fondoffouettes

On 11/3/2018 at 12:01 PM, cargill said:

She certainly cut the pas de chat in her solo, just before the fouettes--or at least just barely indicated it.

Yeah, it was barely indicated this afternoon. And in this manege, for the turns where the ballerina kicks out her leg at 90 degrees or less, Tereshkina decided to kick her leg much higher, and it looked unattractive. Overall, it was a pretty unpleasant performance, lacking lightness, musicality and wit. Kim provided the bravura dancing we've seen only rarely from NYCB's men in this role in recent years; I kind of felt the audience was overly reactive to Kim, but to each his own. 

On 11/3/2018 at 5:38 PM, Birdsall said:

on paper this sounded like a great idea (various companies paying homage to Balanchine), but so far in reality a bit disappointing. 

2

I kind of agree. I wish I'd put the money toward NYCB tickets instead. I only went to this afternoon's performance, and the Joffrey Four Temperaments was just meh; it really lacked the sharp, taut quality that the ballet requires. And it didn't look like a great fit on some of the corp members, either. The Tchai Pas had the issues already mentioned by others, and the Midsummer Night PDD was a pleasantly forgettable performance. The highlight of the afternoon was Symphonie Concertante; it was great to see this somewhat neglected work, and the ladies of ABT must have really settled into it because they looked like a relaxed, cohesive whole. The principal trio was excellent, and it must be a killer for the women; they are onstage so much. Is it in the same league as a work like Divertimento No. 15? No, but think it's a lovely piece, and one that deserves to be performed more often. It's fun to think of all the great lead female pairings that could happen at NYCB.

1 hour ago, ABT Fan said:

Not quite. Shayer is still listed for Gulnare and others. Maybe i need to clear my cache.

I don't think anything has been fixed. I tried clearing my browser's cache and also using an incognito tab, but Shayer is still showing up for me in all of Abrera's roles.

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.

3 minutes ago, aurora said:

Interestingly though, if you click on her, it says no productions this season

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

2 minutes ago, Leah said:

Where on the Met website is this? For me it lists Abrera not Smirnova.

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.

10 hours ago, BalanchineFan said:

They also take a lot of time with their bows in the middle of the piece. Perhaps that’s the style in Russia. It seems self indulgent in NYC.

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. 

56 minutes ago, abatt said:

 She could do all the steps

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

10 hours ago, abatt said:

Speaking of Herman, 2019 is his 20 year anniversary with ABT.  Is there any info about which show will be his 20 year celebration? 

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. 

23 hours ago, canbelto said:

I love Stella but I've seen a real deterioration of her technique in the last year or so. Her Giselle was shaky. Which is why it's a shame she's not given Manon, a role which she could still dance well. But as it stands all this speculating is moot because the ABT roster is injury-prone and there's likely to be many a cast shuffle between now and May.

 

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. 

23 minutes ago, abatt said:

She was able to attend some promotional gigs earlier this week for the film Nutcracker Princess and the Four Realms.

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):

On 10/23/2018 at 4:00 PM, ABT Fan said:

That casting has changed; they swapped the entire cast for the Lang piece w/ the other. Seo was also injured, so it's possible either or both of them warranted the change.

It's also possible ABT is more sensitive to these sorts of issues than Disney. 

1 hour ago, ABT Fan said:

It's official. Lane has replaced Copeland in tomorrow's Nutcracker pas with Bell.

https://www.abt.org/event_dates/fall-family-matinee-10-27-2018-200pm/

Copeland and Seo have also been replaced in AfterRite tonight with Boylston and Brandt.

And, Lane has replaced Seo in Other Dances on Sunday w/ Stearns.

https://www.abt.org/performances/master-calendar/

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...

3 hours ago, Fleurfairy said:

I guess McKenzie really did not like Lane in Swan Lake, did he?

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?). 

50 minutes ago, abatt said:

I think they should have given Stella either the lead in Manon or the lead in Jane Eyre.  They will probably only do Jane Eyre this coming season and the following season and then put it to rest, so there was no reason to contemplate long term future casting with respect to that ballet.

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. 

1 hour ago, CTballetfan said:

What are others excited about? Bummed about? 

I’ll have to think long and hard before committing good money to a series when casts change on a dime. 

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. 

45 minutes ago, ABT Fan said:

Hallberg cast in 3 performances - 2 Des Grieux, 1 SL. Not holding my breath on any of those.

Especially the SL. I thought he didn't even like the role, based on his book.

1 hour ago, ABT Fan said:

Just saw that myself. I would think so, since they were rehearsing in full costume. No casting update on ABT's site yet (not a surprise).

And they pull off the torch lift wonderfully! 

6 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

Presumably the sets and costumes made for the National Ballet of Canada production still exist, so that work wouldn't necessarily have to be done from scratch, and the NBoC rents out its productions quite readily.

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.

1 hour ago, dirac said:

People who donate enormous sums to the arts pretty much have money to burn by definition. I do wonder why such a benefactor would be "eccentric"? I should think that one of the chief purposes of arts philanthropy is to support a project like reviving "Don Quixote," allowing people to see a flawed work that is nevertheless a significant one in the oeuvre of the art form's towering genius.

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. 

15 minutes ago, DeCoster said:

Gabe Stone Shayer and Cassandra Trenary were my favorite cast (I saw 3) last Spring.  I'm surprised he isn't cast on tour.  He's tailor-made for this role.

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. 

1 hour ago, canbelto said:

John Clifford is at it again.

His complaint about ballerinas not throwing their heads back in the final moment of the MSND pas de deux is not really borne out by video. At 1:45 in this video Tiler Peck definitely does throw her neck and head backwards. Maybe not the degree that Allegra Kent has, but she does throw it back.

But Gelsey Kirkland in what I assume was the early 1970's does not throw her head back at 8:22:

 

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.

56 minutes ago, BLalo said:

The second cast of stompers was observed in rehearsal by Dance Magazine just over a week ago. The footage (albeit brief) seems to show a relaxed and fairly prepared second cast.

https://www.dancemagazine.com/tharps-upper-room-abt-2611523700.html

 

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.

15 minutes ago, Emma said:

From up thread, it looks like Brandt was supposed to be the first dancer (in the cast list) in the second cast, but instead replaced Murphy in the first cast. 

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.

3 hours ago, BLalo said:

Wow... I didn’t know. I have tickets for tonight to see the other cast but now I guess I’ll be leaving after the new Lang. 

What the hell happened? And no word from ABT? Was the whole cast just not good enough? Or were they using Misty’s name to sell tickets with no intention actually having a second cast?

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?):