Paul Parish

amazing photograph - but then, every picture Ive ever seen of Jakobson's Spartacus has intrigued me. Fast wrote his novel during or immediately after his imprisonment by the House Unamerican Activities Committee for refusing to name names; no publisher would take it, so he took out an ad in hte NY Times that offered to send a copy to anyone who'd send him a check for three dollars, when he'd gotten enough money to get it printed. Checks poured in, it sold (later it became a best-seller, an was widely translated, but not at first, when J Edgar Hoover himself threatened anyone who'd distribute it, or any of Fast's books). I know this, because he married my cousin, and that's what she says. He optioned it to Kirk Douglas for one dollar on the condition that they hire the best people for the job, regardless of the blacklist. It was indeed a nail in hte coffin of the blacklist. I know that when hte Australian Ballet performed another version of Spartacus (by a Hungarian), they credited him in the program with a line "inspired by the novel by Howard Fast." It had been impossible in the period after hte Hungarian rising to credit him, for political reasons that I can't untangle but were a matter of life and death at the time. Fast had left the party, very publicly, when Kruschev revealed the crimes of Stalin, but what came first, I'm not sure. If there's a connection to other versions, I haven't heard, but am curious. Probably synchronicity -- after World War 2, the idea of Spartacus was in hte air -- and indeed, Marx had held Spartacus up as the model of a hero of he people. I think it's a great ballet -- maybe the only great ballet that's really ugly. Small world.

Any more reviews of the later programs? Wonder how Lorena went over in Don Q..... I think she's a knockout in the role, myself, a real successor to Plisetskaya and Terekhova....

She was magnificent in Diamonds when the kirov came to Berkeley a few years ago. Dreamy and very mysterious in the adagio, brilliant and witty in the scherzo (and the only ballerina who could handle the scherzo -- Pavlenko, who was gorgeous in the adage, looked behindhand and, well, tired, in it).... She was also a fiery Zobeide.....

Anybody know anything about the relationship between the Soviet Spartacuses (Jakobsen's and/or Grigorovich's) and the American Communist Howard Fast's novel Spartacus (which was the basis fr the Kirk Douglas movie)?

There's a trougble step in 4 t's (I think) -- it's in Choleric, in the section with the ballerina and 2 other girls.... WONDERFUL name.... in Barocco's adage, some people call hte linked-hands section the snail. It's my favortie thing in the whle ballet. The coolest thing about hte adage is the way so much of it is built on hte folk-dance figure "thread the needle" (where a line of people go under an arch) and other "sewing" figures, as when hte ballerina tombes between bobbins or is lifted between (or over) them.... I'm with Carbro, this is my favorite ballet of all time.....

I wonder what it was like originally: how much of a relationship, in mime of course, htere was beween the melancholy prince and Benno. I see them as parallel to Hamlet and Laertes -- the best friend, the person he can really confide in, the guy he stays up all night talking philosophy with.... Siegfried is like Hamlet, isolated by his position and doubly isolated by his temperament -- he needs a friend. The idea that you'd confide all your anxieties about politic, the state of the state, with your girlfriend is a pretty recent notion. Think of Pierre and Andre in War and Peace -- they talk abou t the deepest things -- the freeing of the slaves, what kind of justice is possible, should a man marry, what they long for, what should you DO with your life (which is Siegfried's problem in a nutshell). Their intimacy is really powerful, each is the ONLY person in their whole world the other can confide in, though Pierre can really talk to Natasha, still, not at the leel hse can with Prince Andre.... in none of the versions that we see is the friendship developed at all - -and it may have been only indicated originally. But there's plenty of testimony that Gerdt's prince was a very sympathetic person. It's as necessary for the prince to have a friend as it is for Odette to have swans. The pas de trois could have been a drama of many emotions, including the prince's separation from benno and transferral of his hopes for intimacy to Odette. It would have been less like the Fred and Ginger pas d'action in which he persuades her that she can trust him, which it basically is now.

THanks, DOug -- eager to hear more. I agree with Leigh -- and am also concerned to kno w how the "minutage" has changed. (Something tells me that Petipa, like Ashton and Balanchine, knew just how long every section needed to be; that's just a hunch, but he seems to understand stage rhythm so well.....) Hans, if I remember right, in the (Konstantin Sergeyev?) version which Sizova danced on film, the variation is altered somewhat and after a couple of steps on pointe she doubles back and starts the diagonal again, and in the doubling back, she definitely does some of that baroque-arm gesture (where the elbow dips and hte hand risesas hte arm opens to second) instead of the corkscrewing in the version Gina learned from Shollar (which has a simple diagonal).... Tomasson's version we see here at SFB has a simple diagonal with pronounced corkscrewing of the wrists and elbows, and (whatever the other limitations of his version -- and an 18-member garland dance is pretty limited), the wedding grand pas is beautiful.

The Allegra Kent thread ( http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...opic=20039&hl=) reminds me how badly I wish there were more kent on video -- in PARTICULAR, SYMPHONY IN C, and AGON..... I find that even choppy clips of her in them hurry away my soul , and before eight counts have gone by in Symphony in C I've started to cry.... Carbro says it well, she's out of this world -- The one excerpt on video where you get to see what Kent does with a whole dance is in A Midsummer Night's Dream; there was a time in my life when I watched that every day, for at least a month.... the cabrioles, lighter than air, the demi-detournees in fourth, the way she takes the light -- it is so open, so ripe, and the phrasing is so impossibly long-breathed.... The final swoon is like a night-blooming flower closing in the morning.

Something in me wants to say Kent is my favorite-- her phrasing is so haunting. the clips of her in Symphony in C are the most beatiful dancing i think I've ever seen on video. But there's so LITTLE of Kent on video -- What you've GOT to see before you make up your mind is her dancing with Jacques d'Amboise in the adage from Balanchine's Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 2). It is mysteriously beautiful beyond anything.

i'll second THAT -- and agree with everything everybody's said so far, including the Soloviev thing I only WISH I'd seen.... and I'd add Farrell in the Preghiera of Mozartiana, which was the first thing that made me see her gift; the more I watched that, the more I neede d to watch it, the complexity within such seeming simplicity just astounded me. And, it really IS a prayer. The uncertain balances correspond to fluctuations in faith and hope. Also Sizova's FIRST variation in Sleeping Beauty. And the Nicholas brothers in "Down Argentine Way."

Leigh, you're smoking!!! WHAT are you smoking?

David, thanks for that. Shannon Lilly and Elizabeth came up together, at Contra Costa Ballet as kids -- I see Mrs Loscavio from time to time - -she showed me a wonderful picture of Elizabeth with her new baby. very happy..

Thanks, Gina, for that testament. It's so good to know from someone who's done the steps how right they feel.... And, Well, yes, Leigh, that is SO true-- it's almost like with Homer, how can you know what the "REAL" text is.... and as soon as you try to get specific, there you are wondering if this passage is Lopukhov (the toe-hops in Giselle) or nijinska (the fish-dives in sleeping beauty) or whoever it was that added the little temps de fleche to the Breadcrumb Fairy's variation (if indeed Sergeyev's version can be trusted to be the TRUTH in that version) .... And what DID Petipa choreograph for the coda of the black swan before Legnani did her fouettes instead? Almost certainly, he rarely/never choreographed hte men's variations. And DID Aurora corkscrew her wrists in her act 3 variation -- Diaghilev said it was a Russian dance, so she must have.... unless somebody else saw an opportunity and "developed" those details.... Well, there are some accretions it's easy to doubt: in the Black Swan adage, where ballerinas now do grand jetes in second it used to be just a glissade, right? We've seen that change. And in Kitri's variation, she probably DID do those little pas de chevals and hops, huh? It looks like a folk dance set on pointe (a lot like the Pony, actually), and THAT's the sort of thing my hunch inclines me to believe in, whereas the Bolshoi's version just has a bunch of releves with no danciness to them that seems to reveal nothing in particular, just when we need some insight into our girl. You wonder, if he changed things for particular dancers as Balanchine did? In Aurora's act 3 variation, e.g., those sissonnes changes: some ballerinas do them in second, others do them through fourth, some do 3 sissonnes, others squeeze in FOUR. And of course, the balance that follows that -- in soussus? in retire? in attitude? one sees them all...... did Petipa care? BUT -- it IS clear that he gave the toe-hops to fairies, like Tchaikovsky gave the celesta to the Sugar plum fairy -- these were effects of other-worldly delicacy he wanted, as if he could add a new register to the instrument. And Aurora has a kind of sprightliness but she's NOT fairy light. Right? (Not even Sizova, who could jump like nothing else on earth, and her sauts de chats are among hte most amazing things i've ever seen, cultivated that skipping-on-water look of the fairies.... You can say THAT pretty safely.... I wish DOug WOULD say something here..... please.

Hans, the muse has descended on you this time yes, o yes,wc Fields as the ogre - -- that's great, totally visionary

Thanks, Leigh and Hans -- yeah, one of hte first things I'd have to mention is the fruitful way he keeps hybridizing folk-dance and pointe technique -- playing them off each other for similarity, contrast, vitality, clarity, energy, rhythm -- and the way he can advance a LARGE argument in distinct sequences, so that each point gets made in he most appropriate way.... he's never boring.... bu by the end of the evening such an incredible variety of stuff has passed before your eyes.

Thanks, Estelle, for all that legwork -- I too wanted to know. What a memorable dancer! She was a favorite of the audience here -- wonderful dancer, she somehow got you to identify your fate with her. In a ballet like "in the middle, somewhat elevated," she wasn't the ballerina, but it was Shannon you cared about....

I'm convinced that Forsythe's New Sleep, Artifact 2, and "in the middle, somewhat elevated' will be around for a long time -- dancers will want to do them. I should add Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude. which is a capriccio of a high order.... New Sleep is in fact VERY funny. you do have to have a taste for the preposterous -- but there should be no shortage of that in the future. I think Forsythe is a major fantast. Oh, and I agree with Helene that Maelstrom is really beautiful, and it becomes more so every time I see it, and that in SYlvia, parts of Act I and ALL of Act 3 are great. Again, the dancers will not let them die.

It's slightly off-topic, but I'd like to add Snow White and the Seven Basic Food groups to the wedding party....

atm, you've really got me this time -- it DOES make me ache to think of seeing Danilova in that role..... Ananiashvili as well. Curious, you remind me that when I saw Ananiashvili in the ABT Swan Lake a couple of years ago, her Odile reminded me of how Danilova might have done it -- she looked down her nose(!), she kept looking around as if thinking "who ARE these people? Am I in Zagreb?" She didn't overdo it, but it was unmisunderstandable -- one of the most interesting characterizations I've ever seen. By hte way, has anyone seen that video where Danilova is talking about Raymonda? She did some flourishes with her arms, lifted her chin, said "is Arab song." Or was that Makarova? There's one that's clearer in my mind where Makarova is teaching the variation, and is very particular about a creamy quality she wants -- "is this kind of suh-tenu, goes goosh," and did most of the turn in plie and then went all glorious on pointe..... What was that called?

well, that may be what it looks like on paper, but I don't hear it that way -- the major third is a strong enharmonic and will sound unless the minor third is played in most cases... I know the sound you mean.... the empty octave DOES sound at the end of Prokofiev's Romeo and juliet, that is truly desolate -- but the end of Swan Lake doesn't sound like that....

Sorry Alexandra, what do you mean about the "would Be Brides" music? and I agree, Nureyev's ending IS the best thing in it.... and, oberon, what do you do with that music? the music describes a miracle...

thanks for the clarification, justdoit -- I get it...

Estelle, you're right, Square Dance is fabulous -- you must see it with Tina Leblanc, who's so on top of the difficulties she makes it look like child-s play -- in the finale when she takes a pique on every count for 32 VERY FAST counts you'll be laughing out loud -- at least I was -- it's so preposterously easy for her. The other ballerinas can do it, but they can't toy with it like she can. Go if you can.

Mel, you're totally right -- I've seen that too in Petrouchka -- it happens almost every time. The music is consolidating the big melody, but they keep playing scraps of it, parts of it, and you feel it winding up, building up like a thunderstorm but it WONT start raining, and then finally all the trumpets come together and the nursemaids start twirling their handkerchiefs, the big tune finally arrives, and the house is just going crazy. Stravinsky had a hand in that. There's a similar place in Alvin Ailey's Revelations, in the finale, Wade in the Water, when there's this incredible sense of having ARRIVED and the audience just goes crazy. Sure-fire. In fact, that's the one place where you KNOW the dancers are going to encore the whole piece..... they always do, and when you're totally delirious they invite you to come up onstage and dance with them, and lots of people go up and thrash around till they come to their senses and are ready to go home....

I'm with Joseph (I think we're alking about hte same staging, certainly the final image....). the Royal Ballet's last act is simple, pretty, and moving, to begin with , and it builds from there and becomes sublime.... the corps dances make my heart ache. The RB came through here in 1995 or so with it -- Ashton's last act -- and I liked it a lot. But in 1971, when Ashton was still in charge of the RB, I saw their Swan Lake and it left me a wreck and made a balletomane out of me -- Sibley and Dowell were the stars, Derek Rencher was von ROthbart, and I've never seen his equal, not even close -- what incredible power he had, he somehow drained all hope out of you, so when the lovers won out in the end, it was incredible.... and the apparition of them gliding across the lake to that never neverland harp music made me feel like he'd redeemed himself, they'd got away with it, they were safe, no-one could touch them now. It was an adolescent hope, I knew it, but I didn't cherish it any the less for that -- I was about 22 myself, felt hopelessly misunderstood, didn't see any way out of my own crises at that point, but the end of Swan Lake held out hope for me somehow.