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Ambonnay

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  • Connection to/interest in ballet** (Please describe. Examples: fan, teacher, dancer, writer, avid balletgoer)
    Spectator
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    New York
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    New York

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  1. ABT is bringing Romeo & Juliet and two mixed programmes to the Hong Kong Arts Festival next year. http://www.hk.artsfestival.org/en/programme/201-american-ballet-theatre Dance Gala: Programme 1 21 Feb 7:30pm Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes (Mark Morris/Virgil Thomson) Classical Pas de Deux (2 pieces, to be announced) Shostakovich - Symphony No 9 (Alexei Ratmansky/DmitriShostakovic) Asian Premiere Approx 2 hrs 20 mins incl two intervals Dance Gala: Programme 2 22-23 Feb 7:30pm The Leaves Are Fading (Antony Tudor/Antonin Dvořák) The Moor’s Pavane (José Limón /Henry Purcell) Symphony in C (George Balanchine/Georges Bizet) Approx 2 hrs 10 mins incl two intervals Romeo and Juliet 27 Feb (wed) – 1 Mar (fri) 7:30pm 2-3 Mar (sat-sun) 2:30pm & 7:45pm
  2. Will accept 50%. If the tickets don't go at this price by tomorrow morning, I'll donate the tickets back to ABT.
  3. I think I might have (?) posted the key excerpts from those interviews on this board somewhere, but I unfortunately don't have the time to search to verify that. abatt is right in my book, too.
  4. I don't think Maria is that much taller than Simkin, at least when she is not en pointe. She's relatively petite. That was why she was able to be the dancing double for M Kunis, when S Lane was doubling for N Portman.
  5. Simkins should not be made principal at this time. Ballet is more about jumping and pyrotechnics. It's about refinement and partnering as well, among other things. Not that Simkins couldn't later be a principal, but in my mind no time soon. Also, Simkins' height and build make it difficult for him to pair with any principal ballerina except X Reyes. How is that helping the situation with the insufficient number of male principals to pair the principal ballerinas, particularly when Cornejo is already available to pair Reyes?
  6. I have the following ABT Met season individual tickets for sale, at a 20% discount from face. May 20, 2011 -- Don Quixote with Cojocaru/Carreno, 7:30 pm Parterre Box 11, Seat 3 (front row parterre side box) Face is $80; proposed sale price is $64 May 21, 2011 -- Don Quixote with Semionova/Hallberg, MATINEE at 2:00 pm Orchestra Row B, Seat 14 Face is $107; proposed sale price is $85 Please post a response or e-mail me at ambonnay@live.com if you are interested in one or both tickets.
  7. Tix available at $29. https://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?EID=&showCode=AVI4&BundleCode=&GUID=
  8. I agree on Bolyston. Moreover, her motion also seems to be more "one item after another", instead of an integrated whole where the transitions from move to move are more fluid and better handled. I don't fault Bolyston -- she does have limited performance experience on this piece. However, to say that a corps member has many areas on which to improve in a piece is not to say that she shouldn't be given this opportunity or that she is doing a bad job given her experience. But Bolyston has a lot of areas to improve, and her pairing with such a classicist as Hallberg only, unfortunately for her, highlights those areas.
  9. Is this from Moscow? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE05YrXOc2w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc-bDLXTzzU&feature=related
  10. Some additional snippets of info: I think the Benjamin Millepied premiere piece may have ended up not being performed, for whatever reason(s). Like in a prior year, I saw Cory Stearns in the audience. The overall announcement of each performance was done in an amateurish way. For example, if you are going to say "piece d'occasion", try to pronounce it in a correct French manner. The first Marcelo Gomes piece with the La Scala ballerina dancing herself on stage, but around a violinist who was also performing onstage, left a lot to be desired. I always think that choreography that only looks interesting because the ballerina in this case had an unusually long and wiry (and not traditionally classic) body is probably not the best expression of choregraphy. The violinist was also a problem in this piece. I'm not looking for Gil Shaham or Itzahk Perlman, but at least play without meaningful squeakiness that leaves audience members questioning whether you are bette rthan a recording. The Carreno/Melanie H piece was, as noted above, disappointing. Melanie wore a purplish pink long gown that was attractive, but the piece didn't have a lot of interesting choreography that didn't rely on the lines of the dress and Melanie's long red-tinged hair. The hair actually got in the way of the ballerina being effective, i think.
  11. Tonight's YAGP was horrible overall, with mediocre to downright nastily poor performances by almost everybody, except for the following: > Viegnsay Valdes (National Ballet of Cuba) and Ivan Vasiliev (Bolshoi) Don Quixote [Grand] Pas de Deux This was the first time I had seen I Vasiliev live. His leaps and turns and many other movements are so imbued with power. He is a very lively and animated dancer, with a great deal of energy and aplomb, if not as much finesse as I prefer in a danseur. A truly memorable experience with Vasiliev dancing at the very end of the evening. The ballerina Valdes did well as well, and made it a point to hold her balances during the PDD for much longer than normal. > Thomas Forster (ABT corps) and Rubinald Pronk (Dutch National Ballet) Live Piano Performance by Conrad Tao Ami -- World Premiere choreo: Marcelo Gomes music: Chopin One of two world premieres of pieces choreographed by ABT principal Gomes (the other being "Paganini" with music by the same, performed by Francesca Podini of La Scala with a live violin accompaniment on stage). I liked this piece. There are two spotlights on a largely darkish stage. Two men are moving acrobatically and artistically, in a somewhat synchronized way but at many times with individual differences in extension or body placement. The overarching theme could be either an angst-ridden romance between the two danseurs or a theme of competition. I liked the dancing and I liked the ambiguity in what the piece was portraying. Of course "ami" denotes friend in French, so the romantic component was possible (although a romantic friend would be "petit ami" in colloquial French). > Yuan Yuan Tan and Anthony Spaulding (SF Ballet) Diving into the Lilacs; choreo Yuri Possokhov; music Tchaikovsky I've seen Tan in this piece before in NY. She had nice lines like the last time. Other than that and a decent "Stars of tomorrow" piece by the Students from Beijing Dance Academy called "Point and Line" (choreo Zhang Di Sha; music Wen Zi), the rest of the performances were poor or worse than that. Particularly autrocious were Myriam Ould-Braham and Karl Paquette of the Paris Opera Ballet, performing "Delibes suite" (NY premiere; choreo Jose Martinez; music Fado Portuges) and the stopping of the recorded music midway through the "Grand Defile" large cast performance at the end of Act I when all the YAGP 2011 finalists were performing. Fortunate I saw Vasiliev perform live for the first time.
  12. There is now more info on the 2011 gala: "Featuring the stars of: Jose Manuel Carreno (American Ballet Theatre) Thomas Forster (American Ballet Theatre) Ivan Vasiliev (Bolshoi Ballet) Rubinald Pronk (Dutch National Ballet) Gallim Dance Yekaterina Kondaurova (Mariinsky Ballet) Tiler Peck (New York City Ballet) Tyler Angle (New York City Ballet) Daniel Ulbricht (New York City Ballet) Yuan Yuan Tan (San Francisco Ballet) Anthony Spaulding (San Francisco Ballet) Roderick George (Theater Basel) And WORLD PREMIERES by ABTs Marcelo Gomes and NYCBs Benjamin Millepied" (I wonder whether this refers to Gomes as choreographer?) http://yagp.org/gala/yagp_gala_2011_index.html
  13. This is one of the Manhattan venues for Don Quixote: http://us.bigcinemas.com/ Please select "Try out our Express Box Office" on the upper right of the screen. The relevant theater is "NY -- Big Cinemas Manhattan". Once a user then selects the date, she can go and reserve a ticket for $25 (total $26) by inputting credit card information. The viewing starts at 11 am and, like a theater, provides first come, first served seating.
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