abatt

Congrats to Part. I used to think that McKenzie denied her certain roles like Juliet and Giselle because of her height and the difficulty of lifts. However, since he has been giving the very tall Semionova all those roles, it is apparent that height was not the deciding factor in his mind. I hope someone posts clips of Part's performance on You Tube.

Living in New York and going to subscription concerts, it became hard to avoid the idiosyncratic Maazel. Therefore, in the minds of a lot of New York Philharmonic subscribers, the idiosyncratic Maazel remains at the forefront of our memory of his body of work.

Although the movie had many acclaimed stars, it often felt boring because of the poor writing. It wa okay as a DVD rental.

The Met also charges $25 for standing room, I believe. The Bolshoi tickets sales involved wild extremes. People who bought packages early were able to secure good seats at cheap prices. As mussel pointed out, those who waited got burned, and had to pay excessive prices, often in awful seat locations. There were many, many people looking to buy tickets outside the theater last night. This engagement is more successful than the Mariinsky's engagement at the Met a few years ago because: (1) the Mariinsky brought oddities, like Humpbacked Horse and Anna Karenina and (2) the Mariinsky/Met pricing was extremely high, which kept ticket sales relatively low.

Knowledge is always preferable to ignorance. No harm in learning no matter what the subject is.

I enjoyed Zakharova's performance very much. Her technique is excellent. As for the issue of coldness on stage, I didn't feel it was a problem last night. I thought she had good chemistry with Hallberg. (The coldness was a big problem in their Giselle together a few weeks ago at the Kennedy Center, though.) She is a regal ballerina, and O/O suits her very well. Also loved the Evil Genius and the Jester. My that stage looked overcrowded with all that scenery. There was barely any space left to dance. This is a bizarre production. I was particularly disturbed when the music from Act 4 suddenly appeared in Act III and all of these black swan clad corps members suddenly appeared. It disrupts the flow of the ballroom scene. I actually prefer the national dances on pointe as opposed to character shoes. What's up with that flooring they are using. Their feet made dstracting sounds on that flooring every time the swan corps danced. It was reminiscent of when my grandma had her couch covered in plastic and every time someone moved there was an awful noise from friction with the plastic covering.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/movies/the-roar-over-the-funds-of-the-crowd.html?ribbon-ad-idx=3&rref=movies&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Movies&pgtype=article# This is an intersting article about crowd funding sites. The article raises interesting arguments as to why these crowd funding sites are not meant to finance projects of well established, wealthy artists.

Thanks for your reports Birdsall, and I hope you are feeling better soon. FYI, Bayadere and Giselle are the only two "classical" ballets that Vishneva still performs at ABT, and Bayadere's' Act II requirements are evidently difficult for her based on her performance this season at ABT.

I went to the Washington DC Mariinsky Swan Lake's in Feb of this year. Every performance was sold out, even though none of the Big Guns (Lopatkina, Kondaurova, Vishneva, Tereshkina) performed. In contrast, when the Mariinsky brought Ratmansky's Cinderella a few years ago to DC, they were giving out discount offers to unload unsold tickets.

I can't see any company hiring him as a guest artisit. Maybe he 's planning on making the rounds on the gala circuit (like the YAGP galas, and other similar enterprises) where he can dance two pdd's and get paid. Even if he doesn't show the gala still has plenty of other participants so his cancellation wouldn't be a big headache. I saw him at the YAGP gala two years ago in NY and thought he was sloppy. Lack of discipline starts to show pretty quickly on a ballet dancer.

Interesting, Didn't know the casting was TBC for Month until recently. That definitely suggests that the conflict was contemplated and they decided to throw Osipova's NY fans under the bus for the Giselle shows after falsely using her name to sell tickets to the Giselles.

Osipova's conflict with the Mik Giselles is her Royal debut performances as the lead in A Month in The Country. Knowing Osipova's past cancellations, I would not expect to see her at the Mik for the Giselle performances.

Sometimes people sell tickets in front of the theater before the show, but if you go that route be careful that you are not getting a fake.

He was a brilliant musician, but he was often too idiosyncratic in his approach. I think the Times obit was a fair reading of his tenure at the NY Phil - sometimes conducting brilliantly, but just as often completely frustrating.

I thought these crowd funding sites were meant for up and coming struggling artists who have little or no money but who have wonderful ideas for projects. Mark Morris and the MMDG is not a struggling little dance company. I like the MMDG and I've gone to many of their performances over the years, but it strikes me as a little bit odd that such a well established, well funded organization is attempting to raise money for costumes in this way.

I'm a Semionova fan, but I don't need to see her with the Mik in the exact same rep she does with ABT.

I bet Semionova ends up on the tour.

If social media is destroying your sense of otherworldliness of ballet dancers, don't review any social media sites. The silliness and infantilism was always there, but now the general public has a window into it that didn't exist before. Any notion that dancers were priests and priestesses was based purely on illusion in the minds of the audience members,not founded in reality.

With Baryshnikov, his experimentation was a disaster for ABT's bottom line. Millepied doesn't have to worry quite so much about that because of signficant government funding for the POB.

I saw the Tsar's Bride this weekend. I was unfamiliar with the opera going in. I loved it. The singers, chorus and orchestra were all excellent.

My mother has the same disease as Morgan. The excess weight is a symptom of the disease. I'm sure she looks perfectly fine (and better than most of the population) in terms of her weight, but for a dancer or athlete, this symptom is a huge problem.

The prices that ABT charges for orchestra at the Koch seem to be even higher than the price they charge at the Met for the orchestra, i believe. Anyone who thinks that ABT should move to the Koch for all performances instead of the Met should take note of the price structure. It appears that they are trying to make up for the fact that there are fewer seats in high priced sections at the Koch (orchestra, first ring as compared to orchestra and Grand Tier at the Met) by charging more per ticket at the Koch. If you sit in the "good seats" it is more expensive to attend at the Koch.

When Robert LaFosse did Jerome Robbins' Broadway, was he still with ABT or had he already moved over to NYCB. So sorry I never got to see that show. It came out when I was just getting started in my career, so no funds available for cultural events. I wish they would revive it.

There have been a number of ABT dancers on Broadway. Ashley Tuttle in Movin Out, Keith Roberts in Mathew Bourne's Swan Lake. Some ABT dancers were also in Twyla's short lived Broadway flop based on the music of Dylan. Twyla has always favored ABT dancers. It's not surprising that On the Town picked a NYCB dancer, since the choreographer is Bergasse, who is Mearns boyfriend. He probably has much more first hand knowledge of the NYCB dancers than those at ABT. Also not surprising that Wheeldon picked R. Fairchild for American in Paris, as Wheeldon has a much closer connection to the NYCB dancers. Finally, Tiler Peck (to be in the upcoming DC production of Stroman's Little Dancer) and Susan Stroman go waaaay back. Stroman picked Tiler to be in Broadway's the Music Man when she was a kid. They have remained close ever since. Wonder if Stro was at Tiler's recent nuptuals. Desmond Richardson (formerly with Ailey) performed the lead in a Fosse revival a few years ago.

Megan has been replaced this week in all of her Saratoga assignments w. NYCB. Is this related to her On The Town project.