Helene

It seems odd to me that they wouldn't announce it, and certainly not to have any messaging I can find on the site, so that patrons don't question their sanity and have to call.

It was in the press release that they'd be sold at $35 each. There were no restrictions listed indicating that they were limited to subscribers. Full subscribers could get the digital add on for, if I remember correctly, $30 for the season. I'm getting an error trying to access the August press release about the rep from the PNB site, but I have the original in my Inbox, which in the "Ticket Information" section, "Tickets for PNB's digital-only presentation of PETITE MORT (October 5--9) are $35." It's not part of my original post, because I wanted to separate it from the main post, and because the site combines post by the same member if they're posted within a few minutes of each other, I was waiting to add it later, and forgot. The season's digital price is higher than $35/rep, even if the Nutcracker is included (49?), which I didn't pay attention to before. There was no subsequent press release that announced any change. Even if this is not their intention, it's an effective way of sticking a fork in the digital program.

Tonight, September 20, at 7:30pm (PT) San Francisco Opera opens its 2023-24 paid streaming season with Il Trovatore. Like most of their streams, it will be available on-demand for 48 hours starting at 10am PT the day after the livestream. (Some performances have been livestreamed only). The cost is $27.50 US/opera. There aren't additional fees, and there is not cart function, so they need to be purchased one at a time. More details, including technical details, are here: https://www.sfopera.com/digital/Livestream/ Il Trovatore (Giuseppe Verdi)-Wednesday, September 20 (7:30pm PDT) Leonora-Angel Blue Azucena-Ekaterina Semenchuk Manrico-Arturo Chacon-Cruz Count di Luna-George Petean Ferrando-Robert Pomakov Run Sun Kim, conductor Sir David McVicar, production The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs (Mason Bates and Mark Campbell)—Wednesday, September 27 (7:30pm PDT) Steve Jobs-John Moore Laurene Powell Jobs-Sasha Cooke Steve Wozniak-Bille Bruley Kobun Chino Otogawa-Wei Wu Paul Jobs-Joseph Latttanzi Christen Brennan-Olivia Smith Michael Christie, conductor Kevin Newbury, director Lohengrin (Richard Wagner) --Saturday, October 21 (7:30pm PDT) Lohengrin-Simon O’Neill Elsa von Brabant-Julie Adams King Heinrich-Kristinn Signundsson Friedrich von Telramund-Brian Mulligan Ortrud-Judit Kutasi The King’s Herald-Thomas Lehman Run Sun Kim, conductor David Alden, director Omar (Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels) — Saturday, November 11 (7:30pm PST) Omar-Jamez McCorkle Julie-Brittany Renee Fatima, Omar’s Mother-Taylor Raven Johnson/Owen-Daniel Okulitch Abdul, Omar’s Brother/Abe-Norman Garrett Eliza-Laura Krumm Katie Ellen/Caller-Rehanna Thelwell Auctioneer/Taylor-Barry Banks John Kennedy, conductor Kaneza Schall-Director The Elixir of Love (Gaetano Donizetti) — Sunday, November 26 (2pm PST) Nemorino-Pene Pati Adina-Slavka Zaecnikova Dulcamara-Renato Girolami Sergeant Belcore-David Biz Ramon Tear, conductor Daniel Slater, director The Magic Flute (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) — Tuesday, June 4 (7:30pm PDT) Tamino-Amitai Pati Pamina-Ghristina Gnash Papageno-Lauri Vasar Sarastro-Kwangchul Youn Queen of the Night-Anna Siminska Monostatos-Zhengyi Bai Run Sun Kim, conductor Barrie Kosky/Suzanne Andrade, production Innocence (Kaija Saariaho, Sofi Oksanen, and Aleksi Barrier) — Wednesday, June 12 (7:30p PDT) Waitress-Ruzandra Donose Mother-in-Law-Claire de Sevigne Father-in-Law-Rod Gilfry Groom-Miles Mykkanen Priest-Krtistinn Signmundsson Teacher-Lucy Shelton Markets-Vilma Jaa Lilly-Beate Mordal Jeronimo-Camilo Delgado Diaz Clement Mao-Takacs, conductor Simon Stone, production Partenope (George Frideric Handel) — Sunday, June 23 (2pm PDT) Partenope-Julie Fuchs Rosmira-Daniela Mack Alsace-Carlo Vistoli Armindo-Nicholas Tamagna Emilio-Alek Shrader Ormonte-Hadleigh Adams Christoper Moulds, conductor Christopher Alden, director

Is that how ABT works? At PNB, for example, contracts are offered in March, and promotions are announced on Opening Night, although there have been post-Nutcracker promotions announced later. I don't know if those dancers have a hybrid contract or are offered a new one.

Casting's up for the first weekend (scroll): https://www.pnb.org/season/petite-mort/ Link to the downloadable Excel file: Petite Mort 2023 09 14.xlsx Adding: there's a new dancer in the Cacti cast and on the website: Kali Kleiman: https://www.pnb.org/artists/ (No PNB bio yet, but she was previously an apprentice at Houston Ballet.)

Digital tickets at $35 are listed in the press release for the Petite Mort rep. I've only purchased advanced digital tickets for Nutcracker -- does PNB sell advanced rep tickets before the rep is over?

Cyprus has been a vacation hotspot for Russians long before this war and the wars preceding it, with many Russian-owned properties. Some who left Russia after sanctions went to Cyprus. It’s not surprising, given proximity, cost, and climate, like Spain is a similar destination for people from the UK and Mexico for people from the US. It’s also a place for Israeli’s to marry when they can’t or won’t be married by a recognized rabbi in Israel, which includes most Russian-born Jews and their descendants, so there’s a certain full-circleness about it.

The Balanchine Catalogue Archive for Ballet Imperial shows: Premiere For TPC2, NYCB is listing the open dress rehearsal date. ABT's date looks like a typo for the open dress (at Hunter College), unless they had an earlier rehearsal in mind.

Welcome to Ballet Alert!, balletmania!

Welcome to Ballet Alert!, sanity!

Carla Korbes has joined the faculty of ABT's JKO School's JPre-Professional Division: https://www.facebook.com/AmericanBalletTheatre/posts/pfbid0zQot1PayFQNtTgTonbE5T5wMwRsLBMzmRZ4kvzbbFFjPq4iDY1wTBECXhMdyNqual

Which is really a shame, because, while I heard Pavarotti give excellent performances, sometimes in the middle of his carrer and certainly by the end of his career, there are at least ten tenors singing right now that I would rather hear live, and that's not thinking about it very hard. Domingo was never a draw for me, whatever the voice range or as a conductor, but I'm in the minority about that one. But even now, if I were in NYC, I'd want to hear more of the singers cast, even if it was giving up a Pavarotti or Kaufmann, another hot ticket, in the more recent past. I love getting the cover's single performance, just to hear new and/or other voices. Just like now, I'd want to see different ABT dancers in major roles, although only the Ratmansky production of Don Q plus dancers I didn't actively avoid in the cast would entice me to see the ballet again. The Met's ticket flexibility has for decades been inversely proportionate to how they are selling. (Not specific performances, but seasons on the whole.) They have gotten looser and tighter over the years. ABT wasn't always terribly flexible, either. There was no stated policy in the "make your own" subscription terms, but a BA! person posted here that when they called to make a subscription with all of one dancer's performances -- I believe Osipova, who wasn't always reliable anyway, even if her casting listing sold a lot of tickets -- the box office person refused. I wasn't sure they'd give me three La Sylphides in a row when i was coming to NYC for a long weekend on my way to some work travel, but they did, and possibly only because I had a west coast address. If they make changes, it's usually to follow the dollar, but, if they can, their policies are based on (sometimes retroactive) supply and demand.

You are right: I was thinking of Ailey, not Joffrey.

Baryshnikov tried to shift from foreign-born and -trained dancers often hired directly as Principals to growing the company from within, and that went over as well as it seems to now. Outside NYC there aren’t so many theaters available for major, including visiting, ballet companies as there are in NYC, with two in Lincoln Center and City Center 10 blocks away, plus BAM in Brooklyn, and NYC is the only one with two major mostly resident ballet companies, plus other major companies that tour, like Joffrey Ailey (see correction below) and Dance Theatre of Harlem. In opera, with NYCO defunct, the Met competes with Carnegie Hall and the NY Phil where performances include vocalists, let alone for people who are choosing among all the arts, while NYCB competes against all of the music, except when the Met is dark (For example, for me, it was the late Hvorostovsky singing Mussorgsky with the NY Phil for the win, when there was formidable other competition for my then-visitor arts dollar.) The Met has cut down the number of productions significantly this season, and the number of performances was cut by about 10%, It’s a struggle for them to fill the house beyond the occasional hit and the Zeffirelli La Boheme, and they are not performing during tourist season, when most major artists are performing in festivals. ABT is the only major NY company that doesn’t control its venue, and because of that, it’s the only company without much major competition during it’s main season, also the tourist season, and yet, it still has issues filling the house. Some of this can still be attributed to the impacts of the pandemic — travel is way up again, but not everyone is back traveling, and, even among travelers, there were backlogs of visits to family and friends — so it will be interesting to see what happens in 2024. In San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, and Phoenix, there is one major opera and one major ballet company, and they share a venue, and in Phoenix, the ballet and opera share the venue with the Symphony for most of their season. So there’s little competition and overlap from each other, especially since some often share the same musicians for their orchestras, and the symphony isn’t/is no longer dominant, like it is in Boston, Chicago (along with the opera), and Philadelphia.

I don't know what the subscription numbers look like for NYCB. But February is most of the Spring Season, and they dropped January weeks.

NYCB has performed its Winter Season through February for decades, tourists or no tourists. (The Dancers' Emergency Fund benefit used to be the last Sunday evening of the season.) If there is the possibility to book the Met during February -- and I don't think we've seen any evidence that the Met is interested -- it's been recent and mostly during pandemic closures through re-opening, so I'm not sure how much a potential February Met season has been considered in any serious way.

Nothing would be guaranteed, but the Met runs straight from the end of September to the end of January, and there are plenty of opportunities to see their performances before February. While NYCB does perform in February -- it opens the last week Met Opera performs in January before the hiatus -- the Winter 2024 season is all mixed rep, and so is Spring 2024 until the final run of A Midsummer Night's Dream. A few weeks of full-length adult rep -- R&J around Valentine's Day seems to be popular programming for North American companies -- might do well, because it's a long stretch between ABT seasons, and winter is a tough slog. And many people want to clear Nutcracker out of their systems by then. ETA: February is also a good vocal break for the chorus. They earn their money, having to learn so much music on their own, and then rehearse vocally and learn the staging, have costume fittings, etc.

I’d assumed since the Met went to almost a full dark month that they’ve been using the stage for tech rehearsals and set-up for the second half of the season. Otherwise, it would seem like an opportunity lost.

I'm across the country and pretty far north of Segerstrom, but that almost made me weep, and not in a good way.

PNB has done the pairing before, and it's a great juxtaposition.

From the press release: Curtains Up! Pacific Northwest Ballet launches its 2023-24 Season with a triple-bill featuring foils, face powder, and fake full-frontal. Seven Performances Only: September 22 – October 1, 2023 September 22 at 7:30 PM September 23 at 2:00 and 7:30 PM September 28 – 30 at 7:30 PM October 1 at 1:00 PM Marion Oliver McCaw Hall 321 Mercer Street at Seattle Center Seattle, Washington 98109 Streaming Digitally October 5 – 9 SEATTLE, WA – Pacific Northwest Ballet leaps into its 2023-24 Season with a liberal dash of comedy sprinkled over a mixed-plate triple-bill of crowd-pleasing dance works. Jiří Kylián's Petite Mort was created to celebrate the drama of Mozart, and features fencing foils and exaggerated black baroque dress forms as dance partners. Its companion piece, Sechs Tänze (Six Dances) highlights Mozart’s humor in the face of difficult circumstances. Rounding out the prickly program is Cacti, Alexander Ekman’s gleeful parody of contemporary dance’s greater excesses, as affectionate as it is pointed. PETITE MORT plays seven performances only, September 22 through October 1 at Seattle Center’s Marion Oliver McCaw Hall. Tickets start at just $38. The program will also stream digitally October 5 - 9. Tickets for the digital access are available through $300 season subscription. For tickets and additional information, contact the PNB Box Office at 206.441.2424, in person at 301 Mercer Street, or online 24/7 at PNB.org. The PETITE MORT program line-up includes (follow select hyperlinks for complete program notes): Petite Mort Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Choreography: Jiří Kylián Staging: Roslyn Anderson, Stefan Zeromski (2023) Scenic Design: Jiří Kylián Costume Design: Joke Visser Lighting Design: Joop Caboort Lighting Supervision: Kees Tjebbes Running Time: 17 minutes Premiere: August 23, 1991, Nederlands Dans Theater PNB Premiere: November 5, 2009 The 2009 PNB premiere of Petite Mort was generously underwritten by Jeffrey & Susan Brotman and Peter & Peggy Horvitz. Jiří Kylián choreographed Petite Mort for the Salzburg Festival in commemoration of the second centenary of Mozart’s death. He chose as his music the slow movements of two of Mozart’s most beautiful and popular piano concertos. The choreography includes twelve dancers and six fencing foils. The foils serve as dancing partners and sometimes turn out to be more stubborn and willful than a human partner. Kylián also plays with black baroque dresses, which at times appear to exist separately from the dancers and at others to be molded to their bodies. Petite Mort was the first work by Kylián to be acquired by Pacific Northwest Ballet. Musical Interlude featuring The Mighty PNB Orchestra Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Divertimento in D, No. 1 Allegro, K.136/125a, Mvt. 1) Sechs Tänze (Six Dances) Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Choreography: Jiří Kylián Staging: Roslyn Anderson, Stefan Zeromski (2023) Scenic & Costume Design: Jiří Kylián Lighting Design: Joop Caboort Lighting Supervision: Kees Tjebbes Running Time: 13 minutes Premiere: August 24, 1986, Nederlands Dans Theater PNB Premiere: September 24, 2010 The 2010 PNB premiere of Jiří Kylián’s Sechs Tänze (Six Dances) was generously underwritten by Jeffrey & Susan Brotman. Choreographer Jiří Kylián has written: “Two centuries separate us from the time Mozart wrote his German Dances—an historical period shaped considerably by wars, revolutions, and all sorts of upheavals. With this in mind, I found it impossible to simply create different dance numbers reflecting merely the humor and musical brilliance of the composer. Although the entertaining quality of Sechs Tänze enjoys great general popularity, it shouldn’t only be regarded as a burlesque. Its humor ought to serve as a vehicle to point towards our relative values. Mozart’s ability to react upon difficult circumstances with a self-preserving outburst of nonsensical poetry is well known.” Cacti Music: Franz Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert Text: Spenser Theberge Choreography: Alexander Ekman Staging: Ana Maria Lucaciu Scenic and Costume Design: Alexander Ekman Lighting Design: Tom Visser Running Time: 27 minutes Premiere: February 25, 2010; Nederlands Dans Theater 2 (The Hague, The Netherlands) Pacific Northwest Ballet Premiere: November 2, 2018 The 2018 Pacific Northwest Ballet premiere of Alexander Ekman’s Cacti is generously underwritten by Susan Brotman. A gleeful and knowing parody of contemporary dance’s greater excesses, Alexander Ekman’s Cacti is an affectionate, pointed, and often hilarious deconstruction of the affectations of dance. While a string quartet plays and spoken recordings give tongue-in-cheek narration, 16 dancers run, fall, writhe, and try to escape their invisible prisons; eventually—and this is the important bit—they each acquire a cactus. But what does it all mean? Ekman has written: “This work is about how we observe art and how we often feel the need to analyze and ‘understand’ it. I believe that there is no right way and that everyone can interpret and experience art the way they want. Perhaps it’s just a feeling that you can’t explain or perhaps it’s very obvious what the message is.” SPECIAL EVENTS PNB CONVERSATIONS & DRESS REHEARSAL Thursday, June 1, 5:30 pm Nesholm Family Lecture Hall at McCaw Hall Join PNB Artistic Director Peter Boal, in conversation with Cacti stager Ana Maria Lucaciu. PNB Conversations offer in-depth interviews with artists involved in putting our repertory on stage. Attend the Conversations event only or stay for the dress rehearsal of PETITE MORT. Tickets (suggested donation of $25) are available through the PNB Box Office. BALLET TALK Nesholm Family Lecture Hall at McCaw Hall Join dance historian Doug Fullington for a 30-minute introduction to each performance, including discussions of choreography, music, history, design and the process of bringing ballet to the stage. One hour before performances. FREE for ticketholders. MEET THE ARTIST Nesholm Family Lecture Hall at McCaw Hall Skip the post-show traffic and enjoy a Q&A with Artistic Director Peter Boal and PNB dancers, immediately following each performance. FREE for ticketholders.

I don't think I've ever seen Zsilas Michael Hughes in anything but a role that is generally cast with a man. Ashton Edwards danced one of the greatest Puck's I've ever seen, and I don't think anyone who'd never seen them dance before or hadn't heard about them would ever have guessed that they danced on point. Nor do I think they would have guessed from watching them dance male, non-point corps roles.

From his piece, I got the impression that he'd already asked and answered that question, based on what he perceives as his treatment in ABT, because once part of a quota, management can think they've done enough for your career simply by hiring you and putting your picture in the brochure. I was looking at the PNB roster the other day after one of my favorite corps members posted on Instagram that she wasn't returning and I think all of last year's apprentices are now in the corps. (I don't have a printed program to check to see whether that happened last season.) PNB had gradually increased the number of Asian/Asian-American dancers over time, which does represent a significant part of the area's (PNW's) history, the good and the as ugly as it gets short of slavery,, but when I looked at the 2023 roster, and I might be off by one or two, Of the 23 corps members, seven are Black, four are Asian, and three are Latina/e/o/x, 14/23 or 61% Of the 10 Soloists, one is Black/Latina/e/o/x, two are Latina/e/o/x, and three are Asian. (I'm not sure how another Soloist identifies.) So 6/10 or 60% Of the 11 Principals, one is Black and two are Asian. 3/11 or 27% Aside from race, two dancers are self-identified as non-binary, and one performs pointe roles regularly. Over half (52%) of the company is POC, mostly American, ie, not hired from where they were a majority during their training, and mostly in the last five years, through outside hires, but also, significantly, through the school. I'm not sure how many were young enough to have started dancing because Misty Copeland's became as famous as she is now. So when I hear, "There aren't any POC dancers who are good enough, and we have to wait a decade until two make it through the vigourous process of training," I just look at the company in front of me and shake my head. Total props to Peter Boal. I'm just glad I'm here and have the privilege to see it.

Abby-Jayne DeAngelo posted to Instagram that she will become a freelance dancer and focus on Adage Ballet Studio, which she and her husband, former PNB dancer Guillaume Basso, founded. She had returned to the Company in Spring 2023 for A Midsummer Night's Dream after suffering a hip injury, and I was so happy to see her back. I'll miss her dancing, but wish her health and happiness https://www.instagram.com/p/CvdtFL9xmsD

I've never seen the ABT contract. That said, I'd be very surprised if Soloists aren't covered by the contract, and as surprised if the union didn't need to be notified before or at the same time that a dancer is in breach of conflict and next steps. Usually, there is a formal dispute process, and then there can be a NLRB application for arbitration. Re deleted posts: aside from a note that there are comments, the only ones that can be quoted here are from ballet professionals, just like all other news on this site.