Yes, the Rodgers & Hart musical is back, courtesy of the Encores! series at City Center, NYC. Ben Brantley's NYT review was glowing:
The battle ends in a draw, natch, demonstrating the golden principle that the tappers and the danseurs should be friends. Besides, when you have the conductor Rob Fisher, overseeing an orchestra with two grand pianos, to execute Rodgers’s most adventurous pre-Hammerstein score, how can there be losers?
The cast members are all agreeable company, though some are better at summoning the style of the show’s era. Chief among these are Walter Bobbie (best known as a director), having a high old time playing a Diaghilev-esque impresario, and the wondrous Christine Baranski as Peggy Porterfield, a filthy rich patron of the arts. Ms. Baranski slyly combines her well-honed musical-comedy skills with the icy take-charge air she has perfected as a predatory lawyer on television’s “Good Wife.”
http://theater.nytimes.com/...
I cut the intro about the Russian ballet dancer who retired and is, here, playing...a Russian ballet dancer. Brantley was also glowing about her:
Nobody preens better than Ms. Dvorovenko, whose legs immediately need to be registered as weapons of mass destruction. Even executing the taxing back-bending moves of the “Slaughter” number (recreated per Balanchine by Susan Pilarre), Ms. Dvorovenko’s Vera maintains the ecstatic smile of someone who adores being adored.
And just watch how she uses fluttering hands, scissoring legs and a most resourcefully deployed shawl to seduce our innocent hero. It’s enough to make any red-blooded American boy defect to the Russians
Go read the whole thing, and tell me you don't want tickets!
Anyway, on to the fun stuff:
Clips from the dress rehearsal:
This is a must-see clip that Encores! put on YT which includes rehearsal clips and a lot of information about the making of the show.
A quick glimpse of the "Slaughter" ballet, from the movie (Balanchine):