miliosr

Even though he was at the end of his career, I thought Florian Magnenet deserved the title for single-handedly rescuing the run of Le Rouge et le Noir.

In terms of Marc Moreau's appointment as etoile, sometimes events can work in your favor just enough so you can prove what you can do. The ranks of the male etoiles have been depleted recently as the latest defile amply demonstrated - only Mathieu Ganio, Germain Louvet, Hugo Marchand and Paul Marque walked in the defile. Under a different set of circumstances there would have been three more marchers (and three more etoiles to fill out the star roles): Josua Hoffalt (who is Ganio's age but departed early), Mathias Heymann (has been out indefinitely) and Francois Alu (won the coveted title of etoile and then promptly decamped for the more lucrative provinces of French show business). When you factor in that Ganio and Marchand did not dance in the most recent Swan Lake run (coming as it did hard on the heels of Mayerling) and Louvet was busy with the Pina Bausch evening, that left the Opera having to lean heavily on the premiere danseurs to fill the Siegfried spots. Marc Moreau wasn't cast originally as Siegfried (he was cast as Rothbart instead). He also wasn't cast originally as the title character in Vaslaw for the Patrick Dupond evening - Heymann was. So, Moreau ended up with two opportunities to show his potential in the true star roles, which might not have happened under a different set of circumstances. (He was also a lead in Lander's Etudes for the Dupond tribute and he's currently dancing in both Ballet Imperial and Who Cares? for the Balanchine evening.) Talent matters. Marc Moreau has it and the promotion to etoile is a deserved one. But sometimes events can lend you a little helping hand.

The Nederlands Dans Theater isn't inconveniencing itself either: Statement incident Marco Goecke (ndt.nl)

I found a link to a Sunday Mail article from February 22, 2009 which gave Luke Ingham's age: "The 23-year-old soloist with the Australian Ballet grew up on his family's farm in Mt Gambier, and says despite his passion for dance, shearing is in his blood." So, based on that, he would be in the 37-38 age range today.

Are poor ticket sales the reason for ABT's curtailed spring/summer season at the Met? I thought the reason was that the Metropolitan Opera itself decided to cancel performances in February (when ticket sales are low) and extend its season into June; thus forcing ABT to ratchet back the length of its season. Here's the discussion from Ballet Alert: Met Opera 2020-21 Season to Run through June 5, 2021 - American Ballet Theatre - Ballet Alert! (invisionzone.com) Looking at the Metropolitan Opera's Web site that still appears to be the policy: Metropolitan Opera | Calendar (metopera.org) I'm right there with you in the minority. Scanning that list, I question how many of those works will stay in repertory now that Ratmansky isn't intimately tied to the company via a contract. Instead of being the next Ashton/Balanchine/Tudor at ABT, Ratmansky may find that he's the next Glen Tetley.

Thank you for posting this. I admire the work of Lucinda Childs but it's not always easy to see professionally filmed selections from her repertory. Strange to think this company was once headed by Roland Petit!

From the 70s TV show The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries . . . "The Curse of Pirate's Cove" (w/ Pamela Sue Martin as Nancy Drew) "The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula" (two part team-up w/ Martin, Parker Stevenson as Frank Hardy and Shaun Cassidy as Joe Hardy)

Limon has a new Executive Director: "The José Limón Dance Foundation is thrilled to announce the appointment of Michelle Preston as incoming executive director, starting November 1." "Since 2014, Preston has served as the Executive Director of SITI Company, an ensemble theater company based in New York City. While at SITI, Preston led a multi-year planning process to celebrate and preserve the legacy of the ensemble. Her prior experience in New York City also includes work with dance organizations Urban Bush Women, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and the School of American Ballet."

This news from Bordeaux: The Bordeaux Opera has lost its last principal dancer (sudouest.fr) So why leave Bordeaux? "It is clear that the resources allocated to dance are constantly decreasing," she regrets. "In 2022-2023, there will only be three productions and, instead, we will only be given little tricks to do. I'm 30 years old, I don't want to wait for things to get better." I took a look at the Bordeaux Opera's Web site and it looks like the only ballet productions for 2022-23 are Cinderella (December 2022), a mixed bill (April-May 2023) and Don Quixote (June-July 2023). This on top of cuts in the number of company positions several years ago.

Roman Mejia will be dancing Jose Limon's great solo, Chaconne, tonight as part of a Limon-Doris Humphrey program.

I finished The Best Times this weekend. At times, it was too discursive for my tastes. Dos Passos writes at length about his travels and what he saw and who he encountered along the way. His recollections of his travels were mildly interesting but, honestly, I found myself drifting a bit mentally during much of it. But just when I was ready to give up on The Best Times, my mind would snap back to attention when Dos Passos delivered a particularly insightful view of the very creative people he met in the 1920s and 1930s: On Pablo Picasso: "[I]f he had the gift of compassion, he would have been as great as Michelangelo." On Scott Fitzgerald: [S]cott was meeting adversity with a consistency of purpose that I found admirable. He was trying to raise Scottie, to do the best thing possible for Zelda, to handle his drinking and to keep a flow of stories into the magazines to raise the enormous sums Zelda's illness cost. At the same time he was determined to continue writing firstrate novels. With age and experience his literary standards were rising. I never admired a man more. He was so much worse off than I was that I felt I ought to be sitting at his bedside instead of his sitting at mine." [Indirectly] On his friendship with Ernest Hemingway: "The troubles that arise between a man and his friends are often purely and simply the result of growing up." and: "As a man matures he sheds possibilities with every passing year. In the same way he sheds friendships." I wouldn't rate The Best Times as a classic of its kind. But I would recommend it as a counterpart to Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. As I wrote earlier in this thread, The Best Times is more forgiving. On that basis alone, it deserves to be read.

Nothing by Antony Tudor . . .

I found the first three chapters of The Best Times slow-going. But it really picks up in Chapter 4 when Dos Passos starts writing about the bold-faced names he encountered in Paris and the south of France during the Roaring Twenties: e e cummings, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gerald and Sara Murphy, and Pablo Picasso. Dos Passos' account of those times is like a more forgiving (and probably more truthful version) of Hemingway's A Moveable Feast; a book in which Hemingway derided his former friend Dos Passos as "the pilot fish".

Lynn Garafola's La Nijinska John Dos Passos' The Best Times

#1 ballet company at the Met - not #1 overall.

I don't think it's possible to overstate the importance of the Met's prestige (as overrated as that prestige may be) to ABT's identity. For better or worse, the Met occupies an outsized place in ABT's self-image. As for the Theater Formerly Known as State (TFKaS), ABT may be wary of being perceived as the "junior" resident company there - always living in the margins between New York City Ballet seasons. By that way of thinking, better #1 at the Met than #2 at the TFKaS.

To the extent that Ratmansky does have a remit to do what choriamb describes (and I'm far from convinced that ABT is treating the Ratmansky creations as loss leaders to improve its dancers), here's the down side: Eventually, Ratmansky will be out of the picture and, as volcanohunter describes, there will be little or no Ratmansky repertory left for future performing or training as there's really no audience (at least at the Met) for it.

Here's another elephant in the room: Just how popular is Alexei Ratmansky with ABT's core audience? He has a following among critics and seriously committed ballet fans. But how much of an audience does he have at ABT beyond that?

Whoa - wasn't expecting this news. Well, the position of director at the Paris Opera Ballet has always tended toward the short side (Brigitte Lefevre being the exception).

And the winner for "Best Choreography" is . . . Christopher Wheeldon.

The Royal Ballet is in the ascendant right now and there's a high degree of personality in the company. I can't say the same thing for ABT at the moment. Will ABT be able to field one stellar cast for a production like this - let alone three as at the Royal?

ABT imported Andrew Veyette back in 2014 to cover for Cory Stearns in Theme & Variations when Stearns went down with an injury. This contributed to the general collapse in company morale around that time. (2014 was the nadir of the guest artist/exchange artist period.) The company needs to solve its problems from within.

I don't think Jaffe will need to go in for a Corella-style bloodletting because the march of time will see plenty of age-related departures in the relative near term: Gillian Murphy is 43. Herman Cornejo turns 41 next week. Misty Copeland turns 40 in September. Jaffe will have plenty of opportunities to shape the roster without generating the kind of bad press Corella did.

I thought there was major problem with Dorothy Chandler, who was key player and fundraiser in the Los Angeles arts scene and who didn't want John Clifford's Los Angeles Ballet to become a resident company at the Los Angeles Music Center. I also think Chandler could have cared less about George Balanchine and his ambitions for southern California. I follow Clifford on Instagram so I'll report back if he mentions this topic again. I'm sure he will as he endlessly recycles the same stories!

Norma Shearer's next film after Their Own Desire was The Divorcee (released in April 1930) for which Shearer won the Oscar for Best Actress. I've reviewed it on page one of this thread so I'll move on to Shearer's next release: Let Us Be Gay Cast: Norma Shearer, Marie Dressler, Rod La Rocque, Hedda Hopper Production Credits: Robert Z. Leonard (director), Cedric Gibbons (art direction), Adrian (gowns) Premiere: August 9, 1930 Synopsis: When frumpy housewife Kitty (Shearer) finds out that her no-good husband Bob (La Rocque) is stepping out on her, she divorces him. Three years later, she has transformed herself into an international bon vivant. Mrs. Bouccicault (Dressler), who befriended Kitty in Paris, brings Kitty to her estate in Long Island to distract her granddaughter Diane from Bob, who is another guest on the estate. (Diane is set to marry Bruce but is infatuated with Bob.) Of course, no one at the house party knows that Kitty and Bob used to be husband and wife. Based on a 1929 play starring Tallulah Bankhead, Shearer is in her full 'Pre-Code' mode here. Not only is she dealing with her ex-husband but she's also juggling two other potential suitors at the same time. As always, Shearer is at her most believable when she's engaged in comic antics. Her attempts at portraying an international sophisticate are less successful. Shearer has a very uncongenial foil in La Rocque. With his seedy looks and smarmy manner, you can't understand why she married him the first time let alone why she would consider remarrying him. The real standout in the cast is Marie Dressler, who effortlessly steals every scene. Dressler was on the rise at M-G-M in 1930. She had already appeared successfully opposite Greta Garbo earlier in 1930 in Anna Christie and Let Us Be Gay was another star turn for her. (There would be many bright moments ahead for Dressler at M-G-M. In 1931, she would rank 5th [behind Shearer] in the annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll and she would actually rank first in the same poll in 1932 and 1933 - ahead of Shearer, Garbo and Joan Crawford.) The ending to Let Us Be Gay is infuriating as Kitty, having laid out intelligently her reasons for not reconciling with Bob, then inexplicably reunites with him in the last 15 seconds. It's a Post-Code ending to a Pre-Code film. Adrian's clothes and Cedric Gibbons' really capture that late-20s/early-30s vibe. In particular, Kitty's bedroom at the estate is extraordinary with its huge balcony and sweeping steps that lead down to the estate grounds. Grade: A- marked down to a B because of the ridiculous ending.