4 posts tagged “ballet”

I'll be spending my weekend, in part, with Stravinsky and Bernstein.

This evening, the ballet program is all-Stravinsky, Stravinsky 125.

Tomorrow night, we are going to a production of West Side Story.

In a single week I've gone to two performances where I know the music through and through - Don Giovanni at Seattle Opera (last Saturday) and last night Pacific Northwest Ballet's Swan Lake.

First of all, it's a supreme treat to hear music that I love live. There is just nothing like live performance. The acoustics in both venues (McCaw Hall and Benaroya Hall) are superb. We are very, very lucky in Seattle to have both a wonderful opera house and symphony hall.

It's a thrill to hear new works, but familiar works provide the chance to really get under the skin of the music -- and I think it's easier to get absorbed in the drama. Truly, I lost all sense of time last night.

Next up we are going to two works I've never experienced live: Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto and Monteverdi's L’incoronazione di Poppea. I guess February will a our month for all things Roman. I'll need to study up on Poppea in particular, since it's being staged by the Early Music Guild and I doubt they'll have supertitles. Both promise to be very interesting productions.

The Nutcracker last night was just so sweet and lovely.

• The audience was probably 20% small children; I was bracing myself before the performance to noise and fidgeting. Instead, it was pin-quiet during the performance. The little girl next to me (I'd guess 5 years old) was stone-still and transfixed the whole time.
• Even Drake, whose eyes normally go to half-staff the minute tutus appear on stage, was engrossed.
• I agree with my colleague's 3 1/2 year old daughter who says the giant mouse in Act I is scary!
• The snowflakes scene was so beautiful it made me weep.

The house looked very near to sold-out, which is excellent for the ballet, since this is their big revenue generator. And for Seattle, the crowd was really dressed-up. The little girls in their party dresses - oh so cute!  It was a beautiful evening.

This is my 20th season as a subscriber to Pacific Northwest Ballet. Last year marked a major change for the company when Peter Boal took over the artistic leadership from long-time directors Kent Stowell and Francia Russell.

Before the switch had been a rough patch for PNB. When the new opera house opened, it was clear they had lost a chunk of subscribers in the transition. Part of this may have been due to a flap on how seats were being priced and assigned in the new house, but also I think the company had gotten a bit stale under Kent and Francia, who had lead the company since 1976. In fact, for one performance I was seated behind Doug Fullington, who is a dance historian who regularly speaks on ballet - he looked around at the empty seats and commented that it looked like a lot of people had not re-subscribed.

Last season was Boal's first and it seemed like people were watching and waiting. This season, however, I have been thrilled to see huge pick-up in the audience. It's amazing really and completely warrented.

The current program, All Premiere, is a stunning mix of established and new chroeographers. The Seattle Times review of the program is here. All Premiere runs through November 12.