ABT Met Season 2023

[California]

6 minutes ago, nysusan said:

Is anyone surprised? Its insane for them to think they could sell 12 performances of a brand new ballet. Especially in a shortened 5 week season!

They're also offering $30 for anybody under 30 for much of the season. This appeared on Facebook. The code: ABT30

https://www.metopera.org/season/tickets/check-promo-page/?promo=ABT30&utm_source=meta&utm_medium=social+media&utm_campaign=MET23&fbclid=IwAR199ONWWs13GZ5rghqsXbCxUs1Bx-hCN-RmBYD0eXR1KJHzdv_-fB_Vj9w

[matilda]

All of this was pretty predictable. What were they thinking? Given that opening night is full of giveaway tickets to donors / gala attendees, it's probably actually selling worse than the other nights. Maybe three out of twelve performances are selling "well" but not even close to sold out. 

In the recent past I've attended around 8 shows per season. This year I'm only going three times because 1) Like Water for Chocolate is taking up two weeks and I'm unlikely to see it more than once and 2) pushing the season well into mid-July means cutting into when many New Yorkers tend to leave town. 

They must be praying for a glowing New York Times review (unlikely to happen if Kourlas is writing) and word of mouth after the first couple of performances. 

I'm still excited for the season but eek, this does not bode well and unfortunately follows a trend of bizarre programming judgement and bad ticket sales that started at least a couple years before the pandemic. I echo those who hope Jaffe and whoever comes in as the new ED can turn things around. Obviously money is a huge obstacle for the company right now. 

[nysusan]

48 minutes ago, California said:

They're also offering $30 for anybody under 30 for much of the season. This appeared on Facebook. The code: ABT30

https://www.metopera.org/season/tickets/check-promo-page/?promo=ABT30&utm_source=meta&utm_medium=social+media&utm_campaign=MET23&fbclid=IwAR199ONWWs13GZ5rghqsXbCxUs1Bx-hCN-RmBYD0eXR1KJHzdv_-fB_Vj9w

This is not new, they've been doing the 30/30 promotion for at lest the last 10 years, probably longer.

[abatt]

The rest of the season seems to be selling well enough.  So maybe even if LWFC is box office dud it's not a complete disaster economically for them.  

[Rock]

From going thru the still available tickets for each performance has anyone been able to formulate an estimate of how well the Summer Season is selling in general?

[abatt]

A friend with a lot of spare time looks at this issue regularly.  All of the Swan Lakes are selling very well (shocking!) and the Giselles and R&J's are selling well (but not at the same pace as Swan Lake).  Ticket sales for LWFC have been weak. 

 

[ba11et0mane]

saturday swan lake matinee will most likely sell out. Good for hee seo and aran bell 👍

[abatt]

Nothing against Hee Seo and Aran Bell, but the Saturday matinee of Swan Lake would sell out regardless of casting.  

[ba11et0mane]

48 minutes ago, abatt said:

Nothing against Hee Seo and Aran Bell, but the Saturday matinee of Swan Lake would sell out regardless of casting.  

hahaha i was gonna add that but i didn’t wanna sound like i had something against them 

[Helene]

They'll be the recipients of sold-out-crowd energy, so good for them.  And maybe even some kids in the audience will watching them and think that they would like to dance.

[Papagena]

22 hours ago, abatt said:

The rest of the season seems to be selling well enough.  So maybe even if LWFC is box office dud it's not a complete disaster economically for them.  

Honestly LWFC is selling better than I thought it would given that there are so many performances.

I've been to a lot of ABT shows in the past that have sold fewer tickets than a lot of the LWFC performances I'm seeing here. I think this is not that far off from how things were selling in 2018/19? Am I wrong? Have my expectations just bottomed out?  Besides the Vishneva/Osipova/Copeland showcases, spotty audiences were the norm. 

I always tell ballet skeptics about ABT rush tickets because they're almost always available (this is not even true for The Met Opera, where they are harder to get). 

Edited June 16, 2023 by Papagena

[abatt]

13 hours ago, Papagena said:

Honestly LWFC is selling better than I thought it would given that there are so many performances.

 

That appearance may be deceptive.  Nearly every performance of LWFC was offered on TDF.  So on the seating chart it may look like a ticket sale, in reality large numbers of tickets may have been supplied to discounters like TDF.

[matilda]

The New York Times just put out on an article on Like Water for Chocolate by Marina Harss. The pictures are nice. The primary point made is that the company hopes this kind of story ballet will draw in new audiences and be more "accessible" to those unfamiliar with ballet. That doesn't appear to be happening, at least not yet. 

Some quotes that give me pause:

“People are just starting to come back to the theaters,” said Susan Jaffe, the company’s new artistic director, who took over in December. “What we’re trying to do is build out our weeks in New York and continue to have as much presence as we had in the past.” ... "We are the company of the story ballet,” she added. “I think ‘Like Water for Chocolate’ is exactly everything that Ballet Theater should be producing right now.”

...Not so sure about the last part.

The production stage manager, Danielle Ventimiglia, said “Like Water” is the most technically challenging production Ballet Theater has put onstage. [...] “There are easily more lighting changes in this production than in the rest of the season’s ballets combined,” Ventimiglia said after a rehearsal. “I’m talking, sending out instructions, nonstop during the whole show.” At the Royal Opera House in London, where the theater has a computerized rig, the cues could be programmed and executed automatically, but in New York, it must all be done by hand as it was in California. Around 10 stagehands pull ropes to raise and lower the flies.

...Sounds like a hugely expensive undertaking. 

The ballet “is quite cinematic,” Wheeldon said. “The scenes are short, and there is a very clear flow of storytelling from beginning to end, and almost no pure dance moments. Dramatically, every moment of the piece informs the next.”

..."almost no pure dance moments" makes me worried that I will not like this. 

I'm seeing the Park/Camargo cast but not until the second week. Looking forward to hearing reports from earlier shows. I'm curious about how well it succeeds as a dance piece vs. pure theater. (Thinking back to all of the negative responses to "Jane Eyre" a few years ago.)

 

Edited June 17, 2023 by matilda

[abatt]

42 minutes ago, matilda said:

 

Some quotes that give me pause:

“People are just starting to come back to the theaters,” said Susan Jaffe, the company’s new artistic director, who took over in December. “

 

For me, this smacks of willful ignorance.  Based on my experience, theaters all over NYC are packed to the rafters for programs and artists that the public wants to see.  You couldn't beg, borrow or steal to get a ticket to Dudamel at the NY Philharmonic, Yuja Wang at Carnegie and Yo Yo Ma at the NY Philharmonic.  These are only a few examples that come to my mind for this season.  Stop blaming Covid, and look inward as to why attendance is weak.  

Edited June 17, 2023 by abatt

[California]

1 minute ago, abatt said:

For me, this smacks of willful ignorance.  Based on my experience, theaters all over NYC are packet to the rafters for programs and artists that the public wants to see.  You couldn't beg, borrow or steal to get a ticket to Dudamel at the NY Philharmonic, Yuja Wang at Carnegie and Yo Yo Ma at the NY Philharmonic.  These are only a few examples that come to my mind for this season.  Stop blaming Covid, and look inward as to why attendance is weak.  

I had the same reaction. Ballet Colorado and Opera Colorado have done well since reopening in fall 2021, as have the NYC performances I've been able to attend since NYCB reopened in September 2021. It was very difficult to get tickets for Hamilton and Les Mis in Denver in the past year. What audience data is Jaffe looking at?

[nanushka]

1 hour ago, matilda said:

"almost no pure dance moments" 

Sounds like a great selling point for a ballet!

[canbelto]

1 hour ago, abatt said:

For me, this smacks of willful ignorance.  Based on my experience, theaters all over NYC are packed to the rafters for programs and artists that the public wants to see.  You couldn't beg, borrow or steal to get a ticket to Dudamel at the NY Philharmonic, Yuja Wang at Carnegie and Yo Yo Ma at the NY Philharmonic.  These are only a few examples that come to my mind for this season.  Stop blaming Covid, and look inward as to why attendance is weak.  

In the dance world, just from what I saw, the Pictures + Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Gianna Reisen/Kyle Abraham programs at NYCB also sold extremely well to the point of selling out.

At BAM the Ailey program I attended also sold very well.

In KC, the Ratmansky Giselle recon was sold out.

Natalia Osipova's City Center program was sold out.

And with ABT, the fall program of Dream/Seasons also sold out.

[Helene]

There are always exceptions, and if a dancer as internationally known as Yuha Wang was dancing in NYC, I'm sure the performance in a run of others, unlike a recital or up-to-three concerto performances, would have a good chance of selling out, but how many performances of ballets, including with dancers and programs that have gotten raves here, that aren't matinees and/or Tchaikovsky classics, have been selling out with the entire theater opened, and mostly in smaller theaters than the barn that is the Met? 

I've listened to extraordinary performances of operas at the Met this season with amazing singers, and I've confirmed with friends who heard the operas live to be sure it wasn't vocally weak in the house, but great when miked, and while some, like Lohengrin, ended up selling to near sell-outs over the course of the run, and matinees are generally, if not always well sold, tickets sales in the house for Not-La-Boheme were often weak, despite the singing and/or the productions.

The norm is that little sells out, and almost all seasons of major ballet companies are subsidized by Tchaikovsky classics and the occasional suprise or anticipated hit. That doesn't mean that ABT's planning of a new ballet for an opening long run was a good tactic, but it's not like there's a magic pill for rep companies.

[matilda]

New York City Ballet's Copeland Dance Episodes, which advertised itself as "pure dance," was a huge hit with every show either sold out or close to sold out. It was a risky endeavor but surely less expensive than Like Water for Chocolate. And it paid off extraordinarily well. So clearly there's an appetite for "pure dance" beyond the most hardcore ballet fans. Honestly I think it's a little condescending to assume that most potential ballet newcomers just want stories. 

It also feels tone-deaf to dwell on how Like Water for Chocolate was "bestselling," "popular," "contemporary," etc. The book came out in 1989. The "hit" movie that inspired Wheeldon premiered in 1992. It never had the cultural staying power of something like, say, Titanic, which continues to inspire musicals, museum exhibitions, etc. 

[RUKen]

I think that when ABT performs "pure dance" ballets, the company often gets compared unfavorably to NYCB.  With story ballets that include big sets, there is not such a direct comparison.  When NY-area ballet lovers want to see a story ballet, they generally think of ABT first.

I do wish that they didn't always have to include Swan Lake, and just a few other warhorses with one new production every year during their four-week season, but I understand why they do it.

[Helene]

There was supposed to be a Broadway musical version of Like Water for Chocolate, announced in October 2020, to be produced by Tom Hulce and Ira Pittleman and directed by Michael Mayer, with Wheeldon's ballet following or launched around the same time, 

At the same time, Jackson McHenry wrote in Vulture, 

Quote

More than 30 years after the 1989 release of the original novel, the world of Like Water for Chocolate is suddenly expanding.

and goes on to cite two sequel novels planned* by Esquivel, "Tita's Diary" and "The Colors of My Past" that would form a trilogy, and the Broadway musical announced a week earlier.

*This confuses me, because "El diaria de Tita" was published in 2016, and "The Colors of My Past" had been published the week before.  

I don't see any reviews of the musical, or any clarifications about when it was supposed to launch, so the project seems to have been put on ice, if not abandoned altogether.  

It makes sense, though, to think that the musical and the ballet might have brought "Like Water for Chocolate" back to the forefront and have been mutually reinforcing in terms of publicity, articles, ticket sales, etc.

 

[canbelto]

I think the issue is also the extreme conservatism of the Met spring seasons. I've told this story before but I remember watching ABT do Duo Concertant one year and the audience around me was shocked and appalled. 

[volcanohunter]

4 hours ago, California said:

It was very difficult to get tickets for Hamilton and Les Mis in Denver in the past year. What audience data is Jaffe looking at?

 

4 hours ago, abatt said:

You couldn't beg, borrow or steal to get a ticket to Dudamel at the NY Philharmonic, Yuja Wang at Carnegie and Yo Yo Ma at the NY Philharmonic. 

NEA audience participation surveys consistently showed that musicals are about 5 times more popular than ballets in the U.S., and concerts of classical music are three times more popular than ballet (and more widely available). So I don't think comparing the forms is especially useful. Hamilton was always going to do better. (For that matter "other dance" is twice as popular as ballet.)

Opera has an even smaller audience than ballet, but it is likely to attend more often. 

As for Wheeldon, if ABT is trying appeal to crossover audiences, I would remind them that An American in Paris was set to music by George Gershwin, MJ was set to songs by Michael Jackson, and Like Water for Chocolate is set to a commissioned score by Joby Talbot.

And obviously it's easier to fill 2,500 seats (or 2,100 in the case of BAM) than 3,800. But that's a problem of ABT's own making.

Edited June 17, 2023 by volcanohunter

[WLH]

As a slightly younger person with friends who may be curious but are not necessarily ballet fans, I’ve heard them express interest in Giselle this season, for example, but no mention of LWFC.. this obviously isn’t a huge focus group, but I do wonder what “data” they’re looking at.. I’m looking forward to all of your takes on this ballet.

Edited June 17, 2023 by WLH
Relevancy

[attitudebalance]

I do wonder why, if ABT wanted a Wheeldon story ballet, they chose to take a risk on the very expensive LWFC. They could have imported Alice in Wonderland (popular with kids and families) or The Winter's Tale (Shakespeare adaptation, Wheeldon's most acclaimed/best work) - both at lower cost and both are already "known quantities" with track records of success. 

I agree with other posters re Jaffe's defeatist comments - which seem to imply a real lack of reflection when NYCB is thriving with 3 NYC seasons in a year + Nutcracker even post COVID. Of course she won't come out with public criticism of ABT, and LWFC was KM's acquisition and not her decision. I do hope there are clearer eyes behind the scenes.