Hello. I've been a subscriber of the Australian Ballet's Sydney season for the last three years, and I have also noticed David McAllister's tendency to cast less experienced dancers in the alternative performing cast of each ballet. In my humble opinion, it's not that the non-principal dancers cannot emotionally interpret the pieces well, but it seems to me that they have more trouble coping with the technical demands of the pieces performed. The particular example that I write the above opinion with comes from the AB's new ballet, 'Wild Swans'. I'm not sure if any of you watched it. Annabel Bronner Reid was cast in the lead role the night I saw the performance, and I thought that she had a good emotional interpretation of the role of Eliza, but she struggled to control many of her adage movements, and I felt that that was quite a shame.
Another thing that I don't quite like about the direction that the AB is taking under the direction of David McAllister is the choice of ballets that are performed in each year. Having grown up on watching Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty ballets, I like to see the 'classic' ballets being performed. Not the trilogies and contemporary ballets that are slowly coming to dominate the AB's repertoire. I think this preference will vary greatly with each individual though.