Helene

I saw no distortions, stylistic or otherwise, in Kochetkova's Swanhilde -- if it wasn't the best I'd ever seen, it was not surpassed by anyone I'd seen -- but, of course, that's a different role than "Theme."

For the farewell, she also danced work that was made for her post hip replacement, like "Sophisticated Lady*," marking Martins' return to the stage to partner her on that occasion. The post hip-replacement roles were a clear accommodation to her condition. Martins was much more conservative than Farrell, who explained that she had a metal rod down her thigh bone to anchor the hip, the standard at the time, and that a bad fall or landing would have caused that bone to shatter. *"Sophisticated Lady" was filmed for the "Dance in America" program "Ballerinas: Dances by Peter Martins."

I've see Kochetkova in San Francisco dance brilliantly in Balanchine's "Coppelia" and in "Giselle." I would have loved to have seen that "Theme" to judge for myself. The only "disgraceful" performances I've ever seen are ones where the dancer ignored and/or distorted the style to cast the role in his or her own image.

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The 2015-16 Seattle Opera season is the first in which Aidan Lang, who succeeded Speight Jenkins last Fall, did the programming, and it opened Saturday night with Verdi's "Nabucco." I saw the Sunday matinee (yesterday), in which there were different singers in the three most prominent roles, Weston Hurt as Nabucco, Andreas Bauer as Zaccaria (the High Priest), and Raffaella Angeletti as Abigaille, with Bauer and Angeletti making their Seattle Opera and US debuts. There's been a lot of advance talk about the innovativeness of the staging by Quebec director Francois Racine, aided by Scenery Designer Robert Schaub and Video Designer Robert Bonniol of MODE Studios. It was a testament to their conception that rather than thinking it was innovative, I simply thought it was right. The action took place on a thrust stage, with the orchestra, in full view of the audience, behind the stage, and the chorus behind the orchestra, until they became characters, not commentators, in "Va pensiero." Temistocle Solera's libretto was based on a 19th century French play, which, according to Jonathan Dean's excellent program essay on the subject, "Verdi's King Lear," had roots in Shakespeare's tragedy. (At the time he wrote "Nabucco," Verdi still had ambitions to create an opera to the actual "King Lear," but that was not to be.) The set allowed Racine to direct the opera as if it took place in a smaller, more intimate setting than full opera stages tend to be. There were no big scenic pieces -- projections took the place of the painted flats of the premiere -- to dwarf the singers, and the proximity helped to fulfill the director's vision to attempt to replicate the greater intimacy between audience and singers in theaters in which "Nabucco" was first staged. (The team did no go as far as leaving the house lights brighter than the stage lights.) Jamie Barton, recently crowned BBC Singer of the World (Edited to Add: this is wrong: Barton is the penultimate winner from 2013; she won the Tucker Prize in 2015), sang Fenena, the good daughter, as she will in all performances. Her voice is rich -- I look forward to her recital this evening at Benaroya Recital H all -- but she wasn't the biggest voice in the house. Her love interest, Ismaele, who is shunned after allowing her to escape capture, was sung by clarion-voiced tenor Russell Thomas, an alumni of the Seattle Young Artists program, who sang ardently. While they have some very nice music, they aren't the major vocal characters. The first of those is Zaccaria, and it's clear from Andreas Bauer's big, flexible bass with an easy, clear upper register why he's been cast as Phillip II in "Don Carlo." His debut was a stunner. Equally impressive was soprano Raffaella Angeletti as Abigaille. She looks tiny -- short and slender -- which makes her huge sound that much more surprising. She had the energy of a sprightly Brunnhilde (a la Nina Stemme in the San Francisco Opera production) and the kind of charisma that the ambitious Vitellia ("La clemenza di Tito") and many Handel female throne-seekers have: bad, but you're drawn to them anyway. In "Nabucco," she gets a quiet death scene, which Angeletti sang and interpreted equally well as she had the fireworks in her earlier scenes. A tie for the best debut, and I hope we'll hear both Bauer and Angeletti early and often. The third major role is the title role. Nabucco enters as an arrogant king, but baritone Weston Hurt, making his role debut, didn't have the same impact as the others, as his voice simply isn't as big, yet he's supposed to be the biggest threat to everyone. Once his character was hit by lightning -- relatively early on -- and he descended into madness and blindness, Hurt hit his stride, with nuanced singing and vocal and physical acting. By the time he regained his throne, I was more than convinced. Jonathan Dean led the Talk Back, opening with questions and discussion with the attendees until Hurt, the featured speaker, was able to change and get to the Allen Room. Hurt is intelligent and personable, and when a mother asked for advice for her daughter, an aspiring opera student and singer, he gave two pieces of top-notch advice that I've never heard anywhere else: if there's something else you'd be happy doing, do that, and that if he had to do it over, instead of doing a bachelor's in music/voice, he'd have majored in Romance languages with a minor in business and have found a vocal teacher on the side. The opera will be broadcast this Saturday, August 15, at 7:30pm Pacific time on KING-FM: http://www.king.org/ Gordon Hawkins will sing Nabucco, Mary Elizabeth Williams will sing Abagaille, and Christian Van Horn as Zaccaria. There are five more performances. The Bauer/Angeletti/Hurt cast singles Friday, August 14 and Wednesday, August 19. The Hawkins/Williams/Van Horn cast sings Wednesday, August 12, Saturday, August 15, and Saturday, August 22 (closing night). Jamie Barton, Russell Thomas, and in the smaller roles, Karen Early Evans (Anna), Jonathan Silvia (High Priest of Baal), and EricNeuvilke (Abdallo) will sing in all performances. A should see, if you are in the area and can make it. This is the first production of "Nabucco" in Seattle, and it's not performed that often in North America, at least.

PNB just tweeted it's entry, featuring Lindsi Dec: https://twitter.com/PNBallet/status/630780212846792704

Copeland is on the cover of the September 2015 edition of "Essence": https://twitter.com/essencemag/status/630740459338469376 (re-tweeted by ABT)

From today's Links (Jeffrey Gantz in "The Boston Globe"): http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/40509-monday-august-10/?p=360483 New to Boston Ballet: Soloists: Maria Baranova (Principal, Finnish National Ballet) Rachele Buriassi (Stuttgart Ballet) Federico Fressi (La Scala Ballet) Corps: Jillian Barrell (Ballet Arizona) Drew Nelson (Royal Danish Ballet) Promotions: Corps to Soloist: Ji Young Chae Patrick Yocum Corps to Second Soloist: Diana Albrecht Junxiong Chao Irlan Silva Boston Ballet II to Corps: Albert Gordon To Boston Ballet II: Angela Bishop (Boston Ballet School) Erin O'Dea (Boston Ballet School) Eleanora Morris (National Ballet of Canada) Ethan Chudnow (San Francisco Ballet School) Samuel Ainley (SAB) Aaron Hilton (SAB)

An update on Silva, who joined Boston Ballet after ABT II: he's beén promoted to Second Soloist: https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2015/08/09/new-arrivals-promotions-boston-ballet-fills-coveted-roster-spots/ptE7didcSm28za6sRL1uVO/story.html

Jillian Barrell has joined Boston Ballet as a corps member: https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2015/08/09/new-arrivals-promotions-boston-ballet-fills-coveted-roster-spots/ptE7didcSm28za6sRL1uVO/story.html

Daniil Simkin has been posting nearly daily photos to his website; this is the latest (Day 12): http://www.daniilsimkin.com/photo-day-12-of-the-world-ballet-festival-in-tokyo-day-off-on-a-boat-from-left-to-right-mathias-heymann-mathias24-from-the-paris-opera-ballet-alban-lendorf-albanlendorf-from-the-royal-dan/ A short video of one of Osiel Gouneo's spins: http://www.daniilsimkin.com/video-day-03-at-the-world-ballet-festival-in-tokyo-asere-osiel-gouneo-osielgouneo-still-has-it-14thwbf-a_dancers_life-donttrythisathome-corazoncubano-conmuchogusto/ There's a menu to the right with other photo links.

Noelani Pantastico posted a photo of her Sugarplum Fairy costume filling to Instagram: no mint green for PNB's Sugarplum: https://instagram.com/p/6A1_rHPlzd/

It's remarkable that they are able to. Messmer said she and her partner got a deal, because he is a carpenter and put in work on the place, and she came in with a soloist's salary.

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