Helene

The above article posted by Amy's Mom states, The tally for the rest of the season is: Nutcracker: 30 performances Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake: 8 performances over one week in February Cinderella: 13 performances over 5 weekends Choreographer's Showcase 7 performances over 5 weekends That's a very strange schedule.

It had Naveen Andrews. Where's the "swoon" smilie when you need one?

Many thanks to our reviewers, some of who travelled hundreds of miles to see the Kirov. Your descriptions and impressions are invaluable.

millamant gave us a heads up (Kirov in LA thread) on Goldstar Events, which offers discounted tickets to various arts events in the Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Chicago areas. I just received an email from them announcing discount tickets for the Tuesday, 1 November (8pm) and Sunday, 13 November (2pm) performances of Bellini's Norma at the San Francisco Opera. I saw the opening of the production yesterday, and it was fantastic. The singing was exceptional, especially Catherine Nagelstad's Norma and Irina Mishura's Adalgisa and all of the supporting roles. At this moment there are orchestra seats for $78.00/$83.50 and front balcony seats for $33.00/$38.50, including service charges Tuesday, Nov 1: http://www.goldstarevents.com/tr/nc/1788/1...45&mar=news1788 Sunday, Nov 13: http://www.goldstarevents.com/tr/nc/1788/1...45&mar=news1788 If you're on the fence, I would highly recommend this production, especially at these prices. If I could, I'd got back to SF to see it again. Edited to add: I thought when I bought tickets that Nancy Maultsby was scheduled to sing Adalgisa, which is one of the reasons I decided to stay for Norma instead of flying back Sunday afternoon. I just found a link to the San Francisco Classical Arts site which noted Maultsby's withdrawal from the production because of family reasons a week before yesterday's premiere. Unfortunately, the page listing the cast for the production premiere by the Canadian National Opera does not list Adalgisa. It would be truly amazing if Mishura stepped into a production with which she was not familiar, because she did a splendid job of it. http://www.sfcv.org/arts_revs/music_news_10_18_05.php

I have to add my thanks, and now I have a two-year project to see many of these movies. Oasis was shown at the Seattle International Film Festival and seemed to be a lightening rod for opposing opinions. I loved The Girl on the Bridge -- I find Daniel Auteuil irresistable, anyway -- and I think the scene in the train station is one of the most erotic scenes in film, and not a single wisp of clothing is shed.

I think you mean the video Peter and the Wolf that Anthony Dowell narrated and which was performed by children of the School of the Royal Ballet. She may like watching children perform.

I tend to love Mark Morris, but I understand when people don't. Stick to your guns, Mark D, until he does something that touches you

That's a great one!

I agree with drb. This professor's behavior is unethical, and it's appalling that on the one hand he name-drops about his "friends," and then claims that they are all admitted drug-users. With a friend like him... Because personal interactions are off-topic on Ballet Talk, and only published accounts and studies can be discussed, we can be very little help in helping you in formulating a response. My unsolicited advice would be to reply, "how interesting."

It's usually so that the ballerina has proven that she has mastery over everything: jumps, turns, petit allegro, grand allegro, adagio, etc. Otherwise she'd be a soubrette or a Romantic heroine.

Well, it sounds like he's got enough "spiritual wives" mourning him and worshipping his memory. The results for Skate America are in: In Ladies, Elena Sokolova's lead in the SP held up for the gold. The big story was Alisa Czisny, who didn't have a good skate at Campbell's a few weeks ago, but who came in 3rd in the SP, and then won the LP by a little over a point. Yoshie Onda was third in the LP and overall. Emily Hughes overcame a disappointing 8th place in the SP with a 4th in the LP, but Beatrisa Liang's 4th in the SP kept her in 4th place overall. In Men, Daisuke Takahashi, a wonderful, but inconsistent skater from Japan, dominated the LP to win the gold, having just edged out Kevin van der Perren in the SP. van der Perren came in 4th in the LP, and missed the podium. Lysacek's 3rd in both programs earned him the silver. Joubert, who was 2nd in the LP, couldn't make up the deficit from his 4th place in the SP. In Dance, Belbin/Agosto, Delobel/Schoenfelder, and Domnina/Shabalin were on the podium, as expected, and Wing/Lowe were fourth. What was surprising was the Jamie Silverstein/Ryan O'Meara were so well rewarded: they beat Wing/Lowe, who were 10th at Moscow, in the OD, and were less than four points behind them overall. As a new team, they are likely to get stronger as the season progresses. Also great to see was that Christina and William Beier came in 6th. That means they need an 11th place finish at Europeans for the German Olympic Committee to send them to the Olympics. That's still a longshot, but they were a little less than seven points behind Wing/Lowe, which is an improvement over last year. Unfortunately, there are two strong teams that could compete at Lyon to get judges' feedback on their programs: Drobiazko/Vanagas and Fusar-Poli/Margoglio, both of whom will push the Beiers and other, lower-ranked teams down the food chain, which could knock these teams out of the Olympics. In Pairs what wasn't so surprising was the Zhangs taking the gold, but what was surprising was how little competition Obertas/Slavnov were for them. Putnam/Wirtz of Canada placed 3rd over Obertas/Slavnov's 4th in the LP, but their 7th place finish in the SP left them in 4th overall, with Obertas/Slavnov taking the bronze. (Which is important if they are going to make it to the Grand Prix Final.) After having been 2nd in the SP, Hinzmann/Parchem, the #3 US team, dropped to 5th, after a 7th place finish in the LP. Inoue/Baldwin won silver, with a 2nd place finish in the LP. They attempted a throw 3A, but she fell. It was the second of two throws, rather late in the program. Hopefully, they'll try again in their next Grand Prix event.