Mel Johnson

Yes, Luka, knowing what the ballet you're doing is about is very helpful in building a complete interpretation. There is, however, the danger of overrationalizing the content of a work and its context. Gelsey Kirkland was a notorious example of this tendency. When approaching scenes like the Shades in Bayadere, one has to keep in mind that there is also the tradition of the ballet blanc at work here, and only a little thinking about characterization is necessary. That the characters are ghosts may indeed be sufficient. The academic vocabulary of the work is entitled to carry the heavy load of carrying the work forward. The structure of the work and the individual variations have their own internal drama, and go a long way in entertaining and yes, uplifting, the audience. In regard to Komleva, I've not much liked her Nikiya, as she seems to adopt this facial expression that is, I suppose, intended to be "soulful", but instead comes off looking, especially on video, like "Oy, sotch a GAS I got!" I guess I was spoiled in infancy by Kaleria Fedicheva.

Right on on the 1934 date for the Vainonen Nutcracker, vrsfanatic, but Balanchine hadn't been back to Russia yet when his version was televised. If he had seen the Vainonen at all, it might have been during a western tour by the Bolshoi or Kirov on a "Highlights" program. Of course, as you say, it could have come from other sources, too, or just a case of parallel development.

I really doubt very much that Balanchine would have survived WWII had he remained in Continental Europe. Georgians were "non-Aryans" in the Nazi "race hygiene" theory, which could even find excuses to include the so-called "high Russians" in their list of the Elect.

Isn't an "orgue de Barbarie" a barrel organ?

Oop! You're right, Brendan - it was "Gavotte" (which was done in heeled shoes to "The Glow Worm"). I must have been in a Ravel state of mind when I posted.

The Fred Step was sort of a touchstone for Ashton. "They think it's mine," he'd confide to someone, "but it's hers!" Referring, of course, to Anna Pavlova. A bit cribbed from her "Menuet Antique".

I wonder if, in addition, some of the regular "ebb and flow" of history isn't at work here, as well. A period of mastery, even genius, is followed by a period of good serviceable competency enlivened by a few sparks here and there, but not great fancy demonstrations of what is possible. Ask John Adams. Similar observations could be made at the post-Martins thread besides. And think of the progression of ballet in Europe during the nineteenth century. A period up to the 1860s where there was a major ballerina behind every tree and up every flue, and then a comparatively fallow period.

And among the earlier Joffreyites (60s) was John Jones. I nearly forgot!

Thanks for the links. Saved me a bunch of searching time! Hope Mr. Bell is doing all right these days!

Backtracking a bit to the 1895 version, I've always had a distinct partiality to the midnight blue color that was selected for the original costume for that production. It's a blue that used to be popular for men's evening dress, as in the right light it appears "blacker than black". It is the true Navy blue, and used in US sailors' winter uniforms, dress jackets, and overcoats.

There also used to be something that went to the hunt music in Giselle: "Here she comes, here she comes, here she comes, the Princess Bathilde...!" And the words to "Symphonic Variations" are on a thread in Adult Ballet Students, about Henry Danton. (PS. Oop! Looks like it aged out! OK, here goes: Mar-got FON-teyn, Moira SHEAR-er, Michael SOMES, Brian SHAW, Henry DAN-ton <picking up the next phrase>...and PAM-el-A May.... ;) ) [ 07-07-2001: Message edited by: Mel Johnson ]

And what about Janet Collins, ballerina of the old Metropolitan Opera Ballet? OK, so she did a lot of Aidas, but she also danced quite a few Hours in Gioconda and the Spanish dance in Traviata. Did I miss Sylvester Campbell somewhere in here?

Thank you! Exactly the information I was looking for!

I don't see it as an attack on audiences; in fact, I'm rather puzzled at what could have caused offense?! Observing the audiences of a certain venue will explain a lot about the way a choreographer is seen and written about, as critics are a part of that audience and reflect its tastes and standards rather more often than they lead them. As to an analytical thread on choreography, that could be useful, too, as long as it didn't turn into an Albrecht Dürer-like "Of the Just Shaping of Choreography" in which the shapes and formations are analyzed as geometry with hard and fast laws! And Alexandra, I don't think the 70s Joffrey crowd was the "avant-of-the-month club" - I don't see the same people at, say, the Joyce.

And during the 70s, the Joffrey had Sara Yarborough and Rachel Ganteaume, not to mention Christian Holder, a Joffreyite from the first post-Harkness season. Now my question: Does anyone recall the name of the former NYCB dancer who was discovered several years ago in a NYC hospital? His social worker was able to verify that he had been in the company and had danced in the original production of "Illuminations". He became a sort of "poster old boy" for the Dancers' Relief Fund. He was placed successfully in a retirement home and is still, to the best of my knowledge, alive.

I wouldn't have said anything otherwise, A.M., but I did study with her pop, Vitale Mikhailovitch. ;) Wonderful avuncular old gent!

Part of the reason that the finale to "Firebird" looks like that is that there were supposed to be some stage machinery effects that didn't make it past the first night. Here, the Firebird was supposed to appear above the scene on some sort of contraption that creaked, groaned, and gave every indication of giving way at any moment. It ended up on the "cutting room floor" along with the Spirits of Light and Darkness and their horses. And Isabelle is Mikhail Fokine's granddaughter, not his daughter.

And in the 70s and 80s, there was the Joffrey crowd, who were primarily Greenwich Village-y avant-garde types who loved to have not only Gerald Arpino to talk about as a "hometown boy" but would go crazy over the first crossover Twylas, the Laura Deans, the William Forsythes.... I honestly don't know where this crowd went balletically.

Do you mean the Drigo-orchestrated Tchaikovsky piano miniature, "Un peu de Chopin"? It definitely starts in the cellos, but not a solo, in my recollection.

On the other hand, there is the interpretation that runs: Swans are big, powerful birds, and if Siegfried isn't careful, she's going to do him an injury. Whether it's Odette or Odile, that power can be in evidence and still make for a whole character.

That's a rather tricky question! If you mean the 1877 version, then that's one thing. If you mean the 1895 version edited by Drigo, then it's another. There is a LOT of music that is in the former that is not in the latter, and the proliferation of variations may have something to do with the availability of recordings of the 1877 version (they are, indeed, in the majority). Choreographers can hear good music for dancing, and it's hard to get them reined in from using it for something. That pas de six for the six foreign bridal candidates is hard to resist!

And Raymonda is one of the few ballets to make use of actual historical persons, like Jean de Brienne, Crusader King of Jerusalem, and King Andrew II of Hungary, but it sort of flip-flops their ages in the few productions I've seen. De Brienne was a good twenty-five years Andrew's senior.

Looks to me as though the country is one of those tiny principalities of the Holy Roman Empire not ruled by a king, but any of a number of subordinate titles (Erbprinz, Landgraf, Margraf, etc.) Women under the HRE (Salic Law, you know) could not inherit in their own rights, but might act as regent for a minor heir male, which seems to be the case here. And "majority" could be construed as anything from sixteen to thirty.

Just carry a peashooter from now on, with a liberal supply of peas. ;)

The Conventional Wisdom runs that she had an unhappy experience with the Swan Lake 32 early in her career, and regarded them as a Jonah ever after. Any confirmation or denial of said CW is entirely welcome! She'd do them other places; just not in Black Swan.