Author Archives: jsl915@aol.com

A “Marina” wrote, alerting my attention to a NYT piece from 2007 on Gelb’s change in cover policy: www.nytimes.com/2007/10/20/arts/music/20oper.htm

From the point of view of audience appeal, I don’t know whether it was a good idea or not to have opera stars be hosts for the Met’s HD telecasts.  But it’s certainly fascinating to watch their on-camera schmoozing.  They are are still … Continue reading →

The Met’s big-time dissing of Croft brings up a larger issue: Gelb’s apparent policy change from the Volpe era, when a cover was always given a single scheduled performance.  That was a great system.  Some cover performances were downright revelatory.  … Continue reading →

I was astonished to read in Tomassini’s Times review of the Met’s new Don Giovanni that Dwayne Croft had been assigned to cover the lead Don, Mariusz Kwiecien (Croft finished the dress rehearsal when Kwiecien hurt his back last week) but … Continue reading →

In the current issue of The Weekly Standard, I review Judith Chazin-Bennahum’s René Blum & The Ballets Russes: In Search of a Lost Life. It’s been a long time a’coming: a chronicle of the life and career of the polymathic … Continue reading →

Leggy leggy New York City Ballet ballerina Teresa Reichlen on the cover of the new, Summer 2011 issue of Ballet Review.  And even though there’s a great deal of interst within its covers, please don’t miss my article on my vaudevillian grandparents, … Continue reading →

Leaving Bard College’s Fisher Center after a performance last month, I was going east on 199 through the town of Red Hook.  It was around 10:30 p.m. on a Friday and nothing seemed open.  All lit up on a dark … Continue reading →

Do buy the current, Spring 2011 issue of Ballet Review, which is on the newstands for a little bit longer.   And do read my “Conversation with Cynthia Gregory,” and enjoy, as I did, the way that Gregory analyzes and appraises … Continue reading →

Today’s my birthday. Looking back on who I am. . . in a strange way I’ve always been “myself” dating back to my earliest memories.  And many of the same interests I had as a child are the same ones I … Continue reading →

As  I suspected, the Mariinsky’s Andrian Fadeyev will not continue to dance as he moves into his new position as artistic director of St. Petersburg’s Yakobson Ballet.  This was the company established in 1971, by Leonid Yakobson.   They perform one-act … Continue reading →