Haglund's Heel

Grand Hotel, the Musical @ NY City Center 3/21 Irina's back on stage where she belongs

Her elegant entrance down the grand staircase began the evening at Grand Hotel, the Musical, now on stage through March 25th at New York City Center. We’re talking, of course, about Irina Dvorovenko as Elizaveta Grushinskaya, the aging ballerina who flirts with retirement more often than Elton John does. Elizaveta’s fluttering swan song, it turns out, is part of Irina’s fascinating re-invention of herself as a compelling musical theater artist who has combined the signature artistry she developed as a leading ballerina at ABT with new theater skills that she has rapidly acquired in the five years since her final appearance on ABT’s stage at age 39. (ABT has established a pattern of dumping celebrated ballerinas at age 39 thereby preventing them from acquiring federal protections against age discrimination at age 40 while employed as an ABT dancer.) 

Irina was fantastic in her singing debut. Her voice was its best in the deeper-lower ranges, but she heartily projected everything she sang the whole night. And oh my gosh, what a show-stopping beauty she still is. She first captivated last night's audience by simply walking downstage and staring outward -- establishing a rapport so instantly and so strongly that one didn't want the moment to be broken. Suddenly there was a flood of memories of her Tatianas, Marguerites, Juliets, and Giselles. And over the next hour and a half she developed the character of her Elizaveta with the same dedication and detailing that made all of her other roles so rich and rewarding for the audience.

 

Haglund recommends that everyone quickly grab one of the few remaining tickets to this weekend's shows. The entire evening which progresses without an intermission is charming every second of the way. Not a slow moment in the production. Multiple stories about the residents at the Grand Hotel run parallel and then are interwoven skillfully. Have to say, too, that the choreography was highly entertaining, especially the dances created and executed by ballroom tango world stars Junior Cervila and Guadalupe Garcia. For one of their hot numbers, Irina's character stood downstage to the side watching. When Cervila hoisted Garcia over his head in a one-handed Don Q lift and carried her all over the stage before dramatically dropping her to an inches-above the floor finishing position, Irina never took her eyes off them and may not have taken a breath either. These guys were oh so very, very hot. The audience was rewarded with another PdD by them to close the show after everyone else had bowed out.

 

Despite confessed love for our favorites, we have to admit that the real stars of this show are James Snyder as the Baron and Brandon Uranowitz as Otto Kringelein. You're just not going to hear a better tenor in a musical than Snyder. Lord, what a beautiful voice, and what charm he brought to the role. Uranowitz was completely unrecognizable from the actor who we saw in Prince of Broadway and An American in Paris -- bloody brilliant as the sniveling yet razor sharp Otto who everyone walked all over but who rose heroically at the end.

 

The orchestra was situated on a platform raised above the stage which meant that the music carried into the house beautifully. The staging of the actors under and around this platform involved some skilled engineering. There wasn't a lot of space for Josh Rhoades' choreography but his dances were designed to move minimally horizontally while still being quite animated and interesting. A large ballet barre (with no legs) played an important role throughout the show as it was carried from one end of the stage to the other.

 

All of the performers were terrific and the evening flew by quickly. Since Haglund is only going to buy a couple of ABT tickets this Sunday for the spring season, he has decided to go back for a second performance of Grand Hotel. It'll be money well-spent.

 

Here is a rehearsal clip of what was the show-stopping solo of last evening: James Snyder as the Baron serenading Irina with "Love Can't Happen", and a little bit of Irina's fabulous performance singing "Bonjour Amour".

More of Irina and the rest of the cast here.  (Scroll down to the fourth video for 40 seconds of Irina.)

observations 3-21

What a great spring so far, eh Everybody?

Just got an email from Paul Taylor Dance Company which says they are having a Snow Special for tonight's performance which starts at 7PM.  All remaining tickets are $10 for which you must use the code SNOW18 if you order online or call or stop by the box office. The program includes Sara Mearns in Dances of Isadora, The Beauty in Gray by Bryan Arias, and Piazzolla Caldera 🔥, one of Taylor's finest and hottest works.

Haglund would jump at the opportunity to get a $10 ticket if he didn't already have a ticket to see Irina Dvorovenko in her singing debut in Grand Hotel, the Musical at NY City Center tonight.

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Speaking of snow, how about that snow job that our Misty did on the Singapore audience with her big 13 fouettes in Swan Lake's Black Swan PdD!! She must be so proud of herself. McKenzie must be positively beaming with pride. Since he has gifted her with two performances of Swan Lake at the Met instead of the zero that she deserves, it would seem that she might do a grand total of 26 fouettes for the whole week. Oh man, good for her! But how do her colleagues keep from snickering on stage?

Edited 3/23 to add video of the epic failure. Some impressive sleuthing done by FoF to pull this truth to the surface: https://www.instagram.com/p/BgaS0wtF8iP/

Marcelo at the Mariinsky

Marcelo the Magnificent and lovely Yekaterina Osmolkina at the Mariinsky last night in Giselle from Tugarin-22, our favorite photo-sleuth at the Mariinsky. Apparently there were a lot of cameras there to capture the love for Marcelo and Yekaterina.

 

Marcelo's bouquet was so big that it nearly blocked him out:

ABT has had almost four months to rectify this controversial situation and pave the way for Marcelo to dance at the Met this spring. Whose sitting on their hands hoping that everyone will forget? Newsflash: the ABT season is assured of fat failure if this isn't fixed fast.

 Edited to add:

And this!

 

 
Edited to add bows and flowers. Those Wilis turn bows into a gorgeous performance, don't they?

 

observations 3-15

Well, this is exciting.

NYCB has announced its casting for the Kennedy Center performances March 27th through April 1. Obviously, the company is priming us to come down from NYC by the busloads to see some of these important debuts (*). The Saturday matinee is especially tempting:

GLASS PIECES: Hod, Gordon, Mann, Scordato, Habony, Chamblee, *Reichlen, Danchig-Waring

FANCY FREE: *Mejia, *Coll, *Villarini-Velez, *Woodward, *King, Miller, Villalobos

THE FOUR SEASONS

JANUS: Farley,

WINTER: Dieck, Pereira, Ippolito, Gordon;

SPRING: LaFreniere, *Lovette, *Huxley;

SUMMER: Frances, *Gerrity, Stanley;

FALL: Chamblee, T. Peck, Catazaro, Ulbricht

 

The same casts also dance during the Saturday evening performance. Something tells us that Fancy Free is about to strut into a new fancy future with these debuting dancers.

 

Tess Reichlen and Zachary Catazaro will debut in the Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux on Thursday evening. Something tells us that those fish dives are going to be pretty exciting

 

On Wednesday evening, Indiana Woodward and Roman Mejia will debut in Peter Martins' Zakouski. Something tells us that these two will make this into a whole lot more than simple hors d'oeuvres.

 

See y'all on the Amtrak.

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As promised, Haglund skipped down to the Whitney Museum of American Art in the Meatpacking District to preview the new Nick Mauss dance-focused exhibit that includes works from the Whitney's collection and borrowings from other museum collections and private collectors. It officially opens tomorrow. There are some very interesting pieces on display but we can't say much about the live dance action that was part of the exhibit. It was the typical modern dance fare in black and white unitards that screamed 1970s college dance major in the Phys Ed Dept. The dancers worked hard and they all executed the choreography neatly, but it was what it was.

 

But there were a lot of worthwhile items hanging on the walls and resting on pedestals. Most worthy was the video installation on the wall right in front of the elevators – a looping collection of Ann Barzel's snippets of mid-20th century performances including:

 

Harlequinade – 26 seconds B&W from 1956. Boris Romanov's choreography for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo featuring Alicia Alonso as Columbine and Igor Youskevitch as Harlequin.

 

Aurora's Wedding – 1 minute, 26 seconds B&W from 1941. Bronislava Nijinska's choreography with scenery by Leon Bakst for the original Ballet Russe and performed by Nana Gollner and Paul Petroff.

 

Ballet Imperial – 1 minute, 2 seconds in color from the 1940s. Balanchine's choreography performed by Nicholas Magallanes and Mary Ellen Moylan. Oh, the costumes are gorgeous.

 

There are about ten clips in all that run continuously. They're fascinating as was Miss Barzel.

 

The exhibit includes a picture of Jacques d'Amboise in a costume for Lew Christensen's Filling Station which was made for Ballet Caravan in 1950.

 

Several Elie Nadelman scuptures are on display including this lovely lady who rotates on her pedestal. Elie Nadelman created the two big sculptures that grace each end of the Promenade in New York City Ballet's theater.

 

 

There is a 1933 bronze sculpture of a naked man walking created by Gaston Lachaise. The naked man is Lincoln Kirstein. Though Kirstein never met Diaghilev, he possessed one of his calling cards. It, too, is on exhibit. How refreshing to see a simple name on a calling card without two email addresses, five social media contacts, a website, three phones, fax number and a secretary's contact. It's quite elegant in its simplicity, isn't it?

 

Costume designs for Balanchine's The Night Shadow which he made for Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in 1945 are on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The drawings by Dorothea Tanning are inserted in frames made out of the same soft pink leather as is used for ballet slippers.

 

The exhibit officially opens tomorrow. If you plan to go, save time to see the Incomplete History of Protests exhibit, too.

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This weekend the Haglund crew is off to Philly again to see Pennsylvania Ballet's new glorious Swan Lake. Sterling Baca and Lillian Di Piazza will be the leads on Saturday evening.

 

We're hoping to see big theatrical and big dancing strides made by Sterling: a big, big expressive Siegfried whose face seeks out the spotlight, lightning bolt energy in jumps, and atomic turns with triple exclamation points at the end. We want to feel his performance in the back row upstairs. This is not the time to show us a version of Sterling; we want to see Siegfried in all his pain, confusion, desperation, and of course majestic elegance. We want it all and we want it big!

 

Let's go let's go let's go!

 

 

observations 3-14

There’s good stuff on Broadway this spring.

 

We’re just getting around to a little raving about the new production of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre that counts among its stars Amar Ramasar and Brittany Pollack of NYCB. Who knew that Amar could sing? Really, really sing!! And deliver lines as Jigger Craigin with huge, attention-grabbing impact! Who in the NYCB audience had any idea that this guy’s debut would be as good or perhaps better than Robert Fairchild’s debut in An American in Paris which was pretty startlingly awesome. Tony nomination in the bag. You heard it here first.

 

Haglund went to the opening night of previews on February 28 and plans to go back again right before the official premiere in April to see how things have settled into place. The first preview performance, however, exceeded expectations by miles. Jessie Mueller as Julie Jordan gave the strongest vocal performance of the night – the kind that brings on shivers and sniffling in the audience. She's also a shoo-in for a Tony nomination and the likely winner. You may recall that Mueller was Carrie Pipperidge in the outstanding Live from Lincoln Center semi-staged presentation of Carousel a few years back that featured Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild as Louise and the Carnival Boy. That production featured the all-magnificent Stephanie Blythe as Nettie; the current Broadway musical features the lovely but lighter-voiced Renée Fleming in the role. It was a treat to hear Fleming sing in a small venue. Her voice is still quite beautiful but did not have the great power in the famous You’ll Never Walk Alone that is known to stop this show. Her rendition of June Is Busting Out All Over in Act I was loaded with beauty and charm. Lovely listening, indeed. And dance captain Craig Salstein, ABT's well-known opera aficionado, standing next to and singing with Renée Fleming at the very front of the stage with most of the company behind them, had to be the year’s winner for Wildest Dreams Do Sometimes Come True. It was hard for him to contain his expression of dreamy disbelief.

 

Brittany Pollack was delightful as Louise at the opening preview. Her star-turn in Justin Peck’s ballet in Act II was intensely emotional with a rebellious seasoning. While she may have been a little over-caffeinated in delivery of some of her important lines on this first night, Brittany nevertheless is a true musical theater stage talent blooming before our eyes.

 

Peck's ensemble choreography was typical Broadway stuff but with more and bigger tricks - lots of barrel-type tours with knees tucked. Some of it looked cramped on the stage, though.

 

It is astonishing how all of this musical theater stage talent is emerging from New York City Ballet which doesn’t even have the word "theatre" in its name and isn't even known for its dancers' acting ability. What the company is known for, however, is its dancers' abilities to absorb unfamiliar content and execute direction faster than any other company on earth. These traits clearly translate into success when the artists move to the Broadway stage.

 

Next week we’re going to stop into City Center for the first performance of Grand Hotel, the Musical which includes among its stars Irina Dvorovenko. Today, however, we spent the afternoon at Disney’s Frozen, the Musical which is in previews at the St. James Theatre for another week or so before its official opening. This is the show to take your 8 & unders to. Today many came wearing their Olaf hats, their tiaras, their capes, their Sven ears & tails. They all already knew the story, knew the songs, had their favorite characters which they tried to summon to the stage during the moody solo ballads (Where's Olaf!! - by far, the most popular with sparkly Elsa a close second.) We’ve never heard toddler and elementary kid pandemonium like we heard today at the end of the 1st act after the closing song Let It Go. This show is going to make boatloads and boatloads of cash for Disney for a long time.

 

Yes, there’s a lot of good stuff on Broadway this spring – enough that one could by-pass ABT’s Met season. Oh lord, what a stinking mess McKenzie has made of this company. He has pushed out its two greatest artists, Veronika Part and Marcelo Gomes, and persists in relying on the incompetent Misty Copeland and clumsy, homely dancing of Isabella Boylston ad nauseum. Copeland doesn’t even seem to try anymore, and no one even questions her about it. It’s as if all of her media coverage and free-ticket popularity have made it okay not to be a tier-1 ballet dancer because she can just pay someone to say she is. If her agent can unload enough tickets, then Copeland can, in affect, deny the truly great and accomplished artists opportunities to perform and illuminate her ordinariness. That is why we're not going to see Sarah Lane as Odette/Odile or Juliet. That is why we're not going to see Skylar Brandt as Kitri. The ad nauseum perennial push of Boylston is why we're not seeing Abrera as Nikiya. Not even as Gamzatti. But that doesn't stop ABT from using a huge picture of Abrera in La Bayadere to sell tickets for the run in L.A. It's disgusting. Maybe McKenzie will toss Stella a token matinee Gamzatti to reward her non-complaining.

 

It may be that ABT has never been in a worse position artistically – judging not by the talent in its ranks but by McKenzie's disgusting over-casting of the worst dancers so that they infect everyone else’s performances with their viral mediocrity. ABT has never gotten the hang of isolating its disease so that it doesn’t impact the rest of the population. Rather, it seems hellbent on infecting everyone – like a “pox party” organized by the anti-vaccinationists. McKenzie’s pox party marketing scheme:  Let’s infect Abrera with Whiteside, Cornejo with Copeland, Hallberg with Boylston — that way, everyone who respects the classical artistry of #1 but vomits at the sight of #2 will buy tickets anyway and come to the theater with their little emetic waste bags in tow. That’s how you spell FAIL, Bub. Many people simply will stay home.

 

And now McKenzie is going to make ABT trendy with tap dancing at its gala… Here’s a video of the world’s reaction to his long-winded announcement:

 

(The world in blue)                                                    (McKenzie in red)

 

More than ever before, it seems time to euthanize ABT to put it out of its own and everyone else’s misery. To let it continue to die one season at a time because its board won’t boot McKenzie is tragic. The first thing that any director respected in the classical tradition would do would be to boot Copeland and Boylston to the back row if not out the door. That’s why McKenzie will hang on — to save the jobs of a mediocre few. A ballet company that pushes mediocrity to the forefront in its classics instead of its best dancers should have its life support cut off. Death is tapping at the door.

 

Pennsylvania Ballet – Swan Lake premiere 3/8

It is a rare bird of a ballet company that has in its repertory three distinct and original productions of Swan Lake. Beginning with Balanchine’s one-act sketch, then adding Christopher Wheeldon’s thoughtful re-imagining, and finally mounting a full-fledged Petipa-based production with all the magic, technical wow, and beauty of Swan Lake’s tradition, Pennsylvania Ballet has come of age in this ballet via a path matched by few other companies.

 

The newest production conceived by Artistic Director Angel Corella and which premiered last evening in front of a roaring crowd that interrupted with applause all through the performance is a beautiful, warm, technically-loaded Swan Lake that has been customized for the Philadelphia audience that likes to get home early. It’s two hours long including a 15.000 minute intermission – the strictness of which caught many by surprise last night.

 

The tasteful and Spanish-influenced costumes and scenery designed by Benjamin Tyrrell, a graduate of the Royal Ballet School before he ventured into textile, costume and set designs, are from Corella’s Barcelona production. (You may recall that the premiere starred Corella and the beloved Odette/Odile Sarah Lane in her debut. As yet, it doesn’t appear that we will be seeing Sarah’s Swan Lake again this year during ABT’s Met season despite her magnificent performance last year because ABT’s director favors overloading the week’s casting with a whiner who has never been able to do the steps.) Tyrrell’s Act I designs included warm yellows among a rich palette of fall-like colors. Some of the ladies wore Spanish-style mantilla head pieces. The swans’ delicate tutus included gold embellishments on the bodice. Von Rothbart wore fierce horns on his head, another nod to the Spanish culture. 

 

What an exceptional pair of leads we had last night! Dayesi Torriente and Arian Molina Soca were fully engaged (and are, literally) and luxuriously romantic in their interpretations of Odette/Siegfried and Odile/Siegfried. One could not have asked for more heart and soul and theatrical power in their performance. They rocked it and the audience rocked back with its love. Their passion was so great that it made one very uncomfortable NYT critic squirm in his seat. As we know well, he has an aversion to seeing hetero-passion on stage. But that’s his problem, not anyone else’s.

 

Molina Soca offered one of the most complex portrayals of Siegfried’s predicament that we’ve ever seen. The viewer could sense the wheels turning in his mind, his questioning, his confusion, his disbelief, his blind love for Odette, and his inability to resist Odile’s temptation. There’s no question as to his outstanding dancing, even if he was not his usual superhuman turning wizard. 

 

Dayesi Torriente just added herself to Haglund’s bevy of favorite ballerinas – so gloriously tall and strong – the very definition of a majestic Odette/Odile like Cynthia Gregory and Martine Van Hamel who we worshipped more than a half century ago. And wow, Torriente delivered the delicacy and internal beauty of Odette with the same skill as she delivered the sensual allure and deceit of Odile. Getting both right and doing it convincingly is a rare combination these days. Lopatkina and Ananiashvili were masters of it. Torriente will be considered one, too, as soon as enough people see her. (Get your tickets here for her March 16 evening performance.) The moment when Odile imitated the frail Odette was deliciously evil. What a b____ she was. Then she wrapped up the fraud with blazing fouettes that finished with a pirouette that continued to rotate past the end of the music.

 

But we wouldn’t be telling the whole truth about Torriente and Molina Soca if we didn’t admit that we owe the opportunity to experience their beautiful artistry to Alicia Alonso and the Cuban tradition that she has inspired for more than 75 years. Her national influence is evident in every single step, every movement of a finger, and every ounce of dedication and commitment that we have seen in dancers like Torriente, Molina Soca, Sarabia, Carreno, Acosta and other incredible talents who of late seem to be making a bee-line to Philly and Washington DC to dance. It overwhelms the soul to think that such extraordinary beauty has risen from such extraordinary poverty. So before Haglund considered buying a ticket to see the Torriente/Molina Soca performance again next week, he loaded up with tickets to see Alicia Alonso’s Ballet Nacional de Cuba at the Kennedy Center in May and June. Tickets here. 

 

Michael Korsch designed some spectacular lighting for this production. To see the Black Swan PdD under a spotlight on a darkened stage is to see the treachery of Odile and the downfall of Siegfried with new drama and clarity. 

 

Other outstanding performances included Sterling Baca’s Von Rothbart and Peter Weil as Benno. Wow, has Weil matured over the past two years. His dancing was astonishing throughout the night with such clean lines and powerful jumping. (He hit a little bump in the road early-on with a miscalculated double tour at the downstage edge which nearly knocked him off his bike, so to speak, but he kept on pedaling furiously and wound up with a spectacular overall finish for the night.) This young man is going to be a very important contributor and true star in the coming years if he doesn’t sustain serious injury from his hyper-exaggerated habit of not releasing his heels to the floor when jumping from two feet. It is so pronounced that it almost looks like an SAB caricature. 

 

The Swans on opening night were as exquisite as they could be – perfectly rehearsed and breathing as one.  When moving from side to side across the stage, they honestly looked like a flock of birds. Such lovely arms, legs, feet, and head movement from these ladies did not go unnoticed by the audience. The vocal appreciation for the corps de ballet was extensive and loud.

 

Angel Corella has done it again. Another spectacular Petipa feather in his Philly bonnet to go with Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, and Le Corsaire. Next year, he will add Giselle and MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet. This company is taking huge steps to extend its range while preserving its Balanchine heritage and creating new art. What a treasure. What a privilege it is to be able to jump on an Amtrak and an hour and a quarter later be in beautiful Philly to see such gorgeous ballet.

 

The H.H. Pump Bump Award, black velvet curves and lines with white diamonds from Giuseppe Zanotti, is bestowed upon Dayesi Torriente and Arian Molina Soca for their riveting, emotional, and spectacular dancing at the premiere of Angel Corella’s new production of Swan Lake. 

 

NYCB Stravinsky/Balanchine 3/1 Stravinsky's Rite of Bombogenesis

In case anyone missed last night's NYCB performance –

At the climax of the night-long fest, Tiler Peck could no longer contain herself while dancing in Symphony in Three Movements and launched a rocket of pique turns in a circle rotating opposite the swirling cloud of corps women in white. As expected, the end result was a turbulent and thrilling ballet bombogenesis. It made the 11 o'clock Channel 7 news with this visual from meteorologist Lee Goldberg:

The whole night was a magnificent performance in which every single person danced like a beast!

Joaquin De Luz, closing out his final winter season with the company, danced an unbelievably magnificent Divertimento from "Le Baiser de la Fee" (with assembles from a former decade) opposite Megan Fairchild whose own expressive dancing easily tipped off that this was an especially important performance. She later announced on I-gram that Joaquin would be retiring in the fall. Joaquin, who is well-known for being an appreciative and extremely vocal audience member at others' retirements and special performances, had better prepare himself for this one in the fall. Raucous won't begin to describe it.

This Le Baiser performance also included outstanding demi-soloist debuts by Laine Habony and Olivia MacKinnon. As a nicely matched pair, they delivered squeaky clean and precise duets.

Maria Kowroski and Adrian Danchig-Waring ripped Agon apart like hungry ballet beasts. The audience went nuts. This was gladiator ballet at its finest. Anthony Huxley, Savannah Lowery, Lauren King, Ashley Laracey, Devin Alberda, and Daniel Applebaum all danced like there would be no tomorrow.

Ashley Bouder and Chase Finlay also seemed to be going for broke in Duo Concertant. Finlay still has stamina problems and gets so winded that you wonder if he's going to make it through to the end.

Like we explained above, Tiler Peck went cyclonic in Symphony in Three Movements. But so did everyone else. Taylor Stanley, Megan LeCrone, Joseph Gordon, Erica Pereira, and Daniel Ulbricht delivered beast-like dancing the whole night. Our big ladies in the white leos – Christina Clark, Isabella LaFreniere, and Miriam Miller – grabbed the spotlight time and time again giving us a glimpse of the Agon leads in our future. For now and perhaps forever, Maria Kowroski has no equals in Agon, but as we know, the contest will continue.

Haglund is seeing all five performances of this extraordinary Stravinsky/Balanchine program and expects to suffer post-season affective disorder come Monday. See this program! Weekend debuts include Anthony Huxley in Le Baiser, Adrian Danchig-Waring with Lauren King & Troy Schumacher in Symphony in Three Movements, and Chase Finlay in Agon. Will he fall over like a house of cards when Tess Reichlen throws her weapon-like attitude leg around him? It's going to be a contest.

In the meantime, the H.H. Pump Bump Award, which incorporates more than two decades of styles, is bestowed upon Joaquin De Luz who gives us much to celebrate every time he's on stage. And to all the Haglund'eelers along the coast, stay safe tonight and tomorrow.