atm711

How true, how true. Perhaps it's because dancers were more 'compact' then. Having been introduced to the ballet by the performances of Marie-Jeanne, Mary Ellen Moylan, Ruthanna Boris and Patricia Wilde the long-limbed dancers give it a very different look. Also, the white costumes (as opposed to the black leotard) make it more lyrical.

Dear Ms. Leigh---after that wonderful description, the least you can do for us is a performance photo

'Constantia' was a ballet by William Dollar to Chopin and I saw it danced by the deCuevas Ballet International--and...it was not memorable. The Nijinska ballet was called 'Chopin Concerto' and the best thing I remember about it was the performance of the young Maria Tallchief.

I always have a problem watching 'Fancy Free'---for me, Robbins captured NYC in mid-century--which I find missing in performances of today. I did not see the first performance, but I did see the second. Although no one has topped the original cast, for me (Robbins beautifully tailored the choreography to match the talents of the cast), it's more than the performers. The sense of time is gone and I would like to see it set as a period piece. The jocularity appears strained. The ballet was very much like some of the wartime Hollywood movies at the time (think Garland in 'The Clock'). It had the feel of wartime NYC.

"The Duel" really brings b ack memories---I saw it for the firt time with Petit's group, "Ballet de Paris" when they were in NYC. Although I saw it with Melissa Hayden, for me the performances of Colette Marchand (a Zakharova-legged ballerina) and Milorad Miskovitch tops anything I saw of it by American companies. I also saw a Nijinska ballet to a Chopin piano concerto danced by the Denham Ballet Russe, and Lifar's 'Suite en Blanc" performed by POB in '48 in NYC--all I can say, really, is that they paled next to the Balanchine I was seeing.

Yes, I saw it with Ballet Theatre and liked it very much---Tchaikovsky score and much indebted to Balanchine--but, hey, what's wrong with that?

Thanks Marga, as always, for your beautiful thoughtful comments. I was struck by the amount of weight the dancers gained---47 lbs?; 40 lbs? In my day you dared not gain more than 20 lbs. I know the medical profession has revised that but I would think someone wanting to return to a dancing career would have been more astute.

After 270 pages of living in Kavanaugh's Nureyev Neverland I need a break. I found the perfect antidote--the restored version of Thomas Wolfe's 'Look Homeward, Angel'. This is a real treat for this old Wolfe fan. 66,000 words were cut from the original manuscript by Wolfe and his editor Maxwell Perkins and every one of them has been restored, using Wolfe's original title of 'O Lost'--and I am wallowing in every one of them.

I guess Hagland and I were at different performances Sunday afternoon...ha! I loved the soft romanticism that Yuriko Kajiya brought to 'Ballo'; I always felt the ballet was only about technique but she showed us a whole new side of it. And since I am in the process of reading the Kavanaugh/Nureyev bio it was so gratifying to see Cornejo's beautiful pirouettes...a high retire way up on 3/4 toe. I am already looking forward to his Albrecht. I thought the central PDD of "From Here On Out' was the most successful part of the ballet, due in a large part by the performance of Herrera and Gomes. They made the choreography look a lot better than it deserved. 'Fall River Legend' looked very dated to me, or perhaps because I can still remember Nora Kaye's performance---her anguish was felt from the depths of her solar plexus and I saw nothing of that from Wiles, or last year from Murphy (in 'Pillar of Fire').....we just are not nurturing dramatic ballerinas anymore.

It appears Accocella is in her best "Mama" mode and is protecting her young (only 34, she reminds us) charge. She even manages to read his mind: "he hoped to lure in a new audience.....hence the curtain speech...chinos, messy hair...he seemed to be saying 'I'm not like those other ballet directors, old men in suits. I'm young and cool like you'" The snobbery remark was the least--I've been hearing it for years but I didn't expect it from her.

this is the Bonnefoux I see most summers when I go to Chautauqua---where he is head of the Dance Dept. He is easily approached and genuinely appears to like the interaction with the audience.

I only saw her 'Giselle' once, and that was a guest appearance with the Ballet Russe at the Met on April 28, 1950. The program is one of a very few I have from that time and I kept it to renew my memories of her performance. Frederic Franklin was her Albrecht.

This looks like the 1945 Ballet Theatre production by Adolph Bolm with scenery and costumes by Chagall. Markova was the Firebird, Dolin her Prince, and Diana Adams was the princess.

Rest in peace, sweet Bip--how I loved seeing him perform.

I was a teen-ager when I started ballet lessons in New York in 1944; all it took for me to start was one performance of Ballet Theatre at the old Metropolitan Opera House on 39th Street. (I have written in more detail of that performance on my Blog "Ruminations".) My very first teacher was Lisan Kay who taught at Ballet Arts in Carnegie Hall. At the time she was a partner of Yeichi Nimura; she would shortly have a featured role in the musical "Lute Song". Ballet Arts was run by the indomitable Virginia Lee. A card of ten lessons was purchased for $15 and she would dutifully check off each lesson as you entered. A few of my friends were studying with George Chaffee and I left Ballet Arts to join them. Part of the reason was financial. For $20 a month I could take as many classes as I wanted. I stayed with him (and his assistant, the very capable Adelaide Vernon) for four years. I found I much preferred a small studio and small classes--most of the time a dozen students. Chaffee danced with the Fokine and Mordlin ballets. He gave a beautiful interpretation of the male mazurka in "Les Sylphides"--which, he liked to say, was taught to him by Fokine. When he was in a good mood after class we would cajole him into performing it for us. We were also fortunate to have some first rate class pianists, Allen Tanner and Francis James Brown, a recent graduate of the Eastman School of Music. First and foremost, though, Chaffee is renowned for his ballet collection of prints, sculpture and drawings of the 16th to 20th centuries. He had a town house in Greenwich Village (if my memory serves me it was 109 Grove Street) not more than ten feet wide. On first entering I shall never forget the sight of being greeted by a sculpture of Fanny Elssler in her Cachuca costume standing blithely on a staircase newel. I met Ben Harkarvy at the ballet when he was a few months short of his 14th birthday; even at this tender age he had thinning hair and a portly figure. He was so articulate and knowledgeable that we assumed he was a college student, although he had barely started high school. (I was a year older) He joined us for ballet lessons. Gore Vidal also came for class--he wore white tennis shorts--and took morning class for a year. (This was before his second novel 'City and the Pillar' was published.) He was part of a large group of returning GI's who were studying under the GI Bill. We had no idea he was a writer, and we called him Gene. We were more than 'just students'; we were balletomanes. There were only two companies regularly in New York at the time; Ballet Theatre and Ballets Russes. Each had a spring and fall season, Ballet Theatre at the old 'Met' and the Ballets Russe at the City Center. The standing room at the old 'Met' was excellent. Unlike today, we did not stand in the rear of the orchestra behind the last row of seats. There was a circle of seats around the horseshoe shape of the theater which meant we could be fairly close to the stage. It was 'first come, first served' and there was a comfortable brass railing to lean on. Standing room was $1.80 but rather than wait on the standing room line we purchased a balcony ticket for the same price and could enter the theater early and scramble to our favorite spots. Very often the crowd was three deep. We were a varied group of a dozen people, all ages. Nora Kaye's parents (Mr. & Mrs. Koreff) were among the regular standees. The Ballets Russe appeared at the City Center on 55th Street. We sat in the second balcony. The rows went from A to H and I always purchased Row H Seat 1 for $1.10. I liked that particular row because I could lean forward and raise my seat for a clear view; the upper part of that section was not in use. There were a few other companies that appeared sporadically: the deCuevas Ballet International on Columbus Circle; Markova-Dolin which was reorganized in 1945; the Paris Opera Ballet came in 1948 amid nightly pickets outside the theater against Lifar--but what a revelation to see Chauvire and Kalioujny. We saw Petit's Ballet de Paris with Jeanmaire and a few days later the first appearance of the Sadler's Wells with Fonteyn. As heady as this scene appears, in between the regular visits of Ballet Theatre and Ballets Russes, we felt it to be a wasteland. To compensate we formed a group called 'Balletiana' (I opted for New York Ballet Club but the cutesy name won out). Our aim was: "the education of its membership and the promotion of the interest of others in the place and function of ballet amongst the Arts. It provides a medium for the exchange of information and knowledge of the ballet" --a fore-runner of Ballet Talk? We met once or twice a month in a rented studio in Carnegie Hall and had an impressive guest speaker list: Alexandra Danilova, Frederic Franklin, Hugh Laing, Edwin Denby, Walter Terry, Anatole Chujoy among others. To my surprise most of the students did not go to see many performances, and rarely read or discussed ballet's long history. In those days it was easy to drop into the Vilzak-Shollar studio or School of American Ballet and sit and watch a class. Over to V-S whenever Svetlana Beriosova had a PDD class (a finished dancer at 14) or over to SAB hoping to catch Doubrovska give a class. I often wondered if the SAB students knew much of the backgrounds of their teachers. There was one SAB student who knew all these things, Bob Joffrey. I knew Bob through my friendship with Ben. Bob had a good technique with particularly brilliant batterie. Coupled with an outgoing personality there was a real liveliness in his dancing. Ben had a much harder time. He was very much overweight, had flat feet and a weak back. He also had parents who did not take too kindly to their exceptionally bright son of not wanting to go to college. He did placate them by agreeing to take courses at the New School on 12th Street, which didn't last very long. He did manage to lose weight at one time and got down to 150 lbs. I would look at these two young men who were so devoted to ballet and wonder what would become of them if they did not have a ballet career. Ben and Bob both had physical problems. Bob, with all his ebuillience did not have a dancer's body. We all know what Bob accomplished. He gave us the Joffrey Ballet and because he was a balletomane we got Fokine, Massine, Jooss, Tudor and Ashton. Oh, that we had another Bob Joffrey. Ben capped off his career as the Director of the Dance Division at Juilliard. Before that he established the Netherlands Dance Theatre and was Artistic Director of Pennsylvania Ballet. I returned to Ballet Arts and studied with Edward Caton and also Mme. Anderson-Ivantsova. Caton was a tall, lean man and walked with a distinctive slouch. His long legs preceded him and the rest of his figure caught up slowly. Most of the time he was dressed in brown from head to toe and wore an 'Indiana Jones' hat pushed back on his head--long before 'Indiana Jones'. He was a shy man and an affliction caused him to speak in a low raspy voice. While waiting for class to begin Ben and I sought him out and engaged in conversation. I saw him in the Ballet Theatre production of 'Giselle' as the Duke of Courland. He was every inch the aristocrat as he walked slowly and deliberately with two Russian wolfhounds. Most of the other 'Dukes' I have seen look more like supers. He encouraged me to take class with Margaret Craske which I did, but she was too dour for me and I stopped. I also studied with Mme. Anderson-Ivantsova, a former Bolshoi ballerina. Everyone took the same class, beginners to professionals. She never stopped to teach Barre. As a new student you followed the person in front of you and hoped they knew what they were doing. Barre was non-stop for 20 minutes or so. Her husband would bang out a tired ditty on the piano at her command: "Music! Mr. Ivantzov". I was amazed at the strength I gained from her classes. Her lessons were $2. I weep at her last years. Widowed, ill and financially bereft she had to depend on others for her needs.

On this one I am with Macaulay 100%---he summed up my feelings beautifully: "In 1989 it was said that the Kirov Ballet was at last trying to enter the 20th century, in 2008 it looks as if Ballet Theater is trying to move in the opposite direction." Shame on ABT for not properly honoring Tudor in '08.

who's doing the ironing? --back to topic---I am currently reading Duberman's bio of Kirstein and loving every page of it---I admire his writing style and will surely look into his other books.

I just finished reading it---nowhere in the book did I get an inkling that she knew much about the history of her chosen profession. In her brief preface she states that "...with the exception of my family and certain prominent individuals, I have changed the names of and details about persons described in the book to protect their identities" and then goes on to skewer most of the professionals she came in contact with. What irritated me most about the book was her off handed way of dismissing the talents of the dancers around her. She was blessed with a beautiful body, but she didn't know what to do with it. I guess her final revenge was thumbing her nose at Liane Dayde.

The remake of the Japanese film 'Shall We Dance' with Richard Gere.....A-a-a-gh!--and to a slightly lesser degree, all the remakes of 'Love Affair'---Boyer, Dunne and Ouspenskaya cannot be beat, even by Cary Grant; and Warren Beatty?

It is.

I, too, finally succumbed and bought the Alonso tape. The Black Swan with Youskevitch was a great disappointment. I hate to think of people who never saw him perform live would judge him by this tape; (he was about 46 at the time). I have always admired Alonso's aristocratic manner in this pas; no trace of the Vamp here. She also performed Florine's solo from Bluebird with this same aristocratic manner. She was the only dancer I saw who performed it this way---and to this day I cringe when the Florine's get too cutesy. (I wonder, cubanmiamiboy--how is it performed in Cuba?) I can live without most of the tape. I never cared for her Cuban Giselles, and especially her partners, nor the Alberto Alonso choreography. A taste of the real Romantic Alonso comes through in the PDQ; it's the reason I bought the tape after seeing it on youtube. I am very pleased at the way she was captured in this performance. When she first started performing Taglioni she would alternate with Markova; and unfortunately picked up on an annoying (for me!) habit of Markova. When striking an arabesque the foot on her extended leg broke at the ankle and pointed upward--(or, the leg was east and the foot was northeast). I was so pleased to see that this did not occur in this recorded performance.

I am reading 'The Dragon's Trail' by Joanna Pitman. It is the biography of a painting--Raphael's 'St. George and the Dragon' which I believe is at the National Gallery in Washington. Also, Al Gore's 'Assault on Reason' and Kirstein are waiting in the wings.....I finally plowed through most of Doris Kerns Goodwin's book on Lincoln 'Team of Rivals'---I haven't quite finished it; the assasination is coming up and I don't feel like going there yet.

From early on my favorite Odettes were Kirov (Maryinsky) trained. Danilova was (and still is) my gold standard for the role. I don't know if the Vaganova method had much to do with her training because she only studied with her during her last year at the School. After Danilova it was Makarova and then Ananiashvilli (this Bolshoi dancer managed to sneak in!); and presently, judging by the performance I saw last year (and waiting to see many more), Veronika Part.

To answer Canbelto's question on my favorite change over the years it would have to be the abundance of ballet companies all over the world.....and in particular, here in the US.

I am surprised there wasn't more talk of the Bolshoi production with Gracheva/Vetrov, both of whom gave gorgeous performances. Vetrov's Shades solo is one of the best I have seen. To anyone familiar with this production, I would love to know who the Gamzatti was---and also, the 3 soloists in the shades scene. There is one scene in this production I can live without---it's in the Gamzatti 'tutu' scene---before Nikiya's basket dance. A male corps flies around beating what looks like tom-toms and behaving like refugees from 'Prince Igor'.