Drew

Yes, thanks -- I was especially interested to read your analysis of the National Ballet of Cuba. I saw them many years ago -- when they did travel with some quite attractive productions as well as fabulous principals of both sexes. I remember, too, their 'well-drilled' quality, but after reading your review I wish I could see those performances again...I feel as if I would see more.

Yes, thanks -- I was especially interested to read your analysis of the National Ballet of Cuba. I saw them many years ago -- when they did travel with some quite attractive productions as well as fabulous principals of both sexes. I remember, too, their 'well-drilled' quality, but after reading your review I wish I could see those performances again...I feel as if I would see more.

Yes, thanks -- I was especially interested to read your analysis of the National Ballet of Cuba. I saw them many years ago -- when they did travel with some quite attractive productions as well as fabulous principals of both sexes. I remember, too, their 'well-drilled' quality, but after reading your review I wish I could see those performances again...I feel as if I would see more.

It is a very interesting quote. I hope Forsythe's works are performed after his death, and I'm glad companies are still performing Petipa (even if only imperfectly), but when artists reflect on their own work, I don't really read it the same way I would if a critic were making general reflections about that work. As has already been noted, Balanchine and Ashton said things that didn't exactly accord either with their actions or with critical views of their importance (and it's history's good fortune that Max Brod ignored Kafka). I assume that artists' reflections on their work may well be rhetorical and strategic anyway -- not in some 'insincere' way, but still partly staged...for the public but maybe even, in way, for themselves. One could quote many, many statements by painters, writers, etc. that would, like Forsythe's, seem to reflect a complete carelessness about the very tradition that feeds them -- a carelessness that their work, however, might belie. (On Forsythe there is, to say the least, some difference of opinion about his work's relation to tradition.) There are many different personal, psychological, historical reasons why this might be so -- and why an artist might think of his work as something that should die with him/her. So, while I agree very much with what others have written about mainting a relation to the past, I'm not much inclined to jump on Forsythe about his reflections or, indeed, think that it NECESSARILY reflects his practice as a choreographer. I'd be more interested in thinking about the kinds of questions that his words (and his will) raise...As it happens,one of the very first threads I read on Ballet Alert concerned whether lackadaisacal or blurry performances of Balanchine were really 'still' Balanchine or even ought to be performed at all.

P.S. One thought re. Balanchine's career. He honored Petipa and Ivanov, but had little interest in traditional productions of their work, freely reworking their materials even when he used the same titles ("Swan Lake"). We would (rightly) scream if we saw that approach applied to the preservation of HIS works, and evidently he wasn't too keen on the idea either...

P.P.S. I don't mean a choreographer can't also be a fine critic...as readers of Leigh Witchel can attest.

[ November 11, 2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

[ November 11, 2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Could one say, "stars," trivialize ballet, but "great artists" have quite the opposite effect? Even from a 'choreographer's' point of view...Ashton doesn't exactly seem to have been hampered by working with Fonteyn, or Balanchine with Tallchief, Farrell et. al. (I don't buy a definition of star that would EXCLUDE Balanchine ballerinas.)

Perhaps the difficulty is that sometimes a dancer is both great artist and 'star': the Baryshnikov phenomenon was, of course, fabulous for ballet as an art and as a business but some of the fallout was trivializing for the company and repertory in which he danced. "Push Comes to Shove" was, in a way, ABOUT his stardom, and very enjoyable the first season or so, but beyond that the cultivation of a repertory for him did not "feed" the company as a company...A perennial problem at ABT, but Baryshnikov's 'star' power did not help, and may have 'hurt.'

At about the same time, Tudor's first ballet for Gelsey Kirkland, "The Leaves are Fading" did "feed" the company; anyone who saw Kirkland dance it knows she was incomparable, but the choreography featured many dancers (including corps member Cynthia Harvey who went on to a career as a principal at ABT and the Royal). And, the ballet continues to be performed with great beauty and success -- both continuing the Tudor tradition at ABT while also showing a different dimension of his work. I even liked Tudor's second ballet for Kirkland, "Tiller in the Fields" -- but, in any case, Kirkland's 'stardom' didn't seem to interfere with Tudor's interest in her artistry. If anything, her real distinctiveness as a dancer seems to have inspired him. One could argue, I suppose, that Tudor deliberately took a pass on creating for the still bigger celebrity, Baryshnikov.

Nureyev is perhaps a more interesting example: at a certain point in his career Nureyev performances became primarily, and then exclusively, about the fact that he was still dancing and people were still paying money to see him...And yet, I wouldn't exactly call them trivial experiences. There was, rather, something crazed about them that was, in a way, an honoring of ballet. (And he did occasionally, a few years before the very end, produce a revelatory performance.) Nureyev also maintained a loyalty to the ballet tradition that at the Paris Opera (and elsewhere) has left a real legacy. His productions (of which I'm not a fan) HAVE fed companies -- contributing, so to speak, to the 'big picture.' And they can't really be separated out from his stardom...He didn't stage things 'despite' being a star; the two personae (director/dancer) were linked throughout his career.

Problems are more obvious when stardom gets cultivated seemingly at the expense of artistry, or at any rate, with little concern for it. You can't really manufacture a ballet 'star' with no foundation -- if you could, Leslie Browne (actually a fine dance actress) would have had a much more high profile career -- but you can, and companies often do, showcase young dancers as 'stars' before they have a chance to grow as artists (Herrera is an obvious example; but also Corella -- though I think he handles 'growing up' in the spotlight unusually well).

I still think attacking 'stars' often misses the point. It's not as if you can master Odette/Odile by having your photograph in a magazine. And, perhaps surprizingly, audiences often can tell the difference. The example that's always given is Moira Shearer and Margot Fonteyn during the Sadlers Wells (Royal) Ballet's first visit to the U.S. -- all those 'silly' Americans who were "disappointed" to learn they were going to see Fonteyn rather than Shearer (famous for the movie "The Red Shoes")caught on fast as to who was the real 'star' of the company -- and its leading artist. Actually, I have heard/read this story so often that I've come to find it a little too condescending to Shearer, who was, after all, a ballerina and Ashton's Cinderella to boot...But the point holds. Great ballet can only be enhanced by great artists, and some (not all) great artists catch the public's imagination in a way that makes them 'stars' for better or worse. Some of the resulting fall-out is fatuous or 'trivial,' --ballet isn't 'about' stars-- but I think it would be absurd to say 'stars' are the problem. Bad casting may be a problem, silly repertory may be a problem etc. And these problems may well be aggravated by the 'star' phenomenon, but 'stars' per se are not finally the problem. Presumably (The New Yorker said something like this), we owe Kevin Mckenzie's absurd Rothbart to something like the excess of male talent and 'stars' like Malakhov at ABT -- but that doesn't mean ABT isn't a better company for having a Malakhov to dance in its productions...

[ November 09, 2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Very interesting interview -- and I liked her comment about learning (from Derek Deane) the difference between being a "technically good" and "classically trained" dancer...I have only seen her in gala bits, but thought she did look like a very classy classical ballerina.

My difficulty with this article is that the intial opposition is set up in such an uncritical, unnuanced way: art is challenging OR it is comforting. The notion that a certain type of comfort might BE a challenge never enters the commentators' minds. So for example, Gregorian chant is presented as 'comforting.' Well, the idea of personal salvation is, in a way, comforting, but hardly comfortable! (Nowadays, people may also listen to Gregorian chant to calm down, but that's not what the article discusses.)Even beauty can be a provocation, and people who teach humanities are daily required to justify it on moral and social grounds such as "values" and "civilization" as opposed to, say, aesthetic ones, such as desire or pleasure.

At the same time,something that may seem to be a provocation can also feed complacency. It is, after all, usually the 'anti' art crowd that feels the force of a so-called provocation (Satanic Verses, Madonnas with elephant dung), and they are patently NOT the intended audience, and, in fact, get sneered at by art lovers for missing the point and interfering with civil liberties. Obviously I count myself among the art lovers, but an ability to appreciate a 'daring' collage with images of the holocaust (an example in the article)or, for that matter, 'Piss-Christ' is hardly a guarantee that one is not, in one's way, seeking 'comfort.'

I do appreciate that this is an article in a newspaper, not in an academic journal -- but the formulations are so unnuanced as to seem useless. As for dance: I was so irritated before I arrived at the discussion of dance, that when I got there I couldn't quite work up the appropriate additional indignation at what was, admitedly, one of the most patronizing discussions of the art I've seen. (And notice how casually the article dismisses the notion that audience interest in Nijinsky's choreography might also be due to its 'darker' aspects.)

[ November 05, 2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

[ November 05, 2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Oops...I just saw that I'm a little late on the "ballet isn't serious" problem -- it already has a topic of its own; I will take a peek at the thread when I have the chance...

I do think that there is 'hate' and 'hate' -- that is, if someone really has no understanding of an art form and nonetheless wants to direct a production in order to make a personal mark, I can hardly imagine any good resulting from that -- at least not longterm good for the artform in question. But sometimes hate comes precisely from a place of deep knowledge and understanding. I'll start with examples from criticism which are easier to pin down --

Andre Levinson's attacks on Isadora Duncan are often more revealing of her art than the praise of her supporters; he can write incisively about how her work counters classicism precisely because of his real grasp of what is at stake both in classicism and in its dissolution. (Another great example is Neitzche on Wagner.) But this kind of 'hate' comes from knowledge -- it's often hate as the other side of love...In actual productions, it might be found in the work of a choreographer responding in an aggressive way to the tradition. I suppose, for me, one plausible example would be William Forsythe -- though I have only seen some of his early works. In those the violence of the pointe work might be described as coming from a certain 'hate' (possibly not the word he would use...)of pointe technique. In terms of productions, the disorienting sets of Dowell's production of Sleeping Beauty(I've forgotten the designer's name) are, at the least, anti-Messel -- and, presumably, intended to shake-up of one of the Royal's signature pieces, alter its tone,w/o actually altering the choreography or story.

I don't think this often happens in ballet, at least not in a way that is artistically serious or worthwhile...much rather we get dreadful productions by people who don't even know that they hate ballet! Much of ballet history involves a direct honoring of traditions -- think, today, of Christopher Wheeldon. (And Balanchine -- who really did turn ballet on its ear -- did it, under the guise of the utmost conservatism. I had almost written disguise.)

But I still think that, at least in theory, there is a place for 'hate' in the serious progress of an art form.

NB The real problem for ballet though (opera also, but less so) is not that it inspires some kind of artistic 'hate,' but that it's simply not taken seriously even by its own purveyors. This creates a situation where people feel free to re-do the classics, because on some fundamental level they don't have even elementary respect for them as choreographic WORKS of art. 'Swan Lake' becomes the canvas rather than the painting...To be honest, I don't mind the occasional oddball production -- and even have quite admired some (ballet is, after all, a performing art, and a ballet was never meant to be a static object) but increasingly one has the horrible suspicion that any sense of a standard -- even a necessarily fluctuating standard -- is being entirely lost.

[ November 05, 2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

The company website actually includes a quote from an Atlanta-Journal-Constitution critic praising McFall for getting rid of the company's "dusty Balanchine repertory." It's not the company management's responsibility that some critic used this phrase, but it surely is their responsibility that they quote it on their web site! I'm delighted to hear that Basilio17 did not find the performance of Serenade "dusty"... Unfortunately I had to miss this program (and none of the other programs this season sound terribly appealing -- Dracula et. al.)

Many of my thoughts about this issue have been expressed by Dirac and Kathleen O'Connell. And Ed Waffle, too, referred quite accurately to the complexity of the original contexts of works of art. I want to emphasize that complexity. It's a cop out to assume, "well, that's what the attitude was the in 1830's Paris" etc. -- the 1830's (for example) were, in many ways, as heterogeneous as today. There were royalists and liberals and proto-communists, feminists and misogynists, colonial adventurers and critics of colonialism etc. Even artistically there was quite a bit of diversity throughout the century -- Sand was writing at the same time as Flaubert, Zola at the same time as Mallarme [imagine accent]. Ballet-wise, one of the important 'contexts' is always formal -- the development of the technique etc., but also the 'grammar' of the steps -- and also other ballets. Economics, too; who's footing the bill? And that certainly complicates how one thinks about content or story. So,of course, it is important to keep the 'original' context of a work in mind, but it is also important to acknowledge that artists were making choices, 'artistic' choices, in a context that was not simply 'given' as any one, simple thing. A literary example: Robert Southey (he wrote "The Three Bears") wrote a letter to Charlotte Bronte basically saying that women shouldn't have literary careers; well, Robert Southey began HIS career as an admirer of Mary Wolstonecraft (she wrote "A Vindication of the Rights of Women) -- even dedicating a poem to her. So, on the one hand, yes, he's expressing banal nineteenth-century attitudes towards women, being 'a man of his time' -- how can we accuse him of sexism?!? but on the other hand, he was a man who had been deeply immersed in other perspectives. There were reasons (more context) why he, in particular, changed his opinions, which was his right certainly, but my point is simpler: context is much thicker, wierder, and even contradictory than people tend to realize.

Greek tragedy is a very powerful example. 5th century Athens may have been more homogeneous than 21st-century internet communities -- though I'm always a little suspicious of imagining the past as simpler than the present...But, even so, I believe that understanding how Greek Tragedy installs certain heirarchies (Gods/mortals...men/women...Greeks/everyone else!)is absolutely essential to understanding their power as 'great art'! And I don't think it amounts to attacking a work to recognize that what is most wonderful about it may also be implicated in what is most terrible about it. That is, after all, one of the lessons of Greek tragedy: that -- however enlightened one is, one cannot always avoid being implicated in crime.

As for the nineteenth-century ballet repertory, what I find worth analyzing (I assume Zimmer does this (?)) is not merely that the ballerina is a figure of (exotic) otherness -- sylph, dryad, wili, and ultimately death -- but that this scenario leaves the man as the one who must struggle as a human being -- i.e. he becomes the real subject of the story (though not necessarily of the dancing). This is what all those modernized Swan Lakes focusing on Siegfried's psychology have been able to develop. (Many twentieth-century story-less ballets actually follow this pattern in their abstract distillations of story elements.) One might argue that the fact that the ballerina remains the primary dancing figure, the DANCING subject, somewhat complicates how one might analyze, absorb these ideas/figures. Ballet is not just the content of its stories, and very few Siegfried-centric Swan Lakes seem to work as well as the more traditional productions. But I think it's a very tricky argument...certainly not one I'm prepared to sort out.

[ 08-25-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

[ 08-25-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

I love this site and have learned from it -- facts, information about performances, different perspectives, views on ballet outside the U.S. etc. And I enjoy the net generally -- have even published on academic sites on the net, good ones (at least I hope so), and often use it for alternative sources of political information. I only very rarely use it for serious research, usually seeking bibliography. BUT I do often have internet user's remorse. How much time did I spend...? What did my eye doctor say about remembering to blink my eyes...? As far as ballet is concerned, I used to have no-one with whom to discuss ballet -- now I do (hurrah!) but then every stray thought or instant opinion about a performance will come flying out of my fingers and on to the screen, and I do sometimes think about it a day or two later and say to myself: "I can't believe you wrote that! Aargh!" I may even say that to myself about this entry...

[ 08-25-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Since the late 70's? if I assume Kirkland, Makarova, and Semenyaka are already in the book (the very first three I'd add if they are not)...and sticking to ballerinas I've had a chance to see live in at least two substantive roles: Bussell, Guillem, Kistler (nothing new there...), Assymulratova, Vishneva, and Ringer...

I'd be willing to trade one of the above for Whelan, and there are a few other names knocking about my head -- even some dancers I've loved more than one or two of those named -- but they've earned their chapters and, anyway, I'm trying to follow Alexandra's rules.

P.S. For rising stars (it is a catagory in the book after all) I'd include Kowroski, Ansanelli, Somogyi. (I think City Ballet has been in luck in recent seasons. From what I read, Royal Ballet fans may feel similarly about the Royal's luck.) And I'm rather hopeful about Murphy at ABT. There are others, but I'm sticking to my two substantive roles rule.

The effect of this type of casting on me is pretty much as Alexandra describes -- rather than try to compare Giselles or Kitris I tend to settle for one of each. (ABT standing room this season was $20 on weeknights and $25 on weekends; and it is very obviously not selling well at those prices.) I do think that a company can't let its box office be primarily determined by balletomane habits, but even for general audiences this type of casting is baffling -- especially with a repertory that so depends on featuring principles. Presumably, too, long term box office depends partly on developing "big" stars -- in ballet that means artists, too -- and this does not seem to be the way to do it. It also means that if a general audience ballet goer (say, a subscriber who buys a few extra seats) reads a rave review of Dvorovenko as Kitri and thinks, I HAVE to see her...well, gee, they aren't likely to have the chance. Under the current regime, Kent seems to be especially favored, though; she actually did get two cracks at Swan Lake (with two partners) and Giselle (originally planned to be with two partners). Ironically, the ballets that dancers DID get more than one chance at were the lighter weight Cinderella, Merry Widow, and (dance-wise lighter weight) Onegin; even if Ferri had not withdrawn this would have been the case. (I know Onegin has its champions, and I will concede that if ABT is going to do it at all, dancers should have a chance to perform it repeatedly -- especially given the dramatic and partnering demands.)I don't entirely envy Mckenzie having to make these decisions, but as I recall when the company had Makarova, Kirkland, Van Hamel, and Gregory leading the way, the casting wasn't quite this scattered.

I know this is off the fouette topic, but rather than fake one more remark on fouettes I will leave it up to the moderator to decide what to do .

[ 07-16-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

I've never quite understood what people mean when they criticize Kirkland for the intensity of her research and preparation of roles. Onstage the results were magnificent (not just my opinion) and she looked utterly spontaneous...So from an audience or an artistic point of view why would one imply that her methods were somehow wrong? Presumably the answer to that question would be that some other dancers didn't enjoy working with her, or that her career was cut short and her general obsessiveness may have played a role in this etc. But in terms of what was achieved on stage, I don't think she can be said to have been "overrationalizing" anything. And there was, obviously some relation between her methods of preparation and that achievement...

I go back and forth on the generational difference question. I do think that memory gilds the lily, people are loyal to their first loves and so on. I am one of those who got sick of "sheezno Fonteyn" as a youngster and though my favorite ballerinas are all retired (as, for example, Kirkland!), I forbid the words "she's no x or y" to leave my lips unless I am provoked by an outright comparison, and even then I try to exercise restraint. But I do feel the differences, especially at the very top level of dancing. Then, once in a while I will see a performance or a dancer who inspires the kind of pleasure, I "used" to get and because of that, too, I tend to trust my other, more critical feelings when I think that much of what I see today is not of that quality. I do agree with Mel Johnson's point that there is some generational ebb and flow. I can't speak to what happens behind the scenes but everything else that has been said seems persuasive to me...I would like to add, though, that at ABT at least a few things actually seem to me to have improved, in particular the level of solo/demi-soloist dancing which in the "good old days" -- despite some heroic exceptions like Rebecca Wright -- was often worse than mediocre. In general the level of what I would call "second" tier dancing, even the quality of the "house" ballerinas etc. seems to me a bit higher than it used to me in a number of major companies not just ABT.

I have also felt that the last few years have offered more in the way of interesting and major ballerinas than the decade previous, and it may only be the lack of a major choreographer to feature them more extensively that prevents some of them from joining quite the same pantheon as some of the greats of the past. But despite what I said about my favorite ballerinas all being retired, I have a few new ones on the horizon. Male dancing, interestingly, I have more mixed feelings about. Here especially, good, very good, and even very, very good dancing abounds (certainly at ABT and NYCB), but little that to my mind that compares with the COMPLETE quality of the the really great artists.

[ 07-14-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Perhaps great teachers/ballet mistresses would be worth a separate thread? I think Alexandra recently suggested a book on this topic, and I concur.

A figure about whom I am curious in the post-Diaghilev Ballet Russe saga is Rene Blum. At least one of the Balanchine biographies mentions that Balanchine thought well of him or, at least, thought he was a person of taste, and was unhappy when "Colonel de Basil" took over, and I believe he was a relation (brother or cousin?) of Leon Blum and spent (or ended?) a part of his life in a concentration camp...In short, a ballet patron who lived more or less at the fulcrum of European history in the 30's. I usually hesitate to write when my memory is so absurdly blurry, but would be very pleased to hear from anyone who knows more.

Perhaps great teachers/ballet mistresses would be worth a separate thread? I think Alexandra recently suggested a book on this topic, and I concur.

A figure about whom I am curious in the post-Diaghilev Ballet Russe saga is Rene Blum. At least one of the Balanchine biographies mentions that Balanchine thought well of him or, at least, thought he was a person of taste, and was unhappy when "Colonel de Basil" took over, and I believe he was a relation (brother or cousin?) of Leon Blum and spent (or ended?) a part of his life in a concentration camp...In short, a ballet patron who lived more or less at the fulcrum of European history in the 30's. I usually hesitate to write when my memory is so absurdly blurry, but would be very pleased to hear from anyone who knows more.

Sorry for my confusion Glebb -- I hadn't realized Hockney was the designer for Varii Capricii -- but I'm glad you brought The Nightingale to my mind anyway...

Like at least a few other fans at the Met. premier of Varii Capricii, I was awaiting something more rapturous or, at least, elegantly classical, for Sibley's return to the ballet stage -- and the return of the much missed Sibley/Dowell partnership. Ashton was less pious and offered a bit of a surprize, but I do sometimes wonder how the more deliberately clever or jokey aspects of his choreography will weather over time...(It's honestly a question, and only revivals -- well stage and well cast revivals -- will tell.)

I'm a little late to this, but want to express a bit of reserve on the notion that nowadays anyone can do 32 fouettes (especially, as has been noted above, in the context of an intense full length role). When Mckenzie's Swan Lake premiered at ABT last year, the company went through at least three different casts before one of their ballerinas completed them. (I saw Tuttle -- one year ago -- and she went off kilter not quite 2/3 of the way through and quit altogether around 24.) This year, Kent made it through 32 at her first performance and quite at about 28 at her second. (It's vulgar, I know, but I did count.) Even demon turners, like Murphy, have been known to flub -- at least according to one poster here at ballet alert who generally liked her debut very much, she took a "cook's tour" of the stage during her fouettes...I never assume a ballerina is going to make it through successfully.

The fouettes are an iconic part of the role so, ideally, they should be there -- but if an otherwise fine ballerina needs to cut them, it makes sense to let her do so. Maria Kowroski replaced them with Pique turns at NYCB, but just the line of her arabesque, shooting straight behind her in Act III, was enough to make her an exciting Odile.

Re. Aurora's balances -- they are a necessary part of the choreography, but even in this case, ballerinas with very differing abilities at balancing approach the choreography in quite different ways. I saw Assylmuratova some years ago at Kennedy Center, and at that performance she barely released her hand more than a few inches from her cavaliers, and rarely had to balance more than a nano-second, very different from other ballerinas who make a show of the balancing or at least raise their arm over their head on each balance. She did not, though, looked rushed or frazzled -- on the contrary, she looked utterly poised and lovely...and I thought it was a good decision on her part. So, even with Aurora, and with the choreography more or less intact, one sees variations...

Glebb-I believe the David Hockney designed work you mentioned was a staging of Stravinsky's Nightingale done not by the Royal but by the Metropolitan Opera as the second portion part of a three part Stravinsky evening. (The Oedipus oratoria with Jesse Norman closed the evening -- I can't remember how it opened.) I believe the Met. was following Diaghilev precedent in having the singers in the pit for Nightingale and the dancers on stage. Ashton did the choreography and the leads were Dowell and Natalia Makarava (not Sibley). Hockney designed all three works on the program. I thought the whole evening was wonderful, and the Ashton ballet magical and beautiful, but I can't remember very much detail. One thing I do remember is that Dowell's dancing had a much "younger" quality than I had ever seen in him, certainly than I had seen in him in the eighties. At this point (in my opinion) Dowell was an extraordinary artist but not quite the quicksilver dancer on whom Ashton created Oberon, and yet Ashton managed somehow to recreate that effect in Dowell's dancing. Anyway, a gorgeous ballet -- one I have often wish could be revived.

Ashton's story ballets (I would prefer to say narrative or even character ballets) are by far and away the story ballets that I have found most moving and, more than that, most persuasive in the theater. I especially love A Month in the Country which I was lucky enough to see twice with the original cast and which I remember as a simply perfect ballet. Enigma Variations is another favorite, though the last time I saw it in the theater, many years ago, I didn't think the dancers "got" it. In any case, the trio for Elgar, his wife, and friend is about as extraordinary and nuanced as ballet characterization can get...Ashton manages to be genuinely "balletic" and yet keep the drama as fluid and natural looking as the dance. I have a more mixed reaction to his Cinderella than other posters, but the sequence at the end of Act I -- the variations for the seasons with the shifting scenic effects that accompany it -- seem to me an utterly tranforming renewal of Petipa's Sleeping Beauty: you can see the tradition, and you can see it becoming something totally new and distinctive. (Other parts of the ballet sometimes seem to me to fall back into mere Sleeping Beauty pastiche).

P.S. To James Wilkie who began this thread, thanks -- but one caveat: "trusts" and other ways of controlling choreographers' legacies can be a good thing (though not always), but even when they are, problems remain. Legacies in the performing arts are always tricky...And I promise, the presence of a Balanchine or Tudor "trust" does not mean that all the performances you see of their ballets will be "up to snuff"!

[ 07-10-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

BIG OOPS - I wrote this before having realized there was a page 2 to this thread...Now that I have read it, I see some of my points are a little untimely, but I will leave most of it, and just ask indulgence.

This is my first check-in to ballet alert in a bit, and I want to offer some support to Leight Witchel's earlier post. I understand that Alexandra's original question aimed at an understanding of audiences and taste formation (as well as "perceptions" thereof), but I think we can't limit the issue of "Balanchine-centrism" to the chance results of where one lives or local favoritism. I grew up outside of New York and was exposed to a range of classical/neo-classical choreography and modern dance at various levels of performance (local and international companies, including top ranked Soviet and British). My ballet tastes were and, to some degree remain, quite eclectic. As for Balanchine, I was taken to see Prodigal Son as a child (with Villela) and hated it, but saw some other NYCB occasionally (incl. A Midsummer Night's Dream) and got my first big dose in the early 70's with programs that included Ivesiana, Stravinsky Violin Concerto and Symphony in Three Movements. I was dazzled (particularly by the latter), but didn't quite know what to make of it or say about it. But I am now completely devoted to Balanchine's work. It is over the years, seeing more and more Balanchine, and, in particular, seeing how much his ballets yield on repeated viewing and, yes, even with different companies, that has confirmed for me personally not only the more or less consensus view that Balanchine is a crucial figure for the history of ballet, but also that a case can be made -- that has nothing to do with geography -- that he is THE crucial figure for twentieth-century ballet, much as one can make a case for Petipa in the nineteenth-century. That does not mean that Bournonville and Ashton lovers can't make their own cases in return, and certainly if one were to speak about "national" schools of dance, one would configure ballet history differently, but it's not just a matter of location and exposure that inspires admiration of Balanchine. I've seen Macmillan ballets danced over and over too -- by the Royal, not just ABT. And, in that sense, "New Yorker" love of Balanchine is not finally the same as, say, Stuttgarters loving Cranko. It may "feel" the same -- I'm sure there are those out there who admire Cranko as much I do Balanchine -- but that's a different matter, and probably a different thread. Geography can affect the formation of tastes, but there is rather more at stake if we are going to make JUDGEMENTS of taste -- which is what I understand Leigh's basic point to have been.

At different moments in history certain places do become energetic centers for artistic activity of one kind or another. Theater goers in London around 1600 really did get to see some of the best, if not the best, drama in the European world at that moment -- with a little competition from Spain. Their "Shakespeare-centric" view of drama may have been limited, but it wasn't merely some misbegotten quirk of English taste even if, for a century or so, several French critics liked to say it was and complained bitterly about it...

[ 07-09-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

I think there is quite a bit of pre-teen drama training -- I have first hand experience with different types of children's drama classes aimed at children as young as nine. Some were really just improvisation exercises but others involved performances of melodramas written for children, adaptations of children's books, religious subjects, even some scenes from "serious" adult drama, etc. I think this is pretty typical, and would be very surprised if some children didn't "study" earlier than nine.

What I experienced didn't involved classical drama (except what I did on my own with friends), but there are decidedly more ambitious attempts at training child actors as well. According to an (unofficial) biography, at the age of 11 Alan Rickman was playing Volumnia in Shakespeare's Coriolanus for a school production. Many professional actors date their first experiences on the stage, professional or amateur, quite early.

At various times in history, child actors in serious drama were rather a vogue -- in London during in 1804 you could see an extremely popular thirteen year old actor (Master Betty) play Hamlet. I'm just noting this, not advocating...

LMCtech: Trent Reznor as Rothbart? I think he would make a good Siegfried. I say this in the spirit of the thread only of course; though an interesting mime in his videos, he's not exactly a classical ballet dancer. Anyway, he does have a certain romantic/erotic obsessiveness, so perhaps he'd fit one of those souped-up contemporary productions in which Siegfried is an ultra anguished neurotic. Now, Alan Rickman might make a good Rothbart...

[ 06-22-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

I went back to see Julie Kent with Vladimir Malakhov Tues. evening. In my opinion, this is a better pairing than Kent/Corella -- certainly for Swan Lake. Although I am a big fan of Malakhov, I was not quite as won over by his Siegfried as I was by his Albrecht or even his James. The interpretation did, though, have many lovely romantic qualities; in act II his hands seem to linger ever so slightly wherever they touched or held Odette, and the sheer length and stretch of his line seems designed to express balletic longing. He was not having a completely impeccable evening technically (some flubs a the end of his doubles tours in Act III; his spins in the coda not perfectly centered). At other moments he settled for simplicity, albeit simplicity perfectly executed; his multiple pirouettes were, for example, all doubles -- but that aspect I do NOT complain about as I really do mean perfectly executed and the result was at once beautiful and expressive. (I know we are wary of rumors on ballet alert, but my understanding is that he is coming off some sort of minor injury/surgery that caused at least one earlier performance this season to be canceled.)

Withal, for my taste, the sheer quality of Malakhov's classical dancing -- underline classical -- just puts him in a different category from ABT's other male dancers, terrific as many of them are. Just one rather obvious example: in his grand jetes Malakhov describes a soaring arc in the air, so exquisitely curved, so beautifully shaped in every portion and proportion of his body, that it is as if one were seeing the step in its essence, at once idealized and intensified. With Malakhov one gets a rare chance to see the ballet vocabulary as it is supposed to look, but only rarely really does -- if you will, the way one imagines it in one's balletomaniac's mind's eye ... and it is just breathtaking.

Katja -- regarding Malakhov: in addition to what has been said above by Dale and Alexandra, I believe that this particular spring season, one of Malakhov's few scheduled performances in a "prince" role (Albrecht) was canceled. I heard that this was due to a minor injury -- though I cannot say for certain. ABT has a very large "spread" of principals, and often each cast only gets one performance of a full length ballet -- especially in New York when guest artists like Malakhov are added to the roster. So if one performance is cancelled...that's often it. Malakhov is also scheduled to dance Siegfried this coming Tuesday, and I certainly intend to be there.

P.S. I am delighted to hear about the response he received in Russia -- in my opinion very deserved. He did, perhaps, at one time jump a little more dazzlingly than he does now, but his leaps remain just beautiful. He's just a complete artist in a way very few male dancers today are...

I gather Wendy Whelan has danced Chaconne during past seasons, but I saw her dance it for the first time at tonight's performance (6/16). Since Farrell's retirement I've seen several excellent ballerinas dance Chaconne -- excellent, but not (in my opinion) at all effective at capturing the full range of its qualities. I have always especially loved and admired the ballerina role, and simply mourned its flattening in the versions I was seeing. Well, Wendy Whelan wasn't a Suzanne Farrell -- she was entirely Wendy Whelan and as Wendy Whelan she has restored (in my eyes) a piece of Balanchine I had given up hoping to see again. With Philip Neal (also quite wonderful) she brought back the whole range of the ballet's dynamics, moods, lines, shapes, wit. I'm a pretty wordy ballet-alertnick -- but I haven't the words.

I've praised a number of performances this season, so I hope it's clear that I mean this as praise of an altogether higher order. An extraordinary performance...(The evening as a whole, by the by, also included Peter Boal's equally remarkable performance in Square Dance. Should I add that up until about an hour and a half before the performance, I had pretty much decided not to go? Where's Alexandra's "Chinese gentleman" when you need him?! Fortunately, I changed my mind.)

[ 06-17-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]