richard53dog

DefJef, I can understand the appeal seeing the dancers expressions so easily has for your wife. But for myself, I dislike being so close, not only are the patterns harder to make out, even the individual dancers moves through space look more clearly defined (at least to me) with some distance and some height. But tastes vary. And opera glasses are usefull but somewhat awkward. Let us know what you think of the Met side Orchestra versus the Grand Tier. Again, for my own taste, center Grand Tier is the best. Fortunately, although the auditorium is pretty drab and dark the seats at the New York State Theater all seem to be closer to the stage. It was built for dance, unlike the Met, and I think it shows. Richard

nysusan Wow is right, I was pretty surprised too. "Her shoulders often looked clenched, and in Act II, her movement was sometimes thick where it should have been diaphanous". I didn't see it that way at all. But I guess that's what makes horse races. Richard

I like the first tier up (Although affording it is another issue). At the Met those seats are fairly expensive. I don't mind second tier as I do like to view from above. Yes, I think it's a real problem to sit too close to the stage. You can easily lose the "big picture" And to augment those not too close seats, I do use glasses. Where I'm sitting, I can see the whole stage, but at some distance. Sometimes I will want to zoom in on a detail such as face or feet and the opera glasses will do that for me. Richard( still on a high from last night's Vishneva/Malakhov Giselle)

Mashinka, I think what is happening is the cult status that really rose up with her early death is finally going away. This did her no real service, there where many that would claim she was the best in every role she did or recorded and I think that's nonsense so I'm glad that icon thing seems to be going away. But the mystique? No , I think that will always be there. The recordings of her in her best roles will keep a very important spot for her among great singers of the 20th century. So much of what she accomplished was with her singing itself and that is there on record. I don't buy at all that because of vocal flaws her recordings don't reflect what she did. And , sure some will be disappointed when first listening to her recordings. But less so than when the recordings originally came out. I think there is a greater sense of what to expect when approaching her work for the first time. Also EMI is sure selling tons of her recordings. Richard

The only one I've seen so far is Jersey Boys, a very cleverly done but manufactured concoction. But the demographics worked for me; I've lived all my life in that part of New Jersey. The same towns even. My dentist has a display in his office of FV and the Four Seasons memorabilia. Like me, he's another Jersey boy! . Richard

I'm with Noreen here, I wish they would have used children. When the figures appeared and came out of the fireplace, I thought what a neat touch. Cinderella is having a daydream. But then I started looking at what seemed to be adults walking on their knees (with shoes on them). It looked weird and distracted from what could have been a real mood-setting moment. Instead of focusing on the pantomime, I was trying to figure what the odd figures were. Richard

FauxPas, I'd like to see this again. I'm hoping ABT will revive it for next year. Richard

Dale, That's interesting, I just assumed this excerpt was from the film. I will admit that VAI keeps coming up with a lot of material that has been unseen for a long time, and for that they should be creditited. But I hate scattershot way they program material on their discs. Oh well, as you point out, at least they are releasing a lot of old TV stuff . Richard

Dale, I wish VAI wouldn't do so much of this mix and matching. Their discs are pretty expensive and it galls me that they see fit to sprinkle in some new material in a batch of stuff that is on some of their other discs. The only two items I haven't seen are Serrano/D'Amboise Black Swan pdd and the McBride/Olson Tchai pas (which is on another disc...just one I haven't purchased yet) I realize the Fonteyn/Soames Firebird is not in common circulation but if VAI has the rights to this chunk, one wonders if the entire Czinner film with the Firebird, Ondine, Swan Lake Act 2 may appear. Again VAI is not a reasonably priced outfit; they are definitely at the high end. This is the kind of nonsense that the CD companies do too. If I want a specific opera recital by say Beverly Sills, can I get the original LP program on one disc? No, there is one I've been trying to get and pieces are on three different CDs. But even here not all the material from the original LP is released Don't worry, I'm not trying to shoot the (efficient) messenger!

Yes, it seems to me that the biggest problem is that Tsiskaridze's nose is out of joint. I don't know if it is all due to Ratmansky but I see a huge improvement. If you compare the 1989(or88) Swan Lake video or the Bayadere from around the same period with the Pharaoh's Daughter and some other recent performances, the degree of improvement is really. really impressive as Mashinka and Chiapuris have pointed out. I would guess that there is also a "new broom" situation, which always unsettles people. Interesting that Semenyaka speaks out for change.

I couldn't agree more. This thread is taking some twists and turns that are only leading to "unproductive" areas (I'll leave the stronger terms to Hans, but I agree with his statement fully) Richard

Really, that's very clever. Uses humor the defuse a potential negative connotation. Good for the Vancouver Recital Society. Someone was thinking outside the box. Richard

I enjoyed last evening a lot. True, as Zerbinetta writes, there isn't a lot of involved choreography. This is almost like a hybrid piece, part ballet, some dance, a bit of ballroom, pantomime, a lot of theater, and so on. All of this elements were matched to the score very sensitively. And from a dramatic point of view things were in pretty good balance, the step sisters were over the top but them came and went instead of hogging up whole blocks of time. And they were women!!!!!! I hate the drag versions of the stepsisters. I liked Cinderella's daydreams in Act 1 when the figures floated out of the hearth. But there's a lot of other nice detail too. Plenty of magic, as is apropos. Julie Kent was good without projecting too much, same as Marcello Gomes, textbook Prince Charming that he is. Their two pdd went pretty well but I suspect this need some more time to settle in. So if you want to see a classical ballet, don't go, otherwise it's a lot of fun. I walked out with a big smile on my face. Richard

Sandik, This documentary is called The Romantic Era (very apt!) Richard

Bart, I think the Italians became very possessive of her after she made her first big success abroad. She speaks of this humorously in the documentary Portrait of Giselle. But she has been important to the Italians for a long , long time As an Italian-American I'm a bit discouraged that opera seems to be losing its audience in Italy. But back in the 60s and 70s this wasn't so. And Fracci has an important opera connection, being the great-great niece of Giuseppe Verdi. The American program books always used to proudly explain this in her bios. This probably means less than it used to but on the other hand she has been around long enough to be a legend all by her self. I won't venture a thought on what the role of the Gran Vestale will entail. Richard

Natalia, I'm assuming Vigano's ballet was premiered in France? Spontini's opera was premiered in Paris to a French libretto, like a few other Italian Clasical era composer pieces, maybe most important being Cherubini's Medee. So Paris would have been familiar with Spontini's opera In Spontini the heroine is Giulia ( as FF notes), or actually the French version of the same. But in another version of the opera by Mercadante, the heroine is Emilia. Perhaps Vigano took his heroine's name from there?? But the music from Spontini? Richard

Good Work, Leigh! And thanks for your report; it's making me that much more enthused about seeing this production in DC in a few weeks. But my trek is much less complicated than yours, just a NJ-DC drive and back. I hope to see two casts; Nunez/Soares and Cojocaru/Kobborg Richard

Good info chrisk217! You know what frustrates me? Trying to figure out if the problem is the DVDR or the player. I played part of a DVDR and then wanted to compare it to another so I took the first one out, put the second one in, played it a bit. Then I put the first one back in. "incompatable format" What?????? What did I do? Take the imcompatable disc (that had played 20 minutes earlier) and copied it. My player was happy with the copy and played it. Crazy. Richard

I liked him too when I saw him last year at the Stars of the 21st Century gala in NYC. And now it seems he will come down to NY again to dance in Kudelka's Cinderella at ABT. Good luck for us, although at this point I may be veering Richard

I was in the Family Circle for Saturday night and that was head on. I too thought the profile starburst failed to come off correctly. I though Wiles was off but it was hard to tell. Richard

Agree "sz", but I was disappointed by the tepid response from the audience. Might seem minor, but I think the dancers deserved better. Yeah, I thought it was a stupendous performance and the audience reaction was, as you say "tepid" Maybe a weekend audience was expecting something more virtuostic? Richard

This may not be an exact quote but something to the effect that "there are no mother-in-laws in ballet" This is not strictly true, but I think Balanchine's point was you could easily get hopelessly wrapped up in the details of a complicated plot. The comprehensive plot synopsis of the major events should be short, just a page or two.(This last is my own) Richard

I went to the evening performance also. I was so struck with the pdd from opening night I wanted to see him the the full role. I can't add too much to sz's comments on his performance. Again, from Monday night, I was impressed by Herrera's Terpsichore. She's not a dancer I usually follow but again after the opening night pdd, I wanted to see the whole performance. Perhaps there is a chemistry between Acosta and Herrera that focused her . But she was serene and assured; it seemed very logical that Apollo gravitated to this muse. Jeu de Cartes is very silly and seemed a bit overlong, but fun none the less. Bocca, in his pink costume, clown makeup and wig, was a dynamo. He created a strong central presence to tie the three sections together. He had problems with his crown, it kept falling off his head , finally he threw it into the wings. That was it for me, I have a bad cold so I bailed out after Jeu de Cartes. Richard

Apollo, Jeu de Cartes, Petrouchka. Any reports yet?

I was glad I took this out of the library and so didn't spend any money on it. Maybe a mitigating factor with the odd emphasis on the Siegfried roles would be that Vetrov dances the expanded Rothbart role and I like him. Certainly I prefer Vetrov's Rothbart to Vasyuchenko's Siegfried. But this sort of goes back to canbelto's point. "Why would I want a Swan Lake if I think the best thing about it is the Rothbart?" Richard