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miliosr

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Posts posted by miliosr

  1. 1 hour ago, volcanohunter said:

    Yes, I can think of a few cases where heroic service to the company in time of need has sped along a promotion to étoile.

    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.

  2. 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. :)

     

  3. 16 hours ago, pherank said:

    This got me to wondering exactly how old Ingham is now, and I came upon an Australian article talking about a 21 year old Luke Ingham heading to the US for a short study tour with various large companies including SFB. But the article claims to have been published in 1990! That would make Luke 53 or 54 years old.  And I don't believe that.

    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.

  4. 3 hours ago, abatt said:

    ABT desperately needs star dancers who can attract an audience.  Attendance is now so poor that they have reduced their Met schedule to 4 1/2 weeks.

    Most entertainment has returned to full capacity, so we can no longer blame the pandemic for the lack of box office for ABT and the substantial reduction in its Met season.

    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)

    4 hours ago, bingham said:

           I'm probably in minority here but it looks like except for the Seasons and Seven Sonatas , none of his ABT commissions has been very well received to be revive.

    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.

  5. 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." 

     

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. On 7/9/2022 at 1:38 PM, dirac said:

    I could never get into Dos Passos but I have not tried that one or The Best Times. Maybe it's time to give him another chance.

    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".

  9. 1 minute ago, volcanohunter said:

    ABT isn't really #1 at the Met. It's at the mercy of the Metropolitan Opera, and when the opera decides to shut down for most of February and extend its season into June, ABT has no choice but to change its schedule accordingly. 

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

  10. 20 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

    I always assumed the attachment to the Met was the prestige factor. Does that really matter now that the company is no longer trying to attract jet-setting guest artists and is focused on dancers who came up through the ranks? Is there something contemptible about the House that Balanchine Built?

    5 hours ago, Papagena said:

    However, for better or worse, The Met is a pretty significant pillar of ABT’s brand. The other pillars being ‘war horse’ productions and superstar dancers that can carry these heavy ballets. The Met is, essentially, ‘theirs' as a ballet company. This isn’t all they are, of course (and does disservice to their history), but those brand pillars are the most known to casual ballet goers and new audience members.

    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.

  11. 9 hours ago, choriamb said:

    Setting artistic merit aside, Ratmansky's ballets are absolutely masterful as vehicles that increasingly ease dancers into dramatic/technical exposure without the white-hot heat of carrying a full-length. Each one has been tailored to develop whichever artists were next in line. To a degree that it would be interesting to learn if that was in fact his remit from the AD over audience appeal and marketability.

    If the price for 1-2 less well-attended ballets each season is a steady stream of artists like Trenary or Bell in R+J, Giselle, Swan Lake, and the other warhorses, ABT has struck a very good deal.

    8 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

    It's not at all strange that Ratmansky should tailor his works to the dancers he actually has before him, or that this process will grow their experience and confidence. Perhaps the Met is not the best venue for pursuing this aim. It does no one - not Ratmansky, not the dancers, not ABT - any good when these ballets fall out of the repertoire, because they fail to sell 4,000 tickets a night.

    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. 

  12. On 6/18/2022 at 10:44 AM, Papagena said:

    Very much looking forward to the production, but not the number of empty seats. Always feels like an elephant in the room. 

    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?

  13. 10 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

    Aurélie Dupont, director of the Paris Opera Ballet since 2016, is leaving her post at the end of the season to pursue personal projects and devote more time to her family.

    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).

  14. 21 hours ago, Mashinka said:

    I didn't wholly dislike LWFC, as there was a lot to enjoy and it has a terrific cast.

    It will be interesting to see what the second cast makes of it.

    14 hours ago, California said:

    Sounds like it's a risk for ABT, but no doubt they've already invested heavily in the production and we'll see it in spring 2023.

    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?

  15. 15 hours ago, abatt said:

    Maybe Roman Mejia from across the plaza has some extra time on his hands.  Now that would be a Basilio I would show up to even with Seo as Kitri!

    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.

  16. 8 hours ago, abatt said:

    Apart from what she intends to do with the rep, the question is what will she do with the slate of dancers who are now principals, and even some of the soloists.  Is she going to be like Corella (as AD of PA Ballet), and "clean house" when she comes in, i.e., not renewing certain principal and soloist contracts that expire.  Or is she going to stick with the team she has inherited from McKenzie. 

    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.

  17. 12 hours ago, BalanchineFan said:

    It seems there was a prominent socialite (possibly Nancy Reagan, but I think it was someone else) working against Clifford telling her wealthy friends not to fund him.

    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!

  18. 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.

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