YouOverThere

The management of the Baltimore Symphony has cancelled all the orchestra's summer concerts, including their 4th of July concert, and apparently imposed a ~20 percent pay cut on the musicians (by shortening the contract from 52 weeks to 40 weeks). This was allegedly in response to the annual budget deficit that has averaged about $1.6 million over the past decade, but comes shortly after the Maryland state government allocated $3.2 million for the orchestra. This action was unexpected, as the orchestra had recently announced their summer schedule. The Baltimore Symphony is clearly the best symphony orchestra in the DC-Maryland-Virginia region, so it would be extremely unfortunate if these actions cause some of the top musicians to leave. It also leads to the concern as to whether symphony orchestras can continue to flourish in cities that contain few headquarters of large corporations.

I thought that the dancing was excellent, competitive with what we're used to seeing with the elite companies that pass through the Kennedy Center. However, I thought that the program could have used a little more variety.

P.S. There is an attempt to make a movie version of the play. Capturing the same spirit might be difficult, as the play makes you feel as if you are in the room with the negotiators.

"My daughter is named Maya" said Ahmed Qurie, PLO Finance Minister, to Uri Savir, Director General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, upon learning that Savir had a daughter named Maya. In the 2017 Tony Award-winning play Oslo, this broke the ice after the first tense secret negotiating session between the PLO and an Israeli official that eventually culminated in the Oslo Accords. I love to complain about the quality of plays, in particular about award-winning plays, but Oslo is a really truly great play (so good - and so well-acted by the Bethesda-based Roundhouse Theatre Company - that I saw it 3 times). Oslo tells the story of the Norwegian husband-and-wife team of Terje Rod-Larsen and Mona Juul, who conceived the idea of the secret negotiations and acted as facilitators. I don't know whether anyone else on this board who was alive at that time knew about them, but I did not. The play captures the spirit of what actually transpired, though it did take some liberties to make for better theater (underplaying the roles that the Norwegian Foreign Minister and Deputy Foreign Minister played so that the focus would be on Rod-Larsen and Juul, leaving one of the Palestinian negotiators out - my guess was that it would look better to the audience to have the same number of people on each side, and adding some fictional peripheral characters so that it wouldn't be a boring documentary). Though Oslo is about a deadly serious subject, it has as many laugh lines as many comedies. This actually was intended to capture the spirit of the negotiations. Rod-Larsen had a theory of negotiations that he called "gradualism": put people from the 2 sides together, have them first agree on what they agree on before moving on, and let them learn that the people on the other side are also human. This last point required that everyone involved eat meals together and drink together (even members of the Norwegian security detail). !!!Some might find the rest to be a spoiler!!! The end result was that not only did the negotiators come up with the basis for the Oslo Accords, but they became friends - a quarter of a century later, Qurie and Savir still correspond regularly, as do the 2 Mayas. The play ends with Mona Juul questioning whether what they did was right, given the number of people who died in the wake of the Accords. Rod-Larsen responds that at least they moved the sides a little closer to together, increasing the chance that some future negotiation might lead to peace.[ If this play is ever performed in your town, I heartily encourage you to see it.

My employer's Employee Manual states that employees who violate their rules on sexual harassment are "subject to disciplinary action up to and including dismissal", so I wouldn't find it surprising that there is a range of possible actions.

Companies often don't update their websites until dancers' contracts end/begin. MCB is performing at the Kennedy Center in June (Yay!), so the dancers might be under contract until then.

YAY!!!!!

I kind of felt the same way, though perhaps not for the same reasons. Though to be fair, I was tired due to getting home late the day before due to a rock concert in Annapolis and I was stuck high in the nosebleed seats. I thought that Ms. Reisen's piece was very impressive for an 18 year old, though the Balanchine influence was unmistakable. Unlike apparently just about everyone else, I really enjoyed Opus 19/The Dreamer. It brought me back to my childhood days when it was, in certain times and places, possible to watch the clouds and stars move through the night sky. I'm not a big fan of Symphony in C, mainly because I don't find the music to be very interesting. My accomplice complained about the ballerinas in Kammermusik No. 2 not always being in sync, but I did not notice this. I was tempted to go back and see the program again on Wednesday, but I was delayed in leaving work and the traffic was absolutely brutal, as sometimes happens when the cherry blossoms are blooming.

My interpretation of Revelations is that it's about a black experience, so I think that it would look strange if the cast wasn't at least majority black. Beyond that, Revelations is so strongly identified with AAADT that any other company that performed it would run the risk of it being rated as "good, but it just wasn't Ailey". There have been some complaints, including in the Washington Post's review of AAADT's most recent visit to the Kennedy Center, that Revelations has changed a little over the years and that not everyone viewed the changes favorably. Someone brought this up (in a tactful way) when Julie Kent hosted Judith Jamieson at a Washington Ballet talk a year or 2 ago, and Ms. Jamieson's reply was something to the effect that every generation of dancers gets to make Revelations their own.

I keep seeing it labelled as a comedy, but it didn't strike me as a comedy. I thought that it was a somewhat dark drama. There were other historical inaccuracies that bother me more than the lesbian portrayal, such as in the movie Abigail was the source of the trumped-up charge of embezzlement that caused the Queen to fire Sarah's husband from the army while in reality Abigail had not yet become the "Keeper of the Privy Purse" at the time the Duke was fired and so would have been unlikely to have been involved.

As of 10:15 on Sunday evening, there were only a total of 20 tickets left for the 7 shows.

My impression is that most historians are skeptical about Queen Anne having had sexual relationships with either Sarah or Abigail. For one thing, in real life Queen Anne's husband was alive during most of the time period covered in the movie (he died a year after Abigail married). Also, part of the reason that the Queen soured on Sarah was that Sarah was frequently absent.

I was roped into watching The Favourite on Sunday. I'm still trying to figure out highly I think that it should be rated. I found it for the most part quite entertaining to watch - the acting for the most part was incredibly well done, the wardrobe was about as good as it gets, the music (at least to this fan of Baroque music) was perfect, and the plot was unpredictable and engaging enough (at least for someone who had no idea before watching the movie that there even was such a person as Queen Anne) to keep me glued to the screen. From that, you might think that I would give it 5 stars. But there were a few things about it that bothered me. At the top of the list, there were some crude semi-explicit sex scenes that seemed to be included for shock value or to show that the movie was "pushing the envelope" rather than as necessary elements for telling the story - I perhaps was more sensitive to this because I went with a Chinese woman friend whom I knew would be uncomfortable with that aspect of the movie. There were some implausible components which perhaps also weren't necessary for the plot, such as portraying the leader of the Tory Party as a quite young man (the real-life person was a 40-something during the time period covered in the movie) or having said person push one of the Queen's favorites into a drainage ditch. And then there was the issue of the historical accuracy - or lack thereof. Perhaps it would have been better to invent fictional characters rather than create an unrealistic scenario loosely based on actual events. Or maybe I'm just being stubborn and should just enjoy the plot without caring about how much of it actually happened.

Since last evening's performance might be the only one that I get to, I'll throw in my impressions from that: - I loved the music. To me, it sounded both classical and Chinese at the same time. - The lead dancers were quite good. Which they had to be, because there wasn't much in the way of tricks or "wow" sections in the choreography to make them look spectacular if they had been merely adequate. - The costumes were impressive (as they tend to be in Chinese theatrical productions) - The story was difficult to follow. This has been my experience with Chinese theatrical productions - the creators don't feel the need to present a full telling of a story. Without having read the program notes beforehand, I might have been lost in trying to figure out who was who. - The choreography could have used a little more variety, especially in tempo. - the story was a tragedy, but it didn't engage me enough for me to have any emotional response to it.

I managed to overcome illness and competition for tickets to attend 2 out of the 3 programs that the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre presented at the Kennedy Center for their 2019 visit. I felt that this was their strongest effort in the (admittedly few) years that I've seen them dance. The highlight of their visit was the DC premier of a piece by Rennie Harris titled Lazarus. This work was supposed to be about Alvin Ailey and was created for the 60th year of the company. It turned out to not strictly be a biographical sketch but rather a series of vignettes that captured the essence of what Ailey would have experienced in his life. The work had about the widest variety of tempos of any dance work that I've ever seen - Harris has a thing for "slow motion" movements but this work (much more than the previous effort of his that I watched: Earth Tribe, created for the Colorado Ballet) contained some very fast sequences. The work was billed as the first 2 act dance work created for the Ailey company, and is definitely different than any other dance piece that I've watched. I'm confident that it will enter their main repertory, so that hopefully more people will get to see it.

Did anyone else go to the Saturday evening performance? They drafted a guy from the corps, Tyler Maloney, to dance the Harlequin part, and I thought that he showed a lot of potential. I had mixed feelings about this ballet. A bit too much mime, yet there were some excellent riffs for the leads.

Last night, I was dragged back to the Kennedy Center for a performance by the "Pan American Symphony Orchestra". This orchestra apparently consists of free-lance musicians organized by an Argentinian-born conductor to present Spanish/Latin American music to DC audiences . The quality of the musical performance wasn't in the same league as the major professional orchestras in the DC area, and their guest singer was good but nothing special (of course, I got to hear Renee Fleming sing on Friday, and not a whole lot of other singers are going to seem great in comparison). But they also had a flamenco dancer named Maria Juncal. I thought that her performance was close to the most intense dance performance that I've ever seen (she danced primarily to music by Manuel de Falla). Has anyone ever heard of her? This being only the third professional flamenco performance that I've attended, I know neither how to describe nor evaluate it.

They put on 8 shows in DC and probably sold close to 90 percent of the tickets, so it isn't unpopular, at least in this area (and receiving a fawning review in the Washington Post). But I think that Bourne's work appeals more to people who like "Broadway" shows than to people who like ballet.

I hadn't intended to attend this, but I got roped into buying a ticket for the Sunday performance. I'm not a Matthew Bourne fan, and this show did nothing to change that. When they are putting on 8 shows in 6 days and using the same cast for all 8 shows, there's obviously no way to have the performers perform virtuoso dances. What I would consider to be "dance" took up about 20 percent of the performance time, and I didn't see anything special about. I still think that the proper title for Bourne's productions should be "dancical", because to me they are like musicals except that the performers dance rather than sing.

During the intermission of Thursday (12/27) evening's performance, an usher told me that she had worked inside the theater at around 375 performances of The Nutcracker!

Fascinating!

The WB has a complete cast listing for this week's "Contemporary Masters" program on their website (it's too lengthy to type in): https://www.washingtonballet.org/performance/2018-2019-season/contemporary-masters

My Kennedy Center performance final grades: McIntyre Your flesh Shall Be a Great Poem: B+ There was a computer glitch in the mid-term grading ;). After re-watching this one, I found that I had WAY under-estimated its merits (in part because the most interesting - to me - choreography was in the first 10 minutes, which I missed the first time). Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for something so personal the first time. I still don't like the music. Wheeldon Bound To: A+ I absolutely loved this one. Varied choreography (with a stellar solo for a man), a coherent theme, and interesting music. I have no idea why the Washington Post reviewer called it "not Wheeldon at his best" (maybe for the same reason I initially gave a low grade to the McIntyre piece?) Dawson Anima Animus: A- A high energy, dynamic piece that had the misfortune of coming after the emotional Wheeldon piece. Maybe it would have gotten a full 'A' if scheduled differently, though I still felt that there were some instances where men had to wander about the stage to get into position for something while dancing was going on around them. Others might disagree. The costumes bothered me for some reason. The men's shirts and the women's leotards were backless except for a vertical strip that ran up their spines, which just made me feel uncomfortable - I can't explain why. Liang The Infinite Ocean: A Maybe it deserves an 'A+', but I can only give two of those and I liked the Wheeldon piece just a smidgen better. Another piece with interesting music. It was my accomplice's favorite, because in her opinion it was the work that required the most perfection from the dancers. Marston Snowblind: B I still didn't think that it did a great job of making the story clear, unless perhaps you were seated near the front and could see all the subtle gestures. And then there was the issue of having 4 men doing a simple dance in a back corner while "Mattie" was dancing the biggest solo of the entire work. Not only was impossible to watch both "Mattie" and the 4 men at the same time, but because the men were in a back corner they were out of view from at least a quarter of the seats (including the seat that I had the first time I watched it). Peck Hurry Up, We're Dreaming: C The only piece that I didn't get more out of with repeated viewings. It just didn't seem particularly original to me. San Francisco Ballet dancers: A+ They nailed EVERYTHING. Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra: A Great solos from a violinist and a cellist

The Washington Post published the WB board's response to their article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-washington-ballet-is-at-the-center-of-the-areas-cultural-grande-jete/2018/10/26/16d7c032-d8a7-11e8-8384-bcc5492fef49_story.html?utm_term=.a30d80398d30 There's not a lot it in, IMHO. Basically they say that the WB is moving in the direction that the DC area is moving.

I believe that Suzanne Farrell still has some sort of job with the Kennedy Center even though she no longer has a dance company (which wasn't a real company - there was only 1 program a year and most of the dancers had jobs with other companies). By "lackluster Ken Cen ballet programming", I'm assuming that you're not referring just to the Washington Ballet's schedule for this year. The Kennedy Center decided that they would take a short (maybe just 1 year) break from classical story ballets because they felt that there were too many performances of certain ballets (e.g., Giselle) in the past few years.