angelica

Houston Ballet dances a very classical rep. I think the writing is on the wall for Ms Abrera and if she wants to dance principal roles, she needs to make some phone calls to Houston Ballet, or another company that specializes in the classical rep. I can't speak for what Ms. Abrera wants or doesn't want to do, but I do know that it would be very sad for those of us who have followed her career over the years to see her leave ABT, where she deserves to be a principal dancer. She was cast in the Wednesday matinee of Giselle some years ago, but had to be replaced because of injury. So ABT did recognize her potential. Now she is back in top form, and has certainly proved her mettle and stamina by dancing Aurora (considered a far more difficult role technically than Giselle)10 times in 30 days with the Royal Ballet of New Zealand, so why doesn't she get a fair shot? Every year I await the spring season brochure with great anticipation, but this year I am disappointed beyond measure.

I like that, Helene. Every cloud has a silver lining!

The demons were definitely at the helm when the casting decisions were made. Boylston, rather than Abrera, who is the most deserving of the ABT dancers for the role, gets to dance Giselle? What were they thinking? Part gets the Wednesday matinee Swan Lake, whereas Seo gets the Saturday night performance with Bolle? Abrera doesn't even get a Cinderella? Adding insult to injury, Waelsung, I truly doubt that coincidence has given Part all matinees, but I can't for the life of me figure out why. On the plus side, I'm sure that the Lane/Cornejo Theme and Variations will be a "don't miss." I'm also glad that Lane gets a Coppelia. But from my perspective, there isn't a great deal to look forward to at this point in the upcoming season. I do plan to see the Kajiya/Gorak Coppelia just to end a bitter season with some sweetness. As an aside, and I realize that it's simply a typo, but did you notice that in the June 28th performance Hallberg is dancing Odette-Odile and Semionova is dancing Siegfried?

And then to bring in lesser dancers either with foreign names or who look and act like "bad" boys and girls. Example: Jared Matthews was breathtaking in Lensky's difficult solo this past spring season. But is he going to be the next male dancer to be promoted? I hope so, but I fear not. And then there's the exquisite Stella Abrera. I'm still waiting...and waiting...and waiting for her Giselle. Back to topic: Matthew Golding was a terrible loss for ABT. As they say, it's deja vu all over again.

While I applaud this initiative, I think someone in the marketing department could (should) have come up with a name more exciting than Project Plié.

Maximova was an exquisite dancer! I will never forget seeing her dance Giselle when she was in her prime. When Giselle does those grand jetes on the diagonal from upstage to downstage it seemed that she never touched the floor.

It would seem to me that the value of sponsorships would be to defray the costs of a particular dancer's classes and coaching during the weeks when the company is neither in rehearsals nor performances. I don't think the salaries of the dancers, especially those in the mid and lower ranks are enough to support such coaching, which is not inexpensive but is invaluable for dancers to progress and succeed.

I'm not your wife, but I'm jealous too!

It was Nureyev who brought celebrity status to ballet in the US. He raised the technical standards, the emotional investment, and the level of dedication required of dancers. I understand that it was his refusal to go onstage in pantaloons in the Soviet Union that changed the costuming for men in ballet so that now we see their bodies from the waist down as well as from the waist up. When I watch videos of Nureyev on YouTube I find that his dancing is sloppy by today's standards, but no one did more to change the status of ballet dancers (including Balanchine dancers), engage the public, and enlarge the ballet audience in the US than Rudolf Nureyev.

And what about Stella Abrera? Please could we add the classical and elegant Stella Abrera? We could then compare her with Veronika Part. Although both are exquisite ballerinas, Stella is eminently American, whereas Veronika, despite her decade+ in the US, is definitely a Russian ballerina.

Without meaning to sound glib, I would say (with the caveat that some of them I've never seen) that what these dancers have most in common is that each is singular and individual. The NYCB dancers share a repertoire, as do some of the others, but "in the broadest terms" (pherank's excellent phrase) I would say that what they have in common is a classical style, but a singular execution of that style. Some few were trained at SAB and share characteristics of the Balanchine school, but most were trained elsewhere, in different schools, and have more of an eclectic style that cannot be pinned down. Can the same be said for dancers from other countries, or do dancers at POB and Mariinsky Ballet and Bolshoi Ballet have more in common stylistically than their American counterparts? I would say yes.

Gospel implies that there's some unshakable truth about a performance and that frankly is NOT a critic's job, to either repeat praise or spout meaningless superlatives. That's the job of a press agent. By spreading the gospel I meant introducing the art to people who might not be aware of it, who might not consider attending a performance unless someone gives them good reasons to go.

Perhaps, but as someone who missed all the SBs this year, I would have appreciated hearing what he had to say about Part & Gomes at the last performance. I might often disagree with him, but still find him interesting to read. Exactly, California. I would add that most people on this forum who attended the Part/Gomes performance, I among them, thought both Part and Gomes were superb. Macaulay is such a loose cannon, however, that perhaps it's better that he didn't attend Part's performance because you never know what he might have said about her left pinky. I just wish he would focus more on the positives in every dancer's performance, illuminating their virtues rather than highlighting their faults. I think part of a ballet critic's job is to spread the gospel.

He attended six out of seven performances. I'd say whether you disagree with him or not he did his job as a ballet critic. It isn't a question of numbers, it's a question of which six performances he chose to attend. Certainly the jewel in the crown of ABT deserves to be included. Remember what happened when Carabosse wasn't invited. In any event, I was making a parallel to Macaulay's use of the term "part-time ballerina." If he can make such a statement, he doesn't merit the distinction of being called a full-time ballet critic.

I would propose that although Alastair Macaulay may be a full-time dance critic, he is merely a part-time ballet critic. A full-time ballet critic ought to be able to draw audiences in by his/her insights into those aspects of a production or a ballerina that deepen one's appreciation of the art, broaden one's understanding, and move one up to a higher level of experience when attending a ballet performance, not drive them away with a plethora of negative reviews. A full-time ballet critic would not waste his words on ad hominum criticisms of a particular dancer or on crafting sentences that sound erudite but have only some vague or no meaning at all (see Kathleen O'Connell's post above). A full-time ballet critic would attend the most important performances on a company's calendar and not bow out of the closing ballet of a company's season with its most exquisite ballet partnership and therefore have nothing to say about one of its most accomplished and refined ballerinas. I would say that Clive Barnes was a full-time ballet critic, but Alastair Macaulay doesn't make the cut.

What struck me most about SB is how much classical dancing there actually is. I'm happy not to sit through a cutesy Puss in Boots and Little Red Riding Hood, and instead keep the focus on the classical dancing. Please don't even touch the Vision scene. Mostly I disliked Carabosse's minions, who reminded me of characters in Ratmansky ballets (Nutcracker?) Also, the costumes are just too over-the-top elaborate. No wonder they need "dressers" backstage. I'd love to see SL revised, especially (1) the el-cheapo maypole in Act 1; (2) the Act 1 costumes which seem huge and heavy and must be unbearable to dance in; (3) again, the heavy costuming in Act III, especially the headpieces, like the pillbox hat, that obscure the line; (4) the seemingly random running and jumping across the stage at the beginning of Act 4 while the scenery is being changed; (5) an Act IV closer in its soulful dancing of the entire corps to the beautiful one with Nina Ananiashvili and Alexei Fadeyechev and the State Ballet of Perm, on DVD.

I can never get enough of Veronika Part. Seeing her last night in Sleeping Beauty was a reminder of the mysterious fact that although ballet has a distinct vocabulary of steps as well as rules for their execution, along with specific principles such as turnout and line, nevertheless ballet looks different on every body, especially when you enter the stratosphere of great ballerinas, to which Part belongs. No other ballerina moves like Veronika. No other ballerina has the precise physical proportions or the capability to split those long legs in the air so quickly and to such astonishing effect. Part's dancing was luminous last night, expansive, eloquent, inimitable. One aspect of her dancing that I noticed throughout the ballet is how precisely she adheres to the classical canon, executing steps with classical precision, never rushing her preparations, never muddying her beginnings and endings. Would that every ballerina had Mariinsky training sculpted into their bodies. Everything said by others above about Part I agree with totally and won't repeat it here. She is my very favorite dancer today. As for Abrera, when she and Part are onstage together I feel as if we have the Royal Women of ABT, the two dancers who shine most brightly in the jeweled crown. Once again, a plea to promote Abera and give her the leading role in all the great ballets. We, the faithful, need to see more of her. At times people on this list have referred to these great ballets as the old "warhorses" or "workhorses," both positively and negatively, but seeing a performance like last night's convinces me more than ever that without the great Petipa ballets we wouldn't see classical ballet pushed to its limits, making demands on dancers that cause the audience members to collectively hold their breath in awe and then burst into unbridled applause. I love the 20th and 21st century rep as well, but without the underpinning of the 19th century classics, and the training that they demand, we wouldn't have the purity of line that Part, Abrera, and other great dancers bring to their more contemporary roles.

Once again, abatt, it's unconscionable. :-)

I saw Hee Seo in a studio rehearsal of A Month in the Country with David Hallberg, and to me she seemed not only slight, willowy and very thin, but she made Julie Kent, who was in the room at the same time, look "wide," in comparison, if you can believe that! Maybe it has to do with having had children, I don't know. Years ago I saw Nina Ananiashvili dancing together with Maria Riccetto, and Ananiashvili looked "wide" in comparison to Riccetto. Seo has a gorgeous line and an amazingly expressive port de bras, but she doesn't yet have the strength to carry a major Petipa ballet. It seems unconscionable to me that she was asked to debut in both Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty in the same season. Either of those ballets requires enormous preparation. Plus, she needs to work on strengthening her feet and ankles--but not on the Met stage.

If ABT's Artistic Director would (1) stop hiring dancers from other companies, and (2) provide adequate coaching for ABT's own dancers, there would be many more opportunities for advancement from within, even with the old warhorses. A longer fall season, with more rep, is also on my wish list. I would love to see ABT perform in a house that was more user-friendly for ballet. As I said before in a thread about where to sit at the Met, my personal opinion is that every seat at the Met is a compromise. I know there are some who love center grand tier but that's too far away for me. I end up sitting in the orchestra, as close to the stage as possible, but even then there are random problems, such as the very tall man who sat in front of me a week or so ago, blocking a third of the stage for my $100+ ticket.

Both Sarah Lane and Stella Abrera were sensational in today's matinee. To be more precise, Sarah was sensational and Stella was beyond exquisite. Sarah is small, but she danced large, covering vast amounts of space with every jump, carving gorgeous curvilinear lines with her upper body, and stepping into arabesque after arabesque with complete confidence. She did beautiful renverses, and didn't miss a single triple pirouette. Doesn't Paris Opera Ballet announce promotions after a performance? Based on Sarah's performance today, she deserves to be promoted to Principal and to be given leading roles at ABT that she has danced elsewhere, including Swan Lake and Giselle. Sleeping Beauty doesn't require a huge amount of drama, but her sudden response to the pricking by the spindle was completely realistic. Stella Abrera is so perfect as the Lilac Fairy that it's almost become a liability for her--why give someone else that role when she dances it so well? Yes, definitely, she should be dancing Aurora instead of certain other ballerinas who shall remain nameless here. Her technique, her radiance, her mime, are all pitch perfect. She, too, deserves Principal status. I thought Daniil Simkin did a good job, executing his solos with clarity and a beautiful classical line, without the self-promoting gestures that he used to make to the audience. I don't know if it's just me, and this is the first time I've seen this ballet close up (Row B Orchestra), but it seemed to me that Sarah took a little longer than the ideal in getting that bottom leg into passe in the fish dive balances, so that her leg going up was the last thing you saw, instead of creating the illusion that it all happened at once. I don't know if that was a partnering issue or a Sarah issue. A minor detail in my book. Today's matinee would have made Petipa proud.

Ah,yes -- shades of John Martin....It took him 10 years to write a review saying that Alonso was a great 'Giselle"--I still have the fading review tucked in a book -- April 15, 1955. That's awesome, atm711! I wish I had thought to save the Clive Barnes review of Ekaterina Maximova and Vasily Vasiliev's performance in Giselle back in the 1960s. But now I realize I can get it through the NY Times archive online. Still, it's not the same as the original newspaper. I'm suddenly realizing that I may have Vasiliev's first name wrong. I know it wasn't Ivan. Was it Vladimir?

Ah,yes -- shades of John Martin....It took him 10 years to write a review saying that Alonso was a great 'Giselle"--I still have the fading review tucked in a book -- April 15, 1955. That's awesome, atm711! I wish I had thought to save the Clive Barnes review of Ekaterina Maximova and Vasily Vasiliev's performance in Giselle back in the 1960s. But now I realize I can get it through the NY Times archive online. Still, it's not the same as the original newspaper.

Thank you, kbarber and Drew. Is the Ashton Cinderella better than the Kudelka version? Does Ashton do the same thing in the first act of having Cinderella in one bare foot and the other in a pointe shoe? If so, I will have to prepare myself.

I have no answers for you, but I have noticed the same thing. I have to go through the Arts and Leisure section page by page in order to find the dance reviews, if any. I have noticed, on the other hand, that in the past Alastair Macaulay reviewed only the opening night performance of every ballet, and now there are reviews not only of opening night but of a sweep of performances toward the end of the run. For that I'm grateful. I'm also grateful that Macaulay gave Veronika Part a very positive review for her performance in Sylvia.