Helene

Union Square is a great area with lots of choices, and it's where all of the major department stores are and a very short BART ride to Embarcadero, a five-minute walk to the Ferry Terminal, where on weekend days there is a big outdoor market around the building and inside, some wonderful places to eat. I love to go there before matinees, and then take BART to Civic Center, a few long blocks to the Opera House. For what it's worth, I think Fisherman's Wharf is overrated.

To get to Inn at the Opera, you go through the exits on the North side (to the left of the front entrance), pass the stage door to your left, where there will be lots of people after the show, and walk about a block to the Inn. Those streets are well lit, and there's a very busy parking garage right before the Inn. I've never seen a panhandler on those blocks after the show: there's enough foot traffic, but not enough to distract them from the City Hall/BART area our the front door, where the odds are much better. It's when you're a few blocks past the Inn (if you kept walking) that things are quiet and feel deserted, which, if I were with someone else, wouldn't be an issue for me. There's also a fancy restaurant in the Inn, so that there are people around finishing late meals. They have a very nice continental breakfast in the mornings, which is usually included, except for a tip for the wait staff. They usually have a two-day minimum, and the last few times I've been down, it's been for an overnight, and I didn't qualify for a room. It's the first place I look, though, because it's so convenient after the show.

Another option is VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owner), which lists apartments that people rent out by the night or week. Some have two-night minimums. Friends used it last Spring when they visited to see the SFO Ring. I'm glad to hear it confirmed that the taxi sign-up is for the ballet, too.

I jumped the gun: it's just now been release in paperback: the holidays are just around the corner.

I've stayed at the Kabuki Hotel, too. I didn't love the walk back alone, because there weren't many people around between Van Ness and the hotel, but it was doable in ~20 minutes.

Just as a note: a walk up Van Ness is a walk up a hill. I think it looks more formidable than it feels, especially since the Opal isn't that far up, and the grade looks deceptive steep. While the area towards the BART station does have lots of homeless people around, there are usually so many people heading to the station after the performance that there is safety in numbers. The best place I've ever stayed is Inn at the Opera, which is about a block directly behind War Memorial. It's very convenient, the only thing you have to worry about is watching out for the cars coming out of a nearby parking lot, and there are a number of restaurants and bars within a few block radius, if you want to get a snack after the show, but want to feel safe walking a few blocks back to the hotel. Since it's part of the Shell Hospitality scheme, with some rooms open to the public -- best available during the winter and spring -- the rooms have microwaves and small fridges. Otherwise, you have so many options if you're willing to split a taxi. I'm not sure if this is true for the ballet, but for the opera, you used to go to the left side of the lobby (walking into the building) past coat check and sign up for a taxi ahead of time. Then you head to the same place after the performance, and there's a rank waiting, pre-arranged by the house. I'd suggest the Archbishop's Mansion if you're only going to be around for a short visit and are willing to take a taxi home. It's also in the direction opposite of City Hall, only about a 10-15-minute walk, but it's a deserted walk that I don't like taking alone at night, although it is fine during the day. The building is very interesting and unusual. I'd stay there again in a minute if I were traveling with someone or meeting a local with a car. Another option if you don't mind taking the bus over and a taxi back is Union Square, which, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be a category on Trip Advisor. There are restaurants everywhere and a gazillion people around no matter what the hour. Getting there is, at worst, a few block downhill walk, a crosstown bus, and then another, short downhill walk. (Unfortunately, bus service is spotty for the return trip, and a taxi split a few ways is a much better option.) There are a number of good hotels in the area -- I got a great deal from Expedia one year at The Orchard, and this past June stayed at Cornell Hotel de France, which I liked very much. I usually check for availability and price out Inn at the Opera, and then go to Expedia to see what's going at a good rate. Then I read reviews to find clean and no comments that the walls are paper-thin and make a decision.

The scary thing is that it plays two days after Thanksgiving. Is it really that time already?

Stephen Loch, an alumni of LakeCities Ballet in Lewisville, TX, will guest with the company in "Nutcracker" on 24-25 November. Sarah Lane and Sascha Radetsky will perform the Sugar Plum Fairy and Cavalier. http://allenamerican.com/articles/2012/11/13/lewisville_leader/news/8867.txt

Today I saw the HD broadcast of Thomas Ades' "The Tempest." I had heard the first act and part of the second on Sirius sometime in the last few weeks, and liked what I heard. The HD broadcast of what I heard was so much more, and the music stayed at the highest standard. Director Robert Lepage has set the opera in the La Scala Opera House in the 18th century. In the HD broadcast, the setting for me was neutral: I liked it, but because of the camera focused (correctly) on the singer-actors, I didn't think much about the setting. Kym Barrett's costumes, though, were gorgeous, and the 18th century was a good one for clothing that looked stunning on all body types. (Ice dancers all over the world should swarm Barrett for the secret to avoiding costume malfunction, for with all of the lying on her side and rolling in the grass with Ferdinand our Miranda did in her low cut dress, there were no embarrassing slips.) Everything about the detailed direction, specifically of the interpersonal relationships, that I had missed in Lepage's "Ring" and that I knew from his other work, both opera and theater, was there in "The Tempest." (I think The Machine was a distracting time suck.) The last time I was immersed in "The Tempest" was 1979, and following the standard explanation of Wagner's "Ring" sources from German and Nordic mythology, I was surprised that there were similarities between Shakespeare's characterization of the levels of the enslaved -- Ariel and Loge on the one hand and Caliban and Alberich/Mime -- and their resentments and visions of grandeur. Wotan isn't as uniformly vengeful as Prospero or willing to do the work himself -- after all, Prospero is a sorcerer, not a god -- but he is split. At least one of the themes come full circle in the changes Ades and librettist Meredith Oakes made in the story: at the end, Caliban is left on his island, seemingly alone and with no female to have his children, but in the scene before, Prospero forgives his treacherous brother Antonio, who, resentful of the turn of events, slinks off the stage backwards, but to where? much like Alberich disappears from the "Ring," and you have to do tally up the deaths to remember that the Rhine Daughters aren't the only ones left. Ades twists the convention that Wagner uses in "Siegfried" as Mime acts unctuously towards Siegfried while spouting venomous words: here, Ariel sings the contemptuous and insulting asides by Sebastian and Antonio, that the Court isn't supposed to hear, literally putting words in their mouths. The music starts out discordantly, but at times it became remarkably lyrical, deliberately in the beautiful love scenes between Miranda and Ferdinand, another departure from Shakespeare:rather than using magic to bring them together, they fall for each other on their own, and Prospero sees this as breaking his spell over her, another turn to Wagner, where Siegmund's love for Sieglinde causes him to reject Valhalla when he learns that Sieglinde can't join him, and it causes Brunnhilde to understand a point of view that isn't her father's and extend her love to someone else, which causes Daddy all kind of fury. (The way it's staged, Miranda and Ferdinand literally walk off into the sunset at the end of Act II, even if they don't get very far in distance.) However, there are excruciatingly sad, reflective lyrical passages especially for Prospero, as interpreted by the role's creator, Simon Keenleyside, and most of what's written for Alonso, who spends most of the opera mourning his son. There are crazy high passages for Ariel that go beyond coloratura, and if they resemble anything, it's the vocal line for Gepopo Chief from "Le Grand Macabre," an opera I disliked as much as I loved this "Tempest." In the intro Ades was compared to Britten. I don't know Britten well, but it didn't sound like Britten. It didn't sound like most new North American opera I've heard, in which I have a checklist of the influences -- Barber, Copland, Mahler, Bernstein, maybe a little Schoenberg -- and, almost all of which cross into or get dangerously close to Broadway musical sound, even of it's closer to Sondheim than Lloyd Webber. (I think that "Lillian Alling" and "Heart of a Soldier," with cuts to bring them in at two hours, could play in New York.) I've never heard anything like Ades music: despite its range, it sounds to me like it comes from a singular voice. He and Oakes collaborated on a beautiful piece of storytelling. Keenleyside created Prospero; the only other original cast (from 2004) member was Toby Spence who sang Ferdinand in the premiere and in Santa Fe, but here sang Antonio. Audrey Luna -- what a great name! -- sang Ariel's crazy vocal lines with aplomb. She, like Alan Oke, a superb Caliban, had lots of difficult physical stage action. Among other feats, Luna spent a lot of time climbing around the arms of a fallen chandelier, had to sing horizontally while being carried by a few leotarded people with their hands on her rib cage, she had to climb up the side of the set -- I think she had a line attached to pull her up -- and she spent a lot of time in Act III with one foot over a cage bar. (Think Nureyev in "PIerrot Lunaire." She must do lots of yoga.) Dressed in a pinky-lilacy body suit -- at least Oke's Caliban suit looked like it had some room for padding -- she's also the first soprano I've ever seen who was taller and thinner than the "stunt" dancer who did all kinds of Cirque du Soleil gymnastics on the rotating chandelier to open the opera. Her voice was like the aural equivalent of a rhythmic gymnast, if you include the ribbon. Ades take on Caliban, while making him a Monostatos-like schemer, also gave him dignity, and Oke acted as if he were a person, not a deformed, inferior creature: after all, he's as much of an heir to a throne as Prospero, and his mother was a great sorceress, easily Prospero's equal, not that any court would consider him so. (It's also not as if an 18th century court had the highest standard of personal hygiene, either. ) Without being preachy or heavy handed, the opera pulled the curtain on some of the nastier aspects of colonialism by having the all of the characters play it straight. The opera was structured to tell the story, and of the main characters, Miranda is central in her opening scene with Prospero and in her scenes with Ferdinand and in the first act trio. In the last act, neither she nor Ferdinand has much until the end of the opera, as it focuses on the court, leading to resolution. (Too bad, because both Isabelle Leonard and Alek Shrader are awful purty.) Because of the camerawork, we only got glimpses that Prospero is onstage a lot more than when he sings, observing the goings on. Caliban, as a foil, and Ariel, as a catalyst, had more consistent stage time. It was pretty amazing to have a singer of William Burden's caliber as Alfonso. The role needed him, and though more than a cameo, even if his role was as moving as Prince Gremin's, it was still a relatively small part, like the other courtiers' roles. The only singer who went overboard with the ham was Kevin Burdette as Stefano, but as one of the two token drunks, he wasn't more out there than your average Bottom in Balanchine's "A Midsummer Nights Dream": he was just more out there than the rest of the cast, including Iestyn Davies' Trinculo. (Davies made me reconsider my disinterest in countertenors.) The choreography was by Crystal Pite. I don't know if she choreographed all of the slithery-slidey-writhy characters in leotards and fright wigs for Cirque du Soleil -- the ones that are ubiquitous in those shows -- but that's what it looked like, and the equivalent in Ingmar Bergman's film of "The Magic Flute" were scarier and less affected. It didn't look like anything of hers I'd seen before, and it was, thankfully, short. Thomas Ades conducted his score; the orchestra sounded great, with lots of colors in their playing. Deborah Voight did the hosting, and she was much better when she spontaneously joked with her colleagues than reading off the teleprompter. She interviewed Keenleyside, who was refreshingly not weird, Leonard and Shrader, Luna and Oke, and, as usual, before the last curtain, the conductor. Ades was as gracious as he could be -- lovely bass-baritone speaking voice -- but he looked like he'd rather be conducting. She also intereviewed the gorgeous Elina Garanca, who sings Sesto in "La Clemenza di Tito" in December. There was a taped interview with Oakes, Ades, and Lepage, moderated by Peter Gelb, and the three interviewees looked like they'd rather be having their teeth pulled.

Paul, I missed your post until now. Stonikas' "Komm Hoffnung" was mixed: there were parts that were brilliant and parts where it sounded like her voice wasn't anchored. It was the only part of the day that wasn't uniformly brilliant for her. Her second act was fantastic.

One thing I've noticed is that clicking on the #[n] on the shaded part at the top of each post -- the number of the post in the thread -- only places the post at the top of the page, but not longer triggers a dialogue box to save the link. To save the link in Firefox, I had to right click on the number and select "Copy link location." It may be that a pop-up box suppression add-in is at work here, although other dialogue boxes have been working.

I checked the support forums, and this was reported back in April, but there was no response. I'm going to open up a ticket if I don't get a response to my post.

The behavior I'm noticing for "View New Posts" left menu is that the software will let us change By content type, and within content type, Other, but will not allow changes to By time period. I'll look to see if this has been reported.

The reason I made that distinction is because in the big state academies, they select kids between eight and ten that pass all of the physical tests, for turnout, extension, strong feet and back, and whatever body type they're looking for. (They traditionally check out the family to see what's in the gene pool.) They are investing is a very specific few, and those few get exceptional stylistic and technical training and a core curriculum from the time that they are very young. If a dancer joins the SAB Professional Division at 13, chances are s/he's just uprooted him or herself at the same time s/he's going through puberty, and she's three-five years behind in that school's training. If as a child s/he's studied with a great teacher who's given him or her great basics and a sense of style, that's fantastic, but that's not always the case. If the dancer wants an education, s/he arranges it independently of SAB, and isn't given a mandatory curriculum integrated into the dance training. I mentioned Zien, because as a child she and her sister were "Nutcracker" kids, and she was Little Red Riding Hood in Peter Martin's "The Sleeping Beauty," a piece of theatrical brilliance. She was one of the kids who started young in the school and joined the PD later.

School of American Ballet isn't the same, though, as POB, Vaganova, RDB School, and the Bolshoi school, and maybe still in some places in Russia like Perm? SAB has two tracks: the recreational track (for lack of a better term) and the Professional Division track. SAB tends to get its students in the Professional Division as young teenagers, although some, like Likolani Brown only spent a few full years there, and there has been little overlap between the kids who start their at eight and the kids that are studying there at 14, let alone the students who make it into the Company. Part of this had been the lack of dorms, and part because there are very few parents who would send their kids earlier to live away from home at eight or nine. Ballet doesn't have the prestige here, it isn't seen as a way to secure a good place to live/good food and benefits to the family, and the kids part of SAB is not the kind of integrated (with academic subjects, ballet history, and languages) school that the other schools have. It's not a straight path to a career like it is at the Mariinsky School; the kids are self-selected, not professionally selected for a final product. Even NYers like Stephanie Saland and Maria Calegari, who could live at home, didn't start at SAB when they were young children. Some of NYCB dancers who started as children are Judith Fugate, Peter Boal, Jennie Somogyi, and Amar Ramassar. I'm sure there are a few others, as well as those like Zoe Zien who join other companies, but if you look at the history of SAB from the time of the Ford Foundation, it strikes me that the kids division is an income source, since the number who join NYCB is very low. What the NYCB Professional Division has done is to feed a lot of dancers each year into other companies. When Peter Boal joined NYCB, of the 46 or so roster of PNB, 14 had studied under him at SAB, and one (Louise Nadeau) had been his peer at SAB, and at that point, he had only hired Korbes directly into the company. (Miranda Weese was a guest and then joined for a couple of years, and the Orzas, William Lin-Yee, and most recently, Matthew Renko, came later.) While NYCB may use SAB to cherry pick dancers for the company, and, earlier than that, use their summer program to cherry pick dancers for the school, there are dancers that they haven't hired -- politics, having too many of their type, wouldn't thrive in a big company, might be injury prone with a NYCB schedule, etc.-- as well as those who've said "No thank you" who've excelled elsewhere.

I found the duplicate Members and Forums tab issue in the IPS Knowledge Base, and I made the fix.The issue with the BT4D URL is that it won't work with the "www." in it. It must be "h t t p://dancers.invisionzone.com." without the spaces (which are there to keep it from becoming an unreadable link). That has the three impacts that Victoria found: On the link from BA to BT4D, which I've fixed, and it's now working. When typing the URL into the browser. In saved bookmarks ("favorites" in IE speak) Typing the URL Into the Browser When I typed in the BT4D URL, it wouldn't work until I cleared my browser history, because no matter what I typed, it defaulted to the old URL. If you find that this is your situation, you have to clear the browser history. The common browsers -- Safari, Firefox, and IE -- have different ways of bundling the things that are cleared. Warning: depending on the browser, you may be clearing your cookies either by default, or if you're not careful. To clear browser history: Firefox for Macs Select Tools Select Clear Recent History [*]Firefox for PCs (everything has to be more complicated) Select Firefox Select History Select Clear Recent History If it's your first time in this screen, select a time frame and click the button that isn't "cancel". When you return to this screen, the next screen will have your previous selection defaulted in the drop-down, and you can change the selection. I'm not sure if clearing anything short of "Everything" will be effective. [*]Unselect everything but "Browser history and downloads" and "Cache" You probably don't want to delete all of your cookies unless your browser saves all of your usernames and passwords. [*]Click Clear All Now [*]iPad Select the "book" ("Bookmarks") icon Select History Click the Clear History button [*]Safari Select History Select Clear History Bookmarks If your bookmarks to BT4D are not working, please check the URL and replace with (without the spaces in "http" "h t t p://dancers.invis...ionzone.com." Warning: if you just delete the part that doesn't work (instead of typing the entire URL from scratch), please be sure to include the "." after "www" in the deletion. Firefox (for Macs and PCs): Bookmarks If you're on a PC, select Firefox Select Bookmarks/Show All Bookmarks Select location (Bookmarks Menu or Bookmarks Toolbar) Find and select Bookmark Update BT4D URL in "Location" [*]Home Page For PC's: Select Firefox/Options For Macs: Select Firefox/Preferences Select the General tab Update the BT4D URL in "Home Page" Click OK [*]Safari (Macs) Bookmarks Select Bookmarks/Show All Bookmarks If Bookmark is on Bookmarks Bar or Bookmarks Menu, select one Select BT4D Bookmark Right click on highlighted Bookmark Select Edit Address Update the BT4D URL in "Address" [*]Home Page Select Safari/Preferences Select the General Tab Update the BT4D URL in "Homepage" Click OK [*]Safari for iPads Bookmarks Select the "book" ("Bookmarks") icon Click the Edit button Click the ">" (Greater Than) icon next to the Bookmark Update the BT4D URL in the new screen [*]Reading List -- You can't update, but you can delete and re-add: Select the "book" ("Bookmarks") icon Select Reading List From the All or Unread tab, swipe the entry to the right; a Delete button should appear. Click the Delete button [*]IE 9 Favorites In the upper right corner, click the yellow star (between the house and the wheel) Select Favorites Bar Select the Favorite from the Favorites Bar or standalone list Right click the highlighted Favorite Select Properties Update BT4D URL in "URL" [*]Home Page In the upper right corner, click the wheel ("Tools") Select Internet Options Select the General tab Update BT4D URL in "Home page" Click OK

The UIs (called "Skins") for the PC and the cell phone are completely separate. I'm afraid that because the cell phone interface makes admin-ning difficult, I gave it a shot when it first came out, but since then I've only used the full version. I'm sorry, but I don't remember what it looked like enough to know what the changes are. I wish I could figure out why there are three "<" symbols between the "[n] user(s) are reading this topic" message and the amazon.com search box at the bottom of each page. Grrrrrr.

Are there temporary/limited duration contracts at the Mariinsky?

The upgrade is complete. There are some changes to the UI that I'm still in the process of finding and making, and I'm still looking for version of the modification that displays and allows entry for topic subtitles and that works with the upgraded version. It may take me a little while. Please let me know in this thread if you find anomalies along the way.

Here is a short interview with Natalia Magnicaballi, who will dance Siren in "Prodigal Son," in "Pointe Magazine": http://www.pointemag...e-farrells-muse

I'm about to put in the request for the latest upgrade. Please expect a blip in the board sometime soon. Unfortunately, we won't know exactly when it will happen, and the choices are 1. Closing the board down until it does or 2. Keeping the board up, knowing that in the transition, we may lose a post or two. For the last few upgrades, we've chosen the latter. My suggestion is: if you are posting today (Wednesday, 7 November), especially if it's a long post, please copy and paste it into a Word or text file, so that you can re-post, if your post is caught mid-upgrade. I'll confirm when the upgrade is complete.

Here's the press release (emphasis added): Dancers Among Us A Celebration of Joy in the Everyday By Jordan Matter “This book is something you should pick up every time you have forgotten that there is wit and beauty in the world—literally all around us.” —Alan Cumming, Tony Award-winning actor Meet photographer Jordan Matter, and some of the Pacific Northwest Ballet artists featured in Dancers Among Us, at two book-signing events in Seattle: Sunday, November 11 at 3:15 pm (following the final performance of ALL PREMIERE) Amusements Gift Shop in McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer Street at Seattle Center Monday, November 12 at 6:30 pm Elliott Bay Book Company , 1521 Tenth Avenue on Capitol Hill. A man running to catch the train. A woman relaxing on a bench. Office workers in cubicles. A woman shopping for shoes. A mother and son crossing the street. You probably see moments like this every day, but you have never seen them like this. Dancers Among Us: A Celebration of Joy in the Everyday[/size] (Workman / Nov 2012) by Jordan Matter presents one thrilling photograph after another of dancers leaping, spinning, lifting, kicking—but in the midst of daily life: on the beach, at a construction site, in a library, a restaurant, a park. Photographer Jordan Matter started his Dancers Among Us Project by asking a member of the Paul Taylor Dance Company to dance for him in an unexpected place. So, dressed in a commuter’s suit and tie, the dancer flew across a Times Square subway platform. That image, and the others in the book, capture the feeling of being fully alive in the moment; fully present. The dancers didn’t use trampolines and their positions haven’t been altered in Photoshop. The images here are the magical combination of a photographer, his vision, talented dancers, and the serendipity of what happens when the shutter clicks. Organized around themes of working, playing, loving, exploring, dreaming, grieving, and living, Dancers Among Us celebrates life in a way that’s fresh, original, and universal. Six dancers from Pacific Northwest Ballet – Kyle Davis, Angelica Generosa, Eric Hipolito Jr., Sarah Pasch, Sean Rollofson and Ezra Thomson – are among the artists featured in Dancers Among Us. Meet them and photographer Jordan Matter at two book-signing events in Seattle: Sunday, November 11 at 3:15 pm at Amusements Gift Shop in McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer Street at Seattle Center (following the final performance of ALL PREMIERE); and Monday, November 12 at 6:30 pm at Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 Tenth Avenue on Capitol Hill.

I'm afraid that this is one of those "be careful what you wish for" things. Despite this, if I lived in Miami, I would rather see the company build towards performing the classics, than act as if Nacho Duato and Jiri Kylian are cutting edge or fill out a neoclassical roster with contemporary dance. (There are contemporary dance companies that do that.) I like Christopher Stowell's approach of starting with one act, and not biting off more than the company can chew (or as a close friend would say, "I don't kill more than I can eat.") Miami has the advantage of having many dancers with the proper training who could coach in the style, because for MCB, the classics in the proper style are expanding the dancers horizons, since they haven't been dancing it. But, if MCB isn't willing to go in that direction, there is neoclassical work worth presenting. PNB just did four new works, and three of the four were actually ballet, even if one of them was choreographed by Mark Morris. New work does not have to come from some other genre, and North American AD choreographers and/or who run companies with resident choreographers seem to be pig-headed about sharing or accepting solid to great new ballets. I don't think anyone is going to tear the "savior of ballet" crown from Wheeldon or Ratmansky's head to hand it to Kiyon Gaines (at least yet), but his "Sum Stravinsky" is a wonderful work that just about every NA ballet company I've ever seen would look great in, and, practically-speaking, as Macaulay pointed out, it three couples (six lead roles) as well as being the right sized corps, to give just one example.

I disagree that Miami City Ballet needs to dance classical ballet equally to the Russian and Cuban companies: New York City Ballet was a ballet company with a single one-act "Swan Lake" and a neoclassical focus without attempting to do what you're describing., and MCB dancers can do equally spectacular fish dives, albeit in Tchaikovsky PDD. American Ballet Theatre wasn't a classics-based company for over a decade. The Ballets Russes was the ballet tradition in America, and Petipa wasn't big on its roster. A neoclassical company is a different kettle of fish from a classical company. There aren't any major classical companies in the US, although ABT's spring season masquerades as one. I wouldn't be sad if most of Tharp was eliminated from neoclassical companies, but if MCB wants to be one of the few neoclassical companies -- there aren't many of those, since almost every established Child of Balanchine company has "Swan Lake", "Sleeping Beauty," "Giselle," and "Don Q" on its roster -- that's its prerogative. To perform the classics, it would have to change from being the only major NA company that is modelled on Balanchine's (pre-Martins), to being like every other major company. Balanchine's aversion to presenting the classics wasn't just aesthetic, but also because, having been trained in the Imperial Ballet School, he knew what it takes to do the classics properly, and there is no school in NA that has that combination of training and resources.