volcanohunter

http://www.dailymail...a-near-you.htmlAh yes, the Mariinsky skycam. Nevertheless, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

Quite a few of ABT’s principals were developed at least partially from within, because despite their varied backgrounds they started their ABT careers in the corps de ballet: Herman Cornejo, the just-retired Irina Dvorovenko, Marcelo Gomes, David Hallberg, Paloma Herrera, Julie Kent, Gillian Murphy, Hee Seo and Cory Stearns. It’s not an alien concept for ABT. But all except Seo and Stearns are over 30, and apart from Hallberg the others have been principal dancers for at least ten years. So the mechanism for promotion has largely ground to a halt, and if the ranks of leading dancers are going to be replenished constantly by stars eager to spend springtime in New York, pretty much everybody else is stuck where they are. But it wasn't always that way.

Isabelle Ciaravola was made a POB étoile at age 37, even though the company was perfectly aware that she would hit mandatory retirement age five years later. If ABT were indeed investing resources in developing younger dancers, that would be one thing. But Irina Dvorovenko's recent interview suggests that it's not. Instead, she points out, ABT is hiring already developed leading dancers into whom other companies had invested time and resources.

I agree that a campaign should not explicitly ask for Abrera's promotion, but a lot of "I love Stella!" responses after her performances would reinforce the vociferous reaction Jayne rightly suggests.

Have you considered organizing a Twitter campaign? ABT has an account, and tweets in favor of Abrera would have the benefit of being public, wouldn't they?. (I am a Twitter ignoramus, so I really don't know.) I've sent e-mails to all sorts of people and organizations, but I'm often left wondering whether they ever reach the intended recipient or simply end up deleted by the gatekeeper.

If accessible, I particularly recommend A Summer of Dance, a documentary about Les Grands Ballets Canadiens' residence at the 2008 Étés de la Danse festival. http://www.knowledge.ca/program/a-summer-of-dance

The Bavarian State Ballet will do a live stream of Terence Kohler's new ballet Heroes on Saturday, June 1, at 1:30 p.m. ET. Based on the story of Prometheus, it is set to music by Lera Auerbach and Alfred Schnittke. http://www.bayerisch...orstellung.html Streams from the Bavarian State Opera are only available live, and can be viewed at this link: http://streaming.staatsoper.de/ No subtitles, but this introductory video includes both German and English speakers. http://www.bayerische.staatsoper.de/888-ZG9tPWRvbTEmaWQ9Mjg1NyZsPWRlJnRlcm1pbj0-~spielplan~oper~veranstaltungen~videobeitrag.html

The stream is now available to view on demand for the next six months, so watch at your leisure.

Me too.

I'm almost certain this is available in Canada only--though I'd love to be proven wrong. Here's a link to Graeme Murphy's Romeo and Juliet performed by the Australian Ballet. http://www.knowledge...omeo-and-juliet

What's not so nice are statements like this one from press secretary Katerina Novikova: "In the context of our 237-year history, in two years' time, the acid attack will be a footnote in history but it's still very raw now." How reassuring it must be to know that your theater regards your plight as a future footnote. What does that make Ms. Novikova? "Unfortunately, it was a big blow, to the theatre and the country, since the theatre is Russia's calling card to the world. We still can't explain it and we don't know how it will end but the show must go on." A big blow because it damaged the country's reputation? What about the lives and careers hanging in the balance? http://www.smh.com.a...l#ixzz2UXPM2VbS

Oxford does list pled as the North American or Scottish variant, though Merriam-Webster also gives pleaded as its first choice. "Begged and pleaded" does make more sense than "begged and pled," at least from a euphonic standpoint.

Yes, the streams are always available afterward for varying lengths of time, though some replays are geo-blocked. For example, I can't watch this: http://liveweb.arte....Giuseppe_Verdi/ Fortunately, I don't recall any of the Mariinsky's performances being geo-blocked.

Arte Liveweb will broadcast a performance of the Mariinsky Ballet dancing the Hodson reconstruction of Nijinsky's Rite of Spring, as well as Sasha Waltz's new version, from the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on Wednesay, May 29, starting at 2:50 p.m. ET. http://liveweb.arte....ky_sasha_waltz/

Norman Morrice was director of the Royal Ballet from 1977 to 1986. It was during his tenure that the company started hiring non-Commonwealth dancers, beginning with Alessandra Ferri in 1980. Far from being the architect of a "UK-only" policy, he in fact helped dismantle it. If the standards of the Royal Ballet declined in the 1980s--and most people will agree that they did--it can't be blamed on a Commonwealth-only hiring policy that no longer existed. If anything, you could actually infer that the decline was precipitated by its abandonment.

I would choose the Royal Ballet of the 1970s over the Royal Ballet of today in a heartbeat: Lesley Collier, Vergie Derman, Anthony Dowell, Wayne Eagling, Graham Fletcher, Stephen Jeffries, Monica Mason, Merle Park, Jennifer Penney, Marguerite Porter, Lynn Seymour, Antoinette Sibley, David Wall. This is even a debate?

In a report about the Benois gala the other night, Tatyana Kuznetsova related that when accepting his award for lifetime achievement, Pierre Lacotte paid tribute to Filin, but this was apparently greeted with fairly scant applause. I don't know who was in the audience that night; presumably not Bolshoi dancers, who would have been happy to have a night off between runs of Flames of Paris and Swan Lake. I also don't know how any language barriers were overcome. Kuznetsova related the contents of his speech, so either she understood the original, or some sort of translation was provided. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2193999

I share your frustration. I've seen the reverse problem as well, with people writing about "standing on principal," and so forth. Sadly, English has a homonym problem.

If you missed it at the multiplex, this performance will be available for the next three months on Medici.tv. http://www.medici.tv...h-marius-petipa The site requires signing in to watch programs, but registration is free of charge.

Apparently, it's the members of the jury who do the nominating, which often explains a lot. This was among the faults cited in a very critical piece by Tatyana Kuznetsova in today's Kommersant. http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2193999 This year's jury includes Yuri Grigorovich, Ted Brandsen, David Dawson, Marina Kondratieva, Ivan Liška, Tamara Rojo, Helgi Tomasson and Nikolaj Hübbe. So the "math" isn't very difficult: Brandsen and Tomasson co-commissioned Wheeldon's Cinderella, Brandsen's company is the primary purveyor of van Manen's work, Kondratieva is Smirnova's coach, Rojo is Muntagirov's boss, and Hübbe is Lendorf's boss. In Kuznetsova's view, only Hans van Manen deserved his prize. Smirnova was not there to collect hers since she was in Tokyo performing in Vladimir Malakhov's farewell tour. http://www.nbs.or.jp...malakhov-final/ Even by the murky standards of the Benois, this had to be one of the least transparent editions on record. Five ADs and one former AD each nominated a pair of dancers from their own companies. The only "outsider" nominees were Justin Peck and Edward Watson. The only "independent" juror was Donald Dawson.

A performance of Le Corsaire from the Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse is available on demand for the next six months or so. Kader Belardi's production is almost entirely rechoreograped, but classical in nature. http://liveweb.arte....oseph_Mazelier/

Then the question has to be whether Dmitrichenko knew this. Would an ex-con necessarily reveal the details of his convictions? Filin's father-in-law has reacted angrily to the television program that aired last Saturday. In particular, he denies that he supplies anything to the Ministry of Internal Affairs--having been in the energy business--and by extension the inference that he would be in a position to influence the investigation. He is also upset that Saturday's show used footage from an earlier program in which the Filin-Prorvich family had agreed to participate. He states that the family had only agreed to the first program on the understanding that they would have complete editorial control, which was not ultimately given to them, and that they disapproved of its footage being recycled in a program that he claims was ordered by the people behind the attack on Filin in the first place, with the aim of influencing the investigation. He does not provide proof or name names. http://argumenti.ru/.../2013/05/255395

On Saturday a Russian channel aired a soapy interview with Anzhelina Vorontsova. It was filmed in Kazan, where she made her debut as Giselle with Tsiskaridze this past week. There was little new in it, but there were a few ostensibly "picante" moments. Vorontsova's teacher from Voronezh, Tatyana Frolova, reveals that her former pupil does not keep in touch even though it was Frolova who facilitated Vorontsova's fateful trip to a competition in Perm, paying for transportation herself and giving Vorontsova with her own tutus and tiaras. There is footage of all three of Filin's wives speaking well of him. Mind you, Galina Stepanenko did not sit down for an interview, and given her current post I don't blame her, so the program used existing news footage of warm words between herself and Filin's mother. Filin's father-in-law is a businessman who supplies the Ministry of Internal Affairs with footwear, though I won't speculate whether providing shoes for Russian policemen rises to the level of a conflict of interest. Vorontsova claims that despite Filin's investment in her, there were "reasons" why she could not join the Stanislavsky Theater after she finished ballet school, but does not specify what they were. She is also evasive in answering questions about her relationship with Filin, though she states that Dmitrichenko is her first boyfriend, which perhaps undercuts insinuations about Vorontsova being one of Filin's conquests. Olga Smirnova wades into the matter by criticizing Vorontsova's ambition. This is unfortunate. Smirnova's coach Marina Kondratieva was doing an effective job of pooh-poohing Vorontsova all by herself. Tsiskaridze's other pupil Denis Rodkin reiterates the narrative that although Dmitrichenko is the kind of person who could sock someone in the face if he were sufficiently angry, he is not the sort to plot behind anyone's back. http://www.ntv.ru/pe...poved_baleriny/

We have more casting: Kondaurova as Odette-Odile, Timur Askerov (rather than the trailer's Ivanchenko) as Prince Siegfried, Andrei Yermakov as Rothbart, Maria Shirinkina, Nadezhda Batoeva and Xander Parish in the pas de trois and Vasily Tkachenko as the Jester. The same cast will also be performing the afternoon before, and presumably this performance will also be filmed as a backup. http://www.mariinsky...013/6/6/1_2130/ 9:30 is a late start time for a show that runs 3 hours, but that's what you get when you're aiming primarily for audiences in Central European Summer Time on a weeknight.

Maria Alexandrova seems fairly excited about the prospect of visiting Australia. My guess is that Merkuriev would have preferred to go to Australia also, and given that he dances both male leads in The Bright Stream, he would have been a good candidate. But on this tour the premium appears to be on Conrads. The biggest change to the basic casting outline that was announced back in February is that Vitaly Biktimirov will not be dancing Pyotr after all, which I think would have been a debut for him. Instead he will be doing most of the Birbantos. Given that Denis Savin already dances Pyotr, it seems entirely sensible to cast him. Savin, though, must make an awfully sweet-tempered Birbanto.