Farrell Fan

I'm with you, Bobbi -- to the best of my knowledge Suzanne did not dance Titania after her return to the company -- but did those to-die-for divertissements with Peter Martins. The scenes from Midsummer in Elusive Muse are from a movie made in 1966. It had a very brief run in 1967 at the Little Carnegie Cinema and disappeared. It's not available on video.

I'm a subscriber to The New York Observer and can report that the second Robert Gottlieb piece is accompanied by a photograph of Peter Martins which makes him look like a serial killer in a dinner jacket.

I'm a subscriber to The New York Observer and can report that the second Robert Gottlieb piece is accompanied by a photograph of Peter Martins which makes him look like a serial killer in a dinner jacket.

Hi Tango, Corps dancers doing Principal roles is an old tradition at NYCB. Suzanne Farrell was in the Corps when she debuted in "Movements for Piano & Orchestra," a Principal role Balanchine had intended for Diana Adams, who became pregnant. Suzanne was officially a Soloist when Mr. B choreographed his first ballet for her, "Meditation." And she wasn't named a Principal until after she was Dulcinea in Balanchine's "Don Quixote." Peter Martins used to be blamed for NOT picking promising dancers out of the Corps and giving them Soloist or Principal parts, but instead going by seniority and trying to give everybody a chance. Now he apparently is being blamed for having favorites. It's one of those situations in which he can't win, which at one time caused me to sympathize. Now I have other issues with him, as they say. As for unhappiness backstage, everything was not sweetness and light in the days when Balanchine was concentrating his attention on Suzanne and ignoring everyone else.

I finally validated my session and was able to vote. I voted for Emeralds because not only is it the most beautiful, but it holds the promise of the riches of Rubies and Diamonds yet to come.

Once upon a time, NYCB dancers could be seen unwinding at the Adelphi Hotel Bar after performances at SPAC. The Adelphi Bar is still the place to be at "America's Summer Place," but I didn't see any dancers there last week. Perhaps it's simply that I don't recognize as many dancers as I once did. Similarly, my friends Janice and John De Marco, owners of the Lyrical Ballad Book Store, report that not many dancers make their way there anymore, although I did sight Jared Angle on the premises last year. Maria Calegari and Bart Cook used to be loyal customers, and Lincoln Kirstein, an annual visitor, would invariably have a case of books shipped to his home. He called the place "the best bookstore in the United States. For the NYCB season, the De Marcos have a ballet window which places Suzanne Farrell's "Holding on to the Air," cheek by jowl with Peter Martins's "Far from Denmark." There are variously decorated horse sculptures on the streets of Saratoga this summer, much in the way of the cows that thronged New York a few years back. And at the Arts Center, there's an exhibition of Paul Kolnik's NYCB photographs. But by far the best sight of the week for me was getting to meet rkoretzky and bobsey of Ballet Alert. This despite the fact that rkoretzky is a Yankees fan, bobsey a Red Sox fan, and I more or less root for the Mets. The Tarantella of Ashley Bouder and Daniel Ulbricht was adorable and exciting. Morphoses seems to have developed into an audience favorite. Opus 19/The Dreamer showed Peter Boal at his best, and there's nothing better. The Monumentum/Movements of Maria Kowroski was a triumph. Glenn Keenan made the most of her opportunity in Raymonda, and after Variation VI, I was amused when Alina Dronova, unlike the other dancers, came running out for a curtain call. The Saturday night Gala was both strange and lengthy. The program was: Bach Concerto V (pause), Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux (pause), Hallelujah Junction (intermission), Vespro (intermission), and Vienna Waltzes. I'd always thought the idea behind a gala program was to get the ballet out of the way as quickly as possible, so the fat cats could proceed to their dining and dancing. As it was, the tuxedoed gents and their ladies who'd been sitting in front of me never made it back after the first intermission. Many such defections opened the sight lines for those audience members interested in the doings onstage. Peter Martins's Bach piece is deft and painless. Hallelujah Junction and Vespro, each viewed for a second time, looked good. The program went on so long that the first fusillade of fireworks took place while the Vienna Waltzes cast was taking durtain calls. A different kind of fireworks had been provided earlier in the evening by Damian Woetzel and Jennie Somogyi in the Tschai PdD. There were many young ballet students in the audience, a welcome counterpoint to the ranks of the formally attired. The kids squealed their delight at Damian in particular. This old codger hadn't heard anything like it since the early days of Frank Sinatra. After the show, I got to meet Mae G. Banner, whose reviews of NYCB in The Saratogian newspaper have been models of clarity and taste for many years. I told her about Ballet Alert.

Sounds like very good advice on which ballets look better in the afternoon, and which should be seen at night. Would that the powers that be were as perceptive, rk.

Thanks for the scoop, rk. I'm sad to see her go too -- I also thought she was at the top of her game this season. But as you say, that's the best time to retire. By chance, I'll be there Tuesday night to see her farewell. It will be yet another NYCB milestone that I've fortuitously happened upon at SPAC. They started the first year Alice and I went there, in 1978, and saw Baryshnikov's NYCB debut. Great place you've got there!

Thanks again, rk. As to Fancy Free, some years ago, when I first had my "consciousness raised," I began feeling about this ballet the way you do. The three sailors regarded the women (or girls, as they would have been during World War II) as mere sex objects. When they started throwing around the first woman's purse, their teasing stopped being funny and became a clear-cut case of sexual harassment. The women were portrayed as brainless, and ready to fall for any good line. I'm not much bothered by any of this anymore, and I'm not sure why. For whatever reasons, I succeeded in placing the ballet back into the context of its times, "when girls were girls and men were men," as Archie Bunker had it. It seems unfair to apply today's standards of behavior to past realities. I don't know if Lincoln Kirstein's 1970 statement that Fancy Free "remains the sturdiest characteristic national work" still applies, but it has certainly proved a durable one -- and lots of fun. Enjoy your NYCB doubleheader.

Yes, thanks, rk, for your wonderfully vivid review of opening night. I look forward to your posts for the rest of the week, and to seeing you next week.

To second one of rkoretzky's points about "Symphony in C," I quote Nancy Reynolds: "For the last few minutes, up to the final pose, the entire cast performs the same complicated beaten jumping steps, moving in a bloc. The impact of so many, in unison, really dancing, has a tremendous excitement that builds and builds." Robbins's "I'm Old-Fashioned begins and ends with a clip from the film "You were never Lovelier," with Rita Hayworth and Fred Astaire dancing to the song, "I'm Old-Fashioned." After the opening film sequence, NYCB dancers perform to musical variations on that tune, by Morton Gould. It's a ballet that captures the sophistication and romance of the big city, along with nostalgia for Fred Astaire, the man Balanchine called "the most interesting, the most inventive, the most elegant dancer of our time." I'm the one who went by the New York City numbers and assumed "Ballet No. 3" would be "Haiku." Apologies. I should have realized the Diamond Project numbers would be different in Saratoga, simply because they don't do them all there. Anyhow, I did see "In the Mi(d)st." I said at the time that it left me in a fog, and others said the company hadn't had enough rehearsal time. So it will probably look better at SPAC. Anyhow, it's a great program. Enjoy!

I love your enthusiasm, rkoretzky, and your town. Years ago, when my wife and I started going there for NYCB weekends, we'd have lunch at Lou's and dinner at Mother Goldsmith's -- both unfortunately gone now, as is, alas, my wife. I still look forward to my yearly visit though. I'll be there this year for the second week of the NYCB season and expect to be at all performances from July 16 through the Gala on July 20. I will look for you and your daughter. And I wish you all the best on your forthcoming surgery.

Thanks for that last choice, Manhattnik, thereby making it possible to cast an intelligent vote. I did enjoy Brian Reeder's unJolly Green Giant of Rothbart #1 last night, though.

In his role as NYCB's Ballet Master in Chief, Peter Martins is subject to much criticism, some of it by me. I think his choreography, while not eliciting raves at Ballet Alert, is another matter. From his first ballet, Calcium Light Night, to this past season's Hallelujah Junction, he has amassed a huge body of work. He gets an A for industry, if nothing else. He has produced many forgettable things, but there are a few of his ballets I really enjoy. Barber Violin Concerto, originally panned by critics as corny and stereotypical, is still one of my favorites, even though it would have seemed to have lost its raison d'etre after the departure of the original cast: Kate Johnson, David Parsons, Adam Luders, and Merrill Ashley. Maybe it's the music I love. That may also be the reason I love his more recent Morgen. Among the aerobic works, where it's definitely NOT the music, I find Fearful Symmetries very exciting. It's also true that when an earlier work is revived, like this past season's Les Gentilhommes at SAB, it looks surprisingly good. Any thoughts? Favorites of your own? Hate them all?

"Ballet is important and significant--yes. But first of all, it is a pleasure." -- Balanchine

Another from Arlene Croce: "But for her meeting with Balanchine, might she [suzanne Farrell] not have been another Isadora?"

Maybe before the next Diamond Project, NYCB could appoint a Ballet Editor in Chief.

Maybe it was the acoustics, or perhaps where I was sitting, but at Suzanne Farrell Stages Balanchine in 1995 at the Kennedy Center Opera House, I found the rat-tat-tat of Susan Jaffe's feet in the Preghiera of Mozartiana extremely unnerving. Her performance was otherwise marvelous.

Then I'd guess that DP ballet #3 is Haiku, which I didn't see. I saw both Morphoses and In the Mi(d)st, which were #6 and #7, respectively. Bach Concerto was not a DP ballet and I think will be a premiere. Vespro, by Bigonzetti (you only transposed two letters, rkoretzky, not bad for 4 am) is an interesting work, but I think it's an odd choice for the gala audience. Concerto in Five Movements would have been far better.

Earlier in the Martins regime, I thought of Arlene Croce, Joan Acocella, and Lynn Garafola as the Mafia, out to ice poor Peter. (It's okay, I'm Italian.) But my sympathy for him evaporated after the Balanchine Celebration, when it became clear how he had marginalized the role of former Balanchine dancers in that event, and, to top it off, fired Suzanne Farrell. The Acocella piece seems generally on-target, although I disagree on Kowroski. I think she's matured considerably. But it is certainly true that aerobics reign supreme at NYCB these days. And the lack of ballerina coaching is evident, just as is the ballerina happiness at ABT. The Latin danseurs there are terrific. If only NYCB could arrange a baseball-type trade for one or two of them. Angel Corella has indeed developed from a boy into a man -- and at Susan Jaffe's farewell, developed further into a mensch, by appearing in the small, non-dancing part of Wilfred. I've never seen an Eifman ballet, and apparently should consider myself lucky.

Not to make trouble, but wasn't it a one-time Georgian named Balanchivadze who said, "Ballet is woman"?

This is a wonderful idea, but it requires a personality-change on the part of the Ballet Master in Chief. Let us pray. I'd love to see Suzanne stage Metastaseis and Pithoprakta. I saw this only once, 34 years ago, and have been waiting ever since to see it again.

By popular demand (a request from dirac), and inspired by Susan Jaffe's farewell at ABT, these are my recollections of Suzanne Farrell's last performance at NYCB. It took place on November 26, 1989, a Sunday evening, the evening for NYCB farewells. (NYCB eliminated Sunday evening performances a while ago, but the farewells have kept on coming.) The evening began with a reprise of Sophisticated Lady, a ballet by Peter Martins to Duke Ellington, which had opened the American Music Festival the previous season. Martins said he choreographed it to "celebrate the glamor girl side of Suzanne." He came out of his own dancing retirement to partner her again at the Festival and the farewell. I loved Sophisticated Lady, and was thrilled when I read it would appear on a PBS telecast of Martins choreography. Unfortunately, the PBS version had a sappy made-for-TV ending in which Suzanne gazed longingly at a line of chorus boys (including Nilas) which dissolved into Peter on bended knee. This TV version completely eliminated the best part of the ballet -- a gently swinging Don't Get Around Much Anymore, which brought down the house at the Festival and the farewell. I don't remember the program between Sophisticated Lady and Vienna Waltzes, but it didn't involve Suzanne. A burst of applause greeted her customary solo entrance in the Rosenkavalier section of Vienna Waltzes, but in the next moment, a hush came over the audience. From then till the end of the ballet, people seemed hardly to breathe. My wife and I had seats in the orchestra fairly close to the stage, on the side. Sitting near us were several SAB students and Alexandra Danilova. At the end, after the regular company curtain calls, the ovation began and Danilova, somewhat unsteadily, rose to her feet. The rest of us stood too. White roses from which the thorns had been removed rained down from the sides of the various rings, flung by NYCB Guild volunteers. Suzanne's partners came out with floral tributes -- Adam Luders, Jacques d'Anboise, Peter. Lincoln Kirstein emerged with a spray of white roses. It seemed he would cry and Suzanne put her head on his shoulder. The moment was captured by Steven Caras in a photograph that was on the cover of the Winter 1990 issue of Ballet Review. Suzanne herself seemed on the verge of losing it when she turned to acknowledge the applauding company arrayed behind her. The love emanating from that audience was palpable. It's not much of an exaggeration to say there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Suzanne had come a long way in the audience's affections since the days when her shyness had caused her to be regarded as cold and aloof. And all along, the shower of white roses continued -- according to Ballet Review, there were 13,000 in all.

I consider myself lucky to have been there, too. I thought Jaffe's subdued Giselle made her performance all the more believable. It ain't easy to lose your mind and die of a broken heart, all within a matter of minutes, and she pulled it off. Carreno was superb, and it added to the gala nature of the evening to have the likes of Angel Corella in a minor role. I don't have much to add to Calliope's excellent description of the barrage of flowers and parade of former partners, some standing, others on bended knee. It was an emotional occasion for sure, but I have a few years on Calliope, and for me it didn't approach November 26, 1989. (Sorry, I feel I have to live up to my name every once in a while.)

I'm one of those people who confuse evangelicalism with fundamentalism, and I'm grateful to kfw for pointing out there's a difference. On the subject of Wheaton College, I'm friends with a married couple who both graduated from there. They are also subscribers to NYCB.