Juliet

Sorry, but Wendy Whelan is Pistachio. I cannot possibly top Nilas Martins as Cookie Dough.....

Alex Ritter is moving back to NY to become a jeweller. They start work tomorrow....it will be interesting to see how the new dynamic evolves. There is a great influx of talent.....

On a raked stage with jet lag, a full Saratoga season and no rehearsal time, in fact....the travel and performance logistics were amazing. Can anyone tell us?

Not me!!!! I'm thrilled! Maybe I'm not au courant with TV-programming-trends, but I think this is an inspired choice--- Given SJP's love for and support of ballet, I am not surprised at the choice of running mate--

Elizabeth Schwartzkopf. Eleanor Steber. Anna Moffo (remember when she got in trouble for those risque roles?) Lily Pons for figure, if nothiing else. Good gracious. Corelli, of course. Sigh....although I am not a tenor groupie.... I always love Thomas Stewart (I happen to like the eyebrows.....) Sherrill Milnes Callas in a class by herself Juan Diego Flores, Thomas Hampson, Jose Cura....now.

I need a restorative tonic...and my couch....after reading all this. At least the dancers got paid, and didn't have to travel. I marvel that no one mentioned the miniature swan....truly, this pageant seems more of the MacKenzie ilk....

I will also be happy to do so. My contact information is under my 'profile' on the board. Juliet

Oh goody, that's the weekend of Workshop performances so some of us will be rollerskating back and forth across the Plaza and carefully checking running times! Ashley did Ives tonight, so she's baaaaaaack, which makes a lot of people very happy. Anyone coming back from injury makes us hppy!

sigh.....it's not a vision. It's well-documented on video....at Covent Garden, no less, among other venues, as well. The eye makeup is rather horrifying, although the performance is interesting. Lezhnina does Diana and is lovely. With tiara and bow, and six attendants.;)

"And she better do the unwritten by Verdi but generally interpolated high Eflat at the end of "Semper Libre", or her entire performance will be judged a failure." This sounds suspiciously rather like those who go on about fouettes? I like her a great deal, am looking forward to next year at the Met, and am happy that many were able to hear her in Houston.... Juliet

How diplomatic you are, Leigh...;) I think it does not make a bit of difference which cast you see (and who knows if those advertised are those performing?) It is definitely entertaining. Perhaps not in the way he intended...I think it is well worth a trip to see it....a great many people will love it, and we'd like to hear those reactions, as well....

Oh, but this is **Tchaikovsky** and I cannot imagine anything more entertainiing than this....it was Truly Something. I'll be really intrigued to see what Washington audiences will say about it...... I'm not unhappy that I am missing Who's Who.....I'll see Who Cares? or watch Astaire if I feel a sudden urge to put on my sparkly shoes and twirl a little....

I cannot WAIT to hear reactions to this!!!!! (I also cannnot bring myself to go again.... ) But, please, everyone tell us what you thought--this is one choreographer and company who provoke very mixed reactions, and it's always interesting to hear what everyone thinks--

I'll third that. And drink a toast;)

Here I am--not firing on all cylinders but... I really enjoyed Saturday afternoon's performance, each ballet for different reasons. As a Bournonville fan I was very happy to see Napoli---andI'm sorry not to sign in with a cranlky or jaded review, but I though it was really, really good, with one exception. The phrasings, the nuances and musicality in the dancing were all clear and really let me see something different in each dancer in this piece. The dancers all had little touches which worked as individual flavourings.... Mads Blangstrup and Andrew Bowman did the men in the Pas de Six (the latter particularly elegant and easy) and Lund did the first male variation--all really clean, seamless and integrated in their body movements..... The reason I say integrated is that the Gennaro part was danced by J-L Massot, who looked as if his upper and lower body were operating on two different people. Really disjointed, no elevation and no characterization whatever. *Very* disappointing....not his day, in my eyes. Caroline Cavallo did Teresina and I thought she looked great--lively, little dramatic touches--I really enjoy seeing experienced dancers do this as they bring acting and characterization to a piece that might otherwise just be thought folksy and hackneyed. I can't wait to see the full-length Napoli next year as part of the ballet season..... Bolshoi. Welllll..... Spectre suffered for me by the proportions of Yanin and by the lack of the window....he was *very* good in Narcisse, and his upper body was pliant and almost as plastique as I would like in this, but he was more in the produce section than the flower shop. I saw D. Gudanov do this last year and he was lovely--almost as good as Malakhov, who remains my favourite in this role. Fille pdd was boring. Sorry, but it was. Volochkova is never boring. Las Vegas Kitri, here we are. We ought to get her a showgirl headdress and she'd sell out the town. You know those big tins of glitter that they sell? She must have had her very own for each show. Glitter on the hair, on the eyelids, on the bodice, on the tutu, bracelets and rings for days, and the fan--well, it was a veritable sunrise everytime she opened it. What a mess. (Yes, for all you fouette fans, she did them cleanly and with great vigor, but stopped early...) She danced with Ivanchenko, who had a bridal white costume, with no glitz. His dancing, alas, was as uninterestiing as the costume. Adept, but this is not just an adept role--it would be nice to have a leeeetle bit of panache here....this man was big but rather lummoxy, rather than sexy. I really have stayed away from Fancy Free for the last several years. This was, far and away, the best performance I have ever seen. Corella (in the booty role), Cornejo (in the little guy role) and Radetsky doing the legato and pdd. Stella Abrera was one minx...and I liked the fact that for the first time in recent memory, the stealing of the purse and horseplay was not a seeming prelude to something more violent. The misogynistic, scary performances I have seen at City Ballet have really bothered me. ...Abrera held her own and looked splendid doing it....Gillian Murphy was the girl in magenta anad I liked her better than I have before in *anything.* I saw the friendship between the women, the interaction between the men wasn't overdone or hokey and dated----this is one cast that should stay together for this piece. Splendid. Just loved it. Surprised myself. ;)

I haven't either. I thought perhaps I read the response incorrectly.....

Ellen Ostrom got hers as well-- congratulations to all.

I love it---"the tambourine kids"--thanks!

Oh yes, thank you, Estelle for the photo links! I think they look lovely....the green has just the right amount of blue in it for emeralds....I cannnot tell enough about the Rubies ones, but the Diamonds are wonderful---the colour, in the photographs at least is dead right. Perfect, and I very much wish we could see this over here, so thank you for the visuals!

Oh, Jeannie, you are sooooo lucky to have seen this Jewels, and thank you for writing about it for us-- I think it sounds like perfect casting--I was wondering about the response to the NYCB dancers in Rubies....and the spectacle of the Diamonds portion (with Pavlenko, no less) must have been just wonderful, in that theatre..... thank you again--

Put a Band-aid over your navel. The tutu can be steamed....... have fun!

Actually, the original costumes are a wonderful champagne ivory, which has, indeed, darkened with age. The new ones look lighter to us, but as the original fabric was specially gotten in France, perhaps the dyes used now are picking up the light differently. They are perhaps my favourite costumes--in my next life I would like to wear that, the red Musetta costume from the Luhrmann La Boheme, and Fonteyn's Ondine costume. Variety, you know.......

Yes, of course you are correct--I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the bodice and basque are separated... Usually they are joined in a variety of ways, depending on the maker and the dancer's particular requirements. Some are whip-stitched together all the way around, some are joined by elastics inside, and then swing-tacked., others tacked at the front, sides and mid-back... I *really* hate when a front bottom point on a bodice has not been properly tacked and is jutting out right there to catch your eye in a photo (I know, some of us look at feet, I look at costumes!!);)

Now that's really interesting!! I am wondering why swans would have heavy tutus....I know they are not delicate, ethereal creatures, but grace and air also play in the usual design conception of the avian world... Are they feathered heavily (one thinks of those unfortunate feather knickers from AMP Swan Lake...although I really liked the basic idea and it is just the haunchy-ness of them that I find ugly...looks like the leg on the Thanksgiving turkey....or Jemima Puddleduck's consort from Ashton's Tales of Beatrix Potter.....) Now, THOSE are costumes!!!!! But, everything is a beauteous thing to someone. (The image of the Hostess Cupcake tutus from SFB's Paquita spring unerringly to mind.....) Sorry to get off track.....

I cannot imagine any Nureyev staging of an opera like Sleeping Beauty or Bayadere with *plain* costumes...I just cannot, cannot imagine it....whew! These, I have to say, are completely baroque (which is what he and his frequent collaborator, Nicholas Georgiadis, were aiming for....) A lot of tutus with the bigger skirt take some getting used to--the reconstruction of Kirov's Sleeping Beauty is another example....although the ornamentation on these is not a patch on those aforementioned Georgiadis Sleeping Beauty togs..... The Berlin Swan Lake may have been one-piece bodices, which look like a leotard, as compared to a two piece. I don't have my video of this at hand to check. although I recall the production overall. Swans are not supposed to have weighty tutus, so this is another difference, if I may be forgiven for pointing out the obvious.;)