snobbery

[Cliff]

Joan Acocella in The New Yorker wrote:

No art, not even opera, is more clad in snobbery than ballet.

Its hard to imagine an art that all to often features a score of children in the Nutcracker as snobbish. Opera on the television show Frasier indicated snobbery. Does ballet really surpass opera as the most snobbish art?

[Helene]

I think she's wrong. I think opera still, and always will, take the cake.

[SanderO]

Perhaps she is referring to the performers, not the genre. My sense is that dancers are more aloof and almost always only appear on stage in public. Opera singers seem to do "other" public events, including book signings, or cross over events. Look at Beverly Sills, or Renee Flemming as people who was so out there and personable and of the people (as well as of the celebs). While there may be some exceptions to this "rule" for ballet, I sense that the public sees dancers as rehearsing 24/7 performing and then rehearsing until they retire into oblivion or leave from some injury.

[bart]

I'm not able to access the Link that Cliff posted. Where - and when -- did this comment appear?

[chrisk217]

I'm not able to access the Link that Cliff posted. Where - and when -- did this comment appear?

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/danc...ancing_acocella

[printscess]

Joan Acocella in The New Yorker wrote:

No art, not even opera, is more clad in snobbery than ballet.

Its hard to imagine an art that all to often features a score of children in the Nutcracker as snobbish. Opera on the television show Frasier indicated snobbery. Does ballet really surpass opera as the most snobbish art?

IMO, the Nutcracker is like the circus of ballet. You always know when it is coming to town. Not exactly high art. A crowd pleaser and the time when all ballet companies are assured a money maker.

[papeetepatrick]

Sander0's point is good on this, and there are ways in which the biggest opera stars become far more famous than ballet stars ever could--through things like 'The Three Tenors', or all of Kiri TeKanawa's gorgeous recordings of English folksongs and musicals like 'West Side Story' and 'South Pacific'. Pavarotti singing for many thousands in Central Park.

But I won't read this article, if that's the theme of it, I don't care what she has to say, and that one sentence is quite enough. 'Clad in snobbery' indeed..indeed all journalistic standards would seem to be going to hell if it weren't for the fact that Seymour Hersh is still writing for The New Yorker--and that sometimes really good articles like the one Bart linked to about the Fake Pianist and her Fake Entrepeneur and the Fake Recordings are still very good. How about all the snobbery in the magazine itself when Tina Brown was the editor? Everything was meant to be titillating, from Randy Becker nude in 'Love! Valour! Compassion!' as assessed for size by audience members in the Notes & Comment section (this was idiotic and trashy in the extreme), to short stories about paedophilia in Scotland (this was actually a fine piece of fiction, by someone named MacCann, but I doubt that was the main reason why it was chosen), to Brown herself writing, in the words of NYTimes editorials, during the beginning of the Lewinsky business, about President Clinton's 'heat' and his 'present tense.' You'd have thought you were reading some snob version of 'Modern Romance'--the Times just called it 'an inane entry by Brown herself'.

This subject is so irrelevant that it defies credulity; it's been discussed here at Ballet Talk, even if usually called 'elitism' most of the time, to a farethewell. If anything, ballet needs even MORE snobbery, not less, when you hear such phrases as 'clad in snobbery'. I recall something in the late 70s in the New Yorker, already doing a big bore of its Anglophilia, in an interesting article called 'Aristocracies', which was all about the 'privilege' that came of the 'sense of duty' of the English upper classes. This was febrile enough, but when the author finally started doing the academic number too, we got fatuous stuff about the profundity of Oxford and Cambridge as compared to U.S. universities in the form of 'Harvard and Yale will not do.'

The New Yorker, failing at its own love of its own snobbery, is now jealous of a domain it feels is more snobbish than it can manage to be! Good for Ballet! Wake up and smell the Snobbery!

[carbro]

I don't know how an art form can be snobbish. But there are snobs who attend all art forms -- from opera to ballet to painting to rock. Whether more or less is probably a function of one's familiarity with the particular art and with the people who support and/or make it.

Also, snobbery varies from country to country. I don't think opera is considered snobbish in Italy, where it seems to pervade pretty much the whole populace, at least into the WWII generation.

Opera in this country has made enormous strides in debunking its image as a snobbish art. Ballet seems to be trying to do the same, but as yet has not succeeded as well.

[Farrell Fan]

I won't read this article, if that's the theme of it, I don't care what she has to say, and that one sentence is quite enough.

The theme ofAcocella's piece is not snobbery. She wrote a review of the Christopher Wheeldon season and has many interesting things to say about it. What she says about Wendy Whelan and Maria Kowroski, for example, is wonderful. It is definitely worth reading. As for snobbery, I agree with carbro. I'm also with papeete patrick that the subject is irrelevant.

[SandyMcKean]

My sense is that dancers are more aloof and almost always only appear on stage in public. Opera singers seem to do "other" public events, including book signings, or cross over events.

My reaction to this thought is that it is misleading. While it is probably true that ballet dancers appear less in public, I can't subscribe to the proposition that the reason is that ballet dancers are more aloof.

The probable reasons are more mundane IMO. For one thing ballet dancers are typically far younger than opera stars, and are therefore less likley to be comfortable under a publc spotlight. Next, dancer's schedules leave little room for such appearences. Next, ballet is more a "team" art form in which it is far harder to pick one or two "stars" and give them the spotlight; whereas opera is all about doing just that. For example, it is normal for the typical 3 star-quality opera singers in a production to be from out of town, whereas ballet star-quality dancers are nearly always from the company performing; also when ballet dancers travel to perform it is usually with the entire company, not on their own like opera divas do. Not only that but those star-quality opera singers are hyped as individuals via advertising which gives them more of a public image than the typical star-quality ballet dancer. And finally, there are plenty of famous ballet dancers who get nearly the same public exposure as famous opera singers: Nureyev and Baryshnikov come to mind immediately.

[Helene]

Everyone makes choices for themselves, but I think there is a lot of value in reading it, despite thhe comment -- here in full context:

In other ways, too, he tried to make the audience comfortable. As each dance opened, its title was projected on a scrim in front of the stage. When the lights go down at a ballet performance, you often hear people asking each other frantically, "What’s the next piece?" They spent intermission socializing and forgot to look at their programs. Wheeldon knows this, and is helping them out. In the evening’s central section, a series of short dances, he made matters easier still by introducing each piece with a short film, maybe a minute long, of the cast rehearsing that number. The films (by William Trevitt and Michael Nunn, a.k.a. London's Ballet Boyz, who also danced during the season) were very good: sexy, sweaty. But their purpose, I believe, was to give the audience a toehold on the ballet before the curtain went up, and also to give them the pleasure, as they watched the piece, of recognizing steps. ("Oh, that's the passage they were working on in the film.") No art, not even opera, is more clad in snobbery than ballet. These little movies were an attack on that, and God bless them.

First, you hear as many people coming back from intermission at the opera, asking each other frantically, "What happens in the next act?," although titles have mitigated their pain, if they read any of the languages offered.

Second, a body in motion has a visceral appeal, and less-is-more costumes are commonplace, while classically trained voices are, in most cases, an acquired taste, especially since many people who would have been exposed to them through religious services no longer attend, there isn't an Ed Sullivan, Firestone Theater, or Bell Telelphone Hour to present classical singers on a regular basis, and cross-over to contemporary vocal style is practically impossible: jazz, once practiced extensively by popular singers like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, is now as much of a niche as opera. While I can see people being put off by the formality of Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty or feeling illiterate about steps, most ballet presented today outside Moscow and St. Petersburg at least, is neo-classical or contemporary. (There aren't very many steps in Wheeldon.) In many cases, new ballets (or revived Tharp works) are close enough in resemblance to Cirque de Soleil in pretzel positions, or to aerobics, or to jazzercise that they aren't immediately alien. What similar touchpoints does opera have?

Third, the attempt to humanize the performers was used famously in Bergman's Magic Flute during the intermission scenes, and is being revived with Peter Gelb's Met theater broadcasts, with all of the backstage shots -- Anna Netrebko high-fiving her colleagues backastage after an act of I Puritani for example -- and, nonetheless, opera is still the one art form that is a butt of all jokes. (I think partly because it's still acceptable to make fun of fat people.) When I search for Links, I find at least two references by sportwriters, in which an analogy between a player or play to ballet, meant as the highest compliment, appears. The shrieking huge woman with a horned helmet -- turned into the shrewish wife in "Hagar the Horrible" -- is still the poster-child for opera. This suggests a barrier and alienation far deeper than what is felt for ballet. After all, the flexible ballerina is a stereotypical heterosexual male fantasy in a way that Stephanie Blythe, who owns one of the most beautiful voices I've ever heard, is not.

Fourth, the way that ballet is sold is, "This isn't your grandfather's ballet." Opera may be sold as "Passion! Murder! Jealousy!" but it's still Carmen, La Boheme, and Don Giovanni, not something choreographed the day before yesterday. If anything, this addresses audience conservatism, not snobbery.

[dirac]

The films (by William Trevitt and Michael Nunn, a.k.a. London’s Ballet Boyz, who also danced during the season) were very good: sexy, sweaty. But their purpose, I believe, was to give the audience a toehold on the ballet before the curtain went up, and also to give them the pleasure, as they watched the piece, of recognizing steps. (“Oh, that’s the passage they were working on in the film.”) No art, not even opera, is more clad in snobbery than ballet. These little movies were an attack on that, and God bless them.

It seems to me, reading the sentence in its context, that Acocella is referring not to snobbery in the social sense but a kind of cozy insiderdom (we-understand-what’s-going-on-up-there-and-the-hoi-polloi don’t) that you do find in a certain kind of fan. ‘Clad in snobbery’ is not quite the same as saying that the art form itself is a form of snobbery, it’s saying that pleasure in ballet can take on that aspect.

Off topic, The New Yorker doesn’t seem to give us much on ballet or dance in general any more, so it was nice to see a longer piece like this one (and this is a very good article IMO).

(Wheeldon also inspired New York magazine to take notice of ballet, which hasn’t happened much since the magazine dispensed with regular dance criticism. We really do owe him a vote of thanks.)

If anything, ballet needs even MORE snobbery, not less,

Especially if it would lead to fewer Draculas.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

It seems to me, reading the sentence in its context, that Acocella is referring not to snobbery in the social sense but a kind of cozy insiderdom (we-understand-what’s-going-on-up-there-and-the-hoi-polloi don’t) that you do find in a certain kind of fan. ‘Clad in snobbery’ is not quite the same as saying that the art form itself is a form of snobbery, it’s saying that pleasure in ballet can take on that aspect.

Exactly. It's the inside baseballerishness that makes us both laugh and cringe in self-recognition when we read the The Lavender Leotard. What opera is clad in is fanatacism. Two guys duking it out over Maria Callas forty years after her death is entertaining; two crtics squabbling over who dances Balanchine better twenty years after his undoubtedly looks pointlessly arcane to the unitiated.

[bart]

Two guys duking it out over Maria Callas forty years after her death is entertaining; two crtics squabbling over who dances Balanchine better twenty years after his undoubtedly looks pointlessly arcane to the unitiated.

[kfw]

Two guys duking it out over Maria Callas forty years after her death is entertaining; two crtics squabbling over who dances Balanchine better twenty years after his undoubtedly looks pointlessly arcane to the unitiated.

I don't understand this. Why can't the uninitiated understand that people have strong opinions about things they love? If I'm interested in a subject, I'm interested in the opinions of the people who know most about that subject.

[bart]

Absolutely, kfw! As I understood Kathleen O'Connell's point, she was referring to the way these disputes often appear to those who do not come to them with a balletomane's interest and involvement. One man's meat is another man's arcanum.

[Helene]

I would say that it wouldn't be terribly arcane for two critics or fanatics to be fighting however may years later about Baryshnikov vs. Nureyev, the way opera people argue Tebaldi vs. Callas. I would liken the arguments about who performs Balanchine better to arguments about whether the Met does the best version of Don Giovanni, or whether the flame was being passed to newer companies.

I'm starting to understand the different shades of snobbiness,

On the opera side: The dinosaurs who sit in the Grand Tier and make their way into the private donor lounges to sip champagne at intermission. They might get photographed at gala XYZ, but they are usually older. Stepping into the Met is a little like entering a Carnegie library, albeit with no stairs: narrow lobby, then a phalanx of ticket takers, into the swirling and opulent interior. The barrier to entrance is as physical as it is psychological.

On the ballet side -- which between Diaghilev's Ballet Russes days and Ballet Society had ceded the turf to modern dance for quite some time, except perhaps during Nureyev's most media hip years -- the secret, "It," cliquish, "we're hip and you're not" little private, in-group enterprises. Acocella describes Wheeldon's group in terms that both Diaghilev and Ballet Society would understand; if there's a need to popularize, perhaps it's to neutralize the "in-crowd" feeling.

There's a little bit of that surrounding Peter Boal in Seattle: he's trying to build a younger audience, and I suspect he's attracting a younger donor crowd as well. (Median age in the ballet gala seats is well below that for opera.) For Seattle, he's a very glamorous figure. (We don't do well with flashy.) If I were younger and cared, I might be put off by the chic, young(er) people in all of the gala photos, because I wouldn't have belonged among their equivalent when I was their age. It wouldn't have kept me away from the art form, because I'd been attending ballet since I was a young teenager, but were one to approach it cold, the one way that people often decide if they "belong" is by seeing if people like them are doing something or going somewhere.

[dirac]

Two guys duking it out over Maria Callas forty years after her death is entertaining; two critics squabbling over who dances Balanchine better twenty years after his undoubtedly looks pointlessly arcane to the unitiated.

I don't understand this. Why can't the uninitiated understand that people have strong opinions about things they love? If I'm interested in a subject, I'm interested in the opinions of the people who know most about that subject.

There is a difference between expertise and the kind of cliquishness under discussion, I think. It is a fine line and there is much crossing back and forth, but it's there.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

Absolutely, kfw! As I understood Kathleen O'Connell's point, she was referring to the way these disputes often appear to those who do not come to them with a balletomane's interest and involvement. One man's meat is another man's arcanum.

Yes, my point exactly. I think it takes a certain level of interest and expertise to grok all the hand wringing about the Balanchine legacy. (It’s bitching at a very high level, if I may steal from Mr. Gorey ) It must be very disheartening to someone who was enthralled by their first performance of Jewels to read that what they saw was trash and that they’re really going to have to go to Miami or St Petersburg to see the genuine article. And yeah, the hand wringing over how no one’s been able to sing a note since 1966 can get pretty tedious too, but somehow it sounds more like our grandparents harkening back to their salad days in the old country than snobbery per se. In any event, a Callas - Tebaldi throwdown doesn't necessary challenge the validity of one's enjoyment of last night's HD simulcast from the Met -- you can just bring some popcorn and watch the fur fly.

"There were never any good old days

There is today, there is tomorrow

It’s a stupid thing we say

Cursing tomorrow with sorrow"

Gogol Bordello

[kfw]

Absolutely, kfw! As I understood Kathleen O'Connell's point, she was referring to the way these disputes often appear to those who do not come to them with a balletomane's interest and involvement. One man's meat is another man's arcanum.

Yes, my point exactly. I think it takes a certain level of interest and expertise to grok all the hand wringing about the Balanchine legacy. (It’s bitching at a very high level, if I may steal from Mr. Gorey )

Thank you all for your explanations. dirac is right that there is a line here easily crossed, and Kathleen paints a compelling picture of the newcomer who reads that what they were bowled over by was trash (which doesn't mean it wasn't relative trash or that it's snobbish of the critic to say so -- motive counts, and motive can be hard or impossible to discern). But when I see Wheeldon going to the opposite extreme and saying "Our ballets are sexy and we'll make them easy to follow, and we'll even tell you their names so you don't have to open your programs," I have to wonder if building an audience necessitates patronizing it and dumbing down the art form. I realize that's a bit harsh, and maybe it's more than a bit, although I don't mean it to be. But giving people titles because they're too busy socializing to learn the first thing about the program strikes me as pandering and turns me off.

[bart]

dirac's lovely phase "cosy insiderdom" describes perfectly what is considered off-putting and alienating by general audiences who attend ballet performances but are not devoted to the art form. Some of that is just social resentment, but there's also a feeling that those who "know" are not willing to share their insider information with those who don't.

People tend to feel "diminished" and possibly even intimidated by the presence of expertise that excludes them. They also don't seem to enjoy relying entirely on what they see, in the absence of comfortable and familiar cultural signposts and allusions. So it becomes a bit like: "I don't know which fork to use," which all too often leads to "I'll never put myself in a situation like that again. This fork stuff is stupid."

The average ballet audience member is simply not able or willing to put the time and effort into doing the kind of preparatory work that will help them get the most out of performances that are more than entertainment. Most audience members, in my long experience, have never read the program notes; few attend the pre-performance lectures.

Many, however, seem actually to enjoy being educated if it is done in an easily accessible, nonconsdescending manner. If flashing titles of each dance helps the average audience member to "place" the ballet before he/she sees it, and to get some frame of reference for it, however minimal, I'm all for that. Integrating filmed rehearsal footage, etc., can have its place too, if it doesn't destroy mood and concentration.

I actually love those early '30s movies that started with photos or brief clips of the lead players, their names, their characters' names, etc.. It's better then inviting audiences to the ballet, asking them to pay quite a lot for tickets, and either

-- leaving them alone to figure out what is going on (which seems to be the approach of most established companies), or

-- telling them (as some newer ballet promoters seem to do): "What you're about to see is sexy, edgy, athletic ... and dumb. You should feel quite at home."

[atm711]

It appears Accocella is in her best "Mama" mode and is protecting her young (only 34, she reminds us) charge. She even manages to read his mind:

"he hoped to lure in a new audience.....hence the curtain speech...chinos, messy hair...he seemed to be saying 'I'm not like those other ballet directors, old men in suits. I'm young and cool like you'"

The snobbery remark was the least--I've been hearing it for years but I didn't expect it from her.

[kfw]

The average ballet audience member is simply not willing or able to put the time and effort into doing the kind of preparatory work that will help them get the most out of the performances. Most audience members, in my long experience, have never read the program notes; few attend the pre-performance lectures. If flashing titles of each dance helps the average audience member to "place" the ballet before he/she sees it, and to get some frame of reference for it, however minimal, I'm all for that. Integrating filmed rehearsal footage, etc., can have its place too, if it doesn't destroy mood and concentration.

I agree about the rehearsal footage, which is akin to a pre-performance talk, although I'd find it irritating before every ballet -- sometimes I want a real surprise. But having read program notes for the title of the ballet strikes me as a very low bar. Perhaps the titling is just a touch of show biz.

We all want mindless entertainment sometimes and there is obviously nothing wrong with going to the ballet for it (I get mine cheaper!), but it seems to me a shame that so many people wouldn't want more of what's actually on offer. We know that from Ballet Society on till his death Balanchine was popular among artists. Of course many of them were under the radar of the general public at the time, but if Wheeldon can raise the money to work with leading artists from other fields, perhaps that will help to popularize his work and bring in an audience eager to meet him halfway. It sounds like that's just his plan.

When I go to the State Theater, I'm not shy about asking the person next to me, or the guy on the balcony dressed in New York black, if they are longtime viewers or at least subscribers, and then picking their brains if they are, and these people have always been happy to talk (and talk and talk, like the opera buff at the library sale checkout Sunday who ran delightfully on and on when I presented her with two opera cds). Spread the word -- we're not as snobbish as we look!

[Helene]

Kathleen paints a compelling picture of the newcomer who reads that what they were bowled over by was trash (which doesn't mean it wasn't relative trash or that it's snobbish of the critic to say so -- motive counts, and motive can be hard or impossible to discern).

That's pretty standard for opera criticism: It's fine, but it's no Bayreuth. (It's fine, but it's no Bayreuth in the 1950's.) You needed to hear Corelli live. Back in the day, the Met had Bjoerling, Tucker, Bergonzi, etc. etc. every night vs. the No Tenors of today. Of course the version you heard was terribly inauthentic, with cuts, the wrong instrumentation, etc. That high note she sang was not only in the worst taste, but it was flat as well.

Critics, professional and otherwise, constantly tell us how stupid we are for liking anything.

There is so much more information to know in opera. Not only have commercial recordings been around and extensive for over a century -- you mean you can't discuss in detail the differences between the 1952 and 1953 Keilberth Rings? -- the number of pirated recordings that are readily available is astonishing. (Don't even open your mouth if you haven't heard the live [exact date] Callas Aida from Mexico City.) That is in addition to the books and scores that exist for hundreds of years worth of music. If you're not a scholar and don't read music, play an instrument, read the libretto in the original language, and own 19 recordings of the opera you can compare on demand, you can be made to feel like the mud on the bottom of a shoe.

I've always found people at the ballet to be very generous with their knowledge, if for no other reason that they are passing down information about performances that don't exist on tape, commercially or pirated, and dancers we wouldn't necessarily know about, due to the dearth of recordings.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

Kathleen paints a compelling picture of the newcomer who reads that what they were bowled over by was trash (which doesn't mean it wasn't relative trash or that it's snobbish of the critic to say so -- motive counts, and motive can be hard or impossible to discern).

That's pretty standard for opera criticism: It's fine, but it's no Bayreuth. (It's fine, but it's no Bayreuth in the 1950's.) You needed to hear Corelli live. Back in the day, the Met had Bjoerling, Tucker, Bergonzi, etc. etc. every night vs. the No Tenors of today. Of course the version you heard was terribly inauthentic, with cuts, the wrong instrumentation, etc. That high note she sang was not only in the worst taste, but it was flat as well.

Critics, professional and otherwise, constantly tell us how stupid we are for liking anything.

There is so much more information to know in opera. Not only have commercial recordings been around and extensive for over a century -- you mean you can't discuss in detail the differences between the 1952 and 1953 Keilberth Rings? -- the number of pirated recordings that are readily available is astonishing. (Don't even open your mouth if you haven't

True indeed. A colleague once asked a mutual acquaintance if a particular recording of an opera featuring some well-known stars was worth getting. "Oh, I suppose it's a good enough version for a beginner" was the reply. The withering scorn opera fanatics can heap upon those with insufficient respect for a long-dead, cherished diva or the temerity to prefer a living one with a major recording contract and a crossover album does give one pause. Ballet has at least escaped the curse of having to explain why Andrea Boccelli shouldn't sing Werther -- I don't think ballet has anything quite equivalent to him.

Still, I think the nuances of ballet may be harder to explain than the nuances of opera, which may make it seem like coded smoke and mirrors.