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Suzanne Farrell in "Diamonds"


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the first, from the ballet's premiere year, 1967, partnered by d'Amboise. the retoucher's brush has worked to highlight and bring out the outline of d'Amboise's hair against the photo's blackness.

the second, from some 10 years later, 1978, after her return to the company following her years away from it starting in the spring of '69, here partnered by Peter Martins.

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Many thanks, rg! The d'Amboise photo is electrifying! Owing to both dancers in it, I mean. (Thanks for the explanation of that little cap he seems to wear, complete with a couple of shiny little ornaments. I wondered!)

the first, partnered by d'Amboise...

the second... partnered by Peter Martins.

Concerned that credit go where it's due, I hope there's no doubt as to who's who - from left to right, the third image shows the blonde Peter Martins, the fourth, climactic one, deserving the four exclamation points in rg's caption IMO, shows the dark-haired d'Amboise.

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good point, Jack, about the identifications and the order in which the scans are arranged.

i MEANT to put the fronts and backs together for clarity but i am not deft enough here to 'order' my scans when i attach them.

and as might have been noticed, i had a few mishaps w/ posting the earlier, '67, photo w/ d'Amboise - first i neglected to watermark the scan, then the watermark mistaken included a copyright mark so the watermarked scan now up is the third one of as many attempts to post it.

apologies to anyone who might have gotten confused.

and by way of apology, i attach another historic photo and caption of Farrell and d'Amboise.

this from '63 to promote Lincoln Center Day in a CBS telecast, which included Farrell dancing in the role she danced at the ballet's premiere after she replaced the intended lead, Diana Adams - MOVEMENTS FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA - and in which i suspect she's posed here.

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you are not mistaken, S. i misstated the facts (and have now corrected the topic's subtitle) - i'm so used to looking for photo credit on the back of these prints that i neglected to note that the credit for the '67 photo is clearly spelled out on the front.

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...

MOVEMENTS FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA -... in which i suspect she's posed here.

I can't speak to the pose, but the costumes would be wrong for Movements, for which she would have been entirely in white and he also, except for black tights. According to the NYPL catalog entry, that ballet was on the program with Symphony in C excerpts, which this pose is clearly not, so I wonder what we have documented here? A moment in some studio where a moment in the new ballet, just five months old, is realized in whatever the dancers happened to have on, rather than in its own dress?

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this side of asking Farrell or d'Amboise if they recall the 'subject' of their photo, i'm not so sure, it's not MOVEMENTS - the 'body language' looks right to me.

it wasn't until '65 that this work was paired with MONUMENTUM PRO GESUALDO, so it's just possible the white costuming for MOVEMENTS came into being once they were paired. as you say the CBS telecast included only excerpts of SYM IN C i;n addition to MOVEMENTS.

likewise even if MOVEMENTS was dressed in the 'whites' we know today, this could have been a rehearsal togs photo.

still, my thoughts are only thoughts, not hard facts where identifications are concerned.

here's the NYPL dance cat. listing for the telecast:

[Lincoln Center Day, Sunday 22 September 1963] 23 min.

Telecast on CBS-TV from Philharmonic Hall, N.Y.C., September 22, 1963. Narrated by Alistair Cooke and Jacques D'Amboise.

Choreography: George Balanchine. Performed by the New York City Ballet.

CONTENTS:--Symphony in C: 2nd movement (abridged). Music: Georges Bizet. Soloists: Allegra Kent and Conrad Ludlow.--Movements for piano and orchestra. Music: Igor Stravinski. Soloists: Suzanne Farrell and Jacques D'Amboise.--Symphony in C: 4th movement (abridged). Soloists: Patricia Wilde, Andre Prokovsky, Allegra Kent and Conrad Ludlow.

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... i'm not so sure, it's not MOVEMENTS - the 'body language' looks right to me.

... this could have been a rehearsal togs photo.

I think now that's the story. It wouldn't be the first time something posed in a photographer's studio - the paper backdrop is pretty obvious - is rather different one way or another from what appeared onstage. (And my thinking-out-loud looks a little picky. Nothing like a night in the theater to restore you to yourself - in this case, Rubies, Faun, and Graham's Chronicle at the Chicago Dancing Festival the night before last.)

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another photo from the premiere period of "Diamonds, this time an uncredited portrait sent to a Boston newspaper for use in '69 but likely dating from '67, when JEWELS was new.

a related photo of Farrell is reproduced in Bentley's COSTUMES BY KARINSKA where the caption notes that the headpiece was worn backwards for the photo session.

this particular print has some retoucher's brushwork around Farrell's eyes and along the line of her nose.

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I think I've seen the non-touched up picture somewhere else...her bio?

Dale, I also found this photo somehow familiar. I just checked my paperback edition of SF's autobiography. Photo No. 8 -- a head-and-shoulders shot from the much earlier Don Quixote -- is remarkably the same as to pose. Farrell is wearing a headdress, but not one extending down over the forehead. Ear rings are dangly, but the hair is up. There appears to be no retouching around the heavily made-up eyes. The photo is credited to Cecil Beaton.

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