Paul Parish

Kind of a side note, Ed, but though Janet Baker is a great interpreter of these songs, if you can find a recording of Kathleen Ferrier singing them, you've GOT to hear that... she could make Herbert von Karajan and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf cry...... And while we're at it, Mahler succeeded in setting some VERY great poems, by Friedrich Ruckert, which needed no musical accompaniment to be complete, with incredible sensitivity -- he did another cycle of Ruckert poems, maybe even more beautiful.... Mahler was one of 14 children, 8 of whom died.... and Tudor managed to choreograph something that fits BOTH....

Sounds like a fabulous series.... Wish I could come. The next one sounds excellent. Anyone nearby should try to make it. I have seen both the San Francisco Ballet and the Limon company perform Dark Elegies, and to my mind, the Limon company was superior in feeling -- though there WAS one dancer with SFB, Grace Maduell, I will never forget how powerful and moving she was in 'mir ist's, sie sind nur aufgegangen" (the song: it translates as "it's like they just went outside for a moment" -- the point being they aren't coming back) -- she was the ONLY one who had the feeling, which ALL the Limon dancers had, esp. the women, of powerfully contained, but very active grief.... I was very curious how it would look without pointe shoes, and was actually startled by the power of the women's feet-- in glissades, jetes, every jump, their feet were like Cecchetti's -- incredibly strong, like daggers -- and in pas de bourree, their 3/4-pointe was so strong it felt the same, like knives.... incisive

fascinating thread -- fascinating-- (so fascination, I'm jumping in without having read all the posts yet -- gotta run to class -- hope I'm not being too rude, I may be repeating something someone else said) The real problem has to do with reconstructing the STYLE of the original dancing -- and it may be impossible to do without training women to jump like they used to -- For instance.... Karsavina (who could do entrechat huit, you know) complained decades ago that nobody was doing ballotte right any more -- she has a whole chapter on it in one of her books on technique -- it is a step of ELEVATION, she says -- the step is about the feet disappearing under the skirt (into double passe) at the height of the jump, and not about the extension upon landing -- the flow of the movement depends on the woman's ability to rise high, fold the feet through at the top of the jump, and to STAY IN THE AIR A LONG TIME -- this produces a completely different rhythm.... of course, sleeping beauty is much more about terre a terre work than Giselle is, but even so, there are lots of places where a soft deep fondu, such as people are rarely trained for any more, is key to the phrasing....

Hubbe is indeed a fantastically expressive dancer -- hiw James is THAT WAY, too... I wish i'd seen him do this role.... I wish Helgi would get Sonnambula for SFB...... We have the dancers for it, and it would give them something WORTHY to do..... That kind of ballet goes straight to the heart of he matter, and dancers realize them selves before our eyes in presenting such creatures... Mashinka, would you please say more about your memory of Fonteyn and Gilpin -- obviously it was a while ago, GIlpin, for heaven's sake! But what is your impression of them? I'd LOVE to know.....

and the BERKELEY book signing --

COngratulations, Washingtonians -- You've done a great job -- I have SUCH a vivid sense of this festival. I feel almost as if I'd been there.... And it makes me very happy to hear that Fancy Free looks so good -- I LOVE hte ballet, know it best I guess from the old NYCB performance that was televised, with the very poetic Joseph DUell as shy/rhumba boy and Stephanie Saland as hte girl who responds to him.... When ABT was here a couple of eyars ago, they put a good cast out there, looked almost Broadway, hte guys weren't idealized at all by comparison with Kipling Houston, Duell, et al.... hunky, chunky, almost Palookas... good-natured, though.... How does Gomez look in hte role? His body strikes me as such a huge side of beef, I can't get past that sometimes -- though he is a clear, clean dancer -- I haven't seen him much, and my first impression came in the peasant pas de deux in Giselle, which erupted into a show where Paloma Herrera was phoning in her perfoemance as the heroine.... he did everything in a very generous manner, and had the graciousness towards the audience that the ballerina should have had..... but it was just way too much vitality for a romantic ballet.... which sailor did he do? I DID hear from a friend about Volochkova's bracelet -- diamonds as big as the Ritz??? Y'all must be having fun....

I had the same experience, Glebb, reading Alexandra's book -- what Kronstam had to say about performing that role really fired my imagination, made me LONG to see him perform it... Similarly, the footage of Allegra Kent teaching the role to Darci Kistler (and some guy I can't remember) on "the Balanchine ballerinas" made me very hungry to see it.... The way the ballerina should be able to sense somehow that he's there, though she can't see him -- "It's like echolocation" -- opened up such poetic horizons....

"O listen! for the vale profound Is overflowing with the sound" is from Wordswroth; 'the horns of elfland gently calling" is Keats, I think -- That hand-to-ear gesture is almost as important to Romantic port de bras as the arabesque a deux bras..... Balanchine uses it at the high point of Scotch Symphony: or rather, he has the Sylph whisper something in the ear of young 'James,' but she puts HER hand next to his ear as she does so.... (Isn't that right -- I havent seen it for a decade, it was Kyra Nichols and Lindsay Fisher, though, and I feel like I can still see it, it was a moment "out of time") the idea of a voice (or call) from another world was very important to the Romantics-- Beethoven's Fidelio has an electrifying off-stage bugle-call, that comes in hte dungeon-scene and basically means the cavalry is on hte way, and hte reign of terror is over..... it's a very faint sound, but itcompletely interrupts the scene (where the evil military governor is planning to kill our here our hero, and is threatening him, when the hero's wife (who's gotten a job in hte prison, disguised as a man) pulls a gun on hte villain, and just at that moment the bugle call comes.... ANd in James Joyce's great story "The Dead," at the end of hte party Gabriel, holding his wife's coat, looks back up hte staircase and sees his wife Greta at the top, listening to the tenor singing "the lass of Augrim" in the drawing room, and he feels an intense pain of jealousy -- she looks like a painting, which he would call "Distant Music" It's SO poignant.....

re the name Les Sylphides -- i seem to think that Diaghilev changed ti to Les Sylphides for hte Paris market.... AM I right?

re 'stiff"-- it is old-fashioned, but there was a tradition of dancing like sculpture -- Aurora in "that attitude" (i.e, hte Rose Adage) looked like a figurine being rotated...... Check out ALla Sizova's FANTASTIC performance -- she freezes like a piece of sculpture in those moments -- But while you're out it, check out her unbbelievable performance in AUrora's first variation -- to see what those pas dechats OUGHT to look like you've GOT to see hers -- she does saut de chat, with a cambre at the top of the jump that is like hte white cap on a wave, it is so beautiful you CAN'T believe it ,and nothing like the drab pas de chats one normally sees in htis variation.... SIzova's Aurora hits the stage flying, more fairy-like than her fairies.....

We had Suite of Dances a year or so ago at San Francisco Ballet, with Vadim Solomakha alternating with someone else (MAYBE?? it was Yuri Possokhov, maybe not -- I can't remember-- but that's the point; they couldn't make it work. Vadim did have a lovely softness and elevation, more I'm sure than Baryshnikov did, who was nearing 50 when Robbins made it... ) It’s a LONG solo, and it has many resting places in it, which Robbins stuffed with the little jokey gestures and steps that Twyla Tharp made up when she invented the "hoofer Baryshnikov" -- little shoulder shrugs and other "cool" gestures that make a gimmick out of his stardom, as if to say, "well, it's me you want to see, isn't it? Do you also want to see me dance? PLEASE!” They belong very much to the 80's, when there was a fashion for extreme narcissism. A very popular comedian's most famous line was "Hello, I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not." This hideous attitude is still all over the place in MTV videos, and in the commercials for cheap beer you see on American Saturday night TV; it pervaded the culture for a while, finally went a little out of fashion, but it survives in the "Baryshnikov by Tharp" stuff that Robbins used in making htis dance. I wonder WHAT Legris, who's enormously likeable (but then, so was Baryshnikov) could do with this.... "Other Dances," on hte other hand, is a very fine work indeed; Robbins made it for Baryshnikov and Makarova, in the same vein as Dance s at a Gathering -- lots of cracoviens and flexed feet and character porte de bras, a wonderful move where hte ballerina turns in her arabesque leg, flexes her foot, and then cuts the ground out from under herself with it......

FYI, you all -- and especially Silvy -- the video of Festival Ballet's Swan Lake stars Peter Schaufuss and Evelyn Hart, both of whom are worth seeing; the porduction as a whole is, I agree with Robert Greskovic, rather a hodgepodge -- but hte pas de quatre is extremely vivid, beautifully danced, and full of surprises..... On ht other hand, given hte roles you are attracted to, Silvy, these 2 don't offer that much..... they aren't ballerina roles, they are very much court-ornament solos..... But they ARE real dances, unlike, say, the the variation from Grand Pas Classique There's a FABULOUS variation, very short, great for a tomboy, all jumps, from Bournonville's William Tell (music is Rossini) -- tons of little beats alternating with floating grand ecartes, with a diagonal of brises, cabrioles, and pas-de-chat turns..... The greatest ballerina variation ever danced, though, may be the one you can see young SUzanne farrell dance from Balanchine's DOn QUixote on that Suzanne Farrell TV bio.... She's like smoke, or a genie come out of a bottle, it's like looking at an emotion....

Hey Silvy, Congratulations on your first in hte PRelude to Les Sylphides -- that is a beautiful, poetic,and difficult dance, and if you can make that one sing, I'd say that must mean you can DANCE... that argues some wonderful qualities..... The breadcrumb fairy from SLeeping Beauty might be a good one for you, especially at a flowing andante; Shannon Lily used to dance it SO beautifully in San Francisco, the flow was wonderful... Sorry you don't like the Ashton pas de quatre -- that dance has a secret, and done wrong, it CAN look strange, so before you dismiss it altogether, let me recommend you see if you can find the London Festival Ballet version (which Makarova staged), with Leanne Benjamin and another marvellous dancer as the 2 girls.... their TIMING is what makes it so thrilling... BUt maybe it's just not to your taste.... Princess Florine's dance with the pique fouettes to arabesque is a wonderful birdlike dance -- the best i've ever seen it done is Antoinette Sibley's performance on the old Royal Ballet Aurora's Wedding -- everybody should see it, the liquid shimmer of her arms begins in hte back, and you can't MISS seeing how totally involved her whole body is in hte dance.... again, hte timing is so musical.... Re Elite Syncopations -- I think there IS a video, I'v never seen it -- San Francisco Ballet just danced it here, and the whole town just went crazy over it.....

Nobody is mentioning variations that show your musicality, so I'll mention a couple-- since it's such a pleasure to see someone with good technique who can actually DANCE..... A) If your sissonnes are good, Bournonville's Sylphide's variation from act 2 is an enchanting dance -- floating, lyrical, playful -- with a lot of interesting lines to it. It's very airy, not super-hard technically, but the LINE has to be continuous, and the rhythm and the flow of movement timing, and style are all-important....It's supposed to be a petite dancer's role, but I've seen Muriel Maffre succeed in it, and she's 5' 10", inches tall..... B) If you've got some sass and brass in your soul, there's a fantastic variation from Macmillan's Elite Syncopations that is all about rhythm, insinuation, line... and "attitude" in the club-dancing sense -- it's kind of a British music-hall version of Chicago, to a Scott Joplin rag-- a sure-fire variation, one of hte best-constructed little dances I've ever seen. C) Also dancey-- either of the two variations from Ashton's Swan Lake pas de quatre, one based on hte twist, the other on the cha-cha -- full of surprises, , equiring neat footwork, very good entrechat-quatres -- they give you the opportuiity to make standard steps look unfamiliar becauses of the timing.... Very classical, but really refreshing

Me, too, Jeannie -- I can't tell you how thrilling it is to get a first-hand report like htis.... Thank you again and again for sitting up at your computer typing up your letter t o the world.... But DO get your rest! HOw was the ice-fishing? Did you catch anything? What kind of fish llurk under frozen ice? Not sturgeon? Did you eat it? How do you cook it? (Sorry, thinking about Nutcracker always makes me hungry)

WONDERFUL report!! Thank you so much..... I hadn't re-read the Denby, but he's hte non-pareil, motor-logic. yep, that's it.....

Rachel -- how come you do me this way? I don't know what I can say except it makes me feel sad.... i really feel for the dancers right now, and don't want to say anything that could be taken wrong. I will say, I feel it most with Maynard, since he's refined himself so remarkably since he came here, and become not only a spectacular showman but also a dancer who can LAND as softly as he can jump high. ANd added depths of artistry in characterization -- he was the most poetic of all the Albrechts I saw.... I was really moved by his performance.

Nijinska's daughter Irina was alive then and she did it, I think-- It was timed to the publication of Nijinska's "Early Memoirs," I bought it ht next day, EXCELLENT book... Irina came up to Oakland a lot -- they had les Biches in the rep also (which since I'd seen the Royal Ballet do it, I thought they couldn't really do it very well -- it called for too high a style -- though the hostess was always VERY well done, by SUmmer Lee Rhatigan and later by Lara Deans Lowe, and the two little girls were beautifully danced by Julie Lowe and Abra Rudisill -- the corps girls' quatres weren't stylish enough, and the athletes' sixes ditto, Erin Leedom was terrific as the pageboy -- remember, she has a solo variation with unsupported double pirouettes that close sous-sus? Leedom could NAIL those, she stood there like a sword stuck in the ground, sovereign, enigmatic, challenging, immaculate, with her little white gloves; later Cynthia Chin did the role, and SHE was gorgeous, like an Erte)... ANd Irina helped them reconstruct le Train Bleu, which hadn't been done for 50 years or so and WAS a lot of fun.... not an important ballet, like Sacre, but it did feel like they did manage to reconstruct it successfully..... it's very light, but quite adorable.... Susan Taylor was brilliant as the tennis player, just brilliant.... The Joffrey might want to do it.... it presents a lot of opportunities for a company with dancers who like to characterize.... there's a lso a Betty Boopish part for a little ballerina, very silly but if there's a comedienne in the company, she might have a lot of fun with it.... And there's a guy who turns cartwheels (Dolin originated the part) who's full of malarkey....

Hello Treefrog, Thank you for posting about Les Noces -- I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN! It is one of the most tremendous ballets I have ever experienced in my life -- And I saw it done by the OAKLAND ballet -- back in about 1988, I can still recall, it seemed like the building was going to explode -- the music was so tremendous, and the dancing!!! It was like they were stomping, but they were on toe-- like stabbing the floor. And then it would get weirdly quiet, an the girls would be doing some ritual of braiding the brides hair, and they'd make a tableau where they'd make a pyramid, laying their heads sideways so that all the heads stacked up and so they looked like the stairs on a Mayan temple..... it felt like this might turn out to be a tragedy... It was just one of the most imaginative things I've ever experienced - -and it made the Oakland ballet famous -- they took it on tour and played it in New York and places, and all of a sudden the Oakland ballet was big news..... It's wonderful that the Joffrey is performing it..... Mr. Joffrey was right, Diaghilev's vision was seminally important..... all of ballet in America comes from the flotsam and jetsam of Diaghilev's company that washed up on our shores --

Jeanie, I can't TELL you how thrilled I am to think that you're go0ing to walk on hte floor of the MAryinsky to settle a question for me....... It goes to my HEAD!!! as we say.... just hte sense of having hte feel of that hallowed floor....... wow.... I know it's important to Russians, but you know, all AMerican ballet is a decendant of Russian ballet -- San Francisco Ballet was founded by Bolm, you know, the first Polovetsian warrior -- so that stage is ancestor for all of us......

Manhattnik!! You are in town!?!?! Call me -- I'm in the book, let's have a drink or something..... thANKS, LEIGH, FOR THE STORY ABOUT ANSANELLI -- i HAVEN'T SEEN HER YET, BUT i CERTAINLY HAVE BEEN HEARING ABOUT HER... That makes a great deal fall into place. Long did not make that happen -- she was haunting, it was lovely, but it did not well up and sweep us away. Linsusanr, Balletnut, Rachel -- how did you feel?

Yes ,Jeannie, we know that exit -- speeding up faster than the music.... Mr B made one for a ballerina, to, in Tchaikovsky pas de deux -- the ballerina gose off back left doing pique turns that speed up faster and faster and faster -- I saw Kyra Nichols do it once so fast that the steps looked liked jetes, it looked like she never actually touched the ground on hte piques.... I know she MUST have, but hte surprise and excitement were so great, to have such a musical dacner go faster than hte music, the acceleration drove us out of our minds..... It WAS the first time I'd ever seen that ballet danced by makor artists, and it was in here Berkeley, on hte little stage at Berkeley HIgh School, where she was dancing in a benefit for her mother's school and company, so it really took us by surprise when she applied world-class power to it..... By the way, let me ask again -- do you think hte stage-rake might have had something to do with Soto's disorientation? (Is hte stage raked -- we've got a whole thread going on about raked stages on another thread right now, vrsfanatic is telling us many fascinating htings about teaching Vaganova in America occasioned by questinos of dancing on a rake) Just curious -- accidents happen of course, under ordinary circumstances, on flat stages, in your own house THis evening does sound like a thrilling performance under marvellous social circumstances, very electtric for the audience, and that always excites performers.... But he's done that exit before and should be used to the difficulties of finding hte wing -- though of course, as you say, they never use that part of hte set in New York...... What a WONDERFUL evening you must have had-- thank you so much for reporting on it....

Me, too, Jeannie -- thank you so much... I got shivers when you mentioned the gilt filigree on the Maryinsky boxes that you noticed in your peripheral vision as the Diamonds Polonaise began -- all those white gloves, and all those cavaliers, they throw so much light from the stage, you'd actually have more light to see the gilding with -- but that's SUCH a Balanchine effect, that kaleidoscopic effect when suddenly dazzling faceted things appear in hte corners of the picture..... What an evening--and Jock Soto crashing into hte wings.... Am i right in thinking the Kirov stage is raked? Can he be used to doing those emboites on a raked stage? -- he was probably angling upstage in order not to go too far DOWNSTAGE and fall into the pit.... I wonder; maybe hte lights disoriented him..... was it the emboite exit? When NYCB visited London not too long after World War II, when hte English were still too poor to repair things, the stage was full of holes, and some Englishman offered to dedicate a plaque "to hte dancers who fell at Covent Garden"; sounds like there should be a Jock Soto memorial wing at hte Kirov.....

Darling Leigh, a cucumber sandwich would come in real handy right now. I near-about wore myself OUT writing that..... the waltz girl was Kristin Long..... (Is that the role where the partner sort of goes spectral, circles her and disappears, and she kind of hovers and then continues by herself?) and re la Follia -- Angene Feves, the Baroque dance specialist, has reconstructed a version of la Follia, very very interesting.... it's made for dancing. Seems like here were nearly as many covers of that tune as there have been of "Louie Louie...." (which was also made for dancing) With respect to programming-- Polyphonia might feel VERY different on a different program.... it was amazing to us all, everybody commented on it, how well Elite Syncopations and Dances at a Gathering went together, and EVERYBODY loved Elite here -- many BA commentators have said how much they disliked it; maybe it was hte programming, maybe the current phony-war situation echoes something sort-of World WarI phony-war that's built into the raffish Edwardian music-hall milieu of ELite -- or maybe it flatters our barbary-Coast past here, but Elite closed that program in the most enchanting way.....

Seems reasonable to me that the only program we've written about is program 2 -- it's the only one that was really enjoyable Program 3 is impressive.... And Helgi has made a beautiful new ballet -- for the men, 5 guys dancing to a Corelli concerto grosso (to that famous hit tune of the eighteenth century, "La Follia" -- you'd recognize it if you heard it, it's extremely danceable) The ballet is sleek, elegant -- some very hard steps, some beautiful floating jumps (a kind of tour jete that floats horizontally in retire like a frisbee before a leg-to-land-on descends), grand pirouettes ending in fondu with a releve in ecarte, things like that -- actually very Danish, all about strength, but with line and finesse... he's come up with some lines that make men look very good, things that suit men's hips -- pirouettes in a high coupe back and so on, that look turned out even if they aren't... And everybody in it is a CORPS boy, well except for Pascal Molat 9new French soloist), who's got some EXTREMELY beautiful grand batterie to do..... Garrett Anderson is very appealing in some combinations that alternate Bournonville hobble-steps with big jumps in interesting positions; Jonathan Mangosing is breathtaking in a combination of fast multiple pirouettes in passe that end in fondu and go right back up into the world's slowest attitude turn; he repeats this 3 times, so you get to see it again, as if seeing were believing-- the attitude turns sometimes actually stop briefly and then continue...... literally incredible, except that other people you ask about it agree that that’s what he did. Mangosing has legs like a woman's -- round soft thighs, very high soft extensions, and an oozy quality to his dancing, like Allegra Kent had in Bugaku -- you can't tell where the movement is coming from, it's quite astounding. Dancers in the audience are very impressed -- and so is the rest of the audience. Tremendous applause. Maybe Polyphonia would look more interesting on a program that didn't already have such an intense technical focus -- but the effect of the whole evening was like doing string-tests in biology lab -- did you ever do those? You’re using a microscope and trying to figure out by raising and lowering the lens, changing the focus: is the red thread on top of the green thread or vice-versa? Basic microscope skills, and they're fun to do -- but you couldn't spend the next 2 hours figuring out which foot was in back...... People seem to have liked Polyphonia at NYCB -- but you never know whether New Yorkers aren't just using Wheeldon as a stick to beat Peter Martins with. I wanted to like it, went back to see it again from the back of the dress circle, and it WAS more interesting, and more poetic, from further away and above..... but not killingly. The inner movements had the most kinetic appeal; and Kristin Long was marvelous, with a large dynamic range, sparkling at times, haunting at others. Allegro brillante had exciting moments; Lorena Feijoo had a lot more success with it than Julie Diana, whose sweet mannerisms bothered me in this piece, and seemed to have made her partner, who shall remain nameless, extremely put out. Diana is not strong enough; she DOES have a musicality that's akin to Farrell's, but the little sincerities she sprinkled everywhere are not Farrellesque at all, and she lacks the alacrity in the thigh -- all those pique sous-sus's have to zing, like scissors closing.... Feijoo is wonderfully ready, but her temperament is too fiery, there's not enough TO this ballet for her.... Sara van Patten was lovely in the corps, as was Leslie Young, a radiant dancer..... Many people here think Damned is a work of genius; I admire Possokhov enormously as a dance-artist, really he is extraordinary; and he did achieve a Gogolesque surrealism in Magrittomania, the dance of the petty-officials was sensational. BUt this version of Medea does not hold together for me. It DOES give Maffre a role she can gnarl herself into bizarre expressoinist shapes in -- but look what Lawrence Olivier could do with formulaic scripts. That's star-power, and Maffre has it, and she creates a sensation, but it's nothing like what Fiona Shaw did with Euripides, which was dead on. THe music is wrong. (It's Ravel.) He uses the "Pavane for a dead Infanta" for the Creusa pas de deux -- which defeats the purpose. That music is hallowed; whenever it is used, it belongs to our girl, not to her rival. Similarly, the very disturbing OTHER concerto for the left hand is used, in very clever ways but against the real grain of the music, for the big events of Medea's story; that's just not what that music is about.