Drew

It's possible I am forgetting earlier performances, but I believe my first Giselle was Marilyn Burr with Ivan Nagy -- a performance by the now defunct National Ballet of Washington which at that time was directed by Frederic Franklin. (Later Ben Stevenson took over with Franklin still involved). I definitely remember Burr. I was a little girl and I totally believed her in the role...

(I have a vague thought that I may have seen a student performance of just Act II even before any National Ballet performances I saw, but am not certain: one or two of my sisters would have been dancing in it, though not the lead. However, I am much less certain whether I was seeing Giselle Act II or Les Sylphides or some other white ballet--I do vaguely remember my mother explaining to me about seeing an excerpt and long romantic tutus. I was about three years old...Anyway I saw my sisters in something...Let's call Burr my first Giselle!)

P.S. Edited long after anyone is reading this thread because of factual error.

I don't remember Rickles ever being as self-deprecatory as Rivers. Was he? As the review points out, Rivers aimed some of her cruelest remarks at herself.

I can't really argue with people about the appropriateness of Larocca reviewing the performance and Borree's career as she saw fit--and like many others I was often flummoxed by the prominence of Borree in the company's casting especially in Balanchine where she frequently did not seem up to the standard that an NYCB principal should have. (My point of comparison is not Farrell or Mcbride--not the "all time greats"--but, say, a principal dancer like Margaret Tracy.)

That said, my reaction to the review was very like kfw's, and I was a bit taken aback by it. I thought ending the article on a slam (editor or Larocca's decision I don't know) made it seem particularly unkind. The article could have made its negative points, but stuck them in the middle and then returned to the quality of Duo Concertante or made some more generic tribute to conclude. (Also, I have seen reviews of farewell performances that addressed weaknesses of the performance but also made a point of commenting on how emotion of the moment was catching up with the dancer. None of that for Larocca...)

That said, I assume reviewers also want attention for their writing--and indeed need some attention for their careers--and I guess Larocca pulled that off...Nor did what she say seem unjust to me in a general way, though obviously I can't evaluate it in terms of the particular performance since I was not there.

Other thoughts:

Borree beyond Duo Concertante? Early in Borree's career I saw her dance Pierrette (I think--she was all in white) to Stiefel's Harlequin in Harlequinade--and I quite liked that performance. She really "looked" perfect for the role and infused it with the charm of a porcelain figurine. Also early in her career I saw her dance an uneven but exciting and altogether charming Swanilda: she had something like three bad slips, but was a replacement for another principal and dancing in the "go for broke-Balanchine-dancer" tradition so I was ready to give her a pass: I remember thinking after that performance that she had a ton of promise in the role. Of course, I hugely admired her in Duo Concertante and while I can't say the same of her performance in Concerto Barocco, the one time I saw her in the latter ballet was nicely done -- and I happened to be with someone who had never seen any ballet whatsoever, and he fully FELT the beauty of Concerto Barocco, speaking about it movingly, so something came across and Borree was the lead.

Thank you for the link...

I don't know that anyone has mentioned the ballet bar itself--which figures prominently in a number of ballets including Ben Stevenson's Three Preludes and Robbins' Afternoon of a Faun. In the former especially it is very much part of the choreography..."Classroom" ballets use it too of course...

I agree with Mel (and others) about Ashton--think, too, of Sylvia, the Amazons' bows really are part of the dancing 'line.' In A Month in the Country an entire sequence revolves around finding a set of lost keys (though they only enter the dance at the final moment when they are found and the ballerina lifts them up triumphantly) -- also a basket of berries (I think?) plays a semi-dancey role in the pas de deux between the tutor and the maid. Ribbons -- here part of a costume -- are crucial at the ballet's close.

Other examples...hmm...I don't know if these have been mentioned, though some of the ballets definitely have:

The letter writing materials for Tatiana in Cranko's Onegin and the ripping up of Onegin's letter (unforgetable in Haydee's performance) are crucial to that ballets, along with Tatiana's book and the dueling pistols, though they perhaps belong more to the ballet's mime expression than dance expression (plus rather nifty use of a fake mirror to set up the pas de deux that ends Act I.). I have long since forgotten the details of Taming of the Shrew, but certainly, it too uses props to tell its story.

In Firebird-I'm thinking of Fokine's--the ball becomes part of the dance of the Princess and her friends; the feather is more sheerly iconic. I guess fingernails don't count as props.

In Gaiete Parisienne (please imagine the accents) the Peruvian's exit and entrance include his suitcase in a way that seems very much part of the movement. At least I remember it that way...Massine must offer other examples.

Descriptions of Nijinska's Les Biches often describe the couch as the scene of a lesbian reveal--but I have never seen it that way in the theater. On the other hand the opening sequence for the corps has them sort of stepping onto the furniture and launching themselves off of it in a way that is crucial to the choreography.

In Don Quixote, Basil's guitar is more local color than real dance material but not completely trivial; the daggers laid down for the street dancer give the shape and tension to her dance, though are not exactly part of it. (The Toreador's cape--again costume more than prop--is very much part of his dancing...)

The Queen of the Wilis want extends her line and the image of command in Giselle., so for me that is part of the choreography...I guess you could say something similar of how swords are used in most Romeo and Juliet's -- not just for mime but to create dancing lines across the stage.

Bart quoted a review that included the following:

"As the director of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Gail Kern Paster, recently put it, 'To ask me about the authorship question ... is like asking a paleontologist to debate a creationist's account of the fossil record.'"

Exactly.

This is one of those times, though, when one's first reaction is, "They weren't principals?"

Oh -- that was exactly my reaction, but I could not quite put it into words!

Happy (and, I should think, expected) news...Congratulations to both. If all goes well, I will see them dance this summer....

Marienella Nunez' warmth and radiance might make a lovely match with Marcelo Gomez's warmth and radiance...

I'm a little late to this discussion so it may make no difference, but here goes:

Zakharova (whom I have seen 3-4 times) is one of the recent breed of super long limbed, hyper extended ballerinas--at any given moment she can be rather fascinating to watch, but the sum total of her performances is not perhaps as artistically satisfying as one would hope (at least in the performances I have seen). Moreover unlike Guillem (to name another controversial dancer with high extensions, but one I adore), Zakharova is not above distorting line and even music to achieve her ultra over-stretched effects. I agree that she has gotten better as she has gotten more mature and I have even enjoyed her performances...she can be charming and if you absolutely love the hyperextended look you might like her.

I have seen Alexandrova just three times, but feel very confident you cannot miss if you get a ticket to see her. She is excellent- and better than excellent. Every moment is intelligently and fully realized and she has a terrifically 'natural' quality when she dances--as if she breathes classical ballet.

I saw Osipova a few years back in a solo role and more recently saw her in a major role (Giselle). I was genuinely blown away by the latter performance. As that implies, I also think she is more than a thrill ride (though her Kitri might be that...); I found her imaginative and moving as well as exciting. Another ballet lover who posts on ballet talk once described her as a "force of nature" and I think that captures her perfectly...Since I saw her dance last year I have been literally counting the days until I can see her again. (I'm hoping that will be London but don't know.)

(Krysanova I have never seen in a major role--though I remember seeing her in a solo in Corsaire...she was lovely and I hope one day to see more of her...)

I don't even watch As The World Turns and I think Moore returning to the show for a good-bye is lovely...

Boston Ballet is a good suggestion--though when I checked their website they had nothing like it now...oh well.

This is rather a long shot question, but on tonight's American Idol (Wednesday elimination show) Siobhan Magnus was wearing a very cute t-shirt with a genuine classical ballet image on it -- it looked like one of those artsy photos companies use for brochures, with a ballerina in a classical tutu on point in attitude en arriere posed as if suspended above the back (?) of a male dancer, his body seemingly folded forward...Not too many ballet sightings on hit television shows so it caught my attention. I was wondering if anyone else noticed the t-shirt and perhaps recognized it from some company's merchandise...Since one critic that I saw quoted on a website had called Siobhan a "dark ballerina" in her performance the night before I wondered if perhaps a show stylist picked it out for her. But if I learned she picked it out herself that would be enough to earn her additional votes from me...

(um...er...not that I actually vote....very often)

Wonderful photos -- Thank you.

Carlos Acosta talks in this video about his career, the Royal Ballet and what the trip to Cuba meant to him.

"Carlos Acosta has been hailed as ballet's next major star. The Cuban dancer, of mixed Spanish and African heritage, came to prominence in the early 1990s while still in his teens, and joined England's Royal Ballet in 1998. Since 2003 he has enjoyed the rank of Principal Guest Artist. In his story Carlos describes how he has found a home for his art in London and how he sees the vibrant cultural mix of Britain as being reflected in the company of the Royal Ballet. The dynamism which results provides, he believes, the foundation for an exciting pushing back of creative boundaries."

I liked the video a lot--thanks for posting it. But: "Next major star"? -- that's a puzzler. He is a major star and has been for quite a while...He was "hailed" that way perhaps, say, a decade ago...

Thank you for posting this--I was actually planning on checking the Royal Opera House website this weekend. Not sure exactly how things will play out this summer, but I am hoping at least to catch Coppelia!

For innocent and childlike I would wonder about Kathryn Morgan as well...

I assume there is no way to revive the Balanchine? What a shame--I remember NYCB was supposed to revive it one year with Bette Midler and it fell through...(I believe Balanchine was still alive at that time.) Oh well...It's still an intriguing idea, likely good box office, and yet definitely remains within the company's larger tradition.

I think that, as a lover and admirer of the art of classical ballet, I find chamber and even mid-size companies limited in what they can achieve in terms of the history of ballet. That is, they do important work, but the "center" of ballet seems to me to lie elsewhere and I never enjoy seeing the most promising balletic talent (from Feld to Wheeldon) depart that center. I say this with some trepidation since I have great respect for all the people on this board who have done beautiful and important work with such companies. But for me, ballet--classical ballet--in its most realized form is a large scale, luxury art with a substantial tradition (and sub-traditions within the tradition).

....

I never much understood the rationale for Morphoses but I did think it could offer a forum for young choreographers to develop their craft on smaller stages without immediately being subject to the usual tiresome "Is he/she the next Balanchine?" snap opinions. If a piece flopped with Morphoses, then it flopped -- it didn't become some earth-shattering referendum on the fate of the classical ballet the way most new pieces at City Ballet (and elsewhere) do. If Morphoses does survive, maybe they can pursue that strand of its original vision so that younger choreographers can perfect their craft and then graduate to that "large scale"?

Just thinking out loud . . .

That makes sense to me too--Certainly the "next Balanchine" business has not done Wheeldon himself any favors and perhaps also colored the way Morphoses was seen in the press: as a would-be major new player and judged accordingly.

(By the by, I should perhaps go on record as one of the people who thought Evenfall was a well-nigh masterpiece, only falling short in the final movement. )

To be fair to the big institutions, they have long been working to give choreographers 'smaller' venues through which to grow--Forsythe was 'discovered' (as I understand it) through workshops at the Stuttgart and the Royal has staged workshop-type events at the Lynbury Studio at Covent Garden. I went to one and I don't expect I will see Cojocaru that close up again anytime soon...

I was a little puzzled by the reports that Wheeldon had planned to leave at the end of 2010--surely not from the beginning? Morphoses was very much introduced as Wheeldon's company, not as a company that he was being invited to lead for a few years. If I were a donor, who fancied myself supporting the next important major choreographer in the world I might not be mad (just disappointed) that the company did not work out and maybe only a little mad if the choreographer turned out to be more conflicted about the process than I had known and so departed prematurely--but I would be furious if he never really had a long term committment in the first place. In fact, I can hardly believe that's the case.

For the rest, I confess that despite admiring Wheeldon I never quite understood the original excitement about Morphoses. I have tried to explain it to myself and came up with the following--but I'm not sure it's exactly right: I think that, as a lover and admirer of the art of classical ballet, I find chamber and even mid-size companies limited in what they can achieve in terms of the history of ballet. That is, they do important work, but the "center" of ballet seems to me to lie elsewhere and I never enjoy seeing the most promising balletic talent (from Feld to Wheeldon) depart that center. I say this with some trepidation since I have great respect for all the people on this board who have done beautiful and important work with such companies. But for me, ballet--classical ballet--in its most realized form is a large scale, luxury art with a substantial tradition (and sub-traditions within the tradition). My excitement about Wheeldon was always that he was working within that tradition and I always thought it would be wonderful to see him attached to a major company in which his works--including works for one or two dancers--would take their place as a part of that ongoing tradition, helping to keep it alive. Choreographers working within large institutions have successfully developed dancers who specialized in the way they want them to move (think: Tudor at ABT or even Robbins at NYCB).

I know there are counter examples, but the Morphoses project never caught my imagination. And I'm not sure the counter examples are decisive. Obviously, one may cite the counter example of Balanchine, but if he indeed said "First a school" -- or something along those lines -- he was thinking about the Maryinsky model, about the long term, about building a larger institution. He may have begun with students, but that was hardly his ultimate aim. And is anyone at all confident that if the Paris Opera had turned to him rather than Lifar, he would still have answered the invitation to come to the United States? De Valois--not a major choreographer--likewise was playing for the long term and that, too, meant a school and building a major institution on the Maryinsky model. Ballet Rambert may have been an initial site for creativity--but British ballet seems to me to culminate in the traditions of the Royal Ballet (which of course has been undergoing some changes). It does not seem that Morphoses was aiming to be a 21st century equivalent.

The other, perhaps more appropriate, counter example is Diaghilev--which perhaps Wheeldon did have in mind. Diaghilev's company lived and died with him, but during his life it WAS a creative cauldron. But his company was in some ways also parasitic on the institutions he rebelled against--even in the twenties when he had non Russian dancers like the young Markova he still depended on Maryinsky artists fleeing Russia (including Balanchine) to keep the enterprise going--and towards the end, after all, he brought back one of his great early inspirations, The Sleeping Beauty.

(The contemporary counter example would be Forsythe, but he at least had European Opera House backing. Still I have not seen enough of what he did with the company to know if perhaps that really was the best way for him to realize his vision as a ballet choreographer. I guess it was...but Forsythe is also less balletic, more on the borders of modern dance, than Wheeldon...still, he seems to me the main sticking point to my own argument.)

Most importantly, for the history of ballet, institutions can preserve the tradition in a way that single-choreographer companies cannot. The original Bournonville fans might hate the way Napoli is being performed today, but we have a great artwork passed down, however imperfectly, through generations. Likewise the original Balanchiine fans are not too happy with the way Balanchine is danced at NYCB, but NYCB makes a greater difference to the sheer preservation of some imperfect vision of Balanchine's art than any other single institution. (Companies that I have not been lucky enough to see but that many prefer in Balanchine such as PNB and San Francisco ballet have schools attached to them and are substantial institutional entities. I have always been deeply disatisfied by the limitations the great Suzanne Farrell faces in her work with the Suzanne Farrell ballet.)

I grew up on a mid-size "regional" company (the National Ballet of Washington) and have often enjoyed smaller and pick-up travelling groups of ballet dancers both as more creative enterprises (Dennis Wayne's Dancers) and showcase groups (Jacques D'amboise's Ballet Spectacular); I can also appreciate that choreographers and dancers may prefer to work in less institutional settings; I'm sure it inspires some creativity. So--I'm not at all opposed to such groupings at all. But when a talented choreographer comes along who works authentically in the tradition of classical ballet, like Wheeldon, I don't necessarily think the modern dance model ("but first a company..") serves the art all that well. Ballet seems to me to "realize" itself as an art in more substantial (and, yes, more conservative) settings. But then again, my favorite Eliot Feld ballet remains Intermezzo.

Also, regarding the arms in the last set of balances, I noticed that neither Kirov Aurora I saw brought the arm to overhead fifth position in this series of balances (I saw Kolegova & Tereshkina yesterday). They both went directly from one suitor to the next until the last suitor took them into a supported penchee after which they came back up and held the final balance. I'll check my notes from the last time I saw the Kirov in SB and my DVDs of Kolpakova and Lezhnina, but this may just be the way the Kirov Mariinsky performs the Rose Adagio.

I mentioned on another (NYCB) thread that when I saw the Kirov some years ago (Sergeyev production) what nyusan describes is also, as I remember, what Asylmuratova and Terekhova did with barely a stab at any kind of elaborated balance. (I believe Lezhnina did bring her arms up en couronne...)

Though at first I was a touch surprised (but where is the balancing?! I thought ) I almost immediately came to appreciate that they were not rocking back and forth through balances that were not terribly secure and, instead, I was getting secure beautiful dancing.

Of course, it is thrilling and can, in a great interpretation, be meaningful to see the balances beautifully and elaborately sustained, but I enjoyed these performances as well. In the NYCB thread Canbelto mentions video of Asylmuratova balancing in an extended fashion--I suppose dancers also perform it differently at different stages of their careers, with different partners etc.

I saw three casts: the first ballerina Assylmuratova (whom at least one critic and two audience members compared to Fonteyn in my hearing) barely made a stab at balancing at all just taking her hand from one partner and immediately handing it over to another with nary a pause.

That's weird because there are some videos (both commercial and one uploaded by ketinoa of youtube) of Asylmuratova doing the Rose Adagio and she holds the balances for fairly long.

I will have to check out those videos--thanks for telling me about them. I think it is, perhaps, not so weird that what I saw in the theater was different because live performances vary so much and performances also vary over the course of a dancer's career. (Kirkland's video Clara is charming but not close to her best in the theater.)

Still, knowing that Asylmuratova also or even often did the balances in a more extended fashion really would not particularly change my view that their significance can get overblown. The rose adagio is a whole and the whole matters--bobbling all over the place in the balances can ruin it, but (in my opinion) downplaying the balancing in the context of a beautifully controlled and danced whole, need not. And the latter is what characterized the Asylmuratova and Terekhova performances I had the chance to see. I have also seen performances where the ballerina had dreamy balances and they were, indeed, dreamy--I'm not against them for sure!

I hesitate to say anything based on Youtube (as people are probably sick of hearing me post, live performance is a whole different matter), but I actually found the clips of Somova in Ratmansky's Little Humpbacked Horse rather charming. Even in their off-kilter moments--let's call them 'neoclassical'--they seemed to work for the choreography. Though this, too, suggests her value in a more contemporary repertory. (Natalya who did see live performances of the ballet preferred Kondaurova.)

Off topic: I'm a big defender of Guillem on this board--so, again, people may be tired of hearing me on the subject, but . . . I saw her dance (what I thought) a very distinguished Odette/Odile. And I do value the fact that her extraordinary extensions were, so to speak, natural on her body, so her line remained elegant and undistorted. She did not have the pathos of some Odettes but her very clarity of articulation did bring out the poetry of the choreography for Odette and, in a different way, for Odile.

She is an exceptional Aurora. I saw her in the role before her injury and cannot imagine Aurora being better danced. For me it especially came to life in Acts II and III with her emotional responses to her partner (Kobborg) but really I never expect in my life to see Act I danced in more accomplished fashion.