drb
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Posts posted by drb
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Tickets for Kyra's Farewell arrived in today's mail, but my subscription tickets haven't. Has anyone received their subs tix?
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... But the point is what source material Shakespeare used in creating Romeo and Juliet...
Thank you for the link to primary sources for Shakespeare's play. Of course, the Gavia story would not be a primary source for him, as it precedes even the 15th C. (possible) source Masuccio Salernitano by 950 years. But her story has somehow persisted in the culture for 1500 years, and yet is about specific people, especially the Princess and her parents (history seems totally fuzzy about the boy), whose ages are just about exactly as given on NYCB's webcast for Juliet and her parents.
About three decades ago I read something about the Gavia story being an ancient antecedent (among others) to Juliet's; memory of the specific research is long lost. Being a fan of the Dark Ages, and this such a sweet story for such a brutal epoch, makes me a believer! And there is that direct connection: one can drink her wine. It pleases me to have such a connection, however esoteric, to such a person.
Admittedly, a belief fortified by wine has a wobbly basis.
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Of course there is the question, how old was the real Juliet? I'm in no way a scholar on this subject. But, while the character in the play is not a specific historical person, it seems evident that she is, at least in part, a composite of real women. I tend to think the primary historical person was Princess Gavia, the blond-haired daughter of Clodomir, the Merovingien (Frankish) King of Orleans from 511-524 ( his kingdom now would roughly correspond to Burgundy). He was one of the sons of the great King of France, Clovis I.
Not receiving permission to marry her boyfriend (some sources say he worked for the King, others say he was a Goth -- mortal enemies of the Franks, certainly the latter is closer to the eventual play), they eloped and lived happily ever after: they did not have the help of a Friar, but did have the intervention of the Pope. They settled in what is now Piedmonte in Northern Italy. Some say on land owned by her father, but historically that land was then ruled by the Goths, specifically Queen Amalasunta. This could be seen as a cooperative action between the Franks and Goths. The small city still there is now named Gavi, and the region produces a pleasant white wine. Years ago, when I was young and romantic, before attending a performance of R&J, I often enjoyed a bottle of Gavi with pre-performance dinner.
But, to the issue of Gavia's age. I don't know the years of birth and elopement. But her father was born in 495 and died in 524, so he couldn't have been more than 29 when he accepted the marriage. If indeed her mother is correctly identified, then he'd had at least one son before fathering Gavia. I doubt she was far from the 13 of the play.
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......
NURSE I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,--
And yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four--
She is not fourteen. How long is it now
To Lammas-tide?
LADY CAPULET A fortnight and odd days.
NURSE Even or odd, of all days in the year,
Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.
Juliet died (for real) four days later, about two weeks short of July 31, which would have been her 14th birthday.
Here's the play's precise chronology:
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... If Juliet's mother is 28 how old is Juliet supposed to be? ...
In those days weren't women who were marrying high married as soon as they were able to conceive, to assure the purity of blood of her husband's firstborn? Laws of inheritance and such. So maybe Juliet was 13 and her mother of similar age at her marriage (and Juliet has no older siblings). Recall that in the first scene with her nurse, Juliet is a bit startled that she's developing breasts.
Another casting wish: Peter Martins as the Friar.
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drb writes:While I've always disliked R&J (the episodic score forces too many boring crowd/sword scenes), it is a great star vehicle. Certainly Macaulay takes a star-oriented perspective in his article....
Very much so. I thought it a trifle gushy, in fact, and would have preferred more dispassionate discussion of choreography and score. Still, it's his debut, and maybe he got a little overexcited.
I think his approach and especially his choice of Romeo and Juliet was very intentional. The city is about to face a deluge of this ballet: two weeks at NYCB and then one at ABT. There will be a lot of first-timers, newbies, beginning their ballet watching lives with R&J, and articles like this will both encourage that attendance and reinforce its enjoyment. As Bart pointed out
Maybe what we need is someone who is able and willing to be a kind of missionary, persuading people about the the power and cultural importance of ballet.His conclusion with The Four Temperaments was there to assure us, but also to plant a little bug in the minds of the newbies: Balanchine.
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Looking at the thrust of this now long thread, is the thread becoming a streaming BT Comentary on Macaulay's artistry, where each forthcoming review is held up to admire, perhaps to deconstruct, and to find its unique insights and defects and type these points as to whether they are colored by different sensibilities from ours, we the ones who've been with local ballet work through its naisance, its wet nurses, and feel we know it too: or at least have been in its house? Perhaps as ideas synthesize from dialogue with his writing, and even with Mr. Macaulay himself, a community of some effective power can evolve to make the hesitant ballet masters move on to do their true duties, to bring performances to the level that the people may see as Macaulay can see The Four Temperaments.
A practical first shot: to cause an effort by Bart Cook and Merrill Ashley to put on a Four Temperments like the one they danced 28 years ago.
Bringing Back Balanchine.
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Bravo for his writing skill and ability to merge description and personal emotion!
While I've always disliked R&J (the episodic score forces too many boring crowd/sword scenes), it is a great star vehicle. Certainly Macaulay takes a star-oriented perspective in his article. I wonder how he'll respond to Peter Martins's non-star production (although SAB students really are often stars...), and to other ballets of more choreographic substance (perhaps his Four Temps remarks are a promising clue)?
... And so, from the back of the fourth ring, I saw City Ballet dance Balanchine’s masterwork “The Four Temperaments” ...Nothing in “The Four Temperaments” was narrative, but all of it was dramatic, and nothing I had ever seen in any theater had been of such power. This wasn’t sexy; it was too volcanic for that. Some 28 years later I am still haunted by the memory of the bellowslike alternation of through-the-body convex and concave shapes made by Bart Cook’s Melancholic and Merrill Ashley’s Sanguinic.
At the least, I will be anxiously awaiting his reviews in the Times, and I cannot remember that ever being true before...
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.....The program — a fundraiser for USC's dance program — includes performances by five top New York City Ballet dancers, including Wendy Whelan, Albert Evans, Maria Kowroski, Craig Hall and Ashley Bouder.....
Did anyone see Saturday's performance?
Stacey Calvert seems to arrange a visit of NYCB dancers every year at USC. Here's an extensive interview with her, talking about her 20 years at NYCB and life since, from the State of South Carolina's site. Included is a video of her rehearsing a dance.
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... the Ferri Farewell Romeo. The website shows ALL locations sold except Family Circle.
FC second row center is still on offer.
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Online ticket sales are scheduled to begin Sunday at 12 noon here:
http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/season/abt/
Updated casting is given for each date. If it is like last year, you select a section and the site offers specific seats. You might wish to register on the site before sales begin, especially given the apparently high subscription sales this season.
Diana Vishneva's site confirms all 11 dates (including the Opening Night Gala) and partners; Nina's site likewise confirms her two listed performances in her Tour Schedule; but, unlike an earlier article on her site, makes no mention of the Gala. Any news about the Gala? The only casting I've seen is the pianist Lang Lang. He is fabulous, and earlier in his career did dance as he played--but not so much recently.
By the way, I'd not previously noticed the Telegraph article from last November on Nina's site. Ananiashvili tells about setting Ashton on her company, troubles with Russia, and includes a photo of 8 month old Helene with mother and father.
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A very timely e-note from Paul Taylor just popped into my In-box. It begins
One of Paul Taylor's favorite composers of all time is baroque master George Frideric Handel, whose music the choreographer first used in 1962 with the groundbreaking Aureole, and returned to in 1978 with Airs...and continues with a recommendation to see Handel's opera Flavio at NYC Opera. It concludes with an offer to save 35% on your tickets (up to four):
Order online and submit promo code FLCGCall CenterCharge at 212-721-6500 and mention code FLCG
...
FLAVIO PERFORMANCES:
Wed Apr 4 7:30
Fri Apr 6 8:00
Sun Apr 8 1:30
Tue Apr 10 7:30
Thu Apr 12 7:30
Sat Apr 14 1:30
Sat Apr 21 8:00
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I met the couple a year later. She was just about the most wonderful ballerina in Creation. She was exceptionally tiny in real life, but had a uniquely magical talent to, at the right dramatic moment, rise and tower above everyone, till no one else even existed. Still regret not making the trip up to Canada (?) to see her Giselle, but at the time it seemed there'd be a couple of decades left to see it. I wonder why it took nearly three decades to release this?!
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Maybe because it's directly ABOUT the power of music to move us, and appeals to the imagination of choreographers to add the most they can to the realization of that power.
Was Gluck specifically addressing the power of music to move us in this piece, or is this a statement about his music more generally? I'm not an opera person and my only experience of this score is via Balanchine's Chaconne, aside from an individual aria I heard (in French) on the radio. Anyway, in 40 days...!
The Levine-Morris program is no longer directly available from the Rose site, but is available from Rose's Google site here (be sure the whole long address is clicked or pasted into your browser):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=41...lie_Rose+Morris
It runs about 23 minutes, beginning 33 minutes into the broadcast.
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Sometimes it takes a choreographer-soul mate of the composer to reveal that hidden (to us, or at least to me) dimension that blooms craft into glory. For Handel, Paul Taylor?
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I was happy to read in today's links that Ashley Bouder is back, dancing with other City Ballet dancers this Saturday at the University of South Carolina. She's also listed for Gala appearances on April 29 (Toronto: Stars of 21st Century) and April 30 (New York: YAGP). Stay well, Assoluta Ashley; NYCB needs someone to match ABT's Vishneva/Ananiashvili/Ferri star power this Spring!
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Thank you! A wonderful podcast with Nutnaree Pipit-Suksun, the discovery of last summer's Lincoln Center engagement. Congrats and appreciation to the interviewer for pronouncing her name. Ommi says she's most looking forward to dancing the adagio movement of Mr. B's Symphony in C later this season. WOW!
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...[ ... ] is she the right "emploi" for Aurora? Is she too womanly for the role? Is she too tall? I have never seen her execute balances as far as I can remember. Will the "Rose Adagio" defeat her? The fast waltz solo in the first act after the Rose Adagio with the jumps with one foot doing batterie and many quick pirouettes isn't exactly her cup of tea either...
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Maybe I'm being naive, or trusting too much in the judgement of management...
Any trust in that judgment would be too much. But it is hard to believe that Kolpakova is not supporting this, and I would trust her. Also, you'd think Gelsey would say something if it were a problem.
As to emploi, well, her partner is huge so they should be in scale. They will need to find a big Lilac, of course. Perhaps Martine van Hamel could unretire; or Maria Kowroski, robbed of her role at NYCB last season (the best Lilac I've ever seen, and she'd tower over Veronika), could be borrowed...
Too womanly? Maybe by ballet convention, but in real life many girls of that age are, or so it seems through clouded memory of high school past. She has held balances in Swan Lake. I'd be more concerned about stamina, and would therefore worry about the grand PdD. But even more about health.
She couldn't do some of the steps in Balanchine last Fall without nearly falling over. But then again she had a great success in Mozartiana without doing them either. In her first ABT Swan she couldn't really manage Odette's two variations (but has since), nor the flashy stuff of Odile, yet delivered a monumental performance. You don't go to see Part for the tricks, you go to have your life transformed.
By the way, she should be incredible in Bayadere, where womanly is everything!
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I went this morning to make my subscriber exchanges. Based on purchases and inquiry:
Vishneva is a very tough ticket. There were only extremely poor orchestra seats left for her first Sleeping Beauty, so going upstairs was an easy choice. Her Swan Lake, both Manons, both Bayaderes, ditto.
I was told that there are still some tickets in the Dress Circle for Ferri's Farewell. Almost a surprise, given it is part of a subs, and was also offered for priority purchase with the subscription material. (NYCB's Farewell for Nichols is non-subs and still the orchestra was sold out to those with priority. However the Met has a thousand more seats.)
Was able to get Row A Dress Circle for Ferri's final Manon.
Did decently well for Ananiashvili's Swan Lake and best of all for Part's.
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... I wonder if "tragicomicallovenyc.com" is still available? :blush:
I tried to go to
http://www.tragicomicallovenyc.com
and the answer is that it is still available! Better claim it before the announcement of Peter Martins's Manon.
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She also gives a prime example of the Russian back (from the book Marc mentioned above):
http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/2649687/
(scroll down and click on it)
How do they do that?!
According to the publisher's statement, she failed to attain the pinnacle of Olympian fame because of a combination of modesty, insularity and pride.
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Maybe it is time to restart this thread in light of this amazing dancer's career coming to its grand finale in her Gala (since it is a specially scheduled, non-subscription performance of dances of her choosing, why not call it what it is?) on June 22.
In today's links there is a long article about her life from the Newark Star-Ledger. It tells a lot about her non-ballet life as a mother of two boys, the personal effect 9/11 had on her, her plans for the future...
Perhaps this is an easier link:
http://www.nj.com/printer/printer.ssf?/bas...ll=1&thispage=2
Depending on your browser, you may need to click "cancel" in order to read the whole article.
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Project Gutenberg offers the entire Seagull as a (49 page) free online read or download here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/rea...223023&pageno=1
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...In Act I there was a "thing", a cover containing several dancers. It undulated, and dancers emerged from it at various times. I'm not too sure I want to delve into that....
Here Eifman sort of tells his Seagull story, and there are numerous photos to click on. The top one is perhaps the "thing"?
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
in Modern, Contemporary, and Other Dance
Posted
Ailey II's NYC season begins next week. There are three different programs, including one with some rare old works by Alvin Ailey:
http://www.alvinailey.org/page.php?p=perf_...79&sec=schedule