volcanohunter

No, Bolle didn't dance Ratmansky's Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake, and after Legris took over at La Scala, it wasn't remotely surprising that the Nureyev productions returned. (Makarova's Bayadère was replaced by Nureyev's version also, and after flirting briefly with Balanchine's Nutcracker, the company reverted to the Nureyev production.) In the case of Sleeping Beauty the change was even justifiable, because for all its peculiarities, Nureyev first staged his version in Milan, before mounting it in Toronto and only much later in Paris. It played an important role in the company's history. P.S. I don't think either Ratmansky production was filmed professionally. Maybe there is a single-camera film in HD resolution, but not the multi-camera RAI treatment. At the time the imperative was to film productions starring Bolle for television broadcast.

Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet and Manuel Legris' production of Le Corsaire are now available to rent on LaScala.tv. The cost is €4.90 for HD or €6.90 for Ultra HD for a 72-hour viewing window. https://lascala.tv/en/show/518284ab-227b-4aa6-9981-25dc443e5635 https://lascala.tv/en/show/680f12e3-06c6-4ba4-9159-1bb316d2640f Available by subscription, rather than pay-per-view, but Pierre Lacotte's Le Rouge et le Noir has just been added to the Paris Opera Play library. https://play.operadeparis.fr/en/p/le-rouge-et-le-noir And the Royal Ballet's new production of Frederick Ashton's Cinderella is now available to subscribers of ROH Stream. https://www.roh.org.uk/tickets-and-events/cinderella-2023-digital

That section has a very limited number of seats, like the parterre ring at the Met, only smaller (128 seats, including a few reserved for company brass). There are no more than three unsold grand ring seats for any performance. It always sells out first. The orchestra section tells a different story.

In all seriousness, I've handed out protest leaflets outside theaters, but I didn't yell and basically didn't step outside a two sq. ft. patch of pavement. Definitely didn't hunker down. Not over casting, anyway.

Over the past decade, under the previous administration, guest artists (except in character roles, because the company eliminated the prinicpal character artist category, so they're all "guest artists" now) appeared with the National Ballet of Canada only in the case of dire emergency: when injuries left the company with only two interpreters of a principal role. That was the case last season when Emma Hawes returned from English National Ballet to dance the lead in James Kudelka's Cinderella. This season, the only guest artist is Sara Mearns. She also appeared with the company last year, so basically Mearns is the only guest dancers Toronto audiences get to see. And like I say, she's always just a short flight away, and since I see her on trips to New York, I don't also need to see her on trips to Toronto. Fundamentally I am pissed off because company dancers are being deprived of performances, and Mearns' presence is, at the moment, entirely unnecessary. And not to be facetious, but has anyone ever put up an urban encampment to protest anything "ballet"?

For context I'll add that the National Ballet of Canada hasn't performed the complete Jewels for 18 years, and there are only six performances scheduled. For most of its dancers, this is likely to be their one and only opportunity to dance the ballet, so every soloist slot is precious. The last stand-alone performance of "Rubies" took place in 2016. To Torontonians eager to see Sara Mearns in Jewels I would say that NYCB performs the ballet frequently, that New York is a one-hour flight away, and given ticket prices at the National Ballet of Canada and the cost everything else in downtown Toronto, New York may be a less expensive excursion than is usually assumed.

I could write about the time I watched Mearns dance "Diamonds" from the fourth ring and wept, because she projected so powerfully. I also know that my enthusiasm for her dancing gradually waned, and by the time the company returned to the stage in October 2021 I was sorry to discover that it had largely vanished. What I saw in February 2024 reinforced that impression. Speaking only for myself, my ticket-buying habits at the National Ballet of Canada are very cast-driven, because there are dancers I actively avoid, and the repertoire typically doesn't knock off my socks. My ticket-buying at New York City Ballet is almost entirely repertoire-driven. There are, of course, instances when I'm sorry to have missed a particular cast, because I admire certain dancers especially. In both instances, I have to travel, so convenience doesn't enter the picture and that, obviously, doesn't make me a typical subscriber.

Maddaddam was a co-production with the National Ballet of Canada, which premiered it in November 2022, so probably not. It's also a weak work, although no doubt McGregor will tweak it before London critics have an chance to savage it, which they would in its original state.

The locals are less impressed, and there has been backlash against this announcement. So far the shows without Mearns are selling better than the shows in which she's supposed to perform.

The original piece is far superior; I adore it. Brahms' own four-hands piano version is terrific also. I can't abide what Schoenberg did to it. Those bells and whistles are antithetical to Brahms, and the orchestration turns everything into mush. I find it very difficult to enjoy the ballet for that reason.

Ballet Vlaanderen in three pieces by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui: Our Nature, Iustitia and Pie Jesu, created during the pandemic lockdown.

Lukáš Timulak's Totality in Parts performed by the Royal Swedish Ballet.

The Lviv National Ballet in Artem Shoshyn's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, to music by Ivan Nebesnyi. The plot seems to be a bit closer to the Parajanov film, which is more streamlined than the novel on which it was based. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadows_of_Forgotten_Ancestors?wprov=sfla1

Four excerpts from Demis Volpi's Surrogate Cities, to music by Heiner Goebbels, performed by the Ballett am Rhein.

To mark International Dance Day, the Operavision channel will be posting a number of dance videos today. The first is Antonio Lanzo's Romanian Folk Dances, to music by Béla Bartok, featuring Polish National Ballet dancers Barbara Derleta, Paulina Magier and Alan Polański. I don't know how long the video will be available.

The Royal Opera House continues to have an extensive cinema season in the UK, Europe and Japan, even Mexico, so I understand the need not to dilute the audience in those markets. I would love it, though, if it were to follow the lead of the Metropolitan Opera and make paid livestreams available to people who live far away from cinema screenings. At the moment that would include all of the United States and Canada.

That looks more substantial than most of the ballet series.

I subscribe to Paris Opera Play and Royal Opera House Stream. In the case of the former, there were two ballet livestreams this season, and the first is already in the on-demand library. I subscribe to the latter because in North America there is no way to see the Royal Ballet in cinemas, and at least some of these broadcasts end up in the library eventually. For example, the live cinemacast of Cinderella from April 2023 was recently added to the on-demand library. If I watch at least one production a month, the subscriptions are worth my while. And, as always, use it or lose it. Sadly, we've largely lost ballet in cinema.

For what it's worth, I don't like them either. There's also the issue of cost and whether streams are economically viable. The Australian Ballet seems to have abandoned the idea recently after two years of streaming. A handful of companies tried it and threw in the towel after the first post-Covid season.

Besides, when Guillaume Côté danced Swan Lake with Sara Mearns in New York, it was as an emergency replacement for an injured Tyler Angle. Arguably, his presence was essential. Mearns' performances with the National Ballet were announced two months in advance, when it's impossible to know who, if anyone, would be on the injured list and require a replacement.

Prior to Makarova's production, when Westerners saw the Kingdom of the Shades, it was usually in isolation. For example, I remember seeing a bill that consisted of a Glen Tetley piece, the Kingdom of the Shades and the third act of Napoli.

To a large extent this has been the case for a long time. One of my earliest frustrations as a ballet-goer was the "wrong" (i.e., showy) variations being interrupted with applause. But YAGP exaggerated the tendency and normalized whooping and hollering at the ballet, giving it the tenor of a sporting event.

Makarova compressed the first two acts into one. She also eliminated a number of dances. Years ago I watched a television interview with Nina Ananiashvili and remember her describing Makarova's production as "compact." Yes.

Pointe magazine published an article on the problems with La Bayadère in 2020. https://pointemagazine.com/la-bayadere-orientalist-stereotypes/

There were objections to La Bayadère by 2020, though perhaps they were not felt as strongly in the United States as in the UK, where the Hindu population is proportionally larger. The main difference seems to be that McKenzie did not recognize a problem, but Jaffe does. https://inews.co.uk/culture/arts/hindus-apology-royal-opera-house-la-bayadere-racism-cultural-appropriation-223861