nysusan

This x 1000. Phelan has strong technique, she is a beautiful dancer and a beautiful woman however she has been cast in absolutely everything and I think that is to her detriment. She would do better if they limited her repertoire a bit and gave her time to develop her roles. Or maybe she is just a "surface" dancer, time will tell. I liked Bouder in Emeralds, Her upper body was lovely and I really thought she brought the requisite mystery and perfume to the role. But Laracey was extraordinary. Did not love the PDT - honestly I've seen it performed better by the Mariinsky (there is one dvd in particular with Yana Selina, Xenia Ostreikovskaya, and Anton Korsakov that is just gorgeous but I've seen it done much better by NYCB as well). Loved Rubies - Peck and Mejia were great and Kitka ruled. Edited to add: I did not realize that this was Phelan's debut in Diamonds. Knowing that I will cut her some slack but although beautiful it was a very dull, surface performance from her.

I also saw that performance and agree 100%. He was incredible, I look forward to seeing him take on the virtuoso rep at ABT!

Hi Drew! Can you give examples of short dancers cast in the Tall Girl role at NYCB? The shortest dancer I remember is Claire Kreztsmar and she is not short - just not super tall like Kowroski, Reichlin and now LaFreniere, Miller and Kitka. And, speaking of different body types at NYCB - Balanchine championed dancers with non traditional ballet body types like von Aroldingen and Patricia Neary, who (if I recall) was not only tall, but big. And now, of course , there is Mearns. She is a magnificent dancer I love but certainly not one anyone would describe as having a typical ballet body.

And baldness issues. Between the 2 I reaally just cannot ebven look att him onstage any more. Especially not in something like Diamonds or Symphony in C. I am going to be an optimist about Bouder and hope that she has recovered from her injury and lost the weight she put on during her absence from the stage. No "out of shape" euphemisms, she put on weight and needed to take it off. If she has recovered physically and lost the weight I would welcome her back and look forward to seeing her in what ever ballets she is cast in.

I always thought it was mostly due to the never ending quest to find Cornejo a suitable partner. Kochetkova may not have been any shorter than Lane or Brandt or Trenary, but she looked significantly lighter than them. She was really tiny. I liked her in modern ballets (most of which I saw her in with San Fran) but did not like her at all in classical roles. I do not know why she left, or whose decision it was (hers or ABT's) but she missed a lot of performances her last season, whether for health or other reasons.

This. 1000%.

I would like to see Wolf Works but with their Spring season reduced to only 4 weeks this is a mixed blessing. I want my Petipa! Now that the big European companies do not perform in NY anymore ABT is the only option here for full length classical ballet. I have to think they will do LWFC again, so add Wolf Works and that only leaves a maximum of 3 weeks for Swan Lake, Giselle, DQ, Bayadere, Coppelia, Raymonda et al ( I know Bayadere & Raymonda are wishful thinking and I didn't even list Corsaire). Not much room for MacMillan & Ashton either. Hopefully they will do a couple of weeks across the plaza 🙏🙏🙏

They are doing 7 performances of Jewels and with Nadon, LaFreniere and Kitka I think they have enough Rubies tall girls (and all 3 are VERY good). Sounds like Mearns and Phelan are set for Diamonds, maybe LaFreniere is also understudying as well as Nadon. I saw Miller in the Diamonds pas in Saratoga last year and she was great, I hope she gets it at Lincoln Center this season!

I don't believe fee was supposed to be charged to donors or subscribers. It was a glitch they fixed within a couple of hours.

I think there is some confusion here. NYCB does the Art Series, not ABT. I don't know what ABT's Access performances are.

I went last night. I got there just before 6:40 and the fast track ticket holders were already being let in. General public probably started going in about 6:45. I had a fast track ticket and didn't see how long the GP line was so unfortunately can't suggest how early you should get there. I do think the lines may be shorter than usual this weekend because of the heat wave. By the way, I saw Boylston and Ahn in Other Dances. Two dancers I am not crazy about in a pdd I have a hard watching since seeing the originals in the 70s. They did quite well. Ahn played down the Baryshnikov-isms which made it much more palatable for me. He was elegant and his usual lack of presence was not a factor here. Boylston was lovely, very lyrical and they both met the technical demands with aplomb. I love Times Are Racing so it was great to see it again. The rest of the program was fine but there were no real stand outs for me. Well, not quite true - Yannick LeBrun especially and Constance Stamatiou were wonderful in excerpts from the Ailey company's Dancing Spirit, though the excerpts themselves left me with no desire to see the whole thing at their City Center season.

The schedule is up on the website now, you can see it here. In one place it says tickets are available to the general public 9/25 at noon and in another it says 8/7. But that 8/7 says single tickets on sale to the public so I'd bet the Nutcracker tickets go on sale 9/25. You can call the box office to clarify.

Yikes, they really do need more male soloists. I think Curley will be promoted for sure. It would be early to promote Roxander, but I wouldn't complain! Possibly also some combination of Gonzalez, Frenette, Ishchuk, Maloney and Klein. Would love to see Agoudine & Tamm promoted but I doubt that will happen

I thought last nights R&J was very low energy - especially the first act. I love Bell and although he was great technically I didn't really see the same sweeping romantic lines I remember from Gomes, Hallberg or even Bolle. There was very little chemistry between him & Teuscher. She, again, had technique to spare and while her dancing was pretty for me it never went beyond the surface - I never felt the instant unbridled love between them and the balcony pdd was pretty underwhelming. She was much better in the last act - her Juliet conveyed extreme desperation and became quite compelling - but a great act 3 and a dull act 1 just don't add up to much in my book. I was so happy to see Gorak and Hoven. Both did well and I thought Gorak looked great - don't know why they havent been casting him. Gonzales was a good Mercutio but not a great one, I can't wait to see Roxander take on that role. Forster's Tybalt was very menacing and a good match opposite Bell's Romeo. It was wonderful to see Abrera onstage again but Lady C isn't a dancing role. I didn't stay for bows so I don't know if she got any kind of a tribute but I wouldn't expect one under these circumstances.

Advance sale for subscribers starts next week on 7/27. Thats for the 23/24 season and 23 Nutcracker so they will have to have the 23 Nutcracker schedule by then, I don't know when tickets go on sale to the general public.

I did not like On the Dnieper dring its premiere season, and if I didn't like it with Part, Gomes, Hallberg & Herrera I can't imagine liking it with ABT's current dancers. I may skip it, but the other 2 programs look wonderful.

I remember Makarova doing them back in the Seventies. Hers were amazing. Cynthia Gregory's were totally different but also amazing.

I went to the Sat mat SL specifically to see Bell and despite the fact that I have avoided Seo since the days of McKenzie's Hee Seo Ballet Theatre when there were lots of ballerinas out with injuries and he had Seo sub in for pretty much all of them. I saw her step in for Murphy with Gomes and then I think later in the run dance it with Bolle. I always thought she had beautiful arms and epaulment but in addition to her technical deficiencies I always found her to be dramatically inert and unengaged. What a difference a decade (or so) makes! On Saturday she was absolutely beautiful and emotionally engaging. As Odette her plastique was gorgeous, she moved from one beautiful shape to another and her epaulment has only become more soft and fluid. Best of all, she moved me. She has learned to integrate acting with her dancing and make her dancing more expressive rather than just beautiful. I found her especially heartbreaking in the second white act, which I usually find to be a complete letdown in the McKenzie version. She will never be a great Odile but I thought she was good enough. She was gleeful and seductive and had one great balance and some sparkling moments in her solo. Her fouettes were not the speediest or peppered with doubles and triples and she only did 24 or 25 but she did them musically and without falling out of them or ending up with her back to the audience like some other ABT ballerinas have. Bell, as expected, was great. I want to see him in everything. Also really loved Coker and especially Lall in the pdt and Crispino in Neopolitan. One weird thing - at the beginning of the program it listed Cy Doherty as swamp thing VR but in act 4 it listed Zhurbin - could that have been a mistake? I was too busy watching Seo and Bell to get a good look at VR but it would be really strange to switch swamp thing VRs within the performance (planned, without an injury). On Saturday night I agree with abatt that Shevchenko was outstanding technically but not emotionally engaging at all. And those screaming fans really annoyed me - it was not just enthusiasm but was like the commotion back in the day at YAGP galas - very intrusive and inappropriate. Also agree that Royal was sloppy. And in a role I almost never notice the lead man in the Czardas was so compelling I had to look it up to see who it was - and it was Zhurbin!

I agree with the posters who said the Hurlin/Whiteside SL was uneven. I do think Hurlin has the makings of a great O/O, and I think its unrealistic to expect a dancer to have a fully fleshed out interpretation within the first several times in the role. Its so hard technically and so complex psychologically it takes time for anyone to develop their own take on exactly who their Odette and Odile are and be able to communicate that to the audience both through their dancing and acting. Thinking back to my favorite O/Os from Fonteyn to Makarova, Gregory and more recently Pavlenko, Lopatkina and Part - they had all been dancing the role for years before I saw them, and they all had the opportunity to dance it well more than once or twice a season. To add to what's been said about Park in the pdt - her first solo variation was just amazing. Not only the technical aspects - but her dancing was so airy and her phrasing was so musical I think this may have been the best pdt performance I've ever seen from an ABT dancer, and I've seen a lot of them! One quick note about Roxander - he was once again wonderful in the Neopolitan but seeing him with Klein made me realize how short he is. Klein is fairly short and Roxander is shorter.

That was my first thought, too. I remember before that when Veronika Part fell off point during the rose adagio both management and many if not most of us here at BT excoriated her. Then fast forward a year or 2 and Hee Seo completely fell out of the SL pirouettes and management just kept casting her like it was no big deal. Then it was no big deal that Misty can't do the fouettes and now, it seems, Trenary's ok without the hops on point. If the article in the Times is to be believed Jaffe is not concerned that she blew the hops, and this is at least the second time. Everyone makes mistakes and I have no problem if someone blows a bit of the choreography once but if they do it repeatedly and are still cast - well this is how mediocrity happens, and IMO it is most certainly happening at ABT.

Fondoffouettes, thank you for your description of Trenary's Giselle characterization. I was curious about all the positive reviews, I deliberately chose not to see her this season because I so disliked her characterization last year at the Koch. Her Giselle was a brat - stomping her feet & pouting. At one point she was flirting so brazenly with Albrecht that it felt like she was trying to seduce him. It took me completely out of the performance and I don't even remember what her technique was like. A friend of mine said she had toned it down this year but based on your report it sounds like she has gone to a more traditional characterization, which is great news! I saw the Hurlin/Camargo, Brandt/Cornejo and Murphy/Forster casts. I agree with the positive reviews of both Wednesday casts. For a debut performance I thought Hurlin was wonderful and shows a lot of potential to grow into a great Giselle, and I loved Camargo. Brandt and Cornejo were terrific. I do not think she was "soulless" or overcoached at all. I do think she has room to grow in the role but I think she's pretty wonderful already. A few people have mentioned that she is a more experienced Giselle. That's only compared to Hurlin and Teuscher. Brandt only made her Giselle debut in 2020 and can't have had more than 5-6 performances in the role - hardly enough to have a fully fleshed out interpretation and certainly nowhere near as experienced as Seo, Boylston, Shevy or even Murphy. In my book today's Cornejo is still better than 90% of ABT's current male principals and I thoroughly enjoyed his performance. In fact, one of the complaints I always had with Cornejo was that for most of his career he was a terrible partner. He improved a lot over the past 5 years and I was super impressed with the way he did the press lift, he made it seem like Brandt was about to float off. And Jake Roxander just blew the roof off in the peasant pas - lets have lots more of him please! Curley was an excellent and sympathetic Hilarion and Chloe Misseldine and Teuscher are both great Myrtas. I avoided Murphy's Giselle for a long time because I just couldn't imagine her in the role. I am sorry to say that last night's performance did nothing to dissuade me. Murphy has many strengths but they don't help her at all as Giselle. There is nothing frail or delicate or girlish about her so I thought she might take the spunky, feisty approach. She did not. She gave the standard shy, guileless interpretation but there was nothing dainty or fragile about her dancing. Her technique was solid, she didn't make obvious mistakes but she is just miscast as Giselle. Her pirouettes and that developpe sequence weren't particularly buoyant or floaty and there wasn't much ballon in her jumps. Her Spessivtseva variation was baffling. She rotated her hops on point towards Albrecht twice but she started them a third of the way down the diagonal and ended them hardly more than 2/3 of the way down, she covered very little ground. On the other hand her manege was very fast. In the second act her technique was fine but she didn't use her head and neck very effectively and I never for a second felt that she was a ghost or spirit - she was far too solid. I loved Forster. He has never been a virtuoso, he is a beautiful danseur noble with gorgeous line. He acted the role well and was a wonderful partner. He did the entrechats in the second act and did them well. Jose Sebastion was pretty sloppy in the peasent pas especially in his landings but his partner Sunmi Park was lovely, very floaty with beautiful balances and a lot of charm. She really looked like a Giselle in waiting. Teuscher was a great Myrta, her height and technique serve her well here.

I don't see how you can watch a performance, any performance, and not compare it to other performances you've seen of the same role. And I don't see why you wouldn't want to. Its a natural part of the mental process. And when you're discussing performances on a board like this one comparing the current one to one that many people have seen is a good way to describe or contrast it. I always compare in my mind as I'm watching. Compare it to the best I remember, or the worst or the most recent. Ohh, Vishneva's second act Giselle was so spirit-like she was barely there. Now Osipova's seems freshly dead, like there's still a lot of human in there - opposite interpretations but both fantastic. Cojocaru's 1st act hops on point are so delicate, Ferri's cover so much ground and I love the way Vishneva turns to look at Albrecht during her hops, etc etc. And certainly when you see a dancer who disappoints, you refer to one that you loved, and what is lacking in what you're watching. Whenever I watch Giselle's 1st act variation, before the hops on pointe I still see Kirkland in my head and how she rolls down from pointe and looks adoringly at her Albrecht when she does those arabesques and really, throughout the variation. Doesn't mean that I can't enjoy different performances but what I have seen in the past naturally informs what I'm watching now. Now on to this afternoon's Hurlin/Camargo and then tonights Brandt/Cornejo!

I know its still a long way away but I could not resist booking a weekend trip to see Dance Masterpieces. Three non Balanchine short pieces that I love (and I get plenty of Balanchine here in NY). Its very unusual for me to love all 3 pieces on a mixed bill, so this is special. Looking forward to getting acquainted with their dancers in The River (hopefully on pointe), In the Middle & Upper Room!

I saw my 3rd and last performance of LWFC for this season last night. The Brandt/Gonzalez/Fang/Coker/McBride/Curley/HOVEN cast was fine, but the first cast - Trenary/Cornejo et al was the best. If only Bell was the revolutionary that cast would have been perfect. I didn't enjoy it last night as much as I did the first 2 times but I think that was more due to overkill that any fault of the cast. If they do this in future seasons I think 1 performance will be enough for me😀

Yes, I believe the whole run sold out and the audience was very enthusiastic. Their love their Welch SL down there!