Mel Johnson

To tell you the truth, I don't recall it as being that distinctive from the Messel production's, but that the Queen and Carabosse were more downstage in the '68 version. The King and Queen also had more to do after Aurora goes to sleep in Act I. It filled out some music not exploited by Sergeyev. So, in some ways, the Messel was weaker, and in some places stronger than the later version. Different blocking made for different weights to the action. In some cases they were better, in some cases worse.

It was actually very brief and simple, and replaces a long bunch of crashes and fortissimo in the score. Something along the line of draw back in astonishment, touch his face, and segue right into the beginning of the pas de deux. It beats, "'Oo th' 'ell 'r YOU?"

Oops! Alymer, you've caught me. I just went down to the cellar to look at my souvenir program from that year, and de Nobili and Douboujinsky it is! I stand corrected.

And yes, there is supposed to be an immediate recognition of the Prince by Aurora. One of the problems with the Messel was that it was TOO immediate and the lights went out almost immediately! The Wright mime and the Ashton pas de deux addition lengthened the scene to much better effect. Definitely keepers!

One thing I keep seeing about the "New Messel" production is that it seems faded, next to everyone's recollections. It may even be for the reasons of the fugitiveness of paint and ink colors, where the costume and scene shops had interpreted what they saw all TOO literally. It's happened before.

Perhaps my memory of the production (I haven't looked at anything from it since 1968) has been overwritten by subsequent decor, but that also speaks to the weakness of the set and costumes. If they were that unmemorable, that was a problem. I think that it is inherent about ballets that you have to see them in motion to appreciate comments made about them. And yes, I know that the Medieval period lasted a few centuries. I'd even hazard an opinion that the Early Medieval extends backward into the sixth century CE, but not forward and encompassing past the Renaissance. But now, we're getting into Oscar Wilde territory. What is "Early English"?

non amo te sabidi nec possum dicere quare hoc tantum possum dicere non amo te

Actually, I can tell why I didn't like it. First, it seemed to do some violence to the story as a fairy tale, where the princess fell asleep in the Medieval period, and woke up during the Enlightenment. That's 500 years. It seemed to have channeled Raymonda somewhere along the way. I had yet to see some of the horrors that could be perpetrated on poor Sleeping Beauty. I can wait the whole rest of eternity to see Mark Morris take on the second half of the story about Prince Desiré's mum and dad, who are ogres. (I know, I know, everybody's in-laws....)

Sets did not accommodate familiar blocking. Oman's palette was light and sweet, but insufficiently strong to balance the mighty Petipa choreography. It would have been better for "Ruses d'Amour", to cite another Glazunov/Petipa ballet. I think that there is the whole reason it drew criticism: It was like Glazunov to Tchaikovsky.

Whatever else to say about the "Plantagenet Sleeping Beauty", that pas de deux was wonderful. It's set to an entr'acte written for the original production of 1890, but was cut, along with the panorama, which broke down in rehearsal. The original violinist who was to play it was Leopold Auer, the Maryinsky's concert master.

Multiple pirouettes count as one step, but many turns. The thing about Guinness is, drink enough of it and you won't need to watch somebody else turn, you'll feel like you're doing it yourself, even sitting stock still.

Funny, I get the Journal and don't recall anything as drastic as bankruptcy!

There have been several articles disputing the size of the tract, and the numerous backouts of guarantors since 9-11, but nothing so drastic as actual bankruptcy filing. It must be an upstate thing, this foreclosure business. Everybody up here's getting bitten.

It's tough, in a Stanislavskian way, to build a character of a Gypsy from the time of Louis XIII. To my knowledge, there's no anthropologically-useful primary source account of how they acted and what exactly they did, except move around from place to place, always being "the outsiders". And the music is difficult in a contextual way. When the Russian companies would tour the "Diana and Acteon" pas de deux, they would credit Drigo with the music, except that he was simply the latest one to massage the old Pugni score before the Revolution. Pugni, in his turn, had a liking for lifting favorite tunes from light opera and other popular entertainment and plopping it into his ballet scores. If somebody were to do a musical dissection of the score, as has been done somewhat by ABT with Corsaire, I think we'd see a whole lot of composers that we never knew were there. It's still another example of my "used car" analogy for classical variations. It helps a lot to know who had it before you!

Can you provide any citation or links to materials published elsewhere that testify to the foreclosures and most particularly to the bankruptcy filing? If not, then we have to consider the matter a rumor.

Choosing practice clothes telegraphed the idea of what this presentation was going to be about. The dancer (and her coach) had apparently decided that this performance was going to be more about the choreographic material, and less-than-usual about the virtuosity of the dancer. While wise in this instance, it's a risky ploy. All of the technical problems are out there to view, and while they are present, they're nothing that a little more classtime can't fix. One thing that did worry me a bit was the Makarova-like knee on the front leg in the fourth position allongé which is pushed rather forward of the turnout of the foot. That can lead to some painful problems later on. But I do agree that a lot of young dancers take material that can already speak for itself, and gussy it up with a lot of "fancy" stuff that actually detracts from the performance. Ockham's Razor has been deftly applied here.

I remember seeing the Sylvia pas de deux before it became part of "Pas de deux and Divertissement" and I think I recall that the male variation was the B theme of the valse lente from Act I of the former ballet.

Must not be then, the 1895 one had music by Trubetskoi, and was a four-acter. It was one of the first of Petipa's Neo-Anacreontic ballets, which included Glazunov's "The Seasons".

Wonder if it owes anything to the 1895 Petipa staging of Pygmalion, other than subject matter.

The commentaries ideas would work with bart's idea of a single, "standard" version. The problem today is that the most revolutionary thing a company could do for a modern audience is an Old! Unimproved! Swan Lake or Giselle. Fortunately, the latter has stayed pretty much intact from the 1884 revival by Petipa, but commentarists could go on for a very long time about the distinctive uses of arabesque in each, and that's only one step/pose!

A fine dancer of refined taste, an intellectual powerhouse, and a real gentleman. Farewell, Michael. We shall meet again in the sweet bye-and-bye.

May he have eternal rest,

May light perpetual shine upon him.

For years, The Guinness Book of World Records held that Rowena Jackson had done 121. She stopped because she "got bored". I don't believe that current editions of the book contain that topic.

Re: Balanchine and Joffrey, yes, he would mostly see only his ballet. There was one performance of "Donizetti Variations" he saw the first ballet, too, but left after DV, as it was a frequent #2 ballet on a bill. "Scotch Symphony" was invariably an opener. The first "Square Dance" was before my time, so I don't know what he did there. Later things like "Tarantella" or "Tchakovsky pas de deux" I think he left to his stagers.

When he'd "lend" ballets to Joffrey, like "Square Dance" or "Scotch Symphony", he'd come around once or twice just to put "the seal of approval" on things. Usually, it was in rehearsal, but I was at a performance of the latter when he just "turned up", or maybe it was planned. Mr. Joffrey wouldn't tell.

YES!

Fred Fredburgerchivadze

It seems to be still available, one way or another. Check the Amazon link.

I like the Haydn, and also his #88. I'm less fond of Schubert, but yes, that symphony would make a decent ballet, and I think did for the Atlanta Ballet, Robert Barnett choreographed. I can't remember the title.

I am, however, a bit bemused by the statement about the "wide-bored American (brass) instruments". Around 1890, the standard trumpet was more of a conical bore, and really more like the cornet. (Trumpets have a cylindrical bore, cornets, conical.) The sound of the Victorian-era brass choir was more mellow than it is today, and the virtuouso solo instrument was the mellower cornet, rather than the brighter tone of the trumpet. Euphoniums and basses followed the same suit as well. And as for trombones, well, there's an old conundrum that goes: What's the difference between a chain saw and a trombone? Vibrato.

A reminder to very nice people.

There's still a lawsuit pending against YouTube from VAI and others about copyright violations of protected materials. The suit has not attracted the number of co-plaintiffs that the originator had hoped, but the list of co-defendants could very likely increase exponentially.

http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/abo...etail.aspx?id=5

The Metropolitan Opera Ballet is distinctly second (or maybe even third) to the singers who perform at the Met. An effort was made in the 1960s to ramp up their profile, by appointing Dame Alicia Markova as the director of the company, and for a few seasons they presented freestanding programs, but that practice faded out. They did a not-bad "La Ventana", as I recall. They are mostly frequently used to be the leaders of the supers when there's no ballet in the opera the company sings. (In "Pagliacci", they're frequently the donkey-wranglers)

They're not bad dancers, but the Met is not really committed to supporting ballet in its own company. You frequently find the dancers doing pick-up work, as the opera season is usually cast in bronze, and they have plenty of opportunity to do supplemental work.