SFB 2015 Season Accouncement

[PeggyR]

2015 season has been announced. Link to the brochure.

All kinds of juicy stuff. I really think they should just program Serenade every season; can’t get enough of that one. Also looking forward to the Forsythe and van Manen, plus Dances at a Gathering, which I’ve never seen.

Since Mathilde Froustey has expressed her love of dancing Kitri, maybe we can hope she’ll still be here for Don Q.

Do whatever you need to do to see Sarah Van Patten in R&J: she owns Juliet.

Note Program 3, a new work by Myles Thatcher, member of the SFB corp de ballet. He has created a couple of well-regarded ballets for the school performances; a premiere for the main company is a big step.

Program 1:

Serenade/Balanchine

Raku/Possokhov

Lambarena/Caniparoli

Program 2:

Giselle

Program 3:

The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude/Forsythe

Variations for Two Couples/ van Manen

World Premiere/Thatcher

Kingdom of the Shades/Makarova staging

Program 4:

Dances at a Gathering/Robbins

Work premiered in 2014/Scarlett

Program 5:

Don Quixote/Tomasson/Possokhov

Program 6:

Continuum/Wheeldon

World Premiere/Possokhov

Piano Concerto #1 (from the triple bill)/Ratmansky

Program 7:

Caprice/Tomasson

Pas de deux from Concerto/MacMillan

Les Lutins/Kobborg

The Four Temperaments/Balanchine

Program 8:

Romeo & Juliet/Tomasson

[pherank]

I would also like to see Dances at a Gathering, though I'm not sure if the Scarlett is necessarily a great paring for that program. Program 1 will certainly be 'ecelectic'. Program 7 could be interesting as well - depending on whether Tomasson's Caprice proves to be a success this season. And hopefully he will work to improve any weak points by next year. ;)

Interesting that they are repeating Giselle, again. Here’s where I’d rather see an unusual revival (I mentioned Ashton’s Illuminations before, or Picnic at Tintagel). A bit of American ballet history. Or, a recreation of a Diaghilev Ballet Russes work would be very fun, or less-seen Balanchine (Orpheus, Bacchus and Ariadne, Le Chant du Rossignol) - with costumes that were true to their source. Another Balanchine idea would be to present 4 or 5 short works in one program: “Pas De Dix”, “A La Francaix”, Pas de Trois, "Scherzo á la Russe". But scattering them throughout the season would be a good strategy in general. I guess I mentioned before that having only a single Balanchine/Robbins program was not as desirable, to me, as mixing these ballets into the season's offerings. Maybe Tomasson heard me - ha! - since he's bringing back The 4 T's near the end of the season.

[pherank]

Now I understand: "celebrating Helgi Tomasson’s 30th Anniversary as artistic director. The season includes three of Tomasson’s greatest story ballets: Romeo & Juliet, Don Quixote, and Giselle"

[abatt]

The way the quote reads it makes it seem like Tomasson created these three ballets from scratch. Haven't seen his "versions" of R&J, Don Q and Giselle, but I assume they are substantially similar to the standard versions.

[Josette]

Tomasson's R&J is his own choreography and has unique elements. (I liked the expanded death scene for Mercutio when you have a charismatic, poignant artist like Gennadi Nedvegin or Pascal Molat in the role.) Actually, I'm not sure what you mean by a "standard version" for Romeo and Juliet - Lavrovsky's? Ashton's? MacMillan's? Rudi van Dantzig's? Nureyev's? Etc.'s? Tomasson's Giselle has a pas de deux added for Giselle and Albrecht in the first act, but is otherwise substantially the "standard version," as is his Don Quixote.

As for next season, I am looking forward to finally seeing The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude on stage. I love that title.

[sandik]

Chiming in about Romeo and Juliet -- the Dance Critics Association held a special topics conference about R&J in San Francisco in 1994 (in conjunction with the premiere of Tomasson's production for SFB) and at the time there were 20+ ballets that were based on the play -- there are even more now.

[cubanmiamiboy]

That's why I like the "staging by..after Petipa's choreography" formula used by some companies.

[abatt]

Yes, that's exactly what I was getting at. Often you see in the Petipa ballets that the choreography is by Artisitic Director X "after Petipa", and many elements are identical to the traditional Petipa choregraphy with Artistic Director X making a few of his own tweaks to gain credit and an additional royaltychoreographer paycheck.

[PeggyR]

Tomasson's Giselle has a pas de deux added for Giselle and Albrecht in the first act, but is otherwise substantially the "standard version," as is his Don Quixote.

In addition:

In Giselle the Peasant pas de deux is a Peasant pas de cinq (two men, three women) with an added variation for the female soloist. The music, according to the extremely small print in the program: "Peasant Pas de Cinq: traditional interpolation of music by Freidrich Burgmuller, Ladies (sic) variation: "Shepherd's Return" from 18 Etudes de Genre for piano solo, orchestrated by Emil de Cou...". I'm guessing this is the female soloist variation, because I don't remember the music from any of my DVDs of Giselle. But if it's 'traditional', then it must be there. Can anyone clarify?

In Don Q, there's an added pas de deux for Kitri/Basil in the gypsy scene (if memory serves; please correct if I'm wrong). I'm no musician, so don't know rhythms, but I think it's a tango. Don't know about the music, but it's an enjoyable little extra.

[Eshana]

I think it'd be interesting to see Yuan Yuan Tan as Kitri simply because she's such an adagio dancer that I wonder how'd she fare in an allegro role. It's also a bit difficult picturing her being fiery or coquettish; she seems too stately for that. I remember when SFB did Coppelia a few seasons back and wasn't surprised when she wasn't cast in it as she seemed ill-suited for the ballet.

[pherank]

I think it'd be interesting to see Yuan Yuan Tan as Kitri simply because she's such an adagio dancer that I wonder how'd she fare in an allegro role. It's also a bit difficult picturing her being fiery or coquettish; she seems too stately for that. I remember when SFB did Coppelia a few seasons back and wasn't surprised when she wasn't cast in it as she seemed ill-suited for the ballet.

Your comment reminded me of something I wrote earlier about one of the Program 3 performances:

What made it all worthwhile for me was seeing Yuan Yuan Tan dance the Firebird role, finally. And she was simply great. The SFB preview video of Possokhov’s Firebird, with Tan, is pretty tame looking compared to what was presented Friday night. Her performance added much needed depth and detail to the part - she gets those little things right, and she struck me as more “lively” and even “sassy” (which is a word I never thought I would use for Tan) than even Van Patten in her Tuesday night performance. At curtain call, apparently many other people were equally impressed, because there was this fantastic roar from the crowd (especially in the upper tiers) when Tan came running out - it sounded like a soccer match. I haven’t experienced that reaction much at the War Memorial.

[pherank]

SFB has just announced that they are going to instate the entire Ratmansky Shostakovich Trilogy during the 2015 Season:

After garnering ecstatic critical and audience acclaim in 2014, SF Ballet is pleased to announce that Shostakovich Trilogy will return to the Opera House stage in its entirety in 2015!

http://clicks.skem1.com/preview/?c=11312&g=10162&p=fce8fec0c94b7b387c8285cb68c599c0&utm_source=mail2&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=15SubscriberProgramChangeAnnouncementMKTNG

[sandik]

Excellent news -- am hoping to have better travel luck with this!

[pherank]

Excellent news -- am hoping to have better travel luck with this!

And the company will be more 'practiced' by that point: the principals and soloists will have a better understanding of their parts. Should be good.

[Josette]

This is wonderful news!

[PeggyR]

Best news in a long time. I wonder what (if anything) will be bumped to accommodate the Trilogy.

Now to start saving the pennies for multiple performances.

[pherank]

Best news in a long time. I wonder what (if anything) will be bumped to accommodate the Trilogy.

Now to start saving the pennies for multiple performances.

They may not bump anything - just add a 9th program that could be shorter in length, or overlap with another program. Personally I like it when the programs overlap because it gives me a better chance to see 2 programs.

How about placing a short program between 4 and 5 and overlapping with 4?

[PeggyR]

Best news in a long time. I wonder what (if anything) will be bumped to accommodate the Trilogy.

Now to start saving the pennies for multiple performances.

They may not bump anything - just add a 9th program that could be shorter in length, or overlap with another program. Personally I like it when the programs overlap because it gives me a better chance to see 2 programs.

How about placing a short program between 4 and 5 and overlapping with 4?

Not sure how well that would work: subscribers have already ordered/paid for an 8-program season. If a couple of performances are added outside the subscription series, a lot of subscribers will be left out (and not happy). If a whole program is added to the subscription, they will have to go back to subscribers for more money. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

[PeggyR]

Here's the new lineup for the 2015 season. The Wheeldon, Kobborg and MacMillan are out completely for 2015.

Program 1:

Serenade/Balanchine

Raku/Possokhov

Lambarena/Caniparoli

Program 2:

Giselle

Program 3:

The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude/Forsythe

Variations for Two Couples/ van Manen

World Premiere/Thatcher

Kingdom of the Shades/Makarova staging

Program 4:

Dances at a Gathering/Robbins

Hummingbird/Scarlett

Program 5:

Don Quixote/Tomasson/Possokhov

Program 6:

Continuum/Wheeldon

MOVED TO PROGRAM 7: World Premiere/Possokhov

Piano Concerto #1 (from the triple bill)/Ratmansky

ADDED: Shostakovich Trilogy/Ratmansky

Program 7:

Caprice/Tomasson

Possokhov World Premiere

Pas de deux from Concerto/MacMillan

Les Lutins/Kobborg

The Four Temperaments/Balanchine

Program 8:

Romeo & Juliet/Tomasson

[kbarber]

shame about the Concerto pas de deux. it's very beautiful

[pherank]

A shame that the MacMillan and Kobborg are being removed - I thought that would be an interesting program. And they did The 4 T's recently (2012?), so it would be nice to see something more rare from Balanchine's repetoire.

[sandik]

We don't get to see much MacMillan in the US, except the big blockbusters like Manon and R&J -- I'm sorry that the shorter works don't get as much attention.

[Josette]

They did MacMillan's Winter Dreams quite well a few seasons back, and then it disappeared after one season.

[jsmu]

That was a lovely production, wasn't it, Josette? And one of MacMillan's best ballets. Expensive, what with the set, the costumes, the onstage musicians playing exotic instruments, but still....

[Josette]

jsmu- I saw both " Winter Dreams" casts and enjoyed seeing how beautifully the dancers handled their roles. It was the first time I saw Vito Mazzeo.