I have to say that after seeing the Shostakovich Trilogy twice, and picking up many more details ...I found it very compelling indeed, especially the opening and closing ballets.
Tag - Metropolitan Opera House
Symphony in C, a luminous outpouring of legs and arms, crisp geometries, bobbing rhythms, and articulate patter-like conversations for the feet, is a vivid reminder of why one goes to the ballet at all. Luminosity and classical logic, laced with wit and intelligence.
What one does not see much of, at least at first glance, is nostalgia for the motherland. “I never had nostalgia about anything,” Baryshnikov says.
Well, performing for me is really about that experience of giving to the audience. In the studio you work and perfect things, you collaborate with your partner, but for me it’s about what happens on the stage, the ability to give something, to your partner, to the audience.
Ten or so years ago, I was watching ABT soloist Gennadi Saveliev dance Lankendem, the red-pajamad slave-dealer in ABT's nicely condensed Le Corsaire, when he uncorked a step that made my jaw drop.
Equal parts free spirit and self-disciplinarian, Emery LeCrone manages to make the creative life look easy.
Corella’s final performance alongside Paloma Herrera - theirs is an enduring partnership - was just as one would have imagined it: ardent, joyful, and full of charm. He gave and gave...
Sometimes the second time is the charm. This seems to be especially true when it comes to new ballets by Alexei Ratmansky. Often, they’re not easy to take in on first viewing, indigestible as an over-rich meal. But then, something in us changes, our eye evolves.
And yet, even on its own terms, it leaves one wanting, despite the performances of two excellent casts... And it does not blossom with repeated viewing. Much to the contrary. What are its short-comings? First, the music...
...with Cojocaru the steps are sublimated into the character and the situation. She seems to be experiencing the ballet anew, moment by moment, with the audience. No surprise, then, that her mad scene is hypnotic, and changes from performance to performance...