Drew Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 (edited) Atlanta Ballet has announced plans for the 2024-25 season. For me the two most compelling programs are also, happily, two programs that will be accompanied by the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra. The best of the news is that the company will be dancing the Balanchine/Danilova Coppelia in March. (On the announcement it says the choreography is by Balanchine, but I assume that this is the Balanchine/Danilova version NYCB dances which they also call "after Petipa" on their website.) Coppelia is one of my favorite ballets and it has one of my favorite ballet scores. I LOVE this production and, being as 'objective' as I can, I will say, too, that Coppelia is an ideal choice for the company and its school. (I should say that Atlanta Ballet has danced a version of Coppelia before--according to the season announcement that was over 20 years ago. I never saw it.) Their February program is the other program that will have a live orchestra: it will offer the world premier of a new version of the Rite of Spring choreographed by the company's choreographer in residence, Claudia Schreier, alongside Helgi Tomasson's 7 for Eight, which the company has danced previously. I was a little bemused by the timing because their February program is often advertised as something appropriate for Valentine's day--sometimes with special Valentine's-themed offers included--and Rite of Spring is not exactly a champagne and roses kind of work. However....Saint Valentine was violently martyred, so maybe it fits after all.😉. The season will also see world premiers by Kyon Ross and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. Both choreographers the company has danced before. Notably, the Lopez Ochoa premier comes in the wake of the company dancing her full-length Chanel Ballet, a "world premier" co-produced with other companies and actually first danced by Hong Kong Ballet. I'm pleased to see this kind of continuing collaboration with such a prominent choreographer. The season will also see a return of Liam Scarlett's Catch. The latter was created for Atlanta Ballet in 2019--according to the publicity at the time, it was created in something of a rush and when I saw the ballet the weekend it premiered that is exactly what it looked like. I'm hoping that the revival allows for enough rehearsal that one can better determine what the ballet actually has to offer--and how (or whether) it fills out Scarlett's oeuvre. For me, though,next season's headline is Coppelia...and the two main sub-headlines are the premiers by Schreier and Lopez Ochoa. Edited March 7 by Drew Link to comment
Drew Posted March 7 Author Share Posted March 7 (edited) A news feature in ArtsAtl that I had missed mentions that the Balanchine/Danilova Coppelia next season in Atlanta will use Pacific Northwest Ballet's production--ie not the Ter Arutunian designs used by NYCB. The PNB sets and costumes are by Roberta Guido di Bagno. I looked at a bit of video of the PNB production on youtube and if the Act I and Act III costumes for Swanilda are anything to go by, then it should be a gorgeous production. I will look up what PNB threads on the production have had to say about it on this site, but in the meanwhile, here is a link to the ArtsAtlanta piece about the new season: https://www.artsatl.org/news-atlanta-ballets-2024-25-season-to-include-coppelia-three-world-premieres/?fbclid=IwAR0Jd8uuAAL9Xi6LWJ6cb0kF6y8D_bmTSr1geOgh9Ov0DoOX18s6gPuRI44 Edited March 7 by Drew Link to comment
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