Musagète

[Dale]

Any thoughts?

[oberon]

Eifman's new ballet, MUSAGETE, which begins as a dance drama and ends with a pastiche of DIAMONDS/SYMPHONY IN C and veers in many directions over the course of its progress, will annoy, disgust, delight or amuse people. But for me the unalloyed success of the evening was Robert Tewsley's portrayal of Balanchine. We knew Tewsley was a noble and poetic dancer, but who would have thought he was such a potent and daring actor, both in his startling use of the body as an expressive instrument and his beautifully emotional face. Whether you agree with this choreographer's portrait of Balanchine or not, one could only admire Tewsley's utter commitment to what was asked of him. His much-deserved solo bow drew a wave of cheers from the audience...as did Eifman's bow. The public, in fact, seemed to be thoroughly captivated with the ballet. There is so much to take in, so many references...it would take paragraphs to chronicle it all. It certainly held my attention at every moment, but I did think the shift from psycho-drama to bejewelled finale was somewhat jarring. Who but Wendy could have portrayed Mourka? In the choreographic highlight of the piece, her uncanny and amazingly supple body went through impossible stretches and poses using Tewsley's body as her support, object of affection and scratching post. She looked incredible in her jet-beaded cap and bodice. It was upsetting to watch Ansanelli portray LeClerq's eventual suffering...as the "healthy" Tanny, Alexandra danced superbly. I suppose if you are doing a ballet about Balanchine, this episode has to be included. Kowroski danced Suzanne with awesome extension and staked out her resistance at the barre...on which Balanchine then had a sort of breakdown. I half expected Benjamin Millepied to portray Paul Mejia and Nilas to portray his father, but these developments were left out in favor of the purely balletic finale. Steve Hanna, partnering Maria, has developed into a veritable prince before our very eyes.

Earlier, Hanna was the dreamer in the Elegie of SUITE #3...having loved Karin, Helene and Monique in this role, and having seen Korbes's earlier performance a couple years ago, I was astounded at her development...so womanly, so lyrical & so mysterious. She & Hanna were thrilling. The bewitching Rachel Rutherford excelled in the Waltz with Fayette partnering her ardently. Tinsley & Gold spun and leapt through the scherzo with a light touch. Angel Corella had some fans over from ABT who cheered him on...he danced very well, of course, but in the end I missed Damian. Corella seemed a bit too small for Miranda. She, that most luscious of ballerinas who is having an extraordinary season, was extraordinary tonight...I could watch her dance for hours. She has it all.

[Dale]

If this was any other ballet, in any other circumstances, I would say Musagete was banal. It was boring and shallow with some of the most usless choreography I've ever seen. The only thing more uncomfortable than doing the choreography (especially in the last "classical" section) is watching the dancers (brave souls) doing the choreography.

However, given the circumstances and the work's intentions, it was a grave robbing, disgraceful, superficial, insulting, steamy load of crap. Eifman showed he has absolutely no clue about Balanchine - his life, his work, what he stood for. The work was also extremely unmusical and had little stagecraft. It seemed to go against everything Balanchine believed in, starting with the music, the bombast, the psychoanalytical garbage. Even the costumes (save for the last set of tutus) were not only unattractive (to me) but also hid the body so the steps couldn't be seen (middle section, long dresses that didn't flare up, as Karinska's did when she used long dresses, when the dancers moved. I thought Ansanelli was going to trip and fall right over).

Eifman's assertion that this work was "is not a biographical ballet, but there is the personality of the choreographer" is such a copout. Then come up with your own plots, your own characters. To see "Tanaquil LeClercq," a woman who held herself with dignity, elegance, and humor, flopping out from under her polio-stricken legs was nauseating. To see Balanchine, who in an interview said he didn't think people should air their dirty laundry on the stage, writhing around on his deathbed was sickening.

We don't need a ballet "inspired" by Balanchine and his life. We have his ballets. The night opened with Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 - and there on stage was what we need to know about him. He said it is all in the programs. Balanchine showed more emotion in the simple ending of Duo Concertant or Mozartiana than in any moment of that thing that closed the program. Just to show how clueless Eifman is - he couldn't even get the Farrell story right. He has Balanchine horndogging SF (Kowroski) right from the start and her resisting him. Farrell, herself, said Mr. B was choreographing her life and that was all right with her. The choreography had women grabbed by the neck, people in tutus rolling on the floor (although I couldn't tell whether that was an actual fall it looked so together with all the other nonsense going on.), complicated for no reason lifts.

It was horrible to see this work, done by dancers from Balachine's school, on the company he helped create, at the theater he helped build.

However, for those that said this was not a marketing ploy to bring in the Eifman crowd - the 4th ring was as full as it's been this spring season with the same crowd that flocks to City Center to see BE's stuff.

[Dale]

Tewsley performance didn't surprise me - he danced Cranko ballets and other drama at the Stuttgart Ballet and scored a big success in McMillian's Myerling.

[carbro]

I think Tewsley did a fine job portraying a character whom the choreographer gave two moods: desperate horniness and existential torment. Was that supposed to be George Balanchine?

Eifman quoted some iconic B'chine moments, e.g., Terp touching Apollo finger-to-finger, the opening arm position of Serenade, the opening tableau of Symph. in C., etc., but those are the only suggestions that this is about Balanchine. The aspiring-to-be-Agon-like erotic pas de deux with the cat* was the definitive signal that this would not be a loving tribute. In the final section (the only one to Tchaikovsky) Tewsley in a dark suit, hair now slicked back and walking heavily amidst the white-tutued dancers, actually looked a lot like Peter Martins. Both my 4th-Ring neighbor and I had that reaction, although people seated closer to the stage didn't see the resemblance. Whether this was Eifman's intent, or if he was suggesting that Balanchine lived where his ballets were danced, it doesn't matter.

This ballet carefully eschewed everything Balanchine pursued -- keen musicality, good taste, logic, structural development, restraint. A great honor to Balanchine would be to stop the suffering and let Musagete die quickly and quietly. I'm willing to reconsider every negative response I've had to Peter Martins' ballets. Suddenly, his work seems a lot better than it used to.

Clearly, the production cost a shipload :shhh: of money. Unnecessary multiple costumes for the whole cast, extravagant set, chorus, etc. What a waste!

Incidentally, I was disappointed (as I'm sure he was) by Angel's Theme. He was far from at the top of his form. :angelnot: Weese winningly kept her feet clean as Quinn raced the orchestra through the ballerina's variations.

*Whelan gave a valiant performance in a thankless role, as did the rest of the cast.

[Michael]

Theme had the look of a dress rehearsal. Both the corps de ballet in disarray and the air that Corella and Weese had had little, if any, chance to rehearse this. I trust it might get better the next two days. Miranda seemed to lead him through the partnering in the second half . . . "This is the way I want to dance it." He became visibly confused, in two of his variations, between the the ABT version of the choreography and that he was dancing.

But the real vilain of Theme was Andrea Quinn. Last night is the first time I have really, grievously missed Hugo Fiorato. (I have a bad feeling about this -- having seen Maurice Kaplow conduct an entire evening on Tuesday -- who in Hell is going to replace Hugo?). It was not only that Quinn set some of the tempos unreasonably, unbelievably fast, but she set them inconsistently. After a measured opening Theme that had everyone comfortable, she suddenly jerks the orchestra into 5th gear (pops the clutch, as it were) during Miranda's first variation and then you're stuck with that racing tempo which distorts the sound of the music even. Weese, of all dancers, is very comfortable with fast tempi, but found herself behind. No one could have kept up. For the rest of the night both she and Corella had this way of looking at Quinn. When they got to set themselves at the beginning of a variation, and Quinn would take her cue from them a little bit, it worked. When they had to wait for and then catch up with what she did, heaven help them.

Korbes played the Elegie very "dramatique," very emotionally, seeming to plead with Hanna for her emotional life. I thought the dramatic reading interesting and acceptable. Carla (who is extremely pliable in the hips) does not have a particuraly flexible back, however, and this is a role which requires repeated and very deep back bends. At least once on her knees at the end; and twice when she was spun directly from a deep arabesque into very deep kneeling back bends, with the Poet holding both her arms from behind, the choreography was very exposing for her. Not her strongest moments and choreographic climaxes which were missed. Rachel Rutherford, further, simply does not move well enough to perform that Waltz the way it should be. You want someone who can really move through those repeated balancees, but Rachel is a little stiff right now and tries to make up for it by being luscious in her upper body. If I were King for a day, I'd consider Teresa Reichlen for the Elegie and Korbes for the Waltz. Or Alexandra Ansanelli in Elegie, where she would have both the flexibility in the back and where the role would suit her unconventional and unclassical lines, the Elegie being very forgiving in that direction. It is not really about Classical line, that Elegie. But this is fine tuning and look, I'll take Carla in the role forever.

The Scherzo was beautifully performed. Both by the principals, Tinsley and Gold (though he is a little small for her) and the corps de ballet of the taller girls who can really move and dance. Sterling Hyltin, Genevieve Labean, Katie Bergstrom, Georgina Pascagouin, etc.

Wendy's pas de deux (and then pas de trois) as Mourka the Cat in Musagete was the best thing about that piece. It is almost scary how inventive that choreography is for her, Eifman taking Wheeldon's Polyphonia one better as to Wendy's pliability (can you imagine any other ways to lift a dancer? At one point, the pas de deux becomes a pas de trois and Hanna, on his back, partners her in layouts above him by supporting her with his two feet, Tewsley, also on his back, passing her to Hanna with HIS feet -- it sounds worse than it looks, or does it?). After that, it was a descent into purer and purer Hokum.

No one who has seen much of Eifman would be surprised by Musagete. In retrospect, it is just what you would have expected.

A big problem is that when Eifman purports to choreograph faux or fausse Balanchine . . .

-- and there is a great deal of that, the structure of Musagete has the corps de ballet performing fausse Balanchine while the Balanchine character wanders about the stage choreographing and correcting it, while falling in love or in lust with his danseuses, and/or leading battalions of his men in various masses of steps, all of this then being interwoven with scenes in which the Balanchine character collapses in despair, writhing on a chair on casters, which an attendant shoves around the stage for particularly despairing gestures, or writhing upon a collapsed Ballet Barre after failing to consummate himself upon his Elusive Muse, Maria as Suzanne (thank God it wasn't Darci, though I'm sure she's always wanted to play Suzanne), the Barre only momentarily juxaposed upon his body in the same way Don Q's lance is used in Eifman's Don Q --

He just doesn't do Fausse Balanchine very well at all. In fact, it just looks bad, not even like Bad Balanchine, but just plain Bad. If you've seen Eifman's Don Q, it bears the same relation to Balanchine as Eifman's sudden flashes back and forth to scenes in the Petipa version do to Petipa.

Alexandra Ansanelli did splendidly, I thought, and gave herself 150% to what was given her, coming out of it all with as little mauvais odeur attached to her as possible. As did Robert Tewsley. A tour de force in the sense of feat of strength. I can't imagine there was a great deal of competition for these parts, not exactly a line forming, although they led to great ovations and were, in a sense, star vehicles. It was just to put the dancers in a quandry. Be a star but be in bad taste.

Tess Reichlen had a wonderful evening, though. He put her out front in almost everything and gosh did she look good, after looking just as good in the Elegie of Tschai Suite # 3.

[bobbi]

The highlight of the Suite 3 for me was Korbes and Hanna; they brought back the drama. Korbes has an innate sense of rubato which a dancer needs in spades for that movement. Over the years I must have seen hundreds of T&V's, so I'll just say that last night's was not one for the ages.

I was expecting the worst from the new Eifman because of "advanced billing" by many balletomanes who have seen his work. I guess it could have been worse. I don't think that the non-regular ballet audience (i.e., people who go to the ballet four times a year if that much) will spot what's wrong with the new work: absolutely no relationship between the choreography and the music; the supposed "angst" of Balanchine (dead wrong from everything I've ever read about Balanchine but superbly done by Tewsley); and the offensive portrayal of LeClerq (and please, I don't mean to say it's Alexandra "fault"). Wendy makes a terrific cat, but why does that portrayal have to have erotic overtones??

Actually what I didn't mind as much as the rest was the ending, only because Eifman literally copied Diamonds & T&V choreography to give us a faux Balanchine ending, which was a relief from the heavy-duty characterizations that preceded it. The good news: no one got dragged along the floor (except of course for Alexandra being dragged off on a piece of costuming and which was in very bad taste).

For the records, there were lots of people who really enjoyed it.

[Michael]

Bobbi you are right to note that, the ovation was prolonged, loud and Standing in the orchestra. With the loudest, most vocal standing ovations being reserved for Boris himself, at least one solo curtain call for "The Master," "Bravo Maestro!", and for Robert Tewsley, the sole solo bow (at the end) I've seen by a dancer at the State Theater in years, if ever. Eifman has a public that regards him thus (which, being a matter of taste, is their right) and which filled the theater last night. The same very Hot response to Theme and Variations, in fact, which got a rousing reception. What goes around comes around.

As for the difference in the audience, two new ones for me -- a gentleman in front of me who actually made three cell phone calls DURING Musagete, and a couple next to me who began checking their programs and conducting a loud and continuous conversation in Russian throughout the entire Polonaise at the end of T & V. What the Hell -- They paid the same money I did.

[cargill]

I thought it was a little more serious and less OTT than I might have expected--no card tables or birds of black thought or exploding heads. But there wasn't even the morbid pleasure of a lively awfulness, it was just swathes of dullness interspersed with the most tasteless ideas I ever hope to see. Balanchine as a miserable tortured genius, looking and looking and looking for his ideal, rolling around on a chair while clutching his head. There were plenty of awful moments, unrelieved by any campy fun. Watching Le Clerc's legs turn into rubber was quite simply spitting on someone's grave, and the Balanchine-Farrell pas de deux when he buries his face in her crotch is spitting on someone who is still alive. It was just choreographic graffiti. I don't care how many audience members it attracts, it is, to my mind, a complete moral failure.

[oberon]

Solo bows before the curtain at NYCB are rare, but in recent years I have seen Jock (CHIAROSCURO), Wendy (CAGE), Peter Boal (APOLLO), Damian (ORGANON), and Wendy & Peter B separately (OPUS 19) accorded this honor. Whether you like the Eifman or not, Tewsley certainly gave a powerful performance and deserved his ovation.

Has any other choreographer been the subject of a ballet? Well, Nijinsky, I suppose...but he is primarily remembered as a dancer. Balanchine's life (the wives, the elusive muse, the famous cat, the many signature movements & gestures from his ballets) certainly provides interesting raw material. What would a ballet about Petipa, Ashton or Robbins be like?

[Leigh Witchel]

Is this really interesting raw material for a ballet? What makes it raw material for a ballet?

I guess I'll find out on Tuesday.

[Farrell Fan]

In a program note, Eifman denies any biographical intent. Nevertheless, his ballet attempts to force Balanchine into the mold of misunderstood, tormented genius. This stereotype is irrelevent to Balanchine, but it drew cheers from many in the audience -- not just the Russians.

The program corroborates Eifman's disclaimer. The dancers are listed only by name. Nowhere does it say that Wendy Whelan is Mourka, a cat; Alexandra Ansanelli, Tanaquil, a wife; or Maria Kowrowski, Suzanne, a muse. Or for that matter that Robert Tewsley is Balanchine. We have given them these identities because of pre-performance publicity and our own familiarity with NYCB's past. But what of casual balletgoers? What was their reaction to Musagete? I suspect they loudly enjoyed it because significant things seemed to be happening onstage all the time, along with some strange choreographic stunts. That seems the secret of Eifman's appeal -- flashy surface brilliance which creates an illusion of profundity.

[atm711]

To see "Tanaquil LeClercq," a woman who held herself with dignity, elegance, and humor, flopping out from under her polio-stricken legs was nauseating.

Dale, I found this line to be the most disturbing in your excellent review. My outrage, however, is directed to Martins for allowing such "a steamy load of crap" to be shown on Balanchine's stage. I am of LeClercq's generation and I saw her dance endless times in her prime and I know I made the right decision not to see this latest Eifman fiasco---leave him to his Brooklyn Russian audience.

While this was going on---I was across the Plaza at the 'Met' luxuriating in Ananiashvilli's 'Swan Lake"

[Dale]

I'm sorry for Whelan, who had thought she escaped the worst of it by being Mourka. But she also was "Zorina" (see Robert Johnson's preview in the Star Ledger). I guess to BE, Balanchine's other wives - Geva, Danilova (common-law) and Tallchief - weren't important.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

Musagète fills a much needed gap in the repertory.

[carbro]

Please feel free to explain. I'm very interested.

[Petra]

Can someone explain the significance of the cat in Mr. B's biography? :shrug:

[charlieloki]

suffered through musagete tonight

every company should have a really awful piece, like musagete: the bad makes the good look so much better

for a brief moment, at the beginning, tewsley took the pose used in the famous cartier-bresson photograph of balanchine demonstrating tendu -- this was a desecration, in my mind

this famous black-and-white photograph was deconstucted and mangled - and in color, no less - becoming some ad person's idea of a logo for the balanchine 100 celebration -- it is used on the season's program cover, bus stop ads, all the various brochures, etc.

quite outrageous

the cartier-bresson photograph was once displayed in a greatly enlarged format on the front of the new york state theater, to very wonderful effect

whoever approved the grossly distorted version of the photograph as a marketing tool must also have approved the eifman vulgarity

during the pauses and the intermission tonight, some people sitting near me were going on and on about eifman, and their great liking for his work -- saying how sad it was that they had to sit through the balanchine stuff before seeing his piece -- i was good, and kept my mouth shut -- although when they began disrespecting kyra.....

on the way out of the theater, i stopped for awhile before a highly enlarged photograph located on the wall near the ladies' room entrance at the orchestra level: the picture includes several people, one of whom is tanaquil leclerq (whose tragic and permanent paralysis due to polio had just been exploited abominally in the eifman piece) and another of whom is george balanchine

i blew a kiss to them: it was the least i could do

[carbro]

Can someone explain the significance of the cat in Mr. B's biography?  :shrug:

I doubt the cat rises the level of importance in Balanchine's Real Life as, say, Kirstein or Tallchief or Stravinsky, but there are some photos of Mr. B putting Mourka the cat through some pretty fancy aerial moves. Balanchine then explained that he didn't train the cat to do it; the cat will do only what the cat wants to do. Same as dancers, he said.

I don't recall portrayals of Kirstein, Tallchief or Stravinsky in Musagete, but so much of it was murky . . .

[Alexandra]

Thanks for all of these reports -- Kathleen, I hope you'll write further. And anyone who liked the production, please speak!

Edited June 20, 2004 by Alexandra

[Kathleen O'Connell]

Please feel free to explain. I'm very interested.

Carbro -- was this in response to my post? If so, re-read the sentence and think about it -- it wasn't intended as a compliment.

As I entered State Theater last night I thought "Oh, how bad could it possibly be?" Now I know.

(PS: credit is due to one of the editors at Mathematical Reviews, who apparently was the first to coin the now often used phrase "it fills a much needed gap in the literature.")

[Leigh Witchel]

Oh dear. Kathleen, is that the equivalent of "I've never seen anything quite like it!"

[Mel Johnson]

Sort of like "Boris Eifman is the William McGonagall of the choreographic world".

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/

No matter what you do, you do it better than HE did!

[Farrell Fan]

I had to reread your sentence more than once before I got your point, Kathleen. That's what Eifman will do to the brain. Thanks for the lesson in logic.

[carbro]

Thank you, Kathleen, I was addressing you; and Mel, for your superb analogy.