Mary J

Cauldron!?

I haven't seen this production yet, although I would like to (even though I did not "get" Moulin Rouge, I adored Strictly Ballroom). Anyone who enjoys the music of Boheme in this production should give New York City Opera's productions a try. The singers are generally young and attractive (if that matters to you) and many of the productions are imaginative and not at all stodgy. And if money is a problem, get a standing room place the next time the Met does Boheme - the production there is by Zefferelli, also a movie director, who loves attractive singer-actors and lots of action on stage, and the production values are superb.

According to Alexandra's book, Kronstam was quite an accomplished cook, so I bet this is good. Now I have to look for this cook book, too!

Hugh Jackman would have been perfect! I saw him in a concert version of Carousel last Spring - it is delightful how someone so gorgeous can be so talented! He has a very attractive singing voice.

Grace - thanks for your thanks! I apparently discovered ballet in one of its golden periods - the 1960's - and since I spent those years either in New York or London, I couldn't have been more fortunate. Royal Ballet (Nureyev, Fonteyn, Park, Sibley, Dowell, Bergsma, Parkinson); Bolshoi (Plisetskaya, Maximova, Vasiliev, Bessmertnova), ABT (Bruhn, Fracci, Gregory, Fernandez, Serrano, Marks, Lander, Sutherland, D'Antuono - now there is someone sadly overlooked!), NYCB (Farrell, Villela, D'Amboise, Hayden, Neary), Joffrey (Zomosa, Blankshine, Uthoff, Clear, Bradley), Royal Danish (Kronstam, Simone, Ostergaard, Kehlet, Honnigen). Gosh!!!

When Disney first broadcast the movie Ballerina in the United States, I was in college, and had in recent memory seen the Royal Danish Ballet perform at Lincoln Center. It was very frustrating for those of us who had seen Mette, Kirsten and Henning perform in real life and in genuine ballets (Romeo and Juliet, Moon Reindeer, Carmen, The Lesson, Fanfare, La Sylphide - wow, I had forgotten!) to see Disney serve up a pastiche of unremarkable excerpts. Given the fact that the dancers were in or approaching their prime, it would have been a thrill to see them as they actually danced. Mette and Kronstam had danced a truly remarkable Moon Reindeer, but I guess that it just too stark (and sexy) for Uncle Walt. But why not Kirsten and Kronstam in Romeo? But the ballet setting was surprisingly superficial (I haven't seen it since then, so forgive me if I am not remembering it all that clearly)- it could have been almost any performance setting, in effect. I would have preferred more Copenhagen and less Hollywood. And as an enlightened college student, even in the 1960's, the message of domesticity as "real life" didn't go over very well. You should have heard the howls of derision from my fellow students at some of the dialogue. I don't actually remember Kristen so much because I thought Kronstam was the more natural of the performers. His role seemed a little unsympathetic because he was such a "tough" task-master but he was very photogenic and his voice was appealing. It was interesting to learn from Alexandra's book that Kronstam's voice was not dubbed. I am sure his English was good enough, and he had thought about being an actor, so it probably showed.

Does anyone else remember Joffrey's performances of Ruthanna Boris' Cakewalk? That was a true delight - and it made fun of a whole range of dance mannerisms from ballet to vaudeville.

One of my favorite lighter ballets - more playful than laugh out loud - was Jerome Robbins Interplay. The music was blues-jazzy but a lot of the choreography was based on kids' games, including leap frog and wheelbarrow. It was fun to watch, and the dancers seemed to enjoy dancing it. Joffry had it for a while as did ABT MANY years ago.

I finally listened to the trailer. It is funny to hear Hubbe speaking Danish, and then the words "serial killer" come out of his mouth! Am I right in thinking the woman dancing the student is different in the rehearsal as against the performance version? I think the performance version seems less violent than I remember because the victim doesn't seem all that frightened.

Okay - LOL - make my question "the old-fashioned style of men's ballet shoes..."

Am I imagining it, or is Hubbe wearing the old Danish men's ballet shoes? Also I liked seeing the trailer but the performance didn't seem as violent as I remember. (It has been a long time, though.)

BW - There had been an enormous flood of publicity about Nureyev including fantastic covers on the major news magazines. I knew nothing about ballet but it was, indeed, Nureyev that started it all for me! He was breath-taking to watch, and phenomenally fast. Giselle is probably a great ballet for someone unfamiliar with the art, because there is such a good mix of dance, drama and music. Six months later we had the Royal Danish Ballet at the New York State Theatre, and I got great seats for most performances so I began to see ballets from much closer range. At that point, although I still idolized Nureyev, I became an admirer of Henning Kronstam (see Alexandra's fabulous book!) and I would have to say that with all the great dancers I managed to see over the years (Nureyev, Dowell, Bruhn, Barishnikov), Kronstam was the single most accomplished, both as a dancer and actor.

I was just finishing my freshman year in college when the Royal Ballet tour stopped at the Old Met in New York. This was (okay, do the math) May 1965 and the first ballet I saw, from the very top row of the Family Circle, was Giselle with Fonteyn and Nureyev. Could I see much? No. Did I care? Not really - I was just happy to have a ticket! The performance seemed magical. The second act had me spell-bound.

The video/DVD called "Black Tights" includes a performance by Henning Kronstam as the Toreador in Roland Petit's Carmen. The part is tiny and funny and there are some lovely jumps and tours (the kind stop action on a DVD was invented for). The bad news is that the original print recorded onto the DVD/tape was very poor with streaks and drop outs, and the camera only captures HK briefly in close up. But it is still neat to see a part he made his own.