Mel Johnson

Discussions like this one via the net serve a useful purpose by acquainting readers with information regarding the content of a given ballet. From what-all has been said here regarding this particular de Frutos work, I don't think I would go out of my way to see it, but maybe I would be aware of his track record if one of his works appeared on a program I was seeing for some other reason. I don't think that I would be shocked, but I probably wouldn't much enjoy a work with a similar organizing idea. We've been on a really positive exercise in "word-of-mouth", which will probably result in some readers either going or not going to see ED for S & S.

I believe that this is Mordkin's production with the four acts compressed into two, and a lot of consequent editing. That would have left time for divertissements to end the matinee. This was at the old Metropolitan Opera House, as the producer is listed as Gatti-Casazza, and the old monogram of the Metropolitan Opera is in the top center of the cast list. I can't recall whether this production played in the old Hippodrome in NY, or whether it was just the one in London.

They used to be called "tunics", which, of a sort, I guess they were. Of course, the more classically-minded would call one "chiton".

My belief still rests firmly with Nijinska. From her acrobatic interpolations into Sleeping Beauty pas de deux to her material for the Bride in "Les Noces" to the material for the Hostess and the "Garçonne" in "Les Biches" and on into more minor ballets like "Constantia", she brought the off-kilter, but still classically-based to female leads in ballet.

And speaking of Empresses, I've always thought that incidents from the life of the Dowager Empress Cixi of China could make a good ballet plot, whether you think of her as a villianess or a heroine.

Allow me to return to the original question, and reply that IMO, Nijinska invented the modern ballerina. And she did it during the 1920s.

But then, where does it stop? I disagree that print media like books have a censor or rating program, at least in the US. Once you decide to disallow one form of speech, what's to stop whatever authority from disallowing all sorts of licit expression?

Choreographers CAN put onstage whatever they want, as long as they realize that the audience is also free to throw cabbages, tomatoes, the odd piece of offal....

Edgar would doubtless find the idea of a double funeral, replete with simulacrum, screamingly funny!

Yes, "wait and see" is good policy here. But on a further note, a point of order. While the awarding and presentation (when it happens) of the Nobel involves a sort of performance, I believe that Peace as a whole is outside the purview of this board as constituted. I respectfully request that the administrators close this thread. Not take it down, but close it, as some of our discourse is ranging over into politics, which has been forbidden since Ballet Talk's earliest days.

Just FYI, a brief excerpt from the will of Alfred Nobel, setting forth the criteria for the Peace prize: So the standard is EITHER quantitative OR qualitative.

George Gee was a British music hall "eccentric dancer" and singer who fl. 1930. He was in the West End production of On Your Toes in the Bolger role.

I certainly must agree with you at the suddenness with which this prize was awarded. It may indeed be premature. It strikes me that the Nobels are sometimes given with the intent of steering the recipient(s) toward the general goal. I eagerly await the end of the need for the preparation for war, but human nature being what it is, expressed by state or non-state entities, I am somewhat resigned to waiting for "the fullness of time". (PS. A further apology to the board for a factual error on my part. Woodrow Wilson was awarded the Peace Prize in 1919.)

No, he hadn't. Please do not suppose those things which you do not know for a certainty. An error like this weakens all your other arguments. The F-22 Raptor, basically a good fighter-bomber, was left over from R&D done during the FIRST Bush administration, and had been multiply surpassed in all parameters by the F-35 Lightning II, the concept for which, a Joint Strike Fighter, goes all the way back to the Kennedy administration.

Perhaps surprising at this stage of his administration, but a welcome and pleasant surprise nonetheless. First sitting US President to be awarded the Peace Prize since Theodore Roosevelt.

Maybe they do, and maybe they don't, but "reach exceeds grasp" might just be applicable in this example.

At Ballet Talk for Dancers, we generally use Gail Grant's Dictionary and Technical Manual of Ballet as a general reference for ballet terminology. It contains differing terminology from several different methods of ballet training. In Australia, I believe that Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) is dominant, so Rhonda Ryman's Dictionary of Classical Ballet Terminology will probably come in handy, too.

Always a favorite "fireworks" number for pops concerts, in the overture to Bernstein's Candide the practice has been springing up in the last decade for the conductor to give the first downbeat, conduct a few measures, then casually walk off the stage, leaving the orchestra to negotiate the sometimes-tricky wandering time signatures, and when the piece is finished to walk just as casually to the podium and give the cut-off. I believe that the practice started with the 1988 revival, where the conductor does not enter formally, but hides from the audience, letting the concertmaster kick things off. The cut-off is given by Voltaire/Dr. Pangloss. The conductor assumes control for "Life is Happiness".

When I see petitions on whatever subject signed by people in the performing arts, if it's not about performing arts, I just remember that they have a right to opinions, too, but that when they get away from performing arts, their ideas are no better than anybody else's. Some of them are very bright, some are incredibly dumb, some have well-attuned sensibility on morals and ethics, some don't. When we get into matters of law, artists are no more right than any of the rest of us, and this is a matter of law. Justice is out there somewhere, but it's going to take at least one court to figure out where it is, and how to address it.

It is indeed poignant to see that the victim in the case is probably the only one to have contact with this sordid mess who has enhanced her reputation and estimability by her conduct during this phase of it. Her statements have been the most respectable things about it. I had intended to use the phrase "operation of the law" as an irregular locution to subsume the whole range of due process. The execution part is one of the things that drives me birds about it. Just as Polanski gets no skating privileges from long delay (the matter MUST be brought before a court), the prosecution has done itself no favors in allowing a pursuit to drag on for such a long time. Legal precedent on desuetude vitiates a prosecution. The court which will sort it all out will have its hands full. I suppose I am moved to give a Mercutian "a plague o' both your houses" to both the subject and the state.

I'm quite at home with dealing with opinions on history, art, military science and even politics without waxing fell and wroth, but this subject is none of those. It is current events and about the present operation of the law. My concern is for the civil rights of everyone, and the right of the individual against the power of the state. This whole thing carries with it the potential for endless mischief against the people and is not merely the simple pursuit and apprehension of a felon. And no, I will not indulge in hypothetical examples. Your father was a wise man, Drew.

Yes, it is, and further, the original conviction and the flight are two separate issues. Even though they do have a point of contact, flight is another whole matter. Usually, when we see those FBI posters seeking persons for interstate flight, that charge is not pursued once the suspect has been apprehended and returned to his/her jurisdiction for trial on the original charge. Some states may be different, Louisiana, for one, but NY and CA are very similar.

Polanski IS guilty of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor by virtue of a plea of guilty thirty-one years ago. What he has further to answer is unlawful flight to avoid due process. That would have been open-and-shut had it not been for the infuriating nonfeasance of the LA County DA's office. That's what drives me up a wall! It has been so long delayed that now Polanski may now have a valid defense in that his apprehension was so long after the deed. Even medieval serfs had a statute of limitations if they escaped from their service. That is, in part, where the modern concept comes from. Our hypothetical hole-digger might well have been long gone and forgotten by this time, and no one would much care were he apprehended now.

My overall take on the situation involves some frustration with the spectacle of a prosecutor's office taking such a lazy attitude toward the pursuit of a fugitive. True, Polanski isn't Jean Valjean, and the DA's office is not Inspector Javert, but some aspects of that conflict enter this story. The DA's office has published a timeline with the express purpose of demonstrating the diligence with which they have pursued Polanski. To me, it looks more like they phoned their chase in, and never bothered to do more than to demonstrate that they still knew about the outstanding charges. Such torpor! In order for justice to be justly served, speedy trial is guaranteed to defendants in order that their rights may be efficiently and effectively protected. In order that speedy trial may be effected, speedy investigation, pursuit and capture of a suspect is demanded of the people, that their right to complain and their evidence may be preserved. Justice is not well-served when a case is spread out into four decades.

One of my early posts on this thread was to question whether the warrant was drawn on the sex charge or the flight. The answer seems to be somewhere inbetween, as Swiss authorities have said that they wouldn't arrest Polanski earlier because the statute of limitations had run out. Then they said that they would arrest, as a revised extradition treaty made paedophilia cases exempt from statute of limitation, which begot my question regarding ex post facto.