volcanohunter

Personally, I had more issues with Whiteside.

Perhaps McKenzie asked them and they declined. Part and Murphy are older than Seo and may feel it necessary to pace themselves a bit more.

Alberta Ballet has also programmed a Barton work for next season, which is fitting since she's a native of the area, but they haven't specified the piece.

That Bayadère matinee should be very exciting for local Koreans. But yes, it is a lot of Swan Lakes, with only one day rest in between each, plus a Cinderella the following Monday. And will she really dance Juliet two days in a row with two different partners? It's asking a lot.

I am looking forward to reading your posts, Alexandra.

I've found that some of these opera houses will charge an arm and a leg for a program, but lying around the lobby you'll find these incredibly detailed season brochures--more like magazines--printed on thick, glossy paper, which, in the case of many operas, at least, render the program superfluous.

At the second Benois gala on May 27 Nicoletta Manni is scheduled to dance Roland Petit's "Cheek to Cheek" with Luigi Bonino. I'm now willing to take a wild guess as to the source of her nomination. Gosh, you'd think the Benois organizers would at least discourage joint performances by nominees and jurors.

Talk about a physical mismatch!

Never fear. A more compact version is also available online. http://www.hamburgballett.de/e/spielplan_15_16.htm http://www.hamburgballett.de/e/gastspiel.htm

Yes, so do I. I'm grateful to everyone who reports on the performances they see, in New York and everywhere else.

While Smirnova is scheduled to appear at the Benois prize gala on May 26, her performance in Onegin has been canceled.

Definitely Sleeping Beauty rather than Spartacus. I was under the impression that the Bolshoi was also bringing Vasiliev's Giselle.

Misty Copeland is not scheduled to appear at the Benois gala in Moscow. But then neither is Svetlana Zakharova. http://benois.theatre.ru/english/massmedia/news/

This makes me sorry Paloma Herrera won't be dancing the ballet in New York.

Sound advice.

Certainly professional critics would have to use a different standard. Above all they have a responsibility to be truthful to their readers. If I were to find myself bound to the standard, it would result in a lot of silent elevator rides. In fact there have been many occasions when I've found myself face to face with a dancer and said nothing about their dancing because as it happens I'm a spectacularly unconvincing liar.

True, alas. But I remember a season during which Lilac Garden, T&V and Etudes were presented at City Center in the autumn and at the Met the following spring. While T&V and Etudes obviously looked a lot less cramped on the bigger stage, Garden, which had been so powerful at City Center, fell flat at the Met. Needless to say, I was grateful to have had an opportunity to see the City Center performances.

City Center was useful in this regard.

A guideline that has been suggested on this board from time to time is the "would you say it to the dancer's mother while riding together in an elevator" test. Not a bad one, even though I'm ashamed to say I sometimes forget it.

You're probably correct. I grew so frustrated by the continually falling standards of operatic singing--and constantly complaining about it--that within the past couple of years I essentially gave up on the art form. And what I've seen and heard during my now infrequent encounters with opera, whether live, at the cinema, on television or online, has not persuaded me that things will improve anytime soon. During discussions with some of my relatives, as I come from a family of opera lovers (including singers) rather than balletomanes, a few (but not the singers) would ask me why I would rail so passionately against, for example, a famous lyric coloratura for her under-supported, flat, twangy and squeaky singing. Why not just ignore her, let her fans cheer and basically live and let live? And I would reply that watching her slip and slide through the music on the world's most legendary stages offended my sense of justice. I was offended for the sake of her more accomplished predecessors, for other lyric coloraturas, though flawed themselves, who could do a better job, and most of all for the composers, whose music was being was being so grotesquely abused. No one deliberately gives a bad performance, and generally, though Lord knows I flunk sometimes, I prefer to pass over in silence rather than to criticize harshly. (Choreographers, directors and conductors are fair game.) But I can understand detractors. It's not that they're ornery or bear a personal animus against certain dancers. I believe that they love ballet passionately and cannot bear to watch a substandard version of it. For my part, I don't have a horse in this race. Frankly, I don't expect much from ABT anymore. But I think a lot of what we're reading here is a cri de coeur from people who do love ABT and despair for its future.

Thank you for the report!

Baryshnikov encouraged the use of Misha because he couldn't stand hearing his name mispronounced as McHale.

Ferri further complicated matters by completely pulling out the shanks from her pointe shoes. This would make it extremely difficult to hop on pointe, relying as she does solely on the strength of her feet.

Kader Belarbi's La Reine morte, based on the life of Ines de Castro and set to familiar pieces of Tchaikovsky, is available for viewing on demand in a performance by the Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse. http://culturebox.francetvinfo.fr/live/danse/danse-contemporaine/la-reine-morte-par-kader-belarbi-au-capitole-de-toulouse-212559

It is available on Culturebox. I'd meant to post the link, but obviously I forgot. Oops. http://culturebox.francetvinfo.fr/live/danse/danse-contemporaine/la-reine-morte-par-kader-belarbi-au-capitole-de-toulouse-212559