Drew

Even thinking about it makes me laugh--

Yes. No doubt fear does concentrate the mind wonderfully, but contra Sklute, in my experience a workplace full of people constantly reminded that they're expendable is not a fruitful environment for getting the best from your employees. I should think Ballet West is bound to see a rise in interest and ticket sales from Breaking Pointe--and there is at least a chance other companies may as well. I'm not sure how to take anything anyone says in a reality show, but I completely agree about fear not being the best way to inspire people in any endeavor--people who feel expendable are often just plain demoralized. (I must have given up on Black Swan thread and so missed discussion of Portman's arms.)

My reaction was very much like Miliosr's. It's a reality show on the CW...allow for that and there you are; it's still an on the whole not unsympathetic look at the ballet world on network television. At least so it seemed to me. I would like to see more dancing and perhaps we will. (I HATED Black Swan; the heroine was just psycho-crazy from frame one and her craziness hardly seemed to have anything to do with ballet as opposed to the mad-for-ballet, beyond-good-and-evil heroines of Mort du Cygne or must-dance-at-all-costs heroine of Red Shoes. And given her non-stop woe-is-me, terrified of all things, demeanor, one does not see how she could have lasted through an advanced ballet class let alone have made it into a ballet company. Though off topic may I add, too, (since I have not seen this anywhere else) that Portman's arms seemed awfully short for her to get cast as Odette-Odile when still an unknown dancer...What I mean is: I hated that movie.)

Would love to see them (back) at the State -- that is, Koch -- theater. More seats where you can...uh...see the dancers.

Wish Atlanta Ballet would consider an all Balanchine program these days--would not even have to be quite such a sophisticated one and I'd be happy.

As the saying goes, people need not just bread but roses too...Still, as Bart indicates, this can't be an easy moment to get money (even "promised" money) from any government entity in Spain...I feel badly for Corella because he has made sacrifices to his own career as a dancer to create a quality classical company and, of course, I feel for all the dancers w. the company. I would love to see the Barcelona Ballet succeed and I think classical ballet can use all the support it can get! (I was writing this when Bart's post appeared...interesting suggestions.)

Mercedes' variations certainly should be a highlight of the ballet even if they often are not. And thank you very much for the detailed review.

I saw Double Feature this weekend though of course not with the original cast and quite enjoyed it myself though I have conflicting feelings about performing non-human animals. I also thought the dancers were great. And Tyler Peck's double fouettés can compete with anyone's--and I do mean anyone's! I wouldn't make a special trip to NY to see Double Feature again (and had not come to NY especially to see it) but I'm glad I did see it.

Very nice meeting the several posters on this site from Florida on Thursday--sorry not to make it upstairs to meet again and see others on Friday. My reactions to the Th/Fri/Sat night Bayaderes echo some though not all of the above. I thought Cojocaru's dancing was a like a ray of pure light and especially in Act III found her ghostly flights through the marriage ceremony transfixing. She was the most spiritual of the three Nikiyas I saw (though I have to say the story does not exactly paint Nikiya as a Saint: she is having a secret affair and she runs across the stage wielding a knife at Gamzatti.) In the Shades scene she did not seem as effortless to me as she did when she first danced the role w. ABT: still, the quality of her dancing is often transcendent (to my eyes)--with exquisite lines and lovely lifts (Vasiliev partnered her much more effectively than he did Copeland). I liked Part a lot: Her movie star looks fit the ballet's rather melodramatic, "silent movie" style score perfectly and I thought that the white Act though, indeed, phrased rather gently where another ballerina might be more emphatic (as indeed Semionova in particular was) executed very well. Cautious--perhaps yes. Still this was the best performance I have seen her give (other than her Terpsichore in Ashton's Sylvia where she seemed to embody the music). And in the ballet's final pose, she looked like a Hellenistic sculpture come to life--from the angle I was sitting in I can't imagine it being more gorgeous to contemplate. I'm a teensy bit less excited about Semionova than others on this board. Though actually I think at this point Mckenzie may have a need to bring in a reliable and experienced ballerina quality dancer for the major works. A lot of his ballerinas are entering the autumnal phase of their careers and though I am thrilled to read good things about up-and-comer- Hee Seo's Giselle, her performance as Gamzatti suggested she still needs to develop before she can carry many of the big classical ballets. (I'm having a hard time picturing her Nikiya though I know she danced it.) And it was not just the fouettés that gave her outright difficulty, but the last act variation where she seemed shaky every time she stepped into arabesque. As for Semionova, she does indeed have long beautiful lines. In Act I--which seems to me something of a "gift" to any good principal as I've never seen anyone not look beautiful in it--she actually brought a little something extra and to the solo at the wedding scene in particular, some unusual phrasing . As mentioned above, she likes to show off her balance and has a nice balance to show off, though one did sometimes see her adjusting her weight to stay up there. In the Shades scene there were whole passages, in particular the pirouettes done facing out to the audience and concluding with the leg shooting into arabesque behind her, that I thought were executed with more clarity and authority than either Part or Cojocaru...but not to my eyes more beauty or even as much. Throughout the audience seemed to adore her and I may come to do so (and she may well get better and better). For now it's hard to put a finger on my reservations. In very different ways Part and Cojocaru danced w. a "tonality" or perhaps musicality (?) that I missed in Semionova. It's hard for me to account for my reaction in more technical terms though I do think both danced with more turn out than Semionova. Also, she looks very, very thin (in my opinion even for a ballet dancer) and in the Act I costumes in particular, I wasn't crazy about the look. In Act III I found Cojocaru much more wondrously ethereal and Part more sculpturally evocative. Do I think Semionova a worthy dancer? Certainly and I hope to see her in future--but this is my second time seeing her in a major role and when I saw her with the Mikhailovsky a couple of years ago in Swan Lake I had a similarly admiring but slightly reserved reaction. On the other hand I very much enjoyed Hallberg whose intense ruminative Solor was my favorite of the three I saw. He really seemed to want to "present" Semionova on this occasion of her first performance with ABT as an official principal dancer and I found that quite likeable as well. For the rest: no-one quite matches up to Dowell's richly decadent air when smoking opium, but Hallberg came closer to that style of desperate sensual indulgence than the other Solors I saw. I think, too, that he has been clearly influenced by his time at the Bolshoi--he even had bouncing old-style Bolshoi hair in the classical divertissement--and he now performs with great intensity and charisma, while still dancing with beauty and finesse. Every position is fully stretched, but nothing looks merely posed. I do wish he would give up the double assemblés which, in my opinion, don't suit him and always look mediocre unless done very well indeed. Gomez made a much better choice to dance simpler choreography at that point. Gomez also makes Part look, if not a feather-weight, then at least as if she is very, very easy to partner. Vasiliev brought his breathtaking elevation and intense personality to Solor and was thrilling to watch. While I don't expect him ever to look like Dowell, I could wish he had cleaner landings much of the time. I did think he partnered Cojocaru very well--she looked dreamy in the lifts. I also love his upper body, although it does look as if it belongs atop a longer pair of legs. Other notes: I am on record as saying that Gamzatti is a thankless role...well, I guess for Osipova there are no thankless roles. She was wonderful in every way. Stunning classical dancing entirely at one with extraordinary characterization. Even before the veil was lifted from her face you felt the arrogance emanating from her every pore and then the moment she saw Solor her eyes registered a change inside of her (don't know how well that projected as I was downstairs and not too far away). You could see she felt something new whether love or desire...and the performance built from there adding layer to layer. Uncertainty, vulnerability, fury, cold hatred, guilt (the rather dark guilt of tyrants), and a determination to win at all costs. As for the dancing--when Gomez and she made their entrance for the betrothal scene together, they rode the air with gorgeous ease and splendor. Well matched? They looked as if they had been schooled and dancing together for years. It was the best I have ever seen this entrance look -- nothing and no-one has ever come close. And well, for the rest of the Act I divertissement, take it from there: her dancing was fantastic. As has already been mentioned, in Thursday night's performance Vasiliev and Copeland were a less than ideal match and it was not just the jumps. When Osipova and Gomez played chess during the Djampe dance, one saw a whole play of actions and reactions between them. Copeland and Vasiliev just seemed sort of glum and at least when I was watching them over the chessboard, they looked as if they had not even discussed how to play the scene. That said, I thought she was excellent in her variations in both Act I and especially Act III. The choreography for that last solo (Makarova's?) has odd little shifts of direction and emphasis that I thought she handled more comfortably and effectively than either Seo or Osipova. ((n the Petipa I found Osipova pretty much incomparable.) Unlike in Giselle, the corps--in this very exposed choreography--danced as if it had met its match. I actually though they got shakier, not better, each night I went culminating Sat night with one of the women making an outright silly mistake during one of the "easier" moments --raising her arm when everyone's arms were lowered. She was not just a beat or two off either: she seems to have entirely mistaken the section of the music she was dancing. In Act II, also, I thought that ABT's traditional problem was very much in evidence in ways it had not been in Giselle: each woman very obviously had a slightly different angle of the wrist or different way of splaying fingers in port de bras. What I wouldn't give to see this with the Maryinsky or Bolshoi...Still kudos for everything that was lovely and, as the Shades scene progressed, energetic and buoyant. I also enjoyed the ensemble dancing in Act I at every performance and some very fine dancing from the different soloists I saw in Act II including, in the second shade solo (I believe Friday night but will not swear) Devon Teuscher who is new to me and, in the third solo (I believe Thursday) Stella Abrera; I enjoyed Kajia in the same solo as well.

Would love to hear about the triple debut performance...

Part is now listed on ABT's website in place of Vishneva for Friday's Bayadere...was this announced earlier? Did I somehow miss it? I am not at all sorry to see Part for sure--though she may rather tower over Osipova--but very disappointed not to be seeing Vishneva especially after last year when I only saw her in Carmen (which I did not care for). I've hit my budget limit on planned NY trips, so this means I won't see her at all this season... (To be honest, I have been mostly worried Cojocaru would pull out of Thursday's performance.) The best laid plans of mice and balletomanes...

Hübbe was actually sitting a few seats down from me on Sat night...I was plenty excited to see him.

Thank you very much -- I would not have known about this and just purchased a 10 Dollar seat in the first ring for Sat afternoon. To Colleen Boresta and Bart Birdsall: I am one of those who love Liebeslieder and attended two performances this season w. largely different casts last weekend. I enjoyed both performances greatly, but I attended w. someone who has seen it w. me three times altogether now (once a few years ago) and is always bored silly especially by the first part. He can't stand not seeing the dancers' bodies when they are in the ballgowns and complained to me rather hilariously (as I thought) that that part of the ballet was just "heads bobbing around"...This is someone who loves Symphony in C and when he saw Concerto Barocco (also a few years back) thought it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen in his life! To make matters worse -- and this is something that I infer is not true of you -- he can't stand Lieder. You may well ask why he has sat through the ballet so many times. Let's just say I'm lucky because it is one of my favorite ballets of all time. I find Liebeslieder much more adult than say the Balanchine Schumann ballet with which it is somewhat cognate and which I also like and admire. . . The relationships seem more nuanced and I find the lack of concern with the sufferings of male genius (comforted by various women) more adult. Of course this could partly be the difference between Schumann and Brahms. Anyway, I believe in the reality of the people in Liebeslieder because the choreography reveals each of their relationships to be so complex and varied. It's not just a contrast between the different couples but within each couple the moods and exchanges vary so much. I saw two casts and thought the (mostly) more experienced cast of Whelan, Kowroski, Bouder, and Taylor gave a slightly richer performance overall -- one that, cliche as it sounds, brought tears to my eyes. Whelan does not have the full freedom of movement she once did (or that Sterling Hyltin has in the same role) but brings a sense of interior depths to her role that always moves me deeply. In her first solo, her gesture of reaching forward with her arm (first traveling downstage, later upstage) has a yearning quality; she knows how to dance as if the audience were not there. Bouder in a debut at first had difficulty convincing me that she belonged in the world of nineteenth-century ballrooms and gardens--but then her dancing simply won me over to her imaginative world! She danced the role fearlessly and showed all the passion and bite that can indeed can lie underneath a nineteenth-century woman as choreographed by Balanchine...loved the performance. Taylor brings a winsome mystery to everything she does--at first I thought I might prefer her if she were more precise in her movements, but when I compared her to Megan Fairchild's debut, I realized how much would be missing without her slightly strange theatrical quality. (Fairchild has the neatness, but can't yet quite convey the sense of personality--I should say the depths of being--the roles in this ballet require.) Kowroski was beautiful in both casts and perhaps even better the second night I saw her...actually fresher and more spontaneous though perhaps my eye was simply more attuned to what she was doing. The cast of debuts (Peck, Hyltin, Fairchild, w. Kowroski filling in for Mearns who was supposed to make her debut) seemed to me lighter in emotional texture in part because Hyltin "performed" too much in the first part and where Whelan's gestures were yearning she seemed to pose. In part two I thought she was better and one appreciated the greater freedom of movement she has as well. She also had a slight costume malfunction (lace strap/sleeve fell down) in the final pas de deux; she tried to fix it but then wisely realized that would just keep interfering with the choreography. From there on in, she danced with grace and aplomb and actually seemed more intensely "inside" the world of the ballet than in the first part. So I ended up quite liking her performance. A real highlight in this cast was Taylor Peck (same role Bouder danced) who is able to combine a sense freedom and (in her case subdued) passion with just a touch of elegant opacity. There is more to this person than appears...And like Bouder she simply dances the part fearlessly. Moreover these are both dancers who are so secure you never fear for them. Very glad I got to see both. The men in both casts were very good I thought and added greatly to layering of the ballet. How charming to learn that Marcovici and Taylor are now engaged. But I will single out Chase Finlay in Sat night's cast partnering Megan Fairchild. I had seen him for the first time Friday night in the first movement of Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet and, having heard so much about him, was a little non-plussed as he seemed tentative and only danced well in bits...then I read that he was not only coming back from injury but had been out for nearly a year...in which case, good for him and welcome back. BUT in Liebeslieder on Sat night (where of course he does not have to dance any exposed classical solos) I was very impressed with how fully and entirely he entered into the world of the ballet. Wonderful--especially for a young, less experienced dancer. Sat night's performance of Liebeslieder (the Hyltin, Peck etc. cast) was followed by a fine (though not flawless) Symphony in C. Abi Stafford danced the first movement and I would like to mention how much she seems to me to have grown as a dancer in the last few years. She does not dance on the large scale of some of the company's other dancers but she now infuses her dancing with a quiet warmth and graciousness that is very appealing. As already mentioned above, Kowroski (who had just danced Liebeslieder) had some shaky moments at the beginning of the adagio and I would add that she is not quite as supple and pliant in the role as she once was, but past the first shaky moments she gave a beautiful account of each wondrously unfolding phrase. Indeed watching the whole performance I was reminded of seeing the Maryinsky dance Symphony in C last summer: no surprise that I much prefer NYCB! The corps was bright and energetic--Bouder and De Luz exuberant in the 3rd movement though she had a couple of little bobbles. Pereira looked out of her depths in the fourth movement (I don't know if this was a debut?)...But what a ballet...It's like a splendid work of (dance) architecture. Martins' Mes Oiseaux on the same program looked as if it might be an interesting novelty and I rather liked the costumes, but it came to seem less interesting to me as it progressed with the exception of the rather ingenious male solo for Taylor Stanley. (On Friday's Program Liebeslieder was followed by a slightly uneven performance of Brahms Schoenberg Quartet. Some wonderful passages of dancing; some less so.)

Actually Murphy, Kajiya, and Phillips were all in the Cojocaru-Corella performance. These roles were danced by Stella Abrera, Misty Copeland, and Craig Salstein, respectively, in the Osipova-Hallberg performance. Oooh...huge apologies...especially to the dancers. I did not refer to a program and my memory jumbled/skipped regarding the soloists between the two performances when I was writing my post. If there are aging ballet dancers, then I guess there are also aging ballet fans. Thanks for correction. I also forgot to mention Osipova's dark blue tutu. I have now seen her dance the role three times in three different colors: first time I saw her do the ballet I was plenty startled by her decision to wear all white in Act I which rather undermines the contrast with Act II; in Chicago my memory is that she was wearing pale blue -- which is the classic color for ABT's production. When she came out on Saturday wearing dark blue it completely took me out of the ballet for a minute (and not in a good way). I love her and I accept that THAT is the kind of dancer she is, but uh...not recommended. The hair up during the mad scene I did not mind at all, actually rather liked. For myself when I saw Cojocaru on Thursday night I especially loved Act I. I do agree with others that the performance was danced as if she was injured or as if old injuries were catching up with her. Not at the very beginning--I don't think I have ever seen the sequence in which Albrecht and she dance with the peasant villagers look more graceful and harmonious--but later in the big solo and also Act II where she seemed to tire or slow at times. I was surprised as I remember her great technical assurance in Sleeping Beauty just last year. Still I don't think one could ask for a more tenderly sweet, emotionally fresh account of Act I. She also allowed a touch of gaucheness to enter her gestures as if to heighten one's awareness of how out of her depth Giselle is w. Albrecht. She stayed on stage for most or all of the peasant pas de deux and I very much enjoyed watching her reactions. At one point she twirled around in excitement at watching the others dance. She was lovely in Act II--very ghostly and unreal, though still tender and loving--but the performance for me fell a little short in intensity perhaps because it was (to my eyes) a little underpowered at times. I thought Corella and she were well matched physically, and he danced with greater elegance and passion than when I saw him dance the role a few years back (with Vishneva). I know he is only retiring from ABT but given the vagaries of my dance going, likely this was my last time seeing him dance and it makes for a very nice memory. During curtain calls before the gold curtain he raised up Cojocaru in one final romantic lift. I don't think there can be two more charming dancers in the world. (Since i got the names jumbled in earlier post I will refrain from comments on secondary dancers. But I thought it was a good performance overall.)

A few brief notes about Giselle. One thing that strikes me about Osipova is that she is getting better at every performance; I'm not talking about the fact that her Giselle this season was more moving than the (in my opinion quite brilliant and touching) one she danced a couple of seasons seasons back. I saw her in March in Chicago and again at the Met last week. The performance in Chicago was fantastic, but the Met performance was profounder and, to my eyes, more beautiful. It had fewer childlike moments in Act I--indeed Giselle seemed like the most intense girl in the village culminating in an at times wild mad scene--and more deeply connected to Albrecht throughout; I also thought that the dancing had more coloration in Act II and (pace Macaulay) she is indeed learning how to fill out an adagio phrase and, in particular, to shape and extend her upper body--in this case, with ghostly hints of a human love glimmering through her very supernatural dancing. In Chicago she may have been occasionally more absolutely brilliant (as unlikely as that sounds); I thought some jumps were higher--her initial skips seemed to go about two feet in the air, while she seemed more under control during her entrance at the Met, similarly with some of the petite allegro in Act II--but that may simply have been the effect of the smaller stage in Chicago. In any case she was not more absolutely enthralling. So, as great as Chicago was, in New York she, together w. Hallberg, gave what I thought was an even better performance. (Am I tired of Giselle? I did not intend to see it in NY after seeing it three times in Chicago, but life dictated a trip to NY w. two more performances and I'm glad it did.) indeed when Osipova does cover space on the Met's very large stage it can seem all the more unbelievable, as in Giselle's initiation scene, when she seemed in a single assemblé to cover something like half the Met stage from stage left to stage right. Just the sense of how large that stage is makes one sort of blink when she does it...except one does not want to miss anything. Details changed from performance to performance as well (as happens w. all major ballerinas in my experience, though I rarely get to see their performances so close together). In Chicago when she hopped across the stage culminating in the turn she makes hopping on point, she lifted her hands above her head as she turned and mimed Giselle's love of dance as she did so. At the Met, during the hopping pirouette she gave a slight tilt of her body over her working leg and gestured playfully towards the working foot; since she was turning towards Albrecht at that moment, the whole thing seemed innocently flirtatious. Indeed watching her in Act I, I felt she perfectly captured a girl driven to dance even if it kills her. And the way she dances it appears as if it would kill anyone else. I consider myself lucky to be around to see her. I also felt this performance showed that the partnership w. Hallberg really benefits from their having more opportunities to dance together. The connection gets deeper and the dancing more beautiful seemingly at each outing. I write seemingly because of course I have only seen a few of their outings! Hallberg was splendid: His dancing was infused with tremendous feeling--I too noticed the mussed up hair in Act II (mentioned above in this thread) as if emblematic of the fact that he can now go darker and deeper with his dancing. The great beauty of that dancing and Hallberg's (now) altogether rather striking presence on stage suggest that Albrecht is a man who is finally almost as much apart from the world of the aristocrats as he is from the world of the peasants. For the rest, Act I looked brighter and sharper from the rest of the company in Chicago; In Act II however the Corps de Ballet was just as beautiful and a true highlight of the performance. ABT could use a larger Corps de Ballet here (especially at the Met) and perhaps one day will be able to afford it! I always like Murphy's Queen of the Willis and she was excellent. I was not going to say anything re peasant pas de deux but since I was quite critical of Joseph Phillips' performance in Chicago on these boards, I will say he did a better job at this performance. But I always find ABT's peasant pas de deux sort of awkward looking and though that may be my response to the musical change from Adam, I rather think it may have to do with the staging and, in any case, not w. any particular dancer. (Yuriko Kajiya looked a bit brittle for my taste and did not overcome the problem I have w. the pas de deux. I have liked her in other roles.) [Edited to add: Ilya corrected me below: Kajiya/Phillips and Murphy danced at the Thursday night performance: I flipped the two in my mind when discussing the soloists; as he notes Copeland/Salstein and Abrera were dancing these roles at matinee with Osipova-Hallberg. Apologies to the dancers for boo boo.] I also was very fortunate to see the Cojocaru and Corella performance. Her Act I in particular is growing and growing in my memory. The above is so very long, though, that I will try to write about it later.

I immediately thought of Elvis Stojko when I read your comments. Well...yes...but I still recommend people give him a chance in a real (as opposed to gala) performance. I've never seen him in the classics and have no idea what he will be like-- though I hope to find out next week. And he's obviously no David Hallberg nor is meant to be. But as Spartacus I have seen him give an emotionally as well as physically powerful -- and controlled -- performance. As you know, he's very Bolshoi, but I think he's a major talent. And given how young he is, he may just need some seasoning...

Lovely to learn about this...

That is certainly how it seemed to me. I was also impressed by the dancers and very interested by many things they had to say, but do think the discussion--framed (and I do mean "framed") by the interviewer's questions--skirted some areas they would be wise to avoid. Whatever one is trying to say about guest artists, it can come out sounding a little differently than one intends -- not that I know exactly what the interviewees intended, but I doubt this is an area in which "tone" is as much in the dancers' control as they may wish. To get a little more concrete: I don't think it was such a good idea for one of them to more or less openly suggest the company dances better when they are backing up one of their own--(gee! way to sound artistically committed AND sell tickets!)--or for another to question whether the "name" made by some dancers was equal to their "technique" etc. I'm inclined to give the dancers a pass...They are hard-working artists at the top of their field and I think ABT SHOULD do more to develop their talent. This year my travel to NY will enable me to see Copeland and Boylston (who was not included in the interview) take on some major roles which I am very happy about. But I don't know that the battle over the company's current direction (reliance on guest artists in New York especially) should be taken up via dancer interview. During the days of the dance boom many of these same issues came up, of course, and sometimes, too, through dancers speaking in the press. I'm not sure it solved anything.

Thanks, CM for the clips. It was nice to see the short snippets of the company dacing "Theme and Variations". I wish a complete video could be available to now compare the way the Cubans dance the late 40's/unlicensed Alonso's version with what I saw here,which I asume has to have certain little differences-(stilistically speaking, and maybe even choreographically)- probably made by Balanchine himself in the course of the years. It was also interesting to hear calling Anette Delgado the best bearer of Alonso's style and technique instead of Valdes. Sad though how when talking about Cubans dancing abroad only Acosta and Toto are mentioned, as if others like the Feijoo sisters or Sarabita are non existent. Then, of course, Alonso, always praising her most beloved partner and friend, "one of the best dancers in the world, Igor Youskevitch". Balanchine revised the ballerina role somewhat for Gelsey Kirland (eg added gargouillades)...

Off topic, but I feel compelled (as if by a strange unconscious force) to say something on behalf of Freud whose ideas are far from being simply "much discredited" and who was himself, not so incidentally, a remarkable and witty writer. Of course, programmatic and bad novels, plays, and biographies are written all the time in the grip of Freudianism...and Jungianism, Aristotelianism, Marxism etc. Occasionally good ones too. I don't read many novels these days and have read few of those mentioned above but I did like Fitzgerald's Blue Flower; I still remember thinking that like other British authors writing about continental figures obsessed with philosophy--living, breathing, eating philosophy--she gives the impression that she can't quite bring herself to take their obsession entirely seriously. (Stoppard is far worse in The Coast of Utopia.) Writers have always imagined their way into historical figures: I confess that whenever they write a fictional work about a figure I have a deep interest in or about whom I care and know something, it vaguely gets on my nerves--as if the writer were cheating their way into seeming more interesting and important than they would otherwise be with an openly fictional story (even one that actually drew on the lives of people they knew). Same w. films: I still have not seen Bright Star (film supposedly about Keats and Fanny Brawne), but I remember saying to someone who asked me about it: "If they want to make a regency romance--and have run out of Jane Austen--why not just adapt a Georgette Heyer novel?" I did not add what I was thinking "That would be more honest." That said, I have never been able to work up my vague irritation into a serious ethical account of why writers and other creative figures should not imagine their way into the lives of historical figures. It's entirely understandable that they should want to do so (and of course "history plays" have a long history of their own, as does history painting)...Even if one distinguishes between long dead Renaissance Queens and only recently dead modern ballerinas--as one could make a case for doing--I do appreciate why an artist might be drawn to explore imaginatively a compelling event/story. And if a great writer has the 'right' to try it--well I guess a lesser one does too...though the latter may well get more of a pasting from readers. At the same time, readers may well feel compelled to raise uncomfortable ethical questions too...if only because the genre seems to call for it. To return to Leclercq: perhaps oddly, I feel intuitively that a "friend" or insider writing about Leclercq would seem more of a betrayal. Though here, too, writing seems to make its own laws. X or Y as "writer" and X or Y as "human being" are often two quite different things--and art rarely fits into neat ethical categories--certainly not great art and maybe not even bad/failed art or not-quite art... P.S. I've never been particularly bothered by "reinvent"... sometimes it works...

That sounds amazingly fun--have a wonderful time!

Of the four men pictured, I actually find Newman to be the prettiest... I assume that we are all too old and dignified to start discussing online who was the hottest...

Thank you...I found, from the same person, a few short clips of Act III as well. (I had searched for Osipova on Youtube, but these don't turn up--I assume one needs to search under the Russian name.)

Would be interested if anyone saw or has access to (reasonably reliable) reports on Osipova debut in Swan Lake at the Mikhailovsky...Thanks...

I thought it was a very interesting interview. As far as Russia goes--he pooh-poohs psychoanalysis, but it's clear the wounds go very deep though they are framed in terms of his anger at the country for the suffering and (as he described it, from his perspective) absurdity of his parents' lives. Smiley did not push him on post-Soviet Russia, but Baryshnikov volunteered a sentence to the effect that it had changed, yes, but not in the way he would have liked. He rambled a bit at times but I thought Smiley was right to let him do so rather than interupt.