Helene

The separate programs are exceptionally beautiful. While I pull out the cast lists for most US programs, I cherish the program I purchased at the Bolshoi for the photos and the historical information about performances of Evgeni Onegin. Many thanks for everyone's input. I've never been to France before, and I'm looking forward to my very short visit there on my way to London.

On the "Goodbye to newspapers?" thread beck_hen wrote, .Wikipedia is an open source, free online encyclopedia. For every article, there are several tabs, including discussion about the article, a history of edits, and the source itself. There are numerous articles from the Help Page which describe how to use, search, and edit existing articles and how to create new ones. (This page is also linked from the home page by clicking "Help" from the left hand menu.) A friend who is one of many -- I think several hundred -- moderators on the site told me that that material on ballet is weak, and the Wikipedians would appreciate contributions to the site on the topic. If you are interested in contributing, there are a few things you should know: 1. Articles are subject to revision by the entire community. While there are moderators who are on the lookout for gratuitious and spiteful edits, it can be frustrating to have to negotiate or justify content in discussion. They have a long and arduous arbitration process for "re-educating" and removing posters who would be shut down on Ballet Talk in several seconds flat. Like any community, getting a feel for how it works -- reading the discussion pages is a good start -- before jumping in is a good strategy, and the more reasonable, respectful, and knowledgeable posters are recognized fast and get the support of the core. 2. It is an encyclopedia, and it aims for facts, claims and information that are proportional to their importance in the issue, particularly in the opening and summaries. Citations are particularly important, and uncited material may be edited out or quarantined, to be reinstated when a citation is added. Gushing is usually edited out quickly. (The Michelle Kwan article comes to mind.) An entire article about a young soloist at ABT, for example, would be cut in all likelihood and perhaps edited into a general article about a new generation of dancers. 3. Contributors are welcome to translate existing articles in other languages to English and vice versa. The list of languages supported in Wikipedia is on the main page in the left hand column. 4. Whether a person or event is considered important enough to belong in an encyclopedia determines whether an article should be linked from a main article -- for example, if I mentioned a current PNB dancer in an overview article on the history of ballet, the reference would be removed -- or is a fan article, which would be removed. Putting a dancer in context helps to establish why a dedicated article should be there in the first place, particularly since ballet might not be an area where the moderators have a lot of experience. For example, many might not have heard of Alicia Markova or Alexandra Danilova any more than I would know who influenced rock music. The main aspect of Wikipedia is that it is a collaborative effort.

Many thanks, zerbinetta! Two more questions -- do you mean when the ushers give you a cast list/program, or when you purchase one in the lobby (or none of the above)? And is gratuity in the one-two Euro range? I grew up in a house where no one went anywhere, and I wasn't able to observe any of the fine points.

I'm going to attend a performance at the Opera Bastille in a couple of weeks, and I have a few questions about the house: Will there be enough signage in the house to be able to find my section easily? Is coat check required? (I'll be wearing a very light, short coat.) Is there a cost, or do the coat check people get tipped? Is there any specific vocabulary that would help? I'm in the cultural anxiety pre-planning phase of my trip and would appreciate any help.

I love the women in Smiles of a Summer Night and care about all of them. It's the only Bergman movie I ever "got."

The original strategy used by AOL, Yahoo, MSN, etc. was to control the "portal" by pre-packaging the world-view, with ample advertising. While it is still possible to default to each provider's default portal, there are many ways to customize the information that appears. The next step is to leverage RSS to make everything customizable. The current general vision of the Internet is to use it to choose exactly what one wants to see, on demand, and customizing the web experience to filter out the "clutter." (We see this with VCR's/TiVo, as we fast-forward through the commercials, commentary, etc. I've just heard from a friend that one sports network packages the "fast" version of football into about a half hour, getting rid of the huddles, time outs, etc., so that only the action is shown.) However, while the entire Internet is available, how to pre-package the options and tie it into revenue-producing "services" is the key toward "winning" the customizable blank slate. Whether people will customize with pasteurized, pre-packaged tripe or expand their world view using full resources is to be seen. Search and a little patience are the most powerful tools we have to go beyond conventional news sources. The Internet still remains the cheapest way to publish. There's no need for distributors, shelf space, incentives to carry, etc.. Wherever there is connectivity there is information. To bring this back to ballet, frankly, I have more confidence in the reviews of the posters on this board than I do in almost any newspaper critic in the country, including The New York Times. And for more contemporary work, I'd rather read On the Boards' "Blog the Boards" than a conventional arts critic on the same work.

Welcome to Ballet Talk, Blue Bird. We don't allow tape trading on Ballet Talk, but if there are any commercially available videos of Sarabia, we'll let you know on this thread.