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I could certainly get used to these All Balanchine evenings!! I was there both Tuesday and Wednesday, and the company looks terrific. Random highlights for me:

Well rehearsed Barocco, Square Dance and Symphone in Three Movements on Tuesday. Abi Stafford and Jaret Ange were terrific in the central pas in the Three Movements.

I particularly liked Rutherford in Barocco - her generosity of movement. I saw Fairchild in Square Dance last season and thought it wimpy until the end. Not so in this Wednesday's performance. She was a delight. I agree that Stafford & Angle were terrific in Symphony in 3, but the performance as a whole was pretty terrific.

In my opinion NYCB hasn't looked this good doing Balanchine in a while. The company seems happy to be dancing these ballets. I'm happy.

Busy Bouder. Every NYCB performance, the two PdD's Sunday in Toronto's Gala and one in NYC's YAGP Gala Monday.

Yes, but she gets two weeks off once R&J starts

Interesting to note. A problem (I quess depending on how you look at it) with productions like R & J is that there are many people who will not get to dance. This happens in some of the ABT "big ballets." This is part of the reason I tend to prefer rep programs. There are exceptions of course. There are full length ballets that offer may opportunities for dancing such as Sleeping Beauty.

It looks like Bouder is replacing Hyltin in Symphony in 3 Mov'ts. I'm guessing they're resting Hyltin since she has R&J the following week. I didn't do a side-by-side comparison either to check other changes. I just noticed this one because, well, it's Bouder.

Perhaps they are rehearsing Hyltin!

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday for me!!

I'll be there Wed. Eager to hear others post

It pays to be a registered website user, as this just-received e-mail suggests. One concern, however. This week has the best programming of the entire season. Has the quality of some of their Balanchine casting/performances so turned away audiences for the founder's work that they've got to discount all-Balanchine shows? Poor Mr. Martins will have to create Manon in Denmark for next season...

NYCB 2007 Spring Season Begins

Our 2007 Spring Season begins in just a few days, and we would like to welcome you back with an invitation just for NYCB Registered Users.

During this upcoming season, we're paying homage to the 100th Anniversary of the birth of Company Co-Founder, Lincoln Kirstein. In tribute, our six opening performances feature 10 extraordinary works by George Balanchine in his signature black and white style.

You can enjoy $60 seats in the Orchestra or $40 seats in the Third Ring for performances on Friday, April 27 at 8 pm and Saturday, April 28 at 2 pm and 8 pm. That's more than 25% off the regular ticket price!

We hope that you'll join us as we honor Lincoln Kirstein with three unforgettable programs on the first weekend of our 2007 Spring Season.

Friday, April 27 at 8 pm

For Lincoln: Program 4

Square Dance

Pavane

Episodes

Symphony in C

Saturday, April 28 at 2 pm

For Lincoln: Program 5

Apollo

Episodes

The Four Temperaments

Saturday, April 28 at 8 pm

For Lincoln: Program 6

Apollo

Agon

Symphony in C

There is a limit of 4 tickets per registrated user, per performance and seating is limited, so order today! Click HERE to take advantage of this special opportunity.

New York City Ballet looks forward to welcoming you to the New York State Theater this season.

This might be disappointing to those who have already paid full price. May next time those people will just wait and see! Also the full publicity push has been for R&J. Management hasn't been working hard to sell the "For Lincoln" tickets.

Here's the -->link.

Gillian is an obvious choice. Yes, Dale, she can do anything fast and clean. She may be ABT's best counterpart to Merrill Ashley in the past 20 years or so.

What about Michele Wiles?

Here's the -->link.

Gillian is an obvious choice. Yes, Dale, she can do anything fast and clean. She may be ABT's best counterpart to Merrill Ashley in the past 20 years or so.

Other possibilities among the principals would be Paloma Herrera (who I think is much more successful in Balanchine than in 19th century works) and Xiomara Reyes, who could be paired with Herman Cornejo in this.

I'd love to see what Sarah Lane could do here. You think we'd be so lucky?

Here's another vote for Lane. She brought a wonderful freshness and joy to the Theme I saw her do (it was not flawless but clearly she has the technique for it). It would be fun to she take on Ballo and be coached by Ashley.

I don't know what the NYCB casting will turn out to be. I will say that the most moving Juliet that I have ever seen was Fonteyn in her 50's. Sometimes young doesn't know how to play young. You are asking a young person to portray the feeling of finding the love of her life. Believe it or not this doesn't always happen at 16. I'm not talking about horniness (is that a word?)

OK a silly question. If Juliet's mother is 28 how old is Juliet supposed to be? Or am I getting something totally wrong?

Seven years ago I would have queued overnight to see this ballerina's Aurora, now I find myself worried for a ballerina I no longer recognise or know from that incredible debut as Odette/Odile.

The Part I've seen in ABT has had many of the fine qualities mentioned by her fans, but I see and feel the panic she projects when faced with a technical passage that she is uncomfortable with. Another poster compaired complaints about Part to complaints about Makarova being unable to turn. I never know about those complaints and never saw Makarova have a look of panic flash across her face when a turn was approaching.

I am not a true believer in Part but I hope Sleeping Beauty changes my mind.

Does anyone know if ABT plans on releasing casting on other roles like Lilac and Blue Bird ppd in Sleeping Beauty? I know other posters have mentioned this. I'm not the biggest fan of story ballets so I like to know who I am seeing. NYCB does a better job in this way. I guess ABT trusts the star power of the leads to fill the house. I'm very interested in some of the up and comings!

Not that I doubt the opionions and judgement of the august posters here on Part's technical shortcomings at all, but I do ask you all, what went wrong?

I think she suffers by comparison to the other ABT ballarinas when it comes to technique. She'll never turn like Murphy or balance like Herrera but what she does well, she does really, REALLY well. She seems to invite us all into her world to share in all that wonderful emotion that's happening on stage. Other ballerinas work there whole lives to to dazzling triple fouette combinations but they may never have that connection to the audience that she was born with.

I feel this conversation going round and round. Part has her fans and her doubters. We will see what happens with Sleeping Beauty. I happen to believe that there are artists who are able to use tremendous technique for artistic ends - Cynthia Gregory, Suzanne Farrell (in her own way) and Julie Kent are prime examples. It doesn't have to be either or.

Okay, so the news is out: Veronika Part will open the new ABT production of "Sleeping Beauty" as Aurora. I thought she would be lucky to get Lilac Fairy on opening night, so this is a major surprise that came out of nowhere.

What a surprise. I have in the past expressed reservations about Part's technique and confidence. I hope she proves me wrong. I am disappointed, however, that Murphy got only 1 NY Sleeping Beauty.

New York City Ballet subscription brochures take awhile to reach the the outer southern boroughs of NYC, but mine reached me here in Charlottesville today, and I was struck by all the photos already mentioned, but also by the back cover shot of three rather merry muses. Do they really grin like that in Apollo these days? I'm reminded of the Kirov at the Met in '99.

I thought it a particularly strange photo. A little cheesy!!

I'd have expected Part to be type-casted as Lilac (which I still hope she dances too).

Speaking of which, will ABT be releasing the casting for Lilac and Blue Bird? Sometimes, for me those roles make a differance in the performance I choose.

The music is already pretty intense while Siegfried is dancing and Odile is waiting upstage to take her turn.

Hans got me thinking about which "different steps" you could insert at the beginning of the musical passage. Pique pirouettes, with their expansive, sweeping travelling, strike me as having a very different dramatic impact from fouettes, which are controlled and have a limited range of movement across the floor. Could you start with piques and end up with fouettes? It might be rather difficult to transition quickly and smoothly from one to the other without losing a few counts.

So what steps could be substituted? What alternatives were you thinking of, Hans?

Just do the fouettes. Yes, your leg gets tired but it's something you have to practice. On the other hand I guess everyone could just pick out a favorite step and do it and that might be OK and even fun. At the same time I think it is good for dancers to measure themselves against the test of time. If dancers in the past could do technical feats (fouettes, rose Adagio balances) why not now, given the idea that ballet technique has advanced. I'm sure Sarah Means could go into a studio and work her way up to 32 if she wanted to. Not a priority and maybe it shouldn't be, but I fall into the camp that this step is a requirement of the role. Just like a note in opera that may have been written for a particular singer.

Bart or anyone else... can you provide links to Opera boards which would be on par with Ballet Talk?

I believe the Met version used to have more dancing than it now has. I recall a Polanaise (many years ago) that may have been Balanchine. I could be totally wrong.

Smooth sailing (or rolling), Leigh!

Anyone know the specifics of who danced what?

Thank you so much!

Not exactly a wardrobe malfunction, perhaps more of a dancer malfunction: Kevin McKenzir in the last scene of a Romeo & Juliet at ABT schlepping Juliet about while still wearing his tatty pale blue wooly long legwarmers.

Actually, they were sweatpants and they were very loose and baggy. And they became more shapeless during the short scene.

I wondered why that all came to pass. When McKenzie came out for his curtain call, he was wearing tights.

So why could he make a quick costume change for the calls but not a little earlier for the last scene? You would think they could hold the curtain or at least keep the tomb scene dark until everyone was set , costume wise

Didn't he probably have the sweatpants on over his tights? He probably forgot to take them off for the scene but took them off for the curtain call.

This makes me wonder how he, as director, feels about dancers who make similar mistakes.

.... I have seen Part in many roles and am still looking for the experience that others have had. In my experience she seems tense, flubs steps and under performs. Is it possible that those that love her are taken with her looks, body, Russian training and facial expressions? I just don't get it

Have you seen her O/O? In other roles my experience is very often consonant with yours.

her looks, body, Russian training and facial expressions...

Since Makarova I have seen many O/O's but very few have touched her level. Other than Part, just (young) Guillem, Nina Ballerina, Ashley Bouder, and (on her way, at least) Sara Mearns. I think Mr. B's one-acter should count for something too. Early Darci Kistler, and Maria Kowroski's last (a while ago...).

I would like to see Part in O/O because I am indeed curious. I hope to see what others see in her and I hear that is her best ballet. The statement about "managing most of the steps" bothers me, because in other ballets I see fear and hesitation from Part because she knows she won't manage all of the steps.

I am thinking more and more that this whole discussion boils down to individual tastes. I was not a fan of Makarova's Swan Lake although I loved Cynthia Gregory. I don't really go for Russian trained dancers on the whole.

P.S.: I saw James Wolcott's love letter when it first appeared. Thanks for linking to it, drb. It's kind of sweet. You want it to be true, for Wilcott's sake.

Yes, you do. That piece strikes so rich a chord, it cracks me up. Wolcott is married to Laura Jacobs, who writes about dance for The New Criterion, and who has published her own raptures about Ms. Part. From an essay entitled "Assoluta," much of which is about this ballerina, here's Jacobs on a Part-Gomes Swan Lake:

Part revealed the heart that’s been in lambswool these last two years. Here was an emotional Odette, passionately pitched, her narrative flights clear and momentous, and the delicacies, those trilling entrechat-passés en arrière, for instance, like water singing. When Odette first allows herself to lean back upon Siegfried’s chest, Part tendrils against him in something between rest and wrest. You never forget she’s trapped in feathers, in Rothbart’s spell. And when Odette approaches Siegfried with a full circling swoop of the arms that pulls her up to pointe, Part powers a whoosh so huge we see the danger of her love—she actually startled Gomes, overwhelmed him— the supernatural size of her, it is the conjuring of the spell blowing through her, white rush and strange heart, Wingwraith. This is imagination, wild and precise, rehearsed and released, big, bigger, biggest. This is Veronika Part, making bliss of the art once again.

This is really a bit much. I have seen Part in many roles and am still looking for the experience that others have had. In my experience she seems tense, flubs steps and under performs. Is it possible that those that love her are taken with her looks, body, Russian training and facial expressions? I just don't get it

I found Sarah Lane a lovely dancer.

Right now ABT has only 4 female soloists (correct me if I'm wrong). Are promotions in order? Maybe Lane, Copeland or Fang (although she seems to have fallen by the wayside recently).

What do you all think?

The French seem to have the most beautiful fouettes overall, with a lovely smooth whipping movement - but perhaps over-refined?

Funny but the most beautiful fouettes that I've seen recently were Sylve in Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto 2. I also don't like the Russian style poke to the side type.

After an hour and a half intermission (all due respect to the hard working dancers for most of that time), came Violin Concerto.

Did I miss something - was there a 90 minute intermission?