Paul Parish

ah, synchronicity... just yesterday I was posting on the "Royal Ballet style" thread about Antoinette Sibley in the Bluebird (on the video An Evening wit hte Royal Ballet).... " Antoinette Sibley is probably THE MOST BEAUTIFUL Princess Florine I shall ever see, and there you’ll see everything you could want t o see about Royal Ballet style -- the accuracy, the strong pointes, the beautiful correct action, AND also the pliancy -- she does the passage with the toe-hops (where the leg folds through from devant to arabesque) with an incredibly beautiful, bird-like shimmer in the back and arms, and continues with the most astonishing dancing: double ronde-de jambes leaning, with the MOST beautiful carriage of the upper body, probably, that I've ever seen. It's all over in a flash, but it's like with the Nicholas Brothers, you just want to scream and make her do it over and over till you can believe you've actually seen it..... And of course with video tape, you CAN encore it over and over again, run it in slow motion, check out her timing, LOOK at those tilts in the upper body while the lower body is doing such difficult things...." Have to thank Mel for posting the story. It makes it make so much sense. I think all Aurora's wedding guests were the characers in the other Perrault stories, right? IMO the Sergeyev version that the Royal Ballet uses is a much more beautiful dance than the Soviet one. It's nobler, simpler, more exacting, and more expressive. The ballerina's pelvis remains at the same angle, from echappes through to arabesque in the Sergeyev -- and as she passes from croisee devant through into arabesque effacee the image remains so clean, which makes the action in the back and arms is so much more telling, and hte whole phrase reaches such a beautiful fulfillment, in its geometry and in its character. In the Soviet version, she changes feet as the working foot arrives at passe -- but to me it always just ends up looking like a fumble, and the attitude croisee at the end is never a beautiful position, no matter who does it, it just seems to bobble.

Well, Dido, I don't think that that video shows them looking very good -- though Durante is obviously very strong, i don’t find myself liking anybody in it very much..... Is there any way you could get your hand s on one of the older videos -- like the one with Fonteyn and Somes in Swan Lake, or the one with Aurora's wedding -- also Fonteyn and Somes -- the point is not just Fonteyn, though she really was wonderful -- the whole company had incredibly fast and clear footwork -- the legs didn't go high, but they could MOVE, it was brilliant and astonishing and feathery. They did have a "dry" way of dancing, and in poses they would "freeze" on the count -- it's kind of like the way Glenn Gould played Bach on the piano, where you could "SEE" the bar lines; but it gave their rhythm a taut energy, very different from City ballet or Russians but vivid, clear, and exact -- and they were SILENT, very quiet footwork. (Freeds are made in London.) Bu the feet did very lacy things -- on the Aurora's wedding, a very young Merle Park is flashing around all over the place as some kind of fairy doing (I guess) sissonne battus -- I don't remember what they are, but I do remember the effect of knowing that she was doing beats that were so fast I could not see them, but I knew they were there.... Aurora's Wedding is really quite wonderful because the whole thing is SO old-fashioned, but GORGEOUS, sumptuous to look at -- what a fantastic polonaise-processional when they all come in, it IS a big deal, all those courtiers like Catalabutte and the queen (young Gerd Larsen, I think) really register as significant people.... Some of the dancers don't film very well -- Brian Shaw as the bluebird, for example, doesn't measure up to his reputation -- but Antoinette Sibley is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL Princess Florine I shall EVER see, and hter4e you’ll see everything you could want t o see about Royal Ballet style -- the accuracy, the strong pointes, the beautiful correct action, AND also the pliancy -- she does the passage with the toe-hops (where the leg folds through from devant to arabesque) with an incredibly beautiful, bird-like shimmer in the back and arms, and continues with the most astonishing dancing: double ronde-de jambes leaning, with the MOST beautiful carriage of the upper body, probably, that I've ever seen. It's all over in a flash, but it's like with the Nicholas Brothers, you just want to scream and make her do it over and over till you can believe you've actually seen it..... And of course with video tape, you CAN encore it over and over again, run it in slow motion, check out her timing, LOOK at those tilts in the upper body while the lower body is doing such difficult things....

SHe had another career, between ABT and the present, as a dancer in Nederlands dans theater III (the "older" group, which had a repertory of hteir own) -- I saw her here with htem i nSan Francisco a few years back and was once again tremendously impressed with her artistry -- she had everything, a wonderful instrument, a fine, complex sensibility, great intelligence, very good taste...

great picture -- look at those eyes! spooky!

Funny Face, you quizzed us about "another work never performed that has a tennis theme" -- were you referring to Nijinska's "Le Train Bleu"?The Oakland Ballet did a stylish job of reiving that ballet, which is set on hte Cote d'azur and everybody wears bathing suits by Chanel and there's a wonderful part for a tall ballerina with a tennis racket (based on Babe what's her-name, the celebrity American tennis star). Susan Taylor was marvellous in that role here. The whole thing is kind of a cartoon -- the ballerina is a silly little thing, rather like Betty Boop, and her boyfriend (played in the original by Anton Dolin) wears his hair like patent leather and does a lot of amusing muscle-beach acrobatics. It had a lot of malarkey to it.

The most important thing is understanding the role, and how (given the way he looks and the way he moves) he can make something of it that suits the ballet and gives other dancers something to play off.... It's very impressive to see a man be able to dance against his own type -- Zelensky impressed me in Diamonds by his restraint and devotion in hte pas de deux; when the time came for his turns in second, which Lord knows, he can certainly do, he unleashed them like a whirlwind -- but that music calls for that, and he pulled it off just under the threshold of bringing down the house (which the situation will NOT allow). And in a man who can do truly god-like things, nothing is more attractive than modesty. I will never forget the way my heart swelled when the Bolshoi were here in hte late 80's and at the bows Mukhamedov stayed back and kept sending everybody else out to bow. The Soviet Union was just breaking up, and we were getting to see the big Russian companies a LOT, all of a sudden -- and one thing critics noted, with some amusememnt, if not scorn, was how the Russians seemed to be expecting to bow for at least 20 minutes. WHen they got here, they DID bow forever -- and in fact, in SanFrancisco, we hung with them pretty well. I remember LOVING those bows; they were on a par with everything that had gone before. Maybe it's my small-town childhood in hte South, but I'll talk to a cow that seems to want to speak to me, and there's nothing more intoxicating than the real presence of great artists. I love that wonderful period, when all passion spent, they come out in front of us as themselves, or themselves with adrenaline still hurtling through them but no sthtick to put between themselves and us, when we can stand there and roar at them and both sides acknowledge what blazing things our imaginations have done tonight, we egged them on, they challenged us, we challenged them, my God what a great night this was.... I don't need to get to my car. Maybe this is another thread....

Too good a topic not to get a bump every now and then... I agree with almost all of y'all, and certainly about Plisetskaya being just FINE without them -- but want in particular to agree that it's wonderful when hte fouettes are expressive.... I remember seeing Antoinette Sibley, DECADES ago now, throw in doubles as if on a whim. She was a dangerous woman; there was nothing predictable about it, not every 4th or anything like that, just out of hte blue, like she was slapping us to amuse herself -- it made her seem almost psychopathic -- fascinating, absolutely in control of the psychological situation, the prince was just totally out of his depth in dealing with someone as cool, and profoundly indifferent as this.... I'll never forget the look on Dowell's face.

Koshka and all, I hope you will give us VERY thorough reports on the show(s)..... In SFB's version, Elizabeth Miner danced Cupid and was just perfect -- it's a lovely role, with an enchanting variation-- I think it always goes to a short dancer. There are a lot of good roles in his ballet(Mercedes, Espada, the street dancer, just to start)

ANgel2be, they've changed the program some -- instead of Serenade, they're going to be doing Chaconne (which was one of Suzanne's great roles, so it is not too disappointing a change, though I'm ALWAYS up for Serenade).... Check it out -- there was another small change as well, I think -- not enough to make me want my money back, but it IS a change....

maybe you shoud write him a letter and say just that...... If Martha doesn't want to write about the ballet -- why isn't she? I mean, I know when her husband died, it was very hard time emotionally, she didn't work for a while, but she's back in the swing of it now, indeed, it's doing her good to be working -- maybe you should....

FABULOUS performances -- and yes, Silvy, that's the Marianna Tcherkassky person you were asking about in hte peasant pas de deux..... Baryshnikov is so deep in character he won;'t even get up and take a bow when hte audience is screamng for him......van Hamel is superb, and Makarova outdoes herself... Let me join with everybody else in recommending Robert Greskovic's wonderful book Ballet 101, available from Hyperion books -- which has a terrific essay on this performance, and muc of value on many great ballets...

I wish you joy -- at least, you're likely to get some delicious dancing. And let's hope Hicks develops a taste for it....

It sounds like a winning program -- who wrote Duo Fantasy? what kind of movement did it have? Bolcom's music? Piano? Kind of harh and noisy/ or what? ANd another goes up next week? how was attendance?

Who danced "there will never be another you?" The way Grace Madduell did it here made that transition work -- for it's bittersweet, indeeed...... Sara sessions was also wonderful in hte role, and a dancer who left years ago, Deirdre somebody, was maybe best of all in the role, heart-stopping -- they took the ballet around tha emotional bend and delivered the payoff, where one boyfriend after another wheels away back into that parade of grey youth marching across the back

Oh Major Mel, I didn't mean to imply that I BELIEVED him -- William Faulkner used to enjoy lying to interviewers, and artists still do it, much more than most journalists seem to think, i'm convinced. I'm inclined to believe that Fokine deceived himself.... but I'm sympathetic, I do that myself sometimes.

On the other hand, ABT may be in hte right about the behavior of people who are NOT balletomanes -- all of US might be willing to spend a lot of money to see Sylphides again right away, but not hte general public... ("I'm having salmon for dinner -- maybe I won't have it also for lunch") I'm prompted to think this by reading "MRs. Stahlbaum's" report on the "SFB in LA" thread. SFB might have made a mistake taking Don Q to Los Angeles so soon after ABT appeared there with THEIR Don Q -- the house was so empty they invited the cheap seats to come downstairs and sit in the orchestra, and it still wasn't full

THnaks for the report, Watermill -- Kester Cotton's fans in San Francisco will be thrilled to hear he's getting breaks likethis -- The bugle boy was Stowell's own role in "Company b..." I don't know if it will help you get a handle on "Company B," but it's a ballet I love, in part because it explains to me how my parents met and got married -- when I saw all those sweet young people from all over thrown amongst strangers by what my father used to call "orders from headquarters," the special etiquette and atmosphere of the canteen situation, the way they ll know that they've got tonight and they may not have tomorrow, that some of them and they don't know who will not come out of this alive, but they'e got to stay cheerful and get the job done.....

"I created Les Sylphides in 3 days. This was a record for me. I never changed anything in this ballet (emphasis added) and, even after 30 years, I still remember every one of hte slightest movements of each position." That's a quote from the Kirov program booklet --

Hi Quiggin, thanks for your report on the Kirov. I hope others will join in and say how they've been feeling about this visit by such an important company. I'm in an awkward spot, since I've got to write about hte whole series for Ballet Review, so can't steal my own thunder..... but I dont want the conversation to die down. So maybe I'll just say how much I enjoyed the performances of Anton Korsakov, the OTHER boy in Chopiniana..... Don't know if you saw him, Quiggin, but he also danced the pas de trois in Emeralds opening night, and he partnered hte impossible Nioradze in Rubies and got in some good kicks of his own... He's just a delicious dancer, he tastes his own movement, relishes it, his feet lick the floor, he's got a deep cushy fondu and he enjoys it. If you didn't see him, he's in some ways the opposite of Korzuntsev -- both his body type, which is more like Nijinsky's (lots of thigh, lots of calf, whereas Korzuntzev has flamingo legs), and his demeanor, which is not at all sincere, but rather knowing, though circumspect.... I found him a totally intriguing creature. Korsakov's got a fantastic sense of his own line -- in entrechat-sept (Emeralds), he opens slightly more before the last coupe, and shows you the pointed toe in the back, AND he shades the whole thing slightly croise and finishes it with a beautiful eyes-down tilt of the head. Cat-like, seductive use of hte head -- he knows all the head positions, and uses them, but only when it suits his purposes. In Rubies, he announced the beginning of his solo by landing a huge assemble at an extremely improbably angle and bouncing out of it like Ray Bolger -- THey must have been all coached in this, for in one way or another the boys all made some clownish moves at one time or another, but Korsakov's were genuinely witty, or rather they were both witty and funny -- for as the solo went on he "got happy" (as the Gospel singers say) -- he did his double sauts de basque in hte Basilio position (I mean the way they do them in Don QUixote, with the knees together turned in), and started off his line of emboites grinning hugely, like Villella in Tarantella....

It's good to see how yonkers folk stand by their own....

Well, there are 5 pages on this already, and the sleeping-beauty-fairies mini-thread is a ways back, but I must disagree with BalletNut about Julia Adam as the first fairy out in Sleeping Beauty-- I thought she was fantastic at the time, and I can STILL see her dancing it -- in Tomasson's version, the main features of the role are a rather long pique arabesque balance that changes arms a couple of times -- like hte one in Serenade, except maybe one MORE change...... Adam was an extremely versatile dancer -- she could be all legs in a dance-hall ballet and all porcelain in another. And she had/has fantastic arms -- I remember Remy Charlip pointing out that in the Arabian dance in Nutrcacker, her arms were "like smoke." (And I must say that that music is ALL about aroma; the Disney-Fantasia Arabian is smoke rising off a cup of coffee, and it's probably hte best Arabian ever). Her head positions throughout these intricate, and beautifully phrased arm changes, were exquisitely modulated. SHe took the stage with extraordinary power, and at the same time she was extraordinarily delicate -- which pretty much defines the quality you need to make the audience believe they've seen a fairy. It set us up to be VERY excited by what came next. Elizabeth Loscavio was the canary, just thrilling, and then Muriel Maffre was a Lilac Fairy of tremendous sweep.

Dear Effy, Would you mind expanding on what Mette-Ida Kirk's Sylphide was like? I just LOVED the way she danced -- a fascinating combination of accuracy, impetuousness, lightness, reticence, fastidiousness -- marvellous line, w unique way of seing her head, and what timing!! I just LOVED the way she danced... (which I've only seen on video). I'm told Balanchine liked her....

I've got to thank Jameth for detailing Canfield's libretto -- I'd never had any idea what it was, and I have to agree, it IS charming.......... lesons with Kchessinska ("today we're going for SPEED," which was what -- was it Fonteyn? said she said EVERY day)... that is a pretty intoxicating idea.

And it IS not uncommon for companies to try to keep other companies from doing a major piece of their active rep when they come through town on tour... I remember there was some bad feeling at SFB a few years back, so i heard, that Paul Taylor's company was going to do Company B on their SF tour the same season SFB did it..... it was a huge gift for US, or at least ME, since I'm nuts about that ballet and it was fascinating to see the changes in nuance and feeling actually in MEANING, between the two versions...... in "Rum and Coca Cola," at SFB, Joanna Berman was the goddess of hte isles, whereas the girl in the Taylor company was in some DANGER from those guys...... I like both interpretations, in fact, I prefer Berman's. BUT SFB's was NOT light -- in fact, Eric Hoisington was a nervous wreck in "Tico-Tico" -- it was actually frightening, you thought he was going to do something precipitate...... he's got a coupe jete where he throws himself at the floor and goes into a roll, and it was terrifying -- like Albrecht's double tour with the chute allonge, except so much bigger....

FYI, you guys, the Kirov has just performed Chopiniana in Brkeley for the last 3 nights..... Only last night's was really opened up, dancing -- in the first 2 shows, only Daria Pavlenko could be seen to breathe (and SHE was radiant)..... but that's kind of by the way.... The Cuban Ballet dances romantic style VERY well, exquisite plastique, and VERY beautiful jumping., theirs is a version of Les Sylphides I'd really like to see.