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annamicro

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Posts posted by annamicro

  1. from @VitoMazeo1

    April 20, 2013

    eh sí...erano tre anni che lo volevo provare, siccome e' l'ultimo giorno prima di a dare all' HET ho fatto questa pazzia

    roughly:

    "And so for three years I wanted to experience [life at San Francisco Ballet?] and then at the last possible moment, I did this mad thing and threw myself over to HET ... "

    As wrote and pictured in his first tweet "Il mio primo coccodrillo", the mad thing he wanted to try for 3 years was eating crocodile and he had it in his last day in SF.

  2. Yes, I know Hallberg is a nice guy and respectful of his fans. He's not some nutty, arrogant Diva (like Angela Gheorghiu or Sergei Polounin) who cancels on whim and couldn't care less about the consequences.

    Do you know Polunin so closely? have you ever spoken to him?

    Regarding Jayne following comment is well known from the very beginning that Zelensky left with Polunin, without saying word, and so leaving HIS dancer armless in at the (inexistent) mercy of Schaufuss and some reporters. Not surprisingly, a large part of the press forgot to write this small detail.

  3. . Why would he focus on a few negative comments here, on a forum that isn't even read by the general public?

    Well, BA is on the Internet. smile.png I wonder as well why these particular comments earned Kobborg's ire - surely there's harsher criticism out there - but it's nice to know he's reading BA. It was a big night for Cojocaru, of course. I was excited to see her, even if I didn't think she was shown to best effect.

    My fault, I'm afraid: I was caught by him when laughing at your comments with a friend in another social network.

    The cambrè at min 1:48 I think justify all the laughing and also his unability to resist to comment...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bzqX-iNinMI#!

  4. 2nd movement usually goes to a tall girl. I'm guessing Part and Semionova,

    True enough on the other hand Allegra Kent did it years ago for NYCB, on the other hand the AD at ABT seems to limit himself to when it comes to casting.

    Being a lyrical dancer, Cojocaru dances the 2nd movement with Royal Ballet. She has also danced the 1st movement in the past.

  5. IMO one of the lamest Opening Ceremonies in recent memory. Cluttered and un-focused, it lacked any real visual oomph. I'm wondering how the people in the stadium saw all the TV close ups. (the sleeping kids!) Maybe personal screens at every seat? It was memorable for some of it's supreme lapses. Where was Monty Python? Sting? U2? C. S. Lewis? Lewis Carroll? Royal Ballet? The "Phantom"?

    U2? maybe with Sunday Bloody Sunday? they are from Ireland! flowers.gif

    I agree that it looked quite confused on TV: when they were creating the symbol of peace, they looked of the same color og the "stage", almost invisible... maybe the used big screens.

    Some great ideas (young athlets to light the torch...but are they lighting it off to move it in anothre place? it cannot stay in the middle of athletics stadium!) and some others I didn't like at all (all the part with "text love story")...

  6. During Mason's tenure as director of the RB hasn't been memorable for her treatment of personnel, the loss of Putrov and Polunin has harmed the company immeasurably and both these losses could have been averted. As for Sylvie Guillem, what logic or lack of it caused Mason to let go the biggest star in the world of ballet?

    This thread is not about Monica Mason, but thank God she's retiring.

    I have a strong feeling that Putrov was fired by a long list of female colleagues more than from Mason. Anyway, as you said, thank God she is going (not competely), even if several years too late. Anyway many are already missing her: "she served the Company" they say. dunno.gif

  7. You are exactly right--the translation misled me -- the English makes it sound as if Polunin is literally referring to Petit -- and my brain did not kick in to remind of the latter's death (though, when I read it, I was mildly surprised he was 'still alive!')...so my point about that is...uh...pretty null.

    I suppose I had the same translation as you smile.png , let's hope it is just Google fault and not in the original text!

  8. The inner conflict was real, as Dame Monica Mason when asked about Mr Polunin sensitively explained in her talk given at Ivy House during the recent Pavlova celebrations. She described Mr Polunin as being something of an outsider in the school and the company.

    Thank goodness this never showed on stage and in over fifty years of watching ballet, all I can say, is thank goodness for the outsiders I have witnessed who were exceptional performers.

    There is a long list of outsiders on Mason book (to make just an example, the past year she denied Aurora to Cojocaru because, in her opinion, she didn't suite her Sleeping Beauty production...). One of her most famous outsider forced to leave, Sylvie Guillem, is giving here an answer and an advice to Polunin (at 23'10"). The interview is extremely interesting and also entertaining, but she is speaking (excellently) in Italian...

  9. As for the more recent interview: he describes Roland Petit giving him more choices dancing Petit's Coppelia than the Royal coaches gave him with the choreography he danced at the Royal. Well, the original choreographer is still there to guide him and tell him if he (the choreographer) doesn't like something Polunin tries out, so it's easier to grant the freedom in the first place.

    Roland Petit died one year ago (July 10, 2011) and I don't remember that Sergei has ever worked with him, has anybody a different information? Maybe there is something wrong with the translation.

  10. It has been simply pointed out above that one of the NY Times pictures refutes a factually incorrect statement made on this thread about Monday's performance.

    Are we sure that they were taken at the same performance? :-) I don't know about ABT habits, but companies usually have photoshoots at dress rehearsals.

    I for one liked all the pictures

    Honestly I didn't: I think some are quite bad ballet photos, n1 and 5 especially.

  11. Also, in the opening of the balcony scene she was totally out of light, hidden a bit upstage. If that was a "choice" it's misguided. Someone needs to tell her her marks for lighting. Odd that she couldn't "feel the moon" on her face.

    New York Times published pictures from J&R, here is the one of opening of the balcony scene.

    Natialia Osipova is "feeling the moon" on her face.

    She is in the light, clearly visible. (And this is exactly how I remember seeing it.)

    http://www.nytimes.c...2_ABT_SS-5.html

    Thank you for pointing this out. That's exactly how I remember it as well. But after reading some of the messages on this thread I was beginning to wonder if I was imagining things. It's nice to have a piece of physical evidence to confirm that I can still trust my senses.

    But I'm afraid that, to my taste, picture 4 confirms some other critics, and my fear. Maybe just a bad editor choice, though. I cannot imagine, how she will be with Vasilev in Tokyo: they are dancig R&J next year with La Scala. She is often very over the top when dancing with him (I LOVE it in some ballet, much less in others). Anyway she is always one of the very few dancers worthing a trip: I'm looking forward her Swan Lake, Manon and Esmeralda in Milan next season (being grateful also for a trip of just 15 min by bike).

    MacCauly reviews are always illuminating, for what he says about his casts (FIVE!!! some were truly unmissable for baletomans, anyway congratulations for the dedication of the professional critic!) and for what he skips (a review by itself).

  12. Here's a clip of Kobborg rehearsing la sylph, he pulled off some quadruple turns!

    (I really hope Alina Cojocaru saw him as a sylph, and I would love to know what she thought of it!)

    I suspect she saw it... when I asked for a pair of signed pointe shoes, I was told somebody arrived earlier smile.png

    Although she must have enjoyed it as we did, I'm happy to say that she didn't take anything from that for her wonderful Sylph on Tuesday (partnering Kobborg's superb James: what a show!!!)

  13. I will be very curious to read other reports of how Bolle and Kent perform, because when they danced the letter scene at the opening night gala, it was a rather pallid affair--merely a sketch, it seemed, of what it might turn out to be. So: Paging other commentators!!!

    Bolle Onegin was a pale thing also in La Scala: the work of a very diligent schoolboy, but nothing more. A very dutiful work: steps and basic idea of the character were there, but the lesson was well studied but not elaborated and absorbed by a real artist. He was paired by an elegant but bland and quite insipid Maria Eichwald, guesting from Stuttgart: be sure that Marcia Haydée was another thing!

    Very different approach by Massimo Murru: I really dislike his Onegin, very impolite and aggressive, as the Onegin of Tatiana’s nightmare spread all over the ballet. Nevertheless it was a personal reading (maybe just too much, to my taste), as I expect from an artist, and coherent, unfortunately not well matched by Emanuela Montanari excellent but traditional Tatiana: the show was unbalanced because the two were telling a different story.

    Having seen Kent and Bolle Dame aux Camelias I don’t think there is the same risk, but I really really hope in an improvement: that show was so bad that having seen it as the first one I’d have never come back to see that ballet again (actually one of my favourite!!!).

  14. Alina has danced Tatiana? I wondered whether it's in her repertoire! Yes, let's hope if she comes back next summer ABT will cast her in a revival. It goes without saying that she would make a lovely Olga, too.

    I think Tatiana is one of Cojocaru's best roles (I love especially the way she not only spiritually but also physically changes in the last act and the desperate and “violent” way she and Kobborg dance the last pdd – her Olga is lovely but obviously far less interesting, in the last two runs at Royal Ballet she even didn’t dance it), but a guesting is extremely unlikely: as far as I know a policy requires that Onegin is danced only by members of the company or guests from Stuttgart sad.png (it was made an exception for a single benefit show in favour of Royal Ballet of Flanders, danced by Cojocaru and Kobborg). A real pity: the next year Onegin will be back at the Royal Ballet and I’d have loved to see Gomes as a guestwub.png ...I hope to read more about his Onegin (and maybe also to see some clips on youtube: I’m confident he could become a favourite of mine, together with Kobborg and Moreau).

  15. I have to say the story does not exactly paint Nikiya as a Saint: she is having a secret affair and she runs across the stage wielding a knife at Gamzatti

    Ok for the knife (but she repents immediately) but I've never felt Nikiya affair as improper, maybe it was my supeficiality, anyway nobody seems hurted by the love story except for the fact that it plays against their interests. She is not Cristian and I don't know how Hinduism is about this things, but even the Vestal Virgins, in Rome, after a while were free to leave and get married.

    Commenting a particular performance once I wrote "there is a sort of sacredness all around her and a mystical intensity in every single movement she does; she is a sacred dancer not in her giving homage to the Gods, but being permeated by divinity: in this way also her love for a man is not a profane affaire but is a true divine grant." Maybe this is the reason I tend to accept it without surprise or the slightest concern.

    I totally agree about Gamzatti: I saw Osipova few years ago and loved her, she was still very young so she is probably much better now. It was during a London Tour of the Bolshoi, whose Bayadere gives more space to Gamzatti, something I love because it helps to contruct a more credible carachter. In the same tour Alexandrova really owerwhelmed me: she was able to show Gamzatti feelings, her fragility under the mask, her concerns, her doubts and perplexity and her reasons, to the point it was impossible not to sympathize with her (and being Nikya a very cold and self adsorbed Zakharova, the end of the seond act was a sort of happy end happy.png ). There are not small role for great artists.

    I'm afraid I have your same feelings about Semionova. The remark about coaching made in another post could be an interesting point and maybe she will develop in a marvel. For the moment she is a very good dancer I'm not going to miss on this side of the pond...

  16. My apologies for inadvertently starting this exchange! I'm a huge Cojocaru fan. I got to see her in person a couple of years ago at the Met on "Super Saturday" in Beauty, and I've got three DVDs with the Royal (her Giselle, Beauty, Nutcracker). Her history of injuries and foot problems has been well-publicized for years, so when people discussed the changes in the Giselle choreography last week (coming off pointe in the first act hops, e.g. -- an unsupported sequence), that was alarming. I'm sure all of us who love her were hoping nothing serious had happened to her in the injury department. It's great to hear that the Bayadere went well and there's no lingering evidence of serious injury, at least that audience members could detect. That's all I was asking. Sorry!

    Sorry to you too.flowers.gif My reaction comes from the fact I found some comments about Giselle very strange: I was worried something could be wrong too, and was happy to see on Monday that everything was ok (and on Saturday even better, I've been told by a reliable friend present at Sylphid Dress rehersal). Cojocaru is often cutting the hop on point diagonal, because I'm happy to know she is crazy but not silly and there is no reason to risk to destroy herself in that diagonal. maybe she did it even shorter this time. I've already said about another comment. Another remark has already been dicussed by a person present at the performance. I don't understand what else she changed in the second act. I was happy to read that she did 2 triple pirouettes in her solo: it's hard to believe it happened, but who knows ... Of course it can have been a bad night, yet the comments posted here honestly seem not the best to understand what really happened on stage.

  17. [

    Has Makarova Bayadere not the last act in New York? Usually it comes after the Shades.

    Yes, we have the third act staged by Makarova. The Bronze Idol does his variation in that act, and Nikiya comes back in the harem pants outfit. I think NY and London have the same exact production.

    Not exacly the same because the costumes are different, but I'm pretty sure the choreography is exactly the same, as in La Scala, Hamburg Ballet, Corella Ballet and many others. And if I remember well, Nikiya is wearing that costume only in that scene (and there are not harem in La Bayadere).

  18. No one has mentioned any technical problems for Cojocaru (unlike her Giselle last week). Were there visible problems that anyone noticed?

    What an odd question... I'd rather like to know if she did anything of good, especially artistically. :-) I

    Asking if someone who is ill has recovered demonstrates concern, not necessarily malicious intentions. I don't think it is an odd question at all.

    WHO is ill? Anyway, if that was the intention, it could have been asked in a better and gentler way, in my opinion. BTW the reports about Giselle are quite confusing: she can have had a bad night, of course, but a partnering virtuosity of Corella was considered the sign of an injury. Reading the comment, it seems he was so generous to make her fly across the stage without touching the ground (as Kobborg too almost always does): I don't understand how one can think a dancer on stage on pointe for 2 hours could have problem putting a foot on stage at that point!

  19. No one has mentioned any technical problems for Cojocaru (unlike her Giselle last week). Were there visible problems that anyone noticed?

    What an odd question... I'd rather like to know if she did anything of good, especially artistically. :-) I love her first solo at the sacred fire, I think at the moment nobody makes it in such a mystical and magical way. She danced la Bayadere for the last time in July 2009 and the memory of it still makes my heart beating faster: movements were having a special depth, a sort of higher density, as she was evoking and then moving in a fluid divine entity. Was anything of this there?

    Anyway she hadn't any kind of thecnical of physical problem in La Sylphide in London on Monday. Her jumps were relevant, even though on that side she will never match Air Osipova :-) . I was surprised by her cabrioles: she was beating with such an energy that the noise made my think she could be wearing a pair of Mariinsky Czarda boots!

  20. She hopped on the diagonal of the stage, and then using the same working foot she did 360 degrees of hops, and then proceeded to resume the hops along the diagonal of the stage without ever coming off that pointe of her foot.

    With a ball on her nose?

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