EricMontreal22

Is "flirting" a new phenomenon? I have little doubt that by the time the French ballet started being thought of more as an excuse (apparantly) to see women's legs by the 1880s that the dancers flirted with the men in the boxes to some extent. The Russian Imperial Ballet was a much stricter situation but I wonder, is it possible the audience favorites would flirt to some extent too? the visiting Italian ballerinas? Certainly *in a way*, the Russian technique of taking endless curtain calls and bows after a ballerina's solo is sorta "flirting with the audience", albeit during a break in the action of the ballet. I also wonder if with modern dancers this comes a bit from different forms of dance now being accepted together. What I mean is, a modern ballet company might have in their repertoire some famous dance numbers from a Broadway show, something that 50-75 years ago and longer would have never been true. You're also more likely than you were to discover that a dancer in a tour of Chicago, say, was once a ballet dancer at some company. Bob Fosse infamously told his dancers to flirt and smile at the audience, albeit in a slightly intimidating way ("the audience is your prey"). Maybe if a performer is trained in more styles of dance this becomes more common even in ballet? Just throwing ideas out there

As a huge musical theatre fan, and a fan of R&H in particular, I think the problem is both that there's too much plot to convey more than a feeling for these pieces, and that the music would be hard to use. If they didn't use the songs in some way, audiences would be alienated, but using the music of the songs for a dance piece feels redundant to me. Plus of course many R&H works (especially the early ones) had major dance piece sin them already. I'm a bit of a Stephen Sondheim nut and was thinking recently how his musicals have such strong rhythms in them. While I'd never suggest, say a ballet of Company or Sweeney Todd (although I think Passion, his most operatic and lyrical score COULD work actually--story and music wise), I've been listening to his one movie score, the incidental (non sung) music for the French film Stavisky from the 70s. It's an absolute gem of a score, with so much music--dark and driving at times, soft and lyrical and melancholy at others, that both suggest a story to me and seem ideal for ballet and dance. It's such a little known score too--by Sondheim standards (the soundtrack is available as a bonus on the Follies in Concert CD) that I don't think even Sondheim fanatics would bring a preconceived story to it. The actual story of the film--a bio pic about famous French embezzler Stavisky, is way too complicated for a ballet, but I think another story could easily be adapted to it--or maybe just abstract dances. Anyway, now that I've had that thought I can't listen to the music *without* imagining dance.

That is a generous description! Indeed it's pretty frustrating to see PBS become more and more bogged down with repeats of the same popular specials (framed by endless pledge drives) and have their arts programming, in particular, relegated to times nobody would watch. They had a broadcast of Carnegie Hall's Bernstein Celebration last Fall that they aired *once* at 3am. I know that as far back as their broadcast of ABT's Swan Lake a few years back, I had to do an endless search to find when it would air. I guess because this is part of American Masters, I'm glad that we'll be getting it at a decent time. (Thanks Sandy for confirming KCTS' broadcast time) Can't wait!

Very true, and I appreciate that (and will have to be more careful with how I word things). Re Pavlova--I had read that she did an abridged seasons. The info was mentioned in Nijinsky, Pavlova, Duncan: Three Lives In Dance, and I think other books--however I think you must be right--and by abridgement they meant excerpt (many dancer biographries, I've noticed, are filled with misinformation when it comes to the actual works danced). The reason I didn't think Seasons was notated is it's not listed in the Harvard Collections list of their Sergeyev Stepanov Notation collection. Sorry, I should have been more clear. Russes d'Amour IS listed. However, the list I have from their catalog doesn't go into detail about the fragments from other ballets notated, so some of Seasons coul dhave been notated. As for why I assume some Petipa survives in later performances--it's just an assumption. But Seasons seems to have been danced more steadily than Russes d'Amour--by students and professionals at the Marrinsky into the early communist era, and Pavlova danced in the original production so I assume her production carried over at least remnants of Petipa, etc. But it's clearly just me guessing. Sorry, I'll try to be much more clear when posting in the history thread in particular. One reason I love this forum, is it does allow me to clear up things that in all the various dance books I've read contradict each other (as you implied, the history of many of these Russian works, particularly history in the English language, is often sketchy with contradictory sources and views).

I'm a HUGE WSS fan--Broadway musicals, especially those involving Sondheim are probably my frist love, and I'm really mixed about this production. I admit, I'm a purest. Just like the Sleeping Beauty I love msot is the Mariinsky's recreation, for musicals I often think the original production is best. However, it's true that WSS has been around a dozen times in recreations of its original designs and direction--I saw both a N American tour in the mid 90s and a London production in 2000, so it's probably due to get a new production. But I'm much more mixed on Laurents, the book's author, directing it. Laurents just did a great job doing his revival of Gypsy (another collaboration between him, Jerome Robbins and Sondheim originally) but I feel that's a different show. Sondheim has said that what makes West Side Story so revolutionary is how Robbins directed it--not just the dance but having each scene flow, like a dance, from scene to scene and Bernstein's music. The story he feels is pretty basic. Laurents has (from reading his memoirs) always felt that his role in the production wasn't appreciated. He also fought with Robbins a LOT, particularly for the last Broadway revival in 1980, when he felt Robbins cast the male dancers too "fey". I know in DC the dream ballet, a fave moment of mine and something I miss not bein gin the film, was cut by Laurents by a whole half. I find that upsetting and indicative of the way Laurents is approaching this, a way that doesn't make sense to me. Making it less stylized and dance based, and more "real" doesn't work for me. But I guess I'll have to wait till I get to see it. (Similarly Anita's choreography has been simplified but that's due to the performer). However I do think the idea to do some spanish lyrics and dialogue is intriguing.

And now she's extending the tour... Cubanmiamiboy it seems we have a lot in common. I'm a big Madonna fan--and I made the trek with some friends to San Fransisco (well San Jose, technically) for her Confessions tour. I thought it was close to flawless. I was impressed with the theming, the design, how much she freaking danced... It probably helps that I'm a big disco fan, and loved that album that it focused on. In comparison, Sticky and Sweet left me... kinda cold. The plus for me was I didn't have to travel since she finally decided to come to Vancouver. But the tickets were significantly MORE expensive than the already really highly priced tickets of her previous tour (Madonna has complained that not enough young fans come to her shows--I think she doesn't realize quite how hard it is for anyone but the rich and the die hards to afford to see her--my girl Kylie Minogue puts on as elaborate shows with tickets at half the price, for example). I also felt that the theming and production itself was a bit uninspired-- For anyone else it would have been an amazing concert but Madonna and her main director, Jamie King didn't pull off anything too surprising to me and the segments felt scattered. I also wished Madonna had danced *more*--I saw her mid tour and to me she felt like she wasn't lett go and as into the movement as she was only three years before (and the costumes, don't get me started). Now, I have a few caveats I admit--I was not too into this last album, Hard Candy, that the tour supported. That said, I prefered many of the songs live. And despite sounding grumpy I DID have a great time and loved many moments. It's just hard not to compare, for me, unfavourably with past tours. I think she should work with someone else besides Jamie King next time around (now that he works with everyone from Celine to Ricky Martin he's probably spread too thin anyway)

It's funny, I just started rereading Gatsby this weekend. I haven't read it since my school days--and I realized I never read any other Fitzgerald (except the unfinished Last Tycoon). I'll have to get with that. (I went through a Hemingway reading spree a couple of years back so this should complement that well--especially his early fition like my favorite, Sun Also Rises). I just finished The Folding Star, the last of Alan Hollinghurst's four novels I've read. He's probably my favrotie living author--every sentence reads as beautiful as any prose of Henry James, and I relate tremendously to the characters and situations. However, I hope with his next book that he starts to explore some different themes--I admit that I kinda have bits of all of his novels mixed up in my head. Still, there are some scenes and moments that are so stunning they make me read his books as slowly as possible so the experience doesn't end.

As a regular reader to New Yorker, it's from his reviews and commentary writing there that I have the biggest sense of Updike. I read the Rabbit books as a teen, as well as Eastwick, but admit that I started to lose interest in his fiction. Yet, his New Yorker writings were wonderful until his last few months. The New Yorker article is a fitting remembrance to a man who will be missed.

I also feel the violence is needed in R+J to give dramatic gravity to the situation. I haven't seen the POB's, but from the MacMillan and the Lavrosky productions I feel it's apt. I have to admit that Manon upsets me more--or did the first time I saw it, maybe because I didn't know the story before (somehow I had never seen any of the opera versions). I'm trying tot hink if I've ever felt uncomfortable watching a dance performance. I don't think I have with any classical ballet, but some modern works (done, I feel to shock) have given me that feeling--National Ballet had a Rite of Spring in the mid 90s that I saw as a teen and it really threw me. In general, I feel, your "wimpiness" at watching various forms of art often has to do with where you are with life at the time--and your emotions. I know that, oddly, as a teenager I found extreme violence in stage works or graphic movies pretty unaffecting. Now, I find it much harder to watch (especially on the big screen or in an intense stage piece), even though I'm in my twenties, when you'd think one would be more desensitized.

PBS already has a companion website with some outake videos on their site (amusingly they call Charlotte d'Amboise, d'Ambrosia, though they get her dad Jacques' name right). http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/ep...ance-about/437/ Kultur DVD will release the documentary (with some bonuses apparantly) in March, at least in Region 1. It's worth checking if your local PBS is carrying the show and when--I know the Seattle one I watch often programs these specials at odd times or a few days later.

I've long been a big fan of Glazunov's work on Raymonda--It's my favorite full length ballet score between the Tchaikovsky ones and Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella (I say full length so not to include the Stravinsky works). However, his other two one act ballets (written in 98 and 99 respectively it seems but both premiered in 1900?) for Petipa seem much more obscure. The Seasons has had a huge life as musical excerpts, but Russes d'Amour or Lady Soubrette only has a few out of print recordings. I recently got, and fell in love with both charming scores. I've done a fair bit of research on both works--both online (there's very little information on either work it seems) and from books (Wiley's book on Russian Ballet being the best source I found). What I can gather is that The Seasons was *not* notated, but Russes D'Amour is, otherwise there exists much more info on Seasons (photos, etc) than Russes. Does anyone know if Russes had much of an afterlife at all? The scneario is light but charming (based on a Wattreau image Petipa liked) and Glazunov fills his score with charming old French dance pastiches. Seasons was done by Pavlova's company and some others more recently, though I can only doubt that much Petipa remained. They'd make a charming (albeit maybe too light) double bill.

Careful, we don't want to give anyone any ideas...

RG or anyone else--what's out there in terms of pictures of Raymonda's original production? Grigorovich's "Authorized Book of Bolshoi's Raymonda" (translated to English in 1987) has lots of pics of old Moscow productions but not St Petersburg. I've seen one photograph of Legnani and Legat in their Act III "Hongroise" costumes posed. And I also have the Moscow Symphone 2 CD recording of the original score which uses as its cover a scene design by K Ivanov for St Petersburg--I assume it must be the design for Act III in the original production. This is the the link to the cd where you can see the image http://www.amazon.com/Glazunov-Raymonda/dp...6390&sr=8-3

So, out of those on DVD, which would be the most faithful to the 1895? I really am not a fan of the Royal Ballet's designs, but I wish we had it available to watch if only for much of the choreography. Has this production been filmed in whole or in part at all?

The Sarabande in Act III always fascinates me--it seems so different from the rest of the ballet, and I've never seen it (live or on DVD/video) performed. I know that notation seems to imply it WAS danced (right before the final Mazurka) at the original 1890 premier, but speculation seems to be it was probably dropped sometime within the first year (at the end of a LONG ballet, that's not too surprising). I also think that Nureyev in at least one version used it at the top of Act III. Are there other versions? And any opinions on this piece? (I find the music absolutely gorgeous--but, mind, I find most of Sleeping Beauty absolutely gorgeous )

Yet they are in the Act III reconstruction for the DVD New Year's Eve in St Petersburg--the final one anyway. This caught me completely by surprise. Was it just done that time?

BTW the other obscure fairy tale used in the divertissement (besides Hop O' My Thumb which I think is better known, though it's NOT Tom Thumb as some programs say, lol) is the White Cat who dances with Puss N Boots though she's from a seperate story. She's also probably from the Madame d'Aulnoy version (since they seemed to use exclusively the Perrault and d'Aulnoy fairy stories) though there are many versions - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puddocky

I'm sure there are tons of versions of this forgotten fairy tale, but Madame d'Aulnoy's one is the one I think the Imperial Russians would have known best--it has no Florine trying to fly or trips to China--the Bluebird is the prince transformed, as mentioned. A good rundown of the complete fairy tale is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Bird_(fairy_tale)

I just recently picked up the above mentioned Baiser de la Fee CD which I found by chance in a second hand shop. (What a gorgeous score that is--I never realized it was a direct hommage to Tchaikovsky, working with many of his themes--I'm a bit surprised it's not performed more often, from the music alone). ANyway the booklet lays some light on this: "Stravinsky's orchestration of the 'Bluebird' Pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty was a straightforward arrangement commisioned for the American Ballet Theatre company in 1942, when the demands of war service had much reduced its regular orchestra for touring. Diaghilev had included this Pas de deux to Marisu Petipa's choreography at Paris in 1909, when it was danced by Tamara Karsavina and Vaclav Nijinsky. As with the two other dances Stravinsky orchestrated for the full ballet production in 1921, he again had to work from a piano score. 'I had to invent what I could not recall of Tchaikovsky's own instrumental choices,' he noted, and pointedout that the one entirely novel and non-Tchaikovskyan feature of the instrumentation is a prominent piano part which he wrote 'to help conceal the small number of string'. These he reccommended should not be less than five violins, four violas, three cellos and two basses." (from Noel Goodwin's CD notes) I wish we knew for sure what these different two numbers orchestrated for the Diaghilev were exactly... (And could hear them). Stravinsky's orchestrations for Blue Bird aren't too different but are charming. It raises a question I often have while watching Sleeping Beauty on DVD and then forget--in nearly every stage production I've seen the glissandos (I think that's the term) i the Adagio of the Desire/Aurora Grand pas de deux are played on a piano, but in all my CD recordings they're harp...

That was always my suspicion--it seems it would be impossible to leap around with THAT HAT. Wow. But then is this a change from the original production that wasn't used in the reconstruction? Did they purposefully go for the later desing, or is it what they also found in the costume desings of Vsevolozhsky (I knwo they built the costumes newly from his original designs and not from the photos of them we have)? Fascinating at any rate.

Great review! I just wanted to point out that this plot element was in the original libtretto for Prokofiev, and was used I believe in both the original 1945 (and later filmed) Bolshoi production by Rostislav Zakharov, and the 1946 K Sergeyev production (which I find so charming and wish was still being done). I actually forgot that it's not done in most other productions...

Well the Trocadero are a prettyamazing company IMHO--for what they do. I was blown away when I first saw them on tour, expecting something more like a lip synched drag queen act than real dancing. What do you think of Glazunov's other two ballet pieces? If the Mariinsky were still doing reconsturctions I would love for them to do one of Petipa's The Seasons (which I think is notated). Of course in many ways it's similar to Awakening of Flora which they've already done, but maybe it could work as a double bill ;) E

You're welcome. As a kid obsessed with Fantasia, I remember my mother who was into ballet saying how great she found the Dance of the Hours because it mocked so many ballet conventions (as a kid I thought she might not like it because it seemed to be basic fat/skinny mockery--but I see it for so much more now). Swan, the manga, has some sample pages here and a review by a friend of mine who works for Viz comics http://shaenon.livejournal.com/28663.html#cutid1 There's an even better loved manga from the era in Japan that hasn't been translated, Arabesque by Riyoko Yamagishi but the art isn't quite as breathtaking inhow it uses montage. But the way ballet has impacted Japanese comics by women for women/shoujo in inescapable. The Queen of shoujo manga, Moto Hagio (sadly, barely translated despite all her awards and fame in Japan) did her own series, Flower Festival in the late 80s and has done others--even travelling to Russia and Italy to capture dancers.

So, as a consensus, can someone say which is the most authentic *on DVD or video*? Has that Royal Ballet production (which I'm now dieing to see) been filmed *anywhere*? I have the Kirov DVD (it came in a box set) and a few others on video but would love to have something more in my collection.

I suspect they feel the Trocs corps isn't big enough to really make it effective....