Haglund's Heel

POB Update

The Paris Opera Ballet will present its programs at the Koch Theater instead of the Met Opera House!  After that scandalous pricing of the Mariinsky Ballet last summer and the Met's faceoff with the Lincoln Center Festival folks when LCF wanted to sell discounted day-of tickets at the Rubinstein Atrium, who is surprised that the LCF yanked their business from the Met?

Tickets are on presale for LCF members as of today with general sales starting on April 2.  But all seats have not been released for sale yet.  So, if you're looking for a particular viewpoint at a particular pricepoint, you may have to be patient and diligently check seating availability on a regular basis.

Prices are wide ranging with some reasonable points: $25, $65, $95, $125, $150.  When they finally open the 4th Ring to sales, those prices will be $25 and $65.  As we all know, the views from the 4th Ring are very good.  There are $25 seats in the 2nd and 3rd Rings right now.

Haglund is so excited about seeing the Paris Opera Ballet's homegrown artists that he's going to all six of the Giselles and both of the other programs. 

 

Giselle all over the place

The official Lincoln Center Festival dates for the magnificent Paris Opera Ballet's Giselle performances are Friday, July 13, Saturday July 14 (Mat & Eve), and Tuesday, July 17 through Thursday, July 19 - a total of six performances.  Don't miss this presentation by a glorious company that is truly a company in style, essence, and purpose – not a mumbo-jumbo pick-up company of itinerant guest dancers like ABT has become.

POB will present a program entitled French Masters of the 20th Century on Wednesday, July 11, Thursday, July 12 and Sunday July 15.  Pina Bausch's Orpheus and Eurydice with the Balthasar-Naumann Ensemble and Chorus will be presented on Friday, July 20, Saturday July 21, and the company's final performance on Sunday July 22.

If you're a Member of Friends of Lincoln Center, you already know that you can purchase tickets beginning tomorrow.  Everybody else will have to wait until general ticket sales begin.

Meanwhile, ABT's performance of Giselle next Sunday in Chicago is shaping up to be quite the event which Haglund plans to attend.  Yuriko Kajiya will debut as Giselle.  Jared Matthews will dance the role of Count Albrecht for the first time with ABT having just debuted with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet a couple of weeks earlier.  Devon Teuscher will debut as Myrtha.  Who's going to keep all of these excited dancers calm?  That task could fall to the steady Blaine Hoven who will be performing the Peasant PdD with Isabella Boylston.  Not sure who is slotted for Hilarion, but hope it's a veteran.

Can't wait to see Jared press a horizontal Yuriko into the air in Act II.  He will be phenomenal!  Anyone who chooses to see the Saturday performances probably won't see those two iconic lifts - but please report back here if you do.  It's just a rumor at this point in time, but the word out on Division Street is if the Counts on Saturday miss those lifts, the spectacular Myrthas are going to swoop in from the wings and lift the Giselles for them.  There will probably be a lot of trash-talking to go with it.  "Get the f__ out of my way, skinny boy."  Listen, those Myrthas can trash-talk like Larry Bird blowing his bad breath all over Scottie Pippen, and they're just as strong and fierce. They're not going to put up with Albrecht popping Giselle six inches off the ground and then letting her slide down his front while he twirls around.  No sir-ee, Bob.  And just imagine - imagine - what Mayor Rahm Emanuel will say if the Counts wimp out on those lifts.  Just imagine.

 

Lincoln Center Festival 2012

The Lincoln Center Festival released a few specifics about its 2012 summer season.  The production of In Paris starring Mikhail Baryshnikov looks like a good ticket choice for the month of August.  The remaining Festival details – including that other hotly anticipated act that relates to Paris – will be released on March 22.  However, as of today LCF members can buy three-performance theater packages online.

Program reminders

PBS presents Miami City Ballet tonight at 9:00 p.m.

Tickets for the YAGP documentary "First Position" at the NYU Kimmel Center on November 5 are available at this link.

PBS presents NYCB Nutcracker on Live from Lincoln Center on Wednesday December 14th.

 

 

Ballets Russes Exhibit @ Lincoln Center

Haglund sat in front of six video monitors and simultaneously watched Olga Spessivtseva whirl through Giselle, Gary Chryst whip up a spirited Chinese Conjurer in Parade, Baryshnikov’s Prodigal Son prowl around Von Aroldingen’s Siren, Alicia Markova float through Les Sylphides, Nadia Nerina burn through allegro as the Firebird, and Alexander Grant‘s suffering Petrouchka.

The Ballets Russes exhibit at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts will close after Septermber 13th; so, there's still time to rout your way through Manhattan's newest office park, the renovation-in-process at Lincoln Center, to see this wonderful exhibit:  Diaghilev's Theater of Marvels: The Ballets Russes And Its Aftermath.

Curated by Lynn Garafola, the exhibit came about through the generous gifts and loans by many, but the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago contributed a major part of this collection including videos of Petrouchka, Parade with Leonid Massine and Robert Joffrey rehearsing the dancers, and the spectacular Gary Chryst dancing as the Chinese Conjurer. The Joffrey also contributed many of the reconstructed costumes from Petrouchka, Le Spectre de la Rose, and Parade as well as those huge Picasso puppets from Massine’s production.

There is a pair of Pavlova’s shoes – very tapered, very small Nicolinis – on display and a number of programs, letters, menus, and diary entries as well. The original painting of an eye done by Nijinsky during his mental decline stands out along a wall of traditional costume designs and portraits.

Well worth a visit.

Lincoln Center's Fountain - A Smoking Ashtray

The Lincoln Center fountain is finished and open for sitting.  Doesn't it look like a smoking ashtray?  Supposedly its design is similar to the roof on the new restaurant that is in the area where the old reflecting pool was.  Yawn.

Anonymous sources connected with the L.C. security detail said that they are not happy with the new fountain design.  Whereas before when the beautiful stone fountain was in place, they had considerable difficulty keeping people out of the water.  Not only does the new fountain have lower seating, but there is more than ample room under the seating for little children to climb into the water.  Basically, it's now ugly and an attractive nuisance. 

 

The little curvy things underneath?  They're water hoses.  Nice!

Copyright © 2009

The Ashtray - Lincoln Center's New Fountain

What a disappointment some of these renovations at Lincoln Center are turning out to be.  Today the engineers were testing the fountain waters in an effort to get them working for First Lady Obama's visit to Lincoln Center on May 18th for the ABT Gala.  In fact, there was a full crew at the site working for Saturday wages.

Being as tactful as possible — Haglund thinks that the new fountain looks like an ashtray from the lobby of some cheap hotel that went out of business long ago.  It connects not.  Not to anything else at Lincoln Center.  Not to any sense of music or art.  Not to any sense of beauty.  What a mistake and waste of money.

 

To add insult to injury, the new tiles that have been installed at the front steps and elsewhere are a yellow-tinged litterbox sand color that clashes with the beautiful original stone that remains — worse than the new blue Le Corsaire tutu clashes with Ali's pants.  What were they thinking?!  Either of them.

In sum, what a freakin' mess they are making out of what was a uniquely beautiful and spiritual setting.

 

Copyright © 2009