Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Remembering Patricia McBride in performance


bart

Recommended Posts

A while ago papeteepatrick posted a tribute to Patricia McBride's performance dancing in Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux with Mikhail Baryshnikov. (*) McBride entered the New York City Ballet in 1959 and continued dancing, one the most celebrated and beloved of American ballerinas, into the 1980s. (I just learned that she played the Princess in Firebird in 1959, which means I must have seen here even then.)

McBride is often remembered as the fast, cheerful, lighthearted, witty face of Balanchine: her Swanhilda and her role in Rubies being the most celebrated examples for many. They're among the 3 or 4 roles she "owned" at NYCB. But her range was greater than that.

I'll never forget her in Dances at a Gathering and In the Night. (I was thrilled to read that Robbins actually was inspired to begin imagining Dances by observing McBride and Villella working together, intimately and with great concentration, in a studio.)

Others must have memories of their own about this marvelous dancer. Unfortunately, there isn't much on dvd to record her performances. So your memories become even more important. Please share them HERE.

To begin, here are a few photos of McBride in her signature NYCB roles:

http://www.ballerinagallery.com/mcbride.htm

And here's a recent photo. Looking pretty good! :thumbsup:

http://thewinger.com/words/wp-content/imag...0813_064838.JPG

________________________________________________________

(*) From Choreography by Balanchine, New York City Ballet, Dance in America, 1977 (Nonesuch dvd). McBride and Baryshnikov also dance Steadfast Tin Soldier on this disk.

Link to comment
And here's a recent photo. Looking pretty good! :thumbsup:

http://thewinger.com/words/wp-content/imag...0813_064838.JPG

WOW! does she ever! GORGEOUS! One of the great smiles in history! Thanks for starting this, bart.

Yes, I am totally devoted to this dancer, she is my all-time favourite. I like her even better than the men. :P

Will say more, and hopefully less giddy, later. I meantime, have to get over that ANYONE could age that well.

Link to comment

I've just reserved Arlene Croce's 'Alterimages', which I've been told has some important remarks about McBride's dancing as far back as 1971 (and perhaps even earlier.) Also, I remember myself an old review of 'Liebeslieder Walzer', which I am fairly sure is in 'Writing in the Dark', which I am also retrieving. She was talking about it at the same period I saw it when Farrell, McBride, Cook, Soto and others were dancing it. I had also seen it right after its premiere in the early 70s, and again in 2006 with Kistler, Nichols, Hubbe, and Nilas Martins, among others, but the 1985 performance was by far the most memorable.

If anyone else remembers some of these old Croce quotes before I get the books. please go ahead and share them here!

Link to comment

I don't think I can quote Croce from memory on McBride, but I think the gist was that she had an amazing technique -- I saw her when she was near the end of her career, and she still had an amazing technique: speed! speed! speed! I think it's in "Repertory in Review" where Nancy Reynolds points out that McBride was extraordinary in "La Valse," creating a completely different character than Tanaquil Le Clercq -- I'm writing this from memory, so please correct me if I'm wrong -- and I remember thinking how gutsy that was for a young dancer to do, and how right.

There was a sweetness about her dancing, too, and there was always more there than the steps. The last season I saw her dance with the company, just a year or two after Balanchine's death, I remember thinking that she looked like a guest artist in her own company. She was dancing in what they'd call now Balanchine Style -- wild arms, and a sweet joy. Everyone else was dancing correctly.

Link to comment
I don't think I can quote Croce from memory on McBride, but I think the gist was that she had an amazing technique -- I saw her when she was near the end of her career, and she still had an amazing technique: speed! speed! speed!

The first time I saw her was after she came back from maternity leave; she would have been in her late 30's at the time. Although I think her child was adopted, and that she wasn't returning after childbirth, her speed astonished me, and she left some of the younger dancers, who were barely alive when she was made principal dancer, in the dust.

Lincoln Kirstein credited her with saving the company. Joseph Mazo, in "Dance as a Contact Sport", described her extraordinary energy and stamina, letting out a little whoosh of breath backstage after an enormously difficult variation, and heading back out again, while her fellow dancers were doubled over, completely out of breath.

There was a sweetness about her dancing, too, and there was always more there than the steps. The last season I saw her dance with the company, just a year or two after Balanchine's death, I remember thinking that she looked like a guest artist in her own company. She was dancing in what they'd call now Balanchine Style -- wild arms, and a sweet joy. Everyone else was dancing correctly.

I always thought she was very true to herself as a dancer. Not that PATRICIA MCBRIDE came before the choreography, but that her dance essential qualities -- speed, joy in movement, and grace -- were always present, regardless of the work.

Link to comment
Lincoln Kirstein credited her with saving the company.

Are you speaking of when some of the other dancers were upset with the extreme attention Balanchine was giving Farrell? Only a guess, but I imagine she wouldn't have let it phase her much personally, although others did--I believe Hayden and Tallchief said things about this, and I think Kent as well. I'm just guessing still, though, so if you can (although not necessary to open that up too much as it's been discussed ad infinitum in many other threads), could you be more specific about how she 'saved the company', as I've not heard that before. It would come as little surprise that she'd be able to.

Joseph Mazo, in "Dance as a Contact Sport", described her extraordinary energy and stamina, letting out a little whoosh of breath backstage after an enormously difficult variation, and heading back out again, while her fellow dancers were doubled over, completely out of breath.

And you see that very strikingly in the Villella film, especially in contrast to the even more than usual extreme agony he was suffering throughout. She is quietly supportive of him throughout IMO.

There was a sweetness about her dancing, too, and there was always more there than the steps. The last season I saw her dance with the company, just a year or two after Balanchine's death, I remember thinking that she looked like a guest artist in her own company. She was dancing in what they'd call now Balanchine Style -- wild arms, and a sweet joy. Everyone else was dancing correctly.

I thought this in that period too, but I'm not sure it was exactly what you're talking about, I remember not only 'Liebeslieder' during that period and also the Peter Martins piece (a sweet, simple piece, maybe the only piece by him I really like), either 'Valse Triste' or something close, I believe to music by Sibelius. Do you remember this piece, Helene? I don't know if it's still done. I never saw her do 'La Valse', although I would have liked to, even though that one is pretty firmly imprinted on my mind as being an ultimate Farrell role.

Alexandra, I saw her Swanilda in 1987, and even at that late date, the technique, strength and speed were still like some force of nature. The 'wild arm Balanchine style' may have been there in some of the dancing at the time, but I mostly recall that perfect precision that was always one of her hallmarks. 'Amazing technique' is definitely the term, though, I'd agree. Close to flawless most of the time.

Link to comment

The piece was "Valse Triste". It was broadcast on Dance in America in a program with several other Martins pieces -- a Beethoven violin and piano piece for Kyra Nichols and Adam Luders, the slow movement of "Ecstatic Orange" for Heather Watts and Jock Soto, "Sophisticated Lady" for Suzanne Farrell and Peter Martins, and "Barber Violin Concerto", with Merrill Ashley, David Parsons, Adam Luders, and Kate Johnson. I'm pretty sure McBride danced it for her farewell program.

I'll have to try to remember where I read the Kirstein quote. It, too, may have been in "Dance as a Contact Sport". He may have been referring to the period when Farrell left NYCB, and Balanchine was bereft.

Link to comment
Will say more, and hopefully less giddy, later. I meantime, have to get over that ANYONE could age that well.

Yes, she has aged well---and that photo does not do her justice. During the summer I usually go to the Chautauqua Institution for a couple of weeks and she and her husband are in charge of the dance program. One of my happiest days there was sitting in on an afternoon rehearsal (in a 5,000 seat empty theatre) and watching her teach a variation to a young dancer. She also became a grandma this year.

Link to comment

Papeetepatrick, i wasn't complaining about the "wild Balanchine arms." That was part of her -- and missing from the company that season. (Now, PM's were wild THOUGHTFUL Balanchine arms. :blink: I'm not suggesting that anyone start trying to throw their arms around willynilly!) And by sweetness, I meant that there was none of the hardsell, LOOK AT MY TECHNIQUE that some dancers have.

Link to comment
Papeetepatrick, i wasn't complaining about the "wild Balanchine arms." That was part of her -- and missing from the company that season. (Now, PM's were wild THOUGHTFUL Balanchine arms. :) I'm not suggesting that anyone start trying to throw their arms around willynilly!) And by sweetness, I meant that there was none of the hardsell, LOOK AT MY TECHNIQUE that some dancers have.

Oh ha ha, I knew you weren't. :blink: In fact, I like some of the 'wild arms', especially in that Farrell performance of 'La Valse', I just had never associated it with McBride, and maybe didn't see the particular performances where that would have been more pronounced. I defintiely think 'sweetness' is something that always comes across in her dancing too. I would have never objected to the 'wild arms' with McBride either, I always just thought she was too fast to have time to do them, especially as Swanilda!

Helene, thanks. I saw her do 'Valse Triste' several times with Ib Anderson in the mid- and late-80s, and always thought it had such a bittersweet, melancholy air to it.

Link to comment
there was none of the hardsell, LOOK AT MY TECHNIQUE that some dancers have.
Oh yes. So, for relatively untutored eyes like mine, it was easy to overlook and take for granted what she did. To see McBride in the program was to know you'd have a beautifully danced performance. No worries. Sit back, feast your eyes, enjoy. I'm speaking here speacially of the roles with which she is not usually identified, but which most of the principals had to take turns dancing in the early days.

I hate to admit this, but McBride's consistency, her ability to dance almost everything at a high level, had -- perversely -- the effect of making me not look as closely as I might. That is why I regret so much the small size of her available video legacy.

Here are some of Croce's comments, taken from the 1971 essay "Balanchine's Girls" (originally published in Harper's Magazine, reprinted in the collection, After-Images, which Patrick has mentioned):

I'll start the way Croce does, juxtaposing McBride to Farrell:

Patricia McBride, who gained principal-dancer status a few years before Farrell, didn't become a star until just a few years ago. She didn't have Farrell's grandeur or silky, rippling flow of movement; she had a little, sticklike body which she has patiently taught to move deeply and expansively, 'in the round.' If Farrell was shy, McBride was shyer. Even today [1971], she is the shyest, most tenderly true, bravest, and least corruptible of classical dancers.

And here's Croce on Dances at a Gathering, the first ballet where I woke up and suddenly took notice of someone who was clearly a real artist. In the absence of readily available video, hwe need wonderful word-pictures like Croce's.

In D at a G, she's the one who seems to be carrying the whole story of the ballet around in her head, but she doesn't given any indication of what's coming; she accepts it along with the rest. She has, I think, to quite piercing movements, one performed solo and one with a partner. The first is like a stroke of anti-typecasting when Robbins has her bend low in an attitude parallel to the ground and 'swim' over it with powerful arms. That downward sink, the whole intent plunge downward, is so unlike McBride that you remember it. It foreshadows the moment at the end of the ballet when Villella touches the ground.

Later on, she is facing Anthony Blum in a supported pose far to the side of the stage. The "storm" in the Chopin scherzo .... suddenly returns, breaks into their idyll but doesn't break it up. The hold the pose, and she holds the dramatic focus alone, for a ponderably long movement, while the music pounds them both. McBride always had presence; now she has authority too, the kind an audience silently appeals to. It's the mark of a true ballerina.

Croce takes you through quite a variety of different roles -- In the Night, Girl in White in La Valse, Rubies, "Man I love" in Who Cares?, Columbine in Harlequinade, Hermia in Midsummer Night's Dream. She concludes that McBride, by not acting, became a spontaneous and intuitive dramatic actress, creating characters even in unplotted work

She doesn't decide on her effects in advance; they just happen. This quality in his dancers Balanchine seems to adore above all others, and he encourages it by leaving his ballets open to their imaginations. There are no blueprints for 'correct' interpretation.

A thought on Swanhilda. I don't know if McBride was involved Miami City Ballet's production of Coppelia, but each of the Swanhildas presented themselves with a definite "McBride" style and personality. They did so beautifully. It was quite uncanny ... and absolutely "right."

Link to comment

Papeetepatrick, re "wild arms," there was a TV broadcast of "Who Cares?" and you see them there. (I show this tape in class, and my Vaganova young dancers gasp -- in horror. :blink: It was a very good lesson on "well, there are these different styles of ballet...." but I don't think I convinced them.)

They suited her. They suited the work -- she probably wouldn't have done them in "Coppelia," come to think of it. I only saw that very early in my balletgoing, and I don't remember, sad to say.

Link to comment

Helene, I couldn't find that Kirstein quote in Dance as a Contact Sport, but I did leaf through for McBride stories:

I loved the following vignette. They're rehearsing the Divertissement from Baiser de la Fee. It's 1973.:

Helgi Tomasson and Patty McBride execute their variations at performance pitch, and win nods of approval from Mr. B. helgi leaves the floor panting; nothing seems to tire Patty. .... By tthe end, everyone is panting -- except Patty.

I remember lots of stories along this line. I wonder whether this image hasn't actually worked against McBride. People often saw her as such a phenomenon of energy and strength that they unconsciously didn't take her achievements as seriously as they might. She's universally praised -- but oddly undervalued in some ways. (Note that Croce, in the earlier quotation, is quite aware that McBride had to work hard to achieve that strength.)

Another factor that may play into this "undervaluing," if such indeed was the case, was that McBride danced so well with her male partners, and responded to them so wonderfully. That means that she is often remembered in the context of "Villella and McBride," "McBride and Tomasson," rather than for her own sake.

Link to comment
By tthe end, everyone is panting -- except Patty.
I remember lots of stories along this line. I wonder whether this image hasn't actually worked against McBride. People often saw her as such a phenomenon of energy and strength that they unconsciously didn't take her achievements as seriously as they might. She's universally praised -- but oddly undervalued in some ways. (Note that Croce, in the earlier quotation, is quite aware that McBride had to work hard to achieve that strength.)

I've been thinking about that quite a bit too, all this that you say is right on the money. It's as though it you are always reliable and consistent--even if it's anything but the 'foolish consistency'--you aren't showing the, for lack of a better term, the 'human dimension of mistake and error'. But this itself is, of course, erroneous, since always (or almost always) dancing on a supremely high level is hardly a fault. Of course, if someone needs to fall from time to time, to break the ice and get over nerves or whatever that's for, that's legit too. But I agree that this will make her undervalued in some eyes. She just found it comfortable 'way up there' like that. I think 'sticklike' is a little extreme btw, but works as a textual strategy, as it were, when placed next to Croce's extraordinary paean to Patty's 'incorruptibility' and the rest, especially like that about the 'shyness'.

Another factor that may play into this "undervaluing," if such indeed was the case, was that McBride danced so well with her male partners, and responded to them so wonderfully. That means that she is often remembered in the context of "Villella and McBride," "McBride and Tomasson," rather than for her own sake.

In that case, though, the perceivers and observers really do miss, because a female partnering of the man is just as important when it's well-done--in fact, if it is that well-done, and I certainly think hers is very sensitive indeed, it is all the more reason to celebrate yet another special gift. Also, she never tried to oversell her 'value' either: talk of 'egoless ballerinas' may apply to her more than almost any, and due in great part to her sensitivity to the man. She LOVES them! :blink: and that's just adorable. And you never see that more than in the 'Tchai Pas de Deux', she is delighted with dancing with Baryshnikov, and she's not the least bit ashamed to show it! Since Balanchine's male dancers were often thought of as more partner for the ballerina (at least in the sense of major duty--Peter Martins had no illusions that Balanchine was interested in him at first more for being the right tall partner for Suzanne than for any of his other talents, this is in 'Far from Denmark') than vice-versa, this is part of her own independence perhaps? but a very non-flamboyant self-possession, I always keep coming back to the fact that she never tried to draw attention to herself--it just happens naturally.

Link to comment
She's universally praised -- but oddly undervalued in some ways.

That kind of consistency is a curse. I remember that one of my father's common gripes was about how he'd hear Richard Tucker sing brilliantly, and the next day, the reviewer would give him one line at the end, a mention that he had sung typically well.

Link to comment
I'll have to try to remember where I read the Kirstein quote. It, too, may have been in "Dance as a Contact Sport". He may have been referring to the period when Farrell left NYCB, and Balanchine was bereft.

I remember this comment as well, and it was in reference to the post-Farrell NYCB. Don't think it was in the Mazo, but can't pin it down otherwise.

One of my big regrets is that I saw so little of McBride live. I know her best, really, through the parts that were made on her, as I see the Balanchine rep staged on other generations. And I agree, she was a phenomenal dancer.

Link to comment
Patricia McBride, who gained principal-dancer status a few years before Farrell, didn't become a star until just a few years ago. She didn't have Farrell's grandeur or silky, rippling flow of movement; she had a little, sticklike body which she has patiently taught to move deeply and expansively, 'in the round.' If Farrell was shy, McBride was shyer. Even today [1971], she is the shyest, most tenderly true, bravest, and least corruptible of classical dancers.

Croce was rather down on Farrell around then, of course, and I always thought in that particular article she was using McBride as a stick to beat the recently-departed Farrell with. One gets the impression at the time that she was quite optimistic about the ballerina prospects at the company in Farrell's wake – she’d be singing a different tune years later when Farrell came back......

Link to comment

A version of this last concept, or pair of concepts, was that Balanchine's fascination with Farrell had led him uncharacteristically to neglect the development of other leading dancers, and that after her departure he returned to his more usual way, and their development flourished again; and for the same reason -- fascination with Farrell -- his choreographic spirits sank somewhat upon her departure, and so the repertory -- or at least the quality of the premieres -- and company morale, not to mention the box office, all suffered together. Farrell's return after several years seemed providential, perking up both Balanchine, who had grown past his personal fascination, and ticket sales as well, or, as a dancer whose name escapes me was supposed to have put it, "Suzanne's coming back is the best thing she's done for us since she left." papeetepatrick refers to this above, and I mention it again not to take away anything from McBride -- indeed, although the Kirstein remark sounds new to me, I can believe it, having begun to watch the company intensively early in 1973, while Farrell was away.

Personally, McBride had a lot to do with my pleasant addiction to ballet: Her characteristically sparkling performances in Rubies, based on music which had become a minor favorite of mine, with the characteristically powerful and considerate dancing of Villella, not to mention the astonishing soloist and corps parts in this ballet, following them as I could, note by note and phrase by phrase, riveted my attention.

There were moments in their partnership in this ballet which I have not seen copied -- not all bad, Balanchine's company dancing just far enough from correct (as Alexandra described it) as never to look like a copy of anything, not even of what they'd done the day before -- and which I still remember specifically: A moment in the last movement where she's standing still for a moment, downstage, in her pin-up pose, with one hand to the back of her head and the other to her hip, when Villella came barreling across the front. As he passed directly in front of her for an instant, she lowered and raised her head slightly, changing her pleasant expression to a more dubious one, as though to say, Ahem, you're upstaging me. Another witty detail, one of her own, apparently, making this ballet dazzle all the more.

But McBride didn't sparkle in everything. In the Night, as I recall, didn't call for that, but for other strengths, which, always appropriately, she brought to it, with her essential delicacy.

Link to comment

dirac, I suspect you're right. Croce refers several times to what she called (in 1979) the "very dissimilar styles" of Farrell and McBride. Was it possible to talk about any ballerina in the context of NYCB without bringing up comparisons with Farrell? I wonder.

Here, for example, is Croce comparing McBride and Farrell in the Autumn section of Robbins' Four Seasons (1979). Robbins created slightly differing versions of the ballerina part for each dancer. I saw Farrell in this, not McBride. Did anyone see both? Or McBride alone?

Temperamentally and technically, the role of the ballerina suits Suzanne Farrell better than it does Patricia McBride. One might know that without seeing McBride do it. Seeing her, one might not know it. Robbins always composes felicitously for McBride; she has difficulty only with a few of the uncentered pirouettes that are a Farrell specialty, and she does chaines instead of the string of double soutenu turns that Farrell knows off. And she doesn't in Baryshnikov have the superbly sensitive partner that Farrell has in Martins.

Croce seems to fall into a routine when discussing McBride at length: praise McBride for her strengths, especially in her personal repertoire; compare her with Farrell, referencing a limitation or two; and then -- it seems inevitable -- drop her to focus exclusively on Farrell. The Farrell years were a tricky time to be a NYCB ballerina.

Here's a Croce observation from later in McBride's career: 1988, 29 years after her first NYCB performances. This essay, like the one in 1971, puts McBride in the context of Farrell and other Balanchine ballerinas. The unifying theme here is "dancer's who've had long careers." I've added paragraph breaks for easier reading.

Farrell is not alone in what she is still able to show of the accomplishments of a senior ballerina. Patricia McBride is right there beside her. McBride was never the company figurehead that Farrell was from the start, and she isn't responsible for so large and crucial a segment of the repertory, although she, too, has the incomparable advantage of special roles that Balanchine either tailored or retailord for her.

She is physically and stylistically unorthodox -- something that was less easy to see in the days when physical diversity among the ballerinas was more extreme than it is now -- and she has an unorthodox method of rendering her old parts: she secretes herself in a "through" current of energy and lets it (and a good partner) carry her. The method -- if that is what it is -- works, but compared with last year's Liebeslieder Walzer, the McBride of this year's Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet is noticeably more recessed.

McBride is a few years younger than Makarova [who had just retired] and a few years older than Farrell. Now that her technique is fraying, we see how deep her strength lies. It's the kind of strength that Balanchine relied on to shape the ballerina repertory. And as we watch McBride and Farrell maneuver inside their roles we see not only strength but the imagination that also played a part in the process. (**)

_______________________________

(*) Arlene Croce, "Other Verdi Variations," Going to the Dance, (1982)

(**) Arlene Croce, "Hard Facts," Writing in the Dark (2000)

Link to comment

Thanks for the quotes, bart. I was just recalling some of that imagination in McBride's prime while you were posting. It was always there, when I was looking anyway, not just late on, as the quote might be taken to imply.

I think it wasn't responsible, even if it was possible, to think about NYCB without reference to Farrell, while she was there. It's not exactly that Farrell set the standard, but if anything, she happened to exemplify Balanchine's... approach. (I was going to say his philosophy.)

Link to comment
A moment in the last movement where she's standing still for a moment, downstage, in her pin-up pose, with one hand to the back of her head and the other to her hip, when Villella came barreling across the front. As he passed directly in front of her for an instant, she lowered and raised her head slightly, changing her pleasant expression to a more dubious one, as though to say, Ahem, you're upstaging me. Another witty detail, one of her own, apparently, making this ballet dazzle all the more.
This kind of eye contact -- an awareness and appreciation of her partner even when, as it sometimes seems, they are dancing in their own personal groove -- is something I definitely remember.

Villella was from Queens. I had a teenage girl cousin from Queens who would have loved hanging out after dark and having a good time with Villella and his boys. (Elvis was more her fantasy type, or the world West Side Story, but I don't think she ever went to the ballet.)

The Rubies gang are kids existing in an urban world that's halfway between the innocence of teen street movies of the 40s and the darker, more dangerous side of being young in cities that were turning up in 60s films. There's carefree charm and attitude, but also a little bit of danger.

McBride dances alone at times, as does Villella. But with her, I always had a sense that she was in contact with her man. Establishing a relationship on stage -- especially in a plotless ballet -- isn't easy. It was one of McBride's strengths, I'd say.

Link to comment
Croce was rather down on Farrell around then, of course, and I always thought in that particular article she was using McBride as a stick to beat the recently-departed Farrell with.

I doubt it. Farrell didn't need to be 'beaten' as she'd only been herself, what happened was an 'it takes two to tango' matter; Farrell was listening to herself when she made her decisions. Croce was comparing them both favorably to each other, pointing out their different assets. And when I get the 'Writing in the Dark' collection, I'll quote what she says about the 'Liebeslieder Walzer' production, in which she again compares them, but this time onstage together, and says of Mcbride (I think this is the quote, but I have to wait) 'she is as fascinating as Farrell.' Of course she loved Farrell, who doesn't? but I think she compared them in the most intelligent way possible.

A moment in the last movement where she's standing still for a moment, downstage, in her pin-up pose, with one hand to the back of her head and the other to her hip, when Villella came barreling across the front. As he passed directly in front of her for an instant, she lowered and raised her head slightly, changing her pleasant expression to a more dubious one, as though to say, Ahem, you're upstaging me. Another witty detail, one of her own, apparently, making this ballet dazzle all the more.

That's an excellent example of her own brilliant relationship with her partners. She is always very overtly appreciative of them. That's part of her tremendous appeal to me.

Croce refers several times to what she called (in 1979) the "very dissimilar styles" of Farrell and McBride. Was it possible to talk about any ballerina in the context of NYCB without bringing up comparisons with Farrell? I wonder.

No, but it was the obvious dissimilarity that made her capable of appreciating both quite unreservedly IMO. The fact that they were so dissimilar is what made them the greatest two ballerinas dancing for Balanchine during some years, even though Farrell had the bigger profile, and Croce is right about 'Farrell's grandeur'. But her partners are servants to a great degree. What Jack writes about McBride and Villella is a kind of interaction with the male partner I never saw with Suzanne and any of her partners (nor should it have been, she was something more of a 'sacred object'. )

she secretes herself in a "through" current of energy and lets it (and a good partner) carry her. The method -- if that is what it is -- works, but compared with last year's Liebeslieder Walzer, the McBride of this year's Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet is noticeably more recessed.

This is superlative, the use of the word 'secretes', and I think is the key to understanding what McBride always did. Now that is inspired, because McBride always had a way of 'secreting'. She never didn't have a sense of secreting, and that is something of what bart and i were discussing some months back about her 'quiet inaccessiblity'. Farrell and McBride both 'secreted' (just love that as a verb) themselves, but, here again, in dissimilar ways. Patty smiles, and very naturally, a lot more than Suzanne ever does.

McBride is a few years younger than Makarova [who had just retired] and a few years older than Farrell. Now that her technique is fraying, we see how deep her strength lies. It's the kind of strength that Balanchine relied on to shape the ballerina repertory. And as we watch McBride and Farrell maneuver inside their roles we see not only strength but the imagination that also played a part in the process. (**)

Again, Croce here (at least) just can't keep her eyes off either of them (and I never could either.)

Thanks for the quotes, bart. I was just recalling some of that imagination in McBride's prime while you were posting. It was always there, when I was looking anyway, not just late on, as the quote might be taken to imply.

I think it wasn't responsible, even if it was possible, to think about NYCB without reference to Farrell, while she was there. It's not exactly that Farrell set the standard, but if anything, she happened to exemplify Balanchine's... approach. (I was going to say his philosophy.)

I don't think Farrell exemplified Balanchine's approach or 'philosophy' in the purest sense that he defined it verbally, most likely McBride did this. What Farrell did was to take it beyond what he provided her with explicitly, and he knew that she was going ahead and producing some of the work herself that was not purely his own, but he was in love with it more than anyone else's, and so therefore she had a degree of freedom to, perhaps, 'choreograph' within his choreography more than any other ballerina. That was part of Croce's 'grandeur of Farrell'. Sure, everybody knows she had that.

Link to comment
That's an excellent example of her own brilliant relationship with her partners. She is always very overtly appreciative of them. That's part of her tremendous appeal to me.
Patrick, we were both posting at the same time, so I ended up making the identical point.

McBride seems to be one of those celebrated dancers whose career -- the partners, the roles, the performances, the impressions she made on people -- must now be patched together from bits and pieces from reviews, memoirs, etc.

For example, I just came across a brief reference to her guesting for Todd Bolender at the Kansas City Ballet in 1981. Her partner: Alexander Gudonov. :wink::D They danced pas de deux from Giselle and Corsaire. Wouldn't you have loved to see THAT performance. :P

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...