68 replies to this topic

[cubanmiamiboy]

It always amazed me how a different cast can make you feel as if you just saw a completely different ballet...
That's what happened tonight...I'm not happy AT ALL with what I saw...
Matinee tomorrow, to finally make my final comments.
au revoir!

[Jack Reed]

Sorry things are going sour, Cristian, I hope only a little.  Have you noticed Symphony in Three Movements was on the Chicago program?  Maybe emilienne's impressions -- she has posted again recently, adding reflections of the Sunday matinee -- will give you another approach, from a different point of view:

http://ballettalk.in...mp;#entry257737

[Mel Johnson]

"Sylvia", though, is good to see, and shows a slightly earlier take on the grand pas de deux form by Balanchine.  Glad it's not being lost.

[Jack Reed]

No argument, Mel, and are you also gladdened by Program II's inclusion of the earlier Valse Fantaisie?  Watching them do it in Chicago, much as I like the later one -- I can still see in memory's theatre a little of a lighter-than-air performance by Judith Fugate and Daniel Duell from about 1980 -- I thought the earlier one a richer experience (four principals instead of two, after all).  

But Cristian, which was it?  Jordan Levin reported in the 24th October Herald it was Tchai pas!?  I can understand somebody making a mistake on the MCB website -- I already pointed out the out-of-sequence glimpses in the promotional clips, as though they are too stretched for somebody who knows the repertory to check up -- but for her to make a mistake like that would be a surprise.

[Paul Parish]

Mel, I agree -- Sylvia is a beautiful pdd. When Cheryl Yaeger ([sp?] used to do it with Julio Bocca, it was one of hte lightest, most beautiful things I ever saw.

Mel Johnson, on Oct 25 2009, 06:29 AM, said:

"Sylvia", though, is good to see, and shows a slightly earlier take on the grand pas de deux form by Balanchine.  Glad it's not being lost.

[bart]

Here's Jordan Levin's review in the Miami Herald.  Thanks, dirac, for posting it in Links yesterday.
http://www.miamihera...ry/1297769.html

[cubanmiamiboy]

Jack...it seems like at some point Sylvia was considered, but yes..they ended up doing TPDD. (glad they did... ).  Wondering why they didn't make the corrections on the website.

[Mel Johnson]

Nonetheless, a hopeful sign that they're holding "Sylvia" in reserve, able to "go up" with minimum tsouris.  Jack, I'd like to see them pull off "Valse-Fantasie", and still more I'd like them to do "Valse-Scherzo", if they have a proper Diana Adams cognate.  But, Jack, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" isn't German.  It's Yiddish, and by Sholom Secunda, one of the most prolific composers of the Yiddish tradition of the Lower East Side!

[Jack Reed]

Mel Johnson, on Oct 25 2009, 04:45 PM, said:

But, Jack, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" isn't German.  It's Yiddish...

Now, here I had thought Yiddish incorporated some German.  Or are we having a little leg-pull?  Anyway, as we can hear in the promo clip (around 1:27) the Andrews sisters pronounce it "shane", with the lips un-extended and the mouth open, rather than "shoen" (I have not learned how to type "o-umlaut"), with the lips extended and the mouth not so wide.  Does that make it Yiddish, not German?

But as to holding dances in reserve, this is very much a repertory company:  Several years ago, when they were adding Sonatine, they had a rash of injuries just before my weekend, and there were about as many substitutions on the list as printed cast, in everything; I got the third cast of Sonatine, even though they usually lead off with first cast on Friday evening, and the performance quality looked like old times in the New York State Theatre (except maybe for a couple of "blank spots" where apparent internal understanding seems to lapse)!  (They can play "musical chairs" or any other game that's required.)  And in other difficulties, they quickly step into something originally unscheduled but utterly ready to go when you see it.

[Jack Reed]

Or, on second thought, were you trying to correct the interpretation I had loaded onto the number, and get me to understand that the song is not about a Yank and a Fraulein, and probably wouldn't be, or would it, considering who the enemies were, but merely another pop tune of the jazzy '40's?  I don't remember anything specific to my interpretation onstage, either, so if you're trying to rein me in, thank you!  But there is something about a language barrier in the lyrics:  "I tried to explain/ Bei mir bist du schane/ So kiss me/ And say you understand!"

[Paul Parish]

"Bei mir bist du schoen" is a fabulous song, it was the Andrews sisters' breakthrough. THey were Jewish. Ella Fitzgerald did a version with some strong Klesmer allusions, it's wonderful.
There's a huge overlap between German and Yiddish, which is itself a German word ("Judisch")....

"Shane" is also a dialectal German pronunciation of "schoen" -- (cf the 60s American pop song "Danke schane")

Rhinelanders say it that way. My grandfather, who lived in New ORleans, was hte grandson of an ALsatian who landed in NO after fleeing the Franco-Prussian war, and that's how he said "schoen" --
Schoen's Funeral home on Canal st is (was?, not sure if Katrina left it standing) a familiar midtown landmark in New Orleans, and it's pronounced "shane."

"Bei" is also an expression familiar among pople of German or Jewish descent-- as in "how's by you?" (meaning "how are things with you").

Jack Reed, on Oct 25 2009, 11:30 AM, said:

Mel Johnson, on Oct 25 2009, 04:45 PM, said:

But, Jack, "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" isn't German.  It's Yiddish...

Now, here I had thought Yiddish incorporated some German.  Or are we having a little leg-pull?  Anyway, as we can hear in the promo clip (around 1:27) the Andrews sisters pronounce it "shane", with the lips un-extended and the mouth open, rather than "shoen" (I have not learned how to type "o-umlaut"), with the lips extended and the mouth not so wide.  Does that make it Yiddish, not German?

But as to holding dances in reserve, this is very much a repertory company:  Several years ago, when they were adding Sonatine, they had a rash of injuries just before my weekend, and there were about as many substitutions on the list as printed cast, in everything; I got the third cast of Sonatine, even though they usually lead off with first cast on Friday evening, and the performance quality looked like old times in the New York State Theatre (except maybe for a couple of "blank spots" where apparent internal understanding seems to lapse)!  (They can play "musical chairs" or any other game that's required.)  And in other difficulties, they quickly step into something originally unscheduled but utterly ready to go when you see it.

[Jack Reed]

This all takes me back:  I had a German grandmother who hurried me across the street with, "Let's run!  Here comes a maschine!", and we were getting acquainted about the same time as I was beginning my (informal) musical appreciation by picking up some of the songs on my Mom's pop singles, by the Andrews Sisters, among others.  I remember "Rum and Coca-Cola" better than "Bei Mir", though.  Anyway, fascinating stuff, and a pleasant way to pass the time until we find out how poor Cristian is managing.  Thanks to you both.

[cubanmiamiboy]

Jack Reed, on Oct 25 2009, 03:16 PM, said:

Anyway, fascinating stuff, and a pleasant way to pass the time until we find out how poor Cristian is managing.

...not very well in that area, Jack...to be honest.  I feel very lost...

[Jack Reed]

Hmm.  Does that apply to everything on the program?  Or maybe to the program as a whole, like, you begin to enter in to one ballet's world, and along comes another one and makes you disoriented again, so by the end, you're practically dizzy?  It wouldn't be the first time I've heard of someone getting that reaction to a mixed bill, but you're not new to that.  I don't want to pry or anything, but I'm curious.  Maybe it's something that'll resolve itself over time.

[cubanmiamiboy]

..oh no, Jack...my comment was just specifically made over my total inability to establish some kind of connection with the whole Taylor/Andrews affair...

As for the rest, it is fabulous...(even missing tutus...   )