Drew

I came to the Coppelia discussion a few days late and didn't read this thread until after writing about Coppelius and Croce's writing on the ballet under the 'do you take the ballet seriously' question. I won't repeat what I said there, but strongly agree with views that take a more complex,'dark' view of C's character. I don't think it has to be played that way in any and every production, but I think the story and the music totally support that interpretation. He is, after all, a kind of would be Pygmalion...I saw Niels Bjorn Larsen and thought he was very intense, very dark -- I didn't pick up the connotations Alexandra mentions, but from what I remember it seems very likely to have been part of his thinking if not literally his actual interpretation. (Larsen was effective and, to my eyes, not "offensive," but given what I've written elswhere at Ballet Alert! people may not be surprized if I say, it hardly seems to me an interpretation that needs to be developed or underlined in modern productions...)

I've always found the Balanchine Act III quite sensational...the Wagner parody all the richer when you consider the date (1870) and the finale just thrilling. I even like the little girls.

I thought that (in most traditional productions) celebrating the bell IS mentioned in Act I. The mayor (or whoever) announces it and the gift for anyone who marries on that day and then asks Swanilda and Frants if they will marry; that leads Swanilda to dance with the sheaf of wheat etc. The production I'm probably remembering is Franklin's for the National Ballet (which I think is very close to what he did for ABT), but I don't think this is unusual; it may even be in NYCB's -- I just don't remember.

Presumably Frants falling in love with a doll is meant to be a parody (or comic demystification) of all those silly ballet heros who fall in love with sylphs and naiads and dryads -- i.e. the unreal and untouchable -- literally, the girl on point (i.e. with mechanical accoutrements) instead of the girl in soft slippers. (I know Swanilda is on point, but she does do character dancing, and plot-wise she's an Effie who fights back.)

The Barbie doll is a kind of popular version of this type of (sometimes obsessive) idealization. Just listen to people who collect Barbie dolls!

I strongly agree that the score plays a role in Coppelia's being a major ballet -- but also the story, which is loosely (admitedly, very loosely) based on a Hoffman story that has generated volumes of interpretation including a very famous essay by Freud. Just the human/mechanical opposition gives the ballet a deeply resonant theme, and one it shares with other major art works; it's a theme that also allows for metaphors that reflect on ballet itself as an art -- e.g. anxiety about the mechanical, heartless quality of ballet technique. (The whole ballet plays character dancing off against classical pointe technique etc. -- presumably lots of bad nineteenth-century ballets did that, too, but in this case it gets thematized or reflected on in Swanilda's Act II transformations. It's a ballet 'about' forgiveness etc., but also a ballet about ballet. Maybe that's why Balanchine wanted to stage it.)

Taking a somewhat different emphasis, and one that would relate Coppelia to earlier romantic ballets, Croce describes Swanilda as a Shavian heroine who has to bring the dreaming/fantasizing hero down to earth and back to real life -- with Coppelius a kind of failed artist who never did entirely return from his dreams back to the everyday. (I'm paraphrasing Croce based on memory and may be elaborating a bit.) In a sense Coppelius is a belated version of Pygmalion -- Pygmalion in the age of mechanical reproduction.

Even the Wagner parodies that the Balanchine/Danilova version include partly underline the way this is a ballet about ballet (or theater more broadly), as well as a ballet about the undoing of romantic myth. No more unattainable dream women (Sylphs or Valkyries) -- or, rather, a robot instead.

None of this would be able to take theatrical effect, if there weren't the choreography to sustain the sheer dance interest. That's why it's a ballet and not a Hoffman story! But the evidence of the various productions I've seen is that enough remains of the "original" -- steps/structure/atmosphere -- to say that there is a choreographic template and it works.

I agree, too, with Luka's comment that the ballet's rich history counts for something in this discussion. It's an important work if for no other reason than that it has been the scene of important performances. That alone might not be reason enough to keep staging Coppelia, but it is a part of the larger picture.

I guess it's clear by now how I would answer the question. Yes, indeed, I do take Coppelia seriously as a major ballet!

[ 05-21-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

I was actually quite dazzled by whole sections of Dvorovenko's Act II -- she has such an extraordinary jump. At moments she really looked (to me) as if she were flying and floating weightlessly. And at the most exciting moments, the dance seemed to compel her rather than the other way around. Like Manhattnik, though, I thought Act II was certainly the stronger Act.

I thought Gelsey Kirkland gave a more thrilling and really unforgetable performance in Baryshnikov's Nutcracker than Marianna Tcherkassky. (Tcherkassky was lovely though.) I never saw Makarova in Other Dances, but Kirkland also gave some performances of the ballet in D.C. that were absolutely remarkable.

Bejart was once quoted as saying that when he created his Romeo and Juliet he never dreamed he would have a ballerina as wonderful as Farrell to dance it...

Jimmy Carter was a supporter of the arts -- he not only sponsored televised performances at the White House -- but often attended performances in Washington, not necessarily gala events either. I saw him myself at a performance of _Amadeus_. As for ballet specifically, I always understood that Kissinger liked ballet...I know I saw him at at least one performance (not a gala), and in an interview, Farrell mentioned meeting him after a performance, and commented that he seemed to really know something about dance. (Of course, she may have been being polite, and Kissinger's attendance at ballet performances would have had little or no bearing on arts policy!)

But I remain pretty indifferent to the personal tastes of these figures, though -- up to a point -- I do appreciate public policy that supports the arts. However, I very strongly agree with Dirac's comments about the Kennedys. I have been quite appalled by the uncritical tone of many intellectuals and artists on the subject of the Kennedy administration. From a specifically "arts" perspective, one might invoke Salzberg's question -- are the arts better off? -- but actually I don't think it's always easy to know if the answer is a straightforward "yes."

I also think that it does matter that the arts and intellectuals generally were supported during the Kennedy administration in large part because American artistic and intellectual institutions, including the New York City Ballet, were seen as weapons in the propaganda wing of the cold war. If you want references, a somewhat sloppy book recently came out about this: Frances Stonor Saunders _The Cultural Cold War_. It's full of silly mistakes, but the overarching argument and research that went into it remains worth attention. One might respond, "who cares" if public and even some private funding (Ford Foundation) that spurred the dance boom can ultimately be traced to the CIA? Didn't the arts benefit? (See Saunders book if you want references...) And I would add that ALL arts support is likely to be 'tainted' in some way or another, if not politically then commercially, socially etc. But in a larger perspective, I don't think the supporters of the arts should be indifferent to what is going on -- or WHY it's going on -- partly because there are situations where independence can be compromised, but also for more pragmatic reasons. It may, for example, account for patterns of public support AND their withdrawal. Today's arguments against public funding of the arts rarely mention, for example, the end of the cold war and, in the meanwhile, people look back (in my opinion over idealistically) to the Kennedy adminstration, as a time whe the arts were "understood." But if in fact federal support for the arts has often been motivated by other, seemingly alien issues, like foreign policy -- then a great deal of this debate, however sincere on all sides, simply misses what is really happening.

I saw the new Wheeldon at the Sat. matinee -- for those who don't know, it's a "backstage" ballet. When the curtain rises, it's as if we are watching from the wings while a company rehearses and then premiers some sort of romantic 'fairy' ballet. (The set, by Ian Falconer is very striking at creating the effect of watching 'from the side' -- and Wheeldon's choreography sort of plays with this odd perspective.) When the ballet opens, Ansanelli as the "young dancer" comes out and, thinking no-one is watching, peforms a solo facing the curtain-in-the-set -- as if she is imagining herself dancing the lead at a performance when that curtain will go up. I was really enchanted. (Remembering Ansanelli's solo in Polyphonia -- it seems she brings out something in Wheeldon and Wheeldon something in her that's quite wonderful.) Anyway, for a few minutes, I thought this was going to be a ballet about the magic of the theater -- perhaps comic, certainly naive, but a valentine. But actually, as it unfolds it's much more of a farce -- with some pretty and even some pretty dazzling dancing -- and lots of gags. For example, at the "premier," the male lead leaps about the fictional stage in his solo and as he enters the 'wings' he collapses in exhaustion; from the point of view of the real stage, our point of view, he collapses downstage. The plot, such as it is, is back stage kitch (though I kept thinking, All About Eve if Eve were the heroine): a self-involved and affected prima ballerina (Maria Kowroski) gets her comeuppance, an injury, during a partnering mishap with a member of the male corps, and the sweet and talented young dancer (Ansanelli) dances the premier in her place with an admiring and sympathetic premier danseur, (Damian Woetzel). It made me a little queasy to laugh at a dancer getting injured -- Kowroski lies on the floor sticking up a horribly turned in foot while Woetzel runs to get her an ice pack -- but the gags throughout were more or less amusing. I agree with Manhattnik that it's hard to know how they will age. The pastiche choreography of the ballet within the ballet and the other "backstage" choreography had some charming passages and the virtuoso choreography for the "premier danseur," in particular, was appropriately showy and fun. Ansanelli was lovely throughout and it turns out Kowroski can do low parody as well as high elegance. Still, the ballet never seemed to return to the delicacy of the opening solo. Perhaps if I had known what the genre was beforehand, I wouldn't have been disappointed. One of the later comic sections did hint at that earlier quality -- a dance for the backstage crew, mopping the floor while the stage manager (a girl in overalls) joins them, at one point actually standing on their linked mops and being swept across the stage with a beautific smile on her face. It seemed to me like a comic parallel to Ansanelli imagining herself as the ballerina. For a moment, the ballet seemed to say: everybody wants to dance, everybody dreams of being the ballerina. But the ballet as a whole settled for less. That said, I did enjoy it and I think it's a great addition to the repertory -- partly because it's like nothing else they have.

[ 05-12-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

I don't read that much ballet criticism so it's hard to comment, but I'm jumping in because one thing Alexandra wrote surprized me very much -- that anyone would say they are uninterested in writing about ballet because 'everything has been said.' For a major art form (even for an important 'type' within a larger art form -- dance) ballet has attracted comparatively little great writing. And the critics whose names are usually given out as great are decidedly quirky even eccentric both as observers and writers. That's not a knock on those writers, but if someone new is knowledgeable and passionate about ballet, there's plenty left to say...The other issues raised seemed somewhat more plausible to me...

As a reader, I do make a big distinction between dance writing in newspapers and dance writing in weekly/monthly general interest magazines and another somewhat smaller distinction between the latter and specialized dance publications. The attempt to make the writing livelier for a newspaper audience when transferred to, say, the New Yorker or The New Republic or the Nation or National Review (I'm trying to be politically ecumenical) sometimes just makes it seem as if the critic in question scarcely takes the art seriously him or herself. I am also pretty skeptical about critical writing that sounds like fan gushing or, for that matter, internet chat. One example: I read what I considered was justified praise for Stepanenko's Shades Scene in Bayadere in a (highly thought of) general interest journal. The critic made the point that one hardly ever saw a ballerina who could handle every one of the ballet's challenges, but then went off into some excursus about this "girl" dancing "like a miracle" -- that was not (in my opinion) poetic or evocative, but just plain condescending and even undermined the excellent point that had just been made. Stepanenko is not a "girl" she's a senior ballerina (in her thirties surely) with a major ballet company, and her dancing isn't a miracle -- she's an extremely well-trained, well-coached, and accomplished ballet dancer. I myself have been known to gush here at ballet alert! but I'm not a professional critic writing for publication in a prestigious magazine. One doesn't have to be puritanical -- genuine wit is fine -- but ballet fans must often lament the fact that somehow their favorite art form isn't taken as seriously as, say, symphonic music or dramatic literature; well, part of a critic's job should be to show people that it is. The same critic writing about a particularly good season Wendy Whelan was having (several seasons back) speculated that a new boyfriend might be making the difference. I later saw, elsewhere that Whelan herself commented publically on her personal life that season, but the critic didn't cite Whelan, but just threw the remark out there (wink! wink!); well, if the top critics don't take ballet dancing seriously as a craft and an art, who will? It's not a Herbert Ross movie in which love affairs and miracles are the real points of interest...and in relatively serious journals/magazines I don't think that's a productive way to develop a ballet audience. (I would cut a lot more slack to newspaper writers who have huge editorial limitations and a much more amorphous audience to face.)

P.S. I thought it was quite gracious of Rachel Howard to respond to the comments she saw posted here...

[ 05-08-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Thanks Manhattnik -- I never saw the Baryshnikov cast in Four Seasons, only Farrell and Martins. As far as silly goes, though, I'd say the whole ballet is "pretty silly" -- nowhere more so than in the "Fall" section -- but when it's high spirited and terrifically danced silliness (which I thought it was Sunday) it works...

I strongly agree that there are ballets and productions in which the super high extensions are just 'wrong.' But I also find that the overall quality of the extension matters. When Sylvie Guillem uses a super high extension as, say, Odile it looks "natural" -- in the performance I saw, at least, she didn't strain or distort her upper body, her placement/line (other than the height of the leg) was classical, she danced securely and musically. The use of the legs was integrated into the whole dance performance. Also, she didn't use the extension indiscriminately, at every opportunity, though certainly more often than other ballerinas might have. I've seen other dancers who were so busy getting their leg way, way up and then down that they fell behind the music and their extensions were, likewise, accompanied with distorted upper bodies etc. So, even in a ballet where perhaps the high extensions are not, in my opinion, exactly right, I might find a Guillem (or Bussell) persuasive or, at any rate, be able to enjoy their interpretation...while with another dancer I would just feel, 'no, this is not the way it's supposed to look...'

After the actual quote from Neumeier "about a human being the center of everything," I couldn't quite tell from A.M.'s original entry whether or not the rest was also a a paraphrase of Neumeier, or, rather a quotation or paraphrase of the author of the newspaper article (or even perhaps A.M.'s own thoughts about the ballet) so it seems a little hard to judge, especially since we're dealing with multiple translations (Neumeier into Russian? Russian into English?)

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[ 05-07-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Attended a very enjoyable Sunday afternoon performance. It opened with an all round excellent performance of Four Temperaments -- the dancing (everyone) seemed focused, energized, musical, precise. At the end when the ensemble forms parallel lines and the women are lifted and carried between those lines, their legs and arms extended wide, they all had a kind of expansive springy energy in the air, as if they could have continued the ballet, dancing beyond the stage and upwards. From an individual point of view, not everyone was the very "best" in their role that I've seen, but everyone was just "on." A terrific performance. The Garland/Lafosse ballet Tributary was new to me. I gather this was originally done w. the Dance Theater of Harlem, but this afternoon was just NYCB...Anyway, the ballet didn't make much of an impression on me, and there was some peculiar mishap with a couple in the corps who, I guess, missed an entrance, so that some of the formations that were presumably meant to be symmetrical were not symmetrical. But for one viewing it was pleasant, and the leads Nicolaj Hubbe and Jennifer Ringer were excellent. She has such a beautiful epaulement, she makes every shift in pose and position a rich dance event, and she's just always dancing, even when she's still or in a pose...She also always manages to have a connection with her partner. Wonderful!

An unexpected pleasure of the program (unexpected for me) was The Four Seasons -- I saw this last season with a largely different cast and was more or less bored silly. (I was even more bored at the one other post-Farrell performance I have seen of this ballet and had more or less given up on it.) This afternoon it was a joy to watch, a sheer pleasure; top to bottom everyone was dancing beautifully -- a few really exceptionally. Winter was Riggins/Ritter (really high, soft jumps)/and Jeroen Hofmans...Spring Philip Neal and Ringer. She was absolutely gorgeous in this. She dances as if dancing -- BALLET dancing -- were her native element. Neal was an appreciative partner and offered some particularly strong, beautiful chaine turns. Summer was Helene Alexopoulos and James Fayette; she is always gorgeously sensual in this, but what was particularly fun about this performance is that he just about matched her in lush intensity. In Fall all three principals were terrific -- Whelan had real ballerina flash: she didn't just dance the role beautifully, but really put over its absurd splashiness. Woetzel was as engaged as I've ever seen him -- it wasn't so much that he was jumpig and turning brilliantly (he was, though not quite the best I've seen him) as that he was performing the life out of it, which is exactly what this ballet needs; he was even preening at times, to which the audience decidedly responded. One thing I don't remember seeing before was a series of turns with leg extended a la seconde which he punctuated by periodically jumping from and landing on the turning leg [sic] and immediately resuming his turns all the while keeping his working leg a la seconde. Millepied, as the faun, was both funny and spectacular and in a jump or two genuinely hovered in the air. The whole ensemble danced wonderfully -- even the four pantomime figures symbolizing the seasons seemed galvanized. Altogether a happy afternoon.

[ 05-06-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

I went Friday night which, overall, I thought was a very fine evening. (I don't have the program so apologies for any spelling errors in dancers' names.)

The middle section of the program was fabulous -- great ballets, great performances (from principles and ensembles alike): Monumentum pro Gesualdo with Charles Askegard and Maria Kowroski, Movments for Piano and Orchestra with Askegard and Helene Alexapolous, Duo Concertante with Darci Kistler and Hubbe. Although these three are all 'modernist' Balanchine set to Stravinsky, and Monumentum and Movements are traditionally paired as if one ballet, I was happily struck with how distinct each one is. In Monumentum Kowroski seemed to embody the whole spirit of the ballet; she danced with purity, austerity, and perfect control -- the whole ensemble seemed at once courtly yet very strange, because so very abstracted. The more self-consciously modern -- distorted, disjuntive -- look of Movements actually seemed less abstracted, partly because Alexapoulos and Askegard were very intensely connected -- constantly making real eye contact with each other etc. I would not say that they "acted" but that was almost the effect of the way they danced, as if straining to establish some kind of relationship through the unbalanced, extreme movements. Alexapoulos was as exciting as I've ever seen her -- daring, forceful, charismatic. In both ballets, I really enjoyed just watching the way the ensemble is used to reshape the stage perspective -- it's as if, in each movement, when they regroup, the stage is being 'turned' to a slightly different angle. Duo Concertante has a more tender, intimate quality than either of these works, almost a kind of fragrance. I've raved about Kistler in this before and I greatly enjoyed this performance with Hubbe. (I confess, though, that a crying child next to me and a hyperactive adult in front of me, meant that I was slightly distracted for part of it.)

The evening opened with a somewhat uneven performance of Divertimento no. 15. The ensemble was sloppy in the first movement though a little better later, and the five ballerinas were decidedly uneven. The principles were Martins/Angle/Higgins...M. Tracy, K. Tracy, Yvonne Borree, Jennifer Ringer and Jenny Somogyi. This is a beautiful ballet and after the first movement the cast did succeed in putting it over. Still, it was less than an ideal performance -- with one happy exception, Jenny Somogyi. She was ravishing throughout. Her dancing was utterly simple, articulate, elegant and, in the adagio even melting in a way I hadn't seen from her before. All of the solos were reasonably poised, but there is so much in each one, and most of the principles only succeeded in showing a rather small proportion. Margaret Tracy as the "central" ballerina had some of the speed and clear footwork to make that role work, but (I'm not sure if this is the right "technical" analysis) she doesn't seem to have the kind of open, turned out look to really expose the choreography. By the end of the solo she had gotten smaller. Ringer was, as one might expect, quite strong and lovely. When she first came out in the opening movement she looked a hint underpowered and has noticeably gained weight. However, she phrased her solo beautifully and looked lovely as well in the adagio...in the adagio she dances the moment when the ballerina extends her leg forward and arches backward (in Ringer's case, way backward) towards the man who holds her lightly under her upper arms; the way Ringer lets herself all but fall backward, it looks quite daring. A special word, too, for the "secondary" men, Higgins and Angle, who brought a kind of loving energy to their parts that really helped lift the performance (especially in the lackluster opening) -- notable in a ballet where the men sometimes just go through the motions.

The evening closed with an energetic and well danced performance of the Concert (led by Miranda Weese who looks great in hats)...but for me, it couldn't help but feel a bit of a let down after the other works. I've only seen it once before though (many, many years ago) and I'm not sorry to have seen it again. The dancers, too, seemed to have a good time.

I may go one more time this week and I will try to post on that...One final thought, though: I was a little more than 2/3 back in the orchestra center, and many seats in the rows in back of me were empty as well as some scattered seats on the sides. I thought this a surprisingly disappointing showing for an excellent and varied program.

[ 05-06-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Thanks atm71 for that description...I hope the navy appreciated him.

I'd say Ferri, Kent, and Mckerrow are a fine trio to have seen...

Apologies if some of what follows is a bit repetitive of things I've said elsewhere...I've tried to vary it somewhat...

The first Giselle for whom I felt deep devotion was Marilyn Burr whom I saw with the National Ballet of Washington. At least one of those performances was certainly with Nagy, but what I remember was being utterly enthralled by Burr, especially in Act II. I have absolutely no idea how she "compares" with greats or even very goods I've seen at a later, savier age (and don't need to); she was part and parcel of what made me love the ballet...I also saw Fracci/Bruhn at a very young age and that performance, too, entered into my imagination in ways I can't quite qualify. But the Fracci Giselle "image" I actually remember most vividly was an appearance ca. 1980 in some gala, doing an excerpt from Act II. She was utterly ghostly almost like a mysterious statue come to life.

From my "adult" ballet going, my favorite was Kirkland (Kirkland-Baryshnikov when they still had a genuine partnership and the lifts in Act II were like little miracles). She was affecting and tender in Act I, extremely detailed in her characterization and dancing, and performed the mad scene with an inner directed pathos that was all too believable. She danced gorgeously in Act II -- loving Albrecht yet possessed by the dance -- and in her jumps she just seemed made of air. (I just reread my previous sentences and they sound sort of trite, especially since those qualities are all suggested by the choreography -- but I'm going to leave them, because I think Kirkland really made those qualities live compellingly on stage.)Definitely a dancer who captured, for me, the requisite qualities for both Acts I and II.

My favorite Albrecht bar none is certainly Nureyev, who did (as has already been discussed) an "unsympathetic" Albrecht with all the charisma, nobility, and rage (at the end of Act I) at his command. With Nureyev, that was a lot. The transformation into and through Act II was all the more overwhelming. His performance gave the ballet a depth and weight that, in my experience, it rarely has. Oddly enough Albrecht is the one nineteenth-century classic role in which I did not care for Dowell. However, I only saw him once -- with Makarova at ABT. At that performance, his facial expressions were oddly, and atypically for Dowell, melodramatic -- he literally seemed to pop his eyes out whenever he wanted to express fear or passion, and his characterization was also of an extremely weak Albrecht. At the end of Act I, he seemed like a crushed boy, practically flopping in his movements. Since I all but worshipped him in every other part I saw him perform, I'd like to think he danced it more effectively at other times, but maybe I just disagreed with his interpretation.

I admired Makarova as Giselle but never quite loved her in the role...We had a thread on recent or contemporary Giselles and two I mentioned there but will mention again are Mckerrow and, in a different but still admirable vein, Vishneva. I saw Mckerrow with Malakhov in an extraordinary performance a couple of seasons back; they were perfectly attuned to one another at every moment. In his Act II leaps Malakhov managed to jump high and beautifully and yet make you feel the weight of flesh and exhaustion that was holding him down. A wonderfully romantic and touching performance from them both. Technically, Vishneva's was probably one of the best danced performances of the ballet I have ever seen -- certainly the best performance of the Act I solo -- but she made the quality of her dancing the key to her interpretation, so it wasn't just showy but really worked within the frame of the ballet. I saw Assylmyratova that same week. There were moments in that performance that were simply as meltingly lyrical and memorable as anything I have ever seen though the performance as a whole did not, for me, gel on quite that level.

Finally, at some Kirov highlights program in Chicago, about ten years ago, I saw Alexander Lunev and Veronika Ivanova dance the Act II pas de deux. They performed in the utterly austere, "old style" Kirov manner. It was like watching a classroom exercise, but done at some unbelievable pitch of purity and exactitude. Absolutely one of most beautiful and moving ballet performances I have ever seen.

[ 05-01-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

Helena -- I LOVE the story about Nadia Nerina. Actually, I found it so hilarious I couldn't help wondering if it was the ballet equivalent of an urban legend. Very much hoping it's true though!

I actually think that the Chinese folk dance performed by the Central Ballet of China might bear a little more research. In countries that have experienced various forms of invasion/colonialism etc. even their "own" experiences of their traditions often pass through the mediations of foreign eyes and representations. (No "tradition" is really all that pure.) This can happen in more or less complex ways -- as in famous ruins in India now thought of as distinctively national monuments, but initially preserved by orientalizing British colonials. A cruder example would be certain "Indian" dishes that are more like hybrid colonial cuisine.

It may be the case, too, that -- whatever the background of a particular dance or image and even if it is entirely "authentic" -- if it has become a cliche or "coolie stereotype" for Western audiences in Western works like The Nutcracker, re-choreographing it through another type of prism -- like a dragon dance! -- might still be worth doing. (Anyway, I hope one day to see Leigh Witchel's version...)

I have often felt something similar to the idea expressed by Leigh's friend that one does a disservice to history (and art) if one modifies away all the troubling/conflicted contexts that inform many great works. But there is always a kind of risk involved in the ongoing life of those works -- not just a risk of misunderstanding or people's feelings being hurt, but a risk of real identification and inspiration by what is most problematic about the ideas embodied. I've never seen Birth of a Nation but I've read many descriptions of just how exciting the KKK sequence can be...It's precisely for that reason that I think it remains important for people who care about the arts to be fairly conscious and vocal about what is problematic, and not to assume that just because something is "great" that its more troubling aspects can or should be ignored or idealized into something else. (I personally am rather doubtful that Shylock's Jewishness can be altogether universalized away.) It IS a fine thought to imagine, as Alexandra suggests, a future in which what I'm calling troubling will seem merely quaint or so far distant as to be of "merely" historical interest.

I guess no-one wants a "sanitized" art free of all potential conflict -- well, maybe the Mayor of New York does -- but to me, that means that as a ballet lover my responsibility is to worry about the implications more rather than less.

P.S. I don't think ballets are reducable to "contexts" or to "ideas" etc. -- reading myself over, I was worried I sounded that way...

[ 04-20-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

I don't believe in book burning, but I don't believe in ignoring the racism in books (including great books) either. I wouldn't change Petrouchka, but in discussing it I wouldn't pretend the blackamoor figure didn't have a very troubling genealogy. About twenty years ago I was in the Paris Opera library and came across a print of a scene from some stage adaptation (ca. 1820's) of (I think) Paul et Virginie, in which a black native had discovered a mirror for the first time and was gazing at it in idiotic delight -- the pose of legs and arms was exactly the same pose (wide open second position, arms lifted up, palms outward) as used by Fokine's Blackamoor. Even if one doesn't find the story/figure in Petrouchka particularly offensive (some might) it is clearly alined with a whole tradition of depictions that have to do with the way certain types of racial "stereotypes" were perpetuated -- and perpetuated in the context of colonialist fantasy. Doesn't mean Fokine wasn't a great choreographer, doesn't mean Petrouchka isn't a fabulous ballet, doesn't even mean one shouldn't keep staging it -- but doesn't mean one should ignore those histories either.

I tend to take these things on a case by case basis, and I was less sympathetic to arguments about "preserving" The Whims of Cupid, since when I saw it, the girls were on pointe!And if the producers think it's acceptable to update the technique in a ballet whose one claim to fame is that it is -- supposedly -- the oldest ballet continuously in repertory in its original choreography, then I think they open themselves to the charge that they can afford to change other elements as well. (And make a video for historians with all the "old" elements preserved...) Also, when I saw it, it didn't strike me as a particularly interesting ballet in any other respect, so I wasn't as moved by the imperative to preserve it as a living theatrical experience. But this was many years ago, so who knows what I would think if I saw it now.

With the nineteenth-century classics, I confess I like a balance -- that is, I enjoy the fact that there are some updated productions -- and would love, for example, to see Guillem's take on Giselle -- but it definitely is important to ballet as an art form that the major classical companies take the duty of preserving their traditions pretty seriously, especially the actual choreography and basic staging elements. But ballet is alive and onstage and what we see today has been through so many changes that unthinking purity for the sake of purity seems sort of pointless to me. (On the Giselle threads it has been discussed that some of the Albrecht solos were added in the 1930s -- personally I wouldn't like to see those solos disappear in the name of tradition, but that means I may need to be a little more open to interpolations some present day Albrecht might want to add. Of course, like most fans I'm more accepting of the changes that HAVE occured than the ones that will occur.) In any case, he ideal is to have a traditional production in which the traditions can really come to life.

But say, to take (I hope) an innocuous example. Alexandra has mentioned the color symbolism of Giselle's blue dress, and I know I'm just plain used to seeing Giselle in a blue dress, so when I've seen productions in which it's different, I have had to make a little adjustment. But in a contemporary production -- still a traditional one -- if there's an interesting designer who is trying out a different color scheme, this does not seem to me to be in any serious or substantive way disruptive of the ballet's deeper meanings. Don't get me wrong -- I LIKE my Giselle in blue (which I do, for example, associate with the Virgin Mary) -- but it wouldn't be the sort of thing that seemed to me to profoundly alter the concept of the ballet, and if a serious designer were trying out a different schema, I'd say let her/him try...

Just let me clear up one misunderstanding, and I'll get back to Myrtha! My original point to Leigh Witchel actually had nothing to do w. anti-semitism (I didn't remotely mean to suggest anyone in Giselle was coded Jewish...) It did have to do with typing based on coloration (dark/fair) which, by the nineteenth century, can't be entirely separated out from questions of how people were picturing ethnic/racial difference and it's relation, for example, to innate characteristics -- like spirituality -- and class heirarchy. (All those wilis each from a different countries, may even play into this -- Giselle only precedes by about ten years the grand international exhibitions in Paris and London which had everything to do with an interrelation of cultural/trade AND heirarchical stagings of different nationalities.) For that reason I don't think it's being anachronistic to raise these issues in relation to nineteenth-century European ballet even if the original archetypes arose under different conditions. By the early nineteenth-century -- though, of course, more strongly by the end -- these are layers of meaning and association that were part of the texture that audiences and artists lived, sometimes consciously, sometimes less so. It's hardly a profoundly shaping element of Giselle, and, no, I don't find Giselle offensive, but I'm doubtful that discussions of archetypal "colorations" can easily be separated from other, more uncomfortable issues. I'm way off topic, but wanted to clarify my original point which was partly misunderstood...

As far as Myrtha's nobility goes, reading people's comments, I wondered if it doesn't in a way "double" the Giselle/Bathilde opposition of Act I. Actually, if one had a modern production in which Act II was a dream -- mentioned I think on another of the Giselle threads -- one could even imagine a double casting of the role. That would be a little too schematic for my taste and obviously at odds with elements of the original librettists' plan, but there is a way in which both acts see Albrecht caught between a "noble" woman and Giselle.

[ 04-18-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]

The drawings I referred to above were by a late Victorian children's book illustrator -- Arthur Rackham.

I have no idea if it has any bearing on ballet story telling traditions -- and rather doubt it -- but central European anti-semitic iconography going back centuries, maybe even back into the middle ages, also uses red hair as a code for "jew" figures (including Judas in mystery plays)...

My only point re ballet is not that there is a particular coding in mind when a villain is dark etc., but that by the nineteenth century these "types" did bear connotations that aren't altogether innocent of ideas about racial type and racial purity. So, personally, I'd be unsympathetic to contemporary productions that organize their symbolism in that way. Of course, with a particular cast, theatrical effects are going to emerge and I have no problem w. that...

Thanks. I understand why critics and fans get carried away when they see a wonderful young dancer, but I often wonder if the superlatives aren't a bit "premature." But, my goodness, I wish I had been at the performance! I'm looking forward, too, to hearing about the others...

This seems to be a good month for Giselle -- reports on ABT performances in D.C. are glowing, and I have just finished reading reviews of the Royal Ballet's Giselle posted as Links...The accounts of Wildor, Rojo, and Cojocaru are all very positive -- of Rojo and Cojocaru actually something more than just positive! Have any Ballet Alert posters seen their performances. I would be very interested in hearing about them...

Leigh Witchel -- I think your scenario is plausible, but I actually have enjoyed versions where Albrecht too is obviously in some way "wrong" for Giselle. (His love for her need not be played all that "spiritually" -- I don't know that Gautier, of all people, would have pictured it that way.) I could even imagine a production in which, from a certain point of view, Hilarion IS the right pairing for her -- which is exactly what makes Albrecht attractive.

(Whatever their earlier origins, by the mid-nineteenth-century the dark/light codings did have ethnic and racialized connotations -- Just take a look at some of the 19th century illustrations of the Nibelunglied in which the bad guys are uniformly semitic in terms clearly corresponding to nineteenth-century cliches...so for twentieth century productions, although I think it's fine to draw on physical contrasts for particular casts I'm not sympathetic to it as a way of building theatrical or "moral" symbolism for a production as a whole.)

I got very used to Albrechts who were young and heedlessly in love and then I saw Nureyev's -- towards the end of his career -- which I remember much as Cargill describes it. He was tremendous -- really overpowering. I admit I don't remember quite that degree of coldness (laughing at Giselle), but sheer arrogance and self-absorbtion certainly...and absolute unwillingness to acknowledge Giselle in any way once he was caught. Until she actually collapsed. It added greatly to the depth of the entire drama.

The two performances I saw (Festival Ballet in D.C.) he did exit the stage at the end of act I with a kind of aristocratic flourish, but it was clear that he carried the weight of what he had done with him. (My recollection is that after the first terrible realization he went into a kind of rage and swept off stage with his cape waving behind him.) By the close of act II as he fell to his knees and the light of dawn struck his face, one felt an entire lifetime of knowledge, grief, and remorse had passed before one's eyes. Nureyev had the most extraordinary expression of wonder and realization (call it self-realization) on his face. An awe inspiring performance. Since seeing it, I have always found the more tender, loving Albrecht approach less interesting. I recognize, of course, that it suits certain dancers better, but the ballet itself becomes more complex if the Albrecht grows in self-knowledge -- if Giselle's forgiveness makes him into a different person. (Even that forgiveness itself becomes more meaningful -- because more difficult -- if Albrecht is something more than another victim of circumstance.)

Felursus: I thought the original production of Giselle (w. Grisi etc.) concluded with Albrecht returning to a forgiving Bathilde's arms.

[ 04-16-2001: Message edited by: Drew ]