49 replies to this topic

[cubanmiamiboy]

Let's open a thread to discuss MCB Program II, which is just around the corner-(and the new year). The program will include this new work, "Viscera" by RB's Liam Scarlett.  Has anybody seen anything from this guy before..? From the website's photo I'm already getting an idea of the type of work this could be.  Humm .  Let's see, there's always hope.


Ballet Imperial, WELCOME!..  

Any thoughs...?


January 6 - 8
Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House

Miami City Ballet presents Program II:

Viscera (Scarlett/Liebermann) -- WORLD PREMIERE -- Liam Scarlett, The Royal Ballet's most successful young choreographer, accepted a commission from Miami City Ballet to create his first work for an American company. A coup! Using a challenging score for orchestra and piano, Piano Concerto No. 1 by the renowned American composer Lowell Liebermann, Scarlett's Viscera gives us a complex and urgent ballet, specifically created to reflect what he sees as MCB's outstanding dance qualities of energy, passion, musicality and radiance. Viscera is beautifully structured (a ravishing pas de deux is book-ended by two driven group sections), meticulously crafted and gut-wrenching. Costume designs for Viscera have also been created by Scarlett.

In the Night (Robbins/Chopin) Three stages of love – flirtation, passion and intimacy – are experienced through three glamorous pas de duex – all danced against a star-studded night sky and to Chopin's ravishing piano music.

Ballet Imperial (Balanchine/Tchaikovsky) This plotless masterpiece pays homage to the spirit and grandeur of imperial St. Petersburg. Balanchine described it as "a contemporary tribute to Petipa, the father of classical ballet, and to Tchaikovsky, his greatest composer."

[Birdsall]

cubanmiamiboy, on 30 December 2011 - 07:32 AM, said:

Let's open a thread to discuss MCB Program II, which is just around the corner-(and the new year). The program will include this new work, "Viscera" by RB's Liam Scarlett.  Has anybody seen anything from this guy before..? from the website photo I'm already getting an idea from the type of work this could be...humm .  Still, there's always hope.


Ballet Imperial, WELCOME!..  

Any thoughs...?


January 6 - 8
Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House

Miami City Ballet presents Program II:

Viscera (Scarlett/Liebermann) -- WORLD PREMIERE -- Liam Scarlett, The Royal Ballet's most successful young choreographer, accepted a commission from Miami City Ballet to create his first work for an American company. A coup! Using a challenging score for orchestra and piano, Piano Concerto No. 1 by the renowned American composer Lowell Liebermann, Scarlett's Viscera gives us a complex and urgent ballet, specifically created to reflect what he sees as MCB's outstanding dance qualities of energy, passion, musicality and radiance. Viscera is beautifully structured (a ravishing pas de deux is book-ended by two driven group sections), meticulously crafted and gut-wrenching. Costume designs for Viscera have also been created by Scarlett.

In the Night (Robbins/Chopin) Three stages of love – flirtation, passion and intimacy – are experienced through three glamorous pas de duex – all danced against a star-studded night sky and to Chopin's ravishing piano music.

Ballet Imperial (Balanchine/Tchaikovsky) This plotless masterpiece pays homage to the spirit and grandeur of imperial St. Petersburg. Balanchine described it as "a contemporary tribute to Petipa, the father of classical ballet, and to Tchaikovsky, his greatest composer."

I'm going to see the Jan. 27 8pm performance at the Kravis Center with my mother. Can't wait! I love *In the Night* and *Ballet Imperial!* Keeping an open mind for Viscera. Wonder who will dance what! If anyone else will be at the Kravis on Jan. 27 maybe we could have a meeting in the lobby at intermission. Just a thought.

[cubanmiamiboy]

"In the Night" can get a bit too slow for my taste, I must confess, but it is doubtless a beautiful work, even without my less than perfect appreciation.  "Ballet Imperial", again, is a work that I would love to see in its original tutu-ed/backdrop incarnation.
I like the idea of a pre or post performance meeting, BB..! Let's try to get bart into it...  

[Jack Reed]

I hope to see the performances over the first weekend in February in Ft. Lauderdale, in spite of the prospect of having my gut wrenched, mainly in the hope of seeing Mary Carmen Catoya in Ballet Imperial, to speculate about casting.  I wouldn't be surprised to see a performance of this by Jeannette Delgado as well, although there is precedent for Catoya to do four performances of this in one weekend!

Nice of the copy-writer to give some idea what's in store for viewers of In the NIght, although I think it would have been even better to have included the fourth dance, in which the couples dance separately and together:  "The women meet, the men bow.  The social scale is balanced, the contract is re-confirmed."  (Quoting Robert Sealy, writing in Ballet Review, as quoted by Nancy Reynolds in "Repertory in Review".)  Coming soon after Dances at a Gathering, this was Robbins's first ballet to deal with mature people, according to Arlene Croce (also from Reynolds).

Reynolds agrees with the hommage idea for the original Ballet Imperial, prepared for a tour through South America in 1941.  "[It] was created to show South America that the classical tradition was alive and well in the North - South America, with its ornate opera houses in Rio, Buenos Aires, Lima; the United States, where Ballet Caravan had danced in high school auditoriums...  Balanchine decided against another Sleeping Beauty or Giselle; he was not interested in reviving the classical tradition, but in revitalizing it (and how could he bring from America a ballet with kings and queens?).  Hence, his hommage to the old by means of the new.
...

The ballet was created as a vehicle for Marie-Jeanne, who is still remembered thirty years later for the brilliance and speed of her jumps and beats and the clarity of her movements.  ("She took off like greased lightning," said a colleague.)"

Exactly, and its revival fit Catoya just that way.

[cubanmiamiboy]

I do remember Catoya in this, Jack, and she was indeed wonderful.

[Birdsall]

Cristian, if you will be at the Jan. 27 Kravis performance we should plan a meeting, and the other Bart should come too. It can be inside the Kravis somewhere....just to say, "Hi," since we are all online! Fun to meet actual people. Anyone else who is reading who will attend, let us know.

Not sure how we would find each other though. I know some opera lists created a pin or simply set a time and place to meet like at a restaurant, and I have gone to a few meetings over the years at operas.

[Jack Reed]

I'll leave the three of you to work this out, of course, and if you want to see more performances, it would be interesting to meet in Ft. Lauderdale.  (Cristian and I know each other from there.)  Some kind of plan doesn't hurt, but having got each other's cell numbers via PM can be sufficient, IIRC.

[mira]

excited about seeing opening night and Jennifer Kronenberg in Viscera.   :-)

[cubanmiamiboy]

mira, on 31 December 2011 - 10:13 AM, said:

excited about seeing opening night and Jennifer Kronenberg in Viscera.   :-)

"Viscera"...Hummm...Intriguing.

[bart]

Positive reports on Scarlett's work for the Royal -- including major UK newspapers -- make me hope for something interesting..  Glad it's not just pas de deux (like MCB's Wheeldon), but includes ensemble. Also glad that Scarlett was in Miami to select the dancers to work with.  The choreographer/dancer chemistry seems to have been quite good.

It would be nice to have a work we'll really want to see as a regular in the MCB rep -- and which will have the legs to travel to other companies.

Ballet Imperial is the Program II highlight for me.  Hoping for the first Paris cast (Catoya, Penteado, Patricia Delgado) for opening night..

[bart]

Ouor Friday LINKS thread included an article on Scarlett, written by Roslyn Sulcas.  Thanks, dirac, for catching this so quickly.  (It didn't get into the print edition until Sunday.)

There's a nice,  big photo of Scarlett working with Leigh-Ann Esty, with Callie Manning watching with super-concentration from the sidelines.

Quote

Unlike many ballet choreographers today he uses a vocabulary and aesthetic that are resolutely classical. He finds influences not in the more extreme athleticism and movement exploration exemplified by William Forsythe or Wayne McGregor, the Royal Ballet’s resident choreographer, but in a more academic tradition.
“The thing that is wonderful for a British audience is that Scarlett is steeped in the holy trinity: the 19th-century classical tradition, Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan,” said Debra Craine, the chief dance critic of The Times of London. “He is a very supple classical linguist, but like any modern kid today he is versed in contemporary work too.”
Mr. Scarlett’s choreography does have a decidedly 21st-century resonance, an idiosyncratic way of using gesture and partnering that feels like an honest representation of his own world.

Quote

Mr. Scarlett said his new work for Miami City Ballet, set to a score by Lowell Liebermann, had brought out a different dynamic in his style.
“The dancers were amazing,” he said. “There was nothing they wouldn’t try, and I wanted to do a very forceful, aggressive piece to show what they are great at, which is knocking the socks off the audience.”
The Miami commission may well catapult Mr. Scarlett into the wider dance world. He has already had inquiries, he said, from several dance companies in the United States and has plans to create a work for the Norwegian Ballet this year and another piece for Miami, in addition to two new pieces (one with Jonathan Watkins) planned for the Royal Ballet.

A Cherub's Classical Vocabulary

[cahill]

Here is the Review by Jordan Levin from the Miami Herald.  I am looking  forward to the reviews here on BT!

http://www.miamihera...h-new-fire.html

[Birdsall]

Thanks for posting, Cahill! Now I am excited to see Viscera. I like the other pieces too, so it should be a fun night!

[dirac]

cubanmiamiboy, on 31 December 2011 - 11:04 AM, said:

mira, on 31 December 2011 - 10:13 AM, said:

excited about seeing opening night and Jennifer Kronenberg in Viscera.   :-)

"Viscera"...Hummm...Intriguing.

I just hate it when choreographers spill their guts.

[cubanmiamiboy]

Due to a last minute trip on the weekend I wasn't able to attend the Miami performances, but I will try to catch those in Fort Lauderdale.  Will report back.