nysusan
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Posts posted by nysusan
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4 hours ago, ABT Fan said:
Thank you nysusan for your report. I’m very sorry you didn’t get to see Lane. I would have been equally disappointed. This production does sound like a hot mess; good to know in case it ever crosses my path. Happy that Sisk was as incredible as I’d expect her to be.
You are very welcome. I feel its important for anyone contemplating going to this production to know that it is NOT a traditional staging. On the other hand, I would go if the opportunity arises to see them in anything else. They are a very good company.
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On 6/18/2023 at 12:23 PM, abatt said:
NYSusan is there, and booked the trip to see Lane.
Yes, I traveled to Houston last weekend to see Sarah Lane in the Sunday matinee performance of their production of Swan Lake. I wish her well and hope she's doing better - I don't blame her for canceling but naturally I was super disappointed when she did not perform.Fortunately I also bought a ticket to the Saturday evening show with Beckanne Sisk and Chase O'Connell. Sisk was absolutely wonderful with strong technique - fast chaines & pirouettes and strong fouettes. She had some beautiful long balances - lyrical in the first lakeside scene and striking in her black swan solo. Her epaulement in the white swan acts was exceptional, with long, yearning stretches of the neck, head and shoulders. Her arms were sometimes a little too swanny for me but that is understandable in this production.
As expected, she and O'Connell had great rapport and he partnered her very well. He certainly looks the part of a danseur noble - tall & dark haired with long limbs but his first act solos had hard, brittle landings and in the ballroom scene it looked to me like he couldn't land a tour, leap or pirouette sequence facing the audience squarely.Soo Youn Cho subbed for Sarah in the Sunday matinee. She was fine, delicate & sad but kind of generic. She had a really strange ecstatic look on her face in the first white swan scene. She held a balance for a super long time in the black swan pas, but she didn't hold it strongly, her arabesque leg kept moving up and down. Still, it was impressive. I liked Ryo Kato as Siegfried, he danced it very well.There are a lot of soloist roles in this Swan Lake and I thought all of the dancers at the corps and soloist level were really strong. At least as strong as we have in NY at ABT. Houston should be proud of them.Now, about their production - I hated it. There are so many things i disliked , these are some of the things that annoyed me most:The complete evisceration of the first act castle scene (here 1st act scene 2 at an encampment in the forest) and the 3rd act (here act 2) national dances. The national dances were completely re-choreographed by Welch and lost all of their folk dance character. Instead of being danced in heeled slippers each is danced by the princess herself, on pointe and with 1-4 of her male companions ( Ambassadors and Guards).In the 1st act they have eliminated the pas de trois, again replacing the Petipa with Welch's choreography for the 4 would be brides and the prince's 2 sisters. They use most of the pdt music along with music from other parts of the ballet as well as music from the Tchai pdd. This production gave us far too much of the princesses/brides for my taste, although all of the dancers danced very well.I read what I could about this production before making the trip and learned that it was inspired by John William Waterhouse's painting The Lady of Shallott and "takes its aesthetic from the fairy tale valence of pre-Raphaelite painting". Let me start by saying that I did not care for the court's costumes, they were not elegant enough for a royal court and seemed very inappropriate for a tale set in medieval Germany (although he certainly could have changed the time & place).The painting also inspired the look of Welch's Odette, who we see in the first scene of the first act (when VR captures her) in a long white dress with bell sleeves and long beautifully arranged hair. OK, I am not a fan of preludes where we see how Odette was captured and cursed by VR, but it is becoming more common and not so out of left field here.It also says that Siegfried first meets Odette "as a maiden". I wasn't sure how this was going to work but it turns out that this "maiden" Odette in a long white dress shows up at the beginning of the first and second lakeside scenes. And VR initially shows up at the ballroom in the 3rd act with Odile in a black version of the maiden dress.In the first lakeside scene Siegfried & maiden Odette dance a pdd set to either the valse bluette or pas de neuf music (not sure which) which then segues into the climatic music from the last white act. I can't tell you how jarring it was to hear this music here. Then she goes off with VR and comes back in a white tutu and dances pretty much the normal 1st act meeting scene & pdd. This trend continues - in the black swan act VR comes to the ballroom with a "maiden Odile" in her black dress. She goes off with Siegfried, then when she comes back to do the Back Swan pdd she is in a tutu. When Siegfried goes back to the lakeside to find Odette she and several of her companions are in the maiden dresses, then they exit the stage and come back in tutus. This was incredibly distracting and muddled.In traditional versions of SL we see Odette transform from a swan back into a woman through her dancing and then being transformed back into a swan at daybreak, all the while in a tutu. So here's an interesting question. If she is a maiden when in her white dress and a swan when she's in a tutu is Siegfried not dancing with a woman but with a swan in the pdd & pretty much the whole first lakeside scene? In the black swan pdd? And in the last scene when she drowns herself she has changed from her maiden dress into a tutu so already a swan - so at that point she really can't drown!I apologize to any Houston Ballet fans I may be offending but I just found this production to be a muddled hot mess. But I do think the Houston dancers were wonderful and I'm glad I got to see Sisk. -
Well, having flown to Houston specifically to see Lane I was very disappointed when she canceled. However I knew when I booked that this can happen and I certainly don't blame her. I finally had time to gather my thoughts about the production and since it no longer has anything to do with Lane I am posting them in the Houston Ballet forum
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2 hours ago, matilda said:
Yes that's the Bell/Teuscher Giselle.
LOL! That should be the Teuscher/Bell Giselle but you are right - it is most definitely the Bell/Teuscher Giselle!
Re: LWFC I am one of those people who were stumped at ABT giving it 2 weeks out of a 5 week season however I hope they do well with it. I love a lot of what Wheekdon has done and am looking forward to it.
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Yup, it was a real bummer to see that substitution sheet. The guy sitting behind me also came out from NY to see her - he spoke to the house manager who said they didn't know she'd be out till the morning of the performance.
Thankfully, Beckanne Sisk gave a great performance Sat night otherwise the weekend would have been a total bust as I hated the staging.
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48 minutes ago, California said:
They're also offering $30 for anybody under 30 for much of the season. This appeared on Facebook. The code: ABT30
This is not new, they've been doing the 30/30 promotion for at lest the last 10 years, probably longer.
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28 minutes ago, California said:
This does not bode well for the Met season: ABT just sent email to Friends with an offer of 50% off for orchestra prime and sides for June 23-30 -- looks like everything except opening night.
Is anyone surprised? Its insane for them to think they could sell 12 performances of a brand new ballet. Especially in a shortened 5 week season!
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Just took a look at the calendar and it looks like Stearns has been removed from all performances of LWFC - Forster, Royal and Curley now alternate as Dr.John Brown. Stearns is still listed as Albrecht in the first performance of Giselle on 7/3.
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So from prior postings in this thread it looks like Etudes, The Dream, Petit Morte and now Symphony #9 are likely for the fall season. That would be the core of a better fall season than we have seen in a long time. Kyle Abraham and Gemma Bond are doing new works for them for their Segerstrom performances 4//24, and they will have a new production of Ballet Imperial. Would be ice if that made it into their fall season too!.
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On 5/26/2023 at 8:59 PM, ABT Fan said:
Please let us know your thoughts on both performances!
Of course!
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12 hours ago, abatt said:
Sara Mearns was spectacular on Friday night in Swan Lake. Glad I had the opportunity to see it. Phelan was not in the same league in the role.
I agree 100% but I must say that Phelan was much better yesterday afternoon than she was last weekend. She seemed to have settled in and found her center. This was the first time I've seen O. MacKinnon in the Valse Bluette and she was very good. Gordan and LeCrone (in the pas de neuf) were good, too.
I was hoping I'd like Pictures more each time I saw it but unfortunately it has been the opposite. I don't hate it, but I would never seek it out.
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Well I took another look and found acceptable tickets and a return flight that gets me in at 12:30 AM on Sun night/Mon morning. Decided to do it so I'll be seeing Beckanne Sisk and Chase O'Connell on Saturday night and Sarah Lane and Ryo Kato at the Sunday matinee
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Fancy Free is undoubtedly a masterpiece, but it's a masterpiece I first saw as a kid and have now seen probably 50 times or more. I don't need to see it ever again unless some company can field a cast equal to the great golden age ABT casts (for example Carreno/Stiefel/DeLuz, Gomes/Hallberg/Cornejo). I am seeing multiple performances of this program for Agon & Brandenburg and am going to try to skip the next FF. That said, Ulbricht was wonderful, absolutely wonderful and I loved Maxwell in the first cast. And what fun to see Veyette sub as the bartender!That was indeed Miriam Miller in Agon and she was great. What a pleasure to see true 6 o'clock penchees - is she the only current NYCB ballerina who can do them now? Phelan's in the first cast were no more than 5:55. Miller had a couple of very tiny balance checks at the beginning of the pdd but after that she wielded those long legs like weapons. I loved the way she and Janzen maintained the tension and a cool yet intense connection. LaFreniere was also great but I agree that the overall cast was not as sharp as the first cast and the amazing Taylor Stanley.I also loved von Enck & Mejia in Brandenburg. This was the second time I'd seen it and I liked it much more than the first time. I thought it was pretty good the first time but I didn't really understand what all the fuss was about. Maybe it was the cast or maybe this is just the kind of ballet that reveals more with each viewing, but this time it was great. Breezy, charming and lots of fun.
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Thanks for this. Unfortunately I think its too late for me. Not many good tickets left and the only Sunday return flights I see now are overnights.
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4 minutes ago, abatt said:
Back in the day when City Ballet had all rings open and there were very cheap seats available, parents would regularly bring infants and toddlers to the show because buying a ticket was much cheaper than hiring a sitter for a few hours. I've also seen this by ticket holders in the family circle.
Back in the day my Grandmother bought cheap 5th ring tickets and took me and sometimes my brothers and cousins. The minute any one of us started acting up she ushered us right out the door into the hallway till we calmed down. Then we would go back to our seats. I think the 5th ring may have been the only area where you can do that cause their were no ushers to stop re-entry (the ushers are always down on the 4th ring and you have to walk up a staircase to get to the 5th ring).
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14 hours ago, abatt said:
Was it my imagination or did Emma VE miss her entrance during the section when, I believe, the two big Swans are supposed to be on stage together.
I also noticed that. I don't recall whether they usually both come out at the beginning of that section but it looked really strange with just LeCrone, so I think they must.Phelan has a beautiful instrument and there have been times she has used it to give some truly memorable performances. Saturday night was not one of them. Her Odette was a beautiful blank, both in terms of her characterization and her dancing. It seemed that she was just ticking off steps. Here were the arabesques, here the pirouettes but none of her movements were fully stretched or expressive and there really wasn't much in terms of phrasing. While never off the music she didn't display much musicality either.Gordon, on the other hand, was great.Maxwell was very good in Pictures but she danced the same role that Phelan did on Friday and this is one role where I thought Phelan was fabulous. The way she deployed those beautiful limbs and arms was quite compelling. -
Mearns was magnificent in Swan Lake last night. There were no signs of rust, or confidence problems. Just legs of steel, that endless arabesque and that epaulment! The way she uses her back, shoulders, neck and head is very reminiscent of V Part and the old time Vaganova school, yet completely her own. I seem to recall a cool, abstract Odette in the Balanchine version but Mearns was very emotional and tragic.I am not crazy about Pictures at an Exhibition. Don't hate it but don't love it either. Still it was fun to watch all of those beautiful dancers. Phelan and Nadon were standouts and O MacKinnon looked right at home mixed in with all of those outstanding principal women.
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Hi Drew! I sit in those seats often, in fact I will be in box 8 for one LWFC. You don't miss much as long as you are in the front row (seats 1,2 or3). Just the extreme slice of the near side. For instance, I wouldn't sit in box 8 for R&J cause it cuts off some of the balcony, and I wouldn't sit in box 7 for Giselle cause it cuts off some of her hut so you miss some of her entrance. For Swan Lake you miss the Queen & VR on the thrones in the ballroom scene if you are in box 7.
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Just now, NinaFan said:
I was just thinking the same thing.....
3 minutes ago, abatt said:Does Jaffe want to start out like Corella, dropping people who are not impressive to "remake" the company as soon as their contracts are up? I guess we shall see.
If only! One can always hope for change, but nothing in any of Jaffe's interviews indicates to me that she would move in that direction. And don't get me started on her vision of future rep. I'm already earmarking $s I used to spend on ABT on travel to see other companies.
Wherever ABT's dancers are coming from, with a very few exceptions their current principal dancers are nowhere near the talent level of their past dancers.Lets exempt Cornejo, who is truly a great dancer, albeit at the end of his career. Even dancers I like, like Brandt, Shevchenko and Forster are nowhere near the level of Ferri, Annalishvili, Vishneva, Cojocaru, Simkin, Gomes, Stiefel, Carreno, Corella etc.I saw Brandt give one truly great Giselle (at the State) but none of her performances that I've seen since have been at the same level. Camargo is great, Bell has been wonderful and looks like he may have the potential to develop into a great dancer. Hurlin, Misseldine and Curley also show potential. But the rest of ABT's principals? No.The current dancers may be happy that ABT no longer hires international stars but the ABT audience is not. I base this on my feelings & those of my many ballet going friends as well as the rows and rows of empty seats at the Met. Attendance was down last year and in the last couple of pre-pandemic years. Sales are very sluggish so far for this season not just for LWFC but for all of their programs. -
1 hour ago, stuben said:
As far as I am concerned this isn't the "world-class" ballet company it used to be, especially with so many companies nationally and internationally doing such wonderful work.
57 minutes ago, abatt said:Yes. That's why I doubt they will ever resume an 8 week season at the Met. They don't have an impressive roster anymore.
Agreed. Looking back on the great seasons and incredible dancers I saw at ABT from the early seventies through maybe 5 years ago - its really sad how far ABT has fallen
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18 minutes ago, abatt said:
For some reason, the Met Opera website is listing Brandt and Gonzalez as Tita and Pedro for Monday June 26, but the ABT website lists Teucher and Ahn. Any thoughts on which source is correct?
I would check out Brandt as Tita, but passing on Teuscher/Ahn.
ABT website has been updated. Its Brandt/Gonzalez on the 26th and I am buying a ticket!
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16 minutes ago, nanushka said:
I'm not seeing that in what's currently up for May 23-28 (marked as updated 5/15), where Miller is still listed for Agon and both Miller and Chan for Copland.
My mistake. Looks like they only replaced her in 5/16 - 21 and in the last performance of SL (5/28)
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NYCB updated the casting sheets for the last 2 weeks of the season. Miller & Chan are both out for the rest of the season. Looks like Kitka, too.
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Now that Simkin has left the Staats Ballet Berlin ABT should really do whatever they have to do - absolutely ANYTHING to GET HIM BACK!!!
Although I honestly believe that they are more in need of top level ballerinas, they desperately need a star like Simkin. Bring him back!
ABT Met Season 2023
in American Ballet Theatre
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