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All Balanchine: Nov 1-2, 7-10, with Streaming Nov 14-18


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I thought I'd posted this already, but I can't find an open thread.  From the press release:

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SQUARE DANCE ● PRODIGAL SON ● STRAVINSKY VIOLIN CONCERTO

 

Seven Performances Only: November 1 – 10, 2024

Friday, November 1 at 7:30 PM

Saturday, November 2 at 2:00 and 7:30 PM

Thursday – Saturday, November 7 – 9 at 7:30 PM

Sunday, November 10 at 1:00 PM

 

Marion Oliver McCaw Hall

321 Mercer Street at Seattle Center

Seattle, Washington 98109

 

Streaming Digitally November 14 – 18

SEATTLE, WA – Pacific Northwest Ballet continues its 2024-25 season with ALL BALANCHINE, a trio of ballets highlighting the range and creativity that “Mr. B” brought to all of his work, and how the music of Vivaldi, Corelli, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky inspired and influenced his iconic choreography. The program covers a blend of American folk dance (Square Dance), dramatic parable (Prodigal Son), and ballet blockbuster (Stravinsky Violin Concerto.) ALL BALANCHINE runs for seven performances only, November 1 through 10 at Seattle Center’s Marion Oliver McCaw Hall. Tickets start at just $38. (The program will also stream digitally November 14 – 18: Digital access is available by subscription only: See TICKET INFORMATION, below, for more details.) For tickets and additional information, contact the PNB Box Office at 206.441.2424, in person at 301 Mercer Street, or online 24/7 at PNB.org.

The program line-up includes [follow hyperlinks for additional info]:

Square Dance

Music: Antonio Vivaldi and Arcangelo Corelli

Choreography: George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust

Staging: Peter Boal

Lighting Design: Randall G. Chiarelli

Running Time: 25 minutes

Premiere: November 21, 1957, New York City Ballet; revised May 20, 1976

PNB Premiere: March 5, 1981; restaged September 20, 2007

PNB’s 2024 performances of Square Dance are generously supported by an anonymous donor.

 

Prodigal Son

Music: Sergei Prokofiev

Libretto: Boris Kochno

Choreography: George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust

Staging: Peter Boal

Scenic and Costume Design: Georges Rouault

Lighting Design: Randall G. Chiarelli

Running Time: 41 minutes

Premiere: May 21, 1929, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes

PNB Premiere: April 19, 1984

 

Stravinsky Violin Concerto

Music: Igor Stravinsky

Choreography: George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust

Staging: Colleen Neary

Lighting Design: Randall G. Chiarelli

Running Time: 25 minutes

Premiere: January 22, 1941, New York City Ballet

PNB Premiere: March 5, 1986

 

SPECIAL EVENTS

 

PNB CONVERSATIONS & DRESS REHEARSAL

Thursday, October 31, 5:30 pm

Nesholm Family Lecture Hall at McCaw Hall

Danced by the likes of Edward Villella, Mikhael Baryshnikov, and PNB’s own Artistic Director Peter Boal, the titular role of Prodigal Son pushes dancers physically and emotionally. Join Peter Boal, in conversation with the dancers performing the Prodigal Son in this rep.  PNB Conversations offer in-depth interviews with artists involved in putting our repertory on stage. Attend the Conversations event only or stay for the dress rehearsal of ALL BALANCHINE. Tickets (suggested donation of $25) are available through the PNB Box Office.

 

BALLET TALK

Nesholm Family Lecture Hall at McCaw Hall

Join dance historian Doug Fullington for a 30-minute introduction to each performance, including discussions of choreography, music, history, design, and the process of bringing ballet to the stage. One hour before performances. FREE for ticketholders.

 

MEET THE ARTIST

Nesholm Family Lecture Hall at McCaw Hall

Skip the post-show traffic and enjoy a Q&A with Artistic Director Peter Boal and PNB dancers, immediately following each performance. FREE for ticketholders.

 

TICKET INFORMATION

 

Tickets to PNB’s live and/or digital performances may be purchased through the PNB Box Office:

  • Phone - 206.441.2424
  • In Person - 301 Mercer Street at Seattle Center
  • Online 24/7 - PNB.org

 

Subject to availability, tickets are also available 90 minutes prior to each performance at McCaw Hall. Advance tickets through the PNB Box Office are strongly suggested for best prices and greatest availability.

Tickets for the live performances of ALL BALANCHINE are $38 - $210. Groups of ten or more may enjoy discounts up to 20% off regular prices (not valid on lowest-priced tickets or combined with other offers): Visit PNB.org/season/group-sales for more info.

PNB’s digital presentation of ALL BALANCHINE (November 14 - 18) is available by subscription only, $300. (Some digital season programming may vary from the onstage performances.) For more information, click here.

For information about special ticket offers including group discounts, The Pointe, Pay-What-You-Can, rush tickets, Beer and Ballet night, TeenTix, and more, visit PNB.org/offers.

Caveat Emptor: Like many performing arts, PNB struggles with ticket resellers. At their most mundane, third-party sites snap up less expensive tickets and sell them for a profit. At their most dastardly, they sometimes sell invalid tickets. To enjoy the ballet at the best prices available, always purchase tickets directly from PNB. Suspected ticket scams should be reported to the Better Business Bureau.

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Thanks Helene. I follow PNB as well as I can from the East Coast. It's a company I wish I could see more of (Carrie Imler will always be on my list of favorite dancers I've never seen!) I noted that Ashton Edwards has a principal role in Violin Concerto. Is Edwards on soloist/principal track?

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I've been wrong so often about who is one what track, you'd need to take my opinion with a salt mine.

Edwards has been given a lot of casting opportunities, in the gamut of roles, from general corps, like swans in Swan Lake, senior corps, like in the featured couples in A Midsummer Night's dream, to demi-soloists like friends in Coppelia through to soloist and Principal roles.    My favorite so far was their Puck, which was extraordinary, both nuanced and with perfect comic timing.  It was almost like they were singing the text through their dancing.

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Looking forward to this rep. It's been a while since they performed Square Dance and Stravinsky Violin Concerto. Interesting to see 4 principal casts for Square Dance (Biasucci/Davis, Generosa/Postlewaite, Ryan/Cudihee with 2 performances each and Takahashi/Calahan for 1), also Amanda Morgan and Audrey Malek as the Siren.

Edwards has a distinctive movement quality, I'm not sure how to describe it.

For potential future soloist/principal promotions I tend to look at the Nutcracker casting, but it's not completely reliable. 🤷‍♂️

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1 hour ago, Grace8 said:

Looking forward to this rep. It's been a while since they performed Square Dance and Stravinsky Violin Concerto. Interesting to see 4 principal casts for Square Dance (Biasucci/Davis, Generosa/Postlewaite, Ryan/Cudihee with 2 performances each and Takahashi/Calahan for 1), also Amanda Morgan and Audrey Malek as the Siren.

Edwards has a distinctive movement quality, I'm not sure how to describe it.

For potential future soloist/principal promotions I tend to look at the Nutcracker casting, but it's not completely reliable. 🤷‍♂️

It's pretty amazing to have 4 principal casts for Square Dance. I look forward to reviews.

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I went to the dress rehearsal tonight.  Some of it was marked; some of it was full out.  It was Opening Night named casting.

Square Dance was on the rougher side.  To my ears, the orchestra was a bit all over the place, and I think that threw off the corps.  Wonderful playing in Stravinsky Violin Concerto and most of the Prokofiev.  There weren't programs, and I assume Michael Jinsoo Lim was the soloist in the Stravinsky.  (So good...)

Just a few notes:

As they say on TV, run-- don't walk -- to see Lucien Postlewaite as Prodigal Son.  He and Elle Macy (Siren) looked great together.  The whole performance had so much energy.  The family scenes had a lot of pathos, without scoldy from the sisters.

Elle Macy and Christopher D'Ariano killed it in Stravinsky Violin Concerto: they danced Aria I, the roles created for Karin von Aroldingen and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux (danced by Bart Cook in the video.)  D'Ariano danced as if the role was made on him.  

The four jumping men in the section to end the first part just flew!  There were a number of standouts in the corps, but, sadly, I couldn't make out enough faces. 

 

 

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All Square Dance needed was 24 hours to set, because tonight the same cast as the dress was fantastic, and it felt like a community.  The question of the night was which prime is this for Leta Biasucci?  I can't remember when she wasn't in her prime.

It not just Lucien Postlewaite's dancing that makes his Prodigal, but the completeness and truth of his moment-to-moment characterization.  The intensity of the pas de deux with Elle Macy was off the charts.

Every second of Stravinsky Violin Concerto was a pleasure.  The ensemble brought such energy, Christopher D'Ariano and Macy were again all kinds of awesome, and Angelica Generosa and Dylan Wald danced so beautifully, they made me not hate Aria II, which after 40+ years of watching this ballet is a big one for me.  (It was there at the dress rehearsal, too, but I had to see it again to be sure I wasn't hallucinating.)  And it was Michael Jinsoo Lim as the brilliant violin soloist.

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The Saturday matinee featured new casts, not only in Principal casting, but in about half of the corps roles:  all of the pointe roles and four of the slipper roles in Square Dance, a couple of Drinking Companions in Prodigal Son, five of eight of the pointe roles and a couple of the slipper roles in Stravinsky Violin Concerto.  There were a handful of "*"'s, ie, Professional Division students in the slipper roles, but at least one was listed as joining PNB in last year's graduation program, but apprentice contracts start with the next program, Nutcracker.  You wouldn't have known they weren't in the company from watching.

Besides filling up the Balanchine cup, these performances are bring more "must see casts."  And for people who can't or don't want to see more than one performance, it's a "can't go wrong" no matter when you show up rep.  There are four more performances this Thursday-Saturday evenings and a Sunday matinee, and Thursday is pay-what-you-can admission.

It would have been unusual not to compare Lucien Postlewaite's interpretation of Prodigal Son to Kuu Sakuraigi's debut -- they are at opposite ends of their careers and experience with being the central character -- but Sakuragi did something very clearly that I'd never seen before: he was trying to decide *if*, not when to leave: should he stay in the hearth of the family, or should he leave and seek out Whatever Was Out There.  He wasn't having an existential crisis.  It helped that Luther DeMyer's Father was a gentler sort, and didn't strong-arm his son into physical submission in the opening scene.

That made home the diametric opposite of Out There, because Audrey Malek's Siren was also something I'd never seen before:  pure domination within nuances.  The Prodigal had inadvertently crossed into the Queen's turf, and it was a different civilization with her in charge.  It wasn't a seduction: it was an order, however erotic.  (Whatever the interpretation, the Prodigal Son goes from one source of control to another.)  Malek's performance was masterful and astonishing.

In Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Amanda Morgan also gave an individual performance with DeMyer with thoughtful and unusual phrasing in Aria I.  Clara Ruf Maldonado's dancing was both big in the first and last movements, and delicate and detailed in Aria II.  Which reminded me why, however beautifully danced, I've always hated Aria II.  It wasn't that Generosa lacked vulnerability, or that Maldonado didn't show inner strength, Generosa she had a better sense of self-preservation, and not so much deciding to cede control to her partner.  Maldonado's dancing was Principal-level gorgeous.

I don't think I realized how much I came to think of  Stravinsky Violin Concerto as an audition for all of the other black and white ballets Balanchine created.

Sarah Gabrielle Ryan was crisp and joyful in Square Dance.  Her partner, Mark Cudihee, is relatively young, given the two interrupted seasons and shuffling of the programs.  Using a sportsball metaphor, First Star of the Afternoon -- and it was a GREAT afternoon -- goes to Cuddihee for his solo in Square Dance: his movement never stopped, but continued through his hands and fingers to the end of one phrase to the next.  It's a good thing that breathing is, by default, automatic, because I don't remember breathing for a moment during it.  :bow:.

Based on the last two days, casting I need to see yesterday:

1.  Audrey Malek's Myrth,  The Queen in Robbins' "The Cage," and Choleric in 4T's.

2. Amanda Morgan and Luther DeMyer in "Agon" pas de deux

3. Christopher D'Ariano in Phegmatic *and* Melancholic

4. Clara Ruf Maldonado in "Romeo et Juliette."  And "Liebeslieder Walzer".

And, and, and.

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