Haglund's Heel

[ring, ring, ring]

Haglund:  Geez Louise. It's 7am, already 84 degrees in the apartment, the cats are staring unhappily at their litterbox, and some fool is calling me on the phone.

[ring, ring, ring] [ring, ring, ring]

Haglund:  This better be important.  Hello?!

Voice:  It's me. I may be in trouble again.

Haglund:  Oh, Geez Louise. As if my day didn't stink enough already. What do you want?

Voice:  People are asking questions. The questions are piling up. They're rushing to answer them.   They're not giving me a chance to defend myself.  When I was 12-years-old ––

Haglund:  Stop!  What are you talking about?

Voice:  It's the ballerinas – the beautiful ones. They're going to come after me, I know it. I've known it since I was 12-years-old.

Haglund:  Didn't your shrink tell you that your caligynephobia was under control?

Voice:  Yes, but now that woman is my new editor and she stands over me all day long with those lips pursed in a smirk. I can't take it. When I was 12-years-old ––

Haglund:  Calm down. Calm down. Are the symptoms as bad as when you had to watch Veronika Part dance with David Hallberg a few years ago?

Voice: (screeching) Oh my god, don't remind me. I'm going to have nightmares tonight. My David in the arms of that –– I hate them, all of them, with their pretty little faces. I want to call them all fat.  FAT!  I wish we could have ballet without ballerinas. I wish I wish I wish.

Haglund:  Hold on.  Do you have any of your medication left from the last episode?

Voice:  No, I don't think so. I don't like those pills. They constipate me.

Haglund:  Here's my advice. You need to write another tell-all article like you did for The Telegraph a few years back when you were arrested for photographing children. 

Voice:  You mean, tell everyone what happened to me when I was 12-years-old – when that horribly beautiful woman ridiculed me and made me shrink where no boy ever wants to shrink?

Haglund:  Exactly. Caligynephobia is a disability and you need to make people empathize with your affliction and understand that you are the real victim in this controversy. Now get out there and make everyone care. Chin up.

Voice:  Thanks, Haglund. How are the kitties?

Haglund:  Less catty than you.

[Click]

 

Thank goodness for the paparazzi!

Yes, yes, yes – but this is Haglund's blog, and he can change his mind when he wants.

Our A#1 most favorite paparazzi got some g-g-g-g-glorious photos of the curtain calls from the final Sleeping Beauty performance by Veronika Part, Marcelo Gomes and Stella Abrera that will make you stutter from their beauty.  Thanks, Mr. Becker, for these we are most grateful.

Go:  Not My Day Job Photography

 

ABT 7/6 EveningSleeping Beauty – Part & Gomes

Judging from the way that the paparazzi charged down the aisles toward the stage after the wedding last night, it's a good thing that the orchestra pit was between them and Veronika Part.  It may soon become necessary to cut loose some 'gators in the pit whenever a performance by Veronika with Marcelo Gomes comes to a close in order to discourage the unruly mobs of paparazzi from trying to climb over the wall of the pit with their rapid fire flashes blazing.  It was mayhem at The Met last night for the final performance of Sleeping Beauty, that's for sure.

Nobody turns Sleeping Beauty into a grownup's love story better than Veronika Part and Marcelo Gomes as Princess Aurora and Prince Desire.  They take it beyond the fairy tale.  Beyond the chick ballet.  Beyond what Disney ever envisioned it could be.  Probably even beyond what Petipa ever imagined.

All three of the acts last night were stunning, but the Vision Scene took the prize.  For those who wait all season for the moments of sterling quality classical ballet combined with exquisite enchantment, these were those moments of ABT's 2013 Met Season.  Veronika, Marcelo, and our beautiful Lilac Fairy, Stella Abrera, evinced the purity of classical form and the purpose of the story with clarity that was almost audible.  We didn't just see Desire struggle with his decision at the crossroads of his life; we heard him speak of it in our minds.  The Lilac Fairy's benevolent insistence that Desire declare his love and commitment to Aurora before allowing them to join together was conveyed with astonishingly beautiful port de bras and mime.  Finally, when the vision of Aurora met the mortal Desire, we all thought we'd died and gone to Heaven.

Act I included an energetic entrance variation by Veronika.  It was amazing to see those long legs manage the fast little unfolding pas de/saute de chat steps at the beginning and then later in Act I soar in the grand jetes with the front leg ronde de jambe.  Veronika smartly played Aurora as jubilant and excited without cloying adolescent features; she was a genuine Aurora for any age group.  Her four princes, Vitali Krauchenka, Thomas Forster, Gray Davis, and Daniel Mantei prepared her attitude balances and escorted her promenades with skilled confidence.  Krauchenka's support in Veronika's pirouettes was and always has been superbly managed.  Forster lifted her to a prolonged shoulder-sit with ease. 

The Act III Wedding Celebration PdD was glorious.  When Veronika threw herself into the pirouettes that preceded the fish dives, it was like watching a whooshing wave curling off the shores of Hawaii.  Then Marcelo caught her around and beneath her waist like Duke Kahanamoku used to catch the epic Pipeline in Oahu.  This was greatness – maybe even a folktale in the making. 

The five fairies (Sincerity - Katherine Wiliams; Fervor - Kristi Boone; Charity - Gemma Bond; Joy - Christine Shevchenko; and Valor - Simone Messmer) were all lovely.  This was Simone's final performance before joining San Francisco Ballet and she showed us many of the characteristics in her dancing that we will miss: strength, clarity, commitment, drama, good classical form, rapport with the audience. 

Stella Abrera's dancing as the Lilac Fairy was ethereal if not spiritual in its beauty.  Lightness, delicacy, strength and pure classicism – what a combination.  She and Veronika are ABT's most exquisite classical ballerinas.  Why the audience is continually denied the opportunity to see Stella in leading roles can only be attributed to the narrow-mindedness of the company's director.

Misty Copeland and Blaine Hoven were excellent as Princess Florine and The Bluebird.  Blaine's diagonal of brise voles, entrechat sixes, and pirouettes were all exceptionally well executed.  Misty was a joy to watch in this PdD – such sparkle – and she handled all of the technical demands with ease.  However, knowing that she just came off of a long period from a leg bone injury, it was a little unsettling to see her sometimes put such force into a pique or releve that the reverberations could be seen in her body.

The final Pump Bump Award of the season, a stiletto of gold roses, is bestowed upon Veronika Part for the beauty and enchantment that she brought to Aurora.

L.A. Haglund'eelers – Lucky yous!

Due to the unfortunate injury to Cory Stearns, there has been some cast reshuffling for the run at Dorothy Chandler Pavillion next week.  The Sunday 2:00pm cast for Le Corsaire offers some real gems, including Joseph Phillips in only his second performance of Ali.  Haglund saw his debut at the Kennedy Center last April which was quite impressive, and then later learned that the day before he'd been in the local E.R. with some intestinal something-or-other.  Wow, to see him do this role when he's fully hydrated and fully rested is going to be a huge treat for a lot of people.

Also, that performance includes The Great Cornejo and the lovely and spunky Xiomara Reyes who will dance Conrad and Medora. Pile on performances by Stella Abrera (Gulnare), Sascha Radetsky (Lankendam), and Craig Salstein (Birbanto), and you're looking at a performance worth driving for hours and hours through the worst, most hellish LA traffic to attend.  This will be ABT's final performance of the season - you do not want to miss it.  Do not miss it.

Another substitution that everyone should be interested in is Thomas Forster who makes his debut opposite Veronika Part in the Second Movement of Symphony in C Thursday night.  Forster is a most elegant dancer who everyone in NYC seems to want to see more and more of these days.  Wait until you see his legs and feet. 

ABT – Sleeping Beauty 7/3 mat – Sarah Lane

Sarah Lane's performance Wednesday afternoon in ABT's Sleeping Beauty was so remarkable that it proved a centuries old proverb wrong.  Apparently, some artists are talented enough to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.  Was this really Sleeping Beauty or was it that other fairy tale that involves spinning gold out of straw?  As soon as the curtain came down, Haglund was ready to see it all again.

This production is hard to take from the git-go. The original bad idea of trying to make this ballet appeal to 21st century kids who are accustomed to bright video entertainment by mimicking the abrasive and overdone color schemes of computer games was devised by a staging team none of whom had kids. Though some improvements have been made, the production is still such a mishmash of ideas that the whole thing feels like a trip down a Target aisle. But today, the dancing by the artists on stage was so brilliant that it muted the production's deficiencies.

When Sarah Lane first appeared at the top of the staircase and then descended the steps to perform Aurora's variations and the Rose Adagio in Act I, all the reasons that so many give for loving this artist were revealed.  Tiny and dark-haired with big blue eyes, her physical beauty instantly commands attention. Her technique is as reliable as any ballerina on the stage today, and at this performance of Sleeping Beauty, her ability to sweep the audience into the story was the best we've seen since this production arrived in 2007.  Today, her Aurora shown more brightly than any of the guest dancers who have been imported over the past five years to dance the role instead of giving Sarah the opportunity to build on her huge Met debut success in 2008.  More brightly than Cojocaru.  More brightly than Owhimpova.

At the outset when Aurora's suitors appeared before the King and Queen, each arrived with such authority that we suddenly sensed that we were in the midst of a special performance.  Blaine Hoven, Sterling Baca, Eric Tamm, and Roddy Doble marched in with their S.B. Special Forces mission of making certain that the Rose Adagio went off without a hitch.  They seemingly knew what we were about to learn – Sarah Lane was of the mind to give an ass-kicking performance.  Throughout the adagio, each of the suitors, who rarely dance with Sarah, partnered her admirably, especially in the pirouettes and supported attitudes.  This becomes important to note, because Daniil Simkin, who performed Prince Desire and has regularly danced with Sarah for the last five years, later fumbled with her in basic pirouettes and fish dives.

The most iconic moments of the Rose Adagio are the two sets of balances en attitude, the last of which are executed along with promenades escorted by the S.B. Special Forces team members.  Sarah eagerly grabbed the first balance signaling her determination, confidence, and poise.  At one point during the series, she paused to recalibrate her balance but it never appeared that her mission was in trouble.  Once completed, the Special Forces suitors beamed with pride.  Let's hope that Sleeping Beauty bought them all a beer after the show.

But the balances were only a part of Sarah's glistening and musically sensitive performance.  She committed herself to triple pirouettes throughout her variations and jumped with the ease of a gazelle.  As tiny as Sarah might be, she used her port de bras to present herself as a much larger and significant presence on stage.  Aurora's excitement at the birthday party, her sudden collapse after pricking herself with the spindle, her spirituality during the Vision Scene, and her love for Prince Desire in Act III were all portrayed with polished detail. 

Stella Abrera's Lilac Fairy was authoritative, benevolent, and full of grace.  Clearly the experienced ballerina who should have been cast as Sleeping Beauty on Tuesday night and who would have prevented the widely reported colossal failure that was delivered by Hee Seo, Stella was visibly thrilled with the statement being made on stage by Sarah Lane.  Her fairy's Vaganova-expansive port de bras calmed the kingdom and her long beautiful legs and tapered feet swept through releve arabesque fouettes like a calm breeze on summer's most beautiful day – which it may well have been for ABT's season.  From her initial aerial entrance atop two fairy knights to her final entrance directly through the bright sun in the apotheosis, Stella made a significant statement of her own artistry and that she can rise above the cruelty and nonsense that McKenzie employs to keep her from dancing the leading roles that she deserves and we deserve to see her perform.  What a tragic, horrible loss to ABT that this artist is so wasted.

Daniil Simkin as Prince Desire managed his own technical matters efficiently without the customary circus antics.  He showed plenty of refinement and employed good mime. There was something different about the quality of his Prince Desire that was appealing, but Haglund can't quite put his finger on it. Maybe it was that he had thoroughly learned the role earlier this year at the Royal Swedish Ballet where McKenzie couldn't interfere in someone's good taste. As noted, though, the partnering is still a problem that cannot be attributed to Daniil's short stature since Herman Cornejo, who is shorter, is able to accomplish fish dives, support his ballerina's pirouettes, and keep her on her plumb line for arabesques. The one question that remained unanswered throughout the performance was why Sleeping Beauty would choose this particular prince over any of the other suitors who partnered her so well.

The Bluebird and Princess Florine variations were in the expert care of Jared Matthews and Yuriko Kajiya.  Jared's brise voles were crisp, clear, and silent, and he looked good in the costume.  Yuriko was truly bird-like and found places in the music for some lovely balances. 

Sarah's resounding success must have been as humiliating for McKenzie, who was cowering in the back of the company's parterre box, as Hee Seo's failure the night before.  His practice of promoting the wrong dancers in roles and to principal status because he is fond of the shapes of their legs while denying better dancers within the ranks their deserved opportunities could not have been thrown back in his face with any more force than it was on Wednesday afternoon.  Sarah Lane gave us a world class Sleeping Beauty performance, again, and it was an honor to have been there.  She deserves so much more respect than she is currently getting from ABT. 

This magnificent Yves Saint Laurent rose Pump Bump Award is bestowed upon Sarah Lane for her wondrous Aurora.  Let's hope we don't have to wait another five years to see it again or wait any longer to see her Odette.

ABT – Sylvia – Saturday 6/29 Mat & Eve

These guys were strolling through Hell's Kitchen on Sunday looking for a gig in an Ashton ballet.  Haglund had to tell them that they'd just missed their opportunity with Sylvia at the Met and that they probably could have found work at the Shrovetide Fair in Petrushka at Fisher Hall, but that was over, too.  They didn't look too disappointed, though, and one of them even celebrated with a little Fred Step.  We exchanged wing-salutes and they all marched off to the watermelon stand at a nearby street fair.  Yeah, those just-missed opportunities can be heartbreakers.

But sometimes opportunities present themselves when you least expect them.  Like this past Saturday when Jared Matthews, Sascha Radetsky, and Xiomara Reyes walked into some unexpected additional performances of Ashton's Sylvia.

For the matinee, Jared replaced Marcelo Gomes as Aminta to Gillian Murphy's Sylvia.  Both danced the role earlier in the week; Jared's first performance on Wednesday was a strong debut opposite Paloma Herrera.  This second performance found him even more assured technically and theatrically.  He seemed emboldened by the energy that Gillian threw his way during her own brilliant performance.  In the PdD, they looked like equals.

Jared will soon figure out how to add more dynamic elements to his stage presence between the execution of steps in his variations.  Cornejo and Gomes are masters at making those transition moments important, and they do it by applying greater amounts of energy and urgency.  When they take a few walking steps, they make you alert as to why and where they are going -- not just that they are walking.  When they are standing on stage and they suddenly turn their bodies to address someone else, you take notice of the direction of their focus.  Compared to the music in the evening performance in which Herman Cornejo danced brilliantly, it seemed that Jared could have used a brisker tempo in his own allegro variations.  His last set of jumps in the Act III PdD were at "Murphy speed" and looked pretty exciting.

Sascha Radetsky had another powerful performance as Orion, and again showed that he is a worthy and complimentary partner for Gillian.  Craig Salstein repeated his masterful performance as Orion.  Stella Abrera and Simone Messmer employed gorgeous, pristine classical form as Ceres and Terpsichore.  Isabella Boylston had lapses of concentration as Persephone, and her ensemble work was sloppy especially when she was downstage trying to dance in unison with the other soloists who were crisply coordinated. 

The evening performance saw the substitution of Xiomara Reyes for Natalia Osipova who bailed out with a feeble whimper.  Xiomara made her highly successful debut on short notice earlier in the week – a monumental achievement considering what's involved with Ashton's Sylvia.  Her performance on Saturday evening was terrific and began with a baby-faced killer entrance.  Dropped chin, shaking her weapon and fist, insolently glowering at the audience –– wait a minute, where was our cuddly cute Xiomara?  This was Sylvia from da Bronx.

Xiomara held nothing back and went for broke on every challenge.  On the early two sets of pique half turns where the working leg battement developpes forward, she threw her foot to the sky.  The first of each set was spectacular with the second ones less so because they were off balance.  She and Gillian handled this challenge the best whereas other Sylvias tried too hard to control and finesse the move or didn't battement at all.  The last of the series of high speed consecutive pirouettes went awry, but other than that, Xiomara was rock solid and thrilling in her technique and interpretation of Sylvia.

The PdDs of Herman and Xiomara were near perfection.  Hands down, they had the smoothest, most impressive execution of the move in which Sylvia pirouetted and then instantly and blindly swiveled 180 degrees to an arabesque hoping that Aminta was there with his arm for the promenade.  Aminta was not only there on Saturday, but his arm was outstretched at the perfect distance for Sylvia to reach.  It was like watching Legos fit together. 

Herman was magnificent as the shepherd, Aminta.  As always, his dancing was sharp and clear in tone.  Who could possibly make Ashton's direction-changing pique passes with fast double pirouettes look any better? 

Herman's Act I solo to the flute music was itself a song of love and longing for Sylvia.  Shepherds have  been associated with flutes for centuries. This ballet takes its inspiration from the 1573 poem about the shepherd, Aminta, by Torquato Tasso who was well acquainted with the work of Renaissance painters including Girogione.  One of Girogiones famous paintings is the 1508 Shepherd boy with a flute. The über contemporary NYT fool suggested that Aminta's dancing to the lovely flute music represented a gender attribute realignment.

As Diana, Devon Teuscher was much more fierce than in her debut performance earlier in the week and danced with good authority.  Daniil Simkin was fine as Eros, and Ivan Vasiliev definitely did not convey seductive evil with his Orion or offer any classical ballet dancing.  Messy blob of nasty was more like it.  Witness the Royal Ballet's Thiago Soares – this is what we should be striving for.  The corps de ballet had a few substitutions which may explain why it was at times untidy.

The Saturday Pump Bump Award, straight from the forest, is bestowed upon Xiomara Reyes for her engaging and brilliantly danced Sylvia.