Petra

The forthcoming 'Black Swan' will have girl on girl action. However, from the trailer it looks like this behaviour is presented more as male-fantasy style 'dangerous' and 'deviant' rather than plain vanilla 'lesbian'.

No, the tempo is not at all what we are used to these days. The dust jacket of my book, printed in 1965, states that 'the book thunders on from melodrama to melodrama', but it's a very slow-gathering storm. Richard Chamberlain as Dantes? The book describes him as very-dark haired and, after being imprisoned, very pale skin, something like Keanu Reeves. In fact, Reeves would also fit the melancholic-yet-inscrutable look the Count affects.

I'm currently reading "The Count of Monte Cristo" (in English). Somehow I had never read it or even seen any film adaptation. Before that I read John Le Carre's 'A Most Wanted Man. Very interesting to note that the plot of 'Monte Cristo' effectively begins up where 'A Most Wanted Man' ends.

The Pennsylvania Ballet danced James Kudelka's version a few years ago, and I'm not sorry that they're not performing it this season.

Doesn't look like my cup of tea, but the cast list is still impressive. It's fun to see Kunis doing something other than sitcom / rom-com. Was Winona Ryder in the trailer? I didn't spot her.

Going back to the beginning of the thread and the Tilson Thomas anecdote, what would you think about a conductor who went on with the show even though he knew that an audience member was suffering from a severe medical event and was being treated in the auditorium? Itzhak Perlman decided to continue a recent concert of the Israel Philharmonic "so as not to alarm the audience". The audience member was eventually removed from the auditorium and taken to hospital, where he later died. I don't know quite how much of a disturbance was created, but basically I thought Perlman's decision was the right one. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1158622.html

I'm currently reading The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. Before that I read Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. Catching up on early feminist literature. Also dipping into the Percy Jackson books because my son is so absorbed by them.

I saw the Four Seasons' films as a teenager / young adult and they were hugely influential in shaping my ideas and ideals with respect to art, romance and relationships, all the things that are important in life. Thank you, Mr. Rohmer.

Peter Martins got NYCB and SAB - some would say that was pretty generous.

I think it's "New York, I Love You" - a number of short films, similar to "Paris, Je T'aime".

Thanks for that, cinammonswirl. Tess Reichlen seems like a lovely person. She had me at 'The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree' (from the Oct 19 post). However, the NYCB season hasn't even started yet and she sounds exhausted already.

miliosr, that's a great question. However, isn't Cedar Lake more a contemporary / modern dance company rather than a ballet based company? (And let's ignore the dancers' backgrounds and education.) Hopefully, Morphoses and Cedar Lake won't share much repertory. From what I've read about the old Joffrey, not only did it have a company of interesting dancers, but it also had an outstanding repertory. If Morphoses' programmes were made up of 1 Wheeldon + 1 legacy work (Ashton/McMillan/Balanchine) + 1 flavour of the month, I think that would be quite hip.

I've been on bedrest recently so I've been able to do more 'real' reading than usual: - was an inspired choice, because if I hadn't been on pregnancy-related bedrest and if my husband hadn't been half way around the world in a relatively remote location when I read this book, I would probably have dismissed it as a hokey romantic novel and picked a million holes in the time traveling theory. As it was, I allowed myself to wallow in the power of romantic love fueled by physical and temporal distance and a heavy dose of fatalism. - by Ildefonso Falcones is a historical novel about 14th century Catalonia, specifically Barcelona. It was an interesting read because I don't know much about that time or place and although I did get a bit lost between Pedro the Cruel and Pedro the Proud, I certainly learnt a great deal. However, most of the characters were not three dimensional enough and remained medieval stereotypes or ciphers whereas the main character was far too developed for his time (his strong belief in the equality of all men and women seemed to burst into his conscious like Athena from Zeus' head). Anyone else reading at the moment - or are you all too busy getting out of the house and going to live performances ?

I'm daring to post here even though I haven't seen Antichrist - nor do I intend to. Simon, what is difficult for me in watching von Trier's work may be what you find so fascinating: the fact that he actually seems to believe that there is a greater good in suffering, and typically - certainly in his later work, from 'Breaking the Waves' and thereafter - it is female suffering. He believes in the mystery and mysticism of the 'ordeal' - however he doesn't seem to have much interest in finding mysticism or mysteries in more varied aspects of human spirituality. As a woman who is not christian, I find that hard to swallow.

As far as I know, JFK didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize either.

Thanks, Ray. I'm crying over the keyboard. What a glowing personality Anne Frank had - she is so vivid even in those few seconds!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/world/eu...armenia.html?hp This article from the NYT highlighting US involvement in the Turkey-Armenia negotiations is especially interesting today.

Thanks a lot. My YT connection is usually too slow for comfortable viewing, but I'll try to take a look. In any case, from his rep, it sounds like Shpilevsky should be a good Onegin.

Has anyone seen or heard of these dancers? They are guesting with the Israel Ballet next month in Cranko's Onegin. The Israel Ballet has a good track record of guests - the last time they performed Onegin, Larissa Lezhnina danced Tatiana, but I have never heard of these two. (BTW I'm not sure of the spelling. I've only seen the names written in Hebrew script, and the Hebreew was probably transcribed from Cyrillic.)

These were my thoughts exactly. No-one doubts President Obama's credentials as a 'good guy', but I don't think the Nobel Peace Prize is given in order to encourage people, but in order to reward them for past action. In my part of the globe - not a very peaceful part - Obama has not yet achieved anything, nor, as importantly if not more so, has he risked anything in the political sense (he seems to be at greater personal risk than any previous president since Reagan, but those threats are primarily domestic) in order to promote world peace. Edited to add: I have just been reading MLK Jr's Nobel Prize acceptance speech where he talks of "an audacious faith in the future of mankind". I do think that Obama has done much to advance this faith, but it hasn't been in the international arena yet. Bill Clinton would have been a much better choice if the Nobel Peace Prize Committee wanted to honour the United States (or the the US Democratic Party). They might also have considered honouring the Obama Administration as a whole, since so far much of the diplomatic legwork has been carried out by others - Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, George Mitchell, etc.

What is really extraorinary is that the role of Aurora is split between Claudie Algeranove (Rose Adagio) and Mona Inglesby (Vision and Wedding)!! Has anyone ever heard of this division of labour before?

Concerto Barocco. "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake."

dirac, I think that in recent years de Niro's energies have been focused on endeavors other than acting like the Tribeca Film Festival, etc. His success in producing is to a large degree due to his earlier - glorious - career. Also, although the number of dance honorees is greatly diminished, I don't think that their quality has - so it's kind of a trade-off.

I'll probably give this movie a miss. IMO Tarantino was a two-hit wonder (Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, obviously). More charitably, one could say that Tarantino's early work was so bold and innovative that his later work suffers in comparison.

I'm guessing this Giselle dies by her own hand and not from heartbreak (compared for instance to the recent Gelsey clip).