volcanohunter

It shouldn't. The survey questions were prefaced with the statement "With the exception of elementary or high school performances..." I would guess this was intended to exclude school recitals in the respondent's mind. http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/SPPA-Questionnaire-2012.pdf It's entirely possible that ballet is more readily available, or more frequently available than opera. In many cities it's not unusual for opera companies to stage only three or four productions a year. If the local ballet company presents, let's say, five or six programs, this provides locals with more potential opportunities to attend. And opera tickets are frequently significantly more expensive than ballet tickets, which would also work against opera's popularity. Many cities with no opera or ballet company will nevertheless have a local symphony orchestra, making classical music concerts that much more available. The reports on the audience survey of 2008 did not mention data on movie-going or general live music attendance. Perhaps the information is intended to provide context. For example, 15% attendance at musicals may not seem like much, but only 59% of Americans go to the movies, despite them being readily available nationwide. Fewer than 9% of Americans go to classical music concerts, but then only 31.6 % of adults go to see live music of any kind.

Incidentally, I remember a playbill for a fairly recent Ailey run at BAM that included an ad for New York City Ballet's season, which was running concurrently. I'd be genuinely curious to find out whether the advertising was effective in attracting Ailey patrons that hadn't been to City Ballet before. As far as I can recall, ABT did not try to target that audience.

Of course, and that's why the NEA survey also analyzes audiences on the basis of educational level, though apparently it does not ask about income. But I think we can ask ourselves whether we see enough "people of color" at the ballet in, say, New York, and generally speaking I think we'd have to admit that the answer is no.

Another factor is changing demographic composition, as the U.S. population becomes progressively less white. This was already discussed by those who looked into the numbers of the last audience participation survey in 2008. The NEA credits the uptick in jazz attendance to an increase in its non-white and non-Hispanic audience. Purveyors of European and Euro-American art forms like ballet undoubtedly need to increase their non-white and non-Asian audiences.

Here is the link to the NEA's own summary. http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/highlights-from-2012-SPPA.pdf Besides the a decline in live attendence, which the NEA characterizes as statistically insignificant, what's also important is how many people are relying on electronic media for their arts consumption. (Is YouTube helping or hurting?) I find the "real" numbers on p. 12 helpful. 20.7 million American adults attended at least one classical music concert in 2012 19 million went to a jazz concert 13.2 million saw a non-ballet dance performance 12 million attended a Latin music concert 6.3 million went to the ballet 4.9 million attended the opera

Yup, and to figure out why ABT didn't do much with Golding during the six years that it had him.

Between his performances with the Dutch National Ballet and Royal Ballet and guest appearances with English National Ballet and the National Ballet of Canada, Golding is going to be very busy. http://www.ballet.org.uk/whats-on/lecorsaire/ http://national.ballet.ca/uploadedFiles/MediaReleases/Svetlana%20Lunkina%20and%20Evan%20McKie%20New%20Principal%20Guest%20Artists.pdf

Lobukhin is an ideal Grigorovich dancer. His Tybalt in the film version of Romeo and Juliet was just about its only redeeming feature. He may be a Vaganova-trained Petersburger, but he is more Old Bolshoi than any male dancer the Moscow Ballet School has produced in several generations. In effect, Yuri Burlaka hired him to dance precisely this repertoire.

Frances Chung was born and trained in Canada, so her exclusion may boil down to that.

Great to see the Royal Ballet fight for the American market, even if this particular avenue is closed to the opera company. But it sure hasn't been easy. This will be their third distributor in the U.S. I'm with you; hopefully these screenings will be a success, and others will follow.

I think your point is right on the nose. The fact is that most American movie theaters aren't going to give up their normal fare and evening time slots to show arts programming, at least not if they haven't got multiple screens at their disposal. And that may ultimately be what's working against the Royal Ballet and its weeknight broadcasts. The number of people willing to come watch ballet on Sunday at 11 am, however small, is still likely to be bigger than the number able to come on Wednesday afternoon at 2:30. Incidentally, Big Cinemas Manhattan will be showing Spartacus live on October 20 at 11:00 am ET, and the winners of the casting sweepstakes are Mikhail Lobukhin (Spartacus), Anna Nikulina (Phrygia), Svetlana Zakharova (Aegina) and Alexander Volchkov (Crassus).

The Bolshoi has finally posted the next round of Onegin casting. Oct 10, 12e - Smirnova, Lantratov, Tikhomirova, Chudin, Biktimirov Oct 11 - Obraztsova, Volchkov, Stashkevich, Gudanov, Vodopetov Oct 12m - Kretova, Skvortsov, Khokhlova, Ovcharenko, Khromushin

And yet if American ballet fans don't attend the Bolshoi screenings en masse the likelihood of getting the Royal or POB are extremely slim. I can't see the distributors expanding their offerings unless large audiences lead them to believe that the market has potential. In Canada the experiment began with the Bolshoi, and initially I was also sorry it wasn't a different company. As it happens, I subsequently changed my mind and came to love the Bolshoi broadcasts. Of course I was only too happy to see the series expand to the Royal Ballet as well, but I doubt this would have happened if the Bolshoi had flopped. Not that I'm unsympathetic to your position. Now that the Bolshoi has run out of 19th-century repertoire and is avoiding repetition for the present, we're probably going to be treated to the complete Grigorovich canon, a prospect that does not exactly appeal to me. But I also know that if I don't vote with my pocketbook, the whole enterprise could disappear, and that would be worse than sitting through Spartacus.

I would have thought that if it were a matter of choosing only one company, the ROH would be a more obvious fit for Emerging PIctures because its ballets and operas could be bundled together. But if the company's client cinemas find that the demand for ballet is insufficient to warrant 10 or 11 performances, it may have come down to looking at box office returns. If the Bolshoi has drawn more viewers than the RB in the past, a company trying to make a profit would make its choice accordingly. It's a shame. I suppose those living close enough to the norther border could cross over for screenings, but it's hardly a practical solution. http://www.cineplex.com/Events/DanceSeries/ParticipatingTheatres.aspx

Since Canadian Cineplex shows both, it wouldn't appear to be a demand made by the ballet companies.

Alexandrova was also Gamzatti, and both she and Kaptsova were among the soloists in Class Concert. Many of Kaptsova's broadcasts were as secondary heroines. That's a reflection of her repertoire: Adeline, Florine, Gulnare, Ramze. But those parts are not unimportant, just as Maria Allash's appearances as Myrtha and the Lilac Fairy have to be counted, and Ekaterina Krysanova's Fleur-de-Lys. If anyone is underrepresented it's Shipulina. I would like to see her Aegina.

Technically, it can't be called a stranglehold yet. This would be Zakharova's fourth appearance out of 16 broadcasts, the fifth if you add the Bolshoi re-opening gala. Maria Alexandrova and Nina Kaptsova have had more broadcasts. That Zakharova's broadcasts tend to be fast-tracked for DVD release while more interesting performances are left waiting is another matter.

For some time preliminary casting has told us that the screening of the Royal Ballet's new Don Quixote is to star Marianela Nuñez and Carlos Acosta. The Bolshoi has not yet posted any casting for October, but Svetlana Zakharova's personal site indicates that she will be dancing in Spartacus, presumably as Aegina, on October 20. http://www.svetlana-zakharova.com/Calendar.html

She will be dancing Myrtha on September 28. I think that counts. http://www.mariinsky.ru/en/company/ballet/principals_dancers/baleriny/pavlenko/

Lunkina can be crossed off the NBoC's list of potential Tatianas since she will be appearing in London with the Kings of the Dance during the National Ballet's run of Onegin. I would have been tempted to get on a plane for Toronto to see her in that part. http://www.broadwayworld.com/bwwdance/article/KINGS-OF-THE-DANCE-to-Make-UK-Debut-at-London-Coliseum-March-19-22-20130912

Nope, no word on that yet.

Carol Haney

A new interview with Vladimir Urin was published today. Some highlights: Sergei Filin has 70-75% vision in his left eye. Urin is keeping an arms-length attitude about the criminal proceedings, as well as to the matter of Pavel Dmitrichenko's supporters within the theater. He's deeply sorry the Bolshoi did not hold on to Alexei Ratmansky. Ivan Vasiliev will continue to appear with the Bolshoi as a guest artist, including as Spartacus. Natalia Osipova is too busy. Svetlana Lunkina remains on unpaid leave. Despite a couple of guest appearances in the spring, there are no plans to invite Sergei Polunin to join the company. He's not opposed to guest appearances by Stanislavsky dancers at the Bolshoi and vice versa, but not in overlapping repertoire. (I'm guessing this implication of the two companies' comparability will ruffle feathers.) There are discussions about reviving Yuri Grigorovich's Legend of Love. He declines to comment on the matter of Nikolai Tsiskaridze returning to the Bolshoi, but considers it improper to reverse decisions made by his predecessor. http://portal-kultura.ru/articles/theater/9112-gendirektor-bolshogo-teatra-vladimir-urin-sergey-filin-obeshchal-priekhat-na-sbor-truppy/

If Norman Lebrecht is to be believed, classical music hardly sells at all on recordings. Among the all-time top-20 bestselling classical musicians, there are 4 opera singers: Pavarotti, Callas, Domingo and Carreras. The bulk of Domingo's and Carreras' sales come from Three Tenor recordings--and if you recall, those involved in the first concert opted for an upfront fee rather than royalties, leaving Decca to collect the enormous profits. Most of Callas' sales came after her death, so obviously she didn't enjoy the profits either.

The Royal Opera House, which has the advantage of owning a DVD production company, is also entering the digital download market. http://www.roh.org.uk/news/six-productions-from-the-royal-opera-and-royal-ballet-now-available-to-download-from-digital-theatre