Gottlieb on Sleeping Beauty

[Dale]

Another controversal friend, Robert Gottlieb chimes in on NYCB's season-ending Sleeping Beauty performances in The New York Observer. Let the tutus fly!

[Juliet]

Re: Gottlieb......

I agree with him, although he is more direct in expressing his opinions than I would have been (in public.)

Unsettling, jarring place for the intermission.....Martins does not have a gift for editing or pacing---I was very much taken aback as I'd forgotten that this is where he put the break.

Steps, not grandeur of conception......I thought the fairies were motley and the Bluebird of Edge and Gold was horribly miscast.....

Beautiful costuming and sometimes interesting sets crammed into a too-small space (one has the feeling of peeking into "miniature rooms" or dioramas.)

I thought Ashley Bouder was terrific.....she can grow into the role, and while I wouldn't have immediately have thought of her for Aurora, it was an auspicious debut....

I think that Jenifer Ringer has undergone a sea change and is much more interesting, although I thought her Aurora in 1999 was beautiful.

I am sorry to have missed Miranda Weese, although ordinarily I would think of her as being too heavy for the first act---heavy as in gravitas, not as in weight--but her vision scene and wedding pdd must have been wonderful....

I didn't care for Nichols as Carabosse at all--she seemed spiteful and petty, rather than grandly malevolent--a house spider rather than a Black Widow.

I love the sweep of the Garland Dance, and most of the costuming, although I wish this could be done on a larger stage so many of the details are not lost in the overall busyness.....

[mussel]

A more brutal review from The National Review's Carol Iannone:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/iann...00402090851.asp

[Dale]

Gottlieb really has made Ringer his "whipping boy" in the past year. He had never ripped her apart until last summer when he said she overacted during Who Cares? Now he's been really harsh, considering many of the big ballet writers like her and don't seem to agree with him.

[Drew]

I was a little surprised that Carol Iannone mentions attending just two all Balanchine evenings this season before giving her account of how much has gone wrong with the company. I suspect that six or seven evenings wouldn't have altered her opinion (and evidently she doesn't think they would have), but I still feel that when one is going to launch such a strongly worded attack on the entire NYCB enterprise one should have a little more to base it on than two performances. When Balanchine was alive there were seasons when I saw a performance or two (or three) that filled me with dismay; of course the situation is different now, but I would still take the article somewhat more seriously if the author had checked in to the State Theater regularly over the course of the season...

[Juliet]

Absolutely agree with Drew.

Reminds me of the instance a few years ago on BA where someone pontificated at length and rather pedantically on the demise of NYCB---on the basis of TWO performances attended that season. OK....... and how seriously do you expect us to take this, Critic Absolute?

Iannone may have a long history of viewing ballet andd NYCB, but if a writer does not give background and basis for such negative assertions, unfortunately they may be taken less seriously than they would like.

There are many things which fill me with dismay at City Ballet now, but even when I was watching back in the 60s there were things which filled me with dismay---for quite different reasons! Then, however, the horses filling the choreographic stables were throroughbreds, not hacks.....

As for Gottlieb's animus against Ringer, well, there just ain't no pleasing some folks......

[Hans]

"Martins’ own insertions are in stylistic harmony with Petipa."

Really.

Would that be the neoclassical Sapphire variation (which wasn't in the original), the addition of a man to the Jewels pas de quatre (unlike any pas de quatre Petipa ever choreographed) or Lilac's boring and repetitive extra variation in Act III? Considering that NYCB's dancing is not in stylistic harmony with Petipa, I don't see how any of Martins' choreography can be.

[dirac]

What Drew said. I was also struck by Iannone's reference to "seasoned critics like Arlene Croce" when Croce hasn't written regularly on the company for quite some time now. (Iannone's own criticisms sound like the sort of thing Croce was writing about a decade ago -- in fact, I seem to recall that Croce brought up the "Oedipal issue" back then.)

Regarding Ringer, I don't think Gottlieb really cares what the other critics think. What stood out for me was his grudging praise for a dancer he's never had a good word for -- he actually had nice things to say about Weese's Aurora!

[Dale]

Dirac, what I've noticed about Gottlieb on Ringer is that she is not some new dancer already getting leading roles. She's being dancing leads since at least 1993, yet all of a sudden he's on Ringer's case. At least he's now giving reasons for his dismissive comments, in his prior 3-4 columns he'd just make a nasty aside without backing it up. But I do think it is interesting that he has now, in two columns, given grudging respect to Weese, who he dismissed five years ago as an automation.

[ciara]

Gottlieb and Iannone should be tarred and feathered and run out of their respective jobs. Their "reviews" are no more than personal attacks-- unprofessional and frankly, boring.

[Farrell Fan]

I certainly agree about Iannone -- to pronounce the demise of City Ballet after seeing two performances is ludicrous. I think that Gottlieb, whom I always find interesting, is a much more astute critic than Iannone, except that he quoted her at the end of his review. That was unworthy of him. At any rate, these are the kind of attacks on Martins that have been going on since roughly 1986 and put me on his side for a long time. I left there in 1993, but I still think the man deserves more respect.

[tempusfugit]

As the tenor of this thread is violently anti-Iannone, I doubt this will be a popular opinion-- but I think she's essentially right, as Croce was right long ago, about the decline of the company under Martins. Yes, Drew is completely correct that she shouldn't pontificate about NYCB's demise after seeing two evenings of Balanchine there this season, and Juliet is right that such assertions may be dismissed summarily since Iannone doesn't provide background. I myself wish she hadn't stuck in that silly comment about "Oedipal revenge". :green: I think there may be several reasons for the lack of background: the fact that it was not a critical essay (without limitations on space); the fact that these criticisms have indeed been leveled at Martins for nearly twenty years and are anything but new (Iannone may have felt that the context was obvious without explanation); perhaps the fact that some of her arguments are not at all debatable (the company IS dropping steps and leaving things out, in ballets from Barocco to Square Dance, and I'll let BA readers draw their own conclusions about that fact and Martins' ballerina of choice in both roles of late....).

If one reads the interview with Martins from the Washington Post (which Alexandra kindly put in the Links of Feb. 29 his own responses to questions condemn him...

"We still have over 85 percent attendance-- how do you account for that?"

"Life goes on.... I'm happy she is busy.... It's not just Suzanne, there are millions of them out there."

"Imagine if some ballet company out there asked me to coach 'Violin Concerto,' because I was in the original," he continued. "How preposterous.

"What, I'm going to go to Russia and spend three weeks coaching 'Violin Concerto,' just because I was one of the originals? There are people who can do that just as well as I. And I'm busy."

Res ipsa loquitur.

[Thalictum]

I have to take issue with Gottlieb's statement about the greatest Auroras being Fonteyn and Kolpakova. They were both wonderful, and he is of course entitled to his opinion, but it's an awfully reductive one. When making these type of statements, it helps to tell us just exactly from what pool of interpreters such a selection is made. Whom has he seen? "Everyone" is the implication, but that won't cut it and of course no one has seen "everyone." Furthermore, it's just a flat out statement on his part, without the slightest qualification or acknowledgment that his pronunciamento is subjective. And his comments on the Kirov restoration of Beauty being overlong are ludicrous. Don't tell us how much you love Beauty when what you really mean is you love Beauty highlights, or Beauty edited.

[carbro]

What gets me is that the company, while not dancing at the level it did under Balanchine, has improved 100 percent in the past two years. I am among those who've spent much time, energy and emotion bemoaning the low standards of the Martins era, but credit where credit is due, NYCB looks less like a collection of metronomic practitioners of technique than they did a very short while ago, and sometimes they even look like Dancers! For a long time, the only thing that could get me to drag my ambivalent, reluctant self into the house was the sight of the names Ringer and Meunier on the cast sheet. (And then there was one.)

Come on, guys, things are better now, aren't they?

[Thalictum]

The idea that Martins' text is loyal to Petipa "as we know it," is just a preposterous statment. There is hardly one bar's worth of enchainement that he hasn't fiddled with.

[Hans]

Thalictum wrote: "And his comments on the Kirov restoration of Beauty being overlong are ludicrous. Don't tell us how much you love Beauty when what you really mean is you love Beauty highlights, or Beauty edited."

"The idea that Martins' text is loyal to Petipa "as we know it," is just a preposterous statment. There is hardly one bar's worth of enchainement that he hasn't fiddled with."

I completely agree .

[Michael]

Re Iannone -- After stating that Balanchine to her was the equal of Shakespeare and Milton, it's not surprising she found the State Theater to be Paradise Lost. And the Company to be Wandering the Wilderness. (See her comments about how even the intermissions in the old days were charged with meaning.) Given how bathed in the light of heaven her memories are, no present experience in the theater could possibly live up. Perhaps it's the (footnote Mary Cargill), Q: "What did my first mistress have that I don't have?" -- A: "She had my youth" effect.

Regarding this production of Beauty and not the performers -- I certainly found it to lack magic. In the first viewing I couldn't restrain my mental asides and after that all I ever saw was artifice, I simply could not enter into the drama on any level, literal or metaphysical. It's not really the comparison to the Kirov version that I find telling -- Personally I find the standard ABT version of recent seasons to be more dramatically satisfying.

[bobbi]

My two cents: I respect Gottlieb's opinions very much; he always makes me think about the validity of my own opinions. But sometimes I still hold my own "take" on dancers, especially about Ringer who is a dancer -- although certainly no technican -- I always enjoy watching because of her lyricism and phrasing. I share his reservations about Weese, yet I very much enjoyed her Emeralds this season. But what I took away from Gottlieb's latest review is that he too noted with praise a corps girls whom I mentioned on this board before: Sterling Hyltin (and I think poster Michael did too in his season wrap-up).

[cargill]

If I were Martins, I would be cheering Innoue (sp!) on! She makes all the, to my mind often valid, criticisms of Martins sound petty, ignorant, and spiteful. She certainly hasn't written regularly, and swooping in pontificating about something she clearly hasn't seen much of makes her seem arrogant and her opinions insignificant. On the other hand, I don't always agree with Gottlieb, but he certainly knows what he is writing about. Maybe lack of space prevents his explaining his criticisms of Ringer (I like her very much), but at least I know it is an honest opinion, and not some trendy nay-saying. But I do think Martins has fiddled a bit too much with Sleeping Beauty, or cut too much in some places. I don't like his Diamond Fairy at all--it is just jerky muscling, compared with the dance Ashton made to that music. And I want a complete Prologue!

[perky]

Re: Gottlieb, I went back and dug out an old article that he wrote for the Vanity Fair Dec. 1998 issue. The reason I kept it for so long is because it's an unusually insightful and ultimately moving look at Mr. B. and the NYCB. Gottlieb discusses how he came to be involved with both Balanchine and NYCB on both a personal and a professional way. In the early 70's Lincoln Kirstein asked him to serve on a new board of directors he was establishing for City Ballet. Eventually he began to work in the front office, helping to schedule the season, overseeing the marketing and as he calls it being a general "handyman" for both Balanchine and after his death Peter Martins.

So when I read a review by Gottlieb I know that I'm reading something by a critic who knows what he is talking about. That doesn't mean I agree with him. I think he could use a little more restraint when talking about dancers he doesn't like. And perhaps a small part of his dislike of Martins regime has to do with the fact that it was an angry Martin who felt Gottlieb should withdraw from the board in the late 80's due to Gottlieb being editor to Arlene Croce at the time. Croce having written in The New Yorker several unflattering articles of Martins and the company. Does Gottlieb's sadness over this event color his judgement of the company today? Probably a little, but I think he does a good job of at least trying to keep a neutral point of view, and it's obvious that his love and knowledge of NYCB and Balanchine show through in his writings.

So that's why even if I think he should cool it a bit with the attacks on certain dancers, I still respect and look forward to reading his reviews.

[Thalictum]

Why would you assume that's only "a small part" of Gottlieb's agenda?

[perky]

Thalictum in that same article I referenced in my post, at the end of it Gottlieb writes about a recent meeting he had with Martins to talk over many of the issues they disagreed about. Some of the things he says about that talk,

"What I think he believes about the larger issues is this: that his essential job has been to preserve the New York City Ballet as an institution through a transition period that was bound to be fraught with anxiety and uncertainty; to keep it going in new directions; to find a new audience; and to preserve the Balanchine repertory without turning the company into a museum. That is a very tall order, and if he has succeeded even in part he deserves credit."

also,

" How can Martins-how could anyone-emerge easily from under the tremendous weight of Balanchine. Twyla Tharp, hardly the most effusive admirer of other choreographers, once said to me, "George Balanchine is God." No one can be expected to replace God successfully, but Martins has succeeded in keeping things going, which means making a future possible."

No matter how Gottlieb personally felt about Martins, professionally he at least gave him props and acknowledged the tremendous challenge Martins faced.

Also, Gottlieb has been in the publishing business a long time. He's a professional and I think, perhaps too naively :shrug: that he would TRY to keep any personal beef he's got with Martins just that, personal. Does he succeed it that ALL the time? Probably not. He's only human like the rest of us. But because he loves and knows Balanchine and NYCB so well I'm willing to forgive him that.

[Michael]

Yes you have to give him a lot of credit. But his opinions and statements are often so very violent, so extreme and so mercurial (violent changes from month to month -- company was looking up, developing fine dancers last spring, some of same dancers lower than hell this year) that the grain of salt you need to apply in reading Gottlieb is just as heavy as the credit you give him.

Stange mixture. Nothing is ever grey to him, or a little bit black or a little bit white. Only extremes. It's hard not feel that there is something personal in the violence with which he expresses himself, if not in the opinions. That's not always bad. As for the tempering comments at the end of the Vanity Fair piece, a crafty polemicist (I'm not saying he is one, mind you) would have put those in just to front end the inevitable personal bias accusation.

So in the end you have to judge by what you read. He's quite often near the mark but seems in fact to overshoot it.

[dirac]

I don't think that Gottlieb's beef is that personal – if he thought the company was in dazzling shape, there's not a doubt in my mind that he'd eat his plate of crow with gusto. However, he may have gotten to the point where he's writing too much of the same thing on NYCB – as Dale notes, it seems as if we're getting these constant passing shots at Ringer, not to mention the regular references to Martins' nefarious practice of not allowing former dancers in to coach. It's not that this isn't a valid point – it certainly is. But he seems to bring it up in every other column, and it begins to sound like overkill. I might be inclined to overkill myself, if I felt I was seeing an institution that meant so much to me apparently in a long term collapse, but maybe it is too much.

I held on to that Vanity Fair article too, perky. It's one of my favorites, and the photographs are beautiful.

[Dale]

Michael, you expressed what I wanted to say exactly. Thank you.