volcanohunter
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Posts posted by volcanohunter
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2 hours ago, abatt said:
The thing about Ahn is that he seems to do easier variations than some others. As an example of what I'm talking about, in the ballroom scene, Herman did multiple double tours in a row, whereas Aha did the variation as double tour, followed by a piroutte, then another double tour. At the end of the variation Herman completed with another double tour for effect. Herman is considerably older than Ahn, but Herman's choice of the choreography he performed in the variation was so much more difficult (and thrilling).
I have never expected a tall dancer to produce the same pyrotechnics as a short dancer. The laws of physics put taller dancers at a substantial disadvantage, and I'm sure the tradeoff between line and flash is as old as ballet itself.
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It will be interesting to see the extent to which Ratmansky recreates his production. He will be working with smaller forces on a substantially smaller stage, so his production would have to be altered at least to that extent. Having Alina Cojocaru and Katja Khaniukova as Giselle is already splendid.
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Bullion's career is all the more remarkable because in his mid 20s he had cancer. No sooner had he danced his first principal role, Ivan the Terrible, than he began treatment. And yet he clawed his way back to become premier danseur and then étoile, which says a lot about how much he loves his job. (And how sad that he said working under Millepied was almost worse than cancer, because it shattered his confidence, made him sad and angry.)
I saw very few of his roles live, more on video. A moment that stuck with me was a video the POB released during the Covid lockdown, which featured dancers at home, and Bullion's very brief appearance consisted of him jumping up and down with his two small children, who then helped him make the most of his pushups by adding resistance training. Very sweet and real.
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Because Serebrennikov has run into problems with the Russian legal system and spent time under house arrest, his departure is understandable. The current AD of the Gogol Center is Alexei Agranovich, and his contract is due to expire next week, along with the theater itself, it now seems.
Serebrennikov's dissident cred took a bit of a hit at Cannes recently, when, among other things, he defended Roman Abramovich at his press conference. (Abramovich has backed Serebrennikov's films. Abramovich has poured money into a lot of other stuff, too.) But this closure supports his assertion that Russia is canceling its own culture.
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Moscow's Gogol Center, the theater long associated with Kirill Serebrennikov, is being closed, apparently by the authorities. Serebrennikov's post notes that for the past four months its actors had not been coming out for bows at the end of performances to protest the war. Serebrennikov uses the word war even though it's illegal to do so.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CfZrLylroCT
The theater is planning to close with a performance titled "I'm Not Participating in the War," based on the poetry of Yuri Levitansky.
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To my mind, Martinelli was the corps' anchor in Swan Lake.
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Yes, if ABT creates additional ranks, whether to put more corps dancers on soloist track or to identify the potential-principal soloists, it will also have to pay higher salaries to the promoted.
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Genevieve Penn Nabity, who joined the National Ballet of Canada just four years ago, has been promoted to principal dancer, leapfrogging over the rank of first soloist.
Christopher Gerty (class of 2014) has been promoted to first soloist, Selene Guerrero-Trujillo (class of 2007) and Tirion Law (previously with the Hong Kong Ballet) to second soloist.
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9 hours ago, abatt said:
Someone mentioned Dark Elegies above. ABT has not done that in years. I would love to see that again.
Yes! But perhaps not at the Met. In 2000 ABT performed Lilac Garden at both the Met and at City Center. At the latter I turned into a quivering, sobbing mess while watching. At the Met the ballet couldn't make the same impact.
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1 hour ago, miliosr said:
As for the Theater Formerly Known as State (TFKaS), ABT be wary of being perceived as the "junior" resident company there - always living in the margins between New York City Ballet seasons. By that way of thinking, better #1 at the Met than #2 at the TFKaS.
ABT isn't really #1 at the Met. It's at the mercy of the Metropolitan Opera, and when the opera decides to shut down for most of February and extend its season into June, ABT has no choice but to change its schedule accordingly.
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6 hours ago, California said:
For the now-defunct summer dance festival at Lincoln Center, companies like Paris and the Bolshoi performed at the Koch/State Theatre. Should be good enough for ABT!
Exactly. I'm sure that on tour ABT has performed in theaters without a rear stage area and a lower proscenium, so it should be possible to move all its productions in there.
6 hours ago, California said:If a family wants to go to one very expensive Nutcracker each year, then Balanchine wins.
I guess so. No doubt the thinking was that an area as populous as metropolitan New York could sustain at least two Nutcrackers. And I know from experience that the trek from suburban New Jersey to BAM is a slog, so I would have thought people on the other side of the East River might have preferred not to travel into Manhattan. But those old NEA surveys did show that the average ballet-goer attends something like 1.4 or 1.6 performances annually, presumably a Nutcracker, so the known quantity wins over experimentation with something that may turn out to be slightly less than the gold standard, if it's going to be your sole ballet outing of the year.
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4 hours ago, California said:
Why couldn't they take it over in June as soon as NYCB is done? It's the perfect theater for dance.
I really wish they would. I always assumed the attachment to the Met was the prestige factor. Does that really matter now that the company is no longer trying to attract jet-setting guest artists and is focused on dancers who came up through the ranks? Is there something contemptible about the House that Balanchine Built?
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2 hours ago, Drew said:
As for Ratmansky's ballets simply dropping out of repertory--Harlequinade is about to be done at National Ballet of Australia (and streamed--I'm getting a ticket); his Seven Sonatas is performed by other companies (I saw it at Atlanta Ballet and they are bringing it back a 2nd time) as is the Shostakovitch trilogy (San Francisco and they are bringing it back). National Ballet of Canada has done the Shostakovitch Piano Concerto no 1 on its own. Perhaps others know of other examples.
I certainly didn't mean to suggest the possibility of Ratmansky's works disappearing entirely, but rather that they may be a tough sell for ABT's Met season. (Although ABT couldn't make a go of his Nutcracker at BAM either.)
For context, it's worth remembering that at the Bolshoi nearly all of his ballets ran on the new stage, which has a seating capacity of about 800, and that these runs typically consisted of 3-4 performances, not 8. Even the main stage, where his Giselle was presented, has a seating capacity of about 2,000.
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1 hour ago, choriamb said:
Setting artistic merit aside, Ratmansky's ballets are absolutely masterful as vehicles that increasingly ease dancers into dramatic/technical exposure without the white-hot heat of carrying a full-length. Each one has been tailored to develop whichever artists were next in line. To a degree that it would be interesting to learn if that was in fact his remit from the AD over audience appeal and marketability.
It's not at all strange that Ratmansky should tailor his works to the dancers he actually has before him, or that this process will grow their experience and confidence. Perhaps the Met is not the best venue for pursuing this aim. It does no one - not Ratmansky, not the dancers, not ABT - any good when these ballets fall out of the repertoire, because they fail to sell 4,000 tickets a night.
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3 hours ago, Drew said:
As far as box office goes, the Four Seasons Center in Toronto lists its capacity as 2,071 -- that's just over half the capacity of the Met. It's not an apples to apples comparison because of all the other variables, but you can sell a lot of tickets at the Met and it still looks depressing.
Even so, for most programs the top ring of the Four Seasons Centre is closed off, which eliminates another 400+ seats. (Just as well, because it's a horrendous place to sit.) The Nutcracker and Swan Lake were the exceptions this season.
Although it wasn't a new edition to the repertoire, AD Hope Muir hired an intimacy consultant this season to help dancers negotiate the depictions of sex and sexual violence in Neumeier's A Streetcar Named Desire. It's fair to say she's sensitive to the issue of depicting violence against women in particular. I can't speculate on how she feels about inheriting Of Love and Rage from her predecessor. But she probably doesn't want to spoil relations with Ratmansky either.
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This is a co-production with the National Ballet of Canada, and its brass attended the premiere. I wonder whether it will cut its losses and present some alternate Ratmansky, as it did in the case of The Tempest.
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2 hours ago, Helene said:
...it may be like most new ballets that aren't set to very popular music and/or aren't Dracula and that need word-of-mouth to gain traction, especially if they're relying on tourists for any part of ticket sales.
Khachaturian's Gayane does include some very popular music. Perhaps it should be emphasized in the marketing.
But the title is horrendous.
Ticket sales for evening shows from Wednesday onward are dismal. ABT must be praying good word-of-mouth will spread really quickly.
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The Australian Ballet will livestream Alexei Ratmansky's production of Harlequinade on Friday, June 24th at 7:15 pm AEST. That translates to 5:15 am Eastern, but the stream will be available for 48 hours. Tickets are 25 AUD (about 17 USD).
https://australianballet.com.au/the-ballets/live-on-ballet-tv
Columbine: Benedicte Bemet
Harlequin: Brett Chynoweth
Pierette: Sharni Spencer
Pierrot: Callum Linnane
Cassandre: Steven Heathcote
Léandre: Timothy Coleman
Pierette's Partner: Jarryd Madden
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That's an awful shame.
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I suppose she was something of a placeholder, an emergency replacement after Millepied's abrupt resignation. But a month and a half's notice is pretty sudden as well. Her tenure coincided with a dancers' strike that began in 2019, then the Covid lockdown.
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Aurélie Dupont, director of the Paris Opera Ballet since 2016, is leaving her post at the end of the season to pursue personal projects and devote more time to her family.
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Like Rosie2, I have never seen a completely satisfying Swan Lake, certainly not in Canada. The only other longstanding production is the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's from 1987, which is a Soviet-style staging with jester and happy ending, both of which are hateful to me. It looks nice, but it's not a large company, so even reinforced by the school (heck, so is the National Ballet's corps), it's bare bones. Les Grands Ballets Canadiens hasn't done it in many years, but has imported several companies from overseas to perform their productions in Montreal. For now, at least, Covid seems to have put an end to that practice.
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Bruhn's version was controversial at the time, with the hero unable to withstand the psychological pressure from all the women in his life. (From his mother, from the two swans. Rothbart was a woman; Benno was a woman. Oddly enough, the tutor was a man.) In The Ballet Goer's Guide published in 1981, Mary Clarke and Clement Crisp wrote, "This version is largely rechoreograpged and suffers thereby."
No doubt Kain was attached to Bruhn's version because she spent her entire career dancing it. Just like former POB étoiles tend to be attached to Nureyev's productions, despite their peculiarities. But she may have felt uncomfortable with the gynophobic slant of Bruhn's interpretation. Though unlike Kudelka's production which followed, Bruhn didn't include a gang rape or turn the presentation of Siegfried's potential fiancées into a borderline slave market.
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Tepid applause followed by a standing ovation (which ends the second the house lights come up) is a fairly typical response to a performance in Canada.
It's true that the audience in the third ring, where I watched the first show, and in the orchestra, where I watched the second, did stand and applaud at the end. But it's possible the disappointing design elements were dampening audience response during the performance. It was hard to look at the stage and think that 3.5 million dollars had been well spent. 
It's true that the audience in the third ring, where I watched the first show, and in the orchestra, where I watched the second, did stand and applaud at the end. But it's possible the disappointing design elements were dampening audience response during the performance. It was hard to look at the stage and think that 3.5 million dollars had been well spent. 
Ukraine invasion & the arts: Gergiev fired by his agent, etc.
in Other Performing & Fine Arts: Performances, Exhibits, Films, and Events
Posted
No, this gala will take place at the ruins of Chersonesos, which is near Sevastopol in the Crimea. Such galas in Vladimir Putin's presence have been taking place there annually for several years, with pretty much the same cast of dancers. (In 2020 the Bolshoi announced that it would take Ratmansky's Giselle there, but either because of the pandemic or because Ratmansky said no, the company took Carmen Suite instead.)
I don't think anyone would dare stage such an event in occupied Kherson, with the front line so close by and anti-Russian partisan activity on the rise.