Ray

Not a shock, but a delightful surprise. Balanchine has always been the choreographer most faithful to a composer's intentions and as Serenade can sound incredibly dreary when slowed down, Wednesday's performance was a real listening pleasure. Not to argue with you, Mashinka, and this may actually be a big enough topic for its own thread, but I think B was faithful to a "composer's intentions" as they were imagined at the time he choreographed. In other words, he was well-versed in the performance practices of his day, which had its own take on how music should be played. Today, much of that tradition has been questioned, especially on the earlier music side. Balanchine's Bach, for instance, is not the Bach most musicians would play today; same with Mozart. His listening tradition emerged from the era of the great post-Romantic players and conductors, and their protoges. (I think this is a fascinatingly under-studied area of Balanchine's practice.) Also, I think sometimes tempos are slowed down because dancers today dance bigger, sacrificing speed. Probably something they need to examine!

As I recall it (I too cannot remember which book it was in), Rorem wasn't so much chiding Sondheim as expressing surprise that he would farm it out to someone else when it's such a pleasurable part of the compositional process. But of course that's the usual way it's done on Broadway, and at least Sondheim always has the best of the best, especially with Jonathan Tunick. That guy is some sort of genius. I remember reading an interview with Tunick where he talked about how during rehearsals, one day, to Sondheim's surprise, at the crest of "Being Alive" the orchestra suddenly added as counterpoint the melody of "Someone Is Waiting." Tunick's idea (a wonderful, touching one), and he was really worried what Sondheim's reaction would be to this liberty; but in the event, Sondheim came over to him with a "Charlie Brown grin." So I guess that sort of collaboration can have its own rewards. Thanks, Anthony--and dirac and papeetepatrick and bart--for such insight into something I clearly only have a passing knowledge of!

I don't disagree with any of this, really, except perhaps for the intrinsic strength of Company's book--that is, I agree that its setting in early 1970s NYC is important (just as no one should move Sweeny Todd out of Victorian London), and I appreciate many of the crits on the current production on this point. For me the show is redolent of that era, especially since that's when I first saw it and, as a kid in a midwestern town, it represented the epitome of New Yawk sophistication after a childhood of making granola. There's a lesson here, perhaps, about letting earlier historical periods serve as allegories for our own time, rather than doing all the work for the viewer by transposing it for her. I think my point was that the songs have the ability to both evoke the larger contours of their setting and transcend the particularities, but they aren't so interesting as pieces of the plot or storyline. So it's not that Company fares better when its songs are excerpted, its that SS's songs have a life of their own that, for me, is often more satisfying outside of the context of the shows. One could say that this is true of many great songwriters, no?

Sondheim does not do his own orchestrations as a rule. (Jonathan Tunick did the orchestrations for the original 'Company' and they are excellent as is his work in general.) I think this is what Rorem was chiding SS for--not doing his own orchestrations, and not insisting that they be a part of what he's particular about when a work of his is reset. Back to the books for me to find the quotations.

Thanks, Bart, for articulating what I've often felt about a lot of Sondheim, not just Company. I think this is especially true about Merrily We Roll Along, as well--on the "macro" end, the reverse-chronology concept is poignant, and on the "micro" end, the songs are moving and brilliant ("The Way it (never ever) Was" song, for one). But the "middle" level--the book, the plot, the narrative, whatever you want to blame--just isn't interesting, and I think this is what people notice about Company--as much as I love it--and other shows such as Little Night Music. There are exceptions, of course--Follies, maybe? Anyone else want to weigh in, or 'nuff said? Also--Ned Rorem in one of his New York Diaries, takes SS to task for his orchestrations--anyone remember where, and what he was talking about? The orchestration is part of what I like about the production in question--I find that playing the instruments adds a layer of seriousness to the performances. Unfortunately, as many here are noting, it perhaps drags down the pacing (i.e., that turgid pre-"Barcelona" dialog!).

They announced a price cut to $30 for the remaining tickets this week (ends 3/9). I agree that $60 is a bit much, but $30 sounds like quite a bargain! I may go again at the reduced price, especially since the casting swaps around from time to time. $30 for a studio performance is still hefty. Perhaps this is an event that has outgrown its original function (to recruit sponsors or board members)? They're certainly entitled to charge what the market will bear, but if it's open to critics, then they have to take their lumps, too. You don't have to read John Berger to know that higher prices raise expectations.

Check out this article on Philadelphia's Rock School for Dance Education, which includes a video clip: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/entertainme...next_level.html Notice the promising dancing of 13-year-old Esteban Hernandez and others!

Sorry, I did mean to add that your comments on ambition were suggestive for discussion, not that you were "promoting" ambition in any absolute sense. And I really am interested in the American-ness of ambition w/in ballet companies. And as for "comfort," I was responding to your use of the word--again, as a suggestive jumping-off point for further commentary by all, not as something that you, as you accurately put it, are using in some kind of judgmental way. While I haven't myself been the "victim" of ambitious people, I guess I've been around enough of them to be a wee bit cynical when they speak in public. This does not only apply to dancers, natch! As I get older, the human costs of ambition often just look less worth it than they did to me when I was younger.

True enough about ambition, but I wonder if the idea that dancers can move up through the ranks is a distinctly American phenomenon. And why assume that staying in the corps is tantamount to remaining comfortable? In important ways ballet is not like a business--I think the lowliest corps member has more responsibility and than a low-level administrator or clerk in a business. Well, some of those loud voices are less articulate and thoughtful than others, despite their "relish." And some stars are painfully shy.

While the dance world will miss her, this announcement is testimony to the strength of the Ailey company as an organization: it will survive her departure, and probably continue to thrive under whoever takes it over in 2011. Ailey has done an exemplary job of overcoming "founder's syndrome," in which a company's fate is tied too closely to the personality of the founding AD. (This is a chronic problem for nonprofits in general.) I think we can all call some examples to mind--and not all are companies named after their founders!

Thanks for the link! I think part of the problem is that "history" itself--even without fictionalization--is a slippery object. And often when historians try to offer new evidence or interpretations of the past, they're labeled "revisionists." (This happens a lot with American history.) The Tudors do seem particularly encrusted with myth, legend, and puffy sleeves! Someone characterized modern representations of the Tudors as a "well-upholstered past."

Funny that you started this thread, as I just stumbled on a reality-TV inspired set of videos on YouTube made by Cincinnati Ballet called "PROJECT Ballet." Strange premise--a "Ballet team" is pitted against a "Regular team," and they carry out various dance and non-dance related tasks, with Victoria Morgan as the "Charlie" (from Charlie's Angels) figure. A bit silly from what I've had time to see so far, and I'm not sure who the intended audience is or if it's shown outside of YouTube land. It smells promotional (i.e., a heavy emphasis on heterosexuality). Anyone have more insight?

A less popularly known ballet-goer is Richard Poirier, co-founder of the Library of America and Raritan, and former editor at the Partisan Review. And he's actually written about his NYCB infatuation (he's a very good writer) in various places, such as a chapter called "Balanchine in America" in Trying It Out in America: Literary and Other Performances (2003), and I know he's written about Suzanne Farrell too. So he's "supported" ballet by writing about it in his own sphere, which is American literature.

I always think when I see TP2 that it must be hard for a pianist to have to play a difficult and expressive piece like this at the service of dancers' tempos.

Some interesting Mozartiana trivia...Tallchief/Mejia's Chicago City Ballet was the first company to perform it outside of NYCB, back in 1982 (or 83). Ib was stricken with appendicitis the opening night in Chicago, and Adam Luders filled in (if memory serves me right) with Suzanne F., who of course was married to Mejia at the time. CCB dancers did all the other parts, with Craig Wright, who later joined ABT, in the Gigue role.

Hillary v Barack? More operatic than balletic, probably. How about Hillary and Bill?

One production of Aida I was involved with tackled the plop-plop problem with extras dressed as slaves carrying gilded shovels and dustbins. Needless to say, it only stoked the audiences laughter to watch gussied-up janitors with golden pooper-scoopers attend to their work with extreme performative vigor (they were on stage, after all, and had been instructed to work fast)!

Well, it's quite out of his hands now, isn't it. But I'm sure no one will forget who wrote it.

I think the connection to Gelsey alone warrants this posting on Ballet Talk--Fazil's was truly an eclectic space in the best sense of the word, its closing yet another sign of the diminishment of NY's diverse dance culture.

Hi, No that's not me..It is Nora Kaye but nice to be remebered! Joysanne Joysanne, You won't remember me, but I was a student of yours at NCSA in 1978-79. I certainly remember you! I'm so glad to see you're still involved in dance--you were such a wonderfully generous teacher who instilled in me a passion for Balanchine's choregraphy. Cheers, Ray Ricketts

OOPS you're right, sorry about that Robert and Peter! For an example from Sellars, his wonderful, modern setting of the St. Matthew Passion at BAM a few Easters ago. Again, a modern staging but impeccably performed "authentic" reading of the score from both vocalists and instrumentalists.

I meant to respond to this earlier. This could be quite an epic, as it seems I'm seeing new dances with chairs all the time!We could even expaaaaand it to include famous sitters in ballet: Lizzie Borden's mother at the end of Fall River Legend? The kids in Nutcracker Act 2? Coppelia (can't remember if she's sitting, actually...)? The King and Queen in so many ballets? And isn't there a character in The Concert who sits without a chair (now that's deep).

I think it's far more difficult in ballet to maintain such a clear distinctin b/t elements of performance practice ("the steps" or "the formations") and all the other, mostly visual, elements of the staging--perhaps b/c dance is a visual art? (Though some would argue that opera often crosses a line of propriety.) But yes, Hans, I really do enjoy opera's ability to juxtapose modern sensibility and rigorous, traditional/authentic practice. Often the results are quite poignant, as in the recent Met production of Peter Sellar's Lohengrin.

This seems precisely ON topic to me--that is, refining what one means by "the rest" in terms of defining how you see it all. I'm going to play devil's advocate, though, to press on the notion of music's inseperability from dance. If dance is "visual music," then what happens when we turn off the sound? That is, is watching dance a process of watching someone "enacting" music as it plays? Can a body be musical w/o music? (Many modern choreographers are interrogating this assumed essential tie b/t dance and music.) Again, I want to stress that I'm raising this for argument's sake.

So true! There may be a lesson there, somewhere, for those who brood about the American failure to appreciate Bejart or escargot. Or Jerry Lewis.