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"And not your yellow hair" - Do looks matter to you in balle


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A few points:

"For Anne Gregory" is a wonderful poem. The point of view bounces around from stanza to stanza (there are only three of them), it has an unforgetable image "...those great honey-coloured/Ramparts at your ear" and is full of Yeatsian wit.

Regarding "political correctness", which, thank goodness, comes up less in discussion than a few years ago: I am completely in favor of political correctness. Also artistic correctness, sporting correctness and many other types.

My own definition is very simple--if you agree with me you are correct. If not, not. Apply to any form of human endeavor. This is a joke, by the way.

Regarding beauty in ballet--at least it is not as fiercely debated a topic as in opera!!

There are several threads to it in opera. One is the dramatic soprano problem. Many (by no means all) sopranos able to sing the big dramatic roles--Isolde, Brunhilde, Turandot, the "Trovatore" Leonore, the "Fidelio" Leonore--are HUGE. Not just overweight, but National Football League offensive lineman bordering on Sumo wrestler huge. And since most of these characters are incredibly beautiful there is a very strong cognative dissonance.

It is also true that many of the tenors for the big dramatic roles opposite these sopranos--Tristan, Siegfried, Calif, Manrico, Florestan--are no less large. There is very little discussion of their body type not fitting the role, though, although a recent review of a Tristan and Isolde said the protagonists looked like two canned hams propped against a couch.

Another side of the casting by looks question in opera has to do with the practices of American conservatories and graduate voice programs. They are increasingly producing very attractive young women who have been pushed into the heavier lyrico-spinto and dramatic rep long before their instrument can handle it. So you have a production of Salome with a singer who looks the part of the Judean princess, can handle the Dance of the Seven Veils without a double and who everyone loves. And who has a five year performing career followed by a lengthy vocal crisis and then begins teaching.

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Bravo, Ed:

One of the most glorious evenings of my entire life was Seattle Opera's Tristan und Isolde with the notably rotund Ben Heppner and the..er...shall we say...rather earthbound Jane Eaglen. The statospheric vocal artistry of this duo surpassed any visual obstacles presented by their Olympian girth. And what about the tremendous (in all ways) Monserrat Caballe? To think that we might be losing the next MC because Opera schools are "going for looks" sends shivers down my spine. An EDUCATED audience knows what to listen for and when to look.

I hear that opera choruses across the country are starting to cast for looks, and are losing depth of sound.

That's like casting ballet corps for their singing abilities!

Render unto Ceasar...

Watermill

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It's off topic, but while I quite agree about the danger of casting opera according to looks, I have to say that Ms. Eaglen's girth did give me pause when I saw her live. Even by lenient operatic standards, the lady is large. Under ideal circumstances the voice would compensate, but Flagstad she ain't, to put it bluntly. As it was, I kept wondering about the terrible strain that her internal organs must be put to, bearing the burden of all that lard; at one point I was counting chins. I don’t recall Caballé being quite that big.

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Well, I will never again be able to hear the Liebestod without thinking of the deli counter. That is one of the most unforgettable comparisons I have ever been privileged to read........

I have been going to opera for more years than you get to hear about, and I still have never figured out why they have to be so fat. Solid, yes, vocally strong, yes....... but Jane Eaglen makes Nilsson look like Tinkerbelle. They are getting fatter and fatter. I have accustomed myself to the Wagnerian repertory needing extra yardage, that is the way it always has been......but why not just limit it to an extra hundred pounds or so? That would seem to produce all the strength necessary.....you cannot tell me that great beefy limbs are necessary for vocal purity.

I am not advocating pushing singers into a particular repertory because of their appearance, but I sincerely believe that the size of a great many singers is just as ruinous to their careers due to the health risks involved.

Back to beauty........sorry for the tangent---it is a wide one, I know, but I really did love the canned hams image!

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All I can reiterate is that Jane Eaglen on that night could have weighed three thousand pounds and it would not have mattered.

Opera is primarily about music for me, not about acting or staging.

It's funny that you should mention the glorious Flagstad, dirac, because we all agreed that not since Flagstad had there been a prettier sounding Isolde than Eaglen's.

I do agree that enormity is a visual obstacle, and that it surely brings health problems. Caballe's long career is perhaps an exception.

But as you said, Juliet, this is a wide tangent (*wink*)

The Deli is closed!

Back to Ballet Beauty!

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I have to weigh in on this topic's tie-in to opera. There is a Kirov opera soprano named Anna Netrebko who was Natasha in last season's War & Peace and is to be Donna Elvira (I believe) in Don Giovanni this season. She is wonderful singer and is as svelte and beautiful as any ballerina. It is such a joy to both see and hear her!!! About 95% of the time, opera goers suspend belief (think of all the 200 lbs. Violettas dying of consumpton, etc.), and still come away with a satisfying feeling if the singer is top-notch. However, when one has it all -- as has a Ms. Netrebko -- it's just icing on the cake.

I do very much agree with Farrell Fan though that at the ballet all the dancers are beautiful. It's the art of ballet to make the human body as beautiful as possible, and I can truthfully say that I have never seen an "ugly" ballet dancer. In my opinion, they are as elegant a breed as exists. Just the way they carry themselves puts them head and shoulders over Hollywood stars, fashion models, etc., you name it.

Major Digression on the "looks" issue: I was very, very upset by the back cover of NYCB's season brochure which, in my eyes, protrayed ballet dancers with dishevelled hairdos, without make-up, in slouching positions, and definitely with "attitudes" (but not ballet attitudes). For the first time, I didn't see these wonderful dedicated people as ballet dancers; they almost looked like young "punks." I was offended on behalf of the dancers. Is this really the way management at NYCB sees its dancers and wants them to be perceived? That photo would never have been used in Mr. Balanchine's era. Never, never, never, never, never.

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You know, Bobbi, this isn't really a digression. I was also pretty disgusted by the brochure for the NYCB Winter Season. OK, we have yet another picture of Maria K in That Dress...yes we know she has long legs and wears her hair down and can look like a model on a rooftop. Is this a Seventeen shoot? Thats how it appeared (it was not chic or interesting enough for a Vogue shoot.)

The back cover was not only unflattering, it wasn't remotely about ballet, or dance or anything other than a group of dancers sitting on a rooftop with a lamentable lack of makeup. Remember how Balanchine always spoke about "presenting yourself?" Can you imagine Danilova sitting around on a rooftop sans coiffure and in an unflattering angle? Right. Neither can I.

How embarrassing for the dancers....all that work, sweat, years of training and they are on the cover of a national publication looking like they've just finished prepping for their SATs. (Not like they've been up all night partying, for then at least they'd have on interesting clothes and no one wears clothes like dancers.) Pretty bad job, I say--not edgy, comical, interesting, let alone indicative of the range of the company.

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Thank you for raising this issue, Bobbi. Juliet, I was cheering each sentence :)

At first, I had a momentary lapse, I'll admit. "Well, Balanchine has been dead for nearly 20 years and times change." Having washed my mouth out with soap, I remember reading that one of the reasons Balanchine had Danilova and Doubrovska on the faculty was so that all these brash American girls so immersed in pop culture could have Old World, grand ballerina role models. These were not a dime a dozen in Balanchine's day, either, but he found them. Image may not be everything, but it counts for a lot -- this kind of image, anyway.

Perhaps they'll get a lot of complaining letters......

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Having said that physical beauty is not a large issue with me, let me qualify that earlier statement by recalling two women of not-that-distant memory.

Nanette Glushak was probably the most gorgeous girl of her years at SAB. She continued on in NYCB and ABT to be a stunningly beautiful face and body, a first-class mind and a dancer of no mean achievement. I saw a recent photo of her as Director of the Capitole Ballet in Toulouse - "age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety." An ageless glamour!:)

Second, I recall a soloist with the Kirov in 1964. Her name was Inessa Korneyeva. She was not much to look at, in fact she rather resembled the Russian branch of the Gump family, she had so little chin! But then, when she started to move...ah.... I never saw her again after that season; I have often wondered what happened to her.

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Originally posted by dancermom2

That's the point...if hair color is associated with a role in ballet and it's blonde or brunette...would an Asian or Black dancer be cast in the role?  So when will Albert Evans get used more?  Or Aesha Ashe in a traditional role associated with blonde or brunette hair let alone skin color?

Unfortunately, even in 2002, slowly, carefully and to my dismay rarely. Aesha Ashe had to "fight" a few years ago to get cast in Snow....as the thought was Snow is white....no color, anywhere. If memory serves me correctly, she was Arabian in the Nutcracker that year and the only principal divertissement not also listed in the Snow cast.

Casting people of color will depend greatly on the Artisitic director's views as well as the pocket books of the donors who in alot of cases are still very old in thought. These are the people who profess their hearts are clear of racist thoughts but would complain or be uncomfortable if Romeo was of color and Juliet was not. There are several places (Houston, Atlanta, Miami, etc) where casting the best dancer for the part has been done successfully regardless of hair color, ethnicity, etc. But there are some places where they are still fighting this part of the battle and how to deal with it.

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Thank you both, Alexandra and Juliet, for your supporting comments re the NYCB photo in my last post. I had been festering inside about it for months, and it's good to know that there are other balletomanes who do not like it either. To me, the choice of that photo -- even the fact that it was conceived at all as a promotional piece --- says a lot about what's happening at NYCB right now: the Powers That Be at NYCB really do seem to be bored by the art of ballet. I've never seen -- and don't expect to ever see -- a cover like that on a brochure for ABT, the Kirov, the Royal, etc.

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phew... I'm glad someone else said it first, thank you Bobbi!

I was beginning to think I was becoming cyncial on the NYCB front.

The brochure looks like a model shoot gone bad. It's as though they're trying to elevate the dancers to "calvin klein ad" status instead of through their art. The photographer is a trendy, Vogue-ish photographer, even the Empire State Building looks "miscast" in the picture.

For the life of me, I just can't figure out "where's the ballet"

but for the past few years, NYCB has been getting away from its "roots" and they started out these new photo campaigns and up until now, at least the women had costumes on as opposed to their class clothes.

Dancers are beautiful, but one of the reasons their beautiful also lies in their talent, most don't transcend well into fashion models.

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With all due respect to my friend Bobbi, whose opinions I value, I don't see what's so terrible about that photo. It seems a natural progression from the kind of photos NYCB has been using in recent years -- Peter Boal at the Unisphere in Flushing Meadow, Helene Alexopoulos at the parachute jump in Coney Island, Albert Evans nuzzling Janie Taylor at Grant's Tomb, Kyra Nichols in New York Harbor with, alas, the World Trade Center in the background, and on and on. (True, in those photos, the dancers wore recognizable costumes.) This is a photo on a rooftop with the Empire State Building in the background, and seems part of a continuing attempt to identify NYCB with New York City landmarks. The appearance of the dancers harks back to some photos by Arthur Elgort in the 1980 NYCB souvenir book. There were several group shots of corps dancers and soloists in that, including one in which Stacy Caddell and Darla Hoover were sprawled on a grand piano.

Personally, I bemoan the fact that NYCB ever got away from using performance photos exclusively -- although there are many of Paul Kolnik's shots inside the brochure in question. But what I really hated was when they banished the old NYCB logo of Orpheus's lyre by Isamu Noguchi, thereby denying their heritage. in favor of an upside-down pyramid and generic lyre. If I'd had access to Ballet Alert when that happened, there would have been a whole lot of bleeping going on.

Excuse the digression.

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Mel Johnson wrote:

   Nanette Glushak was probably the most gorgeous girl of her years at SAB. She continued on in NYCB and ABT to be a stunningly beautiful face and body, a first-class mind and a dancer of no mean achievement. I saw a recent photo of her as Director of the Capitole Ballet in Toulouse - "age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety." An ageless glamour!

I had to restrain my usual response to such a statement, which would be YOU DA MAN!!! or something equally strident and vulgar.

We saw Nanette Glushak a few years ago, when her the Capitole Ballet in Toulouse stopped at a community college auditorium in the suburbs of Detroit. It was at the same time that the U. S. Postal Service issued the ballerina stamp. Before the show, a local postmaster presented her with a large reproduction of the stamp. She accepted it onstage.

She was wearing high heeled boots, dark brown leather slacks and a heather turtleneck sweater with the sleeves pushed up. She looked great, but would have looked great in a burlap bag.

Without overstating the case, Ms. Glushak has the presence and looks that would make a man consider forfeiting his birthright.

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Farrell Fan, thanks for your input and your kind comments. And I very much return the feeling of respect for your opinions.

That being said, I never went "off the wall" before about these types of photo. All the prior publicity photos that you listed had the dancers in costumes, with makeup and, if not in classic ballet poses (i.e., the Albert Evans photo you mentioned, which I liked by the way). In other words, they were recognizable as ballet dancers. This latest photo could have been take outside of most high schools/colleges at lunch time: they looked likely your typical teens/young adults -- and very bored and sloppy ones at that.

I strongly feel that dancers should be portrayed as they are: as extraordinarily lovely creatures who inhabit a very special and -- dare I say it -- aristocratic world very much different from the everyday world we live in. If the art of ballet did not already exist, it certainly would not be "invented" in today's world.

Oh boy, I am getting more and more off topic so I had better sign off.

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I've gotten a kick out of everyone's response to the NYCB brochure photos. The one thing I like about the back cover shot is the lack of make-up. I always think pretty girls are prettier without it, at least offstage.

To my mind, offstage NYCB publicity shots have been silly and pretentious for years now, especially ones with the begowned girls in the forest. But the Evans-Taylor shot was the worst. If you're sharing an intimate moment, Janie, what are you looking at us for? I thought that was in lousy taste.

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I have to wonder as well why some companies are so reticent to promote ethnicity as beauty.We all know that Boston is not the most open minded of cities,so why can't the ballet companies in the area open the publics' eyes to what beautiful can be?It doesn't have to be blonde or brunette or short or tall.It can be all of those things.I get disappointed when I go to see Boston Ballet and they have only one black woman in the company and they don't even use her.she is a good dancer.Perfectly capable of dancing the rep,so it makes me wonder why she is always being hidden.The ironic thing is that there is "City dance" which is a program for underprivelidged minority children and another program for minority teens to build self estheem.How are these children and teenagers going to feel beautiful and comfortable about being black when the one black woman in the company is hidden away?The funny thing is that she is attractive.She stands out in a very positive way,but she is never given the 'tender"roles and from what I've heard this season,she isn't even dancing in the first program.Ok,to be fair,they do promote Adrianna Suarez and her husband Gianni DiMarco,but in my opinion,beauty doesn't stop woth Latino.It is all encompassing.I heard that Erika Lambe(the black woman) did sugar plum fairy during AnnaMarie Holmes' last season.what a wonderful way to be progressive.Boston Ballet has never had a black sugarplum fairy.My question is why was it a secret?Nobody knew about it.She danced a couple of school matinees and that was it.How terrific it must have been for the little black children in the audience to see a Sugarplum Fairy that looked like them....It isn't just Boston Ballet,but many companies who still cater to the 19th century idea of beauty.It is the 21st century and beauty in dance is in the movement and musicality of a dancer,not the color of their hair ,or skin.I have noted another trend with BB and the Asian contingent.They tend to cast them all together,or make them alternate with each other.Why is that?I hope this wasn't too "out there"...

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bijoux, i don't think erika lambe's sugar plum was so much a secret as something that wouldn't normally be advertised. she is in the corps and she was getting the chance that, each season, some corps people get, to test the waters, i would say, to see how they do. typically they'll get matinees, a couple of performances that season. now of course they have a new director, so whatever might have been in anna-marie holmes' mind won't be followed up on. however, in agreeing that these dancers don't always get a chance with their companies, i'll point out that the first black sugar plum and prince i ever saw were lydia abarca and paul russell of dance theatre of harlem, who were hired as guest artists by ruth page for her nutcracker in the 1970s, and in that same production there was most definitely a black girl in the snow corps de ballet. not a lot of publicity but it did happen.

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Bruce Marks started the CityDance program at Boston Ballet, and he made an effort to have an ethnic mix of dancers in the company. BB had a black Nutcracker prince, and one of Bruce's favorite stories was the excitment of one of the boys in the audience when the Nutcracker's head was removed (hmmm, you know what I mean) and the prince underneath was revealed to be black. Last year BB's Nutcracker had a black Fritz in one of the casts, and the party children and other parts taken by youngsters were of mixed heritages. So the program seen the most by children has dancers of varous ethnic backgrounds. BB does have fewer black dancers in the company than when Marks was here, but it does have Asians as well as Latinos. I'll be going to the season opening performance this weekend, and will give the program a close look to see what mix we have this year. I do know one of the Asian women - I'm blanking on her name - has a lead role in one of the pas. It will be interesting to see what Mikko does about this issue. I have heard him say he was impressed by the amount of outreach BB does in the community. I don't know what viewpoint he has on diversity as a goal for the company.

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Oh that's good that the whole Sugar Plum thing wasnt't an "issue."I think I would have imagined a different approach,but if they don't make it a practice to advertise corps members in leading roles,then I guess all I can ask is why not?As for the dwindling number of blacks in the company,yes it has been going on for a while...There is, I hear a black male in the second company,so perhaps a replenishing is underway.It wll indeed be interesting to see what Mikko has instore.From the interviews I've read, he seems to really want to push things in another direction from the usual.that is good...(I think).As for Erika Lambe not being in the program,maybe it was an oversight.I went to the ballet tonight and the company looked fantastic.My biggest observetion was how pale it was,but that could be just me.I look for things like that....

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