ABT 2010 Met Season – Initial Announcement

ABT released its 2010 Met Season programming with its first stab at casting. The season’s highlight will surely be the June 3rd Don Quixote and Celebration for Alicia Alonso – 90 years young. Three couples will share the leads with each one assigned an act. Herrera/Gomes, Reyes/Cornejo, and Carreno with a TBA partner. Haglund hopes that ABT invites one of Alonso’s Company ballerinas or former ballerinas to dance with him. It would make more sense and be more of a real tribute than sticking Osipova in the slot. That performance is going to be a night to remember. Imagine – Alicia Alonso taking a bow on the Met stage. Shivers.

Let's hope The New York Times covers it.

The overall 2010 programming is promising but for the absence of Giselle.  The casting is a hodgepodge with major players under-represented and a minor player way over-represented.  It’s really surprising, in a really bad way, to see that Dvorovenko will not be performing Nikiya in La Bayadere when her brilliant performance the last season that LB was on the schedule was magical, tender and heartbreaking – none of the adjectives that could be used to describe Murphy’s version which we are getting along with Cory Stearns’ Solor.  Stearns is the weakest of all the soloists; and yet, McKenzie continues to privilege this guy with opportunities that he neither deserves nor is qualified to handle.  The lead in Don Q??  How about acquiring a decent Espada first.  Come on! The lead in the brand new Lady of the Camellias instead of Carreno or Corella or Stiefel or Radetsky or Saveliev or Salstein?  Come on!  The lead in Swan Lake?  His Rothbart is really weak and he’s never even done the PdT. Come on!   End of rant.

Fancy Free has three excellent casts.  Can’t wait to see Simkin in the sailor suit.

Where’s Abrera’s chance on this schedule?  She’s the senior-most soloist and she’s not getting a new opportunity for a lead in a full length?  And yet Stearns, lacking in qualifications and experience, is handed everything?

Where’s Riccetto’s chance on this schedule?  Why not a Riccetto/Simkin Don Q? Besides being more appealing than a Wiles/Stearns Don Q, it would probably sell more tickets.

Thank goodness we will have a generous helping of Roberto Bolle: two La Bayaderes with Part, three Lady of the Camellias with Kent, one Swan Lake with Part, and one Romeo and Juliet with Dvorovenko.

Osipova is slotted for a Sleeping Beauty and a Romeo and Juliet with Hallberg.  You have to expect that she’ll also show up in a Don Q, but it’s hard to tell where.

Much of the casting looks like someone stood at the top of a staircase and threw down a bunch of casting face cards, and whoever landed with whom got stuck together – except then Stearns was carefully inserted into every possible slot.

Haglund needs to chill.