Ray

Thank you, Anthony--I missed that thread, and it makes sense.

Thanks for the Kempff--love to have a variety of interpretations! That said, though, my taste in Mozart definitely is on the original-instrument side (sometimes in watching clips of B's Divertimento #15 I find the musical interpretation painful leaden). But this is not out of any sense of purity; I really like the way original instruments sound better for the baroque and before repertory--and I would extend that forward to Beethoven and Schubert, too. Here's the Gluck variations on Fortepiano:

Amy, I strongly believe the German influence comes through music. In addition to admiring Schumann, Tchai. also admired Schubert and of course Beethoven. Musical training and repertory are very Germanic at that time too, of course; Germans are, after all, such powerful innovators in the nineteenth century. The sobriquet for his 6th Symphony ("Pathetique") is sometimes attributed to the Beethoven sonata w/the same nickname (No 8 In C Minor Op 13); the chord progressions at the beginning of the symphony uncannily mirror those of the sonata. Cool Tchai. website, thanks!

Helene, as the son of a brass player, I couldn't agree more!

Yes--I feel no absence (if it's a really good orchestra, that is!). Music brought me to dance. And as much as I love dance, loved to dance, love to watch dance, many times dance to me pales in comparison to music; often I feel the composer is up to so much more in a work than a choreographer is. No aesthetic agenda here; it's just how I feel. My father was a professional classical musician, so I got to hear a LOT of playing. I also studied music as a kid (violin, piano, drums, voice), and the knowledge never left me (well, some of it did, of course).

So by Mozart's nod to Gluck, you mean Mozart's Variations on Gluck's Unser dummer Pöbel meint in G (K.455), which Tchaikovsky in turn uses in the Thème et variations in Mozartiana, right? Here's a clip; a bit ponderous for my taste, but skillfully played by Emil Gilels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0SzXLj80jY Does Schumann cite Clara directly in Davidsbundlertanze? Fascinating!

Amy I want to know more about this. The similarity of the melody in the Act 1 dance of Nutz to one of the short Schumann pieces (Papillons?) is undeniable to me; but is Tchai. referencing Schumann, or are they both referencing a common source?

Yes, pherank, I was trying to limit the list to more explicit nods. Otherwise it would be, as you suggest, endless. And re Pulcinella: Stravinsky was quite explicit about using Pergolesi as his source; I didn't know about who Pergolesi might have been borrowing from, though.

I thought of Pulcinella ("Stravinsky's Pergolesi") too, but I think it was the Stravinsky scholar Richard Taruskin who showed that much of what Stravinsky attributed to Pergolesi was actually original material. That nutty genius. For IS's Rimsky, do you mean Firebird? And the Delibes--are you referring to the Faust music (Walpurgisnacht)? In that case wouldn't it be Delibes' Gounod? Interesting!

Aha, yes! Forgot that one.

I was thinking that a handful of Balanchine's ballets are made to music whose composer is explicitly referencing, if not outright adapting, the music of another. Can you name them? Some are easy...and I've left out Hershey Kay's nods to Sousa and Gershwin. 1) Tchaikovsky's nod to Mozart 2) Stravinsky's nod to Tchaikovsky 3) Schoenberg's nod to Brahms 4) Bizet's nod to Gounod 5) Webern's nod to Bach 6) Stravinsky's nod to Gesualdo 7) Ravel's nod to Couperin 8) In a very popular seasonal ballet, Tchaikovsky makes a nod to Schumann. Are there others I'm forgetting?

At the Friends luncheon last winter, when Parker made a presentation about this series, she said that she is trying to figure out how to get tourists who always take in a Broadway show to venture a little farther north to Lincoln Center and take a look at the NYCB. I do think that was the primary audience for the AOL series. I don't know; the "middle America" argument is as old as a Life Magazine feature on the masculine dancing of Villella. Middle America (whatever that means) has been watching a lot of stuff about gay life in the past decade or so (Will & Grace, Modern Family, Reality TV, etc., etc.).

Excellent point--yes, the ways in which these shows represent competition in the ballet world often rings false. Sometimes things change very slowly in a company; "big breaks" are rare, I think.

Refreshing, but maybe a little didactic at the same time, since most people choosing to watch the show have probably already learned that for themselves. Better perhaps if they’d felt free not to touch on the stereotype at all. It's clear to me--and shows like this just point it up--that even if some individuals have "learned that for themselves" (and I have known many conflicted individuals in the dance world on that score, btw), the PR depts. are not interested in sharing that knowledge with audiences. It is part of life, especially in a dance (or any performing arts) ensemble; it's notable and infuriating when it's omitted; and it shows up yet another way in which the ballet world (or at least its public face) can be out of touch with the reality of human lives. Or--simple solution: just show more dancing! .

I could have done without all the hoisting of the bro cups over the male-to-female ratio in ballet studios, though. (Episode 8: Male Dancers) And I'd like to see a same-sex couple. I realize that this is AOL ... but the demographic this series is targeting is commendably relaxed about same-sex marriage. (According to a March 2013 ABC / Washington Post poll, 81% of adults under 30 are in favor of same-sex marriage.) Yes, Kathleen. My non-dance friends can't believe that the ballet world seems to be so obsessed with heterosexuality. Sometimes I can't, either.

The Nose was fantastic: smart, beautiful, well-sung and impeccably played. This is the kind of artistic integrity--musical and artistic--that we rarely get to experience with ballet, alas.

I think the filming went extremely well (I have my own disagreements with duffster on the rep choices, but the dancing was all very good), and trust that the orchestra mics didn't pick up the baby and the cellphone. But while it was great to see all the former PAB dancers onstage, from an audience POV it was handled rather haphazardly. There was no announcement beforehand that this was going to happen; after the applause died down and the curtain closed, people naturally began to leave. They waited a few beats too long before reopening the curtain, w/the dancers still frozen in position; Roy Kaiser (PAB's artistic director) ran onstage and got on a mic and basically barked everyone back into their seats. It felt very last-minute from an outsider's perspective.

That's right mira, and they are also devoting the final week of their Spring season to 50th Anniversary celebrations.

This doesn't make up for the terrible lack, but PBS is filming, tomorrow in fact at the gorgeous Academy of Music, PA Ballet for broadcast next fall. Program is Diamonds, Wheeldon's After the Rain, and a pdd by Margot Sappington (IMHO a terrible, terrible choice); the concert is free (a good move on the part of PAB) and already "sold out."

Just so everyone doesn't think La Dunkel is the only voice in Philly (and she has had very little viewing experience), here's a particularly thoughtful piece on Lucinda Childs, here recently for an amazing series of performances. "Sparkling," to be fair to Dunkel, was part of the headline, which she did not write. What's pathetic is that the Inquirer lifted that word from PAB's own (very lame IMHO) publicity material, where they called Jewels "ballet that sparkles." Gag me.

Read this review of PAB's recent opening of Jewels and weep for humanity. One of the most vapid lines: "Diamonds concluded with a large cast promenading in lines across the stage, forming almost streams of glittery tennis bracelets, and intersecting into tiara shapes."

I don't disagree--those two guys were a low point in the evening, that's for sure, and the Leonora too was not quite up to it, though she really did inhabit the part with a welcome physicality. I do disagree, however, with the critic on the conductor. Still, it was miles more enjoyable to watch than a poorly cast production of Don Quixote. I also am glad the critic singled out some of the diverse junior members of the cast, who are members of the WNO's very diverse young-artist program: "Soloman Howard sounding fantastic as Alcade, and Deborah Nansteel making herself heard in the tiny part of Leonora’s maid, plus Valeriano Lanchas, an alumnus of the program, as a resonant Melitone" Howard, especially, is an amazing bass-baritone. A talent to watch!

I'm very excited about seeing Jermel Johnson in Rubies, as I am a big fan. That said, though, I think that the Rubies lead is very easy and obvious casting for them (i.e., he's musical, exuberant, strong presence, etc.). I'd REALLY like to see him challenged--and to see PAB challenge its own notions of "correct" casting--with the Diamonds lead. Someday? Also, on 10/27 Sunday matinee, Edward Barnes will be dancing with Julie Diana in the "walking" pdd in Emeralds. He's definitely a young dancer to watch.

The opera is set in an unspecified present; the rustic Spanish inn is replaced by a gritty Asian-esque greasy spoon set within a warren of shipping containers, with neon signs for "sex shops" and the like, and sexy pole-dancers. The containers also become, cleverly, monks' cells later in the opera. There are several added scenes where action is carried out w/out voices (always a little funny in opera, I think, a form in which people sing on their deathbeds), and lots of contemporary references to the urban poor. Zambello also decided to place the prologue before the famous overture (I'm not enough of a Verdi aficionado to appreciate the significance of that; it seemed to me to make sense); she overlaid action onto the overture as well. What I think is most notable about Zambello's productions are her very diverse casts and crews. Even the conductor was an Asian woman, Xian Zhang. If you don't know, Zambello's (almost) all-black production of Aida and other works at Glimmerglass last summer (2012) sparked discussion in the press about diversity in casting. (Tommasini wrote a piece about it in the NY Times, I think.) The current Forza wasn't a perfect production vocally, by any means. And as a dance person, I am not into her longtime choreographic collaborator, Eric Sean Fogel, whose choreography looks very conventional to me. But, again, I applaud Zambello's willingness to put teeth into what for others is mostly empty talk about "inclusion."

Just saw Verdi's La Forza del Destino in DC yesterday. I loved the production, directed by Francesca Zambello; others, no doubt, will have different opinions. Whatever you might think of Zambello's directing, though, one thing is crystal clear: if there is a will to engage a diverse cast and artistic team, it can be done. The Met--and ballet companies worldwide--should take note and put their money where their mouths are.