Alexandra

Eva Kistrup's review of Wednesday night's performance of "Far From Denmark" and "Konservatoriet" is now up on DanceView Times.

A really lovely piece, I think, by Tobi Tobias about one of the Festival's exhibitions devoted to H.C. Andersen, a friend of Bournonville's who's also having a birthday this year.

Thanks. I wonder who told Mr. Bonde that Bournonville created most of his ballets in "his mature age." The extant ballets are from his early 30s through his mid 50s (he lived until 1879, age 74). La Sylphide, 1836 - age 31. Napoli, 1842, age 37. Konservatoriet, 1849 (45). Kermesse 1851 (46). Folk Tale 1854 (49). Abdallah 1855 (50). La Ventana 1856 (51). Far From Denmark 1860 (55). And Lifeguards 1871 (66). Hope the dates are right It's not the photo that should be causing discussion, though, but the green paint. I don't mean to criticize. I'm genuinely curious about how people are viewing it. It's a good point to make, that we can't see Bournonville (at any age) plain, because of the distance in time.

I hope Effy or Natalia or Jorgen will see this and answer -- I haven't read about a dedication speech, but there may well have been a line in the program. Let me take this opportunity to say that Alexander is the author of a biography of Vera Volkova ("Vera Volkova, En dans af uskyld og erfaring" "Vera Volkova, a Dance of Innocence and Experience") which has a web site at http://www.volkova.net with some beautiful photos

Copied over from today's Links: The Bournonville Festival is reviewed in the Times by John Rockwell.

Tobi Tobias reviews La Sylphide and La Ventana in her Arts Journal blog.

Eva Kistrup's review of the fourth night of the Bournonville Festival -- "Abdallah" -- on DanceView Times: "Abdallah"

What a wonderful description I once saw the Kirov do "Lilac Garden" and it was absolutely unrecognizable. First of all, the spacing wasn't taut; there were holes the size of small oceans between the characters. More importantly, the ballerina was a Grand Tragic Diva AND, best of all, the Lover's concept of his role was "Great! Three solos!" I've never seen a ballet so happily distorted. These were all fine artists, and of course, the Kirov is a great company, so no flames, please It just wasn't Tudor. But "Lilac Garden" is still a masterpiece

Right now, the only official casting is what is in the press release I posted.

Taking the question generally, aside from the specifics of the discussion in the RB forum -- and it's a wonderful question, carbro!!!! -- I'm one of the "there's a platonic ballet out there somewhere" school, and that's what I want to see in a performance. I want to see the ballet. NOT the ballet as it was in 1841 or 1946, since I don't know what it looked like then, but a performance that lets me feel that I've seen the ballet. So I would say a masterpiece is a masterpiece. You may not like it, you may not be seeing the greatest performance of the ballet ever danced, but hey, that's not the ballet's fault. In the "I like what I see before me" versus "It is NOT as it was with the first cast" discussions that we've had for six years on this board, I'd say they almost always break down to: those who saw the first cast vote for the "It's NOT the same" side, and those who didn't see it with the first cast are quite happy to see what they're seeing, especially if they like the dancers. I've had these discussions with friends, too, and it's never failed to happen that eventually, one off the "First cast phooey they're better now!" people will see a ballet that they had seen with its first cast become something else when danced by others and come round to the "It's just not the same as" side... at least with that one ballet! ("consummate performer in the role" can also be substituted for "first cast", of course. I know people who saw Galina Ulanova's Juliet and that's that. (I never saw it live, but I don't doubt them.) Balanchine, clever fellow that he was, gave his ballets away to so many companies that alternate versions of the truth abound. As long as the steps are there and the structure is there -- and his scaffolding is made of the same material as the stone from which Arthur pulled the sword -- and at least a recognizable version of the Balanchine style is there, you see the ballet. Ashton, who really truly wanted his ballets never to be danced by anyone except his first cast except, of course, he wanted his ballets to live , is harder. I wrote on the RB discussion that I got a jolt the first time I saw different bodies, and especially different feet, in Ashton's "A Month in the Country" (one of a very few Ashton ballets I saw from their first casts) because Ashton is such a textural choreographer -- one of the "ballet is a moving painting" school -- that if you fiddle with proportions, you're wrecking the painting. Yet you have to "wreck it" for the ballet to live, and in ballets like "La Fille Mal Gardee," which have been danced by many different bodies, one can still enjoy the ballet. There's a good book on this -- Selma Jeanne Cohen's "Next Week, Swan Lake," which gets at the "what is the work?" issue. (Concept, steps, score, story, style.)

Me too I always liked Diana Cuni. She was an aspirant when I was going to Copenhagen with some regularity and I liked her dancing and her piquancy. I'm glad she's doing well. A small point -- the costumes don't let Anna stand out and she probably does look like an innkeeper, but she's James's mother and has probably arranged the wedding.

No monks? That was the final belly laugh in the Brenaa production. I remember thinking, what genius to save two such characters for the end. And -- just to be sure I understand -- "one nobleman less in the fighting scene." There were two noblemen, each after one of the daughters. Do you mean there's now one, who goes after both? I hate to ask, but is the funeral procession still there? I think that was added by Brenaa to cover a scene change.

Thank you for cleariing that up, Effy! I'm glad they're using the Carey again. I think I'd be with you on the costumes

This may sound like a silly comment, and I throw it into the mix apropos of how people see. I remember the first time I saw "Month" with a different cast (than the original) and, aside from the interpretive and acting differences, what really bothered me was how different the feet were. Ashton is quoted (in David Vaughan's book) as having said that he loved Seymour's feet, that they were like Pavlova's; Denise Nunn had very beautiful feet as well. And they were a particular size and shape, and were very much a part of the picture. Different feet changed the picture as much as if you repainted a landscape and changed the flowers from blue to yellow. Back to more important matters thank you all for these reports -- I'm very jealous, of course. I'd be happy seeing more Ashton in (almost) any cast! I hope you'll all tell us more.

I'd missed that Ivanchenko was listed -- so he's back home now? Thalictum, I don't think that many DCers will be going up to New York to see Part and Vishneva (that's based on nothing save people I know, so it may be way off base, of course), so I don't think the conflict will matter to us locals. It may well cut into New Yorkers coming down, though. I don't know how big a portion of our audience that is.

Natalia, you might want to rethink that -- this may turn out to be a collector's item. Chiapuris, I thought of that, too. There's also a large segment of the Danish population that is sick of Bournonville, and perhaps the artist is one of those. I've been told by several Danish friends that there was very little in the paper about the Festival -- this year is also the H.C. Andersen Festival, and he's getting all the coverage -- so maybe there weren't articles about the poster, but I'm still hoping to hear what the artist intended.

Eva Kistrup's review of the third night of the Bournonville Festival ("La Ventana" and "La Sylphide") is up on DanceView Times: "La Ventana," "La Sylphide"

I agree, it would be easier to just concentrate on one element, but I think there are geographical differences as well that compound things. Isolation preserves style. (Why the Danes could keep their 19th century style well into the 20th; I've seen a film of them dancing "Symphonie Fantastique" in 1948-49 that doesn't look like anything else I've seen of that time period.) To my then-1980s eyes, I remember first seeing a video of the Kirov doing "Sleeping Beauty" in the 1960s, and it looked more like the Royal Ballet's version in the 1960s than it did the Kirov's version of the 1980s. In the 1960s, I would have been able to see the differences between the Royal and the Kirov, and (I hope!) and I'm sure they would have been quite distinct. She offered helpfully In the time that I've been watching ballet, as I wrote above, the big difference has been line and the way women use their feet. In the 1960s, the thought was that you never extended any limb or digit completely; you always left the possibility of further movement. This has changed until dancers stretch as completely as possible. Now, sometimes, it seems they've been stretched on a rack. The bodies are tauter, too; every muscle is visible. Dancers like Vasiliev certainly were muscular but compare him to Mukhamedov (two dancers a generation apart in the same company) and there's an almost relaxed quality to Vasiliev's movement (to me) while Mukhamedov is wound tight as a drum, ready to spring into action. As for women's feet, before 1970 they were not always on point, and so the foot was not always arched (men's feet too, actually. A foot might be planted on the floor then; now it would be pointed and extended. Sometimes now I have the impression that I'm watching shoes rather than feet. I hope others will ring in on this one.

Sometimes I think we all sit in the same theater and see totally different performances every night I know during my first few -- more than few, actually -- years of ballet going, I thought I had gotten good at seeing what was there, but it was really hard to see what WASN'T there -- the ghosts of dancers who had danced the role before, or how a ballet looked when the choreographer was around to see it. I never saw Fonteyn in "Symphonic," but I think I know the place where you mean, Kate. It's when the music suddenly becomes first happy and then almost triumphant? And the ballerina has been waiting, and she starts to move, riding the music as if a wave, and I could imagine that Fonteyn had been the personification of goodness, and that goodness will eventually triumph (it was 1946 and we needed a little goodness). If that's the place you mean; if not, perhaps you recognize it. It was a place where, to me, the choreogrpahy almost forced you to see her. I've often wondered if "Sleeping Beauty" and "Giselle" have changed, too, so that if those who first saw them could come back and tell us -- after they were revived from a deep faint -- how the Maids of Honor's dance, or the Pas de Vendanges looked before it became just a dance -- and a dance that we now take pleasure in. We have these kinds of conversations regularly on the NYCB and ABT forums too They're not resolvable -- one sees what one sees and only has the memoriies one has. (And even if everybody had seen the same performances and had the same history, we'd probably still disagree.

Do you rarely get a chance to see "Swan Lake" and need a fix? Or do you want to see a sampler-type program and lots of different dancers from one of the world's great companies? I'd make the choice that way. And please tell us what you choose AND most important, write about what you saw. That will help the next person choose! (I was delighted to learn that Russia is an Empire again....)

It is a great question (and so was dirac's answer). I was just watching a video of Alicia Alonso in "Giselle" filed in the late 1960s, and it looked much more like films from the 1930s and '40s, so it can be hard. (Why? Because the dancing was very subordinate to the drama, the mime was emphasized, the set took up most of the stage, even in the second act; it wasn't a gym floor swept clean for dancing. The dancers were quite petite, but they weren't at all stretched, and there was a softness to their dancing, even that of the Wilis. I think the 20th century was so much about LINE, and dancers got more and more exposed and more and more stretched as time went on; that's one clue to dating things. There's a photo pair in a Danish book about Bournonville ("Perspectivs paa Bournonville") that shows the cup pas de deux from Folk Tale. Junker Ove is holding the cup and Hilda is trying to get it. In the 1930s photo, it looks like a scene from a drama and the dancers' arms are close to their body; nothing is stretched. In a mid-1970s photo (after Volkova's Russian training) whole scene is stretched out. He's stretching that cup as far away from her as possible, and she's stretching to reach it. If there weren't for the cup, it could be a scene from an abstract ballet. Both dancers are tall in the mid-1970s, while in the 1930s they're tiny, so the scale is different too. This is a great question! Other observations? Is it just time, or place as well?

I just put up a piece on DanceView Times about this performance. I'm posting it here since most people seem to check the site Monday morning, and it wasn't up at that time. Susan Reiter on Peter Boal's Farewell Performance: White Knight

June 6, 2005 Suzanne Farrell, Artistic Director of The Suzanne Farrell Ballet, today announced that Sonia Rodriguez, a principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada, will dance the coveted role of Dulcinea on opening night of the new staging of Balanchine’s Don Quixote in the Kennedy Center Opera House, June 22, 2005. The Kennedy Center’s own ballet company, The Suzanne Farrell Ballet will present the world premiere staging of Balanchine’s Don Quixote, the evening-length masterpiece that was last seen more than 25 years ago, when Ms. Farrell herself danced the role of Dulcinea. Balanchine created the role especially for her in 1965 in order to take advantage of her magical and mysterious qualities. This legendary collaboration sealed the unique bond between Ms. Farrell and Balanchine. He bequeathed the ballet to her, and now Ms. Farrell is “thrilled and delighted” to pass on the legacy of the role to Ms. Rodriguez. Additional casting will be announced at a later date. Toronto-born Sonia Rodriguez moved to Madrid, Spain, at the age of five. She received her dance training at Princess Grace Academy in Monaco and with Pedro de la Cruz in Madrid. In 1989 Ms. Rodriguez won the Enrico Cecchetti award (Grand Prix) at the international competition in Capri. She joined The National Ballet of Canada in 1990, and was promoted to Second Soloist in 1995 and to First Soloist in 1997. In 2000 she was promoted to Principal Dancer. Ms. Rodriguez' many principal roles include Odette/Odile in James Kudelka's Swan Lake, the title role in Giselle, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Lise in La Fille mal gardée, Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Princess Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Kitri in Don Quixote, Swanilda in Coppélia, Cio-Cio San in Madame Butterfly, Princess Vasilisa in The Firebird, Vera in A Month in the Country, Valencienne in The Merry Widow, Bianca in The Taming of a Shrew, Olga in Onegin, Lescaut's Mistress in Manon, as well numerous Balanchine ballets including the lead in “Diamonds” in Jewels, Calliope in Apollo and the leads in Divertimento No. 15, Mozartiana and Serenade. Ms. Rodriguez created the title role in Kudelka's Cinderella (2004), as well as roles in Matjash Mrozewski's A Delicate Battle (2001) and Jean-Pierre Perreault's The Comforts of Solitude (2001). In 2004, The Toronto Star called Ms. Rodriguez “radiant in her simplicity and superbly confident in her dancing..." The Suzanne Farrell Ballet is part of the 2004-2005 Ballet Series sponsored by Altria Group, the parent company of Kraft Foods, Philip Morris International, and Philip Morris USA. Altria Group has been a major funder of the Kennedy Center since 1977. For nearly 50 years, Altria Group has been actively engaged in improving, vitalizing and strengthening communities across the globe. For more information about the Altria family of companies’ programs and partnerships visit www.altria.com/media_programs. Ms. Rodriguez can be seen with The Suzanne Farrell Ballet in the Kennedy Center Opera House, June 22-26, 2005. Performances are Wednesday through Sunday evenings at 7:30 p.m. with matinee performances on Saturday and Sunday at 1:30 p.m. Tickets are $29-$84 and can be purchased at the Kennedy Center box office or by calling Instant Charge at (202) 467-4600. Patrons living outside the Washington metropolitan area may dial toll-free at (800) 444-1324. Support for The Suzanne Farrell Ballet is provided by The Cordelia Corporation, The Shen Family Foundation, Ms. Maxine Groffsky and Mr. Winthrop Knowlton, and Dr. Emily Kelly.

Good point, Stinger!

I don't know the connection between Dionysius and his goats, Carbro -- maybe there's a Hellenic scholar around. Paul? Do you know? As far as their use in the ballet, I've read that they're very like the two poodles in Massine's "Boutique Fantasque" and I've read they're like the two cats in "Sleeping Beauty." So take your pick!