San Francisco Ballet waltzes into 2018

  Tchaikovsky’s “Waltz of the Flowers” is still looping through my mind, even as the curtain closed for the last time on San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker last weekend. I’m crazy about this production; I’ve raved about it HERE and HERE. You can see my Bachtrack review of this year’s opening night performance HERE. I like to attend … Read more

San Francisco Ballet’s Swan Lake

San Francisco Ballet patrons love their story ballets, and the most beloved is surely Swan Lake. Whether it’s because of, or in spite of the 2010 film, Black Swan, seeing this ballet at least once seems to be on everyone’s bucket list. Next to Nutcracker, this is what draws the non-ballet-goer to the ballet. Artistic … Read more

Hummingbirds and bargain seats at the San Francisco Ballet

Buying a $25 ticket for the ballet can be a bit of a gamble. The cheapest seats tend to be the ones furthest back, in the nosebleed section, but you’ll also find them way up close, or way off to the side. (Or, one time, this miracle bargain: https://www.theclassicalgirl.com/how-i-attended-the-san-francisco-ballet-for-14/). Last Saturday night, my $25 seat was … Read more

Lambarena versus Lambaréné

San Francisco Ballet dancers in Caniparoli’s “Lambarena” I never thought I’d get the chance to mention San Francisco Ballet and my two-year African experience in the same breath, much less blog about it, but here we are. Tuesday night I attended San Francisco Ballet’s 2015 season opener, a program that featuring Serenade, RAkU and Lambarena. … Read more

San Francisco Ballet and the (sorta) first Nutcracker

Willem Christensen and Gisella Caccialanza, 1944 It hadn’t been intended as a “timeless holiday classic,” that first year, on Christmas Eve day, 1944, when Willem Christensen, artistic director of the fledgling San Francisco Ballet, presented to audiences his complete, two-act Nutcracker production. He’d known he was doing something relatively new. The only other complete Nutcracker ballet outside Russia had been in … Read more