is in the supported pirouettes. She just kept getting taller!

I've watched the Murawski montage twice, and neither time did I see anything that would make me want to see her dance live while those are the choices she presents, regardless of her training pedigree.

In the 2007 YAGP finalists montage on YouTube, the only dancers in classical or neoclassical roles with huge extensions were dark-haired. One of the posters in the thread thought that the blue tutu was the costume for "Pharoah's Daughter", and the dancer wearing that costume was blond, but there was nothing exaggerated in that short clip. There are a number of clips that indicate that Ms. Jensen certainly knows where 90 degrees is. (I very much like her partner, Albert Davydov, in the other four clips from the "Harlekinad" pas de deux. Here's his solo clip: I would think if she were going to dance in an exaggerated manner, it would be in pieces like "Le Corsaire" or "Black Swan Pas de Deux", but I don't see that in her clips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNgVfStktbs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4qzNmxXvcQ Her developpes in second weren't any higher than Lopatkina's as Odile, or Vishneva's as Aurora in live performance in which I saw her.

Since Jensen wanted to compete and perform in Europe, she took a path of competitions that built very much like athletic competition, from junior to senior, building up to one of the most prestigious, with an influential jury. Varna is highly regarded in Europe, and I'm sure she got the exposure she wanted from it. From Vasiliev's description, she wasn't trying to show big tricks, but dancing.

For the life of me I cannot understand why Monica Mason thinks that David Makhateli is.

In the two performances in which I saw Ansanelli last spring -- Fonteyn/last movement in "Homage to the Queen" and Aurora -- I thought she was trying to channel Margot Fonteyn, at least from the waist up. I would think that this would have mixed reaction in London. From the waist down, though, she'd have far to go to meet that ideal, as her feet were sloppy in the fast sections, and her legs don't sing to me. Even through film, the perfect balance and finish between Fonteyn's upper and lower body was very clear to me, and without that counterpoint, it doesn't work, at least in my eyes. I wasn't living in NYC when Ansanelli made her mark at NYCB, and only saw the company sporadically, so I have no basis on which to compare her dancing for NYCB and RB.