katharine kanter

Was Aubane the tiny little girl with a high, nervous jump and incredible vitality, second or third from the left in the first line of the Western Symphony chorus, as we shall henceforth delicately call it ?

Saturday night, April 13th, La Fille Mal Gardée (choreo. Claude Bessy, based on a Dmitrii Roumanoff version from 1972), and Western Symphony (Balanchine). The performance served to confirm what the entire world already knows: were dancing only in the legs and feet, the rest of the world's schools could pack up and leave for the Bahamas, because there is nothing, anywhere, like the footwork of the POB School. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for our art form, there are one or two other minor details that count, such as épaulement. The Roumanoff-Bessy choreography for La Fille Mal Gardée is feeble, but the subject is of course perfect for children between the ages of 14 to 16. There are a great many steps, all admirably executed by these outstanding youths and girls, bearing in mind that they have been taught in an épaulement-free zone and cannot be blamed for what they do not know - although the youths are noticeably better in this respect, than the girls. Many of the steps, seen at foot-level, are those of the early 19th Century. Therefore, going by the book, they should, seen at eye-level, look like Bournonville. But fear not ! They don't ! All one has to do is eliminate épaulement, and the trick is turned ! One cannot fault the lovely little girl dancing La Fille, Mathilde Froustey. Although, physically, she is one of the School's little clones (pinhead, etiolated limbs etc.), she is a calm, clear-headed child, plays with the music, and is clearly remarkably talented. To boot, she has had excellent instruction in mime. The mime scene with the Mother, danced by the adorable étoile Carole Arbo, opening Act II, was the prettiest thing in the ballet. The sixteen-year old has apparently already been accepted into the POB for the next season, and who could blame them ! Her Suitor, Vincent Chaillet was terribly weak. It may have been nerves, and the less criticism levelled at children of that age, the better. Maxime Thomas, dancing the madman Colas, was excellent, although he had been instructed to open his mouth and gape in the midst of difficult jumps, ALWAYS a mistake. In order to avoid an outbreak of intense hostility on this board, I shall refrain from commenting in detail on "Western Symphony". Suffice it to say that I beg to differ with Mlle. Bessy's choice of ballet for child-dancers. I do not believe that 13 to 16 year-olds should be playing Hooker and Client in a Saloon, with the girls demonstrating peculiar specialities in ways that may not be obvious to those in the audience who, to put it delicately, have had little commerce with the opposite sex. Such as the cheering five and six year-olds come to watch their brothers and sisters on stage. But that's Balanchine !

There's a fair amount about Miss van Patten available on Internet - her professors, etc. She appears to be only 16 or 17 years old, and has already been entrusted with principal roles at the RDB. Unfortunately, I have not yet seen her.

There is news from the Opera School. Claude Bessy gave an interview to Le Figaro on March 29th which I am now attempting to get hold of, having lost that issue. According to hearsay, the interview contains the following information. Mlle. Bessy apparently THREATENS to EMIGRATE to Australia, owing to the lack of interest in classical dance in France. She says that the authorities - the Culture Ministry et al. - are bitterly opposed to classical dance and have been doing everything possible to eradicate it. Mlle Bessy, who is now approaching 70, confirms that Elisabeth Platel will head the school as of 2004, and has already begun to work with her. Mlle. Platel having refused to deal with logistics (leaking roofs, et al.), an Administrator has been appointed this week, to deal with such things. Also very important: the étoiles Gaida and Arbo, who retired this year, have joined the school, and Elisabeth Maurin will join next year on her retirement. All three ladies have made their name in the strictly classical repertory, and Elisabeth Platel has made no secret of her dislike of what is now called "contemporary" dance. For once, this is positive news. A little hat-tossing into the air may be in order....

If you look at the sort of thing that passes for choreography at the moment, clearly, it does NOT call for high levels of fitness. an adrenaline rush is NOT fitness. That is why people who attempt to dance a Bournonville piece, find it exhausting. Nikolai Hubbe himself said that when he was back in Denmark recently, he realised he had "no calves left". Choreography, over the last thirty years, has mainly involved, for the woman, three steps: développé à la seconde, pas de bourée, and piqué turns. Then she gets to slide along the floor, or rather, I should say, is dragged along the floor, by one arm. Choreography for the man has mainly involved tearing up the stage five or six steps at speed, and picking up or tossing a female. Occasionally, he might get to do a manege, but it will be fifteen identical jetés en tournant... If it is Mats Ek, or Pina Bausch, both sexes get to froth at the mouth, wring their hands, and writhe. Again, amphetamines might help, but that is not my concept of fitness. Stamina and cardiac capacity are developed by jumps and beats, and by certain forms of adagio work. The importance of lengthy adagio enchainements can be underestimated. There is, for example, a world of a difference, in terms of building one's respiratory and cardiac capacity, between slapping up a développé againqst one's ear and bunging the leg down, and powerfully developing the leg out to waist level, holding it there, and then carrying it down, or forward etc. Many dancers have told me that the condition required to dance Bournonville, is higher than anything they would normally experience, whether in class, or in performance. They have said that they have a feeling of "not getting off the ground" in the jumps, and would RESIST any proposal to dance Bournonville, because they fear to be injured owing to poor condition. I remember one American critic attending the Bournonville Festival in 1992. He wrote that in the adagio passages, in the 60s and 70s, he had always recalled the Danish ballet "moving forward from immobility to action, like huge tree trunks suddenly uprooted", or something along those lines. By 1992, he said, that feeling had quite vanished, in favour of something more skitterish, flitty. I find that image perfectly expresses the problem.

If you look at the sort of thing that passes for choreography at the moment, clearly, it does NOT call for high levels of fitness. an adrenaline rush is NOT fitness. That is why people who attempt to dance a Bournonville piece, find it exhausting. Nikolai Hubbe himself said that when he was back in Denmark recently, he realised he had "no calves left". Choreography, over the last thirty years, has mainly involved, for the woman, three steps: développé à la seconde, pas de bourée, and piqué turns. Then she gets to slide along the floor, or rather, I should say, is dragged along the floor, by one arm. Choreography for the man has mainly involved tearing up the stage five or six steps at speed, and picking up or tossing a female. Occasionally, he might get to do a manege, but it will be fifteen identical jetés en tournant... If it is Mats Ek, or Pina Bausch, both sexes get to froth at the mouth, wring their hands, and writhe. Again, amphetamines might help, but that is not my concept of fitness. Stamina and cardiac capacity are developed by jumps and beats, and by certain forms of adagio work. The importance of lengthy adagio enchainements can be underestimated. There is, for example, a world of a difference, in terms of building one's respiratory and cardiac capacity, between slapping up a développé againqst one's ear and bunging the leg down, and powerfully developing the leg out to waist level, holding it there, and then carrying it down, or forward etc. Many dancers have told me that the condition required to dance Bournonville, is higher than anything they would normally experience, whether in class, or in performance. They have said that they have a feeling of "not getting off the ground" in the jumps, and would RESIST any proposal to dance Bournonville, because they fear to be injured owing to poor condition. I remember one American critic attending the Bournonville Festival in 1992. He wrote that in the adagio passages, in the 60s and 70s, he had always recalled the Danish ballet "moving forward from immobility to action, like huge tree trunks suddenly uprooted", or something along those lines. By 1992, he said, that feeling had quite vanished, in favour of something more skitterish, flitty. I find that image perfectly expresses the problem.

Sat through the entire monstrosity once, a couple of years ago, Alexandra, and was tempted back at the very last minute (7.35 pm to be precise) by learning that Mlle. Maurin was to dance. But could not hack it straight through once again. Mlle. Maurin has been renowned for the past two decades as Swanhilda - in the ORIGINAL version. She is a marvellous mime, and literally dances with her eyes. She is also a renowned technician. Very much under par last night on both fronts. Would not like to speculate as to the reasons. As Terry noted, Mlle. Ould Braham's feet do not touch the ground. She seems to have Hermes' little wings to her ankles. Like M. Thibault, the young girl has been criticised for not being sufficiently "modern" , or multi-purpose ("polyvalent"). Déjà vu, ahem ?

Yank this thing of the boards as soon as possible ! Where was the ol'Vaudeville hook when we needed it ? Have already seen it twice, walked out at the interval. For those of you out there who do not know, this is a completely "rethought", if that is the word, "Coppélia" by the POB's former ballet master Patrice Bart. Not a step remains from Saint Léon's original. This Thing dates from 1996, has huge chunks of music glopped in from the opera "Lakhme" and God knows where else, and is an absolute unmitigated mess, cast of thousands galumphing over the stage in all directions, meaninglessly. Why Bart says he had to bring in that brilliant mime Claude de Vulpian to instruct, is beyond me, because he as simply wrecked all the lovely mime passages in the original. The dances are messy and complicated, the variations either dull, or dire. The intrigue is impossible to follow, something Freudian and sexually triangular (Where would this country be without a sexual triangle ?) Lionel Delannoe as Frantz was so much under the weather, that the less said the better, and Elisabeth Maurin as Swanhilda seemed, for whatever reason, terribly ill at ease, even shaky. Perhaps the gruesome choreography had got to them both. Sole redeeming feature of the evening: some exquisite instants from the twenty-year old Myriam Ould-Braham (whose quality of movement is simply extraordinary) and from that beautiful redhead Fanny Fiat. As for Emmanuel Thibault as one of Frantz's little friends - well, what foreigners must think about seeing a dancer of the extraordinary quality of Thibault, in the seventeenth row third from the left, with Delannoe up front as "premier danseur", is a peculiar question better not raised here.

Those of us - including Alexandra here I might say - who have been hammering on this theme for fifteen or so years, and who have often been told to "stay out of it", will of course avoid what the Germans call "Schadenfreude" - Evil Joy. Why ? Because we are talking not tens, not twenties, but several hundred gifted people, who have gone down to what I call "an early artistic grave". Will choreographers and management ever learn ? Must this not lead to a change, God willing ? I shall therefore rein in an impulse to shriek "I told you so" - though many of us did.

There are very few positive things I can think of, in today's ballet world, but one of them is BIG. Big, is CHINA I have been told by people who travel to China regularly, that there is a tidal wave of interest for classical ballet in that country. The Central Conservatory at Peking has now got several HUNDRED, read HUNDRED professors. That is HOPE riding horseback. They have even shewn a keen interest in Bournonville. b/ In the Western world, there is nothing good going on. Bournonville is the hard-core of classical dance, and his teaching has been wiped from the stage and the studio, everywhere in the world, INCLUDING in Denmark. It is precisely as though musicians had decided, quite literally, to spit upon and then shred all existing scores of Bach or Beethoven. Even the old Vaganova School - disagree as one might with some of its intrinsic features - has gone over to flat-out buffoonery, with a new generation of leg-thwackers. This particular state of affairs makes a number of us very angry, but as there is no positive outlet for our anger, we are compelled to control it. But, there is one critical fact: there do appear to be a couple of hundred people in Europe and the United States who are all-too-keenly aware of just how bad things are, and who are trying, each in their own way, to do something about it. Including people on this Website. c/ In the major troupes, dancers have better legal advice, better contracts, and are better paid, comparatively, than three decades ago. Perhaps to make up for the fact that there are now so many injuries, careers are a full decade shorter.... In our shoddy, down-at-heel "post-industrial" societies, ballet dancers are now amongst the very few truly competent people who still KNOW HOW TO DO something more technical than pop open a Coca-cola tin. A first-class professional, like Julie Kent, or Carlos Acosta, probably has more intellectual rigour, and knows more about the world, than the majority of people in Government or Academia. I suppose that in one way, one could describe that as positive, although what it says about Government or Academia.... Dancers have accordingly become more free in their language. Tamara Rojo gave an interview recently to a European magazine, where she boldly attacked the "ego-stripping" techniques of certain professors, in a way no dancer would have dared to do a decade ago. That is positive.

THAT is undoubtedly the case !

Mel, it's a hyper-extension of the hip joint. The hip joint is the most important joint in the entire body, it's like the attachment-point on the violin for the strings. It's the heaviest joint, by far, and the limbs that happen to be attached to the poor thing, are just not meant to be doing that. I've been told by several sports orthopaedists that two forms of injury they commonly see among classical dancers today, are the ripping or shredding of the membrane covering the hip joint (yukkk!) and stress fractures of the hip, owing, precisely, to the sort of movement shewn in the photo.

May I ask everyone to take a look at the photograph shewn at the Link (from ballet.co today) below: http://www.thestage.co.uk/paper/0211/0206.shtml and compare that to classical alignment. What orthopaedists call hyper-extension, and what from the standpoint of classical dance, is a text-book form of distortion and misalignment, has now become "standard" technique. No personal criticism is meant here of Miss Cojocaru, I would hasten to add. She is doing what her teacher taught her, and what is EXPECTED of all females today in classical dance. [ March 20, 2002, 04:18 AM: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

I assume some of the debate here has been prompted by the firing of Serguei Berejnoi and Tatiana Terekhova by Mr. Nissinen at Boston a fortnight ago. There are people on this planet who would give their eye-teeth to have that pair teaching with their company - Miss Terekhova has a fond spot in many a heart worldwide - so I doubt they'll be unemployed for long, but really, why do that ? What would happen if each new conductor fired half the Berlin Philharmonic because he's suddenly decided he prefers the French fiddle school to the German ? That's how one should see it I think: most company directors today do not see their dancers like a fledgling Berlin Philharmonic, potentially a truly great ensemble, moving forward like one man, with a vast repertory they know on the tips of their fingers. No ! Dancers today have about the status of hoofers in a lineup from the Crazy Horse Saloon. Company directors move amongst the serried ranks of high-kickers, and retain those who appeal, or whatever... who knows... I've quite literally heard of new directors coming in, looking round a class and saying things to the effect of "Good dancer, but Italianate type. I prefer a cooler, sleeker Nordic look". Until we get back to the idea of classical dance as a branch of musical culture, rather than as a people-show to goggle at - Gwyneth Paltrow doing a fashion shot - we are going to be bicyling through heavy sauerkraut, as the French say.

Interview in today's Le Figaro with Arkadii Volodos, a Russian pianist aged about 30, whom I've never heard. His sense of personal authority and identity shew how far apart the world of ballet, and the world of classical music, have drifted over the last few decades, as ballet has turned to acrobacy, and dancers have become increasingly mindless. Question: you refuse to discuss your incredible virtuosity - "That's all purely mechanical work, and has nothing whatsoever to do with art....the people I studied with at Saint Petersburg, along with Jacques Rouvier at Paris, and Bashkirev at Madrid, taught me, not gymnastics, but music. And a piece of good luck that was !... "I refuse to go beyond sixty concerts a year, and reserve three months, just to take a breather. I'm lucky enough to be able to stop playing altogether for several weeks, and come back to the piano without difficulty. As for the instrument, I've just bought myself a small upright, ideal for practising inside one's rooms, where, frankly, a concert Steinway's of no use. Let us keep our feet firmly on the ground, music itself suffices to lift us up off this earth !"

Interview in today's Le Figaro with Arkadii Volodos, a Russian pianist aged about 30, whom I've never heard. His sense of personal authority and identity shew how far apart the world of ballet, and the world of classical music, have drifted over the last few decades, as ballet has turned to acrobacy, and dancers have become increasingly mindless. Question: you refuse to discuss your incredible virtuosity - "That's all purely mechanical work, and has nothing whatsoever to do with art....the people I studied with at Saint Petersburg, along with Jacques Rouvier at Paris, and Bashkirev at Madrid, taught me, not gymnastics, but music. And a piece of good luck that was !... "I refuse to go beyond sixty concerts a year, and reserve three months, just to take a breather. I'm lucky enough to be able to stop playing altogether for several weeks, and come back to the piano without difficulty. As for the instrument, I've just bought myself a small upright, ideal for practising inside one's rooms, where, frankly, a concert Steinway's of no use. Let us keep our feet firmly on the ground, music itself suffices to lift us up off this earth !"

According to John Percival in yesterday's Independent, Ross Stretton expects dancers at the Royal to attain "new levels of fitness". One assumes he can only be talking about notably unfit people like Johann Kobborg, or Tamara Rojo. I read those Words of Wisdom, just after leafing through an old interview with the pianist Claudio Arrau. He was talking about his crony Beethoven, and said something like: "it's an exchange of worlds. There is the world of Beethoven, and the world of the interpreter, and there is an exchange between the two worlds, where the interpreter gives his blood to a work which would otherwise not live without him." Arrau said that his professor, R. Krause, who died in 1918, had told him to study disciplines outwith the field of music, to develop the most vigorous mental life. If anyone wants to know why ballet has been such a bone-crushing BORE for the last couple of decades, look no further than comparing the Arrau interview, to the "new levels of fitness" Sretton would like us to achieve. Ballet dancers today do not have a "world" to exchange with the composers and choreographers they dance to. Their minds are, in the main, empty, and THROUGH NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN. Dancers today have to be so goddam "fit" (does anyone ever worry about their INTELLECTUAL un-fitness ???), that they have no time whatsoever to read, study, visit a museum or concert, or even think about anything save the latest insane diet fad, and cranking That Leg up a little higher. What could Ross Stretton possibly mean by "new levels" of fitness ? The only way I can see today's vastly over-trained dancers becoming any "fitter" - and thus still less fit to be artists - is by the use of muscle-building substances hitherto known only to the world of competitive sport. Grotesque. [ March 13, 2002, 06:34 AM: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

According to John Percival in yesterday's Independent, Ross Stretton expects dancers at the Royal to attain "new levels of fitness". One assumes he can only be talking about notably unfit people like Johann Kobborg, or Tamara Rojo. I read those Words of Wisdom, just after leafing through an old interview with the pianist Claudio Arrau. He was talking about his crony Beethoven, and said something like: "it's an exchange of worlds. There is the world of Beethoven, and the world of the interpreter, and there is an exchange between the two worlds, where the interpreter gives his blood to a work which would otherwise not live without him." Arrau said that his professor, R. Krause, who died in 1918, had told him to study disciplines outwith the field of music, to develop the most vigorous mental life. If anyone wants to know why ballet has been such a bone-crushing BORE for the last couple of decades, look no further than comparing the Arrau interview, to the "new levels of fitness" Sretton would like us to achieve. Ballet dancers today do not have a "world" to exchange with the composers and choreographers they dance to. Their minds are, in the main, empty, and THROUGH NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN. Dancers today have to be so goddam "fit" (does anyone ever worry about their INTELLECTUAL un-fitness ???), that they have no time whatsoever to read, study, visit a museum or concert, or even think about anything save the latest insane diet fad, and cranking That Leg up a little higher. What could Ross Stretton possibly mean by "new levels" of fitness ? The only way I can see today's vastly over-trained dancers becoming any "fitter" - and thus still less fit to be artists - is by the use of muscle-building substances hitherto known only to the world of competitive sport. Grotesque. [ March 13, 2002, 06:34 AM: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

Saw it on Saturday night March 2nd. Or rather, saw Act One. Walked out before Act Two, along with a musician friend, who spent the hour scrutinishing the cupola's Chagall fresco. He found it more action-packed. Terribly boring. So boring, that events in the orchestra pit more worthwhile. Vello Pahn conducting. Turgid, difficult score. Orchestra wide awake - unusually - to navigate serried ranks of obstacles. Pahn regularly conducts for the ballet, had clearly sat in on rehearsals, and realised that the ballet was a/ unmusical and b/that the dancers were going strictly by the counts, so no worry about their phrasing, rubato etc. He accordingly did not raise his eyes to look at the on-stage debacle once. Just conducted straight through, on automatic pilot. Great fun... Had been looking forward to Mr. Belarbi's work as a choreographer. Sorry news: this particular piece is warmed-over Pina Bausch, with a bit of Agnes B. de Mille thrown in for good measure. Incidentally, the world has had enough of Bum Lifts. A Bum Lift is a thing "pioneered", if that is the word, by that woman Pina Bausch. The man picks up the girl, who is folded in two like a tea-towel, and presents her bum to the audience. She then straightens her legs, going from tea-towel, to shower-curtain. Strictly for cellulite lovers, as Clement Crisp has remarked on another memorable occasion. Bournonville did not like lifted at all. Perhaps there was something of the prophet about him after all. Perhaps he knew that Pina Bausch was in the pipeline. Cannot blame the dancers, but every one on stage save for the Misses Pujol and Daniel staggered about as though they'd rather be out night-clubbing. Two hours of bedlam, with roughly two minutes worth of actual steps. The current "Directeur de la danse", Brigitte Lefebvre, is one of the Popes of Modern Dance. It shows.

There is far too much "toe-dancing" nowadays. Pointe work, as it is called, from the French term "sur les pointes", which means on the tips of your toes (!), was originally meant to be an accent, like a third-register note (high) in the singing voice. Unfortunately, along with the current craving for the extreme and the sensational, even circus-like, that has taken over our art form in recent years, many steps that would, in actual fact, be more beautiful and fluent, if executed on the demi-pointe (half-toe), are now done on pointe. Pointe work, in female dancers, has developed over the last half-century to the detriment of jumps and beats. Go to a shop, and ask the shop lady to shew you what the shoes look and feel like. You will note how terribly stiff, not just the pointe, or box, is, but how stiff the shank, or sole is. They have become increasingly hard, reinforced, in recent decades. One does not have the same feel for the floor, for extremely fast and brilliant foot-work, and for certain types of steps that I cannot explain here, in such clunky slippers. If you would like to understand this concept more fully, try to find a film of a ballet by Auguste Bournonville, or perhaps "Giselle" which dates from the same period (1841-1842). The steps are so beautiful, you do not NEED pointework, to find the ballet exciting. There is some pointework (much has been added, incidentally, by modern performers), but it is not essential. Lastly, but not leastly, orthopaedists are not happy about this trend in the ballet. They see the chronic injuries, the bunions, the stress factures, and so forth, and are the first to say - loudly - that there is too much pointework, and that it should be used but sparingly, as a rare and therefore notable, ray of light. [ March 01, 2002, 10:56 AM: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

The main difficulty we are facing today, is the fact that even the largest troupes no longer have a proper budget, and haven't, for the last fifteen to twenty years (although I don't know about NYCB ). Even here at Paris, there are not the funds to put up more than roughly three major classics, for example, a year, plus a number of smaller works. Also for budgetary reasons, most theatres, at least in Europe, will do a straight run of one piece, for six weeks, and then a straight run of another piece, for the following six weeks, and so forth, rather than alternating the pieces in an interesting way. The straight runs mean that you've got the settings, costumes et al. all in one place, at one time, with the exact same logistical teams, and it is all so much cheaper. Artistically, however, it's a right bore, and as for the dancers, they find doing the same thing every night for six weeks a strain. For example, this year at the 'Bayadère', by the end of the run, eight of the 32 ladies in the corps de ballet were knocked out by injury - those arabesques on the incline look pretty, but they're hell on the ligaments. At Paris, the étoiles expect, by right, to alternate in the leading roles. This means that if there are, say, six men, and six women, who are étoiles, there will generally be six different casts, at the top. There have been runs of 'Giselle' with only eight performances, and say, four casts. The end result is a/ the étoile does not get to develop his or her characterisation properly and b/ the audience has got to see 'Giselle' twice a week for six weeks, though with little chance of seeing the precise same cast doing it twice. As there are many injuries during such long runs, the corps de ballet gets short shrift as well. People end up being "bussed in" to take up the slack from those who are off ill, with very little rehearsal. This, in turn, contributes to the injury rate of course ! Not to speak of the fact that at the end of the day, the "carpetbaggers" are really just doing the steps. Ballet dancers are intellectually very strong, they can learn just about anything, of anything length, within a day or so, formally - but how can all the rest possibly follow ? The mime, the subtle gestures, the characterisation ? It can't. They're not getting the coaching. So I say, let us go back to the system of alternating repertory, so over the year, people dance a piece several times, put it aside for a few weeks, and then come back to it, which gives them a better chance to internally work on the characterisation. There are other issues involved, but for the sake of brevity, I shall stop here.

I must say I found Miss Homan's article very offensive, for two reasons. One, she scornfully dismisses people who have given their life to the ballet, notably Miss Jaffe, and Miss Kent. Not being an American, I do not know Miss Jaffe well, but I believe that she has to date enjoyed a high reputation world-wide as a technician, which is not exactly nothing, in these days of overall low standards. I also seem to recall that Miss Jaffe must be approaching, or perhaps over, the age of forty by now. Once people have given their all for twenty-five years, a little humility on the part of we critics WHO HAVE NEVER IN OUR LIFE HAD TO WORK SO HARD as the people we so harshly condemn, might be in order. As for Miss Kent, I did not recognise her lovely dancing in the cold contempt she appears to have reaped here. One has the impression that Miss Homan knows very little of the draconian discipline female dancers today have to live under, a discipline that NO OPERA SINGER on the planet would submit to for even twenty-four hours. And for a wage that is about one-tenth of what even a middling opera singer earns. A ballet dancer today is expected to be bone-thin, but bursting with energy and enthusiasm, aethereal, but athletic as Schwarzenegger ten minutes later, a great actress, and a circus acrobat. It is all too much, all over the top. So I feel that snide remarks are somewhat out of place, and that a little compassion and insight, and, dare one say it, perhaps a desire to HELP THESE PEOPLE's SITUATION LOOK UP, might go a long way. Secondly, I'm not at all sure that Miss Homan knows what she's talking about. I'd second Alexandra's remarks about Vestris - I find it difficult to believe that anyone who knows ANYTHING about dance in the first half of the nineteenth century, could so insultingly dismiss one of the greatest professors the ballet has ever known. Miss Homan has worked herself up into a lather about how clever the men are today in the ballet. Who could disagree ? Men, worldwide, are dancing better than women today. They do not have to perform hyper-extensions. They do not have to starve themselves to look chic in a minimalist costume. Men tend to find acrobacy fun. Men are allowed far more artistic licence and freedom, the more so, as they are a rare commodity in the ballet world. Men are respected by artistic directors, while women are NOT, as a rule. The fact that women in the ballet are once again being subjected to all sorts of things, both on and off-stage, that are degrading, and in short, awful, should be of concern to us all. Whereas Miss Homan's attitude is that of a dissatisfied consumer. There's a French expression "parler pour ne rien dire" - you talk, talk, talk, but you haven't said anything, really. Miss Homan, back to the drawing board. [ February 18, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

Sometime around 1986, I interviewed Michel de Lutry, who, as his name does not indicate, was an Englishman then teaching at the Heinz Boesl Academy at Munich. Michel de Lutry met and spoke with Tamar Karsarvina on not one, but several occasions, if I recall aright, when he did first Hilarion, and then, by a fluke of fate, Albrecht. He told me that Mlle. Karsavina had taught him several very fine mime passages that are no longer done, including one for Hilarion where he kisses the ground beneath Giselle's feet - in fact, he kisses his hand, and then traces a path on the ground in Giselle's wake. M. de Lutry said that he thought it a great pity that so much mime has been cut from Giselle since the beginning of the century. As is well known, the Peasant Pas de Deux with the ghastly lifts is a later accretion, as is that awful solo on pointe for Giselle , and there is stuff in Albrecht's solos that does not look right, from a Perrot standpoint. Swathes of the original score have been cut out. Joan Sutherland's husband, Richard Bonynge, a conductor, had a recording out some years back with the full score by Adam. There was of course far less pointe work. Serge Lifar is the one who added the camp bit at the beginning of Act One where Albrecht swooshes in his purple cloak, with the bunch of big fake "tasteful" lillies. Kitsch to the Nenth Degree. Lifar to the hilt. Perrot wanted it sober. Well, sober today, it ain't. Most importantly, Perrot did not see his play as a romantic dream. There was a short final Act, where the Prince returns to reality, and to Bathilde. Carla Fracci had that reconstructed for a production she did with her husband about fifteen years ago, at one of the Festivals in Italy. Lastly, but not leastly, one should not forget that Perrot and Bournonville were schoolmates, students of Gaetano Vestris at the Opéra. In 1840 or 41, whenever, Bournonville was in Paris during one of his bouts of exile, and was actually VISITING Perrot during the weeks he was working on Giselle. I find that terribly exciting to think about. it is also the period Bournonville began to compose 'Napoli'. In other words, if we are to dance it right, 'Giselle' should be danced in the so-called "Bournonville" style, which is actually that of the immortal Gaetano Vestris. Please, no leaning forward, no drooping, no wilting - do not mistake the notoriously feeble level of contemporary draughtsmanship as shewn in the sketches and paintings one sees of dance in the 1840s, for what REALLY went on in the studio and on stage. What those painters meant to shew by having the dancers lean forward, was EPAULEMENT. [ February 12, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]

Anyone who's heard a Russian conductor leading the orchestra during a ballet performance, knows exactly what Alexandra is referring to here. They can make the direst of the dire sound like Verdi. Russian conductors love the ballet, and they respect ballet dancers. They consider that opera involves one lot of constraints, and ballet involves another lot of constraints, and, as a conductor involved in a THEATRICAL art form, one simply plunges in and gets on with the constraints. Ballet dancers are not an unmusical bunch of ninkompoops, simply because they cannot dance a passage as quickly as someone might be able to sing it. Russian conductors realise this. They will slow a passage down, use rubato, and at the end of the day, make music out of it anyway. On the other hand, what does anyone do, when the choreographer has got no ear for music ? Cranko's massacre of the Tchaikovski score for "Eugene Onegin", or what Neumeier did to Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream, injecting blobs of atonal Ligeti into it at random... I would also say, as an aside, that the current practice of teaching ballet ON THE STEP, rather than on the enchaînement, is not helping us. Anyway, an odd experience recently: I had HEARD (not seen, because I won't watch such nonsense) the "Afternoon of a Faun" played at a POB triple-bill in December. I think it was the ORCHESTRE COLONNE in the pit. Dull as dishwater. Then, last week, I heard the score again, by a top orchestra, so beautifully played that it was unrecognisable (the fact that I loathe Debussy is irrelevant, for the purpose of this discussion). When played by the second orchestra, it suggested an entirely different choreography, an entirely different mood - and a far higher standard of dancing, as no dancer can fail but be inspired by that sort of playing. I've been told by French dancers that when they go to dance in Germany, with the big German orchestras, the standard of playing, and conducting, is so high, that "despite the fact that the conductor never once looked at me, I almost fell into the orchestra pit listening, it was all so beautiful", "I felt I was in a different ballet", "I was so excited to hear that, I got all my old enthusiasm back"...and so forth If I might conclude by an anecdote: some years ago in Germany, I sat at piano rehearsals for the ballet, next to an Austrian opera conductor, who was there parsing the score before conducting it some weeks later. He was a complete novice to the ballet. At the end of the rehearsals, he told me that he had initially been depressed, and even somewhat offended, when asked to take over at the ballet, as he thought it would be an insult to the music. "I was wrong", he said, "I've got to love it so much, I'd almost say I prefer it to the opera. I have been so moved by the work ethic of the dancers, their approach to art, it's given me a new perspective on music."

Disrupting the technical coherence of the scheme underlying classical dance, that is what this faddish sort of dancing adds up to. Let us return to the business, discussed earlier on this thread, of the développé. Again, imagine that one is standing on the flat foot, and does a développé devant. Then take that leg, and move it to la seconde, and then move it to arabesque, in what is called in some "jurisdictions", "grand rond de jambe". In the classical scheme, THAT LEG MUST REMAIN AT THE SAME HEIGHT THROUGHOUT, because devant, à la seconde, en arrière, is a single, coordinated, motion that simply happens to shift through different configurations. The leg does not go to 110-120 degrees devant, then whooosh up to 180 à la seconde, than collapse down to 110 en arabesque, or any other dipping-and-bobbing combo of degrees. IT MUST REMAIN THROUGHOUT AT THE SAME LEVEL. It also happens to be a major choreographic feature. Now the human body is so made, that no-one on the planet, not even Mlle. Guillem, can do a développé devant so that it touches the nose. Therefore, under no circumstances whatsoever, can the développé à la seconde be allowed to go higher than the one devant. Again, think calm, think strong, think stable. And think COHERENT. This is an iron law. We can of course break such laws, and the crowd will roar in approval...but in every crowd, there is SOMEONE, who knows. [ February 11, 2002: Message edited by: katharine kanter ]