atm711

It was Balanchine's version of Swan Lake in a Vera Zorina film---the story ended with Lew Christiansen leaning remorsefully on a castle---he was several feet taller than the castle....

No 'Bringing Up Baby'--- and 'Barry Lyndon' over 'Tom Jones'?

Jocelyn Vollmar was mentioned earlier in the thread.  She was one of the people in the video tributes to Francia Russell and Kent Stowell.  I would have thought she was in her early 60's, but that math doesn't work if she danced with SFB in the 30's.

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Jocelyn Vollmar must have been a prodigy if she danced with SFB in the 30's---her career was in the 50's and I have fond memories of her with Ballet Society and ABT.

Ah, yes there is one that I love to see---'Renverse en dehors with temps leve'.

I love it in Giselle's Act 1 variation and in the Black Swan PDD where the ballerina does three.....

I have a copy and it's a very handsome production. I only wished they had two more experienced dancers in the leading roles---this, I understand, was the first time for both of them. (after viewing it, I went scurrying back to view my clips of Bruhn and Fracci . I really prefer Bournonville's version. The POB version rambles on too much in Act 2---at times, I didn't know if I was watching the Willies in Giselle or Les Sylphides. The beautifully staged ending of the ballet is worth the price of the DVD---the Sylphide is carried aloft in a hammock of white gauze, held by two Sylphs....Ah.....

But one of the problems with B's Don Q is that neither of these women have Farrell's power to carry it. 

If it's any solace to the ballerinas alternating the role of Dulcinea I would like to tell them that Suzanne Farrell wasn't all that affecting in the role at the first performance---and she had Balanchine.

That was absolutely devastating. Only yesterday I was looking at my tape of Beriosova and Nureyev performing 'Diana and Actaeon' and 'Black Swan' and my memories of the beautiful 14-year old Beriosova are still strong. I always wanted to know more a bout her, and tried unsuccessfully to get a copy of a biography; when I finally tracked it down at my library, they no longer had a copy. Recently, it was hinted here that it was an emotional problem.

Thanks for giving me a look at the new costumes and sets. They are not quite as classy as the original, which took place in a fashionable Cafe. The ballet is a piece of fluff and it needs all the help it can get, from Offenbach's glorious score and good set design. It was one of Massine's most popular ballets, but not one of his best. The picture of the 'Peruvian' was a surprise---I don't recall any interpreter of the part having to jump in that way. Again, thanks--I loved seeing the photos.

I am delighted that the Bolshoi is resurrectingMassine---I hope it's a sign that his time has come around again. Le Tricorne does demand strong personalities; I can still recall Massine and Toumanova. I wonder if the Bolshoi re-created the original sets and costumes by Etienne deBeaumont for Gaite Parisienne; I always felt they were an essential part of the success of the ballet. I never saw any of the symphonic ballets---but I have been curious about'Rouge et Noir' (even with the Shostakovich score )

I would be happy just to see all the old Dance in America's repeated, repeated, repeated.......

Yet, I have one thing to say to all the critics out there: you wonder why ballet is not shown more on public televison in the US...its because even the "ballet fans" out there are such tough critics, its hard to satisfy even the people the program was intended to please.  So, why bother bringing it at all?

Underneath all the criticism, Tessdixon, we are really all delighted that this was on TV. I have many friends who go the ballet often, and love everything they see---which is great. I listen politely without much comment, and am very happy that they buy tickets.---BUT---some of us need a place to VENT---and that is part of Ballet-Talk.

And I suppose I would rather go with beauty and feeling -- even if there's a sacrifice of some technique -- in Swan Lake.

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So would I, and that's what Veronika Part provided along with Marcello Gomes in the final Swan Lake of the same recent Kennedy Center appearance. I'm happy to have Murphy and Corella's performance on tape, although I've only had time to watch the first two acts so far. But I wish McKenzie had chosen to feature the cast I saw.

I was so pleased to read your comments KFW---I have my tickets to see Veronika Part on July 7.

both principals danced beautifully but I want more than clean execution in a "Swan Lake." 

My feelings, exactly. Four years ago I saw Murphy's first SL in NY (with Gomes) and I thought she had a smashing success in her first SL. I was looking forward to seeing her development in the role, but, I saw too many fidgeting mannerisms which were not there 4 years ago---then, she was a much more calmer, serene performer. I fail to understand why any star male dancer would want to dance the Prince in this version---he is constantly being outdanced in most acts by other characters. When the Prince finally gets a solo in ACT3, he has been knocking himself out lifting all those potential mates. But I was most impressed with Corella's demeanor--he was a truly sensitive Prince. What I dislike most about the production are the sets and costumes. The costumes, in particular, tend to overpower the dancers---

Grace Roberts gives us a few more interesting remarks:

Other critics were less pleased with the score than the choreography. Lawrence Gilman referred rather bitterly to Apollo Smintheus* and thought the choreography unimaginative and tepid.

*destroyer of mice

'Stravinsky espressed a lack of interet in Apollo's transatlantic apotheosis.......but this did not mean that he was without ideas about how he wanted it produced....he revised the orchestration of the score and worked closely with Balanchine who he said had arranged the dances exactly as he had wished....in accordance with the classical school'

'Stravinsky was less enthusiastic about the decor (Andre Bauchant)...he wanted the muses to be dressed in the classical short tutu.....

I also read where Apollo was a curtain raiser at the Met '37/38 season of 'Salome'.Grace Roberts goes on to say:

'It would be idle to pretend that the opera audience appreciated the ballet. They have never accepted operas that have any breath of musical controversy about them until a lapse of at least twenty years....'

The Article continues:

"The composer in the present work turned to the melodious Bellini as hius model, even renouncing his former aversion to strings and employing them exclusively because of their greater sweetness. Superficially, here was ballet music of the most conventional sort; but to the ear of the choreographer this pseudo-lyricism proved to be a little more than candy-coating for the most vicious contrary rhythms and the most persistent irregularities of time,which bore no more relation to the conventional ballet than to Bellini, under whose style they were so neatly tucked away. Yet the spirit of the music was undoubtedly of the early nineteenth century, and just as certainly the ballet of the early nineteenth century was strictly conventional.

The ingenious fashion in which Mr. Bolm reconciled these two seemingly irreconcilable conditions furnished the chief delight of the performance. The obsolete elegances of the ballet of Taglioni's day, struggling against the underlying obstinacies of modernistic rhythms, mirrored the quality of the music exactly.

End of quote.(Borzio Book of Ballets, Grace Roberts)

The author of the review is not noted.

Here is a description from the NYTimes, May 6, 1928: (It's rather long, I hope it's legal)

Before the curtains a priest bears a hugh glowing urn to the front of the platform. Three maidens in ballet skirts perform a brief symbolic worship before it and withdraw. Thus is Apollo born, in a manner less literal than the original scenario demanded. The curtains then open, and before us is a scene which suggests nothing so much as an 'elegant engraving' after Veronese. On our left is a hugh pile of rocks and on our right a group of Corinthian columns in ruins. Between the two stands Apollo, clad in gold sandals, pink tights, and a gold tunic decorated with red festoons. Upon his long folden curls he wears a helmet from whose crest burst many fulsome plumes. In his hand is a Lyre.

To Apollo come Caliope, Polyhymnia, and Terpsichore wearing the ballet costume of Taglioni, with a border of gold about their skirts, and fillets in their hair to show that they are Greek. To each of them he gives a particular mission. Calliope is presented with a tablet and pencil and is made the patroness of epic poetry; Polyhymnia receives the mystic veil and is charged with the care of sacred hymns; Terpsichore is given the Apollonian lyre itself and is made a priestess of choral song and dance. This great business performed, the Leader of the Muses climbs up the slope of the rocks and is transfigured by a strong light. His three followers do obeisance to him and the curtains close.

more to come in the next post.........

This is all that I came up with: ballet in 2 scenes, choreo: Adolph Bolm; comm. ES Coolidge, first prod. Library of Congress, Wash. April 27, 1928 (B's was June 12) with Bolm, Ruth Page (Terp) Berniece Holms (Poly.) Elise Reiman (Cal.) I have often wondered what is was like, too.

Johnny Depp.----he really moves like a dancer.

I can only describe the review as a hatchet job---is the writer a professional journalist? The writer is an admirer of Bessmertnova, a dancer I was neveer particularly taken with.

atm -- Has the Russian Tea Room become the "Rush In Tee Room",Where do ballet people hang out now?

Well put, Marga. I patronized the place when it really was the RUSSIAN Tea Room and I could only afford the cheapest dinner on the menu which was something called 'shashlik'---something my southern-european-american background had never heard of. Alas, my hanging out days are long over.

Our verision of Lindy, which we called the Bop, was in fact pretty much straight 6-count shag, toe-heel toe heel rock-step --

But what ABOUT "Danses COncertantes"? What did that ballet look like? I;'ve never seen it, only read about it.

We tried mighty hard for the Harlem version---much jumping and high kicking.

The closest ballet today to the old 'Danses Concertantes' is 'Rubies'. It was Balanchine at his jazziest best. Imagine Danilova in those small jazzy thrusts; not a picture many people may have of her. It is amazing when I recall the talent in that early production---Ruthanna Boris, Maria Tallchief, MaryEllen Moylan. I often think it is a shame that when Danilova finally got back to Balanchine she was near the end of her career, andher technique was not up to the other works that Balanchine did for the Company, which is why she was not in most of them---except for the Sleepwalker and I always thought she was miscast in this. Jack Anderson in his book "The One and Only: The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo" describes the ballet well. One thought while I am still on memory lane---the old Russian Tea Room on West 57 Street in NYC had a very large painting of Danilova and Franklin in their yellow Berman costumes from the ballet.

Anyone familiar with Lindy will recognize it all over the place in Concerto Barocco.

I did a pretty good Lindy in my day, Paul, but I must be missing something; I didn't recognize it in CB. Now, Danses Concertantes as it was done way back in 1944 is another story---it was all over the place in that work.

PS--can you give us a time frame for that Shrimpton look-alike ballerina?

Leigh---who, if any, from the 'Balanchine Trust' staged and rehearsed them?

Rest in peace--Anna Maria Italiano

this seems to me to be a ballet built around the talents of one woman, so that one woman had better be a pretty spectacular ballerina. 

My feelings, exactly---it's why I did not get a ticket to see it this season---hopefully Ananiashvilli will be back next season...