Humbled and Overwhelmed

I reviewed last night's performance of Aida at  Parterre Box.  A snip: At the first intermission at last night’s Met revival of  Aida , I turned to my companion and said, “So… what about the Aida? I thought she was supposed to be good.” 

The premiere of Death of Klinghoffer is over. There were protests , but the crowd was smaller than expected. There was occasional in-house booing and disruptions (in particular one man kept shouting "The murder of Klinghoffer will never be forgiven") but the overall audience response was positive. John Adams received a rousing ovation. The controversy might live on, but now that the premiere is over, I hope actual dialogue of the opera can begin. Because, you know, now people have actually, uh, seen the opera.

On October 18, 2014 Wendy Whelan danced her last performance with the New York City Ballet. The house was jam-packed -- tickets sold out minutes after they went for general sale, and I met someone who had gotten a last minute ticket by arriving at 6 am for standing room. It was an emotional occasion. The stage was crowded with past and present NYCB dancers -- octogenarian Jacque d'Amboise delighted the audience by waltzing Wendy around during her lengthy curtain calls. There were former partners Damian Woetzel, Jock Soto, and Philip Neal, all looking handsome and elegant as ever. Many ABT dancers were spotted in the audience -- David Hallberg, Irina Dvorovenko, Gillian Murphy and Ethan Stiefel. It seems as if the entire dance world was there to pay tribute to this remarkable ballerina.

The opening night Macbeth was surprisingly sparsely attended but strong word of mouth quickly made subsequent shows sold out. Last night I decided to catch the second-to-last performance of Macbeth -- all the way up in the Family Circle, standing room. First things first -- it's a cliché that sound is best in the Family Circle, but a very true one at that. Only in the upper rings of the Met do you get the full voice/orchestra balance, so the textures and nuances of orchestration that are missed in the lower rungs ring loud and clear from the upper rings. I heard details of Verdi's score that I never could have heard sitting in a prime orchestra seat.

In less than two weeks, Wendy Whelan will retire from the New York City Ballet. It's definitely the Dance Event of the year. Tickets were notoriously hard to get -- I snagged two fourth ring tickets for $94 -- a minute later the whole show was sold out. The farewell will be a busy, emotional event, and I'm sure not many people will really remember the dancing. For that reason I bought a ticket to see Wendy this afternoon in La Sonnambula. I wanted to see her just dance a regular performance.

I reviewed last night's performance of Nozze di Figaro at  parterre box . I'm pretty glad I won the lottery and didn't have to pay full price for it. I also reviewed the  Rene Pape recital . Happy reading.

The NYCB fall season. It only started a few years ago, but now I can't imagine life without it, and it's become maybe my favorite NYCB season. The dancers are fresh and rested from a summer off, the programming is usually full of Balanchine classics, and the weather's nice so you don't have to trudge home from the ballet in snow boots. The 9/27 evening performance at the NYCB was a severe all Stravinsky, all B&W program: Apollo , Momentum Pro Gesualdo / Movements for Piano and Orchestra , Duo Concertant , and Agon . It's a testament to Balanchine's genius that not once did I think, "Wow, this is too many leotards against too much Stravinsky dissonance."