Jack Reed

I'm all for keeping standards up, even if it means a postponement of the performance. But, with regard to that replacement repertory, is there any word as to which of Balanchine's Valse Fantaisies is planned? (The 1953 version, for four principals - three women and a man - or the 1967 one, for a principal couple and four women?) Ian Webb's published remarks in the article linked to indicate an admirable bias toward maintaining good versions in repertory, so maybe it'll be the earlier one, presumably in greater danger of loss owing to being older - but also, as some think, being better. Personally, having seen both on stage, I might say I've enjoyed both very much, though the one I think less of (1967) was literally buoyed up by Mr. B's cast, led in lighter-than-air fashion especially appropriate to this perpetuum-mobile number, by Judith Fugate and Daniel Duell, when I saw it around 1980 (not that the little corps were anything to sniff at), while the earlier one danced by Villella's MCB in 2010 looked to be a revival of more brilliant choreography, making more substantial effect - and very well realized by those casts, too. (I gather there is yet an earlier choreography of this piece by Balanchine, making three in all.)

Having attended on Thursday the 23rd and Friday the 24th, I'm in general agreement with my two predecessors here, especially their ranking order of the three ballets. Wheeldon is capable of beautiful effects, but both his and McGregor's dances often seemed arbitrary, unmotivated - I like to see what I hear, one way or another - and, especially McGregor's, busy and lacking point. Wheeldon's last construction, with the girl on top just lifted up there and held there, epitomized his procedure, not that there were no admirable phrases or passages along the way. (Polyphonia remains my favorite of the few Wheeldon ballets I've seen.) On my second visit I could focus my attention to much better effect all the way through - the luminous promenade above Infra was just as visible the second time but no longer a distraction, just defining a performance space below it, which I looked into steadily. The first time, I kept checking back for some relations among the movements, above and below. Uh, uh. As in Wheeldon's new The Nutcracker a couple of months ago, the Joffrey dancers were so differently good in these two different ballets, they made me want to see them in something better; betting on Peck's Rabbit was what got me into the Auditorium, and right away it was the payoff I'd hoped for. And then some. And then some more. A lot more. But never too much, nowhere near too much: It's all constantly rearranged in fresh and refreshing ways, like a high-speed kaleidoscope, as Tobi Tobias put it; as a long-time professional critic, she also found specific references to Balanchine and others I was less concerned to look for, but all the same, I was struck by the final tableau, when the music becomes more deeply dramatic and Peck arranges his stage into two parallel diagonal lines of dancers forming an alley for his soloist to fly down - and be lifted by three men waiting upstage, heroically, joyfully, facing us - arms up in a V, this time, not back, as in the end of Serenade. The dancers excelled themselves here - having attended the presentation before Thursday's performance, I learned from AD Ashley Wheater's remarks that not only had Janie Taylor set the work (as jsmu mentions in his comprehensive account) but afterward, Peck had come to give the movement quality, the bright crispness (my phrase, not Wheater's). And there were other - what I might call Balanchinesque virtues, not absent in other choreographers' work, though not the other ones on view here - the way you can always see all of the dancers, what Edwin Denby called Balanchine's "luminous spacing," and the way much of the shape of the flow of the movement, not only its quality and substance, is directed from within the music. Yes, put McGregor away, please - and let's see what else Justin Peck can do!

Likewise. Meanwhile, we have that wonderful little note from Acocella, with its evocations of Serenade - and, I would add, Balanchine's art in general: It's "a little odd," and, "you’re not quite sure." A great little introduction, or re-introduction, to Balanchine's world.

Thanks for the insight. I had wondered what that pig was all about! And thanks to rg for reminding me of the old decor for NYCB's production. I think it's the difference between that greeting-card-like scene and this realistic moving picture - literally - it looks like a sequence shot by a camera suspended from a helicopter, or something, a drone, maybe - that bothered me. Looking at that card while listening to the overture lets Tchaikovsky set the scene; here, he has some competition. But I don't want to belabor the point to make it seem more important than it is; the dancing is the thing, and right through the end of the Saturday matinee, with Elle Macy's memorable substitution for Elizabeth Murphy as Dewdrop, there was a lot to like. (No criticism of Murphy; she was one of the better Coffees, even managing a ringing tone with her finger cymbals.)

What the choice of the earlier PNB version of Nut suggests to me was that somebody at the station thought it was time for something seasonal and that video - a commercial release by now, right? - would fill the bill. Interesting that the PBS station sacked the director - or maybe not. If there are enough complaints about on organization, I suppose it is the director who goes, under the presumption that changes will be instigated by the replacement.

Was there any indication of her background? From her remark about "midwestern values" her thinking sounds literally provincial: The School of American Ballet is far away and our local market won't relate to it, or something like that. (Such provinciality does get some New Yorkers laughing, not that they're always so well informed about things "west of the Hudson" as I'd wish.) This thinking is ignorant of the value of communications generally to take us away from our familiar and ordinary experience and ignorant of the mind-expanding potential of art in particular. I don't mean her geographical background but the background of her thinking, where she's "coming from" in that sense.

Which, please? The video of their previous version? Stowell & Sendak & Co.? Even without those particulars, it's an interesting datum about media treatment of high culture, but if it's their recent Balanchine production, it's even stranger. And what about the station? Not part of any network or chain belonging to one owner? Series might generate more of the visibility sponsors want, I suppose, whether Amazon or Netflix or ... (Is the example of the early A & E worth mentioning? Some of the content - a lot of the content - was pretty awful, IIRC. Amazing it went on so long.) Strange, incomprehensible things go on. Merry Christmas from Seattle, anyway! (Or, bah, humbug?... No, not about PNB's current "Nut", enjoyable and charming, that, but about the present unsatisfactory subject.)

No performance commentary? Am I in the right thread? But I came into Seattle on the 21st to have a look at this. It's the third choreography of The Nutcracker I've seen in a couple of weeks, and it still looks like the best to me. Certainly the best of the three, the others being Christopher Wheeldon's for the Joffrey Ballet, and Daniel Duell, George Balanchine, and Patricia Blair's for Ballet Chicago. I have issues with the opening animation for PNB's, though, projected on a forecurtain. I take it it's the concept of the production designer Ian Falconer, and it sure looks like the wildest dream of a childen's-book illustrator, which I think Falconer is: Illuminated, seen from on high, and realistically animated, it carries the viewer from a snow storm down through a snowy forest into the front yard of a stately mansion, whose doors are then pushed open for us by a horde of brown rats, leaving realism behind; but as the Overture Miniature ends, and the action begins as we swoop in, it is Balanchine's true realization of Tchaikovsky's instructions, instant by instant, minute by minute, scene by scene, with scarcely a missed moment. One trouble with it is that it introduces the "snow" theme long before Tchaikovsky calls for it - would that Falconer would hear Tchaikovsky as well as Mr. B., or maybe even Duell and Blair, or as well as some ballet-watchers who discuss on another thread here the magical, transcendent effect of the un-choreographed snow music at the end of Act I. By introducing snow so early, that later effect seems to me undercut, weakened, a little anticlimactic; it's less of a "lift-off" for our imaginations, our winter dreams (to plug another work by Tchaikovsky). But as I say, once the action begins, it's rich world Balanchine and PNB sets before us. I have some quibbles about the costumes, though, in regard to the bold horizontal red and white stripes used mainly for Clara's dress and the lining of Herr Drosselmeier's cape, but otherwise the freshly re-imagined designs decorations have the right effect. (I wouldn't insist on imitations of Karinsa's work but the effect should be right, and if it is less than hers, it's the right kind.) Unfailingly charming. (Wheeldon & Co. never reach that level.) I saw both casts on the 22nd, and the evening happened to be superior to the matinee at most or of all the usual points of comparison, Sugarplum, Dewdrop, Marzipan, right down the list, including the kids, even though Dewdrop in the matinee was Lesley Rausch, who acquitted herself as Sugarplum in the evening as especially light and sharply clear, while nevertheless soft and flowing, and showing us what she heard. But surprisingly the casts so far have not taken away the memories of Dana Coons and Nina Montalbano in Ballet Chicago's performances, whose toes exemplified such a light touch on the floor for an instant or another, they seemed only to be establishing a point of direction, not supporting the dancer. Just a touch, then up and on. (That's not the main thing about classical dancing for me, but it's wonderful when it happens. Weightless! Not just lighter than you can believe, but weightless!) And yes, this is not only superficial - it's not the only thing, or even the main thing - but unfair to say, too. Coons and Montalbano had just a few performances, all Ballet Chicago might be able to afford, just four last weekend after the previous weekend I didn't see, and I have a feeling that plowing through the casting data Helene has assiduously been supplying us with would show a much heavier season for the PNB casts. But that's the way it struck me. But this a fine show, excellent, if just a little mild overall in quality of performance. It's true; true to Balanchine? Well, he was true to Tchaikovsky, even more than Ballet Chicago's overall. (They show us Mr. B's SPF choreography, otherwise it's home-grown, and danced with good energy and a little punch.) That's the "truth" I look for.

Friday evening 16 December 2016 I’ve been enjoying this production for many years, often seeing some familiar names in the program from a few years back, but this year there were a host of new ones. Different more-or-less traditional versions of The Nutcracker differ according to which ballerina role is supreme, Sugar Plum or Dewdrop (the leader of the Waltz of the Flowers); this one has three major roles: In the order we see them here, in the Snow Pas de Deux to the great, adagio Pine Forest music beginning the Snow scene; Dewdrop, and Sugar Plum. Here the Sugar Plum pas de deux is a traditional four-part classical pas deux, the Balanchine choreography for the adagio, female variation (to the lovely celeste music), and coda, and a male variation made by Daniel Duell to replace the lost Balanchine one. My friend and I agreed that Elizabeth Chlanda (one of the few names I recognized) showed us her dancing with beautiful mastery, partnered by Brenton Taft, who only rarely evinced the difficulty that underlies dancing like this; we enjoyed Emily Fugett’s Dewdrop, another dancer who has been on view before, but felt this flower was maybe just beginning to wilt slightly by comparison with the crisp, clean line of most of the dancing on view; but, ahem, fifteen-year-old Nina Montalbano (one of the names new to me this year) so realized Sugar Plum and made visible her fairy presence here in the fantasy land of The Land of Sweets, she made it natural and right and inevitable that this magical land was hers. Her cavalier, Lee Borowski, seemed to provide everything Montalbano needed. There were other highlights, more than I’m up to naming, but David Riley was the crisp, effective Soldier Doll in the “Prologue” or party scene entertainment, and the role of Nutcracker, marshaling his toy-soldier troops and finally doing-in the Mouse King in the Battle was an expansion in keeping with this, but this was only a harbinger of his quick, sharp, high leaps in the Russian dance, with four boys. Not least, Riley is a little guy, but oh, my, big effect. I might mention here that this Battle is more a danced contest of clashing ranks and less rough-and-tumble in its effect than some versions - like the famous one choreographed for the 1954 NYCB Nutcracker by Jerome Robbins. And Ruby Sindelar, Marie, is much littler than Riley, but well up to her role, including some new action as the orchestra starts the introduction to the Waltz of the Flowers: Marie hears Tchaikovsky telling us “something is coming”and moves from corner to corner, expressing anticipation. (The Waltz underway, Marie mostly watches, seated downstage our right; the Act II divertissements here are presented partly as entertainment for the Sugar Plum’s little visitors, as for us.) Overall, the striking thing this year was the continuity of impetus of this production; this was good in previous years, but when the 45-minute Act I was wrapped up, my companion, who hasn’t seen this for a few years, exclaimed that it couldn’t be intermission yet. “That just flew by!” Considering the variety of actions in Act I, that’s something; and considering the criticism of the new Joffrey production for its bumpy transitions (among other criticisms - this is not necessarily the thread for those) that’s a lot. You can get a glimpse of this by perusing the BC Nutcracker image gallery.

I was underwhelmed myself. (I saw the first two performances, the Saturday evening and the Sunday matinee). The lengthy, encyclopedic Macaulay review and the briefer Greskovic one (in the Wall Street Journal) said it pretty well. The composer's wonderfully imagined scenario doesn't mesh at all well with Brian Selznick's - the score really implies a warm genteel interior at the beginning, not a scrappy construction site with petty theft going on - but this looks like a ballet by someone who's not listening closely (this time) with other content - or action - or distractions - piled in for a similarly inattentive audience. Indeed, Macaulay called attention to early examples where Tchaikovky's score had to yield to Selznick's scenario; it was rearranged, re-orchestrated in a few numbers. At the matinee, the dark suits and expensive-looking dresses were much less in evidence than at the premiere, and next to me were a mother and two daughters; late in Act I the six year old reported she was bored, and her mother complained, "I'm an Orthodox Jew, and I want the magic of Christmas!", and laughed. (You don't have to be an established critic to pin-point the problem.) Too much "stuff" - visual effects to be sure, moving projections, including scenery - falling leaves, a forest of giant pine trees - and forecurtains. (Interesting that all that apparatus and technology can be taken on tour, e.g. to Iowa City; but then the Auditorium Theater itself is under-equipped by modern standards, so apparently it can be set up anywhere.) It's not automatic that less is more, it depends what it is; but it can be, in the right hands. The bodies were there - the performers were strong and sure if often inexpressive on stage (so far; these were the first performances) from the top of the huge cast right down to the bottom and into the pit. My neighbor (with her daughters) wanted to see the Joffrey in something else, something more suited to them. We believed they can show us what we hear. That makes the magic.

Thanks for the link! Macaulay puts his finger right on the main problem with Wheeldon's Nutcracker where he says, "... this version becomes trite as you watch because no individual character is fresh. I couldn’t believe his heart was in this story." I think this helps account for why the six-year-old girl sitting on the opposite side of her mother from me at the Sunday matinee was bored. And the rest of his review is a good account of the other problems - not least the rearrangement of some of Tchaikovsky's music - clarinet passages played klezmer style early in Act I, for instance - which add up after while to my problem with it: These revised versions of art reduce or deny the audience or spectator the possibility of the experience of being taken "out of themselves", of visiting another world; instead, they bring it down to the viewer. Some artists know better, for example, as Suzanne Farrell put it at NYU in September, To me this is the richer experience. A vital, vibrant world in itself, different from the one we see around us - not without references, perhaps, but essentially different. Ironic, that such a revision of the "traditional" Nutcracker should turn out so trite. Its new scenario burdens it - as the mother of the little girl said, "I want the magic of Christmas!" Not much magic in this show.

Ballet Chicago doesn't have video posted to compare with SFB's and Balanchine's etc., but for the sake of the discussion, here's some images of their Snow scene they posted recently (from previous years), starting with the Pine Forest adagio, I believe: FB_RMP_0185.jpg RMP_3814.jpg RMP_9054.jpg (I haven't had a chance to catch up with the SFB video pherank posted yet.)

A look at the forum shows I've been commenting on this production for eleven years now. It's a little different each time, and I won't know what changes to report about this year's until I catch up with it, which I surely will. Long story short, I was underwhelmed by the complicated and fussy new Wheeldon version for the Joffrey Ballet last weekend, and I look forward to B.C.'s more dancey, more musical approach as an antidote - although to be fair it must be said that as B.C. is primarily a school, one of the best Balanchine-oriented ballet schools in the country, I think it's fair to say, with slightly younger dancers than Joffrey, the seasoned strength in excellence of the professional Joffrey performers - from the top of the large cast right down to the smallest role (and on down into the orchestra pit) will not likely quite be matched - B.C.'s values are considerable: This Nutcracker is about dance and music! (It's value for money, too, at about $25 - $35 a ticket.) And when they dance, they reveal that the line between student and professional can be pretty fuzzy. So check it out: Evening shows are on December 16 and 17 at 7:00, matinees on December 17 and 18 at 2:00, and the Athenaeum Theater is at the intersection of Lincoln, Wellington, and Southport Avenues in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood. (Here's a link to their current Nutcracker photo gallery, with some more images, as well as a few repeats from the link above; I haven't any new identifications, though.)

Add to the list Wheeldon's new overchoreographed, busy Nutcracker, which has a (rather fussy) dance for the Nutcracker Prince - just called "The Nutcracker" - and Marie, as the, by this time, not-so-little girl is called in his version; soon they are joined by the controlling Grand Impresario (who takes the place of the controlling Drosselmeyer in some other versions) before we see a single snowflake, dancing or just fluttering down from the heavens. I think you can hear this adagio music as a tender or at least classically considerate dance for two - Daniel Duell's example for Ballet Chicago persuaded me of that years ago (and it's better than Wheeldon's for being full-blown classical dancing, nothing vague or needing a third party's management) - as the beginning of the Snow scene - but I also prefer to let myself be mesmerized - transported - into the world of the imagination soon to be revealed to us in The Land of Sweets, after the relatively realistic world of the Christmas party and the nightmarish world of the Battle. More than smooth, formal transition, Pine Forest and Snow are preparation. (Thinking more about Wheeldon's scene, the less it seems a coherent dance, organic to the music, and the more it seems a meander, but maybe this is not the thread for that.)

As music, The Nutcracker may even be better than the Sleeping Beauty, at least to me, though some consider the SP music to be an intrusion in another style. I could also listen to it in any season! Mastery and variety, never tiring or anywhere near boring. (A lot of ballet music doesn't stand up - pardon the pun - without the dancing, but Tchaikovsky - and Delibes and Stravinsky, Balanchine's "trinity" - are worlds enough just to hear.) I do agree with Macaulay's criticism of Balanchine's rearrangement of Nutcracker, though, and - to some extent - with Kaysta's criticism of Balanchine's under-use of the "Pine Forest" music, but I still think his the best choreography overall. I haven't seen the Ratmansky Nutcracker, but Ballet Chicago here beautifully choreographs that part as an adagio for two principals, backed by a corps of girls. (There is a still-image gallery on the B.C. website, but it omits this lovely scene, sorry to say.) While I'm on that subject, I'll mention that Daniel Duell and Patricia Blair, who run Ballet Chicago, put the (Balanchine's) SP pas de deux in the classic place, late in Act II, and all together (Duell has made a replacement for the lost male variation). There are other places in Balanchine's work where the stage action is suspended or minimal - would Symphony in Three Movements be a surprising comparison? Did he expect us just to listen and be affected by what we heard? (As Kaysta and I are affected by the "Pine Forest" music.) And still other places where his editions of the music are more successful than Macaulay and I think in his Nutcracker: I'd nominate Serenade with its eventual, final, famous re-ordering of the movements to suit Balanchine's purpose, which was, I'd say, to enlist Tchaikovsky's collaboration in his theater project; and also, in Divertimento No. 15, where Mozart supplied an agitated introduction to the last movement Balanchine evidently couldn't use, and discarded. Balanchine's greatness for me stems from his ability to follow the musical instructions of his chosen collaborators - his The Nutcracker, even with its anomalies, among the greatest: You see what you hear, moment by moment by moment.

How about the rail lines, e.g. up from SeaTac and the monorail link up to the park with the space needle in it in Queen Anne? (I believe this park is called Seattle Center, but Google Maps is being coy about it.) Do those still work normally under those conditions? And what about the buses going up and down the many hills, e.g. from Belltown (or is it "Denny Regrade"?) toward Queen Anne? It doesn't sound like the right conditions to take a taxi in. I'm planning to visit Christmas week, owing to last-minute airline-seat availabilities, to see the 22nd through the 24th. (Hoping the PNB top ranks won't be wiped out by then.)

Agreed, that's "not insubstantial," to put it mildly. Pretty impressive, actually, when you compare the populations of the two metropolitan areas (I'm not proportioning the sizes of the theaters). Anyway, my error was thinking that those yellow "BUY TICKETS" buttons were only for the adjacent date and time. No, clicking any of them takes me to the same series of seat-selection charts, as comprehensive and efficient as any I've used, for the whole run. (My count is the same as volcanohunter's now. Thanks for nudging me on.)

Looking for a season schedule in calendar-page format, I've studied this page https://www.pnb.org/nutcracker/ and counted up 17 Nutcracker performances this season. Am I missing anything? There seem to be odd gaps in the run - better than running everybody ragged in a marathon of 40 performances, wall-to-wall, like NYCB used to do (and may still) - no wonder that their last performances included some gags. Everybody was going nuts, although, as sandik reminds us, there are a lot of roles here, and devoted NYCB followers - the "every-nighters" - saw all or most most of the Nutcrackers, too, for the company debuts they included. I get that mid-week performances are less in demand and so, "value-priced". (Not under-cast?) But, wanting to see how PNB does my fave choreography of this music after a look at Wheeldon's new version for the Joffrey and Ballet Chicago's current top crop in theirs, I'm confused in the planning.

That's touching, Cristian. Fact is, I saw MCB here in Chicago in April, but I just haven't posted. It wasn't so much Catoya's departure, as Lopez's arrival and overhaul of the company, which included Catoya's "departure." (Isn't she doing anything anywhere worth reporting, Cristian? I'm going to cry.) Nothing personal about Lopez - it's to her credit that MCB continues - but a new AD adjusts the dancing, that's part of the job of making the company their own, it's what they're supposed to do; and watching MCB for her first few seasons, I felt something had gone, and that watching it didn't do as much for me anymore, so it wasn't as rewarding to travel to south Florida to see them.

Even if you have a lot of money to pay, it doesn't happen. The early loss of Roma and Bayou were especially regretted by Lincoln Kirstein, Nancy Reynolds tells us - in the entry for Gounod Symphony - in "Repertory in Review." But I seem to remember it being said lately that film exists of the corps parts of the Minuetto, shot for a staging in France; and in February of 1985, Arlene Croce wrote that

I keep thinking that, in fact, I saw Gounod previously, but I can’t remember any of that; and now I think Natalia has put her finger on the reason - it’s such a different color now, it’s become too different a ballet. (And it may have been I had no opportunity back then to absorb the music beforehand - I find that helpful almost to the point of essential.) But, that said, it's another valuable Balanchine ballet, well worth staging, unique; and I'm grateful for what we got of it. Quibbles accepted, but still, a very enjoyable experience, all too rare. As for SAB, I would have guessed - it’s only a guess - that for a school workshop, given that costumes were available to borrow, they easily elected not to spend a dime for new ones for four performances (counting the dress rehearsal). Experienced observers in the crowd whom I have the privilege to know and learn from were divided about these new costumes, some preferring them to the old, some not, but all generally agreeing that they don’t move well enough for ballet costumes. They just hang on the dancers. The matter of the third-movement Minuetto seems a little fraught. As I noted about the Skirball event, the energetic lucidity Farrell displayed on the rest of that occasion left her when she turned her thoughts to it. Drew may have a good clue: It may simply be another manifestation of the whole Farrell-Martins situation, I would have to say, antagonism, as I see it. “Artistic differences,” folks. (“Star Wars,” we called it, back in the day.) And Natalia is right to regret not having seen Noelle and Garrett in the second-movement Allegretto. Though I slightly prefer Magnicaballi for other qualities, several of us who saw the alternate couple preferred Noelle’s clarity in taking her positions, and some remarked how she is rapidly becoming a ballerina. (And as I suggested above, others have sharper eyes than mine, and I value the chance to see through their eyes, listening in the foyer and when I read them. I’m sorry to have missed Natalia on Saturday evening.) But those who missed them in the matinees in the Eisenhower theater might glimpse them in the rehearsal studio video on the Kennedy Center web site. (You may also be able to enjoy their Stars pas de deux again in the Millennium stage Preview video at [24:15]; if you let the whole video load into your computer, you can nudge the progress button at the bottom of the video window forward or back.)

Thank you, Drew, I couldn't have said it better. No! I couldn't have said it as well! And it needed to be said! Dancing on this level needs to be known. (Not just with the mind, reading here, of course, but with the eyes and ears, in the theater. It needs to be known with the senses.) And we three - or four, counting Sarah Kaufman - are in agreement about Gounod - and Farrell's projects generally - needing even better dancers - which it now comes to me, she might develop from some of those she already has: She needs better circumstances; these ballets need her to have better circumstances; and I share Drew's concern whether, were she to visit an established institution for a time, she'd find them there.

I hope to have some more to say, having now seen the run - of just four performances - but I don't want to delay correcting the mistaken caption under the picture in Sarah Kaufman's review in the Washington Post. That's not Stars and Stripes; that's a picture of Gounod Symphony, for heaven's sake, and the principal couple aren't Allyne Noelle and Thomas Garrett but Natalia Magnicaballi and Michael Cook! (Somebody at the Washington Post incorrectly identified the ballets, and consequently the casting too.)

October 21 at 8 pm It turned out to be a fairly brilliant opening evening: Danses Concertantes is an attractive and lively program opener, especially in these close approximations to Eugene Berman’s 1944 originals by Holly Hynes, even if not all - or maybe any - of the choreography - dates from then; Alastair Macaulay has drawn attention to this misleading attribution in the program, which omits mention of the 1972 revision. A little odd for a troupe so concerned to revive seldom-seen Balanchine ballets to leave us thinking this one is the original. That said, never mind, there’s a lot of fun right away, in the March, where the fourteen dancers introduce themselves, in four trios and the principal pair, parading across downstage in front of a good reproduction of Berman’s original front drop. (I have another tiny quibble here: Look at the Millennium Stage Preview video, and see if you don’t think Ian Grosh’s “big hair” doesn’t add to the humor of the Red pas de trois. I missed that last night! He’s had a haircut!* Oh well.) But the fun and play of these groups - the two girls who disdain their boy and prance off without him, and his dismissive gesture after them, for example, the pas de deux girl who turns and turns and - if her boy didn’t grab her, she’d have continued right past him into the wing; and so on, never lets up in this part. This pair - in yellow - were Valerie Tellmann-Henning and Kirk Henning, tonight , and I only thought they did a bit much with their faces, though she is so gorgeous anyway it looks good on her. (The matinees are cast with Natalia Magnicaballi and - we hope - Stephano Candreva, who was subbed in the third ballet tonight.) It’s not all fun and games, even if it never becomes very weighty either; Stravinsky provides variety, witty amusement, but little real substance, and we see what we hear. Gounod Symphony, or three-fourths of it, was another matter entirely: Costumed by Holly Hynes almost entirely in black and white - the principal pair more richly in warmer tones - the three movements (without the Minuetto) “work” in the theater sense - two fast and lively movements nicely frame one in moderate tempo, so nothing looks like it’s missing; but what’s present in Gounod is the point of the whole show here: At NYU on September 11, Farrell called attention at one point to an unusual step, but she could have done it over and over and over, because this unusual piece, which to my ear reveals Gounod’s love of Beethoven and Haydn, German symphonists - a surprise to me, from this opera composer who worked in his own voice most of the time - appears to have brought forth from Balanchine a world of strikingly original movement. Appears, because as always with Mr. B., you see what you hear. Many of us couldn’t understand, later, why haven’t we seen this ballet more? We’re grateful, Suzanne Farrell, thank you, thank you! Stars and Stripes received a fine performance, distinguished by Allyne Noelle and Thomas Garrett in the pas de deux and by the rich, original Karinska costumes, not the meager, simplified, blue and white colors you can find examples of on the Kennedy-Center web site. *Not to exaggerate the importance of this, but Saturday afternoon, I noticed all the Concertantes boys wear close-fitting black caps trimmed in the color of their costume. I still like my idea about Grosh's big hair, but I like Berman's costume idea even better.

pherank Platinum Circle Senior Member 1,726 posts Posted October 9 · Report post Great write-up, Jack. You are a champion. Now who is the danseur in the Gounod video? I like him, and his partner too: a lovely team. Jack Reed Platinum Circle Senior Member 1,692 posts Posted October 10 (edited) · Report post "Tommy," as Farrell calls him at one point, is Thomas Garrett, new to the ensemble last Fall, from the Jacksonville and Richmond companies and, over the summers, with Jessica Lang Dance in New York; she is Allynne Noelle, also new last Fall, originating in southern California and dancing professionally in half a dozen companies in California, including SFB, but also with MCB. (I'm cribbing from the program from last Fall.) I share your liking for them, as do many of the troupe's fans I know. Edited October 12 by Jack Reed