Jack Reed

Agreeing with both statements; correct me, but I think that on the rare occasion when NYCB does this short version, they use the new costumes - the corps in black - and an augmented corps at that, so that the clarity of Mr. B's designs - his "luminous clarity" I believe Edwin Denby called it once, not just here but generally in Balanchine's works - is lost. Black is the least visible color, and the stage looked clotted when I saw this revision many years ago. So this restoration is wonderful - literally full of wonders - as you say. But more than that, there may be a number here that's not done too often. California, did you stay for the Zoom discussion afterward? I didn't quite get Dan Duell's remark about a number Sandra Jennings suggested, during their negotiations, that they might include because it wasn't done much. Or was she referring to the whole suite? I saw some of his versions of this a lot in the 70's, when Violette Verdy was alternating with Melssa Hayden, and even visited the Royal's production once when it was next door at the Met. I was surprised at how many of their "white" sequences were familiar from Mr. B's production - every other one it seemed, in places; he had replaced a duller one with something more luminous, leaving in what suited him. They said they worked from Sergeyev's notebooks, so we may see here a lot of Ivanov.

I passed your question about dancers' ages along to B.C., and I'll post if and when I hear back. I think you want to know how old they were when they performed in these videos, but in the meantime, I gather that the oldest members of the B.C. Studio Company are mostly pre-collegiate; since these videos were shot, one has gone on to Harvard, another divides her time between B.C. and Northwestern, which she chose partly for its proximity to B.C., I think, as well as family - behind every dance student, there's a family, as far as I know, a very close one, which reminds me - have I mentioned that the majority of their costumes are made by "The Guild of the Golden Needle," a group of the students' mothers? I'm curious about when those "compilations of Balanchine's own company" you've seen were shot. In the late '80's NYCB changed radically in the view of many of us in his audience, and a lot of us, called "Old Audience" by the NYCB marketing department, stopped attending regularly - or at all - because it didn't do anything for us anymore. But I try not to miss any of B.C.'s shows, on stage or on screen, because to a considerable extent I do get what I feel I have to have now and then, from them. (I'll admit that being able to sleep in my own bed is a plus.) Without trying to describe what it is, it looks here like we may both perceive that authentic performance quality, although I don't know if you had much experience watching his company in the theater when Balanchine was there. Other performers today may offer us (most of) Balanchine's steps and moves, coordinated with the music at each instant, and that can be rewarding to see, but in my experience the Ballet Chicago Studio Company makes them more clearly visible, makes more clearly visible their organic relationship to that music, than some professional companies (with older dancers).

Agree with Quiggin about that Ballo. Not the least of the enjoyment for me was Ashley's own joy in what they did for her. (And for what they all did for us, in another sense.) Also agree that NYCB's ability to give us Balanchine's Balanchine anymore has faded - through neglect, I'd say. (In the theater if not on screen Farrell's work with them a couple of years ago restored a lot of it to a few of his ballets.) So, some archive videos from them were also wonderful to see, the Midsummer Night's Dream from 1986, at least the last act of Coppelia from 1978, and best of all of these, the Vienna Waltzes - Mozartiana - Who Cares? one from 1983. But the streaming is still going on, right? (Ballet Chicago's is. They're my "home team." Some companies will surely continue to do more.) Isn't this contest a little premature?

This is a big subject, and two thoughts come to me at the moment. The trivial one is that Ballet Chicago, run by Dan Duell and Patricia Blair is not exactly the Chicago Ballet - or the Chicago City Ballet, to be precise, whose artistic director was Maria Tallchief - although the earlier Chicago company was in the same vein, directed by Balanchine dancers (besides Tallchief, Paul Mejia) in his "manner and style" (to quote a phrase used by yet another of the Balanchine "diaspora" who directed a company, Edward Villella). But as to the Balanchine manner and style - I think he wanted from his performers a continuing, not yet complete (non finito), evolving realization of how the movement and the music relate, not a completely perfected performance of a role. Martins, when he came along (and surprisingly), complained that Balanchine would "throw on" a ballet which, after several performances, was "a little all right," evidently looking at first under-rehearsed to Martins. (Surprisingly, that Balanchine didn't seem to know this would happen if the company were in Martins's hands.) But in "throwing on" a ballet, wasn't Balanchine leaving it to the dancers to make the changes of the moment? He knew his dancers, of course. Balanchine put this clearly enough on the occasion when he said, "Never mind perfect. Perfect is boring." (It would help to know the occasion.) Perfect is not boring to everyone, of course, but that was part of his credo, and it speaks to the freshness we see in the young dancers of our school here, Ballet Chicago. Did it speak to the "manner and style" of the younger dancers Balanchine picked for Palais de cristal in Paris in 1947? Didn't he want dancers who were more open to his direction than the older ones, more set in their ways? We can only speculate, but rather than rework a ballet to suit, say, the Mariinsky company, I think he would more likely try to find dancers in St. Petersburg who were already the most suitable for some of his repertory and also more able to be adapted to it. Maybe younger ones. (I gather something like this happens when the Balanchine Trust sends someone to stage a Balanchine ballet who discovers, on watching class, that they're not suited to it, but better suited to another one instead.)

I don't know anything about company class as it's given at NYCB now, but back in the day it emerged that Balanchine was likely to give whatever he thought the company needed. There was the famous (or maybe infamous) instance of one class where he gave battement tendu, a movement he regarded as basic, for an hour - the dancers, so my friends, some of whom worked for the company or who knew dancers, told me, came out complaining that their legs felt like they were going to drop off. Nor did I ever have the experience of seeing class at MCB, but it looks like from what you say that Villella had more of a set pattern. Whatever it was, it worked, and his company gave me more of what I needed than Peter Martins's NYCB did. But Balanchine himself made a point of extending the dancers toward extremes - fast and slow, for example - so they could do anything, and I would expect that today from those who got it from him, in New York, more at SAB (where Balanchine's dancers teach), than at NYCB, run by dancers who matured under Martins, wherever they may have started. This shows some more of the value of these Ballet Chicago performances. They offer another kind of Balanchine, more authentic, I'd say.

That's the kind of life and enjoyment we got every night (and twice on weekend afternoons) from Balanchine's New York City Ballet, only more so, as the dancers were a little older, a little longer in their development under his supervision, and so, a little stronger than these Ballet Chicago dancers. A member of what NYCB's marketing department called the "Old Audience" in the mid '80's, I saw hundreds of performances of his company between January 1973 and May 1986, because I had to: I had figured out around 1970, when NYCB stopped coming to Chicago for a week in Summer, that something was missing from my life, and that I might find it in New York. It's partly because these Ballet-Chicago dancer-students are students, but I think it's also because of their teaching from dancers who danced for Balanchine (or for Villella, or Farrell), that, even though they are secure in their steps and moves, they continue to explore how these movements fit what they hear. At any rate, that's the way it looks. That's fresh life, that gives enjoyment, otherwise it's dry. And rare, on stage anymore. And it may be - we speculate on this sometimes - why a forthright dancer, Messmer, keeps moving on, wanting to dance Balanchine, wanting to find an environment like he provided to grow and be nurtured in. And to nurture others in that way: She is often listed among the teachers in B.C.'s Summer programs.

Way to go, friends! I want to thank pherank for his compliment, but the report of my expertise was exaggerated, to paraphrase one of my favorite American writers. I'm glad canbelto filled in; that's what makes BalletAlert! true to its origin, a circle (online now) of ballet lovers cluing each other in. But in that ancient New Yorker piece, Arlene Croce refers at the end to "the audience": If it weren't for us, there'd be no one there except the audience. I'd like to bring the more general audience in too, and I'm glad for reports of difficulties with access that I can bring to the attention of B.C.'s administration.

Ballet Chicago is a school; their Studio Company is the best of them.

cobweb and nanushka, according to the program we get with access, the Barocco cast is indeed lead by Messmer, Nina Montalbano, and Jordan Nelson, and as I saw both programs in the Harris Theater here in Chicago, I can testify the date was May 11, 2019, though I'm not sure whether we are getting the matinee or evening show. Adding a little more testimony, in case you'd like it: https://balletalert.invisionzone.com/topic/44785-2019-spring-repertory-may-11-in-the-harris-theater-choreography-by-duell-seymour-balanchine/ (Scroll down. Barocco concluded the program.)

Here's a link to my post on the 2021 Free Streaming Video thread about that: https://balletalert.invisionzone.com/topic/46027-2021-free-streaming-during-covid-19-crisis/?do=findComment&comment=432076 (Would any of you like to express a preference for seeing that whole post embedded here, which is the current default of our board software, rather than follow the link, which conserves our resources, I believe?)

Ballet Chicago's Virtual Spring Season, February 27 - March 28, 2021 Ballet Chicago, a fine local school run by Daniel Duell, who danced in Balanchine's NYCB, and his wife, Patricia Blair, who danced in the Eglevsky Ballet on Long Island when Edward Villella was "Artistic Advisor," has put together seven programs, compiled from their archive videos, going as far back as 1998, I believe. One program, observing Black History month, is already underway: The programs are available on Zoom and YouTube, starting on a weekend and running through the following week. Some look a little short, about 30-45 minutes. Here's a special link to that first program, where Duell's own Ellington Suite begins at 24:54, and which is supposed to be on YouTube until 7 PM Friday March 5: https://youtu.be/T5Pq3pwomJ0 Here's a link to their February Newsletter, with details about halfway down the page, including buttons to click to take you to the video or to contribute, which is optional. Note that you can watch the videos for nothing, although, ballet school that they are, they do ask for donations, like, $20 per show. Good ballet school that they are, they're to my taste in ballet, even in their "house-made" dances, because I like to see what I hear, and they're seriously pre-professional about their training; I wouldn't bother with them myself otherwise: https://www.balletchicago.org/so/62NVBYLGC?languageTag=en&cid=7d2d89cb-b5a9-40e3-90e2-17e08a9c0818#/main And some of the repertory is of the best, in my opinion: Note that the second program consists of two Balanchine ballets, Concerto Barocco, to Bach's "Concerto for Two Violins" and Divertimento No.15, to (most of) Mozart's Divertimento in Bb for Horn and Strings, K. 287; the sixth one concludes with (most of) his Gershwin ballet, Who Cares?, and the seventh with his half-hour distillation, based mostly on the original Acts II and IV, of Swan Lake. (These performances by the Ballet Chicago Studio Company meet the standards of the Balanchine Trust and are presented with their permission. They took place in the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in downtown Chicago.) The more "in house" programs four, five and six have some narrative dances by Artistic Director Dan Duell, Hansel and Gretel, and B.C.'s Resident Choreographer Ted Seymour; in program five Seymour uses much of Beethoven's music for "The Creatures of Prometheus," rarely choreographed, with another ballet to Ravel's homage to an older composer, "Le Tombeau de Couperin". The quality of the video is bound to vary from piece to piece, reflecting Ballet Chicago's tight budget and our times, but I hope you find enough to enjoy.

Agreeing with what Kathleen O'Connell said about No Fixed Points, I add only that it has lately reappeared in paperback, at only $35, as against $60 for the clothbound version - when Yale University Press actually had it in stock, that is: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300259322/no-fixed-points I infer that the content is the original, from 2003, including 200 illustrations.

With this kind of thing going on, this seems the right thread after all to post in about Ballet Chicago's streaming Nutcracker compilations. They're not free, no, and the video quality is variable, but Ballet Chicago is a good, serious school, and, plainly, everybody connected with it knows better than to present a disaster like the one GretchenStar writes about. I've already linked just above to my other post in its original timidly chosen location, but here again is the link to some video of one of their most popular scenes: https://vimeo.com/247428800

We have a thread for free streaming professional company performances and another for professional streaming Nutcrackers "all in one place", but technically, Ballet Chicago is a ballet school, a very good one, IMHO, one which puts on some very satisfying performances, including an annual Nutcracker mostly of their own invention - well, most of what I like about it is that they follow Tchaikovsky's directions very well - so I offer a post in this place. (And part of the invention on view is 3/4 of the pas de deux attributed to George Balanchine, by permission of the Balanchine Trust, placed all together near the end of Act II, with a male variation made by AD Daniel Duell, an alum of Balanchine's NYCB.) Now they offer three (or four, they're still at work on them) compilations from the best casts over the years since 2005. Here's a link to their schedule and casting. You'll notice some repetition of programs, but no big-name guest stars. (None needed. This may not be SAB, but it is a serious school.) The names of the top of the school - the Ballet Chicago Studio Company - are here too, in case you try one or two of these and want to know, who was that? At least, I hope that happens: https://www.balletchicago.org/casting And here's where you can buy tickets - actually, a link sent to your email in-box, along with a password. Do click the start time at least two hours early to make the transaction online, or otherwise, call the box office: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/1033697 I've posted on and off over the years about BC farther down the page for this forum, with background and images and links to some video, but here's a link to a video of their Snow scene, a hit of the production (choreographed by Patricia Blair*, Dan's partner in life and art, formerly with the Eglevsky Ballet when Edward Villella was Artistic Advisor): https://vimeo.com/247428800 *Nope, my bad. She rehearses it, but it's Duell's choreography, just for the record. Here's a link to the whole story: https://www.balletchicago.org/so/9dNrisz8Q?languageTag=en&cid=7d2d89cb-b5a9-40e3-90e2-17e08a9c0818#/main , as well as some other current publicity.

I happen to share Hogmel's taste, or preference, only I developed it in the theater. The NYCB video programs recently shown, one ending with the last act of Coppelia, another with Mozartiana in the middle, and especially the one of Chaconne posted on Kurt Froman's YouTube channel (which some of us old fans consider the best Farrell-Martins performance on screen - or, maybe, ever), all from the 70's and early 80's, also do more for me than anything NYCB or most other companies attempting Balanchine do lately, for that matter. I saw hundreds of performances of his company (i.e. not Peter Martins's company) from early 1973 through early 1986, because I had to: Not that I was paid to "cover" it - no one would pay me, I'm not that good a writer! - but because I felt in the late 60's by which time NYCB stopped visiting Chicago (where I still live), that something was missing from my life, and I figured out around 1970 what it was: Their dancing; and so I soon started visiting New York, to be restored. There were lots of us "Old Audience", and in the mid-80's, Pete Martins had adjusted the dancing to something that might be described as affectless; still, a good performance of a Balanchine ballet will show how the movement answers to - or sometimes leads - the musical sounds, which he did better and more often than most, IMHO, but by the '85-'86 season, most of us decamped, and NYCB's marketers had to find "New Audience". (The recent video ending with Coppelia Act III began with examples of Martin's NYCB's more recent dancing.) I hope Hogmel and others who are interested in this comparison are aware of some other documentation of Balanchine's company and his way of having his ballets danced: There are the two "Choreography by Balanchine" DVD's, some with video technical problems the four earlier VHS editions didn't have; the video of Robert Schumann's Davidsbuendlertaenze; the hard-to-find 1965 film of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the even-harder-to-see film from the same time of Balanchine's Don Quixote, and some others I'm probably forgetting.

It says a thing or two about VV, too - about her vision and intellect - but it also reminds me of what Balanchine thought about "the POB dance culture" around the time he made Le Palais de Cristal (later called Symphony in C) for POB in 1947. Maria Tallchief writes, "[Balanchine] paid no attention to the company's rules and its rigid hierarchies. He never did anywhere. Instead he made hierarchies of his own, and in Paris, rather than using corps de ballet dancers who he felt weren't up to his standard, he chose students from the Paris Opera Ballet School, "les petits rats," to dance in Serenade... When they were chosen over dancers with seniority, many people were insulted and complained openly... ... "After six months of Opera politics... I think he'd had enough. "'You know, Paris Opera Ballet is like fire in whorehouse,' he told me when we got back to [their hotel] one night. I guess he meant it's best to leave with one's reputation intact, to get out when the going is good... It was time to go home." If I remember correctly, Verdy's tenure at POB was pretty brief, too, just three years, though it may not have been POB politics that lead her to leave.

The question takes me back: In the history of Balanchine's great New York City Ballet, which ranks with the Mariinsky and Bolshoi in the minds of some of us, it might be mentioned that his The Nutcracker was sometimes performed in summer in the open-air Performing Arts Center at Saratoga Springs, in upstate New York, where many New Yorkers - and a passing Chicagoan, like me - took breaks from the heat of the city. Or tried to. One evening in July 1972 the heat and humidity were so high we would stick to the board seats we sat on, while we watched it snow on stage. Does everybody know what cognitive disconnect means? But Tchaikovsky (following the story by E.T.A. Hoffmann) prescribes a children's-Christmas-party scene opening Act I, specifically including a Christmas tree which grows, as the scenario rises from more representational narrative into dream-fantasy, and Balanchine, intuiting how his adopted country would take to this, prepared for it by the holiday season, launched his ballet as a Christmas event, both to the large audience New York offered and the new and maybe larger audience television offered as well: Around 1954, NBC had just developed commercial color television and wanted to show it off. So in America, if my gloss here has any truth to it, the ballet took root and grew, but Balanchine, true to his roots, would also present it "out of season," as it were. With Mr. B. and the traditional Russian companies, I really don't think The Nutcracker has a season: The experience of art is, or ought to be, like a trip to another world, with its own time and place. That's the value of it; it "takes us away" from the ordinary and may even change us for a time - or permanently.

Like pherank was, I'm glad for the reminder, Quiggin. I haven't seen the whole video yet either, but it's always at least interesting to see how Ratmansky hears. I have major issues with the busy, complicated camerawork, though. To show us one dancer dancing? Really? But an advantage of a video is that we can study it in repetition, and get more of the dance. I prefer a plain, calm, straight-on, center-seat approach, like Ballet Arizona has been showing us, for one example, and I'm sorry that another dance organization, Vail, seems to feel the need to overdo it. Way overdo it.

I would imagine so! I've noticed performing artists perforce tend to think in entertaining ways - although whatever that way is at the moment may bother those trying to focus on cold facts or a consistent story sometimes - so, thanks for the link to one of his examples, but do you have a link handy for the "listening parties" as well?

Helene's link, above, leads me to an error. If you have this problem, try this one: http://www.balanchine.org/balanchine/display_result.jsp?num=285 In the 70's, I was much taken with Balanchine's suite - well, I still am, for that matter, and I remember Farrell's staging of it as one of the best of many great experiences of watching TSFB (even with her restoration of the four cygnets in place of one of Balanchine's best dances to one of Tchaikovsky's best numbers), but I digress - not least because Verdy was leading it (alternating with Hayden). I went repeatedly for about a week, jotting down what I could to help me to remember what I saw. (I don't have the training to name steps, even, but noting the plan of the numbers and sometimes making stick figures to represent the dancing was good exercise for my concentration and memory.) But one evening I visited next door to watch the Royal's version. B. H. Haggin had recommended their stagings of the classics based on the Sergeyev notebooks, and I had not seen a "full length" Swan Lake before. I remember being surprised to see in the "white" parts so much that was familiar from what I had been immersing myself in at the State Theater. Just about every other sequence. Between these were sequences which made less brilliant, less luminous, effect, which I gather Balanchine felt called for what pherank aptly calls "enhancement." So his is a good question. Did Balanchine replace Ivanov wholesale? I don't think so. (Even a spectacular bit in Balanchine's "Sugar Plum" pas de deux - where she scampers up the diagonal toward her partner to leap into a half-turn in the air to sit on his shoulder is in a film of the Royal's version as well, IIRC, but when I see this, for example in Ballet Chicago's shows, only Balanchine gets credit.)

An old thread with a couple of little errors worth correcting; in the interest of giving credit where it is due, I note that bart gives "Denby" a first name in his quote from Robert Garis's book which belongs to somebody else: David Denby, the film critic of The New Yorker, was born in 1943 (and doesn't appear in Garis's index). Not only is this too late a date for the subject under discussion, but surely by "Denby" Garis means Edwin Denby (1903-1983), as confirmed by his index, which directs us to the reference by Garis bart quotes. (There's a nice line in his review in the March 8 1945 New York Herald Tribune I can't resist quoting here: "Pocket masterpieces," yes. Not OT for our discussion of the 1981 version, but illuminating it by contrast, in line with Leigh Witchell's valuable comparison above, not to mention the bit of it we see in the clip published by John Clifford? And then there are some references to Mozart's "Ave Maria", which apparently Mozart never set; he did of course set the Ave Verum Corpus, mentioned here correctly. Both these details may matter if you want to explore the world of Mozartiana further.

May I recommend the discussion going on here in 2007 about Mozartiana's heavenliness and complexity? Like other great art, Mozartiana is inexhaustible.

Simone Messmer has had an association with Ballet Chicago going back seven years, according to their current publicity, where she is listed (three times!) among the visiting summer faculty and which identifies her home company as Ballett am Rhein. (This last item comes in an email I can't seem to link to.)

Unh, unh. Swanilda! That was something to see. Not just her sparkling dancing but her animation of the action in Act II. *sigh* I'd love to see that again, too. (Nichol Hlinka took the role of the eponymous Doll.) But at least McBride and Helgi Tomasson (Frantz) do dance the "Peace" pas de deux (to some music Mr. B. imported from Sylvia, for the male variation and the coda). It's the last of the divertissements, in Act III, before the Finale wrap up. Don't despair!

Available until July 3, too. Generous for those of us not blocked, at least. (This is just an image from the page listing their live-streams; sorry for the arrow in the middle, which looks like a clickable "start" button. Presumably, if you're not blocked, it works. This link may take you to that page: https://kglteater.dk/xtra/forestillinger/?section=33179 )