Barbara

That's so sweet of you Cristian! I hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day.

Really? That mattress must be VERY cushy and the spotters VERY strong! That is so funny about Carreno - I must admit I've never seen anything like a double-bounce! And the 1-10 rating is hilarious. Thanks!

This is something I've been wanting to ask the experts for a long time. I've always wondered about the backstage magic that allows dancers to jump into Swan Lake unharmed. Now I know some dancers daintily lean off the cliff but last ABT Met season David Hallberg took such a bold jump with such velocity that the audience collectively gasped. He literally flung himself off the cliff, head inclined upward (in beautiful form of course) and I feared for his life Is there simply a huge mattress on the floor? It has to be more than that or injuries would surely take place. Do tell!

Carbro, we have Cablevision out here in the Hudson Valley. We do get NYCTV but I checked their website and it doesn't look like they carry Classic Arts Showcase.

I happened upon this piece as I was channel surfing in Vermont over Christmas. It was on that weird Arts Showcase channel that we have up in Vermont but not here in NY. What a treat to come upon it so unexpectedly. And now that I've had the pleasure of hearing Freddie Franklin speak at the Works & Process even I look forward to watching it again. Thanks for the heads up!

A friend of mine is supposed to be getting us tickets - hope she comes thru. I've heard nothing but good things about this play. I didn't know it was so long - you get your moneys worth I guess.

A glaring omission in my opinion was Josh Brolin. He could have been nominated as lead actor in Country for Old Men or Supporting Actor in American Gangster. I also love the work of James McAvoy in everything I've seen him in so far. And I was surprised not to see a nomination for Denzel Washington in American Gangster. Although I imagine all the lead actors are cursing that they happened to be nominated in a year that Daniel Day-Lewis decided to come out with a film

Sometimes I like to take time out from the overall scene to look at the stage business on the sidelines with binocs. Last ABT Met season I had fun watching David Hallberg in Swan Lake interacting with the Princesses as each national dance was underway. I don't know if it's particular to him but I enjoyed the way he seemed to be realistically engaging in conversation with the Princess of the moment. In the past I've been riveted watching Nureyev on the sidelines thru binocs - a show of it's own! I also like to look at costume details. Now that I have my new binocs with a wide view I wonder if I'll watch more of the performance through them. Sandy, I'll try watching a full PdD through them and see how that is.

Certainly! I was basically holding them with my fingertips. He told me to hold them with the palms of the hands, resting the index fingers against (or near) your eyebrows and resting the thumbs against (or near) your cheekbones. Also keep your elbows in toward the chest. This method seemed to give me much more control over my shakiness.

Thought I would report back that yesterday I purchased the binoculars that I previously asked your help in selecting. I visited B&H Photo in NYC armed with my research from BalletTalk! I tried the Zeiss 8x20 BT Classic Pocket priced at $290. They were incredibly small and light (maybe even too small) with excellent clarity. I do have a shaky hand problem and the Zeiss didn't have an image stabilizing feature so I then tried the Canon 8x25 at $250 that does have this feature. They were considerably larger but not too heavy. I actually didn't feel that the image stabilizer helped all that much and it's necessary to keep compressing the button in order to use the feature. The sales associate told me that an automatic image stabilizer typically comes on only larger binocs. He was immensley helpful, by the way, and I was glad I hadn't purchased anything online. (I had nothing but trouble trying to open the binoculars.com website.) He even showed me the proper way to hold the binocs for maximum steadiness - who knew I'd been holding them incorrectly all these years! Then he asked me to try another pair - a 6x30 "wide" Leupold Yosemite coming in at 17 oz for $85. I felt the clarity was very very good, it was light enough to hold, and the price was right - sold! The first time I'll give them a good try will be when the Kirov performs at City Center in April - I'll be in the nosebleed section with my new binocs at the ready!

A lovely evening last night despite the intrusion of a movie filming on a good portion of 5th Ave as well as inside the Guggenheim rotunda in NYC. Audience members were lined up outside the Employee Entrance on 89th St since the entire front entrance was blocked off. My daughter and I lined up early because altho we had tickets I was hoping for a standby ticket for my son. Mr. Franklin arrived shortly after we did and responded with a smiling hello to my surprised "Good evening!" The evening started with a discussion led by Wes Chapman of Mr. Franklin's amazing career with his biographer Leslie Norton interspersed with his own remembrances of dancing with Josephine Baker and later with the Markova Dolin company and then on to his legendary partnership with Danilova at Ballet Russes. Later Georgina Parkinson joined the panel and made a heartfelt statement about what a special human being Fred Franklin is and how we should all be honored and appreciative of just having him in our midst - I heartedly concur! He may be 93 1/2 years old but he is energetic, has the memory of an elephant (his words) and is a thoroughly delightful raconteur. The discussion was highlighted by film clips of Mr. Franklin's career and of him coaching and dancing. In his youth he had the ability to do incredibly fast multiple turns when no one else was doing such a thing, but he confided he could only do them when turning left! ABT II dancers performed the Czardas from Coppelia and students from the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School performed the Friends dance also from Coppelia. Mr. Franklin went onstage to coach the young women in the Friends dance. Each correction was given with love and kindness and right before your eyes you could see the dancers improve. By the way, the young woman dancing Swanilda was a star in the making. I don't know her name because names were only listed in the program as a group. I'm going to be watching for her to join the main company in the years to come. Of course besides Mr. Franklin himself, the highlight of the evening were performances by Julie Kent and David Hallberg. Their personas are so large (he in particular) that they simply devoured the tiny Guggenheim stage. They did the Pas de deux from Gaite Parisienne in charming costumes by Christian Lacroix and a tiny excerpt from Mozartiana in practice clothes. Certainly has whet my appetite for ABT's Met season!

socalgal, I was at UCI under Loring too! Most of my classes were with El Gabriel and sometimes Roy Fitzgerald/Fitzpatrick? The mind fails me. During that same time I studied with Clinton Rothwell from the National Ballet of Canada at a teeny school in Newport Beach. Some years later with Stanley Holden in West LA. So that probably was Paul Maure teaching at Sallies. I did love his classes. Did you ever have George Chakiris in your class? That was special since at the age of 13 I had the worst crush on him in West Side Story. I could hardly believe I was standing next to him at the barre! Thanks for the memories. Sorry this has veared away from Mr. Panaieff.

I remember the name Michael Panaieff from the So. Cal. dance scene but since I lived out towards Orange County I never got to his studio. Later in life I took classes at Sallie Whalen's studio in Hollywood. I had an instructor there that I liked very much - he gave very complicated and fast center work, but fun! The name Paul Maure sounds so familiar - would he have taught at Sallie's studio? Anyone from that era in L.A. have recollections?

I think I must have loved ballet from the start. My mother put me in ballet class around the age of 4 and I loved it from then on. But the first bona fide performance I saw was when my ballet school was taken to the Shrine Auditorium in LA to see a touring company - I'm not even sure who it was anymore - it might have been the Royal Ballet or the Kirov. I was transported, even the curtain calls thrilled me. I tried to write a school essay about the experience and either I was unable to express myself correctly or my teacher was an imbecile (quite possible; she was an old-school nun) but I was berated for being impressed with "wolf whistles in an auditorium". Lucky that didn't dampen my spirit. A few years later our school saw a Romeo and Juliet by the Royal Ballet, also at the Shrine. I was dying to see Margot Fonteyn but our tickets turned out to be for Merle Park and Donald MacCleary (sp?). No mind, I fell in love with Merle Park and have loved her ever since. Another "falling in love" memory is of buying my ballet slippers. This was in the days when they weren't readily available at the local suburban shoe store. It meant a trip on the bus to downtown LA to the Capezio store. They used to put little B&W 3x5 photos of dancers in your box of shoes. My favorites were of Marge & Gower Champion and Maria Tallchief. Wish I had saved them. Thanks Bart for suggesting this trip down memory lane.

Oh so nice to see Ivan Nagy again! Does anyone know what he's doing these days?

Actually what I've learned over the years is that he's a NFLBLP (non full length ballet loving person). Give him something short and contemporary and he's all there.

One of my fondest ballet memories is Giselle with Makarova and Nagy. PS - My husband fell asleep during the performance, can you believe it

I too could hardly believe my eyes when I read David's Winger post. I'm breathless with anticipation. Do I dare go ahead and buy Series 62 hoping the Giselle tbd cast is the one we're hoping for?

This is an amazing amount of information. Thank you all so much for responding! I'll try to distill all your suggestions, do some research, and go shopping.

Thinking about Christmas gifts - for me What kind of binoculars do you use for the ballet? Or Opera Glasses as I remember them being called. I don't use binoculars a great deal at the ballet, but I do like to have a pair along just in case I want to see a detail of something - face, feet, costume.... I end up bringing my embarrasingly large binocs from home. I'd like to ask Santa for a good pair (not ultra expensive, but decent resolution). Any suggestions?

I have lovely memories of a 1973 trip to Lake Balaton. It's nice to think of Zoltan there. Thanks for the translation!

Barbara,

This may be a very unorthodox approach, but who knows... Ask David directly.

There is a website which he posts on regularly which anyone can "join" like BT and post comments. It's called the Winger and all the posters are dancers or people associated with dance. The webmistress is one Kristin Sloan, who is in the NYCB corps. David posts there as do other dancers and there are often all sorts of interesting photos from their travels and backstage. It's a great site. http://thewinger.com/words/ You might wander over there and try to contact Kristin or David and see if they can help you out. It's a real friendly group, mostly young people, but it's all about dance. Give it a shot.

SanderO, I actually do read the Winger - it was one of the first dance blogs I happened across. But I would never think of trying to get insider info on casting. Maybe I'm sounding too obsessive about seeing Hallberg dance. It's just that I enjoyed him so much last spring, I thought when buying tickets for 2 evenings I would surely get the chance to see him dance again. My frustration is only because he was first listed in the cast and then removed for my 2nd evening. Ah well, I'm happy to see any of the excellent ABT dancers. Thanks for the creative thinking though.

I'm so frustrated and thought I could get some advice from readers that attend more performances than I. I bought tickets for one evening of the fall ABT season based on the pieces being offered and hoping Hallberg was dancing. I bought them as soon as they went on sale before casting was announced. I was prepared to buy another evening if I was unlucky in my wish to see Hallberg. Well no luck, no Hallberg so I bought a second evening of tickets for Oct. 31st after seeing casting listed. Now I see Hallberg isn't dancing that night either. Instead I'll see Meadow twice, both with Kent/Gomes. Not that I don't love them but not twice in the same performance. Now I have to decide if my wallet can handle yet another set of tickets. (My outlay is double since I always buy tickets for my daughter to join me.) If I'd known I was buying tickets for 3 performances I could have purchased them at the same time and saved a little money. Certainly I realize that casting is subject to change but I'm feeling very unlucky. So my question to you all is this: Do you wait until casting is announced before purchasing tickets risking inferior seats? Do you purchase early to get the best seats and don't mind who is cast? And finally - Is the ABT website the best place for casting info? I'm afraid I took as accurate listings I'd seen in the NY Times. Thanks for any advice about strategic ticket-buying!

Hey, Barbara, they haven't announced any casting for the new Millipied piece yet; so there is still that chance that Hallberg may be dancing on Oct. 31st. With regard to your first performance choice, if it's Oct 25th -- you won't be paying much attention to Meadow anyway, having just spent a half hour watching JM Carreno cavort around in Clear with his shirt off!! Trust me.

It is frustrating how ABT holds back the casting on the rep performances. But I guess there are just too many variables to pin it down any sooner. To make things more difficult for us, there is no longer an exchange privilege that goes with the City Center packages.

Haglund's, I'm going to adopt your positive line of thinking and hope that Hallberg will dance in the Millepied. Also, of course you're right - my mind will probably be reeling from a shirtless Carreno! I'm still toying with the idea of another set of tickets, maybe Nov 3 to see Murphy/Hallberg in Ballo. Thanks to everyone for your replies. I guess there's no way to see everything/everyone you hope to in a given season. If I won the lottery I'd buy the entire season, fall and spring.

I'm so frustrated and thought I could get some advice from readers that attend more performances than I. I bought tickets for one evening of the fall ABT season based on the pieces being offered and hoping Hallberg was dancing. I bought them as soon as they went on sale before casting was announced. I was prepared to buy another evening if I was unlucky in my wish to see Hallberg. Well no luck, no Hallberg so I bought a second evening of tickets for Oct. 31st after seeing casting listed. Now I see Hallberg isn't dancing that night either. Instead I'll see Meadow twice, both with Kent/Gomes. Not that I don't love them but not twice in the same performance. Now I have to decide if my wallet can handle yet another set of tickets. (My outlay is double since I always buy tickets for my daughter to join me.) If I'd known I was buying tickets for 3 performances I could have purchased them at the same time and saved a little money. Certainly I realize that casting is subject to change but I'm feeling very unlucky. So my question to you all is this: Do you wait until casting is announced before purchasing tickets risking inferior seats? Do you purchase early to get the best seats and don't mind who is cast? And finally - Is the ABT website the best place for casting info? I'm afraid I took as accurate listings I'd seen in the NY Times. Thanks for any advice about strategic ticket-buying!

Marga, I was guessing that it was David Hallberg being spoken about. At least for me, I enjoy looking at the way David uses everything from head to toe to hands. I noticed that he has very large hands (good for partnering I imagine) and yet they look very elegant. He seems to use a natural pose with the index finger slightly raised giving his hand a refined yet masculine look. Agree?