I attended the Colorado Ballet's production of Le Corsaire twice, and my impression was exactly the same as the Denver Post's reviewer (found in the "Friday, October 12" thread in the "Links" forum). The best summation from that review was "choreographer Eldar Aliev has put together what feels more like a series of well-choreographed dance highlights than a full-fledged story ballet." This production was all about dancing, with only periodic references to the plot. And I think that most of the audience was quite content with that; the audience response was very enthusiastic. I enjoyed the dancing, especially by Igor Vassine (Conrad) and was impressed by how comfortable Chandra Kuykendall (Medora) is becoming with lead roles, but I was never really "drawn in". (Hopefully, someone knowledgeable about dancing will comment on the quality of the dancing.)

I came very close to only seeing it once. Once again, problems at the ticket window nearly derailed my venture. When I got into line, the woman in front of me said that she had been in line for 20 minutes and they were still helping the same customer. Probably an exaggeration, but when the usher (I'm sure there's a fancier title) yelled "Curtain time!", they were still helping the same customer as when the usher yelled "Five minutes to curtain time!". When my turn finally came, I had time to have a conversation with the person behind me between the time I selected my seat and the time I actually got my ticket. I don't know if the problem is a poorly trained staff or a bad computer system, but the result was a lot of angry people; not exactly the best way to increase the customer base.

Thank you for posting this -- I look forward to regular reports about Colorado Ballet all season!

I think your view of "Le Corsaire" would be shared by many. It's been "enhanced" and changed by so many hands that even when the Kirov does it, it looks, to me, like an old Romantic ballet constantly interrupted with bravura numbers. And the audience always loves it!

I was curious if the company has changed -- often with a change of director, the look of the company, or its attitude or orientation, can change. Did you have any feeling of that?

As far as the ticket woes, I sympathize! We had a venue here that, I swear, filed the tickets completely randomly, and it seemed to take 2-3 minutes per person to find the tickets. Once, I showed up 20 minutes early to find a very long line, and missed the first ballet. I hope they straighten this out. You're right -- it's not good for business!

Hopefully, others will take up the "responsibility", since I think that most of the other Denver area members have had a least a few dance classes, or at least have had a family member take some ballet lessons. I've had to eat my words a few times, but I hate to make it seem like nobody cares about the Colorado Ballet.



The after-individual dance applause was about as enthusiastic as it ever gets in Denver.



This season is the first one where Gil Boggs got to choose the programs (last season's line-up was set before he was hired), and one year doesn't make a trend. So we really can't determine whether his decision to do Le Corsaire and Coppelia indicates a more classical orientation or if he was being cautious or if these were 2 that he just couldn't wait to stage. My concern is that 3 principals (4 if Maria Mosina doesn't return from her maternity leave) and a soloist have left the past 2 summers.