Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

jsmu

Inactive Member
  • Posts

    291
  • Joined

Everything posted by jsmu

  1. This. More AND MORE common, and hello? All one has to do is watch Tallchief, or Alonso, or Hayden, or Verdy, or any of the scores of great past ballerinas, to realize that with less fancy shoes and far worse stages they did FAR BETTER in pointe work than most 'ballerinas' these days. If the girl can't hop on pointe she shouldn't do Marzipan; it's rather like casting a girl who can't turn in Allegro Brilliante.....uh, NO.............. You are so right about the goddess Maximova (talk about freakin' strong feet!) Do you know her Don Q, I think, coda where she does EVERY fouette with hands on her HIPS?!?!?
  2. So true. They still have Mimi Hassenboehler in a pic in Bizet Second Movement, and that pic is from performances eight years ago and she retired four years ago!
  3. Hello Christian. The podcasts no longer seem to work have they been taken down?
  4. Loscavio was indeed divine in this, as she always was in everything I ever saw her dance. What a loss it was when she left for Hamburg. She even did almost all the steps in the variation (unheard of after Morris, particularly after Watts got done destroying this among many other roles....)Acco von Aroldingen indeed dances very well in the CBC filming (Croce says flatly, and I believe it, that vA later TRASHED the beautiful part Balanchine gave her.) but she hardly steals the show from the dazzling, brilliant, and vastly underrated Morris. According to the original cast and everyone who ever saw the ballet when he was still able to perform it, no one else has ever really danced the boy's part like d'Amboise, which is very sad. He was irreplaceable in many ways.
  5. Amen to that about Hyltin and Laracey. SIGH. Laracey is the most unjustly neglected and underused dancer in the entire NYCB and should have been a principal five years ago AT LEAST.
  6. Farrell started the head-to-knee thing. Like many other little idiosyncrasies, it is by no means compulsory, ESPECIALLY in Balanchine (Balanchine had different versions of many of his ballets for different principals, as they have all stated in various interviews.) Balanchine had so many different versions of the danseur role in First Movement Bizet it was unreal, for example. Verdy did a line of jumps/pas de chats/brisees in Raymonda second variation rather than the double pirouette/pas de chat sequence. Even Ashley modified Marnee Morris' impossible 'turning variation' in Who Cares? , and Balanchine approved.
  7. I'm sure there is not. It's not an easy job and it's a job guaranteed to make enemies no matter how you do it. However, some ADs are far less toxic than others.
  8. Precisely my point: many of our favorites are NOT out there dancing, and not out there dancing principal roles. (How many principal roles has Laracey been given , particularly until the past year or two???) Laracey, as I said earlier, is only the most glaring example; there are many, many others. It is not a matter of *a* favorite but a matter of many excellent dancers being passed over and neglected (to put the nicest possible spin on it.) It doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize or promote talent like Bouder, T. Peck, Mearns, Veyette, or R. Fairchild--any company would be thrilled to have those dancers and feature them all prominently. Bouder's jump alone is in the Osipova category, for example. Ulbricht is another compelling example of wasted talent. When Martins does give dancers opportunities it is usually a dancer like Pereira or Lowery who is vastly inferior to nine-tenths of the corps. The rash of Sugar Plum debuts last December was an *anomaly*, not a normal thing.
  9. HB is hemorrhaging good dancers and principals. They lost their best and studliest male dancer, Joe Walsh, to SFB a year or two ago. Robison was also one of the the best male dancers in the company. Welch needs to move on--the company has become a horrid showcase for his godawful 'ballets' and very little else, and as I said in my first post here he has a knack for alienating and losing good dancers......
  10. I'd say far, far more bitterness of various sorts, not just casting. At least McKenzie finally promoted Abrera. Laracey, who should have been a principal years ago, is only the most egregious of Martins' sins in the department of neglect: King, Pazcoguin (now leaving--and who blames her?), Segin, just to name obvious examples. Then there are the Dancers Who Never Should Have Been Principals (Stafford....!!) Dancers Who Never Should Have Been Soloists (Lowery, Pereira) etc. Why was Craig Hall never made principal? Why weren't we seeing Laracey in the Bizet adagio, in Diamonds, in Swan Lake, in Agon pas de deux, as Aurora, ages ago?
  11. Welch had better promote Katharine Precourt PDQ--she should have been a principal five years ago at least and is still young enough to leave, which she should if he continues his disrespect of her. He already alienated Kelly Myernick and Melissa Hough--the company's two best female dancers along with Precourt--into retiring and leaving respectively.
  12. Yes. The word most often used for the kind of ballet Sonatine is--the genre--is 'perfume' and in fact Balanchine often gave his ballerinas perfumes....he would say 'ah, Arpege--Kay is here (Kay Mazzo.) He made at least two ballets for Verdy in this vein (this one and 'La Source') and unfortunately, Verdy is gone now (she was one of the greatest coaches on earth in addition to having been an unforgettable ballerina and artist.) The sensibility Verdy brought to every instant she danced--the unbelievable musicality, the responsivity, the charm, the piquancy, the sudden seriousness, the drama, the acuity--is deader than a doornail now (with Martins having owned the company for decades now, this is not surprising)...Fairchild is a fine technician and a conscientious dancer--I admire her for her cleanliness and exactitude--but this ballet is completely and utterly beyond her: Tiler Peck is better (I have not seen Ashley Bouder dance the role--she is still out on maternity leave) but still not close to what Verdy was. It is true that no one can ever be what the creator of a role was--and it is useless to attempt to imitate directly in art--but sadly the divine sensibility which Verdy had, and for which this role was created, is no more. (The usual pig-dog piano playing of one of Ravel's great masterpieces does not help a bit either.) I wish you could have seen this with Verdy and Jean-Pierre Bonnefous (a great dancer as well, married to Patricia McBride.) It was a different continuum.
  13. Anyone know who the blonde demi, stage left, in First Movement Bizet is? I thought perhaps Laracey but it doesn't quite look like her....?
  14. Reichlen has become even more brilliant in this role. However, the role was not made on a tall woman (Marie-Jeanne had long legs for her size, but she was rather short by today's standards) and many 'shorter' ballerinas like McBride, Mary Carmen Catoya, and Bouder have made huge successes in it. I find Lowery's dancing ungainly and extremely crass. I found King utterly exquisite in the second ballerina role. Garcia, sadly, has been sloppy and inadequate for years.
  15. And I could not care LESS about size or hair color. Peck was indeed terrific, but Reichlen has reached a new level in this role (and she was always good in it, from the outset.)
  16. An irreplaceable artist and teacher. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/arts/dance/violette-verdy-ballerina-with-flair-dies-at-82.html?src=me Her coaching and teaching were as inspired as her dancing; the wonderful youtube video called "He Gave Valentines to Each of Us" is a good example.
  17. Well, Kent was certainly not short--but in fact Mazzo was. Mazzo was capable of a considerably regal presence, though I never saw her in Bizet.
  18. And to directly quote modern social media, whatEVER.
  19. I was flabbergasted. Martins typecasts constantly by size, so although I expect Peck will be the best ballerina in the company in the Tschaik Concerto I never thought she would be allowed to dance it. You're sadly right about Scheller--I was surprised Martins even made her a principal.
  20. Yes. Understood. However, the doubles in this particular part mattered very much to Balanchine, as Ashley recounts in her autobiography when discussing this role and these steps. (probably because Morris was perhaps NYCB's greatest-ever turner.) Ashley also talks about the diagonal (in the middle of the variation yes?) of turns you refer to. Even she had to modify that step....
  21. I said nothing about feeling that Nichols' performance wasn't exquisite and profound (it was) nor that I felt it wasn't valuable. I certainly did not say nor do I think my judgment was 'suspect.' I have seen Peck in the McBride role, and seen the video (admittedly a pale shadow of the real thing live) of McBride in Who Cares, and I disagree completely with Gottlieb on that one. Peck is very good in the part; McBride was definitive. That is not to say I don't enjoy seeing Peck dance the role, or that I didn't love Fugate's wonderful performance of the solo in the Balanchine Celebration, for example, or that Ashley (whom most would say was unsuited to that role physically) wasn't absolutely fascinating in it, though completely different. Elizabeth Loscavio, a goddess if ever there was one, at SFB, and Melissa Hough, at Boston and Houston Ballets, both gave incandescent perfomances of both Rubies and Theme and Variations; Lorna Feijoo, at Boston Ballet, did one of the most dazzling Ballo della Reginas imaginable. The point is not that roles cannot be assumed later on by great dancers who will be great and even magical in them; it is that this circumstance is rare and growing rarer. Villella is a good example; even on film (and I was too young for him as well, sadly) his performances of the roles made for him by Balanchine are pinnacles unapproached since. Clearly, I like and sometimes love Peck's dancing, and think she is a beautiful artist. I do not agree that she reinvents, reimagines, revivifies, or makes new either Emeralds or Who Cares, and I completely disagree that 'we are living in an era of renewed creativity and talent on many fronts especially at NYCB.' The death of Balanchine was inevitable; he himself called his ballets 'butterflies' and said that no one wanted to see last season's butterflies. He also, presciently, said 'Apres moi, le BOARD...' which sadly was the complete truth. The reason that NYCB's Jewels has for years been vastly inferior to those at SFB, MCB, etc, is that the directors of those other companies invited and welcomed the creators of all the ballerina roles to come and coach them. All you need do is read comments from any ballerina who worked with Verdy for example (Maria Chapman, Louise Nadeau, Mary Carmen Catoya, Deanna Seay--I could go on for hours) to realize what sort of experience NYCB ballerinas have been denied by Martins in this realm. This is, after all, the guy who fired Farrell, remember? My disgust with what Martins has done to NYCB is in no way connected with the absence of Balanchine or with the unavoidable changes and differences which transpire in any living art form; it has to do solely with Martins' actions and their consequences, as eloquently chronicled by Gottlieb, Croce, and a host of other critics, as well as many amateurs and observers.
  22. Depends on whom you talk to, I wouldn't say 'esoteric,' I'd say subtle in the extreme. Many people (most who saw Verdy) say Emeralds is permanently lost (this is also usually said of the Paul role in the same ballet); the wonderful and articulate Nancy Goldner says that Emeralds exists only in memory. This depresses me as I was too young for Verdy. I thought Nichols was divine in it but, of course, I didn't see Verdy...You are quite right about Peck's strength , which is both invisible and formidable (like McBride's or Kirkland's for example) and I'm glad you loved Sonatine with her. As I said, give her time--Bouder was not her most brilliant in her Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto debut, either, and she now dances it marvelously. You liked those bent knee piques and pointe steps huh? Verdy was not only a great artist but quite the technician; she danced all the big scary ballerina roles in her day. When you say how is the audience supposed to realize, you strike the heart of the problem with the arts in today's society.
  23. Good questions, like all of yours. Not questions with quick and easy answers. The term 'goddess' of course was used by the OP with a bit of tongue in cheek I think, as I also used it, but there is some truth there, too. Many of Farrell's roles fall into this category: Diamonds, Don Quixote (which sadly NYCB has not done in decades), Walpurgisnacht, Meditation (which I do not believe has ever been done without Farrell at NYCB, though her company has performed it in recent years), Chaconne....I would say Mozartiana but there's already a dogfight going on over that role and how it is NOW cast/performed, so the less said the better....LOL! I'd say Ashley's two ballets (Ballo and Ballade), several McBride parts (Harlequinade, Tarantella though it calls for a shorter dancer and is now given to nearly anyone, sadly, Rubies), just about all Verdy's roles (La Source, now also cast with almost anyone; Emeralds; Sonatine), and huge virtuoso roles such as the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto no.2, Allegro Brilliante, Theme and Variations, and Raymonda Variations. I'd say Square Dance but that ballet has been miscast beyond hope of salvation for years; only with Bouder do you see something resembling the actual choreography. Agon pas de deux was most definitely in this category in former times. Who has the goods? Bouder. Peck. Reichlen in some things. Laracey, sadly undercast and neglected. Fairchild once in a blue moon (like her recent Bizet First Movement). Mearns in some things (this latest Walpurgisnacht was the most brilliant dancing I've ever seen her do and startlingly Farrellesque in several ways). King if she were ever given big roles (grrrrr). Going out on a limb because I've only seen her twice, Unity Phelan in future, perhaps? Claire Kretzschmer perhaps? Isabella LaFreniere? Ashley Hod? I've always thought Pazcoguin could be wonderful in classical roles but Martins will not give them to her.
  24. It's more that dancers leave out the double fouettes for convenience's sake, because they, like the rest of the turns in the role, are horrendously difficult.. Scheller, of course, can actually do them. Even the dazzling Merrill Ashley modified a few steps in Morris's variation, which in its original version is one of the three or four hardest which Balanchine ever made. Morris was a GREAT TURNER.....
×
×
  • Create New...