I should be working, but... there are blogs and newspapers to read, and DVDs coming out!

A few fun blogs that I've recently discovered: Out West Arts, a classical music and theater guy based in LA (yay!!) who goes to see a TON of stuff. And I thought I saw a lot of shows: my 104 shows last year, which still make for more than 25% of the year's days going to a theater, pales next to his 212! Yankeediva is mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato's blog about her experiences and travels; she was very appealingly seen in last year's Met movie theater broadcast of The Barber of Seville. j-Pointe chronicles the performances and travels of the Joffrey Ballet and is very openly a promotional effort, but it still offers plenty of good backstage glimpses into the company. Making History (Boys) is actor Alex Brightman's blog as he rehearses the LA production of The History Boys at the Ahmanson. And The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks is quite silly and entertaining.

*

In the LA Times: Tickets for the upcoming Royal National Theatre engagement of King Lear and The Seagull at UCLA, starring Sir Ian McKellan, are going on the secondary market for $3000!! As someone who's into theater in LA, I suppose I should have been interested in this event when it was announced - but honestly, I knew it'd be a mad scramble for tickets and way too expensive, plus I've seen McKellen live on stage before (An Enemy of the People in LA several years ago), and have seen the RSC do excellent work in London. So I didn't feel the need to join the mad rush, which evidently, has become even more mad.

Also in the Times, there is a very promising-looking new 499-seat theater is in the wings over in Santa Monica - they even have a picture of a ballerina on stage in the architectural model! Set to open in May, the theater looks like a nice mid-size venue, hopefully they have the programming impetus (and money) behind them to program some interesting work. According to the article, projects will include work "with L.A. Opera, [Kent] Nagano, the L.A. Baroque performance group Musica Angelica and others." Mainly there will be lots of music performances, it seems, but Lula Washington is also on the artistic planning committee, so dance might get some notice as well, and LA certainly needs a good mid-size dance venue. Perhaps Los Angeles Ballet could use also it as a nice, appropriately sized home for its performances? The theater's office site here.

*

A few interesting DVDs are about to be released:

There's a recording of Swan Lake from the Mariinsky, for US release on Nov 13, with Valery Gergiev on the podium and Uliana Lopatkina as Odette/Odile. It's been shown already on Japanese and European television, and I must say that I love Gergiev's brisk tempos and the bright sound he coaxes out of the orchestra - it's a nice change from the compromises usually made for ballet performance. Lopatkina's Odette/Odile is gorgeous to look at, if slightly cold, but she still makes for the best contemporary interpreter of the role currently on commercial DVD (that's a lot of qualifiers). And the Mariinsky production is incomporable, in my opinion - its the cleanest one, despite the happy ending, the the corps de ballet is unmatched.

Also coming is Balanchine's Midsummer Night's Dream on La Scala Ballet, with Alessandra Ferri and Roberto Bolle. Balanchine DVD is always worth watching, but with La Scala? Who knew they gave Balanchine performances worth preserving? Even though Alessandra Ferri is a good ballerina, she hasn't been known for interpreting Balanchine... and the company is currently very disproportionately represented on DVD: performances of La Bayadere, Romeo & Juliet and Swan Lake are being released in rapid fire succession. Most of the company's recent DVD releases have been fairly unsatisfying performance-wise, and though the company is certainly technically capable, they aren't particularly unique or special enough to warrant a DVD record. I may get this just out of curiosity.

Meanwhile, much more interesting performances from the Royal Ballet that have been broadcast on television are sitting hidden away in the BBC archives - except for this one, which is coming to DVD two years after its initial broadcast, and it's a good one! Frederick Ashton's Sylvia, music by Leo Delibes. The Royal Ballet gives an excellent performance of this work, paying real tribute to Frederick Ashton's choreography, and Darcey Bussell is quite wonderful in the title role. American ballet watchers probably know this ballet best from ABT's recent, very lackluster performances of this ballet - it's completely different with the Royal and actually makes sense, so this is worth watching for sure.