Helene

Program overview from the press release: SEATTLE, WA– Pacific Northwest Ballet continues its 2013-2014 season with George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A complete delight for all ages, this full-length ballet is based on William Shakespeare's comedy about the romantic adventures, quarrels and reunions of two pairs of mortal lovers and the king and queen of the fairies. Balanchine’s Midsummer, which New York City Ballet premiered in 1962, was the first original evening-length ballet he choreographed in America. Staged by PNB Founding Artistic Director Francia Russell, PNB's production is an enchanted landscape where misunderstandings and mayhem weave tangled paths through the opulent layers of Martin Pakledinaz's designs and Balanchine's marvelously crafted partnerings. All ends well in Act II's wedding festivities with the recognition of ideal love, tenderly portrayed in an exquisite pas de deux. A Midsummer Night’s Dream plays for eight performances only, April 11-19 at McCaw Hall at Seattle Center Tickets start at $28 and may be purchased by calling the PNB Box Office at 206. 441.2424, online at PNB.org, or in person at the PNB Box Office at 301 Mercer Street. “As a child, I remember sitting in the New York City Ballet’s audience as George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream cast its spell,” said Artistic Director Peter Boal. “PNB’s production, staged with care and texture by Francia Russell, is unique. Other productions use Balanchine’s choreography and the enchanting score by Felix Mendelssohn, but only PNB’s production boasts the whimsy and spectacle of set and costume designs by Martin Pakledinaz. A fantastic frog and looming spider balance bulbous mushrooms and august roses. The senses are satiated with scale and color. PNB’s signature production with its winning combination of Francia’s staging, Marty’s designs and our amazing dancers – not to mention Balanchine, Mendelssohn, and William Shakespeare – promises to once again enchant audiences of all ages.” PNB’s newly-designed production premiered in 1997 and toured to great acclaim at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1998. [/color]In 1999, PNB toured Midsummer to England, where the production was performed and filmed by the BBC in high-definition before a live audience at London's Sadler's Wells Theatre. The DVD is available through PNB’s gift shop at McCaw Hall and online at PNB.org/GiftShop PROGRAM NOTES A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM[/size] Music: Felix Mendelssohn* Choreography: George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust Staging: Francia Russell Scenic and Costume Design: Martin Pakledinaz Lighting Design: Randall G. Chiarelli Premiere: January 17, 1962; New York City Ballet PNB Premiere: May 16, 1985; PNB’s new production: May 27, 1997 Balanchine’s fondness for Shakespeare's tale of love's delusions and mishaps dated from boyhood when he had performed as an elf in a St. Petersburg production of the play. As an adult he still remembered many lines (in Russian) and loved to quote them, especially those enchanting ones of Oberon that begin, "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, /Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows ..." But Balanchine's desire to bring this favorite theater piece to the ballet stage waited more than 20 years for fulfillment while he searched for music with which to expand Mendelssohn's original score to suitable length. Although Balanchine is famous for his rejection of the evening-long story ballet tradition that dominated the 19th century, he was not, in fact, opposed to story ballets per se, only to their excesses. In Midsummer, which dance writer Anita Finkel has called "possibly the greatest narrative ballet of all time," he demonstrated brilliantly that the pace of a story ballet can be fleet rather than ponderous, that mime can be delicate and to the point, and that the tale can be told almost entirely through dance. Perhaps most inspired is Balanchine's sustained employment of ballet's central metaphor of love—the pas de deux—to embody the play's subtle insights into the many permutations of the love relationship. The cloying embraces of Hermia and Lysander, the distraught pleadings of Helena with Demetrius, the thrashing resistance of Hermia to Demetrius and of Helena to Lysander—all are distortions of the ideal partnership between lovers, traditionally conveyed by the ballerina and her cavalier. This human game of power is also played out in the fairy realm where, tellingly, the disputing spouses Titania and Oberon never dance together but instead perform self-celebratory solos for their admiring retinues. When Titania does condescend to take a partner, it is either the non-descript cavalier, who functions more as prop than peer, or, in the work's most charming episode, an artless ass. Only in Act II, which is pure dance, do the battles and imbalances, the self-indulgences and self-deceptions give way to a genuine dance partnership. In the magnificent Divertissement pas de deux which crowns the wedding festivities, competition has no place, and restraint, mutuality and trust define the mature ideal of love. A Midsummer Night's Dream has been in Pacific Northwest Ballet's repertory since 1985. In 1997, with the approval of The George Balanchine Trust, PNB commissioned set and costume designer Martin Pakledinaz to re-design the entire production—a "first" for a Balanchine story ballet. Staged by PNB Founding Artistic Director Francia Russell, with every step, movement and gesture as Balanchine intended, this freshly-designed Midsummer brings the choreographer's dramatic ideas to life scenically as never before. [/size] [Program Notes by Jeanie Thomas, 1997]

I've still got about 1/4 to go. While there was so much personal struggle in the book and so much that she's overcome, what's struck me most so far was an incident Ringer didn't discuss in the Seattle talk. She had made a debut in a major role, but was also scheduled to dance a featured role in another cast. She realized that the featured role stressed her foot in a way that left her open to re-injury -- which would have left the company scrambling to re-schedule -- and she described the scene where she discussed withdrawing from the role with Peter Martins. If I hadn't been strapped in with a seat belt, I would have given her a standing ovation on the spot for the way she rationally dealt with his unjustified assumption of bad faith and realized it was his issue, not hers. It didn't have to be Martins: it could have been any person in a position of power acting unreasonably and with whom she had to deal in the workplace. It was the way she dealt with it that was so -worthy.

Angelica Generosa was just brilliant in "State of Darkness." Wow, wow, wow.

There is a shuttle bus that goes from the airport to the airport light rail stop. There are several hotels within a 10-minute walk of that stop, and a bunch downtown and past downtown on the light rail lines. Symphony Hall where this will be presented is right downtown. A day pass on light rail costs the equivalent of a round trip, if you buy one from the machines on the platform. I remember the first time I went in 2004, downtown Phoenix was a ghost town on the weekends, and the only restaurants open were the late Matador Restaurant and the one right next to it. (I was crushed to find during my last trip that Matador was closed because it owed back taxes.) The last time I was there, I had three really good meals at three different Thai restaurants, and things are picking up.

Although most of the mainstream press in North America has dropped almost all coverage once the Dmitrichenko et. al. trial was over, Ismene Brown has continued to follow the state of Russian ballet in the Russian press and has posted many summaries and translations on her blog: http://www.ismeneb.com/Blog/Blog.html She tweets whenever there's a new post, for those who want to get push notifications: https://twitter.com/ismeneb

The premiere in Seattle, "Memory Glow," also set to a score created from various media scores, was very different in tone than "Off Screen," even when I saw part of it in the well-lit studio in rehearsal.

Dorothee Gilbert just tweeted a photo of her new family: https://twitter.com/DorotheGilbert/status/446311623339569152/photo/1

If I were casting for a tour, I would know that te opener would be reviewed, regardless of the dancer, and I would consider casting a star a little later in the run, on a night less popular, when he or she wasn't coming right off travel and could get feedback from colleagues about the quirks of the stage and the theater and after the wrinkles of the first live performance were ironed out.

McBride was described as the feather-light Bournonville soubrette. I think Croce was saying that Farrell adjusted to the style of her role, which was different, not a soubrette.

That is fantastic news!

from Croce's "Afterimages," p. 268

We received the following request from Catherine Blair: I am the one of twin daughters, born to [David Blair and Maryon Lane]. I'm trying very hard to find out all information on my late father and mother, and their amazing ballet careers, both @ the Royal Ballet, and with American ballet theatre, from 1965,'66,'67,'68 and so on! My father worked very hard with ABT, and directed, and produced Swan Lake etc. He and Maryon worked hard with the Atlantic civic ballet company, with Bobby and Ginger Barnett, for 3 years. Due to profound tragic times, my late father died in 1976, aged only 43, and I was just 16. I need to understand my childhood, as I was too young to grasp all of his and that of my mothers, ballets and productions. Does anyone still remember him please? My aim is to write a book, but I have to first piece together this horrible,messy jigsaw puzzle, that has haunted me most of my life. It was very difficult, growing up in a ballet family. yours faithfully, Catherine Blair. (mscatherineblair@yahoo). Many of us will remember David Blair's great staging of "Swan Lake" for ABT; it was the first live ballet I'd ever seen. I'm guessing that there are Ballet Alert! members who would have information about them, including their years with Royal Ballet, or would know to whom to direct her.

Welcome to Ballet Alert! fiddleback! I look forward to hearing about your ballet travels and especially your home company in Phoenix.

Bumping this up: we're a little less than halfway towards our goal. We'll keep asking until we make it -- we raise our yearly budget and then we stop. If we get a few interim donations by check or more amazon/Zazzle commissions than budgeted, we use that before launching another one. It's less painful the shorter it is. We aren't trying to pressure anyone for whom this would be a hardship. We appreciate the support we've received so far very much, as well as the people who contribute by using the amazon.com box at the bottom of the side (if your ad blocker doesn't suppress it), where we earn commissions on each sale; those commission account for ~ 20% of our yearly budget on average.

That is such exciting news for both of them!

Congratulations to Foster

Vasiliev may be a star, but he's not the celebrity that Osipova is. There are far more ballets where there's much more for the woman to do and where she's the focus. Even in Don Q, she's got the Dream act.

Sorry I misunderstood. I think I've now got Ballet Alert! running on three PC browsers, on one tablet browser, on two browsers on my Mac, and one on my Android phone. Maybe I should close a few of them .

I haven't seen them say anything bad about the other in the legitimate press, but Vasiliev recently made it clear they are no longer a couple. From February 8, 2014 links: http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/38409-saturday-february-8/?p=332886 In "Giselle" she's paired with Sarafanov and he with Vorontsova, and in "The Flames of Paris," only he is cast, with Vorontsova and Bondareva.

sandik, there should be no reason you can't run multiple browsers at the same time. I currently have Chrome, Firefox, and Safari open.

Do we have any Safari users on a Mac or iPad that are experiencing the issue?

Our software's tech support team also believes that issues are caused by browser plug-ins and/or extensions. I'm still on Lion with my MacBook, because those manufactured in "Early 2008" don't support later operating system versions, and I haven't seen this issue. If I had it, I could do the testing myself, but I haven't been able to replicate it. It's not an OS issue if the members who are experiencing this on Chrome and Firefox are not experiencing it on IE (PC) or Safari for Mac. Every time I do a browser upgrade -- and I always do the upgrades when prompted -- I get a message that the browser is checking for add-on compatibility.

Because it's a poll thread, every time someone votes, it gets logged as a "New Post." It's a quirk of the software.

I don't think this is especially good news, but we're being told that the behavior of the forum page flashing up for a second and then going blank couldn't be a problem with the base software. The potential diagnosis is "bad browser extension/plugin" and the only way to see if this is the case is by disabling all of the Plug-ins and Extensions for the browser, clearing the cache, and trying again. Although I'm not experiencing the problem, even after just installing the "Disconnect" plug-in on Firefox, I have five plug-ins and 15 extensions that would need to be de-activated. Where's the bashing one's head against the keyboard icon when you need it?

The problem here is that for some of our members, the playground is not usable, unless they revert to Safari, Internet Explorer or their iPhones or Android phones.