Helene

Has she ever worked extensively with a small company? In Seattle, a couple of former Principals have been affiliated with small, pre-professional companies that hire professionals to dance the leads. Le Yin has danced with International Ballet Theatre, and Mara Vinson has danced for Olympic Ballet Theatre, where she and her husband, former PNB dancer Oleg Gorboulev, are co-Artistic Directors.

That's so soon: next weekend. He is a wonderful dancer, and I wish him health and happiness in whatever he does next.

This project was funded in October 2012.

This project was funded in October 2012.

This project met its goal and was funded.

Oh, sad news. Rest in peace, Ms. Tallchief.

It is, but more one the blue side of red than yellow; the presence of yellow creates an orange cast.

That definitely counts!

Here is the link to program and ticket information: http://www.virginiaartsfest.com/2013/2013-performances/dance2013/brb-coppelia This is a deal: the highest-price tickets are $65.

Sorry, I mean in this production

Thank you for posting that, Sandy: I hadn't see that for a while. Patricia Barker danced with Jeffrey Stanton, Carrie Imler with Batkhurel Bold, Kaori Nakamura with Lucien Postlewaite, and Carla Korbes with Stanko Milov. Only Bold is still dancing non-character parts: he'll dance with Lesley Rausch in this run.

The odd thing about the rich guy, which is described, not shown, is trying to figure out the timing and what happened. Mimi comes back to Rodolfo in her dying day. She's dressed in her "poor" costume, and she doesn't have a dime to her name, nothing to sell. She couldn't have come straight from the Viscount, or Musetta wouldn't be selling her earrings. What is the likelihood that the rich guy would have cared for her when she was that ill? The end of Act III is more exhausted than truly hopeful: although her condition was out in the open, their circumstances were no better, and another break-up was inevitable. This, I think, was Puccini's dramatic genius in that bittersweet act. I suspect she either wasn't very good at being the mistress of the rich guy, and/or she became too ill: either way, he dumped her, and she was back to poverty. In Act IV Musetta asks G-d to accept a prayer from a sinner on behalf of an innocent-hearted woman. The morality there isn't about sexual purity or fidelity -- we've already heard that Mimi is with a rich guy for practical reasons, not love -- but about being a good, kind person who doesn't play with people's feelings. It's not the morality of the Giorgio Germonts of the opera world.

Oops, yes, I did mean Act III. (There was not break between Acts I&II, and my brain moved them up one.) I went back the next weekend, and I wish I could have seen both casts again, but I could only see Black, Fabiano, and Phares with Ansellem's Musetta. The sweet spot in the opera house is in the second tier boxes, and I was extremely lucky that there was one empty seat in the second row of the second box on the left side facing the stage. The boxes are attached to a wall, but about six feet or so beyond the partial wall is a space, and the resonance from that space is the closest thing I've experienced to being at Carnegie Hall. Because Mimi and Rodolfo sing their first act arias downstage right, it was the perfect place to hear the singers. Sound pours from Fabiano's throat, and he didn't need that extra resonance, but there it was, and I was in heaven. There was a woman who was taking two young girls, maybe 8 and 10?, to, I believe, their first opera. The girls sat in the first row, and she sat next to me. We had the regular seats; the third row has moveable chairs and a pretty deep space; when I came back partway through one intermission, I saw they had spread out a picnic at their feet I went to several of Speight Jenkins' Q&A's after the opera, and one thing he emphasize was how much rehearsal time Act II, which is 18 minutes long (give or take), took. In a four-hour stage rehearsal, it took over 25% of the rehearsal. There are the singers, the children's chorus, the adult chorus which, if I'm remembering correctly, was supplemented with extra singers, a guy on stilts, a juggler, dancers, and maybe extras, all of whom had to come together. Especially at the beginning of the act, there was organized chaos, vignettes left and right, all too much to absorb even in three viewings. The entire enterprise reminded me of Ratmansky's"Don Quixote" which came to PNB after having been created for Dutch National Ballet. In scene after scene, there was so much going on, but like with Zvulun's staging of "La Boheme," somehow the eye went to the right thing at the right time amidst the chaos, and if it didn't, it never seemed like a distraction. The Mimis and Rodolfos could not have been more different: Demuro was a sweetheart, very gentle, but ever the chauvinist: the type of guy who would smile sweetly and tell a women what she would or wouldn't do as he patted her cheek, as opposed to Fabiano's more declarative approach. It was easy to dismiss Demuro's temperament in Act II; with Fabiano, the parallels between Alcindoro fretting over Musetta's behavior, trying to make her into a Lady, trying to get her to be demure, and Rodolfo telling what his girl does or doesn't do and trying to rationalize it as natural jealousy were very clear. Mimi is rightly puzzled by this and her reaction -- We just met. We're in love. Why are you trying to kill the buzz? -- shows how tough she is; she stands her ground. Musetta was happy to play the men off one another and make each as uncomfortable as possible. There was a very funny set of light cues before Musetta sang her waltz, as she snapped a finger for more light: it was like turn-of-the-century karaoke, and Alcindoro was mortified. Having consumption was common enough, and it affected many types of people, many of whom were forceful personalities until the end. A poor young women was not sent to Switzerland to convalesce with Hans Castorp. She coped with her life as best she could. It's possible that she's working in her garret because her health was weak, not because she was a shy wallflower. You could feel the life force in Caballero, and it was as if she weakened one layer at a time. By contrast, Jennifer Black was a sweet, gentle Mimi. It was interesting that they were cast in contrasting pairs, one force of nature with one gentler creature. I would love to see Caballero and Fabiano sing Mimi and Rodolfo together someday. The energy would be explosive.

Personal conversations aren't official news; Hallberg's interactions with his fans through social media and interviews are widely known.

Wow.

Humans are remarkably inept at ending relationships.

Yes. Who boycotted Nureyev because he could drive a hard bargain and never picked up a dinner tab? Like other young people who come into money without much experience with it, I hope she socks some away and has good advisers she can trust. The Royal Ballet, despite it's attempt to toss its heritage, seems like a better fit for her, anyway. Maybe her love of Fonteyn can help her find and re-establish the virtues that Fonteyn embodied within the company. If we're lucky, the Royal Ballet will mount some of the Fonteyn/Ashton rep that's endangered.

Many thanks, sandik!!!!!

Reading all of the books about the Diaghilev era, it didn't sound any better then or later when trying to map someone's career by whether the general with whom she was involved was in or out of favor with Stalin.

(But that clip of Shipulina and Alexandrova made my day.)

The first video caption says "the tutoring" was by Gabriela Komleva and Andrei Batalov. I assume that means coaching, but who in Russia is in charge of re-staging? In North America, that generally is a Ballet Master, since the personal coaching concept is rare, but is anyone at the Mariinsky in charge of unifying the production after the leads ar coached individually, especially if there isn't an outside stager?