Helene

I believe it was Russell or Stowell who said in one of their Q&A's that they had what ended up being an abandoned plan to co-produce "Vienna Waltzes" with another company, and I think that company was San Francisco Ballet. I thought in the plan the two companies would perform it together, but that may have been my projection. It did come from the company, and I remember thinking about how Russell said that "Liebeslieder" was cost-prohibitive, and wishing they could find a co-producer for "Liebeslieder" instead. The Trust allowed PNB to perform a few excerpts at R&S's farewell gala. I saw San Francisco Ballet perform "Liebeslieder" in the late '90's (or early 00's), and I remember loving Sabina Allemann in it; they obviously don't need another company to co-produce it, although it would be great for fans of both companies to own it and play it more than once a decade. With Feijoo, Froustey, Kochetkova, and Van Patten on the roster, I'd love to see what SFB would do with it now. It's a shame that PNB didn't do it when Lallone and Korbes were in the company. While NBOC has had their share of full-lengths, the number of mixed bills has been shrinking after the 2010-11 season. The company did a lot of Robbins in the past decade. Searching our calendar, there were : Three in 2006-7: Petrouchka and other works, Song of the Earth/Symphony in C, Seasons/New Mrozewski/Polyphonia Three and a half in 2007-8: Giselle/Polyphonia, West Side Story Suite/Glass Pieces/In the Night, Roosters/Soldier's Mass/24 Preludes, and Fiddle and the Drum/Etudes/the second detail) Three in 2009-10: Barton/Balanchine/Robbins, Choinard/Robbins/Kudelka, and Robbins/Elo/Robbins, Three in 2010-11: Chroma/Serenade/Emergence, Theme and Variations/Apollo/Russian Seasons, and Mozartiana/Songs of a Wayfarer/In the Upper Room One in 2011-12: Chroma/Songs of the Wayfarer/Elite Syncopations Two in 2012-13: Four Seasons/Emergence and Elo/Cote/Kudelka/Balanchine Two in 2013-14: Barton/Ashton and Goecke/Robbins/Forsythe Two this season: Ratmansky/Cote, The Man in Black/Chroma/Allegro Brillante/Carousel (A Dance) One next season: Cacti/Rubies/Four Temperaments

Cacti are popular: http://national.ballet.ca/Productions/2015-2016-Season/Cacti

Many of Balanchine's 400 were lost works like "Errante," earlier versions of ballets -- Ballet Imperial vs. Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2, dances for opera, dances for theater productions, or incidental works, like the Ford Pavillion dance at the World's Fair. They never made it into index of new works at NYCB. I remember breaking this down to see the percentage of surviving works that are performed regularly. I don't think the 80 of 400 is that accurate, when a chunk of them were never meant to be repeated or were controlled by an opera company or theater.

So true! I love the Pilgrims from the Thanksgiving tableau on the Boston side.

For all the people who saw such great potential in Beckanne Sisk, I just found this re-tweet by Ballet West on my feed:

Elizabeth Murphy, who's from Massachusetts, was put on the spot during the Don Q Q&A two Saturdays ago about her, uh, loyalties. (The night before Bold was wearing a Seahawks shirt.) There are a couple of other dancers from Massachusetts who weren't in the hot seat last weekend. This isn't ballet, but I'm sharing anyway. There's a family a few blocks away from my friend's house in Seattle that does big arrangement of rubber ducks on their front lawn for holidays and other occasions. This was their Super Bowl display:

Anne Patchett's best-selling novel "Bel Canto" has been made into an opera which will premiere on 7 December as part of Lyric Opera of Chicago's 2015-16 season. The music is by the young Peruvian composer Jimmy Lopez, with libretto by Nilo Cruz. Renee Fleming curated it. The director will be Kevin Newbury, who directed "Anna Bolena." The conductor will be Andrew Davis. The season: Marriage of Figaro (Mozart): 26 September-24 October. New Production. Cast includes: Adam Plachetka (Figaro), Christiane Karg (Susanna), Amanda Majeski (Countess Almaviva), and Luca Pisaroni (Count Almaviva) Cinderella (Rossini): 40-30 October coproduction of Houston Grand Opera, Welsh National Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu, and Grand Théâtre de Genève.Cast includes Isabelle Leonard (Angelina), Lawrence Brownlee (Prince Ramiro), Alessandro Corbelli (Don Magnifico), and Vito Prianti (Dandini) Wozzeck (Berg): 1-21 November. New Production. Cast includes: Tomasz Konieczny (Wozzeck), Angela Denoke (Marie), Gerhard Siegel (Captain), and Stefan Vinke (Drum Major). Vinke was a fabulous Siegfried in the 2013 Seattle Ring. Bel Canto (Lopez): 7 December-17 January. World Premiere. Cast includes Danielle de NIese (Roxanne Coss), J'nai Bridges (Carmen), Jeongcheol Cha (Hosokawa), and Andrew Stenson (Gen). Tenor Andrew Stenson made a brilliant in Seattle as a last-minute replacement for William Burden in "Orpheus ed Eurydice." Nabucco (Verdi): 23 January-12 February. Coproduction with Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and Gran Teatre del Liceu.Cast includes Zeljko Lucic (Nabucco), Tatjana Serjan (Abigaille), Dmitry Belosselskiy (Zaccaria), and Elizabeth DeShong (Fenena) Der Rosenkavalier (R. Strauss): 8 February-13 March. Bavarian State Opera production.Cast includes: Sophie Koch (Octavian, February), Alice Coote (Octavian, March), Amanda Majeski (Marshallin), and Matthew Rose (Baron Ochs) Romeo and Juliet (Gounod): 22 February-19 March. Metropolitan Opera production.Cast includes: Susannah Phillips (Juliet), Joseph Calleja (Romeo, through 8 March), Eric Cutler (Romeo from 11 March), Christian Van Horn (Friar Lawrence) The King and I (Rogers & Hammerstein): 29 April-22 May. No cast info as of today. 9 January 2016: Ana Maria Martinez and Placido Domingo in Concert. 26 February 2016: Dmitri Hvorostovsky in Recital. In case you're not convinced, the website says, "Glorious Voice. Unparalleled Artistry. Serious Sex Appeal."

In all of the those Choreography by Balanchine (Dance in America) videos from the '70's, they would play one piece of music in the intro and one in the end and show clips of the different ballets in the video. It's nothing new.

I can't wait to see which dancers she'll bring. I know I have my fingers crossed for some dancers with whom she's worked before.