volcanohunter
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Posts posted by volcanohunter
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I really felt for Ratmansky when he described the feeling of sand castles crumbling behind him as he made his departure from Moscow. Under any circumstances knowing that months of heart and soul, blood, sweat and tears have suddenly come to naught is extremely painful. But the haunting feeling that ballet doesn't really matter a whole lot in the face of such cataclysmic circumstances must have been eviscerating.
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8 hours ago, California said:
I hope Royal Ballet can figure out how to stream this as a fund-raiser for Ukraine. It looks like great fun!
Yes, it appears everyone had a grand time.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CdNshs_IJOi/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
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On 3/22/2022 at 10:52 AM, volcanohunter said:
On May 5th there will be a benefit performance of Swan Lake, during which Lauren Cuthbertson, Sarah Lamb, Marianela Nuñez and Natalia Osipova will share the role of Odette-Odile, while Vadim Mutagirov will be Siegfried to them all.
Gavriel Heine, who resigned from the Mariinsky in protest, conducted this performance. And in the end there were multiple Siegfrieds.
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I know from experience that letting a subscription lapse can be a point of no return.
I suppose it would depend on how invested you are in the season. Perhaps a reduced subscription? Seats in all areas tend to be available almost until the last minute, so I have little doubt that you could move your subscription to a less expensive part of the hall.
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Until May 8th at 23:59 CEST, the Dutch National Ballet is streaming its new production of Raymonda for €12.50. The performance stars Maia Makhateli, Semyon Velichko and Young Gyu Choi.
https://www.operaballet.nl/en/dutch-national-ballet/2021-2022/raymonda-stream
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1 hour ago, abatt said:
Ratmansky went out of his way to modify his own choreography so ASL could dance it as her final performance. Most choreographers would not permit any such modifications.
I happened to attend Jonathan Stafford's farewell performance. He danced the walking pas de deux with his sister in "Emeralds," and in "Diamonds" the entire Scherzo was eliminated to accommodate him, which I would call a huge modification (and a bummer, as I'd come to see the ballet, not him per se).
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I'm wondering whether any other aspect of the choreography had to be altered to accommodate diminished strength. Was she on her leg for supported turns? Was her middle wobbly when partners took her by the waist? Were jumps modified?
Of course a tiny dancer can be dead weight, and bigger, taller women usually go out of their way to help their partners in double work. And it's also possible for a female dancer to have plenty of strength and a great push-off, and for male dancers still not to want to lift her because her weight strains their backs.
(In general I am in favor of eliminating overhead lifts rather than demanding that female dancers be lighter, for the health of both sides. In that I advocate doing right by the dancers. Ballet is an art form, not a circus demanding acrobatic tricks.)
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Ratmansky didn't write "you were struggling," he wrote "the men were struggling." I also would have interpreted that as a reference to weight.
I didn't see her final performance, so my question would be: were modifications to the choreography limited only to lifts or were any other aspect of partnering or her solo choreography changed?
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6 hours ago, Josette said:
And it has been announced that Laurent Hilaire has accepted the position.
Excellent.
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18 minutes ago, abatt said:
It's the programs that have no new ballets that don't seem to be reviewed anymore.
And this is a flawed criterion, because it would be valuable to review Goldberg Variations, an important ballet that isn't performed all that often, much less internationally, to assess how it is being danced almost a quarter century after the choreographer's death.
However...
18 hours ago, nanushka said:I'm fairly certain that if reviews got comparable clicks, they'd do more reviews. It's unfortunate — I'd love to see more, too — but that's just the business model they have now.
A number of years ago there was a scandal involving the Canadian Opera Company and the National Post newspaper. The relevant bit was an email from the paper's arts editor:
“I really hate running reviews for performing arts. They simply get no attention online, and almost always end up as our poorest performing pieces of digital content.”
The critic involved said, "My fellow critics are feeling this pressure everywhere. There's more of an emphasis on articles written in advance to promote a performance rather than an article written afterwards."
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If the Ministry of Culture is demanding the removal of productions by "uncomfortable" Russian artists such as Serebrennikov and Timofey Kulyabin, and the Bolshoi agreed to Ratmansky's request that his ballets not be performed, because he is also "traitor and scum," the company has pointedly refused to stop presenting pieces by foreign choreographers, even those who have condemned the invasion, and even when they have asked that the Bolshoi not perform their work. Vladimir Urin acknowledged that if Jean-Christophe Maillot's public request had been granted, other choreographers would have followed suit, and the Bolshoi would be left with very little to dance. Even now we see that the holes left by indefinite postponement of The Art of the Fugue, or the removal of Nureyev or the cancellation of this year's Benois competition is plugged up with a predictable stream of Swan Lake, Don Quixote and/or Spartacus.
Urin's argument is that the licenses are paid for and the contract terms have not been violated, so the ballets will continue to be presented, whether choreographers like it or not. But these agreements don't last forever, and there is a high probability that many will not be renewed when their expiration date comes.
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And I realize that if the company has already paid for licensing agreements, it doesn't want that money to go to waste, especially in the wake of a year and a half without box-office revenue. But given that I don't care for Kudelka's work, have no use for Côté's and detest Ratmansky's Romeo and Juliet, I can't get very excited about the season.
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I'm not thrilled, but I guess this reflects Hope Muir's tastes.
I am curious about the game plan for for Symphony in C, because it’s a bit of a stretch for the company to put 40 women on stage. When the National Ballet first performed the ballet in the 1980s, there were joint performances with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.
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The Bolshoi isn't talking, but Serebrennikov is:
"This ballet is about man's yearning for freedom. Freedom to create and freedom to live," he told AFP in written comments.
"These days 'Nureev' is inappropriate and impossible on the Bolshoi stage. They are afraid of unnecessary associations and uncomfortable artists," Serebrennikov added.
He called the cancellation a throwback to the Soviet era.
"'Nuriev' was cancelled at the Bolshoi Theatre. Cancellation of Russian culture in Europe, you say? In Russia, they themselves are cancelling culture."
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12 hours ago, Drew said:
I wonder if this means they are going to drop the Serebrennikov/Possokhovn Hero of our Time from future Repertory plans...even if it is (presumably) less controversial on its own account...A Hero of Our Time has not been performed all season, so I suspect the license to present it was not renewed at the end of last season, when a new Possokhov ballet based on a literary source--The Seagull--premiered. (Just as Edward Clug's Petrushka disappeared with the arrival of his Master and Margarita.) In retrospect, I thought not renewing Hero was a mistake, given the company's rapidly shrinking repertoire and the prospect of more licenses expiring in the near future. Although presumably a tacit ban on productions involving Serebrennikov would now have doomed Hero as well.
The repertoire list includes a number of productions that haven't been performed in years, but several have been struck from the rolls, making their removal official, including The Cage, Artifact Suite, Forgotten Land and Marco Spada. (Previously Vaziev had moved quickly to elimiate a "Dutch" triple bill that had been the last premiere of Filin's tenure.)
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The Bolshoi has abruptly canceled performances of Yuri Possokhov's Nureyev that were to take place on May 6-8 and replaced them with (wait for it...) Spartacus. No explanation was provided.
But a few days ago Kirill Serebrennikov, the director of the production (a concept I don't quite understand), posted a collection of old anti-war posters.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc7QqJQqSIF/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
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On Saturday, April 30th, the Vienna State Ballet will livestream Martin Schläpfer's new ballet set to Haydn's The Seasons. The stream begins at 18:30 CEST/12:30 pm Eastern.
https://play.wiener-staatsoper.at/event/60463333-2ccc-4628-9942-8e15f9e393d1
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9 hours ago, miliosr said:
Thibault said years ago in an interview with either Dance Magazine or Pointe that the company management thought he looked like a peasant!
I am no authority on the appearance of French peasants, but Thibault certainly didn't dance like a country bumpkin.
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Alu raced through the promotion competitions to become premier danseur by age 21. Then he got stuck. To be sure, 28 is not an especially advanced age to reach étoile, at least by the standards of the past. But Louvet, Marchand and Marque were promoted ahead of Alu when each of them was 23 years of age.
I suppose the excuse to exclude Thibault was that despite his impeccable classicism, he wasn't leading-man material physically or temperamentally.
Alu isn't a looker either: he isn't tall, long legged and stretchy, he has a large (bald) head and a thick waist, backside and thighs. He is more of a flash act who muscles through the choreography, albeit remarkable in how he combines jaw-dropping pyrotechnics with the finesse of French schooling. His macho charisma is very real.
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Today the Vienna State Opera is streaming Lucia di Lammermoor, starting at 19:00 CEST, or 1:00 pm Eastern. With Lisette Oropesa, Benjamin Bernheim, George Petean and Roberto Tagliavini in Laurent Pelly's production, conducted by Evelino Pidò.
https://play.wiener-staatsoper.at/event/8df5ec7c-91c2-49b7-86ac-9b87847593dd
Simultaneously, Der fliegende Holländer will be streamed from Mannheim, with Michael Kupfer-Radecky, Daniela Köhler, Patrick Zielke and Jonathan Stoughton.
Lucia should be accessible for at least a day afterward. Holländer will be available until October 24th.
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Until May 22nd, the Royal Ballet is streaming Crystal Pite's Flight Pattern, filmed in 2019. Proceeds from the stream are going to the Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.
QuoteThis special stream of Flight Pattern is presented in support of Ukraine. We ask for a minimum donation of £7 to watch, but you are welcome to offer a larger donation. All net proceeds will go to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.
https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/flight-pattern-2019-1/videos/flight-pattern-2019
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The Dance for Ukraine stream on Marquee TV has been extended until May 2nd.
https://www.marquee.tv/danceforukraine
(And when I ckicked on the page, I found that the program was still accessible to me a week after my initial purchase.)
On 4/15/2022 at 6:14 PM, naomikage said:A relief gala Dance for Ukraine, organized by Alina Cojocaru and Ivan Putrov is currently streaming on Marquee TV.
It is definitely worth the price and will be donation for a great cause.
https://www.marquee.tv/danceforukraine
Aitor Arrieta, Alina Cojocaru, Alison McWhinney, Emma Hawes, Fernando Carratalá Coloma, Francesco Gabriele Frola
Fumi Kaneko, Ivan Putrov, Javier Torres
Junor Souza, Katja Khaniukova, Luca Acri, Marianela Nuñez, Marianna Tsembenhoi, Mathias Dingman
Mathieu Ganio, Mayara Magri, Miki Mizutani, Natalia Osipova, Rebecca Bassett-Graham, Reece Clarke
Salvatore de Simone, William Bracewell
This performance will be available from April 14th through April 24th.
All proceeds go to
Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC), Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal
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Yes, congratulations! This certainly took long enough. Alu is a uniquely gifted, if unconventional, dancer, and it was frustrating to see him passed over time and again. But justice has finally prevailed.
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Christopher Carr rehearses the Royal Ballet in Ashton's Scenes de Ballet, led by Yasmine Naghdi and Vadim Muntagirov.
I suppose it would depend on how invested you are in the season. Perhaps a reduced subscription? Seats in all areas tend to be available almost until the last minute, so I have little doubt that you could move your subscription to a less expensive part of the hall.
Alu isn't a looker either: he isn't tall, long legged and stretchy, he has a large (bald) head and a thick waist, backside and thighs. He is more of a flash act who muscles through the choreography, albeit remarkable in how he combines jaw-dropping pyrotechnics with the finesse of French schooling. His macho charisma is very real.
Bolshoi 2021/2022 Season
in Bolshoi Ballet
Posted
It's now called Postscript 2.0, and the ballets by McGregor and Ratmansky are gone. Instead there will be brand new works by Konstantin Keykhel and Yuri Possokhov (which I suppose gives an indication of Possokhov's position). Tickets are still overpriced. Oddly, Ratmansky's Flames of Paris has been scheduled for July, even though it was thought the final run had taken place in April.
https://2011.bolshoi.ru/en/performances/postscript2022-6/
As expected the 30th anniversary of the Benois de la Danse will feature only dancers from Russian companies, and Svetlana Zakharova is listed as the gala's "artistic director" and top-billed performer. A celebration of the fact that these "ballet Oscars" (🙄) won't be handed out this year?
https://2011.bolshoi.ru/about/press/articles/announce/7081/