Helene

Huge changes, and he's been there and done that. On the other hand, although Balanchine choreographed outside of NYCB rarely, once it moved to Lincoln Center and became an institution, he did venture out on occasion. Also, if the company was his, he wouldn't have to go to Munich to stage "Raymonda," which would be a loss to other companies, but great for ABT. ABT doesn't have the extensive schedule that European companies have, and it could be possible to do a two-four week stint in Europe or Canada every year.

Surely they don't need to, but it would hardly hurt to be run by someone who received full classical training, had experience with Royal Danish Ballet, a company that has along tradition of coaching and narrative ballet, as well as Royal Winnipeg Ballet, a North American experience, has already run an institution much bigger and more complex than ABT in recent years, and who is also one of the great choreographers making work today, whose work happens to be a perfect fit for ABT. He may not want the job, especially with the fundraising it would entail, but I can't think of anyone who would be more qualified to run ABT or any other ballet company on the planet. He might not have a Kirstein, but he'd have a staff.

I did. While I think that Pisaroni is a little short of the flexibility he needs for Alindoro's big aria, on the whole, I think everyone sounded fabulous. Joyce Di Donato said in the intermission interview that it was her last performance of Cenerontola, and it was bittersweet. Di Donato is not going to resemble Bartoli. It's hard to imagine two different mezzos.

In the article to which sandik linked, McKenzie describes how he was offered the AD role. With the board of ABT looking at dissolving the company, they sold McKenzie on the job by telling him that if he failed, no one would blame him because he had no experience. Without a Baryshnikov on the horizon, it is unlikely at this point in this financial climate that a major company would hire someone with no experience as an administrator and/or choreographer, unless the company were on the brink of extinction and a newcomer is its Hail Mary pass. (At PNB, Peter Boal and Company and extensive teaching was Boal's experience portfolio just as Vail will be Woetzel's.) Stiefel is doing what just about anyone who aspires to run a major company is doing: getting experience in a series of positions, working with a variety of companies. Three years with a company is not an insignificant commitment, especially one as geographically isolated as NZB.

"Write-in" ballots are always welcome on polls

Birdsall, I would skip the trip to Moscow and spend one evening living the way people from St. Petersburg people do during the long, sunlit evenings. You can save Moscow for an future trip, at the beginning or end, so you can spend a day or two there. There's even a boat (small) that travels between the two cities over the river, stopping at a least one monastery along the way.

The only press release from ABT about a contract extension was Ratmansky's 12-year extension in 2011: http://www.abt.org/insideabt/news.asp The ABT links to press releases going back to 2002. There's only one instance in Links where the words "McKenzie" and "contract" appear in the same search result, and that was about Osipova.

We need to be prepared in case of stray meteors.

Thank you so much for sharing the news! Not everyone appreciates Peter Sellars' work. He's probably best known in the opera world for his modern dress productions of Mozart operas and for his collaboration with John Adams on "Dr. Atomic" - Sellars also wrote the libretto for it -- and "Nixon in China," where he brought the concept to Adams and pushed until Adams agreed.

Now Eifman would have done justice to the original story.

When he ran the Bolshoi, a company whose corps is bigger than ABT, Ratmansky managed to choreograph major works, and the politics and time wasted on them there make ABT seem like Romper Room. While he might not want the job -- or very well might -- I'm surprised he's not on a short list, let along the long one in this poll.

There's a discussion in the Paloma Herrera thread in the "Dancers" forum: http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/38770-paloma-herrera/?hl=herrera

Hello Ax, and welcome to Ballet Alert! We are an audience site, and as a fan, we hope you tell us about performances you see and that you weigh in on ballet issues. As an ballet student, you may be interested in our sister board, Ballet Talk for Dancers: http://dancees.invisionzone.com where there is a forum for adult students, as well as a lot of information relevant to all dance students. BT4D requires separate registration.

Most of the YouTube clips of the Lacotte version are clearly marked: this is the version you *won't* be seeing. Although film doesn't do it justice, the reel is one of my favorite group scenes in all of ballet: Traditionally it uses the best students and creates a community, and it also advances the plot when James is distracted by the Sylph, and Effie, his fiance who can't see the Sylph, doesn't know why. If done in the proper style, you'll see a distinct tilt of the upper body from the waist among the sylphs. The biggest problems I've seen with Sylphide are the decimation of the mime, but that's true of many classics, and dancing the ballet in a classical or neoclassical style. The Romantic style has its virtues, but it's often dismissed as old-fashioned and stuffy, and is gussied up for modern audiences. Here's a clip of Carla Fracci, one of the great Giselles, as the Sylph, with RDB-trained Peter Schaufuss: This is a montage of rehearsal scenes cut with performance footage that summarizes most of Act II (with Gudrun Bojesen as the Sylph, Thomas Lund as James, and Lis Jeppesen as the witch Madge):

The Queen Anne & Magnolia News interviewed four arts PR people in Seattle, and PNB's Gary Tucker is one of them: http://www.queenannenews.com/Content/Opinion/Opinion/Article/STARLA-SPEAKS---Queen-Anne-s-PR-quartet-/9/540/35674 For those from outside Seattle, Queen Anne is the neighborhood in which the Phelps Center, PNB's admin, Seattle school, studios, and costume shops building, and McCaw Hall, where PNB performs mostly in Seattle. Gary keeps us up to date with casting and news, and it's great to see him recognized with his colleagues from the Seattle Shakespeare Company, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Book-It Repertory Theatre.