volcanohunter

Regardless of whether ABT ever dances there, it's marvelous that the theater has been rescued and restored.

Onegin, 25 November 2023, matinee Svetlana Lunkina’s immersive and multilayered acting makes pretty much all other ballet acting look simplistic and superficial. Her Tatiana is convincingly bookish and sensitive, as though she’s really reading, not staring into a prop. She’s palpably infatuated with Onegin. She doesn’t merely gaze at him doe-eyed; it’s clear that he thrills her. If anything interfered with the “mirror” duet, it was the sets. Between the desk, the “mirror” and the bed, there was practically no room left over to maneuver. More than once Lunkina and Larkin Miller had to hold a pose and wait for the music for move along because they had simply run out of space. Still, in every overhead lift I marveled at the beauty of her legs, and the "slingshot" lifts were especially spectacular. I hadn’t seen a ballerina look so exultant in the backwards torch lift since Veronica Tennant 35 years ago. Lunkina was masterful in the second act. The day before Jurgita Dronina had run into trouble after Onegin attempted to return her letter: she buried her face in her hands and her torso began to shake violently, which led a few people in the audience to giggle. Instead Lunkina made sure that the audience would see her features fall and her eyes well up with tears. Her variation didn’t look desperate or needy, but like a duty she had to perform and somewhat distractedly. (She saved her desperation for the duel scene.) When she returned to the stage composed again, she poignantly wiped away a final tear. What was also devastating was how hurt she looked as she watched Onegin flirt with Olga. I agree that in the third act her duet with her husband (Donald Thom) is formal rather than rapturous. They are dancing in a ballroom with everyone watching, after all, and she responds by offering classical perfection and poise. This contrasts all the more strongly with how she repeats parts of the duet with him in the second scene. No doubt I am repeating myself from seven years ago, but it is fitting that the final duet is set to Francesca da Rimini, because Lunkina does appear as though she is enduring hell and her soul is being torn to pieces. But I cursed the presence of the idiotic stove that Santo Loquasto placed at stage right. During one lift I feared that Lunkina’s legs would collide with its chimney. (And the fact that Loquasto placed the "door" to the room upstage center, not stage right, as it was originally, means that every Onegin needs to make a sharp turn to stage left as he barrels out the room, or else he risks colliding with the doorframe.) Toward the end of the duet tears were streaming down Lunkina’s face, her body looked as though it were about to break, and when the curtain came back up, it was obvious that she was completely spent. It had been many years since I had cried at a performance of Onegin, but I did this time. The real crying shame is that she has had only two opportunities to perform the ballet over the past seven years. That is madness. I can understand why Reid Anderson cast Miller as Onegin. Miller is reminiscent of Anderson himself in the role. Of course, it’s still early going for him, but Miller’s interpretation is straightforward—his Onegin is haughty and self-absorbed. He didn’t overact, he didn’t drop his partner. No doubt with time his first-act variation and everything else will become more assured. I’m not entirely convinced of Miller’s danseur noble credentials, though. There were a lot of fake arabesques. I thought Tirion Law was charming as Olga. I also thought that Siphesihle November fared very well in the first scene, perhaps more jaunty as Lensky than is typical, but jumping easily and very high, managing all the partnering. His tall crown of braids was coaxed into something like a 19th-century hairstyle, and overall it improved the perception of his proportions. November is very short, hence the hairstyle he usually wears, and I worried that when he challenged Miller’s Onegin to a duel, it might appear unintentionally comical, but it didn’t. Then I realized a bigger danger was that he had to lift Lunkina, who is about the same height, during the duel scene. I was afraid she might end up on the stage floor in a split, but she didn’t. What I wasn’t convinced by was his performance of the pre-duel monologue, which was too reminiscent of angsty music-video dancing, if I can put it that way. I especially appreciated Stephanie Hutchison as the Nurse, for not turning her into a caricature of an old woman. And there was good humor, not overplayed, in the party scene, when Alexandra MacDonald’s tall Madame Larina led a mazurka with the much smaller Scott McKenzie.

I have a feeling ABT would be scared away from that many seats. How are the sightlines? Old movie houses were built on the assumption that people would be looking up at a screen, not at stage level. On the other hand, the proscenium may be quite low, if it was built to frame a film screen. Not that old cinemas have four or five rings of seats, but the key elements of the sets have to be visible.

As of January 1st, LaScala.tv is launching a subscription service. A list of 21 livestreams for 2024 has been published, and it includes operas, concerts and a vocal recital, but no ballets. https://www.teatroallascala.org/en/lascalatv-2024-programme.html At €15/month, it is more expensive than some of its competitors, though the number of livestreams is greater than what Paris Opera Play offers, for example, and ROH Stream doesn't livestream at all. https://lascala.tv/en/listsubscription Apparently streams from past seasons will be included in the subscription. I am curious to see whether a streaming season with an equal number of operas and concerts will fly, given that so many orchestras stream on YouTube free of charge.

I was surprised that ABT couldn't make a go of The Nutcracker in Brooklyn. But those NEA surveys do show that proportional rates of audience participation are higher in North Dakota than they are in New York State. There are a ton of shows on offer in New York, but it's entirely possible, that a smaller percentage of the population actually partakes. The cost of living is very high, the commutes can be hellish. So perhaps NYCB's 47 shows × 2,586 seats = 121,542 tickets actually saturate the Nutcracker market.

Realistically, the last time I saw a Nutcracker "out of season" was in Japan (October 2017). In Hamburg, where John Neumeier reset the ballet as Marie's birthday party in an attempt to make it a year-round ballet, it is now performed only at Christmastime, sharing the period with the more explicitly thematic Christmas Oratorio. Even the Bolshoi does a big block of Nutcrackers in December-January, otherwise performing it rarely. The truly insane queues for tickets there (for the Grigorovich production!) would indicate that the broader public now sees it as a holiday ballet. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/11/15/why-is-seeing-the-nutcracker-at-the-bolshoi-theatre-so-difficult-a83113 It isn't an annual tradition, but the Australian Ballet has also reached the point of performing it at the end of the calendar year. There the stronger tendency was not to perform the ballet at all.

Now the Bolshoi is as toxic as the Mariinsky, so we won't get a ringside seat to watch everything going to hell anytime soon. Figuratively, a plague on both their houses. But I find these references to Urin's so-called anti-war credentials misleading. I would venture an opinion, that at the time he was scrambling to salvage the Bolshoi's co-productions with Western opera houses, which didn't work in the end. Remember that in 2014 he signed the "letter of the 511" supporting Putin's occupation of Crimea and the eastern Donbas, as did the heads of every major cultural institution in Russia, no doubt as a condition of keeping their jobs and covering all their subordinates. (People like Svetlana Zakharova and Ivan Vasiliev went out of their way to sign it as individuals.) He also publicly professed fealty to Putin on behalf of the entire theater in the wake of Evgeny Prigozhin's whatever-that-was.

Multiple news sources are reporting that Vladimir Urin resigned his post as of 30 November. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.svoboda.org/amp/vladimir-urin-pokinul-post-direktora-boljshogo-teatra/32708873.html On his Telegram channel music critic Sergei Bulanov published a video of Urin's farewell address to the employees of the Pokrovsky Chamber Stage (absorbed into the Bolshoi Theater in 2018) following the premiere of a Cui/Stravinsky operatic double bill. He specifically says that it's his last day on the job. https://t.me/sergeibulanov/1061

As the one-month mark of World Ballet Day approaches, and some of the videos are likely to come down, I took a look at who bagged the most viewers this year. Royal Ballet - 299,000, which is substantially fewer than last year. Paris Opera Ballet - 171,000; the company also has 43,000 views on Facebook. National Ballet of Japan - 133,000 ABT also pulled in an impressive 115,000 views for its company class. I counted 5 streams that got fewer than 1,000 views, but I won't name names.

The Paris Opera Ballet will livestream its all-Kylián program - Stepping Stones, Gods and Dogs, Petite Mort, Sechs Tänze - on Paris Opera Play on Friday, December 15, at 20:00 CET (2:00 pm Eastern). Available on demand for 7 days for €14.90 or as part of a POP subscription. Subscriptions cost €9.90/month or €99 annually; €4.95/month for the under-28s. They come with a 7-day free trial. The on-demand library currently includes 27 ballets, 12 ballet masterclasses (Giselle rehearsals), 33 operas, 29 concerts and 24 behind-the-scenes documentaries. https://play.operadeparis.fr/en/p/jiri-kylian-evening

A partial PNB digital subscription - Nutcracker through Coppélia - is now available for $220. https://order.pnb.org/packages/fixed/1098

For viewers in Canada, the four-part series Swan Song, about the staging of Karen Kain's production of Swan Lake is now available on CBC Gem. https://gem.cbc.ca/swan-song Though contrary to the site's breathless plug, the 2022 production was not "the highest-stakes opening night in the National Ballet of Canada's 70-year history." It's Swan Lake, for crying out loud. The company spent 18 years performing one of the worst productions of Swan Lake on the planet and survived. Within a few years I'm sure the company will have paid off this slightly less awful production.

Decisions on Onegin casting are made exclusively by the Cranko estate. Notable dancers who never got to perform the piece with the Royal Ballet included Sylvie Guillem and Jonathan Cope, the latter being a real head-scratcher. The National Ballet of Canada is performing it right now with a junior soloist making his debut as Onegin and a couple of corps members dancing Lensky, ahead of more senior dancers and getting more performances than a debutant principal.

This is interesting, because I saw this cast on Friday, and my impression was entirely different. I thought Guillaume Côté's dancing looked labored, his arabesque was pretty much gone and he pitched his torso far forward in an attempt to lift his leg higher. To me his Onegin was devoid of allure, his partnering was extremely bumpy, carrying Jurgita Dronina around like a sack of potatoes, and he tried to compensate by throwing his head around a lot. (I take a dim view of hair-tossers.) During Tatiana's duet with her husband he seemed mostly indifferent. Technically the third act was stronger, perhaps because the "Onegin's dreams" section was adjusted to allow him to turn to the left, and because the partnering of the final scene doesn't have to look smooth. I was surprised, though, that during the big leap from the floor, Dronina didn't actually lie down, but remained standing on one knee. Karen Kain and Xiao Nan Yu used to do this, but they are about 5'7" tall and big-boned by ballet standards, while Dronina is tiny. Perhaps Côté needed an additional day off between performances. Dronina is the best Olga I have ever seen, a complete and entirely believable person on stage, so my expectations for her Tatiana were extremely high. I was surprised to find her characterization was quite conventional. Her duet with Gremin was truly ravishing, but otherwise her interpretation wasn't especially imaginative or revealing. I don't believe that any ballerina resembles Olga in real life; she couldn't succeed in her profession with that sort of personality. But perhaps Dronina is a bit too extroverted to make Tatiana resonate convincingly. Her most individual stamp came at the end of her variation in the second act, because her final leap in the direction of Onegin's card table already looked like a cry of despair, rather than coming a second later, when he bangs his hands on the table and she runs off in tears. In her first-act duet Tina Pereira as Olga seemed to be dancing more for the audience than to her partner, which seemed odd given the solicitude of Harrison James, but in the second act she was definitely actively engaged with her onstage colleagues. The strongest performance came from James as Lensky. He wasn't Jeremy Ransom-class, and technically he wasn't quite Daniil Simkin-class either, but he was better in dancing between the pirouettes than Simkin, and certainly a superior partner. Originally this run was to have featured four Gremins, but for whatever reason, Ben Rudisin, who debuted in the role during the last run 7 years ago, will end up dancing every performance but one. If he had little time to rehearse with Dronina, it didn't show. My only quibble would be that after Tatiana's second-act variation ends in humiliation, Rudisin's Gremin gave Côté's Onegin a decidedly disapproving look as Gremin exited the stage. It seemed a little odd that several years later Gremin should have invited Onegin to his home, while neglecting to mention that, by the way, he married that young woman. Chelsy Meiss is being shunted into character roles: mothers-in-law, ex-nannies and grandmothers. Frankly, she's too young for this, and her doddering looks unconvincing. This was largely true of the elders at the second-act party as well, now that the company has shed all its character artists. Conductor David LaMarche raced through the music in spots, and the corps in the quasi-folk dance at the end of the first scene couldn't keep up with his tempos. Sorry to say that ultimately this performance left me unmoved. I had avoided Côté's Onegin up until now, and evidently I should have avoided his last performance of the role, too. P.S. I still think Santo Loquasto's redesign, particularly the color of the backdrops, is a disaster, conspiring to make the dancers, especially Lensky, invisible.

The Béjart staging of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is now available on YouTube, at least in my parts. https://youtu.be/zLEVLtxpb4U?si=M5BzgLGMw9ubU3xJ

Nutcracker casting, December 8-31 Peter/The Nutcracker Harrison James (December 8, 12, 23 at 7:00 pm / December 10 at 1:00 pm / December 16, 29 at 2:00 pm) Naoya Ebe (December 9, 21, 23 at 2:00 pm/ December 15 at 7:00 pm / December 27, 31 at 1:00 pm) Christopher Gerty (December 9, 13, 19, 28, 29 at 7:00 pm / December 17 at 1:00 pm / December 27 at 1:00 pm / December 30 at 2:00 pm) Siphesihle November (December 10 at 5:30 pm / December 16, 22, 29 at 7:00 pm, ) Larkin Miller (December 14, 19, 20 at 7:00 pm / December 23 at 2:00 pm / December 17, 27 at 5:30 pm) Kota Sato (December 10 at 1:00 pm/December 17 at 5:30 pm / December 21, 30 at 7:00 pm) Jack Bertinshaw (December 24 at 1:00 pm / December 28 at 7:00 pm / December 30 at 2:00 pm) The Sugar Plum Fairy Jurgita Dronina (December 8, 12, 23 at 7:00 pm / December 16, 29 at 2:00 pm) Genevieve Penn Nabity (December 8, 12, 14, 20, 23 at 7:00 pm / December 10 at 1:00 pm / December 16, 23, 29 at 2:00 pm / December 17, 27 at 5:30 pm) Tina Pereira (December 9, 21, 23 at 2:00 pm / December 15 at 7:00 pm / December 27, 31 at 1:00 pm) Heather Ogden (December 9, 13, 19 at 7:00 pm / December 17 at 1:00 pm) Koto Ishihara (December 10 at 1:00 pm / December 17 at 5:30 pm/ December 21, 30 at 7:00 pm) Tirion Law (December 10 at 5:30 pm / December 15, 16, 22, 29 at 7:00 pm / December 27 at 1:00 pm / December 30 at 2:00 pm) Calley Skalnik (December 21, 28, 29, 30 at 7:00 pm / December 24 at 1:00 pm / December 30 at 2:00 pm) Snow Queen and her Icicles Chelsy Meiss, Kota Sato, Spencer Hack (December 8, 9, 22 at 7:00 pm / December 16 at 2:00 pm / December 24 at 1:00 pm) Jenna Savella, Keaton Leier, Isaac Wright (December 9, 29 at 2:00 pm / December 10 at 1:00 pm / December 12, 14, 20, 21, 28, 29 at 7:00 pm / December 27 at 5:30 pm) Svetlana Lunkina, Naoya Ebe, Harrison James (December 10 at 5:30 pm / December 13, 19, 30 at 7:00 pm / December 17 at 1:00 pm) Calley Skalnik, Peng-Fei Jiang, Trygve Cumpston (December 9 at 2:00 pm / December 12, 16 at 7:00 pm / December 27 at 5:30 pm) Alexandra MacDonald, Peng-Fei Jiang, Trygve Cumpston (December 10, 31 at 1:00 pm / December 15 at 7:00 pm / December 17 at 5:30 pm / December 23, 30 at 2:00 pm) Isabella Kinch*, Christopher Gerty, Larkin Miller (December 21 at 2:00 pm / December 23, 30 at 7:00 pm / December 27 at 1:00 pm) Genevieve Penn Nabity, Larkin Miller, Donald Thom (December 17 at 5:30 pm / December 8, 21 at 7:00 pm / December 29 at 2:00 pm) Svetlana Lunkina, Kota Sato, Spencer Hack (December 29 at 7:00 pm) Alexandra MacDonald, Peng-Fei Jiang, Spencer Hack (December 30 at 2:00 pm/ December 31 at 1:00 pm) Baba Stephanie Hutchison (December 8, 9, 12, 13, 19, 23 at 7:00 pm / December 16, 29 at 2:00 pm / December 17, 27 at 1:00 pm) Chelsy Meiss (December 9, 21 at 2:00 pm / December 10 at 5:30 pm / December 15, 16, 29 at 7:00 pm / December 27 at 1:00 pm) Selene Guerrero-Trujillo* (December 9, 21, 28 at 7:00 pm / December 10, 24 at 1:00 pm / December 17 at 5:30 pm / December 30 at 2:00 pm) Jordana Daumec* (December 14, 20, 22, 29, 30 at 7:00 pm / December 23 at 2:00 pm / December 27 at 5:30 pm / December 31 at 1:00 pm) Uncle Nikolai Donald Thom (December 8, 9, 16, 22, 28, 29 at 7:00 pm / December 10 at 5:30 pm / December 24, 31 at 1:00 pm / December 30 at 2:00 pm) Jack Bertinshaw (December 9, 16, 21 at 2:00 pm / December 13 at 7:00 pm / December 27, 31 at 1:00 pm) Jason Ferro (December 10, 27 at 1:00 pm/ December 17 at 5:30 pm / December 21, 30 at 7:00 pm) Spencer Hack (December 8, 12, 15, 16, 19, 23 at 7:00 pm / December 29 at 2:00 pm) Josh Hall (December 14, 20 at 7:00 pm / December 17 at 1:00 pm / December 23 at 2:00 pm / December 27 at 5:30 pm) Ben Rudisin (December 9, 13, 19 at 7:00 pm / December 17 at 1:00 pm) A Bee Hannah Galway (December 8, 12, 22, 29 at 7:00 pm/ December 10 at 5:30 pm/ December 16 at 7:00 pm) Jordana Daumec (December 9, 21, 30 at 2:00 pm / December 10 at 1:00 pm / December 17 at 5:30 pm/ December 27 at 1:00 pm) Jeannine Haller (December 10 at 1:00 pm/ December 9, 14, 19, 21, 30 at 7:00 pm / December 16 at 2:00 pm) Jenna Savella (December 9, 13, 21, 23 at 7:00 pm/ December 17, 31 at 1:00 pm) Selene Guerrero-Trujillo (December 20 at 7:00 pm/ December 23, 29 at 2:00 pm / December 27 at 5:30 pm) Tirion Law (December 24 at 1:00 pm/ 15, 28 at 7:00 pm / December 30 at 2:00 pm) Tina Pereira (December 23 at 2:00 pm) Koto Ishihara (December 23 at 7:00 pm/ December 29 at 2:00 pm) * debut

As soon as Passion began I thought of Balanchine's comment about the un-danceability of Beethoven: "I love Beethoven, but you can't do anything to it. You're not supposed to do... Now you could dance Mozart, but Beethoven you can't, unless it's walking. The sound produces a certain type of enjoyment, and if anybody moves, they will just disturb, and you don't add anything." Unlike a majority of choreographers, James Kudelka went ahead and choreographed to Beethoven, but as if proving Balanchine correct, the dancers walked and walked and walked some more. Even the choice of the piano transcription of the first movement of Beethoven's violin concerto seemed deliberate; being a percussion instrument, the piano emphasized the music's rhythm. ("Beethoven's little hammers" is what I always think when I hear his piano music.) If the corps did most of the rhythmic walking, the "contemporary" couple conveyed the voice of the solo violin/piano, but even during the crazy candenza at the end of the movement, the timpani interrupted to emphasize the rhythmic pulse. I guess in this scheme the "classical" couple and demi-soloists fulfilled the role of "just disturbing and not adding anything," while working very, very hard. The connection between Svetlana Lunkina and Piotr Stanczyk was incredibly potent. Unlike the rest of the dancers, they spent the entire ballet on stage, and their concentration never wavered. At the final performance the order of the pieces was reversed and Passion was performed last. When the curtain came up, Stanczyk stood in the downstage left corner, and Lunkina stood in the center looking toward him. In the silence before the music began, she placed her hand over her heart, and I almost started crying then and there. So Passion had structure, if not necessarily, well, passion, but to my mind Helen Pickett's Emma Bovary was a bit of a mess. It struck me as mostly derivative. Roland Petit had a similar mimed dinner scene in La Chauve-souris. There was a puppet child in Anthony Minghella's production of Madama Butterfly for the Metropolitan Opera. Radu Poklitaru had a scene of flying sexual ecstasy in his version of Viy, but there the character was a witch, hence she flew, and he employed video projections rather than a harness (which looked mostly cheesy). Rubbing silky fabric against one's face is a very old ballet cliché. The mountain of chairs at the end reminded me of Rushes by Inbal Pinto, Avshalom Pollak and Robby Barnett. (Except that version walked, so it was more interesting.) After Emma's scene with her husband, Rodolphe, Lheureux and the Abbé, later joined by the men's corps, I thought the ballet went off the rails. This version eliminates the character of Léon, so instead of the opera being the place where he resumes his relationship with Emma, it looked more like Anna Karenina's doomed attempt to re-enter society. And what's the deal with Whistler's Mother? A smaller irritant was the fact that the bodices and skirts of the corps women's ballgowns seemed to separate at the waist, and I couldn't tell whether this was deliberate or not. Jack Bertinshaw played Charles as mostly shy, whereas Josh Hall made him physically awkward. Christopher Gerty played Rodolphe as Onegin-lite. He and Heather Ogden made the more convincing pair of lovers, while Harrison James did a better job of the choreography. Kota Sato made Lheureux vaguely vampirish, while Ben Rudisin went full-out Rothbart, the problem being that this made him a completely repellent salesman. As Emma's mother-in-law Alexandra MacDonald was stern and formidable, while Chelsy Meiss was more fussy, which contrasted with her sheer rage at the end. I didn't see Hannah Galway as Emma, and I presume there was a reason she was first cast. Ogden did convey the giddy thrill of illicit romance and gluttonous shopaholism, but Jenna Savella mostly faded into the background. I wouldn't be inclined to revisit Emma Bovary in future seasons.

Michael Crabb had also interviewed Stanczyk about his forthcoming retirement. https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/stage/a-dancer-who-can-dominate-the-national-ballet-stage-just-by-walking-across-it-leaves/article_122eea4f-da6b-55a3-88de-b715e7e628bc.html It warms the cockles of my heart that my favorite NBoC male principal directed the young Stanczyk to the National Ballet School, which ultimately led to his career with the company. I also remember an encounter between Stanczyk and my mother after a performance of Giselle in 2016, if it's not a violation of board rules. After complimenting his intense performance, she told him that she had missed him, because she had last seen him during the company’s final (for now) tour of western Canada in 2011. And that really got him going: It's a disgrace! How can we call it the National Ballet of Canada if it doesn't tour the nation?!!... (Nowadays the company typically gives three performances in Ottawa each year and calls it touring.) When it comes to the question of tights, the company has been navigating the issue of what color they ought to be rather clumsily, resulting in the bizarre spectacle of a bare-legged corps of swan maidens: like an Ivanov/Ek mash-up.

I can't imagine any self-respecting woman wanting Willoughby after learning of what he did to young Eliza Williams.

Casting for Onegin, November 22-26 Eugene Onegin Guillaume Côté (November 22, 24 at 7:30 pm) Naoya Ebe* (November 23 at 2:00 pm/November 25 at 7:30 pm) Christopher Gerty* (November 23 at 7:30 pm/November 26 at 2:00 pm) Larkin Miller* (November 25 at 2:00 pm) Tatiana Jurgita Dronina* (November 22, 24 at 7:30 pm) Koto Ishihara* (November 23 at 2:00 pm/November 25 at 7:30 pm) Heather Ogden (November 23 at 7:30 pm/November 26 at 2:00 pm) Svetlana Lunkina (November 25 at 2:00 pm) Olga Tina Pereira* (November 22, 24 at 7:30 pm) Emerson Dayton* (November 23 at 2:00 pm/November 25 at 7:30 pm) Genevieve Penn Nabity* (November 23 at 7:30 pm) Tirion Law* (November 25 at 2:00 pm) Jeannine Haller* (November 26 at 2:00 pm) Lensky Harrison James (November 22, 24 at 7:30 pm) Keaton Leier* (November 23 at 2:00 pm/November 25 at 7:30 pm) Isaac Wright* (November 23 at 7:30 pm/November 26 at 2:00 pm) Siphesihle November* (November 25 at 2:00 pm) Prince Gremin Josh Hall* Ben Rudisin (November 22, 24 at 7:30 pm) Ben Rudisin (November 23 at 2:00 pm/November 25 at 7:30 pm) Peng-Fei Jiang* Ben Rudisin (November 23 at 7:30 pm/November 26 at 2:00 pm) Donald Thom* (November 25 at 2:00 pm) Madame Larina Stephanie Hutchison (November 22, 24, 25 at 7:30 pm/November 23 at 2:00 pm) Alexandra MacDonald* (November 23 at 7:30 pm/ November 25, 26 at 2:00 pm) Nurse Chelsy Meiss* (November 22, 24, 25 at 7:30 pm/November 23 at 2:00 pm) Stephanie Hutchison* (November 23 at 7:30 pm/ November 25, 26 at 2:00 pm) * Debut So far the top ring has been opened for the last three performances, and not in its entirety. Not that I recommend sitting there except in case of dire need. https://national.ballet.ca/Productions/Onegin

I know it's different in the case of a new ballet, but La Scala's WBD video showed Ratmansky working with 6 Franzes and 5 Swanildas on his Coppélia.

I still wish PNB would sell access to all the programs individually, because I really am the sort that usually skips The Nutcracker. However, I noticed that the company continues to sell subscriptions to the streaming series, minus the first program, now at a price of $260. https://order.pnb.org/packages/fixed/1098

The Australian Ballet will livestream Frederick Ashton's The Dream and Marguerite and Armand on Tuesday, November 21, at 7:15 pm AEDT (3:15 am Eastern). The stream costs $29 AUD, about $19 USD, and will be available on demand for 14 days. https://my.australianballet.com.au/17995/17998 The Dream is scheduled to feature Ako Kondo, Chengwu Guo and Brett Chynoweth, and Marguerite and Armand will star Amy Harris and Nathan Brook. Harris is retiring at the end of this run. https://australianballet.com.au/performances/the-dream-marguerite-and-armand/sydney

The Paris Opera Ballet will livestream its all-Kylián program (Stepping Stones, Gods and Dogs, Petite Mort, Sechs Tänze) on Paris Opera Play on Friday, December 15. Available on demand for 7 days for €14.90 or as part of a POP subscription. https://play.operadeparis.fr/en/p/jiri-kylian-evening

Unfortunately, there has been a downward trend all along. I notice that more recent NEA reports have not included data going back to the late 1970s. It's just too depressing to see the trajectory. To be honest, I'm surprised the powers at the NEA didn't delay the survey by a year, because the results were bound to be gruesome. Perhaps they did try to delay it. Certainly for ballet the 65+ audience seems to have cratered. But for opera the audience was depleted across all age groups. Plays appear to have lost half their audience, and opera lost two-thirds of it. If people became accustomed to streaming during the pandemic, it isn't encouraging to see how few digital ballet seasons remain. (And if streaming is the way of the future, it would probably mean the disappearance of many performing arts groups, with only the biggest guns remaining.) I can only hope that the survey of 2027 will show the first-ever increase in audience participation.