Kourlas on Balanchine beyond City Ballet

[Quiggin]

With the exception of Miami Ballet, I doubt that Balanchine is done better in the provinces than New York City, though the idea of the provinces outdoing the city has a certain reverse snobbery appeal to it.

I go to a lot of San Francisco ballet performances--the War Memorial Opera House is just down the street from me--and once a year to the New York City Ballet, and the Brahms-Schoenberg, Symphony in C, Episodes performances at Lincoln Center just knock me out in the way few of SFB’s Balanchines do.

SFB ballet has a lot of great performers and its audiences seem to be more keen on them than on the choreography. Gonzalo Garcia did an inspired Apollo two years ago, as Leigh points out, and he can make any bit of stage business interesting, as in Mark Morris's Sylvia on Tuesday. This is also true of Juan Boada and Tina Le Blanc (in Harlequinade), Katita Waldo (with her wonderful janus figures in the Elemental Brubeck on Thursday), Elizabeth Miner (in Ashton), and Muriel Maffre (an Athena scaled Diana on Tuesday).

For me what SFB leaves out is something of Balanchine’s wit and astringency. Everything is well finished, as Paul points out, but I would prefer dancing that is more rough edged, where there is stronger counterpoint, and where no phrase is ended without another already well started up. SF’s Balanchine is a little soft and unincisive. (Their Ashton, on the other hand, was quite fine, especially Symphonic Variations).

Part of this may simply the difference of habitat, in the factor of New York’s rich and zig-zaggy street life, where to leave your apartment is to enter a big game in which you have to immediately play some strong part in it. In San Francisco everyone is bit too much in their own world, a bit too polite, a little too incurious.

[Leigh Witchel]

A good example of this, Quiggin is in Square Dance - there is a repeating motif of a triplet of emboîtés, at NYCB it gets obsessive - one, two, THREE - and each emboîté is shown as if they were periods. SFB does it softly and unaccented. Ironically in this case - I think I prefer SFB's version! It's less neurotic.

[Helene]

It just seems to me like there are a lot of people of wish they were running NYCB instead of Martins. That's the veiled point of Koulas's article. Why not Villela? Why not Farrell? Why not Gottlieb? And if they can't take control of it, why aren't they brought in to coach?

This sounds like an assumption that Villella, Farrell, and Gottlieb want to run NYCB. All indications show that Villella is happy in Miami and Gottlieb has plenty to do as an editor. Frankly, editing Clinton's autobiography sounds like a whole lot more interesting than managing NYCB to me, especially since Gottlieb is neither a former dancer or choreographer. Farrell, at least in print, seems to take her opportunities as they come. It was she who was one of the first people invited to Russia to stage Balanchine there. As prestigious as NYCB is, running an institution gives less autonomy than having a company of one's own.

Villela and Miami do what, three Balanchine ballets during their home season, plus a Nutcracker? They do far more work by other choregraphers. They perform to TAPED music. How do you compare that effort to the 30 or more Balanchine ballets each year at City Ballet, not to mention Robbins?

In the 2006/7 season, MCB will do two full-length ballets, Don Quixote and Giselle. They will perform two mixed bills consisting of seven ballets, three by Balanchine (Symphony in Three Movements, Agon, and Raymonda Variations), one by Robbins (Afternoon of a Faun) -- over 50% of the mixed bill works -- one by Wheeldon (Liturgy), one by Tharp (In the Upper Room), and one by Tudor (Jardin aux Lilacs).

And don't the City Ballet staff travel the world setting these ballets on other companies?

If they are also repetiteurs for the Balanchine Trust or have rights to ballets that were not turned over to the Trust. (John Taras owned the rights to Symphony in C until his death.)

The omission is that the Balanchnine Trust has helped these companies build their Balanchine repertories, and that they do it selectively--one or two ballets per season at most.

Why is this an omission? The Trust's boilerplate permission is listed on every program. No company is hiding the involvement of the Trust. I've never seen a program in which the stagers, Trust or not, were not prominently in the credits, with a bio as a guest stager as well. It is considered a mark of prestige and honor to have the best coach the dancers and train the works, whether that stager comes from the Balanchine Trust, The Susan Marshall company, Forsythe's company, or Tharp or has worked closely with Robbins, Wheeldon, and/or Tudor. For PNB, Peter Boal has said several times that he had originally wanted to program more Balanchine in his first season, but he was advised to cut down the number of Balanchine works by Russell and Stowell. The Trust is not meting out ballets to these companies. It is more likely that the Robbins Foundation is.

And it is not uniformly true for all companies. The Christensens (SFB), Francia Russia (PNB), Arthur Mitchell (DTH), E. Virginia Williams (Boston Ballet), and Barbara Weisberger (Pennsylvania Ballet) were only some of the company directors who were given the right to have their companies perform Balanchine ballets and for some to stage Balanchine for their companies during Balanchine's lifetime. Ib Andersen was a repetiteur for the Trust before he took over Ballet Arizona and has staged and coached Balanchine works for his company, as well as bringing on other repetiteurs. Allowing the greatest number of people who worked with Balanchine to pass on his teaching to new generations of dancers is what is common to these companies, and one of their strengths.

I'm lucky -- I get to see Diamonds next month with dancers coached in their role by Suzanne Farrell. The more Martins doesn't take her time, the more for me.

[bart]

Villela and Miami do what, three Balanchine ballets during their home season, plus a Nutcracker? They do far more work by other choregraphers. They perform to TAPED music.

For the record, MCB performed 8 Balachine ballets during the 2005-06 season. All would qualify as "major" or "almost-major" Balanchine. Villella is quite open about the fact that he expands the Balanchine rep only when he feels this relatively young company is ready to perform the piece.

The last program was with orchestra, as will the next few seasons (guaranteed in Miami, still working on financing in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach).

Balanchine, Robbins, etc., are great, great choreographers. Prefering the way one company dances them does not imply scorn for other companies' approaches. We are talking here about quite subtle differences, I should think -- compared, for instance, to the various ways Shakespeare is performed.

[kfw]

Balanchine, Robbins, etc., are great, great choreographers. Prefering the way one company dances them does not imply scorn for other companies' approaches. We are talking here about quite subtle differences, I should think -- compared, for instance, to the various ways Shakespeare is performed.

Of course in quoting you I didn't mean to imply that you were being scornful, bart. And Leigh, I respect your opinion, and your knowledge and experience which are vastly greater than my own. But it seems to me that if the company with the pick of Balanchine dancers and the longest and widest tradition of dancing Balanchine isn't unquestionably dancing his work better than less fortunate companies, something is very wrong.

[Leigh Witchel]

I don't think that my opinion of how the Balanchine's work is danced is worth any more than yours, kfw - except to me. But I would say they are unquestionably dancing the work better than other companies. I have seen lousy performances at NYCB, I've also seen great ones. I haven't seen better elsewhere except in isolated instances.

[Helene]

I haven't seen any non-NYCB East Coast companies perform Balanchine in years -- La Sonnambula at Boston Ballet in 1980, Bouree Fantasque at ABT maybe that same year -- but I've seen numerous PNB performances and a few years worth at Ballet Arizona and some at San Francisco Ballet. I can say that despite an occasional interpretation or two with which I've taken issue, I have not seen a single lousy performance of a Balachine ballet, and the quality has been amazing, especially given the consistency of the quality. The heights have been as high as any NYCB ballet performances from the two decade period in which I saw the company on a regular basis, with the exception of those from a very small group of dancers (Farrell, Andersen, Cook, Saland) and a handful of other performances.

It's not what I expected when I moved west, but it proved to me that not every surprise is a bad one.

[bart]

I have seen lousy performances at NYCB, I've also seen great ones.

This is probably inevitable, given NYCB's vast active rep and long, long season. It was also true in Balanchine's day.

And it is probably less true of companies with more time to prepare and less pressure on dancers to perform so often.

I recall "off" performances under Balanchine going back to the late 50s, when a much smaller company was scrambling to do a demanding repertoire.

But, as a kind of compensation, tickets were a quite cheap in those days. At current prices, those who hit an off night or two at ANY company might have reason to be disappointed.

[sandik]

I have seen lousy performances at NYCB, I've also seen great ones. I haven't seen better elsewhere except in isolated instances.

I think in many ways this is an apples and oranges argument -- the performance schedule of NYCB, with its intense, multi-week, multi-program format, is so different than the single program format at companies like Miami and PNB -- I don't think these kinds of comparisons can be especially valid.

[Helene]

the performance schedule of NYCB, with its intense, multi-week, multi-program format, is so different than the single program format at companies like Miami and PNB

I think that's why I've never seen a lousy performance of Balanchine out here. As frustrating as space sharing issues are between ballet and opera, and, in Phoenix, with the Symphony, which was PNB's issue until Benaroya Hall was built, the level of performance based around focused preparation is higher as a result, I believe.

[bart]

There seems to be agreement that time pressures and scheduling have a major effect on the consistency of performances.

Can anyone tell us how the schedules and casts are put together for a season at NYCB, and by what combination of persons and interests?

I assume that serious consideration is given to audience preferences, seasonal demands, tie-ins with things like the Diamond Project, etc., etc. But how do they factor in the things we've been talking about: need for rehearsal and coaching time, dangers of over-working certain dancers, alternate casts, allowance for injuries, etc. Or is that simply not possible to do iin such a huge operation?

[sandik]

I can't say anything specific about the current administration, but in general, there is a very nice description of the competing elements in Joseph Mazo's "Dance is a Contact Sport." It was written before Balanchine's death, but I've always thought it was a good outline of program building.

As far as your specific questions are concerned

I assume that serious consideration is given to audience preferences, seasonal demands, tie-ins with things like the Diamond Project, etc., etc. But how do they factor in the things we've been talking about: need for rehearsal and coaching time, dangers of over-working certain dancers, alternate casts, allowance for injuries, etc.

The shortest answer is "yes." There are some general rules of thumb in scheduling, and more specific needs depending on the company. Some of the parameters (amount of rehearsal time, timing of breaks) are spelled out in the dancer's contracts (union or otherwise) -- others are institutional, and still others are particular to the season, the work, the goals of the individual (and of the company for the individual) -- programming/scheduling is probably the most complicated thing that any institution does.