angelica

That's interesting. I remember one performance a couple of years ago when the first violinist was so atrocious that it would have been impossible to dance to the violin melody. Last year I believe it was someone else playing the violin and s/he was better. But I never thought about it that way and I'm going to watch for it this year.

Another possibility is that you buy the Part/Stearns ticket and two days before the 17th start checking availability for the Semionova/Hallberg opening. If ABT releases seats for that one at the last minute, you'll see what are likely to be the two best Swan Lakes of the season (IMHO).

Definitely Part. Odette/Odile is her signature role. Row F Orchestra is fine if you're fairly tall. If not, you'll have many heads in front of you. The raking of the seats begins around Row G. Seating preferences are very individual. If it were me, I would take Orchestra L17 or Side Parterre Box 10 seat 3 if you don't mind seeing from the side as long as you're close enough to the stage--for me those are the best of what's available on my computer right now. Sometimes two days or one day before the performance ABT releases seats from their "hold," which they are holding back for press, donors, special guests. Sometimes you can get center Grand Tier that way. But you're taking a big chance doing that.

We usually start threads with the program title. I would suggest a Gala thread for tonight's performance. Dale, I hadn't remembered that, but that's perfect! Thanks.

With ABT about to begin its Spring Season 2013, would it make sense to start a new thread to discuss the performances themselves and other related events such as dress rehearsals that we're attending, and any other relevant topics that fall within the season itself, rather than append all of that to the 19 pages that have addressed the upcoming season? We could retitle "2013 Met Season" to "2013 Upcoming Season" and the new thread "2013 Met Season." Just a suggestion.

I am reminded of the remarks exchanged in "The Red Shoes" (IMO the greatest ballet movie ever made, although it can get "old" when you've seen it more than 50 times), when Victoria Page is arguing with the newly-hired conductor, Julian Craster, about the tempo of a passage in Craster's new score for Grisha's new ballet "The Red Shoes." "It's too fast!"insists Vicki. He replies to the contrary, shouting "Tia, tia!" as he bangs his baton on the conductor's stand, to indicate the tempo he wants. "Oumph," she stomps off. Then later, at the premiere of the new ballet, when everyone is nervous and excited and Vicki says she can't even remember her first entrance, Julian says to her "Vicki, dance it any tempo you like. I'll follow you." Swoon...........

That's really interesting about Oksana Skorik. I believe that she has mostly been excoriated in another thread on this list. I have never seen her live, only a few clips on YouTube.

Reading your first two sentences, angelica, I had to check to make sure I had not written them! That's precisely my answer to the topic.

When I was a child my mother took me to the ballet often. It was mostly to New York City Ballet and sometimes American Ballet Theatre. We also went to modern and international dance companies such as Martha Graham, Jose Limon, the Moiseyev troupe, and an Israeli troupe, the name of which escapes me now. However, it was my first Swan Lake with Alicia Alonso at ABT that sealed the deal. I wanted to become a ballerina. That didn't fly in the community where I grew up. So what do you do when your mother dangles a carrot in front of you but won't let you eat it?

I also attended NYCB last night and thoroughly enjoyed Thou Swell. The principal women were beyond ravishing. Watching Jennifer Ringer, I couldn't help but think "one too many sugarplums," indeed! How rude of Alastair Macaulay to insult this beautiful dancer! Every one was a marvel. In Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, Maria Kowroski was magnificent, with her gorgeous long limbs making breathtaking extensions. Sorry this is so brief, but I just want to say that if you can get tickets for this program before the season moves on, I urge you to do so.

Thank you, Helene and others, for clarifying this for me. I wasn't objecting to the idea of fund-raising, but am glad to know the criteria.

I would catch Maria Kowroski this week in "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue." I saw her do it several years ago and still can't get the image of her out of my mind (but then, why would I want to?) For me, that's a "must see." I'm going again, then I, too, will be turning my attention across the plaza.

I think that Hee Seo is a graduate of the Kirov Academy. But however good the training may be, I wonder whether fund-raising is a proper use of the Ballet Alert web forum. Perhaps it is, I'm only wondering.

I found it interesting that Franco De Vita spoke of the ABT school (JKO) and national training curriculum aiming at turning out dancers who do not adhere to any specific style, so that they are like "generic" dancers who can adapt to any style that a choreographer chooses. From the demonstrations of the students, however, it seemed to me that the school is turning out a lot of boring dancers. It is training that sculpts the body into a particular style, and if you don't have the fluid port de bras of the Vaganova style, for example, schooled into your pliant body when you are young, you will never be able to achieve it later on. All the greatest ballet companies in the world, except ABT, have a school/company style, from the Mariinsky, to School of American Ballet, to Paris Opera Ballet. And the styles of the great companies are different. Veronika Part shows her Russian training in the use of the upper body and the eloquence with which she uses her legs and feet. Paris Opera Ballet is less pliant in the upper body but quicksilver fast in the legs and feet. George Balanchine is famous for the speed of the dancers he trained and some dancers trained in other styles could not adjust to dancing his ballets. At some point, with the hiring of the JKO students into ABT's corps de ballet, you will likely have a corps de ballet dancing in unison, but it won't touch your heart as the shades descend the ramp in Bayadere (for example).

I wish someone would do this sort of book for American Ballet Theatre. I'd love to know how decisions are made about whom to hire and whom to promote.

Well, Abatt, thank you for sharing it with us. I imagine we'll see that name increasingly in the future.

Osiliev. Haha. Clever.

In my mind, the opportunity to see Veronika Part and Marcelo Gomes dance the pas de deux from Swan Lake is reason enough to attend. They are never paired in ABT's New York spring season.

mymsib, you make a good case. Nevertheless, I think this is something that is a matter of personal aesthetics and neither position is right or wrong. For example, one of the most magnificent performances I have ever seen of OdettelOdile--and I have been attending ballet performances for more decades than I care to admit--is on the DVD of Nina Ananiashvili and Alexei Fadeyechev dancing with the State Ballet of Perm. She is magnificent; he is a cipher. And yet I could watch her over and over (and in fact, I do). Using your reference to Don Q as another example, for me the performance depends on who is dancing Kitri and Basilio. Yes, the costumes, the corps, the scenery--all of this makes the production marvelous--but the bottom line for me is who are dancing the leading roles. And I want to see them close up. As a choreographer, you will be more attentive than I to the totality of a ballet. And I agree that the costumes can make or break a ballet. But to me, most of all, ballet is about "line," it is moving sculpture, a presentation of the human body in all its magnificence. Without that ballet "line," I am bored, no matter what else may be going on onstage. But this is merely something that we have different "takes" on. All I'm saying is that some people like to sit up close because they want to see every detail of the dancers' bodies; some people like to sit further back for the entire panorama before them. It's a matter of opinion, of taste, of interest. I think we need people of all stripes because all opinions regarding the merits of either position can be respected. And anyway, otherwise we'd never fill the house.

SimonA, I apologize for not responding to your post last May (!), which I came across just now reading back through this thread. My favorite side parterre seats are boxes 5 and 6 (first row only), although in a pinch boxes 3 and 4 will do. I try to avoid boxes 1 and 2. These days, I've opted for the Orchestra, as I wrote on March 19th (of this year!) Note to posters: If you ask a question, it helps to quote the post that prompts the question, because then I get a notice in my email that someone has quoted a post I've made.

Thank you, Marga. mimsyb, Marga's explanation is exactly what I mean about going to see dancers rather than ballets. From what you write, mimsyb, it would appear that you go to see ballets rather than dancers. There is no right or wrong. These are preferences that one cannot argue--neither side will convince the other. To take the distinction to the extreme, I would rather see Veronika Part do a single arabesque penche than see an entire performance of Firebird. Realistically, I will go to every ballet in which Veronika is dancing the leading role, whereas I will avoid my favorite ballets if they are cast with certain dancers (no point in naming them here, I'm told that many dancers read this forum and I don't want to hurt feelings). I put this question out to the forum: Do you think it has anything to do with whether you're a dancer or not? I'm a would-be dancer, although I never pursued a professional career because of parental objections. I stopped dancing for 37 years and have been back at it for six, so I'm acutely aware of every detail in a dancer's performance, e.g., whether the dancer "wings" in arabesque, whether she does glissade by pushing off the standing leg, how she uses her upper body. I do prefer the full-length ballets to the one-acts because the development of the characterization is also important to me. But whether the borzois cross the stage obediently or, as I've seen in a dress rehearsal, refuse to follow their master, is completely immaterial to my particular sensibility.

I totally agree with mimsyb that the Met is unfriendly for ballet seating. Almost every seat is a compromise of one kind or another. I think that one's choice of where to sit depends on whether one goes to see dancers or ballets. As for me, I go to see dancers (I choose performances more by the casting, not so much by the ballet), and I want to see them up close. I try to sit in the center orchestra, rows H-N, where the floor begins to rake, and not directly behind the conductor. If I sit in the center of the Grand Tier, I will, of course, see the patterns, but I will feel too distanced from the dancers. I, too, like side parterre seats, first row only, for the same reason, although you do miss what goes on upstage on one side. If you go to see ballets, then your priorities will be different, and I should think that the center of the Grand Tier would be ideal. I wouldn't pay all that money for Center Parterre for the same reason as SimonA. And mimsyb, you are fortunate to be able to get a kiddie booster seat because I have seen them turn away adults, no matter how petite, saying that the booster seats are only for children. When we were there last season, you had to have the child with you to get the seat.

In the March 18th issue of The New Yorker magazine, there is a long, detailed article about the attack on Filin by David Remnick, a longtime New Yorker writer and possibly on the editorial board (I can't find the masthead just now). Remnick lived in Moscow "in the last years of the Soviet era, when tickets to the Bolshoi were cheap, and I used to go whenever I could...." I just started to read the article, but wanted to post this here so that everyone who is interested can go out and buy a copy while it's still on the newsstands.

When Oksana Baiul was competing in the Olympic figure skating event I had hopes that figure skating would begin to embrace more balletic movements. The turnout showed beautifully on the ice. Alas, Ms. Baiul went on to live a more private life and figure skating reverted to its more athletic rather than artistic side. But that's only MHO. I wasn't talking about crossover between ballet technique/aesthetics and figure skating technique/aesthetics. I was talking about the audience. I know I like watching both., and assume that people who like watching figure skating might well find they like ballet too if exposed to it. Yes, that's a very good point. How would one go about promoting ballet to figure skating fans? Perhaps it's more apparent in Canada than in the U.S. because of the larger numbers.

Do we know whether either or both of these companies are coming to New York as well? Do we know whether a foreign ballet company is coming to the Lincoln Center Festival this summer (2013?)