EricMontreal22

Surely this is no longer true? When I fell in love with Petipa era ballet it would have been bizarre to think of any company tour coming to "little ol' " Victoria, BC, Canada with the full Sleeping Beauty. In the past 10 years *three* companies have. I think ballet has moved back towards narrative works--for good and bad.

Oh, MAN I wish this was playing by me. is there any hope for a DVD release after the fact? The only chance I've had to see Nijinsky's Sacre, is the youtube posting of the Joffrey ballet reconstruction.

Is pastiche usually negative? I first came across it when I was obsessed with Stephen Sondheim's musical (with Hal prince and Michael Bennett) Follies, where half the score is pastiche of older musical composers--for instance Losing My Mind is a pastiche of Arlen. In that sense it's an affectionate hommage--and I think this is how Balanchine's Swan lake was intended too. I will agree it's not a work that's intended to be watched with the gravitas the original Act II would be (which is one reason, I admit, I'm not moved or fond of it, though I appreciate its details)

All I have found is some sketches in the Bolshoi program with a bit of info. I'd LOVE to read something more indepth.

Youtube has two wonderful clips of America, one from Letterman and one from Dancing with the Stars. They're a month apart and you can see how much more confident a dancer the, non dancer, Karen Olivo has become as Anita. The Robbins choreography is still slightly toned down for her but she makes it work.

I just came back from an amazing night at the second performance. If I can I'll upload some pictures--Waiting at the stage door I met Matt C and had a brief snap with Arthur Laurents--despite my grumpiness about him a super nice guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrJZdp5Vi5E The cast performing America on Letterman And NBC Nightly News had a piece on the show--11 mins or so mainly of Laurents yabbering away ;) Apparantly it has the highest advance sales in the HISTORY of a Broadway revival--so whatever the merits or faults of the new production it seems audiences were waiting for it. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/vp/29762745#29755805

With the opening this week, another interesting article, this time in New York Magazine and focusing on Arthur Laurents, his revisions and the new book. http://nymag.com/arts/theater/profiles/55341/ I still find him arrogant to an extreme and a hypocrit in what he's said about Robbins' original production, but it's still interesting to read and I will read his book.

I'll be making a trip to Seattle froim Victoria just to see that (I'm also going over for the revival of my fave musical, Sunday in the Park with George so it's starting to become pretty expensive--but I can't resist). Does anyone know if the Nightmare from the Dream Ballet is kept in the Suite? I knwo Robbins deleted it from Jerome Robbins Broadway among some controversy (which is where Arthur Laurents has, wrongly IMHO, made the excuse that Robbins would approve--not realizing that a ballet in a dramatic piece and a ballet as an excerpt serve very different functions). To be honest as excited as I am to see the WSS numbers performed by a talented company, I've seen them before when I saw the London revvial of the original WSS in 2000. I'm even more excited to see Balanchine's Slaughter on Tenth Avenue which PNBallet well be doing on the same program and I've never seen. Broadway ballet heaven!

Something's Coming is one of my fave pieces in the score too (and the only place where Sondheim blatantly helped with the music as well--Bernstein was having trouble turning his ideas into "Broadway" sense and a young Sondheim helped with the syncopation in the accompaniment). Printscess, what did you think about the dropping of the Nightmare ending to Somewhere (and the addition of a young boy to sing Somewhere)? Those are the two big changes that everyone I've talked to have felt were done for the wrong reasons and take away from the drama. Arthur Laurents has a new book on directing that just shipped last week and it's a fascinating read--both for what it reveals and for all the grudges and bitchiness Laurents still seems to have. One gets the feeling he was just *waiting* to be able to stage West Side Story without Bernstein or Robbins watching over him--for good and bad.

If the Mariinsky truly does drop their three Petipa/Vikharev productions is there any chance they'd transfer to the Bolshoi? I suppose it's more complicated than that--I know the Mariinsky holds tight to their music sources, etc, and doesn't often lease them out--and I also know that the Bolshoi currently seems to consider their Grigorovich versions of the big classics (ie Sleepign Beauty) as sacred as some at the Mariinsky feel about Sergeyev's.

I understand Vikharev's reconsturction has played at other theatres, but this week is the premier of it at the Bolshoi. Anyone here have any plans to go? It's exciting that the Bolshoi is getting these productions though a bit ironic now that the Mariinsky seems to have lost interest in them (much to my upset). (Although I have to admit I've never placed Coppelia in the top tier of ballets for me--I love the music and love the ecomedy in it but... But maybe this will get a DVD release and I can see how the Russians did it) The Bolshoi's English Official page has a great little piece about the ballet with a nice photograph of the model of Act III http://www.bolshoi.ru/en/season/press-offi...x.php?id26=1164

Fascinating, albeit too brief, piece in the New York Times about reconstructing Robbins' choreography: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/arts/dan...tml?ref=theater

Helene--I saw those productions in Montreal 5 or so years ago--I'm a HUGE Robert LePage fan, so went just because I knew he was the director. I thought both were striking--but particularly Bluebeard's Castle which has become a fave opera of mine since, as well. Now that I'm in Victoria I wish I could take the boatride just to see them again--certain images have really stuck in my brain. LePage loves using water--almost too much by this point--but always poetically. A few of his art installations have used nudity with the water--shower imagery based on Psycho in his movie adaptation of his own Le Confessional caused some controversy when I was younger I think because it was so erotic.

When I was a theatre major I was in a production of Cloud Nine that involved (brief) nudity. It was a production done for a directing student's thesis project so it didn't get a big audience but I was surprised at how, when I was in character in the piece, the nudity from an acting standpoint was fine and not hard to do at all. On the other hand from an audience stand point--and I think this would be the same for ballet too--everytime I've encountered anything on stage with nudity it has also taken me out of the moment of the play/dance piece. Maybe if it was a dance that was *all* nude, after a while you'd get used to it and look past the nudity. I saw a Fringe dance/music piece based on the Russian novel The Master and Margarita that had maybe 15 seconds of full male nudity. It was a costume change done on stage but it caught the whole audience so much by surprise that it was all I heard *anyone* leaving the theatre talking about. So I think more often than not you have to be really careful about how you use it as it still causes such a reaction (not necesarily shock so much as surprise) even in non conservative audiences that it can make the rest of your piece suffer. As for why we accept it in art and sculpture I think there are two reasons--one is we're all used to it beign a part of art and sculpture (and photography even). And another is, like nudity in film too, it's there at a distance--in ballet or stage you're there in "real time" with real people and I think that causes more of a reaction.