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Mel Johnson

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About Mel Johnson

  • Birthday 06/19/1948

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  • Connection to/interest in ballet** (Please describe. Examples: fan, teacher, dancer, writer, avid balletgoer)
    Museum curator, ballet teacher.
  • City**
    Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY

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  1. It was recorded by Richard Bonynge in the '60s and should still be available. Check the amazon.com link.
  2. His name was Alexander Krein, as stated above.
  3. Mel Johnson

    Myrtha

    She has saved Albrecht from death, thus violating the Curse of the Wilis. She will doubtless fare badly under Myrtha for the rest of time, unless Higher Power takes her out of the equation. And another thing, she is compelled to rise from the dead, but of her own will, she returns there. Another sacrifice. Her salvation by assumption is fairly well-documented in early productions, and by pictures of the stage machinery backstage. She doesn't do what she does expecting to be redeemed afterwards, she does it out of Love!
  4. Mel Johnson

    Myrtha

    Unless, of course, she is overruled by the BIG Decider. Like many Romantic works, this ballet has its anti-clerical voice, but believes in a just God. Lesser beings interpret justice and right, but the last decision is made by divine action.
  5. Mel Johnson

    Myrtha

    It provides an opportunity for Giselle to practice self-sacrifice. If you prefer versions which show or strongly suggest that she ascends to Heaven, then her Christ-like sacrifice is blessed and redemptive, whatever the mortal authority says.
  6. Swimsuit is good! "Facsimile" is set on a beach.
  7. It's actually a Hoffman thing. It's in the original libretto. And let's not forget the duck in the aforementioned "Peter and the Wolf"!
  8. Current opera standards owe a lot to Feodor Chaliapin (another Diaghilev star), who along with Fokine, objected to the stop and bow procedure onstage in their particular discipline. In opera, the keep-it-rolling ethos among the post-Wagnerians helped Chaliapin. Fokine didn't have another reform movement to back him up, so ballet bows stayed in, if somewhat modified. (MODIFIED rapture! - Nanki-Poo)
  9. I've been in productions where she clearly does not come anywhere near stabbing herself, and those where she very plainly does! In fact, one of the Giselles was so emphatic that she broke the skin and started to bleed all over her nice costume, leading to much consternation in the wardrobe department! But as leonid says, we have to know what production is being followed, and from where. The Marius Petipa revival has confused matters somewhat, even if brother Lucien was the first Albrecht. At any rate, we never see a priest around, so maybe the assumption is that she died without last rites, which at the time was also sufficient to keep you out of consecrated ground.
  10. These are points which still excite controversy even down to today. We've discussed whether Giselle dies a suicide or of a broken heart here, but without coming to a final conclusion, and perhaps we shouldn't. To be sure, Gautier was part of the anti-clericalism of a frequently-revolutionary society, and showing Giselle's remains excluded from consecrated ground in the churchyard would be a good device to show an uncaring church. Perhaps her grave marker should be some sort of rustic cross, obviously crafted by her neighbors, showing their true compassion for her. Although Gautier may have been anti-clerical, he does not seem to have been an anti-theist. In several works, he indicates that the church gets in the way of the True Words of their religion, so that is one reason why this ballet can yet develop some passionate debates.
  11. In the matter of encores, I feel that too much attention cannot be paid to the influence of Mikhail Fokine on the practice. He didn't care for stopping a show to do a certain set-piece over again, making no visual and dramatic sense. He was joined in this opinion on the opera side of the house by Feodor Chaliapin. Both worked for Diaghilev in Paris, so the practices of that company must not be overlooked either.
  12. In the long ballet tradition, encores are very rarely encountered. Whether it's in reaction to opera tradition, or an independent development, I can't say, but encores in ballet are exceptional.
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