fondoffouettes

My stomach sank when I saw that. At least Murphy would seem to be the obvious choice to fill in for Abrera, since she's already dancing with Stearns on Saturday and her one Myrtha is at the beginning of the week. I didn't think Murphy was a great fit for Giselle, but I'd probably go and see her rather than incur a $30 exchange fee on a $65 ticket. And, to be fair, last year she was dancing through an injury. But if Copeland is swapped in, it's a no-go for me. I just did a quick scan of available seats for other Giselle performances and was shocked to see how undersold most of them are. Several evening performances are half-sold or much worse. (It looks like it could be a May run of Sylvia.) There are even plenty of seats available for the Copeland performance. I've never thought of Giselle as being a sure bet at the box office like Swan Lake or Romeo and Juliet, but the house has always felt relatively full in the past. Did the intense interest in the Hallberg/Osipova performance cannibalize sales for the rest of the week? Did people buy one expensive, dynamically priced ticket to the Friday evening performance rather than two or more other performances? Or maybe the casting just isn't compelling. This is the first time, in I can't remember how many years, that I've bought a ticket for only one evening performance of Giselle. I'm just not that curious to see Seo, Murphy or Boylston in the role...

I’ve written photo captions for nearly a decade, and am sensitive to the implications when you do or do not ID an artist. I could imagine writing the caption in question if it was in a piece all about Copeland, or even if the photo accompanied a paragraph or two about Copeland in a piece that wasn’t entirely about her. But that wasn’t the case here. If the dancers have relatively equal presence in the photo — and especially if they are of similar rank — it’s insulting to ID one artist but not the others. For the photo in question, given the number of dancers, I probably would have just written “Members of American Ballet Theatre” rather than ID any of them. Helene is correct that captioning and headlines would fall to an editor. The author probably had nothing to do with this caption. I don’t necessarily take Whiteside’s comment to be a dig at the Misty phenomenon (even though I originally posted this in the Misty thread). It’s entirely possible that he, or any other dancer, is happy with the positive media attention Misty had brought to the art form, yet at the same time critical of the press’ blind spot when it comes to other artists. I do, however, think his comment could easily be interpreted as criticism of the outsized attention given to Copeland, and that’s why I was initially surprised he was putting this out there.

Company members have been posting a ton of rehearsal videos and pics on Instagram, and I haven’t seen Hallberg in a single one. Maybe he’s planning to swoop in, guest-star-like, to dance that Giselle? Or perhaps he’s been testing out his physical capabilities in private.

I agree with Whiteside.

Yes, it was definitely the music from the Scottish dance.

Bouder’s post is pretty jokey. Are we sure Pereira is actually learning the role?

I highly doubt it, but you could always trying calling the box office or using the chat function on the Met's website to find out. Not that you want to spend more money, but you could trade any of your Giselle tix for $20, if there are other shows you want to see. (I hadn't realized this was an option till yesterday's conversation about it on here.)

On the Giselle order I place by phone today, it shows a $2.50 facility fee (which I'm assuming you'd have to pay in person at the box office, as well), and a $6.00 ticket service fee for ordering via phone. But yeah, I think it could be worse.

Thanks for offering some perspective on the issue of subscriptions. I'd much rather see them evolve, as you say, rather than die out! If I could choose my specific seats after traditional subscribers and get free exchanges and/or some sort of discount, I'd have no hesitation in becoming a subscriber. I got the Giselle discount e-mail and I'm a regular single-ticket buyer who hasn't subscribed since the 18-29 program. What seems odd is that they sent it out at 7:00 p.m., and you can only redeem the code through the box office, either in person or by telephone (and the box office closes at 8:00). I opened the e-mail after the box office was closed and couldn't act on the deal. (I realized this after trying to use the code online; the Met's website recognized it as a valid code but wouldn't apply the discount.) In general, 7:00 p.m. is a rather unpopular time for sending a promotional e-mail, and why would they send it at a time that only gives people a one-hour window to act on it that day? Oh well. In any case, I just picked up a ticket for the Lane/Simkin Giselle, and it was the discount that nudged me to go ahead and do so.

The subscription model has been on life support for the past decade, but if a major institution like ABT or the Met abandons it, they risk alienating their long-term (usually older) patrons. I wish they'd treat the single-ticket buyer as the new subscriber and come up with inventive ways to increase single-ticket sales. Today's audiences, for the most part, don't want to commit to multiple performances months ahead of time. And the benefits of a subscription, from a financial standpoint, seem so minimal. What's left then? The desire to sit in exactly the same seats at every performance? Early access to single-ticket sales is certainly a benefit, but it's one that appeals mostly to die-hards.

I didn't think non-subscribers could exchange, but it says it's possible (for a $20-30 fee) on ABT's FAQ page: http://www.abt.org/faq/performances/ What's odd is that on the FAQ page it says only Full Series subscribers get free exchanges, but on the Met's website it says Trio and Choose Your Own subscriptions also get free exchanges If you are a subscriber and exchange a ticket for the same seating zone as your subscription ticket, do you have to pay for any price difference that may have been caused by dynamic pricing?

I'm sorry for Lendorf, but am very glad Cirio is getting this opportunity. So many people on this board have written glowingly about Cirio's dancing in principal roles at Boston Ballet, but ABT has cast him in so few leading roles that I haven't gotten a very complete sense of who he is as a dancer. I'm not sure the double-doozy of Boylston and Copeland can entice me to see him in Bayadere, though. I agree, but I'm glad to see ABT shake things up after some pretty stale casting, especially among the men, in recent years. But yeah, I would have imagined Bell getting Ali (based on all his bravura spins, etc., seen in videos filmed in the studio) or Mercutio or something like that. I'm so glad to hear about Fang. I recall thinking she was a likely candidate for promotion to soloist some years back, but I remember reading in these forums that she was sidelined due to injury. She has really bounced back in the past couple seasons.

I agree completely about Mearns, though I didn't expect anything less from her, as she often goes for broke, and Tchai Pas was a perfect vehicle for that quality in her. She was bubbling over with energy, and beaming with happiness. T. Angle was a great partner for her, as always, though he's no virtuoso, and this is a piece that really calls for virtuosic dancing. In the manège of jetés, his back leg was hanging down so low. His turns a la seconde looked slow and underpowered, much like they did last year in Diamonds, when he had to end them very early. Overall, his solo dancing had a heavy quality. I expected as much, based on what I've seen in the past, but it was still disappointing that Mearns didn't have a partner who could match her energy and eclat. But Angle is one of a very large number of leading men in the company who are excellent partners, but often lackluster solo dancers. Symphony in Three Movements was fantastic, and Tiler Peck and Taylor Stanley were just as fabulous as everyone has said they are.

In the comments section of Lowery's most recent Instagram post, she writes that she's moving to California to go to medical school.

To be fair, I'm mostly familiar with Lowery's dancing from the last three or so seasons, when she seemed to become progressively more out of shape and unfocused as a dancer. Any exuberance seemed supplanted by the appearance of simply muscling her way through a performance. I gather from reports on here that she was quite a different dancer earlier in her career. I have no idea how much authority the interim team has in hiring and firings, but Lowery has looked like a dancer on her way out for the past couple seasons, and now, in the post-Martins era, she's leaving the company.

I’m pretty relieved, frankly, that I’ll no longer have to dread seeing Lowery’s name on the casting sheet. Is this the time of year when NYCB dancers renew their contracts? I’m curious whether this is a change to the roster initiated by the interim team. (Of course, Lowery could have decided to leave on her own.)

I'm sorry to hear about her injury. I'm looking forward to seeing what Katie Williams will do with the role, but hers wouldn't have been the first name I would have guessed as the substitute for Waski. She's one of those dancers who has been in the corps for about a decade, gets a variation every now and then, but hasn't seemed especially favored by management. I'm very glad she's getting the opportunity, though. Her stage presence is rather sweet and warm, so I hope she can pull off the chilliness of Myrtha. I know she's not the tallest dancer, but I don't see why they don't have Boylston learn Myrtha. She strikes me as a Myrtha rather than a Giselle (and a Gamzatti rather than a Nikiya, for that matter). Or she could at least be someone like Murphy who alternates.

Was there something that led you to believe this would happen? Has she often been injured? I've seen people selling their tickets outside of the house, which I realize is a bit of a hassle. There's also this forum: http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/forum/262-tickets-and-ticket-offers/

It's been six weeks since Hallberg injured himself, and all of his recent Instagram stories indicate he's still in Australia. The Hallberg/Osipova Giselle is just a month away, and the rest of the company began rehearsals for the spring season several days ago. Maybe he'll get himself well enough to swoop into NYC for that one performance, but I'm feeling more doubtful than ever that it will happen.

What a fantastic season! I only wish they were doing Tchaikovsky Suite No. 3 more than just once (on the spring gala program). But that's just a small quibble about a season filled with Balanchine masterpieces, including all of his major works set to Tchaikovsky.

All reports I've read of her Swan Lake have indicated that she's substituted other turns for at least part of the fouetté sequence. I think what we see in the video above is essentially her current "Plan A," minus three or four fouettés to better fill out the first half of the music. Both halves of Plan A -- the fouettés and especially the manège -- look underpowered and sloppy. What would be a better Plan A? I'm not sure... Maybe if she just did a manège she could stay in better form. I can't imagine leaps being incorporated because they wouldn't seem to go with the music, and Copeland is known for lack of ballon. (She's among the most earthbound jumpers I've ever seen at ABT.) Maybe she could do these to the fouetté music: https://youtu.be/UNOZpPsJgBQ?t=11m12s. If I remember correctly, there was that moment in which she looked crestfallen, but then she turned to the side and did an arabesque (not in the choreography) and held it for a bit to fill out the music. It's too bad she broke character, but I at least give her credit for doing something, and doing it well, to fill out the music (there wasn't much left, as I think she had already reached the high 20s in her fouetté sequence). In certain moments -- like the hops on pointe in Giselle or the Rose Adagio -- I'm not sure what else you can do but soldier through as best as possible when things go awry momentarily.

How do NYCB dancers perform that section today? As en dehors fouettés? I must say that the en dedans fouettés in the linked video feel like a rare treat, and are quite striking, though I can see why they’d feel awkward for the dancer.

I agree -- I think the compilation video is a cheap shot, and when I first saw the title, I immediately thought the use of "lazy" was misguided, especially given its history of being used in racist contexts. I still find the fouetté video to be of interest because it shows how Copeland handles the coda of Act III, which until now I've only known through press reports. It's not a ballet blooper -- it's how she routinely handles the choreography -- so I don't find it offensive for it to be used as an illustration of her overall technique. I truly didn't expect her alternate version of the coda to look so underpowered and sloppy. Of course, no dancer should be judged solely on a 57-second video. I'm very forgiving of inconsistent dancers. You sometimes never knew what dancer you'd get in any given performance from Part -- and I find this to be true to a lesser degree with Abera and Lane -- but I believe that all three truly have the technique to be excellent in Petipa. And I think they have a great deal of artistry and dramatic ability that can sometimes make you forgive a bobble here or there. I'm reminded of something Dick Button said at the end of Sasha Cohen's long program at the 2006 Olympics: "I'll take [her] two mistakes as payment for that exquisite choreography, the exquisite line, the perfect positions and the beautiful artistry that she presents." I feel similarly about some of the less consistent dancers at ABT. With Copeland, it's not just about "having a bad day" or making a mistake here or there -- as it's been spun in the press -- but about whether she has the technique to do justice to the 19th-century full-lengths, at a company that presents more Petipa than any other in this country. I disagree with what much of Copeland said in her response to the video, but the statements I most take issue with are 1) audience members shouldn't be critics, 2) difficult technical elements are "insane tricks," and 3) artistry and emotion trump technical ability (as said above, I'm willing to forgive mistakes if a dancer shows great artistry, but I don't think artistry can supplant technique, as they are so intertwined in ballet). I also don't understand why she invoked race in this particular discussion. It’s certainly been at the forefront of many moments in her career, but this doesn't seem like one of them. I didn't appreciate the Twitter user's put-down of American dancers, but that seemed more like a nationalistic bias (I assumed the Twitter user may have been based in Europe) rather than racial bias. What I appreciate about Misty Copeland is that she can fill the Met (not an easy feat); she's brought more audience members of color into the theater; she's garnered pop culture attention for the art form, which hasn't happened much since the 80s; and she's inspired many by being a black woman on the ballet stage. Overall, I think she'll help ABT -- and the art form in general -- to be more inclusive. I wish this hadn't been founded on a somewhat misleading narrative crafted by Copeland and her PR team, but at least it's yielded what I believe are some positive results for the art form. I completely agree with this. Dynamic pricing is about demand -- it doesn't factor in whether someone can do the 32 fouettés! Also, performing-arts institutions usually set a reasonable cap on the highest dynamic ticket price, so as not to alienate audiences.

Yes!!! I think I need to figure out some way to get out of work that Wednesday. It's the perfect marriage of performer and role.

Looks like PA Ballet acquired the old ABT costumes for Theme and Variations, which I much prefer to the new costumes. Smart move on PA Ballet's part!