Tonya Plank

Author, Dancer and Public Interest Lawyer


Tag Archive for 'Coppelia'

MARCELO GOMES, THE FAVORITE, ON YOUTUBE

I have been called a “bad Marcelo fan” for continuously chatting about Roberto Bolle, as I did, for ex., in the last post (I don’t think any current dancer promotes himself quite as much as Roberto, and he promotes ballet with himself, so you can’t help but love him for that reason alone).

Anyway, when I first started blogging there were practically no YouTubes of any of my favorite dancers, but that’s thankfully now changed. So, here are several of Marcelo, still SLSG’s favorite ballerino!, dancing with some of SLSG’s favorite ballerinas.

Here, with Alessandra Ferri in Lar Lubovitch’s gripping Othello pas de deux:

Here with Veronika Part in Swan Lake (video quality is not the best, but oooh, the music!)

Here, his Albrecht variation from Giselle, which is timely since ABT is currently in Ocean County, CA, performing that ballet:

Here, as the wickedly sexy Von Rothbart in Swan Lake:

Here, with Gillian Murphy at the beginning of SL (again as Von Rothbart):

The guy who’s dancing the swamp-creature persona of Von Roth, above, is Isaac Stappas, whose new headshot, coincidentally, I was just sent by the amazing Jade Young, who is practically becoming ABT’s portraitist in residence!

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I’ve posted it previously, but here is Marcelo’s which he did a while back:

And one more, with Gillian Murphy again in Coppelia:

I know, the videos are nothing compared the live versions, but the first, of Othello, comes kind of close, no? And the last you can see pretty well, especially around the 4 minute mark when the great one begins his solo.

Sweet Coppelia at New York City Ballet

Image taken from Explore Dance, photo by Paul Kolnick; dancers: Yvonne Borree and Robert La Fosse.

New York City Ballet doesn’t often put on full-length story ballets, but when they do, they do very well with them. Coppelia was very entertaining. The leads were danced charmingly by Joaquin De Luz, probably the most actorly of the male dancers, and the doll-faced Megan Fairchild.

(photos of De Luz and Fairchild by Paul Kolnick, from NYCBallet website)

This is kind of a sad comedy that takes place in 19th Century Galicia. It’s the story of toymaker Dr. Coppelius (played by La Fosse, also in top pic) who creates a life-sized doll whom he rather sadly comes to love as his own daughter. Frantz (De Luz) is a country bumpkin in love with Swanilda (Fairchild) but also can’t help flirting madly with the doll (yeah, he is not too bright).

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