Susan Jaffe named artistic director of ABT

[FauxPas]

5 hours ago, matilda said:

Last run of Corsaire (2019) they recruited Brooklyn Mack for Conrad and Simkin for Ali. Bayadere was scheduled for the cancelled 2020 season. From what I remember, Kimin Kim and Olga Smirnova were supposed to appear as guests. Boylston and Seo got Nikiyas (of course), maybe Teuscher too. I think Murphy, Trenary, and Hurlin got Gamzattis. Bell was supposed to debut Solor. I don't remember the rest. 

There are enough qualified principal women for both of those ballets (Shevchenko, Brandt, and Hurlin would be my top picks) but they would probably have to get some guest men from elsewhere to fill a whole week. Stearns and Whiteside can't be relied on for those kinds of ballets at this point in their careers, and they were never ideal for them anyway. Not that Corsaire of Bayadere will come back soon.

Le Corsaire was the ballet where I "discovered" Shevchenko. She blew me away. I immediately bought a ticket to her Swan Lake afterwards and wasn't disappointed. 

Another loss for the company was Jeffrey Cirio. He was wonderful in the ENB Giselle when it came to Brooklyn last summer. 

The last full run of Corsaire in 2019 also saw the debut of POB étoile Matthias Heymann as Conrad as guest artist.  The days of the "Dream Team" are long gone.  Kimin Kim would be a wonderful guest artist in "Corsaire" and has guested in "Bayadere" as has Vladimir Shklyarov.  Now that the iron curtain is back up around Russia and Russian artists, guest artists from the Mariinsky and Bolshoi are verboten.  Olga Smirnova though can come back any time and I hope will.

Edited May 24, 2023 by FauxPas
Typos

[abatt]

1 hour ago, angelica said:

Since Shevchenko's promotion to Principal, I have thought of her as a world-class ballerina, but unless she dances more in major roles, I'm afraid she's going to be left behind. Both Bayadere and Corsaire have the kind of roles that keep a dancer in performance shape. As someone said above, she was kept too long in soloist purgatory. Please, do whatever it takes to keep those ballets in the repertory and give Shevchenko two performances of each. The more she dances, the better she'll get.

With her Giselle performances for National Ballet of Ukraine, and personal training from Ratmansky, she now has substantial experience in Giselle. Good for her.

[abatt]

23 minutes ago, FauxPas said:

The last full run of Corsaire in 2019 also saw the debut of POB étoile Matthias Heymann as Conrad as guest artist.  The days of the "Dream Team" are long gone.  Kimin Kim would be a wonderful guest artist in "Corsaire" and has guested in "Bayadere" as has Vladimir Shklyarov.  Now that the iron curtain is back up around Russia and Russian artists, guest artists from the Mariinsky and Bolshoi are verboten.  Olga Smirnova could come back any time and I hope will though.

I don't recall that Smirnova actually appeared with ABT.  She was scheduled, but I recall that she may have been injured.  In fact, since she was injured, Chudin did not appear as scheduled at ABT because they were a "package deal".

Kimin Kim is still dancing with the Mariinsky, I believe.  He is one of the few non-Russian artists who continues to perform  with the company.  Is that correct

[volcanohunter]

Smirnova appeared with ABT in La Bayadère in 2014 opposite Vadim Muntagirov, but her next scheduled appearance was canceled because of injury.

https://bachtrack.com/review-abt-la-bayadere-nyc-may-2014 

[volcanohunter]

2 hours ago, abatt said:

Kimin Kim is still dancing with the Mariinsky, I believe.  He is one of the few non-Russian artists who continues to perform  with the company.  Is that correct

Partly that depends on how you define foreign. Skorik was born in Ukraine, Askerov comes from Azerbaijan and Ivanchenko was born in Turkmenistan. May Nagahisa is from Japan, Even Capitaine is a French dancer who before this season had been working in Belarus, Camilla Mazzi is Italian, Bíborka Lendvai is from Hungary. There are a handful in the corps, but on balance not many.