Alexandra

(also posted on Links) Washington Ballet Executive Quits

For Immediate Release July 22, 2003 Boston Ballet Presents The Return of Rudolf Nureyev's Ballet Don Quixote October 16-19 and October 30- November 2 WHAT: Boston Ballet's Don Quixote WHEN: Thursday Oct. 16 @ 7p.m., Friday Oct. 17 @ 8p.m., Sat. Oct. 18 @ 2p.m. & 8p.m., Sunday Oct.19 @ 2p.m., Thurs. Oct. 30 @ 7p.m., Friday Oct. 31 @ 8p.m., Sat. Nov. 1 @ 2p.m. & 8p.m., Sunday Nov. 2 @ 2p.m. WHERE: All performances at The Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont Street, Boston TICKETS: available by phone through Telecharge at 800-447-7400, online at www.telecharge.com, or in person at The Wang Theatre Box Office (BOSTON, MA)- Boston Ballet's 40th Anniversary Season will open this fall with the return of Rudolf Nureyev's celebrated production, Don Quixote, at The Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont Street, Boston, MA. The original sets and costumes have been fully refurbished for this exciting production, made possible by a grant from the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation. "Nureyev's exuberant Don Quixote is perhaps the most significant work in Boston Ballet's history, because this ballet first brought international attention to the Company," said Boston Ballet Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen. "It is charged with the quest for noble idealism, with bravura dancing that has thrilled audiences here and around the world. Boston Ballet has not performed this version since 1986, and we are especially pleased to bring it back for our 40th Anniversary Season. This year will also mark the 10th anniversary of the Nureyev's death." This recreation of Miguel de Cervantes'17th century classic tale is staged by Aleth Francillon, after choreography by Marius Petipa, set to the music of Ludwig Minkus with score arrangement by John Lanchberry, lighting by Pierre Lavoie, and scenery and costumes by Nicholas Georgiadis. This full-length, three-act ballet is set in the heart of the Spanish countryside, featuring chivalry, passion, and comical adventure. It is a warm human tale with likeable characters like Alonso Quejana, an ordinary Spanish country gentleman, who is in search of an idealistic, moral world. He is an elderly and slightly delusional Spaniard, who, sitting amidst his books of knights, squires and beautiful women, dreams of the fair lady, Dulcinea. Declaring himself a knight by the name of Don Quixote de La Mancha, he believes that he must save his fictional lady from peril, and sets off on his adventures in search of the Dulcinea, with the aid of his comical squire, Sancho Panza. As the Don approaches an inn in Barcelona square, he assumes it is a grand castle, and the innkeepers daughter, Kitri, to be his beloved Dulcinea, unbeknownst to Kitri. Kitri is in love with the young barber, Basilio, but, her parent's are determined for her to marry the nobleman, Gamache, despite her wishes. This intricate storyline is humorous with silly twists and turns, and complete with some of the most technically challenging roles in ballet repertoire, including the beautiful wedding pas de deux, danced by Kitri and Basilio. Choreographer Marius Petipa originally created Don Quixote for Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet in 1869, and was first presented in the United States by the Bolshoi Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, in 1966. Don Quixote has significant history in Boston. Boston's first, "Don Q" was the Rudolf Nureyev version which premiered in 1982 and received critical acclaim. Nureyev not only choreographed the production, but he also starred in it as Basilio. A 1972 film of Nureyev's Don Quixote was made with the Australian Ballet, in which he starred and co-directed with Sir Robert Helpmann. In George Balanchine's and Frances Mason's 101 Stories of the Great Ballets, Balanchine describes Don Quixote: "Every man has a Don Quixote in him. Every man wants an inspiration. For the Don it was Dulcinea, a woman he sought in many guises. I myself think that the same is true in life, that everything a man does he does for his ideal woman. You live only one life and you believe in something and I believe in that." A Fond Farewell Cherished by Boston audiences for almost 14 years, Principal Dancer Jennifer Gelfand will dance her farewell performance during Don Quixote. Gelfand made headlines in 1989 when she filled in for former Principal Dancer Laura Young, the female lead, who fell injured on the stage during the first act. Gelfand, recently accepted to the Joffrey Ballet, was in Boston as a special guest artist, and was sitting in The Wang Theatre audience. She was asked to finish the ballet in place of Young. Then Artistic Director, Bruce Marks, was so impressed with her performance, that he offered Gelfand a soloist position in the Company. *Gelfand's performance dates will be announced in early October. # # # Tickets for Don Quixote go on sale September 4. Prices range from $38-$95. Tickets can be purchased by calling Telecharge at 800-447-7400, or by visiting Telecharge online at www.telecharge.com, or in person at The Wang Theatre box office, located at 270 Tremont Street in Boston's Theatre District. The Wang Theatre box office is open Monday-Saturday from 10a.m.-6 p.m. Discounted group tickets (15 or more) are available by calling Boston Ballet's Group Sales Office at 617-456-6343. Student rush tickets are available for $15. Full time students, 30 yrs. old and under; purchased 2 hours before curtain (cash preferred) in person at The Wang Theatre box office on the day of a performance. Student identification must be presented at time of purchase, limit one per student I.D.

Sometimes second thoughts are best. Go Anna!

Yes, it's Farrar Strauss (books often change publishers when editors leave, etc.) It could be that the publisher intends for the book to be on the spring 2004 list, rather than a set in stone release date and may be subject to change.

Not live, alas. There is a tape of the Royal Ballet's Ondine -- a condensed version (Fonteyn and Somes) -- which I like very much. It has Fonteyn's Shadow Dance, which is lovely. And the opening, where the movement of the dancers standing on the deck of a ship suggests the movement of the waves, is striking. Glebb, I think there may have been some discussion of Ondine when it was revived. You might want to do a search on the Royal Ballet forum. It was interesting that when the ballet was new, people felt that the music was unsuited to the theme -- expecting Ashton to make an old-fashioned, neo-romantic ballet. Fifty years later, many felt that the music and choreography were fine, it was the fussy designs that made the ballet seem dated.

I'm sure that Baryshnikov is a U.S. citizen; I remember press reports about this. I'm sure Bruhn was not -- but Bruhn did not live here. He was truly an international person, always kept a house in Copenhagen and danced with the company for several months a year during his dancing days. He later directed the Swedish Ballet and National Ballet of Canada. I don't know about Makarova. I'm fairly certain that Balanchine became a citizen -- but to be fair to any foreign national post-glasnost, he was, for all intents and purposes, a man without a country -- a Russian who left during the very early Soviet era.

Drew, what an incredible coincidence! Yes, that's the one. The Metropolitan Ballet. They did a goddess Diana piece too, I think. I don't remember anything else. It was in my first season of balletgoing. It was a wonderful lesson in professionalism. I didn't see Park until the late '70s early '80s, when she was moving from demicaractere to classical roles -- she didn't do Fille, she did Swan Lake, by the time I saw her and I think she'd slimmed down to the bone so she'd have line (there are earlier pictures of her when she's downright chubby, and rather merry, and I can imagine she'd have been a wonderful Lise). I can't do better than say that for me, she wasn't magical. Musical, yes, but not magical Too much trying to be the Grand Ballerina. But I have seen a video of her in Symphonic Variations (in the Fonteyn role) where she is exquisitely musical, and that's the way I remember her dancing as well. I did like her very much -- and this is perverse, I know -- in Isadora. I KNOW Seymour should have done it and would have been wonderful, but one moment I will always remember was when the Actress Isadora was intoning, turning on the crowd, and the Dancer Isadora (Park) slipped through that crowd, the "real" Isadora, going unnoticed. In an otherwise wretched ballet, I thought that was a stroke of genius on MacMillan's part, and also on Park's. Precisely because she was so un-Isadora-like, she made the dramatic point perfectly. Ashton did a lot of little pieces for her late in his career (I'm sure because of the musicality). One that I never saw was La Chatte.

Although Park was never my favorite Royal Ballet ballerina, I have to say she was one of the most musical dancers I've ever seen -- and by that, I mean you could see the music when she danced. She also gave one of the bravest, most honorable performances I've seen, in DC, with one of our tiny local ballet companies, now deceased (in 1975, I think). She danced three solos....to an audience of, oh, maybe 12 people in Lisner Auditorium, and she danced them as though she were at the Met. She didn't stint on anything. Glebb, perhaps the Strauss pas de deux was Ashton's "Voices of Spring" that he made for a Die Fliedermaus very late in his career? I believe that was for Merle Park and Wayne Eagling.

Why isn't there anything like this for ballet? Singers' Legacy Their home page suggests that young singers today could learn from the past......

For those who are still having trouble with this, two suggestions. The first is that there may be a cookie from our former board that's confusing your browser. To solve this, log out, clear out all your cookies (that's different for each prowser. If you need help on clearing cookies, check the Help file in your browser.) Another option might be to get used to using My Assistant (top right of the board). When you open it, it will tell you how many POSTS there have been since your last visit (not just threads) and how many are on threads you've responded to, a nice little feature. It also has a clickable link that gives you a new topics list, and this stays open in a separate window. (If the window goes behind the main screen, it's easy to get it back; look on your task bar.) This way you have the View New Topics list until you've worked your way through them.

Thanks for that, OF -- it is a good idea. Now, keep an eye on those choreographers for us and see how they do!

Good point, Maria! I remember from the goodolddays at the Met, there were two Flower Throwers attached to the Nureyev contingent. They were both very large women who could have pitched in the Majors. They sat in front and hurled fllowers at the dancers, and they always got their man. Manhattnik -- there are worse punishments than six months in Naples.

I hope you'll report! I can't resist saying that modeling one's ballets after Ben Stevenson is very related to what I wrote earlier -- it's not like growing up watching and imitating Noverre or Petipa

ABT did have a long tradition of making dancers start in the corps, presumably so they could say "she's ours" -- a way of getting around the "no school" problem. (Van Hamel was not a corps dancer when she was in the corps, and pretending they had "discovered" her was a real stretch.) Meunier and Part don't really fit in -- at least not yet -- at ABT. It might have been interesting to see them somewhere else, like San Francisco Ballet. In my book, they're both ballerinas and will look out of place as the Third Harlot, or Third Shade (unless the other three Shades are also ballerinas, of course. We should live so long).

Jiri Kylian: I've always said/heard YEER ee KILL ee yan But I don't know. It also occurred to me that our attempts at writing things phonetically may not work around the globe. Estelle, the "chine" in Balanchine rhymes with keen or mean, and the "ch" is pronounced like in the English word "chew," if that helps. You just want to know about Millepied and Marcovici to see how far off the mark we are!!! I've heard them as MILL a pyay and Mar ko VEECH ee

We miss The Lads. James Wilkie is with the Royal, I believe, and if Guy Fletcher is in San Francisco, that's good news. I don't know what happened to the other two, though -- Johnny and Basilio. (The latter posted here for awhile, and then vanished again.) Thank you for posting this Ballet Nut (and thank you for mentioning that you got the information off the SFB website )

It is encouraging -- ballet needs new composers as much as it does new choreographers. The one thing that such a program can't give, however, is the kind of institutional background and general arts context that both Petipa and Balanchine had growing up. You can't make ballets in a vacuum; you have to have models. If I were starting a program for choreographers, I'd make them spend two years staging masterpieces, in the same way baby painters have to copy masterpieces. You may never plan on painting a bowl of fruit in your life, but you need to learn those lessons about light and color and texture. Of course, you'd need a great stager to teach such a course, and they're in short supply, too But who knows. There may well be a genius lurking in Texas high schools!

I'd love to see Fairchild in Coppelia -- I hope someone does go and reports. I've only seen her once, when I was up in New York in February, but she's the one young dancer that I wanted to see again.

Thanks, Farrell Fan! (I fixed the spacing -- I wouldn't have if you hadn't mentioned it; hope you don't mind. It put in line breaks. If you'd written something in a word processing program and copied it in, then sometimes that happens.) It is an odd season, in a way, but I would like to see Kowroski and Rutherford in Barocco.

This one I got from the source I had to interview, and introduce, Tomasson years ago at a symposium at the Kennedy Center and I asked him. He said, there it's Toe MASS son, here it's TOM a son.

What a perfect name for a ballet cat! Estelle, thank you for the French lesson. The accents in French DO seem much more orderly than in English! I don't know how to do it phonetically, but Balanchine is pronounced BAL an cheen As for Balanchivadze -- ???? bal an shee VAD ze is what I've heard, but I'm sure it sounds different in Georgian. (Another Americanization of a name I just remembered -- Helgi Tomasson. In Iceland or Denmark, he would be Toe MASS son; here, it's TOM a son.)

I've always heard/said: Ev doe KEE moe vah But after learning that Mezentseva is pronounced stressing the first syllable, I'll wait for some confirmation on that!

Thanks for that, rkoretzy -- it's slowly dawning on me that the Saratoga season is heavy on the full-lengths -- Midsummer, Swan Lake, with Coppelia to come. Is this a change from prior seasons? I haven't kept a close watch on the rep there.

I like that one, Ari -- explosion salad Jane D's reference to the "two people divided by a common language" quote is often used to point out how the same thing has different names in English, as opposed to English (lift/elevator, lorry/truck, etc.)

I just received an email from someone who confirms Jorgen's accents for Mezentseva and Ivanova. I'm going to leave up both my question and this answer in case there are others who've heard the same mispronunciations as I have.