ksk04

This doesn't look good for the Mariinsky, especially after Lobukhin leaving for the Bolshoi earlier this year. I hope it doesn't backlash with the management negatively onto his wife's career.

Also the bit at the bottom of the description about Makhalina is a travesty.

Veronika Part appears woefully underused, as is par for the course...two Myrthas, a Swan Lake, a Sleeping Beauty, and the Bright Stream. Such a shame, why promote the girl if you don't give her any new parts? Herman Cornejo does seem to be reeling in some new roles though, which is great for him.

I enjoy Alina Cojocaru's dancing very much but as a Kitri...no. And with how many injuries she's dealing with (she just pulled out some dates for the RB this season) it's ridiculous she takes on this amount of guesting.

I am thinking the tba for the Cornejo cast of the Bright Stream will end up being Sarah Lane. Who else would it be besides her or Reyes? And if it was Reyes they'd just announce it since she's a principal.

I'm probably by myself on this, but truly...I adore ballet costumes. I enjoy tremendously "tutus ballets", and to be honest, I really haven't got to that level of abstraction to say, for example, that I could enjoy "Les Sylphides" the same even without the romantic tutus, for which it would be just as great due to the beautiful choreography. But again, I don't have the Balanchinean background you all have, so I'm sort of outdated on this matters.

In my humble, amateurish point of view, the dramatic effect of many ballets diminishes in a great deal when stripped down of costumes...(I'm fine with the "non-props" segment). If I could watch Symphony in C in its original tri-colored structure, or Ballet Imperial with tutus, or even Concerto Barocco the way it was according to those great pics Peggy posted, I would definitely be more attracted to them.

I tend to agree! I've only seen it this way on video but I much prefer the way that Symphony in C looks with the tri-color Mariinsky tutus, for example.

I would assume the lack of a Sugar Plum goes back to Ratmansky...don't most Russian companies forgo a Sugar Plum Queen and instead the lead ballerina of the whole thing (including who dances the Sugar Plum pas) is Maria (Clara)?

My guess is that Part II will be a changing mix-and-match of two or three pieces selected from among those not-quite-listed. One hopes that as the dates near, specific programming will be announced.

I would assume it's being conducted exactly as Kings of Dance, in this way. Vasiliev is like the icing on the cake as when Alina Cojocaru performed on a few occasions in The Lesson with the Kings.

The dance season at OCPAC is horrible now, but not just because they don't support American troupes. They seemingly refuse to schedule more than one classical ballet performance each season and can't bear to not have Don Quixote show up somewhere. Thank god for the Royal Danish this year.

I have grown very frustrated with the Dance Series at OCPAC. There is a definite coalition with Adani and OCPAC that continues to bring the same groups from season to season. It is discouraging that they are not more supportive of our own regional companies in America.

I wish they would bring back San Francisco Ballet, last at OCPAC in November 2008. They brought a rich repertory that was perhaps a little too contemporary for the OCPAC audience (Fusion/Possokhov, Within the Golden Hour/Wheeldon, Four Ts, Fifth Season/Tomasson, Joyride/Morris, Doule Eil/Elo). I went to the Four Ts program and it seemed sold out and enthusiastic. But if the problem was the rep, SFB has plenty of old warhorses they could haul down.

I somehow doubt that LA Ballet or San Diego Ballet could fill that big opera house. ABT has made several visits, but not since fall 2008, as I remember. Perhaps one problem is finding underwriters to make up the difference from ticket sales, which apparently is very substantial (40-60%?).

ABT, until this season, has performed annually at OCPAC - this has occurred for at least the last decade. They were here last year with Giselle, and the year before with a mixed bill that OCPAC helped fund (that godawful Tharp ballet Rabbit & Rogue) - they even filmed The Dream here for DVD release. I agree that the association of Ardani and OCPAC is truly ruining what used to be one of the better places without a resident company to see a variety of national/world class foreign companies in America (aside from the Kennedy Center). It's even worse that a place that used to book The Royal and POB is shilling Tour de Force as the major highlight of their season.

Yikes! Are we sure Vincent Cassel isn't the villain of the movie? He's scarier than either of the two girls.

If it's an American-made movie, I'm pretty sure Vincent Cassel is ALWAYS the villain.

Well the first trailer is here.

It's...uh, interesting.

Wow, Anne Milewski left? She was a member of the corps for almost 15 yrs now, gotta be tough to lose one of the backbones.

I saw Kent last year doing Giselle at her first full length back from maternity leave. I imagine she has more chemistry with Marcelo Gomes (from what I've read) than Carreno, who I saw her with. She's not a personal favorite of mine, but she certainly wasn't a bad Giselle and I think she would be excellent with Gomes who she has a real rapport with. Like others said, she has certainly thought a lot about the role and that comes across with very small touches.

According to Wikipedia, ABT's Sarah Lane was Portman's dance double for "Black Swan". Interesting choice...

From what I've seen of Lane's dancing, I imagined her as a potential Giselle or Lise rather than Odette/Odile.

I'm excited to see the film. And now I understand why I glimpsed Vincent Cassel near Lincoln Center a few times

Maria Riccetto was also cast as the double for Mila Kunis. Based purely on body type, not sure how great of a match it is. Maria is much more filled out muscle-wise compared to Kunis who is very very thin. Exciting opportunity for both Lane and Riccetto though!

edit: Whoops! Did not see Vipa's comment before I posted. Sorry

I was on stage for all of the rose adagios, and Part's were by far the weakest. She kept her eyes dropped the whole time and once or twice lost her balance completely and grabbed the hand of her partner very rapidly. Apparently, the audience did not see this.

I think they did (I certainly did)...I could feel the audience tense up during the first balance section and that's when she pulled off that long balance and everyone around me did a big exhale. One guy seated behind me actually said, "Now that's how you finish!" However, she didn't fall off pointe at any part and I've seen many other dancers do the same thing. I did think the rest of the adage was well done, but again Veronika is one of my favorite dancers and I enjoy her style.

I think it's pretty clear she and Stearns are not well suited for each other, but for whatever reason ABT changed the casting for Gomes to go back to NYC to do the Fire Island benefit, and I assume Hallberg to go to Jacob's Pillow leaving her without any other option for partner.

Saw the Part/Stearns/Wiles cast on Sunday. Veronika was wonderful, the Vision scene was probably the best I've seen. She did seem to be have problem with her jumps, it seemed like something was bothering her and she didn't want to risk anything by taking a landing badly. She won the entire audience over during the first section of balances in the Rose Adagio...it looked like she was a little shaky and then on the last attitude she stretched out into a balance that lasted forever with a giant grin on her face. Her Act I variation was beautiful, also.

I continue to wonder about Michele Wiles. Technically she's obviously great and when I saw her in Etudes two years ago she burned up the stage, but she is so uninteresting--she barely looked at the audience- and was upstaged personality wise by most of the other fairies/female soloists (Copeland, Kajiya, Underwood, Boone, and especially Maria Ricetto as Princess Florine-she just keeps getting better and better). Hee Seo was completely wasted in this performance as a Lilac Fairy Attendant- when does that Soloist contract kick in?

Stearns was fine, he danced well with the other men in the hunt scene. Completely botched the fish dives, though - he used both arms to turn and dip Veronika, and even with doing that couldn't release his back arm to showcase the position during the swell of music. Just looked awful. I don't know if he had to do this with other dancers or if Veronika is just too tall for him, but it would have been better to just do the pirouette and dip combo that Russian companies do.

LA Times has a review of opening night.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/07/dance-review-american-ballet-theatres-sleeping-beauty-at-the-music-center.html

Yikes. Not surprised. Though this production has been seen in SoCal at least twice before, we get that it's not ideal, it's been talked about in reviews ad nauseum - talk about it for a paragraph and move on. This whole "the dancers are clearly dancing not at their best because they hate the production" thing is really weird angle to take a review.

Regarding the pictures in the article: Can't they pick pictures where people are not coming down out of a jump (Gillian) or half the line of fairies is coming off pointe? If these were the best of the bunch, I guess I understand, but if you photograph dance you have to know how much these suck.

Wiles also is a very stiff dancer in the upper back and that would not aid in her portrayal of Juliet (I've never thought of her being much of an actor as well, though admittedly I have seen her dance only a couple times). Veronika might at least be able to act enough to overcome her body type (could also be aided by a VERY tall cast in supporting roles), but like someone else said the partnering would be extremely difficult unless they brought Roberto Bolle, the human forklift, in to dance with her.

More complete casting from the Dorothy Chandler site:

July 15 Gillian Murphy/Marcelo Gomes/Michele Wiles/Nancy Raffa

July 16 Paloma Herrera/David Hallberg/Maria Riccetto/Nancy Raffa

July 17M Irina Dvorovenko/Maxim Beloserkovsky/Stella Abrera/Maria Bystrova

July 17E Xiomara Reyes/Herman Cornejo/Maria Riccetto/Nancy Raffa

July 18 Veronika Part/Cory Stearns/Michele Wiles/Maria Bystrova

An email from ABT today also stated Simkin is on for Bluebird opening night.

The Sat mat is looking awfully tempting to see Stella!

It seemed like Putrov always had problems keeping a partner. I thought that might have something to do with it, especially since the Royal always seems more couple-centric than other companies. With Roberta Marquez being basically switched to Steven McRae, that seemed to leave Sarah Lamb left to dance with him and all the dates they were scheduled for at the end of the season were canceled. It's odd.

Gomes replaces Carreño on the 15th, and Stearns will partner Part on the 18th. *sigh*

What luck. I've been dying to see Gomes and Part together.

I agree about Tamm and Hammoudi, from what I've seen of both of them. I'd throw Stella Abrera and Maria Ricetto in for Juliet.

I read awhile ago Sarah Lane had used some grant money to get coaching from Alessandra Ferri for Juliet...probably wouldn't turn out that bad with Ferri guiding you.

Vishneva has made it pretty clear on numerous occasions she adores Marcelo, I doubt she would ask to dance with anyone else for this. I don't believe she has partnered with Herman before. She might be just at the limit of height to dance with him, but she is a bit wild onstage I don't think Herman would be able to dance with her in something as partnering intensive as R&J.

I hope Marcelo makes it to Sleeping Beauty in LA next week...with Veronika out last week, I am starting to think my little dream cast might not arrive all in one piece.

edit: Now might be a great time for Kevin to start letting some additional covers for Romeo line up. For years, I would assume it's a part that was pretty much impossible to get unless you were a principal but with half of the male principals taking Romeo out of their rep, you need more than one guy (Stearns) as a fill in. Regardless of this in Vishneva's case, though, I'm sure Marcelo would always have been the person to step in to dance with her.

Onegin coming back seems like a decent possibility as Kevin McKenzie probably wants to give Julie Kent some good vehicles at this point in her career. However, with Lady of the Camillas back next year it may go into the rotation the year after.

Is there confirmation that Camellias is coming back next year? I had not heard that before. Also, I'm sure that Duo Concertante is designed to to give Kent work. This has become a go-to ballet for aging dancers. It's also cheap, since the costumes are practice leotards.

D Vishneva had mentioned it in her website.

Yep. She's usually fairly reliable with what she posts.

So far,a new Nutcracker and ABT premieres of Bright Stream and Duo Concertante has been announced. What is in your wish list? I'll start w/ A Month in the Country and revivals of La Fille Mal Gardee and Onegin.

Onegin coming back seems like a decent possibility as Kevin McKenzie probably wants to give Julie Kent some good vehicles at this point in her career. However, with Lady of the Camillas back next year it may go into the rotation the year after.

Well since Irina and Max are married it could be a personal reason they needed to pull out, rather than an injury. Also Veronika and David have danced SL before together, probably a few years ago-someone else probably knows the date. In this instance they could be the only two that were available as covers, and if you look at the schedule Veronika isn't scheduled to dance again until next Sat (whereas Gillian Murphy probably the only other dancer who frequently partners Max is on several times in different ballets next week) so she might have more time to move her rehearsal schedule around to accommodate an extra show. Also Veronika and David might not dance a lot on stage together but it's possible they rehearse together frequently for many ballets when other partners are unavailable, due to their heights

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.

It seems doubtful to me that they had enough time to arrange the deadline and print schedule with the amount of lead time the ABT gave about the dancer change. Opening night reviews are published on Tuesdays for ABT, moving this weeks to Wednesday throws it all off. They didn't even post the Gomes/Stearns swap on their website as an official release like they usually do. It just seems odd. I mean last week they had two full reviews of SB, one on Tuesday of opening night with Gillian Murphy and one on Sunday on Osipova/Cojocaru and at this point seeing Vishneva dance with ABT is not an "event" the same way it is for either woman guesting with SB.

Alina Cojocaru has said in interviews that her career was nearly ended by a series of horrible injuries. She had a stress fracture in her foot that never really healed, then developed bunions so severe that I believe she has special shoes designed for her by Gaynor Minden. She also suffered a neck injury. The fact that she's still dancing so beautifully (and the fact that she still takes risks) is a miracle. When I saw her up close she was wearing orthopedic shoes, and I only recognize them because my friend who also has a severe foot injury wears the same type of shoes. Let's cut her some slack.

Yes it's not just her toe boxes that look like that...that's what her feet look like inside too! It may not be the most picture perfect thing, but why would anyone wish more discomfort and damage to her by wishing her to wear smaller boxes. She would still have to cut the sides of a more tapered box to make room for her bunions and her feet would almost certainly rapidly deteriorate.

Having said that, however, the programs touring companies bring to both LA and OCPAC seem to reflect their assumption that we wouldn't appreciate sophisticated programming, so they play it safe...too safe, as with all those Giselles. (Maryinsky brought a week of Giselle's too, in fall 2008).

I wouldn't say this is limited to only our area though, companies try to play it safe when they tour and the audience suffers. Even London gets stuck with this - last year every touring company brought their own Swan Lake there, even when the Royal had a run of like 25 SLs during their season. I mean that is dismal, and London IS a big dance city.