Let him lead.

Working 15 hour days doesn't leave much room for ballet blogging. But Jared Matthews was such a wonderful leading man in his debut Aminta in ABT's Sylvia Wednesday night, I'd be remiss if I didn't shout it to the blogosphere before his newly scheduled second performance at the Saturday matinee with Gillian Murphy.  

Some relieving ABT updated Met season casting

In the wake of the news earlier this week that a number of the open principal roles for American Ballet Theatre's spring season at the Met went to visiting male dancers from the Royal Ballet and the Royal Danish Ballet, as wonderful as they may prove to be, I was getting less and less optimistic about the future of some of ABT's homegrown dancers.  However, in some happy turn of events some additional casting went up on the website today that made me take a big sigh of relief:

ABT City Center (and Bard) Casting - thoughts?

So the bulk of the American Ballet Theatre fall season casting for City Center just went up online.  Thoughts? Gripes? Cheers?  

Here it is:

Bridesmaids (ABT La Bayadere, May 23, 2012)

Thanks to a stroke of luck and no will to resist the desire to see Stella Abrera's only Gamzatti this season (and Jeff Golladay's last soloist role on the Met stage), I impulsively raced up to Lincoln Center, hit the box office with 7 minutes to spare and settled myself into a fabulous center orchestra seat for American Ballet Theatre's La Bayadere.  Never one of my favorites, La Bayadere is lighter on plot than most and doesn't boast the richest of scores.  As a result, I've never seen a full principal cast bring it entirely to life, and this viewing was no exception.  It did, however, have its moments.  And most of those were delivered by Stella Abrera.

Victory to the Home Team: ABT at City Center (Wednesday, November 9, 2011)

Say what you will about Kevin McKenzie’s increasingly lackluster programming choices, there was something exciting about November 9th's repertory program by American Ballet Theatre. I left with such a jolt of electricity that I couldn’t fall asleep until well after 4 am. Notwithstanding some turnover in the ranks since ABT did longer fall seasons in 2006 and 2007, Wednesday night was a return to the well-rehearsed, passionate, joyful and exceptionally strong group of dancers I remembered from City Center seasons past. This night showed some rumblings of something I couldn't quite yet put into words - something that would become a loud and clear statement by some of the dancers later in the week.