Helene

Here's Part 2 of Plotkin's list, all women: http://www.wqxr.org/#!/story/40-under-40-next-generation-great-opera-singers-part-two/ I've heard fewer of these singers, and while there are a couple of sopranos I really like, like Angela Meade, I'm afraid my heart belongs to mezzos.

Does ABT have a standard time that apprentices are promoted to corps (or not)? I've been listening to Balancing Pointe podcasts to find that NYCB typically chooses apprentices after the Workshop performances and announces the corps promotions at the end of the Saratoga Springs season, unless they pass the magic number of performances (currently six) that gives them an automatic promotion. (Not exclusively: one dancer said she and another dancer were chosen right before Nutcracker, and another had been chosen the month before.) The apprentices who don't get contracts can stay at SAB until the following audition season (Feb-Mar). I hope the same is in place at ABT, since the audition season is over.

Kiyon Gaines has choreographed a new work for Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, and it will be presented later this month in Harrisburg during the June Series at the Whitaker Center. The Harrisburg Youth Symphony Orchestra will play. Gaines' music piece is, http://www.pennlive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2014/06/cpyb_and_nycb_dancers_to_wow_a.html

As noted in other threads, three current PNB dancers are on parental leave, with due dates from June-September: Maria Chapman, Kylee Kitchens, and Rachel Foster. Peter Boal said they're called "The Preggerinas" Kitchens and Foster appeared with the company and retired dancers during the curtain calls for Kaori Nakamura's retirement performance in Encores. (Chapman was due any second.)

And that itself was a parody

It feels so regular that we're not even commenting: more dancers left a Cuban National Ballet tour, this time to Puerto Rico, most making their way to the US and making their US debuts in a gala in Miami starring Lorena Feijoo. The articles in Links begin with this one from last Monday, 9 June: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/06/09/4168441/cuban-ballet-defectors-expected.html Feijoo posted a caricature of the elderly Alonso with the Spanish equivalent of the saying, "Will the last one out please turn out the lights" and commented, "Alicia, how much longer? How many more?" to her Facebook page.

The problem with these is keeping a straight face when seeing the original. I recently had to beat down visions of Amelia's drunk ballerina scene from "The Turning Point" during PNB's recent "Giselle" run.