abatt

Lavine may need a few years in the corps before they give her solo turns. McKenzie gave her a character role in SB last year, which is done in character shoes, and I recall that she fell. Of course, the greatest dancers in the world fall down, so that alone is not indicative of anything. However, it may suggest to management that Lavine needs to get some more experience under her belt before she is given more to do.

My perception is that nobody who could get into a well established and highly regarded school like SAB or the San Fran. ballet school would choose the JKO School. It's like the difference between going to an Ivy League school vs. a local college. Thus, the JKO school does not necessarily attract top level talent in the first instance, so there is far less likelihood that any particular graduate of JKO is going to become a major star. Obviously, there will be some exceptions, as there always are. However, I'd be curious to know what others think about this concept. By the way, I know Paloma Herrera came out of SAB. Does ABT now have any SAB grads in its ranks?

Yes, ABT gets credit for Gomes. He is one of their own.

http://www.abt.org/pdfs/ABT_Form990_2012.pdf\\ Natalia, I easily found ABT's 2012 tax return on the internet. On the Statement of Functional Expenses, there is an expense of $353,000 regarding Royalties (line 15 of the form). However,there is no breakdown regarding the royalty payments, unless it is somewhere else in a schedule that I missed. I don't recall what they performed in 2012, but I'm sure a lot of that figure relates to royalties to Ratmansky, to the MacMillan estate, and others

It takes a lot of time, effort and coaching to develop talent. All of the artists mentioned above during ABT's recent "golden" era (Corella, Bocca, Ferri, Nina, Carreno, Steifel, Beletserkovsky, Malakhov) were not trained at ABT. They came to ABT as fully trained, fully formed artisits. The only artist that ABT can really claim as its own was the development of Hallberg among the list mentioned above. To the extent that ABT is now altering its personnel model to bring up talent from within, that will take a long time to come to fruition. At the top ranks, McKenzie has tried to continue hire talent from the outside (Semionova, Lendorf), but for various reasons those artists have been missing for two seasons. (I doubt Semionova will want to return to NY after her baby is born.) Kochetkova is the only recent outside hire who has actually been able to appear on a regular basis.

I agree with you, alexL. SL looks much more impressive on tall dancers. That is not the trend at ABT, where they are now enlisting short women like Copeland and Kochetkova to dance SL.

I think the ABT audience is more conservative in their tastes, and they go for the spectacle of a full length ballet with elaborate scenery and costumes. Neoclassical leotard ballets with no scenery is not for every taste. Nina was a consistently great Swan Lake interpreter. In the past I have felt that Part was also great in the role, but this season she was a little off. As noted above , unlike Nina, who always had her choice of great partners, Part's partners have often diminished the overall level of performance. Murphy is a stellar technician, but she has never moved me. I'm always dazzled by her technical achievement, but she is not necessarily a gripping dance actress. I forget what year Nina retired, but other than Nina I would have to say the greatest SL performance I've seen at ABT during the last few years was the epic Part-Bolle SL, which was never again repeated.

I just wanted to add that there are two different issues at play. To me, the term "stager" is the person hired by the owner of the choreography to train dancers regarding a particular work. The Balanchine Trust, which owns the choreography, regularly hires "stagers" to stage the Balanchine rep all over the world. The choreographer (or Trust of estate of a dead choreographer) is the owner of the work. The stager does not have to be the owner of the choreography, although he/she could wear both hats. I have no doubt that McKenzie receives an agreed up royalty check every time SL is performed at ABT, just as the MacMillan estate receives a royalty check every time MacMillan's R&J is performed. I don't think that the amount of the royalty McKenzie gets is so large that it is a motivation to keep or dump his SL. His primary source of income is as artistic director of ABT, and the royalties are probably a very small percentage of his total income. I don't know if this information is reflected on company tax returns or financials as a separate item, or if that info is publicly available. For people like Ratmansky or Wheeldon, their royalties are probably much more significant in terms of their overall annual income because their works are being licensed to numerous companies around the world. (In contrast, McKenzie's SL is not being performed anywhere else (because nobody wants it?)). Also, I'm sure that both Wheeldon and Ratmansky can command a high price for licensing of their works because of their acclaim and popularity. Mrs. Ratmanksy is a primary stager of Mr. Ratmansky's works, I believe. I'm not sure who is staging Wheeldon's works. Mrs. Ratmansky is also bringing home the bacon by appearing in character roles at ABT.

Thanks for posting that wonderful video of Abrera and Baca. It made my day.

NY Times review of 3 SL casts This may be the first time Macauely has had a nice word to say about Part. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/17/arts/dance/review-american-ballet-theater-swan-lake.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&action=click&contentCollection=arts&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront

David Koch , I think, is a big Ratmansky supporter. I think ABT can get him to write a gigantic check for any Ratmansky project.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/arts/dance/alexei-ratmansky-celebrates-richard-strauss.html This is the review of the ballet Ratmansky did to Strauss music. It got a great review. Is this part of what ABT will present, or something different?

I thought that they would eventually pick up Ratmansky's Paquita. Guess not. ABT already invested so much money in training 4 casts for Golden Cockerel that they almost have to bring it back, regardless of whether anyone shows up to see it.

Misty said in an interview that the role she most wants to do is Giselle. McKenzie will comply.

Personally I wouldn't be surprised if Vishneva retired in the next year or two.

I would love to see Part at Tatiana and as Giselle, but I don't think it's going happen. I think we may get Kochetkova as Giselle. She is now Herman's "go to" partner. Since Boylston now dominates the rep, I think she may get a Giselle. Wait, just remembered she already has done Giselle at ABT, so Boylston will definitely get one. Hoping that Lendorf can actually appear with the company sometime soon.

I'm going to be a contrarian and say that Veronika's performance last night was not as good as her past performances. I thought her back looked stiff. There used to be so many details where she used her supple spine to heighten the choreography that seemed to be missing last night. As an example, there is one section in Act II where Odette is leaning into her partner with her back facing the audience and her partner is holding her lower back. That should have been the spot where Odette curves her back into a deep bend. Uncharacteristically, Part just leaned her head back but her spine remained erect and still. There were many such compromises last night, I thought. Gomes stole the show. Incredible. He oozes charisma from every cell of his body. Added: Part had no chemistry w. Whiteside. I never thought I would say this, but I think she is more "simpatico" with Stearns.

Schlagobers translates to Whipped Cream. Anyone have a clue what this is about? My personal prediction: Copeland will debut as Giselle. We've lost 2 of our Tatiana's since the last run of Onegin. Wonder who they will pick. Stellaaaaaa.

A friend who was at the matinee told me that Misty did 22 fouettes, but she traveled quite a bit off to the side (that is, towards the wing of the stage ).

Kind of amazing that they cancelled a tour to NY just because Osipova is not available. Do they think everyone else in the company is chopped liver? I would have bought tickets for every Sarafanov performance.

At last, the casting for the Paris tour has been posted on the NYCB website. Maria K. is cast, so I guess she has regained her form. Good for her. Other good news- DeLuz and Scheller are both back from injury. Russell Janzen will debut as Mearns partner in Tschai Piano Concerto, and he will also debut as the lead in Walspurgisnacht. Fingers crossed for his promotion by the end of 2016. All reports from those lucky enough to attend the tour engagement would be welcome!

Murphy's technique was dazzling. Her fouettes in the third act were remarkable, with several triples and I think a quad- all while periodically changing her arm positions to an overhead swan flap. Amazing. She also held an unsupported balance for what seemed like an eternity- with NO WOBBLE. Gomes was an excellent partner and did a wonderful job with his solos. His miraculous leap off of the diving board to join Odette was spontaneously applauded because of its beauty and elan. It was one of the best nights at ABT this season, in my opinion. Cory doesn't have the personality to pull off Purple Rothbart. Also noteworthy was the excellent peasant pas, danced by Brandt, Lane and Gorak. The auditorium was very full, at last!! From the blooper reel: The fog machine in the last act seemed to be broken, because there was no fog and we just heard a loud PSSSSST sound from the machine. LOL. The other blooper is that Swampy Rothbart closed the door to the ballroom in Act III a little late, so that Marcelo had to bang on the doors to get out while they were still closing. I've seen this happen before but I always get a little laugh out of it.

Here's a short "preview" by the NY Times of this week's SL performances at ABT. Macauley particularly discusses Murphy and Copeland http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/arts/dance/swan-lake-and-its-32-fouettes.html?action=click&contentCollection=arts&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront

More info on a potential Broadway run of Little Dancer, and the current status of the musical: http://www.playbill.com/article/commercial-producers-plan-lab-for-ahrens-and-flahertys-little-dancer

The most exciting aspect of this ballet is the design elements. The costumes and scenery were breathtaking. I agree w. the above comments - lots of mime, not too many ballet steps. It was definitely a one act ballet stretched to two acts. I wonder - did the RDB version have an intermission? I know the RDB had a second work on the program when it presented Cockerel. Perhaps if ABT had done that, the evening might have felt like a legit evening of entertainment. All of the performers did an outstanding job - there just wasn't enough for them to do. The evening ended at 9:20 PM, including a 20+ minute intermission.