Musings on ballet, classical music, the violin, and life
Musings of a former ballet dancer who’s returned, years later, to the studio as a student.
No piece of classical music grips my ballet-dancer’s imagination like Aram Khachaturian’s “Waltz” from his Masquerade suite. Like his Piano Concerto that I blogged about HERE in 2017, it doesn’t start so much as drop the listener smack into a musical extravaganza, where the lines between listener and music have been erased and, oh Lord, … Read more
In celebration of ten years of the Ballet Theatre Chronicles, enjoy all four books for only 99 cents each, through the summer! Scroll to the bottom for the four individual links (plus a related book for free!). The adventure started with this, my 2015 New Year’s resolution, in a blog of its own but paraphrased … Read more
Marius Petipa’s 1898 classic, Raymonda, has long been due for a reboot. Set during the Crusades, it features a courtly knight and his betrothed, the helpless but beautiful Raymonda. In this current Bolshoi staging, the gallant Jean de Brienne heads off to fight the infidels, leaving Raymonda to fend for herself (or not) against a … Read more
In 2004, San Francisco Ballet’s then-Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson took a creative leap with a new production of the perennially popular Nutcracker. Stakes were high; the San Francisco Ballet was, after all, the first U.S. company to stage and produce a full-length version (based on the Ivanov/Petipa 1892 original), which premiered on Christmas Eve, 1944, there … Read more
World Ballet Day 2024 is … … Sadly, not going to happen. Following is news from the official World Ballet Day site today, September 23, 2024: After 10 fantastic years of bringing together audiences around the globe on World Ballet Day, The Australian Ballet, The Royal Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet have decided to … Read more