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I received an email from ABT informing me that I'm eligible to apply for a pass to a dress rehearsal for Giselle at the Wolf Trap on July 26. The pass allows 2 people to attend. As of 2 weeks ago, I no longer have a 2nd person to attend. I am leaning towards attending. so perhaps if there's someone who would like to go and doesn't have their own pass something could be arranged for being my "guest" (contact me via message).

And after buying tickets for the Thursday performance and for a National Symphony concert in August, I found out that people 65+ are eligible for half price "rush" tickets starting a half hour before the performance.

For anyone planning to attend Giselle at the Wolf Trap and hasn't bought tickets yet, they are waving the online ticket fees for 1 day only - today, July 4. Offer ends at 11:59 EDT

Actually, what I was trying to say in regards to Pictures at an Exhibition is that it would have been more apparent that the mood of the choreography didn't always match the mood of the music if they had used an orchestra version. The 2 orchestra versions that I've heard (including the Ravel version that's performed 99.9% of the time) are somewhat dark and melancholic. The piece was composed by Mussorgsky after he attended an art exhibition honoring the memory of an artist who had been a close friend, and he definitely was not in the light-hearted mood that some of the choreography came across (at least to me) as being. I think that I stated when I first watched this work that I didn't get using ballerinas for Bydlo (aka The Ox Cart); there was nothing ponderous and plodding in their dancing. At 2 performances I had to deal with people sitting nearby who were eating (presumably) some kind of chips out of plastic bags that crinkled quite loudly.

Alvin Ailey is a huge draw in DC, often selling out all their performances, so it makes sense for the Kennedy Center to book them every year.

The rear of the orchestra was pretty empty. I had a row to myself. I have mixed feelings about Pictures at an Exhibition. I didn't always feel like the mood of the choreography matched the mood of the music (I think this would have been more apparent if he had used an orchestrated version). I thought that Naomi Corti deserved a standing ovation. My initial reaction to the music used for Love Letter on Shuffle was pretty negative, which made it difficult for me to have a lot of interest in the piece. The costumes didn't help.

Does anyone else question the scheduling, with what at least I would consider to be the lesser of the 2 programs (Program B - Pictures at an Exhibition, etc. ) scheduled for Friday AND Saturday evenings?

For those who don't know, the Kennedy Center now charges a 10 percent markup on tickets bought at the box office. They increased the fee for online and phone sales from 14 to 15 percent. [off topic]IMHO, there needs to be legislation for more transparency in ticket pricing. "Convenience charges", "facility fees", etc. seem to in general be increasing, and I find it really annoying to end up paying significantly more than the advertised price for a ticket.[/off topic] I've found that some ballets I like looking down on while others I feel detached if I'm up high in the 2nd tier.

When it rains, it pours. The WB is short on men in general and leading men in particular (Andile Ndlovu did not dance at all this season after rupturing an Achilles tendon at the end of last season, so we don't know what his future is). And with no AD in place, or even announced, the WB would hardly be a magnet for dancers right now.

What I see as a "theme" is that they have a lot of choreographers working with them. As I understand it, choreographers get to cast their works, which would take the burden off the new AD or whomever is covering the AD's responsibilities in the interim. All 5 performances of Sleeping Beauty essentially sold out, though there were only 5 performances instead of the usual 6 and the performances were in the Eisenhower Theater which only has 1,161 seats. Julie Kent did not give her usual speech before the performance. If in fact the WB didn't officially advertise the AD position until mid-April, they wouldn't have begun interviewing candidates yet (unless they already knew who they were going to hire). A concern is whether some of the dancers will decide that they don't want to spend a year in an unstable situation and move to other companies, especially those who auditioned for the WB specifically because they wanted to work with Julie Kent. Since the Washington Post no longer employs a dance critic, there is no one to report on what's going on with the WB.

The programs for Sleeping Beauty contained next season's schedule. There are 5 programs, though only the first 4 are included in the season ticket package: Such Sweet Thunder: An Evening Inspired By Shakespeare October 25-29 The Nutcracker November 25-26 and December 2-30 Jazz Icons: Legends of the Golden Age February 14-18 Beyond Boundaries: An Evening Curated by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa May 22-26 10,000 Dreams: A Celebration of Asian Choreography June 22-26 This apparently is part of a series on Asian choreography that the Kennedy Center is producing.

I'm glad that I got my ticket at a reasonable price. They have a few tickets left for the Saturday evening performance that they are selling at pretty steep prices, e.g., $150 for a seat in the balcony.

Tickets occasionally become available (I managed to grab 1 for the Saturday evening performance). Given how fast tickets on the high side of $150 are getting gulped up, there must be a fairly large number of people who are motivated by it being Julie Kent's finale.

I bet the WB is wishing that they had opened on Wednesday as they usually do, given that all 5 scheduled performances have essentially been sold out for several days.

Fortunately, this forum contains people who know everything, so our thread on her leaving was started 2 months earlier. 😉

What looks like a position announcement is dated April 14. I would have thought that they would have begun soliciting applicants months ago. Is it easy for people to get out from AD/assistant AD/ballet master/mistress contracts? Because I would think that everyone in those sorts of positions would have already signed a contract for next season, or at least would have to sign a contract very soon.

IIRC, last year they didn't announce this season's schedule until after last season ended. I've been wondering if they will make an AD announcement at one of the Sleeping Beauty performances.

I've never been in, or even looked into, the box tier.

I received an email from the WB stating that a 15% discount on tickets is available by using the code FAIRYTALE. The email didn't specify whether the code was only available for online sales, but apparently is good for any seat. It's a bit surprising that they are offering a discount since there aren't a whole lot of tickets left. Casting can be found here: https://www.washingtonballet.org/the-sleeping-beauty-casting/ I suppose that I will end up going to at least one performance, but I'm not really in the mood. My long-time accomplice for ballets and symphonies has entered the home stretch of her life. By opening night, she will have been moved to a hospice.

I second this. We don't need foreign companies to present the same works that our local companies present, unless they have a unique take (I have the same attitude about touring symphonies playing the standards, e.g., Dvorak's 9th [New World] Symphony, rather than perhaps something from their own region that North Americans might not be very familiar with). But perhaps they feel that they will get a bigger audience if they perform something that everyone is familiar with. I thoroughly enjoyed Sagalobeli and wouldn't mind seeing it again. I thought that it was pretty original. At GMU, they danced Mozartiana rather than Concerto Barocco. The performance also had a disappointingly small audience - I don't think that people from DC or Maryland have much interest in driving to GMU, though it isn't all that hard to get to (and parking is free!).

The current listing has Mozartiana rather than Concerto Barocco.

Casting for the Easter weekend "Aurora's Wedding" program is available at Aurora’s Wedding Casting | The Washington Ballet Eun Won Lee and Gian Carlo Perez get the most star time. The program is "family friendly", which as usual means "short", consisting only of Theme and Variations (which they performed in their February program) and the final scene from The Sleeping Beauty (which they will perform as their season-ending performance). "Family friendly" also means an early start time, which makes the Friday performance (the cast that would be my preference) not particularly "driver friendly".

What about pole dancing?

Though I thought that Cate Blanchett deserved the Best Actress award, as a 60-something person who was "quiet fired" for being too old (in the eyes of the management at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Environmental Modeling Center) I find it fascinating that both the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress awards went to 60-something actors.

I gave it a second try. It didn't improve my assessment.