Helene

And now Boston Ballet is getting the lovely Allison Basford, until last week of Pacific Northwest Ballet. We want to hear about everyone Welcome to Ballet Talk, toeprints.

Here's a direct link to the blog: http://oregonballettheatre.blogspot.com/ There are some lovely candid photos, and former PNB dancer and current OBT dancer, Gavin Larsen, writes about what it's like to watch the company from the sidelines as she recovers from injury. (I wish her fast and complete healing.)

Natalia, it's great to hear about Lallone. She suffered a calf injury on stage in April during "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and she was back for the first time two weeks ago in the second pas de deux in "In the Night." "Jardi Tancat" is one of her greatest roles; I'm glad you got to see her in it. Wouldn't it be beyond wonderful if Maria del Mar Bonet showed up to sing live

Please let us know when!

Congratulations to her! We want to hear reports about her from Boston Balletgoers From her PNB Unleashed profile, it sounded like she's recovered from her injuries, and I'm very glad she's going to continue her career.

He's so tall, too -- I think the Nureyev bio said he was 6'6". He's certainly taller than any of the women on pointe. His turns were so centered. He had a little bit of travel towards the end of the fouettes, but the rest could have bored a hole in the ground.

My deepest sympathies to you on the loss of your friend. Thank you for the tribute to him that you've written here.

Last weekend was Ballet Arizona's "All Balanchine Program": "Rubies," "La Sonnambula," and "The Four Temperaments". I reviewed the performance for danceviewtimes, but did any else go? (ArizonaNative??) I'd love to hear what others thought. For me, it was one of the top three highlights of the season, another being Ginger Smith and Astrit Zejnati in "Giselle" last fall. It was fascinating to watch the audience and to see how absorbed they were in the performance. During the pas de dexu between The Sleepwalker and The Poet, I felt something around me and glanced down my row, and then looked wider: the entire section had collectively leaned forward. The ladies in back of me were oohing and aahing after Zejanati's "Rubies" solo, and the one who proved to be the regular ballet goer whispered to her friends, "He's soooooooo good!" The Themes in Four T's got spontaneous applause -- not the polite stuff because there is an exit -- the "Rubies" opening pose elicited gasps, and "The Four Temperaments", new to the company, got explosive ovations at the end. Perhaps my favorites upon which to eavesdrop were the two sisters, maybe 7 and 9, who sat behind me on Saturday night, who from their soft gasps were clearly awestruck. At intermissions they practiced their plies and talked non-stop about what they had seen. They were already experienced practitioners of "process of elimination" to identify the dancers, and could explain why they liked a particular dancer.

Probably

She retired from PNB but I'm thrilled for her that she's continuing her career in Cincinnati. I hope the audience there cherishes her, because there isn't a single role of any size at PNB that she didn't dance completely, and it never mattered if she was in the front or back row or center stage.

And that was a drop in the bucket compared to her analyzing roles in the follow-up, "Shape of Love". I was ready to tear my hair out reading that one.

In my opinion, she had the same qualities as a skater when she left ballet to skate professionally. Whenever her name is mentioned on figure skating boards -- the same question is asked there -- there are always multiple posts lauding the balletic quality of her skating, her line, her posture, and the finish and polish of her movement.

I would say that Julie Kavanagh's recent biography describes mainly an exascerbation of the behaviors he showed before his diagnosis. She writes about his knowledge that he doesn't have a lot of time left, when it wasn't generally known. While this ties into his life-long impatience at having lost critical time in classical training, I think Kavanagh argues implictly that he wouldn't have been under-prepared as a conductor if he thought he had another 20 years to study and hone his craft.

Royal Ballet of Flanders is performing William Forsythe's "Impressing the Czar" on July 17, 18, 19, and 20. I can't vouch for the work itself, but it's a fine company. http://www.lincolncenter.org/search_result...?showcode=30809

Not to mention skate competitively and professionally, compete well at Jackson, and return to competitive professional skating after a dance career. Her performance in a bad film was quite accomplished. I think the basis for thinking of talent not realized may be that she didn't dance for what most would consider a major company. Many of us on this site know how much talent there is outside major companies.

Heggie wrote a perfectly believable period song for "The End of the Affair" and no one in that opera ate truffles. (It was a decidedly middle class creation.) I'm sure he could create a western feeling. Wuorinen, not so much. I tuned out much of the movie soundtrack. I don't like music to tell me five minutes ahead of time how to feel.

I had the very same thought, but I'm not objective about her. I've loved Carrie Imler since the first moment I saw her on stage at her school performance in 1995, 13 years ago. When she started to move in "Square Dance" last night in "8 Encores" the world was right, if only for those 10 minutes. sandik, thank you so much for sharing your extended thoughts here. I wish Seattle Weekly had room for all of them.

I thought the opposite: opera is wonderful at expressing relationships, and there are many in this one: between the two mean, between each and his wife/girlfriend, the parents, etc. Not to mention the inner dialogues that would make great arias, and the cast would be the right size to make it produceable. In the right hands, this could be the "Susannah" of our day, which is, sadly, bitingly relevant. I thought of Jake Heggie because of "The End of the Affair", which was not only adapted from a literary source, but an opera in which he used the specific qualities to paint individual, believable family and love relationships. He also writes melodically enough to write blooming music for the two protagonists. Wuorinen, not so much. If any reason, that is why I think it's DOA.

This one seemed like a no-brainer for Jake Heggie. Wuorinen, yikes.

It's interesting for me to read this thread from the beginning, having been in Paris and London in April. Among the POB dancers mentioned here that I saw in soloist and principal roles in the Four Temperaments, Artifact Suite/Raymonda program are Fiat (whom I loved), Ould-Braham, Phavorin, Froustey, Thibault, and Gilbert. I was also very impressed by Cuthbertson at Royal Ballet. Among others mentioned, I completely agree about Lewitzke; I was lucky to have seen her in one of the "Liebeslieder" performances. And about Renee Estopinal, a first among equals in many, many ballets. Rosalie O'Connor is now taking spine-tingling and sensitive ballet photographs. I once took my first boyfriend in NYC to see what was my first "Nutcracker". He loved all of the leotard ballets, but was allergic to tutus and rhinestones. It was a matinee, and he spend the first 1.5 parts of the ballet whining about the noise kids around us were making. Until Susan Freedman appeared as Coffee. That shut him up quickly enough, but I think at that moment he was lost forever I've never seen a Coffee that matched her. Two of my all-time favorite corps members at PNB retired with tonight's "8 Encores" program: Kara Zimmerman and Rebecca Johnston. They are irreplaceable.

I have no idea what movie this was or which actors were in it, but I was channel surfing today, and there was an actor and actress playing hotel check-in people in a Reyjavik hotel, and they allegedly had Icelandic accents. (Not). I don't think Sean Connery tried at all to sound Russian in "The Hunt for Red October".

Tonight I saw the second cast in "Fancy Free", and it was magical. Each of the three sailors -- Kiyon Gaines as the athletic one, Jordan Pacitti in "hopes and dreams", and Jeffrey Stanton in the rhumba -- shaped his solo like a long classical variation. This is one of Stanton's greatest roles, tapping into a far more outgoing side that he doesn't often show: alternately show-offy and deadly virile, with spot-on mime and physical characterization and bullseye comic timing. The pas de deux with Louise Nadeau crackled; they have chemistry to spare. I almost wished they had managed to sneak away from the others. Kiyon Gaines displayed a nuanced side to the first sailor, and although the work is full of vernacular movement, he showed the ballet spine in the choreography. as well as a more thoughtful version of the character than many. Jordan Pacitti was born many decades too late; he could have been a movie star in the dancing era. Just when I thought he was chanelling Gene Kelly, in his solo he threw in a perfect Fred Astaire phrase. What a performance! It was a gem. As the two new women -- Nadeau has been in all casts so far -- Lesley Rausch was upstanding without being prim, a true period character. Lindsi Dec was a first-class girl-next-door flirt trying on the glamour. In "In the Night" Seth and Sarah Orza danced the first, romantic couple. Seth Orza's picture should be in the dictionary next to the entry for "plastique". He does not have a bad side and every shape and position is fully realized. Sarah Orza had the softest pointes, making the simple walk at the end of the piece a wonder. Kaori Nakamura danced with Casey Herd as the third couple, and she was an emotional tempest, a fascinating, high-maintenance woman. When she surrendered to Herd at the end, I thought of Fonteyn and Ashton, and wondered if it was a similar surrender. But in this ballet, it was Laura Gilbreath's night. From the opening movements filled with true Eastern European character, carriage, and formality -- this couple may have called each other Mr. and Mrs. even in private -- to the expansive and dramatic dancing in the middle section that fit the music like a glove and showed the spirit of its originator, Violette Verdy, even if Gilbreath, another tall dancer in the role, is nothing like her physically -- to the resonant ending, she showed great range and gave the characterization a splendid arc. She was very sensitively partnered by Stanko Milov. I can't remember the last time I went to the ballet before this program and heard my fellow audience members howling so much. The cast of "The Concert" was mainly the same as in the last performance, and again, Miranda Weese was superb as The Ballerina. What a face. I can't praise Carrie Imler's The Wife enough; she caught the essence of the role. Benjamin Griffiths as the meek young man who later partners The Ballerina was a scream. In the post-performance Q&A, Boal said that Dianne Chilgren may have been the best The Pianist ever. Oh, and she played the piano, too. If she's playing for "Dances at a Gathering," that alone will make the program.

Yay for Boal! That's great news about Brittany Reid. Diaz just joined the company in 2006. I didn't know that she and Basford were leaving, but I was thinking the other day that I haven't seen much of Basford lately.

PNB's "All Robbins" program opened Thursday. In "Fancy Free", the irrepressible Jonathan Porretta portrayed the irrepressible Sailor #1, eliciting a burst of applause at the first Russian jump into split. Casey Herd danced Mambo Sailor (#3) and the Pas de Deux as a man with confidence who had picked up some moves along the way to wow the girls. The variations for these sailors are long and similar in style. The variation that is often lost and is dramatically most challenging is the one for the "hopes and dreams" sailor (#2). In it Josh Spell wove a huge landscape of a narrative and dramatic arc of nuance and muscial interpretation. It was as if Rodolfo's "Che gelida manina" was transformed into a dance for a boy from mid-America, were that aria less focused on a single outcome. Each of the three women's characters were as distinct as each of the sailors'. Noelani Pantastico was more willful than faux sophisticated as the girl with the red pocketbook, a woman who knew her strength with the men away at war. Kylee Kitchens showed a sense of delight and maybe discovery in how her long sinuous legs and glamorous golden locks could affect the men. It's as if Louise Nadeau was born to dance Robbins. In "Fancy Free," as the girl in purple who dances the Pas de Deux, she was game but no pushover, and she showed a wonderful detachment from the big-talking boys. It was sophistication that is sharp and smart about people, another American archetype from the period. In "In the Night" Nadeau danced with Karel Cruz in the third Pas de Deux. As dramatic as it needed to be, Nadeau's interpretation was an organic transformation of the music to gesture and movement. In a pairing of perfect pitch, Cruz danced the role of a true poet, a man who is involved with an emotionally complicated woman. If the superb Dianne Chilgren hadn't started to play the final piece, the audience might still be applauding them. Noelani Pantastico and Olivier Wevers danced the first couple (romantic love). It was an emotional experience to watch: early in her career as she gained more principal roles, she was partnered by Wevers -- it was he who was her partner in the "Brahms-Schoenberg" 2nd movement guest performances with NYCB -- and the partnership has come full circle. It was a rich performance: romantic but not innocent. Ariana Lallone is back after having suffered a calf injury mid-performance as Hippolyta in the last program. In the Verdy role. about as physically opposite of Verdy as a ballerina comes, she was a wonder of a mature, romantic dancer. Watching her here renews my hope for "Liebeslieder Walzer" (although it's getting harder and harder to convince the people in my building that the burnt sacrifices are just generic barbeque, and eye of newt is getting difficult to come by). Miranda Weese could not have had more perfect comic timing and phrasing as the Ballerina in "The Concert", especially in the hat scene, her big eyes projecting to the balcony. I could not stop thinking about Bart Cook watching Jonathan Porretta's Groucho Marx of a Husband, and Carrie Imler was a formidable Wife. I also could not stop wishing that it was as easy to quiet the chattering, pocketbook-rustling members of the audience as it was in "The Concert", as I had to move seats to avoid the 70-something non-stop chatterering couple behind me.

I just received my Spring 2008 issue, and it's finally hitting what we're losing. Apart from the dance writing, there is such beautiful photography, from Marc Haegeman's stunning color cover photo of Svetlana Zakharova and shots of Mikhail Lavrovsky coaching Nina Kapsova and Carlos Acosta to vintage photos of Lydia Lopokova to a lovely, relaxed ( uncredited) photo of Scottish Dance Theatre's AD Janet Smith (and Smith's photo of four of her dancers). Sigh.