fondoffouettes

Now Gabe Shayer is listed instead of Smirnova for Manon, Whipped Cream and Corsaire [edited to add: also Harlequinade]. The weird double casting of certain roles for those ballets is still appearing. I mean, I'm all for Shayer getting opportunities, but I can't really see him as Princess Tea Flower. 😉 I'm hoping they meant to assign Shayer some of the TBAs for Manon, Whipped Cream and Corsaire. They also need to fix the spelling of Gulnare and Pierrot.

It's true, but it's saying that when you click on all the other dancers, too. What is going on??

It's on the individual production pages, like this one: https://www.metopera.org/season/2019-abt/le-corsaire/ It's possible your computer is still showing the Abera image because the image was cached.

This makes no sense. I don't think ABT would bother to fill secondary roles with a guest artist. Is it possible Shevchenko is filling in for Abrera for one or more productions and someone at the Met mixed up Smirnova with Shevchenko? I just hope Abrera is okay, and that she's not being Veronika Parted. Edited to add: The more I look, the more wonky things I notice about the Met site. For the 6/29 Swan Lake, it has both Seo and Teuscher dancing O/O, and both Bell and Stearns dancing Siegfried. Whipped Cream has "TBA" dancing on dates for which actual dancers are assigned. Manon and Corsaire have similar issues where two dancers are assigned to the same role on the same date. Clearly something is very wrong with the site.

Yes, that's absolutely a Russian thing. You'll find videos on YouTube where Odile takes bows after her 32 fouettes, completely interrupting the flow of the Black Swan PDD's coda.

I do think she's grown a lot as a dancer, but this sums up so many of her performances at ABT, sadly.

That’s odd it wasn’t mentioned in the press release. (Gomes, Abrera and Murphy’s anniversaries were mentioned in the season press releases.) I guess it’s possible Cornejo said he didn’t want the fanfare, or that the company is no longer marking these anniversaries. But I hope they are just waiting to announce the anniversary performance separately.

I agree. As much as I love Stella, I think management may have had her best interest in mind when they didn't cast her as Aurora this coming season. Even though she was lovely the last time around, I recall that her Rose Adagio was extremely tense. Her characterization of Lilac Fairy is peerless, now that Part is gone, so I do hope she continues to be cast in that role. I think the fact that she wasn't cast last season as Gamzatti, a role she's danced a hundred times, was a sign that she's going to start retiring the more technically demanding roles in her rep.

It looks like most of that was from 10/22 and earlier. I think this was the first casting change that involved Copeland (if you don't count that entire Upper Room cast being nixed): It's also possible ABT is more sensitive to these sorts of issues than Disney.

I think Copeland has also been replaced in Garden Blue on 10/28, though Seo is still listed for that one. I think this means Copeland only performed once this season, in the 10/19 Garden Blue, right? I guess there have been/will be a lot of disappointed Copeland fans...

Apparently not. I'm sure she'll be the Swan Queen in reserve in case there are injuries. Half the run is dedicated to snooze-fests Seo and Teuscher. Shevchenko would have been my choice to receive more than one performance. If they wanted to, ABT could have seven or even eight Swan Queens, as they've done in the past, but either coaching resources are too scarce or they simply don't care to. I'd certainly be more excited about the run if there were a Lane Swan Lake, plus a debut (Trenary?).

I feel exactly the same way -- it really would have been nice for them to give her a starrier role (and the challenge of taking on a new ballet). With regard to Manon, I think Abrera would be a much better fit for the role than Murphy, who already has plenty of other major roles this season. But I'm not against Manon being cast young, either. I think that's why Sarah Lane could be great in this role. While she's not exactly young for a dancer (34), she can read very young/innocent, which should suit the Manon who's on the way to a convent. And given the profound acting abilities she has shown in Giselle, I can't wait to see what she she does with the Manon who becomes a vampy, alluring courtesan.

I'm very excited to see Trenary revisit Sleeping Beauty, and if Gorak can pull it together partnering-wise, they could be glorious together in that ballet. The all-Tharp program looks great, as well. Hopefully they are saving TBA slots in Whipped Cream for Shayer and/or Klein, if they recover from their injuries. Especially the SL. I thought he didn't even like the role, based on his book.

And they pull off the torch lift wonderfully!

The New Yorker review cited upthread mentions that the National Ballet of Canada built it as a three-truck production (i.e., the sets, costumes, etc. can all fit in three trucks) to make it easily rentable.

I'm relieved to see that Abrera characterizes her injury as minor.

Even if a benefactor underwrote the production, there is the issue of ticket sales. I could see this being a big draw for balletomanes, at least in its first year, and less so for the casual ballet attendee. The company tends to only do full-lengths that sell quite well, unlike ABT, which seems more comfortable reviving full-lengths that are known to sell poorly but still have artistic value (e.g., Sylvia). I'd be in favor of a suite of dances, either for live performance or to be recorded, as On Pointe and Helene have suggested.

I think he might still be out from the injury he suffered onstage in Whipped Cream at the Met in July, so that may be a factor. Has anyone seen him dancing in the fall season? Off the top of my head, I can't recall seeing him in any rehearsal or performance photos from the season.

I'm sure details have been lost or modified over the years, but so much of this could be personal artistic interpretation. Certainly Peck, more than most, carefully considers how she accents each step (but in a way that looks completely fresh and natural). To me, the Kirkland video reads as if she just keeps her head somewhat tipped back from the previous step, so she doesn't need to tip it back at 8:22. I think it's misguided for Clifford to think there is a definitive way to perform each step, and to assume Balanchine thought there was, too. Sure, when Paris Opera Ballet omitted the segmented ports de bras (or was it the segmented arabesque?) in the Emeralds walking PDD, that was a major and baffling distortion of the choreography. But when it comes to details and accents, I think there can be room for various interpretations. For example, Sebastian Villarini-Velez, as the rumba sailor in Fancy Free, does an adorable thing at the end of his variation where he licks his fingers and slicks his eyebrows (at 01:58). I could be wrong, but I really don't remember this from other performances, and I think it might be a modern-day interpolation (Robbins aficionados, correct me if I'm wrong!): Thanks for posting the Kirkland video, btw; it's one of my all-time favorite clips, and the magic of her dancing really comes through, even with the blurry video quality.

And I see now that Catherine Hurlin mentioned it four days ago in her upcoming performances, so this does indeed seem like a last-minute change. Edited to add: It appears Seo is intending to go on tonight.

Ah, okay -- so Murphy's Instagram post was from when she was in the first cast. Then I guess I haven't seen anything on Instagram that has shown any of the second cast dancers mentioning the piece, for what it's worth.

It's true that the two performance dates that were supposed to have Copeland in two pieces sold very well. But I think ABT had every intention of having two casts, and here Murphy mentions rehearsing the piece. I can't remember a time when there have been so many casting shifts without any apparent injuries (I mean prior to Seo's injury). I wonder if two premieres, plus reviving two pieces they haven't done in a while (In the Upper Room and Symphonie Concertante), stretched the company to its limits. It sounds like at some point, the two casts' dates were swapped, too, based on this post from Brandt (or was only Brandt swapped into the other dates?):

I'm looking at the calendar and can't figure out any logic as to why these changes were made. It means Cornejo no longer dances Other Dances right after the Lang piece on 10/28, but it's hard to imagine that being an issue, unless the Lang piece is really grueling. They do allow exchanges now for a $20 fee, which I know is annoying. I believe this started during last spring's Met season, and I assume it applies to their Koch season, as well. https://www.abt.org/faq/performances/

I stupidly watched the Farrell video the night before and still found Laracey's performance incredibly moving and beautiful. She and Reichlen have set the bar really high when it comes to that role. I'm so glad she's getting more opportunities thrown her way.