Helene

Met Opera Live in HD goes on sale this Friday to the general public. (A certain donor level in the US and Canada or a Scene membership in Canada for Cineplex theaters got a pre-sale offer last week.) Choreographers listed for the productions: "Macbeth" (11 October): Sue Lefton "Le Nozze di Figaro" (18 October): Sara Erde (new production, Richard Eyre) "Carmen" (1 November): Christopher Wheeldon "Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg" (13 December): Carmen de Lavallade "The Merry Widow" (17 January): Susan Stroman (new production, Stroman) "Les Contes d'Hoffmann" (31 January): Dou Dou Huang "Iolanta/Bluebeard's Castle" (14 February): Tomasz Wygoda (new production, Mariusz Trelinski) "Cav/Pag" (25 April): Andrew George "Barber of Seville" (22 November) and "La Donna del lago" (14 March) don't have choreographers listed.

I just finished Bill Jone's biography of John Curry, "Alone." I can't say I enjoyed it, because being in the company of Curry, especially as he channeled his inner Jerome Robbins, is not an enjoyable experience, and to his credit, Jones didn't try to make it one. However, I am very glad I read it and was immersed in his world. Curry is the greatest skater I've ever seen. I had heard about the Elva Oglanby book, "Black Ice: Life and Death of John Curry," which was quashed by the family after its release, but besides (still) being too pricey, it was much harder to track in the pre-Internet days, and I had forgotten about it. Jones portrays Oglanby, who was trying to be Curry's manager during his creative ice dance company days, fairly, in my opinion. Jane Hermann, at the time the Met Opera's head of summer planning, comes across worse, through her quotes and her actions. Oglanby and Spungen took bit hits financially, with Spungen having to file for bankruptcy. It was great to read the words of his biggest British rival, Haig Oundjian, and to see the parallels between how each felt himself to be an outsider in the eyes of the British figure skating establishment, Curry because of perceived effeminacy and Oundjian because of his ethnicity. I remember seeing photos of Oundjian and seeing him skate, or at least the excerpts shown back then, and I never realized that he had a hard time of it because of his background. It was also great to hear from the people who worked for him, even if their stories were brutal.

Thank you for the clarification. I thought it was a school program.

Here's the link to Part 2: http://www.openkwongdore.com/2014/08/18/episode-87-lindsay-fischer-part-two/

The way he treated coaches was difficult enough, but the way he treated his company members was downright brutal. He and Jerome Robbins had much in common in that respect.

While I agree that changes in the arts are caused when the times make them possible and ignite them, the Ballets Russes was an import, but Balanchine was an immigrant who transformed a number of influences he brought with him -- Petipa's classicism, Russian/early Soviet experimental dance, Diaghilev's mixed bill contemporary approach -- through the energy, opportunity, and popular music and arts forms he found into his new home into one branch of neoclassical ballet. Petipa was an immigrant, too, but he was brought to a Western-facing court where ballet was established, the was a ready-made audience, France was a beacon and the latest flowed from France to Russia, and French was the spoken language. He had a comparatively soft landing, ballet-wise, even if he had sterner masters and more constraints. Balanchine's story became an American story, and, like many prominent immigrants, he brought his influences into the mix to cross-pollinate. Kirstein wouldn't have seen the Petipa-like court ballets from Balanchine: he saw Balanchine's work of the Ballet Russes and Les Ballets 1933 period. It wasn't "Sleeping Beauty" from either Massine (whom he approached first) or Balanchine that sparked his interest, and it wasn't what the Ballets Russes companies were bringing and that US audiences would recognize from those tours; the age of "Swan Lake" as the gold standard was still a while away. Kirstein was interested in contemporary art, and a contemporary version of a classical art form is what he got.

According to the Wall Street journal, the Met has come to an agreement with the singers and orchestra. By singers, I'm assuming the author means chorus, since the other singers aren't employees, but independent contractors: http://online.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-met-opera-reaches-deals-with-singers-orchestra-members-1408359677 The basic terms are that the singers and orchestra will take a 3.5% cut now and a second 3.5% cut in six months, with from where the cuts will come still to be ironed out. They won't see a raise for another 4.5 years (3%). The health benefits and pension terms remain the same, unless both parties agree to changes in the Fall. The article says that negotiations with the stagehands have been less contentious, and that the stagehands union was waiting to see what would happen in the negotiations with the singers and orchestra.

Arthaus Musik has released DVD and Blu Ray versions of the Royal Ballet School in Peter Hart's "Peter and the Wolf" and Nederlands Dans Theater in Jiri Kylian's "L'enfants et les sortileges." Description for the DVD and link to the Blu Ray version are here: http://arthaus-musik.com/en/dvd/neuerscheinungen/media/details/lenfant_et_les_sortileges_peter_and_the_wolf.html

I can't believe I left out subscribers . Even in a hybrid rep model which NYCB has been using in in the recent past, programmers have to take into account what the subscribers have seen before and how to be sure new rep that was missing from subscriptions in the premiere season is distributed properly in the following season. This was made more complicated because the season was split in two, with two four-week subs/night, or 16 different subs/season. This is true for almost all rep companies, but it's easier for the Met Opera, where they play 8 months a year and even for 12-performance subscriptions, there are generally 30 or so Wednesdays, for example, from which to choose, as well as one variable for 99% of the rep, not 3-4 mix-and-match ballets, and they can avoid repeats relatively easily.

He did it because he could, and it was useful to the company. It is, by no means, a standard practice. Scheduling is a specialized skill that needs to take the dancers, orchestra, stagehands, sets, and costumes into consideration as well as dancers, ballet masters, choreographers, rehearsal pianists, and studio space into consideration. He did it when there were almost no set programs aside from a straight run of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and maybe "Coppelia," just a list of 50 or so ballets and, at the time, eight shows a week for eight weeks per season, or maybe nine, if there was a week of rep before "Nutcracker.". One of Peter Boal's great stories was struggling to come up with a season that would meet everyone's requirements and address everyone's concerns within a tight budget -- and PNB has fixed reps over two weekends, not the pure rep model like NYCB had -- and when then-Music Director Stewart Kershaw looked at the plan, he pointed out one rep and said, Peter, you've left out the trombones.

Gottlieb was responsible for NYCB programming for a while as well during his time on the NYCB board. It was one of his contributions; most board members' contributions are through their checkbooks or convincing others to donate.

He made it for the Mariinsky Ballet in 2002. The '80's were experienced quite differently in the West than in the Soviet Union. I suspect that this was the first time through for Russian audiences. The Mariinsky was and still is trying to expand its rep to more modern productions. If they wanted a traditional production, I'm sure they could have mounted one. If Mariinsky management concluded it was a bad experiment, they had no reason subsequently to tour it, to take it as the only offering on some tours, or to revive it in Russia.

This series of short videos in the tweet link gives a sense of what the movement vocabulary and settings are: This Thursday, 21 August, is the preview at PNB in the Phelps Center at 6pm. The performance at Wolf Trap is 27 August.

Who claims this? NYCB and other companies that have associations with Balanchine continue to produce new work and unfamiliar work. I don't know who doesn't want there to be a great choreographer working now, one quarter of whose works will be in the active rep 30+ years after his/her death, or, if you remove the incidental, one-off, and opera work Balanchine did, probably closer to 50%. It's why every new choreographer with promise is dubbed "The Next Balanchine," or "Successor to Balanchine," with all of the accompanying disappointment and backlash when he isn't, even though during his lifetime, writing Balanchine off post "Agon" was a spectator sport, and Robbins, for example, was dubbed "The Next One" and the old guy washed up and passe, with his hierarchical structures going against the social and political movements of the times. Everyone is entitled to his or her feelings, but that doesn't make them facts. There are entire contingents here who focus on the Mariinsky Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre, where Balanchine is a niche rep at best. If you're in the NYCB forum, where this thread is located, you'll find lots of people who respect and love Balanchine's works, although rarely exclusively. It's because that's the core of NYCB's rep, and, with rare exception, few people seek out the company unless they like at least some Balanchine. It's not like they're in a place where there's no choice: they could go to ABT or stick with visiting companies, which many people do. There's nothing unfortunate about people appreciating ballet in the same way or in different ways, or preferring Forsythe to Balanchine. Since this is a discussion board, opinions, informed or otherwise, will be challenged, particularly when they read as dismissive in tone or content.

Perhaps Prokofiev follows the Perreault storyline, but the character of the score is alternately lyrical and bitter, unlike Tchaikovsky's "Sleeping Beauty": it was written during WWII after Prokofiev returned to the USSR in the mid-1930's, and by then he realized a warm embrace by Soviet authorities was not what he was going to get, regardless of what he was told before he moved back home.

Prokofiev's score is more attuned to the Grimm version of the fairy tale, where Cinderella's stepsisters cut off various part of their feet to fit into the slipper and are discovered when blood fills their stockings. It sounds like Ratmansky wasn't trying to reconcile the tough parts of the score by trying to reconcile them to tiaras.

From Joyce DiDonato's twitter:

While "Agon" is often considered Balanchine's greatest work or at least his greatest leotard ballet, that doesn't diminish anything Balanchine created after 1957 or make it not worth watching. (Perhaps aside from the infamous PAMTAGG, with which he is said to have lost interest.) I think Wheeldon has done plenty of good work aside from the two works you've mentioned, and there have been excellent reviews and descriptions of Ratmansky's recent triology and Nanouma, I think his "Little Humpbacked Horse" and "Don Quixote" are fantastic, and while it didn't go over well in Denmark, his "Golden Cockerel" was brilliant for what (I think) he was attempting. I look forward to seeing his "Nutcracker" and "Romeo and Juliet" someday.

If you've watched figure skating coverage for at least the last two Olympics, you've heard PJ Kwong's voice: she was the rink announcer in Vancouver and Sochi. She's a spectacular figure skating commentator; she does solo coverage of every skater at the World Championships on an alternate channel to CBC. She's also an announcer/commentator for soccer, Modern Pentathlon, synchronized swimming, fencing, and, if I remember correctly, rugby or hurling or lacrosse or another bruiser sport, but her interests go much farther, and when she teamed with former skater Paul Dore to air a podcast series, she decided to expand into subjects beyond skating and sports, including media, performing arts, writing, and academia. Episode 86 is Part One of a fascinating interview with former Dutch National Ballet and New York City Ballet dancer Lindsay Fischer -- he danced with Darcey Bussell in the Balanchine Celebration "Agon," on DVD -- who after retiring from dance worked for the National Ballet School. There he began a program to help students in the school transition into their professional careers, and he now is AD of the NBoC School's* YOU Dance program and the Director of the Professional Summer Dance at Banff. http://www.openkwongdore.com/2014/08/11/episode-86-lindsay-fischer-part-one/ Kwong and Dore usually publish new episodes on Monday, and Part Two should be available this Monday, 18 August. *See clarification below.

KING confirmed that the broadcast of the Celebration will start at 8pm PDT (11pm EDT) next Saturday, 23 August.

Seattle Opera just tweeted: This is 8pm PDT, 11pm EDT.

My friend and I were sitting in the back row of the Family Circle, and those notes made us jump! A late and very-much-missed fellow figure skating fan had been an opera singer before becoming a renowned voice teacher in Ontario. When we'd all meet to watch competitions in Canada, she would sing "Oh, Canada," and everyone for several sections around would try to find where that voice was coming from. Albanese saved it for the high notes, and she was in her 60's at the time, which we thought was ancient. (Not anymore...)

Licia Albanese's son confirmed that she died just past her 105th birthday. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/arts/music/licia-albanese-exalted-soprano-is-dead-at-105.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0 But, good things come to those who wait: Harold Schoenberg wrote in his NYT review of Bing's farewell gala in April 1971: Riposa in pace, Signora Albanese.

I guess you could call a company that is focused on and has the artistic privilege of working with the resident genius -- or geniuses -- or resident artist insular and mean that as an insult. With so much of ballet rep created by a handful of dead geniuses, some long-dead, it's even more prevalent in modern dance, where most companies are led by eponymous founders or the next generation: Martha Graham, Mark Morris, Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, Twyla Tharp, David Parsons, Jose Limon, Alwin Nikolais, Hanya Holm, Molissa Fenley, and Pina Bausch just off the top of my head. (Some of these companies do more than their founders' rep, but the focus is generally around the founder.) Then there are the ones who did not start the company, but became the core choreographers, where people joined companies to work with them, like Forsythe and Jiri Kylian, and in ballet, John Cranko, Frederick Ashton, Antony Tudor, and Kenneth McMillan, for example. As far as an "industry" around those who can claim to have worked with Balanchine: Many are dead Some have formed their own companies and schools, stage Balanchine's works, teach at SAB, and/or coach, which makes it their day job. The youngest ones to have worked directly with him would be in their 40's, like Peter Boal, who was coached in the role of the Prince in the "Nutcracker" and saw Balanchine when he was in classes periodically. Balanchine died the day he became a corps member. Since Balanchine stopped working extensively with the company in the early 80's, that would make youngest corps members who joined at 17 and whom he trained himself 50. The still living people in their late 60's - 80's, who danced for him when the company was small -- before the move to Lincoln Center and the influx of Ford Foundation kids -- and toured a lot got to know him very well, and many have talked about how much they loved to be around him and how he's influenced their lives to this day. (Jerome Robbins, not so much.) In ballet, there's a rep, and that rep is coached and passed down. In Russian ballet, there's a lineage by teacher -- Tereshkina's bio lists her as "class of Marina Vasilieva" -- and dancers' personal coaches are as critical as voice or instrumental teachers. In modern dance choreography and coaching is passed down unless the master determines otherwise. Having worked with the person during the creation, revision and coaching process is a great advantage. Even in what I suppose is your own dance interest, tap, which doesn't have a lot of long-standing rep, I went to the Vancouver Tap Festival last year, and I read the bios of the guest faculty. I found that lineage was considered important enough to advertise: "Christopher [broughton] began dancing at the age of 11, and has danced with The Nicholas Brothers, Savion Glover, Michelle Dorrance, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Jason Samuel Smith and Derick Grant." "[Jason Jonas] trained with Gene Medler" Jumaane [Taylor] has been tap dancing since the age of seven and has studied and performed with many of tap's greats" If you look at any Flamenco bios, you see the list of people with whom each member of the quadro or ensemble -- dancer, musician, singer -- performed and their artistic lineage. I think it's a good thing that people still respect Balanchine and that having worked with him and able to teach what he taught them is seen as a positive.