now voyager

I saw nearly the original NYCB cast of DAAG (everyone except for Jonathan Prinz) several times, and then over the years with some additional changes but several of the core dancers remaining, and always loved it. As I did some subsequent performances with wonders like the young Gelsey Kirkland. And I saw nearly the original RB cast (everyone except, I think, for Jonathan Kelly), and time stood still. What a glorious performance! If I could magically go back in time and see again only five of the thousands of performances I've seen, that would be one of them. So I greatly anticipated the RB's revival, but I found the two performances I saw in the first cycle disappointing and flat. (To be fair, I've seen many other DAAG performances by other companies, including NYCB, in the last two decades or so that featured individual performances of brilliance, but were in their entirety unsatisfying.) I had been planning to skip the Marston/Scarlett program. There are a number of RB dancers, though, that I'd love to see in DAAG, and I suspect many of them will be cast, although not necessarily in the roles I would choose for them. (Casting may well be subject to the wishes of the Robbins Trust stagers.) So I think I will wait until casting is announced, and then if scheduling works and decent tickets are available, give it another chance.

I travel independently to Moscow several times a year, and do not find it difficult. My Russian speaking is quite limited, but I do read Cyrillic. The Bolshoi Theatre puts tickets on sale roughly 3 months before the performance. Under the system initiated last season to solve the scalping problem, buyers purchasing during the first two weeks the performance is on sale are required to submit passport details, and a certificate, rather than the ticket itself, is issued, which must then be exchanged by the purchaser, who is asked to present passport and credit card, at one of the theatre's box offices, for the ticket. It's an extra step, but not very cumbersome.

DQF, if I recall correctly, the Esmeralda performed by the Staatsballett Berlin was an abridged, 2-act version of the Bolshoi's 3-act version. Both productions were the work of Yuri Burlaka and Vasily Medvedev. Esmeralda has been out of the Bolshoi rep since Burlaka's tenure, and I fear that it will not be performed there again in my lifetime.

My apologies--tickets are gone.

I am selling the following SCS tickets for the Bolshoi engagement at the ROH: 13/8: Swan Lake SC D-15 16/8: Don Quixote SC D-9 Each ticket is 15 GBP. If interested, please post here and PM me.

Yes, it is. There is a 4 GBP fee.

And for that very reason, I would NOT expect him to include “the actual facts.”

In Bayadere, Solor typically does a series of double assembles in one of his variations. As for triple tours, Daniel Camargo did a great set of them in Shrew pas at the last World Ballet Festival in Tokyo. (Ricky Cragun was of course famous for them.)

He is only retiring from ABT. He will continue to dance with La Scala and with his “Roberto Bolle and Friends” tours (as well as other engagements, like the RB in the fall). The opportunities to see him in a full-length classic or neoclassic ballet, however, may be somewhat limited: in addition to their Onegins at La Scala this fall, he and Nunez will dance it on tour in Southern California next summer, and he’s also scheduled for La Dame aux Camellias with Zakharova in the fall of 2020.

I attended the rehearsal last night. It was Dame Monica rehearsing Mendizabal and Kish in Firebird, with Alexander Campbell presenting.

And Lamb/Edmonds, I believe.

Margot Fonteyn was 46 when I first saw her Juliet and I found her completely convincing (and utterly ravishing) as a 14-year old.

I am thanking the stars that my 17 hours of flying is scheduled for the day AFTER my 24 hour booking window! But it could easily have been otherwise, and if, heaven forbid, one has to call (say, to exchange a ticket), it’s a much smaller window (and I’d predict, with calls compressed into that shorter window, even longer wait times...) I never saw The House, but I believe there were some schoolchildren who sent something saying how they HATED the ROH? What with one thing after another, I find my feelings heading in that direction. As for the RB’s new season, I am among the many dismayed by the minimal Ashton. I look forward to seeing the Coppélia again with the benefit of now having seen Sergei Vikharev’s gorgeous Petipa reconstruction and Pierre Lacotte’s charming French one. I look forward even more to the fall’s triple bill, and, at the end of the season, to another chance to see Tombeaux. I did not think 24 Preludes was among Ratmansky’s best work, and am curious to see its reimagining. (Many) years ago, the Royal Ballet had productions of Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake that I loved unreservedly. I find the current productions far less satisfactory, but hope to see one or two dancers I admire newly cast in key roles in the classical repertoire. I’ve seen brilliant performances elsewhere in Onegin recently, but I welcome the chance to see the RB’s new generation tackle its challenges. Manon at the beginning of next season seems to me to be too much too soon, and I don’t think I’ll be doing much pond-crossing for the other programs.

If the weather is good when you are there, do try to get out of town to see the Catherine Palace and Peterhof. When the Mariinsky's new season's subscriptions are announced, that will give you a partial schedule for the month, but the complete schedule is unlikely to be released until about 2 months prior. I suggest that you also take a look at the Mikhailovsky's schedule when making your plans.

Yermakov has, in my opinion, long deserved this promotion, but I think there are others, most notably Stepin among the men and Novikova and Osmolkina among the women, whom I also would have promoted years ago were the decision mine to make.