Alexandra

Sarah Kaufman's review of Wednesday night's performance: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...0-2001Oct4.html

Why assume it's lack of guts? I think it's more a scheduling and money problem. She can't offer a full-season job. That narrows the options considerably.

I wasn't shocked that Panhandlers were shocked at seeing nearly-naked dancers rolling around on the floor (we don't know what they looked like, after all) as much as being told that this piece was provocative because it made us think. And the swipe at Russian Ballet fans.....do you think we'll ever read a review of the Kirov Ballet that ends, "Good to see that there are folks here who like more than just modern dance?" (I hope not.)

I'll second Estelle -- I love your long reviews You're letting me see performances I wouldn't even know existed. Thank you, Sonja.

This was in yesterday's paper in Australia, but I didn't have time to put it up until today. It's an Australian view of Stretton at the Royal: Royal feathers ruffled as Stretton settles in By Valerie Lawson As autumn blows in to Covent Garden, the Australian newcomer, Ross Stretton, is undergoing the first rite of passage for a new artistic director: attack by the ballet fans and muted warnings by dance writers, such as Allen Robertson in The Times. Their message to the first non-Briton to direct the Royal Ballet is this: "Remember our heritage!" http://www.smh.com.au/news/0110/03/enterta...ntertain14.html

Hmmm. Maybe all those nasty stories about Markova being "like a stone" to lift have another side to them

Wednesday night, I thought everything had jelled (I hadn't seen the company since Friday, so the "jelling" may have happened earlier). This was the level that Farrell had given us several years ago with the Washington Ballet at the Opera House, far above the performances at the Terrace last year (which had the look of an experiment -- an interesting experiment, but still, an experiment). "Scotch" was, in some ways, much better than opening night -- the corps now looks like a corps and the opening night jitters and bumps were gone. I thought the ballet as a whole dragged a bit -- it seemed a little slow, and Fagundes, who danced very well, but almost self-consciously light and Romantic, doesn't quite have the starpower to pull the ballet together. At the end, she missed a step and seemed to fade technically; perhaps she was dancing injured. It was a very careful, loving performance, and the best I've seen from her. But the rest of the program, I thought, was light years ahead of last week. Chan Han Goh in Faun (with Ben Huys) gave a very detailed performance -- more so than other women with this company, I thought. There was a wildness about her, which was interesting with Huys, who always gives an extremely well-thought-through performance but isn't particularly animalistic. Magnicaballi and Runqiao Du did "Duo Concertant." I thought Magnicaballi was quite good Friday, but last night, she was beyond good, so confident she could play with the steps. Her characterization, too, is interesting. She's small, and there's a hint of vulnerability, but she also dances fearlessly, and her heartless, giggling legs become the metaphor for what many find in this ballet -- not just a love duet, but another Balanchine poem on the Artist trying to inspire, control, then capture, a Muse. I thought Boal's Apollo was magnificent. I hadn't seen him do it for about eight years. Then, I thought he danced it beautifully, very classically, in the Martins line, but this was quite different, a throwback to the 1950s and early 1960s (which I know only from video, film and books). This staging looks back to the 1960s; it's more story ballet than abstract. Boal was very powerful, very raw. That he's at root a classical dancer served as a metaphor for Apollo's coming of age: the rawness (babyhood and youth) had a classical base (the god he would become). His first solo showed mass, not line. The line emerged as the ballet progressed, the way a statue emerges from marble. His relationship with the Muses, and each Muse, was clear, and his dancing with Terpsichore (Goh again, dancing beautifully, but a bit light for the role) showed his pleasure at finding someone who loved music, and danced as musically, as he did. This probably wouldn't interest anyone who isn't also interested in dance history, but I saw in this performance much of what I'd read about early Apollos -- that it was created during The Age of Sport, that Balanchine was very interested in German Expressionism at the time, etc. I don't mean it looked archaic; it was very much alive. My guess is that this is closer to the version Farrell first danced with D'Amboise.

Thanks for posting that, Claire. We won't really know, of course, until Stretton has been in charge for awhile. Unfortunately, it's been a pattern for the past decade for companies to bring in someone from outside the company who brings in his own agenda -- ideas about dancers, body types, repertory, etc. -- without looking at the company's traditions. IMO, this is fine for a company without traditions, but it has caused problems elsewhere. It's too early to tell what will happen in England. I hope you, and other followers of the Royal Ballet, will keep us up to date on changes, as well as what you're seeing.

What they're doing down here (Suzanne Farrell Ballet) is a half-throw, half-pass. It looks like a very careful, guided throw, but there is a hint of throw in it, if that makes sense -- I thought I had seen the same thing in Farrell's staging for the Kirov.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this, Sonja. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's grateful for your reports from German and elsewhere. By the end of next week, I'll have the rest of the DanceView archives up, and this will include several of Marc Haegeman's interviews -- one with Kirill Melnikov. I'll post an announcement on the Ballet Alert! Online forum when they're all loaded. I think it might interest you.

While links searching I found a short review (which I also posted on Links). Its underlying assumptions are very different from mine, and I wondered how the piece struck others. And, in general, what is "provocative" and "thought-provoking" to you?

A note: Peter Boal has worked with Farrell before and, I believe, learned "Scotch Symphony" from her. Jack, on "Scotch Symphony," a friend of mine who knows the ballet better than I says, forget "La Sylphide;" it's "Brigadoon." The only performance of Scotch that made total sense to me -- in the ineffable way that "Serenade" does, which means it makes sense when you're watching it and evaporates with the applause -- was with the Kirov, and it was, I think, because those dancers had the same context for the ballet that Balanchine had: i.e., they had grown up dancing "Giselle" and had lived Romantic ballet. It's the only production I've seen where the repeats (especially the Men Guarding the Sylph) didn't seem like mere musical repeats. [ 10-03-2001: Message edited by: alexandra ]

Thanks very much for that, Jeannie. Interesting, too, that Ananiashvili may be dancing as she had seemed disaffected with the new regime.

Thanks for posting that, Alymer. I read most of the British reviews, and they did seem to be gunning for her (She sounds a bit like a latter-day Ida Rubinstein.) It intrigued me. Your post fills in a lot of the details.

Just a note. I haven't taken off reviews -- at least, not many. Use the pull down slide at the top right of the board to expose all the posts on the Reviews forum. TO ALL: Remember, there's more here than what you see. You can find previous posts by using the method above -- and please feel free to make any of them active if the discussion interests you, no matter how old they are. There's a lot in the Archives, too. Back to Mlle. Dupont.

Thanks very much for those reports, Jack and Ken. Re attendance, we've been hit down here with post-Sept 11 tourist blues too, especially with National Airport being closed. The news reports hotels at 10 or 20 percent capacity! While D.C. residents seem to be going, anything that depends on tourists is in trouble -- at least one musical has closed before opening. How this will affect the rest of the season is, of course, still unclear. Ken, Sonnambula is a ballet I've seen a lot, so I guess I'm measuring, but, as I wrote, I thought it had no atmosphere. The Poet is innocent, naive, the others sophisticated. The Host keeps his wife locked in a tower; there's no wholesomeness here. There was once a lot going on in the first part -- decadence, irony. I can understand that this is a very complicated ballet to try to stage for a very new company, but there were problems. Another thing, which happens often today with narrative ballets, is that the story isn't TOLD. It's illustrated. People respond to musical cues, not to what's going on around them. I didn't have the feeling that the Coquette knew why she was interested in the Poet (tease? set up? genuine?), what the Poet felt about her, what The Host was up to, or even whether the Poet felt that the Sleepwalker was his ideal, or a love. It just hadn't jelled yet. But most important, the smell of moonlight and romanticism should be evident. It's a 20th century romantic ballet, but it's a romantic ballet. I didn't get any of that. As for Apollo being a closer, Ken, last season, in the Terrace, it worked better somehow, to me. (I think, also, if the performance had been transcendant, it would have been better. The opening night, at least, was very raw. "Scotch" was the strongest performance on the program and everything after it was diminished. I can't get a handle on the audience. I don't see a lot of the regulars. On the other hand, there are more small children than usual at the ballet -- really small, preschool, early grade school. I don't know if it was on a family subscription. The audience opening night didn't feel too happy, from where I sat. The second night, they were more into it. But generally, it seems to be not a dance audience. People laughed during Apollo. Lots. The audience almost always laughs at the pas de deux for the Poet and Sleepwalker in Sonnambula (which I find upsetting. It's a desperate moment, not a funny one.) Despite my quibbles, I'd like to stress that I admire the Kennedy Center for its backing of Farrell, and Farrell for what she's doing. When it's good, it's very, very good. She's trying something no one has done since Joffrey -- start a major company from scratch. It takes time. They can't rehearse for six months; they have to be on stage. So I understand at least some of the problems. I hope it will be possible for Farrell to have more time. If she's limited to having a short autumn season with what is essentially a pick up company (freelancers or dancers needing work before their regular season starts) it will be difficult for her to accomplish what I think she's capable of doing. BUT and nevertheless, we're getting nearly two whole weeks of Balanchine and I think that's good for the dance audience here. We once got NYCB for three weeks a year (and sometimes another one or two in the summer, at Wolf Trap) and the audience was more attuned to choreography during that period.

Isn't anyone going to this? Reports, please, if you are.

Well, everything is relative

As one who, innocent of this world, was shocked into awareness by those videos of little Jon Benet, I agree. I cling to the notion that it is still permissible to say that something is unseemly, and turning small children into baby, sex-crazed adults is unseemly. With teens, it's a bit different, but I'll go with Ken there.

This will only be of interest to those who have followed the fortunes and misfortunes of the Royal Danish Ballet in the past decade, but Niels Jørgen Kaiser died Saturday. (For those who read Danish, here's the link to Ebbe Mørk's Nekrolog of Kaiser in today's Politiken.) http://politiken.dk/visartikel.iasp?PageID=180752 Another Nekrolog in Berlingske Tidende with photo! http://www.berlingske.dk/artikel:aid=120582 [ 09-29-2001: Message edited by: alexandra ]

This is on the Links forum as well, but I thought I'd repeat it here. Sarah Kaufman's review of the opening night. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2001Sep29.html

The company opened last night. I'm reviewing the second performance (tonight) and so don't want to comment until after that is in print, but I hope others who were there will report.

The law may well have changed in the last decade, but a former (dancers) union official I spoke to said the issue had been raised earlier, when Frank Andersen had appointed Lise La Cour to succeed Kirsten Ralov as Vice Ballet Master without announcing the position. They were told that only the top position needed to be announced; assistants, teachers, dancers, actors, etc. did not. I don't understand why there is a distinction between a new appointment and a renewal, but there is, as Effy noted. The renewals are not automatic but as far as I know, they are the province of the Theatre Chief (now that there's a board, I don't know how that changes things. The period I studied ended just as the board came in.)

The definition of "contemporary" there does include modern dance -- it seems to me "anything that isn't classical ballet." But this isn't a completely new direction for Scottish -- Robert North isn't classical ballet either. (It's interesting that a few years ago, their web page was touting how contemporary they were -- new now!!!! -- yet the splash page photo was a woman in Kitri's costume, fan, red tutu and all. There seems to be a disconnect here.) There's also a disconnect between the "taste of the audience" and money. There must be better reasons to have a contemporary repertory other than it's cheaper -- fewer dancers, lessened toe shoe costs, etc. [ 09-28-2001: Message edited by: alexandra ]

We have several people here from Seattle -- surely SOMEONE must be going to ABT. cctinydancer asked for comments on the other ABT thread (the one mistakenly titled "in Orange County). I thought I'd start a new thread to encourage Seattlites to post.