volcanohunter

Oh, yes indeed. If you haven't seen those Raymonda videos, do seek them out. In them Taranda is just about the sexiest thing I've ever seen. He's like Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolf Valentino rolled into one, only a lot bigger and taller. I remember seeing him in Ivan the Terrible during the Bolshoi's visit to New York in 1990, and while I hated the ballet, I was completely transfixed by Taranda's Prince Kurbsky. I'm pretty sure that after the show I ran to the Lincoln Center gift shop, bought all the Bolshoi videos that featured him and went straight home to watch them. (Gosh, is it obvious that he set my female heart aflutter?)

Just as an aside, there are brief, often fuzzy film clips of Baker dancing, for example: Sure, in which case Jennings' inclusion of Nijinsky, Baker and Astaire are perfectly legitimate, perhaps even Nadezhda Pavlova, for all the wrong reasons, as Mashinka mentioned. But I don't really see how Carlos Acosta, Altynai Asylmuratova or Alina Cojocaru could be considered revolutionary dancers.

For Canadian viewers, the documentary will be returning to Artv on August 11... at 5:00 a.m. ET.

Well wonders never cease. Opus Arte is finally putting a Royal Ballet triple bill on video, consisting of Kenneth MacMillan's Elite Syncopations, The Judas Tree () and Concerto. Personally, I'm not all that thrilled by the repertoire, but I am glad to see the Royal Ballet putting a mixed bill on DVD. Now if they'd only get around to releasing that all-Ashton program from a few years back. It's not as though the market is glutted with Ashton. http://www.opusarte....riple-bill.html http://www.opusarte....ll-blu-ray.html

I couldn't possibly compile such a list. Like bart, I only agree with a few of Jennings' choices. Fred Astaire? Definitely! MIchael Clark as the sole representative of modern dance? He must be joking.

The performance is now available on demand and will remain available free of charge until September 30, after which it goes behind the Medici paywall. If you haven't had a chance to watch it yet, Chenier631, the links from the original post will take you where you need to go. On Arte Liveweb you need only to click on the play icon in the middle of the video screen. Once the program starts to play, you can select the full-screen icon in the upper right-hand corner of the video screen. Medici TV has an English interface, if you prefer. Watching there requires creating and signing in to a free account, which is easily done. All the performances from the Verbier Festival are grouped together there in the "what's on" folder.

As usual, richard53dog, you were right. The conducting was gruesome--and not in a good way.

Given his penchant for loud grunting, I did wonder whether he ought to be listed as a singer in addition to conductor.

A performance of Strauss' Salome will be streamed live from the Verbier Festival on Sunday, August 1 at 19.00 local time, which translates to 1:00 p.m. ET. Since only one performance is taking place, I'm inclined to think that this will be a concert version, but I'm really not certain. Salome: Deborah Voigt Herodias: Gwyneth Jones Herod: Siegfried Jerusalem Jochanaan: Evgeny Nikitin Narraboth: John Tessier conductor: Valery Gergiev The opera can be viewed either on Medici TV, which requires viewers to sign in, or on Arte Liveweb, which does not. http://www.medici.tv...erformance/809/ http://liveweb.arte....rbier_Festival/ http://www.verbierfe...y/?day=213#1900

I agree with annamicro. It is a revision, which is why Neumeier doesn't call the ballet simply Swan Lake, but unlike Bourne's, it's a sensible and justifiable one. Tchaikovsky and Ludwig II of Bavaria were contemporaries; Ludwig, via Lohengrin, had something of a swan fixation; both Swan Lake and Ludwig's life end with death by drowning; there's the issue of Tchaikovsky's and Ludwig's sexuality, which resulted in aborted attempts at marriage. There is nothing cynical, arch or deliberately sensationalistic in the ballet. Neumeier leaves Act 2 and the third-act pas de deux intact. He's said that Ivanov's great lakeside scene is the ballet's reason for being, and if anything the version in his production, staged by Alexandra Danilova, is more 'authentic' than most, complete with huntsmen, Odette's mime and a pas de trois in the adagio. Mind you, the ballet was filmed 25 years after the production was first staged, so while I'm certain that Neumeier's choreography is performed exactly as he would wish, it's difficult to say how closely Act 2 adheres to Danilova's instructions. But as annamicro noted, the dancing of the leads--and, as in most Neumeier ballets, there are a lot of them--is universally excellent.

Amazon is taking pre-orders for the DVD and Blu-Ray. The release date is October 26.

Unfortunately for our contributors from the U.K., the notice on the Medici site reads: "The webcast of the opera is not available from the United Kingdom." I guess that things are free except when they're not.

I notice that this DVD is available on the American market with the double-decker title Illusionen wie Schwanensee - Illusions like Swan Lake. (I'd thought it was available only in Europe.) Like the European pressing, the box features a generic Swan Lake photograph, which does not come from the Neumeier production.

Rather than the Ansanelli Nutcracker, Opus Arte is planning to release a performance filmed the following year with Miyako Yoshida and Steven McRae. That would make Yoshida's third SPF on video and the third video of Wright's RB production. http://www.opusarte....-live-2009.html http://www.opusarte....09-blu-ray.html

Not to mention the fact that this is a great way to fill seats. Even the Martha Graham company is wise to this fact. During its recent season at the Joyce, it had city high school students dance Graham's Panorama. Before the show the woman I was sitting next to asked me whom I'd come to see. I'm sure I looked puzzled when I told her I'd come to see the ballets, but it turned out that she and her sister had come to watch her daughter in Panorama. (They stayed for Appalachian Spring but left during the intermission; I don't know whether this was disinterest in Graham's work or, more likely, a need to get those teenagers out of the backstage area.) In any case, it was a canny move to get those parents to come because otherwise the show, which was sold out, would have had an audience made up primarily of septua- and octogenarians.

They are, as little circles with black dots inside, exactly like the Met or Royal Opera House systems, and the BAM system indicates whether the offending obstacle is a lighting platform or a pole. The system will also give you a photo preview of the sight lines from various locations, and unlike the ROH system, the stage is shot with the curtain open, so you can get a pretty clear idea of how much of it is visible. Just for reference, this seems to be the only show at the opera house for which tickets are currently on sale, which allows for a test drive of the seat selection system. http://tickets.bam.o...anceNumber=4927

It will certainly be an interesting experiment. There will be eight performances of The Hard Nut, followed by 16 of Ratmansky's Nutcracker. Is BAM counting on attracting completely different audiences for the two productions? I wonder whether this juxtaposition will affect Ratmansky's approach. There is a single column of boxes on either side of the stage, but I don't think they're used often, and tickets for them can't be purchased online. Here's a view of the auditorium. http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=10 The BAM auditorium is a good deal smaller than the Met's and seats half as many people. The distance from the front of the stage to the back of the balcony is not nearly as long as the distance to the back of the Family Circle. Last month I saw two performances at BAM and in both cases I sat on the top level, once in the second row and once in the fourth. From there I could see the dancers' faces perfectly without binoculars, and my eyesight is quite poor. On the other hand, when I sit on the Met's Balcony, I can't make out the faces very clearly.

Medici TV will stream Mozart's Don Giovanni live from the Glyndebourne Festival on Friday, July 23, starting at 17.00 local time, or 12:00 p.m. ET. It would appear that the performance itself will begin 15 minutes later. Don Gionanni: Gerald Finley Leporello: Luca Pisaroni Donna Anna: Anna Samuil Donna Elvira: Kate Royal Zerlina: Anna Virovlansky Don Ottavio: William Burden Masetto: Guido Loconsolo Commendatore: Brindley Sherratt Conductor: Vladimir Jurowski http://www.medici.tv.../607/the-opera/ Medici TV requires viewers to log in to an account, but these are free and easy to set up. Golly. Does the intermission really last an hour and 20 minutes? http://www.glyndebou...s/don_giovanni/

Much better than at the Met, I think. I usually sit high up, and at the Met that means not being able to see much of the backdrop. This should be much less of a problem at BAM. The orchestra level and balconies all have steep inclines, and the online ticketing system will indicate which seats have partially blocked views because of the lighting arrays, and that's basically the first row of the balconies. I'm no expert on the subject, but there are tons of restaurants in the area, all along Fulton Street.

I've never understood this reaction; I wish I did. A grand space promises a grand experience, doesn't it? Surely all these people don't lack curiosity and a hunger for new cultural experiences? Surely in this age when the schools preach self-esteem, they don't fear they can't learn the lingo? Perhaps it's not the spaces themselves but the smart-looking and smart-sounding people inside. Being a shy person by nature, I can understand how some people could feel intimidated by the connoisseurs, afraid that at any moment one could be asked for the secret password and, failing to produce it, be exposed as a know-nothing neophyte. But it varies. Certainly there's nothing intimidating about going to an Ailey show. During the recent Ailey season at BAM, New York City Ballet advertised its "Architecture of Dance" season in the program. I'd be very curious to know how many first-timers that ad attracted.

Mathias Heymann does the pop thing, sort of. http://culturebox.france3.fr/#/opera/25390/sous-le-soleil-les-etoiles-l_union-originale-heymann-babx

Oh, gosh, it was very beautiful indeed. I believe this production was first presented by the Canadian Opera Company last autumn, and the opera house in Toronto is a good deal larger than the one used in Aix. I actually wondered how well those marionettes worked in a theatre. The production almost seems made for television, the closeups allowing the viewer to delight in every detail. I'm really dying to know: how does one flood an orchestra pit? And how can the singers be persuaded to sing in the water?

The reaction of the audience was pretty typical: cheers for the performers (except for Skovhus, who got some boos) and a hail of disapproval for the director. That seems to happen a lot these days.

A TV report about the production http://culturebox.france3.fr/#/opera/25153/le-rossignol-seduit-au-festival-d_aix-en-provence