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Gergiev scheduled to conduct NYCB orchestra


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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.

I hope you don't include the recently late Victor Fedotov in your criticism. I have at least one friend who puts

him above Rozhdestvensky and Faier both from the Bolshoi in the pantheon of late 20th century ballet conductors.

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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.

I've seen conductors at NYCB shave seven minutes off the two act version of Midsummer done here. Peter Boal was the one who had to throw himself around and shave steps off of Oberon's variation. I've seen Andrea Quinn conduct Theme and Variations so fast that Wendy Whelan fell in the middle of her variation trying to keep up.

Neither of these dancers were technically limited. Most of the time, it isn't the dancer's limitations. It's the conductor's fault.

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I've seen conductors at NYCB shave seven minutes off the two act version of Midsummer done here. Peter Boal was the one who had to throw himself around and shave steps off of Oberon's variation. I've seen Andrea Quinn conduct Theme and Variations so fast that Wendy Whelan fell in the middle of her variation trying to keep up.

Point taken. But Midsummer was written as incidental music to a play, not as a ballet and the choreographer(s) using it have presumably adapted it to their needs. When I first saw Ashton's Dream in 1964 the scherzo was taken at a cracking pace by Anthony Dowell, but subsequent casts never quite matched his speed.

What I had in mind was the music of composers such as Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky who wrote masterpieces for the ballet but whose work is increasingly not played with due respect in many instances.

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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.
This is one of the most interesting discussions I've encountered on BT.

I second SanderO's request. Specific examples (like Leigh's concerning the tempi in Midsummer Night's Dream) really help us address the questions of "Who is in charge?" and "What are one's obligations to the composer?".

I also wonder about the glaring changes in tempi that one sees in some of the classics, where adding almost laughable levels of speed to passages that call for bravura turning, or -- conversely -- almost stopping the music altogether to highlight a sustained arabasque balance, are quite common and very distracting.

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Your point is also taken, Mashinka. I recall a performance Raymonda where the ballerina held her balances in retiré that there was no longer any melody, just notes in suspension. Nureyev also did some choreography for his Sleeping Beauty (the male Diamond variation) that forces the music to be played too slow - he used music intended for a female pizzicato variation for a male allegro with double saut-de-basques - it can't be done otherwise.

Perhaps we have a guideline for extreme cases. If the melodic line is distorted by what you're doing as a choreographer or dancer - it's wrong.

If the dancer is in danger of injury because of your tempo choices as a conductor (and that is easier than it looks) - it's wrong.

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Perhaps we have a guideline for extreme cases. If the melodic line is distorted by what you're doing as a choreographer or dancer - it's wrong.

If the dancer is in danger of injury because of your tempo choices as a conductor (and that is easier than it looks) - it's wrong.

It need not go so far as to distort the melodic line. With all due respect to dancers and concern for their good health, I've seen more performances done in by sluggish tempi than frantic ones. I realize this is a personal response. And it can be just as difficult for dancers to fill too-slow music as to keep up with too-fast ones. After all, that pesky gravity doesn't accomodate itself to the conductor's baton.
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If anyone wants to sample Maestro Inc.'s ballet tempi, good "examples"

are his complete "Nutcracker" and "Sleeping Beauty," both on Phillips.

His complete "Nutcracker" on one CD (?) must be in the Guinness Book

of World Records for it's NASCAR speeds. Strictly MO.

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With all due respect to dancers and concern for their good health, I've seen more performances done in by sluggish tempi than frantic ones.
I can see a forceful international celebrity like Gergiev being given carte blanche, on his own recordings certainly, and even when guesting with a major company. But ... STAFF conductors?!?

Who decides these matters on a night-by-night, cast-by-cast basis? And what's the process?

(Incidentally, I recall disputes over NYCB conductors going back to the days of Robert Irving and his associates. But I don't remember many ballet critics discussing the nuts and bolts of these issues, then or now.)

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Yesterday I watched the St. Petersburg 300th anniversary gala from the Mariinsky Theatre. The ballet selections weren't exactly the smoothest part of the concert. Gergiev conducted the Kingdom of the Shades and Polovtsian Dances at insanely fast speeds. I know that NYCB dancers are trained for speed, but I doubt whether even they could have kept up. On the other hand, he conducted the Dying Swan very slowly. The Le Corsaire pas de deux seemed to come off best, although the impression that Zelensky's solo created was so unmusical that I couldn't help wondering whether he and Gergiev were working at cross purposes. (If Zakharova was unhappy with the tempi she wasn't letting on.)

I don't know what this means for Gergiev's performance with NYCB, but my guess would be that his allegros will be very, very fast and his adagios will be downright lugubrious.

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Plenty of tickets are still available for his February 23 NYCB performance, which will include Firebird. One wonders for how long, given the London reviews for his conducting of that score as reported in today's Links:

The Independent:

... But no sooner had Gergiev prepared the way for our first steps into the enchanted garden of the ogre Kashchei at the start of Stravinsky’s The Firebird than the magic descended. His voluptuous reading of the complete ballet excited every fluttering nuance of this quixotic and beautiful score. Its folkloric earthiness was uncommonly vivid, with sensational work from the LSO wind choir and a depth of string tone that opened up at least one unimaginable soundscape in the “total eclipse” of the final scene...

The Guardian:

... Gergiev never lost sight of the score’s epoch-making radicalism, ushering us into a soundscape in which beauty and savagery were frighteningly entwined. The playing was spine-tingling, and the orchestral colours whirred and fused with kaleidoscopic brilliance. A great performance: “magic” is, for once, an entirely appropriate word with which to describe it.

The Times:

... the crowd were on their feet and the orchestra sounded like world-beaters. And even this sceptical serf was cowed into submission…

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I noted one change in the Firebird casting. Rutherford has been replaced by Mearns.

I wonder if at the end of Circus Polka, the little girls will spell out V.G. Any wagers?

I so hope the NYCB orchestra is up to the challenge of this evening. It could be extraordinary - or disastrous.

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