Helene

This will be posted as soon as we get word from the Company

In Hungarian, the "s" is pronounced "sh", and "ly" is pronounced "ee" (long "e"). There's no "l" sound in "ly." Here's a pronunciation guide to Hungarian: http://www.math.nyu.edu/%7Ewendlc/pronunci.../Hungarian.html Oh, the mess I used to make out of trying to pronounce the name "György," when "gy" is a simple "j" sound (as in "judge").

I never really though of him as angelic-looking, despite the blond curls. Having seen him yesterday from about 10 yards away, I must say he is the most early-thirties-year-old-looking early-fifties-year-old I think I've ever seen. (In real life, not after a team of air-brushers and make-up artists have done their best.) While he still could be the child of the snowbirds in the audience, I suspect most think he's no older than their grandchildren, and they just don't believe him when he says in Q&A's that he's an old man. Gable was like taking all those British WWI era poets' version of Youth on a Pedestal and adding red blood to it.

The cast lists that I have recorded follow. (Jack, please tell me if the programs say otherwise): 30 April 1993 Matinee Mother Goose Lisa Hess, Delia Peters, Christopher Fleming, Judith Fugate, Paul Frame, Jonathan Pessalano (school kid), Jeri Kummery, Michael Puleo, Toni Bentley, Stacey Caddell, Cornell Crabtree, David Otto, Susan Gluck, Roma Sosenko, Espen Giljane, Douglas Hay, Max Blechman (school kid), and I one I can't read (looks like Schane, maybe a school kid?) Kammermusik #2 von Aroldingen/Lavery Nichols/Luders Four Seasons Winter: Matthews, Peter Frame, Lisa Hess Spring: Nichols/Daniel Duell Summer: Saland/Joseph Duell Fall: Kozlov/Kozlova/Horiuchi 30 April 1983 Evening Divertimento No. 15 Theme: Victor Castelli/Peter Frame Var 1: Elyse Borne Var 2: Lisa Hess Var 3: Stephanie Saland Var 4: Lourdes Lopez Var 5: Sean Lavery Var 6: Kyra Nichols Magic Flute Katrina Killian/David McNaughton Symphony in C Calegari/Luders Farrell/Martins Melinda Roy/Daniel Duell Lisa Hess/Joseph Duell It was Joseph Duell's birthday. I bought a keychain from the Gift Shop with a replica of a ticket, and it's dated Apr. 29, 1983, the last NYCB performance for which Balanchine was still alive. The seat is Orchestra Left N127. Does anyone know if that was Balanchine's seat (or Kirstein's)?

Many thanks for the review, Michael. I really appreciate the way you see the beauty admidst and in the ruins and express it so clearly.

This is the thread about the 30 April 1983 performances: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...topic=19597&hl=

When companies start out with recorded music and add live music, the subscribers' expectation is that live music is a special treat. The exceptions are most often for individual works with specialty scores, like In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated and Jardi Tancat. (Maria del Mar Bonet is one of the greatest singers alive, and her recordings of traditional and original songs are a high point of any performance of the piece for me.) And in the modern dance realm, Mark Morris breaks his own "live music only" rule when he choreographed to Yoko Ono's music in Dogtown, for example. Nutcracker is often not part of a subscription series, for various reasons: a regular subscription is for X number of adults only, often at night, and the parents want to bring children and sit with them; subscribers will pay for the additional ticket(s) for Nutcracker; some people don't like to have performances scheduled during the holiday season, etc. Some companies, like Ballet Arizona, offers it as part of the full-season package, for those who want it. Ballet Arizona also offers a "make your own subscription" and advertises up front which will have live music (and the venue). So does Oregon Ballet Theatre, which has two venues and live music for some programs only. Does anyone know of a company that has downgraded to recorded music that previously would have been performed live, with orchestra, at least at its home base (as opposed to on tour)?

It sounds like a wonderful presentation. I particularly love where you played part of the Bizet and asked the audience to imagine a ballet to it, and then showed the actual choreography.

I agree with the T-shirt that reads, "So Many Books, So Little Time." If it's tough going, and not required reading, I would suggest putting it aside, and picking it up in another 5-10 years. There's plenty to read in the meantime.

Please see the thread on the Helsinki competition for a link to the competition website and for updates on the results of the competition: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...=0entry157617

The finalists have been posted to the site; please see the link to the Helsinki site above. To get to the list, click the "Read More" link in the bottom right hand corner of the page, and then "this link" under the 31.5.2005 news item. (At least of this moment it says, "31.5.2005 31 dancers to the Semi-finals. 10 juniors and 21 seniors. You will find the list of Finalists from this link." but it is a link to the finalists, not semi-finalists. Way to go Daniil, who made it to the finals!

[ADMIN BEANIE ON] This thread has forked off topic, and is getting speculative about the private and non-ballet professional life of dancers. [Edited to add]: I've removed the original comment and the posts in response. [ADMIN BEANIE OFF] If anyone has seen Week 5, Spring Season performances, please share your impressions with us.

Thank you for posting the link, Dansuer85! Those photos are terrific.

In post-performance Q&A's at PNB, several male dancers have noted that they do weight training. However, weight training technique has advanced in the last couple of decades, as have the machines, and many of the major companies have professional trainers, conditioning coaches, physical trainers, etc. on staff or on consult.

I think it depends on whether Kudelka is willing to step back like Robbins did and focus on his own work and stay out of the AD's aegis. If he is, and there's an explicit agreement that he's able to choose the dancers he wants -- which Balanchine allowed other choreographers at NYCB to do -- how much of the budget goes to Kudelka for new choregraphy, and the percentage of Kudelka works that will be produced in any one season, then it could work. However, if these issues are left up in the air and/or there's behind-the-scenes interference from the Board and/or Kudelka is unhappy and the Board sides with him because keeping him is the most important item on their agenda, that's a recipe for a very unhappy new AD. It is also only fair for the Board to be explicit with the new AD what the limits are for changing Kudelka policy. For example, what if a new AD or a guest choreographer wants to hire Lamy as a guest artist? If that's off limits because it would look like Kudelka was overridden, even if a "new" donor appeared to create a fund to subsidize the fees for guest artists or some other saving face measure, the new AD should know before s/he takes the job, in my opinion.

Welcome to Ballet Talk, jm4364! We'd love to hear why you loved the program so much -- dancers, choreography, sets, costumes, etc. We don't get to hear much about Ballet Met, and we'd love any descriptions and opinions you might share.

Perhaps because church-based singing holds such respect in the black community, the earlier successes of Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price made enough of an impact that Toni Morrison, whose libretto for the opera Margaret Garner recently premiered at the Detroit Opera, said in an interview aired on Detroit Public TV that while she had known about Price's career, until she worked on this opera she was astonished at how many black classical singers were in performing Europe and the US. Also reported in the piece was that thanks to this opera, 70% of new subscribers to Detroit Opera are part of the black community. It's seems rather odd to me that similar inroads weren't made in ballet.

[Admin note: moved from the Dance History sub-forum.]

The upside of being a lame duck, even if no one knows you're about to be, is making -- or voicing -- hard and unpopular decisions so that the incoming person doesn't get tarred with them.

But they leave office and become multi-millionaire lobbyists. They don't stay in government.

It doesn't not make sense to me. It's not inconceivable that the administrator shoes were not the ones Kudelka wanted to be in, which is what the CBC article is saying. A break now will give a new AD the chance to put his/her mark on the first seasons in the new venue.

[ADMIN BEANIE ON] When there are published or public answers to these questions, please feel free to reference them and cite them on this thread and discuss. Until then, while tempting, speculation is against our gossip policy. [ADMIN BEANIE OFF] (Ari and I were posting simultaneously )

If this is announced by a company through a press release or on a Company site or appears in the press, it can be posted in answer to your question.

I guess Indiannapolis' karma for "stealing" the Baltimore Colts has come full circle.

carbro, Another for describing this presentation so thoroughly. It is hard to transcribe when Russell and Stowell start to interact -- their delivery is very different in person, but when you look at their words afterwards, their voices blend, and if you can't then envision one of them saying it, it's hard to know who said what. Bold has always been physically expansive, with a light, pliant, flexible jump. His early training was in Ulan Bator, where his parents were dancers, and later in Russia. In most ways he looks the most comfortable in the traditional classical repertoire of the PNB principal men. As sandik notes, though, he's been working hard on expression, most obvious in a new freedom and power in his upper body, particularly as he is cast more and more in neoclassical and modern works. He and Imler pair beautifully together, and he is one of the most physically beautiful men dancing now, in my opinion. Imler was singled out for praise during the PNB's performances in City Center in the late 90's, and I'm glad you got to see her.