Tag: Romeo and Juliet

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Bella Italia Romantica!

This year has been one of the busiest of my life. I moved from the city to the desert, bought a house that needed more significant work than I’d thought, and started a new job. Adjusting to a very different lifestyle has been more challenging and time consuming than I ever would have thought, and I didn’t have a lot of time to write this year. But I took a short trip to Italy at the end of the summer and it really re-invigorated my desire to return to the dance romance I’d begun at the end of last year. Crowded and touristy as it was in late August – try not to go to Europe in August; wait till September if possible!! – Italy was so beautiful, so romantic. It just got me in the mood to write again, even if the house isn’t all done 🙂

At top is one of my favorite pics, in Venice. We had to be tourists and take a gondola ride of course! It was truly beautiful. I hadn’t been to Italy before and I’d heard so many stories of how smelly and dirty Venice is, and I didn’t find it to be that way at all. I guess maybe because I studied history in grad school, I couldn’t stop thinking of what a gorgeous human creation the whole city structure was, the beautiful old buildings, how it must have looked in the eighteenth century, what it must have been like to walk through the mysterious, narrow, winding streets, and stroll along the canal. I’m a water person – I love all kinds of bodies of water, but mostly rivers and canals because they’re often found in urban areas, and they serve as vital part of the modern cities.

I was just so enchanted with Venice. Here are a few more pics:

Above is the Grand Canal.

A very interesting piece of art as part of the upcoming Venice Biennale exhibit. So, it’ll be taken down after Biennale ends in November.

A quaint little boutique along a canal. There are boutiques everywhere. I wished more of them sold original things, like this one, but most sold only souvenirs. Enchanting as they were at first, by about my third hour there, I felt like if I saw one more cheap face mask I might just jump in the canal.

 

Okay, I can’t help but include a pic of the back of our hot water taxi driver 🙂

This is the island of Murano, off of the big island in the Venice lagoon. The smaller islands were much less crowded. I loved the buildings here. Their colorfulness reminded me a bit of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Below, is Rome. Rome was super packed with tourists – because of the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican, the Colosseum, etc., but beautiful as well.

A restaurant across from a piazza where we had dinner.

The vegetarian secondi portion of my dinner at a restaurant near the Colosseum. The red wines don’t have sulfites there, unlike ours. So, I could relax and drink without fear of a migraine!

The Trevi Fountain.

The Vatican, which is far more huge than I ever thought. I was there right after the terrorist attack in Barcelona and security was super tight.

Gorgeous art work in the Vatican Museum. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures in the Sistine Chapel, which of course was breathtaking, albeit a little smaller than I’d imagined. But we were allowed to take flash-free photos in the other Vatican museums.

Bacchus, the god of wine – my favorite statue in the Vatican Museum 🙂

The Colosseum, which was far more huge than I’d imagined. It was packed! At first I was a little worried about a terrorist attack, especially after what had just happened in Barcelona, but soon I was so carried away by the history, the marvel, the grandeur of it all, it was impossible to even let your mind go to bad things.

We also visited Verona, where Shakespeare set Romeo and Juliet. Lovely little city.

 

“Juliet’s balcony.” This house belonged to a family called the Capulets. According to JULIET, a really engaging novel by Anne Fortier, the oldest known telling of the story of Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare’s was not the first) took place in Siena, in Medieval times. So this balcony generally serves as a tourist attraction 🙂

What would a trip to Italy be without visiting the Leaning Tower of Pisa! Although, this building didn’t seem to be any more leaning than others I saw throughout. It’s just the most famous. And man was that place touristy. I did have just about the best gelato I had in Italy, outside of a little gelato shop adjacent to the Trevi Fountain.

My absolute favorite place we went, though, was Florence. I love art, and I love walkable cities with history and interesting architecture, and lots of water, and Florence had all of the above in absolute spades.

The Ponte Vecchio covered bridge, which crosses the Arno River. So many shops inside the little buildings along the bridge!

The Uffizi museum. The street leads down to the Arno River. We didn’t get to go into the Uffizi, shamefully, because we hadn’t bought tickets ahead of time and the line would have taken all day. Next time I go, I will remember to get all my tix online well ahead of my visit!

The breathtaking Duomo (cathedral). It you read the opening pages of my old novel, SWALLOW, main character Sophie compares her little Arizona town, named Florence as well, to the real thing, noting sarcastically that while the famous Florence boasts the Duomo and the Uffizi, her little town houses the Arizona State Penitentiary 🙂

The inside of the Santa Croce cathedral, which is like the Pantheon in Paris, and houses many of the tombs of Italy’s most revered such as Dante, Michelangelo, Galileo.

Dante’s tomb.

And the tomb of Michelangelo.

Of course we had to visit The Accademia Gallery, which now houses many of Michelango’s statues, including David 🙂

Okay, I kind of went crazy with David pics 🙂 I couldn’t help it!

Here are a couple of lesser-known Michelangelos.

Anyway, off to work on TREMOR, my next dance romance, which I am hoping to have out by the end of this year, or early next year at the latest. Thank you so much for your patience and continued support! In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed my mini pictorial tour of Italy 🙂

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Jose Manuel Carreno’s ABT Farewell

 

Thursday night at the Met, Jose Manuel Carreno, a longtime favorite of mine, gave his farewell performance with American Ballet Theater. (He will dance a few more performances with the company as they tour Los Angeles and Japan later this month, and he ended up filling in unexpectedly for an injured dancer in Saturday’s matinee, but Thursday was the night ABT celebrated his illustrious career).

He danced Swan Lake with Julie Kent as Odette and Gillian Murphy as Odile. Of course Odette and Odile are danced by the same ballerina but this was a special performance and so he chose to have not one but two ballerinas he’s often partnered throughout his career as alternating white and black swans.

Above photo is of the white swan pas de deux with Julie Kent. Below is of the black swan pdd with Gillian Murphy. All photos are by Rosalie O’Connor.

 

And below, of his curtain calls.

 

 

The performance was spectacular but not flawless. Jose danced wonderfully. I’ve personally been more moved by his performances in Romeo and Juliet and Manon, but then I’m more a fan of modern ballet choreographers like MacMillan, than classical ballet. I wish he would have danced one of those as his farewell but I totally understand why he chose Swan Lake – it’s only the quintessential ballet after all 🙂

The best part was Act III, with Gillian as the black swan. It was just amazing feat after amazing feat. I swear I’m pretty sure I saw Gillian put a quintuple pirouette in between her fouettes; there were definitely quadruples in there. I wonder sometimes if Natalia Osipova has not substantially raised the bar for this kind of thing. I feel like everyone’s trying so hard to do as many athletically stunning things as they can. I honestly almost screamed when she threw in the quintuple. Can you imagine someone actually screaming in the audience in the middle of the performance? Glad I managed to hold it in 🙂 Suffice it to say Gillian was definitely a thrill, and Odile is her forte. She did have a tiny stumble toward the end, coming out of the fouette sequence, but I’m not one to care about things like that. I personally care more that a dancer takes chances than plays it so safe she fails to move or wow the audience (as I think I’ve said a few hundred times by now on this blog). Then Jose followed her crazy fouettes with a turn sequence of his own, with more multiple pirouettes thrown in. It also seemed that some of their assisted pirouettes went on for, like, five minutes! At the end of the pdd, the applause went on for quite some time.

I should say, every time Jose did any kind of solo, no matter how small – a few turns, a few jumps, anything – the audience went crazy with applause. As they did when his Siegfried first entered the stage. I thought for a minute the orchestra was going to have to stop the story for him to take a bow, but he kept on going with the action, in character.

So, Julie Kent’s white swan: well, I think she is an absolutely beautiful dancer, and she does things that Sara Mearns and Veronika Part and other ballerinas I love as Odette either can’t or don’t do – like the fast tiny fluttering of the feet that really make her look swan-like, or the super quick changes of the feet between her traveling passees that make it look like she is really a swan about to take off in flight. Her legs and feet are super strong and she can attain really surprising speed and precision at certain points. And I was sitting in the back of the orchestra and I could still see that incredible footwork. And yet somehow I’m not nearly as moved by her as by Sara and Veronika. She doesn’t make me feel her pain or take me into her world the way they do. Maybe she’s just not as powerful an actress, although I thought she was very good in Lady of the Camellias. I thought Jose generally partnered Gillian better, which is interesting because she’s a larger ballerina. He lifted Julie high above his head just beautifully, but then there were some moments that the assisted pirouettes that went on forever and a day with Gillian were more problematic with Julie. At one point, Julie veered sharply to one side and I worried she’d fall. But she didn’t.

Still, it was a beautiful performance all in all.

This was my first time seeing David Hallberg as von Rothbart. (You can see him in one of the curtain call photos above, in the purple). He’s a beautiful, beautiful dancer. Seriously, I don’t think any man can dance as beautifully as David Hallberg, and I’ll go to any ballet with him in (with good choreography for him of course), just to see that. But. I like Marcelo Gomes better. I know that’s controversial, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m not really a fan of classical ballet partly because of this (judging by the difference of opinion between myself and my classical ballet-fan friends), but I just don’t like black and white. I prefer sexy, charmingly dangerous von Rothbarts, not pure evil von Rothbarts. And David was evil. The way he masterfully whipped around that purple cape, the way he worked his facial muscles into a hard hard look, the way he approached the queen and each woman at the ball with intention, the way he pointed straight at poor Siegfried when he first arrived with Gillian. He scared the hell out of me. And I guess if you think von Rothbart is pure evil and should be portrayed as such, then there’s no one more perfect than David to dance him. The evil is tempered a bit by David’s beautiful dancing, which made him the second best von Rothbart in my opinion, just because it added a nuance that otherwise wouldn’t have been there. But Marcelo’s v.R.’s sexiness, his irresistible charm, his deviousness, make him so much more deliciously dangerous.

I was a slight bit disappointed in the curtain calls. I think I was spoiled by Julio Bocca’s farewell being my first at ABT. That man was such a prima, his curtain calls went on forever, ending with him in underwear (well, tights), taking his time drinking a beer, then dousing himself with it. Or was it champagne he poured all over himself? (Will have to look back at my old blog post.) Anyway, it was all as if to say, I’ve had a blast here, I’ve worked my arse off, and now I’m so so ready to let loose. This all would have been inappropriate for Jose though, especially since his two daughters came out onstage with him at the end, sharing his bows. So sweet. But yeah, no getting plastered and prancing around in underwear for him. Marcelo, David, and Cory did hoist Jose over their heads, as David and Marcelo did Julio.

A couple ballerinas from the past – Alessandra Ferri, Susan Jaffe – presented him with bouquets. And Julio himself was there as well. He walked out onstage toward Jose doing a hip-shaking little rumba. Almost all the principals were onstage at the end – Paloma Herrera in particular was dressed to the nines, which was sweet since she was one of his main partners. I didn’t see Diana Vishneva or Natalia Osipova or Michele Wiles. I was hoping Carlos Acosta might show, but no such luck.

Jose’s daughters are really beautiful. Afterward some friends and I went to Ed’s Chowder House for drinks and snacks and we were debating whether the older one was his stepdaughter with Lourdes Novoa or biological daughter. Does he have one stepdaughter and two biological daughters or one of each? Anyway, the littlest daughter looks to be a teenager now. She’s really beautiful. But she was just a baby not so long ago. I guess time does go by when you’re not paying attention. The audience didn’t seem to want to say goodbye. Finally, the curtains went down and the lights went on, management making clear it’s over, folks, go home. But people kept standing there kind of dumbfounded.

Well, I’m really going to miss him. I’m going to miss him as Basilio in Don Quixote, I’m going to miss him as both the harem owner and Ali the slave in Le Corsaire (like Marcelo, he’s endearing in every single role he has – how can one be an endearing  harem-owner? I have no idea, but just watch him), I’m going to miss him as Des Grieux in Manon, I’m going to miss him as Albrecht in Giselle (I think he was the only one who still did the Baryshnikovian brisees in his near dance to death scene instead of the entrechats), I’m going to miss his sexy cocky Latin sailor in Robbins’ Fancy Free, I’m going to miss his sexy cocky leading man in Tharp’s Sinatra Suites, and most of all I’m going to miss his Romeo. In most recent years, he’s been the oldest dancer in that role, and somehow the most boyish, the most innocent, the one who’s made me cry the most times at the end in that crypt with his Juliet draped lifelessly over his arms.

Well, I still have memories. And YouTube videos 🙂

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ABT’s LADY OF THE CAMELLIAS

 

(Photo of Cory Stearns and Irina Dvorovenko in John Neumeier’s Lady of the Camellias, taken from ABT website – click on photo for link).

I so love this ballet. It’s my favorite ABT is putting on this season (since there’s no Manon or Romeo and Juliet). I went to see Lady of the Camellias Saturday night – out of curiosity, went to see the new cast – Cory Stearns and Irina Dvorovenko – and just came away from the Met feeling like I had the fullest, richest, most rewarding night at the ballet this season. I just feel like something about the minimal, but completely realistic sets, the authentic and beautiful period costumes (both costumes and sets are by Jurgen Rose), the depth of emotion conveyed by the story, the heartbreaking story itself, the book it’s based on, the gorgeous partnering, all just really drew me in and made me feel like I was inside of the narrative.

First, I love how there are no curtains – you just walk in to the auditorium and there’s the open stage;  you walk in on the set. And then the first dancer comes out on stage before the chandeliers have risen to dim the auditorium’s lights … so it’s not like a performance at all; it’s like you’re eavesdropping on the characters and their story.

And I love how at points the dancers use the front side of the stage.  You feel like they’re right above you. And you can watch both side stories – taking place there – and the center story, taking place center stage – at once.

I should say, this is the story of a younger man, in love with an older woman – a famous Parisian courtesan (the text is based on the 1849 novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils) who is dying of consumption. It’s a tragedy, as, through the meddlings of others who don’t want them to be together for various reasons – they are torn apart.

Cory Stearns was perfect as the younger man, Armand Duval. He danced very well – executed all of those seemingly impossible but beautiful lifts 🙂 , and he really brought his character to life. He is a natural actor. Either that or he has acting training, because he’s one of the best in the company at that, in my opinion. I love Diana Vishneva in the main role – Marguerite Gautier (and my friend and I passed Diana, holding flowers and still made up, as we were walking from the Italian restaurant where we had dinner to the Met), but I thought Dvorovenko did very well too, danced beautifully, had strong chemistry with Stearns, and overall fit her role as well.

I also loved the supporting cast. Gennadi Saveliev doesn’t often impress me, but wow, he did Saturday night in the role of the party attendant who’s having big fun with that horse whip, holding it next to his pelvis and making suggestive movements, and all that. He was a lot of fun, and he danced the bravura parts spectacularly. Luciana Paris shone as his partner, the sultry, hip swaying, Mlle. Duvernoy, and Melanie Hamrick was also radiant as Olympia, Armand’s would-be mistress, had he not been so in love with Marguerite. Vitali Krauchenka and Grand DeLong were totally believable as, respectively, Armand’s father, and the regal, all-powerful angry Duke who wants Marguerite for himself. And finally, Stella Abrera danced beautifully as Marguerite’s reflection of herself (or Manon Lescaut in the ballet-within-the-ballet, however you want to see it). Blaine Hoven was a good partner for her, as Des Grieux. His ballet technique is near perfect – even someone without a huge amount of ballet training can tell that – and I think he is acting and emoting much better than before, though I still think he has a ways to go before he might be considered principal material.

The pianists (music is Chopin) – Koji Attwood, Nimrod Pfeffer, and Emily Wong – were brilliant. They deserved their substantial applause at the end, during curtain calls.

Everything just came together to make a really memorable ballet. And these weren’t even the “star” dancers – these were the “up and comings”! The choreographer, John Neumeier, originally created the ballet for the Stuttgart Ballet. He currently runs the Hamburg Ballet (both companies being in Germany, of course, though I think Neumeier is American). So many of my European friends think ballet is so much more alive in Europe than in America, and they enjoy going there so much more than here. I can see why. More Neumeier and MacMillan, Kevin McKenzie!

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Who Will Play Romeo in the Film Version of Anne Fortier’s “Juliet”?

Haha, I don’t even think this book has been optioned yet for film! It should be though – it’s very cinematic. All throughout reading it, I kept “seeing” Romeo – and always as one of my favorite male dancers who’s danced the role. Roberto (top left) is of course the natural choice since he’s Italian and the book’s set largely in Italy. But I feel he may not have enough of the delicious cockiness in him; Roberto’s too nice, at least onstage. Ditto for Cory (top right). Marcelo of course would probably be best … although I don’t know if he has acting skills required for a speaking role in a film. He’s definitely a good stage dancer/actor.

I’m being goofy. I’m sure they would cast Andrew Garfield or Louis Garrel or someone.

Anyway, Anne Fortier’s Juliet, which I recently finished, is a really interesting read, especially for fans of Kenneth MacMillan, and I guess … Shakespeare 🙂

It’s part historical fiction, part romance, and part mystery / suspense and it shifts back and forth between the present day and the Siena, Italy of 1340, when the two people Shakespeare based his characters on – Romeo Marescotti and Giulietta Tomolei – actually lived. Of course in Shakespeare’s version, the lovers were from Verona, but according to this book, early stories – and there were many tales of Romeo and Juliet; Shakespeare’s was only one of many – had all the action happen in Siena.

The novel starts when 24-year-old American Julie Jacobs receives an inheritance after the death of her great aunt Rose, who raised her after her mother and father were suspiciously killed when she was a child. The inheritance is simply a key to a safe deposit box in Siena, which her mother had originally left with the aunt. Julie is told by her aunt’s butler and his lawyer that it contains a treasure, which she must go to Italy to find. So she sets off for Siena. There she encounters other, less savory types, who are equally interested in her treasure, and so begins the suspense part of the novel.

Julie soon discovers that at the time her mother died, she’d been researching the history of Romeo and Juliet, or Romeo and Giulietta. Julie’s mother’s last name was Tolomei, and it turns out Julie is related to the original Giulietta. I don’t want to give too much away, but the contemporary part of the story consists of the suspense and romance of finding the treasure – which is related to R&J – as well finding Romeo’s descendant.

Julie finds in her mother’s belongings in Italy the earliest version of the story of Romeo and Giulietta, and her reading of that accounts for the historical half of the novel, which was the most compelling and poignant to me. It’s different from the version we all know through Shakespeare. The warring families are the Tolomeis and the Salimbenis, with the Salimbenis being far more vicious and far more financially powerful. At the beginning of the historical story, the Salimbenis have just raided Giulietta’s house and murdered everyone but her. (She was in church at the time.) In a nutshell, Friar Lorenzo is able to sneak Giulietta out to her uncle Tolomei’s estate. Romeo, who is a Marescotti – a historically highly respected military family with connections to Charlemagne but who currently has no financial power – is a hopeless playboy. But once he sets eyes on Giulietta’s portrait, while he is having his own Marescotti-family portrait done, he is in love.

The artist tells Romeo that Giulietta resides at the Tolomei castle. He goes to a ball there in search of her, finds her (she’s a Helen of Troy type and stands far out from the crowd), and follows her into her chamber. She’s still traumatized by what’s happened to her family and so is immune to his flirting. She does tell him though that he can have anything he wants from her if he brings her the heart (or was it the head?…) of the master of the Salimbeni family, who ordered the execution. Romeo’s a bit taken aback, but tells her he’ll do anything.

The next day Friar Lorenzo brings Giulietta to the Marescotti estate and she tells Romeo she doesn’t know what came over her the other day to ask such violence of him; she doesn’t want him to get hurt. He kind of plays with her a bit, she softens, and over the course of this and several other meetings, they fall in love.

Romeo talks his father into asking Tolomei for her hand in marriage. For Romeo I mean. The father is reluctant because he doesn’t want to be seen as “getting involved” in the Tolomei / Salimbeni feud. But seeing how in love his son is, he agrees.

But just as he goes to approach Tolomei that night, old Salimbeni, smitten with Giulietta whom he spies in the distance, reveals that he wants her for himself. This will end the violence between the families once and for all, he claims. The whole crowd gasps, since Salimbeni is old enough practically to be her grandfather, not to mention married (although everyone also knows his wife will soon be dead, as he is starving her, as he’s done to prior wives… Medieval society must have been so lovely…) Of course Tolomei has no choice but to say yes – the Salimbenis are far more powerful – both physically and financially. Saying no to Salimbeni would be family suicide.

Poor Giulietta nearly collapses upon hearing she’s to be the wife of the man who slaughtered her family, and she begs Tolomei not to let the marriage happen. Tolomei refuses. Romeo declares that he will beat Nico, Salimbeni’s son, in the Palio (a Medieval-style horse race that continues to this day), and, if he does, he will win Giulietta’s hand.

At the Palio the following day, Romeo does win, but during the course of the race, Nico kills Tebaldo, Tolomei’s son, but with Romeo’s dagger, making it look like Romeo is the murderer. This is how Romeo gets banished. Although Romeo sneaks back to town with Friar Lorenzo and marries Giulietta in the back of the church where she is at worship, Salimbeni finds them and, well, things don’t go too well for Romeo…  Salimbeni’s wife finally starves and he marries Giulietta, then keeps her a prisoner in his country castle.

I should stop there! But the story goes on and there are all kinds of twists and turns. It’s a fascinating narrative and you can see all the same – or many of the same – elements Shakespeare included. But the theme in Shakespeare is the warring families or factions, gangs, what have you – and how innocent individuals get unfairly, tragically caught up in the fighting. In the original, it’s more about the viciousness of one evil, all-powerful man. I found it interesting to see how a great writer manipulated facts to craft a story with themes that would reach far beyond the time and place in which the story was set. I mean, Shakespeare’s version also contained beautiful poetry of course, but his basic story is more powerful and far-reaching than the original. The original does give you a sense of how violent and how absolutely awful Medieval society was for women though.

Anyway, the novel’s very good – at least the historical part. I highly recommend it for that. The contemporary part is cute romance-wise, and definitely suspenseful, but in my opinion not nearly as powerful from a literary perspective as the historical.

 

Funny, I didn’t really think of who would play Julie / Giulietta. Diana Vishneva or Veronika Part would be good – she has to be Helen of Troy beautiful! But they both have Russian accents and I don’t know if that would work… Hmmm, who else?…

(Photos above, clockwise from top left: Roberto Bolle, taken by me; Cory Stearns, from ABT’s website; and Marcelo Gomes, from ABT’s website.)

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OSIPOVA AND HALLBERG IN ROMEO AND JULIET

Here are a couple of photos of Natalia Osipova and David Hallberg at curtain call yesterday after her debut as Juliet, taken by Len Zernov from The Faster Times. I’m hoping to receive more photos soon and will post them asap! Read Marina Harss’s review of Osipova (she compares Osipova with Paloma Herrera) here.

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THE DUELING JULIETS: NATALIA OSIPOVA VERSUS DIANA VISHNEVA

 

So Saturday was another double feature for me, as for many ABT fans. And it was a fun double-header with the Russian women – the Bolshoi versus the Kirov, if you will – kind of going at each other 🙂  Natalia Osipova (top photo) made her debut as Juliet, opposite David Hallberg’s Romeo during the matinee, and in the evening, Diana Vishneva and Marcelo Gomes took the leads.

I can’t say I liked one over the other, though they were very very different. It was Osipova’s debut and Vishneva has performed it many times so the evening Juliet was a bit more sophisticated. But Osipova will grow into it and eventually make it her own. I think Osipova’s Juliet was much more girlish, cuter, particularly at the beginning, than I’ve seen her danced before. She practically ran from Paris when her parents first introduced them. Vishneva was girlish too but not as much; she knew it was time for her to be married and she was trying to be mature and ready herself.

Osipova tried hard to act the part well though, and I love that about her. She always does that. It’s not just about the dancing; she’s an actress too. And one huge thing I love about her is how well she works with David Hallberg.

Continue reading “THE DUELING JULIETS: NATALIA OSIPOVA VERSUS DIANA VISHNEVA”

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LAST WEEK AT ABT: ROMEO AND JULIET

 

So, this is the last week of ABT’s Met season, and they are closing out with my favorite, Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet. My recommended casts are both performances on Saturday – Natalia Osipova is debuting as Juliet in the matinee, dancing opposite David Hallberg, and that evening is the lovely Diana Vishneva (who has really been blowing me away this season), with Marcelo Gomes as her Romeo. (Angel Corella was originally scheduled to be Vishneva’s Romeo but he is injured). Also, the Wednesday afternoon cast is good — Hee Seo, who is one of my current favorite Juliets, dances with Corey Stearns. Tonight is your only chance to see Herman Cornejo as Mercutio — he’s my favorite for that part. The leads are Marcelo and Juliet Kent. Go here for the full schedule.

Here is a recently-added YouTube of various clips of La Scala’s production of the same ballet, starring Corella and Alessandra Ferri (my favorite ballerina ever in that role).

Photo at top of David Hallberg as Romeo and Herman Cornejo as Mercutio, by Fabrizio Ferri.

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OH NO ROBERTO!!!

For those who haven’t heard, Roberto Bolle is injured and will be out the rest of the ABT summer season. That means there will be no stalking expedition guided tour of the bowels of the Met at the end of Romeo this year.

Oh well. We may have to organize a field trip to Europe next year. Maybe he’ll be dancing Mats Ek’s Giselle again?

In the meantime, here is this bottled water commercial. I think I posted it last year because it looks familiar but blog reader and Facebook friend Jonathan has sent it to me (and it is very good!) so I am posting it again. If I remember correctly, I think last year Haglund and I were trying to figure out where to buy the water in the U.S. I wonder if Haglund ever found it?…

And I will have to be satisfied with my IPPY man… Hehe, seriously, IPPY winners who attended the award ceremony two weeks ago were just sent their photos. They had an attractive female and male presenter to pose for your award photo with you — if you’re a female winner, they gave you the guy; if you’re male, they gave you the girl. I didn’t notice it at the time but doesn’t this guy kind of look like Roberto! Okay, I can dream!

Anyway, SLSG favorite Marcelo Gomes will be replacing him in Swan Lake — Odette / Odile is Veronika Part, so that will be a must-not-miss. And his Romeo replacements are Marcelo (whose Juliet will be Paloma Herrera) and Cory Stearns (dancing with Irina Dvorovenko). Check schedule here.

Get well soon Roberto.

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HEE SEO PREPARED FOR JULIET IN PART BY WATCHING FILM ACTING

 

I knew there was a reason I loved her Juliet so much:

”Watching movies gave me ideas. Dancers tend to exaggerate on stage because they want to make sure that everyone sees their emotions through the movements, but in movies, the acting is very subtle and realistic. I think it’s important to find a balance. You can’t overact just because you want the viewer in the back to notice you, but then you can’t control your feelings too much either,” Seo said, adding that she loved the original play by Shakespeare because the lines were so romantic. She added that such sentiment is ”hard to find these days.”

Later, she says:

”Ballet is art. I may be just dancing, but I’m dancing inside a beautiful set with beautiful music, and that is what makes ballet a synthetic art form. I want to be recognized as an artist. An artist who danced, who appreciated music and understood art.”

Here’s the rest of this sweet interview in the Korean Times.

 

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CRAIG SALSTEIN TO THE RESCUE

 

 

So last night I went to Christopher Wheeldon’s Morphoses at Central Park’s SummerStage, who were performing to live music by Martha Wainwright. Of course I would have gone no matter, but hearing that my favorite, Marcelo Gomes, was guest-performing with the company, made it all the more urgent.

Anyway, Morphoses events are often very well-attended and there was a bit of a mix-up with my tickets — they’d issued me a guest, rather than press pass and so my friend and I got ousted from the section up front. I understand these things happen, especially with very popular dance companies and it wouldn’t have been a big deal if I could see well at long distances at night (and if I hadn’t helped others get in whose tickets weren’t mixed up….) But whatever, I could deal I thought, even though I felt like a total loser.

So, my friend and I walked to the back dejectedly. But, then, when we got all the way to the back, it ended up our tickets weren’t for the reserved risers but for the skybox, a tent-covered, elevated section that put us far above the standing crowd. And in that elevated section, sat (among others) ABT soloist and one of my favorite dancers, Craig Salstein! He was sitting next to a really cute dancer-looking guy who turned out to be Marcelo’s bf 😀 Then a waitress came by serving us free wine and I knew this was THE place to be, not down there on the ground with those earthlings! I still couldn’t see tremendously well, but I can always see Marcelo from wherever I am and I kind of felt better being with the ABT peeps anyway.

So my friend Susan and I ended up chatting with Craig and Marcelo’s friend throughout the show and they are the sweetest guys! Craig seemed so different than he is onstage! For people who don’t know him, he’s the type of dancer who always gets the bravura roles that require a big personality, and very good acting (not to mention dance) skills, like Mercutio in R&J and the bespectacled nerdy guy who can nevertheless dance up a storm in Taylor’s Company B, and the poor guy who gets girls tossed at him from every which way in Tharp’s Baker’s Dozen, etc. etc. So because he has such a way with comedy I expected him to be cracking jokes every five seconds and acting all clownish and all. But he wasn’t like that at all – -he was really serious and calm, albeit gregarious and easy to talk to. I told my friends, who I went out with afterward, the same and one said, “well, he can’t be Mercutio ALL the time; he’d go crazy.” True.

He’d just got back from vacation (in Italy, where he saw “Roberto Bolle and Friends” — hmmm, didn’t know there was a “Roberto Bolle and Friends”!), and was sporting a serious tan. We talked about ABT’s upcoming season at Avery Fisher Hall and Italy and his choreography and how much I liked it and how great Marcelo is and what I tweet about (you, tossing your mandolin into the wings instead of Jared Matthews’s hands during R&J I said; he seemed bemused) and other chit-chat. Fun fun fun to meet a favorite dancer and another favorite’s boyfriend 🙂

Okay, I’m running off to another Morphoses performance today and have to get going but will write about the actual show tonight or tomorrow morning. Obviously Marcelo was god, Martha Wainwright was good but to me it was too much about her — too much music, almost a music performance with some dancing thrown in — highlights were Edwaard Liang’s premiere and Wheeldon’s Fools’ Paradise (which I saw anew thanks to Marcelo), Tiler Peck, Gonzalo Garcia, a duet between Maria Kowroski and Jared Angle, Wendy Whelan, Rory Hohenstein, a funny joke by Wainwright about lying down and having people do things to her and Wheeldon’s somewhat embarrassed response, and did I mention Marcelo Gomes…