Helene

The only thing I found discordant in Ib Anderson's wonderful version was Lady Tybalt's reaction to Tybalt's death, but it's built into the music. How could a choreographer ignore that when using Prokofiev's score? For versions that use other music -- Tchaikovsky in "The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet" or Delius -- does this change the relationship? I am embarassed not to remember how Kent Stowell handled the relationship. In Maillot's "Romeo et Juliette" there's no Lord Capulet and te relationship is more central from the beginning, but different dancers put different marks on what the relationship is. The most impressive to me was Seth Orza's with Maria Chapman's, where the social/political relationship was stronger than the erotic one.

In 2007 Korbes danced with Casey Herd. One of the highlights of this run will be the lecture/demo presented by Doug Fullington this Saturday, 6 April at 3pm. Edited: (although) It appears to be in McCaw Hall, since the website is showing the hall's seating chart and is resolving to "Dress" as the section, it's actually in the Phelps Center, per sandik's post below.) Here is the link for tickets, which are $20 + $3/order: http://www.pnb.org/S...ve/?perf=13LD05 According to PNB's Facebook post, Doug will lead a discussion with Maria Chapman and Jerome Tisserand, who debut as Odette/Odile and Siegfried.

Anne, thank you so much for this wonderful, detailed review! I wish I had been there to see Praetorius especially: she is clearly a major talent. Gregory Dean was one of the Princes in Ratmansky's "The Golden Cockerel," but I wouldn't count that as a dramatic acting role. Maria Bernholdt sounds unforgettable. Amen to that. It's always so frustrating to see a new company and to have dancers who catch my eye and won't let me let go, and the photos in the programs and websites are usually no help in identifying them. I hope they somehow know that they are being recognized.

I don't think she'd make the list from a NY perspective, unless the writer was trying to yank Gelb's chain.

I might have heard that performance of "Traviata" on Sirius, but I came in after Damrau's entrance and the announcements. (Damrau was divine.) When the baritone entered to great applause, I thought, "How nice for Thomas Hampson," forgetting he was in "Otello," not "Traviata." Listening to Domingo sing Papa Germont, I thought of the difference between a boys' choir vs. a women's choir: there was no darkness or complexity, just Chardonnay. His voice doesn't have enough flexibility either. The tenor sounded like he was drowning. I can't remember the ladt time I heard such a difficult performance. Even when Heppner's vouce started to break down, there were moments of vocal brilliance and musicianship, but, here, I couldn't find any silver lining Voight's been singing Brunnhilde in London. Things might have been different if Stemme had, but London loves Voight as much as the Met does. The love affair with Alagna and Gheorghiu is beyond me: I wouldn't go out of my way to see either, but there's no doubt they keep their names out there and are very popular.

Many companies cast celebrities for guests at "Nutcracker" and other story ballets. It gets the company free news coverage and brings in people who wouldn't consider going. When PNB cast a UW basketball star as Grandfather, his teamates came, as did, I'm sure, a number of his fans.

It was a list of opera "stars," not singers, and while Garanca, Bezcala, Callejo, and Damrau are wonderful singers, they aren't established stars of the order of eight of the selectees, apart from Connolly and Tomlinson, who aren't draws by themselves in North America and wouldn't be considered worldwide stars. Bartoli doesn't sing much staged opera, Scholl and Daniels are specialty singers, and Florez, who I would have thought might have made the list is as well, is close to one: it's hard to be a "star" tenor without being a Wagner and/or Puccini and/or popular Verdi (ie Duke of Mantua) tenor. It's hard to be a "star" soprano without being a dramatic soprano. It's hard to be an opera "star" doing lighter roles. Pape is someone who should sell tickets based on his name only and is among a small number of star basses, but basses are a hard sell, star-wise, and mezzos can be, too. Hvorostovsky should have been there, but, there too, he rarely has the lead, unlike Terfel, a ROH favorite and a Wotan, Don Giovanni, etc. When a Terfel pulled out of a Ring, there was hair-pulling, angst, demands for refunds, and endless arguing over his professionalism and reasons. If Hvorostovsky has to pull out -- I can't remember the last time he did -- there would be weeping, but less angst.

I know. I could make a flowchart with pros and cons, but I'd end up ruing any recommendation, and I'm still tearing my hair out over missing Nakamura's Juliette (this run) because of scheduling. Maybe one time or the other would be more practical or given her schedule she'd have more energy and focus for one or the other? The 1pm start time has put the kabosh on the reasonably early bus, but there's a trade-off in hopping off it and running to the theater when the curtain is 2pm.

My thoughts are that PNB did *not* take me, me, me, me and only me into consideration when coming up with this schedule, and ir's going to be hard to lose even one of these casts. I can't give you advice, because I want to see all of them equally. Although I'd have expected a Rausch/Tisserand pairing, since both of them are debuting in the roles, it's nice to see how Boal mixed it up. I think Chapman and Tisserand will look great together. My programs aren't at reach, but I'm fairly sure Neubert has rocked the von Rothbart boots before.

For Helsinki, I'd going here: http://www.fazer.com/Landing-page/

I think "Vienna Waltzes" follows a specific progression. It starts with the pink and innocent "Tales of the Vienna Woods." Next comes "Voices of Spring," which at one artificial, self-conscious remove, like actors playing the innocents. (As late as the '70's there were musicals that played to packed houses in Vienna, with very popular actors in their 30's and 40's playing the parts of the male ingenues.) "Explosion Polka" is dandies and their demimonde ladies. Balanchine used humor here, but there's a social relationship underlying it. "Gold and Silver Waltz" is the jaded Merry Widow sort. "Rosenkavalier" is the transition to the Freudian Vienna, which was fracturing politically, artistically, and philosophically. It doesn't get much more neurotic or narcissistic than the woman who barely notices when her partner has turned imaginary, and the music, with the discordance under the big sweeping themes, reflects a fracturing world.

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I'm sure Congress didn't, but what if they had asked and Castro, Lula, and the late Chavez were the ones who agreed ?

It's less drastic if you consider the Americas part of "American."

That is an amazing discovery. From what I've read about severe burns is that the biggest general issue is infection, and if the skin can heal and be a barrier to the infectious bacteria, that in itself is a near miracle. I would also guess that it can keep nerves from being tied up in scar tissue, and depending where the burn is, to allow flexible skin tissue to regenerate, as opposed to thick, inflexible scar tissue. Wow. to the scientists who developed this.

Ballet Jorgen's mission statement: "[A]s community friendly as hockey or curling" makes me teary. I don't think just touring or accessibility makes a company a national company; the branches of Ballets Russes became worldwide touring companies, but they weren't national companies, per se, nor were eponymous modern dance companies, like Paul Taylor or Merce Cunningham that toured extensively. I think there are two parts to being considered a national company. The first is presenting to the nation on the whole and the second is representing something about that country's approach to the art. The eponymous companies promised no more than dedication to a particular choreographer. New York City Ballet became the closest thing to a national company in terms of style, due first to Ford Foundation grant money in the 1960's, which Balanchine was central in distributing for training academies and then to the proliferation of companies run by his dancers as neoclassical companies that performed his work. When there was federal money, it got a lot of it, but it never claimed to be a touring company or a national company. The closest thing to a national company in which Balanchine participated was American Ballet Caravan, which was a touring company funded by the US government to create goodwill in Latin America. NYCB is not "American National Ballet," though, although it has created outreach recently with its NYCB Moves program, which tours with a sub-set of the company in chamber-sized rep, this season to Vail, Jackson Hole, Minneapolis, Detroit, Las Vegas, and St. Louis. The Joffrey Ballet was the closest thing to an American national ballet company, due to its extensive touring and its commitment to a wide range of repertory, including 20th century ballet classics, a sub-group of which was the Ballets Russes rep. It may have been dismissed as the 3rd ballet company in NYC, but to the rest of the country, the Joffrey was Ballet in America, much the way Winnipeg Ballet Club/Royal Winnipeg Ballet was Ballet in Canada. What it didn't have was a discernible style -- it was far too eclectic -- nor were Joffrey and Arpino considered top-notch choreographers for the ages. sandik wrote about "national style," and that's true in some cases, like Paris Opera Ballet (still), the Royal Ballet (traditionally), and Royal Danish Ballet (unfortunately, now very "who"-dependent). (The Bolshoi might argue against the Mariinsky representing a Russian national style.) Countries with strong stylistic traditions, like POB and/or tied to specific choreographers like Royal Danish Ballet and the Mariinsky Ballet, tend to maintain the legacy to a degree, with dips and very low points. Other countries without a basis in either style or a specific choreographer change their style and missions more frequently, like Swedish Royal Ballet, Royal Ballet of Flanders, and whatever the national company of Spain is at any given time. There's a difference between being a Royal ballet and a national ballet: there's no question that a Royal ballet was created for a court and distributed an occasional scrap to the rest of the country at the will of the court or government administrators. The Bolshoi Ballet was a small, relatively remote regional company for more than the first century of its history; it became dominant when Moscow became the government center and a perk. Paris Opera Ballet, for all of the lip service to using part of its huge federal subsidy for the rest of the country is still Paris Opera Ballet, and while, more than any other company in the world -- sad to say -- it is the best exemplar of national style, it's not the National Ballet of France. National Ballet of Canada is not a national company by anything but name.

If NBoC needed $100K to produce one HD "Nutcracker" transmission, the company ended last season with a $154K surplus, and, presumably, it could have shared the riches with an HD broadcast of "The Sleeping Beauty," "La Fille Mal Gardee," or "Romeo and Juliet"? As far as permissions are concerned, Ratmansky allowed cameras into the rehearsal process for a documentary called "Romeos and Juliets," which gives some indication of his willingness to embrace the goal to increase audience interest, and he did it from a more vulnerable place than showing the final work. The Metropolitan Opera, which has more unions than NBoC to worry about, and whose stakeholders have far more power, reached an agreement with all of them to broadcast a third of the season. Private fundraising is up for the company including funds from donors who've been engaged by the broadcasts, and at least in the West, while some major house like San Francisco Opera or Houston Grand Opera might be upset that they were left behind as the Met acted fast and furiously and established themselves further as "The Brand," according to Speight Jenkins of Seattle Opera, just like opera houses fretted over records, over the Metropolitan Opera Saturday broadcasts, opera on PBS's Great Performances, CD's, DVD's, internet streaming from all over the world, and HD transmissions (live and on tape delay from Europe, each technology brings more interest and money from the audience through donations and attendance. Looking at the 2011-12 annual report, over 33% of NBoC's attendance that season was for "The Nutcracker," and this is the only ballet where companies large and small, professional and semi-professional, make their annual budget with the participation of many children from local ballet schools, a much higher percentage than NBoC's substantial 1/3. At the same time, HD transmissions were still in the baby stage; the Met Opera was beginning just its 3rd season of broadcasts. NBoC also picked the same day for the transmission as San Francisco Ballet's transmission, and they had direct competition in the theaters nationwide on 13 December 2008, shown on a prime weekend for local companies performances. Is it any wonder that they took a bath and incurred the wrath of local companies with this gross miscalculation instead of broadcasting during a downtime for the major companies (Alberta, Winnipeg, Quebec) and with rep that was rare for those companies? Ballet companies have been dying to find a way to maintain interest in ballet beyond an annual '"Nutcracker" and we can put ballet in the drawer for another year." NBoC's latest published annual budget for 2011-12 was $29 million, and doing the math from articles/press release announcing Kevin Garland's departure, was up 61% from when Garland took over in 2002. According to the annual budget, 24% of revenue came from grants, but there is no breakdown of federal vs. provincial. 4% of revenue came from the endowment with $40 million assets, of which $10 million was contributed in matching funds by the Canada Cultural Investment Fund. The 2010-11 annual report also thanks Canadian Heritage and a federal minister. There is substantial federal investment in the company. If I were the company, I'd perform in Ottawa, too. NBoC chooses to spend it's money primarily on its season in Toronto. It chooses to tour outside Canada when opportunities arise. These are the Company's prerogatives. However, it is not a national company by any stretch of the imagination except, perhaps, in the percentage of funds raised through the federal government, and it should not be mis-named "National" of anything.

Here is a photo of Baryshnikov with the lovely US Ice Dancer Maia Shibutani: https://twitter.com/MaiaShibutani/status/317427208404758529/photo/1

I know hot dogs are pre-cooked, but yuck.

I do the Ballet Alert! calendar, and I know where the company has been and has not been. NBoC's idea of a domestic tour is a run in Ottawa. NBoC has canceled this year's Western Tour because of funding, but it's bringing the Ratmansky "Romeo and Juliet" to London and "Giselle," "The Four Season," and "Emergence" to Saratoga Springs. The biennial tour in 2009 was canceled as well, after having dropped Winnipeg and Saskatoon from the original itinerary. According to the press release for the 2011 Western Tour, Winnipeg was added for the first time in 14 years, and it skipped Saskatchewan. In Nanaimo, Victoria, and Vancouver only, Karen Kain brought a small group primarily for a benefit for Ballet BC, which was in danger of never re-opening. I would be much more interested in seeing three or four broadcasts of the Toronto performances in a movie theater, so I could see what London and Saratoga Springs are seeing, and so could the people in Regina, Saskatoon, Quebec, Charlottetown, Halifax, etc.

The Metropolitan Opera tweeted a link to this Peeps diorama of "Die Walkure." http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/peeps-pick-your-favorite-diorama/2013/03/26/50b0bb60-8b4b-11e2-9838-d62f083ba93f_gallery.html#imgid=6f6fa470-8b3d-11e2-9838-d62f083ba93f

Thank you so much for the news -- to Mme Abbagnato!

Jonathan Porretta is participating in the 2nd annual Men in Kilts fundraiser for the Ronald McDonald House: http://www.meninkilts.rmhcseattle.org/ Votes are $25/ea., and there's a fundraising party on 13 April at Georgetown Brewing Company to meet the contestants and announce the winner. Tickets are $40 for the party.