Haglund's Heel

ABT – Coppelia – 6/16

Haglund has never missed Herman Cornejo more than last night – his beautiful legs and feet that look so handsome in white tights; the classical lines of his legs; the crop of dark curls that bounce freely but never seem to stray out of place; the modesty in his brilliance; and especially his unwillingness to pander to the uninformed members of the audience with gross athletic tricks so sloppy that they wouldn't even impress gymnastic judges.  Never has Herman Cornejo been missed more than last night.

ABT opened a series of five performances of Frederick Franklin's staging of Coppelia last night.  Xiomara Reyes was a charming Swanilda - feminine, slightly goofy at times, a troublemaker you could love.  The technique requirements of Coppelia are mild compared to what has been on the ABT schedule the past few weeks, and perhaps Coppelia could have been placed in a better slot in the spring season, but the production with its tastefully colorful sets (by Tony Straiges) and costumes (by Patricia Zipprodt) received a warm welcome from the audience last night.  Victor Barbee – who is getting a workout this season, having just completed a series of stage-grabbing comic performances in The Bright Stream – portrayed Dr. Coppelius, the toymaker who can't keep track of his house keys.  Gemma Bond as the Lead Mazurka Lady and Christine Schevchenko and Blaine Hoven in the Mazurka and Czardas were prominently highlighted in the character dances and were all wonderful.  Stella Abrera and Maria Riccetto as Dawn and Prayer were pristine perfect in their Act II variations.  When has the stillness of standing en pointe in fifth position ever been so beautiful as last night when Stella managed it without so much as a quiver of the ankles?  The beauty and solemness of Maria's Prayer were nearly interrupted twice by the audience which wanted to express its appreciation.  Haglund is so excited about seeing Maria's debut as Coppelia on Saturday along with Jared Matthews' brand new Franz, but last night, he was reminded how nice it would be to once again see Maria's Mozartiana, too.

There is a very good reason why God made the word "balletic" rhyme with the word "aesthetic."  He intended them to be combined.  Note that God did not make the word "balletic" rhyme with "high-flying fireplug."  So, one wonders why ABT cast as Franz a guest artist, Ivan Vasiliev, who has the athleticism of a Russian folk dancer and class B gymnast, but nothing that even remotely resembles a balletic aesthetic - not a classical line in his body - not in his feet, not in his legs, not in his torso, not in his arms, not in his hands, not in his head.  And why, upon announcing the casting of this particular guest artist, did ABT immediately blank out the back three rows of the orchestra to install its screamybobbers for the performance?  Perhaps to create an impression that this is a dancer who we cannot live without?  Haglund doesn't ever want to see this guy in pink or white tights again.  Ever.  In anything.  Ever again. 

The question that deserves an answer is why ABT neglected its own phenomenal athletic dancers, e.g.,  Erica Cornejo, Joaquin De Luz, Danny Tidwell, who actually did and still do possess enormous amounts of classical sheen, and then turn around and spend gobs of money on athletic guest artists who do not match the aesthetic of the company nor enhance it.  If anything, it proves that ABT is still in the midst of an identity crisis.  So much has been spent on establishing a high profile school and training system with very specific values, and yet, the company which the school is intended to feed goes out and hires less-than-the-best guest stars who do not conform to or compliment the established standards.  Don't you wonder why the great foreign ballet companies of the world aren't tripping over themselves trying to hire ABT's principals as guest artists?  It's probably because ABT has created the perception that its own principals are of less value than the guest stars they can buy. 

So, thank you to ABT for Coppelia, but no thanks for the guest artists.

The coveted Pump Bump Award goes to Xiomara Reyes and Herman Cornejo for the brilliant and charming Coppelia that we may someday see:

ABT - Bright Stream wound-up

ABT wrapped up its week of The Bright Stream last night with a blockbuster performance led by Veronika Part, Stella Abrera, Alexandre Hammoudi, and Cory Stearns.  Haglund wants all of his faithful readers out in Southern California who have not yet gotten their tickets to The Bright Stream in July at the Chandler Pavillion to click here and order today to ensure that you see Haglund's favorite of his four favorite casts - not that he ever plays favorites.

What is it going to take for Kevin McKenzie to come to his senses and promote Stella Abrera to principal dancer before she begins to grow mold?  She not only carries a full principal load of performances, and has for several years, but now carries a greater load than other principals.  It seems that McKenzie is trying to make some ludicrous point that a dancer who deserves to be principal can have a perfectly satisfying career as a soloist at American Ballet Theatre while never getting the recognition and credit that she deserves.  It's such hog do-do.  It's not satisfying for the ones buying the tickets or the ones making the donations or the ones investing the years in following this dancer's career to see McKenzie dissing Stella's ability and contribution to the company by refusing to recognize it.  There is no additional financial burden to promoting her.  In fact, if McKenzie wanted to promote six dancers to principal status, he could do so.  In fewer than two years of working with Ratmansky, Stella has progressed farther technically and artistically than more than a decade under McKenzie.  Should she be penalized for that?  Haglund wants to see her promotion announced, and he wants to see it yesterday.  Capisce?

 

The Biggest Performance of R&J EVER

This weekend The Royal Ballet will present four performances of Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet in London's mammoth O₂ Arena complete with giant video screens which will capture the action and faces up close.  This rock star sized ballet production is the first for London and it has the potential for elevating the art form to the same degree of public adoration and spectacle that Julio Bocca achieved in Argentina and Roberto Bolle in Italy.  The Ballet Bag Ladies are in place and are already Tweeting like crazy, complete with photos.   Set your dials, folks.

The O₂ better have the old O₂ ready to administer to the crowd when Carlos takes over the stage! 

 

Also on the news front, the MacMillan website has uploaded some new video clips including excerpts from Concerto, Elite Syncopations, The Invitation, Song of the Earth, Triad; unbroadcast rehearsal footage from the ITV documentary A Lot of Happiness;  additional rehearsal video of Lynn Seymour coaching Tamara Rojo and Edward Watson in Romeo and Juliet; and footage from a BBC Omnibus documentary showing excerpts from the early ballets  Danses Concertantes and House of Birds, along with Kenneth MacMillan talking about his work. 

We are so-o-o-o missing Kenneth MacMillan in New York this spring.

The Royal Danish Ballet – 6/14

It was probably lost on most of the audience at the opening performance of The Royal Danish Ballet just how difficult Bournonville conversation is for the feet to speak.  When, in the Bournonville Variations – a collection of dances for men based on the famous Bournonville syllabus – a dancer descended into a slow grand plie in first position and then executed a simple pirouette while rising out of that plie, the audience probably didn't realize just how un-simple that exercise was.  The most accomplished dancers can complete it without a bobble perhaps 75% of the time.  (Haglund, <.001% of the time.)  So, it's a high-risk element to include in choreography and doesn't really win many extra points even when done exceedingly well.  The same holds true for the tortuous rond de jambe en l'air performed while rotating on the supporting leg. 

The idea, arrangement, and staging of Bournonville Variations was credited to Thomas Lund and Artistic Director Nikolaj Hubbe and was intended to acquaint the audience with the steps used in training the male dancer with the technique required to succeed in Bournonville's famous ballets.  Bournonville devised a legendary set of progressive classes for each day of the week – and one can occasionally see a ballet student wandering around the Upper West Side in a Bournonville red tee shirt that says, "I survived Friday's class."  It's meaningful, it really is.  Another famous Danish choreographer, Harald Lander, devised his well-known ballet Etudes around the same training exercise concept but incorporated women into his stunning piece as well as more dramatic lighting and classical costumes. 

The dancers performed all of the choreography reasonably well.  There were some extra hops while closing en dedans pirouettes to rather opened fifth positions and occasional musical uniformity issues among the men but it was a pleasure to be reminded of how the technical constitution of a Bournonville specialist is developed, and then at the end of the evening's program, see it all fully in force during Act III of Bournonville's festive Napoli.

Hubbe and Sorella Englund did a little restaging and updating of Napoli with the idea of hopefully attracting a new audience.  That whole, popular concept of modernizing classical works to attract audiences unfamiliar with ballet is so overrated and an example of the failure to understand marketing.  The only thing one has to do to get people to a bonafide fabulous classical production is to modernize the marketing, not modernize the production. 

Hubbe and Englund didn't harm Napoli with the addition of cigarettes hanging out of the locals' mouths or the sudden intrusion of a motorbike during the finale - but in neither instance did the changes enhance the production, and it is doubtful whether the use of cigarettes and a motorbike would ever be a deal-maker for someone to go to the ballet for the first time. 

The dancing, on the other hand, was out-of-this-world wonderful – everything one expects to see from the Danes in Napoli.  The women have soft, pliable, expressive feet.  Quiet feet.  The men's are just as articulate and execute their battarie effortlessly.  The most treasured aspects of the Bournonville artistry are the calm and collected upper bodies, the soft curve of the arms, wrists, and hands, and the joy in the faces of the dancers while their feet and legs – no other way to say it – go crazy.  No need for extreme extensions or gross gymnastic stunts by these folks.  Their "basics" are, quite simply, beautiful enough.  Susanne Grinder and Ulrik Birkkjaer as Tersina and Gennaro were superb as the happy couple leading the Tarantella. 

The evening's program included Jorma Elo's Lost on Slow, a bad expenditure of time, effort and money.  The mechanical-like movements of the women in tutus and the men in pants was more of the same boring, music video inspired, gobbledygook that Elo has been producing for years.

The opener on the program was a fascinating performance of Flemming Flindt's classic The Lesson.  Johan Kobborg was especially convincing as the creepy ballet master who molests (or just considers molesting) and murders his young female student, portrayed by Alexandra Lo Sardo.  Mette Bodtche gave a persuasive performance of the pianist who admonishes the ballet master for his crimes, but then accepts them and helps him cover them up.  At the conclusion of the ballet, a male voice in an upper ring of the theater began bellowing loudly, and it was hard to ascertain whether it was some type of protest or pain but it surely didn't sound like any expression of appreciation that Haglund has heard in a theater.  It just added to the overall creepiness of this controversial piece of dance theater.

This was the first time that Haglund has seen the Danes since the "Stars of the Royal Danish Ballet" with Flemming Flint descended on Cincinnati more than a half century ago.  It seems he's been missing quite a lot.  The company is outstanding and dances with a freshness and energy that re-invigorates the Bournonville choreography.  If you don't believe Haglund, ask Kevin McKenzie or Martine van Hamel, both of whom were there last night.

Haglund bestows this lovely leather and lace Prada peep-toed Pump Bump Award on Susanne Grinder and Ulrik Birkkjaer for their joyous presentation of Napoli, Act III.

NYCB – Dancers' Choice – 6/12

The Dancers chose, the Dancers organized, the Dancers gave out gifts and prizes, the Dancers danced, and we all had a good time at the third annual Dancers' Choice evening at NYCB which was presented as a benefit performance for the NYCB Dancers' Emergency Fund.

Dancers Adrian Danchig-Waring and Amanda Hankes were our hosts for the evening.  Adrian explained that the theme of this year's Dancers' Choice evening was "the muse" because it permeated the company's history via the relationships between choreographers and the dancers working with them.  We also saw a short film created by DancePulp and Drew Jacoby wherein Wendy Whelan taught corps dancer Sara Adams and principal Jared Angle Wheeldon's Liturgy, which would be performed by them that evening.

As mentioned, the Dancers chose the program, but they also chose the casting with an eye toward allowing promising dancers to perform in roles which they might not otherwise see come their ways.  So, we got to see a lot of debuts this evening. 

The evening's dancing opened with Apollo which included debuts in all four principal roles:  Craig Hall as Apollo, Tiler Peck as Terpsichore, Ashly Isaacs as Polyhymnia, and Lauren Lovette as Calliope.  Hall seemed to have great potential as an Apollo, but lacked the intensity and confidence that we've come to expect in the role.  The role also looked newly learned.  The ladies fared a little better and looked more rehearsed, particularly Tiler Peck whose Terpsichore we'll surely see again the next time Apollo is part of the season.

Following the intermission, Sara Adams and Jared Angle debuted in Liturgy.  Wendy Whelan must be commended on her coaching, because the dancers moved exquisitely - almost like the piece had been made on them.  Sara Adams has some very pretty feet and legs which she wielded articulately.  Jared Angle executed the difficult partnering like the master he is.

There was a brief pause before the beginning of an excerpt from Agon.  As the applause for Liturgy ended and the dim lights came up in the house, New York Times critic Alastair Maucaulay, who was sitting in his usual seat in the orchestra was overheard by an audience member uttering to his friend next to him "Crap" in reference to Wheeldon's Liturgy.  It's more than a little out of place for a critic to be expressing his negative views orally for audience members to hear during the performance evening, particularly utilizing pejoratives or quasi-expletives.  Haglund suggests that next season, NYCB post an administrative person in the seat directly in front of Macaulay to monitor his remarks and also take away the complimentary pass for the second seat so that he has no one with whom to share his snide comments.

The excerpt from Agon was performed by Megan LeCrone and Amar Ramasar who was making his debut.  Both handled the PdD well, but the excerpt didn't really work standing alone.

A very brief excerpt form Angelin Preljocaj's La Stravaganza was danced by Gretchen Smith (debut) and Robert Fairchild.  It didn't really work standing alone, particularly for anyone who may never have seen the whole dance, but it reminded Haglund how much he likes the modern, eclectic choreography and the electronic score.  Maybe La Stravaganza will return again soon.

Following the second intermission, there was a raffle to give away signed posters and a chance to hang out during an upcoming NYCB photo shoot followed by dinner at Bar Boulud across the street. This was a fun evening.  Haglund could get used to raffles at intermissions, but the tickets would have to be a lot less than $20.  A $2 price for a raffle ticket would be just about right and would encourage a higher incidence of participation. 

Rubies from Jewels closed the evening.  Janie Taylor, Sean Suozzi (debut), and Teresa Reichlen (a late substitute for Sara Mearns) and a corps of four men and eight women danced this very energetically.  Haglund is not a Jewels fan, but he could see tonight that Janie Taylor was devouring the choreography like there was no tomorrow.  Suozzi kind of didn't have the old Villella agenda in mind.  He needed more "chase" in his dancing – that's chase, not Chase.  Teresa Reichlen was the authoritative, scowling, long-legged, so-called "tall girl" tonight.  It definitely wasn't her first ride at the rodeo.  Tess was quite spectacular.

Haglund was happy to attend the Dancers' Choice program and to help support the Emergency Fund.  The little packets of picture postcards bearing photos taken by Wendy Whelan and Janie Taylor which were given to each and every audience member, were much appreciated by all.

This stunning Pump Bump Award by Coach with its beautiful Fantasia Heel (only $188/pr) goes to Wendy Whelan for what we hope is the beautiful beginning of a lot of (recorded) passing down of her unique interpretations of roles identified with her for the past 25 years.

ABT – The Bright Stream – 6/11

Haglund has been fortunate enough to see all four of ABT's home team casts of The Bright Stream, either in New York or Washington D.C., and each one has been superb.  (This season he's trying to avoid all of the unnecessary and annoying guest artists wherever possible but it's been pretty hard since there are so dang many of them.)  Tonight's cast brought together Veronika Part and Stella Abrera as Zina and the Ballerina while Alexandre Hammoudi and Cory Stearns were Pyotr and the Ballet Dancer, respectively. 

It's been a long while since Haglund saw Veronika and Stella featured together as principals in the same ballet:  Ballet Imperial about six years ago comes to mind during which they were gorgeous together.  More often, they dance the same principal roles in different casts - Myrtha, Lilac Fairy, Queen of the Dryads, Les Sylphides.  What a pleasure it was to see them tonight and to be reminded how lovely they dance together.  The  other casts featured female principals who were so different that it took some imagination to think of them as former ballet school buddies, which is who they are supposed to portray.  One would never have guessed that Herrera and Murphy, Kent and Boylston, or Reyes and Boylston (Wash. DC cast) would have gone to the same ballet schools.  But tonight with Veronika and Stella, you just had to look at the length of their limps, the curve from the neck through the back, and the crystal clarity of the épaulement and port de bras to believe in their characters' pasts. 

Once again, as in Ratmansky's Nutcracker and in his piece during this year's repertory week, we got to see Veronika smiling and cheerful and having fun – while, of course, doing all of these remarkable arabesques and swooping movements but also fast, intricate and ridiculously difficult pointe work.  Very fast.  Very intricate. Very difficult.  Her PdDs with Hammoudi may not have been as smooth going as when she dances with Marcelo Gomes, but they were a lot better than when she dances with David Hallberg.  Hammoudi can actually lift a ballerina into the air and hold her there.  Haglund has great hopes for Hammoudi even though he kind of choked on his pirouettes and a la seconde turns during Act I.  Everyone knows this guy can turn and that his nerves got the better of him tonight.  Stay tuned.  The rest of his dancing and characterization were marvelous.

Stella Abrera achieved another breakout performance tonight - theatrically and technically.  Her overall characterization of the practical-joking and scheming Ballerina was a tour de force.  Never has Haglund seen anyone drive a mime scene with the left eyebrow the way Stella did tonight - except for maybe Marcelo.  It was all deliciously devilish. Her dancing was just as sensational:  perfectly formed pirouettes, grand jetes like spears through the air, pointes sharp but light.  The backward hops en pointe in arabesque while she folded and unfolded her arms in front of her were amazing.  The expansiveness of her movement was beautiful because it was so unforced.  She didn't look like an athlete trying to run down the competition in a sport - as perhaps we might have seen in another performance this week.

Haglund is a little late with this review because upon leaving the performance, he had to immediately rush to an emergency session with his psychomixologist at Coppersmith's Bar to discuss Cory Stearns' performance as the Ballet Dancer turned Sylph.  Dr. D's potions are miraculous and enabled Haglund to accept and report that Stearns knocked it out of the park with his portrayal of the Sylph opposite Victor Barbee's Old Dacha Dweller.  A surprising and hilarious performance, it was.  Great details – from the pique pointes which hammered the floor to the bouncing sissonnes that sent the tulle skirt flying up around his head to his Degas poses on the floor.  His variations as the male Ballet Dancer were pretty good tonight as well - the saute fouettes followed by pique battement arabesques - or whatever that recurring step was - were neat with nice height - as were Stella's when she repeated them in her variation in Act II.

Roman Zhurbin (Inspector), Gemma Bond (Schoolgirl), Gennadi Saveliev (Accordian Player), Misty Copeland (Milkmaid), and Jared Matthews (Tractor Driver & dog) were all dynamite tonight.

Haglund hasn't mentioned much about the corps since The Bright Stream began, which has been unfair, because they have all been fantastic.  The Highlanders and Fieldworkers have wonderful choreography that includes some wild echappé-like moves to the front and back on their boot heels as their upper torsos bend backward.  Don't know how else to describe it.  Eric Tamm, Joseph Phillips, Aaron Scott and Alexandre Hammoudi (and perhaps others who have been unrecognizable under the wigs and hats) have been leading the Highlanders and Fieldworkers superbly over the last few nights.  Each night the ladies of the corps have engaged in a beautiful waltz that involves complex formations and extremely fast arm movements to go with the fast feet.  Haglund has seen enough of the clasped hands circling around the head movement, however.

So many times after a choreographer sets a piece (and then sometimes dies) later castings become dependent on the physical types of the originators:  this role must be a tall girl, this role must be a short guy, this role must be dark haired and muscular and so forth.  With Ratmansky's choreography, it seems that the multiple castings use such a variety of dancers that it facilitates future castings and the lasting power of the work.  In The Bright Stream we had tiny Xiomara Reyes and tall Veronika Part in the same roles, and we had the small Daniil Simkin and the tall David Hallberg in the same roles.  Reyes and Part couldn't be more different in style, and Simkin is an entirely different type of dancer than Hallberg.  It's really nice to have work that can be interpreted by so many different types of artists.

Tonight's Alexander McQueen golden black onyx Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon lovely Stella Abrera who keeps on coming back, better than ever, to bring such gorgeous dancing and great character performances to us all.

ABT – The Bright Stream 6/10

It was another highly entertaining performance of The Bright Stream tonight.  Julie Kent and Jose Manuel Carreno as Zina and Pyotr, her husband, were quite pleasing to watch in Ratmansky's steppy choreography and seemed very energized by it.  Maybe some of the technique was down a half notch from the night before, but hey, these two have almost ninety years between them.  The PdD in Act II was exquisite, especially the second part which had a darker, melancholy mood to it.  Pyotr just couldn't seem to figure why his partner in a mask, who he doesn't know is really his wife, wouldn't come closer. 

Daniil Simkin and Isabella Boylston danced the roles of the Ballerina and the Ballet Dancer.  Simkin was devilish as the Sylph, his backwards leap to the bench and Sylph pose hilarious.  Boylston - what can we say about her development this past year except that it has been astonishing.  Tonight, she really projected her character to the back of the Family Circle - such a difference from a year ago.  However, when she and Julie danced the same steps together, it was noticeable that the staff has a little work to do on the elegance aspect of Isabella's dancing.  One complaint:  Isabella literally threw herself at her partners with excessive force, especially at Jose who nearly couldn't catch one of her flying passes down stage.  That kind of force can probably be chalked up to the bad influence that is in town this week who is known for using force to make herself look spectacular even at the expense of the people with whom she's dancing.  If ABT wants to hire gymno-dancers with no aesthetic, they can probably find them on most college campuses - it's not necessary to import them as guest stars.  Isabella's jumps were not only enormous, but pretty with beautifully curved legs and feet and her body was high on her legs.  A terrific performance from the new soloist!

Sascha Radetsky and Sarah Lane simply could not have been any better as the Accordion Player and the Schoolgirl.  Radetsky looked in fine technical form, and appeared to be dancing in a relaxed mode.  It's so great to see him genuinely smiling when he's dancing; we don't see that enough.  Lane grabbed the schoolgirl character by her hair bows and lit up Radetsky and the whole stage around her.  Haglund hasn't seen as much of Lane this season as he had hoped, and was happy to see her featured prominently tonight.  Like so many others, Lane is such a talent going to waste while the management imports guest artists who neither fit with the company's aesthetic nor add to it. 

Everyone danced superbly tonight, but the two people who were such surprise standouts in character roles were Julio Bragado-Young as the Old Dacha Dweller and Nicola Curry as the Anxious-to-Be-Younger-Than-She-Is Dacha Dweller.  Julio, who is probably one of the thinner men in the company, mastered the character of the old man with the sunken chest who wore his belt up too high and walked with a stoop.  The costumer deserves his/her own Pump Bump Award for outfitting Julio in the perfect oversized suit and the most unbecoming old-man, scoop-necked undershirt you can imagine.  When Julio squinted through his enormous glasses, his nose wrinkled up baring his slightly protruding front teeth - funnier than Mr. Six on the Six Flags amusement park commercials.  For her part, Nicola in her red wig, enormous eyelashes and substantial padding played her character to the hilt.  She was hilarious chasing after the Old Dacha Dweller after she saw him flirting with the Sylph. 

It was a very enjoyable evening of theater that a lot of people missed.  Lots of empty seats; however, keeping in mind that even a 35-40% empty Met is equivalent to a sold out Koch Theater, it probably wasn't really so bad. 

The silver star Pump Bump Award for tonight's performance is bestowed upon Julio Bragado-Young and Nicola Curry for their shining performances:

ABT - The Bright Stream - don't be a fool and miss it

As Haglund walked to the Met last night, the skies darkened, the rain started to fall, and the temperature mercifully sank several degrees below the day's high of 97.  Relief at last.  Inside the opera house, the heat, passion, and emotional wreckage from a week of Giselles followed by a week of Lady of the Camellias was about to get some comic relief as ABT presented Alexei Ratmanksy's The Bright Stream in New York for the first time.  The company's premiere performances of the production took place in Washington D.C. last January.  (See H.H. review ABT's The Bright Stream - A Collective Riot.)

While this ballet may be about the lives of happy farm workers on a Soviet collective farm and their encounter with a band of visiting entertainers, there are places in it where you could expect Tim Conway to wander in and set up a dentist's chair or rush in to perform artificial respiration as a member of the aged Sun City Fire Department or to begin his story about the elephant in the ballerina skirt who had a circus dwarf as a lover.  Audience members don't need to know anything about Stalin's social engineering debacle in order to enjoy The Bright Stream to its fullest.  They just need to know how to laugh.

At last night's New York premiere, Paloma Herrera, Marcelo Gomes, Gillian Murphy, David Hallberg, Craig Salstein Victor Barbee, Martine Van Hamel, Roman Zhurbin, Maria Riccetto, Misty Copeland, and Jared Matthews kept the comedy and spectacular dancing coming full-farce for two hours while the audience roared.  Gomes, as the husband with the wandering eye, and Herrera, as his wife who deployed an identity-switching scheme designed by Murphy's ballerina character to teach him a lesson, were one of three central couples.   They enjoyed an elegant PdD in Act II as Herrera pretended to be someone else and Gomes professed his love for her.  These days, the same undercover sting would probably play out on Twitter. 

The subplot saw Barbee's dim-sighted Old Dacha Dweller, married to Van Hamel's Anxious to be Younger than she is Dacha Dweller, chasing amorously after a ballerina, who by that time was Hallberg disguised as a Sylph complete with romantic tutu and boat-sized pointe shoes - no doubt, the two most coveted roles in the whole ballet.  So good was Hallberg in his Romantic portrayal of the Sylph that at the end of the performance, Gillian Murphy tried to push him forward to take a bow with all of the other ballerinas.  The playoff between Hallberg and Barbee was reminiscent of the brilliance of the Conway and Harvey Korman skits.  The Sylph took such care in his feminine portrayal but every so often couldn't resist throwing off a few macho tricks which heightened the Old Dacha Dweller's amorous energy.

Other sub-skits involved Craig Salstein's Accordion Player lusting after Maria Riccetto's innocent schoolgirl, and Misty Copeland's Milkmaid deliciously persuading Jared Matthew's Tractor Driver to try to milk the cow.

There was a tremendous amount of challenging dancing for the corps - all highly entertaining with phrases that one might expect to see in dances by Russian folk troupes like the Moiseyev.  While the women wore de-sheened pointe shoes, the men were in jazz shoes or character boots which facilitated revolutions in pirouettes and athleticism in all their dancing.  The only shoe satin seen the entire night was on Hallberg's Sylph's and on Van Hamel's Anxious to be Younger Dacha Dweller's feet.  Whenever ABT's women take the sheen off of their shoes, everyone's feet look more uniformly lovely and those who wear off-brands are less conspicuous.

The choreography, while, yes, steppy and peppy, was wonderfully musical and illuminated musical accents in the Shostakovich score in a literal way that we don't, regrettably, see much of anymore in new work.  You've got to be able to execute all kinds of attitude turns upside down and inside out in order to succeed in Ratmansky's choreography.  Thankfully, the ABT dancers can and do, and make it all look wonderfully easy.

The home team casts coming up are too good to pass up:  Carreno, Kent, Simkin, and Boylston tonight and Part, Abrera, Stearns, and Hammoudi Saturday night.  Julio Bragado-Young will be the Old Dacha Dweller at some point - not to be missed.  Everyone repeats next week. 

This is a fantastic ballet to drag the uninitiated to, because it sometimes has the feel of a Broadway production to it.  It's great for the kids, too.  The only problem Haglund envisions with it is that repeat viewings may not be as strong as with other classical dramatic productions, because  once you've seen the jokes, they aren't as funny the second, third or fourth time around - except if you're watching Tim Conway.  One way to keep the public's interest in returning to The Bright Stream would be to continually exchange the roles among the cast.  Once familiar with the ballet, the public would trip over itself to see Gomes or Cornejo as the Sylph. 

The Gianmarco Lorenzi tulle Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon Hallberg and Barbee – may they someday truly find one another.

ABT – Lady of the Camellias – 6/7

In order to get out of the choking heat and humidity, Haglund went to the cool Metropolitan Opera House to see the sweltering, passionate meltdown of Marguerite and Armand.  And when it was all over three hours later, he just wanted to roll over and light up a cigarette.

Whenever Marcelo Gomes and Diana Vishneva perform the same ballet together twice in one week, you never want to miss the second performance.  Actually, you never want to miss either performance, but the second will surely have the power to take you right to the edge of a breakdown and then make you want to jump.

And so it was tonight. 

The entire cast was superb.  Veronika Part and Eric Tamm smoothed out the wrinkles of their PdD and captured the essence of Manon and Des Grieux – stunning tonight.  Carlos Lopez, who apparently had his last performance tonight, was terrific as Count N. especially during those moments on stage when his character was trying to win Marguerite.  Maria Riccetto as Olympia was a subtle seductress who got Armand right where she wanted him.  Roman Zhurban and Isaac Stappas were great character heavies as Monsieur Duval and The Duke.  The corps was fantastic.  Haglund couldn't take his eyes off of Joseph Gorak, Renata Pavam, and the new kid, Sterling Baca - man oh man, does he have a presence. 

We saw big drama tonight.  Big, big, big.  We need another big ballet just for Marcelo – MacMillan's masterpiece Mayerling would do.  Or how about a world premiere where our Marcelo dances "I am dying, Egypt, dying" as he falls into the arms of his beloved Vishnopatra with his sword in his stomach.  Marcelo is making this spring season his own.  Of course, tonight's smoldering satin and tulle Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon him.

UIEX: NYCB Fourth Ring Society ending?

The Unofficial Information Exchange (UIEX) received a tip from a quasi-sort-of-official-anonymous-perhaps-reliable source that NYCB's popular Fourth Ring Society, which allows one to join for an initial payment of $20-25 and thereafter entitles the member to $15 (now $17 with the facility fee) Fourth Ring tickets, will not be continued after this June and that NYCB may even close off portions of the Fourth Ring to sales if the rest of the house isn't selling well.

If this is true, NYCB is clearly over-estimating the loyalty of its low-end customer base if it thinks it can squeeze people into buying more expensive third ring and lower seats by denying them the cheaper options to which they are accustomed.

The Fourth Ring Society page is still up on the NYCB website.  Haglund will regularly check to see if it disappears.

If this sorry news is true, what a bad idea in a bad economy.  NYCB will be acting like it is the only one affected by the crummy economy.  Does the company really think that the people in the crummy, cheap seats aren't being affected by the crummy economy as severely as NYCB?

Here's how the fallout from the decision will go:

• People will push back by attending the ballet less frequently.

• People will push back by attending only those performances of ballets which they are sure they will like and will avoid risking money on new, untried ballets which they haven't seen.

• People will become accustomed to and comfortable with attending NYCB less frequently, substituting other activites in its place.

• Those Fourth Ring Society members who also are the lowest rung of donors will keep their $90 contributions to themselves this year.
  

It's not smart to treat your low-end customer base like you think you can grab a little more out of its wallet by twisting its arm behind its back.  Fewer customers will cry "Uncle" and hand over the money to the NYCB bandits than won't. 

Let's hope the Fourth Ring Society doesn't end.