Farrell Fan

Ever since this thread came up, I've been wondering if those of us who disdain the ballets of Boris Eifman are guilty of esoteric snobbery? How about those who praise the works of William Forsythe? Just asking.

Canbelto (l love your screen name, by the way -- it makes me imagine Ethel Merman in the mad scene from "Lucia"), if we're talking about the new Met production of "Flute" vs. the NYC Opera production of "Carmelites," which opened at about the same time, count me on the side of "Carmelites." I haven't seen the former, but it's said to be more overstuffed than a Zeffirelli production, whereas the latter, which I did see, is appealing and dramatic -- not at all esoteric. At that, it's not as great as the old Met production by John Dexter with its image of prostrate nuns. I think it was one of the best things ever mounted at the Met -- the definitive anti-Zeffirelli. I have nothing against the warhorses, or Mozart for that matter, just certain productions. Zeffirelli's actually worked against the operas. Sometimes it was hard to tell who was singing because of all the stage business. I think what I want to say is that when I was younger, I considered many more things than I do now "esoteric snobbery" because I didn't understand them. Now that I'm older and perhaps wiser, I think there's a lot more philistinism than snobbery in evidence at our opera and ballet theaters. Once, years ago, a stranger approached me on the promenade of the NY State Theater after a performance of "Agon" and said "What do you think of this Stravinsky? He's got these people fooled. They applaud this crap, and he's actually making fun of them." He had nothing at all to say about the dancing. I've also read posters on this board who've said they didn't "get" Suzanne Farrell. Eventually, they saw the light.

Sylvia, I loved your reaction to Variations pour une Porte et un Soupir. My wife and I enjoyed this ballet from its first performance, and I'm still crazy about it. (No pychoanalyzing, please.) Balanchine frequently turned audience expectations about ballet on their head. That was one reason why going to NYCB when he was alive was such a great experience.

Grace, you needn't have worried about killing off this thread -- it seems immortal. Inspired by your list of subjects skirted (I'm glad you're back, too) I went back to the beginning and was surprised to see the thread is over two years old. It originally had reference to Toni Bentley's previous book and to a novel by Laura Jacobs which is now remaindered and available at a bargain price by clicking on the Amazon banner. The title of that novel, incidentally, "Women About Town," sounds like something rejected in favor of "Sex and the City." At any rate, the subject of Balanchine's attitude to women has always interested me, along with women's attitudes to Balanchine. It seems highly unusual to me that someone married four or five times (depending on whether you count Danilova) should have remained on good terms with all those exes, not to mention his various "muses." How'd he do it?

Funny, when I saw her at the SAB Workshop, I thought she looked like Suzanne Farrell.

Here's another version, from the New York Times: "Inevitably, she has wondered what Mr. B would have made of 'The Surrender.' ' I think it would have amused him,' she said. 'My greatest flaw as a dancer was timidity. I was less than I might have been because I was too shy and modest. And I like to think that Mr. B would say: 'Now look at what she's done. She didn't dance that way for me.'"

The news at DTH has gone from bad to much worse. How sad this is! I hope Mr. Mitchell can find a way out of this disaster.

When John Rockwell was the rock music critic of the Times (in the early 70s), I used to read him even though I couldn't stand rock music. It seemed strange to me that the Times was reviewing this kind of pop stuff, when they'd never paid attention to the pop music of my day -- Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, the Dorseys -- except as social phenomena. (They did have a jazz critic, the pioneering John S. Wilson, but that was not the same thing.) Anyhow, I read Rockwell in hopes of learning about the strange cacophony of rock'n'roll, and indeed, reading him, it started to make more sense. But I still couldn't listen to it. I guess what I'm trying to say is I enjoyed his writing, and did so even more when he began reviewing classical music. He was eminently successful in getting the Lincoln Center Festival off to a good start, and I started regarding him as some kind of cultural guru. I can't imagine what he'll be like as a dance critic, except that he'll probably devote a great deal of attention to non-traditional forms. I hope it works out.

Well, I finished Toni Bentley's book, "The Surrender." It's only 208 pages, with short chapters and lots of white space. Nevertheless, somewhere around page 100, it began to seem interminable. The last two pages are devoted to acknowledgements, ending with thanks to "all of my beloved and delightful advisers who offered wonderful suggestions..." There follows a list of over 35 people (I kept losing count). Perhaps some of these delightful advisers are to blame for a few of the book's problems. It can't make up its mind whether it's pornography, pure and simple (not so pure, actually); a "Daddy Dearest" confessional; an advice column in Penthouse; an atheist's search for God in a most unlikely place; an anti-marriage tract, and who knows what else. The book would be ideal for excerpting on T-shirts ("I don't trust love...But I trust lust completely"), but most of the sentiments are unprintable here. Though the prose is frequently overwrought to the point of "insanity" -- one of the author's favorite words -- there are brief, rare flashes of Toni Bentley, the wonderful writer about ballet. She mentions nobody by name, but being Farrell Fan, I got choked up by this passage near the beginning of the book: "I became a professional dancer at age seventeen and began performing in public eight times a week. It was then that I started crossing myself before going onstage. I had seen the best dancer in the world do this, and I thought perhaps this was her secret."

In the case of NYCB, this is a difficult and key question to ask. At one time, I might have said "Barocco," "Serenade," "Apollo," or -- fill in the blank with your own favorite Balanchine ballet. But Balanchine ballets are in the repertories of ballet companies all over the world now, and performances by those companies are frequently on a par or superior to those at NYCB. Same with the Robbins rep. Christopher Wheeldon is in demand here and abroad. The conclusion is inescapable. The specialty of the house at NYCB are the ballets of Peter Martins.

Ari posted the link, so now I'm happy. Ballet Alert is the best!

Glad to hear that "By George Balanchine" was reprinted, Amy. The original San Marco Press edition measured approx. 4 1/4" wide and 5 1/4" deep and had a different ISBN number: 0-918793-79-3. There were 32 numbered pages and a couple of unnumbered ones. The cover illustration reproduced a Balanchine self-caricature, signed G. B. The booklet came wrapped in a "bellyband" with the same illustration slightly smaller. I presume that was the item in the Dance Mart catalog. This reminds me that "Choreography by George Balanchine: A Catalog of Works," was originally published in 1983 by the Eakins Press Foundation in an edition of 2000 copies. It was a huge, boxed volume that sold for $75. In 1984 it was published by Viking in normal book size at a regular book price. I refer to it constantly, but I just looked at the original Eakins Press behemoth for the first time in years. Maybe someday it will be in a museum exhibition. A note from Tom Schoff, dated Sept. 29, informs me that he is now Director of Planning at SAB.

Thanks for the response, Ed. Before publication, Toni Bentley's book had already been a subject of discussion on this site. So one might reasonably have expected that a link to the Times review would have been provided now that the book is out.

An"Antiques Roadshow" kind of digression: The year after Balanchine's death and for some time thereafter, the gift bar had for sale a small paperback booklet of quotations under the title, "By George Balanchine." I bought it for $4.95. I recently saw this in a catalog of The Dance Mart, priced at $175.

I searched today's links in vain for one to the review of "The Surrender" in the NY Times Book Review. Granted, the subject of Bentley's book is not ballet, but does that mean BA will ignore it? I can't help thinking of the various athletes accused of rape or murder whom the Times stubbornly reports on in their Sports Section. Bentley's "sin" is much less serious, and she is identified with ballet, NYCB, Balanchine, Farrell, etc. Her new book, unpleasant though its subject may seem, is news. Incidentally, the TBR review is by no means favorable, and, in fact, caused me to hesitate in my decision to read the book. Hesitate, but not flip-flop, I'm going to the Amazon banner up top here right now.

"Errante" probably is lost. Too bad, because anything John Martin dismissed in 1935 as "cosmic nonsense" must have been pretty good. Wish I'd seen it. The photograph, by Carolyn George, of Balanchine with angels in the Memorial Service program shows him working on the Tschaikovsky Adagio Lamentoso, the work which closed NYCB's Tschaikovsky Festival in 1981.

Great news for everyone who fought to keep NYCB in Saratoga! Congratulations to "Save the Ballet."

There was a beautiful printed program, along with a small portfolio of photographs, given to everyone who attended the October 31, 1983 memorial service for Balanchine at St. John the Divine. Thus I am able to report that members of the NYCB orchestra played the Mozart Requiem, which was sung by the Cathedral singers. Lincoln Kirstein read selections from the wisdom of Solomon, and John's account of the raising of Lazarus. The service started with The Bidding by the Dean of the Cathedral. It began: "Good People we are met together to remember before God the soul of George Balanchine, who served him and his neighbours by the endless showing forth of the beauty of creation as seen in the splendour of dance. So great is his contribution that, as long as our civilization endures, none may ever again think or speak of ballet without remembering Balanchine with infinite gratitude."

I plan to read Toni Bentley's new book for the same reasons as Perky. What I'm really looking forward to, though, is what the New York Observer interview calls "her next project." a biography of Lincoln Kirstein.

So now the Individual Ticket brochure has arrived and it's Rutherford Redux on the cover. This time she looks like her own fan. (The Don Q kind.) This Chris Nicholls person must be stopped!

Umberto Giordano's "Andrea Chenier" is set at the time of the French Revolution. The title character was a real-life poet, although the opera libretto doesn't have mucn to do with real life. Since its La Scala premiere in 1896 (the U.S. premiere was the same year), it's been a staple of the Italian repertory and a favorite of Italian tenors in particular. (There are separate videos and DVDs of Chenier performances with two of "the three tenors" -- Carreras and Domingo.) My own favorite Chenier was the incomparable Franco Corelli. I'd love to hear about the Washington Opera production.

Count me too as someone who admired Afshin Mofid generally and his Faun in particular. I followed Carbro's lead and did a google on him. He apparently is (or was) on the faculty of Ballet Idaho Academy of Dance, as well as on the list of "preferred" doctors of chiropractic in Boise. Hope you find that photo, rg.

Is it too simple-minded to say that Balanchine's dictum that "Ballet is woman," was contradicted by much of Bejart's choreography? But he did great things for Suzanne Farrell.

"The national genius that produces ballerinas, gymnasts, and figure skaters has now produced tennis players." -- George Vecsey, in the NY Times, following the victory of Svetlana Kuznetsova over Elena Dementieva in the championship match of the U.S. Open.

The invitation from the NYCB Guild calls the program "Ballet Four Ways," which to me sounds like something from a Chinese restaurant. Be that as it may, this is it: Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux; I'm Old Fashioned; Octet (New York Premiere of a ballet by Peter Martins to Mendelssohn); Liturgy (Christopher Wheeldon to music of Arvo Part). I'm trying to curb my enthusiasm.