Michael

The theater was well filled but judging from the number of very young dancers in the most expensive seats down front it would appear that very many were comp tickets. It is an understatement to say that it was a very mixed evening performance-wise, even for a Gala. Lucia Lacarra and Cyril Pierre were the best received performers of the evening and performed two expressionistic pieces, The Lady of the Camelias and Belong. In things like this she's stunning, but that is a very complex statement. The idea from the other thread that she's no pure classical ballerina but amazing in things where she belongs was well demonstrated. More purely classical dancing did not fare generally well. Dmitri Gudanov and Svetlana Lunkina, however, gave a performance of Spectre de la Rose which I am happy to have seen. And, oh yes, Zacharova in Dying Swan. Short, complete Fokine ballets worked well, maybe because they were dramatically complete and made some sense and were not just circus? About the rest of the program -- particulary Ansanelli and Askegaard in a bit of Stars and Stripes, Rut Miro and Lars Van Cauwenberg in Don Q pdd, and Jose Martinez and Agnes Letestu in Black Swan -- it is better to say nothing. A young Portuguese/Brazilian dancer named Daniela Severian made a strong impresson in a fast turning piece, full of fouettes and flowing attitude pirouettes, with sharp hand movements to an Edith Piaf song. She also I'm happy to have seen. [ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Leigh, I could not agree more. Ansanelli last night was the performance of the season for me. I never expect to see this better performed. It was pretty nearly perfect, something on another level entirely from what I've been watching.

I'm sure it's a mistake to be lured into such a battle Alexandra, it's an argument I can't win but here goes ... No one says that eras of relative good taste don't exist. It's Golden Ages that are mythical. Even in the Hay Days you speak of I would bet there was tasteless dancing as well as tasteful dancing, dancers who were more emotional as opposed to pure, and penchees extending above the shoulder which did not constitute mortal aesthetic sins. The recipe for absolute restraint offered above would denature ballet. What would be permitted and what would it look like is not something I'd like to think too much about. What about Nureyev stamping that foot down in Beauty at the end of his tours -- The recommended "cold turkey" should extend to that too, hein? Ballet is an art which exists on the edge of the dramatically erotic (in the sense of Eros and not in the narrow tawdry sense of sex, I just can't think of a better word) and you simply can't edit that out. What is needed is a tasteful balance between that element and the more restrained classicism. The recipe offered by Ms. Kanter above goes much too far in the latter direction. You might as well lean over too far backwards as fall on your face. I'm now prepared to take my whipping for these intemperate comments. It is the nature of one extreme argument to provoke another, I suppose, and I also suppose it's a good thing. [ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Also on 1/31, in Swan Lake, Dana Hanson was beautiful in the pas de neuf, which is really a soloist role with a corps of 8. And in Firebird that night I thought Rachel Rutherford as the Hungarian Girl and Charles Askegaard carried the performance, far more than Kowroski in the principal role of the Firbird itself. Maria was good but remained Maria and quite earthbound. The contrast between her and Bouder last year in the menage of jumps when the Firebird "enters" (really appears) to rescue Charles Askegaard could not have been more pronounced. That indeed was Bouder as the first Black Swan on the right in the Swan Lake corps. She must be cast in principal roles because no one can survive on stage next to her. Your eyes are drawn to her no matter where she is or what she's doing. Even a simple balancee sequence with porte de bras -- as in the Swan corps -- is fascinating and hypnotically and beautifully phrased when she performs it. She's beautiful in the upper body too and not just a jumper. I was so sorry she didn't get a Firebird or a Theme (I heard she was being taught Theme but got taken out). Her Firebird last year was not just a great debut, but the best Firebird I've seen, although I've not seen that many and don't go back that far (I have seen Kowroski, Whelan and Tracey, however, and no one compared to Ashley even the night after she learned the role). I'm another one who really loved Somogyi in Allegro Brilliante. I thought she danced the role with technical bravura but with a very soft, romantic affect in the piano cadenzas against which the principal dances her solos. She could have attacked more in the pas de deux, perhaps, particularly in the two repeated sequences where the male principal spins her into arabesque penchee and if she had attacked more there she would have varied the softness of those solos and set them off with more contrast.

The word "Quixotic" comes to mind when I read some of the above. Just as Cervantes' hero, faced with a "modern" age he could not tolerate, longed for an age of chivalry which had never existed -- at least not the way he imagined it -- there are people today who, faced with what they perceive as crassness and bad taste on the ballet stage, long for an era of restraint and good taste which also never existed (at least not as they imagine it). I too find much of what I see crass and in bad taste. But I can't help but wonder what I would see if the dictates for "good taste in ballet steps" set forth above in such specific terms were followed. I suspect that the "cold turkey diet" recommended above would be much worse than what I see today and that the audience would be much more impoverished than under the current chaos. Can you imagine living on cold turkey in an art form that depends so much on the fleeting perception of human beauty? Can't I have just a little Bordelaise sauce? I think I'll add an extra measure of applause for Lucia and for Svetlana Zacharova next Monday night, just on general principle. [ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

To Arms, Ballet Roundheads and Cavaliers! Down with the Six O'Clock Penchee. To the Stake with Sylvie Guillem too. Up with Leave it to Beaver. Call George W. Bush while we're at it -- It appears there are Evil Dancers about, who are capable of possessing Evil Steps and Dangerously Flexible Backs. [ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

You didn't by any chance see the awful program I saw Saturday afternoon - Jeu de Cartes, Romeo and Lavery (oops) and I'm Old Fashioned? I don't even have the heart to write about it, the most trivial, bad, insincere and embarassing show I've seen in some time. But it's an antidote, I think -- Lest I believe that by handpicking programs like Tschai Suite # 3, Raymonda, Bizet Symphony, etc., I'm really seeing all the company does. To me, a program like Saturday's is a lot more depressing and worrysome than the casting controversies recently aired. There is little excuse for such shallow, insincere, drivel. If this was all classical dance had to offer, they ought to consider putting the horse out of its misery, though thankfully that's not the case. Robbins' estate should supress I'm Old Fashioned, however. It's embarassing when the only bravos really heartfelt in the audience are for a dead ballroom dancer on a thirty foot high movie screen. (Though Jennifer Ringer made a game attempt to do something with the choreography, which I think is the one really unrelieved bad and totally shallow and sentimental thing I ever saw Robbins do -- usually he at least had stagecraft when all else failed him). The audience around me liked it all the same, but does that excuse it? They would've equally liked something better. The one ray of light was Janie Taylor in Jeu de Cartes, who was quite indescribable. The highest praise I can pay her, however -- and very high praise it is -- is to say that her amazingly graceful performance just, but only just, made Jeu De Cartes worth sitting through. It was the proverbial "close run thing," all the same. [ January 27, 2002: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

In recent years, Miranda Weese, for the reasons that Britomart set forth above and also Gillian Murphy at ABT. The interesting thing for me is how different each of their styles is.

And (of course) the strongest and most obvious arguments for performing Suite fully, instead of just Theme, are the integrity -- and the riches -- of the complete score. Tschaikovsky was also up to mixing a set of musical lineages.

You could distill the "Watch Allegra Kent" answer into: "What's musical? I know it when I see it." Also, at the risk of being a obscure, a strong argument can be made that what is most "music" is precisely what most evades verbal definition -- that the essence of "musicality" is the thing which most refuses to be pinned down in words. By virtue of that fact alone, it is most what is worthy of being irreducibly called "music". You can't catch the movement in the stream as it flows by, you will be left with a handful of water, not the flow.

While doing crossword puzzles. Meunier's performance will stick with me a long time. She was also very finished in her shoulders and arms and there may be no dancer whose going to, or rising up from the floor, or whose unfolding, developing movement has more of a breathtaking air of inevitability about it for me. Tracey and Fayette deserve every word of the praise above, it was a wonderful performance from them. I only omitted it from my first gush because sometimes things get so long. Also, in the corps, I couldn't help noticing Ashlee Knapp behind Tracey and Fayette in the Valse. Boy, is she growing, both literally and as a dancer, since being made apprentice. Physically now taller and rangier, and moving with such large, sweeping, musical steps, and losing -- but thankfully not entirely because it's part of her perfume -- that slightly "goofey" teenage affect she's always had. In fact, you notice how all the apprentices jump to a new plateau when they begin going to company class and dancing in the corps every night. That Savannah Lowery has suddenly developed a fuller epaulement, for example, which was evident behind Meunier in the Elegie, or Megan Fairchild in the Scherzo. It's fascinating to watch. An interesting little thing not in the program was Pascale Van Kipnis as one of the demi-soloists in Theme, in place of Pauline Golbin. It must have been very last minute as you could see her watching the others for the steps.

Carrying these accounts forward, I'll just tack tonight's on to these previous ones of yours, Eric. Friday night's performance of Tschai Suite No. 3 was very good indeed. In particular, the first three "movements" had a dramtic coherence -- both together with each other and in contrast with Theme and Variations --which I've not before associated with the first portion of Tschai Suite # 3. (I say "first portion" because the ballet almost seems to break in half to me when the scrim is raised prior to Theme and Variations). So well did the Elegie, Valse and Scherzo fit together tonight in my eyes that I felt that Balachine's (in a sense) arbitrary act of just tacking them on to the front of Theme and Variations was a kind of stab of genius on his part. There, he did it, he put them there, and now you can't imagine them any other way and they even seem to belong there in front of Theme. I like them all together. Monique Meunier was superb in the Elegie along with Robert Lyon -- She simply took my breath away. And Jennifer Tinsley, of all people, very much impressed me in the Scherzo. Interesting that Scherzo -- I kept mentally contrasting it with the scherzo in Midsummer Night's Dream, a rich contrast which shows up the more complex, less linear way in which Balanchine used the stage in Tschai Suite. As to Theme and Variations, I'm also surprised to say that I found Abi Stafford and Damien Woetzel's performances -- in fact the entire Theme and Variations -- very beautiful. I was sitting in the first row of the orchestra, so projection simply wasn't a problem for me. Stafford held the stage very well as far as I was concerned. I also don't know if maybe Abi has just grown more confident in the role this past week. Every performance is different. But anyway, Stafford seemed secure, confident, radiant and strong, and I liked the way she moved. She wasn't Miranda Weese in the role but she was a very good Abi Stafford. I'm not at all sorry I saw her, nor do I wish I'd seen anyone else perform it. It was far from the worst performance of Theme I've seen over the past five or six years and in fact it was one of the better. She made the role her own tonight to a large degree and the audience called her back three times at the end. I was struck by the detail she rendered in her dancing, and also how she showed an openness or vulnerability, a more interesting perfume, than I've seen from her in other performances. This was a strong debut from her in my eyes (if a third or fourth performance can still be called a debut). And it helped that Damien Woetzel also gave one of the better performances I've seen from him in a while, as good as I've liked him this fall and winter. His weight seemed to give her peformance balance and something to lean on. I'm with those who love Theme and Variations, but then I love this entire ballet and prefer to see it performed together like this. I wonder what the others think of whether this "belongs" together, though?

It's a fact that the most controversial casting this winter has occurred precisely in two of the more "holy" or "sacred" Balanchine works, Theme and Symphony in C. If you didn't know better, you might suspect Martins doesn't care much what they look like, or even takes a certain sly satisfaction when they look diminished. For certainly the casting of Bizet Symphony was also very poor -- Stafford in 1st movement when she's more suited to 4th; Van Kipnis in 4th when she's more suited to 1st. Ringer in 1st, where she appeared flat and one dimensional. Jennifer Tinsley also in 4th. Enough said. While Somogyi, who could dance either to make you die for, was curiously absent. The entire work was carried more by the corps de ballet than the principles, although as usual I was happy for the scraps I received. I'll see Stafford in Theme Friday night but I must say that in general I rather like her. In Nutcracker she grew very noticably as Sugarplum in the year after her debut. I do think, however, that a lot of the hostility that has surrounded her, both inside the company and outside of it, properly understood, is actually hostility to Peter Martins and not to Abi Stafford at all. For a gifted director who has carried the company now for a long time, he seems to have quite a genius for provoking it. He's his own worst enemy in some curious way, and his dancers often take the heat for it. (But then he rewards them so well, and sometimes for doing so little!) [ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

And the CDs ought to be searchable, so it also solves the problem Cargill mentioned.

"Moose Murders" is a good title. I wonder what it could have been about.

Ah Dale, I'm glad for a sign of life. You have described Meunier's performance so much better than I could have. I looked for you at intermission, by the way, as I thought you might be there for Monique. Did Meunier always have such finesse, by the way, or is it the product of all the time in the studio the past two seasons? The huge jump, centered pirouettes, sweeping steps, I remember. But the finish, the "grace notes" as you call them, is that something new? I don't remember seeing Meunier as so finished before. Also it's presumptious of me but I hope people will post some notes on the performances they see. (Even shorthand current impressions can serve as a focus to introduce other performances by way of context so don't let the weight of all those unwritten reviews deter you Amanda). So far we have a pretty steady record of the season but the flow may tend to be stopping now (I sense) and also (because I'm going to be away from the theater for a while) it would be particularly good to have some accounts right now. [ January 17, 2002: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Rutherford was beautiful tonight in Dances at a Gathering, even better than she was last week. And I've always been one of Amanda Edge's fans. And, Oh Boy, was Monique Meunier ever good tonight in Cortege Hongroise. When talking about dancers who have a "Ballerina Aura" and who can hold the stage, we mustn't forget her. Amanda NYC, regarding Borree, I don't want to see her dance that role either. She's not suited to it and I'm dissappointed too at that casting. That's my point exactly. And I think that it's the people who do the casting who are to blame. It's also cruel to the dancer in question, when that happens, if not outright damaging to his or her career and development. It's like raising kids -- nothing is crueler than setting them up to fail. You want to do just the opposite. [ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Sonnambula: I saw the Boal, Borree cast of Sunday afternoon and it received a good performance. This Ballet is not a star vehicle so much as a compact, meaningful dance drama and how often can you say that about performances these days? I went home moved by and meditating upon the work, more than the dancers. Alain Vaes's set (he designed the costumes too) is rich and striking. Before a blue, starry backdrop glimpsed through the span of an arch (where you will see the Sleepwalker's candlelight moving from window to window) the Chennonceau-like chateau of the Baron extends into wings on either side of the stage. The costumes are restrained Second Empire. The corps de ballet and protagonists are beautifully masked when the Poet enters. The series of social dances which ensue were well performed. Ashley Bouder and Megan Pepin were perfectly classical, with restrained bravura in the Pastorale. Amanda Edge and Jeroen Hoffmans were wonderful (very wonderful) in the pas de deux (I can't imagine this divertissement being better performed, Bravo Amanda) and Adam Hendrickson was superb as the Harleqin. Since his memorable Jester in Peter Martins' Swan Lake three years ago, this is the best Adam Hendrickson has looked to me. For one thing, unlike other demi-character dancers at City Ballet, Adam's line is stretched and elongated, and not the least bulky or overmuscled. And unlike many of Adam's other performances in the last two seasons (his Faun in Four Seasons, for example) where Hendrickson has sometimes tended to be "all over the place" -- even whacky -- at times, yesterday he had himself perfectly restrained and under control and carefully balancing the comic moments. From the way the rest of the Corps watched and responded to his performance I think he must be very popular in the company -- I've not often seen the other corps dancers become so visibly responsive to a dancer's performance. A continuing criticism I have of City Ballet's Sonnambula -- which I first noticed in the Ringer, Hubbe, Whelan cast last spring (how could you miss this gaffe) -- is that they don't seem to know what do wo with the characterization of the Coquette. Last sping, Ringer misplayed the Coquette as a "Romantic Heroine". Alexopolous was only a little better yesterday by portraying her as a "Siren-In-Love." The Coquette, however, is not a nice person and is certainly not "In Love" with the Poet. She is the personification of the Erotic and even something darker. For the Poet she wears the "Mask" of love but, unmasked, she has him murdered -- not out of unrequited love or jealous passion, but simply out of vanity, boredome and malice. Thus Alexopolous (and indeed the entire production) was completely wrong when, upon the Poet's entrance, they have the Poet and Coquette fall in "Love at First Sight," with the two protagonists staring rapt at each other for ages. And the production is even more wrongheaded when the Coquette finds the Poet with the Sleepwalker and seems to have him murdered out of despairing, anguished jealousy. The motive isn't jealousy, but vanity and the corruption of the world. Alexopolous' pas de deux with Boal was fine and the complexity of the dance, and the contrast between it and the merely social dances that precede it, was well portrayed. It's hard not to notice how weak Alexopolous's feet are becoming or have become, however. It's been evident these past three weeks that Kistler and Alexopolous are in the Twilight of their carreers. They are still capable of giving great performances, which are all the more poignant and full of emotion for that, but Alexoplous's feet are going and Kistler is at times quite constricted in her movements and, with Tracey retiring in a month, the urgency with which one watches for the continuing development of Somogyi, Borree, Van Kipnis, Korbes and Weese (both out), Ansanelli, Taylor, Rutherford, Stafford, Bouder and others is heightened. That Whelan is a Ballerina goes without saying -- But this is a company which is being carried by its corps de ballet at the moment and the corps was stunning again yesterday. After the pas with the Coquette, of course, the Poet becomes captivated by the Sleepwalker. But this is not Love either, but instead a narcissitic dream. He is capable of investing her unconscious soul with anything he wants, and of toying with her unconscious body in any other way. That was well conveyed by Boal and Borree. Re Yvonne Borree -- this was in fact another confident and assured performance by her (after last week's Dances at a Gathering) and I think that, whatever it was that has been ailing her, she's getting over it. If only Martins' casting of Borree will allow her to continue to build upon these strengths and gain further confidence as she goes forward, instead of putting her in situations where she is misemployed and must try to be a dancer she isn't. This is crucial -- Borree is a stunning, beautiful dancer, with a gorgeous line and total sincerity and committment to her craft, and this company needs her, but she's been woefully misemployed since being made principal. Also I can't forget to mention that James Fayette stepped in as the Baron yesterday and was superb. What a winter, he's quietly having. Other More General Things: 4Ts received a performance yesterday a little off the level it was at the day before. Again it was evident that Kathleen Tracey is miscast as Choleric. The corps was again great, however, Bravi to Amanda Edge, Carrie Riggins, Glenn Keenan, Melissa Barak, Ellen Bar, Mary Bowers, and all the others. Soiree was a little dull and blurry, but it's the first time I've seen it. What a pas de deux by Janie Taylor, however -- very interior and distant, yet animalistic at the same time (That's almost a definition of Taylor when she's in form). But for those who saw it last spring, which dance was made on Korbes last year and which on Bouder and which on Taylor? Yesterday Mandradjieff did the first variation, then Bouder, then Taylor did the adagio. [ January 14, 2002: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

I hadn't thought of Viva Verdi. Ayuh. Sorry I missed you Eric. I took my brownie and Tea out onto the plaza to soak up some mid-winter sun in front of the Metropolitan Opera House. One thing I meant to mention which was really touching -- Behind me was sitting some little girl who must have been at most 3 and 1/2 years old. Well, at the end of The 4 Seasons, when the Seasons Personified in Tableau Vivants come out and summon all of the dancers onto the stage for the finale, and they all come out and start to dance in unison, the kid jumps up into the aisle behind me, beyond her parent's restraint, and just says says "WOW" really loud. I loved that kid. She said it all. What a perfect tribute to the ballet that it could make her feel that. It was just my reaction. Also, regarding Ansanelli, I'll repeat and paraphrase what a friend said to me yesterday - that the final dash to Principal Dancer in this company seems usually to be steeplechase. They throw you out there night after night in everything and if you can make it over all the hurdles and obstacles and just finish the race more or less standing on your feet you get promoted afterwards. That's the stage Alexandra seems to be at now and I was so happy to see her today. She's just really attacking, isn't she? [ January 12, 2002: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

I just have to write about this. There were so many high points and I'll mention a few. The 4 Temperaments: No one needs to ask where Somogyi has gone, she's gone here to Sanguinic, along with Charles Askegaard. What a performance, there are no words I can think of which will convey how powerful, fascinating, and hypnotically in command of herself she was. She must have been saving herself up for this. It was worth the wait. And Peter Boal's Melancholic was simply a masterpiece, a great piece of dancing by a great Ballerino in a great role. I would not have missed this for the world. I would stand in line to see it (as well as Somogyi) every time it was performed, even if I had to stand in back of the 4th ring to see it. I was weeping at the end, God only knows why. Also I can't forget Dana Hanson and Robert Lyon in the first portion of the Theme. They were perfect, I held my breath. The 4 Seasons: I have to agree with everyone who has been praising this, I'm so glad I saw it today. This ballet has now been in repertory for 3 or 4 straight years, but I've never seen it better performed. No ballet with a Verdi score needs to excuse its existence. He is such a great theatrical composer. And his dance music is so interesting because there are so many, and such lovely modulations and variations in tempo between the extremes, faster adagios and slower, more lilting allegros, and emotional and melodic modulations between the two, than you see in most 19th Century romantic composers. He is one of the masters. Mannhatnik is so right about Van Kipnis's Summer. Today I rediscovered, and felt again, what I'd felt two years ago and was waiting to feel again -- that Van Kipnis, along with Somogyi, she was the companies' next Ballerina. Somogyi is a good seguay to Van Kipnis because the two of them seemed joined at the hip for so long. They came out of SAB together. I remember them debuting in Appollo the same night. Two years ago, when Pascale was being cast in so many Ballerina roles (the gold costume in Robbins' In the Night, for instance) I would have said that she'd make principal even before Somogyi. Then Pascal got hurt just before the spring run of Sleeping Beauty, and Somogy danced everything that spring (since Weese was also hurt), and that continued the following fall (when Pascale was still hurt), and Somogyi made prncipal and Pascale seemed out of form or out of favor when she came back. But what a stunning performance from her today. Summer is a killer role because of all the different speeds and kinds of dancing, as I said above. Not only is there a beautiful supported adagio (and this has always been one of Pascale's strengths), but also that long, moderately tempoed allegro when she is absolutely alone on stage for minutes. She took flight in this, phrasing her steps and taking the audience into her hands. Bravo. Phillip Neal was also very good and centered in this, although Pascale seemed to have a little trouble with his partnering in the adagios in the open floor. They have to find someone steady for her. Also Rachel Rutherford was wonderful today in Summer. Whoever said in an interview last year that they love Rutherford's dancing because "it always seems to come from somewhere so deep inside her" hit the nail on the head. Mary Cargill asked last fall in an article who would be the next Nicole Hlinka, quietly maturing and then blossoming in the high summer of her career (my paraphrase, I think Mary said Indian Summer but that doesn't apply to Rutherford) -- today I think it's Rutherford. Finally, I at last got to see Ansanelli's Fall. Eric you are right. And no tumbles today. I've always known what a fine dramatic ballerina she is, excelling at things as diverse as The Cage, Afternoon of a Faun, that absurd oratorio piece about the Russian peasant girl getting married, and role Chris Wheeldon made for her last spring gala (when she played the ingenue who gets the guy and the part) -- but I hadn't ever before seen her flirting with the audience in almost Dvororvenko-like fashion. Never fear, she stayed just on the right side of the line and it was her they were cheering for at the end. Zakouski: If I was a good Ballet Alert poster I would tack this onto another thread, because the Mozartiaphonia phenomenon was very much in evidence here. Zakouski was performed after a pause after the 4Ts. Well, the 4Ts was so powerful that I was weeping at the end. There is no way Zakouski can be appreciated after that emotional stage without a considerable space to breath. Hor D'Oevres come before the meal, not after. Margaret Tracey was marvellous in this role, with which she will end her career in exactly a month, until she fell last in the latter part, and afer that she was understandably a bit tentative. I think she slipped in a puddle of Nikolaj Hubbe's sweat, actually, because just before he'd done a pirouette at precisely that place on the stage and the sweat just flew off of him in a bucketfull. As for Hubbe, I've seen Tracey much better partnered in this by Millepied. I hope it will be him with her on February 12th. Nikolay seemed a little stiff above the waist today and more than a little mannered. Isn't the mark of the great Danish school, the Volkova influence, supposed to be that the dancer keeps moving, that the impules of the step flows through the arm and ends in the hand, and through the leg and ends in the foot, with melodic effect?

Funny, but I also remember Somogyi in an extraordinary Third Movement two years back. The failure cast her in one or the other of these two roles during the past two weeks would only be rationally justifiable by injury.

Actually, we haven't really seen a "Ballerina Aura" in First Movement these past two weeks. I thought Ringer also was also slightly understated last Thursday, although I liked her performance very much. Who was it who gave such a Ballerina-ish rendition of First Movement when the Bolshoi was here in July 2000 -- Goriacheva or Stepanenko, I think -- I can't remember except that Svetlana Lunkina couldn't dance the night I saw it and someone stepped in and just danced the hell out of First Movement, dancing modestly, almost anonymously in fact, but making a real tour de force out of the footwork in particular. What is the best treatment of this role, do you think? I think of Symphony in C, with its Palais de Cristal origin, as a very Paris Opera kind of Grand Ballet but that kind of thing can easily be overdone. That's why I also liked Stafford's performance -- because she stayed on the right side of the line and didn't appear to try too consciously to project. [ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Some notes regarding last night's program: Dances at a Gathering and Symphony in C. Dances at a Gathering: I haven't seen this for a couple of years and it got a good performance. As a ballet, I like the way Robbins take Chopin's nocturnes, preludes, polonaises, etc. -- surely the most evocative, romantic and dreamy of music -- and creates a vocabulary of evocative and dreamy dances which seems totally distinct and unrelated to the evocative dreaminess of the music itself. No literal treatment of the music, nothing cloying or trite (which could easily have been), but instead a kind of parallel emotional universe that lets the audience dream along with the dream of the dancers and the dream of the music. All three distinct, or at least to my eyes. But perhaps this is blissful ignorance? Once again I found myself thinking that perhaps there is a more literal plot or interweaving of motifs here, if only I knew it? I'm not sure I want to know it actually (though surely I should if it exists) -- because I kind of like my vaguer sort reverie. As for the actual performances, I found Yvonne Borree surprisingly good as Pink -- a very strong, confident performance. She beautifully shaped her steps in all ways, her legs, upper body, the use of her feet were all extremely soft and vividly etched. A flowing Henri Matisse sort of line when you get to see her. She also showed a very good complete surrender of herself in her lifts and supported balances. Altogther a wonderful night for her. The cast was full of debuts actually, and I loved the mix, with Eva Natanya debuting as Blue, and Alexopolous as Green, Ringer as Yellow and Rachel Rutherford as Mauve, with the men being Fayette, Hubbe, Marcovici, Millepied, and Woetzel. Marcovici was especially strong and (surprisingly to me) very fine in his partnering. The sweep and broad movement in Rachel Rutherford's dancing also was beautiful. I thought Alexopolous a little weak. Symphony in C Enough was said about this the other day, but Abi Stafford's debut in the First Movement and Jennifer Tinsley's in the Fourth Movement should be mentioned. Both were strong performances. Stafford was confident and understated, though she appeared a little (perhaps appropriately) nervous at first. I note that she's scheduled to debut in Theme and Variations the weekend after next in the full Tschai Suite No. 3 (this in Miranda Weese's absence) so First Movement last night is just the beginning. She did full justice to the steps and didn't make a great effort to project, and that was just a fine approach. I liked the fact that she just danced it straight. Tinsley's Fourth Movement was powerful but a little hard at the edges perhaps.

It's quite true that jumping is not Ansanelli's greatest strength and casting her in 3d movement was in fact casting against type, as so often happens at NYCB. Thus, considering what the role should purely be, the performance was probably quite inappropriate. Contrast, by example, Jenny Somogyi (and Robert Tewsley) who danced 3d movement the year before last in a performance I haven't forgotten, with Somogyi and Tewsley jumping so beautifully and musically in unison those particular attitude-like turning jumps. That's the best I've seen it. But as usual -- and this leads to so many disputes on this Board about whether something is properly or improperly cast -- when you love a particular dancer (and I adore Ansanelli) you love to see them in everything. And, particularly, as I was sitting right up front in the orchestra where the dancers make such an overwhelming physical impression, I was just blown away by her speed and precision and her presence -- she seemed almost to fly across the stage, hardly touching down at all. It's probably not the way it ought to be danced, but what a treat I found it. [ January 04, 2002: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

I've just walked back from the performance and will write briefly still under the influence of an amazing, joyful Bizet Symphony in C, and hope others will say more. Come on, I know you were there. A vote of confidence in the leadership of Peter Martins tonight, I've not seen the company look better on the 2d night of a winter season. The new model corps looks particularly good. When did Mary Helen Bowers suddenly mature into the complete corps dancer she now is, taking her place alongside Elizabeth Walker and Melissa Walter in that regard? And didn't newcomers like Ashlee Knapp and Alina Dronova look good in the Bizet. There's not enough space to mention everyone you should. Noteworthy in the Bizet was a beautiful melting second movement from Darci Kistler, partnered by Jock Soto, reminding me why she's still a "Ballerina." And the 2d movement is something that still plays to her strengths. Also, in the jumping 3d movement, Ben Millepied and Alexandra Ansanelli (who replaced Taylor) were extraordinary. Millepied has very noticably improved his partnering and showed a beautiful knack for making the difficult look clear and effortless. Stanley Williams (of Blessed Memory) would have been proud. As for Ansanelli, this is the first time I've seen her this fall and winter, and I must say that her speed and attack surprised me. It's now a year since she's been back from her year and one half injury and (cross my fingers, cross my fingers, cross my fingers) she's now all the way back. In retrospect there were times last year when she was a little tentative. Nothing prepared me for the aggressive, breakneck way she attacked her role tonight, with guest conductor George Cleve setting his own breakneck pace through the third and fourth movements. I also heard she absolutely nailed Tschai Pas de Deux last night. Mozartiana opened the evening with very good performances from Wendy Whelan and Damian Woetzel. Also on the bill were Monumentum Pro and Movements for Piano and Orchestra.