volcanohunter

Cinderella will be screened at five UltraStar locations in California and Arizona this week.

Thurday, September 17, at 7:00 p.m.

Sunday, September 20, at 10:30 a.m.

The participating cinemas are located in San Diego, CA (Mission Valley Cinemas); Oceanside, CA (Mission Market); Apple Valley, CA; Surprise, AZ; and Lake Havasu City, AZ.

Below is a listing of other performing arts screenings coming to UltraStar cinemas.

September 24 & 27 - La Bohème (Teatro Real)

October 1 & 4 - Il barbiere di Siviglia (Teatro Real)

October 8 & 11 - La Bayadère (Royal Ballet)

October 15 & 18 - I puritani (Teatro Comunale di Bologna)

October 22 & 25 - Castor et Pollux (De Nederlandse Opera)

October 29 & November 1 - Swan Lake (Mariinsky Ballet)

November 5 & 8 - A Midsummer Night's Dream (Pacific Northwest Ballet)

November 12 & 15 - Eugene Onegin (Bolshoi Opera)

Balanchine's Serenade, though I, too, am exceedingly fond of Liebeslieder Walzer. I saw a lot of ballets in New York last spring, but the clincher that made me get on the plane in the first place was Liebeslieder.

An Ansanelli Nutcracker? I checked the OpusArte and Amazon US/UK websites and don't see anything about it; can we hope it's a DVD to look forward to in the future?

Apparently the performance was filmed in December 2008. When the Royal Ballet beamed its Nutcracker into British cinemas last December, the SPF and her Cavalier were danced by Ansanelli and Hristov. There are clips of the performance on You Tube. Whether the market can sustain a third DVD of this production is another matter. But I must say that Ansanelli and Hristov are a better-matched pair than Yoshida and Cope.

An incomplete video of the pas de deux is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBc_uVevnkY

Landmark Cinemas (in Winnipeg, Calgary, Nanaimo, Kelowna) and Vancouver's Ridge Theatre have announced their Opus Arte line-ups for the season, and there is distressingly little ballet on offer.

September 19, 2009 - Verdi: La traviata (Royal Opera)

October 3, 2009 - Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia (Teatro Real) - Landmark Cinemas

October 17, 2009 - John Caird: Twin Spirits (Sting & Trudie Styler)

November 14, 2009 - Verdi: Falstaff (Glyndebourne Festival)

November 28, 2009 - Shakespreare: Romeo and Juliet (Globe Theatre)

December 5, 2009 - Ivanov/Wright: The Nutcracker (Royal Ballet w/Alexandra Ansanelli & Valeri Hristov?)

December 12, 2009 - Handel: Messiah (Choir of King's College)

January 23, 2010 - Petipa/Ivanov: Swan Lake (Royal Ballet w/Marianela Nuñez & Thiago Soares)

January 30, 2010 - Shakespeare: As You Like It (Globe Theatre)

February 13, 2010 - Donizetti: L'elisir d'amore (Glyndebourne Festival)

February 27, 2010 - Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost (Globe Theatre)

March 13, 2010 - Puccini: La Bohème (Royal Opera)

April 3, 2010 - Massenet: Manon (Gran Teatre del Liceu)

April 17, 2010 - Ashton: Tales of Beatrix Potter (Royal Ballet)

May 7, 2010 - Tchaikovsky: Cherevichki (Royal Opera)

I have no objection to the screenings expanding to include Shakespeare, but I hate to see it happen at the expense of ballet. According to the NEA, ballet is more popular than opera. Is Canada so different from the United States? Will no Royal Ballet productions be filmed in the coming season?

I am also sorry to see no productions from the POB this time around. That may be beyong the control of Opus Arte, but in the past it hasn't stopped the distributor from "borrowing" ballets from other producers.

It also strikes me as decidedly strange to screen Swan Lake after its DVD release. If previous patterns hold, the DVD should hit the North American market on October 27. Granted, two of the opera productions are already available on DVD, but screening them strikes me as equally illogical. Why a repeat of Tales of Beatrix Potter and not a repeat of Giselle or Sleeping Beauty?

Given that ballet used to enjoy some sort of parity with opera screenings in the past, this schedule is not at all encouraging. In my experience, audiences at ballet screenings are no smaller than audiences at their operatic counterparts. I'm also sorry to say that since these screenings began, I haven't seen many bun-heads attending them in my city. Perhaps they're all in class on Saturdays, but surely occasional field trips to ballet screenings would be beneficial to them, and undoubtedly the schools could get a group ticket discount to do it.

Oh, dear, dear, dear...

P.S. Interesting to see that Opus Arte is pitting As You Like It against the National Theatre's Nation on the same afternoon.

A film of Pierre Lacotte's reconstruction of Joseph Mazilier's Marco Spada, with Rudolf Nureyev, Ghislaine Thesmar and Michael Denard, can now be pre-ordered on Amazon. It's scheduled for release on October 6.

http://www.hardyclassic.it/searchresult.as...l=Marco%20Spada

Amazon is now taking orders for a DVD titled Prima Ballerina, which, I believe, features Laurent Gentot's documentaries Uliana Lopatkina, l'ame de la danse and Svetlana Zakharova, la tsarine de la danse. The DVD is scheduled for release on December 8.

I'm a bit puzzled by the run time. The DVD is apparently 53 minutes long, and though I haven't seen either film, my impression is that collectively they should be longer than that. The First Run Features site has not yet posted any information about the DVD.

The American release date has been revised to September 29, 2009 on Amazon.com, and orders can once again be placed.

If you're looking to add it to your library, the VAI edition of Carmen Suite, plus Dying Swan, Bach Prelude and Raymonda excerpts, is on sale at the Berkshire Record Outlet.

http://www.berkshirerecordoutlet.com/searc...&filter=all

Here is a description of the program from the VAI site:

http://www.vaimusic.com/VIDEO/DVD_4294_CarmenSuiteBallet.htm

The VAI edition of the Plisetskaya/Vasiliev film is on sale at the Berkshire Record Outlet at a considerable discount.

http://www.berkshirerecordoutlet.com/searc...&filter=all

Yes, Terekhova's jump has to be seen to be believed. But I agree that ABT's version is also excellent.

Among White's statements I found this one particularly extraordinary.

And when it comes to men, tenors (with the notable exceptions of Pavarotti and Ben Heppner) tend to be rather slightly built. Consider Jose Carreras: 5ft 6in and trim to scale.

Hasn't White at least seen photographs of Caruso, Gigli, Björling, Tucker or Bergonzi? I wouldn't describe Vickers or Domingo as "trim to scale" either. Ramón Vargas, Marcelo Álvarez and Salvatore Licitra certainly aren't skinny. And pardon me if it seems unkind to say this, but even in his prime Carreras didn't sing as well as any of them. Perhaps Juan Diego Flórez doesn't need to be fat to sing Rossini's Almaviva. Radamès is another matter.

I prefer my opera singers on the fat side. I like a well-upholstered voice. Personally I am mystified by the attraction of the skinny opera singer, and the state of operatic singing today depresses me more than I can say. I find myself retreating further and further into past audio and video recordings. Not too long ago record companies didn't hesitate to put a Sutherland, Price or Caballé on an album cover in all their bulk. What on earth happened? If, as that recent NEA arts participation survey suggests, opera audiences are continuing to shrink, the pursuit of the young and cute may not have fixed anything. I'd rather have the fat ladies again.

The web site of the Dutch National Ballet notes that Sascha Radetsky has left the company and is returning to the United States, though it doesn't say where to.

I guess that being a principal dancer is nice, but living with your wife is nicer.

http://www.het-nationale-ballet.nl/index.php?sm=news_latest

I disagree about the diagonal shots... I find they distort the choreography

My biggest complaint about most dance filming is that the directors rarely to look at the choreography, but only at the dancers.

Yes and yes.

I don't think Martins would ever allow an Ashton ballet to be performed at NYCB but also because Anthony Dowell - who I think has ownership of the ballet - only allows The Royal Ballet to perform it.

For what it's worth, A Month in the Country is in the repertoire of the National Ballet of Canada. They acquired it about 15 years ago. The company does have a much stronger Ashton pedigree than NYCB, of course. Not that they perform it very often.

Will a PAL dvd play in my computer?

If it's a region-free disc, then yes. But if it's a region 2 or 5 disc, then probably not, unless you reset your computer to that region. (I have friends whose laptops are reprogrammed to play region 2 discs to complement their region 1 DVD players. I think they'd be better off with a region-free player; it's made my DVD shopping easier.)

Curiously, I'm able to play region-free PAL discs in my portable player, though technically it's a region 1 machine.

Not much, but I hope it helps.

http://homepage.mac.com/richertwilliam/ADA...ersonal108.html

Since it must be some sort of barometer of the musical tastes of young adults, I wonder what sort of observations posters could make about the state of jazz on campus radio.

Ten years ago the campus radio station in the city where I live had 3-4 jazz programs on its schedule. Today there is only one. Its host has long since ceased to be a university student, but without him jazz programming would disappear altogether from the schedule. Does this hold true in other cities?

Also, some 6-7 years ago a jazz television network was launched in Canada. What qualified as jazz was interpreted fairly broadly. Every evening there was an old movie musical (great for me), and the schedule was heavy with things like Ed Sullivan, Nat King Cole and Judy Garland show reruns. In time the movie musicals were cut back to one a week before disappearing altogether, and eventually the variety shows went, too. I must admit that at that point I stopped watching, and apparently so did a lot of other people because within a matter of months the network went out of business. Its sister radio station was sold and relaunched as a "soft jazz" station, though my impression is that its programming actually veers closer to easy listening. This isn't an encouraging state of affairs either.

DW-TV will rebroadcast its "Talking Germany" interview with Vladimir Malakhov on Sunday, August 16. You'll have to check your local listings, but in North America, "Talking Germany" airs on Sundays at 6:30 p.m. ET, with a repeat broadcast on Tuesdays at 2:30 a.m. ET.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,11937,00.html

I did a little digging, and here's what I found:

US Median age 1982: 30.5

US Median age 2007: 36.7

If it seems as if there are more older folks around, it's because there are more older folks around -- and, as Sidwich points out, they're generally richer and healthier than they were earlier in the 20th century, too.

The NEA survey uses median adult age as its reference point since the survey measures adult participation in the arts. In 1982 the median adult age was 39; in 2008 it was 45.

As miliosr already pointed out, in 1982 the average jazz concert-goer (aged 29) was 10 years younger than the average adult (39), 8 years younger than the average ballet-goer (37), 11 years younger than the average classical music attendee (40) and 14 years younger than the average opera-goer (43).

In 2008 the average jazz concert-goer (46) was one year older than the average adult (45), the same age as the average ballet-goer (46), 3 years younger than the average classical concert attendee (49) and 2 years younger than the average opera-goer (48).

So while the population is getting older in general, jazz fans are "aging" at a disproportionate rate.

(Page 5 of the highlights: http://arts.endow.gov/research/NEA-SPPA-brochure.pdf)

The statistics show that jazz has experienced the greatest shrinkage in audiences aged 18 to 24 between 1982 and 2008, with a decrease of 58.3%, as opposed to 37.3% for classical music, 40% for opera, 12.7% for musicals, 23.4% for dramatic theater, and 35.9% for ballet.

But jazz does seem to have kept its core audience from 1982, because its audiences older than age 45 have increased significantly, whereas in classical music and opera they've shrunk across the board. It's worth noting that ballet audiences from the dance boom days seem to have stuck around also, because while they've shrunk in every other age category, ballet-goers between the ages of 65 and 74 have increased by 43.3% over a 26-year period. (For some reason, the NEA deems this rise to be "statistically insignificant.")

http://www.arts.gov/research/SPPA/trends.pdf

I don't doubt that older adults are richer and healthier than they were a century ago, but between 2002 and 2008 the survey found drops in participation among the recently retired in most areas, which the NEA puts down partly to rising fuel costs.

I'll cast a vote for Fernando Bujones, among other things, for his port de bras. Nanarina asked for video evidence, so here is an excerpt from La Bayadère.

It may be helpful to look at the report itself.

highlights: http://arts.endow.gov/research/NEA-SPPA-brochure.pdf

participation tables: http://www.arts.gov/research/SPPA/trends.pdf

I haven't read the whole thing carefully, but the following quote stands out.

From 2002 to 2008, however, 45-54-year-olds--historically a large component of arts audiences--showed the steepest declines in attendance for most arts events.

The decline of college-educated adults attending ballet is also pretty striking, apparently down 43% since 1982.

But try this on for size.

Number of adults attending ballet or other dance in 2008: 15.8 million

Number of adults attending opera in 2008: 4.8 million

Percentage of U.S. adults viewing (or listening) to dance broadcasts (or recordings) in 2008: 8.0%

Percentage of U.S. adults viewing or listening to opera broadcasts or recordings in 2008: 4.9%

Don't get me wrong now; I'm an opera nut. Furthermore, I realize that these stats are probably skewed by Nutcrackers and "So You Think You Can Dance." But given these statistics, why is opera being fed into cinemas live while ballet isn't? Why do PBS opera broadcasts outnumber PBS ballet broadcasts by a significant margin?

I thought a lot of rock 'n roll fans eventually expanded their tastes to encompass jazz, eventually coming to prefer it. I know I did. Don't know why that's not happening so much anymore.

I wonder whether jazz and rock 'n roll have enough in common to make that expansion a natural progression. Mind you, I do know of cases where love for Jimi Hendrix expanded into a love for loud Baroque organ music, which eventually expanded into a love for Baroque music in general. This strikes me as a logical enough progression (not unlike the metal heads I remember shopping for Paganini CDs a couple of decades back). I certainly don't mean to suggest that most rock fans will eventually come to prefer classical music! I suspect you're the marvellous exception, kfw.

The ballet will be screened at the Norwood Theatre in Bracebridge, Ontario, on Sunday, August 16, at 2:30 p.m.

http://centralsystem.digiscreen.ca/ShowPag...p;date=08162009

http://www.norwoodtheatre.com/

That is peculiar. The title has also disappeared from British, French, German and Japanese Amazon. It's still listed for release on August 25 on Canadian Amazon, so hopefully that odd new release date is just a typo.

For what it's worth, the booklet to the Mariinsky's new 'Don Quixote' lists 'Romeo and Juliet' among other Decca ballet releases.

A trailer of sorts for A Midsummer Night's Dream

http://centralsystem.digiscreen.ca/ShowPag...p;date=08152009