abatt

It's been a marathon week of Swan Lakes for me. No time right now to talk about the Dvorovenko/Bel. matinee and the Paloma/Ethan performance on Wed. evening. Last night Kent was absolutely gorgeous, luminous and heartbreaking. She and Marcelo conveyed such romance and tragedy. Gomes is an extraordinary partner. His lifts of Julie were effortless. His expressiveness is heartstopping. Bravo. I felt sorry for anyone who had to sit in the Family Circle. It was full of little kids who were making noise throughout the performance. Their adult parents have no consideration for others.

Various ballet talkers have complained in the past that certain critics are unfair, or overly negative or hurtful in their reviews. We should be celebrating that the subject NY Times review of Vishneva- Hallberg was an absolute rave. Why complain about a wholly positive review that is great publicity for ABT and each of the dancers mentioned in the article? I'm guessing that McKenzie and the publicity office are jumping for joy right now.

Vishneva is an example of the universaility and importance of culture - a Russian who is renown in her own country and here in the U.S. It's wonderful that she is doing this.

The major dance review in Wednesday's copy of the paper went to tap dancer Saviion Glover, who is performing at the Joyce Theater. It was reviewed by Alastair Macauley.

It's very, very unusual for the NY Times to give the lead review to the second night performance. Perhaps they felt that in fairness to Cory Stearns, who was thrown in at the last minute in a New York debut in a major role, they would refrain from reviewing the opening night. Under the circumstances, this seems reasonable, especially since Vishneva/Hallberg was so incredible.

I thought Diana and David were wonderful together. She was radiant, poetic and lyrical. I'm surprised they haven't been paired together more often. David is fast becoming one of ABT's brightest stars. Another standout was Blain Hoven as Benno. I've been disappointed with him in the past. However, last night he showed considerable improvement in his technique and stage presence. Isn't Stella having a great season! Good for her. The only negatives for me were Diana's tendency to push beyond her technical limits in the fouettes in the Black Swan pdd. She came off point, and they traveled too much. It would have been better to just do singles. It was a wonderful evening.

Why do we need to reconcile the opinions? There's nothing wrong with a diversity of opinion.

ABT seems to be a relatively diverse company, with a contingent of dancers from Argentina, Cuba, Brazil (Gomes). I forget where Ricetto is from, but I think she is from South or Central America. Additionally, Yuriko, Hee Seo, Misty and Stella are a diverse racial group of soloists. ABT seems much more diverse than NYCB right now.

I attended last night's performance. It was, unfortunately, not a very satisfying experience. Stearns was a poor partner for Veronika. The overhead lifts were too low, and in the big lift that ends Act II, Veronika apparently felt so insecure that she came out of her beautiful arm postion and held on to Cory's wrist for balance. There were numerous partnering errors throughout. None of them were a disaster standing alone, but the overall effect was to dimish the quality of the performance. Veronka seemed to be rattled, because she started making a lot of small errors in easy footwork passages, particularly in Act IV. It looked like they had little or no rehearsal time together. Cory also needs to pay more attention to how he puts his ballerina down coming out of lifts. He was frequently too rough and unpolished in the way he performed those duties last night. Some of Veronika's turns were very tilted to the side. I'm not sure whether to attribute that problem to Veronika, Cory, or some combination. Veronkia did well in her solos, and she was lovely and beautiful in her mime. She also knocked off her 32 fouettes in the Black Swan pdd. However, it certainly was not her best Swan Lake due to lack of trust in her partner. I hoped things would get better after intermission as they settled into their roles and their partnership. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Cory seemed to run out of energy in his Black Swan pdd solo, with leaps that barely left the ground and spins that were slow. Cory did well in the acting aspects, and he had a beautiful line in his Act I solo. To make matters worse, Simkin was replaced by J. Matthews as Benno. Matthews was good enough, but I would have preferred to see Simkin. His partners were the lovely Sarah Lane and Yuriko K. Saviliev was Purple Rothbart. He was better than in previous years. I hope Gomes is back. Veronika has been dealt a pretty awful hand this season in terms of partnering.

I noticed on the casting list that Robbie Fairchild replaces Chase Finlay in tonight's premiere of Mirage. Chase will dance in Mirage in subsequent performances this week.

I attended Friday's performance. I haven't seen La Source in a number of years. Megan started out a little stiff, but she got better as the ballet progressed. She was good, if not thrilling. DeLuz was wonderful, with light, airy jumps. Scheller did a wonderful job, too. I like the Bigonzetti more than most, but I feel it is too long. Darci was regal and commanding in Monumentum. However, I think her declining technique showed the most in Movements, where she could merely sketch the steps. Ringer has been doing Who Cares for a number of years, and she is marvelous in the role. However, having seen Tiler Peck's outstanding performance last week, Ringer's paled by comparison. Ramasar, in my opinion, doesn't have the jazzy brio for the role, at this point. Robby Fairchild was a revelation last week. Also, Ramasar's partnering of Ringer was rough in places. I thought Reichlin and Mearns were both wonderful in Who Cares. Reichlin towered over Ramasar. It looked bizarre.

I was fortunate enough to see both Beauty performances yesterday. Cojocaru was lyrical, refined and aabsolutely gorgeous. I wish we could see her more often here. The only other Beauty I've seen before who was equally gorgeous was Diana Vishneva (at ABT and at the Kirov's engagement in D.C. in Feb.) Her musicality and phrasing were peerless. The only lapse was some wobble on the last balance of the Rose Adagio. Carreno was a fine partner for her, and he knows how to act the role. However, he omitted portions of the choreography in order to accomodate his declining technical ability. I enjoyed Stella's Lilac Fairy. She is not as tall as Part, but I nevertheless thought she was commanding and performed the role well. In terms of Lilac Fairies in general, I don't think any of the ABT women are on par with Sara Mearns at NYCB or Kondourova (Big Red) at the Kirov, both of whom I had the privilege of seeing in Feb 2010 in the Lilac role. What a stellar, memorable performance from Cojocaru. Osipova was wonderful, especially considering this was her debut. However, as noted above in the other posts, she still has some work to do in this role. Hallberg was wonderful. He has the best legs and feet in the biz. I disliked Wiles' stiff Lilac. Lane and Simkin were outstanding in Bluebird. ABout the production, while it has improved since its initial run, it is still a disaster in many respects.I tune out during idiotic spindle dance, and also when the Prince is caught in the spider's web. What a waste of valuable stage time. Please put back the precious metal dances in the Wedding Act, and get rid of the dull choreography for the fairies during the wedding. On to Swan Lake...

Osipova is wisely using her opportunities at ABT to learn new roles that the Bolshoi has not cast her in. Everyone already knew she would do a great Kitri. Now she is showing the world what she can do with roles that she has not done with the Bolshoi, like Juliet and Aurora. Had she ever performed Giselle or Sylphide before her ABT performances last year?

Osipova is very lucky that the muggers did not look inside the bag and become angry that there was nothing of value to them (money) in the bag. As to the location of the mugging, I understand from the news that it was on Amsterdam and 63rd at 12:30 AM. Amsterdam in that area is rather creepy late at night. I always avoid it, and stick to more heavily populated avenues at late hours. I hope she isn't soured on our city.

I never thought much of S. Johannson in films. However, she won me over in "A View From The Bridge."

Aside from her awful voice, why did she have a glassy look in her eye, and why did she keep turning her head from left to right? Was she channeling Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd? Bernadette Peters will be taking over the role in July. I'm anticipating that she will be considerably better than C. Zeta Jones. Ny the way, she never thanked Sondheim. She was too busy gushing that she gets to sleep with Michael Douglas every night.

There were lots of ex-ABT dancers on stage last night at the Tony Awards. Keith Roberts and John Selya got to strut their stuff with the Come Fly Away cast. I guess Twyla couldn't resist the urge to pander to the masses and have the men open their shirts during the number. Danny Tidwell and the ensemble of Memphis were looking good. I enjoyed the show, and I though Sean Hayes did a fine job as the host. The bits about Spider Man and Billy Elliot were especially fun. In my opinion, Catherine Zeta Jones did not deserve her award. Montego Glover should have won. Zeta Jone delievered an even worse rendition of Send In the Clowns on television last night that when I saw her do it in the show. I thought everyone else who won was deserving.

Ironically, Lady of the Camellias, which is not considered a great ballet by any critic that I've read, seemed to sell pretty well.

As a subscriber, I received a letter in the mail notifying me that at the request of Philip Neal, Call Me Ben was eliminated from the program and replaced so that all of the ballets on the program were closely associated with Philip's tenure at NYCB. The letter also advised that if subscribers want to exchage their tickets because of the change, they are free to do so. I laughed out loud when I read that. I want to send Phillip a personal thank you note for changing the program!

I think things like Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty are considered classics. Fille is considered an interesting novelty, but not a must see ballet. I think Ashton's work may be more popular in England than here. The appeal of Petipa (or "after Petipa") is more universal.

Money talks. If a major donor came forward and said I'll give you $$$ to pay for a revival of Fille, that would probably be an incentive. Swan Lake has been done every year for at least the last 10 years. That ballet puts people in seats. Fille, apparently, does not.

The Neal Farewell was wonderful. He is retiring too soon. Hie is still a remarkable dancer. He reminded us of how wonderful he is as a partner yesterday, too, in a luminous performance of Serenade w. Ringer. He made Wendy look like she was floating in Chaconne. Thanks for the memories, Phillip. I have to also comment on Who Cares, which Neal did not appear in. Tiler Peck was incredible. Even though I've seen the Fascinatin Rhythm section at least 15 times in the last 10 years or so, she showed me facets of the choreography I never really observed or focused on before. She gave a marvelous performance. It was like I was seeing this ballet for the first time. Robert Fairchild was also quite wonderful. Scheller made an error in the footwork of her solo. I had the pleasure of meeting ballet talker Colleen Boresta during intermission.

I liked the new Bigonzetti. I think it's better than his other works for NYCB. It's too long, but most of the choreography was interesting. I too had difficulty in recognizing dancers because of the dim lighting. I didn't like the costumes, which I felt did not flatter the female dancers.

She is definitely playing the PR game.

I recall reading an interview with Susan Jaffe in which she described that having an acting coach helped her to add depth and dimension to the characters she portrayed. Hopefully she will be able to impart some of that wisdom and insight to the current generation of ABT dancers.