Humbled and Overwhelmed

Veronika Part and Marcelo Gomes, photo @ Richard Termine Tonight's La Bayadere at the Met was supposed to feature the highly anticipated show-down between Diana Vishneva and Natalia Osipova. Both are Russian ballerinas known for their, well, fierceness. But Vishneva cancelled, and instead the performance featured Veronika Part (also Mariinsky-trained) as Nikya. The end result was a wonderful performance of this ballet not just from the principals, but from the entire company. Even the orchestra sounded decent tonight.

 This week I attended three Giselles at the ABT -- one on Thursday, and two today. Last year the Giselles of Cojocaru and Vishneva were so great in their own way that I had to see them again this year. I also had to see the Giselle of Natalia Osipova. That's a lot of Wilis in a short amount of time.

Ballet season kicked off for me officially today, when I went to see the Balanchine triple bill at the New York City Ballet. On the bill: Serenade, Firebird, and Symphony in C. These three ballets are such Balanchine masterpieces that you could probably get any company in the world to do them and it'd be a great afternoon at the ballet. But the NYCB currently has perhaps the deepest and most talented female roster in the ballet world today, so I knew even before the curtain rose that this was going to be a great afternoon at the ballet.