Helene

Thanks for the heads up -- I've been waiting for the AB to update the site past this calendar year. The 2006 season is now on the Calendar.

It was my fault -- in the process of breaking up the text blocks by performance, I inadvertently deleted Odette-Odile and Prince Siegfried casting. I've addded them back. The leads for the 1 October evening performance are Julie Diana and Yury Yanowsky.

In the case of Symphony in C, at the time there was a lot of fuss over the newly found score, which Bizet had written at age 17. Balanchine choreographed Palais de Cristal for Paris Opera Ballet, which made the score an appropriate tribute. But I've never read anywhere that he choreographed a ballet to a piece of music he thought was inappropriate for dance or not up to par, unless it was a commissioned score. He didn't love Nabokov's score for Don Quixote for example, and refused to choreograph to Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, because he felt that it was inappropriate as a stage piece. (Instead, he had the dancers sit onstage and listen to it.) There was a lot of music he loved which he didn't think was appropriate for dance (Beethoven, for example) or to which he didn't feel he could do justice (much Bach and Mozart).

I completely forgot about von Trier. Breaking the Waves, ugh to the nth degree. I forgot The Piano, too.

The Paris Opera Ballet will perform Le Parc at Sadler's Wells in London as part of the Dance Umbrella 2005 Festival: Fri 14 & Sat 15 October, 7.30pm Sat 15 & Sun 16 October, 2.30pm http://www.danceumbrella.co.uk/parisballet.html

Oh, I'm kvelling -- I wish I had been there!

It's safely out of reach of other dancers' flinging bodies, elbows, knees, feet, etc. and the scenery.

Thank you so much for the review, bart! I'm glad there were enough highlights and dancers you had never seen before to make it a worthwhile event. Perhaps next year, the "visa issues" will be resolved in time to see more companies from South America.

The response to Boal was truly enthusiastic. It was primarily a gala crowd. The stereotype of a gala crowd is one which normally drinks too much at the pre-reception, has been to way too many of them to care, and sits on its hands. Not this one. I was told that there were two reserved sections for the reception donors, one in the Dress Circle (first section up), and one in the Orchestra. Not soon before the performance started, the reception folks in the Dress Circle were seated en masse, and I watched them carefully: from their body language and chattiness, they were energized. They applauded a lot during the pre-curtain speeches, and gave Boal a rousing ovation when he appeared before the curtain. I don't know if I'm quoting Boal correctly, but I think his first words were, "That felt good." I wish I had been able to take notes, but I think it was the two Board speakers who talked about the energy and excitement among the company members backstage. One of the neat things Boal said, after he announced that he was too injured to dance except in a cameo, was to the effect that this, by which I assume he meant backstage, with his Company, was the way to start his career as Artistic Director. The audience was a little calm after the Diamonds Pas de Deux, but on the whole, just loved, loved, loved Red Angels, and there was a lot of applause after one of Leslie Rausch's exits. When the spotlight shone on Boal in the last movement of Duo Concertante, the audience went crazy. And there was a very strong ovation after Symphony in Three Movements with all of the leads in the earlier ballets appearing on stage with Boal, all in party dress, for the final curtain calls. One thing about Seattle audiences, though, is we're very obedient. Once the curtain goes down, and the lights come up, that's it: everyone stops clapping and goes home. (Except, on occasion, for Mark Morris.) You can never quite trust a commercial completely, but dancers aren't often trained as speakers or actors, and the enthusiasm they expressed in a new commercial aired on KING-FM, our local classical station, didn't sound in the least bit feigned. The words stressed how excited the dancers were to be working in this new era with him. Like in any other working situation, I assume there are some people who are spooked by change, at least at first, and some who will have reason to be disappointed as time goes on. When I look at the casting for the first program, though, I see many younger dancers who were first given opportunities by Russell and Stowell are being given featured roles: Chalnessa Eames, Leslie Rausch, and Maria Chapman in (Artifact II); Mara Vinson and Lucien Postlewaite in In the Night; and Brittany Reid, Kiyon Gaines, James Moore, and Rachel Foster in Symphony in Three Movements, with meaty roles for all of the Principal dancers. (And the tall, elegant Karel Cruz has been cast in Artifact II.) There are five soloists, but none are in Soloist Limbo, with the newly married Jodie Thomas and Casey Herd getting their share of roles. (In the program was a list of all of the PNB people who got married this summer, and there was a lovely photo of Thomas and Herd.) The demi role in Symphony in Three Movements is just the start: Korbes has been cast in the Principal 1 couple for Artifact II (this Friday and Saturday matinee), in the lead (pas de deux) couple in Symphony in Three Movements (Thu, 9/29 and Fri 9/30), and in the first couple in In the Night on Sat, 10/1 (eve) and Sun, 10/2 (mat). Boal was quoted as saying he wanted Farrell to stage Jewels, but I don't think there's been confirmation yet. There was not attribution in the program for the staging of the Diamonds Pas de Deux. (The full-length Jewels is scheduled for next June.) (Boal staged Red Angels and Duo Concertante, and Susan Pilarre staged Symphony in Three Movements.)

Before tonight's performance, the Chairman of the PNB board of trustees and a woman whose name I couldn't hear -- it may have been Aya Hamilton, the President of the board -- gave a joint pre-performance curtain speech, welcoming everyone and praising new Artistic Director, Peter Boal. Boal then gave a short speech, in which he announced that due to an injury he sustained during company class yesterday, Olivier Wevers would replace him in Duo Concertante, and that he'd make a cameo appearance. Because Wevers would be dancing in Red Angels, the intermission was moved to break between Red Angels and Duo Concertante, which joined Symphony in Three Movements in the second half of the program, a flashback to 1972 when both pieces debuted in the first Stravinsky Festival. The opening piece, a taste of Jewels that will end the season in June 2006, was the Diamonds Pas de Deux, danced by Patricia Barker and Stanko Milov. One of the problems with an iconic film interpretation is that it is easy to become used to one way of phrasing, and Barker's was quite different than Farrell's in the Choreography by Balanchine excerpts. While I need more time to absorb the it, one thing about it was remarkable, which was how Barker managed to stop at the end of a phrase in a way that conveyed silence, not posing. Ariana Lallone and Olivier Wevers were paired to strength as the first couple in Red Angels. Wevers is a vivid stage presence, and he radiates energy and spark. (If there was a ballet version of Ring of the Nibelungen, he would be typecast as Loge.) Lallone is a tall dancer with a tensile quality, and there aren't that many dancers who can stand up to the wattage of their presence. They make a very powerful pair. Jordan Pacitti and Lesley Rausch danced the second pair. They made a marked contrast: he had an earthy, pliant quality while she was a live electrical wire. Rausch's performance in Paul Gibson's Piano Dance last year was a break-through, but it was an appetizer compared to the star performance she gave in Red Angels. Kudos, too, to excellent violinist Mary Rowell, who played Richard Eichorn's Maxwell's Demon for electric violin. Not only did Louise Nadeau lose Peter Boal as her partner in Duo Concertante, but his replacement, Olivier Wevers, is scheduled for the other cast (with Noelani Pantastico) in the regular season program that begins this Thursday. If this phased her at all, it didn't show. Matching Wevers' energy in the fast second and fourth movements, she set the pace in the beautiful third movement adagio, and when the spotlight came up on her in the last movement, and she was joined by Boal (in his "cameo"), she gave an impassioned performance. If there was any question about what kind of dancer Boal was during his career among those who had never seen him, it was answered in the two-three minutes of the finale, without a jump or a flashy step. The diagonal of corps women in white that opens Symphony in Three Movements has lost none of its power in over thirty years, and it was a very disciplined performance by them. I can't think of a more complicated set of stage patterns, especially when they are joined by the five demi and three principal couples. Jonathan Porretta burst on the stage and was soon joined by Carrie Imler in the Tomasson/Yourth roles, with Imler matching each jump with seeming ease. The stage energy built as Kaori Nakamura and Jeff Stanton entered the picture, followed by Noelani Pantastico and Batkhurel Bold. Carla Korbes made her PNB debut as one of the five demisoloists, and she looked great paired with Lucien Postlewaite. There were many joys in the performance of this ballet; the high point of high points was the stupendous musical phrasing and plastique by Nakamura in the second movement pas de deux, by far the best and most inevitable performance I've seen in several decades of watching this work.

Other Dances was choreographed by Jerome Robbins for Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov. It (1976) followed two larger-scale Chopin piano ballets Dances at a Gathering (1968) and In the Night (1970). It was one of the few pieces choregraphed for Makarova, who rued publicly that she wished choreographers would do pieces for her. There were some wonderful photographs of the ballet by Max Waldman that were made into posters, and just about every ballet fan I knew in college had one of them. Here's a link to one of them: http://www.maxwaldman.com/pages/poster13.html I've seen the ballet nine times in total, eight at NYCB, and once at ABT (1985) with Susan Jaffe and Robert LaFosse, with Paul Connelly the pianist. Over half of the performances were with Kyra Nichols, partnered by Sean Lavery, La Fosse, and Damien Woetzel, spanning a decade. Nichols was stylistically and physically different than Makarova in just about every way, and her performances were the benchmark for me. A performance with Heather Watts that I saw in 1985 contrasted in approach, but it was her partner Ib Andersen's performance in the Baryshnikov role that stood out for me. One of the highlights of seeing the ballet was hearing Jerry Zimmerman play the work at all NYCB performances I saw. I believe he was one of the great Chopin interpreters of the late 20th century.

Thank you, Doug! (Now off to mastermind a schedule juggle to see all three couples in it...)