When ABT put on an all-Tudor program during its City Center season in 2008, that night also seemed well attended. The audience’s attention was certainly rapt all the way through, despite the fact that there were no intermissions. Ballet audiences tend to get restive, particularly now; they’re usually not Wagnerians. And their attention span has certainly NOT been helped by the endless abridging of full-length ballets. As always, dumbing down begets dumbness.
But everyone’s attention seemed to hold fast during the Tudor tributes, both in 1986, when the ballet audience really was different, more educated in the art form, and again in 2008.