Ballet update
On Sunday, I went to the ballet with Mom. I haven't been posting my ballet reviews at all this year, which is completely lame of me. I haven't posted a ballet review since last June. Well, we've still been going to the ballet. Here's a brief recap of what we've seen so far:
There was one performance in the fall--George Balanchine and Twyla Tharp. We hate Balanchine, so that wasn't much to get excited about. Balanchine is really the sort of thing only dancers like, I think. I bet he was really revolutionary fifty years ago, but now he's just boring. It's all very pretty--pretty classical music, pretty dancers doing pretty dances in pretty white dresses--but it's boring. Maybe it's technically difficult, but to the non-dance audience it's just boring. I think we liked the middle piece, but I can't remember what we thought of Tharp.
We saw Love & Longing in February. The middle piece, Requiem for a Rose, we thought was really weird, but we liked the nine Sinatra songs. We enjoyed the costumes particularly.
They did Cinderella in March. This was pretty much what you'd expect, pleasant and fun. Afterwards, we were walking down a side street and saw a man and his little daughter, and also saw a young woman who looked like she might've been a dancer--face all made up, hair still up in a bun, etc. The little girl spotted the dancer and her eyes got all big and she whispered to her dad. The dad said, "I don't know, why don't you ask her?" and the little girl went over and talked to the dancer, and the dancer was really really nice. Mom and I liked that.
Yesterday, we saw Tango with Style, which we were really looking forward to. There were three separate individual pieces, with the actual Tango piece last. The first piece was very much like Balanchine, pretty with dancers in white dresses, and therefore dead boring. The second piece was an original by Matthew Neenan, the PA Ballet choreographer-in-residence. We usually really enjoy Neenan's work, and this was no exception. Neenan's pieces always involve a lot of play with color and light and interesting costumes; the dancers are always performing movements that seem odd or awkward or just different from the traditional. Seeing a Neenan piece right after something so Balanchinely really highlighted why we like Neenan so much. It also seems to me that the dancers must like Neenan's work too--the dancing seems so much more passionate, more raw and emotional, than in those pretty little pieces.
The final piece, the Tango with Style, was really weird and kind of disappointing. We had been so looking forward to it, but it was not really tango-like at all. Mom said she thought it was more like 1920s French jazz. The only thing Spanishy about it was that all the female dancers wore a red flower in their hair. The only part that really caught me was the third movement, when two male dancers were on the stage together. Their dance was both competitive and erotic. Then their female partners took the stage, and I jokingly whispered to Mom, "They don't seem to know their boyfriends are dancing together when they're not around", but as we watched it did seem like the choreographer was playing with that sort of tension. There were moments when the two men made extended eye contact while dancing with the women, who were looking away. It was kind of intense and fascinating. Otherwise, though, we didn't really love the Tango with Style. Also odd was that there was no description in the program of the three ballets we were seeing that day--usually there is a description of each, what inspired the choreographer, when it was written, etc, and I like reading about them, but there wasn't a description this time. Odd.
We had some problems with our seats at the Academy this year. Last year, we were really unhappy with our seats at the Academy, so we requested new seats for this year. When we got to the Academy, our new seats were completely behind a pole. We were really upset. We requested new seats, and the new seats were off to the extreme right of the stage, so bad that we literally couldn't see half the stage. That day, we just got up and moved up to the second balcony and found empty seats there, and that was much better. When Mom called to complain about the seat problem, she was told that there wasn't anything they could do about it. Mom's like, "OK, I could walk in off the street five minutes before the performance and buy tickets for better seats at a better price, so tell me again what the benefit is of being a subscriber?" They eventually moved us up to the second balcony to seats that we like a lot, but the whole thing was very frustrating. And then Mom got the subscription renewal form in the mail, and it had our old, way off to the side seats on it. So, frustrating.
Added to that, next season they're not doing anything we really want to see. They're redoing Carmina Burana, which they just did in 2007--we really liked it last time, and in fact that was what inspired us to get season tickets in the first place, but dude, come on, they just freakin' did it two years ago. They're also redoing Requiem for a Rose, which we didn't like already this February, and it looks like there's a lot of Balanchine too. The only thing we actually want to see is Romeo and Juliet in June, and we don't need to subscribe to go to see one performance. If we hadn't had the seating and customer service problems, we might consider it anyway, but as it is--um, no. So we are canceling our ballet subscription for next year.
Instead, we are getting a subscription to the opera for next season! The price is comparable, and we are genuinely excited about most of the shows they're doing. So that's exciting. No news yet on what our seats will be like at the opera, but here's hoping.
There was one performance in the fall--George Balanchine and Twyla Tharp. We hate Balanchine, so that wasn't much to get excited about. Balanchine is really the sort of thing only dancers like, I think. I bet he was really revolutionary fifty years ago, but now he's just boring. It's all very pretty--pretty classical music, pretty dancers doing pretty dances in pretty white dresses--but it's boring. Maybe it's technically difficult, but to the non-dance audience it's just boring. I think we liked the middle piece, but I can't remember what we thought of Tharp.
We saw Love & Longing in February. The middle piece, Requiem for a Rose, we thought was really weird, but we liked the nine Sinatra songs. We enjoyed the costumes particularly.
They did Cinderella in March. This was pretty much what you'd expect, pleasant and fun. Afterwards, we were walking down a side street and saw a man and his little daughter, and also saw a young woman who looked like she might've been a dancer--face all made up, hair still up in a bun, etc. The little girl spotted the dancer and her eyes got all big and she whispered to her dad. The dad said, "I don't know, why don't you ask her?" and the little girl went over and talked to the dancer, and the dancer was really really nice. Mom and I liked that.
Yesterday, we saw Tango with Style, which we were really looking forward to. There were three separate individual pieces, with the actual Tango piece last. The first piece was very much like Balanchine, pretty with dancers in white dresses, and therefore dead boring. The second piece was an original by Matthew Neenan, the PA Ballet choreographer-in-residence. We usually really enjoy Neenan's work, and this was no exception. Neenan's pieces always involve a lot of play with color and light and interesting costumes; the dancers are always performing movements that seem odd or awkward or just different from the traditional. Seeing a Neenan piece right after something so Balanchinely really highlighted why we like Neenan so much. It also seems to me that the dancers must like Neenan's work too--the dancing seems so much more passionate, more raw and emotional, than in those pretty little pieces.
The final piece, the Tango with Style, was really weird and kind of disappointing. We had been so looking forward to it, but it was not really tango-like at all. Mom said she thought it was more like 1920s French jazz. The only thing Spanishy about it was that all the female dancers wore a red flower in their hair. The only part that really caught me was the third movement, when two male dancers were on the stage together. Their dance was both competitive and erotic. Then their female partners took the stage, and I jokingly whispered to Mom, "They don't seem to know their boyfriends are dancing together when they're not around", but as we watched it did seem like the choreographer was playing with that sort of tension. There were moments when the two men made extended eye contact while dancing with the women, who were looking away. It was kind of intense and fascinating. Otherwise, though, we didn't really love the Tango with Style. Also odd was that there was no description in the program of the three ballets we were seeing that day--usually there is a description of each, what inspired the choreographer, when it was written, etc, and I like reading about them, but there wasn't a description this time. Odd.
We had some problems with our seats at the Academy this year. Last year, we were really unhappy with our seats at the Academy, so we requested new seats for this year. When we got to the Academy, our new seats were completely behind a pole. We were really upset. We requested new seats, and the new seats were off to the extreme right of the stage, so bad that we literally couldn't see half the stage. That day, we just got up and moved up to the second balcony and found empty seats there, and that was much better. When Mom called to complain about the seat problem, she was told that there wasn't anything they could do about it. Mom's like, "OK, I could walk in off the street five minutes before the performance and buy tickets for better seats at a better price, so tell me again what the benefit is of being a subscriber?" They eventually moved us up to the second balcony to seats that we like a lot, but the whole thing was very frustrating. And then Mom got the subscription renewal form in the mail, and it had our old, way off to the side seats on it. So, frustrating.
Added to that, next season they're not doing anything we really want to see. They're redoing Carmina Burana, which they just did in 2007--we really liked it last time, and in fact that was what inspired us to get season tickets in the first place, but dude, come on, they just freakin' did it two years ago. They're also redoing Requiem for a Rose, which we didn't like already this February, and it looks like there's a lot of Balanchine too. The only thing we actually want to see is Romeo and Juliet in June, and we don't need to subscribe to go to see one performance. If we hadn't had the seating and customer service problems, we might consider it anyway, but as it is--um, no. So we are canceling our ballet subscription for next year.
Instead, we are getting a subscription to the opera for next season! The price is comparable, and we are genuinely excited about most of the shows they're doing. So that's exciting. No news yet on what our seats will be like at the opera, but here's hoping.