Helene

The videos were not password-protected when the links were first published, but they are now.I'm not sure from where the permissions issues originate, but they are now locked down.

I love the scenes after the birth, where Apollo is "de-swaddled", and like a young colt, has to find his legs. He's given the lute: he doesn't just appear with it.

There's no casting on the website, but the article says it's a 28-dancer piece for a company of 35, so at least 80% of the company will be on view in each performance.

He also cut some great music. Farrell said in her book she was sufficiently surprised by that to remark on it to him - "You don't usually cut music like that." "No, I don't," he replied. End of discussion. ("Shut up, he explained.") You're right -- I had forgotten about that. That makes the decision more curious: perhaps he prefers the short version, having experience both. Thank you!

"Play" opens tonight and plays through Saturday. From yesterday's City Arts article: NYC will get to see most of the great dancers in the Company in "Play". Please see this and report!

It does involve hazard pay. However the official short version ends with the AT&T logo starburst, and to add the stairs would mean an exception from the Balanchine Trust.

One rationale can always be that the shorter version is the one Balanchine preferred. Also, if Boal is staging the ballet, that is the version that he danced and that he knows. According to the Balanchine Catalog, the birth scene was removed in 1979 for a revival with Baryshnikov,. Boal might have seen the work with the birth scene until about age 14, but not at NYCB after that.

Disappointing news. I think the reason I didn't love Ib Andersen's Apollo as much as I expected was that he didn't get to do the opening development by the time I saw him with NYCB. Happily, he's staged the full version for his company.

Just from the short clip of "Giselle", I wouldn't have expected her to be a great "Giselle", because as beautifully danced as it was, I thought it was too grown-up and complete to convince me that she was a willful teenager in love. Her Myrtha, though, was every kind of spectacular, from the gorgeous, rounded, soft port de bras and the arc of the jumps to the tiny details, like the slight raise of her working leg before rising from penchee and the sweep of her head and shoulders before starting the hops in demi-plie. Wow, wow, wow.

It took a while to get the formula down: the original Choreographers' Workshops took place during the season using company dancers. The current, recent format is to have the company choreographers create work on the Professional Division students, giving them the experience before they become full-time members of a company, and presenting the pieces a week after the PNB season ends.

From the PNB blog, Peter Boal announced the six company choreographers who will make new works on the Professional Division students for the Next Step program on 16 June 2012: First-timers: Chelsea Adomaitis Kyle Davis Eric Hipolito Jr. Returning choreographers: Kiyon Gaines Sean Rollofson Ezra Thomson

Thank you so much sandik -- that brought me right back! I'm so sorry this production is over. Some reps are harder to move from.

There is a thread for discussing the Wheeldon videos in the videos forum:

At least it wasn't the even more typical male anchor partners ballerina and acts coy about it. Which reminds me of Christopher d'Amboise's story in his book about how his dad did a lecture demo in his all-boys high school gym. One of his classmates agreed to try to partner the young ballerina whom d'Amboise brought, and he tried to make a joke of it. The challenge was to partner her in supported pirouettes. Classmate stood too close to the ballerina. Ouch.

Many thanks for posting this! The two dancers in the promo are Sadaise Arencibia and Arian Molina.

Thank you so much for posting this: apart from the annoying score, I loved watching this. I kept casting PNB dancers as I watched... I can't recognize the dancers, apart from Reichlen and Hall. There were four who took curtain calls, including the second couple from the first movement, the couple from the adagio, and the couple from the last movement. Does anyone know who was who for all four couples?

Welcome to Ballet Alert! jowelrw --we're glad you've joined us!

That is a great topic for a new thread: http://balletalert.i...great-giselles/

bart asks a great question in the Miami City Ballet "Giselle" thread: "I wonder whether there have been great Giselles in the past who started out as Myrthe...?"

In today's "New York Times" article on Ib Andersen on the heels of Ballet Arizona's visit to NYC to perform Andersen's "Play" at the Joyce Theater, there is a mention of a new piece by Andersen, "Topia", described as: 17 performances are scheduled for: May 2-5 May 9-13* May 16-19 May 23-26 *Mother's Day Performances begin at 7:30 and last 1-1.5 hours without intermission. Food is available from 6-7:25, with tickets sold in tables of four ($45-$50) or general admission ($35-$39) at the Ballet AZ box office and through Ticketmaster. From the Desert Botanical Garden website: http://www.dbg.org/events-exhibitions/topia

Cerdeiro does look like a kid, but he may surprise you with what he can muster for Albrecht: iconic roles can bring out the best in dancers. I hope he got supportive coaching along the way. I remember reading an interview with Heather Watts, who when Martins first proposed she dance with Jock Soto, many years her junior, all she could think about was mutton and lamb. (Not a quote, but the same concept.) Martins said, "No, you'll look great together", and a partnership was born. In Seattle, one of the partnerships with the most charisma and simpatico is Kaori Nakamura and Lucien Postlewaite. (Nakamura moves like a 24-year-old, which helps.) And, of course, there was Fonteyn and Nureyev, which, at the time, many, including Fonteyn herself, questioned. The Albertson/Cerdeiro partnership might work out just fine.

Here is the full cast printed in the program: Don Quixote: Leandro Perez Sancho Panza: Javier Sanchez Dulcinea: Carolina Garcia Kitri: Viengsay Valdes Basilio: Osiel Gounod Lorenzo: Felix Rodriguez Camacho: Ernesto Diaz Espada: Arian Molina Mercedes: Amaya Rodriguez Janita: Grettel Morejon Piquilla: Jessie Dominguez Bullfighters: Yanier Gomez, Camilo Ramos, Roberto Vega, Omar Morales, Josue Justiz, Edward Gonzalez Gipsy Chief: Alfredo Ibanez Graciosa, His Daughter: Davesi Torrientes Young Gypsy: Yanier Gomez Queen of the Dryads: Estheysis Menendez Love: Maureen Gil Two Handsom Boys: Yanier Gomez and Camilo Ramos

Carrie Imler made Myrtha an equal, at minimum, character in the PNB "Giselle". Is Delgado related to NBC's Annette Delgado?

She danced last night, opening night, with Gounod : I reviewed it here: http://balletalert.i...943#entry298943

I just returned home from opening night in Vancouver at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, where they performed with live orchestra I'm not sure how streamlined the production is for touring. Here the sets were pretty basic, and I suspect there are more people on stage when it's presented at home. It lasted about 2.5 hours with two intermissions, and it felt stripped down and a bit lonely after seeing Ratmansky's in Seattle two weekends ago. In the BNC production, Basilio and Kitri or Kitri, in the "Dream Scene", are the focus throughout most of the ballet. Don Quixote is portrayed as a nobleman who is trying to help out, after being implored to do so by his local villagers, who are suffering from the French invasion; there's little quixotic about him, apart from seeing a vision of Dulcinea. He partners Kitri beautifully in the "Dream Scene", and just so you don't confuse her with the Queen of the Dryads or Cupid, she's wearing a modified peasant dress with a red bodice with a below-the-knee white tulle skirt with an overlay of red. The stage action is quite conventional, with all of the big entrances from upstage left, and the townspeople and matadors forming a big U to clear stage center, which meant, for the most part, we were the audience, not the other members of the community. One of the nice plot conventions in this production is that Graciosa, a gypsy girl, is caught stealing a piece of fruit in Act I. Kitri defends her and gives Graciosa her shawl. When Kitri and Basilio run away and end up in a gypsy camp -- not a particularly safe place for civilians -- they are surrounded and threatened, until Graciosa recognizes Kitri as her protector, and they are welcomed. In this production, Kitri's father and Camacho discover them in the camp, and they are taken home. The vision is both a plot convention and a lovely physical one: Dulcinea often appears under a veil, with her arms out a little farther than first position, slighlty curved, and on point. She turns, and she's like a magic, revolving door, and Kitri appears from behind her. Although after the first time there was no surprise, it never failed to delight. The orchestra tempi, for the most part were on the slow side. On the one hand, the energy was missing, and the dancers had to crank it up, but on the other hand, it was beautifully languid in the adagios, and it did give a sun-baked aura to the setting. The group scene with the gypsies was the most rousing of all of the ensemble dances, although the corps women in Act III were very sharp for the wedding scene (and they got a decent tempo). I was a bit surprised that there wasn't more Latin inflection throughout the company, but, apart from that, it was a pleasure to see them and to be introduced to these dancers; it's been a while since I've seen a company that not only had a common style, but goes beyond that to show a common lineage. BNC looks like an extended family, like the famous Flamenco families, where the strengths are common, but the dancers are by no means like cookie cutters. I was amused by the characters of "Two handsome boys", because that could describe all of the men on the stage. BNC brought the big guns with them, and because it is a tour, it's possible that it might not be usual casting to see the same intersection of Kitris, Basilios, Mercedes, Espadas, Dryad Queens, Juanitas, Piquillas, and Cupids over the run, interspersed with a few up and coming members of the company. What we're getting in Vancouver is a lot of depth, so that the Espada, Arian Molina, and Mercedes, Amaya Rodrigues, who were fantastic -- clean, clear, full-bodied, full of inflection and musicality -- will perform Basilio and Queen of the Dryads later in the run. Viengsay Valdes was Kitri, and she was clearly the alpha, rarely bothering to be jealous of her Basilio in Act I, but definitely in charge. That changed in Act II, when the gypsy girls paid him a lot of attention, and Kitri was not happy about it. Osiel Gounod was her Basilio. He's a plush, muscular dancer, much in the Igor Zelensky mold, and could he fly: his saut de basques in particular looked six feet off the ground, and he and Viengsay can turn like no one's business. Valdes and Gounod were brilliant in Act I and Act II, where Basilio's variation for the gypsies is oddly prince-like, and the BNC "Don Q" has a lovely pas de deux for Kitri and Basilio at the beginning of Act II. Where they really turned it on was in the Act III Pas de Deux. What was extraordinary was how they did this without distorting any of the music or phrases, and despite some cheeky timing and inflection by Gounod, never had a self-satisfied "ta da" anywhere in it. Valdes hit perfect balances, and without a wobble, gracefully changed the position of her arms, or moved her working leg from attitude to passe and neatly to sous-sous or fifth, or moved her leg from passe to attitude on point , all within the breath of the phrase. I'd never seen anything like it before. For her fouettes, she started with doubles for the first half, and then went to singles -- each one started from a la second -- and ended with at least a quad. Among the gazillion supported pirouettes she and Gounod did, she did multiple pirouettes in passe and attitude. (I think the first of the attitude turns was a triple.) Again, all within the music, and never with a big preparation or fall out that marred the phrase. The only thing that surprised me was that she didn't use a fan in her variation. After the adagio, Gounod had big shoes to fill, and boy did he ever fill them: he was able to spin and spin and spin, transition seamlessly from position to position, slow down the turns, stop on a dime, and place his feet cleanly together on the floor. In his turns in a la second in the coda, he slowed down almost to a complete stop facing front, never dropping his working leg, went into plie, and pushed up and started turning again. In his jumps, he soared. Audiences in Vancouver are notoriously polite with the applause -- "What do you mean we're not enjoying it: we're smiling (in the dark), aren't we?" -- but I haven't seen a crowd reaction like the one for the Pas de Deux since the Olympics. And it was well-deserved. I'm just sad I won't be able to see all four performances. These dancers and their tradition are a living treasure.