Paul Parish

O Giannina, Readiness is best. I hope all goes well, but -- well, i remember the Oakland fire. Indeed, WE have had huge winds most of hte day here in Berkeley and last night coming out of Merce Cunningham I saw a student throw away a burning cigarette and make a feeble attempt to stub it out and finished hte job for her after she'd walked on -- . It was like mkaing hte sign of hte cross before crossing he bridge, just saying my little prayer, but we're not out of danger here yet either (though hte winds have died down). You need to be ready to boogey if y'all have to -- And God knows, I hope you don't have to. Love, Paul

THe WSJ article is irrefutable -- it was mad to think that Mortier would change his stripes, and mad to think that the City Opera audience would change to suit him -- even if the financial good times had persisted. That audience was built by giving straightforward value -- any child could tell that Beverly Sills could sing Cleopatra, and sing it mesmerizingly. It was church, of a sort. Nothing sophisticated about it -- fabulous technique, larger-than-life personality -- but Baroque opera and bel canto opera were POPULAR in their own day and will be popular again whenever there are artists who care enough to sing like that. What Mortier would bring is extremely sophisticated, and requires more urban neurosis than even New York City can muster to appreciate. The American singers mentioned above mostly cut their teeth in the smaller opera houses in Europe, where there is a lot of work for opera singers and a long, long, LONG tradition of gonig to the opera and children take it in with their mothers' milk -- and "new ways' of bringing hte old thing back are necessary. Mortier is being frank (well, almost) when he says he can't do his thing at an opera house that has a smaller budget than that of the smallest house in France. But it is horrifying to see how exposed NYCO is at this point, with a whole year of NO productions, no contact with the audience, no income, and hemorrhaging money like General Motors. This looks like a job for Mayor Bloomberg.

WEll, calling it Swan Lake Act 2 would make you think it was giong to BE Swan Lake Act 2 -- which it really is not. In Margot Fonteyn's days, the Royal ballet DID often dance Swan Lake Act 2, and even made a film of it, complete with hunters and Benno in the "pas de deux a trois." Macaulay, as a Brit, should be very familiar with tis version and would understandably object to calling Balanchine's distinctive version, which IS complete in itself, by hte name of the excerpt. I wonder whether this DID begin. It certainly was "Swan Lake" on its own in the late 50s, when I first saw it, and I must admit I never noticed a re-titling in the decades following. That doesn't mean it didn't actually happen then. I may not have been paying attention. Certainly no one I knew used "Act II" in conversation.The NYCB website continues to refer to it as "Swan Lake (Balanchine)" to distinguish it from "Swan Lake (Martins)." When DID the title change? Who did it? And why? NYCB and Balanchine experts -- please help! It could be that I got there and found out what it was, and read it in the Notes rather than as the title. Too long ago to remember. I also don't know if NYCB stopped doing it completely after 'Swan Lake (Martins)' started. I assume they did. But I would have known even then that I was not going to see an evening-length 'Swan Lake' given two other works on the program. So, maybe rg or mel or sz can tell us when 'Swan Lake Act II' appeared as a title. You may well be right that NYCB never used 'Swan Lake Act II' as an actual title, but just explained it in the notes.

WOW! WHat I wouldn't give to be there for that! Once again, Peter Boal does something the rest of us can only envy.

Hey Christian, there's reason to believe Mr B had very complex feelings about Swan Lake, and that "impersonal" is not what he wanted. He did say "don't act," but pictures of Darci Kistler in the role when she was still at SAB look very much like she's inside that music and far-gone in swandom. Melissa Hayden commented on the 6 Balanchine Ballerinas documentary that Balanchine said all KINDS of things to Allegra Kent about how to dance the role, "and he never said those things to ME" -- and he clearly preferred Kent to Hayden as the swan. There is a famous photograph of Mr. B showing him how to do the Prince, and the pose is as romantic as possible -- the wrists are drooping, the shoulders are lifted, the whole torso is filled with yearning. The two men are standing side by side, Balanchine is in his usual clothes, and Villella invVelvet doublet and tights, and yet Mr. B looks entirely the Prince and Villlella looks clueless.... maybe Carbro or a board moderator knows where to find this picture. It says more than a thousand words about what Swan Lake style should be.

Oh yes, Carbro! -- I do that too = and to cut THROUGH a crowd (I noticed myself doing this back in 1970 when I was rushing through London crowds to get to Covent garden, I'd twist my shoulders in fourth arabesque and slice my way through thickets of people -- didn't know the name for it, but I'd seen dancers go Epaule a lot at the Royal ballet, and I just started doing it -- hand in front of your nose, way out in front of you, and you can get through.... Also, I tend to turn out a little as I come downstairs, and since it's the one time in real life when you lead with the toe, it naturally turns into something like glissade, in that rhythm....

I find some steps to be actually useful in real life -- when I have to stop suddently, like stop walking, because someone crosses my path -- I often do a kind of balance on the spot, or else -- if there's a split second less time -- the last step becomes a sort of pique, a perch, just to hold the place till I can move and to step aside, to get out of the path, just out of instinct I do pas de basque....... Also chasses are a good way to get to your theater seat if people are already sitting down -- step-together-step, going sideways, works great....they have to look at my butt, but if they've pulled their feet back, I dont step on them, and I'm out of hteir way pretty fast....

SO guys, tell us -- how do you like Simkin? He's so well-represented on Youtube, and hte way he dances somes across so well on video, I do wonder how he'd look in 3-D. he seeems wonderfully wacked to me - -I think i might like him a LOT. The video with him and his dad competing is hilarious, really adorable -- wonderful layers of sweetness and silliness under the surface of that, the kind of comic lead who delights you continually without actually making you laugh out loud.

What you WANT is Ponomarev as the Don -- ALl the stars can do the leads well enough; Novikova/Sarafanov would be my choice -- SOmova is not bad in it -- darling, in fact. Sarafanov is technically thrilling and also hilarious.... They were just here in Berkeley, I reviewed them here: http://www.ebar.com/arts/art_article.php?s...amp;article=129 Don Q worked just fine no matter who was the star -- it's an ensemble ballet, kinda Robbins-y -- everybody in the background is vivid, and "real." Ponomarev was great.

Thank you drb -- news of Osipova is big news to me, and to have it come through such an intelligent critic as IB is very welcome. THanks for hte link, and thanks for hte excellent samples. She got insight: look how powerful Osipova's spell is, and how true it is to the character of hte Sylphide The essay concludes with Ms. Brown's take on the development of a vocal anti-Osipova faction in Moscow:

THe difference between Lopatkina and Somova seems to be temperamental to come from within; Lopatkina creates a mysterious world, and carves her images very carefully, with attention to every facet of the positions she ossupies whilte she's dancing so as to let those who can imagine what kind of soul she must have, to take such infintie pains, may apreciate her rich inner world. Perhaps a different coach could temper Somova's waywardness -- but she does not have Lopatkina's control, whether or not she wants it. Her fouettes were wild, her spot has a peculiar glitch in it, the chin does something strange. Her chaines were a whirlwind but they were out of control. She does not really know where her body is -- though she has determination in abundance and seems able to will herself through to the end. It's, to quote Allen greenspan, an irrational exuberance.know she will wow the crowd. Somova thrusts herself upon us -- she reminds me of Lydia in Pride and Prejudice. Nioradze, though.... Well, she CAN do the steps, but they're not HARD. THey just have to be done with the right feeling and style, which requires taste, and she has not a clue. Raymonda is very far from being temparamentally appropriate for her.

one choreographic difference i note, and don't understand, is that in the Shades scene, Nureyev has the dancers step back from arabesque with only the upstage arm going to high fifth -- all other productions I know take both arms en couronne for the cambre.... TONIGHT, I've just seen the Kirov do Shades in Berkeley without a ramp (the stage is shallow), and each new dancer ENTERS in a pose croisee derriere with both arms en couronne and then steps forward into arabesque a terre. I've never seen this before, and though I liked the idea that it suggested that Nikiya had forgiven Solor, on the whole I did NOT like it -- the whole obsessive sequence should be that snippet of her dance with the basket of flowers, and it needs to have the eyes downcast to begin, somehow, it feels emotionally VERY wrong to start with the hopeful glance, the feeling tone seems wong -- I realize this is arguing connoisseur-style, and that's very suspect -- does anyone -- DOUG, do you know? -- know where the phrase should begin?

I can say a tiny bit about new orleans french, since my family's from there [Kate Chopin's a distant relation] and the sense of tradition is strong (stronger than the traditions themselves, at least in my mother's case). Mama spoke only a tiny bit of French, a few catch-phrases, and I always felt she was kinda gleefully quoting things she remembered hearing the old folks say. It always had an emotional coloring -- "Tant pis for you" was always gleeful. Her mother was raised bilingual, and still spoke French when she played canasta with old friends from the convent school after Grandpa died. They said "il n'y a pas de quois' instead of 'de rien" and other old-fashioned things like that. Mama said things were "faisandee" and curled her nose as if something smelled bad when things were wrong in a je ne sais quoi sort of way. and you knew you couldn't press the issue. I think she'd have thought Sylvie Guillem's Raymonda was faisandee. Cajun French is quite different -- it's country-people's language, shrimpers', rice-growers', whose ancestors were Canadian French who were resettled in western Louisiana after the French and Indian War; new orleans creoles considered themselves urbane, and in fact, they were -- provincial, but urbane.

We certainly noticed that here, but so far it has only worked to her advantage. She was fantastic as Myrtha in Giselle -- that big skirt covers a multitude of sins -- and commanding in another role she inherited from Muriel Maffre, the weird ballerina in the weird futurist-nightmare ballet Eden/Eden.

Nevertheless, Joel Lobenthal is a very interesting and extremely well-informed dance critic, and it is a terrrible shame that he loses this forum in which to do what he does so well. I always enjoy and learn from reading him -- This is a shame, a damned shame.

A few months back I did stumble onto Fokine's Carnaval on Youtube -- a Hodson-Archer reconstruction? with (I THINK) Kirov dancers-- alas, not very convincing, the phrases lacked rhythmic flair. The costumes were those of Karsavina and Nijinsky, but it was hard to believe they were the same dances. But the Carnival that comes up on youtube NOW is the "Carnival de Venise," aka "Satanella," and not the Ballets Russes piece at all. ...............Edited after reading Mel's post and Chrisk217 -- i thought it said Hodson-Archer, but I must be mis-remembering; sounds like it is NOT a Hodson-Archer reconstruction, please note my mistake .

HAven't played in a while, not sure if this one has gone up already -- Osipova or Zakharova?

sounds like a wonderful garment, dancer100. You describe it with such zest, I can feel the magic it has for you. Where did you find it? Were there others there that you selected this one from? DO you have a collection? There was a fabulous exhibition here in SanFrancisco recently of costumes frmo hte whole range of SFB's stage life -- a couple from Bolm's dances from le Coq d'Or, danced here in 1933, made by karinska, just fantastic things to be able to stand right next to. A wonderful doublet for Romeo, made of several shades of blue velvet, with gold embroidery and rows of gold beads -- broad shoulders, incredibly narrow wais -- be still, my heart.... MANY wonderful costumes. Actually, the de YOung museum here has on loan 4 of Pavlova's costumes, which I remember Millicent Hodson telling, she helped Robert Joffrey unpack from a crate back when she was a grad student at Berkeley.... THey belong to UC's Bancroft Library, as part of their Paget-fredericks collectin (he was a friend of Loie Fuller's, an amateur dancer with a great passion for it, and also a capable artist/draftsman, his drawing of Fuller become the model for hte Rolls Royce hood ornament.... The tutus are beautiful, but of course, they're also second-class relics, for some of us ranking with the chains of St Peter....

Thank you for the Argentinita footage -- read about her in Denby, and always wanted to know what she was like. Pity there wasn't more, but what's there shows what a genius she had for phrasing. Actually, rather a lot like the way Fonteyn could phrase a line of bourrees (I'm thinking of Les Sylphides) In this clip, her clarity is already so remarkable -- look at that line of penchees; very academic step, and NOT easy, not at that speed, for sure, but she gives it such a clear pulse and sweep, the positions are lovely, almost precious, but the energy in them is straightforward and clean, nothing weak about it.... wow.

Chloris leachman will be dancing with Mark Ballas's FATHER, who's also a Latin ballroom champion/ They could have enormous sentimental reserves, if she can dance. This is so exciting. I'm sorry, everybody, I'm slightly beside myself. Also, the idea of Misty and Maksim is pretty exciting -- obviously she can move, and he's SO strong he'll be able to match her power; which could be very exciting. And the disney kid can probably dance -- they always can -- and he and Julianne may raise cuteness to fever pitch. Fetch me my salts.

Joyce Cuoco is the blonde in the following clip; she plays Olga in Stuttgart Ballet's "Onegin" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKEUPEwb3TU As you'll see, it's a big role, and she's lovely in it.

I've only seen the headphones section of "The show must go on," on Youtube, but I think it's wonderful theater, kinda Bugs Bunny (but there's no harm in that -- so was "The Envelope," and it's hilarious). I'm not at all surprised that Hallberg should have thought it was smart -- baryshnikov thought David Gordon was brilliant, and he was right. If Bel can come up with something interesting that uses Hallberg, more power to them. And if it does not work, well, still, more power to them. But it was not an interesting article.

Hans, do you know anything about that great clip? I understand it was filmed by Keith Money. Wonder what the date would be.

THough I actually prefer Fonteyn in the adagio, there's NOBODY who can do Aurora's first solo like SIzova -- that is the most beautiful, thrilling, , unbelievably light performance of those leaps and turns I can imagine -- the amplitude,the timing is unbelievable. Unbelievable nautural gift.

Wow! Thank you Hans! This is thrilling! Look how she takes that pique -- she steps INTO that atttitude like a diver in Acapulco taking off -- from then on, everything else is just finishing out the phrase! Unbelievable! I'd seen this before, but not for years, and the black and white 50s one was more familiar. She's so musical -- and very different from the earlier interpretation, glorious in another way. Quite abstract, or Caroline Brown -- the Cunningham company had been there, this video is from the 60s, Ashton had made or was making Monotones in response to the Cunningham revelations.... It also looks more like Allegra kent, without of course Allegra's mannerisms, but more like Allegra's way of being musical, but still, more like a musical instrument than an actress, and less like a singer than like a violin. Of course, the camera angles tend in hte same direction, eschewing close-up details and emphasizing the perfection of the grand design -- but it IS perfect, and it IS grand, it is GRAND. Nobilissima visione. Who was conducting? Is that Lambert?