Helene

Four Otto brothers: David and William (NYCB), Phillip (Milwaukee Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, and PNB), and the youngest, Eric (was ABT, NYCB, Met Opera Ballet in 2007). Both William and Eric Otto also performed in musical theater, Eric in "Movin' Out" on Broadway and tour. I don't remember the show William was in or whether it was Broadway and/or tour. According to the SAB Alumni Directory, William Otto is Artistic Director of New Haven Ballet, a position that his brother Phillip held before he moved to Alabama to head the Huntsville Ballet. I suspect they have the wrong brother listed, since the New Haven Ballet homepage lists Noble Barker as AD (site updated a few weeks ago). According to this article from this past June, there are five dancing Kaiser brothers, other links show four of whom danced in ballet: Russell (NYCB, now on Boston Ballet faculty), Roy (Pennsylvania Ballet), Kevin (Pacific Northwest Ballet), and Dan (Pennsylvania Ballet). Ken performed in Off-Broadway musicals and teaches tap at the school he runs in Tacoma. So there were four ballet dancing brothers apiece for the Ottos and Kaisers. There were also two Otto sisters. Deborah Otto-Jones teaches on the faculty of Saratoga Ballet Academy, for which David Otto is Artistic Director. I thought she danced professionally, but I can't find any link on the Internet for her as a performer. There's also a Christine Otto listed on the faculty of Saratoga Ballet Academy, but don't know the relation, if any. There's no mention of any sisters in any of the Kaiser links I found. When poking around, I learned that both David and William Otto attended North Carolina School of the Arts and that the Kaisers grew up in Federal Way, Washington, just south of Seattle. Both Kevin and Ken Kaiser are in the Puget Sound area.

In "Elusive Muse" she is filmed walking a little dog.

I love it!!!! Especially considering that for all the flack opera (and ballet) gets about unrealistic plots and big emotions, surely the story of "Don Giovanni" is more plausible than say, Marlena is possessed by the devil, who is exorcised by a guy who's memory has been wiped out, and who originally came back to Salem as her late husband (post tragic accident and post plastic surgery), who happened to be a priest, and who eventually marries her at least twice as himself, although two decades later, who "himself" is is still up for grabs ("Days of Our Lives") The Cassadines have some device that will freeze the world if the world does not come up with the ransom the Cassadines demand, only for the world to be saved by Luke, Laura, a secret agent with an Australian accent, and his girlfriend Tiffany, a super-model who stumbles around on stilettos on the secret island where the device is kept ("General Hospital"). Just sayin...

In opera, certainly singers mark. They can sing at a lower volume and/or transpose the music down an octave, for example. When an actor "phones it in" during performance or rehearsal when s/he's expected to perform, s/he will be told to stop marking. One of my favorite operatic rehearsal clips was one that was shared by George Jellinek on his radio program, "The Vocal Scene". Maria Callas was in a stage/orchestral rehearsal of "La Sonnambula", I think in London. Everyone assumed she would mark, and if I remember correctly, she might have started that way, but then got carried by the music, giving the most glorious full-out performances of the sleepwalking scene ("Ah! non credea mirarti"), complete with the rapturous verbal responses of the maestro.

I think that last year, even with the old site, that they posted the season on the "What's On?" calendar in at least two rounds. When I did our calendar, I had to go to the .pdf file for the full season. It's silly for them not to have a link from "What's On?" to the .pdf file, though. If the press release link wasn't posted on the "Ballet Talk on Tour" thread, I wouldn't have known where to find it.

I just received an email from New York Theatre Ballet about its joint memorial for Sallie Wilson: The invite was "printed" over a beautiful photo of Sallie Wilson by Zachary Ferguson.

"Marking" is not dancing full out and indicating the movement. It can be anything from doing a 45-degree arabesque on demi-pointe (where in performance it would be a high arabesque on point) to performing a movement on the ground instead of in the air to using ones arms and/or fingers (such as twirling them to indicate a pirouette). (Oops -- writing the same time as Hans!)

I found it interesting that according to the article, "her mother, Lausanne, directed Dance Corp Esprit. Her two sisters, Sarah Jayne Jensen and Bryn Dowling, are Broadway veterans." That plus Jensen's goal of dancing in Europe makes a lot of sense of Lausanne Jensen's comment, "We looked at all the big schools and weren't impressed...But when we met Valentina, I knew she was the one for Whitney". I would think that a family that has its own tradition of other types of dance, and a child with a goal to join a European company, would be particularly open to finding a teacher with European/Russian training outside the US company "feeder" schools, someone who would be a mentor to their daughter. It looks like this strategy worked! Very smart of Hungarian National Ballet to make an offer which has not yet been accepted, according to the official news we've seen so far. Other European companies could try to steal Budapest's thunder.

Thank you so much for the ID! I hadn't realized it was fur -- I thought the Russian Prince had rolled his hat and cloak over a pile of grey-colored chicken feathers One of my favorite parts of "The Sleeping Beauty" is watching the Princes. While some of that is a distraction -- during the "Rose Adagio" I get a knot in my stomach, like watching my favorite skaters at the Olympics -- I love to see what the four men will do with their parts. (Alas, too many of them treat the Princes as throw-away roles, and more than one good man has concentrated so hard on not knocking Aurora off point that there's little character left.) Edward Watson looked like a Spanish nobleman, a younger version of Don Q before the madness. I'm not sure what an Indian noble was supposed to look like, but Gary Avis had so much character as the French Prince (who does most of the partnering). His costume was the inverse of hers, the pearl gray satin with pink trim and roses -- clearly the front-runner had Carabosse not intervened -- and he was so attentive and had so much presence and style. I'm enjoying this the more I watch and re-watch it. I particularly love how Cojocaru rolls down through her feet off point so slowly and with so much control. Absolutely. I had to go fishing over the Internet to find pictures of both dancers, after having spend 15 or so minutes searching all over the new site for them.

I very much enjoyed this performance. I was watching the DVD on a plane the other night, and the woman behind me saw it when she got up to stretch her legs. She seemed intrigued, and took down the info to buy a copy from amazon.com. From our conversation, I didn't get the idea that she was a long-time ballet fan, so hopefully this will bring someone into the fold! I have a basic question: I can tell from the costumes which of the four princes is the Spanish Prince and which is the Indian Prince, but I can't tell from the costume who is the Russian and who is the French Prince. The program booklet and the credits list the French Prince first (Gary Avis) and the Russian Prince (David Makhateli) last, but from digging around on the Internet, the prince who did most of the extensive partnering looks more like Avis than Makhateli, even though he generally was the fourth Prince to partner Cojocaru But that Prince reminds me a bit of Olymic champion figure skater Anton Sikharulidze, which could mean Makhateli, who also hails from Georgia. If' someone knows for sure, I'd appreciate if they could post. In short, Cojocaru was gorgeous, but I was surprised by Bonelli, whom I've never seen live, at least that I can remember. His line and positions were generally pristine, and it was great to see such clean technique.

Thank you so much for describing the film in such great detail. I'm hoping it comes my way, and soon.

No offense but I don't know why you think this is so. Vivien Leigh suffered from terrible bouts of depression. If you read Tchinarova Finch's memoir, you will find a vivid and frightening description that both describes her behavior having bipolar disorder and why she could be so difficult. Given the nature of her illness, it's not surprising that different people had different experiences of her, depending on her condition at the time.

Please do let us know when presentation will take place when the arrangements have been finalized.

About "proximity of discipline", sportswriters who normally don't cover figure skating are notorious for writing "humorous" articles making fun of it, yet the same sportswriters (or the same jock type of sportswriter) can be very respectful of ballet and recognize the physical ability, conditioning, and training of male dancers. It reminds me of a story from the book "Holy Days." An old Jewish woman was on a bus in the US and castigated a Hassidic Jew, a fellow rider, for being backward and setting back people's perception of Jews. When he said he was Amish, she lauded him for maintaining his values.

Here is the direct link to the press release (a .pdf file): http://www.national.ballet.ca/pdf/pressrel...Lavigne_Wed.pdf Congratulations to the now almost two-month long married couple!

Of course. But he mentions a "new" drug policy, which means either they had some impetus to change the one they had, or they didn't have one before (several decades post-Kirkland) and had reason to institute one.

From an interview in today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer, PNB dancer, former SAB student, and Princess Grace award winner Lucien Postlewaite will dance Melancholic in January 2009. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/classical/376896_clas29.html New York audiences will be able to see what we've been privileged to here in Seattle. (But you can't keep him )

There is an article/interview with PNB dancer and Princess Grace award winner Lucien Postlewaite in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (also in today's links) in which he relates, Since Postlewaite is now 24 or 25, that would have been around 2001-ish. Having a policy at all is acknowledgment that drug use is neither isolated to a few people or to two decades before, although the School with dorms and minors takes on quasi-parental responsibility. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/classical/376896_clas29.html