Helene

In the latest print version of Dance View -- Alexandra!!!! -- in Tom Phillips' interview with Susan Pilarre, the former NYCB soloist and current teacher and stager of Balanchine's work noted that the women of The Warsaw Ballet, where she was staging Serenade, "wear those hard Russian shoes, and the coming through the foot on the way down from pointe is not as prevalent as it is here."

I like both of these skaters very much. Sebestyen had the impossible draw in the quali round: first up in the first group at 10am. Skating to Carmen, she started with a fantastic, huge 3F, but then fell on what once had been her strongest, but for the past few years has been her nemesis jump, the 3Lz. (She had a forward lean.) I thought her 3Lo from turning 3's was great, but there must have been an underrotation or some error I didn't see, because the protocols give her base score on the jump. She had a rather flat skate, and was given mostly base scores by all of the judges for her spins and spiral, although she hit wonderful, clean positions on them. Her jumps abandoned her, though: she downgraded the Salchow and second Lutz to doubles and tacked on a 1T to the 2Lu, and she also tacked on a 2T to the 2A, which had been quite a nice Axel, but was graded, correctly, on the worst-performed jump. Her serpentine footwork looked rather slow and labored, and was a much smaller pattern than in the finals. In my opinion, Hegel was judged by protocol: for the quali round, my notes say she had great speed going into the opening 3Lz+2T combination and that most of her spins were fast and well-centered, yet she received base for nearly every element, except two jumps on which she faltered: a hands down on a 3S and a 3S+2T, in which she tacked on the 2T. (The combo was planned for the first attempt.) She moved beautifully across the ice, and I was very impressed with her skate, although the music, Don Juan de Marco couldn't have been more generic. I think she wuzrobbed on the component scores, being placed below Dytrt, who my notes say, "faulty hops into Lutz entries. Flies around, good attack, but no body line or finish, no difference between adagio and allegro." (She skated to Spartacus.) On the whole in the SP the Ladies in the top 10 either had clean skates (Kostner, Kwan, Poykio) or had a jump error (or more) that were compensated by high levels of difficulty on their spins, steps, and spiral and/or very high component scores. Sebestyen, skating relatively early due to her low standing in the quali, opened with another stunning 3F, but then fell on the 3Lu and didn't complete the combination. I thought she skated five of the remaining six elements superbly, including a huge, fast flying camel and a nicely done spiral, but her circular footwork got bogged down. (She skated a much bigger circle -- or perhaps ellipse -- than most of the Ladies.) I thought Hegel's opening 3Lu+2T deserved higher than base, which she received from every judge. Her 3F was flawed, and she had a noticeable break between the steps and jump (as did Slutskaya, who got no such mandatory deduction.) Her combo change combo spin was a bit messy, but she did a very nice spread eagle entrance into a solid 2A and a very fast, nice layback. The rest of her elements were satisfactory. Her elements ran the gamut in this program, but she received the range of presentation scores (mid to high 5's) that she should have received in the quali round, in my opinion. When Hegel and Joanne Carter from Australia end up ahead of Sebestyen in the free skate, you know that Sebestyen had a melt-down of major proportions, ending in 16th place, and dropping out of the top 10 for the competition. (One Hungarian lady at Olympics and Worlds next year ) She started with yet another fantastic, huge 3F, and even landed a huge 3Lu, although she was too close to the boards to add the 2T. From there her jumps abandoned her: her flawed Loop attempts (from running 3's) was downgraded to a double before -2 GOE was deducted, she downgraded a sequence to 2S SEQ 2T, she tacked on a weak 1T to a flawed 3Lu, she doubled the Toe, and she created a 1A SEQ 1A, after singling the first Axel. Nonetheless, her other elements were quite fine, and her serpentine footwork had the speed and power it lacked in the quali round. It was such a sad thing to see, especially since she gained expression over the season in the slow section ("Flower Song"). She didn't give up her commitment to the program, either, even when her jumps unravelled. Hegel opened her program with a 3Lu+2T+2Lo, which I thought should have been rated higher than the base score she received. She followed with a very nice 3F, a 2A right on the music, a flying camel that started strongly but slowed, a few okay jumps (3S+2T and 3T) and a wonderful 3Lo -- one of the best of the night -- a very respectable spiral, and a few elements that started out fine (combo spin, straightline footwork), but died a bit towards the end.

Ah, yes, the Men. A veritable Intensive Care Unit. The qualis: The qualification morning started off with Brian Joubert's skate at 10am in a pretty empty arena -- and it was Luzniki Palace, which only seats 2-3K people. There were perhaps 200-300 of us there altogether, most of us with jetlag. He skated as if it were a 6am practice skate. I don't think he moved a facial muscle throughout the entire program. He left out a jumping pass, and, as a result, a bunch of technical points on the table. He execution was slightly below base. His component scores were inexplicably high, particularly since he had little by way of choreography or transitions that wasn't generic, and without energy and his normally considerable power and speed, his program looked quite empty. Lambiel skated to a month-old program (King Arthur) with considerable energy, attack, and verve, and his total PCS were literally one point higher. After landing a nice 3A and a brilliant 4T+3T combination to open, he was slightly atilt on about half his jumps, and might have been overmarked slightly, but not by much more than a point or so in total. It was quite a brilliant start. Lysacek had his jumping issues, with his 3A getting away from him on a flawed opening 3A+3T combo and a fall on the solo 3A in his third element, but except for a messy 3Lz towards the end of the program, he didn't let it faze him, given that this was his first Worlds. He skated Singing in the Rain quite joyfully. Buttle downgraded his opening combo to 3F+2T and also lost his 3A for the quali round: his 3A+3T combo was flawed, and he fell on an attempted 3A that was downgraded to 2A, which in itself is a loss of nearly 4 points. He also botched the 3S, which is unusual for him. Like Lysacek, though, he didn't let the program get away from him. Contesti, a young French skater who was making his World debut, skated very well, and was underscored a bit in components. Buttle and Lysacek were lucky to be 4th and 3rd in their quali round, but Dambier, Zhang, van der Perren, and Goebel skated very poorly and couldn't take advantage of the relatively weak group. Takahashi skated respectably after Honda, skating 3rd, went up for his 4T, jacknifed as if he were doing a flying sit spin, and fell on his stomach. He had injured his ankle in practice, and tore it up while launching his 4T. He was lifted into a wheelchair to leave the ice. Happily for me, Kristoffer Berntsson of Sweden was in 12th, and it wasn't a nailbiter whether he'd qualify. Sadly, neither Smalun nor Verner could land enough to qualify. One kid who did sneak into 14th place was Viktor Pfeiffer of Austia, a tall, lanky 17-year old who flirted outrageously with the pretty young women in the first row and seemed to have no nerves whatsoever. In the second quali round, Plushenko skated very cautiously. We were sitting four rows up from the front on the short side of the rink where many skaters started their straightline footwork. The big pause before the footwork begins is where Plushenko usually plays the crowd, but his expression was strained as he looked towards us. He was skating with groin and back injuries, and his center was quite contracted, although his only technical flaw was on the 3Lz. I think his choreography score was overmarked -- in my opinion, Godfather is the weakest program he's skated in four years -- and, inexplicably was higher than Lindemann's, who had brilliant choreography. I didn't think Plushenko was overmarked in Interpretation though; I prefer him to be a little bit subdued, but not because he's hurt. Lindemann, too, was suffering from an injury, and his 3A abandoned him as well, in addition to the 3F. He opened, though, with a fabulous 4T+3T combination, and his spins have improved 50% since last year. Unfortunately, he's a skater who must be seen in person to really appreciate his flow, phrasing, ice coverage, and deep edges. Chenjiang Li didn't have the most brilliant skate, but he, too, has improved over the last year, and I thought he was robbed in the component scores. Like Stojko, he fused martial arts movement into skating, and, like Stojko, the judges gave him little credit for it. Johnny Weir had tendonitis in his toe and was given injections in order to skate. He skated cautiously and little slowly, but the first half of his program was technically sound, and he amassed many points above base until he doubled the Loop about midway through, and it was rather downhill from there: base on the 3S, a singled Flip, and a missed jump element. IIRC, he only has one combo in the program, and that is just too many points to bypass. His skating is exquisite, nonetheless, but he just didn't have his usual flair. Dobrin was a nice surprise in 5th, especially since Griazev had many problems with his jumps, although despite this, Griazev showed more overall control and carriage than he did last year. I wish Dobrin could work with a coach who would stretch his line and expect finish, because Gromova, his and Slutskaya's coach, won't make those demands. Dinev skated quite well, considering he missed Europeans to stay in the US with Angela Nikodinov, when her mother was killed in the crash that also injured their coach severely. (Nikodinov was in Moscow to cheer him on at Worlds.) Sandhu popped his quad combo attempt into a 2T and downgraded two other jumps (1A and 2F). He didn't have a bad skate -- he received only one negative grade on his 3A+2T combo early on -- but his base technical score was very low. I don't think his choreography was very strong this year, and he didn't have much originality or charisma. He looked as if he were going through the motions. Happy surprises were Nurmenkari, the young Finn who has improved each year, Karel Zelenka, the young Italian who's coached by his father -- that always makes me feel sympathy for him -- and has also improved greatly, and Jamal Othman, the beautiful, lyrical young Swiss skater. I think Othman is one of the most talented young skaters, a dancer on ice, and one to watch.

Watching Kwan's programs, I assumed from looking at the leveled elements -- spirals, spins, footwork -- that despite getting program evaluation and advice from Lakernik, an ISU bigwig, she was getting killed by low levels of difficulty under the new scoring system. When I looked at the protocols for the quali round, this appeared to be so: her base difficulty was 44.00 compared to Slutskaya's of 55.70. However, this base score included two downgraded jumps (2F and 2S), which lowered her base by 7 points; she also dropped the 2T off two of three planned combos, after struggling (and doubling) the first flip and faltering on the 3T, and this cost her 2.6 base points. Adding 9.6 to 44, her planned program had a base of 53.9, which was less than 2 points less difficult than Slutskaya's program. The difference was in execution: Slutskaya earned 59.24 points, or a little over 4 points above her base program, while Kwan earned 44.76, or only .76 above base, having lost 2.64 points on three flawed jumps. Slutskaya was so dominant that she still managed to net over 4 points, despite flaws on two jumps (3Lo and 2A) that lost her 2.86 points. In the LP, because Slutskaya performed an illegal third 3Lo which received no credit, Kwan's base score was actually higher than Slutskaya's (56.7 vs. 56.1), but even so, Kwan couldn't capitalize, losing 5.71 points on the fall on the 3S and flawed 3Lz, for a total of 55.62, compared to Slutskaya, who received 64.03 points, well over base. (Slutskaya didn't receive a single negative GOE from any judge for her LP.) There were no truly great skates in the qualification rounds (sadly), but Kwan's performance was lackluster, as though she never really felt the ice properly. Her fifth-place finish was what I felt she should have gotten in last year's qualis, where I thought she was held up to skate in the final group in the SP. Slutskaya's was, by far, the best, and I was surprised at how close Cohen's scores were, for a relatively flat skate. It is clear that the judges want to give Cohen a title, if she'd only grab it. Kwan seemed slower than she has over the last couple of years, and her spins range from medium to slow in speed, although she hits beautiful positions and makes clean transitions between them. The biggest change over the last year has been in the power in her jumps: she'll never be a Slutskaya or Sebestyen or Sokolova, or maybe not even a Rochette, but she looks so much stronger, and she made Cohen's jumps look anemic by comparison, which wasn't true the last three years. Lack of speed and power was Kwan's undoing in the SP as well, although she looked better than in the quali round. I thought she was a little underrated in the choreography and interpretation for Spartacus. If the judges had taken the mandatory deductions for Slutskaya's break between the steps and 3F and a travel on one of her early spins, as well as penalized her for a very wobbly edge -- multiple changes of edge, actually -- in the first phase of the spiral sequence, she might have been in third in the SP (with all top three skaters within 1 point of each other.) If anyone was stellar in the SP, it was Sokolova, to Don Quixote. In my opinion, she was as underrated in the SP as she had been overrated in the LP, where for 30 of Tchaikovsky's most dramatic seconds of music, she noodled around and skated cross-overs. Kostner was quite wonderful in the short program as well. Kwan had the performance in the LP that she needed in the quali round. However, despite a much stronger performance, her component scores weren't great shakes, averaging from 7.19 to 7.68, which many of the top tier skaters this year have matched. The second mark was always Kwan's calling card. Bolero was a tough, plodding sell, and Kwan bypassed the Grand Prix, where she could have gotten an indication of her standing under the new system. Inexplicably, Rochette was "ranked" below Poykio in both the quali and SP's, when she skated much stronger programs, had much greater speed -- although Poykio has the softest stroking of all of the Ladies -- and more drama and "oomph." The judges seemed to want to keep Ando close to contention, because her PCS were, in my opinion, far too high, particularly in the SP. Rochette was this year's Volchkova: after being held down in the first two rounds, she started the LP strongly, with a stunning 3T+3T combinations, leading to a melt down, which was such a shame, because David Wilson's Firebird was such a wonderful program. Arakawa had a terrible, lackluster competition. Kostner was the great surprise, finally putting together three fine programs in one competition, after a disastrous Europeans in Torino. Thankfully, Poykio came in top 10, which means two Ladies from Finland at next year's Olympics and Worlds. Liashenko's 10th place finish means that Ukraine will qualify two Ladies as well, although Rochette's 11th means only one Canadian Lady at the Olympics, although two at Worlds in Calgary.

I, too, would choose A Month in the Country.

It was revived in NYCB's Spring Season of 1986 and performed again in Winter Season 1987. I saw Peter Frame dance it five times in those two seasons. I do have one performance on 18 June 1986 listed with no dancer for the role, which leads me to suspect that Frame couldn't dance that performance. I don't know if he had an understudy. Sallie Wilson was the NYCB "guest" in Graham's half of Episodes.

That is excellent news, for both dancers and for the audience.

Paquita, many thanks for the review. I've always wondered what La Ronde was like, and your description makes it much clearer than any other I've read. I'm also glad to hear about wonderful performances by Antonijevic and Rimsay. I saw Antonijevic in The Four Seasons on the tour to Vancouver during Rex Harrington's farewell season, and there was a bit of general disappointment in the air when people saw that Antonijevic was cast in the central male role. I thought gave an amazing performance, with weight and nuance, and I was just as happy to see him dance. Rimsay also stood out among the women, and I couldn't keep my eyes off of her.

I saw the best cast of Stravinsky Violin Concerto last year at San Francisco Ballet: Aria I: Lorena Feijoo/Yuri Possokhov Aria II: Julie Diana, Vadim Solomakha I've seen other dancers dance their roles as well -- Bart Cook in Aria I, for example -- but never have I seen a more perfect overall cast.

Julie Diana danced for San Francisco Ballet until the end of last season, and she is one of the loveliest dancers I've seen in the last decade, combining energy, sweep, and grace. Most memorable of her performances for me were the Jillana role in Liebeslieder Walzer in 1998 and last year in the Aria II (Kay Mazzo) role in the most overall perfect performance I've ever seen of Stravinsky Violin Concerto. I think she wilil dance a splendid Lise, and I wouldn't miss it if I were in Philadelphia.

Apollo's solo before the pas de deux. It's one of the few pieces that really makes me wish I could get up there and do that. The male solo in Square Dance is one of the others. It would take one powerful fairy to accomplish this, though And not even having a ballet fairy wish would tempt me into pointe shoes.

Re Dybbuk, San Francisco Ballet is performing the work from 5-16 April, in a program with Symphonic Variations and Lamberena, alternating each weekend with another program. It's a premiere for the Company. Bart Cook is one of my two all-time favorite male dancers, and I wish I had been able to travel to Portland to hear him speak. I'm grateful for your report, Watermill.

I love this piece; it's the only one of Kylian's that I do. I agree that the music is great. When Nederlands Dans Theatre performed this piece at the Metropolitan Opera house in the early 80's, two sets of trumpeters played the opening and closing fanfare from the front boxes on one of the upper tiers from both sides of the house, and the effect was spine-tingling.

Or Robert Garis

There was an article in Links on James Ehnes playing the Prokofiev 1st Violin Concerto for the National Ballet of Canada's production of Jerome Robbins' Opus 19: The Dreamer. I just received an email from NBoC announcing the opening of the triple bill (with Les Syphides and Tetley's La Ronde), which is tonight, with performances through this Sunday, 6 March. I hope people get to see -- and hear -- this program and post about it. Ehnes is a fantastic violinist, and that he's playing for the ballet is akin to when Elmar Olivera played for Peter Martins' Barber Violin Concerto. This sounds like a wonderful program, and I'm disappointed that NBoC isn't touring west with it (or any other program).

Thanks to perky and dirac for reminding me of two I missed: Renee Zellweger and Gary Cooper. I first saw Zellwegger in a movie called The Whole Wide World, in which she played a schoolteacher to Vincent D'Onofrio's Bob Howard, and I've been hooked on her beauty ever since. Gary Cooper looked great in his early 50's in High Noon.

I'm horrible with names, and I've forgotten many beautiful people I've seen in foreign films. Here are ones I remember: Men: Will Smith Naveen Andrews Jet Li Ben Cross Gael Garcia Bernal Gregory Peck Andre Braugher Peter Firth Michael York Richard Chamberlain David McCallum Michael Riley Harrison Ford stopped being on that list the first time I saw of photo of him with a cigarette, so there's a certain point where I can't "see" beautiful any more. I have another list of attractive. Not that any of them are bad-looking, but I like them so much, I'm not sure what they really look like: Joe Morton, Chris Cooper, Alan Rickman, Peter Riegert, Alec Guiness, Courtney Vance, Sam Neill, Tom McCamus, Sam Waterson. (It's probably their voices.) Many of the leading men of the past are too handsome for me. Women: Juliet Binoche Madeleine Stowe Halle Berry Helen Mirren Genvieve Bujold Sandra Oh Vera Zorina Laura Linney

As far as charging more for an individual artist, no company can do this as it would mean a statistical nightmare should that artist cancel. If they don't charge more for a great conductor like Levine, de Billy, Thielemann, they certainly can't charge more for Placido. Great singer & musician though he is, he has yet to become a great conductor. They used to do this by having gala openings for productions, which were fundraisers in their own right. But that's a one-time event per production.

Many thanks for the update. As Dick Button might say, "Good for her!" I bet she was a lovely Giselle.

I think these questions are common to exclusive academies everywhere. During Soviet times, before foreigners could pay their way in, there was the question of whether the daughters (especially) and sons of government officials were taking the place of needy candidates, something that Madame Mao tried to counteract in China by insisting that only the children of peasants be part of her state-supported ballet academy. In official schools of US ballet companies, a similar issue is raised pretty consistently: are the daughters of wealthy contributors taking up spaces that should go to more "deserving" candidates? (While these schools are considered "private", they are subsidized publically by direct government subsidies and by foundation grants and corporate donors from tax-exempt earnings.) Two differences between US schools and state-sponsored schools are : 1. There has only been one way into the state-sponsored academies, especially for girls, and that is as a young child, whereas at School of American Ballet, for example, the pre-professional classes are comprised mainly by students from all over the country who audition as young teenagers, and had their formative training elsewhere. Not many of the kids who start at 8-year-olds make it into the Pre-professional ranks. At PNB school, for example, there is a separate, non-professional track for those students who want to continue. 2. State-sponsored schools are "free" for citizens, while US elite academies assume tuition. One way to not accept a student is to not give a scholarship or subsidy. No one really blinks in higher academia when Harvard, for example, sets aside 25% of its freshman class each year for "legacy" students (children of alumni.)

Thank you Effy! I wonder what a ballet about petrol would be like. But probably no stranger than Balanchine's attempt to depict an airport in PAMTGG.

Effy, would you please describe what a typical Landers ballet would be like? (I've only seen Etudes, performed by American Ballet Theater and the Royal Danish Ballet.) Was all or part of the Lander/Marks TV performance shown during the gala, or the live performance with Blangstrup and Cavallo?

I saw Hilaire in Swan Lake, Washington Square, and the First Movement of Palais de Cristal, the Bizet with Karin Averty. I loved them in it. I also saw Averty in Fourth Movement of PdC.

It really is the end of an era -- all of the dancers I saw during the Paris Opera Ballet's New York visit in the mid-eighties are retiring. Hilaire and Averty were my favorite dancers from those performances

Farrell's Don Quixote is by Balanchine to a then-contemporary (60's) score by Nicolas Nabokov. It's a serious ballet, not the light-hearted traditional Don Q to Minkus, and was a love poem from Balanchine to Suzanne Farrell. It was performed only a few seasons by New York City Ballet. Balanchine was said to have been disappointed with the score, which has been knocked by more than one critic. The Don is a major character in the ballet. In Balanchine's Complete Stories of the Great Ballets, a note says, Farrell has a part-year "pick-up" company, although she uses many dancers year after year. She knew she didn't have a big enough base for a ballet this big, and for this production, she'll be working with National Ballet of Canada, from which her two of her top ballerinas in the last two years have come. There is a small excerpt of one of Farrell's solos in the documentary, Elusive Muse, but, unfortunately, no film of Farrell dancing to Balanchine's Don. Le Corsaire should be traditional. I haven't read anywhere that this is, for example, a German Expressionist version set in the Warsaw Ghetto or anything else conceptual. If I'm missing a reason why this production is important, I hope someone will add to this thread. Don Quixote is a very big deal, because it's being staged by the originator of the central woman's roles. (She appears in several guises and incarnations, not one character.) It has been a rarity. Many ballet goers have never had the opportunity to see the ballet. If you're planning a trip now, there's little way to let casting influence your decision. The Kirov will come back to the US with Le Corsaire, but this may be the only opportunity for decades -- or ever -- to see this version of Don Q. On the other hand, it's very possible that you won't like it at all, because reviews for the ballet were mixed. It sounds like you're trying to decide which of two times to visit. If that's the case, and you are making one visit, I hope this helps to decide or raises other questions.