pherank

...As for Soiree Balanchine, it's the same problem I always have with POB dancing Balanchine - they just don't understand Balanchinian movement. It's too academically correct and the energy and spirit aren't there.

Serenade needs work. I was completely unmoved by the ending, which is a first. Almost like the dancers weren't really listening to the music. They were listening to the counts but not to what Tschaikovsky was trying to say through the music.

Sorry to hear that the performance wasn't a particularly good one. I imagine different nights/casts did better than others. I can think of quite a few companies that could do with a little of the "academically correct" though. Balanchine performed without precision can be a fright. I happened to dig up the NYCB's "Bringing Balanchine Back" DVD to catch some glimpses of Serenade and that segment (with Darci Kistler) fairs pretty well, but Symphony in C, Symphony in 3 Movements and Western Symphony look all a muddle due to the Corps lack of precision. Energy and speed are there, but no precision. I laugh every time I hear the comments from the Russian dancers about NYCB: "The legs very good. The arms not so good." "Not so good" is putting it mildly - arms at every angle. And different degrees of curvature/straightness. No one seems to realize how much this blurs the choreography and renders it indistinct. Not so good. ;)

Every day at 6 PM there's a free show at one end of the foyer of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, usually lasting about 45 minutes (a few take place in one of the small theaters in the building instead); they're usually webcast live on this page and the webcasts are usually archived.

Thanks for the heads up, Jack. This sounds like a great service to know about.

NOTE: the archived webcasts appear to work best in Internet Explorer. I have some trouble getting the video to show up in Firefox and Google Chrome.

Thanks again for finding these videos.

My first thought on watching: not half-bad, really. I often seem to have aesthetic issues with Russian stagings of Balanchine works, but the Bolshoi is getting better at it judging by this effort.

The Bolshoi bills the ballet as Apollon Musagète and that explains the older form of the ballet (and I think that was a good decision).

I personally prefer Jacques D'Amboise's "wild child" approach to the Apollo character, as it provides a whole other level of character development and drama - without that approach we get only the danseur noble behaving nobly (surprise!), and very little change beyond that. Semyon Chudin tends toward the noble Apollo approach, but he does have his dramatic moments. The only part of these videos that really bugged me was right at the beginning - his 'Pete Townshend windmill' motion: it was rather bland, and didn't correspond to, or emphasize particularly well, the dynamics of the score (and this IS wonderful music after all). Fortunately, things generally improved from there. I have minor quibbles with things here and there, but again, not bad, judging from the videos. That's my two cents.

Thanks for reviving this thread, pherank. I agree with the above (and also with Farrell Fan's absolutist stand upthread).

Thanks Dirac. ;)

There is of course no one way with art, or feelings. I tend to think that it is as much the viewer's job to find something, anything, worthwhile in an art piece, as it is the job of the artist to create something 'significant'. Much of the time, as viewers, we are just lazy, and wait to be entertained, but art of any depth usually requires work on the part of the viewer...

I will echo the sentiment that the Entrance of the Shades is one of the classic moments in traditional ballet. When I was just starting to take an interest in ballet performances, and wondering what was what, and who was who, I happened upon a DVD of the POB's "La Bayadere". (This was before I had seen any Balanchine ballets, and other 'modernist' choreographers.) And I thought, "the pseudo-Indian stagings are impressive - reminds me of Leon Bakst", but, it was the Shades processional that really hooked me, and then I thought, "So this is what can be done".

I do find it to be a lovely marriage of music and choreography (the only Minkus music that IS lovely to me). It strikes me as being very 'pure': similar to the kind of pure dance Balanchine often tried to achieve in his abstract ballets.

Calling the Shades processional boring is like calling the POB's Grand Défilé boring - I suppose you are either moved by this type of thing, or you are not. Although some find it necessary to explain that this dance depicts Solor's opium dream, I don't think the context particularly matters. The choreography either grabs the attention of the viewer, and transports them to a 'spiritual' place, or it doesn't, and for me it works in a big way as a standalone ensemble dance.

Not only does Lopatkina respect the classics, but she is one of the late Natalya Dudinskaya's greatest products.

Dudinskaya was taught by Vaganova; so there's a direct line back to the source. Lopatkina has voiced her

opposition to Vikharev's Petipa reconstructions, "Bayadere" and "Sleeping Beauty." To date she has refused

to dance Lilac Fairy in the 1890 "Beauty." She has only danced in Konstantin Sergeyev's production, (who was

Dudinskaya's husband). I believe one of the main reasons she's so beloved and influential, is that she's loyal to

her late teacher and Sergeyev's work.

This does conflict a bit with the notion that Lopatkina 'respects the classics' when she dances only the later versions of ballets, the ones re-staged by Sergeyev, rather than reconstructions that try to emulate the originals (obviously perfect reproductions would be impossible, but they restore scenes/choreography that haven't been danced in a century).

She demonstrates great loyalty to her teacher, but hasn't shown an interest in exploring older choreography. In her interviews she often mentions her interest in modern ballets (as long as they display a humanist quality), so I think that is her real focus at this point of her life.

re. 'Power Trip' - hmmm...you may be onto something. Seems like it now. To me, the exclusion of Lopatkina gives me even greater concern than the elevation of Skorik. Lopatkina does 'the Baltics and Siberia Tour' while others go to California...performing HER signature ballet, no less?

I get the opposite feeling: that Lopatkina has so much clout she can 'opt-out' of a foreign tour as she wishes. I think she would rather be close to home, anyway. Compared to Vishneva, who actively seeks out opportunities outside of Russia, Lopatkina has been happy to stick with what she has, and seems quite unconcerned with becoming an international performer. She always struck me as being fairly humble, and not intensely ambitious regarding her career. She has certainly done well for herself in Russia. Perhaps that is enough.

Serenade is not being filmed. The ballets being filmed this season are Don Quixote, Troisieme Symphonie de Gustav Mahler and La Sylphide.

As for Soiree Balanchine, it's the same problem I always have with POB dancing Balanchine - they just don't understand Balanchinian movement. It's too academically correct and the energy and spirit aren't there.

Agon I think is the best. The dancers' personalities really come through and there is some edge. Ganio was terrific, and Dupon/Le Riche in the Pd2. I would love to see Pagliero in the Pd2 because to me she is more suited for Agon than Serenade but I wasn't able to get tickets for that.

Serenade needs work. I was completely unmoved by the ending, which is a first. Almost like the dancers weren't really listening to the music. They were listening to the counts but not to what Tschaikovsky was trying to say through the music.

All I can say about Prodigal Son is that the Sirens (Letestu, Gillot) are considerably better than the Sons (Belingard, Thibault).

Thank you for this information. Again, no Serenade on DVD. I can't say this surprises me the way things have been going with Balanchine's works. But why another La Sylphide, instead? (A rhetorical question.)

I would love to hear reports on the Balanchine performances happening at this time. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the POB is filming "Serenade" (and perhaps the entire program). It would be about time(!) to have a performance of "Serenade" available on DVD.

I stumbled onto this Giselle thread:

http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/3312-videos-of-giselle/

So that should help me out.

Shirabyoshi, I love the term "unemployed eyes" and very much appreciate your summary of how central they are to classical Japanese art and theater. I might add cinema, especially the historical films of Kurasawa and others.

Puppytreats, you raise the issue of huge auditoriums and far-off seating. In recent years I find myself choosing to sit close to the stage if I can, and even if there is only a partial view of the entire stage area. I can't prove it, but it seems to me that the failure to engage the eyes is often a symptom of a deeper slackness of connection with either the music or the choreography, and sometimes even with fellow dancers.

Yes, Japanese actors are masters of the language of eyes.

This thread caught my "eye", primarily because I haven't been able to forget how well Ekaterina Kondaurova used her eyes in dancing Odette-Odile with the Mariinsky this past week in Costa Mesa, CA.

As Odette, her eyes were barely noticeable with lids drawn part way down - creating an 'interior' character whose mind is difficult to fathom, but we are touched by her gestures of grief and remonstrance. But when Kondaurova danced Odile, besides the technical fireworks, her eyes were wide open and she gazed full face at the audience, and the Rothbart character, and it is a powerful effect. Mesmerizing really. So Swan Lake provides a nice example of the importance of using the eyes and face to enhance/change character.

Many artists simplify the pronunciation of their names for anglophones, but when they're introduced in their home countries, the local pronunciation prevails.

I spent some time in the distant past trying to learn how her name *should* be pronounced, and of course happened on to some Chinese language video interviews with her, but I was never able to distinguish her name in what was said. (I've had the same problem trying to learn the pronunciation of various Hong Kong film stars' names this way.)

Try to listen for the names of "Yuan Yuan Tan", "Helgi Tomasson", or "San Francisco" in this clip:

Was that some form of "Rubies" at the beginning? Anyway, LOL, I can only distinguish the term "ballet" which is pronounce "bally" by the voiceover artist.

Re the glamorous Yuan Yuan Tan;

Most of us in SF say "wan wan" -- as in why so pale and wan, fond lover."

But my friends who actually speak Chinese say something that sounds more like "uEN uEN," with the u being that umlauted "dude" sound but very brief, like the vermouth in a vodka, it's just a bit of color at the VERY beginning. it starts off quite constricted between the molars, cheeks sucked in, back of the tongue rising toward the soft palate, and then the back of the tongue drops, the "eh" gets thrown against the hard palate, and the middle of the tongue pushes up and stops it. It all kinda happens 'in the nose" and it's fun to say

Yuan Yuan further confuses things with her own pronunciation of her name - but she's obviously trying to make it more understandable to the English-speaking audience as she has inverted her first and last names from the usual Chinese order:

The San Francisco balletomanes often refer to her with the nickname "Y Y", and to quote from elsewhere, "YY, as Tan is known around SFB, began her historic ascent through the repertory. Her name, Yuan Yuan, translates as “round, round”; she was born during a full moon, a sign of good luck, and where creating new ballets is concerned, fortune has smiled on her."

Hello everyone:

I could use some recommendations for Giselle productions available on DVD (sorry, no VHS). Let me know what your favorites are.

Ballet Stars of the 21st Century Gala last night at the Kremlin in Moscow.

Thank you very much for these videos links. Maria just radiates FUN. A wonderful personality, and a technical marvel.

I'll have to test the hypothesis ... maybe with (what?) (Proud Tower?)

It just occurred to me that "The Proud Tower" begins in an odd way - it's boring. The opening chapter, named "The Patricians", is all about the world of "Downton Abbey" and England's landed aristocracy. A world in which 'everything is in its right place'. The English Empire was arguably at its highest point, but the falloff was terrifyingly rapid (well, for the aristocrats - it didn't come soon enough for the those on the bottom of society).

I realized later, that Tuchmann very purposefully begins things on a dull note to show contrast, but also to make what comes later even more intense, chaotic and 'climactic'. She could have started with any aspect of European society (Austro-Hungarian Europe would have been a logical choice), but she chose to begin with the English Aristocracy and I think it demonstrates her literary skills to have done so.

Thank you for the heads up on "Come and See," I had never heard of it before.

It's kind of like "Ivan's Childhood" on steroids - same general theme, but specifically concerning the Russian partisans fighting German SS units exterminating entire villages in Eastern Russian, Ukraine, etc. So, not an MGM musical. But the cinematic style is very interesting - almost a David Lynch nightmare/dream-scape at times.

I'll second both "Dersu Uzala" and "Solaris" and add Sergei Eisenstein's "Ivan the Terrible" with Prokofiev's wonderful score. I think I've mentioned this before, but many classic Russian films can be watched in their entirety on Mosfilm's YouTube channel. Click the "cc" button in the lower right hand corner of the YouTube screen for subtitles.

Thanks Kathleen - free is always good. ;)

I should add, however, that some of these films really deserve to be seen on a large, high-resolution TV screen. "The Cranes Are Flying" and "I Am Cuba" have tremendous black and white cinematography in the Russian Constructivist style, and every shot in "Color of Pomegranates" is a mesmerizing collage of colors and textures with so many little details, that it would be a shame for any of it to be lost. Some of the Eisenstein films may look OK in low res since the transfers are often not very good. But this is an old argument in the world of film. I can say to anyone who has only watched Hitchcock's "Rear Window" on their computer, that they have not seen "Rear Window". Having gone to the theater to the see the restored re-release in the 1980s, I can tell you that the film was created specifically to be shown at a particular size: when shown on a large theater screen, the images of the apartment building look absolutely life-sized as if the viewer is sitting in the apartment with Jimmy Stewart looking across the courtyard at his neighbor's windows. It is an absolutely startling effect. Anyways...Some images surely help:

Color of Pomegranates

http://someofthethin...film-color.html

The Cranes are Flying

http://stefansargent.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/12dv-pole-1bg1.jpg

http://classicfilmhe...age/13697104307

http://classicfilmhe...age/13696358292

http://25.media.tumb...zz302o1_500.gif

Ivan's Childhood

http://24.media.tumb...h0vbo1_1280.jpg

http://s3.amazonaws.....jpg?1333382260

http://hopeliesat24f...schildhood1.jpg

Battleship Potemkin

http://4.bp.blogspot...mkin-2-copy.jpg

http://chaplinsmoust...-potemkin-1.jpg

http://24.media.tumb...i7tyo1_1280.png

Dersu Uzala

http://rstvideo.com/...ersu-uzala2.jpg

http://cf2.imgobject...13f59mVpKL1.jpg

My first thought on seeing these videos is that it's pretty great the Russians film seemingly every performance and show them to the world straight away. The US companies are made to worry so much about copyright legality that their performances are rarely seen by the 'outside world'. And so the Russians 'win', in effect - Russian ballet is easily accessed all around the world, even if you can't go to the live performances.

I will say that I LOVE the Bolshoi's decision to show the older ending with the dancers mounting Mount Parnassus. Very good choice.

I don't get the sense that the audience was thrilled by the performance. But I don't know if they felt it wasn't a great performance of Apollo, or they just didn't understand Apollo. I'm not certain of their level of familiarity with this Balanchine piece.

I'm shocked by how many different versions of the Niçoise Salad there seem to be in the world (maybe I shouldn't be). I used to make this dish quite often for dinners with friends. The most essential ingredients that I knew of were, niçoise olives (naturally), flaked tuna, sliced hard or soft boiled egg, green beans, and small fingerling potatoes (but this could just be diced potato). (Anchovy fillets are also used a lot, but are not my cup-of-tea.) All over a bed of spring greens and baby leaf spinach, and crumbled goat cheese on top. Cherry or diced tomatoes, and julienne carrot are a nice addition. Oh and the traditional dressing is a mustard dressing, but I used to make a really 'powerful' garlic, shallot, mustard and honey dressing that people seemed to like. Now I'm wondering where I wrote down that recipe...

It seems to me that Tuchmann was the first historian to figure out how to use fictional writing techniques, especially those used in character-driven novels, and apply these same devices to historical writing. In the last 30 years, every historian seems to have jumped on the bandwagon, but with differing degrees of success.

An interesting point and one I never thought of. I'll have to test the hypothesis ... maybe with (what?) (Proud Tower?)

Hmmm, yes, "Proud Tower" might be a good example, but even "The Zimmerman Telegram" has that kind of clever pacing in which the book actually has a kind of climax and denouement - it isn't just setup in linear time - "first this happened, then the next day this happened, and here's what happened the following week..." (there's too much of THAT in historical writing). I personally find The Zimmerman Telegram has a certain excitement to it, even though, and this is the funny part - we know what eventually happened. And yet it's the details that make a tremendous story, and Tuchmann certainly realized that. Thinking back on these books I realize that possibly Tuchmann's favorite theme is that of repetition in history. We humans love to repeat the same miserable things over and again. And that's a major theme of "100 Years of Solitude" as well.

"Master and Margarita" is one I need to tackle myself. I started it once, and was more confused than attracted, got interrupted, and never went back.

Definitely, if you are drawn to more abstract ballet, say, Balanchine's 4 T's, then what you say about magic realism makes sense. I love Balanchine, but I also love "The Firebird" and other folktale-based works. I tend to like a strong concept that has some psychological aspect. That's just me.

Carry on readers!

For some reason I find myself arriving late at this thread. Your list, phrank, is fascinating. I share several of your eclectic interests. Barbara Tuchman is one of those enthusiasms. Tuchman was remarkable in combining scholarship and density, while appealing to a large audience. Last spring I re-read A Distant Mirror, her treatment of the "calamitous 14th century." It's rich, dense, accurate, sharply written. The remarkable thing is how well she holds up when evaluated in terms of the more "serious" academic work covering the same period. Same holds for The Proud Tower. I guess I tend to like books that are either about, or which emerge from, periods of history that interest me most. My background is American Studies, but for some reason I don't read much U.S.-centered stuff any longer.

Regarding 100 Years of Solitude. -- I wish I loved magic realism. But I don't, even though I've tried. So there it is. I much prefer writers more directly attached to the world around them, for example Mario Vargas Llosa. His epigraph to Conversation in the Cathedral is a line from Balzac. Roughly translated -- "You have forage through everything in the life of a society in order to be a real novelist. A novel is the private history of nations."

Contradicting the paragraph above, I love Borges.

Thanks, Bart. Llosa, Borges, Fuentes - all good. ;)

I'm a little surprised that someone who loves ballets isn't crazy about "magic realism", but we all have different takes on these things.

It seems to me that Tuchmann was the first historian to figure out how to use fictional writing techniques, especially those used in character-driven novels, and apply these same devices to historical writing. In the last 30 years, every historian seems to have jumped on the bandwagon, but with differing degrees of success. Laura Hillenbrand has the gift as well - I wonder if I could get her take on the subject of Lee Miller...

Wow, thanks! I had been wanting to get into Russian cinema but was unsure of where to start.

Yes, you are quite welcome. I forgot to place an asterisk beside "Come and See" as it is one of the most TERRIFYING and shocking films you are likely to ever see. It is not for everyone, and definitely not recommended for kids/adolescents. Period. But it is a cinematic work of art in many ways.

For a short list sampler to start things off, I would recommend:

The Cranes Are Flying, The Color of Pomegranates, Dersu Uzala, Battleship Potemkin and maybe Ivan's Childhood from Tarkovsky.

What a nice idea for a topic, pherank. I'd add "Earth" and "Solaris" to those titles and Boris Barnet's "The House on Trubnaya."

I'm really not a fan of "Alexander Nevsky," however. I find it overblown. I do agree it's a "must see," though. I would substitute "October" or even "Ivan the Terrible."

I generally agree with your recommendations above. I do find "Solaris" to be boring, personally, so it doesn't go on my top list. Perhaps I should just say, "See all the Eisenstein films you can if you've an interest in classic cinema" ;) I see that I typo'd his name above, so I'll fix that...

I've never had any trouble enjoying samurai pictures, even if the the female characters can get on my nerves after too much exposure - I'm thinking specifically of Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy, where the women are constantly mewling and sniveling at the feet of one man or another while receiving stern lectures on the relative unimportance of canoodling when there's fighting afoot.

I agree that the female roles often leave a lot to be desired. That's one reason why I love "Hidden Fortress" - the princess gets to be a strong and forceful personality (yikes!)

Samurai Trilogy is a tough one for me. Some of it is simply great, and some of it is really annoying. I am a huge Mifune fan, which you can probably gather from my list, so I should probably include Samurai Trilogy just for his participation.

You forgot Late Spring. What a wonderful film, I prefer it to Tokyo Story.

Deciding which Yasujirō Ozu films to mention is tough as he was remarkably consistent. But I like to hear what others prefer...

"In the 2012 version of the widely-respected decennial "Greatest Films of All Time" Sight & Sound poll, published by the British Film Institute (BFI), Late Spring appears as the 15th greatest film of all time."

There are so many excellent photographers of dance, especially in these high-tech, digital days. This guy is one of the rare ones who strike me as a true artist. Thanks, pherank.

You are welcome - I too love his 'painterly', Degas quality, and the 'moodiness' of some of the shots. I can tell that he alters some of the photos in various ways, but it looks to be more of the old-fashioned by-hand manipulation than the Photoshop variety. One thing that becomes obvious in this photo (http://www.photodom.com/photo/2109538) is the tremendous amount of work put into the design and creation of the tutus - much of which is simply lost on audience members sitting in the middle of an auditorium. The art of costume-making is still alive.

Each performance has been a battle of wills not to laugh at the floppy fish death of Rothbart. Is there not a more dignified way for him to go?

In the Lopotkina/Korsuntsev version out on DVD, Siegfried whips Rothbart a few times with his own wing, which is equally goofy. But Korsuntsev is able to express a bit better the fact that there is a physical struggle between the two characters. Thanks for the great write-up, Ksk04.

I just looked at the Berkley casting and Korsuntsev is dancing both performances with Kondaurova - those Berkley audiences are in for a treat!

I'm just plain envious now - I was wavering between traveling to Costa Mesa and traveling to Berkeley, but I chose Costa Mesa and I'll be forever stuck with Ivanchenko (in memory, of course). Me thinks the Mariinsky staff reads Ballet Alert forum. ;)