observations 11-29

Ballet Nacional del Sodre has finally named a replacement for Julio Bocca. Igor Yebra,  a member of the generation of startlingly good dancers from the Victor Ullate School in Spain that produced Angel Corella, Joaquin De Luz, and Tamara Rojo, will now lead Uruguay's national ballet company. From the outside looking in, it's a promising choice if Yebra can deal with the political climate with the same force that Julio did. So, now it's official: Julio has a lot of free time on his hands although he says he plans to keep contributing to the artistry of the students and professionals as a teacher.

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Congratulations to Blaine Hoven for snagging two ABT performances of Nutcracker in Orange County while the first cast prince recovers from hernia surgery. Here's hoping for extra tight stitches made of fishing pole wire. It is curious indeed how there are a thousand tickets left for the Fakerina's Nutcracker performance on Wednesday the 13th. Her handlers and stakeholders haven't yet bought out the tickets for that particular performance to give them away. Nor did they buy out the tickets and give them away for the Fakerina's fall season performances. One might think that the big theater-side banner of the Fakerina in a faux sexy encounter that may well have led to a man's hernia would have sent the box office crazy. But nope, the Fakerina didn't ignite the box office and her handlers and stakeholders didn't buy out the tickets to make her look worthwhile.

Meanwhile, the Fakerina's clutzing around as Aurora in Australia was met with agent-created hoopla and critical faint praise that was as damning as it gets. When has a much ballyhooed Aurora debut ever been reviewed with absolutely no mention whatsoever of the Rose Adagio while much was made of the dancer's lovely personality? LOL. Her steroidal PR campaign highlighting her faux victimization continues to make it easy for the press to create click-bait instead of writing criticism. For certain, she will be the most asterisked dancer in history. (*Danced Swan Lake but couldn't do the steps; *danced Don Q but couldn't do the steps; *danced Giselle but couldn't do the steps; *danced Sleeping Beauty but couldn't do the steps; *danced La Fille mal Gardee but couldn't do the steps; *danced many other principal roles for which the steps had to be simplified.) Without ever having given a single performance of high merit in the classics, she's still managed to manipulate ABT's management into putting her under the spotlight while the much better dancers stand deferentially in the shadows as real victims paying the price of misguided affirmative action. ABT's peddling of its 3rd rate pay-to-play hackerina continues despite the Misty-fatigue among the paying members of the audience.

It is sad how ballet is seeing more and more dancers with media-made careers instead of stage-made careers. Even some with honest talent are more concerned with getting it right in the media rather than getting it right on stage. Hopefully, their future body of work will include performances that are memorable for their own dancing rather than for the surrounding media circus, their still photos of pretty poses, or the other dancers who shared the stage.

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It's going to be a light Nutcracker season here on the blog. The general public prices at New York City Ballet have reached a tipping point. Soon NYCB's Nutcracker will be only for the kid-performers' relatives who get discounts. What would Balanchine say if he saw a $300 price for a Nutcracker ticket? He might quip, "Don't buy." If some compelling casting shows up later in the run, we might splurge for a bad seat.

 

Comments

[angelica]

It's really sad when all seats in the Fourth Ring, no matter how far back, are $100 a pop. But it's those "Sweet Seats," which get you a seat in the Orchestra, a souvenir book, a photo with a cast member, and 15% off at the gift shop, that really piss me off. Just sell me a seat at an affordable price and you can keep the paraphernalia. I'm sure they raised all the prices in the gift shop 15% so they can give the discount.

[Iris]

I would love to go see the NYCB Nutcracker, but the prices are so outrageous. I could take a 4th ring seat to this, or keep the money for a 1st ring seat in the normal season. No doubt this month pays for the whole year, but...

[Haglund]

Nutcracker is that time of year when bus loads of kids are trucked in to see the ballet and when many associated with the performances are able to purchase discounted tickets. Everybody else pays for all of that through outrageous pricing, e.g., $100 for a 4th ring seat or $300 for an orchestra seat. As much as I love the ballet and the performers, I simply can't agree that their performances are worth that kind of money -- not even when they throw in a photo op with an SAB student, apprentice, or corps member dressed up in a snow costume. On the other hand, if the ticket prices were more moderate and came with an All-You-Can-Drink ticket, that might be less objectionable.

[Melponeme_k]

I have given up on NYCB Nutcracker because I can't justify the price for myself. If I had a child in my family, maybe, but otherwise no.

It was really low of ABT not to pair Simkin with Lane for Nutcracker. All the fanfare they received last year and ABT treats it as nothing.

[ProkofievLvr]

Here's a question, and maybe it's just my computers. As I went to ABT's website to look up casting, I couldn't get past the landing page. Lots of Nutcracker video snippets. Noticeable, however, is that all of the principal dancers' faces are cropped except for one (besides the Nutcracker's). I'm thinking that ABT didn't want to compensate their dancers/union issues, but then why the lone F**erina's visage?

[Haglund]

So, true ProkofievLvr! If you compare the website edited video with the entire video here http://www.abt.org/videos/ABT_VideoFade2.mp4 you will see that they completely cut off Stella Abrera's and Alex Hammoudi's heads in the final website version but took great pains to make the F**erina look like she was the star of the video and the only one worth showing in any identifiable way. In other words, everyone else is just a no-face, no-name. By the way, there are still a thousand tickets left for F**erina's December 13th performance. Apparently her handlers want everyone to swallow the idea that there is great and honest demand for her tickets on opening and closing dates but no interest in the middle.

[Allisa]

300 dollars? Well, so much for vowing to take my children to see NYCB's Nutcracker one day, some years from now. I'd never take an unwilling child to a ballet performance except for Nutcracker (and perhaps Whipped Cream) and I consider NYCB's production to be the best out there. Ironically, the only ballet where I'd have to pay for other people's tickets is now prohibitively expensive.
I have paid insane numbers to see a single performance (not Nutcracker) but it was just me. Nutcracker is the type of show where entire families go to have a good time. Hopefully the prices can be normal again in the future.

As for ABT's website, well what can I say? It should be renamed CBT "Copeland and Boylston Theatre". Can someone tell me why the two least gracious ballerinas (with one of them being THE least technically proficient principal or soloist, perhaps even one of the least proficient in the entire company) happen to perform two of pretty much everything in the spring? I get that Boylston really wants to be "Celebrina #2", but come one ABT, have some self respect. And respect the art form.

[Haglund]

Allisa, if it's any consolation, you can buy some $155 tickets in the side orchestra sections at some performances. Still, that's a lot to pay to bring a brood to the show.

[SherryD]

Why not give yourself a mini-vacation and got to Philadelphia for the PA Ballet. Their Nut is wonderful, the theater is beautiful, great restaurants abound and history is everywhere. Also prices are MUCH lower!

[Haglund]

Just might do that, SherryD!

[NS]

Hi Haglund, do you think anyone will make a Sugarplum debut at NYCB this season? So far no interesting debuts (other than Lauren Lovette as Dewdrop and Olivia Boisson as Coffee coming up mid-December) either way can't afford to make the trip from Boston this year :(

[Haglund]

Don't know, NS, but I hope so. I really wish we could see Isabella LaFreniere as SPF or at least repeat her blazingly brilliant Dewdrop from last year. It's time for Alexa Maxwell to move up to either SPF or more likely DD. She would be fabulous. Also Lydia Wellington this past year has shown so much growth, elegance, strength and refinement, it would seem that she has earned a shot at SPF. Even though Miriam Miller doesn't have the strength or finesse yet for SPF, I'm surprised that Martins hasn't thrown her into it anyway. But really, I'm aching to see Isabella LaFreniere get her career in high gear.

[Red]

The clip on IB’s Instagram of Kitri was shocking. I was literally stunned at how bad it was. The drooping wrists flopping all over making her hands look like dead fish. I just can’t. She’s performing THAT with POB??!! How mortifying. For all of us! #notmyballerina

[Haglund]

If you have the nerve and stomach for it, watch the video while focusing solely on her upper body. She's a goopy sloppy clumsy mess. What is truly shocking is that she planted the video online with pride and apparently doesn't realize how bad it is.

[Melponeme_k]

I'll never understand the limp wrists and claw hands on Boylston nor the general neglect she has in her upper body epaulement.

She showed the same form for Balanchine's Stars and Stripes as well. I suppose people let that go because of the false notion that he encouraged claw hands (which he did not).

This is such as easy fix. It's really amazing that it has gone on this long.

[Rachel Rivkind]

The Boylston DonQ video was really appalling. Leaden and clunking about. ESPECIALLY when there's such promising Instagram video of Skylar Brandt rehearsing Kitri out there. (And video of the light as a feather Yuriko when she was still a soloist too) . UGH.

[Haglund]

It's a shame that IB got out of the Studio Company a month before Kirk Peterson took it over. It wouldn't have taken him more than a couple of months to set her straight or she would have been gone. This "all I need to do is to feel good about myself" attitude that she sports wouldn't have lasted long with Peterson. McKenzie and Co have been staring at her faults for so long that they no longer see them and they don't care.

[Haglund]

True what you say about the promising Skylar Brandt. What a travesty to waste two Don Qs on Boylston and completely throw away a Don Q on Copeland who will never be able to do the steps while Skylar is basically sitting on her hands.

[Marta]

Eeeeuwww to IB's Kitri on Instagram. I have never seen her in person. Based on youtube watching, I cannot even imagine her in Other Dances. I flipped through some of her IG. On her blurb of first performance in Other Dances with Whiteside, someone had commented "The great Baryshnikov was in the audience tonight." Wonder what he thought.

[Haglund]

I imagine that MB was disappointed but not surprised. He knows that the general classical standards at ABT under McKenzie have dropped tragically and that it is only the individual artists who have respect for the art who can be counted on to give honest performances. Unfortunately, the junk dancers like IB and the Fakerina see an alternative way for achieving success: self-produced celebrity. Publications such as NYT and Dance Magazine are only too happy to do nothing more than write press for ABT and advance celebrity rather than critique the dancers' classical performances. It requires less thinking, less expertise, less work on their part.

[Kristy]

I wish Baryshnikov would come back as AD. I know he probably has zero interest in it, but one can dream I suppose.

[Haglund]

... better yet, join the ABT board...

[Ballet Parent]

As a five year veteran parent I can tell you there's no discount for the families of Nutcracker children. Full freight for everyone including Maries and Princes!

[Haglund]

Thanks, Ballet Parent. Sorry to hear that parents' wallets get emptied every year, too. 'Tis the season...