Kathleen O'Connell

I thought the upper bodies in "Slice to Sharp" looked like some sort of wonderfully demented amalgam of Kathak and early 80's break dancing. The lower body looked nothing like either. The dancers were in constant motion, even when they weren't going anywhere -- i.e., a pulse of movement would propagate through their bodies like a wave (really, think break dancing without the spins) and resolve in the upper body. Is this typical of Elo? I enjoyed it, at any rate, and look forward to seeing it again today. The dancers looked terrific. I have only one complaint -- the music. No more bits and pieces of Baroque, please (or bits and pieces of anything, for that matter). It's time for the "I'm Going to Use a Whole Darn Symphony Composed After 1750" Festival. Actually, I have no complaints about Elo's using Biber; we don't really get to hear much of him live and it would have been nice to have had all Biber and no Vivaldi.

What Michael said. A great night start to finish! I think we may disagree a little bit about De Luz. The Fairchild / De Luz partnership doesn't seem like a natural fit to me. It's not so much that she's too big for him as that she dances too big for him. Their styles don't marry well. De Luz strikes me as being something like the male equivalent of a soubrette. Fairchild is small, quick and precise, to be sure, and (forgive me for this) as cute as a button, but she's no soubrette -- to my eyes she dances more with a glamazon's fire and amplitude than with a soubrette’s brittle sparkle. She's been one of the season’s real delights. De Luz executes things spectacularly, but he doesn’t dance them; there’s just not much affective power in what he does. There are dancers who uncork beats like champagne; De Luz is not one of them. It’s baffling: he’s clearly prodigiously gifted technically, and has charm to spare, but his variations come off like gymnastic routines to be scored rather than expressions of exuberance to be savored. I cannot say enough good things about Sylve and J. Stafford in “Firebird.” Ditto Whelan, Askegard and Orza in “In Memory of …” And double ditto the corps in the entire bill. They looked terrific.

Whelan's dancing is not merely "honest" -- it is luminous with honesty. Right now, that's all the poetic power I need.

I've had the good fortune to see at least a dozen different Apollos (both versions) over the years. Igor Zelensky remains my favorite, although I don't know if he still dances the role. The word I found myself using to describe his Apollo was "feral" -- a quality which others may or may not find appropriate to the role, but which I think fits it very well. I'm probably in the minority on this, but I prefer Hübbe to Boal ...

Off the top of my head, Peter Boal, Jenifer Ringer and Jennifer Tinsley. (I think in Ringer's case "elsewhere" means college, not another ballet company, however.)

Well, I for one consider it a privilege to watch a young artist take on something big. There are some things I knew at 18 that I don’t know very well anymore and in which, frankly, I might now be instructively coached. I don’t need an 18 year old to tell me what a 50 year old knows – I’m well enough acquainted with that already, thank you. To be re-acquainted with how things looked when I *wasn’t* able to put them into perspective – that is treasureable. Young dancers – even very young dancers -- are artists in their own right, not lovely vessels into which their elders may pour what they would do if only they knew then what they know now. Of course I’m being extreme here: there are certainly things that young artists can and should be taught, or at least be led to explore, but I would hope that these include strategies for discovery, presentation, and expression and don’t get dumbed down to “here is how I danced Odette." (Not that any of the previous posters have suggested the latter or anything like it: I’m just ranting because I’m starting to weary of the “she’d be great if only so-and-so could show her how to do it” mantra. I think I reached my limit when Gottlieb suggested that Sofiane Sylve needed to be coached in the Balanchine rep by Violette Verdy because, you know, Verdy is French too. By the way, I often agree with Gottlieb -- and largely agree with his observation at the end of the review in question -- but I do sometimes wonder if his fund of bitterness is now so great as to preclude his taking pleasure when pleasure is right there to be taken ...)

Wow -- nine promotions to soloist in one shot must be some kind of record! Anyway, I hope this means that we'll be seeing even more of all of these fine dancers in the future, not less (as is unfortunately sometimes the case).

Not for Pape, but I guess it's crossover for Rammstein. And isn't it great that they have the background and cultural breadth to be able to compose and perform in a classical style. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Just to clarify: the recording I'm referring to was neither composed nor performed by Rammstein, although it has its origins in their music. They may well be able to compose and perform classical music, of course, but weren't directly involved in this album to the best of my knowledge.

In response to this comment by Anthony NYC on the now closed “Soprano Refuses to Cross Over” thread: "It did make me realize that I have not yet listened to Rene Pape's recording with the popular German rock group Rammstein, 'Mein Herz brennt.' " I never thought I would ever have even the remotest excuse to bring this up (at least not when I was sober), but both Rene Pape’s recording of “Mein Herz brennt” and Rammstein’s latest album (Reise, Reise) are on my iPod. I adore Rene Pape (but alas am just a bit too past my sell-by date to give being a groupie serious consideration ) and Ramstein has been a guilty pleasure for years. Anyway, “Mein Herz brennt” isn’t a crossover album, exactly. The German composer Torsten Rasch used the lyrics and (more loosely) the music from a selection of Rammstein’s songs as the basis of a rather long (65 minute) fully orchestrated song-cycle for bass, speaker, soprano and choir. The music sounds nothing like Rammstein – in fact, it sounds very much like the kind of late-Romantic song cycle that might have been written 90 years ago (think early Schoenberg). (I mean neither the “90 years ago” nor the “Schoenberg” part as criticism, by the way.) It is in its way as angst-ridden as a Rammstein abum, however, and I heartily recommend it. Pape and the Dresden Symphony Orchestra sound glorious in this stuff. But be warned: you are going to hear a piece of classical music, not a German industrial metal band.

Perky, In the late 50's I had a fling with an ASM at the Royal Opera House who I met at Covent Garden after a triple bill. So am I in fact a ballet groupie, after all? Kate <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Sigh … The closest I ever came to being a groupie was almost getting set up on a blind date with a guy who’d been dumped for Jorma Kaukonen. :rolleyes:

Hmmm … Irony never struck me as being a Balanchine hallmark, and I’ve always assumed that he exploited the expressive possibilities of ballet’s various conventions – hoary though they might be -- for all they were worth and in all seriousness. Ballerinas in saloon girl or twirler get-up are ballerinas nonetheless; the twirlers are elevated – the ballerinas are not debased. I don’t think that the choreographer who said "Put sixteen girls on the stage and it's everybody. . .put sixteen boys on stage and it's always nobody" would consider the dozens of ballerinas in Symphony in C’s finale an “absurd conceit.” (He might not have considered “stampeding herd” an apt descriptor, either …) The "dazzling effect" is the point, not a cloaking device, for heaven’s sake. Variations pour une Porte et un Soupir is about the only Balanchine ballet I’m inclined to view as a pure send-up, and it’s certainly not a send-up of what one might have seen on 19th century the opera stage. This is not to say that Balanchine doesn’t have fun with the conventions – and Donizetti Variations may be taken as a case in point -- I just don’t think underlining their silliness or absurdity was the persistent subtext of everything he did, which is what Scherr’s piece seems to imply.

Merrill Ashley and Karin von Aroldingen in Emeralds. Suzanne Farrell in Flower Festival. Short dancers in Victor Castelli's role in Mozartiana.

I’m also pleased to see that Adrian Danchig-Waring will get a shot at Cavalier this year. I saw him in at least a half dozen different ballets last season (most notably Octet and Symphony in Three Movements) and really liked what I saw: a musical and very poised dancer with a beautiful line and real clarity of execution. Bravo!

What I know about Petipa you could write on a 3x5 card with a big fat crayon and still have room left over, so I can’t really speak to the degree to which Martins’ or McKenzie’s versions pervert / improve on the original choreography. I’m a complete and utter philistine where story ballets are concerned and Swan Lake is not a particular favorite in any event; for one thing it takes forever to get going. All those peasants and courtiers and servants with fruit baskets and trays and whatnot – can’t we just have the pas de trois, give Siegfried something to do that suggests that while he likes to party hearty he’s nonetheless yearning, yearning for something transcendent, have mom march out and give him a piece of her mind and the crossbow, and then get on with the white act already? (I know, I know there’s all that wonderful music to use up …) Mime? Feh. You need five gestures: Everybody Dance (optional variant: Everybody Down a Goblet of This Here Fine Vintage), Get Married, I Promise, Pathetic Fool You’ve Been Had, and Please Forgive Me I Was So Totally a Jerk. I suppose Back Off or I’ll Cast a Spell would be useful, too, but furious cape waving probably makes the same point. Odette doesn’t need a backstory. She’s a stereotypical Romantic enchanted maiden by the stereotypical Romantic lake in the woods in the moonlight, von Rothbart is the stereotypical Romantic evil sorcerer who put her there, and only the true love of a stereotypical Romantic poet figure yearning, yearning for something transcendent can save her. What more does one need to know? I like the Waltzing Princesses just fine (they are dramatically necessary), but frankly would not consider my life materially altered for the worse if I were deprived of Happy People From Many Lands Exhibiting Their National Dances in Character Shoes while we wait for Odile to barge in. It’s all the same to me whether Odette dies alone, or with Siegfried, or if they sail off into eternity in a Magic Boat so long as there is sufficient white act folderol beforehand because it’s that magical world and what happens there that really matters in the end. I would prefer that the Swan Maidens not wear those awful feathered earmuffs, however, though I gather they are de rigeur. A tradition that makes 20 year olds look fifty is a tradition we can safely abandon. So, as you can see, I am a very unreliable judge of ballets of this type since I have next to no patience with many of the conventions. I think the Balanchine distillation is a fine solution to any number of problems. If I were writing the checks for a new full length Swan Lake I’d probably ask for Midsummer Night’s Dream, just with a different story and Tchaikovsky. So OK, with that rant as context, I think the NYCB production is just about the ugliest thing I have seen on the State Theater stage, and that’s saying a lot. The costumes look cheap and garish. The sets for the court scenes manage to reduce the stage to a tiny, airless space. I like the white act backdrops, but for a different ballet – they don’t provide any context at all for this one. (Who are these creatures? Why, they are the enchanted Jackson Pollock Maidens doomed forever to haunt MoMA after hours unless the hero keeps his vow never to be beguiled by the charms of representational painting again!) I thought Martins’ Sleeping Beauty was pretty canny: it kept the traditional look (especially the tradition of looking expensive) but jettisoned some of the traditional apparatus that is frankly less than compelling theatre (I suspect I'm going to be flamed for that ...) without undermining the ballet's emotional and dramatic content. I think his Swan Lake fails because the look has been (very superficially) updated, but the basic apparatus really hasn’t been -- just truncated -- and the whole just doesn’t come together as coherent theatre. It certainly does nothing to teach one about the genre and its formal materials. And it’s ugly – did I mention that? I'd buy tickets for After the Rain instead ...

Well, the NYCB corps has never exactly breathed as one. The ragged lines and the - hmmm, what shall we call it - "13 ways of looking at a blackbird phrasing" did bother me when I first started attending NYCB performaces regularly (almost 30 years ago - which is just about when I started listening to punk rock ...). Then one day it ocurred to me that if George Balanchine wanted straight lines he could extract them any time he pleased, and that I should probably start paying attention to other things. I don't mind if the corps is ragged but energized; I do mind if half of the girls look lost and the other half look bored and nobody's listening to the music. But I'm not particularly troubled if everyone's legs are just finding their own personal 90. That being said, when the corps does manage nail that long straight line in Symphony in Three Movements (as they did in one of the performances I saw last season), it's pretty thrilling. Anyway, not the Sex Pistols, but maybe Green Day ... Just a quick edit to add that I didn't think Kourlas was suggesting that chaos is a necessary component of "immediacy," but that I do agree with canbelto that sloppines shouldn't be excused as a necessary evil. I'd rather have ragged lines of underrehearsed but engaged and musical dancers than straight lines of blandly perfect ones -- but I'd much rather have straight lines of well-rehearsed, engaged, and musical dancers.

I’m going to disagree with Alexandra just a little bit about museums: the institution (OK, museum) that NYCB most resembles – and whose curatorial issues it most poignantly shares – is neither the Met nor the Louvre, but rather MoMA. Both began as institutions dedicated to the acquisition and presentation (and yes, the “de-accession” if need be) of newly created (and not universally esteemed) works, and both now find themselves in the same quandary: can and should one remain true to the original mission when, after 60 years of diligent labor -- including the hard work of showing people how to look at the stuff -- one finds oneself in possession of a fabulous permanent collection? How does one balance keeping the by now canonical works everyone loves (or at least respects) in good order and before the public with the felt need to identify and present emerging talent? Do you just throw up your hands in despair and turn the latter project over to some other institution with no "heritage" lose? (Or alternatively, to galleries and collectors, with their money and reputations on the line, but maybe nothing else?) Is your true “heritage” the works themselves, or the process by which they were identified, acquired, incorporated into the collection and showcased -- or some combination of the two? Do you keep the works or the process -- or do you try to hang on to both? And do you keep the Suprematists and Constructivists on the walls – worthy as they may be -- even if no one seems to want to look at them anymore? (Actually, the latter is an issue for the Met, too: if you want peace and quiet in NYC, just go to the Met’s 15th – 18th century European Paintings galleries. You will be utterly alone in silent rooms full of paintings by Dürer, Holbein, Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Watteau, Fragonard, Reynolds, etc., etc., etc. If you want to feel the full press of humanity, however, just head on over across the hall to the galleries where the impressionist works are hung. And perhaps the day will come when the Met determines that it must pack up the Hals and Van Dycks – or even the Manets, in front of which one may also find oneself utterly alone -- to make room for something else, although please, not another Renoir or a mummy. But I digress ...) Do you turn into the Metropolitan Opera, where no one goes to hear anything new? And how does one best display the collection anyway? Do you put all the German Expressionists in one room and the Abstract Expressionists in another and let people make of them what they will, or do you arrange things thematically, or to expound a particular vision of how the works are related? And how do you keep people writing checks? While I often fantasize about having either Peter Martins’ or Glenn Lowry’s job, I’m not sure either man is really to be envied given that some significant portion of their respective communities will despise whatever they do. It’s not at easy problem to solve for either institution.

In addition to all the wonderful things everyone else has mentioned, I’ve always loved Balanchine’s Le Tombeau du Couperin, which is of course all corps all the time (and best viewed from at least the first ring or higher, I suspect – I’m not sure it would have much effect at all from close up in the orchestra). I also particularly enjoy the corps in the Divertissement from Midsummer Night's Dream. (An acquaintance once characterized it as "way civilized" -- what would he make of Divertimento No. 15, I wonder!) And I’ll second Glass Pieces – I especially love the effect of the line of women moving across the back of the stage in silhouette with that step-step-dip move or whatever it is. It’s principally a theatrical effect, though (rather than a pure dance effect in the way the corps work is in Concerto Barocco or Serenade, say) and probably not the kind of thing one could or should use a lot, but it certainly works in that ballet. And yes, the umbrellas in The Concert are unbelievably lovely. Come to think of it, I like a lot of Robbins’ ensemble effects – e.g., in Antique Epigraphs or Opus 19/The Dreamer. Favorite inanimate objects: the big pushbrooms in Wheeldon's Variations Serieuses, bearing the lovely Kathleen Tracy in triumph ... I also adore the fabulously joyful Snowflakes in Morris’ Hard Nut, especially when they toss those big handfuls of glitter! It’s impossible to watch them and not be utterly, goofily happy.

I know, I know, it’s not ballet, but in the back of my mind there’s always this thought that Mark Morris is really the successor to Balanchine: MMDG does have a school, its own dance center, always uses live music, and at this point has a pretty extensive rep to present – i.e., it’s an institution that might survive its founder. Forsythe’s new company is supported by Dresden, Frankfurt, Saxony, & Hesse, but Morris has Isaac Mizrahi on his board, which adds several points to his BGSI just for sheer fabulousness … Of course, old bricks and mortar outfits like MMDG may well be underbid because of the effects of the Wheeldon bubble ...

Ed -- Finance is my profession. Usually it's a job, but sometimes it's an adventure. Housing starts data has never, ever quickened my pulse, however -- I'm more of a balance-of-payments kind of girl ...

August silliness: Various financial institutions regularly email me economic commentary and analyses. Normally, the report titles are penny-plain boilerplate, e.g., “Trade – Solid Exports, Narrower Deficit” or “ISM Non-Manufacturing – Rebound in June.” But three that hit my inbox within the last day or so made me wonder if the economists writing them had one eye on the market and one eye on William Forsythe: “Steady at an Elevated Level,” “Slightly Lower, but Still Elevated,” and “Inching Away from an Elevated Level.”

Sigh ... I'd sell my soul to be the worst principal at NYCB instead of the expert spreadsheet jockey I inexplicably turned out to be. Heck, I'd probably sell my soul to be the worst dancer in the corps. As Toni Bentley pointed out in Winter Season, you may be one of eighty, but you're one of eighty in the world. And no, Fayette most definitely was not the worst NYCB principal. He certainly had whatever genius it takes not to be miscast. I'll miss him.

Hmmm … He may have ended Burr’s political career, but seems to have guaranteed Burr’s immortality instead. If Burr hadn’t shot Hamilton he might have spent the rest of his days as a has-been slugging it out in Albany politics, ending up as a trivia question (“Who was Vice President during Thomas Jefferson’s first administration?’’) rather than the subject of Gore Vidal’s best novel (IMO) and the best Got Milk ad ever! It seems almost impossible to mention Alexander Hamilton without eventually invoking Aaron Burr. Moral: don’t handcuff yourself to the person you most loathe when you dive off into eternity. dirac: At your suggestion, I’m moving Cryptonomicon up in the rotation! I did enjoy what I'd gotten through, but lost momentum when I couldn’t fit it into my carry-on during my last trip. Now I know how to underline!

Burr by Gore Vidal Oh, OK, not really, but it’s a terrific read nonetheless! I did enjoy Chernow’s biography; since I am a finance professional I appreciated the focus on Hamilton’s tenure as Treasury Secretary and the financial system he put in place, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it struck some as just Too Much Information. There were a couple of things that I found problematic: Chernow, like many biographers, adores his subject and while he is certainly willing to acknowledge Hamilton’s flaws, he sometimes bends over backwards to excuse them away, to cast them as the obverse of a sterling character trait, or to highlight the deficiencies of his adversaries by way of invidious comparison. (He definitely does not adore Aaron Burr and barely tolerates Jefferson.) I found this particularly annoying in the chapter dealing with the famous and fatal duel with Burr. No amount of self possession, attention to duty, thoughtful attentions as a host etc really ameliorates the astounding willingness of a father of seven to be provoked into a duel that could easily have been avoided. There’s a bit more armchair psychoanlysis than I’m generally comfortable with as well. Hamilton’s own writing is pretty terrific too, by the way, if you’ve got that theory-of-government monkey on your back. The Library of America put out a nice collection of his writings not long ago, and there’s always The Federalist, which I adored during a particularly geeky phase of my otherwise misspent youth.

I always seem to be cycling through several books at once, putting them down and picking them up again depending on my mood. (One of the few skills I managed to acquire in grad school was how to read eight things at the same time. Or maybe I just have attention span issues.) Not much actually ends up in the dust kitty collection, but I do have a rather long standing relationship with some of the books on my nightstand … The current rotation: The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson At some point, I will get through them all, although Cryptonomicon’s been in the rotation for about a year now and seems to get displaced by something new more often than not (several titles have entered and left the rotation since I first picked it up), so it may well be fated for the dust kitty collection after all. In the on-deck circle: Perdido Street Station by China Mieville I actually do most of my “reading” now by listening to audiobooks while walking to and from work, working out, or doing chores. (How did I ever manage to steel myself for a hearty round of ironing before there were audiobooks? And if it weren't for ironing, how else would I have gotten through War and Peace and The Brothers Karamozov?) So, my nightstand is pretty much limited to what isn’t available as an audiobook, and of course, to what can actually be read in a comfortable reclining position, and, given the rotational tactic, certain height restrictions … Helene -- I just finished listening to the John Adams and Alexander Hamilton biographies back to back. (I’m apparently a glutton for founding father punishment. I keep eyeing the newish Franklin and Washington biographies, but then my husband grabs me by the shoulders, gives me a good shake, and tells me to snap out of it.) I feel your pain! Thank goodness Adams only served one term as president, otherwise the book would be lord knows how much longer. The Hamilton biography was nearly as long, but was at least enlivened by a tawdry affair or two, several duels, and Aaron Burr. If Hamilton hadn't managed to finally get himself shot at 49 (he was prone to "demand satisfaction" from his adversaries when dissed) I suppose I'd still be slogging my way through it ...

Life is short - no, life is ONCE; use your time wisely and read something else. Reread Atonement if you must have more McEwan, but don't bother with this one. The book contains some expertly done and even moving passages (the protagonist's visit with his mother, who is suffering from dementia is one), but the characters are purest cardboard, the sentiments expressed largely pedestrian (war is bad but dictators are bad, too), and many of the plot elements implausible or baldly sentimental. As examples: certain violence is averted at the last minute by the recitation of Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach"; the predator is saved by his intended prey. Really. At first I thought the book might be setting up the careful dismemberment of a certain sort of bourgeois self-absorption and self-satisfaction, but alas, no. A ripple of possessive joy at the glimpse of one's merc (or is it BMW -- I forget -- but it has creamy white leather seats) as it sits glowing in an idyllic country scene is a apparently wholly laudible thing. Ditto the thrill of switching on the lights in one's lovingly restored and tastefully appointed townhouse. (If this stuff was presented ironically, I sure missed it.) I had much the same reaction to this book that I did to Woody Allen's Interiors many years ago: I was stunned to discover that I was supposed to take the main characters and their concerns seriously. May I recommend Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell instead? (It would make a fabulous ballet, by the way ...)