For starters, I would like to get the "Balanchine Celebration" performances from VHS tapes onto DVD. I wasn't aware that they are from the post-Balanchine era. Yes--even better, as you point out, Jack--would be videos of ballets performed under Balanchine's supervision. They are, after all, the "gold standard" versions of his work.
I, too, have been concerned about the loss of fidelity to the original Balanchine dances through successive generations of dancers at NYC Ballet.
(Incidentally, the Trust does make a good faith effort. For example, for performances of Balanchine dances by other ballet companies--which are not the subject of discussion here--the Balanchine Trust requires use of its preceptors to try to maintain quality control, but nothing is as good as what I would call the "first-generation" performances by the NYC Ballet itself.)
Further on this subject, Jennifer Homans, author of Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet, laments the decline in performance quality of ballet dancers in general:
"Committed and well-trained dancers are still in good supply, but very few are exciting or interesting enough to draw or hold an audience. Technically conservative, their dancing is opaque and flat, emotionally dimmed. And although many can perform astonishing stunts, the overall level of technique has fallen. Today’s dancers are more brittle and unsubtle, with fewer half-tones than their predecessors."
Do they need someone to personally inspire and energize them . . . someone like a Balanchine?
See <http://www.tnr.com/print/article/books-and-arts/78263/ballet-over> for an excerpt of her book.
As you note, Jack, "some of the obstacles may be insuperable." Yes, it may be harder to find every party involved than to merely get their actual signoffs.
California raises an excellent point. The Balanchine Trust also could get revenue from making the videos available for download on iTunes. And they could be streamed by services such as Netflix.
On a slightly different subject, the Balanchine Foundation has other video material not available for purchase by the masses. It sells a video (in VHS or DVD format--see <http://balanchine.org/balanchine/03/musicdances.html>) to "educational institutions": "Music Dances: Balanchine Choreographs Stravinsky." The Balanchine Foundation says, "The video aims to reach a wide audience, non-specialists in dance or music, students as well as scholars."
Also, the Foundation's website says, "The George Balanchine Foundation Video Archives consists of two collections: the Archive of Lost Choreography and the Interpreters Archive. With the video archive program, the Foundation offers an invaluable reference tool that preserves forever Balanchine's views about his own choreography. The Archive of Lost Choreography is dedicated to the retrieval of Balanchine choreography no longer performed and in danger of permanently disappearing. The Interpreters Archive features the creators of important Balanchine roles as they teach and coach the roles with dancers of today. This provides a unique record of the choreography as it first took shape."
Master tapes of the above archives are at the NYC Library for the Performing Arts, with copies available at what the Foundation describes as "non-circulating research repositories around the world." (See <http://balanchine.org/balanchine/03/gbfvideoarchives.html>.)
Why not allow such videos to be sold or streamed to a wider audience? I'm sure that many balletomanes would be interested in viewing them. The videos may be specialized, technical, not of mass appeal, and not performances per se, but those who would be interested are a self-selected group certainly be willing to pay to see them.
At any rate, I've just ordered the book, Stravinsky and Balanchine: A Journey of Invention, by Charles M. Joseph, a fine tale of that wondrous, sublime, and creative partnership. One can at least dream about the past.