Hee Seo and Roberto Bolle, Swan Lake, June 28, 2014
I’m always excited at the beginning of every ABT season, anticipating the great performances that lie ahead. In celebration of the company’s 75th anniversary, the season starts with a week of Classic ABT with Les Sylphides, Pillar of Fire, Fancy Free, Theme and Variations, Jardin aux Lilas, and Rodeo. I always love Rodeo with the classic Aaron Copland score. Misty Copeland and Craig Salstein are the leads.
The company revives Lar Lubovich’s Othello, last performed by ABT in 2007. Giselle, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, La Bayedre and Ashton’s Cinderella, which made its ABT debut last year, are returning full length classics. The New York premier of Alexei Ratmansky’s The Sleeping Beauty will be May 29.
Guest artists will be particularly prominent in La Bayedere with The Mariinsky’s Kimin Kim and National Ballet of Ukraine’s Denys Nedak as Solar and San Francisco Ballet’s Maria Kochetkova and English National Ballet’s Alina Cojocaru as Gamazatti. Mikhailovsky Ballet’s Leonid Sarafanov will partner with The Royal Ballet and former ABT Principal Dancer Natalia Osipova in La Bayadere, Giselle, and The Sleeping Beauty. The Royal Ballet’s Steven McRae will appear with Osipova in Giselle; the Bolshoi’s Evgenia Obraztsova will make her first ABT appearance in Romeo and Juliet; and The Royal Ballet’s Marianela Nunez will dance two times in Cinderella.
In a continuing negative sign for ABT’s future, not much young up and coming homegrown talent will be featured in lead roles, with the exception of Joseph Gorak in The Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella and Devon Teuscher as Myrta in Giselle.
Florists will have a busy day supplying the company with flowers on May 27 as Paloma Herrera and Xiomara Reyes will give their final ABT performances in Giselle, Paloma in the matinee and Xiomara in the evening. Julie Kent will give her farewell ABT performance on June 20 in Romeo and Juliet.