Peter Quennell

Much regretting we did not attend before saturday. We were caught absolutely unawares by the dazzling Bourree Fantasque...

i'm afraid you'll not likely find any video recording of BOURREE FANTASQUE - as w/ COTILLON, BOURREE FANTASQUE has not been filmed for commercial release. I don't even think that there is silent footage of this Chabrier work, as is the case w/ COTILLON.

even though many more companies have performed BOURREE F. than have done COTILLON, it hasn't been filmed to the best of my knowledge, except, of course for in-house records per company: besides New York City Ballet, London Festival, if mem. serves, Boston Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre have all danced this work. if i had any influence i'd lobby for the work to be in active rep somewhere, year after year.

Bourree Fantasque may be performed more now! It gave us all a real jolt saturday at Lincoln Center as danced by the Miami City Ballet. It had not yet been reviewed, and my guess is not many knew what was coming up. If I might quote from today's (monday's) Alastair Macaulay review:

The exhilarating production of “Bourrée Fantasque,” staged by Susan Pilarre, is a special triumph. Despite being choreographed here for New York City Ballet and despite brief-lived stagings by that company, American Ballet Theater and School of American Ballet in the last 35 years, this has become one of the Balanchine classics least known in this city. Set to three dance-filled scores by Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-94), it moves from comic absurdity, via coolly ceremonious romance, to dazzling ebullience. There’s a dash of crazy intoxication to the whole ballet that’s entirely insidious.

Even if you think you know how exciting a Balanchine massed-ranks finale can be, the one that ends “Bourrée” proves yet more intense than others, with astounding shifts of geometric formations. There’s one ultra-ebullient sequence where no fewer than four concentric rings of dancers are all moving to, fro, in and out and around, while a ballerina at the center (the fabulously fearless Nathalia Arja) is bursting into the air in lifts like a champagne cork. A moment later, they’re all arrayed in vertical lines, moving with no less energy.