Alexandra

Oh, yes, I remembered the line from Leigh's review (which you'd sourced), but I liked the way you used it

I wondered how it would be read. I think it's valuable, and always interesting (if you're thick skinned!) to read a knowledgeable visitor's view of one's home company, so I wondered what St. Petersburgians would think. I thought Gottlieb's comments about the Father's added gestures was very telling about an aesthetic difference. My guess is that in Russia (and elsewhere) this would be considered an interesting enhancement, one that might become Text and might not, depending on the role's next inhabitant. In NY, one sticks to the Text. I'm not saying either is right or wrong, but varying something in Balanchine would be regarded as heresy by some -- even those who might happily accept the Maryinsky's current stagings of Petipa (the old/new ones, not the new/old ones ) which have been enhanced out the wazoo, as we might say here.

More comments from those who saw these performances, please?

Thanks for posting those, Maria. I'm copying this one over from today's Links: Ismene Brown reviews Irek Mukhamedov in Mayerling and Thiago Soares in Onegin with the Royal Ballet.

I've just put up Mindy Aloff's review of Part and Gomes's "Swan Lake" on DanceView Times, with three Rosalie O'Connor photos. Deep Waters: A Dangerous and Thrilling Swan Lake

Anyone been to Swan Lake yet? I've heard Good Things about both Murphy's and Part's performances so far. Agree? Disagree? DETAILS please

That's a good point, I think, Ari. We're also not allowed to have resolved (much less happy) endings. When I taught aesthetics at a local university to graduate students about a decade ago, they were absolutely stunned by Aristotle, and the notion that art should represent the ideal. They'd never heard of this before -- and some had gone to good undergraduate schools (Smith, Johns Hopkins). When they learned that this aesthetic had prevailed for, oh, a decade or two, they were even more stunned. Not that everything has to have a happy ending, but we're boxed in now. After the Romantic era, dance has centered around the pas de deux and love themes (the pre-Romantic era, when ballet was based on Greek myths, allowed jealousy, rage, treason, hatred and all manner of interesting possibilities) and after Modernism, none of this can be happy because we're all going to be Bombed and must mourn early. Time for a change. Unrelenting angst can be as wearisome as unremitting cheer.

Thank you, Michael -- I especially love the idea of Ivan being pecked to death by Muppets (a fitting End for a postmodern hero, not that Ivan is one) and the animal wrestling match.

Amen! Oh, I agree. I think it might be that the problem is they can't develop anything -- not a narrative line nor a movement theme. Watching these ballets is like reading something -- whether it's a short story or a news article -- that's all topic sentences, jumping from one to another, and then just trailing off..... Is this lack of skill, a character flaw, or something intrinisic to postmodernism, which encouarges a photographer to display every picture he shot, say, instead of selecting what he wants to show. (Who's to say what's best? YOU choose. I don't want to be directive.....) Aesthetic, or cop out? YOU choose.....

Copied from today's Links: Robert Gottlieb goes to St. Petersburg and sees the Maryinsky/Kirov and Perm Ballets dance Balanchine.

Gil was a favorite of mine, although I only saw him a few times, with the Ballet de Marseille (and on the Met gala; as I remember it, he was supposed to dance "Corsaire" with Kirkland, who didn't show. He did a solo from Petit's Nutcracker which was, indeed, elegant. He was also beautiful ) Thank you for the update and the web site link, Estelle. I'd lost track of him after he left San Francisco Ballet too.

Thanks for the information. We've set up a whole forum for this here: The Ashton Celebration where we've put up the schedules for all events. (We don't allow cross-posts on this forum; it becomes too confusing to have multilple threads going on with the same information, so I deleted the one on Announcements.)

"Pyrotechnics" means a fireworks display, or, in the context of the performing arts, a display of virtuosity. To me, though, "virtuoso" has the connotation of refined dancing at a very high technical level, not necessarily a fireworks display. A virtuoso performance might not be fully appreciated by nondancers; a pyrotechnical one reaches out and bashes you over the head. Other definitions and interpretations?

Thanks for that, Rachel. The "word on the street" has been February 2005 for a few months now, so I'm glad to have an official final date.

Piecing this together: At Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley (presented by Cal Performance) Sept 17-18 Program A (Fri): The Balanchine Couple, featuring pas de deux from Apollo, Sonnambula, La Valse, Agon; "The Unanswered Question" from Ivesiana; Meditation; Divertissement Pas de Deux from Don Quixote; Pas de Deux and full finale from Stars and Stripes Program B (Sat): Balanchine/ Divertimento No. 15; Tzigane; Variations for Orchestra; Chaconne

A new member (who can't yet post on this forum) kindly sent us this email: I would like to inform that Vladimir Malakhov video you are talking about may be the video titled " Bravo Malakhov". http://www.areab.co.jp/ballet/ballet25.htm Thank you!!!

No, please don't. It's too good.

I also like Juliet's "you're absolutely tight," perhaps anticipating the event.....

I think the company in its present form will be disbanded after this tour, but there will be a new group associated with the city of Dresden as well as Frankfurt. I don't think it is yet clear whether this means that the group will just pick up and move, and everything will be the same except the name and the funding,.

Joe, I do remember Violin Concerto. I didn't see ABT do Four Ts; I thought I'd remembered reading about it, but could well be wrong! In any case, in keeping with sveiglar's wish to see ballets made at City Center on that stage, Four Ts is one I'd like to see in that setting -- its shape -- long and narrow -- suits that stage.

Nancy Dalva reviews the Mark Morris Dance Company at BAM for DanceView Times: Synthesis and Synthetic

Interesting point, Sveiglar -- how about "The Four Temperaments" (which they did during the Baryshnikov era) for the same reason?

A quick note -- I was unclear. I read them when I was a child, but neither the Walpole nor the Lofts series is children's literature.

I wasn't allowed to read historical fiction as a child -- my aunt insisted I read history instead. I had every Landmark Biography from the time I could read, and still remember them vividly. HOWEVER, one series that, for reasons I could never fathom, was considered permissible was the Rogue Herries series by Hugh Walpole. There are four of them, and I loved them -- tracing one family that left London in the 18th century to move to the wild north, through several generations. (The family lived in the Lake District, which is portrayed in the book as bleak, mysterious, a land where it is always windy and rainy, and I didn't connect this with The Other Side of the Lakes -- i.e., Wordsworth and co -- for years.) When I was about 12, I would sneak-read Norah Loft's the House at Old Vine series -- this time the story of a house built in the Middle Ages, and 800 years of occupants. It ended up as a tenement. I was quite sad. I took everything in this book as gospel English history (which is why my aunt didn't me reading it in the first place. She sweetly offered me Agnes Strickland's 8 volume "Lives of the Queens of England" instead. One book, kept in the locked top of The Secretary in the living room (with the key in the lock, but I never turned it), right next to my aunt's nursing school textbooks was "Forever Amber," her idea of a "dirty novel." Historical, time of the English Civil War. When I finally read it, in my mid-20s, it was so tame....and not very good.

These are such a treat to read - thank you again, HF! I have great affection for this staging of Midsummer. It's the production that made me fall in love with the ballet. I saw it in DC when it was new, and the company danced it as though it was new. It's great to read that the production still holds up and is danced so well. And I'd add my thanks to others, on previous threads, for your long, detailed reviews. You're letting those of us who can't see the company know about some very interesting dancers. Keep 'em coming!