Welcome Back, Joseph Gordon!

-
After being out for the fall and Nutcracker season with an injury, the wildly talented Joseph Gordon made his return to the NYCB stage as Gold in the 2/15/17 performance of Sleeping Beauty. NYCB has put up two brief but wonderful clips of the performance:


Joseph Gordon as Gold. No explanation necessary.
And the ever radiant Sterling Hyltin's entrance as Aurora:
Also new to me was Sara Mearns' delightfully hammy Carabosse, by far the most entertaining of the four that I've seen:


This has been a wonderful series of performances. I go to my last one tonight.

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 1, 2017 at 12:10 AM

    Hi Ivy-

    I stumbled on your blog one day and I check in with it regularly, specifically for your entries on ballet. Just wanted to say how much I enjoy your writing. I really love ballet, but I know nothing, zip, zilch, nada, about it and so while half of whatever you are pointing out in your critiques makes little sense to me, I somehow still feel like I see whatever you were seeing. I've never been to a live performance either (I don't live in a place with much professional ballet) and I'm also pretty far from New York, but I do get to go to the theatre by reading your writing.

    Thanks very much for your lovely, insightful blog. --Kim, from CA

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ivy LinMarch 1, 2017 at 8:11 AM

      Thanks so much for your kind words!!! It means a lot to me.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Comparing Nutcrackers Across the Pond

-
Image
Battle of the Nutcrackers: U.S. vs. England This December season I had my usual annual ritual of putting aside money for two extremely crucial things -- a Christmas bonus for my building super and money on  Nutcracker  tickets. NYCB's  Nutcracker  is my annual Christmas binge -- every year I check out some new dancers, and see my old favorites. This year I saw four different SPF/Cavalier pairings. Truth be told, only one was the kind of transcendent, joyful complete performance that made me leave the theater on a high. The others all had some major flaws. But still, for the joy it brings me year after year, Balanchine's  Nutcracker  is unrivaled. Balanchine's classic version However this year I also decided to sample a Nutcracker cinema relay from across the pond -- Sir Peter Wright's Nutcracker for the Royal Ballet. The Wright Nutcracker this year starred Gary Avis as Drosselmeyer, Anne Rose O'Sullivan and Marcellino Sambé as Clara a...
Read more

Angela Meade's Anna

-
Image
I really can't believe I've now sat through three performances of Anna Bolena within a rather short amount of time. It's not my favorite opera by a long-shot, and the production is absolutely dreary. Read my thoughts on the first-cast performance  here. But the buzz about the second-cast Anna Bolena has been strong among operaphiles, who have whispered that Anna Netrebko is the bigger star but Angela Meade the better vocalist. Meade made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2008 as a last minute substitution in Ernani , and since then has slowly been building up quite a following. So last night I dragged myself to the Met to sit through Anna Bolena again. Yippee.
Read more

The Mechanical Flute

-
Image
  In September 1791, a sickly Mozart conducted the premiere of The Magic Flute . Something about the mix of fairy tale magic, humor, and the sunny, eternally catchy music made the opera a huge hit. It has remained this way ever after. Audiences loved it then and love it now. It takes a lot for me to dislike a performance of The Magic Flute/Die Zauberflöte . The new production by Simon McBurney (as opposed to the abbreviated holiday version of the Julie Taymor production trotted out nearly every year) was high on my list of most anticipated events of the 22-23 season. The solo flutist, photo @ Karen Almond The evening was, however, decidedly unmagical. Simon McBurney's production (which has actually been around since 2012 and staged throughout Europe) seems determined to display all the mechanics behind the magic. We walk in and see two booths on either side of the stage. On one side is the video projection artist. On the other side is the sound effects specialist. After awhile, eye...
Read more