Farrell Fan

Balanchine kept changing parts of Don Quixote all the time it was in the NYCB repertory, so it will be interesting to see what Farrell's version will look like. She'll probably have a surprise or two up her shawl. In my role as tribal elder, I'd like to say that it is impossible to predict what someone new to an art will or won't like.

Except for the extra "l" added to Leigh's name, I was quite pleased with John Rockwell's response. In a way, he put Dance View and Ballet Alert on the New York Times map. I've read the piece three times now and have yet to detect any smugness. On the other hand, each reading has made me agree more with his opinion that "these true believers often seem to be fretting about the wrong enemies."

Nobody asked me, but I think Ballet Talk lost something when Ballet Talk for Dancers was split off from it. I suppose it's too late to do anything about that now, since the Dancers board has developed a distinctive, chatty character of its own. But I used to love going from reading a lengthy, erudite account of the performance-of-the-year the night before at NYCB, to a heartrending plea for help about bunions.

Ballet companies put on the works of Mark Morris, Twyla Tharp, Martha Graham, and Paul Taylor. As I understand it, this is the kind of "crossover" dance that Ballet Alert! was formed to warn against. It's also what has raised concerns about John Rockwell as NY Times dance critic. Nevertheless, the rigid division on our board between ballet and other forms of dance has occasionally led to confusion and acrimony. We might not like it, but it only makes sense that if ABT, NYCB, POB, or any other ballet company puts on the work of a "modern" choreographer, it has to be talked about on our regular Ballet Talk forum and not relegated to the Modern subcategory.

An homage to Gerald Arpino?

I don't think it's been pointed out yet that the first three movemnts are danced behind a scrim, making the lighting all the moodier. At the start of the Theme & Variations, the scrim is gone and the bright lighting is so dazzling that the audience gasps.

Happy anniversary, atm711! I can understand why that first performance would be habit-forming. And it's great to have your Ruminations on the board for other posters' comments. Personally, I have just one overall comment: Brava!

I'm looking forward to the revival of Balanchine's "Don Quixote" by the Suzanne Farrell Ballet in conjunction with the National Ballet of Canada, at the Kennedy Center Opera House, from June 22 through 16. Thanks for the question!

Violet, you are absolutely correct. And SF's beauty is not only outward -- it comes from within.

Violette Verdy is a professor of music at Indiana University. I hope she has some input on who gets this job.

The best thing that happened -- and it was almost a year-long event -- was how the people of Saratoga Springs and surrounding areas rallied to the cause of NYCB after the high-handed attempt to evict the company from the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Under the grass-roots banner of Save the Ballet, they not only caused SPAC to backtrack, but forced an investigation of SPAC's finances which is still ongoing.

This reminds me of a cartoon caption from my youth (several decades ago): "One of these days we've got to get organized." I always thought that when I retired from the workaday world, I would get my programs in order and peruse them at leisure. Meanwhile, I threw my programs into boxes, drawers, and even filing cabinets. (But not under the bed -- there was too much other stuff already there.) Then one day, twenty years ago or so, I realized the programs were in a hopeless mess. I've continued saving new ones, shoving them into any available empty space, but long ago gave up hope of any kind of organization. I hope you'll do better, TexasKelly!

The same abebooks.com site mentioned above has several different copies of the Dumas version of The Nutcracker, starting at about $7. I've bought numerous books from booksellers listed on the abebooks site and always been very pleased.

Thanks, Oberon, a beautiful recollection.

She was the "anti-Callas," with "dimples of iron," but I know of no better description of La Tebaldi than that in the Harper Dictionary of Opera & Operetta: "The outstanding Italian lyric soprano of the postwar period, she possessed a voice of great beauty and considerable power, which she used with style, elegance and scrupulous good taste. Her radiant voice, warm personality and sympathetic stage presence combined to make her one of the best-loved singers of her time." Pace, pace mio Dio.

Dale is correct, as usual, that it was Farrell, in the 1960s, who first stepped onto the metal slide in the Nutcracker. "The effect was magical, and to this day audiences are thrilled and baffled by the seemingly impossible feat," she wrote. "Mr. B was equally thrilled with his optical illusion, and I was thrilled to be his guinea pig." Another Farrell first, this without mechanical intervention: at Mr. B's request, she touched her head to her knee in the adagio of Symphony in C.

In my self-appointed role of keeping things absolutely correct, Farrell-wise, cara canbelto, allow me to prissily point out that the New Yorker article which upset Mr. Martins so much in 1993 was written by the late David Daniel.

Farrell left NYCB in 1969, after her husband, Paul Mejia, was shut out of his former roles and she, though still dancing, was ostracized by Balanchine. She had a glorious second coming in 1974 until her retirement in 1989. Afterwards, she continued her association with NYCB and SAB until she was fired in 1993 by Peter Martins. I don't think many NYCB dancers would risk speaking out against the Ballet Master in Chief.

In the early days of the "Dance in America" series, Villella played the part of "host." I think that's probably what's referred to in those listings. I don't know about the "Tarentella" Amy mentions.

The aforementioned article about the Crazy Horse is excerpted from the Introduction to an earlier book by Toni Bentley, Sisters of Salome, published in 2002. That book is about five women who danced naked: Salome, Maud Allen, Mata Hari, Ida Rubenstein, and Colette.

I agree with scoop about Elusive Muse, naturally. It's unfortunate that the film of Midsummer Night's Dream with Farrell, Villella, and Arthur Mitchell that was shown a couple of months ago at the Walter Reade Theater is not commercially available. Elusive Muse has excerpts from it, but they don't include Villella, whose Oberon was unmatched. No one but Peter Boal has ever come close. It's possibly forgotten that, though it didn't happen often, Suzanne danced with Eddie in a couple of other signature ballets of his -- Bugaku and Prodigal Son. But no tape or film exists, to my knowledge.

My guess is that it's highly unlikely content would change. The uncorrected proofs are what reviewers usually have. Of course, my experience with publishers was in the Pleistocene era. Incidentally, I recently bought online at an antiquarian bookseller some uncorrected proofs of my first novel, published in 1971. What made it interesting was that the galleys were inscribed -- not by me but by a reviewer, the late Jerre Mangione, to an acquaintance of his. He'd given me a terrific review at the time, in the Chicago Sun-Times, so I was surprised at some less than complimentary notes pencilled on the proofs.

There's a video of a 1968 film about Villella which won an Emmy, called "Man Who Dances." It's a sort of cinema verite piece, a little arty but better than nothing. My copy came from Direct Cinema Limited. I don't know if they're still in business, but for what it's worth, they were In Santa Monica, CA and their phone number was (310) 396-4774. Perhaps better would be a copy of Villella's autobiography,"Prodigal Son." This has several photos, among them a spectacular one of his leap which shows exactly what your mother is talking about. It was published in 1992 and is out of print, but I'm sure is available from used booksellers like abebooks.com. Good luck.

I save everything and can't find anything.

It's too bad Le Clercq didn't write her autobiography. She was a charming writer, as evidenced by her letters and her two published books -- Mourka: The Autobiography of a Cat, and The Ballet Cook Book. The latter, in addition to recipes and thumbnail portraits of contributors, has many of her own anecdotes. Yes, I would like to see a biography -- I have a feeling the period after her polio was not all gloom and doom by any means.