Farrell Fan

That's right, carbro, Farrell in The Cage was something to see. But it was a long time ago (1977) and my memory of it has grown too hazy for coherent comment. In her book she says she "enjoyed dancing" it. She also says that in her first year at NYCB, she was a horn in Fanfare.

In addition to those in the ballets already mentioned, Suzanne Farrell's Robbins roles included The Cage, Dances at a Gathering, The Four Seasons, and In Memory Of...

In the third or fourth grade I had a teacher who'd bring in phonograph records (78s) from time to time and initiate us into "music appreciation." She caused a sensation once by bringing in Rossini's William Tell Overture. Imagine our surprise when after some interminable (so it seemed at the time) slow, dreamy music, on came the theme song from The Lone Ranger! I think Rossini became my favorite composer that morning, and I still love his operas and their overtures. The one other composition I remember music-appreciating was Ferde Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite. That seemed to have Lone Ranger connotations too. It's seldom heard anymore. Aside from drawing pictures (which I enjoyed and was good at), the only other artistic activity I remember from my school days is having to memorize two poems -- Invictus and The Highwayman. Memorization gave me a real feeling of accomplishment.

To answer Cristina's question, I plan to read Hillary's book but won't say anything about it, since we're to avoid politics at Ballet Alert.

The mention of Oprah's books is interesting to me because one of them was the novel "The Corrections," by Jonathan Franzen. This brought him more attention and sales that he ever would have gotten otherwise. But he was unhappy and disavowed the endorsement, apparently because he felt he'd written literature and Oprah's recommendations were strictly pop fiction. He also seemed to be saying that anybody who is influenced by a television personality was unworthy of reading his elevated prose. I think "The Corrections" is a pretty good book, but its author is a misguided snob.

It's hard to make the case that New York is still the dance capital of the world. But I just heard Reynold Levy, president of Lincoln Center, on television call New York City the cultural capital of the world. I'll buy that.

Calliope, you talked me into it. I'll read the Da Vinci Code.

I've heard other favorable reports about "The Da Vinci Code," but I'm prejudiced against it because of the title. The man who painted the Mona Lisa, wrote backwards, invented the submarine, dissected cadavers, etc., is Leonardo, but Da Vinci is not his surname; Vinci is his hometown. (Lenny from Vinci.) Maybe I'm being too hasty and the title means "The Code from Vinci?" Whatever. I plan on reading a couple of new novels given to me by a friend in publishing. They are "The Photograph," by Penelope Lively, and "River Season," by Jim Black. I also intend to reread Giuseppe di Lampedusa's great novel, "The Leopard," which I do every few years. Unhappily, the magificent Visconti film made from it, starring Burt Lancaster, has never been available on video.

My favorite reading as a child was an illustrated volume called "Who's Who in Baseball." There was a new edition every season and my older brother bought it for me for maybe six years in row. I wish I still had them. The first book I had to read for school that I remember enjoying was "David Copperfield." That didn't lead to any great passion for Dickens, though. I loved James Thurber's "Fables for Our Time" and "Thurber Carnival." I attempted "Anna Karenina,"at an early age and though almost all of it was over my head, I liked the few parts that weren't.

The male dancer in the Swan Lake pas de deux on Saturday night was Ted Seymour.

While we're copy-editing here, I was amused by the typo which rendered "Boal" as "Bola." I foresee a leading role for this dancer in the next Mauro Bigonzetti piece. Seriously, I'm always happy to hear about it when visitors to our fair city have pleasant experiences.

Others are better able to discuss the dancing, so I'll just give a few impressions. Because the corps in Chopiniana stands and poses much of the time, the start of Saturday night's Workshop seemed more of a "student performance" to me than anything I'd previously seen at these events. I emphasize that this isn't meant as a criticism of the dancers or the staging by Cynthia Gregory. I appreciate all the purity and history, but I confess it made me a little sleepy. There was a very long and unexplained delay after the first intermission. I enjoyed the two Bournonville excerpts more than anything else on the program. Barette Vance and Arron Scott were wonderful in the Flower Festival pas de deux and the Ballabile from Act I of Napoli was nicely done by all concerned. For some reason the Act II pas de deux from Balanchine's Swan Lake was sandwiched between them. The young man originally scheduled for this, Zlato Fagundes, did not dance due to injury. Then came Aurora's Wedding from Peter Martins's Sleeping Beauty. This seemed a very ambitious undertaking and was staged by Sean Lavery with a platoon of assistants. It was enjoyable, but in my opinion, made the program overlong. This was the first Workshop I can remember in which nothing was staged by Suki Schorer. I missed seeing her gliding out for a bow, but had the consolation of Cynthia Gregory, the only stager of the night who took a bow. (Nikolaj Hubbe did the Bournonville and Sean Lavery the Swan Lake.)

It's not a matter of NYCB used to be the best but now ABT is better. Both companies have undergone ups and downs in the 40 years I've been watching them. The NYCB repertory used to be much more varied. There was a time during Balanchine's life when he was thought to be through, washed up. Then came his extraordinary creativity at the 1972 Stravinsky Festival, followed by several late masterpieces. The ABT of Gregory, Kirkland, vanHamel, Tcherkassky, Baryshnikov, and Bujones was a company as exciting as today's and somewhat more cohesive. When Baryshnikov took over as artistic director his policy of Balanchinization met with disfavor on the part of critics and public. At the end of his tenure, the only thing he was credited with was sharpening the corps. ABT entered a long period in the artistic doldrums. For some years after Mr. B's death, many critics said that the Balanchine and Robbins repertory at NYCB had never looked better. Such a view now would be truly heretical, not to mention wrong. In new works, I'd give the edge to NYCB because of Christopher Wheeldon. By the way, after initial lavish praise, the prevailing view now is that he is a superb second-rater. Despite its failings, I prefer the relative austerity of the Diamond Project to the grandiosity of such ABT offerings as "HereAfter." Not that NYCB is immune from that sort of thing -- remember "Organon"? As for Peter Martins, I wish he'd choreograph new ballets only when he has something new to say. It's incontestable that NYCB is in serious need of coaching from the great Balanchine dancers of the past. At the present moment, I agree that going to ABT is more fun than another night at NYCB. But it seems likely that next year, the Balanchine centennial, the pendulum will swing back. At least I hope so.

Thanx, Calliope.

I saw it Monday night, with Xiomara Reyes and Angel Corella, who were enchanting. Kirk Peterson's Widow Simone was very broad but I liked it. Being something of a dork myself, just about my favorite character in Fille is Alain (Joaquin de Luz at this performance.) I especially like it that he puts the final, finishing touch on the happy ending by darting in at the last moment and retrieving his beloved umbrella. It was a wonderful evening. By the way, how do you pronounce Xiomara?

Amen! This is a lovely production of a truly great ballet. It renews one's faith in the art form.

The story of the ballet's genesis is told in a five-page article by Valerie Gladstone in the ABT Playbill. It begins: "'I was absolutely overwhelmed,' says Kevin McKenzie, the artistic director of American Ballet Theatre, recalling his reaction to hearing the New York Choral Society perform John Adams's Harmonium and Carl Orff's Carmina Burana three years ago. 'I was so affected by the juxtaposition of the spritual with the carnal,' he says, 'I thought, what a wonderful evening of ballet it would make.' "McKenzie set out to fulfill his dream by sending the music to likely choreographers. 'Unless a choreographer feels passionate about the music,' he says, 'you're not going to have a good ballet.' Although several submitted detailed proposals, nothing satisfied him until he heard from Stanton Welch, the new artistic director of Houston Ballet, and Natalie Weir, like Welch, also a well-known Australian choreographer. "'They are enormously inventive,' McKenzie says from experience. 'In their ballets, they show a strong sense of theater and an inclination toward storytelling. They know how to develop an emotional narrative.' Both of them have worked with Ballet Theatre before: Welch choreographed Clear, both he and Weir created ballets for the George Harrison tribute, Within You Without You, and Weir also did Jabula for Ballet Theatre and created two pieces for the Studio Company, His Weeping and Bitter Moon. "McKenzie couldn't believe that both their proposals revolved around a central figure who goes through the cycles of life. 'I felt it made their collaboration on HereAfter all the more natural,' he says. 'We will see Natalie's hero move on to Stanton's ballet. Their dances, like the two musical pieces, represent two ends of the spectrum -- heaven and earth. I named it HereAfter for that nebulous place between life and death. 'In the future, the works may be presented separately, but this season, they will be given eight performances together.'" I'll refrain from commenting on the foregoing, but I'm glad rkoretzky was nudged to post. It makes me feel like Voltaire.

At the May 5 NYCB seminar on "Carnival of the Animals," with John Lithgow, Christopher Wheeldon, and Christine Redpath, Lithgow said he'd be going to Saratoga to reprise his role. It wasn't clear to me from what he said whether he'd be doing one performance there or all of them.

I saw it Monday night too and hadn't posted anything because I hated it. I was going by the old notion of "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything." But in fact, there are some nice things I can say. I certainly agree that Herman Cornejo in Act One was very convincing. Julio Bocca in Act Two had the less interesting part. It's hard to fault any of the dancers in any case. The music for Act 1 was good -- John Adams's (him again) "Harmonium," brilliantly performed by the New York Choral Society and the orchestra under Charles Barker. They, along with vocal soloists Troy Cook, Chad Freeburg, and Mary Ellen Callahan, were also wonderful in the music for Act 2. But that music was "Carmina Burana," which ought to be declared off-limits for choreographers for the next couple of generations. I thought Natalie Weir's choreography in Act 1 was marginally better than Stanton Welch's in Act 2, but I really disliked the entire ballet, starting with the pretentious title, "HereAfter." It didn't help that Act 1 is called "Heaven" and Act 2 "Earth," thereby reversing the title. It should be noted that there were audience cheers at the end. Jennifer Dunning in the New York Times had the best comment on that. "How could something so big and serious-looking not be good?"

I enjoyed Barocco very much, but then I almost always do unless people fall down. In Ives, Songs I was amused that Arch Higgins, whom I'd last seen as a baboon,was walking around in a nice suit. I like the ballet, although I used to like it better. It's interesting that revivals of Antique Epigraphs and this have been met by puzzlement on the part of people who'd never seen them in the past. Have sensibilities changed that much? Or is it the dancers? Anyway, it was great to see Ashley Bouder again. This was my first viewing of Guide to Strange Places, but I had the feeling I'd seen it all before.

Thanks, Carbro.

As someone who has followed NYCB since Balanchine was Ballet Master, I understand Carbro's point very well. What I didn't understand was Martins's (and Kisselgoff's) point.

Yes, Teresa Reichlen was quite wonderful -- a great role debut. And this seems a good ballet for Tewsley. Pulling along those lines of women he looked so poetic he brought back memories of Sean Lavery. It was a very good evening overall, as most all-Balanchine programs tend to be. (Agon was the middle ballet, with Kowroski, Somogyi, Soto, Boal, Hanson, McBrearty, Fowler, and Hanna.)

In interviews leading up to the premiere of "A Guide to Strange Places," Peter Martins emphasized that he choreographed this ballet for principal dancers only. In her review today, Anna Kisselgoff makes the same point, even inserting a parenthesis to eliminate any doubt as to her meaning: "Mr. Martins, unusually, uses 10 principal dancers (no corps or soloists)..." Have I missed something? When were Alexandra Ansanelli and Janie Taylor promoted?

The "other" is what happens in Peter Martins' Swan Lake.