Farrell Fan

Wow. Months and months of hard work by the people of Saratoga Springs and surrounding areas who love NYCB resulted in at least a qualified victory and will keep NYCB in residency for the foreseeable future. So now you suggest leaving town? Unbelievable.

Wasn't there a time when Agon and other Balanchine leotard ballets were known as "bathing suit ballets?"

We? Not me.

Beautifully done, RK, thanks. However, the editor in me requires clarification of what happened in the Barber second movement. Did Jenifer and James dance in place of Darci and Albert? This must have confused the Thursday matinee audience even more than usual.

I feel so strongly about this that I will not resist piling on. Whoever is bored by the entrance of the shades is bored by ballet.

As may not be clear from the link, Rockwell's review of Giselle was called attention to on Page One of today's New York Times!

With apologies to John McEnroe: MINKUS PUGNI, YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!

Okay, Monday night's performance was lovely. My question is: in ACT 2, if you didn't know the Wilis were trying to dance Albrecht to death and Giselle was trying to save him, would you have been able to tell from that performance?

Gia Kourlas's relevant paragraph: "Strangely enough, Suzanne Farrell's masterly reconstruction of Balanchine's 'Don Quixote,' a ballet from 1965 performed in June at the Kennedy Center in Washington, turned out to be one of the boldest choreographic experiments in recent memory. Full of psychological twists and technical rigor, the ballet had nothing remotely old-fashioned about it, and it revealed a darker, more mystical side of Balanchine. 'Don Quixote' is at once timeless and contemporary. It needs to be seen by New York audiences; the Lincoln Center Festival and the Brooklyn Academy's Next Wave series seem to exist for the sole purpost of presenting ballet of this magnitude."

Yes, the list of New York City Opera singers who moved to the Met is long and distinguished. But perhaps the greatest artist I ever saw at the New York City Opera never had a desire to move there. I'm talking about the bass whose many roles included King Dodon, Gianni Schicchi, Boris Godunov, Giulio Cesare, , Mefistofele, and the Rev. Olin Blitch -- Norman Treigle. In my opinion, the greatest period in NYCO history was when Sills, Domingo, and Treigle were in residence.

Very amusing, Leigh. Reminds me that Robert Maiorano, who was in the original cast of "Dances at a Gathering," used to say (jokingly, I trust) that he demanded payment from certain Ballet Moms to insure he caught their dancing daughters.

Thanks for that wonderfully thorough report, RK, it was worth waiting for. What exactly does Marcia White say in her pre-curtain speeches? Has attendance been down because of the weather? Have you seen any Ballet Talkers? I hope you have nothing but good weather for the next two weeks, and I look forward to your next report. Lou

I think Mr. B was right there, at the Kennedy Center, with Ms Farrell.

Two come immediately to mind: Late Memoirs, by Nijinska, and Back to Denmark, by Peter Martins.

First came Robert Greskovic's superb Wall Street Journal Review. Now in today's links, there's Robert Gottlieb's extraordinary one in the New York Observer. This review was so deeply felt, so much in tune with my own feelings about Balanchine and admiration and love for Suzanne, that it had me in tears.

I had lunch with a friend who brought me the page from today's Wall Street Journal which had Robert Greskovic's wonderful review of Suzanne's Kennedy Center Don Quixote. When I got home I found Alexandra's heads-up on it. But when I tried to respond, the software denied me permission to do so. Am I getting paranoid? Be that as it may, I was pleased that RG praised Momchil Mladenov's portrayal of the Don so highly. I thought it was a noble and memorable performance. And the whole occasion was something never to be forgotten. Now I'm looking forward to that other rg's review. Robert Gottlieb, I mean.

Sounds great! Thanks for the report, rkoretzky. I look forward to regular reports from you throughout the SPAC season.

I'm another "other" voter. Balanchine's one-act "Swan Lake" is as much as I've ever needed. Unfortunately, at NYCB we now have Peter Martins's evening-long bore.

For mixed programs in New York, it is common for both ABT and NYCB to have two or even three different conductors per performance.

I think what Rockwell meant is that the British royal family doesn't figure in this production, there are no transgendered swans, and the locale has not been moved to the Great Salt Lake. He didn't care much for this performance but allows that a "canonical" production need not necessarily be dull. I was struck by this, however: "As usual, the Ballet Theater orchestra sounded thin, and some solos ran into trouble." Goodness knows, we're used to criticism of the NYCB orchestra, but I'd never heard that thinness is a characteristic of the ABT orchestra.

Do you have access to a library?

Natataliya, I love your list!

Thanks, AG. It was fascinating to revisit this thread.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, ami1433 -- great stuff!

Thanks for posting that list, Jack, thereby keeping this thread alive. Not that I'm in danger of forgetting that glorious week anytime soon. What I have forgotten are the particulars of the class Suzanne was to teach for "adult non-dancers." I remember a couple of people posting in anticipation of the event and I'd like to know if it lived up to expectations. (In other words, just how wonderful was it?)