Helene

I'm looking forward to catching up with the most recent podcasts.

The reason Ringer had a forum at all was that she is female, which triggered a firestorm, while almost no one noted that he really handed it far worse to Angle. The press followed her after it became a story to follow. If Macaulay had just commented about Angle, the may have been one article or blog post about how disorderd eating applies to men, too.

I listened for a couple of hours, and saw about 30 minutes interspersed, including a bit of a group dance. I was more impressed by the staging than the dancing, but be prepared for a lot of Glass. The good news is that it will be up for a number of months, and you can watch it in chunks.

Maria Callas is a legendary singer in spite of her highly idiosyncratic voice. Without her musicality and intense devotion to phrasing and drama, few would have listened to her twice. A beautiful voice or a voice with a ping might not be as compelling musically, a la Pavarotti in opera -- in song, he was a different singer -- but people will listen to that voice over and over again. There are singers and dancers who do everything possible to hide what could be considered shortcomings, and there are singers and dancers who use it and/or flaunt it and create something unique and unexpected, causing the viewer or listener to rethink standards. What we consider great now might be considered dryly technical, anemic, and beside the point when many iconic classical and neoclassical ballets were created, and the tempi beyond distorted, and there are fantastic dancers now who look more like the photos of dancers from the early to mid-20th century who have the Italianate technique and qualities that were so prized then.

Thursday night is the "go out" night in parts of Europe. For example, when I worked onsite with our teams in Ireland, they would have dinner at 9:30 or 10:00pm, followed by a pub followed by a club followed by the wine bar from 2-4am. (I can stay up very late; it's being vertical after 11pm that's a challenge.) I could never understand how the young bucks in international finance in London could do this and be at their desks and productive at 8am Friday.

Seattle Opera announced that it has selected the finalists for this year's International Wagner Competition, which will take place on 7 August: Ric Furman, tenor Suzanne Hendrix, mezzo-soprano Roman Ialcic, bass-baritone Kihun Yoon, baritone Tamara Mancini, soprano Kevin Ray, tenor Issachah Savage, tenor Marcy Stonikas, soprano Sebastian Lang-Lessing will conduct. alternates are: David Danholt, tenor and Helena Dix, soprano Judges will be: Stephanie Blythe, Peter Kazaras, Bernd Loebe, Francois Rochaix, and Stephen Wadsworth will be the judges. There will be two $25K prizes awarded by the judges, and $5K prizes for the audience favorite and the orchestra's choice. Seattle audiences know Ric Furman from his Florestan in Fidelio and Froh in the 2013 Ring. Marcy Stonikas has sung Turandot, was Furman's Leonora/Fidelio, and will sing in "The Consul" in February-March. Tamara Mancini and Suzanne Hendrix were also Valkyries in the 2013 Ring. Kevin Ray has been cast a lot in Houston, where Issacha Savage made his debut as Radames last Fall. Roman Ialcic covered a couple of roles in the 2013 Seattle Ring. This should be a very strong competition.

My experience with Balcony standing room was in the '90's, when my plane was fogged in, and as a latecomer, I was escorted there for the first act of "Don Carlo." I was miserable: it was like a yuppie bar, with people chatting, and I wanted to slap them. I suspect that was more latecomer than standee behavior, but if the company still parks latecomers there, I would make sure I was in the Orchestra standing room.

I prefer the Dress Circle or Balcony Circle in general. For "Giselle," I might go for the Orchestra, but I prefer to sit higher in general. It's a fairly steep auditorium. I love the back of the Balcony for opera when they have Operavision, but for ballet, it's a bit far. Good for SFB for doing that well with "Giselle."

How many performances at SFB are sold out?

Ballet companies on the schedule: Opening Gala, with Hong Kong Ballet, June 14: http://www.jacobspillow.org/festival/2014/06/season-opening-gala/ Hong Kong Ballet, June 18-22 http://www.jacobspillow.org/festival/2014/06/hong-kong-ballet/ In Light and Shadows (Pastor/Bach) Castrati (Duato/Vivaldi and Jenkins) A Room of Her Own (Bo/Elgar) Dance Theatre of Harlem, July 9-13 http://www.jacobspillow.org/festival/2014/07/dance-theatre-of-harlem/ Past-Carry-Forward (Wideman and Davis) Contested Space (Byrd/Tobin) Dancing on the Front Porch of Heaven (Dove/Part) Ballet 2014: Soloists and Principals of NYCB, July 16-20 http://www.jacobspillow.org/festival/2014/07/ballet-2014-principals-and-soloists-of-new-york-city-ballet/ Liturgy (Wheeldon/Part) Millepied and Muhly Collaboration Furiant (Peck/Dvorak) Sunshine (Keigwen/Withers) World Premiere (LeCrone) Fancy Free (Robbins/Bernstein) Pacific Northwest Ballet, August 6-10 http://www.jacobspillow.org/festival/2014/08/pacific-northwest-ballet/ A Million Kisses to My Skin (Dawson/Bach) Rassamblement (Duato/Bissainthe) Brief Fling (Tharp/Colombier and Grainger)

Another casting hint, from a PNB tweet: http://pnbawesome.tumblr.com/

Gotta have those "numbers"

NYCB rarely makes changes. Back when there schedule was starting the Winter Season with one week of rep before "Nutcracker" until the first week of January, and then rep straight through the last Sunday in February -- and there were two performances each on Saturday and Sunday -- and then started up again for two straight months from the end of April until the end of June, occasionally a spate of injuries would cancel a ballet. I remember seeing "A Steadfast Tin Soldier" far more times than I wanted when it was swapped in for one (or possible two) other short ballet(s). They also changed the mixed rep the night of Joseph Duell's suicide to "A Midsummer Night's Dream." He had been cast in the evening's original rep.

I can understand your disappointment, as much as I love "Concerto Barocco."

What a fantastic profile!

I don't know how I missed this thread . I would have suggested going to the lobby of the Museum of Natural History where they display a huge Christmas tree decorated with origami ornaments made by NYC school children.

At $110/pop before accessories it wasn't just a token gift of a doll that each four kids from New York Ballet School received. (Although now I'm wondering what the Chatty Cathy I was given as an eight-year-old would cost in today's dollars...)