Jack Reed

As I have for many years, I attended the opening show last night and had an even better time with it than experience led me to expect. The large clarity of the dancing throughout - looking a little larger on the modest stage of the Athenaeum than it might elsewhere - is only hinted at in some publicity shots Helene has posted for me; still images don't show motion, or not much, anyway, with the exception of the pair of images of the Snow pas de deux, which show views of the dancers just a few counts apart, and they don't begin to hint at the energy and vitality maintained through the dance scenes, beginning this year with the new staging of the Battle scene: What I saw last night was quite remarkable to me - I know and love Balanchine's* battle, and chuckle along with the audience when the cannon fires chunks of cheese at the evil mice - what a considerate, gentle war! - but Duell and Seymour evidently have in mind a dance Nutcracker, and there was little hint of reality-evoking pantomime or theater event here. While this scene was danced, it nevertheless strongly conveyed force and conflict by the constantly and rapidly changing - unrelenting tempos here - pose and posture and patterns of the dancers onstage. It helped that the two sides in this contest were clearly differentiated by excellent costuming - dance costuming, though, no giant rodents represented, although I think the soldiers may have been a bit padded: Their names in the cast insert are all female, and those stout, armed-forces midsections fooled me as I watched. Praise be to the Wardrobe Committee - The Guild of the Golden Needle! So: The most notable thing about this Nutcracker was - the battle?! No, the most notable thing was the clarity and point - dramatic and musical - of all the action, including the party scene, and the flow of beauty across the stage. Particularly rewarding, in the traditional four-part Sugar Plum pas de deux placed in the penultimate and climactic position near the end, was the dancing of Meghan Behnke, clear and large and sharp and modulated into lush softness and fullness, all at the same time, filling out her phrases. She sure lit up my spirits, and I only wish she had lit up just a little herself, my only quibble. Perhaps betraying some first-night tension? Not least the able and graceful support of her partner, Ted Seymour, not to mention his own dancing in the Cavalier's variation, choreographed by Daniel Duell, must have contributed to the security of Behnke's lovely performance. She appears briefly early in Act II, introducing it and its cast and "hearing" the pantomimed story of the Battle - from Marie, as this ballet school is more than a little short on good men, she's accompanied by a full-grown Nutcracker Prince, Michael Haverty - and her lovely movements there were an accurate harbinger of what was to come in generous proportions near the end. It was a full evening, though the time flew by. A full experience; and I remember much more than I've posted, and I'll try to share some more of that. Were any other BA!-ers there? Tsk! *It slipped my mind that the choreography of the Battle in Balanchine's Nutcracker is by Jerome Robbins.

Thanks to Helene for posting these. I'll try to post further identifications of the seasons and the casts shown as I get them. (The sharp-eyed will notice some subtle costume modifications along the way, for instance in the Snow pas de deux, reflecting the unstinting labors of the ladies currently numbering seven who comprise the school's wardrobe committee - "The Guild of the Golden Needle." This school really is a community project.) Meanwhile, there's some history of this production and the schedule of the current season, running through December 20, in Heads Up!

We have some publicity shots of recent past performances, for which I expect further identifications. (Thanks for posting those for me, Helene.)

Ballet Chicago's annual production of The Nutcracker opens this evening in the Athenaeum Theater, 2936 N. Southport, just off the intersection of Lincoln Avenue and Wellington Street, in the Lincoln Park/Lakeview neighborhood. Ballet Chicago is one of the country's better Balanchine-oriented ballet schools, and as such their Ballet Chicago Studio Company puts on a couple of good shows each year, depending to some extent of course on who's in the school, as well as some ballet demonstrations around the city. (Their big show of the year goes on in mid-May in the Harris Theater in downtown Chicago; the next one is scheduled for may 14, 2016, and looks to be a Balanchine program, although, as we here all know, "programs are subject to change.") BC has been putting their Nutcracker on in one place or another since 1997, and this year the season has grown to 10 performances, 7 open to the public and 3 for school children. Their Nutcracker is mostly choreographed by Daniel Duell, who danced in George Balanchine's NYCB, and his wife, Patricia Blair, who danced in the Eglevsky Ballet on Long Island, when Edward Villella ran it; and it includes the three surviving parts of Balanchine's Sugar Plum Pas de Deux, supplemented by a Cavalier's variation choreographed by Duell. It's been many, many years since I've seen the Joffrey-Arpino staging, being retired by the Joffrey Ballet after this season, because when I saw it after Balanchine's, it just seemed so oblivious to Tchaikovsky's instructions, compared to Balanchine's sensitive collaboration with his composer. Personally, I prefer BC's, because its choreographers hear their music so much better, if not quite to Balanchine's own level of inspiration, in spite of the Joffrey Ballet's more seasoned professional dancers and stronger production values. (Maybe even more important for his choreography than Duell's time in NYCB is the fact that, as I understand it, he is a musician - a classical musician - too.) I expect that, as in the past, the music for this production will come from multiple recordings - lending particular vitality to the different numbers individually. (I assume Duell made the selection.) Those who have issues with Balanchine's scattering of the parts of the SP pas de deux may like to know Duell has collected together the four parts of BC's version late in Act II, in a more classic plan. (Personally, I can take it either way.) More than that, though, this production is one of those that has a Snow pas de deux - actually just an adagio, for another pair of principal dancers - to the Pine Forest music in the Snow scene at the end of Act I. Like Balanchine's staging, and others, this one is subject to frequent tinkering; the scenery has developed over the years, and costumes too, and I gather the Battle of the Mice has lately been reworked and extended by Duel and Ted Seymour, who teaches in the school, choreographs, and dances with the Suzanne Farrell Ballet and elsewhere, and appears in this production sometimes, variously in the opening Party scene as Dr. Stahlbaum, as the Snow Cavalier, and/or as the Sugar Plum Fairy's Cavalier. Here's a link for the complete schedule of public performances and ticket sales: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/951388

Hmm. Actually, for what it's worth, that's what I thought you meant! I don't think it's that hard any more given contemporary technology, to have sharp, clear moving images, realistic color, no noticeable blurring of motion, etc., and still somehow the people behind those fine cameras make poor decisions about how to use them. Two separate, independent aspects of the process. Which reminds me, the cameras at Opryland Productions in Nashville gave a particularly unsubtle color rendition, compared with those used on other television programs produced elsewhere, so that today I usually like what I see a little better in that regard by turning down the color control on my TV slightly. IIRC, press at the time told us that Brockway and his colleagues liked to work there because they could set up very long shots, far enough back to have all the dancers in them, without revealing the lights overhead as they would in a smaller studio with a lower ceiling. (Or traveling shots where the cameras and the dancers had room to move.) Whether or not they liked the unsubtle color, I don't remember reading. The studio's main program, a country-music show called "Hee Haw," was thought by some at the time to be conceived as something to look like a "live action" comic strip, and bold comic-strip coloring was part of that, along with some lurid "art cards" - graphics inserted between short scenes and "blackout" comedy bits.

Yes, and yes. As I recall, back in the day some of us had strong criticisms of the camera-work and directing and cried out for the late Emil Ardolino, the director of the well-shot 1993 Warner Brothers DVD, but I can't locate that thread to link to just now. Some of us also felt the performance was "soul-less," and required an antidote, which we found in parts of that 1993 recording - fortunately, I wound up seeing Villella's company just a week later (a long-planned trip) and what an "antidote" that was! Antidote, nothing, it was an elixir!

I agree, sandik, although I think Merrill Brockway was the excellent director of the majority of those shows you rightly admire. The series began to be broadcast in January 1976 with the Joffrey Ballet in a show directed by Jerome Schnur, actually, according to my notes; Brockway came on for the second show, "Sue's Leg: Remembering the Thirties" with Twyla Tharp's dancers, and stayed until 1988. That series was a high-water mark in my book for putting dance on the television screen - or any screen - so people could see it without much interference. Would you say we could forget sometimes that we were watching a transmission or something and were just watching dancing? Here's Brockway in that interview late in his life: Brockway was the great director of "the Nashville DiA" series in my book - Ardolino often produced or assisted, and learned a lot from him, and directed some shows after Brockway's retirement, but while Ardolino knew how to make good shots, he tended to make too many of them, and the frequent cutting from one to the next could become distracting.

I don't know the length of your experience, Buddy, but dancers come and go rapidly sometimes - ten or a dozen years is not unheard of, although Deanne Seay was there 21 years (and nowhere else), and there may have been others I just don't know about. I saw Messmer only briefly, when she seemed in retrospect to be passing through Chicago on her way to San Francisco, but right away she seemed flowing with potential, which she quickly began to realize. We'll see, or you will, how she develops in MCB. (Maybe I'll see for myself when they're here in Chicago the end of April.) Edward knew what to do, and how to do it. We pieced together that his project to mount Concerto No. 2 (billed as Ballet Imperial, but actually the later 1973 version) met with disbelief from a very knowledgable enthusiast of the company and sometime associate of Balanchine's in the day, who told him they couldn't do it; but he started rehearsing it in August, and, alternating with other repertory, by the following March, they could. Oh, boy, could they! (I think Mary Carmen Catoya may have debuted in it, or possibly it was Emeralds. Seeing her in either of these radically different roles, I could imagine her presence gave him the idea for them.) I don't know whether he gave much thought to playing to the crowd, though he did try to help people tune into what the program offered in his pre-performace talks in Ft. Lauderdale. (I'm not sure these went on in Miami/Miami Beach or in Palm Springs, too.)

Interesting comparison, bringing to mind the story I remember - maybe an inaccurate one - that I picked up years ago when George Balanchine's NYCB - the one he supervised - visited the Soviet Union, as it was then. The theaters were sold out every time, and at the last minute, the eager fans outside shoved aside the people in charge and rushed into the aisles and sat down to see his fabled company dance on their stages. Closer to our topic and our day, Edward Villella's MCB was warmly received for three weeks in Paris in 2011, although I didn't notice any reports of spectators' behavior resembling civil disobedience there, and there was some mention at that time of a possible second tour to Paris in 2014, which didn't happen. Didn't you see MCB in Villella's day? In my experience, the houses were well filled in south Florida, first in Miami Beach, then in Ft. Lauderdale, and on one mid-week excursion I made across the state to Naples, not to mention their week's tour to New York's City Center in January 2009 - where the company got such a strong, demonstrative reception, compared with south Florida - in New York! the dance capitol of the country! a tough audience - it brought the dancers to the edge of tears. In his day, I used to watch them mostly in Ft. Lauderdale, where they scheduled four performances of repertory on a weekend, but now I see from the schedule there are only two there. I couldn't agree more about the substantial, even meaty, quality of Mr. B's Swan Lake - in the day, he said he got all the cholesterol out, but for me Fancy Free is fine as dessert, something to send us all out with a smile on our faces. Villella put Viscera first, which I found a fortuitous benefit - I needed an antidote after it, something to relieve the claustrophobia I felt after visiting Viscera's compressed world, and even In the Night on that program was welcome. (I was in there in anticipation of Ballet Imperial, I think.) (Friends and I used to sit out In the Night back in the day, at Mr. B's company, saving ourselves for the Balanchine work on the program, but I have become better at taking in what I see in its own terms, I think, and I can look at Robbins his way, on a different plane. A less-exalted one than Mr. B's.)

More agreement from me, except that it was at TSFB last season that I saw Hartley; her presence in Phoenix - which turned out to be the end of her career - does everybody know we're talking about Ballet Arizona? They deserve to be better known, in my book - anyway, that was another reason I decided to go see their Balanchine program, and although I'm not satisfied with what I wrote about it, I was pleased with them in that. And likewise about Jackson and Macaulay. (Jackson's departure from the Washington Post is a loss way beyond the Beltway, IMO.)

Point taken, Helene, so I'll go over there about Jackson and Macaulay; it's just that their powers of description so better mine I thought to enrich this discussion by linking here! Having gone to see Magnicaballi in Phoenix - her "home ground"? - I endorse that idea, too.

Sounds like you're already laying plans, but do have an eye out for Allynne Noelle, too, as well as Heather Ogden and Natalia Magnicaballi - or maybe you already do! One of the delights in seeing this troupe is that we see their individuality, their unique virtues, even as we see the dance they're showing us, to the music we all hear. My experience has taught me you can't count on that. There's nothing here about trying to do it the same way each time, no overlay of mannerism or affectation. It's like Balanchine's own company was; that's why some of us were in the audience.

Aha! That's more like it. But still, for the benefit of those wanting to plan ahead, when I came in around 6:40, the line was half the length of the Hall of States - from the Box Office nearly to the doors to outside. Personally, I try to have as much preparation - like tickets - in hand, rather than waiting until the last minute, because a visitor (from Chicago) - or at least this one! - has too little experience of how long things will take - like getting into the theater.

I'm glad somebody did. No, really.

Opening night proved to be somewhat the lesser performance of the four in the view of many of us, even though we hadn't been soured by a long stand on line. (Passing that line on the way in, I thought, What the - ?) In the later ones, Angelova's Walpurgisnacht improved, Magnicaballi looked a little happier (and stormed through the coda of Walpurgisnacht on Sunday afternoon as she hadn't on Saturday), etc. etc. (Oh, and new guy Thomas Garrett subbed for Ian Grosh in the pas de trios in another lovely-looking and lovely-sounding Emeralds on Sunday, rather to Garrett's credit. No real reflection on Grosh, who had made up in spirit for a little blurring at one or two points, while Garrett looked well-schooled right through.)

[from Washington, DC] Too familiar with it, I remember how it gave me claustrophobia when Villella put it on a few years ago. I was so grateful for In the Night to follow it. Such large, spacious movement, not to mention the starry backdrop, evoked a huge place even for the small business of the several relationships Robbins - as usual - had for us to see. Sensitive programming, I thought. P.S. Searching this forum for my remarks on it (but not finding them) I ran across the name of Allynne Noelle, who will dance the Karin von Aroldingen role in Emeralds here this afternoon, concluding TSFB's too-little season.

Saturday evening October 31 We could quibble about some things in Angelova's Walpurgisnacht, but less so the way she danced tonight; she carried this ballet wonderfully, even better than on opening night, as though temperamentally suited to it. And Ogden and Henning again looked suited to the Midsummer pas de deux, i.e. to each other, with that "chemistry" that was lacking this afternoon. (Good word for them, Kaysta.) On the other hand, the opening-night cast looked well suited to Emeralds when they returned to it in a performance more enhanced now by an accompaniment of Faure's quiet music raised by excellent playing to a level of beauty that itself became exciting, without a lot of noise and razzle-dazzle. Actually, now that I think of it, conductor Scott Speck led the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra to distinguish itself all through the program; it's just that in some more elaborately-textured music like the number before the last one in Emeralds is where it really showed.

Saturday afternoon, October 31 Walpurgisnacht was led by Magnicaballi and Garrett, with Tellman as demi, and I must say this is a very good combination: Magnicaballi isn't so spectacular in the familiar sense as Angelova, but as you watch her, as you sink in to what she shows, you see the music, you see Gounod's notes, it seems, detailed, nuanced, clear, rich; a rich experience, while Tellman's dancing just seems to come into existence, easy, but in time; clear but not forced; large, as though she were taller - except that when you check, she's the same height as the corps. (She and two of them are set as a trio at the beginning, a touch not seen anymore at NYCB, say New York friends here for this weekend.) And Garrett, new to us, is not merely a fine, clear dancer, but he has some sense of occasion in the way he finishes his dance. (This cast is scheduled to appear again tomorrow afternoon.) I was a little less happy with Seymour and Noelle in the Midsummer pas de deux; the were less a pair than Ogden and Henning last night (scheduled to reappear tonight). But in Scene d'amour Angelova was a little more dramatic on discovering the corpse of her kinsman than Magnicaballi had been last night, though nothing like the old video of Farrell herself. (Maybe that's an unfair comparison.) Tellman also delighted in Emeralds with her magical way of making her dance appear. The orchestral accompaniment was especially exquisitely wrought this afternoon, too. But having followed this troupe over the years, I'm not too surprised that their performances improve steadily from opening already on a high level.

Friday October 30, 2015 Just back from the first performance, and still impressed by spectacular dancing of Walpurgisnacht, powerfully led by Angelova; Noelle stood out for many of us as the demi, too. I found the Midsummer pas de deux a sensitive portrait of a loving couple, for example where she, back to him, puts her left hand under her right arm; in ballet language, she seems to say, "Here is my hand, turn me," and he obliges her; and then they do it again. Ogden and Henning gave this just the right, clear warmth it required. The Scene d'amour from Bejart's Romeo and Juliet seemed less effective this time than when Farrell staged the first time; in particular, Magnicaballi, as Juliet, seems not to react much to the murder of her kinsman, though J. Russel Sandifer's pools of light on the two bodies, the color of fresh blood, seem to underline the present horror of the killings. But in her dancing generally in this, Magnicaballi does seem the youthful, innocent girl she needs to show us. Emeralds, in the revised form Balanchine left it upon Violette Verdy's retirement, was often beautiful to the point of exciting, especially in Ogden's dancing of the Verdy role, with Thomas Garrett in the ensemble, and in the "spinner" variation which follows it now; the "walking" pas de deux, which follows after a couple more numbers, seemed to me not so well realized on this occasion, by Magnicaballi and Michael Cook. (A kind of quiet excitement here, framing the program with the spectacular excitement of the opening ballet.)

Suzanne Farrell's notes for Walpurgisnacht Ballet are here: http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/ballet/farrell/notes.cfm#fallWalpurgisnacht For the Midsummer Night's Dream Act II pas de deux (scroll down): http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/ballet/farrell/notesarch14.cfm On the Scene d'amour: http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/ballet/farrell/notesarch07.cfm#bejart On Jewels, with a paragraph about Emeralds: http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/ballet/farrell/notesarch14.cfm#Jewels Details on the cast are here: http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/ballet/farrell/dancer.cfm

The Suzanne Farrell Ballet principal casting, from the printed program (with updates as I became aware) Opera House, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, October 30 - November 1, 2015 WALPURGISNACHT BALLET Company Premiere Oct. 30 and 31 at 7 pm VIOLETTA ANGELOVA and TED SEYMOUR ALLYNNE NOELLE Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 at 1 pm NATALIA MAGNICABALLI and THOMAS GARRETT VALERIE TELLMANN Intermission A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM Act II pas de deux Oct. 30 and 31 at 7 pm HEATHER OGDEN and KIRK HENNING Oct. 31 at 1 pm ALLYNE NOELLE and TED SEYMOUR Nov. 1 at 1 pm HEATHER OGDEN and MICHAEL COOK Pause Scene d'amour from ROMEO AND JULIET Oct. 30 and 31 at 7 pm NATALIA MAGNICABALLI and MICHAEL COOK Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 at 1 pm VIOLETTA ANGELOVA and KIRK HENNING Intermission EMERALDS from JEWELS Company Premiere Oct. 30 and 31 at 7 pm HEATHER OGDEN with TOMAS GARRETT and NATALIA MAGNICABALLI with MICHAEL COOK ALLYNNE NOELLE, JORDYN RICHTER, IAN GROSH Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 at 1 pm VALERIE TELLMANN with KIRK HENNING and ALLYNE NOELLE with MICHAEL COOK (Oct. 31) or TED SEYMOUR (Nov. 1) JENNA NELSON, JORDYN RICHTER, IAN GROSH (Oct. 31) or THOMAS GARRETT (Nov. 1) Program and casting is [sic] subject to change

It's a "perspective" that's largely been lost, I'm afraid, that what art's "for" is to take us "out of ourselves," like a journey which makes us different - some insist, always "better," although I'm not so clear on their meaning there, but if my hunch about it is right, I think I agree - and along the lines of that old remark that "travel is broadening," except that the artist distills and concentrates the experience (if we get it) and gives us greater intensity (which may scare some people off). Yeah, "illuminating the minds of the authors" seems to me a reduction and a waste, the stuff of Ph. D. dissertations, frankly. (If I mistake you, correct me.) Lost things get rediscovered sometimes, though.

"Art by committee"? A committee of the original artists and latter-day editors and censors? No. If you don't like it, if people protest, leave it alone. Hide it away, even. (As long as there's a good film or two for times when people have grown up and it can be staged again.) The experience of art is a journey to another world - not the "world" of the 40's, but of Robbins's and Bernstein's imagination, drawing on some stereotypes of the times. These journeys are not always completely pleasant. (I'm reminded of the French word, "frisson," here, though it doesn't fit perfectly.) Should Berg's opera, Wozzeck, be given with its original ending? The little boy on his toy "horse" goes off at the end, singing "Hop, hop. Hop, hop," if I remember correctly, innocently unaware of his mother Marie's awful death by drowning. But we are aware: And it's chilling. So let's censor it, and save people from the chill? And while we're at it, let's fix Berg's crazy harmonies, too. I think you can even hear Marie's drowning in the music, her sinking, down, down. Too disturbing! (Like Musorgsky's startlingly uncompromising and original tonality in Boris Godunov. Nice of Rimsky-Korsakov to make it sound more like Meyerbeer. Much more comfortable to the ear, right?) Doesn't the audience deserve a bland good time in the theater? No disturbing dissonance! Please! Some art is disturbing - to people who haven't learned to distinguish between their "everyday lives" and the "life" of that fantastical place, the world of that piece of art, whatever it is. Some people are too eager to deprive themselves - and others - of the experience, for whatever reason. Countless other examples could be added. I'm not opposed to a little bit of labeling, maybe - maybe - but I am to political correctness. What about all those high Italian operatic tragedies, where the final curtain comes down on a stage littered with corpses. Can't have that? Disturbing? Does it "promote" capital criminality? How about "We'd like you all to know the singers are just pretending to die," over the public-address system, in case some of the audience (maneuvered into attending by clever tricks of marketing) doesn't know? No need, though, really, they get up behind that curtain, and then they take their applause at the end, like the cast of Fancy Free does.

Whoops! Don't be too impressed! I only went downtown here, to the Chicago theater, as I remember; it's a converted cinema, with a shallow stage to match, which didn't help the performance either. Thanks to the history posted here, I think now they merely showed what Farrell had set on them - as they remembered it - and credited her with it in the program. Nothing like the whole company was on view; that's what I meant by "detachment." (Sorry to have left out some important geographical details as well has the dates I can't remember, giving entirely the wrong impression, apparently; one of the benefits for me of writing here is that I get prodded to write more clearly and express myself more completely sometimes!)

Thanks for the tip, DanielBenton, I'll look at that when I have a chance, but I think the show I remember was considerably earlier - I'll look at my program collection when I have a chance to look at that, too! (Ah, "life"! How it interferes with fun sometimes! But we must try to live it in the present...) I'd hesitate before I inferred that Mr. B. never saw the Mariinsky after he left the USSR. I think he saw a lot, and not just ballet - remember the "horses" simile? - and used it - or reacted from it - in his own way. In ballet, though, I think he saw what different traditions offered and developed his preferences for movement partly from that, selecting what he wanted to try and ignoring what didn't appeal. (Or even ridiculing it.) When asked why he didn't mount this or that big classic, he was reported to have replied mildly that "We don't do everything," and "We leave that to them." He did his own thing, whatever it turned out to be. I don't doubt what Farrell says, but I'm not sure of my understanding of it. Surely, there was a big change for the new theater. (I remember some peoples' ideas that Bournonville's choreography was so vertical - so often bounding up into the air - because his stage was so small.) I wonder, "revolution" from what to what? I'd guess that his "style" had already become pretty original by 1948, and continued to develop. (There were things the BRdMC dancers didn't like about his way already when he worked there a little earlier - though part of that was his ideas about characterization, which I gather meant less to him than to them.) Much earlier, as a student, wasn't he threatened with expulsion for arranging dances with his friends? I think he enjoyed the challenge of cooking something up with whatever he had, too. Challenging everybody, including himself.