Haglund's Heel

ABT – Guest artist still injured

Today the Royal Ballet pulled Alina Cojocaru from her next scheduled performances following her latest injury layoff.  She had been scheduled to dance in Symphony in C on May 28 & 29 but is unable to perform due to injury.

So, is ABT going to continue to hold open Herman Cornejo's all-important June 21st performance of Swan Lake for a perpetually injured guest artist while they have homegrown dancers who could deliver better performances in the first place?  Or maybe they have some Grade B regional company dancer they want to import as another guest artist or hokey "exchange dancer" instead of allowing the company's own brilliant artists to shine.

Let Sarah Lane dance Swan Lake.

 

More reasons to love Irina and Max

Thanks to Haglund'eeler "B" for dropping this video on our doorstep.  It's an interview with Irina Dvorovenko and Max Beloserkovsky from last fall that hasn't been seen by many people.  When the interviewer, Jolinda Menendez (former ABT soloist), asked at the 14:30 minute mark how Irina and Max thought ABT had changed since they joined, they jumped right into the guest artist situation and the adverse effects on the company's dancers.  They talked three minutes on the subject. 

It sounds like they have confirmed that the sidelining of our own gifted dancers and the importing of the junk from oversees was ABT's brilliant idea of a business marketing solution for the declining audience with no regard for the artistic consequences.  But what Koch, Kramer, Sosnoff, Barth, Brinn, Patrick and the others on ABT's board seem to have forgotten is the elementary never-ever-ever-wrong business principle:

The fish rots from the head down.

So now what are they gonna do?  They've steered ABT into a much worse position than before, but they're all too proud to admit they've made a tragic mistake. Donations are down 32%  Attendance is an embarrassment this season - they aren't even close to selling out Osipova & Vasiliev's SATURDAY NIGHT Don Quixote.  ABT is giving away tickets left and right.  Onegin was on TDF for over a month.

So what are they gonna do?  How about facing the reality that when you piss off your core customers and alienate them, the other customers also lose interest in your product?  How about not using the struggling economy as an excuse and face up to the reality that the rotting artistic fish head needs to be lopped off?  How about the board of directors hire Stiefel, Bocca, Corella, or Max & Irina as the new artistic director and then get the F– out of artistic decisions?

Advance to the 14:30 mark.

If Irina and Max have been as vocal inside ABT as they have been outside about the despicable importing practice, then maybe that explains a little bit why they haven't had many performances in the past few years.

 

ABT 5/18Irina Dvorovenko bows out in style

Irina Dvorovenko certainly left us with a memorable performance of Tatiana in tonight's Onegin.  It's hard to think of a performance of Onegin that has been more enjoyable.  In fact, the whole cast tonight – the same as the Wednesday matinee – delivered a powerful ballet equivalent of Renee Fleming, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Ramon Vargas, and Elena Zaremba in the Met Opera's own Eugene Onegin production.

What a pleasure.  What an honor to have been there.

Photographer Kent G. Becker had a very good view of the post-performance celebration.  His website is NotMyDayJobPhotography.  He let Haglund know that he's really busy this weekend, but he will be posting additional photos next week.  Here's a little sampler:

Photo: Kent G. Becker © Creative Commons

The First Position Pump Bump Award goes to Irina, the only one who has style enough to stand up in these Louboutins:

ABT – Onegin – 5/15 mat & 5/17

Onegin is about living with the decisions that you've made regardless of their consequences.  Pushkin's famous poem, Eugene Onegin, on which this ballet is based, delves into the noble feelings of honor and pride, the difficult sorrow that sometimes comes after having made eternal vows, and the inability to back down from challenges that have been thrown at you in haste or those which you, yourself, have thrown – "But the world's savage indoctrination fears the false shame of reconciliation."  It's a terrific poem that has a terrific stage life as both an opera and a ballet.

John Cranko's ballet version is a masterpiece from curtain-up to curtain-down.  It is built around two PdD for Onegin and Tatiana, a solo for Lensky, and a duel between Lensky and Onegin.  A scrupulously mannered community of nobles and countryfolk portray the society's calm surface beneath which the passions of the principals roil. 

The first major PdD occurs in Tatiana's dream in Act I.  Onegin swirls her around and she is flying on top of the world emotionally as she dreams of the passion she would have with Onegin.  At the music's climax, Onegin lifts Tatiana high into the air as she sits vertically on his hand.  At the exact same musical moment in the final heart wrenching PdD in Act III before Tatiana throws Onegin out the door, she is no where near on top of the world.  Instead, she's horizontally bent back on the floor under the weight of Onegin's desire and he yanks her up into a passionate sissonne momentarily breaking her emotional resistance.

Wednesday's matinee was as nearly a perfect ensemble performance as one could ask for and all the players on the stage enjoyed great chemistry.  Irina Dvorovenko, in her penultimate appearance with ABT, lived her Tatiana with honesty, depth, and passion.  Her early infatuation with Cory Stearns' Onegin was played with sincerity without trying to be too girlish. The excellent chemistry between Irina and Stearns was theatrically transforming throughout the evening.  Irina's face has always been one of the more beautifully expressive faces in the company since she joined ABT – never less than fully invested in her character's emotions and story – and it has been sad to see ABT sideline her these past few years despite the fact that her technical and theatrical skills have seemed to be at their twin peaks. 

Stearns extracted significantly more theatrical juices than in last year's performances even if they did sometimes look like they came from stage directions instead of from the fruit of the poem.  Rather than instantly becoming angry with Tatiana for being so persistent about her love for him, his character seemed to understand the fragile nature of her young feelings and tried to turn her down with some compassion.  There were noticeable improvements in his partnering, and he no longer looked like he was ready to collapse under the physical pressure of the choreography.  A couple of lifts where Tatiana was supposed to twist into a jump to Onegin's shoulder appeared to be modified or perhaps weren't as clearly implemented as they should have been.  Here's hoping that Stearns is on his toes for whatever Irina may throw at him tonight in her Farewell.

It was a thrill to watch Blaine Hoven and Gemma Bond in their debuts as Lensky, Onegin's poet friend, and Olga, Tatiana's pretty and flirtatious younger sister.  A few nerves took a couple of Blaine's turns off course at the very beginning of the evening, but his solo of lament in Act II was exceptional.  That was preceded by a fine dramatic confrontation with Onegin over his flirtation with his fiancé, the really-up-for-game Olga.  This cast was in tune with Pushkin's idea that Onegin flirted with Olga not just out of boredom but in order to show Lensky the fickle nature of Olga's commitment to him.

Vitali Krauchenka was pitch-perfect as Prince Gremin who Tatiana married for love and convenience but who didn't provide the passion that Tatiana had dreamed about since reading her romance novels as a young girl.

Friday night's cast of Onegin had really, really high points and a few really, really low points, but it averaged out to be a pretty good evening thanks to the masterfully detailed and nuanced performances of Diana Vishneva and Marcelo Gomes.  They have a way of calmly and patiently enticing us into their beautiful world, and then suddenly, they're ripping our hearts out as they scream-dance This is what our world is reeeeally like. Jesus. Last night's Act III PdD left the audience pretty wrung out and needing a drink.  Just as it oughta be. 

Jared Matthews reprised his superb Lensky from last year.  This guy has got it all – lines, technique, drama – and it all worked together brilliantly last night in his portrayal of Lensky as a somewhat naive poet who was finally pushed over the edge by Onegin's attention toward Olga. 

Unfortunately, Isabella Boylston's debut performance as the pretty younger sister of Tatiana didn't add up to much.  First, according to Pushkin, Olga is supposed to be pretty while Tatiana is the bookworm.  Second, Olga's variations have a lot of jumps in them, and Isabella's dumping of her upper body does not a pretty jump make.  Why hasn't someone insisted she fix this?  How difficult is it to say, "Your arms and elbows fly up way too high when you jump and it makes you look dumpy.  Fix it by tomorrow.  If you do it again on stage, you're demoted or fired."  What is so hard about saying that?  It's not a matter of Isabella not being able to fix it; it's a matter of her neglect and ABT's coddling attitude that causes them to look the other way because a perfectly formed jump might be a slightly lower jump. Circus trumps artistry – again. Nor was Isabella's acting serviceable, and she frequently licked her front teeth like she was trying to get lipstick off of them.  Her best theatrical moment of the evening was when she ran across the stage to hug Martine van Hamel's Madame Larina.

James Whiteside's Prince Gremin was like something out of the spook house. In Act II, it was painfully clear why Tatiana was so repelled by him.  Act III saw adequate partnering from him, but the strain on his face when he picked up the tiny Vishneva doesn't bode well for Veronika Part who has to dance with him in her debut as Kitri or Gillian Murphy who has to dance with him in Swan Lake.  What politics came into play that allowed this gothic-looking dancer from a less-than-top tier regional ballet company to waltz into ABT principal roles while the very capable and very handsome Eric Tamm and Roddy Doble waste away in the corps? 

It's not a Dance 10, Looks 3 world in New York - no matter how high the jump, how flexible the limbs, or how hard one cultivates celebrity.

Friday night delivered disappointments that dampened the high successes of Vishneva and Gomes.  The standout debut performances of Blaine Hoven and Gemma Bond at the Wednesday matinee were not surprises at all because the audience has known for years how talented these two are.  The H.H. Pump Bump Award, some true Louboutin poetry, is bestowed upon them.

Sneak peak at ABT's new Le Corsaire tutus

This is Medora's new tutu from Act II:

 

This is Gulnare's new tutu for Act III.  Haglund got to see Sarah Lane waltz this baby around in D.C., and it looks spectacular, possibly the best of the new costumes:

 

Here is Medora's new Act III tutu.  Although it was quite beautiful on the Kennedy Center stage, it was somewhat eclipsed by Gulnare's costume:

Haglund found the photos on the tutu maker Cygnet Studio's FB page.

Click on the photos to enlarge them a little bit.

 

Argentine TV profile of Herman Cornejo & Marcelo Gomes

Thanks to Robin for alerting us that Argentina's Film and Arts TV has uploaded to its YouTube channel the TV special that it produced last year and which profiles Marcelo Gomes and Herman Cornejo.  Mostly in Spanish and Portuguese, it includes extensive film footage with great commentary (in English) from Anna-Marie Holmes and others.

Here it is: Hombres Que Vuelan (Men Who Fly).

 

It's about time ABT's dancers started to speak out about the despicable import/guest artist situation

This elevates Irina Dvorovenko to Goddess/Heroine. 

Time Out New York: You need that nourishment.
Irina Dvorovenko: Yes. In Russia, each ballet dancer was attached to a coach, and it was like having a mother in the ballet pretty much. So you need something more personal. Here, you cannot be attached, because everyone is running from one studio to another. So it’s a different structure. I cannot blame it, because the theater functions in this way. But that’s what people want—everyone from the dance world. Gillian [Murphy] arrived from New Zealand, and she went to take class with [ABT], and then we saw her at class at Steps and we said, “Well, how was it?” And she said, “What’s the matter with ABT? Everybody’s so depressed, everybody’s crying. What’s happening?” So it’s not only me. Everybody’s noticing that. Something strange is going on with this bunch of guest artists who take performances from the dancers who work hard. And nobody develops our dancers. The dancers who come from out [of the company], they have been already nourished by somebody and molded so they have experience to share, but our dancers also need this experience and they cannot, because no one is helping them. And also everybody is working so hard in the studios, but the amount of time is so compressed. It’s hard for everyone.

Irina seems to understand a lot.  ABT's dancers would fare better under her and Max's direction, and it's long past time for a change.

Read the full interview here.

Music change for new Ratmansky

ABT announced today that the Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 that was supposed to be part of Ratmansky's Shostakovich Trilogy has been replaced by Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor for Piano, Trumpet and Strings - a lighter, much happier, less angsty piece of music.

Now this is interesting news.

[Pause for Haglund to adjust his 20/20 speculation spectacles.]

What if – just what if – Dmitri Maximovich Shostakovich were to drop by to play his grandfather's concerto at The Met?  What if – just what if – Maxim Dmitrievich Shostakovich were to drop by to conduct some of his father's music?  Listen up, folks, the two have recorded this concerto together with The Orchestre de Chambre I Musici de Montréal and are or have been Manhattan residents.  Here they are in the Allegro Moderato:

 

If Haglund is right on this, he may have to bestow a Pump Bump Award on himself.

And continuing the exercise in speculation, note that Ratmansky/Shostakovich are in the House of Balanchine on the same evening as ABT's premiere but also on the following Tuesday.  A Shostakovich as guest pianist or conductor at NYCB on Tuesday could turn Lincoln Center into Ratmansky-Shostakovich Central for several days.

 Let's dream about this for a while.

If the truth isn't flashy enough, well, just revise

Yesterday ABT put out its customary flashy press release about the first two weeks of casting. The company made a special note that the May 22 matinee performance of Symphony in C will feature debuts by Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev in the third movement.  You know, to feature as in to give special attention to, to make more prominent than all others, to identify as the special attraction of the piece.

Here's the problem.  It ain't Natalia's debut in Symphony in C.  According to the Bolshoi website, she's been dancing it since early 2008.  First with Yegor Khromushin on April 1, 2008.  Next with Artem Ovcharenko on November 17, 2008, and then again with Khromushin on November 9, 2009.  She even told Elizabeth Kendall in an interview for the Dec/Jan issue of Pointe Magazine that she had danced it. 

So, why the bald-faced whopper with extra sauce?  What a disservice to the true company artists in the cast, ABT, to make it look like those two imports, who are the furthest things from Balanchine stylists, are going to be the highlight of the performance.

ABT's announcement included the extensive list of Opening Night Gala participants. How sad it is to see that there is room in the opening night gala performance for a bunch of children from the JKO school, but there is no room for departing longtime principal Irina Dvorovenko - the only principal who ABT will exclude from the gala performance.  How disrespectful.

 

Mayerling – not here

From London's Daily Express today:

WHEN it comes to exploring the darkest corners of the psyche through ballet there is nobody to touch the late choreographer Kenneth MacMillan. And they don't come much darker than Mayerling.

Based on the true, if veiled, account of the tragedy that befell Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary and his semi-psychotic son, Crown Prince Rudolf, who ended up shooting his 17-year-old mistress before turning his gun on himself, it is replete with sex, death, guns, drugs and politics.

Not the usual subjects for dance but Mayerling isn't your usual ballet.

MacMillan's last great narrative work goes far beyond the customary tropes of classical dance to produce one of the defining masterpieces of 20th century ballet and remains one of the crowning glories of The Royal Ballet.

. . .

If the narrative complexity requires foreknowledge of the story, it is a small price to pay for an evening that goes way beyond polite appreciation.

A rare and precious night of dark alchemy.

Many believe that Mayerling is one of MacMillan's "greatest narrative works" but ABT has never performed it despite having an embarrassment of wealth of dramatic heavy-weights who could deliver Crown Prince Rudolf's character with such complex darkness that it would make the ballet one of ABT's "crowning glories," too.  The company completely wasted the opportunity to have one of MacMillan's hand-picked original cast members pass down her principal role and historical knowledge to ABT's dancers when it had Georgina Parkinson as its ballet mistress.  Today, in its ranks, it's lucky enough to have a dancer who has actually prepared and performed the principal role of Princess Stephanie in the Royal Ballet's production of Mayerling, but that is going to waste, too.

Lady Deborah MacMillan wants ABT to perform Sir Kenneth's masterpiece, but Kevin McKenzie doesn't think the New York audience would understand the story.  No doubt, he's also afraid of critic Alastair Macaulay's certain scathing reviews, because Macaulay is on record as despising Mayerling and carries a disrespectful attitude toward most of MacMillan's work. 

We're missing a lot by not seeing this fine work performed by an American company.  Someone needs to do it:  ABT, Joffrey, San Francisco Ballet. 

If we wish for it, it will come ....

Mayerling

 

ABT – More Onegin casting

The secondary casting for Onegin was just posted, and it shows promise, mostly because it's all ABT dancers.  It looks like we are going to finally get to see Blaine Hoven's Lensky opposite Gemma Bond's Olga for Irina Dvorovenko's final two performances. 

You know, Blaine's another one.  Haglund has a whole decade invested in this guy.  That's ten years of dragging the old caboose to the theater to see all of his performances.  Ten years of scraping together the cash and loose change for tickets.  And for what.  A few world-class PdTs in Swan Lake, a major success as Des Grieux in Lady of the Camellias, a career-defining PdD with Maria Riccetto in Ratmansky's Seven Sonatas (pictured right), and a few other things.  Injuries kept us from seeing him in Onegin last year, and a geriatric guest artist stole his role of The Ballet Dancer in The Bright Stream, although Blaine did get rave reviews from the audience when he performed it in California.

So maybe this will be the year that Blaine gets back on track.  We're all getting old waiting for it. 

Blaine and Gemma will dance the Wednesday Mat and Saturday evening.

Sarah Lane and Daniil Simkin have Tuesday and Thursday.

Yuriko Kayjia and Joe Gorak have Wednesday evening and Saturday Mat.

Jared Matthews and Isabella Boylston have Friday and Monday.

ABT just couldn't bear to put Jared and Yuriko together in the same cast.  That would be too much pleasure for the audience.

 

. . . and we're live

. . . from the couch in trendy Hell's Kitchen awaiting the introductions for the Guggenheim's Works & Process which tonight will be presented by ABT.

 http://www.ustream.tv/worksandprocess

✔ pencils sharpened

✔ erasers cut off

✔ Mac cache emptied

✔ cell phone silenced

✔ wine poured

7:35    It seems things are off to a tardy start.

7:38    John Meehan would make a very good director for ABT.

7:42    Why does ABT keep torturing us with this Morris nonsense?  Yes, the dancers have nice feet and legs.  It's as elementary and unsubstantive as it can be.

7:44    McKenzie managed to say plenty of nothing in that little interview.

7:51    Gray Davis and Stella Abrera are sublime in The Leaves Are Fading in one of the secondary PdDs.  That McKenzie took away the leading PdD from this beautiful ballerina in the prime of her career is criminal.  It was kind of cruel of John to suddenly bring up Giselle when everyone knows that is exactly the role Stella should be dancing but hasn't been allowed.  Her grace and demeanor while being interviewed were exquisite as well.

8:10    The Swan Lake excerpt was not very encouraging.  What is wrong with Hee Seo's back that she can't bend it more?  No expression.  Fine feet and legs.  The only way to describe this is the "Stepford ballerina syndrome."  One compliment for her:  the mime about the tears looked similar to Nina's in that the tears went all the way down over the edge of the tutu. 

8:15    It's very nice that the pre-professionals in the JKO are learning to dance completely without affectations.  The problem is that they are turning out dancers without perfume, without lovely organic qualities in their dance-speech.  It's like computer-speech.  ABT should stop all this pretense and just teach Vaganova in the upper body and POB in the legs and feet.

8:27    If you look at videos of Veronika Part and others as students at the Vaganova school, you see immediately that they already had that special perfume.  While they didn't have affectations, they did have something special.  These young students are plain toast.

8:30    Joe Gorak is a little too lovely in that Bournonville.  Maybe it's the small stage.  Bujones.  Bujones.  Bujones.  Bujones.  That's what we need. 

8:32    Isabella Boylston in the Kitri solo was like something from Amateur Hour.  No spark.  Horsey.  Muddled.  No expression or worse an unpleasant one.  ABT shelved Yuriko's brilliant and charming Kitri for this?

8:33    Arron Scott's ball dance pretty darned good.

8:50    The Moor's Pavane registered well on this stage.  Alex Hammoudi is not a natural choice for The Moor and his character was much less developed than Tom Forster's Iago.  Stella, intensely dramatic.  Hee Seo, a fish out of water: steps, yes; character, no.

8:58    Ratmansky's Carnival of the Animals is a nice piece for students, but it tends to get a little too precious. 

More than ever, Haglund intends to pay to see only the dancers he wants to see at ABT and will not pay to see amateurish or half-baked interpretations.  If it turns out that he only goes to a couple of performances at the Met this year, then maybe he'll be able to afford this little Chesterfield that he wants so badly.

Program ReminderABT's Works & Process live-stream on Sunday

Just a reminder that the Guggenheim's Works & Process presentation by ABT will be live-streamed at the following link Sunday at 7:30pm U.S. Eastern Daylight Time.

http://www.ustream.tv/worksandprocess

Haglund posted the full program and casting a week or so ago and it appears nine posts below at this link.

There may be some Live Blogging at this location.  Maybe.

 

ABT – More freakin' imports may be on the way

McKenzie and Van Hamel are at the YAGP event tonight where they are scoping out Lunkina who is a Ratmansky pick and claims she had to leave the Bolshoi because of threats, Dorothee Gilbert who wants to guest at ABT, Kuranaga who is an occasional freelance partner of Cornejo and Simkin and danced with the obnoxious Whiteside in Boston, and Kochetkova who has been throwing herself at ABT ever since Simkin arrived.  McKenzie is in a panic over the doubtfulness of Cojocaru for the spring and wants to find someone – anyone, even a 2nd tier regional company dancer – so he can avoid giving the performances to Sarah Lane.  And he also gets a chance to start to oil his way toward Alejandro Virelles who defected from Cuba because he wanted freedom from the classics and an opportunity to dance contemporary work and is now dancing at Boston.

This is how we ended up with the geriatric Kobborg stuffed into performance slots that should have gone to ABT's own dancers.  McKenzie and Van Hamel went to a performance to audition him while he was performing with the Royal Danish Ballet at the Koch Theater, and voila, another guest artist cluttering up the season.

Do you suppose McKenzie ever bothers to watch ABT's own company dancers?  Do you suppose he went to the BalletNext performance last night where Misty Copeland performed The Dying Swan?  Do you suppose he's even bothered to ask to see a tape of Stella Abrera's Aurora in New Zealand or Gillian Murphy's Giselle?  Do you suppose he cares about the outstanding independent guesting that Jared Matthews and Yuriko have done?

We don't need another Bolshoi ballerina or any other import at ABT.  The company has an embarrassment of riches that it wastes everyday.  What we need is for the director to stop making excuses for his dismal performance and stop acting like he's entitled to whatever he can buy with other people's money.

Just remember when the aforementioned names start popping up on the ABT roster, you heard it here first.

 

 

ABT Gala is small news so far

ABT has posted its list of dancers for the spring gala but no announcement yet about the program. (Edit:  Thanks Rachel, for letting us know that you can click on the calendar date to see the dismal program.  What happened to the Gomes premiere that was supposed to be included?)

Last month in its season announcement, ABT thought that it was so important to tell everyone who the original ABT dancers were in the secondary roles of Olga & Lensky (Onegin), Orion & Eros (Sylvia), Von Rothbart (Swan Lake), Lilac Fairy, Carabosse & Bluebird (Sleeping Beauty), Birbanto (Le Corsaire), but it doesn't think it's important to tell us now.  There are people who would like to buy a ticket or two to Onegin but are holding out in fear that they might have to end up watching Osipova or Vasiliev, too, or watching Vasiliev's squatty little legs pound around as Von Rothbart or Bluebird.

Get the casting up, folks.  And while you're at it, make the changes you need to make.  Alina Cojocaru has been injured and unable to dance at the Royal Ballet.  According to the ROH calendar, she doesn't have any performances until the very end of May although she apparently will perform in a benefit of her own organizing in a few weeks.  Is ABT really going to hold Herman's Swan Lake for her without evidence that she can dance it and when there is a better dancer in its own ranks who would create more media buzz and do a better job than an injured guest artist whose home company doesn't often let her dance the role?  Let Sarah Lane dance Swan Lake with Herman Cornejo in their ABT Swan Lake debuts and let the hometown crowd have something to cheer about. 

Why not dump Osipova and Vasiliev into that tiresome Mark Morris piece to try to make everyone like it, and let ABT's own classical dancers take over Symphony in C?  What?!  Natasha & Ivan aren't dying to dance choreography by the iconic modern dance choreographer?  Don't they have to be as versatile as the repertory is diverse? 

Guess not.