A few years ago, the Bolshoi turned up in town with a program of four ballets, including the Stalin-approved (and ghastly) Spartacus, and something called The Bright Stream, which Stalin had banned in 1935, even punishing some of those responsible for it. Its entrancing Shostakovich score was buried in the Bolshoi archives until, in 2003, Read More
City Ballet is doing everything it can to cope with its annual problem: how to stimulate box office in its traditionally weaker spring season. They’ve reduced the number of performance weeks from nine to eight. They’ve programmed seven-that’s right, seven-premieres of new works. They’ve planned four-that’s right, four-galas to celebrate the retirement of four principal Read More
Because City Center was supposed to be undergoing major revamping (it didn’t happen), ABT switched its fall season to an unlikely venue: Avery Fisher Hall. It has no front curtain, no wings, no rake and no way to hang scenery, and the balcony is a zillion miles from the stage.
The season was also Read More
Who would have thought that a tap-dancing penguin would outpoint James Bond at the box office? And deserve to? Not that there’s anything wrong with Casino Royale. But Happy Feet—written and directed by George Miller—is a complete charmer, even if, in the way of most family fare, it can’t resist straying into the Inspirational. This Read More
The City Ballet season just ended may prove to have been a defining moment in the company’s history. A wave of talented young dancers has been advanced into the Balanchine repertory and thrust into an array of new works from this year’s Diamond Project. Senior dancers past their prime are moving inexorably toward retirement—some Read More
In 1874, the great Danish choreographer August Bournonville traveled to St. Petersburg, where, as he tells us in his memoirs, “I saw in turn Le Papillon, La Fille du Pharaon, Don Quixote, Esmeralda, and Le Roi Candaule …. I did justice to the richly imaginative arrangement of the settings and transformations as well as the Read More
