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Last one of the day! (More to come later this week) American Ballet Theatre: Nutcracker (Baryshnikov, Kirkland) Choreography by Mikhail Baryshnikov Ah dear, the infamous Clara/Prince/Drosselmeyer love triangle Nutcracker. First of all, this is a Nutcracker film that seemed very specifically made for the film studios. So I'm not sure how a lot of the effects that were in the film would have played out onstage, in a regular holiday performance. But whatever the case, this is certainly one of the most, uh, memorable Nutcrackers. Mikhail Baryshnikov follows his compatriot Rudolf Nureyev in borrowing heavily from Vainonen (the snowflakes scene and Waltz of the Flowers), but adding his own "creepy" twist. Whereas Vainonen remade Nutcracker as a picture postcard romantic fantasy, and Nureyev made it into sort of a bad dream, Baryshnikov makes this Nutcracker very clearly about Clara's sexual awakening. Except not with the Prince so much. From the very first scene, it's clear that the relationship between Drosselmeyer and Clara is "special." It's never explicit, but it's just one of those things that's there, you can feel it, and it makes me uncomfortable. Moreover, there are no children anywhere in the ballet, all the children in the party scene are danced by adults. In the second act the conflict Clara feels between the Prince and Drosselmeyer is made more explicit in the grand pas de deux. Under Baryshnikov's choreography, the pas de deux becomes a pas de trois, with Drosselmeyer constantly intruding on Clara and the Prince. Why does he do this? Is he jealous? Am I projecting because Gelsey Kirkland is that kind of intense actress for whom simple girlishness seemed impossible? Whatever the case is, as I said, I felt uncomfortable again, and this level of discomfort made me actually unable to really evaluate the ballet. The ick factor was too strong. The ending of the ballet is extremely melancholy. As Clara "wakes up" the Prince backs away from her and eventually disappears, as Giselle does from Albrecht. Clara wakes up and there is no indication this dream was a happy one. She stares in the window and the snow falls. Even though the basic premise of this Nutcracker made me really icky, there are several things I loved about the video. One is of course Gelsey Kirkland. I treasure snippets of her dancing, although the intensity with which she dances Clara makes me wonder if the film would have worked better with a simpler, less gifted ballerina. Maybe I wouldn't have felt such a strong sexual undercurrent between Drosselmeyer and Clara had the Clara been a doll-like soubrette who smiled a lot. I also love Baryshnikov's dancing, although this isn't much of a role for him. The costumes and scenery are all very pretty, as is Gelsey Kirkland's hair. Wow. I want hair like Gelsey's. Other things about the film made me curious. I understand there was a time limit, so they had to cut parts of the score, most notably the Arab dance. Did anyone see the production onstage with the Arab dance?

Moving on ... San Francisco Ballet: Nutcracker Large cast: Uncle Drosselmeyer: Damian Smith Clara: Elizabeth Powell Dream Clara: Maria Kochetkova The Nutcracker Prince: Davit Karapetyan Mouse King: David Arce Snow Queen: Yuan Yuan Tan Snow King: Pierre-François Vilanoba Sugar Plum Fairy: Vanessa Zahorian Choreography by Helgi Tomasson Helgi Tomasson's Nutcracker has one of the best first acts I've ever seen, with one of the ... well, dullest Act 2's. The juxtaposition is alarming -- all the charm and magic in Act 1 disappears in an Act 2 that's muddled in concept, joyless and bare-bones in decor, and basically a huge let-down. This Nutcracker is updated to San Francisco's World Fair in 1915, and the overture has charming pictures of San Francisco around that time period super-imposed on the scrim. The ballet then starts with a very charming street scene, in which Drosselmeyer is shown carefully preparing his toys and magic tricks. The slice-of-life is very well maintained throughout the street scene, and it immediately gives one the warm-fuzzies. (The only other Nutcracker I can think of with such a charming intro is Balanchine having Marie and Fritz fight for a view through a door where their parents are preparing for the party.) The party scene is also very charmingly staged. Real children (including a child Clara) are just darling, and Claro Blanco as the Ballerina Doll was adorable. The mouse scene was staged with more humor than actual menace (a nod to Tomasson's mentor Balanchine perhaps, who also made his mice cute and silly). One change they had was Clara springs a mouse trap on the Mouse King to kill him. I didn't so much like this, I prefer Clara throwing the shoe, but as a stage effect it worked well, and I also liked the Mouse King crawling down the trap door head first to die. The snow scene was loveliest of all. Yes having a Snow Queen and King was a bit cheesy, but Yuan Yuan Tian danced so well, who cares? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrYFJ2XNHEE Act 2 was when it all started to go downhill. First of all, this Kingdom of the Sweets is the drabbest, barest kingdom in the world. It seemed to be framed in a spare, metallic, set where the lighting of the background changed throughout the act. Only a dark ribbon framing the top of the set indicated that this was the Kingdom of the Sweets. Throughout the act the only people watching the proceedings are Clara, Drosselmeyer, and two guards dressed in olive green uniforms. In the beginning, when child fairies and butterflies populated the stage, and they looked more at home in Midsummer's Night Dream than Nutcracker. The diverissements choreography I generally liked. I particularly liked the Marzipan trio, they waved around ribbons with charming skill. Mother Ginger was back too. There's also a cute dancing bear. But where this Nutcracker really messes up is that throughout Act 2, the child Clara is sitting onstage. But Helgi Tomasson also wants the adult Clara to dance the grand pas de deux. What does he do? Well the Sugar Plum Fairy instead dances only the Waltz of the Flowers. In other words, it's as if the SPF becomes the Dewdrop (the choreography is also remarkably similar to Balanchine's choreography for the Dewdrop). Then, for the grand pas de deux, suddenly, the adult Clara just walks out of an enclosed gazebo-like structure that's been wheeled onstage, and she dances the grand pas de deux with her Prince. This transition is very very muddled, and I feel it's Tomasson trying to have it both ways -- the purity of a child Clara and a Clara that can get on pointe and dance a big number. It just doesn't work. (Neither does the puke-gold tutu the adult Clara is wearing.) The actual choreography of the grand pas de deux is almost an exact replica of Balanchine's, complete with the "jump to shoulder" lifts. It's a shame because the quality of dancing in this video is remarkably high. Maria Kochetkova is a very graceful adult Clara, and has a very creamy way of shaping the phrases of the music. Vanessa Zahorian is given very little to do but she is charming with a nice, bouncy jump. Davit Karapetyan is a very regal prince, and he accomplishes impressive turns in the air. But in the end, the details do matter even in a holiday staple like Nutcracker. Such a dark, joyless decor for Act 2 matters, as does the quick-switch between child and adult Clara.

Next up: Paris Opera Ballet: Nutcracker (Elisabeth Maurin, Laurent Hilaire) Choreography by Rudolf Nureyev After the sweetly romantic Vainonen version, what a difference this Nutcracker is. Nureyev owes a lot to Vainonen in terms of choreography and concept. The concept of deleting the Sugar Plum Fairy and having Clara and the Prince fall in love in Act 2 is straight from Vainonen. The snowflakes scene is an exact replica. Also, in Act 2 there is supposed to be an introduction by the SPF to the Kingdom of the Sweets. But when the SPF is deleted, what to do? Vainonen has the Prince battling it out with bats in the beginning of Act 2. Nureyev has it too, but the bats are much bigger and the version the scene is much more graphic. The beginning of the Grand pas de deux has Clara and the Prince mirroring each other in a series of arabesques, exactly like the Vainonen version. The pas de trois marzipan dance is also lifted straight from Vainonen. But after that the similarities end. Nureyev's version of the Nutcracker is one of the grimmest I've ever seen. It plays like a bad dream, which I suspect was the concept. The chief "concept" of this ballet is that the Drosselmeyer and the Prince are a duel role. So when Clara dreams of marrying the Prince in Act 2 is she fulfilling some Freudian dream that she has about her uncle? Or was it yet another case of Nureyev wanting more dancing opportunities for the male? Ugh if I have to ask these questions then this Nutcracker already falls to the bottom of my favorites. Other ways this Nutcracker is not very kid-friendly: during the Battle of the Mice, the mice actually surround her in a way that's very menacing and the mice tear at Clara's dress and parts of her dress slips off. The whole thing looks like ... sexual assault. Here's a different performance from 1968 but the same Nureyev production: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ-DFUICVSk The awakening pas de deux between Clara and the Prince eschews the soft "swelling arabesque" romance of the Vainonen version and instead Nureyev fills this quiet enchanting moment with a whole bunch of busy steps. Act 2, until the Waltz of the Flowers, has no change in decor to indicate any Kingdom of the Sweets, it just looks like Clara's living room with the back walls opened up. The divertissements are danced by various people in Clara's life, so it's as if she's literally dreaming about them. The Waltz of the Flowers also has dancing couples but the choreography has a stiffness to it that looks less like ballroom waltzing than a formal Louis XIII court dance. It lacks sweep and charm. I could go on and on with the odd touches in this Nutcracker but you get the point. If the Vainonen costumes are a little too pink for my taste, the costumes for Nureyev's production seem more out of Sleeping Beauty than Nutcracker. In the Waltz of the Flowers everyone is dressed in stiff gold tutus and suits and stiff powdered white wigs. The video does have its strong suits though. There are real children dancing in the party scene and as the toy soldiers, and I always love seeing children in the Nutcracker. The mouse/soldier scene is well-choreographed. I also liked the woodsy, outdoorsy setting for the Snow scene. The POB corps de ballet remain one of the best in the world. The dancing on the parts of Maurin and Hilaire are superb. Maurin is a rather serious Clara, but she also looks believably girlish and most of all, her doe-eyed romanticism *almost* makes Nureyev's concept of the duel Drosselmeyer/Prince role less creepy. The best moment of Nureyev's choreography comes in the Grand pas de deux. There is a lot of mirror dancing (as was his wont) but it also features a thrilling moment when Clara is thrown sideways into the air, she does a little twist, and is re-caught by her Prince. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do7WmxUUfXA The moment is better done by Park/Nuryeyev than by Maurin/Hilaire but it does finally provide a moment of magic in this otherwise dreary Nutcracker.

Here are the waltzing couples in Waltz of the Flowers: Very lovely and ballroomish.

Since this seems to be all the rage I decided to do my own Nutcrackathon and pull out the various videos of Nutcracker I have on my shelf, and really watch them. Up first: Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet - Nutcracker (Larissa Lezhnina, Viktor Baranov) Choreography by Vassily Vainonen This is one of the more inoffensive Nutcracker videos, it's very pretty. All sweetness and love and a surfeit of pink. Vainonen's choreography is not always the most exciting, but it at least really creates a very sweet, romantic atmosphere at all times. The positives of the video are Larissa Lezhnina as Masha and Viktor Baranov as the Prince, and the always lovely Mariinsky corps de ballet, especially in the Snow scene and Waltz of the Flowers. Lezhnina is one of the rare adults who actually looks like a little girl, and Viktor Baranov strongly resembles Mikhail Baryshnikov both in looks and style. They make a nice couple. I particularly like how in the beginning of the Grand pas de deux they mirror each other in a series of beautifully placed arabesques. I like Vainonen's choreography a lot for the Waltz of the Flowers -- he seems to be incorporating some steps of actual ballroom waltz into the ballet, with its rows of dancing couples sweeping across the stage to Tchaikovsky's lilting melody, and the effect is very festive indeed. That being said, there were a couple things which annoyed me about the video. One is the fact that in the Party scene there's little sense of a real family party. Everything seems a bit too grand, as if this were the Emperor's ball rather than a Christmas gathering. Balanchine's Nutcracker still is the gold standard in setting the tone of a real party. Second of all, there was a decision to have all the "children" danced by adults, and even more strangely, to have all the boys danced by female corps de ballet in long, Beatles-like wigs and pants. The Vaganova Academy has plenty of children, why not use them in the party scene? (And they have real boys too.) Second of all, a Nutcracker that decides to delete the Sugar Plum Fairy and simply make Act 2 about the Love between Masha and the Prince better create a real romantic setting. Vainonen's choreography doesn't do that -- Masha and her Prince don't have much to do until the Grand pas de deux, but in this case it's more a pas de six as Masha has four other cavaliers dancing alongside her and the Prince. It gave Larissa Lezhnina a good chance to be lifted around but lost some sense of romantic intimacy. I also wonder why Soviet choreographers had to delete so much original Ivanov choreography, such as the Prince's mime, the dance of the hoops and Mother Ginger, things that were lovingly preserved in the Balanchine production. One very cool thing was I read in MacCauley's Nutcracker chronicles how in the Moscow Classical Ballet's version: Lezhnina does the exact same thing in her first pas de deux with the Prince and I agree, it is a lovely effect. However, this device of "plunging arabesque = LOVE" was used again ... and again. So by the umpteenth time I saw it, it had lost its initial romantic glow. Still ... compared to some of the Nutcrackers I have in my video collection, this one is downright inoffensive, and in some cases, very sweetly pretty.

She is indeed wonderful and a "can-do" dancer. It's just that her face is more 'queenly' -- with strong angular features -- than sweet ingenue, which is of importance to many in the audience. Terioshkina is perfect in every way for Mirtha, as was Lopatkina back in the 90s. There's more to it than being able to do the steps. Vishneva and Obraztsova are the two Mariinsky ballerinas who have it all - perfect 'ingenue' faces and physiques for Giselle, lovely technique, strong acting, musicality. I might add that the best Giselles I've seen are able to transform themselves from shy ingenue to a more mature, otherworldly ghost in Act 2. I wish Daria Pavlenko was coming along, but didn't she just have a baby? Maybe she doesn't want to tour to the U.S. because of her young family.

He sort of did a summary of his Nutcracker chronicles, and I thought this was maybe my favorite description of all: No matter what one might think of his snarkiness towards dancers he doesn't like, AM really does have a way with words when describing ballet.

I've already seen Vishneva's Giselle at the ABT, I think Tereshkina is more of a Myrtha type than a Giselle, I've seen clips of Lopatkina's Giselle and I wasn't impressed, and let's not mention Somova. So I guess I'll be saving my money.

I'm not saying she earned those comments. They were very harsh. But I'm saying that there are many many ballet dancers who don't have ideal figures (long neck, long limbs, short torso, arched feet), who can make it work by the strength of their dancing. Also, being out of shape is a different matter from not having an ideal figure.

To use another example, Sara Mearns is another prominent NYCB dancer that doesn't have a very conventional ballerina figure. She's a bit thick all around. But she moves with an elegance and grace that quickly make me forget her figure. As a general rule, if I'm fixated on a performer's physical shortcomings, that performer is usually not giving a very impressive performance.

Here's another thought: ballet dancers are performers, and the ability of any great performer is to create an illusion that will hide his or her shortcomings. I've seen enough ballerinas offstage to know that they look very different onstage. Same with models or actors/actresses. Perhaps the problem with Ringer and Angle isn't just that they're out of shape (I believe Ringer returned from maternity leave) but that they're not riveting enough as performers to make one forget the physical shortcomings? Opera is very different from ballet but I once saw Robert Alagna up close. He looked middle-aged, short, and thick around the waist. Onstage, he cleverly hides his shortness by kneeling during love scenes with the soprano. But most of all, he's able to fool the audience into thinking that he's an ardent young man in love because he's a great performer. But just talking about dancers today, many of them have physical qualities that might be considered less than ideal. Ashley Bouder is on the stocky side for a ballerina, Alina Cojocaru has unappealing feet, Herman Cornejo is very short, etc. When I watch them onstage though I quickly forget those shortcomings because they're great performers.

I think what the Nutcracker chronicles has highlighted is the fact that MacCauley is one of the best writers I've ever seen when actually writing about a ballet. He can point out what about a ballet is good, what is bad, what this choreographer did differently from that choreographer, and all with an eye for both history and detail that is amazing. For that and that alone I value his NY Times contributions. He does less well when writing about dancers. Sometimes I feel as if he's so caught up in the details of the ballet that he forgets to watch the actual dancing, and uses throwaway lines that either sound like cliched raves or unnecessary snark (the now infamous Sugarplum comment).

Yes but Dietrich and Hepburn were of a different feather from Garbo. They were also exceptions rather than the rule. Maybe because they never, even when they were young, fresh and beautiful went for the traditional romantic leading role type roles. Hepburn in particular had a brittle, eccentric quality to her acting that can and does age very well. Garbo occasionally showed streaks of a more idiosyncratic side (her wearing pants as Queen Christina) but her role was that of the romantic leading woman. It's hard for actresses who play romantic leading women to "age well" into matriarchs, eccentrics, character roles, horror films, TV, or walk-ons in musicals and whatnot. There's also another factor. Dietrich and Hepburn were independent and had a strong will, but they also were well-connected, well-liked by moguls, directors, the Hollywood press. The Hollywood press kept silent about Hepburn's personal life for years, even if it had such potentially embarrassing instances as her cleaning up Spencer Tracy's messes (literally) at hotels or bars. Even then their careers had dry spots. The difference was the ability of Hepburn to keep a close circle of connections ready at hand to give her the parts. But many actresses just aren't able to maintain the connections well, for whatever reason. Garbo was one of them. I dunno, I felt like Garbo had the career she wanted, lived the life she wanted, and she never embarrassed herself. I don't worship Garbo but I certainly don't think less of her for ending her career early.

I hate purple prose, especially when it comes to dance criticism, because I feel it's a resort when you're not actually ... uh, writing about dance. The best dance criticism is markedly free of purple prose. Edwin Denby or Arlene Croce (or today, Robert Gottlieb or Alistair Macauley) have a kind of biting, cut-to-the-chase, quality about their writing which I like, even when I don't agree with them. They would never resort to this kind of writing: Ok first of all, the second sentence is 81 words long. There is no excuse for any opening paragraph with that lengthy of a sentence, and one with 18 adjectives counted. And "the air is thinner but heaven is closer"? That kind of stuff makes me giggle. There's also no reason to ever string together three adjectives in a row anywhere (only truly definitive) and (most impossibly fantastic). I realize I'm sounding like an English teacher but dance to me is about movement, something Mr. B would certainly agree with. Dance criticism should be about describing movement, not stringing together superlative adjectives.

Today I saw a picture of Anne Hathaway and thought she looked so much like Diana Vishneva.

ilyballet is bar none my favorite dance channel on youtube. He is a talented photographer and his cleverly edited videos are just fun to watch. He's also one of the few big dance channel uploaders that actually lets the videos speak for themselves. Many of the other big dance channel uploaders get very preachy telling the viewers what dancers we *should* like and appreciate, and thus I watch their videos while finding them quite insufferable at the same time. Ilyaballet is obviously there to promote the students of the Bolshoi Ballet Academy but given the quality of their work he has a right to be proud, and the joy and love of dance is what I value most in his videos.

There was Toni Bentley's review for the NYROB of the dueling Gottlieb/Teachbout biographies of Balanchine. It was predictably flattering towards Gottlieb's book (and well, Gottlieb's book was better) but also included such pontificating such as: And finally: This kind of overly sentimental pontificating and purple prose is what I find more objectionable in a lot of NY Review of Book articles. I like their in-depth anaylysis but many of the articles are more philosophical treatises with a rather definite political bent, which is appropriate when the subject is politics but the heavy hand is more dispiriting in arts reviews.

MacCauley's Nutcracker Chronicles kicked off with the Joffrey and the Moscow Ballet: Joffrey and Moscow Ballets I really like this article, and the whole idea of really seeing different productions of Nutcracker. MacCauley seems to be using his position as NY Times critic to broaden his horizons, always something admirable in a dance critic.

Gottlieb's review is fairly circumspect compared to Toni Bentley's rave in the NYTimes. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/books/review/Bentley-t.html?_r=1 For a flavor of the review, the first paragraph: Later on: And it concludes with: I liked Homans' book but this kind of purple prose review doesn't help anybody. I have a feeling the dance criticism world is fairly small and cozy, especially nowadays, and I really hate reading reviews that are not so much reviews as infomercials.

The NYCB corps is mix-matched? It's actually extremely uniform in schooling, style, and aesthetics. Maybe, along with the Mariinsky, the Bolshoi, and the POB, one of the last ballet companies to really all spring from one school and one teaching style. In fact, it's been criticized in the NYC critic circles in some years for being *too* uniform in look and style. The NYCB, for instance, might be one of the few companies left in the world that insists that all its female members wear the same brand of pointe shoes ...

Well for most New Yorkers I think they kind of split the world into two seasons: opera season (fall into winter), and dance season (starts after Nutcracker, but intensifies in the spring). Of course there is overlap with the NYCB's winter season and Paul Taylor's visit and Fall for Dance but the intense focus is on opera in the fall and winter, and dance in the spring. For those uninterested in opera it might be a drag but for those who have an interest in both it works well.

I think the book is very well-written, by the way, and serves as a good background textbook for ballet. The pictures are wonderfully chosen. What it really isn't is dance criticism, and that's where I think the epilogue seems out of key. A book with a narrower time frame and tighter focus might have been more interesting, albeit less marketable. Interesting that you mention Robert Gottlieb's review because his anthology "Reading Dance," while also very all-encompassing, manages to seem much less like a history book because of its eclectic, well-chosen selections of dance criticism.

I read the book, all in one sitting. I wish the book had a more narrow focus, as is I think it attempts to cover way too much, although I admire Homans' love for detail and history. I like how she talks carefully about the origins of ballet, and the battle between pantomime and dancing steps -- a debate that's still here today. The book is stronger when writing about the origins of ballet, and the effect of Marie Taglioni. When she moves into the 20th century, some of the book becomes cliched and I didn't really need a book to know, for instance, that Margot Fonteyn was elegant, or Maya Plisetskaya was dynamic. Too bad, because when Homans does in-depth analysis of dance, she seems to have a sharp eye for detail. The nice photos and somewhat history-book style of writing made me surprised at the epilogue though.

I have a deep distaste for Robert Taylor personally, because he not only named names for the HUAC, but was quite proud of it. But I kind of think that his young, callow, naive Armand works quite well in the film. Even the high-pitched voice doesn't bother me. And plus, it's the kind of role that's hard to cast. The leading men back then would have considered it secondary and immature, and the character actors wouldn't have been right for the part either. I think nowadays it might be easier to cast an Armand, because there are more movie stars who seem to embrace their boyishness. Leonardo di Caprio, for one, is not afraid to seem eternally boyish. I really like George Cukor's direction in Camille. I like how he sets up quite a few scenes that don't so much move the plot forward as they do establish the feel of the demimonde world. Garbo spending so much money to buy two horses, for instance. Or the frenemy relationship Marguerite has with her fellow courtesans. Adding to the pile-on of laudits for Garbo's performance, I like her reaction to being slapped. It's meant to be shocking, but I like how Garbo after the initial shock doesn't seem too ruffled about it, like it's not really her first time being poorly treated by a patron. It really highlights the essential ugliness of the life of a courtesan, underneath all that superficial luxury.

Enjoy! ETA: most charming part: the fact that Allegra says "Hark! Hark!: