richard53dog

Thanks rg, I thought it looked like Donn and not Bejart

Too bad. They had that very short, location challenged season last fall in NYC. I look forward to the rep programs they have been presenting at City Center in the fall so I'm not happy with this. I wish them success with their Nutcracker but I'd rather they not make this particular schedule adjustment

Be thankful........

I hadn't thought of the "time and place" element but I think this is a very pertinent point. I first saw the piece when it was new so I also have a personal referrence to that particular "moment" And the "clones"; maybe a bit harsh of a term, but in a general way I agree, it does sort of take a very particular "bookmark" and drag it across time, space, and personality boundaries. I also agree that this has been a very interesting discussion!!!!

They'll use the industrial strength variety....

Good deal! I missed this when the Bolshoi brought it to NYC some years ago and was sorry afterwards. I'm happy to get another chance to see it without having to travel.

I thought it was fun seeing a good, old fashioned hissy fit in all its glory. I sometimes wonder where all the 'artistic temperament' has gone; apparently Tsiskaridze is the current keeper of the flame . I recall seeing a long interview with Nicki as part of the extras for the Petit Pique Dame DVD. He was amazingly self absorbed there; I love how he almost went as far as referring to himself in the third person, which is the height of diva-dom. I also loved how he referred to himself as a "young artist"; it's how I always think of him now. He is certainly the keeper of the flame, he might want to keep a fire extinguisher handy for those flare ups, though.

I realize I'm going OT with this, but what are the details of the NYCB three season thing. HAve they announced what time blocks will be involved?

I wonder where they will perform in NYC. As I recall mid-June has NYCB at the Koch and ABT at the Met.

I'm really looking forward to Le Comte Ory. It's a lovely fun piece with sparkling music, a bit more delicate that the usual comic Rossini. And it has Juan Diego Florez and Joyce DiDonato in roles they should be just terrific in. Diana Damrau is also in the cast and may also turn out to be a winner although some of her recent Donizetti/Rossini has been a bit unidiomatic. But JDF dresses up as a nun and tries to hide in a convent...... I only saw this piece once many years ago with Rockwell Blake as Ory and found it a lot of fun and a refreshing change from the seemingly endless Barbers and Cenerantolas. Written for Paris , this is one of Rossini's handful of French operas. Some of the music has been getting some play time as part of Il Viaggio a Reims but Rossini did tend to recycle music and Il Viaggio was really intended to be a piece d'occasion . Rossini didn't really expect Viaggio to be performed again after the coronation of whatever French king was being crowned so he rewrote a substantial part of it into Comte Ory.

I agree 100%. You illustrate the point perfectly. Is it possible that the dull performances some have complained in is because the dancers have lost touch with (or never been helped to GAIN touch with) the story-telling tradition out of which this choreographer has so clearly developed? Yes, I think Carbro has really described this well. Her point also illustrates once again how we have to take a lot of the statements from a Robbins or a Balanchine with a grain of salt. They may say something relatively straightforward, such as "no stories" but the comment may actually be designed to make a certain type of point within a larger context. I'm just coining a possibility here but let say perhaps Robbins had an issue with some comments he had heard about the "plot" associated with certain numbers and it irritated him. So he quotes "no stories" to cut off this kind of discussion. Just one kind of example that comes to mind....

Just a little slightly to go with this thread: Natalie Dessay, who has been singing the lead role of Amina has been fighting a bad cold. Last week she was unable to sing after the first act and the management had no cover or understudy. So that performance was cancelled and the audience sent home during what would have been the first intermission. No refunds! Although after a bit of negative "comment" the box office has offered some discounts for purchases for ticket holders of the cancelled performance.

Are you implying that they're COASTING??????? SHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Don't say that! It's a SECRET!

Even though I was then, as now, NYC area (read NJ) based, I first saw DaaG with this Royal Ballet cast and loved the piece. Shortly afterward I did see it at NYCB with mostly the original cast except for a replacement (don't remember who it was) for John Prinz who had left NYCB at that point and was with ABT. I did think at the time and still do that the dancer's personalities are key to sustaining interest in the work. Otherwise it can get a bit "mushy"

It's pretty common practice and I'm not aware of any issues associated with this. So go ahead and enjoy!

This is the aspect that puzzles me a bit. Maybe Plushenko DID lobby the ISU to bump up the point value of the quad. Who knows? But that would certainly have been a good strategy to position himself for coming into this Olympics and I certainly wouldn't have faulted him for that. But how could he and his coach not be aware of how the Code of Points is constructed? Or was this just a casualty of human shortsidedness. (My brain is substituting "arrogance" for "shortsideness" but I really don't want to go there....that's too similar to the way Plushenko and his whole support system ...up to the big guy, Comrade Putin, ...is operating)

Personally I disregarded pretty much everything Plushenko has said. He DEFINES sour grapes and poor sportsmanship. He evidently felt he had won ahead of time and the results must have been quite a shock. Talk about having a sense of entitlement.

Another Somova-like mannerism. Never been very found of it for Aurora. No, I don't like it either. the high attitude just doesn't look appropriate in something so Classical as Sleeping Beauty.

One of the great Russian singers of the Twentieth Century, the Mezzo Irina Arkhipova has died in Moscow at the age of 85. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100211/ap_en_..._obit_arkhipova Arkipova had a wonderful , rich mezzo sound and was a vivid interpreter of many of the great mezzo roles : Carmen, Marina, Azucena, Amneris etc. She kept her voice balanced rather than distorting it as some mezzos do , weighting it too heavily on the bottom register which makes the middle and top problematic. Arkhipova avoided this pitfall and kept her voice in healthy condition for a long, long time. Unfortunately I only saw her once, she did appear occasionally in the NYC area but I always seemed to miss her. Also her prime was in it's later stages as I started my own attendance at opera and concert events. The Met brought her in very late, when she was already in her 70s, for a debut as the nurse in Eugene Onegin when I finally caught up to her. It was a shame that she didn't come earlier in one of her great roles. RIP , Irina

Good new for us in the NYC area! I saw Cojocaru dance Aurora when the RB brought Sleeping Beauty to DC a few years back and thought she was very fine in the role.

Yakobson's was the first choreographer to set Khachaturian's 1954 score for a Leningrad premiere in 1956. Moiseev followed with his version for the Bolshoi in 1958 and Grigorovich followed with his version also for the Bolshoi ten years later. Since all three versions used the same score, the plot and characters were all most likely determined by Khatchaturian but I don't know this for sure Yakobson didn't use formal ballet techniques in his version and so it remained controversial. According to Plisetskaya, she danced in sandals rather than pointe shoes without using turnout. I recently saw some clips of Plisetskaya in Yakobson's Spartacus and she was actually barefoot rather than in sandals . She commented that she danced both Phrygia and Aegina but that interview was rather "free-flowing" and didn't specify if she only did the Yakobson or later danced in the Grigorovich. Also, it was implied that her performances in the Yakobson were in Moscow, implying that the work traveled to Moscow after the Leningrad premiere.

When I was a very young listener of opera , I tuned in regularly to Jellinek's weekly radio show "The Vocal Scene". I learned soooo much from it. Jellinek was a wonderful host/programmer, always knowledgeable, always enthusiastic, never condescending. He really shaped my knowledge and showed me what to listen for. I am forever greatful RIP George

For me I wonder if Strauss lost interest before the second act. I find the Ochs stuff not at all funny and pretty endless. Personally, I'd hack 20 minutes out of the second act and 15 out of the third. The Mariandl thing goes on far too long too."Nein nein, nein nein, Ich trink' kein Wein" bores me to tears.

But Ballanchine is done regularly at City Center (by ABT, and recently The MT ) which is much closer to Lincoln Center than the Joyce.

Most first nights, whether of a new production or of just the season's revival of an older production, are carried on the free, Realplayer link from the Met's site. As others have noted, there are many more performances carrier on the premium Sirius network Here's a link to a pdf file, not 100% accurate, but pretty close. The performances in BOLD are the ones carried by both Met Realplayer and Sirius. The performances is regular type are Sirius only. Well sort of the Saturday afternoon broadcasts sponsored by Toll Brothers don't fit neatly in this schematic. They are NOT bold because they are NOT Realplayer but depending on the date it may be a Toll Brothers event and a Sirius or just a Sirius. I would suggest supplementing this document with info from the Met site on Toll Brothers. The casting was up to date as of some weeks ago, so take it for what it's worth http://tinyurl.com/yzhah2p One detail that was not yet resolved at the time this document was created was the March 9 TBD. Logically, it would would seem to be a Saturday afternoon Toll Brothers Radio broadcast of Atilla, but it seems to were many bits of negotiations with Maestro Muti that took a while to resolve . I believe Toll will carry Muti's new production of Atilla on that date