abatt

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/discoveries-clear-the-mists-from-the-original-swan-lake/?ref=arts&_r=0 A new cache of materials discovered regarding the Bolshoi 1877 premiere.

There are also plenty of flamenco troupes which use the word "ballet" in their company names or to refer to particular dance works. I don't think anyone would call flamenco dancing a form of ballet. To me it's the opposite of ballet.

Yes, the house was undersold. It looked like they barely sold any tickets in the third ring. Liebeslieder is not popular with the masses, but I love it. Cobweb, I also thought about who might replace Somogyi in the Winter. That role usually goes to a taller woman, so maybe Reichlin or Krohn? Next season Liebeslieder is paired with Glass Pieces, and Krohn does the lead in Glass Pieces.

While we brace ourselves for Hurricane Joaquin, the Koch Theater had its own hurricane Joaquin DeLuz last night. DeLuz sailed through the killer demands of the final section of Tschai Suite 3 (the T&V section) with abandon and skill. It is such a pleasure to watch him, especially after having seen some pretty awful work in T&V over at ABT during the spring Met season. He seemed pleased to be reunited with his regular partner, Megan Fairchild. Megan looked a little off of her game, with some small errors and bobbles. I think she is finding her form again after being away from NYCB for a year. She still has great speed, but there is a little tentativeness in the execution. Reichlin and Janzen were terrific in the Elegie section, but I feel like Janzen is now laying on the schmaltz a little too thick in the final moments of the Elegie section. Through my binoculars it looked like he was over-emoting. I felt that Lauren King and Taylor Stanley need some improvement in the second section. King, in particular, seemed plodding at times. Also, the partnering must be smoothed out. As an example, in one of the lifts, she should have been running towards him, and he should have lifted her as she came towards him. Instead, she came to a complete stop right in front of him before he did the lift. As usual, Pereira and Ulbricht were impressive in the third movement. It was such an enormous pleasure to see Liebeslieder again. Let's put aside the less than stellar tenor and just talk about the dancing. Jennie Somogyi was utterly luminous. Her thrilling performance made me sad to think about all the years she missed and all the roles she never danced due to her injuries. Mearns also lit up the stage with urgency and abandon. Laracey made a sparkling debut. Hyltin was fine, but I feel that her performance was a bit lacking in lyricism. All the gentlemen performed extremely well in their solos and in the partnering.

Here is an interview with Somogyi regarding her career and retirement: http://www.playbill.com/news/article/20-years-70-roles-and-several-injuries-later-a-star-ballerina-bids-farewell-to-the-spotlight-365093?r=n

Any reports on the new ballets that debuted last night? PS: Janzen replaces Catazaro in this week's performances of Tschai Suite 3, and Huxley is replacing Garcia in this week's performances of Rodeo. This will be a role debut for Huxley.

Somogyi did O/O many years ago.

Yes, Barak's first two works at NYCB were well received. They were not groundbreaking and were largely derivative, but they were pleasant. The third one, however, was so bad it was epic. She made the mistake of trying to delve into writing a script (together with that important screenwriter, soloist Ellen Bar) where the dancers had to deliver lines of dialogue. Nobody was minding the store at NYCB, and it was a signficiant embarrassment and a costly one (expensive scenery and expensive costumes). She was never invited back to NYCB to choreograph.

I forgot. Martins has also used Stroman and Lynn Taylor Corbett in recent years.

The last time Martins invited a woman to choreograph was, I believe, Melissa Barak. Her ballet, "Call Me Ben", was an artistic fiasco that did not even last for one season. (It was scheduled for something like 4 performances, but was replaced.) Hopefully that experience did not cause him to swear off inviting women choreographers.

PS- Russell Janzen's hair is niow black, and Bouder is a blonde. I remember Janzen's hair being more in the brown range.

I saw each of the SL casts. The only one I saw twice was Mearns and T. Angle. Russell Janzen may not be the most technically brilliant dancer, but I thought he was the most engaging of the three Siegfrieds. His partnering was always secure. There was a freshness to his acting, and I thought there was a romantic connection and ardor in his encounters with Reichlin. I thought Reichlin did better witht he ballroom act than in the adagio white acts. She had no trouble with the technical demands. In fact, the black act was her strongest. However, sometimes in the adagio sections she rushed through the choreography with no stretch of her line. She also failed to convey what little mime exists in this production. In the final act where she mimes tears, she ran the back of her hand along the side of her face. That gesture had no meaning. All in all, shw was better than during the last run of SL. I had skipped Bouder's last outing in this ballet (2013?) because I found her performance so disappointing.back in 2011 or 2010. She has improved, but there are still problems with choppy phrasing. She is frequently more concerned about hitting the next position than connecting each dance phrase to create a flow. That being said, she killed the fouettes with great speed and double fouettes. She overdid the laughing mockery in the ballroom act. The most satisfying of the O/Os was Mearns. While all of these ladies could use training in increasing the fluidity of their arms and hands, Mearns was the best of the bunch. One thing I noticed during this run of SL is that Mearns' use of her back and spine has diminshed in this role compared to her prior performances. I'm not sure whether that's due to age or a choice, based on her previous long term back injury that kept her off the stage for a very long time. Her's was the most compelling of the Odettes, and the most moving. Her performance on Tuesday was not her best effort. Her Sat matinee was much better. She did not complete the fouettes at either performance, but the Saturday performance was much stronger. I think she completed something like 28 or 29 before she came off pointe, but I really wasn't counting. A look of fierce determination came over her face when she made her entrance for the foiettes - like she was taking her final exam on fouettes. I wrote about Sterling already, above. As for the smaller roles, Huxley and Ulbricht were both excellent in pas de quatre, as were M. Fairchild, T. Peck. A. Scheller and A. Isaacs. In the pas de quatre, Krohn and LeCrone seemed out of their depth. Joseph Gordon was fantastic as Benno. Looking forward to the company's resumption of rep performances this week. Forgive the typos.

I thought Hyltin's SL was a work in progress. First, I didn't like her arms and hands. There was a lot of frantic arm flapping in her Odette, but her arm movements were rarely fluid. The way she positions her hands, with her fingers splayed and her pinky finger held high above her other fingers, was an ugly distraction. She did have a beautifully stretched leg line, and she did some lovely deep backbends. While there was an honesty in her portrayal in her Odette, I thought her Odile was cliché to the utmost. She did well with the technical demands, but once the fouettes were over, she seemed to run out of steam. That final section of her dancing in the ballroom act was sloppy, with clipped phrasing as she struggled to keep up with the music. Veyette was a good partner and also did some wonderful solo work. I'm perfectly willing to cut him some slack given his unfair workload for the week. Kudos to A. Isaacs and Danny Ulbricht, who did a marvelous job in the pas de quatre.

Still no Monotones casting.

I've seen both casts of the King and I. Wantanabe was difficult to understand, but he had a stage charisma that was palpable. Llana is a much better singer than Wantanabe, and also teased out more of the comic aspects of his role. Llana's dialogue was much easier to understand. However, I thought Llana had zero chemistry with O'Hara, and also lacked stage charisma. My three cents. O'Hara is just gorgeous, as are Ruthie Ann Miles and the rest of the magnificent cast. The scenic designs and costumes are gorgeous.

Uh oh. Looked at the updated casting sheet online. Catazaro is replaced in both SL's by Veyette. Wonder what happened. They really need a better backup plan. Having Veyette do 4 performances over the course of less than one week is nuts.

I'm curious about why Roberto Bolle never learned the role. I know his scheduled debut with Paloma at ABT was cancelled, but he could have at least appeared at La Scala in it. Has he given up Desire?

I have not been paying much attention to the film. In Black Swan they used Sarah Lane as the dancing double for Natalie Portman. Is Ovchenko a dancing double, or is he doing all aspects of the role (acting and dancing)?

I can't believe they picked Zakharova for this. There are already so many commercial DVD's of her in this role. I would have cleared my schedule to see Obratsova. I saw Zakharova do Giselle at the Kennedy Center in June 2014 with Hallberg. I have to agree wtih volcanohunter that she is far from my favorite Giselle.

Ain't that the sad truth. Otello with Domingo and Fleming at the Met Opera house was the first opera I ever saw. I was spoiled by that due to the high caliber of the performers. The only reason I went was because my college Shakespeare professor told the class that the Verdi opera was superior to the play. That opinion stayed with me for years after graduation, until I finally had enough financial security to spend money on an opera ticket.

I saw it. I had mixed feelings about it. The most outstanding aspects are the production values, niot the choreography. The choreography was, in my opinion, typical McGregor - very athletic but without any heart or depth. While some of the production values were very interesting, they got old fast. It seemed high on high tech gimmicks in terms of the scenic designs/lighting. As an example, they used a projection design which multiplied the image of the dancers on stage multiple times into infinity. That was cool, except that I've seen that done on television commercials (see the latest Under Armour commercial, where the image of Misty Copeland is multiplied on the screen hundreds of times). That got old pretty fast. Also, the opening first few minutes had the dancers entirely clad in black (including having their faces covered), with LED lights on their costumes. I've seen that trick too elsewhere. Portions of the dance use curved mirrors. It was all very flashy on the surface, but without much substance. The hall was a gigantic room. The huge rectangular stage was a platform. There were many, many rows of seats set up in front of the platform. The hall is very wide, so each row was extremely long. One hour 10 minutes. No intermission.

An article about the Met's choice not to use blackface in Othello http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/arts/music/an-otello-without-the-blackface-nods-to-modern-tastes.html?ref=arts

I have no problem with Kent or other retirees coming back for character roles. Victor Barbee, Susan Jaffe and many others have performed character roles with great success. (Mrs. Ratmansky, however, was a less than ideal Queen in SB.)

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/arts/20150915_Two_stars_brighten_Pennsylvania_Ballet_roster.html Kyra Nichols and Charles Askegard have been hired by PA Ballet as ballet masters.

I wouldn't classify questioning whether a 52 year old who retired many years ago and had her big retirement extravaganza should take the stage instead of a current dancer as whining. It's a legitimate question. It's clear that ABT does not have enough Juliet's among its current roster, evidenced by the fact that when both Osipova and Vishneva pulled out last season, Hee Seo did three Juliets and Copeland did two. (Murphy apparently was not worthy of picking up an additional Juliet in management's eyes.) This lack of preparation of current dancers to take on lead roles and fill in with a single dancer in multiple performances (Seo Balet Theatre) over the course of a week is very misguided, to put it mildly. If there was ever any doubt about how misguided it is, it became extremely obvious last season when it was Hee Seo filling in multiple times per week in multiple roles. If they want to try out Lane, Abrera or Boylston that would be great. We'll see what the casting is in late October. I suspect it will be Kochetkova who becomes ABT's latest Juliet. Resources should be spent on moving forward, not backwards. I have a lot of respect for the way major dancers like Baryshnikov, Whelan and Guillem have conducted their post ballet careers by finding new projects and new choreography that works for them. None of them have taken a trip back into yesteryear by trying to go back to old roles that made them famous years after retirement. The fact that Ferri has chosen Cornejo as her partner instead of Bole makes it even more of a puzzling choice. I thought Ferri was doing very well in finding new projects for herself, but I have my doubts about her return to Juliet.