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Gergiev scheduled to conduct NYCB orchestra


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From the company:

GERGIEV SCHEDULED TO CONDUCT NYCB ORCHESTRA

Acclaimed Russian maestro Valery Gergiev is scheduled to conduct the February 23, 2007 performance of New York City Ballet. The program includes three Stravinsky ballets: Circus Polka (Robbins), Jeu de Cartes (Martins), Firebird (Balanchine/Robbins) and Walpurgisnacht Ballet (Balanchine) set to music of Charles Gounod. Prior to this, Maestro Gergiev has conducted as part of a NYCB performance only once before—in July 2003 at the opening night of New York City Ballet’s visit to St. Petersburg, Russia in celebration of the city’s 300th anniversary. Tickets are going quickly. Go to nycballet.com to order tickets.

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Wasn't he supposed to have conducted a program or two for the more recent Balanchine Festival, then one side or the other canceled?

I wonder if The Powers at NYCB saw the film "Bringing Balanchine Back." :( That documentary shows the maestro's NYCB debut as anything but smooth.

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The announcement of Gergiev conducting just sold one more ticket - to me. Hopefully, I'll be able to get something front and side so that I can watch him as well as the dancers.

Would NYCB really invite this guest conductor in, who is more world renowned than they are, and then suggest to him that he must make artistic compromises? I hope not. If the relationship between a Gergiev-conducted Stravinsky and a NYCB-danced Stravinsky is challenging, let the dancing defer. This is Gergiev and this is Stravinsky. The music is paramount, and the dancers should try to rise to the challenge.

Just my two cents worth. I'm a Gergiev Groupie, too.

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The announcement of Gergiev conducting just sold one more ticket - to me. Hopefully, I'll be able to get something front and side so that I can watch him as well as the dancers.

Would NYCB really invite this guest conductor in, who is more world renowned than they are, and then suggest to him that he must make artistic compromises? I hope not. If the relationship between a Gergiev-conducted Stravinsky and a NYCB-danced Stravinsky is challenging, let the dancing defer. This is Gergiev and this is Stravinsky. The music is paramount, and the dancers should try to rise to the challenge.

Just my two cents worth. I'm a Gergiev Groupie, too.

I have heard Gergiev conduct Stravinsky for ballet performances and I agreed with the critics who were inlined to suggest that it was a near act of sabotage.

Stravinsky music composed for a ballet, should be conducted for the dancers alone, because that is what Stravinsky intended.

Gergiev's star stopped being in the ascendent along time ago in Europe and for me he was no replacement

for Temirkanov's authenticity, authority, instinct and subtlety.

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For clarification, the St. Petersburg City News reviews "Bringing Balanchine Back" and describes Gergiev's behavior.

On NYCB's opening night, the Mariinsky's artistic director, Valery Gergiev, disappeared mysteriously with the orchestra before the performance of Balanchine's "Symphony in Three Movements," prolonging the intermission interminably. We learn in the film that he had taken them to the upstairs stage for additional rehearsing of the Stravinsky score he was about to conduct.

This is not an unusual occurrence at the Mariinsky, but it evidently took NYCB unawares. At a post-perform ance fete, Maestro Gergiev pledges his interest in conducting for NYCB in its Lincoln Center home, "and if Peter doesn't want me to come, he will tell me." Mr. Martins replies, "The only thing I will say is that our intermissions are only 20 minutes."

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Having heard and seen Gergiev conduct ballet, (and watching him make a young dancer during his debut in the Swan Lake pas de trois break out into a cold sweat) I'd guess that he would not let such petty annoyances as dancers and tempi block his route to his interpretation of the music.

My experiences with Gergiev have all been operatic but I've seen similar things there that match up to Leigh's comments. I must admit I was mesmerized by his showy, fluttering hand technique the first time I saw him, conducting the Queen of Spades about a dozen years ago. A follow up Boris also impressed me but after that it was the law of diminishing returns, particularly in non Russian rep such as Salome, Traviata, etc.

In the opera house the orchestra and singers HAVE to follow him, he won't adjust. Again, this matches up with Leigh.

So I'm not really up for his appearance at NYCB. Nor am I willing to shell out $$$$$$ for his Kirov Ring Cycles in NYC next Summer.

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I must admit I was mesmerized by his showy, fluttering hand technique the first time I saw him, conducting the Queen of Spades about a dozen years ago.

Yes, but how did you feel about the incessant grunting? I sat three or four rows behind him when he was conducting Boris and, frankly, I wanted to throw my program at him.

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I must admit I was mesmerized by his showy, fluttering hand technique the first time I saw him, conducting the Queen of Spades about a dozen years ago.

Yes, but how did you feel about the incessant grunting? I sat three or four rows behind him when he was conducting Boris and, frankly, I wanted to throw my program at him.

Well, I always had cheapo seats up in the high side balconies so I could see him very well but not

hear him!

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I sit in the cheapo seats in every venue as well. I love Gergiev's conducting style (have never heard the grunts, though) and can't think of anyone (living) who I'd rather see/hear conducting Stravinsky, Shostakovich, or Tchaikovsky. The Shostakovich Leningrad that he conducts is astonishing.

What would be the (artistic, not marketing) purpose of inviting Gergiev to conduct if it wasn't to challenge the dancers to a new level? Why invite someone with his reputation if you really want business as usual? I think Rite of Spring will be very, very exciting, that is, if he gets the rehearsal time that he needs (which he really didn't get during the Stravinsky thingamabob at the Met a few years back.) Wonder if the NYCB orchestra is excited about or dreading this guest stint.

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What would be the (artistic, not marketing) purpose of inviting Gergiev to conduct if it wasn't to challenge the dancers to a new level? Why invite someone with his reputation if you really want business as usual?

I would suggest the purpose is marketing-oriented rather than artistic. Gergiev is not a great ballet conductor.

I think Rite of Spring will be very, very exciting, that is, if he gets the rehearsal time that he needs (which he really didn't get during the Stravinsky thingamabob at the Met a few years back.)

It doesn't matter if V.G. gets the rehearsal time or not - he won't use it, because he won't be there. His usual MO is to let an assistant do the rehearsals and arrive a couple of minutes before the show. If he shows at all. That's why his performances have been steadily getting worse during the nineties.

He's good for box office because people love the excitement and his weird technique. It's come to the point where audiences give him a big hand just for showing up. Like many conductors who are great to watch, he's not really very helpful for the orchestra (not to mention the dancers).

Incidentally, I once heard him conduct an exquisite Apollo. However I've also heard him conduct a wretchedly bad Agon - a score that obviously needs some rehearsal time.

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He's good for box office because people love the excitement and his weird technique. It's come to the point where audiences give him a big hand just for showing up.
And, as I can attest to in Seattle, for starting the show within 15 minutes of the printed start time.

In this case the Kirov Orchestra did a beautiful job with the Shostakovich 11th Symphony, but it was part of a program that was repeated on tour. In those circumstances, sometimes the rehearsals are live, but the orchestra does get to focus its energy on a single program and leverage the repetition to its advantage.

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(Haglund's @ Dec 8 2006, 08:44 AM)

Would NYCB really invite this guest conductor in, who is more world renowned than they are, and then suggest to him that he must make artistic compromises? I hope not. .

Is he really more world-renowned than NYCB? I'm a musician myself, and I hadn't noticed

(Haglund's @ Dec 8 2006, 08:44 AM)

If the relationship between a Gergiev-conducted Stravinsky and a NYCB-danced Stravinsky is challenging, let the dancing defer. This is Gergiev and this is Stravinsky. The music is paramount, and the dancers should try to rise to the challenge.

This is a curious thing to say. In any danced music, the dance is obviously somewhat more the most important, no matter how sensitively the dancers must become to the music, how musical they are. The music is sometimes on the same level as the ballet, but it is never paramount in a ballet performance, and saying this does not mean the music should not be on the highest level possible. But the highest level possible for a dance performance would never mean exactly the same thing as in a concert hall or even opera house--unless, perhaps, if the music was written purely for the ballet; and in that case, there could never really be an example either in which the 'dancers would defer' because even the composition would have been undertaken with them in mind.

If the music is paramount, then it can only be proved so by doing it in concert, which automatically rids the stage of dancers. A ballet orchestra can never be quite what even an opera orchestra is, because the dancers may be musical, but are not musicians in the same sense that singers are. However, a conductor, living and famous, is never so important as the choreographer, even if dead, and neither is the composer quite as important as the choreographer during an actual ballet performance.

In concert, there is no dancer around to compete, as is appropriate--even if the conductor does a lot of body movement like Leonard Bernstein did, he's still not a real dancer. In opera, the orchestra is more wedded to what is sung onstage and is musically as important most of the time, even if not in star turn moments; and even the greatest conductors of opera like James Levine, are not quite the draw as the spintos and tenors.

I find it difficult to imagine Pierre Boulez wanting to conduct for ballet, as he would not want to compromise in any way, in particular the rather brisk tempos he favours--but the solution thus far has been simply not to do it, as far as I know. But any conductor for ballet is, in fact, compromising if he does not recognize that the ballet is always the main event in a ballet performance; otherwise, trying to 'teach the dancers a lesson', e.g., 'stretch their experience' in whatever way, as it were, comes across as a bit of arrogant slumming on the part of someone who thinks he can better a domain which is actually someone else's.

A flamboyant conductor who decided he wanted to conduct NYCB in Stravinsky would make sense only if he went in respecting the ballet tradition first. If he doesn't love ballet and want to serve it, why would he want to conduct it? to get attention? (I thought he'd gotten it elsewhere...) He cannot be the star there, and is not supposed to be. There are, on the other hand, all sorts of real nuances and refinements he could introduce that wouldn't disturb and would even enhance the dancers, but not distract from them, and even just annoy them--as speeding up things too much, for example, often would.

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All interesting points. Don't we wonder what the artistic purpose is in having Gergiev at all?

Too often in recent years I've listened to the NYCB orchestra conducted as though it were trying to create a caricature performance - like a speedy cartoon -- way too often raggedly crossing the line from exploiting the music to offending it. Gergiev, even with all of his shortcomings would, I believe, insist on a higher level of respect for the music. The dancers and choreographers, regardless of how great their talents are, are still borrowing someone else's artistic product for their own use. It should be respected.

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The dancers and choreographers, regardless of how great their talents are, are still borrowing someone else's artistic product for their own use.

So are all conductors and orchestra players borrowing it from the composer, the dancer is borrowing it from the choreographer. And conductors of ballet are 'borrowing' dance for their own use as well.

I don't mean there isn't parasitism, but everybody is guilty.

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All interesting points.

Agreed, they are.

Don't we wonder what the artistic purpose is in having Gergiev at all?

I certainly do. Some 20 years ago, when I was invited as musical director for a college production of a Broadway show, a few issues arose between the choreographer and me concerning tempos, and the director unhesitatingly sided with the choreographer, saying that it was she who set the tempos. (In this case, nothing was ever fast enough. Five shows into the limited run, she still complained about my tempos, and when I sped them up, the dancers complained to me that they couldn't keep up.)

But I'm sure there have been discussions of conductors and tempos in the past on the forum, and I have to keep wondering why NYCB conductors keep taking tempos that are considered absurdly fast. Don't the dancers have any say as to what tempo they can keep up with, don't the artistic directors - former dancers themselves - take steps to ensure the dancers are not being overtaxed, and shouldn't a conductor for ballet have a sixth sense as to what speeds are going to keep the dancers moving comfortably along without busting their guts? I would think that would be among the first requisites for a ballet conductor, musical ability notwithstanding - just as among the first requisites for an accompanist to a singer is to breathe along with the singer and adopt tempos they can manage.

As for Gergiev, I saw him a couple of years back conducting the Stravinsky Triple Bill at the Met, and his tempos for Sacre du Printemps were often absurdly fast. So are some of his tempos on his 1-CD Nutcracker recording. The playing on that recording is beautifully articulated and balanced, with all lines in the texture clearly audible, but some of the speeds are impossible. The Candy Cane/Dance Russe, for instance, speeds up to breakneck by the end. It is true that this dance ought to accelerate in the last 30 seconds or so - Tchaikovsky explicitly asks for this in the score - but Gergiev's tempo at the start is so rapid there's hardly anywhere to go from there.

In any case, I'm in no hurry to buy a ticket to the City Ballet performance he is conducting.

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Coincidently, WQXR just finished playing Gergiev's and the Kirov's complete Firebird. I didn't catch the date of the recording, but it was beautiful. Huge, reliable brass - I wonder if that will be a problem in February? :)

It sure sounded wonderful in Carnegie Hall in December of 2001. I can't wait to hear how this experiment works.

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This is an interesting discussion for me as I have wondered who is the "ultimate" director of a ballet performance. Clearly the dancers have to work with the music as an instrument, but unlike a musical instrument they are a visual one which seems to "express" all the other instruments...the music... so they are different from the violins or the cellos. The dancers are much more literal.. especially in a "story" ballet than any instrumental part could ever be.

Since, as a ballet goer, and one who has no experience as a dancer, musician etc... I have always made the assumption that there was one person who, like the choreographer, who performed the over arching role of putting it all together and this person came from the "dance side" of the production, not the music side... as the conductor would. The staging was their vision and that might include the choreography, the costumes, lighting and how the music is to "sound". Would it only be tempo?

But of course, a ballet, like a piece of music must remain faithful to the historical precedent, at least somewhat... so the variations are subtle and nuanced and give a performance / staging its own personality and the opportunity for individuality and virtuosity. This creates a continuity back into the history of a piece... and is one of the compelling and wonderful aspects of ballet... the identity of the work through history as defined the dancers who performed the principal roles.

Opera, for example, must stay faithful to the libretto and the music, but the staging... sets, costumes etc. can vary tremendously... especially since the costs of elaborate productions are not possible for all companies. Still, I wonder what impact Zeffirelli, for example, has on how the music is performed in his productions of La Traviata?

I suspect to learn how all this works we need to hear from those who have worked IN ballet as opposed to those such as myself who only see the final product.

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But I'm sure there have been discussions of conductors and tempos in the past on the forum, and I have to keep wondering why NYCB conductors keep taking tempos that are considered absurdly fast.

I find that ironic as the house conductors of the Kirov Ballet take their tempi so slowly that they almost grind to a halt.

This summer the Kirov danced in an all Shostakovich programme in London, the highlight being a performance of Leningrad Symphony conducted by Gergiev and it sounded superb, my only regret was that the ballet only uses the first movement.

A lot of very great music has been written for ballet and most of it in strict collaboration with the choreographer. Therefore as the music is written, that’s how it should be danced and if some technically limited dancer is incapable of the proper tempo – find one that isn’t.

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