Helene

It is such a shame about andante.com. I was a subscriber from the beginning, too, and I have to agree with you, Anthony, that the original owners undervalued the site. So much was available without subscription, and the material that was accessible by subscribers only -- archives, Kobbe Opera Book, Oxford Music Dictionary, music library -- was a steal for $99 USD per year. Radio and Magazine were free. It seems to me that those were worth a subscription fee, with a higher fee for premium archives. Although I do wonder whether the Magazine was meant to be free to get people to purchase the archival CD's. I took a survey by the Metropolitan Opera within the last year or two, in which I was asked what I would pay for streaming access to their opera broadcast archives. I'm hoping that that bears fruit. In the meantime, thank you so much for the link to the NY Times article. There were a number of sites mentioned that I didn't know about, and I'm planning to visit them all.

I found the following through MSN and Google Searches: From the Atlanta Ballet website "1980 Gil Boggs, principal dancer with the Atlanta Ballet heads the U.S. delegation to the International Ballet Competition of Varna, Bulgaria. Robert Barnett and ballet master Mannie Rowe serve as official coaches for the U.S. The following year, Barnett will serve as head coach in Moscow" A photo of him on the Chelsea Piers Golf Club website. (Don't know how long it will be up, now that he's leaving.) A first-hand account of how Boggs helped writer Dina Gan choose her first set of golf clubs. He guested with the Seiskaya Ballet. His dancer page on the ABT website no longer exists (sometimes the pages are left, but the links are deleted), but he is still in the ABT video dictionary performing tour en 1'air. I didn't find any articles that list Boggs as a Ballet Master at ABT, but I did find lots of articles on Wade Boggs and Gil Hodges.

Mine, too. Next week will be the 20th anniversary of his death, a very sad anniversary.

I would be too. Does Morris keep up any kind of special relationship wtih the Seattle area where he started out? Or with PNB? Mark Morris' company is regularly on the UW World Dance Series. There's no Morris on the PNB Active Repertory list. In interviews when choreographing for San Francisco Ballet, Morris has lauded the company for meeting his standards. Pacific was choreographed in 1995 for SFB for the "United We Dance" Festival honoring the 50th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter, and it will be great to see PNB in the piece. The MMDG website has the following info on the work: Pacific Music: Lou Harrison (Trio for Violin, Cello & Piano, 3rd & 4th movements) Costume Design: Martin Pakledinaz Lighting Design: James F. Ingalls Dancers: 9 Premiere: 05/09/95 Location: (San Francisco Ballet), War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, CA It's revival in 2000-1 earned an Izzie nomination for the company. In a nice tie-in, Christopher Stowell created one of the leads in the ballet. Anna Kisselgoff describes it in a 1995 review in the New York Times. When presented by the company as part of it's Fall 1995 season, Kisselgoff described it as http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...752C1A963958260

I wasn't very clear, because that was what I meant

Did anyone attend the conversation with Shelley Washington at Elliot Bay Bookstore on Sunday 29 January? Kelly Boal (nee Cass), Stacy Caddell, and Shawn Stevens were also listed on the website. A friend who had seen the Tharp company perform the work when it first premiered, told me it was great. Could anyone report on the arc of the discussion?

Doug, thank you so much for the link! I received the early renewal letter, and there was no mention of the Celebrate Seattle Festival. I'm really excited that included on the Program A are works from the 2005 Choregraphy Workshop; it's great that some of those pieces will be seen again. Festival Link It's funny to see a Kent Stowell World Premiere on the schedule. I don't know if anyone believed he'd be happy just cooking and living the island life

What I am is greedy. After spending several decades watching NYCB two-five times a week, I didn't like guest stars there -- with two exceptions -- any more than I like them here, for the very same reason: no matter how many younger dancers were given opportunities, there was a guest taking a slot. The exceptions were first for major celebrations, when the casting showed a tribute to Balanchine from his alma mater and from the "children" who formed their own companies, whose training showed a fidelity to him. The second was when injury and exhaustion had decimated the male contingent, so that partnering became risky, and outside partners were hired. Otherwise, I'd rather have seen an underused soloist (a NYCB issue) or a corps member dance. Just like here, there are a number of dancers that aren't getting a chance for a major role whom I would have been thrilled to see instead of guest stars. It has nothing to do with who they are: I loved Thomas in Apollo, and I saw Weese give a luminous performance of Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 with NYCB during one of my return trips. I would rather see NYCB come to Seattle, and be a performance in the subscription season, like Russell described in a season before I moved here. (Australian Ballet took the first subscription slot the year I moved; that was the last time this was done.) I would love to see Miranda Weese dancing with her company. Ideally, it would be an exchange, however much a pipe dream this is, with a union compromise so that the orchestras could play for each other. This is a personal preference.

It's been noted in other threads which discuss contemporary ballet that Kylian, Duato, and a number of other contemporary choreographers, and from the few Wheeldon ballets I've seen, I'd include him, that there was a change from hierarchical to a "democratic" structure, where most roles in a give ballet are more or less equal. This makes sense for a company with a relatively small number of dancers (12-30), but the mid-sized companies -- 35-50 or so -- have a hard choice to make: to produce ballets that provide the full gamut of "growth" roles, i.e., everything from the small, breakout solos for corps members, to demi-soloist roles, to soloist roles, to character parts, to principal roles -- or to produce and cast works in which there are a large number of principal "sink or swim" roles, with little corps work or growth roles. For Valentine, Boal chose the latter, but chose a remarkable mix of dances that accomplished one of the critical things normally associated with hierarchical ballets: the three contemporary works brought out not only the potential but also showed a significant number of dancers from all ranks in a new light. The program opened with Richard Tanner's Ancient Airs and Dances. In the post-performance Q&A for yesterday's matinee, Boal said he chose this opener because it would be familiar to audiences used to Russell/Stowell programming. Originally choreographed for the 1992 Diamond Project (NYCB), it is a gentle, neo-classical work for three principal couples, two demi-soloist couples, and four corps couples, to a familiar score by Respighi, one of those pieces you've heard, but may not know you have. The corps roles are not the super-corps roles like Barocco or Rubies, but there was enough to want to see a lot more of each of the dancers: Eames/Johnston/Kitchens/Zimmerman/Ade/Green/Griffiths/Spell. (I got my wish with Spell.) The demi-roles are more substantial, but what a tease to see Lowenberg, Reid, and Pankevitch only in them. (Pacitti, who partnered Lowenberg, danced in Red Angels and Nine Sinatra Songs as well.) Patricia Barker and Karel Cruz danced Couple 1. Barker at the end of her career is dancing with a a joy and expanse that's been missing from the last few seasons. I saw her partnered for many years with Jeffrey Stanton and lately with Stanko Milov, but matching her with the tall, elegant Cruz was an inspiration. Normally self-effacing, Cruz danced with a spark and extroversion that I've never seen from him before, and it carried to his role in Sinatra. They have terrific chemistry together. I don't mean to make a temperamental analogy, but I think there might be a parallel to Fonteyn's renewal when Nureyev joined Royal Ballet. Nadeau and Wevers danced Couple 2. While their dancing looks like a contrast in temperament -- Wevers is very pliant, with a burst of energy or movement or the flick of an eye that can be seen at the back of the house, while Nadeau starts with a serene center -- they both sustain the tension necessary for the long, legato phrases of their pas de deux. The most striking part for me was watching Nadeau's sustained turnout and lift from the thigh and pristine placement with which her legs sang long phrases; I found this mesmerizing. I know PNB isn't an Ashton company, but I wish I could see her in the great neoclassical Ashton roles, and I think she would make a wonderful Sylvia. Imler and Porretta, who danced Couple 3, seem to see the same finish line in whatever ballets they dance; the way they get there may be different, but it's perfectly complimentary. Porretta will do a virtuoso phrase with crispness and attack, and Imler will counter, but with little visible preparation, which seems to slow time down. (I've watched this over and over in her toughest virtuoso roles, and I'm always astonished at how she does this.) Kiss is duet, part aerial, that is performed with ropes and harnesses; the dancers wear jeans and tank tops. It was choreographed by modern dance choreographer Susan Marshall in 1987; Guillermo Resto, who danced with Mark Morris for many years, was one of the two men who performed the role. In the Q&A Boal noted that the theater in which it was first performed was very small; the ropes were 27 feet long, as opposed to the 40 foot long ropes used at McCaw Hall. He said that PNB was the first ballet company to perform the work, and the first company to perform the Arvo Part's score to a live orchestra. This was partly necessary because the work takes longer, partly due to the length of the ropes, and the additional time varied by cast. Brunson, who with Herd spoke at the Q&A, noted that she and Herd are taller, and their performance is a minute longer than Vinson and Moore's. Boal said that he cast the piece with the two couples, not knowing which pairing would work; neither has been cast together with any regularity, if ever. He sounded proud of his dancers when the stagers from the Susan Marshall Company, Kristin Hollinworth and Luke Miller, liked both couples. Kiss is a sensual work with explicitly sexual passages that are never graphic (if that makes any sense), with exquisite airborne sections. For me, it created an emotional wave, and I was engaged for every second. I'll know after seeing it a couple of more times next week whether this was because it was so new, or if it has the same gripping power after repeated viewings, but I'm very much looking forward to finding out. I wish I had seen Kiss after Red Angels. The few minutes between ballets was not enough to regroup. Perhaps a full intermission might not have been, because it felt like a movie I'd think about over and over again for weeks afterwards, but Red Angels was almost like an intrusion. That said, the stellar performances by Wevers, Rausch, and Pacitti forced back my attention; these dancers are such treasures. (For some reason, I kept imagining Rausch in The Cage.) Lallone's performance seemed pale by contrast, in a role I thought she'd eat up, but she took a perplexingly soft approach. I have no question that what I saw was ballet, fully rooted in the classical vocabularity. Nine Sinatra Songs would have been worth it to see all of those gorgeous women in those beautiful Oscar de la Renta dresses, and all of those beautiful men in black tie, even James Moore, when his character and his clothes (deliberately) looked three sheets to the wind. I really loved the traditional ballroom parts of this suite, but the work itself less so when Tharp got clever and, in my opinion, busy. This time it was Kari Brunson paired with Karel Cruz, in the opening "Softly As I Leave You," both the picture of elegance. Rachel Foster and Le Yin followed in "Strangers in the Night," another elegant dance. I felt a twinge to see Le Yin, both because he is back, looking great after an injury, but also because with his dark hair combed back, his striking cheekbones, and his ability to wear black tie as if he were born in it, for a moment, I thought Jock Soto was back, too. "My Way" was a striking contrast to the first two dances, and the first of four in which comedic skills were crucial. James Moore played the lush brilliantly and Maria Chapman was equally brilliant as his elegant straight-woman, who was tossed and turned and dropped and turned into a pretzel (from which she elegantly untwisted). After "My Way" for the first three couples, Noelani Pantastico and Jordan Pacitti performed a comedy-driven dance to "Somethin' Stupid." This dance was the first inkling I had of Tharp's theatrical genius; each of the four comedic pieces was entirely different both dynamically and temperamentally. What followed was for me the first highlight of the dance: Carla Korbes and Jeffrey Stanton in "All the Way." Stanton too looked like he was born to wear black tie, but he conveyed an aura of a different, more elegant era. Stanton has a tendency to be self-effacing as a partner and fade into the background, but not this time: Korbes wouldn't let him. She emitted such a radiance towards him, and held him in an eyelock from which he couldn't retreat, and he met her there. For me, they were as convincing a relationship as Brunson's and Herd's in Kiss. An amazing pairing. "Forget Domani" was a complete contrast, invigorated by the zany energy of Jodie Thomas, in a ruffled fuscia dress, and Josh Spell, who looked like they were having a ball. It was disconcerting seeing Nadeau pushed around by Herd in "That's Life;" the partnering was incredibly intricate, and the performance was edgy. The second highlight was the finale, a reprise of "My Way," in which all of the couples danced. Gone were the comedic elements, and it was primarily the comedic couples that were such an eye-opener. I had expected the women to be elegant, and Chapman, Pantastico, Thomas, and Nadeau were elegant and romantic, but the men were a relevation: I had never seen Josh Spell dance with such character-driven verve. (Who knew he could tango or turn into a completely convincing toreador?) James Moore morphed into Fred Astaire. What an afternoon. We've had a lot of discussion on Ballet Talk about whether ballet companies should be performing modern dance or works by modern dance choreographers. Would PNB have been better off performing Wheeldon, for example? (While Nine Sinatra Songs did not use ballet vocabulary or technique, it was unusual in that it didn't employ much modern dance technique, and Kiss was primarily an aerial work.) I would argue that the way in which the dancers extended themselves dramatically in creating character will reap dividends in the classic story ballets in particular and will make future casting feel inevitable. I think the audience learned a great deal about these dancers from these two works. I went with a friend with whom I've been attending since a couple of years before the move in to Mercer Arena. She had to take last year off. She commented after the performance that she was very happy with all of the new dancers Boal had hired. I told her that there were only one new apprentice and three new dancers: Korbes, Griffiths, and Pankevitch, and that all of the rest of the dancers were hired by Russell and Stowell, and many had received pre-professional training at the PNB school. She was astonished. Boal has grasped the opening he has at the beginning of his tenure to give the opportunity to the dancers to capture the audience's attention. What a gift to us.

This is one step to the side of this topic, but in today's Washington Post, there is a devastating review of Il Divo's concert at DAR Constitution Hall. It opens: and it ends:

We might argue which is worth the following, but just like Neil Diamond and Tom Jones, he does. I agree completely. It was, as you said, the best dance of their competition, and, in my opinion, by far the best dance of the competition. The judges could have tied any other couple, had they been as good. The likelihood of anyone having the technical ability to surpass this performance was so slight, particularly since Drew Lachey, her only real competitor, doesn't have much articulation in his back, that I had no problem with them taking the chance. I saw too many absolute top figure skating performances downgraded to "leave room" under the old 6.0 system, when there was a snowball's chance of anyone else surpassing them, and I was glad to see such a great performance rewarded with a strong statement by the judges. I agree with her comment. Not entirely end-to-end, and I'm not saying Keibler was as good as Cheryl Burke or Nick Kosovich's wife (seen in exhibition with her husband), but I think she danced with a better combination of dance quality and technique than Ashly Delgrosso, for example, and not just Delgrosso with Master P, but when she did a routine with a pro partner earlier in the season. I was shocked when I saw how un-amateurish Keibler looked. Carrera's performance looked a little deflated. I don't think Latin is her strength, particularly since she's not in top shape (although in amazing shape for having given birth a few months ago.) You had also mentioned earlier about competing fan bases, and I think hers was eaten into by Rinna. I don't disagree, but of all the men, amateur and professional, he's the one I'd choose to dance with. (Which would make him look like he had superb flow by comparison ) I think Cheryl Burke rocks.

I was talking about this with a friend today. We saw Nine Sinatra Songs at PNB this afternoon, which MCB has performed -- including two selections for the Guggenheim series for the Balanchine Centennial -- which Pennsylvania Ballet performed last February, and which will appear on Colorado Ballet's March/April 2006 program. I know that the Balanchine and Robbins Foundations control who gets to do what ballets, and there seems to be a pattern of being allowed to do some of them after achieving a certain level, and then only some of them when a company has the financial resources to recreate elaborate and expensive original sets and costumes (ex: Liebeslieder Walzer). Since many companies want to perform these works, a number of them are close in the progression allowed by the Foundations. Francia Russell staged La Valse in 1996 and 2000; Peter Boal has scheduled it for the March 16-26 program, along with a revival of Val Caniparoli's The Bridge and a new work by Dominique Dumais. For PNB this could have been logistical: I believe they own the sets and costumes, and Russell stages ballets she learned from Balanchine; while not an insubstantial number, I don't know if she stages anything later than the late 60's or early 70's. While it's hard to imagine that La Valse is an over-the-top box office draw, I could see Artistic Directors and marketing departments looking at a successful production of Nine Sinatra Songs and thinking that the work would be a big draw and possibly attract new audiences. La Valse has the advantage of glamour, recognizable music, three dramatic lead roles, and a number of soloist and demi-soloist roles in the "Valses Nobles et Sentimentales" section. The same thing seems to happen with opera, even after co-productions and the Handel revival are eliminated from the mix. For some reason, among lesser-performed Verdi, MacBeth seems to be having a number of revivals clustered together, following last year's Un Ballo in Maschera, and I've seen a number of regional companies producing Cosi Fan Tutte.

The number of tickets sold still hasn't been confirmed officially, and there are two stories, each of which could be considered self-serving, depending on one's point of view. But without official word from the box office or Carnegie Hall management, we won't know if either story or something completely different is the truth.

Welcome to Ballet Talk, Sandy, and thank you for posting about Friday's performance! We're glad you found us. I'm just about to go to this afternoon's performance. Sadly, I'll miss the Nakamura/Poretta pairing in Red Angels; I think they are a wonderful and dynamic pair. But I'm really looking forward to it, and hopefully there won't be any trees down on my way to Seattle Center after the wind storm we've been having.

I thought it was me, but I don't think the lighting worked in Seattle for the opening night gala, either.