dirac

Holiday arts streaming recommendations.

A profile of Boston Ballet's Chrystyn Fentroy.

An interview with Brigitte Lefèvre.

Where I live the restaurants aren't even bothering with spacing patrons out any more, so I'm not sure, given the contagious qualities of the original virus and the variants, that spacing makes much difference indoors unless it is considerable. I'm guessing you would have been relatively safe but given the advent of Omicron bolting was not an excessive reaction, particularly if infection rates are jumping in your area.

I saw "A Nutcracker Christmas" with Amy Acker and Sascha Radetsky on the Hallmark Channel - it's about six or seven years old. Considering the limitations of the genre, not as bad as it might be.

I quite like the Coltrane version of the song, although Rodgers was known to have mixed feelings about jazz (and swing) musicians' renderings of his songs (cf. "I Like to Recognize the Tune"). However, I don't think Coltrane so much buries the tune but enlarges it and upon it. I had never heard of Stifter before your post, so thank you. Oddly, your description reminds me of the giant aerial shots of the landscape (with snow, without snow) that begin TSOM -- a device Wise and his scenarist, Ernest Lehman, had used a few years earlier for West Side Story, but Lehman thought it was good for a second visit to the well. At the end of the movie the von Trapps elude their (admittedly paper tiger) Nazis by escaping across the same spectacular landscape.

On Pointe wrote: Don't forget the big opulent ball and the big opulent Alps. Christopher Plummer said filming in Salzburg was like being trapped in a Hallmark card. Wikipedia tells me that ABC has been airing TSOM on a Sunday just before Christmas since 2002, so maybe that’s it. I’m guessing it’s a good time to air it since ratings are not what they once were. Evidently the BBC also airs it around Christmas. Fun fact from Wiki: “The film was also intended to be part of the BBC's programming during the outbreak of nuclear war.” One hazard of watching the movie is that several of the songs are among the most insistent earworms ever written. Damned if I could get “My Favorite Things” and “The Lonely Goatherd” out of my head all week. Another chorus of “Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo” and I was going to throw myself out a window. I really do need to get around to seeing “The Holiday,” Petra, thank you for the reminder.

Reviving this thread. Kept the annual date with "The Sound of Music" on ABC last night, commercials and all. Sad to think Christopher Plummer was alive the last time I saw the movie, and Charmian Carr died a few years ago. What are you seeing (or seeing again)?

American Ballet Theatre returns to the Met next summer.

An interview with Marianela Núñez.

A review of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo by Marina Harss for DanceTabs.

A review of San Francisco Ballet's Nutcracker by Heather Desaulniers for DanceTabs.

Dancers talk about having to go on as last-minute replacements.

A family buys fake tickets to Ballet West's Nutcracker.

New Ballet presents "The San Jose Nutcracker."

How New York City Ballet coped with the need for differently sized costumes for bigger kids in this season's Nutcracker.

A review of the Ballet Theatre of Maryland's Nutcracker by Charles Green for DC Metro Theater Arts.

An interview with Raul Salamanca, the artistic director of Golden State Ballet.

The Utah Metropolitan Ballet presents an autism-friendly Nutcracker.

A review of Milwaukee Ballet by John Schneider for Shepherd Express.

A TV news feature on Oakland Ballet's Nutcracker.

Peter Anastos makes a new piece for Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.

A review of San Francisco Ballet by Charles Lewis III for The San Francisco Chronicle.

The Pasadena Dance Theatre presents its Nutcracker.

Seems like a nice way to remember a great New Yorker. Thanks for posting, Anthony_NYC.