ksk04

The program notes are online at SCFTA but no casting. For those familiar with the company, who are the Juliets and Romeos to try to see (should casting get posted in a reasonable manner)? I imagine Kochetkova is a favorite...do Sylve or Feijoo take Juliet? I can only attend Tuesday night of the rep (though I'd love to have the opportunity to see Symph in C both nights) and am crossing my fingers I get to see both of them at some point during that evening if they do not do Juliet. All of the promo materials for R&J seem to have Kochetkova or Von Patten in the pictures, so I assume they are usually first or second cast?

Added to the SCFTA program: Thirteen Diversions and Apollo

Chroma has been disappointingly replaced with Trio on the triple for unknown reasons. I mean, I don't know if Trio is disappointing or not, I guess, but considering the attendance problems at SCFTA recently you'd think they'd want to keep Chroma in and play up the White Stripes connection. Oh well!

Tickets for non-subscribers of SCFTA usually don't go on sale until about 6 weeks month before the show date. They usually send out a presale password a little before that if you are on their Facebook page. If you are worried about getting good seats, don't be panicked--it's a slow buying crowd and there are usually lots of good seats right up to the week of performances.

I found some info on the music. http://www.danzaballet.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1372 So there's a start for you! What I would do next is go to Amazon or iTunes and listen to previews of mp3s from the composers and see if anything else stands out besides what Mikhail Messerer mentions above.

Segerstrom Center posted, on their Facebook page, this casting info regarding The Firebird: "ABT has announced preliminary casting for the world premiere of Alexei Ratmansky’s new production of The Firebird. Scheduled to perform in The Firebird are three extraordinary ballerinas: Natalia Osipova, Misty Copeland and Isabella Boylston. ABT's The Firebird will be performed March 29 – April 1, 2012."

Yes, I remember seeing this awhile ago. It's funny, usually videos of Rojo leave me completely cold (never seen her live, so am withholding judgement in general of her dancing), but I find her so interesting to watch taking class here. There is another one from around the same time in Cuba, as well, where she is rehearing the pas from Winter Dreams with Nehemiah Kish and she is so much more interesting and alive in it than anything else I've seen her do.

Farrell back at NYCB in honor of Robbins. Interesting. Kirkland too.

The most intriguing class videos would be from years 5 and 6 (the missing years)...because in the earliest clips she seems to be a very pure dancer (though the back flexibility does hint at things to come). Then all of the sudden in year 7 she is the Somova we all know. What happened in those two years in between?! The extreme growth spurt seems to have caused all the floppy limbs, but even in the younger videos her knees are not as hyper-extended as they are now, which I find interesting. I have hyper-extended knees and they are visible in photos from a very young age; either Somova hides them well in the younger videos or they were a result of a growth spurt which seems very weird.

Good to see Cornejo has recovered from his injury. If those interesting menage jumps are any indication he has healed quite well. Wow!

Her husband often dances the Toreador, so that may factor into why she still dances it. Daria Pavlenko also still does the Street Dancer at home, but that seems to be another issue entirely. Thanks for the report!

Exactly. Well they clearly don't want us to think that Veyette is "cool" or a "bad boy."

A few years ago on tour out here, Maria Riccetto slipped off pointe mid-hops and finished off the rest of the counts with traveling fondu releves. It was a seamless transition and if she came up with it on the fly I say bravo! The fondu releves looked a lot better than Sevillano's replaced steps, but I would hazard the issue for Sevillano was her ankle, and she was probably trying to avoid excessive work on it so the fondu releves would not have been a feasible substitution.

Do you mean the brand? I don't know but I would guess she probably wears Freeds, as the majority of NYCB dancers do. They are just dyed black.

I wish the nearest theater was closer than a 40 min drive. I guess the nasty Giselle in 3D remains a fluke, but I got pretty hopeful (even though they are put on by different event people). It looks like both Sleeping Beauty and R&J from the Royal go to Lauren Cuthbertson and Sergei Polunin.

So true! Thanks, ksk04! Well I feel the same the rest of the year about everyone's reports! That's why the board is so lovely to read. Now I will just wait patiently until April when I get to see The Firebird before you NYers! Iczerman--glad to hear about traffic...that's why I went to the first two nights before the shutdown. I thought it would be either really light or total disaster and didn't want to risk the latter.

Friday night’s cast was a complete delight. I first saw the Bright Stream with the Bolshoi, and with Maria Alexandrova as the Ballerina—Alexandrova dances like a glittering diamond, and last night Stella Abrera brought that same quality to her dancing. I’ve never seen her look better—there wasn’t a foot out of place, her arms sang along in complete unison with Veronika Part’s, and her character was richly and warmly developed. Last night, she pushed the action of the ballet along as she coordinated each farce onstage to her liking (thankfully she didn’t have the same issues as Murphy with the circle of jetes…on the contrary, she looked like she didn't wanted to stop punching them out!). Attention Kevin: please promote this woman! What more does she have to do? It is to her credit that Blaine Hoven’s debut was the success it was; his dancing was much more assured and polished than circumstances would dictate (corps dancer, less than a week’s notice to debut, and first lead in a full length ballet). He took his acting cues, smartly, from Abrera and they made a great and committed team. He got an enormous roar from the audience after his ballerina solo. The only iffy part of the evening was when he had to partner Part for about 10 seconds in the 2nd act…that almost spun right out of control, but it passed quickly. Part had a slower start to the ballet (a few bobbles in the first act when she was dancing with Abrera), but was ravishing in the pas de deux with Hammoudi. There were no partnering issues between them, and Veronika danced with abandon. He even had her centered in supported pirouettes! Whoever is working with Hammoudi must have kicked it into overtime, and I think that as Hammoudi grows acting-wise, they will have a really wonderful partnership. She was lost in the moment dancing with Pyotr, and that made his betrayal even more heartbreaking; she would look out of this world happy to be dancing with her husband and to have his attention in this way, and then catch his eye and remember what she was doing, and immediately her shoulders would slump in defeat. Also, she really made Hammoudi beg for it at the end, whereas the moment was over so quickly between Gomes/Herrera I practically missed it occurring in the midst of the stage action. Susan Jones was a riot…I’ve never seen anyone receive so much applause for bourreing halfway across a stage while fanning herself. She then gaped at the audience as if to say, “For me? How right you are!” Radestky and Lane were great as the Accordian player/schoolgirl. Radetsky was more lyrical than Salstein and Lane wasn’t quite as goofy as Riccetto, but was adorable nonetheless. I was happy to see Isaac Stappas once more before he leaves—it’s a good way say goodbye, riding a tractor of your coworkers offstage!

Thursday’s cast: For me, Thursday’s performances belonged to the supporting cast. I haven’t seen Salstein in a "real" dancing role in a few years, and forgot how powerful and clean he is. I thought he captured the spirit of the Accordian player perfectly (he embraced the staccato nature of the steps), and Riccetto was the perfect horrified foil to his overwhelming machismo. If there are any other ballets that call for a Charleston I think we’ve found our girl in Riccetto. Similarly, Misty Copeland and Jared Matthews were at their best as the milkmaid and the tractor driver. While I was watching, I thought Copeland was softer than I’ve ever seen her, but after viewing Messmer in the same role without any part sticking out to me, I realized that Copeland retained her sharp attack in her footwork but has worked on softening the upper body to great effect. I hope she gets some more major opportunities soon. Roman Zhurbin was his usual wonderful and hilarious self as the inspector of quality. For the main cast, I confess in general to being no great fan of either Murphy or Herrera; I haven’t even seen Herrera dance in anything for about three years, but I wanted to see her in a Ratmansky ballet since everyone has said she has blossomed with his choreography. To a degree, I agree: she is certainly more alive onstage than I’ve seen her before and she is clear with her storytelling and expression. I will, however, never be able to get past her upper body and arms; it feels like they stall the flow of choreography. Gomes was wonderful as her partner—he does bring out the best in her, but who doesn’t he do that for? Murphy was good as the Ballerina, but she completely blew her big circle of grand jetes that burst in on the highlanders. She missed the big musical crash of the second one and then subsequently missed the music on most of the rest—really disappointing since that is such a great section of dancing. As the Ballerina, she acted glamorous rather than being glamorous, a distinction Abrera would make clear to me the following night. The biggest surprise of the main cast was Stearns, for me. I think this is his best role since Romeo. He had a lot of stage presence and was routinely very funny. This is the first time I’ve seen him really own a part rather than just getting through it. He didn’t try to hide his size or masculinity dressed up as the ballerina and it really worked. I hope he is okay because he took a few really nasty spills during the second act (one literal belly flop!). Luckily the character hid all of that, so people in the audience assumed, I think, it was planned. In a way it was sad: he fell for real and people laughed at him! He laughed at himself though too, so all went on well. More on Friday coming! PS...I know some people haven't liked the ABT version of the sets/costumes, but I am so relieved that Pyotr's outfit no longer looks like a 70s disco pimp! Sometimes less is more, and with ABT's costumes that is usually the philosophy to go by because the results are often tacky as hell when their costume department tries too many colors.

Marguerite and Armand is a one-act ballet by Frederick Ashton for Fonteyn and Nureyev (until a few years ago they were the only ones to ever perform it--now the Royal is back to dancing it as well as Nina Ananiashvili's company). Music is a piano sonata by Liszt. I believe the whole thing is on youtube with both Fonteyn/Nureyev and Sylvie Guillem/Nicholas Le Riche or Massimo Murru, if you wanted to take a look. Lady of the Camillias is the full length ballet of the story by John Neumeier, that is now performed by ABT to piano music by Chopin. The stories of Manon and Des Grieux are included in this ballet. Same-ish story, very different presentations!

Martins doesn't really have room to complain or say much, his own son got arrested with cocaine a few years ago.

As someone attending these shows and not the Japan ones, glad would not be my adjective of choice! But I hope he recovers more fully with the extra week, and as I said previously I don't think pointe work has any place in the recovery of a sprained ankle, especially in a man who has not trained in pointe shoes all his life. I am thrilled to see Hoven debut, so there is the silver lining.

I agree...I thought Kuznetsov looked like Cary Ewles in Robin Hood: Men in Tights; I've seen this production live before and I don't remember thinking that! I've grown accustomed to the rugged version of Hilarion presented by ABT et al--here the only thing that attempted to make him look "rugged" (his fancy beard) actually made him look more fey! Poor Kuznetsov. I think the Wili tutu design was very poor: all the green foliage was not particularly attractive or figure flattering. I, too, thought the wave of Wilis was the most striking image from the corps (since they blew the visuals on the Wilis crossing the stage in arabesque), though having just seen the Cubans these Russian Wilis seemed pretty mild and tame in comparison!

This part makes me cringe from the Times article abatt posted (thank you): Better hope it's not him though! He has wrecked enough damage with his "visions" over here on Segerstrom Center, I don't wish more of his influence on you guys. I don't see why ABT doesn't at least consider doing a fall rep season at State. They wouldn't need to abandon the Met, but it seems like a more stable option than what they've been dealing with at City Center.

He's gotten better, partnering and acting wise so I'm grading him on that curve. He's still too boyish for my tastes; I don't need every male dancer to be a Mukhamedov or anything, but a little more weighted presence is preferable for me. I feel the same way about Simkin. I wasn't in an IMAX theater either, so maybe someone was really bad at calibrating things at some places.

This was entirely bizarre. There was only one instance where I thought the 3D was powerful and it was when Myrtha turns her back on Hilarion, and her imposing figure really stands apart from the line of the Wilis in a super foreboding way--but I think Kondaurova's Myrtha would have managed that without the bridge of my nose suffering with those horrendously fitting glasses for 2 hrs. Plus the image quality was terrible due to the 3D blur, I felt like I was back to watching youtube videos. The camera was not forgiving to Osipova's Giselle, imo. There were at least 4 times in the first act where I thought we were going to suddenly have a new mad scene...her face is just too histrionic for the close-ups. There was never a moment of peace or serenity in the act, it was always scrunching and furrowing...yet when the camera panned back you can see how this wouldn't be so noticeable to the theater audience. I thought she looked best in the first pas de deux in the second act; she really let herself be a spirit, and let the steps shine rather than trying to force the acting. Sarafanov looked good throughout, he tried to make some chemistry with Osipova, especially in the first act, but she seemed in her own world and often when he was clearly trying to make eye contact she was off doing something else. He was attentive, though. Agree with atm711 that the highlight was Kondaurova's Myrtha...wow! Love her. Oh and what was up with the shot of "Giselle" on high throwing the lilies down at Albrecht. They chose the wrong angle and it was painfully obvious it wasn't Osipova-she had on the Wili tutu and was blonde. Cutting to a shot from the other side of the stage would have hid all of that. What the heck? Did they even try? There were about 15 people in my theater, which isn't that bad imo for a midweek matinee. I've been to other matinees for regular movies with less people.