Willie

I have several wonderful memories.  The two most memorable are:

Svetlana Zakharova and Friedemann Vogel in Giselle at Teatro dell' Opera di Roma.

Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev in Don Quixote at Metropolitan Opera House.

I, too, enjoyed Osipova and Acosta.  Osipova is beautiful to watch.  The way she controls her body is remarkable.  Her pointe work is wonderful to watch.  I was mesmerized by the way Osipova controlled her "dead" body as she was thrown about by Acosta.  A wonderful performance.

Cute video.

I have tickets to the 5 October matinee.

Excellent plan. One could start a gentle discussion about upcoming dancers, move into choppier waters discussing the merits of the RB 'vs' the ENB and end with a rousing rendition of 'Does the Nationality of its Dancers define a company'.

I'll attend, but I won't stand if they play God Save the Queen!  

... seated between two large gentlement afflicted with [spread-leg] syndrome ... wearing shorts ... the short kind ... exceptionally hairy thighs ... on a hot night....

Lovely.

I hate sitting next to ultra large men who hang over the arms of their chair on both sides and make me have to sit with my arms held tightly by my sides in order not to touch him all the time.  Occasionally I try wriggling in my seat and pushing against his arm, but it only removes the arm for a second and then slap its back again.  Grrrrrrr...............

It's just as true the other way around.  A petite woman puts her arms on the arm rest and a big guy (me, for example  ) sitting next to her is forced to cross his arms or place his hands on his lap as a courtesy to the woman.  This is the reason I avoid theaters with narrow seats (e.g. David H. Koch Theater in New York) and pay for a box seat, if available.  Literally, I will pay anything to avoid a battle over the arm rest.

Wow!  Tickets were going fast for R&J on 7 Dec with Osipova an Acosta.  Not much time to browse for seats.  Nevertheless, I managed to get a seat - not great, but I got a seat.

Now I need to arrange transportation..... 

One of these days, Willie... Are you coming to T.0. in June? or perhaps Saratoga in July?

Sadly, no.  Swan Lake in November or March '14.

Okay, back on topic.  When is Osipova's first performance with the Royal Ballet?  Tickets go on sale to the general public on July 9th, correct?

I was at the Osipova Vasiliev Don Q in NY on Saturday....

How do we keep missing each other?!?!  I was in Box 22.

Osipova and Vasiliev were very entertaining!     If only they could learn to jump higher.... 

This perforamnce sounded interesting.  Peter Frampton providing the music and the Cincinnati Ballet dancing.  I had to go.

Frampton and his band were dressed in black and on an elevated platform toward the back of the stage - perhaps in an attempt to a back seat to the dancing.  Frampton and the band sounded great.  Unfortunately, for me, the choreography was not that great.  It's difficult, I imagine, to choreograph ballet to rock.  At times the music and the dancing mixed like oil and vinegar.  However, for the slower songs, the choreography was beautiful.  For example, the last song of Act I (Boot It Up!), Frampton played and sang While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and Sarah Hairston and Zack Grubbs danced beautifully together.  Act II (Hummingbird in a Box) featured new Frampton songs and the dancing was ... well, there was dancing.  Act III (Anthology) featured Frampton's classics.  Again, there was dancing.  No matter how hard I tried to focus on the dancing, my eyes continued to drift toward Frampton.  There was no doubt, it was Frampton's show.  If there were any doubters, those doubts evaporated when Frampton performed an encore singing Do You Feel Like We Do.

Next season at the Ballet on the Rhine in Düsseldorf/Duisburg: two evening-long creations by Martin Schläpfer to music by Mahler and Adriana Hölszky, Afternoon of a Faun/Robbins, Without Words/van Manen, Episodes/Balanchine, Scenario/Merce Cunningham, Große Fuge/van Manen and creations by Nils Christe and Antoine Jully. Full brochure here

Attending a Ballett am Rhein performance at the opera house in Düsseldorf is on my list of things to do, and I am too impatient to wait until next season.  So, I made plans to see Afternoon of a Faun (Jerome Robbins), Without Words (Hans van Manen) and the premiere of Nacht umstellt (Martin Schläpfer) on 5 July.   I am looking forward the experience.

I saw a beautiful performance of Giselle in Rome.  Particularly noteworthy was the grand pas de deux in Act II by Svetlana Zakharova (Giselle) and Friedmann Vogel (Albrecht).  Not to take anything away from Friedmann, but Svetlana was (and is) phenominal.  She has such long lines and fluid movements.  The way Svetlana's character showed her love for Albrecht and protected him from the Wilis literally brought a tear to my eye.  And I think the audience felt the same, as during the pas de deux the audience was absolutely silent and all eye were focused on the stage.  At the end of the pas de deux, the audience erupted into applause that didn't stop until the conducter realized that the applause would not stop until the music started again.

Let’s see, December....

Prague is okay in December. City center has a high concentration of tourists. The Christmas market is nice. I saw Giselle at the State Opera House, a nice, relatively small, older theater. I’ve never been to the National Theatre. I haven’t fallen in love with any particular restaurant yet.

Paris is nice in December. So is Palais Garnier. Post-performance dinner at Café de la Paix is fun (In December 2011, I sat at a table next to the producers of Onegin, which I saw on opening night).

Amsterdam is nice in December. The Amsterdam Music Theatre is modern and really nice. The Dutch National Ballet is great. One of my favorite restaurants is fairly close to the theater – Greetje. Be sure to make a reservation.

Zurich is nice in December. The Zurich Opera House is nice, and the ballet company is very good. The city is nicely decorated in December. Day trips to the mountains are easy by train. I always enjoy a post-performance bratwurst and beer at Sternen Grill, which is about 100 meters from the Opera House.

Next time in NYC, consider a pre- or post-performance meal at Bar Boulud, which is across from the MetOpera on Broadway. Very nice restaurant. Celebrities are known to dine there.

As the house lights came up, a lady with an American accent said, "If they did that in New York, they'd be on the bus to Pittsburgh."

Americans don’t have accents!

Anyone want to defend the honour – or honor – of Pittsburgh?

I lived in Pittsburgh as a graduate student. No, I don’t want to defend Pittsburgh.

Now, on a slightly more serious note...

I was coming home on the train about a year ago with a load of football fans who were dissecting the evening's match. I remember coming away, having listened to their conversation, thinking there really wasn't that much difference between us.

Very insightful.

I like watching American football, but the hometown team is not necessarily my favorite team (sorry, Bears). I don’t have a favorite team, but I do enjoy watching a good game. I also enjoy traveling to stadiums in other cities to experience a game there. Sometimes it’s a good game, sometimes it’s not. Some teams are excellent, some teams are ... less excellent. Sometimes the fans are nice, sometimes they’re not. Some stadiums are beautiful, some are not.

Same with ballet.

Casting for Giselle (National Ballet of Canada)

Giselle

Greta Hodgkinson (Dec 5 at 7:30 pm, Dec 8 at 7:30 pm)

Jillian Vanstone (Dec 6 at 2:00 pm)

Sonia Rodriguez (Dec 6 at 7:30 pm, Dec 8 at 2:00 pm)

Xiao Nan Yu (Dec 7 at 7:30 pm, Dec 9 at 2:00 pm)

Albrecht

Guillaume Côté (Dec 5 at 7:30 pm, Dec 8 at 7:30 pm)

Naoya Ebe (Dec 6 at 2:00 pm)

Zdenek Konvalina (Dec 6 at 7:30 pm, Dec 8 at 2:00 pm)

Evan McKie (Dec 7 at 7:30 pm, Dec 9 at 2:00 pm)

Hilarion

Piotr Stanczyk (Dec 5 at 7:30 pm, Dec 8 at 7:30 pm)

Etienne Lavigne (Dec 6 at 2:00 pm)

Jonathan Renna (Dec 6 at 7:30 pm, Dec 8 at 2:00 pm)

Jiří Jelinek (Dec 7 at 7:30 pm, Dec 9 at 2:00 pm)

Queen of the Wilis

Heather Ogden (Dec 5 at 7:30 pm, Dec 8 at 7:30 pm)

Stephanie Hutchison (Dec 6 at 2:00 pm, Dec 7 at 7:30 pm, Dec 9 at 2:00 pm)

Juri Hiraoka (Dec 6 at 7:30 pm, Dec 8 at 2:00 pm)

I just count the Netherlands in as I cannot find any other subject to Wheeldon's Cinderella in Amsterdam. We will be going to the premiere. Anyone else going ?

I will be attending the Saturday matinee on 15 December. I'm looking forward to the performance (and après-ballet dinner at Greetje - one of my favorite restaurants).

I had nothing better to do over the long (American) Thanksgiving weekend, so I decided to go to Tallinn to see the Estonian National Ballet perform Prokofiev’s Cinderella choreographed by Marina Kesler.

Compared to the Mariinsky’s performance of Prokofiev’s Cinderella choreographed by Alexei Ratmansky, which I recently saw in Washington D.C., the Mariinsky’s performance was much better.

In Kesler’s Cinderella, the backdrop of Cinderella’s home is a dizzying black and white herringbone pattern. The ball scene was an empty stage except for chairs on the stage’s perimeter. The stepmother (Triinu Leppik) and stepsisters (Marika Muiste and Heidi Kopti) were less than interesting characters and definitively not funny. The pas de deux between Cinderella (Alena Shkatula) and the Prince (Jevgeni Grib) was lacking. There was no chemistry between them, and it appeared that they never danced together. The costumes were not appealing either. For example, the Prince wore white pants, a white blazer-type top (nothing underneath) that was made of some sort of reflective material, a lilac-colored sash, and a very small lilac-colored crown cocked to one side of his head. I though the ballet was going to morph into an all male review. The only bright spot was the dance teacher (Jonathan Hanks) who was pointing as he showed the stepmother and stepsisters how to dance. His pointing was marvelous. It’s my understanding that Hanks trained at the Royal Ballet School.

Do you have any views about the preferred style for men? Wondering if we need to pack a suit!

For what it's worth, I wear a suit at the Mariinsky, no matter the weather.

Karen, when you say "first tier boxes" do you mean (using the vernacular of the Mariinsky) the "Baignoire" or the "Belle-Etage" level? I’ve sat in boxes in both levels. Views are goods in both. As always, the closer to the center of the theater the better.

One word of caution. Avoid the back (last) row in the Stalls, because the last row bends and some seats come very, very close to seats on the ends of the rows that the last row bends around, which causes leg room issues. Look at the seating chart and you'll understand.

We should get together for a drink when you are in Toronto for Giselle.

I'll be attending the matinee on 8 December. If you attend, the champagne is on me.

Canada’s oldest ballet company is the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. They tour a lot. * * * Moulin Rouge, ... has been very popular with audiences (maybe not standard ballet audiences) but I thought it was pretty dreadful (sorry, RWB!).

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet blew into the Windy City to perform Moulin Rouge. I was accompanied by my ex-mother-in-law, Gilberte, a La Rochelle native who worked most of her adult life in Paris and now resides in Chicago. Gilberte absolutely loved Moulin Rouge. Talking after the performance over dinner, Gilberte told me how Moulin Rouge brought back memories of the time her now-deceased husband was courting her. She appeared to be very happy, and that made me happy.

The Chicago audience, too, seemed to enjoy Moulin Rouge, based upon the standing ovation. As for me, I enjoyed the story line, the characters, the bridge pas de deux, and the absinthe-induced pas de quatre. However, the canned music was ... distracting. (I’m trying to be diplomatic with my friends to the north, eh?).

The National Ballet of Canada is the biggest company, with over 70 dancers in Toronto.

At least once every year I travel to Toronto to see the National Ballet of Canada. This year I will see Giselle with my ex-wife who lives in Washington, D.C. I’m told I have a unique relationship with my exes....

I am originally from NY, so I have no class ( ).

My sister (NYC resident) and I saw ABT perform Swan Lake at the Met Opera House on a hot summer day a couple years ago. We had box seats which had three rows. My sister and I were in the back row. At some point during the performance, a gentleman in the front row turned around and said to the gentleman in the second row:

"Stop breathing down my neck!"

"I’m not breathing down your neck!"

A few minutes later:

"I feel you breathing down my neck. Knock it off!"

"Listen buddy, I’m not breathing down your neck!"

Several people from several boxes were shushing the gentleman.

The exchange between the two guys continued for some time. Then the last exchange just before the interval:

"Breath on me one more time and we’re gonna take it outside!"

"You want a piece of me?!?!"

Another person finally yelled: "Someone get the attendant!"

During the interval, the attendant investigated and interviewed everyone in the box. Before the performance resumed, the guy in the first row apologized to everyone in the box. As it turns out, the air conditioner vent was "breathing down" his neck.

Near fisticuffs over an air condition vent. Only in New York!

Daria Pavlenko, as Cinderella, and her husband, Alexander Sergeyev, as the Prince, have received very fine internet praise as well. You have to love Daria Pavlenko for her heart and loveliness, both on stage and off. Her determination over the years has been heart touching. Alexander Sergeyev, everyone seems to agree, is a prince -- and a darn good dancer.

It was an absolute joy to watch Pavlenko and Sergeyev. They looked, and danced, great together. Act III’s pas de deux was beautiful.

I impatiently look forward to my next Mariinsky fix in St. Petersburg on 13-14 April 2013 (La Bayadère and Anna Karenina)

actually, I don't want to seem cranky (or elitist or snobbish or any of those other things!), but I wouldn't consider that wonderful and intimate interaction. It would have driven me crazy.

Usually, such a thing would drive me crazy. I’m not the sentimental type. Perhaps you had to be there to appreciate the moment.