Helene
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Posts posted by Helene
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I thought the finals were wonderful, and I want to go back and listen to earlier rounds.
It was also nice to hear Aidan Lang, the chair of the jury, give a short speech before asking Dame Kiri TeKanawa to announce the winner. Lang was General Director of Seattle Opera between Speight Jenkins and current GD, Christina Scheppelmann.
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"Like Water for Chocolate" was a continuation of the Magical Realism literary movement in Latin America. It certainly centered women's experiences. I enjoyed the recipes. (Like Ella Fitzgerald, I don't [really] cook, but thinking about how other people would make something gives me joy and endless entertainment.) And it has all of the elements of a narrative ballet, if the plotlines are carefully chosen and the storytelling is clear.
It was a runaway hit in many languages when it was published and became first of a trilogy, and the film version broke box offices records at the time for a foreign language film in the US. As I noted earlier, it was meant to be a Broadway show, but that seems to have been put on ice as a result of the pandemic. (There were a number of big names involved, and getting their schedules to align might be challenging, but there was nothing I can find published to say that it was killed or sold.) The ballet and the show should have been mutually reinforcing, but that was not to be.
I'm looking forward to seeing the stream of El utimo sueno de Frida y Diego later this week, but there's room for both for me, anyway. If I were in NYC, I wouldn't miss Like Water for Chocolate.
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May she rest in peace.
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There was supposed to be a Broadway musical version of Like Water for Chocolate, announced in October 2020, to be produced by Tom Hulce and Ira Pittleman and directed by Michael Mayer, with Wheeldon's ballet following or launched around the same time,
At the same time, Jackson McHenry wrote in Vulture,
QuoteMore than 30 years after the 1989 release of the original novel, the world of Like Water for Chocolate is suddenly expanding.
and goes on to cite two sequel novels planned* by Esquivel, "Tita's Diary" and "The Colors of My Past" that would form a trilogy, and the Broadway musical announced a week earlier.
*This confuses me, because "El diaria de Tita" was published in 2016, and "The Colors of My Past" had been published the week before.
I don't see any reviews of the musical, or any clarifications about when it was supposed to launch, so the project seems to have been put on ice, if not abandoned altogether.
It makes sense, though, to think that the musical and the ballet might have brought "Like Water for Chocolate" back to the forefront and have been mutually reinforcing in terms of publicity, articles, ticket sales, etc.
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There are always exceptions, and if a dancer as internationally known as Yuha Wang was dancing in NYC, I'm sure the performance in a run of others, unlike a recital or up-to-three concerto performances, would have a good chance of selling out, but how many performances of ballets, including with dancers and programs that have gotten raves here, that aren't matinees and/or Tchaikovsky classics, have been selling out with the entire theater opened, and mostly in smaller theaters than the barn that is the Met?
I've listened to extraordinary performances of operas at the Met this season with amazing singers, and I've confirmed with friends who heard the operas live to be sure it wasn't vocally weak in the house, but great when miked, and while some, like Lohengrin, ended up selling to near sell-outs over the course of the run, and matinees are generally, if not always well sold, tickets sales in the house for Not-La-Boheme were often weak, despite the singing and/or the productions.
The norm is that little sells out, and almost all seasons of major ballet companies are subsidized by Tchaikovsky classics and the occasional suprise or anticipated hit. That doesn't mean that ABT's planning of a new ballet for an opening long run was a good tactic, but it's not like there's a magic pill for rep companies.
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They'll be the recipients of sold-out-crowd energy, so good for them. And maybe even some kids in the audience will watching them and think that they would like to dance.
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13 minutes ago, SandyMcKean said:
but I didn't expect it since I believe only one person is allowed to play that music.
PNB Concertmaster has played Maxwell's Demon for Red Angels:
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Insider information has been removed.
Official news only: if an insider makes it public, then it can be discussion here. Otherwise, do not post it.
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The ED at San Francisco Ballet, who came from the museum world, left for a dream job sooner than anyone had expected.
Not everyone takes a job or is hired to be long term and open-ended: people take jobs expecting them to be short-term or to shepherd an institution through particular transition or accomplish a project with an end-point (like a new building or initiative) or to be in a place because their partner has a limited term opportunity there or because of family concerns.
We've had ED's come from other arts industries, like opera and symphonies: they are not lifers in ballet who've worked their way up the ranks and have gone to new companies for better jobs and opportunities and are beholden to a single industry for references and employment. That means they have much more flexibility in finding or being offered other opportunities outside the dance world.
These are all jobs, and people who have a lot of opportunities, which Rolle has if she's leaving to be on corporate and non-profit boards, often take them when they become available, even if that is less-than-ideal timing for their current employer or not necessarily at a time when they'd expected to move, but don't want to pass up something better for them. It's her career and her life, and, frankly, ED at ABT is unlikely the be-all and end-all of her career.
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I will miss his writing. I loved his memoir, Avid Reader, for it's energy. The last time I saw him was in a delightful presentation, I believe from the 92 Y, in which he, Robert Caro, and his daughter, Lizzie Gottlieb discussed her documentary, "Turn Every Page," about their 50-year relationship as editor and author. Back in January Gottlieb was still waiting to edit Caro's fifth and final volume on Lyndon Johnson.
In the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/books/robert-gottlieb-dead.html
In the Washington Post, with a Toni Morrison quote and a wonderful photo of the young Caro and Gottlieb:
In The New Yorker, from David Remnick:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/06/26/remembering-robert-gottlieb-editor-extraordinaire
More:
A Fresh Air interview from January 2023:
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/03/1146644054/acclaimed-book-editor-robert-gottlieb
May his memory be a blessing.
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The news was posted in the Broadcasts forum, but it bears repeating here: the stream is available for free online through June 15 at 11:59pm PDT:
https://www.pnb.org/season/season-encore/
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I'm so glad!
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I hope all of our New Yorkers and everyone else in the wake of the smoke from the Quebec wildfires have safe spaces to be until the skies clear.
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I've seen Mearns do that.
Cote was her partner in Peter Martins full-length Swan Lake, when he guested with NYCB to replace Tyler Angle in 2020, little more than a month before everything shut down.
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If Ratmansky's Romeo and Juliet is as bad as all that, then Lunkina or any other ballerina who might have been cast as Juliet #5 dodged a bullet.
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There are five dancers performing Juliet, according to the casting that was posted towards the end of May. I don't understand why it's Mearns vs. Lunkina, when there are four other ballerinas cast for the role. If Mearns wasn't dancing, is there any guarantee that it would have been Lunkina chosen as the fifth? I apologized if I missed an article discussing this.
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In fact, the "information" is that Ratmansky left ABT, according to official news, which is the only thing that can be posted according to our rules and policies*, and he is now affiliated with NYCB.
Since choreographers often have contractual or handshake agreements with companies to cast their own ballets, Ratmansky would have thought it was the appropriate time to cast/suggest Mearns. If you follow the timeline of the official news, which said that ABT announced that Ratmansky was leaving after 13 years, Ratmansky was not working for NYCB when Romeo and Juliet premiered at NBoC in 2011, or 12 years ago. In any case, any guest casting he might have wanted/suggested at any time it was performed by NBoC would have been subject to the agreement of the guest dancer's company and NBoC. If Mearns is performing in Toronto, then NYCB and NBoC management would have had to agree to it.
*Since you are new, you may want to re-read our Rules and Policies that you agreed to when you joined Ballet Alert! We allow official news only, and we will remove unofficial news, including insider information and conspiracy theories, unless expressed by a ballet professional under their own name, ie, official news:
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One she did when she was still a teenager, to great acclaim, and one in which she's deepened her portrayal over the years.
She's also danced Titania in Balanchine's two-act A Midsummer Night's Dream, to great acclaim, Balanchine's very dramatic Robert Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze, and the Sugar Plum Fairy in Balanchine's "The Nutcracker." As far as "plotless' goes, she's danced all of the roles that Balanchine so famously described as "A man gives a hand to another, and there's already a story there. So how much story you want?" And that could describe the one-act Ratmansky ballets I've seen.
She's one of the greatest dramatic ballerinas I've ever seen, and I'm pretty certain there will be people in Toronto who will appreciate her dancing, even if they are surprised.
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Mearns and Lukhina have different core reps, but Mearns is equally lauded in hers, and she's created roles for many choreographers, including in Ratmansky's best.
Invited guests in major companies are often lightening rods for company supporters.
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Welcome to Ballet Alert! BayStater -- we're glad you've joined us!
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The first ABT performances I'd ever seen were in 1971 at the New York State Theater in the summer. They were also at the NYST in the summer of 1974, when Baryshnikov made his NY debut in Giselle.
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It's too bad that ABT and NYCB couldn't have a joint festival at City Center to perform more intimate works on the smaller stage.
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Discussion of reviews by critics has been moved to the Writings on Ballet forum:
https://balletalert.invisionzone.com/topic/47555-gia-kourlas-on-nycb/#comment-446963
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This has been completed.
National Ballet of Canada 2022-2023 season
in National Ballet of Canada
Posted
In the Maillot version that PNB performs, this is a standard characterization for him, and especially realized when Joshua Grant performed it. But, in the Maillot, there is no Lord Capulet, so there was a void.
Your comment also made me think of Seth Orza as Tybalt in the Maillot Orza's Tybalt was very clearly the head of the family, not just the heir in waiting hanging out with his friends and rumbling with the Montagues, especially when paired with Maria Chapman, whose Lady Capulet wasn't the self-sufficient dragon-lady that Ariana Lallone was. Which would have made a potential powder keg of a power struggle, had Juliet married Paris.