Farrell Fan

What's with all the aCs and TMs on the official NYCB ac TM announcement? They make everything look smudged and a pain to read. I know Ballet Talk is not to blame.

I agree about the excellence of Alistair Macauley. Now I'm looking forward to reading Robert Gottlieb. Tomorrow perhaps?

Dear Helene, Everything has fallen into place. Thanks for guiding me through this process today. I'm back where I belong and logged in. Lou

Thanks, Carbro hic

I think I've been to all the vodka occasions over the decades, but after the Stravinsky Festival of 1972. when Mr. B and Lincoln cavorted before the curtain and Mr. B invited us to have a hooker on the way out, I can't for the life of me remember what the others were about. Any other geezers out there who remember? It was nice of the Ballet Master in Chief to introduce all the little Ballet Masters last night because except to hard core fans, they are not instantly recognizable. There have been many more glamorous gatherings on the NY State Theater Stage, but glamor isn't everything.

Sure, and there also must have been horses, donkeys, and pigeons all over Verona too. By that reasoning, it would have been artistically valid to bring on stage a horse, a donkey, and/or a pigeon. Or maybe even a quintet of each. How about three whores?

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this, but isn't it possible that Mark Morris's happy ending involves the miraculous rebirth of Mercutio and his subsequent marriage to Romeo?

An email from a friend of mine, a NYCB subscriber, says of last night's performance: "The lady who sits next to me either snored or applauded the whole time." That's consistent with most of the reviews, I think.

Thanks for the illuminating analysis, Klavier. Karoui's tempi throughout Tuesday night's performance sounded just right to me. I thought his performance was a good example of why he earned the job as Music Director.

Thanks, Abby. I love it when the children get their own choreography to perform at the workshop.

Anyone know what "Twinkliana" is? Since the music is by Mozart, could it be his Variations on the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star? Or am I completely off base?

Like most fashion writing, this article requires a Rosetta stone to decipher, but it matters not. I am grateful to rg and Dale for pointing it out, because otherwise it would have languished unseen and unread nestled with the Sunday Business and Real Estate sections. There are two photos of Suzanne -- one (large) as nubile ballerina in Midsummer, the other (small) as Beltway artistic director apparently applying makeup. Both are beautiful.

I don't know about "cult" -- but he was a hero of mine. The world is poorer for his having left it. So it goes.

I was so sorry to read in today's links of the death of Mae G. Banner, longtime dance writer for The Saratogian newspaper. She had a real love and appreciation for NYCB which made her paper must reading for me during any trip to Saratoga Springs.

I wasn't the one who said it, but I'll probably say it in the future.

As someone who has lost sight of Suzanne more than once on the way to one egress or another, I found this anecdote especially poignant. Thanks to you too, drb.

Thanks for sharing this wonderful story, canbelto.

Perhaps because I was more familiar with NYCB than with other companies, for me there was never an anonymous mass there called "the corps," but a company of individual dancers never to be forgotten. In addition to those mentioned by Ray, and in no chronological order, there were Nina Federova, Toni Bentley, Linda Homek, Darla Hoover, Teresa Reyes, Carole Divet, Shawn Stevens... the longer I go on, the more likely I am to leave out people I shouldn't, including such male dancers as Hermes Conde and Espen Giljane. So I'll just stop, with the corps dancer who for me remains unmatched in both the Balanchine and Robbins reps: the delectable Delia Peters.

I trust nobody will be disappointed in these notes. Very exciting news. I can hardly wait till June!

Okay, there are isolated passages that are quotable, but the book as a whole gave me acute indigestion.

I have occasionally seen blind patrons at NYCB performances, but have not been sitting close enough to tell whether anyone was describing the action to them.

Mercifully, I've forgotten almost everything I read in Robert Garis's book, but since Bart brought it up, I went back and looked at it. Talk about pompous! On the same page Bart refers to, there is this gem: "For Stravinsky and for me, the ending of Apollo is tragic." (Balanchine, apparently, was too obtuse to share this opinion.) What I hated about this book (it comes back to me now), is that it told me little or nothing about Balanchine, and more than I would have ever cared to know about Garis. Peter Boal was much the best Apollo of recent times, both with NYCB and with the Suzanne Farrell Ballet (although for reasons of sheer prejudice, I thought the Farrell performances more luminous. But I also liked Peter Martins's Apollo. I didn't understand those who thought him too much the stolid, corporate god.

I agree with Bart. The Living Dead bother me at least as much as seat-kickers, hummers, et. al. Worst of the lot are those who sit silently through a performance and get up to leave before the houselights come up, making lots of knee-contact on their way out. Almost as bad was the couple who sat next to me at one of my NYCB subscriptions for a few years. They never discussed the ballet, as far as I could tell, but when it was over, the man would ask the woman, "Did you like that?" She would answer yes or no, and that would be the end of it.

Béjart's "Rite of Spring" has been replaced by Balanchine's "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue."

As Ms. Brown writes: It's refreshing to read this. The fifties are conventionally portrayed as a time of stultifying conformity and Father Knows Best, waiting to be "liberated" by the "let it all hang out" sixties, but the truth was quite different.