Haglund's Heel

observations 11-29

Bows - Abrera, Seo, Teuscher, Bolle in Apollo with the LA Phil and Dudamel last night.

We need to see this in New York.

This spring.

At least once.

Period.

Grazie al I Bollerini Fan Club per questo video. Dobbiamo vedere questo spettacolo a New York questa primavera. Aiutaci per favore.

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The Royal Winnipeg Ballet will tour its acclaimed production of Going Home Star – Truth and Reconciliation throughout Canada this winter including a stop in Toronto on February 5th and 6th. Choreographer Mark Godden's inspiration for the ballet came from Canada's infamous Residential Schools for its First Nations people in which the children were forcibly assimilated into the mainstream and suffered horrific treatment. See our previous coverage here and here.

Last week the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra released a CD of the music from the ballet which features Christos Hatzis' stirring composition. Hatzis used classical, jazz, aboriginal, DJ scratch, throat singing by Tanya Tagaq, and contributions from The Northern Cree Singers. It's available on iTunes. It is a fantastic collaboration of forms.

–– Hello, Lincoln Center Festival?

–– We need to see this, too.

 

NYCB Nutcracker High Steps & Glide Steps on Opening Night

On Thanksgiving Day, a dozen precision marching bands from across the country proudly advanced their inspiring music through the streets of New York in the Macy’s Parade while millions watched. No one seems to have been inspired more than our brave Bunny in last night’s opening performance of New York City Ballet’s The Nutcracker. The Bunny’s high-stepping and punctilious pivots, ramrod straight ears, perfect posture, dazzling drumming, and fearless confrontation with the Mouse King during the little soldiers’ battle against the mice all secured this Bunny’s place in history as one of the most magnificent that we have ever witnessed. Ever.

The soldiers for whom The Bunny beat the drum were outstanding as well - the mice never had a chance against them despite the fact that the rodents were clear favorites with the audience.

The Bunny and soldiers were but two of the highlights of last evening’s Act I that included an engaging Robert LaFosse as Herr Drosselmeier. Ask la Cour made the character of Dr. Stahlbaum pop with a little more drama and animation than we usually see; it made Haglund wonder what his Drosselmeier might look like one day. Kristen Segin and Sarah Villwock were delightful as the Toys: Harlequin and Columbine while Devin Alberda powered through the wooden Soldier variation with great precision and clarity.

The Snowflakes were lovely and everyone held onto their snowballs unlike at Wednesday night’s open rehearsal when they flew like missiles through the blizzard. The first quartet of flakes didn’t incorporate the corrections given to it by the ballet mistress on Wednesday night; consequently, their lines were messy. But overall, the Snow Scene was crisply danced and beautiful.

Natalie Glassie and F. Henry Berlin reprised their roles as Marie and The Nutcracker with great charm and professionalism. The young Berlin’s beaming stage presence during his transformation moment when his Nutcracker costume flew off of his body to reveal him as a little prince was one of the highlights of the evening. His mime was outstanding just as it was last year, and his feet now suggest fine form and flexibility.

Act II opened with a dozen Angels gliding smoothly through formations until a tiny one went down like a nine-pin. After a second or two of rolling around like a weeble, she ascended to her feet and completed all further Angel maneuvers with absolute perfection. The focus and professionalism of this little Angel no doubt has secured her a bid for Marie in the coming years. In fact, if Balanchine had witnessed it in his day, he might have kept the fallen Angel in the choreography as he once did in Serenade.

There was much fine dancing in Act II, most notably from Daniel Ulbricht’s bright Candy Cane, Ashley Laracey’s mysterious Coffee, and Georgina Pazcoguin's and Taylor Stanley’s zesty Hot Chocolate. It was fabulous to see Lauren Lovette on stage again (following a lengthy recovery from surgery) as the leader of the Marzipan Shepherdesses but our hearts skipped a few beats when her foot collapsed under her during the hops on pointe. She seemed fine, however, through the rest of the dance.

While watching our Sugarplum Fairy and Dewdrop, Sterling Hyltin and Sara Mearns, it seemed as though they had their roles reversed. Sara possessed the grandeur for SPF while Sterling had the bright energy for DD, not vice versa. Haglund was a little disappointed that Sterling’s SPF was not more informed by all the good classical work that she did in La Sylphide last year. Last night’s dancing was rowdy instead of elegant with crystalline beauty. Of course, there were no problems with the steps including that hazardous pique turn into a penche arabesque, but the quality of the dancing was fizzy and throwaway. Sara’s natural grandeur got in the way of the DD’s pristine clarity. In her defense, she doesn’t dance a lot of allegro comparable to what is in DD, but maybe that should change. Andrew Veyette as SPF’s Cavalier was in top form and delivered a blistering manege of coupe jete.

NYCB’s new music director, Andrew Litton, is conducting all of this week’s performances. The orchestra sounded wonderful last night, and the tempi were sufficiently brisk. In the coming weeks, we will welcome back Zachary Catazaro and Chase Finlay to the stage after their long layoffs. Let’s see if they can manage the role of Dr. Stahlbaum without getting injured again. Will they be able to navigate the ladder during the tree decorating scene without incident? Will they be able to pick up a kicking child without fracturing a bone? Geez Louise, these guys owe us a Swan Lake and we’re not happy about having to wait at least another year for it. So let’s get the ole Christmas train back on its rails and keep it there for a while. While it’s true that Zachary has done some quite enticing commercial work for MaxMara recently, it isn't Siegfried. Take a look as these two MaxMara commercials (here and here) which he and NYCB apprentice and knockout Miriam Miller completed recently. She, by the way, was functioning very well in Snow, Flowers, and the party scene in last night's Nutcracker.

The HH Pump Bump Award, a peppermint candy cane stiletto, is bestowed upon our Bunny, our fallen Angel, and the young F. Henry Berlin for their outstanding performances and professionalism on opening night of NYCB’s Nutcracker.

A 29 foot leap for Broadway's Palace Theater

"If one theater in New York’s Broadway theater district were to be named the most famous, the privilege would fall virtually uncontested to the Palace, designed not as a legitimate stage theater but as a vaudeville house. Yet no other showplace has hosted a greater number of stars nor a wider variety of entertainment than this Broadway legend."

This is what the New York City Landmarks Commission declared in 1987 when it designated the Palace Theater as an historic landmark thereby preserving and protecting its architecture and saving the structure from ever being torn down to build a glassy office tower at the 47th Street and 7th Avenue location.

Sarah Bernhardt performed in the theater in 1913, the year of its completion; today, Robert Fairchild and Leanne Cope dance on its stage in the acclaimed An American in Paris.

This beautiful theater has undergone nips and tucks over the decades, but it appears that she's going to get a major face lift in the coming years - a 29 foot lift into the air, to be exact. This is what we do in New York to save our art. Do you remember how in 1998 the city wheeled the Landmark-protected Empire Theater 170 feet down 42nd Street to its new location? Once the months of preparation for the move were completed, it only took a morning to move it. No big deal. According to the chief engineer and architect, Miss Empire didn't even know that she was being moved.

The plan for the Palace Theater, according to the extensive report in today's New York YIMBY, is to hoist her 29 feet straight up into the air and build 10,000 sq. ft. of new lobby and back of house space underneath. The engineers are going to jack up the theater one inch at a time over a two week period using a telescopic hydraulic system. The interior renovation will yield 25 times more lobby space, hordes of new bathrooms, a brand new HVAC system, new dressing rooms, a new pit lift, two new rows of unobstructed seating, a bit of new balcony plaster, and a beautifully recreated chandelier. We assume that they'll sew up the ripped red velvet on the railings in the balcony, too.

This is all very exciting because right now, the Palace Theater has kind of become lost among the Times Square junk built around it. This project is a ways off (AAIP doesn't need to worry) but the folks at the Landmarks Conservancy, Community Board 5, Times Alliance, and Landmarks Preservation Commission are excited about it. The Historic District Council and Society for the Architecture of the City are less enthused.

 

Royal Ballet rehearsal livestream today at 2pm EST

Even if your draconian boss won't let you leave the office early today to get your Thanksgiving weekend cooking – he will leave early, of course – you can get him back by whiling away this afternoon watching the Royal Ballet's rehearsal of The Nutcracker via livestream at this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfk2v7GbEzc

It starts at 2:00pm Eastern time or possibly 2:15 or 2:30 depending on whether one goes by the countdown clock on the YouTube video, the title underneath it, or this media blurb. Lauren Cuthbertson and Matthew Golding will be the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince.

 

Stunning Simone Messmer

on the cover of Dance Magazine. Thanks to the Haglund'eeler who rocketed the picture to us this afternoon. Can't wait to see her on stage again when Miami City Ballet has its Joyce Season at the Koch Theater in April. Tickets are on sale right now.

 

Bolshoi in Cinema Lady of the Camellias

We don't yet have casting info for the December 6 Bolshoi in Cinema presentation of John Neumeier's incredible The Lady of the Camellias, but we have this teasing promo with Lantratov and Obraztsova, which will play over and over for about ten times if you don't click on it to stop it. To see the  larger than life version, click here.

Cannot wait to succumb to this one. 

 

A video posted by Bolshoi Ballet in the US (@bolshoiballet_us) on Nov 16, 2015 at 12:20pm PST

observations 11-15

Twyla Tharp's 50th Anniversary Tour pulls into Lincoln Center on Tuesday night. This is our rare chance to sit in the Orchestra Pit for a performance. When has that ever happened before in this theater?!

Here is a fascinating recent interview of Twyla by Tavis Smiley in which she talks about the tour, her life and career, and the art form. Well worth investing a few minutes to hear what she has to say; worth more to get the old can in a seat next week.

 

 

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Did somebody say Stelldette?? Three performances of the White Swan PdD in one week? Here's hoping that it is all in preparation for a full float at the Met this spring.

Haglund would love to see Stella Abrera's Odette (opposite Sterling Baca's Siggy along with Gillian Murphy and Thomas Forster - finally this guy is getting some respect - in the Black Swan PdD) tomorrow night at the benefit to raise research funds for the fight against Dystrophic Epidymolysis Bullosa (EB), but the $250 ticket price is out of his league. It seems Stella also performed the PdD at the DanceFAR benefit last week with Marcelo Gomes and last night at the Kaatsbaan International Dance Center with Sterling. It all tempts us to be optimistic and hopeful.

 

observations 11-12

New York City Ballet's casting for the first week of Nutcracker was posted earlier this week. How exciting to see Rebecca Krohn and Amar Ramasar featured during the first week of the run - Saturday matinee and Sunday evening. Their performances last year were the highlight of NYCB's Nutcracker season. Haglund will be catching the Sunday evening performance as well as the opening night with Sterling Hyltin and Andrew Veyette. He may be able to work in Megan Fairchild and Joaquin De Luz as well. It's hard to believe that our little mother-to-be is going to squeeze in a couple of Dew Drop performances, but everyone stay calm.  Lauren Lovette finally returns after a long injury layoff and will be testing her recovery with an opening night Marzipan. Great to see that!

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During this brief ballet layoff, Haglund has been hanging out on Broadway.

What a terrific show The Gin Game is at The Golden Theatre on W. 45th with 91-year-old Cicely Tyson and 84-year-old James Earl Jones. It’s a limited engagement that will end in January.

The makeup crew really had to do a number on Ms. Tyson to get her ready for the Home for the Aged, which is the setting for the play. Off stage she looks half her age. The little, meek but mighty Tyson with her little Granny Clampett voice challenging and manipulating the huge James Earl Jones with his booming bass voice was – well – in perfect harmony. Tickets have been on TDF for $41 - money well spent.

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On Tuesday night Michael Flatley was wound- up like no 57-year-old dancer should be. His new Broadway Lord of the Dance - dangerous games show at the Lyric Theatre on 42nd Street, which is also a limited run* into January, is a little like a two hour Super Bowl halftime show with a little circus mixed in and a whole lot of powerful step dancing which they should rename Bullet Dancing just for this –– a clip from the end of Tuesday night's show (you have to turn on the sound of the bullets).

Flatley didn’t come out until the very end to dance a very few steps before bows and then an extended encore. But it’s not like he was sitting around with his feet up for the rest of the show. He was the principal flautist in the orchestra, who as you know gets a very big workout in Irish music. In addition, he painted the artwork for a special souvenir poster that was being sold at the souvenir stand. He’s a dancer, a musician, and a painter. Oh, and a choreographer, of course.

A lot has changed in stage entertainment since Flately first starred in Riverdance over twenty years ago. That production was quaint in comparison to the current one which uses a story of the good Lord of the Dance versus the bad Dark Lord, both of whom have huge teams of fierce-tapping, handsome thugs. Massive video, massive filmed pyrotechnics, swarms of butterflies, and prancing unicorns overwhelm the outstanding dancing. There is a central Little Spirit character in a sparkly unitard who threads through most scenes - like the Jester in some Swan Lakes - who never dances but engages in some basic acrobatics.

The soloist singer, Sophie Evans, had a lovely voice, particularly in the more Irish song selection.

The two fiddle players, Giada Costenaro Cunningham and Valerie Gleeson, were tall leggy blonds in blue sequined mini-dresses and spiked heels. They were fantastic — and when they started dancing and skipping all over the stage in perfect unison while playing their fiddles, Haglund thought how easy Maestri Delmoni and Nikkanen have it in the dark pit for Concerto Barocco. What if they had to actually get up and boogie to the Bach in six inch stilettos while playing it?

All of the dancers in the production were astonishing. The discipline and synchronization was such that at times on stage the 20 or 30 pairs of shoes sounded like one dancer’s. Every finger was identical. Every arm was placed at precisely the same angle. The Lord of the Dance, James Keegan, won most of the awards that can be won for Irish dancing early in his career and has a good deal of stage charisma that compliments his tornadic tapping. But there is only one Michael Flatley in Irish dancing, and it was his appearance late in the show that brought the Super Bowl atmosphere to a frenzy. Yeah, he can still do it all. He just needs a little rest every sixteen counts or so. He’s earned it.

* Michael Flatley only performs on stage on certain dates. You may have to get that info from the Lyric Theatre. Tickets on TDF.

observations 11-10

The H.H. UIEX hits the proverbial bull's eye again.

Tickets for Alessandra Ferri/Herman Cornejo/Bruce Levingston performances at the Joyce Theater on March 2-6 go on sale to the general public on December 11th. It sounds like Preljocaj's Le Parc could well be part of the program.

Miami City Ballet is also coming to Lincoln Center as a Joyce Theater presentation April 13-17. Wouldn't that be fab-u-lous if we got to see our very own Simone Messmer in Balanchine's one-act Swan Lake? By the way, she is performing Odette again this Friday in West Palm Beach during MCB's rep program there.

Edited to add: AND according to  NYT, Angel Corella is bringing Pennsylvania Ballet as part of the Joyce season. How lucky would we be if he brought his brand new Don Quixote!

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Out west this evening, our very own Stella Abrera and Marcelo Gomes will be guest artists at the DanceFAR (dance for a reason) cancer research institute benefit. It is being organized by SF Ballet's James Sofranko. Do you remember Sofranko when he was still in short pants at The Juilliard? Haglund must have seen most of his performances during those years and especially enjoyed it when he was teamed up with an adorable frizzy-haired girl named Annie. Her last name escapes us, but it began with a Z. What a charismatic group of kids they were.

Then, over Thanksgiving weekend, our Stella along with Devon Teuscher and Hee Seo will perform with Roberto Bolle in Balanchine's Apollo while Gustavo Dudamel conducts the LA Phil at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. This is a don't miss if you are within a thousand miles of it.

 

Distinguished guest reviewer from Sydney, AustraliaWrap-up from Mr. S.

Our guest reviewer, Mr. S., has run out of vacation time in New York, but left us with some more impressions from his time here.

Thanks much, Mr. S. Hopefully, some day you will be able to join us for the spring ballet season in New York when it gets pretty crazy trying to whiz back and forth between the Met and the Koch Theater in order to see everything that one wants desperately to see. We could use your help.

Good morning, Haglund.

First things first. Thank you for having posted my earlier comments and for having done it so handsomely. I am grateful, too, for the kind comments made by others about what I wrote.

I hope not to wear out my welcome by sending you these further comments about the five performances that I saw in addition to those earlier reviewed. Because there was so great an overlap in the contents of the performances, it might be more useful to depart from the chronological diary format and to use a more generic and synoptic approach.

BALLETS

After You

After three further performances of this piece I remain unmoved. Some of the particular dancing in all three performances was accomplished and satisfying, but the work itself remains, for me, an extended ballet class in jump-suits.

Monotones I and II

This work was new to me. Because the choreographer was the iconic Sir Frederick Ashton, whose ballets I have watched for years and always with the greatest enjoyment, I was expecting something really great. I have to say that, taken for all in all, I did not think that this was Ashton at his romantic best. It was, of course, interesting to see a choreographer like Sir Frederick, celebrated for producing beautiful classical ballets, producing instead an abstract work. And I daresay that, as I have remarked many times in previous posts, someone with a sure grasp of ballet technique would have seen and admired technical virtuosity of the kind that an amateur like me is not really equipped to assess. It does my aesthetics no credit to say that I kept thinking of the Star Wars films, an impression which was enhanced, as it seemed to me, by the cool, even icy, abstraction of the music of Eric Satie, and by the costumes, which would have been wholly at home in those films.