16 replies to this topic

[Balanchinomane]

You're right. If Hollywood were to make a bio of Balanchine this is what
we would get. They'd use his personal life salaciously to attract an
audience. Remember that awful Ken Russell film about Tchaikovsky?
Musagete is reminiscent of that.
The irony is the fact that it was a good idea. The image of him working
with his dancers - teaching, demonstrationg and creating variations
from the classroom to performance could have been lovely. NYCB
could have done it - too bad they didn't think of it first.

[Helene]

I went back and read the descriptions of the ballet, both here and by critics.  I saw Busoni's Doktor Faust at the San Francisco Opera last weekend, and if there hadn't been any references to Balanchine, LeClerq, Mourka, and Farrell in them, and just a description of the stage action, I would have thought that the ballet was about Faust, at least Busoni's Faust, who was based on Faust puppet plays, not Goethe's version.

Not that this would have made it a better ballet, it seems like a better fit.