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Comments
Spaulding
Spaulding is a grade-A douchebag.
I wouldn't doubt the Wang/City center were
begind these shenanigans.
Ballet
I attend a number of operas at The Met in NYC (most recent: "Tristan und Isolde" March 22nd) and am also on The Met's database. A couple of years ago, I got a phone call from them urging me to attend ballet performances in their opera house after the opera season had ended. I replied that I often had to travel to NYC for first-rate opera, but that I was satisfied with the state of ballet in Boston. It looks as though this is no longer the case.
Don't think this is usual for Boston Ballet
I'd hate to give people the impression that the various mishaps that afflicted Swan Lake are par for the course for Boston Ballet. Indeed, precisely the opposite is true. The Ballet has effected the most striking artistic turnaround of any Boston performing group I've seen in the last thirty years. It is now one of the leading ballets in the country, and more Bostonians should be attending and supporting it - particularly now that it has set itself an entirely new artistic standard even as it's been beset by economic problems. I don't understand how people in Boston can imagine we're a "world class city" simply because we have championship sports teams. To be a world class city, you need world class performing arts organizations. We have that in the BSO, yes, but we're only just getting there in dance, thanks in no small part to the Boston Ballet.
Absolutely
I wholeheartedly agree, Thomas, that the Boston Ballet has really made a huge turnaround in the past several years. When a friend started dragging (yes, it was dragging) me to the ballet about 10 years ago, I not only had to get past my distaste for certain things that can only be classified as part and parcel of "classical" ballet (oh, that stiffness) but I also had to get past some truly sophomoric performances by the corps. In the past 4 years or so, however, it has become a pure pleasure to go regularly to the Boston Ballet at the Wang/Citi/Acme Center. The choreography is almost uniformly exquisite and the performers are spectacular. Whether it is the new(ish) artistic director or some combination of things, I am just happy that they are doing such a great job -- and it's a crime if (if!) the folks at the venue intentionally did anything to take away from the Swan Lake performance that you wrote about. I truly hope it was an isolated thing (although I don't doubt it could've been intentional).
my bad
Boston can't be a world class city if i don't attend Boston Ballet? Sorry to let you all down.
Right back at ya
Apology accepted.
Does the Nutcracker count?
I can see bringing a child to the Nutcracker during the holidays. If I did, could Boston then become a world class city?
Not for nothing but if Boston Ballet Ballerinas - pre-teen and teenage girls - were greyhounds there'd be an investigation into the unhealthy demands on their body requirements including weight control, nutrition and cigarette-smoking to suppress appetite. I read yesterday where one girl broke both her ankles after she finished a performance and had to be euthanised because it was the humane thing to do.
Well, if you really want to improve the city . . .
. . . you could always move out.
world class
yea but that wouldn't make it a world-class city, TG.