Jack Reed

Here’s a reminder that Ballet Chicago’s Spring mixed repertory program will go on in the Harris Theater in downtown Chicago in three weeks, on May 3 at 2:00 PM and 7:30 PM. When I last checked, good seats were still available. (The Harris’s rows are more steeply-raked up toward the back: good sight-lines and acoustics. And there’s a good sound system.) The program holds Balanchine’s “Divertimento No. 15” and several ballets by B.C.’s artistic director Daniel Duell and faculty of the excellent, pre-professional school Ballet Chicago is, most of which I haven’t yet seen, but it’s usually “well-heard”- I like to see what I hear, one way or another. But that’s the key to the moderate prices of these shows: The dancers - the Studio Company, the cream of the school - are not on salary but paying tuition; the music is from well-chosen recordings; and most of the good-looking costumes - which also move well - are made by mothers of the dancers. (The costumes for “Divertimento No. 15” may be a professionally-made exception.) Here’s a link to the relevant web page: Ballet Chicago - Balanchine and Beyond That's an image of B.C.’s “Divertimento No. 15” across the top of the page - B.C. cares not only about the authenticity of the costumes but even more about the choreography and the way it’s danced - Duell did not only dance in New York City Ballet when Balanchine was supervising it, he is among the people the Balanchine Trust has authorized to stage Balanchine’s ballets, and B.C. uses mostly Balanchine choreography in its classes. The last time I saw “Divertimento No. 15” danced by the B.C.S.C. I took along a friend deeper into modern dance than ballet, both as performer and scholar. She told me the last time she looked at ballet was when her mother took her, age seven, and she fell asleep. After the performance my sharp-eyed friend couldn’t get over it: “That was beautiful! That was beautiful! I especially enjoyed their feet.” I couldn’t resist: “Modern dancers aren’t known for their feet,” I said. I got her elbow in my ribs for that. Try this. You won’t fall asleep.

Thanks for the leads, BalanchineFan. I might have done better to explain that I'm anticipating NYCB's short run at the Harris Theater here in Chicago, March 20-23, and I'm wondering whether to attend their "Masters at Work" program with "4 T's" and "Serenade". If all their Balanchine looks like it did in the recent PBS video shot in Madrid and in the earlier one shot in Paris, which looked pretty bloodless to me, I'm not going to pay top dollar to be miserable at what's been lost since the hundreds of performances I watched in Balanchine's day, in the '70's and early '80's. When well-coached by someone extraordinary like Suzanne Farrell did a couple of years ago, they were worth the trip to New York; but not having been in New York lately I don't have up-to-date programs to check, so, yes, I see that I have some research work to do. (That time a couple of years ago a good friend saw news of Farrell's work at NYCB in The NY Times, parallel to your advice, and alerted me. Now she tells me two of the ballets on their "21st Century" program in the Harris - the Peck and Wheeldon ones - are worth considering, having seen them herself.)

Mention of Mary Carmen Catoya reminds me how miracles can still happen - the first time I saw her Emeralds (in the Verdy part) at MCB I kept thinking she was Verdy, though I knew better. (Arriving late, I had had to sit far back; next time, from a good seat, I could see her own unique qualities as well, and by then, I had read my program which told me she had been coached by Verdy.). That's the subtext of my post - how can we learn in advance who's coaching whom so we can be in the right place at the right time? There are places where you can take a chance and just show up - in May 2019, the miracle happened again, in Phoenix, when Arianna Martin took the Verdy role in Emeralds; I was there, having learned that Ib Andersen often got rewardingly authentic Balanchine performances from his Ballet Arizona. But at NYCB these days, it doesn't look so likely.

Can I spotlight for a moment a topic that’s hovered in the shadows here earlier, namely, who stages or coaches performances? There’s been some recognition of other changes - replacing costumes with some shading or color with “pure” white ones - but I’ve noticed the dancing has also become colorless, not to mention slower. I’m “old audience”, the development-office phrase used in the ’80’s for us whose Balanchine experience hooked us on ballet in the first place and most of whom decamped as Peter Martins tightened his grip on how the company danced. Thanks to Dale for the link to the Balanchine in Madrid clip; I followed it onto the Youtube page, where in the right-hand column there was a link to a longer clip, one of the MCB rendition of just a few years ago when Edward Villella was still in charge there. What a difference! The MCB clip took me back to the full-blooded performances we used to see in the theater called New York State, when Mr. B was on his stool in the second wing downstage, audience-left, watching. Part of that authenticity is the faster tempos MCB danced to, as well as - and more importantly than - the costumes. Few remark on line about these differences, even here where we’re anticipating the new season, so maybe there’s little interest in authentic performance, with its stronger flavor, but let’s see. Can anyone point me to information regarding the current coaches at NYCB for the Balanchine and Robbins ballets? Does the company reveal that, ever? Or the press? NYCB is bringing Serenade, In the Night, and The Four Temperaments to the Harris Theater here in Chicago in March, but if the Madrid Square Dance clip fairly represents their dancing these days, I’ll stay home rather than pay top dollar to sit in the audience and be saddened by the loss of life in NYCB’s Balanchine renditions. On the other hand, I made a visit to New York not so long ago when I had accurate information that Suzanne Farrell, no less, would coach a few ballets. The programs consisted of three short ballets - with one of her preparations on each - and the contrast of hers with the others was impressive, even though she was working with dancers who were less accustomed to her authentic approach. Well worth the trip! Hoping somebody can update me on this aspect of NYCB's programming. Who is coaching NYCB's "Chicago" repertory?

Sorry to see it go. Google told me it had a forum for discussing management issues, apparently including marketing, and I continue to feel that arts marketing in general and marketing of our favorite art form in particular continues to be wrong-headed and ineffectual. How was it being discussed? What were the issues? I was never able to register and read the forum - though Google revealed some forum names, their spider (the name of the kind of computer continually crawling the Web, to assemble a search engine's data base, as far as I know) was kept out of the content, and maybe considering the youth of the some of the dancers in some of the forums (whether as contributors or subjects, I obviously don't know) tighter security on BT4D than on BA! was justified. Years ago the man sitting on my right muttered, during the first "wrong" applause, "That didn't look hard," and I said, "Did you expect it to look hard?" "Yes," he said, "they told us it was hard." "They're so good, they make it look easy," I said. "Oh!" he exclaimed. Evidently, he'd been to some introductory event and had his attention misdirected. Looking for signs of difficulty, he thought he hadn't got it. That's what I mean by wrong-headed preparation. Only two nights ago, I was greeted by a Ballet Chicago board member on our way into the performance in the Harris Theater. In a moment, he identified himself and, having recognized me, said he wanted to know how I got interested, how did I happen to be there. Exactly the subject I wanted to discuss. (I later identified his daughter in the program.) I look forward to re-connecting, but without BT4D as a place to learn from and to "mix" with like-minded people it looks like rare chance encounters are mainly what's left.

The dance writer, editor, and sometime critic Mindy Aloff has recently published a critique of Homans’s book much along the lines of pherank’s thoughtful one just above in this thread, though I find hers broader and deeper, and so this seems the right place to post a link to it, especially since her place of publication is not so widely known: https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2023/02/george-balanchine-mindy-aloff/comments/ I haven’t read the book, but along with pherank and others, having read Aloff’s corrective to much of the book, I’m also puzzled by Homans’s purpose in writing it.

On the other hand, over the first weekend in December, I attended three performances of "The Nutcracker" by our local, excellent school, Ballet Chicago, where neither I nor hardly anyone else was masked, and a few days later I came down with what I'm happy to be able to call "short COVID" - a week or ten days later, feeling much better, I had a couple of negative antigen tests and got back to my life (with regrets at missing BC's last performance, on the second weekend, usually having one of their strongest casts) - so that I can't be so sanguine as my friend Cristian. I don't fault BC for not requiring masks - I think that was consistent with CDC guidelines at the time - but this may not be over 'til it's over, and I wish all my friends, in this community especially, to take due care.

When I watch ballet, I like to see what I hear. It doesn’t have to be obvious, “step-for-note”, but if I can’t discover some relation between what I see and what I hear, I remain outside it. So when people ask me whether they should see The Nutcracker - meaning, here in Chicago, the Joffrey one, I say, no, see Ballet Chicago’s Nutcracker instead; it’s three times the fun and one-third the price: Watching it, I see the music. I hear nothing in Tchaikovsky’s music about building a world’s fair (which took place here in Chicago in 1893), the story the Joffrey production loads onto it; I do hear a warm domestic scene, a party with activities for the guests, which gives way to nightmarish conflict and then to sumptuous resolution. (Not to mention virtual outlines for stage action, mostly for the cast, but not least, for the scenery itself.) But how can something so good be so cheap? Ballet Chicago is an excellent school, where the dancers aren’t on salary, they’re paying tuition; the musicians are on well-chosen recordings, so they’re not getting paid, either; Nutcracker needs only three backdrops, and a few props to carry the story (which you can see at the links I provide below), including a Christmas tree (a more modest one than the 41-foot tree in the NYCB production, though); and costumes - not only good-looking costumes to see but costumes which move well - I’ve learned elsewhere not to take that for granted - made by “The Guild of the Golden Needle,” several mothers of the dancers in the school. This communal aspect, amateur in the best sense - not just people engaged in something without pay, but people who are engaged in it for their love of it, gives the production a charm the professional companies can lack while showing us choreography that may be better “heard” than theirs: Watching Ballet Chicago, I’m happy to see what I hear. This Nutcracker is mainly the work of B.C.’s Artistic Director, Daniel Duell, not only a dancer who danced for George Balanchine in his NYCB, but an amateur musician as well, and Ted Seymour, who danced in the Suzanne Farrell Ballet. Indeed, these and other staff have developed in the Balanchine tradition, and the school uses mostly Balanchine choreography as its syllabus. Their “Sugar Plum” pas de deux is mostly Balanchine’s; Duell has made a male variation to replace the Balanchine one, said to be lost. Duell’s “partner in life as well as in art”, as he refers to his wife, is Patricia Blair, who danced in the Eglevsky Ballet on Long Island when Edward Villella was Artistic Advisor. Now she directs the school and rehearses this production. Here is a link to a BC webpage where you can glimpse the work of those golden needles, among other things: https://www.balletchicago.org/nutcracker There are a bunch more still images on another page on the B.C. site, including the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier (but no video of them in motion; showing Balanchine has restrictions), and many shots of the slightly-disorganized three-year-old-bunny number from the matinees: https://www.balletchicago.org/the-nutcracker. But dance is movement! Here’s video of one of their numbers most popular with the audience, the last scene of Act One, “Snow”: https://vimeo.com/247428800 Here’s the “Waltz of the Flowers,” the second number from the end of Act Two, as the ballet builds toward the Finale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mccLr5EY8ng Here’s an abridgment of another version of that number, with Emily Fugett in the lead role, ‘Dewdrop’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa8bxUHOHa4 Here’s the whole first act: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOwYYsWHHIw (Their second act is not on the Internet in its entirety, as far as I know, just “Flowers”.) And here’s a link to the Athenaeum, where the show goes on, for its twentieth year, for the showtimes: https://athenaeumcenter.org/events/2022/the-nutcracker/

That's the way it really was, eh, Helene? Thanks for the reassurance. It's been a long time, though we have video, and ballet is the art which disappears even before it's finished - not to say incredible in the first place sometimes. (It could be hard to be sure what you really saw even on the way out of the theater.) But sometimes it still seems now like it just happened. And if "that's the way it was for you, too" it must have actually have happened. (My quote refers to another article by the author of the one for which our board is named.)

Well of course I care - couldn't resist that - but even slightly cut, by a few numbers, Balanchine's big Broadway ballet will add some needed cheer to our season or any season. I write about about our excellent Balanchine-oriented local school, which B.C. is, on that forum; but briefly I can say here that much of their "syllabus" - the material the students use to learn on - consists of his choreography, and their dancing pleases me the way that does - I'm happiest when I see what I hear. Much the same can usually be said about Ted Seymour's choreography, and this time we're seeing dances he's made to Stravinsky's Instrumental Miniatures, I believe, quirky and transparent music, so I expect some more fun of a less traditional kind; but the new Ravel ballet from AD Daniel Duell (of Balanchine's NYCB) and from Durante Verzola I know nothing about beyond what you also can read here: https://www.harristheaterchicago.org/performance/balanchine-beyond-spring-series-fresh-perspectives

Just wondering if your experiences of MCB Emeralds includes Catoya's realization of the lead? It's easy for the stillness of this world-beneath-the-sea ballet to be sleep-inducing, but she made it softly royal, elegant, among other qualities, for this old Verdy fan: I remember being riveted and awake. But, yeah, pomp, tragedy, or iciness are alien to Diamonds. Even in New York, pretty far from the beach, the Diamonds woman was a little lost in her own world, aloof, yes, a major facet of the woman, Farrell, it was made on; doesn't the pdd have some of that built-in? She doesn't always need him, proceeding across by herself, and he can admire her from upstage, lucky guy... or is my memory burnishing what I saw?

I’ve seen two shows so far, the Saturday evening one on December 14 and the following Sunday matinee, as their Sunday shows only are. Three friends came to the evening show, one with considerable modern dance experience short of a professional career but including academic study, and a professional couple who are very amateur musicians but also attend some serious shows, including an earlier Ballet Chicago Nutcracker, and other art exhibitions. I mention all this to give a little background to the fact that we all had a lot of fun with this - it wasn’t just this hopeless old addict; even people less deeply in need of certain kinds of art got a lot. Saturday evening was generally satisfying, with some pluses and minuses. I wasn’t taken by a new dance among the entertainments in the party scene for seven medium-size girls to a Marche miniature I don’t remember ever hearing before, but Sunday afternoon I saw it revealing the whimsy in Tchaikovsky’s little piece. That was more fun. And in Saturday’s show the Russian dance (here called Caviar), a pas de trois for a girl, Emma Kapteyn, and two boys, Wyatt Kinsman and Andrew Poston, was, in its performance, more satisfying than the male solo for Kinsman alone substituted for it in Sunday’s show. Kayla Schmitt’s rendering of Coffee was more clearly stretched shapes in upright posture than I have seen in the past, while in the matinee, Lillie Rose Reddy gave it more flow and a suggestion of lower carriage - appropriate to this softer, spacious, Arabian, music - but still without losing shape or detail. Again, the later artist was more satisfying. Hayley Lampariello’s “Dewdrop” (not named as such in the program, but shown there as the leader of the Waltz of the Flowers) on Saturday evening was a more delicate performance one had to go to, in some contrast to the bolder dancers in this show, but when you did that, you found rewards, though Kayla Schmitt’s sharper, energetic rendition Sunday afternoon was certainly well-“heard” - Tchaikovsky’s big waltz- nothing miniature - flows through her. Comparing the two Sugar Plums, I found Emily Hain’s large-scale and sculptural rendition of the adagio on Saturday evening very impressive, even dramatically so, while Hayley Lampariello’s more delicate and “quieter” realization was more implicative; with Lampariello, you listen more deeply, and you have a deeper experience. Satisfying as the Saturday evening show was on its own, the matinee was, overall, a step up from it.

Here's a summary recently posted - in 2021 - of the history of these choreographies. This seems as good a place for it as any, since I describe what we see in more detail here, and the summary refers to this earlier 2015 season: December at Ballet Chicago Nutcracker Whodunit!? From its beginnings in one studio in 1996 until today’s annual multiple performance run at Athenaeum Theatre, Ballet Chicago’s delightful homegrown Nutcracker has evolved as a choreographic collaboration, and for our December Director’s Corner we thought it would be fun to zero in on just “Whodunit?” for each of the ballet’s scenes and dances. ACT I Party Scene The Party Scene is the conception and choreography of Ms. Blair, who did the “Dreamy and Stern” maids, the entrance of Dr. and Mrs. Stahlbaum, the entrance of Marie and Fritz, and the entrance of the guests. The designation of each of the guests (Senator and Spouse, Harried Parents, Movie star, etc.) is Ms. Blair’s conception and staging, as is the entrance and stage action of Herr Drosselmeyer. The beloved Children’s March is Ms. Blair’s choreography, as is the charming Gallop. The Soldier Doll dance by Mr. Duell is his only choreography for the Party Scene – Columbine is Ms. Blair’s as are the Little Dolls. The new “Miniature Soldierettes” dance is a collaboration between the two of us. Her choreography continues into the Children’s Lullaby and Parents Dance, on into the Party Scene exit, including Dreamy and Stern’s brief “sneak drink”, Marie’s entrance falling asleep with her Nutcracker doll in her arms, and Drosselmeyer calling in the Mice for their pre-Battle Scene dance, one of the most cherished to perform. With the express intention of including the entire school, Ms. Blair did two versions of the Mouse dance – one with BCSC members only, and the 2nd with the Baby Mice for matinee performances. Battle Scene The Ballet Scene began as choreography by Mr. Duell only, a brief but action-packed encounter between only the Mouse King and the Nutcracker. As the school grew we decided to expand our Battle Scene, and in 2015 invited Mr. Seymour to contribute new choreography for Soldiers and Mice, combining this new choreography with Mr. Duell’s existing choreography. Thus in our current Battle Scene, all choreography for Soldiers and Mice is Mr. Seymour’s, and all choreography for the Mouse King, Nutcracker, and Marie is Mr. Duell’s. This collaboration saw two choreographers working in close tandem for a seamless Battle Scene. Snow Scene The majestic Snow King and Snow Queen Pas Deux, and the swift-moving, pattern-filled Waltz of the Snowflakes are both the choreography of Mr. Duell. ACT II Opening and Introduction of characters in Land of the Sweets This grand 10-minute segment of moving pageantry, starting with tiny Angels and ending with Sugar Plum Fairy’s exit, is all Ms. Blair’s choreography, which includes Sugar Plum’s Attendants, Drosselmeyer, and Marie. Hot Chocolate, Coffee, Tea, Caviar, and Waltz of the Flowers are all Mr. Duell’s choreography. Marzipan and Polichinelles are Ms. Blair’s choreography. The Sugar Plum Pas de Deux is the internationally renowned choreography by George Balanchine, who coached Mr. Duell in it himself. The Cavalier solo, however, is Mr. Duell’s choreography, since Mr. Balanchine’s version does not have that solo. Finale This segment begins with Mr. Duell’s choreography for Hot Chocolate, Coffee, Tea, and Caviar, with Ms. Blair’s choreography for Marzipan and Attendants interwoven, along with her choreography for the final gathering of all characters. As they say “teamwork makes the dream work!” As we go dancing on, Daniel Duell Artistic Director Patricia Blair Associate Artistic and School Director

They're asking $26 per ticket, so I'm posting here instead of on the "Free Livestream" thread. Here's a link similar to the post below, which I posted some links to details about the production: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1089997

Here's a link to Ovation's website, with the schedule and the curtain times: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1079946?mc_cid=6578f7f67d As you can see, ticket prices range from $43 and down (including a small fee for ongoing work on this community theater), and people often want to know, how can they do it so cheap? The answer is that the Ballet Chicago Studio Company, which performs in this, with the addition of some younger dancers, some of them very young, briefly, in the matinees - is comprised of the top dancers of an excellent ballet school, so that its dancers are paying tuition, not drawing salaries; their musicians are recorded; and their costumes - which not only look good, but move well, a virtue not always seen even on professional companies, are made by a group of dancers' mothers, sometimes calling itself The Guild of the Golden Needle. Indeed, the quality of this production, especially the dancing, reminds me of the distinction sometimes made, that the main difference between amateurs and professionals in anything is that professionals get paid. (When some archive videos of BCSC's performances were online earlier in the pandemic, they were very well received here.) Indeed, such amateurish aspects as there are add to BC's Nutcracker's charm. And the musicality of the choreography, mostly by Ballet Chicago's faculty, Daniel Duell (of NYCB), Patricia Blair (Eglevsky Ballet, when Edward Villella was "artistic advisor") and Ted Seymour (TSFB and other ensembles) but also including what we have of Balanchine's Sugar Plum pas de deux (with the lost male variation replaced by one by Duell) warms the heart and gladdens the soul of this old Balanchine addict (just to put your reporter's biases on record - I most enjoy seeing what I hear). I've posted about this version of Tchaikovsky's classic on BA! before: Here's a link to some images of those costumes: Here are links to some video: The party guests arrive: https://vimeo.com/195142520 Snow scene (end of Act I, the whole scene): https://vimeo.com/247428800 Flutes (called “Mirlitons”, kazoos, but we hear flutes) from Act II: https://vimeo.com/197326547 Waltz of the Flowers (Act II): https://vimeo.com/197225631 Finale (end of Act II): And here’s a video of Act I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOwYYsWHHIw The Snow Scene begins at 28:33.

After eight years, another interview of - or conversation with - Farrell and Emily Fragos, this one about a week old, apparently: https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2021/08/emily-fragos-in-conversation-with-suzanne-farrell.html (One from 2013 is noted upthread.)

It certainly is still available! Thank you for straightening me out, Kathleen. This stream, like the two companion streams on the Pillow website offering background, also has the advantage for some of us of subtitles in English or French, which the YouTube fragments I checked do not.

Anyone seeing something of interest on this list posted above might well pay closer attention than I did - the first item, Pite’s Body and Soul, originally announced as available through July 15, has already been taken down a day or two early. (The 2017 conversation with Pite and rehearsal excerpts, streamed from the Royal Opera House, remains available on YouTube, along with many short fragments apparently from the POB video scattered about that site.)

I didn’t see it, but as you tell it, Roberta, this is professional marketing, not intended to showcase their balletic abilities, to give us a little free sample of that unusual thing they do to lure us in to see more, but to get us to form positive associations with these young people as people, not as performers, even, and maybe to be relaxed and curious about their main occupation - their careers, their calling, even. In the rainy Pacific Northwest, nice people might plant gardens; how normal. Who could be put off by that? We can relate, and isn’t that what the marketers are trying to archive? In the tropical Southeast, MCB’s publicity videos years ago showed some appealing MCB youngsters on the beach, also like normal people. Nice kids who go to the beach in the afternoon. Very positive. (The website also had 90-second clips of some repertory, to be fair.) But exactly why that’s supposed to attract a paying audience is not clear to me, though, and it doesn’t look like it’s clear to you either. I like your idea of a showcase, or what I’ve heard of about some restaurants which lack business - they put a server on the sidewalk with a tray of samples: Those who like a taste may go in and get a meal. Not relating so much to the staff as people but to what they cook and serve, right? It worked in the 70’s - the morning after an early Dance in America show on PBS, featuring the Joffrey Ballet, it was said that the line at the box office window of the New York City Center theater extended out the door and down the street. Nowadays, if I remember correctly what I read, there’s no ballet on PBS because they think they don’t know how to market it. What did they forget?

The 2013 Ballet Chicago staging rg lists above exists on a good video by them, unlisted on YouTube (no telling for how much longer): My profuse apologies for not having posted here earlier, when you could access it through the Ballet Chicago site at balletchicago.org and find an RSVP button that worked - i.e. that admitted you to a path to the video page. On the other hand, we did talk about it on the 2021 streaming thread: https://balletalert.invisionzone.com/topic/46027-2021-free-streaming-during-covid-19-crisis/ around page 4. Another thing worth mentioning is that this version matches the numbers and their sequence in the notes I made in the mid-'70s, watching Balanchine's NYCB, which the TSFB version, beautiful though it is in other respects, did not, in respect of one number. But I agree with all of those who say this needs to be seen more often, whether in agreement with Mr. B's later thoughts or - not quite. And perhaps finally, in the Zoom chat following this showing, Patricia Blair, who runs the school Ballet Chicago with her husband Dan Duell, revealed the trouble she went to, finding a New York costume shop to make the costumes according to Karinska's designs, at a moderate price. The Ballet Chicago Studio Company typically performs in costumes made by "The Guild of the Golden Needle", believed to be a group of dancers' mothers; these costumes represent an unusual and substantial investment, in other words. I think we have reason to believe we will see them worn again, folks.

Buddy's question is a little old now, but here where we are talking about the last Ballet Chicago Studio Company program, Balanchine's Swan Lake, which is supposed to be available until Friday April 2nd at 7:00 Central Daylight Time, I can say, having just learned it, that four of the soloists there, the four who accompany the Odette in the eighth number, Dana Coons, Meghan Behnke, Devin Johnson, and Taylor Richard, ranged in age from 11-14. The girls in Barocco and Divertimento may be a year or two older. It may also be worth pointing out that the Studio Company carries out the intention of the school that some students perform at a professional level when they are still pre-professional in order to prepare them for professional company experience. You may be wondering how that 11-year-old got into the Studio Company. A friend and her dancing teen-ager were in their studios one day, and she asked that very question, How long does it take to get into the Studio Company: "When. They're. Ready," was the reply we heard. "Time served" has nothing to do with it. You can be 11, if you're good enough. Only if you are good enough.

The only reference to costume changes in Nancy Reynolds' Balanchine Catalog was the 1964 one for the move to the State Theater; I even searched the page for the word black, but it didn't come up.

For what it's worth, I don't remember anything being said about the black costumes being Mr. B's idea from the time I saw it. Alain Vaes's design was a Martins innovation, as far as I know, though as far as I know, Mr. B. could have said something about it in his last, long decline. (Martins was said to be practically commuting from the State Theater to Roosevelt Hospital, a few blocks away, where Balanchine was dying, for advice.) Probably better not to speculate on that; better to treat skeptically reports of his unrealized ideas. In general, he drew on his past, his heritage, but as his Swan Lake exemplifies, if it wasn't right in one way or another, he'd change it, or try to. Notice Reynolds says in the Catalogue entry I linked to that he restored something at the end he had removed - that tells us something about his continuing thinking; the ending of Swan Lake is a problem for many stagers. Of his Swan Lake, he was reported at the time I was seeing it - not in the 50's, but in the mid-'70's - to have said about it, "I've got all the cholesterol out." (With the accent on the last syllable!)

"[S]o Balanchine!" Yes, yes. The real thing, to this old man. "That's the way it was." Regarding the Zoom material, I'm afraid we may be out of luck; I think those are strictly live. (The red "Recording" dot I've seen in the upper left corner of a Zoom meeting was not on, so BC may not have a recording themselves.) But regarding Reynolds, yes, Repertory in Review is copyright 1977, but the redoubtable Nancy Reynolds is research director of The George Balanchine Foundation, which publishes and updates the Balanchine Catalog; its main entry on Swan Lake has more recent material, including two references to stagings by Ballet Chicago (in 2013, a performance of which we saw here, and in 2018); there's a lot of information there covering his changes. (Personally, I'm among those who consider this source scrupulous compared to the more casual NYCB website.)