YouOverThere

Unfortunately, in the USA your only choices are to use the overpriced monopoly or to go with a foreign ticket vendor.

My impression is that the ticket vendor provides the computer system for the company's box office, so that even if you buy your ticket by phone or at the box office window the ticket vendor gets a chunk of the money. I think that a big part of the problem is that in the USA there is a single company that controls virtually all ticket sales, and without any significant competition they can charge inflated fees.

A CB insider who used to post here occasionally told me that the CB instituted the fee to try to get people to print out their own tickets (so they can save money by not staffing the Will Call window?). The fee is insignificant compared to the aggravation of missing part of the performance because they hadn't printed out my ticket. I wonder if some companies will start charging for programs. The Colorado Ballet already puts posters with the cast list in the lobby and the Ellie Caulkins Opera House has an electronic system for displaying program notes built into the seatbacks, so programs really aren't required.

... I got there at 1:45 for the 2:00 show, and walked up to the Will Call window. The guy said "We don't have a ticket printed out for you. The only printer is at the Box Office window, so you'll have to get in the box office line." One look at the length of that line (the longest that I've ever seen at the Colorado Ballet!) told me that there was no chance that I'd make the start of the performance. I ended up missing about half of the first act, and watched the second half from the rear of the theatre because it was too dark to find my seat. Completely inexcusable IMO, especially when I was charged both a $5 fee for having my ticket held at the Will Call window and a $6 "convenience charge" for buying my ticket ahead of time. The Colorado Ballet just can't seem to stay out of its own way.

I managed to get back to Denver in time to take in 1 more performance of [ballet Colorado's] Dracula, but when I bought a ticket online I found that the CB has instituted a $5 charge for the "privilege" of picking up my ticket at the willcall window!!!

P.S. Before the performance, I told the 30-ish couple sitting next to me that I had seen Dracula 12 times before. Afterwards, the woman said to me, "We understand why you've seen it so many times."

I attended the opening night's performance of Dracula. I don't like to attend opening nights because the later performances are almost better, but there are circumstances beyond my control that are limiting my options. Anyway, the performance was pretty good, but it was easy to tell which dancers had danced their parts in previous years. We got the 'A' cast, with principles Sharon Wehner as Mina Harker, Maria Mosina as Lucy, Igor Vassine as Dracula, and Alexei Tyukov as Lucy's fiance, along with soloists Viacheslav Buchkovskiy as Jonathan Harker and Jesse Marks as Renfield. Retired principle dancer Gregory Gonzalez returned again to play Dr. Van Helsing. This was the first year that Maria Mosina has been cast for the most part as Lucy (in past years she had only played Lucy in the final performance), so she was able to add more development to that role. Since 2 of the most important dances in the ballet are duets between Dracula and Lucy, this casting meant that these very important parts were performed by dancers who have been paired together regularly for about a decade. IMHO, they were able to step these dances up a notch over what had been done in previous years. The down side, besides that I didn't get much sleep the night before and couldn't get into the performance the way that I could if I was more rested, was the audience. It was by far the worst audience at any serious performance (by that I mean besides movies and rock concerts) that I've ever attended. LOTS of people talking during the performance (I finally told the 20-something women in the row in front of me that if they had only come to talk they could do it in lobby). LOTS of people returning late from the intermissions (with 2 20-minute intermissions, there was plenty of time to take care of anything that needed to be taken care of). And an unfortunate elderly man who was sitting in the center of one of the front rows who took ill, tried to leave during the middle of the last scene of the first act, and collapsed in the aisle. Probably not his fault, but it ruined one of the most powerful parts of the ballet.

I saw In the Heights when it passed through Denver, and haven't figured out what other people see in it that I don't.

One additional item of interest: Each performance this weekend was dedicated to someone. Sunday's performance was dedicated to former assistant artistic director Jocelyn Labsan and former dance coach Andrew Thompson, who were fired from the CB when Gil Boggs took over.

The Denver Post had an article today about the lack of private funding for the arts in Denver, the main inspiration for the article being the failure of the Colorado Symphony to raise their share ($30,000,000) of the funding needed to overhaul their home concert hall. http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_16035329

I'm poor but happy after attending all 4 performances of the Colorado Ballet's annual trek to Denver University (hopefully, I'll win the lottery before my VISA bill comes due). Needless to say, I found this "triple bill" thoroughly enjoyable. The first "bill" was Edwaard Liang's Feast of the Gods, which was just as stunning as the first time around (it premiered in the Spring of 2009). This work has so much crammed into it that even on the 8th or 9th viewing (I've lost count) I still found little pieces that I hadn't noticed previously. Feast of the Gods was my motivation for wanting to see the program so often. Second on the program was Lars Lubovitch's ...smile from my heart. Though crisply danced, this work got pretty tiresome by the 4th viewing. Actually, it got pretty tiresome by the 2nd viewing. This was not a universal impression. Two friends told me that they liked it better than Feast of the Gods. Last, but not least, was the one new work in the program, Matthew Neenan's The Faraway (The "Friday, September 10" thread in the Links forum has a link to The Denver Post's preview of this). It was a little different from other works that I've seen with the Colorado Ballet, sort of a ballet with a modern dance attitude. Or at least it was very modern (Feast of the Gods, in contrast, though while a recently choreographed work, is much more in the classical ballet style). Since I'm not familiar with Georgia O'Keeffe, I had a little trouble figuring out exactly what the gist of the work was. The lead parts were for a man and a woman who were attracted to each other but the woman seemed to be frightened of her attraction, and the music and dance between the 2 seemed ominous and foreboding. There were 2 other important characters, who appeared to be like court jesters, and a 12-person corps who were dressed in weird, brightly-colored costumed and appeared on stage engaged in frivolity at what seemed like inopportune times as far as the couple was concerned. This work also contained a lot of material, with as many as 3 couple doing different things at the same time, so like Feast of the Gods it remained fresh with repeated viewings. This program was sort of a coming out for Dmitry Trubchanov, who was promoted to principle for this season. He was the only dancer to dance in all 3 works in all 4 performances, and really was the star of the show (he played the leading man - none of the characters had names - in The Faraway), along with long-time principle Sharon Wehner who was the only woman to dance in all 3 works (but didn't dance in Feast of the Gods in the Saturday matinee). Curiously absent from the weekend was principle Alexei Tyukov, who not only danced pas de deux in the 2nd scene of Feast of the Gods in the Ballet Nouveau Colorado fundraiser but a photograph of he and Chandra Kuydkendall (who danced that particular part with corps member Travis Morrison in all 4 performances) from that scene was on the cover of the program.

A friend and I managed to score front row seats for the Colorado Ballet's (apparently) annual participation in the Arvada Center's summer concert series (the Arvada Center is a fine and performing arts venue in the northwest Denver metro area). It's the first time that I've ever been that close to dancers, and it was a very unique experience. What appears smooth and effortless from afar was strenuous and sweaty up close. The show followed the same format as last year's program, with the pre-intermission portion consisting of excerpts from various works followed by a complete work after the intermission. This year's choice for a full short ballet was Great Galloping Gottschalk, which isn't my favorite but was entertaining. The ushers were extremely stingy with programs so I don't have a list of dances and dancers, but the unmistakable stand-out for me was Rhoden's Ave Maria, danced by soloist Dana Benton and (recently promoted to) principle Dmitry Trubchanov. My friend's assessment after the show, which I could not disagree with, was "not quite as polished as their regular performances" (e.g., Maria Mosina stumbled at the end of the sequence of fouettes in the pas de deux from Le Corsaire) but perhaps we noticed the little mistakes because we were so close that we wouldn't have noticed from our typical seats. I don't know how much rehersal time they had, but I'm guessing it was less than for their regular programs. I noticed on the CB's website that several of their top administrators have left this summer, including their executive director. As far as I know, these departure haven't been covered by the local news media.

They came up $62,000 short, but they say that they raised enough money to keep going. In their words (from their website, http://www.bncdance.com):

The Boulder Daily Camera almost never prints reviews of performing arts shows. I have no idea what the reason for this is. The Boulder Ballet's facebook page is still up and the Boulder Philharmonic still has the annual joint presentation of The Nutcracker on their schedule, so there is no reason to think that the Boulder Ballet has folded. They used to print great reviews but they lost their critic a few years ago. I called the paper when they stopped printing them and found that out. It was so sad, I really enjoyed the reviews. The Denver Post still does them but not for all the shows... so away goes arts coverage in the newspaper, I guess. Add to that the loss of the Rocky Mountain News, which IMHO had superior arts critics and columnists to the Denver Post (I didn't care much for the rest of the paper, however).

Interesting idea. I can't say that there's never been a chamber music performance there, though I'm not aware of any. Looking at their website, I don't see any room that would have room for more than a few hundred seats if they need to accomadate 20-30 musicians and my impression is that the rent is several times what churches typically charge (and churches might not charge much to hold a rehersal while they would have to pay full rental to rehearse at the museum).

Is that true of all arts, YouOverThere? I have a friend who is a visual artist in Denver and her business is thriving with new commissions and opportunities for exhibits. My understanding from her and another person is that visual artists do very well in Denver. Is she an exception? It certainly is true of music as well as dance. Both the Colorado Symphony and Colorado Springs Philharmonic were created from the ashes of earlier orchestras that went bankrupt. The musicians in the Colorado Symphony took a double digit pay cut last year, and the base salary was only in the mid-30's to begin with. Chamber orchestras have struggled mightily. The Colorado Chamber Orchestra barely managed to scrape together 2 programs this past season and Pro Musica Colorado managed but 3. Well-known touring plays do very well, but locally-produced plays often end up selling tickets at a discount.

The other guests at the fund-raiser were Stayce Campero and Marcus Oatis from the Kansas City Ballet performing Jessica Lang's Splendid Isolation III (also one of my favorites from the show - I love everything that I've seen from Jessica Lang), Jessica Touchet and Darren Anderson from the Smuin Ballet performing an excerpt from Fly Me to the Moon: I've Got You Under My Skin (a ballet take on ballroom dancing - crisply danced but for me not very interesting choreography), Anne Mueller and Christian Squires from the Oregon Ballet Theatre performing Twyla Tharp's Known by Heart Duet (the longest of the guest performances, and I didn't care for the very repititious minimalist music that made the piece seem longer than it actually was), and Jane Hope Rehm and Jonathan Powell from Ballet Memphis performing an excerpt from Fingers of Your Thoughts (too short to form an opinion). In addition, there was a video of a performance of Trey McIntyre's Grass by Dylan G. Bowley from the Trey McIntyre Project, which mainly served to make all the other performances seem better. I got there about 10 minutes late, which means that I missed most of the pre-performance speech so I don't know whether they said anything about how the show was put together.

I went to the fund-raiser, and it was a pretty enjoyable show. Sona Kharatian and Jonathan Jordan from the Washington Ballet stood out with a performance of a piece titled Cor Perdut by Nacho Duato. Another highlight from my perspective was a performance of an excerpt from Nine Ninas: What More Can I Say? by Cecelia Jones of the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Company, presumably performed in honor of the recently departed Afro-American dancer Marceline Freeman for whom that segment was created. The Colorado Ballet contributed the 2nd "movement" from Feast of the Gods, danced by principals Chandra Kuykendall (back from her maternity leave) and Alexei Tyukov. This performance got a noticibly less enthusiastic reception than the other performances. I don't know if some in the audience didn't want to acknowledge the other ballet company in town or if it just was the wrong environment. The 2nd "movement" is subtle rather than flashy, like the 2nd movement of a traditional three-movement concerto, and it's easy to miss how physical that segment is. I'd guess that the theatre was about 40 percent full, meaning 225-250 people in attendance. I wouldn't have expected more than that.

The comments by the guy from the Denver Office of Strategic Partnerships seem rather strong. BNC is staging a fund-raising dance program on Thursday (7/29). It is supposed to include dancers from 8 companies, only 3 of which are local. This program was announced on the the 17th, only 9 days after their announcement about their financial situation.

It seems to be common, at least in Denver, for the artistic director and the executive director of growing arts organizations to come into conflict. It has happened in both the Colorado Ballet and Colorado Symphony, as well as several other organizations. Colorado isn't a great place for the arts in general. I believe that it ranks near the bottom in terms of government funding for the arts. It's telling that when Jeffrey Kahane decided that it was too much to be the music director of 2 orchestras while maintaining a career as a touring concert pianist, he dropped his Colorado Symphony Orchestra directorship and kept his job with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Hmmm. The artistic director gets the executive director fired and replaced by his own choice. The fired executive director claims that she left the company in great shape but things got fouled up after she left. A member of the board hints that the fired executive director was sloppy with the books and that the company wasn't in as good financial shape as the fired executive director portrayed it. Sounds like a normal, healthy arts organization to me.

The Boulder Daily Camera almost never prints reviews of performing arts shows. I have no idea what the reason for this is. The Boulder Ballet's facebook page is still up and the Boulder Philharmonic still has the annual joint presentation of The Nutcracker on their schedule, so there is no reason to think that the Boulder Ballet has folded.

Ballet Nouveau Colorado sent an urgent email to all their donors, including me, this morning. The gist of the email was that they need to raise a substantial amount of money (between an eighth and a fifth of their entire budget, depending on which source you believe) by the end of July to stay in business. It caught me a bit by surprise, as they have been portraying themselves as a growing, thriving organization, even starting an expansion of their headquarters a few weeks ago. I'm a little pessimistic about their chances of raising the money, given that it would require a substantial increase, percentage-wise, in their donations. This makes me hesitant to chip in a little more when it might do more good to give that money to an organization that is going to be around.

This weekend, the Colorado Symphony is offering its first performance of John Adams' 9/11 requiem On the Transmigration of Souls. At first hearing, it didn't do much for me. But then I often don't "get" modern music the first time that I hear it. Plus there is the long-standing problem with the AWFUL acoustics in the symphony hall in Denver that made some parts inaudible (in particular, the piece includes a pre-recorded tape with spoken dialog and background street sounds that was so faint that we couldn't understand anything that was being said). So I was wondering if anyone else has heard the piece and found it moving or meaningful.

"Sterile" is a good word. Or maybe "sugar-coated". And I'm not saying that the show was bad; I'm being a very tough grader since the show was hyped as a sort of final definitive performance (it is being advertised in some markets as a "farewell tour", though it's hard to believe FotR will ever be retired from the repertory), with ticket prices to match. It was a nice show, but I was hoping for something with a little bite, something to make it stand out from a local production. Then again, maybe if I had forked out the mega-bucks for a closer seat I would have found more in the production. Or maybe good theatre needs a more intimate environment than a 2600-seat concert hall. Or maybe Echoing of Trumpets created unrealistic expectations for other shows.