Petra

"As for Rhett and Scarlett, I've always known in my heart that they'll get back together. They are soulmates. It's too bad it took Scarlett 12 years to figure that out, but I have always been certain that they belong together and eventually Scarlett will win him back." I totally agree

canbelto, it looks like all the dancers - both men and women - are wearing platinum wigs in Ballet Imperial. Thank for the link. That gallery also has pics from Afternoon of a Faun, showing two dancers with very long hair - the blonde Sarah Lamb and the brunette Roberta Marquez. I wonder what conditioner Marquez uses. her hair is incredibly lustrous. In recent interviews, Natalie Portman who shaved her head for her latest movie 'V for Vendetta' and is keeping it quite short has said similar things about feeling mature and not giving into feminine sterotypes, etc.

Thank you so much to chiapuris and Natalia for your detailed and evocative reviews.

I agree, sylphide. The lovely dancer is clearly a woman and not a 'girl'. I'm also impressed that the Australian Ballet used a non-Caucasian dancer in the ad, given the current racial tensions in Australia.

Amy, this program is part of PA Ballet's Family Matinee series this year, and it was my son's first non-Nutcracker ballet. (Next month, we'll see Balanchine's Midsummer Night's Dream.) He loved the swim fins, the armonica and the decor. He danced to the music a little bit - there was no one directly behind us, so I think that was ok, but he did lose concentration during the Spark and Electricity sections. He enjoyed the Firebird more. Interestingly, he was a bit scared by the Fokine version we saw on video, but not by the Kudelka version. I suppose you could say that Kudelka's Firebird is Disney-fied.

Amy, that must have been an amazing experience. To answer your questions: yes, they retained the armonica solo at the beginning and and the ghost house came together at the end - those are very magical and mysterious moments. Regarding the dancers you asked about, Laura Bowman who led the Swim Fins section is very petite and bubbly. She always looks like she is having a great time on stage. I saw Julie Diana and James Ihde in Spark/Electricity. I'm not sure if you understand my meaning, but I would call them regal rather than sumptuous. My son (aged 4 this week) said they looked like they were from "the olden days".

bart, I honestly don't know how Kudelka, who I'm assuming is an accomplished choreographer, managed to mess things up so much. However, I don't think it's an easy ballet to remake or choreograph - the music is glorious but rigorous and the story is not that straightforward. Who and what is the Firebird and what is her relationship to Ivan and to Kastchei are complex questions in the Fokine version and, according to recent discussions on the NYCB threads, in the Balanchine version. Based on my single viewing, the Kudelka version doesn't even pose these questions.

I saw the Sat matinee. This program is very uneven - one half is wonderful and the other half is a complete dud (IMO, of course). I loved Franklin Court. Christopher D'Amboise's starting point was to abstract some of Ben Franklin's inventions/discoveries (Bifocals, Spark, Swim Fins and Electricity), just as the present-day Franklin Court is an abstraction of Franklin's house. For those who haven't been bludgeoned by Philadelphia's propaganda machine celebrating the 300th year of Franklin's birth, the present-day Franklin Court has a "ghost" construction of steel girders over the location of Franklin's house. The decor for the ballet is a number of steel girders which hang above the stage and are moved (designed by Robert Venturi, who designed the "real" Franklin Court). At the end of the ballet, they form the shape of the "real" Franklin Court. The choreography is lovely and very fluent. Parts of it - mainly the ensembles and the Spark and Electricity - evoke an 18th century feel, as they combine formality with wit. I loved that the concepts of Spark and Electricty were illustrated by a couple falling in love (but I'm a sucker for those kind of literary conceits). The dancers were delightful - they danced with the abandon that I looked for and didn't find last month with the Balanchine program. Especially impressive were Matthew Neenan (he danced the Bifocals male lead and had a very difficult and lengthy solo. Up to now, I've known him mainly as a choreographer) and Abigail Mentzer (as the lead demi-soloist . She has a ton of charisma) Julie Diana was beautiful as the woman in Spark and Electricity - she manages to be both serene and witty at the same time. It helps that she looks like a Jane Austen heroine, of course. James Kudelka's The Firebird, on the other hand, was dreadful. I rarely write bad reviews here but this time I just can't help it. I saw the original on DVD two weeks ago and the difference between the two versions is unbelievable. First of all, there is very little dancing in Kudelka's version. Even the Firebird doesn't seem to do much. The only ones who get more dancing in this version are those bizarre girls with Chinese straw hats, corn rows, crinoline skirts, pantaloons and pointe shoes Oh yes, those are the princesses Also, either the story doesn't make sense or it is told very poorly. For instance, Prince Ivan doesn't seem to have caught the Firebird because she keeps on dancing away from him, so why does she give him the feather and why does the Firebird dance with the other creatures who inhabit the forest. Isn't she supposed to be a kind of "untouchable"?The main reason I wa asking myself all these questions is because the ballet itself is boring, boring, boring. The lavish decor and costumes did nothing to distract me; in fact, I found them very irritating becuase I wish someone had taken the money invested in this production and put it somewhere else. Riolama Lorenzo, James Ihde and Amy Aldridge danced the leads, but the choreography did not allow them to shine.

Wow - the corps will be getting an intensive workout next season with Nutcracker, Serenade, Giselle and Sleeping Beauty. Has anyone seen PA Ballet's Giselle and Sleeping Beauty?

I am happy to agree with the above. I've liked Colucci especially in Prodigal Son and Nine Sinatra Songs. Also there are very few soloists on the roster.

Thanks.

Will NYCB be performing in Saratoga this summer? I couldn't find any info on either the NYCB or the SPAC websites.

I saw the Thursday night performance. I had never seen any of these ballets before. My main complaint is that each one of the ballets was too short. I would have been very happy to have seen the Third Movement of Western Symphony too. To my great surprise, Theme and Variations was the ballet I least liked. The dancers looked like they were being very careful which wasn't what I had expected. The ballet also suffered IMO from a lack of scenery. The aura of grandeur that I was expecting just wasn't there. I wish the company could perform this again next year, so that they could work at it some more. I loved The Prodigal Son. The aesthetic with the blazingly colorful Kandinsky-esque sets and costumes is very appealing and I also like the stylized movement. In a weird way, it reminded me of Martha Graham's ballets. Philip Colucci was outstanding as the title character. He has boyish looks, so he was a vulnerable and susceptible Prodigal. This is probably a breakout performance for Colucci. Western Symphony looked like it was a lot of fun for audience and dancers alike. I can't single out any dancers as it was all I could do just to concentrate on the choreography. However it was definitely Riolama Lorenzo's night for outlandish headresses, as she was the Siren and then began the Fourth Movement in WS with a fancy sun bonnet. I wish I could have seen this program again, but it was avery short run and unfortunately, the night I went, the theatre was not full at all.

Well, Brokeback Mountain is a very good movie, but ultimately the romance didn't move me the way it obviously moved others. I don't understand why Ennis and Jack were not prepared to risk everything and live together, why they weren't prepared to do what Romeo and Juliet did. At certain moments, I felt downright angry with Ennis and Jack, as they sacrificied other people's happiness as well as their own. That said, the movie itself was masterfully done as were all the Ang Lee movies I've seen. (I didn't see the Hulk.) A few comments on some of the links in this thread: - I agree that the lovers only seem happy in the wide open, but the wide open is a place to escape to, not to actually live. The fact that they are only happy there doesn't emphasize the 'naturalness' of their love so much as it does the doomed nature of their love. Quite clearly, love which is outside the 'norm' can be accepted only in a heterogenous urban environment. - The NYRB review was excellent but it also begs the question - is the audience too liberal for this movie? Are we so colorblind as not to notice that it is only about gay love and not about universal human behaviour? If so, isn't this a good thing? - speaking of chauvinist tendencies, in the year 2005, I don't think that any movie wins a European film festival for representing the "heart of America", so I really don' think that BM is successful because it brings homosexuality into the "heart of America".

In the current USA Vogue (w/Drew Barrymore on the cover), Irina Dvorovenko is feautured in an ad for Lenscrafters. Rather odd to see a dancer wearing ballet clothes and glasses. If I recall correctly, Irina is quoted as saying somehting like "In ballet, the whole point is to see"... I assume this ad is running in other magazines too.

Lovely interview - Sara Mearns must be such a gracious person.

The Academy sure does love me - I think the only three movies I saw in a cinema this year were Crash, Munich and Brokeback Mountain. I'm still working out my thoughts about BM, but it isn't my favorite Ang Lee movie (The Ice Storm is probably my favorite of his more recent movies). Munich OTOH exceeded my expectations and I would like to see it win. I thought Crash was derivative - reminded me too much of Magnolia, Grand Canyon and a half dozen Robert Altman movies.

After being rather disappointed with Wheeldon's Swan Lake and missing Nutcracker this year, I'm really looking forward to this programme. I'll be seeing the Thursday performance and I'm especially excited about Philip Colucci as the Prodigal Son - he was terrific in Tharps' Nine Sinatra Songs last season (I can't remember the name of his number off the top of my head, but I think it was the 'prom' dance). Also excited to see Ochoa in Theme and Variations - she never seems to be cast in the performances I go to.

I've only skimmed this thread as I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain yet, but based on tonight's Golden Globes awards, Brokeback hasn't suffered from any backlash.

Absolutely agree with this statement. My husband and I saw "Munich" last week and we had to agree to disagree about this movie, even though we usually enjoy the same movies. I think the last movie we disagreed so strongly about was Schindler's List... I thought "Munich" was an incredibly impressive movie - cinematically, emotionally and intellectually. Have to say that my reaction is very unreliable - as a left-wing Zionist Israeli currently living in the US this movie hit very close to home. I was in tears within the first 5 minutes. My husband OTOH couldn't get over the plot holes - there is a lot the viewer has to take on trust. Both of us were impressed by the 'period' details, and Spielberg certainly provided employment for every Israeli screen actor. The last shot is brilliant.

I am sitting Nutcracker out this season, but my husband and son (almost 4) went to the 11 a.m. matinee last Saturday (Dec 10). They both had an amazing time. This was my son's first real ballet and I am overjoyed that he was able to experience such a magical production! It even passed the ultimate pre-schooler's test - my son ate one 'snack' in the middle of the party scene, the rest of the time he was completely engrossed!

Or perhaps "merely" Ballet Master of NYCB...

I love John Fowles and his conceits - I read The Magus when I was in high school so I found it purely fascinating. Had I been older, I would have been infuriated too. In addition, I learnt a lot about my father from reading The Magus (although he is much younger than John Fowles/Nicolas Urfe and their life stories completely different). Another favourite of mine is The Ebony Tower, a collection of short stories, which one the one hand, show off his range and yet, focus on the same themes that crop up in almost all his work.

To take it away from ballet and back to the 'totality of the picture' that sandik and bart were referring to: My knee-jerk Luddite reaction would be to agree that you see a much wider picture by reading the print version, however today I came across an opposite example. The website of the Israeli broad-sheet Ha'Aretz has a 'special' on the 10th anniversary of the assasination of Israeli PM Itzhak Rabin. At the click of a mouse, you can see all the articles that have been published this week in the various sections of the paper (book review, op-ed, magazine, etc.) on the topic and there is also a link to the articles published on Nov 5, 1995, the day after the assasination. This is an extreme example, as the topic is of obvious interest to every person who reads Ha'Aretz, but it has certainly led me to read some articles that I would otherwise not have come across in my cursory daily glance at the website headlines (and in-depth reading of the art, leisure and legal pages ).

Great list, canbelto. I'd add The Great Dictator to the list of Black Comedies.