Kathleen O'Connell

Kathleen, but if there's something highly unlikely to happen, is the fear to start having just a "few students" that will be able to "write a sentence or two themselves for practice"-(this translated into the ballet world as a few ballet students able to learn a couple of ballet exercises for themselves). Reality is, ballet schools, ballet technique and ballet competitions are fierce and in high demand. More and more kids are trying to get into companies, and they are sharper than ever. The feeling is certainly very enthusiastic, and even better than that...the kids want to dance the classics, and dance it good. I will always remember when I read Kirkland's book, and her internal struggling when she realized that she wanted to dance the classics, having to leave NYCB in order to do so. I sill this is still happening. It isn't the number of students I'm concerned about. What I had in mind was my own experience learning Latin and ancient Greek in school. We would very dutifully write little paragraphs and and even poems to demonstrate that we'd mastered whatever point of grammar or rhetoric it was that we were learning that week, but there was no expectation that we would ever write something real in one of these languages. We might try our hand at imitating a few lines of Virgil, but none of us were ever going to write an epic poem-- or any kind of poem for that matter--in Latin for other people to read and enjoy. I was thinking by analogy of ballet students mastering the steps and putting together little combinations to sharpen their understanding of what they'd learned, but never having any expectation that they might use that same vocabulary to make something new. I don't think there's any great dearth of choreographers, by the way, even though there may not be a towering genius out there. I was just trying to address Ray's original question as to whether or not new works were necessary for ballet to continue. The answer probably depends on how one defines "continue."

"Carefully preserved" doesn't sound like a bad idea to me at all, to be honest...If faced with the non probable question of choosing between dancing ONLY the preserved XIX repertoire with no room for anything else, or electively choosing to loose it, and keep experimenting...I would go for the first choice.(But again, this is a highly hipotetical thing) Nothing wrong with preservation, and I agree that we're unlikely to have to choose between creating new ballets and loosing the old ones. My concern is that without new works ballet becomes a dead language like Latin: a relative handful of specialists pore over the old masterworks, a few students learn to read them -- maybe write a sentence or two themselves for practice -- and the real conversation takes place in another language. There is general agreement that The Aeneid is a touchstone of Western literature, but hardly anyone reads it in either the original or in translation and any influence it has on the culture at large is at a two or three degree remove. Or maybe ballet turns into something like the Broadway musical, a once vibrant form that is now mostly for tourists and nostalgic aficionados, with the only over-amplified revivals and "new" works like "Mama Mia" on offer. We might not be lucky enough to get Noh.

Yes and Yes. Yes #1: I really enjoy seeing new work—either “new to me” or (even better) newly created. Some of it will be good, some of it will be awful, and there might even be a masterpiece or two. (As Balanchine himself observed, you have to make the bad ballets to make the good ballets.) I consider myself to have been privileged to be alive when it was still possible to see brand new ballets choreographed by Balanchine and Robbins. (Not to mention new works by Cunningham, Taylor, Brown, Morris, et al.) I was too young to be there for the really big works, but I there for the premieres of “Mozartiana” and “Antique Epigraphs” and those ballets seem special to me still. I prefer to believe that experiences like that aren’t just in my past, but are in my future, too. I was at the premiere of Wheeldon's "After the Rain" and Ratmansky's "Russian Seasons" and they're special too. Here’s something that Susan Sontag wrote in her preface to the 1996 republication of the Spanish translation of Against Interpretation (her second book, written in 1966) that for me at least captures the special exhilaration of being “present at the creation”: Yes #2: If no one choreographs new ballets, then doesn’t ballet become something like Kabuki or Noh, a carefully preserved artifact of another time and place? And I’d worry about dancers who spent their lives performing works by dead giants without ever thinking that they too could make masterpieces.

I agree! I hope no one takes my post as a slam against Macauley. I enjoy reading him and I almost always learn something from his reviews. I even agree with him sometimes

Maybe my morning coffee wasn’t hot enough or something, but one of the premises of Alistair Macauley’s 5/19/09 NYT review of ABT’s Spring Gala bugged me, and I’m not sure why—I’m not even sure it should have. I’d like to know what other BT’ers think. (Dirac linked to the review yesterday. Here it is again for convenience: "A Season Opener Includes an Obama in the House") Macauley begins by suggesting that Michelle Obama’s speech was the evening’s “most valuable corrective” and approvingly quotes one of her lines: “My husband and I believe firmly that arts education develops innovative thinkers.” He then states that he wishes she’d saved that line for another occasion because “Ballet Theater’s spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House tends to be ballet at its most conformist, nowhere more so than in its opening-night jamboree.” What point is he trying to make here? Is it that the conventionality of the evening’s program belied the First Lady’s contention that arts education develops the ability to think innovatively? Or is it that only innovative art or conventional art presented innovatively will produce innovative thinkers? Or is it that the gala wasn't arts educational enough? Anyway, that’s not what’s bugging me. Here’s the quote that set me off: Sounds like he’s auditioning for that MC gig! He goes on to observe that Is he suggesting that ballet can survive during a recession by providing handy, informative wall plaques just like the museums or by turning galas into lecture-demos? I agree that ballet needs an audience that demands more than circus stunts. I also agree that an audience with an informed taste is a good thing to have, but Macauley seems to be advocating the cultivation of a kind of geeky art historical sensibility that I wouldn’t consider a necessary component to the enjoyment of art. Now, I’ll confess to being a geek of the first order: my little nerd heart quickens at the sight of a wall plaque. (I loved the little wall plaques McCauley scattered around his review, too.) But there’s nothing wrong with walking into a museum with the expectation that one can just wander around and look at the paintings and enjoy them (or not, as the case may be) without having done any homework. Or, to put it another way: you’ll enjoy a baseball game more if you know the rules, but you don’t need to know that baseball evolved from the Tudor sport of rounders to have a good time. You just need a good game to watch. Shouldn’t ballet focus on putting on a good show? Isn’t that what will pull the audience in and isn’t also what will teach them how to look? Consider McCauley’s little “La Sylphide” disquisition: I don’t think the audience needs to know that “unlike the lost 1832 original Parisian “Sylphide” and the many other 19th-century ballets that followed, this one shows the hero dancing the same steps alongside his beloved and her companions.” A "dance literate" audience should be able to see that the men and women are dancing the same steps and should be able to perceive on some level that it's different in its theatrical and emotional effect than men and women dancing different steps, but it shouldn’t have to be told this by an MC and it shouldn't have to know about the lost 1832 Parisian version. Would knowing about Walter Scott's romanticized Scotland really deepen the audience's pleasure in the scene? (It's charming that Macauley thinks that the audience would have a clue about Walter Scott in the first place.) And so what if it seems quaint? People pay good money and travel great distances to immerse themselves in quaint. I'm not too proud to admit that I like a dollop of quaint myself every now and then. Anyway, I don’t how one gets an audience to see better--to be "dance literate"--but I don’t think MCs at galas are the way to go. I'm not convinced that the kind of edification that Macauley proposes will engender a wave of innovative thinking, either, and I'm even less convinced that it will pack the houses. So BT'ers, what do you think: do audiences need to be "dance literate" or "ballet literate" and if so, what do ballet companies need to do to foster that literacy? What is "ballet literacy" anyway, and is it something one is conscious of having? If you don't know efface from croise from ecarte, or who Bournonville was, or about the Romantic fascination with enchanted young women, can you still be literate? Is Macauley on to something in his review? *I had to look this up. From the American Heritage Dictionary: “The master of ceremonies as of a television entertainment program or a variety show.”

Oh man, does this make me love Pollock, even though I'm more of a Matisse girl myself. Thank you, Dirac!

Couselor Troi senses An Agenda. Kaufman’s article is not the most internally consistent argument against House of Balanchine that I’ve encountered. There’s a lot to chew on and respond to, but four quotes struck me immediately in this regard: 1. I defy anyone to figure out what’s going on in “Lilac Garden” without reading the plot synopsis in the program notes. 2. Yes, it happens, but how many young Americans today must give up the person they love for the one that they don’t? Kaufman is talking about something most of us learn about from stories, not from our lives. Disappointed love? We've all been there. But the kind of renunciation going on in "Lilac Garden" is different from that; which is not to say that the story doesn't move us or that it doesn't resonate with our own experience. It just doesn't do so in the way Kaufman suggests it does. At the end of the day, how different is "Lilac Garden" from "La Bayadere"? 3. Kaufman needs to be explicit about the ways in which “Concerto DSCH” is an “exemplar of human relationships explored in ballet” or “has true characters and a palpable sense of drama” in a way that “Concerto Barocco” or "Apollo" is not / does not. We can use “Central Park in the Dark” if she needs a more in-your-face example from the Balanchine canon. If Ratmansky isn't using "atmosphere, musical response, pattern" or "the body" to tell us something about "the person" then what the heck is he using, and why isn't Balanchine doing the same thing. 4. I hope her argument doesn’t hang on the presence or absence of a bare stage (surely one could to “Lilac Garden” without the trees and frankly, I don’t even remember whether “Concerto DSCH” had scenery or not) or the presence or absence of “the common men and women.” To quote Balanchine, how much story do you need? I suspect that Kaufman and I simply answer this question differently, or perhaps are moved by different stories. I too get weary of ballets in the "Lifecasting," "River of Light," and "The Fifth Season" mode, but I'm not inclined to blame Balanchine for them, just as I'm not inclined to blame Pollock, De Kooning, and Rothko for half-baked abstract expressionism. PS: A thought that I haven't worked out yet. Balanchine relied on any number of formal elements to help us with the “story.” Hierarchy is one, for example: we usually get a central couple, soloists & corps to help us map out the internal organization of the onstage community. “Hierarchy” in this sense doesn’t tell us who ranks higher so much as who and what we need to pay attention to sort out the story. Many of Balanchine’s heirs have abandoned hierarchy, but Ratmansky most certainly has not.

Hmmm ... I wonder what distinguishes an "unorthodox" love triangle from your plain old orthodox one? Guy+ enchanted maiden+evil seductress, guy+spunky real girl+animated doll, guy+spunky Scottish Lassie+forest fairy, guy+coquette+sleepwalker, and guy+siren+dad have already been done. (I'm sure you can all think of more.) What's left? Will Gomes have to choose between his girl and the collective's new tractor? (Actually, I'm pretty sure Prokofiev composed "On the Dnieper" before the Soviet Union fully collectivized agriculture.) I think Tudor did all the orthodox triangles ...

WNYC's Leonard Lopate interviewed Trisha Brown on 4-17-09. She spent a couple of minutes describing what it was like to work with Dupont, La Riche, and Legris on the piece as well with Laurie Anderson, who composed the score. You can listen to the interview here or download the podcast from iTunes.

See what kind good things happen when a company promotes a deserving dancer!

Well, I'm happy to see that some of my favorite corps stalwarts have featured roles in Coppelia: Lauren King: Dawn Ashley Laracey: Spinner Dena Abergel: Prayer Gwyneth Muller: Discord and War I saw Abergel dance Prayer last season and she was benevolence incarnate -- it was a lovely performance, and graceful in every sense of the word. A different cast is up for the performance I have tickets for, so it looks as if I'll miss them them this time around, alas (not that the cast I'm seeing is anything to gripe about, mind you). I'd like to see Bar in Concerto Barocco and Gilliland in After the Rain, too.

Does this mean that we can hope for more broadcasts or other forms of video distribution?

The photographs are lovely, and, taken in the abstract, the shapes Wiles makes while she dances are lovely too -- and sometimes flat-out awe-inspiring. However, often enough I've been left with the sense that I've just seen an excellent demonstration of the steps, but not the performance of a role. Ballet just doesn't seem to resonate with her as theater. But even a "plotless" ballet like Theme & Variations is theater, and its success as theater to some degree depends on the dancer's ability to create a coherent persona whose journey through the piece distills its emotional arc for us. How a dancer best creates that persona, of course, is the interesting question -- but surely there's more to it than deciding whether one should deploy one's "transported by joy" or "such sweet agony" face at the beginning of the phrase or at the end of it, which is what Wiles sometimes seems limited to. And for reasons that elude me, she's one of those dancers for whom a tutu seems nothing more than the costume she is supposed to wear -- or, to put it another way, in terms of "perfume", she's a fragrance-free ballerina. The Ballet Review article suggests that she wants her dancing to be more than perfect steps, but perfect steps is not a bad start -- as Vladimir Horowitz observed to Murray Perahia: "If you want to be more than a virtuoso, first you have to be a virtuoso"! I'm pulling for her.

Never! Once early on in my NYCB-watching "career" (I started attending regularly in the late 70's) I burbled something enthusiastic about a performance of 4Ts in which Merrill Ashley, Bart Cook, and Adam Luders, among others, had danced. "Oh," observed an older friend who'd been attending since the 60's "you should have seen that ballet when the company could really dance it." This kind of thing always puts me in mind of Burt Lancaster's great line in the movie Atlantic City: ruminating on the city's decline since its (and his) glory days in the 40's, he says to Susan Sarandon ''The Atlantic Ocean was something then. Yes, you should have seen the Atlantic Ocean in those days.''

I actually thought McCauley was astonishingly positive! When was the last time anyone said anything even remotely like this about NYCB's current performance standards: or this: or this: He thinks Sara Mearns performs Karin von Aroldingen's Vienna Waltzes role better than anyone has -- including von Aroldingen -- and he thinks that Janie Taylor performs Kay Mzzzo's role in Davidbundlertanze better than anyone has -- including Kay Mazzo. (I'll go him one better: I think Mearns dances von Aroldingen's role in Davidbundlertanze better than anyone ever has, too -- including von Aroldingen and Kyra Nichols, and they were both pretty great in it. I'm surprised by how moving this role can be when danced by a younger -- much younger -- woman.) When was the last time a NY critic admitted that something NYCB does today even comes up to the standards of the past, much less surpasses them? It's like waking up in an alternate universe. Lordy -- someone might even allow that they dance something better than MCB, SF or PNB. I don't know what McCauley had for breakfast, but I hope he has more of it and invites Robert Gottlieb over for a bite while he's at it -- although maybe they could skip the muffin or whatever it is that gives them such heartburn about Whelan, M. Fairchild, and A. Stafford.

I posted something here that I felt uncomfortable about all day, so I deleted it. Apologies to anyone who thought I was dragging this thread to places it shouldn't go.

SanderO, I wholeheartedly agree! I'd give the money to organizations (like Roberta Guaspari's famous East Harlem Violin Program) that provide instruments and musical instruction to low income public school children. A few years ago I heard an interview with a father who was absolutely heartbroken when funding for the program at his daughter's school dried up and she had to hand back her violin. (I seem to remember that he lived in Poughkeepsie.) He was inconsolable -- it really meant something to him that she could play the violin for him. Guaspari's program inspired two films -- the documentary "Small Wonders" and "Matters of the Heart" starring Meryl Streep. Her original program lives on through Opus 118 Harlem School of Music, which partners with six Harlem public schools to provide in-school music instruction. Here's Opus 118's website. The Ford Foundation has set up an arts-in-the-schools advocacy program, which you can learn about here.

Lee Rosenbaum has, and written another lively account, with pictures: http://www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl/ (It's in two parts, scroll down) In one of those pictures (second from the last, looking toward the Met), it looks like there are several steps down from the plaza to the ATH lobby, which contradicts what Kathleen O'Connell said. What don't I understand? . I think I didn't explain clearly -- there are steps from the sidewalk along B'way down to a sunken plaza, then no steps from there.

Absolutely. You're helping in that task. Getting Steven Blier as casting advisor is a BIG plus, especially given Steel and Yim's relatively limited opera experience. Blier knows voices and has done genuinely admirable work in hiring and coaching up-and-coming young singers for his own NYFOS series in addition to unearthing and programming wonderful songs for them to sing. He'll know who to call and who is right for what part.

Bart, Thanks for finding and posting the link to Goldberger's article. I held off reading reviews of the renovated space until I got a chance to go there myself and check it out. The article describes what's been done pretty accurately, but I think it really will take a visit to appreciate it. A couple of additional points / thoughts: 1) The hall itself still feels bigger than it is (it seats just under 1100 I think) but is, as Goldberger points out, a warmer and more intimate-seeming space than it was before. It's not anywhere near as "cozy" as Carnegie's Zankel hall (my favorite in the city). I think I might describe it as "benevolent" -- especially when the LED lights behind the (literally) paper thin wood veneer are turned on. (It's a cool effect.) I think they need to sort out the stage lighting, however. Padmore and Cooper were rather harshly lit by two overhead ceiling lights which created a kind of odd onstage and front-of-the hall glare when compared to the soft lighting of the hall. 2) I hope the beautiful pipe organ is still tucked away behind the wall at the back of the stage. I've been to a few concerts where the performers decided to open it up (even though they didn't use it) and it made a lovely backdrop. Here's a picture. 3) About a quarter to a third of the back wall of the stage is now covered with a rectangle of small, regularly spaced wooden protrusions which have presumably been added to enhance the acoustics (they look something like gently rounded rivets of graduating height or the rubber nubblies on those German sports sandals). Someone wicked will think of an appropriately witty way to describe them. They don't look bad, but trust me, there's a joke in there somewhere. 4) Goldberger leaves out one material change. Previously, the Broadway plaza in front of the ATH entrance and the entrance vestibule / box office were level with the street. You walked across the little plaza from either Broadway or 65th Street, entered into the vestibule, and then went down a wide staircase of about four or five stairs to get to the lobby proper. (At least I don't remember any plaza level stairs, except for the big set of stairs going up to the Juilliard entrance.) up Now the stairs are between the street and the (reduced) plaza itself -- i.e., you go down the wide staircase from Broadway to get to the plaza, and then it's level all the way from the plaza to the lobby. (There's also a long ramp on the 65th St side for wheechair access). I like the fact that it's level from the plaza to the lobby -- it's one of the things that makes the space feel so open (in addition to all the glass, of course). I'm not sure I like the stairs down from Broadway, although there would have been no way to avoid them once the decision was made to keep the plaza, entrance, and lobby all on one level. (I didn't notice any handrails anywhere -- but I was rushing to get in on time -- so the maintenance folks had better be super-vigilant about keeping those steps clear in the winter ... )** A 15-20 foot high triangular riser of stair steps echoing the steps down to the plaza sits at the B'way / 65th street triangle (roughly where the escalator to Juilliard used to be) and faces in towards the entrance hall: this is the one design element that I need to really look at again in daylight and think about. I wasn't wild about it last night, but it deserves a second look. I'm not describing any of this well -- you need to go have a look for yourselves and grab some coffee or wine at that nice bar. ** OK, I just found a photo that very clearly shows handrails. Whew! If you search "Alice Tully Hall" in Google images you'll pull up lots of pictures. But there's no better place to start than this 2005 Curbed post, especially if you've read enough gushing in the press and are in the mood for a little snark:Alice Tully Hall Cleans up All Pretty Edited to add the architects' rendering of the entrance hall bar / lounge area, looking out. There are comfy chairs and tables now in front of the bar where the people in the picture are walking. Scroll down to the last image on the left and click on it for the full color version. Edited again to add a link to Curbed's latest, which includes actual pictures in addition to the architects' renderings. It appears that the bar is really a cafe that serves actual food.

2/25/09 I just got back from my first concert at the renovated and re-opened Alice Tully Hall and my first impressions are very positive. (Mark Padmore sang Schbert's Die Schöne Müllerin accompanied by Imogen Cooper, who also opened the concert with Schubert's A Major piano sonata.) The appearance of the hall itself has been vastly improved (although it still feels a bit too big and cavernous to me) and the acoustics seem much improved as well: with regard the piano, at least, the sound had more clarity and presence than I recall it having before -- the ATH acoustics used to seem dull and distant no matter where one sat, with annoying dead spots scattered throughout the hall. Since I'd never heard Padmore sing live before, I couldn't tell whether the hall was damping down his voice, or whether it simply doesn't project well. Since I was sitting dead center in row E, I unfortunately have to assume the latter. If I were starting from scratch, I'm not sure I'd have opted for the exact configuration of the reconceived entrance and lobby, but it is a so much airier, happier space than it was in its rather dreary previous incarnation that I'm not in the least inclined to complain -- the architects did a spectacular job given what they had to work with. The big bar and lounge in the new entrance hall looks like it will be a fine place to get a drink when it's not too crowded -- i.e., during off hours or as a refuge from something you just can't bring yourself to sit though. (NYST / Koch Theatre could certainly use one of these, although ATH is close enough to dash over to during a performance of, say, Oltremare.) Alas, the jungle-print wallpaper has been stripped from the ladies' room and replaced with plain old white paint. I was hoping that they'd hang onto to that wallpaper since it more or less matched one of my raincoats and not much else does, really.

If richard53dog hadn't suggested Boheme, I would have. I think it's the perfect starter opera and would recommend it to anyone of theatre-going age. Carmen is a good one, too, although maybe not for kids. An of course La Boheme is the "first opera" that Ronny Cammareri (Nicholas Cage) takes Loretta Castorini (Cher) to in Moonstruck, and we all know how that turned out. My favorite movie line of all time is when the bawling Loretta wails to Ronny, re Mimi, "I knew she was sick but I didn't think she was gonna die!" on their way out of the Met. La Boheme and Carmen are both good choices. I usually opt for Le Nozze di Figaro if my newbie guest isn't quite ready for the kind of overt emotionality often on display in 19th century Italian opera.

You should worry! Years ago San Francisco Opera did it without intermission. At the time I was broke and decided to go standing room. Three hours and twenty five minutes (if I remember correctly) standing ab-so-lute-ly still. You know how opera fans are: the sound of an eye blinking sends them into paroxysms of fury. Enjoy! The Met did Dutchman without an intermission a number of seasons ago. Personally, I think anyone who schedules 2 1/2 - 3 hours of anything without a break is in denial about the requirements of human biology. Older gentlemen with prostate issues and those of us who had dared to drink fluids after 3PM were not in good spirits at about the 3/4 mark. Fortunately, the cast stank (I never thought I would ever type those words) and, since we had aisle seats and knew how it was going to end (and it was going to end badly in more ways than one given the cast) we bailed early and had a nice drink.

And they informed the dancers by mail, according to the Miami Herald.To give Peter Martins credit, he (1) spoke personally to the dancers involved and (2) took a pay cut himself. Good for him. I don't know that I would rely on the Miami Herald for complete and accurate information about contract negociations. As for Peter Martins, he may very well have been required to speak personally to the dancers, and the pay cut may have been mandated by the Board; who knows? I'm going to give Martins the benefit of the doubt on this one. I've been on both sides of the layoff discussion, and it ain't no fun either way.

I didn't want to go there, but yeah, I can think of a couple of principals for whom it might be a win-win all around if they were gently nudged on to Plan B. They were going to re-design the website again? Why? A couple of screens might benefit from a tweak or two and there could be a click or so less to get from one place to another -- some of the logic behind where stuff is parked still escapes me -- but your average 15 year old could probably sort that out for them.