volcanohunter

Today NYCB is trying to market precisely that. The clip looks awfully derivative of Forsythe's Blake Works ballets. As for programming, the pop music ballets should always go last, so I can leave early and not have to sit through them. #sorrynotsorry

It doesn't alter the fact that her presence isn't needed. Lunkina is available and knows the part. Mearns is still in the process of learning it. And the dancers of the National Ballet have a different skill set, because three-act narrative ballets is something they do quite a lot. I remember when Merrill Ashley, an indisputably great dancer, performed Aurora in the UK before NYCB had its own production. The critics, at least, were not persuaded. It's not always possible for a dancer to excel on alien turf. (I also remember that when NYCB finally got its own Beauty, some critics were persuaded only by Valentina Kozlova, whom they didn't find especially persuasive in the company's core repertoire.)

Because Lunkina was Côté's partner earlier this year when the ballet was performed in Ottawa. The other Juliets were already rehearsing and performing with other Romeos, so short of one of the others becoming injured, she was the one left without a partner. For myself, I take a dim view of guest artists unless the number of performances is huge. Or if replacements are absolutely necessary. When an in-house dancer ends up replaced, I'm livid about it. Well, I think so... But I feel for her because otherwise she had nothing to dance. She was left only with a brief appearance at a gala that was mostly a dinner/discotheque. During their careers dancers end up dancing a lot of ballets they don't like, but sitting on the sidelines is not their goal when they drag themselves in every morning to go to class. Plus the audience loses. A great artist can salvage a dramatically inert ballet.

I don't think Balanchine's Sugar Plum Fairy really counts. At best her acting consists of reacting with admiration to the Prince's mime. I guess I'll point out that Lunkina first danced Giselle when she was 18. But there's a big difference between dancing a canonical role, where the dramaturgy is well established, and building a dramatic role out of steps you're dancing for the first time, particularly those as clotted as in Ratmansky's Romeo and Juliet. (I detest the production, and I'm on record as not being an admirer of Côté, so I'm almost relieved to have no reason to attend.) Mearns is a very emotional dancer, but that's not exactly the same as being a great dramatic dancer, and her experience in dramatic roles is limited. Has she danced another full-length production of Swan Lake with a different interpretation, different ending? I've seen Lunkina in several, where the stylistic and dramatic requirements of the producers were quite different. Lunkina is an exceptional and remarkably detailed actress, miraculously able to convey several emotions at once. In comparison pretty much everyone else looks like they're engaging in so much forehead wrinkling and mouth gaping. And honestly, up until I'd seen her interpretations I thought other ballerinas were doing just fine. After her most of the others look almost comical. Her roles include Nikiya, Kitri, Raymonda, Esmeralda (Petit's and Burlaka's), Anyuta, Tatiana Larina, Anna Karenina, Blanche DuBois. Can you think of two roles more different than Ashton's Lise and Grigorovich's Phrygia? She also dances Wheeldon's Queen of Hearts and Paulina, both highly dramatic roles created for Zenaida Yanowsky, which Lunkina dances in a completely different but equally compelling way. For that matter, Lunkina also has longer experience dancing Ratmansky than Mearns. Besides Juliet, there have been Zina in The Bright Stream and Coralie in Lost Illusions, as well as Jeu de cartes. I'll add Jurgita Dronina as the company's other remarkable actress. It's like watching a real person on stage. She's entirely natural, you can sense her entire backstory, understand exactly what makes her tick. She gave birth one month ago tomorrow, and even managed to dance in place of an injured colleague at the gala, which must be some sort of record. But I suppose a complete Juliet would have been a stretch too far right now.

And just like that Côté is given the authority to spend company money on a "guest dancer of his choice"? Was a special raffle held at the gala to cover the costs?

If a change needed to be made in March, there would have been enough time to teach the role to another woman within the company. And in March Mearns had not yet returned to the stage; she had missed NYCB's entire Nutcracker and winter season. This doesn't make sense to me.

On June 23 at 19:45 CET/1:45 pm Eastern, La Scala will livestream the MacMillan production of Romeo and Juliet, with Agnese Di Clemente and Claudio Coviello. The cost is €9.90 for HD and €11.90 for Ultra HD. The stream will be available on demand for 7 days, and the viewing window for each rental lasts 72 hours. https://lascala.tv/en/show/518284ab-227b-4aa6-9981-25dc443e5635/

No doubt there were additional expenses, but there is no shortage of 4- and 5-star hotels with banquet halls within half a block of City Center, so I don't think transportation would be an issue.

I don't think the primary issue here is the Met. There will be a 12-day gap between the end of the Met season and the opening of ABT's, which didn't used to be the case. Also, in the golden days of my childhood, the Met was filled with foreign ballet companies straight through July every summer. The Met decided to close down its season for a month in late January because ticket sales during that stretch were abysmal. Is there any reason to think ABT would do better? I am all for moving across the plaza when NYCB isn't using it and taking the spot once held by City Opera. Apart from the "prestige" element that seems important to a part of ABT's audience (represented by the Met's peeling gold leaf ceiling, moving chandeliers and more red carpeting? Or is it the onsite restaurant vs. sandwiches?), it is a better venue for dance in just about every respect. City Center is cramped, which was obvious when ABT did Theme and Variations and Etudes there 20 years ago. But it would be a good venue for smaller works that have trouble projecting into the vast expanse of the Met.

That's very frustrating. Things have probably changed, but years ago I was ordering tickets online to the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. I was given a choice of delivery method: €80 to have them sent to me by overseas courier, or €0 for print at home. On the other hand, La Scala's markup was always enormous.

The front orchestra is below stage level, so you would definitely want to sit in row R or higher, and in that sense AA should be fine. The rake is pretty standard for theaters of that period, and the seats are staggered, so there would be a gap between the two heads in front of you.

Gergiev insisted on conducting Tchaikovsky's ballets when they were being committed to video, but it has never been the usual practice, he doesn't stoop to conduct Minkus, and he really doesn't know what he's doing. There was a hilarious video that was posted on the eve of the Mariinsky's 3D Swan Lake transmission. Presumably it was a test run. At the conclusion of the Black Swan adage, Ekaterina Kondaurova and Timur Askerov were taking their bows. Kondaurova exited into the wings, and as Askerov began to move into position for his variation, he made a small bow to Gergiev. (Obeisance to his boss.) Gergiev took that as a cue to begin the music, and Askerov was forced to run frantically into position in four short oom-pahs. If Gergiev had conducted Swan Lake with any sort of regularity, he would have known that Siegfried's variation begins upstage left, not downstage center. Or take a look at the DVD of the Vainonen Nutcracker and the very sloppy exit of the snowflakes, presumably because the tempo was all wrong. The corps had their backs to the hall and couldn't see what he was doing, but they were clearly confused by what they were hearing.

Today's vlog from Tirion Law shows Svetlana Lunkina at a rehearsal of Symphony in C on the left side of the screen in full rehearsal gear: pink tights and rehearsal tutu. If she can dance the fourth movement of Symphony in C, she's not injured. A few minutes later there is footage of Lunkina rehearsing Law for Romeo and Juliet. If she has been shut out of casting in favor of Sara Mearns, this is a very gracious thing of Lunkina to do.

Yay! I hope you have a great trip!

Fingers crossed that Renavand's proper farewell will take place on Sunday as planned.

Judging by his bio on the Paris Opera site, Dudamel conducted only one ballet gala. Otherwise he conducted a handful of operas and a concert of symphonic music in each of his two seasons. This is not unusual. Antonio Pappano does not conduct the Royal Ballet, and Riccardo Chailly does not conduct La Scala's ballet company. There are specialists for that.

Philippe Jordan held the post for 12 years and had his contract extended twice, so it can be done. However, if, like Benjamin Millepied, someone goes in there with an intent to overhaul the institution, they're likely to get slammed hard by the rebounding door on the way out.

Dudamel is leaving Paris tout suite.

Partly that depends on how you define foreign. Skorik was born in Ukraine, Askerov comes from Azerbaijan and Ivanchenko was born in Turkmenistan. May Nagahisa is from Japan, Even Capitaine is a French dancer who before this season had been working in Belarus, Camilla Mazzi is Italian, Bíborka Lendvai is from Hungary. There are a handful in the corps, but on balance not many.

Smirnova appeared with ABT in La Bayadère in 2014 opposite Vadim Muntagirov, but her next scheduled appearance was canceled because of injury. https://bachtrack.com/review-abt-la-bayadere-nyc-may-2014

It's usually a question of partnering. MacMillan's choreography is highly acrobatic, and it's simply easier to execute when Juliet is smaller. Though Darcey Bussell, who is about 5'7", danced the role in her day. An interesting case is Neumeier's A Midsummer Night's Dream, because in the play Helena is explicitly tall, and Hermia is explicitly short. But because the choreography involves Demetrius and Lysander fighting over Helena and literally tossing her back and forth between them, Helena is always played by a short dancer, and Hermia, whose duets with Lysander are kind of gooey and lyrical, is usually the tall one.

According to the online archive of the Royal Opera House, which is nowhere near complete, Ballet Imperial has not been performed there recently. https://rohcollections.org.uk/work.aspx?work=620 The video came from a gala performance to mark the reopening of the theater after a lengthy renovation and only an excerpt was performed. (I remember there was also an excerpt from a Forsythe ballet that someone booed loudly.) https://apnews.com/article/642ab4a5dc77b9bef0d91630304ba57c

Yes, this video is awful to watch in retrospect.

This sort of marketing seems to be a one-shot deal. I remember how after their promotion to principal, Dvorovenko and Beloserkovsky appeared on the cover of Dance Magazine and got a feature in People, but after that it ceased to be a marketing tool. In her reviews Anna Kisselgoff routinely mentioned that they were real-life spouses, but that was about it. Dvorovenko did attend the send-off for McKenzie. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cf1z23tLgrx/ Post-retirement they appeared in a few videos for ABT. But yes, since so many ABT dancers are going to them for coaching on the side, it would only seem fair to hire them officially. Unless, of course, the extracurricular coaching is more lucrative than full-time positions at ABT would be.

Given the conservative reputation of ABT audiences, I'm guessing there will be classical tutus and tiaras.