20 replies to this topic

[Ed Waffle]

One of these things that one runs into while looking for something else:



http://www.telegraph...ixartright.html

[BW]

Loved it Ed - thanks! I do think it might have potential in the USA, don't you?

I'm still a long term investor in Shelley...and I think Balanchine is one too hold, as well.

[Alexandra]

Blue chips are always good to hold, although Balanchine will have a slump whenever the Next New Thing really happens -- but it will be temporary.  Don't sell.

This does happen in the arts.  Both Vivaldi and Handel were "greater" than Bach for a long time, now one would have to be careful saying that in a drawing room

When I was in college, I was taught that there were three great American novelists:  Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Faulkner.  Fitzgerald had been Number One (on style points) but was losing ground to Faulkner ('cause he was Deep).  20 years later, when I was first teaching, I asked a student who was the frontrunner that year.  Shocked that I would ask, she said, "Melville, of course."

I wonder who it is today?  Twain?

[dirac]

Twain at least has the White House imprimatur of Laura Bush, who characterized him as "the first real American writer" if I recall her phrase correctly.  One sees what she means in a way, although I imagine Messrs. Melville, Hawthorne, and Thoreau are somewhere nearby, clearing their throats.  Not to mention Anne Bradstreet.

To the topic:  Balanchine's a keeper.

[Ed Waffle]

Gadzooks!! Did she really say that?

What happened to Washington Irving? If the author of Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow isn't an American author, I will eat my tri-cornered hat.


And James Fenimore Cooper, of The Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer?

Not to mention Benjamin Franklin, Julia Ward Howe, Emily Dickinson (who makes it in under the wire), Orestes Brownson or a lot of others I could mention but won't.

Mark Twain remains my favorite U. S. author--I re-read "Life on the Mississippi" every four years or so. Twain and Franklin were among the first "serious" books I read as a young boy, so they have a personal importance as well.

[dirac]

I lost track of how many times I read Tom Sawyer as a kid.  I think we can include Twain along with Balanchine as one to hold onto.

[Mel Johnson]

I, however, am converting my portfolio entirely over to shares in Mr. Methane, as no one ever lost money by underestimating the public taste.

[carbro]

I concur with prevailing opinion here that Balanchine is standard blue chip.  Hold tight, you'll do well.

But would someone explain to me, please, the roller coaster returns on Bournonville?  :confused:    :confused:     :confused:   

Thanks.

[Alexandra]

Bournonville is an accident of history. He had the luck to work in a provincial capital, and, especially, the luck to have a balletmaster (Hans Beck) who knew he wasn't as great a choreographer as Bournonville and dedicated his career to preserving/refreshing Bournonville.  Then, for a long time, there would be one or two dancers a generation who fought to save him.  Now they're sick of him, so while his stock may be high on the global market, it's not all that high at home.  Ask the balletomane on the street and you'll get, "We think he is a little bit old-fashioned," and I swear the dancers think the American's infatuation with the first Mr. B has something to do with the stories.

[carbro]

Actually, Alexandra, I'm aware of the problems of being Bournonville post mortem in Copenhagen.  The trouble is, only one major academy offers the training necessary to keep the style true.  And that's where the heritage is cherished . . . or not.  Just so sad to see them skirt the brink of extinction from time to time.

[Hans]

I've put everything in Petipa, who will be popular forever .  

Among authors, I still prefer Edith Wharton to Henry James.  Her stock is slowly rising, I believe, as one tends not to mysteriously wake up with her book on one's face, as sometimes happens with James.  

And how about the other other Mr. B (Béjart)?  I fear his stock is not quite as high as the first two, except perhaps in Europe.

[carbro]

Hi, buddy!

I'd diversify, at least a little.  When you consider that even Mozart and Shakespeare have had their out-of-favor periods, Mel's investment advisor may be on to something.

[Hans]

True.  There was, after all, that period during which people seemed to prefer Gorsky revisions (what on earth were they thinking???).  I'd better buy up some Ivanov--Act II of Swan Lake won't go out of favor either, nor will the Nutcracker.

[Paul Parish]

I'm amazed at how much I love Lavrovsky -- I can't figure out why, not really. It must go deep -- I think there'll always be dance-lovers who care about him.

Wordsworth said he wanted to write something "the world would not willingly let die" -- it's a good way to put it. What's kept Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, et al alive (as Charles Rosen has said) is the artists who wanted to play that music; similarly with Shakespeare, the actors and directors want to DO that. Likewise with choreography -- dancers want to do Balanchine, it's fascinating to them as movement and as a panoply of effects.... It was fascinating to see Jewels last week here, to see hte situations where it looked like the dancers had just tied themselves into  some unslippable knot from which they'd never be able to escape and then, with a simple half-turn, walked right out of it.... not just in Rubies, where it was part of hte atmosphere of challenge, but very much so in DIamonds, and even in the "somnambulist" pas de deux in emeralds.....

[carbro]

I've decided to buy some Albert Evans on the basis of Haiku.  I know it's high risk, but the flip side is high return.