richard53dog

You make it sound like it was a long time ago, Richard! It was just a few years -- my last stint on Jury Duty. Once again my writing is muddled. What I meant to point out that Wonderful Town opened in 1953 and was pretty successful but had to wait 50 years for a full scale revival (The 2003 revival on Broadway which followed the Encores production) And I'm guessing that the 2003 revival was what we both saw.

I was really struck with just how messy the book(s) is/are for Clear Day. When I saw the Encores production I couldn't get over how confused the fantasy sequences are. They just didn't work. Chenoweth was just dandy in the show(the opening was magical) but with book problems that bad, I just don't think the show is viable. Audiences today want everything spelled out for them and I can't believe the show would have legs. Wonderful Town was never revived since it opening until the Encores and then Broadway revival. But the show is sound, if unknown It has a strong dramatic structure in My Sister Eileen

Well, I think that's one opinion. A lot of people who are not Stephen Sondheim would agree that Bernadette Peters is the last true Broadway starYes, they might, but she's old news. She's one of the few successful performers I've ever seen who was mannered from the very beginning, and who I have found irritating in everything I have seen after 'Dames at Sea.' I recognize that others find her to be an important star, whereas to me she has no star quality at all, and her success always astonished me. I would say that's my take exactly. I could never understand her appeal and it was ALWAYS the same tricks trotted out in lieu of actually building a performance. And it's amazing it worked so long.

From an opera board that I'm on, a poster reported that she called in to donate her Met Opera ticket for last night and was told she could bring the ticket to the BO and exchange it for another ticket. If so, this is a comparatively new policy. I had a $125 ticket for for a performance during a storm about 3 years ago and I was out of luck. Perhaps these performing arts companies are rolling out policies that are more "consumer friendly" Any one hear anything on the NY Phil? That would be the third of the big companies at Lincon Center.

Forgive me, Richard, but LHH? Can't figure out what that stands for. I've often wondered why Gamzatti and Solor's betrothal pdd is never danced (to my knowledge) in these kinds of galas. I love the woman's variation there! LHH is Little Humpbacked Horse. I wasn't familiar with that abbreviation until I read it here on BT and thought I was TOTALLY uncool for not knowing it! I love the Gamzatti's variation too. But I haven't watched it in a while. It might need to have some arranging done to work as a pdd. Isn't there one point where Gamzatti is lifted by several guys?

The first two are a lot of fun. I agree they are great gala choices. I've never seen the pdt from LHH and would really like to. But Fairy Doll????? You want to scream? Me =

True, I feel much the same way. It's too easy for an arts instituation to find out that all of a sudden the financial mat has been pulled out from under them so those that are creative and prepared are able to survive. And certainly there is no responsibilty for other countries to understand the seemingly impossible to understand structure to fund US financial support for the arts but , oh well, some chose to take a "high level" view, even if it is simplistic

Oddly, Parker doesn’t pick up on the feminist issues involved in the opera. Read the Complete article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...14/nopera14.xml Seen through the eyes of modern day audiences the opera certainly is racist, just as Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice is anti Semitic, his Taming of the Shrew misogynistic and Henry V the glorification of a war criminal. It’s misleading of Prof. Parker to make comparisons with modern day Shakespearean productions because whatever ideas they have about staging, directors leave the text alone along with the odious sentiments contained within that text. Geez, it boggles the mind. Madama Butterfly is racist? Gasp. Il expert professore di Puccini hasn't even seen the production, he's just guessing from his ivory tower that it "might" have racist elements. This boggles the mind that he has credentials. Let's hope the article was slanted is some way so he is not really as naive as he sounds. The opera is based on a turn of the (20th)C tearjerker play by David Belasco. This makes Puccini's opera PC! Belasco's Butterfly speaks only in Pigeon and has very little of the steel and dignity that Puccini gives his heroine. But as Dirac and other's have pointed out, you either throw the thing out completely or leave it alone. If you take out the racist elements and Butterfly's accompaning naivete, ther is very little story left. The good professor makes some of the Konzept directors like Beito sound responsible! Interesting the Long story was based on real life but somehow the ugly Brit got turned into an ugly American.

Well, opera singers have an easier "out" from high notes that are difficult than dancers do with difficult steps. They can use transpositions, or lowering the key of an aria or a section of it. To all in the audience except those with the keenest sense of pitch (either absolute or relative), it's hard to tell the difference. So much of the time, if not most of the time, Manrico's will sing Di Quella Pira in a downward transposition, resulting in them singing a climactic High B rather than a C. Rodolfo and Mimi will end Act 1 of La Boheme on a B rather than a C. Most of the audience won't notice, which is very different than Odile not doing her fouettes. Maybe an equivalent for her would be substituting 24 or 16 turns (to me 16 is the bottom limit, if you can't do 16, do another step) Pavarotti did make a huge splash with Fille 40 years ago in London and then about 5 years later in NYC. He was dubbed "the King of the High C's" here and on a later LP , but this was a bit ironic. From the mid 70's on, Pav eliminated many, many High C's in performance. Ironically when returned to Fille at the Met many years later, he transposed Mes Ami down so the high notes, like Florez's, were just Bflats.

I DO think you are correct!

I believed subscription new/renewals closed last month. (After being hounded for weeks, I finally renewed) I generally renew, just to have 4 seats, exchanges are very liberal. But I think "make your own" is still in the works. What this means to you is that ABT/Met is still selling packages rather than individual tickets. The last piece of the whole series /subscribution is the priority exchange, usually one week for single tickets go on sale. Since you can only be in town one night, you need to wait for single tickets; I think this will be April. ABT website, they will surely announce the single ticket date. I'm sort of kicking myself, when I renewed my series, the lady asked did I want to add on the Ferri Farewell and I said no. Duh. Anyway, watch the website and when the single sales are open, go for it! Good luck!

Thanks , Leonid!

OK, how about this. Maybe this is turning into a new thread but I don't think it will have much in the way of legs. Who has experience with different dancers as Odette/Odile? How did it work for you? I've seen a paired group of dancers just once, way back in the early days of my ballet going. It must have been in the early 70s, it was a matinee at ABT. Toni Lander cancelled and Eleanor D'Antuono did Odette and Lupe Serrano did Odile (I might just have these reversed these) I really didn't like it

Could you post the link? Thanks

They are not that important to me. If the dancer has to really hobble through them, they should substitute another step. Odile has to show a dazzling confidence to bewitch Siegfried and to get through the series with obviously gritted teeth goes contrary to that. A different story is a dancer who can do the turns but something goes wrong in the actual performance. In that case , I think the dancer should try to salvage the turns (maybe cut out multiple pirouettes) if they can. Or if necessary, switch to another step. The key here is to try not to have it look too obvious. I think we are more or less stuck with the 32 fouettes though, they are a tradtion and audiences love the high-wire aspect of them. But I think it's a shame to have them subtract from a performer that does all the rest of O/O well.

Monotones

I have to admit honestly that the full blown Mahagonny is a bit too much to me. By the time we get to Jimmy's trial , I have lost interest , it I find it a bit overblown. IMO, of course Actually I would like to see the cabaret prototype, I think I might get Weill's message more strongly from that.

It WAS interesting. The comments on the large segment of the population that is young surprised me. But it must be a bit tricky to establish a theatrical community. I wish them well and probably given time many changes will happen there.

Amy, thanks for the heads-up. Richard

Yes, you are right. I pulled out my subscription brochure. Vishneva's backward placed arm crosses her midsection in the color photo and in the B&W crosses her raised leg. Also in the color, some of Malakhov's torso is in fog. I think BOTH are wonderful shots, I just love the arrangement of all the lines, including the ropey things that separate the lovers from all the ghosts in the early part of the scene. And I agree with your comment about ballet photography. I love seeing a photo from something I've seen and finding the "frozen moment" to be something that I didn't catch during the performance but wonderful none the less. It's almost like a dividend.

I just love to look at the photo the link opens to . This shoot is used a lot in ABT's brochures for Spring but I think the lines Vishneva and Malakhov form with their limbs are just sensational. I almost stop breathing for a split second at the beauty created.

I have to admit to enjoying The Other Side of Midnight, too. Sometimes we need to have trashy guilty pleasures, no?

Maybe he thinks he is the reincarnation of Toscanini who hummed along with some of his NBC concerts and operas. Some were transmitted over the radio and later transferred to disc and the humming is pretty prominent.

For Vishneva , I would join in the suggestion to catch her Manon. I also want to see her in Bayadere.

In the documentary Dancing For Mr B, Tallfchief speaks to this. She recounts a story of when both were still girls. She said her mother would push at her "Why can't you dance like Mary Ellen?". Tallchief recounts that later she found out that the young Mary Ellen was being goaded by HER mother to the tune of "Why can't you dance like Maria?". Fact? Who knows? But it's a cute story. Oh, and rg, I LOVE the BI photo with MEM sitting on the floor. The informality of her position plays off the elegance of her costume beautifully