Michael

The September 11th attack did look uncannily like an action movie. I've seen a lot of those movies with my teenage sons, but they have lost their innocence now. On September 11th, there was no James Bond, Harrison Ford, Jean Claude Van Dam, Arnold Schwartzenegger or Jackie Chan to save the day. No Superman to fly in front of the airliner about to strike and strenuously to push it back in reverse, before setting it down and capturing the terrorists. In retrospect, it is the happy endings, not the doomsday scenarios, that are unrealistic about action films. Another eerie parallel is Super Nintendo, where the "player" draws a bulls eye on a building (or something) and, when hit, the "something" soundlessly crumbles to the ground in flames and smoke. I won't be able to watch people playing those games any more without anguish.

I'm fine too, but it's all unuterrably sad and disturbing. Saw the first plane come in over the Hudson and turn in, incredibly low and out of place, and though "what the hell is that plane doing there, but then lost sight of it behind some buildings and didn't think more about what it was doing until I learned more. The rest of the City, north of 42d street for sure, eerily dissociated from the horrific scenes near City Hall. Spoke to several people at my old office, two blocks from WTC, who were caught in the street when the towers came down and who thought it was the end of the world, as you really didn't know what was happening.

It's nice that Miranda Weese is having a critical success at the Edinburgh Festival. No matter what the British critics have thought of the programming and of the choreography, and even when they are totally negative about both, I haven't read a single review which has not contained a marked appreciation of Weese's performances. It's very well deserved. I remember talking to a friend after one of her performances of Theme and Variations in Tschai Suite No. 3 last spring (and also after her Act II divertissement in Midsummer Night's Dream last spring) and noticing how, with her attack and her losing herself in the role, I had almost been holding my breath as she moved. And although I wouldn't want to push the comparison, much of what has been said on another thread about Margot Fonteyn's concern with line and placement rather than with big extensions and circus effects could be said of Miranda's style as well. [ 09-04-2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Alexandra Ansanellis is back and dancing beautifully (Chris Wheeldon made wonderful roles on her in Polyphonia and the Spring Gala Ballet too [forget the name]), but she has been used very sparingly (wisely, I think) in light of her having missed one and one half seasons with a foot injury that may never even have been diagnosed. She's very young and very, very, very talented. As for "restraint of style," I was speaking of Korbes rather than Tracey. Actually, though, I think Carla may attack more than Margaret. It's just my observation, fully subjective, but I've seldom found Margaret to be too aggressive in her attack and seldom seen her lose herself too much in the passion of the balletic moment. I've considered her rather cool, in fact. But there are many exceptions even recently -- a glowingly warm Sugarplum Fairy in the first Saturday Matinee Nutcracker last fall, partnered by Peter Boal, with Zachary Yermolenko as the Boy Prince. Also a couple of absolutely wonderful performances (I don't think I'll ever forget them) in the Divertimento from Baiser de la Fee last winter. And every perfomance of Zakouski with Nikolai Hubbe and Ben Millepied last year was fabulous. I will miss her very much. As in all things, you "do not miss your water until your well runs dry."

Margaret Tracey's imminent retirement IMO does much to explain the meteoric rise of Carla Korbes this spring and summer. (Also Janie Taylor). Korbes is "Classique" (semicharacter classique) in emploi, like Tracey. Above all Carla's "non-idiosyncracy" (in contrast with Whelan, Somogyi, Meunier, even Ringer, and with Maria K [who is another physical type entirely]) -- makes her well suited to fill the void which Margaret Tracey's departure will leave among NYCB's women principals. That is not to say that she will take over Margaret's roles. Only that her very regular, classical beauty, style and training, and the comparative restraint of her style, will be of huge value in providing a stable center to what is otherwise an extremely diverse typology of leading women dancers. Once Margaret retires, only Miranda Weese (among the younger women) will be left occupying the middle range and Carla will provide more balance there. [ 09-03-2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Well, just my opinion, but in pursuit of a more balanced view I must say that -- while I thought Murru has interesting dramatic potential -- I found him technically in need of improvement. His batterie lacks clarity, he completes neither his beats nor his air turns, and his pliee could be deeper. He could also be stronger in his lifts, though he is an elegant and attentive partner, and show a better posture in his back in some positions. Don't get me wrong -- he is an appealing dancer with a lot of potential and a nice, serious approach to his roles. His basic line and proportions are very appealing, he is quite beautiful with an intelligent expression and good eyes and can at times be a fine dramatic actor. But he is not at an Etoile level now as a dancer, certainly not for a company of the first rank. [ 07-24-2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

It wasn't the lack of "sexiness," per se. It was that the drama was not effectively portrayed. Durante remained Durante, visting diva. She never made an entry into her role. Muru was dramatically effective during the scene where he is lured into becoming a murderer, but not otherwise. The Toreador was also weak -- a simpering fellow who didn't take himself seriously and whom you couldn't take seriously either or imagine the real Carmen being attracted to --- And without a strongly charismatic Toreador whom you can imagine actually sparking jealousy to the point of murder, the final scene just will not work. I was bored by Amarcord. Even with the notes I couldn't tell much what was going on. There were too many characters too. I had trouble telling them apart after a while. Different sweaters for some of the men? The dance patterns for the corps, indeed the entire dance, also struck me as unimaginative and weak. Presumably this wistfullness for a benign fascist era where the black shirts act like schoolboys and at most make you drink castor oil is something that speaks to Italians of that era more than to me. (Although the late Primo Levi would not have laughed, I would think, although Levi did not lack humour). I'm missing something, I guess. But I was bored by the film too, if I remember correctly. And I'd gladly see Amarcord (the ballet) again. Perhaps on second viewing it would work. I've too often changed my view of a ballet upon seeing it a second time to condemn this without reprieve after a single viewing. [ 07-20-2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

In defense of an (at times) "passionless" portrayal of Don Jose, I think that dramatically the piece depends upon the portrayal of a conflict within Don Jose between his passion for Carmen and what should be his better sense. He is a man of a better class than her, possibly an official or a policeman. She is more one dimensional. If it's conflict that drives drama, the conflict which should drive the piece is, first of all, a conflict within Don Jose and only then a conflict between Don Jose and Carmen. In a shallow dramatization it's easy for the first to get lost and for the dancers to portray nothing but the second. I think Murru in the bedroom scene was attempting to play it according to the book. The bedroom scene is the morning after their night of love. Don Jose is both empty, remorseful (realizing his fall but unable still to resist it), but also pretending not to respond to Carmen's autoerotic dance. It's a kind of passive aggression towards her on his part, a last assertion of his will, until finally she arouses him and he bursts into passion -- an aggressive sexual response towards her. His lust for her, and his hatred of her (and for himself) should be evident here. Last night, at the Lincoln Center festival, I agree that much of this nuance was not well conveyed. But, between Durante and Murru, it was he who made more of an attempt.

It's great that Monique danced this. Wish we had seen her in the City. Thanks for the reports.

I don't know if it just made good copy or something, but I don't understand Gottlieb's comment that the companies are "converging." I have no sense of that. I don't think it's true. But then I didn't see them 20 years ago.

Well, you know, looking back now, who is there who really compares with Balanchine as a choreographer and stager of ballet in the latter half of the 20th century? In terms of the size and variety of his opus, it's audacity and success, its eclat, its impact upon and dialogue with the other arts, the way it dominated its own area -- There is no one else. He's in a league of his own when compared with his contemporaries or what's come in the 18 or so years after his death. It's his being in a league of his own, as far as recent contemporary success, eclat and stardom if nothing else, that has created the problem that everybody else has to react to him or be compared with him. There is indeed a tyranny in that, and "Hating Balanchine" is one valid, even creative, possible artistic reaction to this situation if it clears the ground in front of you and allows you space to continue to work. [ 07-09-2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Rachel Rutherford in La Valse. Ashley Bouder in Firebird, Maria Kowroski in a bunch of things (Monumentum Pro, Swan Lake). It's quite amazing, isn't it, how much of the load Charles Askegaard carried this spring and how well he did it all?

Some afterthoughts and reactions to Amanda a week later: De gustibus non disputandum est, I enjoyed Kathleen Tracey's performance of Helena very much on Tuesday night. I thought her rendition of the part had good clarity and detail, and that she presented a good, long, flowing line in the costume (with its high bodice and floor length skirt). She has always had a lovely flow into arabesque and that also came through nicely in this part, in the passages where she arabesques and kisses demetrius repeatedly, then runs forward and does it again. She did not make me forget Riolama Lorenzo in this role, all the same. Rio was great Helena. Probably I'll never see as good. And I loved Pascale van Kipnis's Hermia. Of the two female lovers, this is the ballerina role and Pascale is very ballerina. I agree she would make a wonderful Titania. I'm thinking the reason she's been scarce this year is still the after effect of last year's injury. It may have been more severe than I thought. Just speculation. But I'd love an explanation for why she's been so little cast which was rational. I thought Jennie Somogyi had problems handling the bow in both performances I saw. (Dancing with props must be quite an arcane skill, it deserves a thread all its own). She has often remarked how she has problems with her arms, or had them in her training, that they'd tend to be all over the place, and the bow accented this. I've seen this performed on other occasions when the bow is held aloft in the pirouettes forming a very beautiful line. I loved the force of Jennie's fouettes, though, and how very high she had her working leg -- I've never seen fouettes done with the working leg so lifted. Even more, I loved her in the Second Act wedding pdd, and the march forward that precedes it. Her turn out is so beautiful in that pace forward, and the final 180 degree extension at the end of the pdd, with one hand almost on her hip and her body gracefully effaced just a little bit, and with the other arm extended high, was just breathtaking. I'll remember that for a long time. Still, I wonder why Meunier didn't dance. I note she's still cast in a few things in Saratoga. It's funny how performances age and gain savour in recollection. These two have a great perfume a week later.

As I'm out of town, I'd love it if anyone has news about the rest of the weekend's performances -- Saturday afternoon and evening and Sunday. Did anyone go? One thing that has I'm recollecting clearly, after attending Tuesday and Wednesday night, was how well the kids performed and how well Gabrielle Whittle appeared to have coached them. I like this ballet and what's wrong with Act II being almost totally a divertissement? First -- Clive Barnes to the contrary who cares -- it's not correct that the action is entirely complete after Act I. The wedding is still to come, ceremonious as that is. And even if Act II was nothing but an entertainment, how does that differ from Sleeping Beauty Final Act? Wedding and Dances, that's all. [ 07-01-2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Tuesday night's performance was great. And plenty of Ballet Alerters there too.

Actually, Balanchine tacks several Mendelsohn pieces -- including the march from "The New Melusine" (concert overture in F major) and parts of "Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage" (concert overture in D major)and other stuff that I can't identify (what's the divertissement, by the way?) -- not only on to the end of the incidental music Mendelsohn wrote for the Shakespeare play, but into the middle of it. The score for the Balanchine starts and ends and with and generally follows Mendelsohn's music to the Shakespeare, but the other compositions are pieced into it. I wonder about the origin of this -- whether he originated it (either working himself or with his conductors/music directors) or just remembered it from his Maryinski days or something.

Does anyone know who pieced together the various compositions by Mendelsohn for the different versions of Midsummer Night's Dream? Does the Ashton use the same score as the Balanchine? What is the history of this?

There is also a beautiful print of the Biblical subject by Albrecht Duhrer. It's about eight by ten inches. In it, the Prodigal is seen from behind at the moment of his return, kneeling in a Netherlandish farmyard, by a pig's trough. There is no other figure -- no literal father -- but the Prodigal has his eyes raised to heaven in prayer. There is a very strong sense of redemption through sin and through suffering and of the Prodigal's joy at finding his home again. It's one of Duhrer's very finest works, an absolutely transfixing one, a great example of how much meditative content can exist in a simple image. I greatly enjoyed Peter Boal's attention to the details of his role, his facial expressions and the way his entire performance held together. I think that it was because of that, that I was able finally to begin relating more to broader thematic content, such as the crawl home and the realtionship between the principals, which were always present.

She's also doing some teaching at SAB now (they list her as "Apprentice Teacher") and I think that's a great choice by the school. Two images of Walker I can never forget come from the Nutcracker: Walker is usually the first Snowflake on stage, and she bourees out and just stands there for a moment in sous-sus (with beautiful epaulement too, which is something you always notice about her), in the blue half light, while the snow starts to swirl down. You can't take your eyes off of her at that moment, she is unspeakably eloquent to the point of bringing tears to my eyes. The other is her rendition of Columbine, which is one of the glories of that production. A few years ago when Janie Taylor regularly did Harlequin, what a pair they were.

Just a super performance of this ballet tonight by Peter Boal and Helene Alexopolous, well supported also by Alex Ritter and Arch Higgins as the friends, and James Fayette as the impassive father. More detail dramatically than I've ever seen in it, and I've seen it many times. (For instance, isn't it odd that, in the last crawl home, the father doesn't go to his son, doesn't move or pick him up, until the final gesture of folding him in his cape?). I'm so glad that Peter is performing this, after having not appeared in it for a few years, I think, and with Helene, this is a dream cast. The orchestra, conducted by Hugo Fiorato, also played this better than I've heard them ever do it before and, with the performance given it tonight, I could see for the first time how beautifully Balanchine matched his choreography to the music, particularly in the evolutions of the gnomish bald troop of depraved creatures among whom the Prodigal experiences his fall. Previously I'd seen it as somewhat bufoonish, likening it in my own mind to the way Ben Stevenson treated Prokofiev in passages of his Cinderella. It's nothing like that actually, or rather, the difference is the Balanchine hit the mark. There is a inventive subtlety to the the movement palate here which is perfectly sensitive to the score (surely that is Balanchine's particular genius) and it required a fine performance to expose this. The corps of City Ballet is looking very strog these past few weeks. It's a real peak for them. I was less impressed with Wendy's Chaconne than others who have posted have been, but in that piece too I thought the corps now very much has the spirit of the ballet, in contrast to how it appeared at the end of last winter. As for Harmonielehre, I was awake and riveted for a while for another fairly amazing performance by Janie Taylor (in the First Scene pdd -- if this pdd was made on her, as I think it was, it just reinforces my impression that Martins makes his most beautiful dances on her at the moment), then I pretty much dozed (for about half an hour unfortuntely) until the more or less beautiful part which Dale pointed out the other day where the white silk comes down from the ceiling, the barefoot girls come out, and Isabel Vondermuhl gets carried around by James Fayette. That's quite a beautiful scene. It's a pity you have to wade through so much monotony to get there. [ 06-21-2001: Message edited by: Michael1 ]

Another unforgiveable point dramatically about this production (in addition to what Mary and Eric have already mentioned -- though this relates to Eric's point about Von Rothbart taking too long to die) is that Von Rothbart's death has replaced Odette and Siegfried's denouement as the emotional and musical climax of the piece. At the end, to one of the greatest passages of Romantic classical music, the orchestra swells and all the musical themes combine and what do we see . . . Von Rothbart dying! Odette and Siegfried have already jumped. Do you remember the Dance Magazine piece before this production last year, with Susan Jaffe on the cover, where ABT claimed that this production would revolutionize ballet, reinstitute narrative as ballet par excellence, and mark the end of abstraction on the balletic stage?

Bobsey - Don't listen to me! Trust your own opinion. I wouldn't want to rain on other people's parades and when I say it's rainy that's not a guarantee that anyone else will agree. Also, despite my ill humour, I very much enjoyed Wednesday's matinee. Figure that one out. Michael

If my memory serves me (since it was last Winter and I can't find the programs), I saw Margaret Tracey and Ben Millepied in one cast and Margaret Tracey and Peter Boal in another. It was Tracey's best performance of the year for me. And the corps was fantastic too, slowly boureeing off the stage at the conclusion in a wide semi-circle. Just a breathtaking scene. And also that lovely chase between the two principals, with the corps en diagonal in between, where they keep flitting from one side to the other and she keeps escaping his grasp. It's a gloss in a different sense than his Swan Lake, in that he's commenting on (or playing off of), not so much the entire choreographical tradition of a classic, or Petipa's classical treatment of that piece, but his own prior work -- in this case his previous full length Baiser De La Fee (at the old torn down Metropolitan Opera House?), which had apparently not been performed for ages when he made the Divertissement. So that instead of the entire lost ballet, we have merely a gesture or two, a severe contraction, presenting its mood and certain elements of it in a symbolic way in place of the whole or standing for it.

Dale and ATM have hit the nail on the head about Wednesday's matinee, so I'll just a add a litte. Theme and Variations was indeed much much too slow. It made Miranda Weese's performances across the plaza the two previous weeks look that much better, and I loved them in the first place. Amanda NYC, don't complain that Fiorato conducts too fast! Julie Kent did not attack her part at all, she seemed behind the music consistently, there seemed to be something wrong musically (I think Dale has analyzed it correctly) -- but then, suddenly, Kent seemed to recover and become poetic and charged in the pdd, rescuing an otherwise flat performance. Carreno's phrasing in the coda of his variation was also very non-musical. I do not like Susan Jaffe's line, which is merely a matter of personal taste, but a strong one. She danced impeccably. I watched Murphy with attention in light of recent discussions. As Alexandra said, she's a ballerina but not totally there yet. In between gorgeous moments, there are still gaps which are flat. What I love about her, however, in contrast with the other ABT ballerinas, is precisely the fact that she is still unfiished, that she's young and learning and can still become something different. In contrast to Jaffe and Tuttle, she at least still has potential. It was thus frightening to see her too starting to ape it up and flirt with audience ABT-style, to do mannered little things in little ways. She could go either direction. I hope she intends to keep dancing and not decide that the female equivalent of wrist flicking is what gets you places in that house. Nina A, however, was gorgeous in Beauty Act III (even though I agree with Mary about taking that piece out of context). I've actually not seen that much of her but yesterday made me a believer. She's the one to watch in that company and -- She's one of the one's to watch in the entire world. (I actually walked out of Dvorovenko's Don Q Monday night, after Act I, in general disgust with the entire scene: the house, the audience, the company, the way that it's never anything but technique and no effort is ever made to transcend it, and even the technique is not that good, but the audience can't tell the difference). Ananiashvili is in another class. I've never noticed before what beautifully developed and articlated shoulders she has, particularly when seen from the back, or how she uses her hands so completely as part of her arms, creating one finished line, or how she keeps her hips so level while using her shoulders so cleanly in effacee or ecartee positions, or what total control she has of herself. And her basic line is perfect, the proportion of her head and neck being in right proportion with the rest of her body. I was also impressed with Bocca, strange to say. Finally, someone who actually completes a double air turn before landing it.

"Pied Piper" certainly is an inviting, almost an irresistible target. The claimed "great new innovations in stagecraft" proved to be computer screen savers, graphics from super nintendo, and cliches from 70's rock light shows. I wondered whether these people really thought they'd just discovered all this? When the claims made on behalf of a work are so extreme, they invite debunking to the same extent. Nothing invites satire like pretence -- indeed, it's the very subject matter of satire.