volcanohunter

Side ring seats will inevitably have incomplete views of the stage. A curved balcony with an insufficient incline often makes for very poor sightlines. I'm wary of anyone who promises me a "perfect" anything.

The posting makes reference to AOL On. Not that I know what that is either, but here is its web site. http://on.aol.com

The Bastille seats more people, which would be a big incentive for performing the bigger and more popular of the two December ballets there.

In effect, this is what the Paris Opera did, not because the Bastille has better acoustics (they're a disaster!), but probably because of the Bastille's new-fangled technical possibilities. The ballet generally doesn't require a tilt-a-whirl stage. About two-thirds of opera productions are staged at the Bastille, and about two-thirds of ballet performances take place at the Garnier. Operas by Mozart and earlier composers are usually done at the Garnier, I would guess primarily for acoustic considerations.

I feel your pain!

Spoke too soon. Aunis is here. http://liveweb.arte.tv/fr/video/Aunis_Opera_de_Paris/

The gala marking the 300th anniversary of the Paris Opera Ballet School is available to view on demand for the next six months. The performance includes ballets by Nicolas Paul, Léo Staats, Pierre Lacotte and Jean-Guillaume Bart. Most are performed by the school's students, the exception being Lacotte's ballet, performed by POB dancers, with Ludmila Pagliero and Mathieu Ganio as the lead couple, plus Gil Isoart taking on the role of Louis XIV at the beginning of the program. http://liveweb.arte....caise_de_Danse/ This is the program of the gala, which took place on April 15. Jacques Garnier's ballet and the défilé are not included (unfortunately). http://www.operadepa...e-danse/detail/

In the past I tried watching live streams on Mariinsky.tv and had absolutely no luck. I might get two or three seconds of the stream, and then the picture freezes up, though the sound usually continues. I don't have a super fancy internet package, but generally I don't have difficulty watching streams. Unfortunately, Mariinsky live webcasts are the exception. http://mariinsky.tv/n/ So if it isn't geo-blocked, I will be trying my luck with Arte Liveweb. http://liveweb.arte....nt_Petersbourg/

Truthfully, I don't remember whether I've ever been asked about leprosy, drug addiction, kidnapping or crimes of moral turpitude when entering the EU, but I will try to make a mental note of it the next time I cross an EU border

In Canada the Cineplex chain shows the Bolshoi the same day but with a time delay of several hours, so everyone sees the performance at 1 pm local time, regardless of time zone. (There were a few times when the Bolshoi forgot to turn on the geo-block on its live YouTube stream intended for Russia, and I would end up watching the performance twice. Now that the company has moved to paid cinema screenings in Russia as well, that's not likely to happen again.) The Royal Ballet is also shown the same day with a time delay, and since these performances take place on weeknights, the screenings take place at 7 pm local time. The same is true of National Theatre "Live." It's not a bad compromise, but perhaps it's easier to pull off in a multiplex. I agree that it's better than nothing, and I definitely believe it's an enterprise worth supporting. I would be crushed if the screenings, whatever their flaws, stopped for lack of interest.

I've heard EU citizens complain about the information they're required to submit in order to get travel authorization to the U.S. under the VWP, particularly under the "do any of the following apply to you?" section. https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/WebHelp/ESTA_Screen-Level_Online_Help_1.htm#ata2

Even though Ukraine decommissioned its last nuclear weapon in 1996? I would think that even in the absence of security threats in many cases the U.S. would be worried more about economic migration--people arriving in the U.S. as tourists and then going to ground as illegal immigrants. Recent economic downturns notwithstanding, what the countries on the VWP have in common is that they're rich. Canadians also require no visa to enter the U.S., but that's not a question of a visa being waived, but rather of there being no visa to begin with. Governments can make money on processing visa applications, but since they could make even more money off actual tourists, I wouldn't think that throwing up travel barriers would be to their economic advantage. Many countries insist on reciprocity; if the U.S. requires a visa of its citizens, they will require one of Americans. But some countries take a more practical view. Ukraine allows Americans, Canadians, Japanese, Swiss and EU citizens to enter the country visa-free for 90 days. It was a temporary measure put in place for the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest and was never revoked subsequently. Having visa requirements is not necessarily a deterrent for tourists. Australia requires visas of all foreigners--even though the U.S. does not require visas of their tourists--but short-term tourist visas for Americans cost only 20AUD, and EU, Norwegian, Swiss and Vatican citizens can get them for nothing. Citizens of most countries have to pay a lot more. So yeah, all things considered, Americans are spoiled in this regard.

Oh, yes. And that ballet's most active audience is 65+ is testament to the remnants of the dance boom. (Table 2f) http://www.nea.gov/research/SPPA/trends.pdf Ballet was also different while Balanchine, Ashton and Tudor were still alive. Even when they were older and not necessarily prolific, there was still the possibility of going to the ballet to see the premiere of a new masterpiece, which gave ballet-going an excitement it does not have today. Sorry if we're veering

But remember that the National Endowment for the Arts audience participation surveys show that the number of people attending opera has fallen since the surveys began in 1982. Ballet attendance has fallen by an even larger percentage, but more Americans go to the ballet than to the opera--for a variety of reasons. http://www.nea.gov/r...PA-brochure.pdf

Last summer I took a young cousin to see his first ballet, the POB's Giselle. He'd previously been to the opera quite a few times, his parents being committed Wagnerites, but he claimed to have preferred the ballet. (He said this not to me but to his horrified parents.) He cited not having to read titles as one of the reasons for enjoying ballet more.

Even Gergiev must realize that the ballet brand is much stronger, including domestically. In St. Petersburg tickets to ballet performances are generally more expensive than those to the opera. Orchestra seats at the main theater: Swan Lake - 7,000 RUB ($225); Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker - 6,000; The Fountain of Bakhchesarai - 4,300; Pique Dame - 3,840; Don Quixote, Ruslan & Liudmila, Il trittico, Le nozze di Figaro, Faust, Evgeni Onegin - 3,200; Carmen - 2,560 Orchestra seats at the new theater: Jewels - 5,300 RUB; Bolero/Symphony in C - 5,000; Prodigal Son/Rite of Spring - 4,300; Un ballo in maschera - 3,800; Apollo+, Iolanta, Il trovatore, Tosca, Rusalka - 3,200 Exceptions would be opera performances with international stars, for example, a main-stage performance of Nabucco with Placido Domingo and Maria Guleghina for 10,000 RUB or a new-stage performance of Iolanta with Anna Netrebko for 8,000 (vs. 3,200 without her). At the Bolshoi, the difference is even more pronounced. Main theater orchestra: Swan Lake, Spartacus - 12,000 RUB ($385); La Bayadere - 10,000; Giselle (Grigorovich), Jewels - 9,000; Romeo & Juliet (Grigorovich) - 8,000; Onegin (ballet) - 7,000; Prince Igor, Turandot, Der Rosenkavalier - 4,000 New theater orchestra: Romeo & Juliet (Stuttgart Ballet) - 8,000 RUB; Rite of Spring (Finnish National Ballet) - 6,300; Giselle (Vasiliev) - 4,000; La Sylphide, Flames of Paris, Anyuta, Ek/Baganova - 3,000; Evgeni Onegin (opera), La sonnambula - 2,000; Die Zauberflote, Nabucco, Iolanta, Le Coq d'or - 1,200 This is completely different from our experience in the West, where opera tickets are generally more expensive than ballet tickets, presumably because opera singers are paid a good deal more than ballet dancers. At the Paris Opera the top-price tickets to the opera, regardless of work or house, cost 180€, while the top-price ticket to the ballet is 92€. Top tickets to forthcoming operas at Covent Garden range from £150 to £225 depending on the opera, while the Royal Ballet maxes out at £93, with the Bolshoi fetching higher prices (£110-120). At the Met a weeknight orchestra seat for Die Walkure costs $350 and Rigoletto costs $370, while a weekday performance of Don Quixote by ABT, with its fancy-pants dynamic pricing, costs $95 for Part/Whiteside, $110 for Semionova/Stearns and $140 for Osipova/Vasiliev.

In fairness, it's like that everywhere. Opposing attorneys wrangling for stiffer or more lenient charges is part of the process. Intent matters, but so does the degree to which a plot succeeds. There will be differing levels of punishment depending on whether someone succeeds in depriving another person of his life, his arm or his finger. In this case the maximum degree of punishment would apply if Filin were completely blinded and/or severely disfigured, and a somewhat milder sentence would be applied if he were not completely blinded or permanently disfigured, though there would be jail time in either case.

Me too!

Dates for the POB are Monday, December 16, for Sleeping Beauty and Tuesday, June 3, for Balanchine/Millepied. http://www.fraprod.fr/offres_cinema.php?prog=2

There was a preliminary Facebook posting today indicating that next season the POB would be showing The Sleeping Beauty (December) and the double bill of Balanchine's Le Palais de Cristal (costumes by Christian Lacroix) and Benjamin Millepied's Daphnis and Chloe (May/June). That's not very much. https://www.facebook.com/UGCvivalopera

Olga Smirnova's Swan Lake debut is scheduled for May 16. http://www.bolshoi.ru/en/performances/36/roles/#20130516190000

My understanding was that Pronin himself turned down the acting director job, arguing that it should be filled by someone of greater artistic stature. Perhaps he should have taken it. http://izvestia.ru/news/543379 I guess the next investigation will be to find out what went wrong in the once-close relationship between Filin and Pronin.

I also went to see it, because it had been one of my favorite Bolshoi broadcasts, and enjoyed it more the second time around. I have to admit to having something of a love-hate relationship with the dancing of Maria Alexandrova, something I can never quite shake. But on second viewing I was prepared for what had bothered me initially (the lack of delicacy and lyricism) and could focus exclusively on her strengths (the speed and amplitude). I had no such reservations about the other dancers. I thought my companion's observations after the Grand Pas de Corbeilles was quite apt: that Ekaterina Krysanova was like a ballistic missile, while Ruslan Skvortsov was like a stealth airplane. As always, Denis Savin was adorable, though Alexei Loparevich was strangely monochromatic. Act 2 in particular is a wall-to-wall dancing feast. That Vyacheslav Lopatin's Acteon was fabulous was a given, but I also enjoyed Anastasia Stashkevich, whose dancing I sometimes find a little brittle. The music is not especially memorable, though I think it's better than what Pugni composed for The Pharaoh's Daughter, for example. The production itself is fabulous looking, and I agree that this performance was shot well. We need more of these reconstructions. The Bolshoi needs them, too. For one thing, it's already run out of 19th-century repertoire to broadcast to its international movie audiences.

"I am happy with the relationship that I currently have with them. I arrive, I dance at the Met, and I leave." Pardon me for putting it this crudely, but that formulation does sound a little "wham, bam, thank you, ma'am."

Given the public outcry, the Ukrainian prime minister has said the situation will be investigated by the Ministry of Culture and "well-known authoritative professionals in this field." http://www.bbc.co.uk/ukrainian/entertainment/2013/04/130412_kyiv_balley_scandal_az.shtml