cargill

Ashton is the founding choreographer of the Royal Ballet, and there are some who wish they were more enchanted by him! The Joffrey for years had a great deal of Ashton, and recently ABT has done a very good job with La Fille, The Dream, and Sylvia. Both Boston Ballet and Pennsylvia have recenctly done Fille. Ashton's style is very hard, deceptively so, and the small steps and effortless execution, as well as the need for so many character dancers, I expect, may be one reason why we don't see enough. He and Balanchine are hands down the best 20th century choreographers, and the way things are going, maybe the best 21st century ones too!

I would like to second Beck's opinion of Kajiya--I couldn't keep my eyes off her feet in Les Sylphides--though the rest of her was pretty wonderful too! They just didn't seem to touch the ground.

I haven't seen it in recent Agon performances, but when I first saw it (by the Royal Ballet in the early 1970s) the pas de trois with the woman and two men, where she does the tricky balancing bit, ended by the woman coming forward and giving a little nod to the audience, a brief, "I did it, and you thought maybe I couldn't" acknowledgement that was so witty, just a brief connection with the audience that was so warm. I saw it in older Agon performances at NYCB, but it seems to have disappeared, and I am sorry. Now the balancing bit seems to be so nonchalant, almost throw away, which tones down the whole piece, I think.

The Kaiser article was very interesting--didn't say much about his taste in ballets though, since he seemed proud of the Snow Maiden! But I think the very issue of bringing up Kaiser or anyone as a possible successor is completely wrong--it smacks of a reporter making news instead of reporting it. What if Kaiser did get a job at NYCB--after Rockwell has been seen to champion him, how could anyone trust what he would write about how he is doing? [Edited by Admin to add: the original reference to the article on Michael Kaiser was posted in this thread originally, but has been split off to a new thread on Kaiser at the Kennedy Center]

I think Helene is right--it was a pretty catty article in itself--to be snide myself, I think it looks like Rockwell hasn't actually seen many Martins' ballets, since he doesn't actually talk about what they are like. Anne Bass's resignation was not noisy, since it was kept quiet for months, and it seems if she had wanted to make a fuss, she would have been able to. Any implying that Gottlieb's support for MCB was only pique or special interest is truly nasty, and harmful to a very good company. If Rockwell has seen their Emeralds, even with the taped music, he might know that they do have something special. And I would like to know which Diamond Project could actually be considered a masterpiece!

Robert, just a quick note--Grant was the original Bottom in The Dream, not Puck, just in case any one is confused. He was wonderful in both of them, perfect comic timing, and he could also make you cry with a tilt of his head. The scene when Alain offers the ring to the audience and the one where Bottom remembers his dream still give me chills thinking about them.

Amy, Alain's butterfly net is part of the Russian Fille, but Ashton dropped it in his version, so yes, you would have certainly seen pictures of it! The mime scene, where Lise day dreams of her marriage comes directly from the old Russian version, via Karsavina, who encouraged Ashton to choreograph his version to the tradtional scenario, but all of the other steps are original. I did see the original Widow, Stanley Holden, and the clog dance is certainly based on the old English music hall traditions, which is very hard to translate. I thought that Boston Ballet did good job with the Widow, though. The dance with sticks is based on English folk dancing--I don't remember off hand which one, but I love it! I think Ashton's chickens were his way of getting the ballet started on the right note, funny, witty, and joyful. He did a number of pieces based on animal movements, probably in honor or inspired by Petipa's cats. I agree that it is a perfectly wonderful ballet. ABT did a very good job of it a couple of years ago, and the Pennsylvania Ballet also did it. I expect it is very very hard to cast and coach (the last time I saw the Royal Ballet do it, the Widow was unspeakably bad), plus the sets are probably expensive, and without a familiar title it isn't a guaranteed sell. (Someone I think has suggested renaming Colas and Lise Romeo and Juliet, which would guarantee a box office.) It is a simply wonderful ballet, and I am so happy I got a chance to see it again.

In the original libretto, and in the Fokine choreography (which I would love to see again!), and it seems in the original Tallchief, the Firebird is definitely not in love with the prince. She hates him, and only saves him because she has to. Fokine has her give him the feather before he lets her go (one of the many many things I find wrong about the Balanchine version is that she goes back after she is free to give him the feather), and she has to save him because of her promise, not because of any feeling. She is a bird of fire, and not human. Tallchief, in the Guggenheim demo, stressed that to Patricia Barker--she said she (Tallchief) had played piano for so many years that her hands were incredibly strong, and she could push forward from the palms, so that the fingers bent backwards, and amazingly expressive detail. I have seen the current dancers become sort of sappy, Odette in a red tutu, and the whole point is lost--but then I don't much like Balanchine's version compared with Fokine's anyway!

What a loss to the ballet world! I was hoping she would do well at the Royal Ballet--she seemed like such a good fit. I still remember, with awe, her Prayer in Coppelia. It was just luminous.

I could be wrong, but I think the costumes for Picnic got destroyed--by fire maybe? I friend of mine saw it, and just loved it. I had forgotten some of those American Music Festival pieces! The Heather Watts one (by Jacque Damboise or Ricky Weiss, maybe) also featured a floating brassiere as I recall. I think my vote for the truly odd and misconceived piece is Nureyev's Washington Square, for the POB. An unbelievable mishmash.

I would add Part at Terpsichore and in the Prelude of Les Sylphides, and Fang in the Prelude, too. And everyone in The Green Table--absolutely staggering. I will second Salstein in Rodeo, just a wonderful performance.

I missed Cornejo when looking at the scheduling! He isn't down for any Petrouchkas or Eroses (in Sylvia), which he was wondeful in. I did see him for a Bribanto (a very useless part, in my opinion!), so he is still around, but I was surprised that he didn't get a Petrouchka.

I would like to ask about the character dance that Medora had during the pirate scene. I saw it in Boston, and thought it was just charming, and seemed to be a real breath of the 19th century. Is there any chance it will be revived? Ditto the dance for Zamora (the Pasha's favorite) in the last act.

I would just like to add my appreciation of James Fayette. He was just such a luminous partner--he could make a ballerina glow by looking at her, and he always seemed like such a grown up. He made Concerto Barocco seem alive again. And his Elegie in Tchaikovsky Suite just made me cry. Nowadays, it seems like everyone and his brother can make the audience gasp, but it takes a real artist to make them cry.

It is too bad they aren't bringing the reconstructed version. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, and really changes the emphasis. Some of the costumes are a bit bright (the yellow fairy!), but for me, it was so so much more complete and satisfying and alive than the newer version. The prince is a real prince, who is a human visiting a magical realm in the vision scene (so he can't dance), not just some stick in tights jumping around. And the additional mime for the King and Queen was so moving. But some people found it very long (about 4 hours of pure heaven!), and it is probably very expensive to tour.

Paul, yes to Concerto Barocco! And to Ballet Imperial, which was also done for a South American tour, wasn't it? But in a sense it was an individual sponsorship, based on an individual's taste, since Nelson Rockefeller was behind it. Balanchine didn't have to write grant proposals based on set guidelines and get funding from a panel of judges.

I don't know if this is at all relevant to Sleeping Beauty but a teacher once told me that spinning in the Middle Ages was a sign of purity; he was talking about pictures of the Virgin Mary, who is often, apparently, holding a spindle. Bournonville's A Folk Tale, which does have echoes of Sleeping Beauty (or rather the other way around, since it came first--as I recall, Petipa knew of Folk Tale), shows Hilda holding a spindle as well. Of course, purity and Aurora's spindle don't quite match!

I certianly think that goverment support for the arts is a Good Thing. However, it is only in the very recent times that so much goverment support for the arts (here and in Europe) has come from democratically elected governments. Before, government support tended to come from royal families, like the Czar, and all those German principalities. (I am sure that there are some exceptions--some of 19th century France was a democracy.) They could fund what they liked, and some of it was pretty disposable, I expect. But court or church composers and choreograhers or painters had to please a specific patron and therefore had to reach a real audience, whereas in our era, to get support, artists have to conform to certain bureaucratic standards, which really have nothing to do with art, like diversity, outreach, etc. I really can't think of one great work of art that 20th century governments have supported--of course time could prove me wrong. The best way for governments to support art, it seems to me, is to try to develop conditions where arts flourish, which, for the performing arts, means safety (who is going to go out to see a performance if it is dangerous to travel), cheap seats, lots of people (which to me means cities which are affordable), a decent education system with a strong grounding in basic arts--making sure that each student has the opportunity to learn music and play in a band, or be in a play, to use their imagination (rather than spending time learning to take tests!). I think that would be much more fruitful in developing an artistic culture than the current system of funding a few artists based on panels made up of other artists. It seems that this way the status quo (which nowadays in art circles seems to be shock, shock, and more shock) is just perpetuated.

Raymonda was definitely done in NY in the 1987 tour, because I saw it. Ananiashvili and Andris Liepa, and it was gorgeous. I remember one of the mixed bills had a bit from The Fairy Doll, too, which I loved. It was a great visit.

Actually, it was better! Very stylistically coherent (no bombastic jumps for the men, just lots and lots of beats and petit allegro), understated and beautiful sets and costumes and some absolutely gorgeous choreography for the women. It was very interesting to see it in terms of what Petipa did later--Aspacia's slave acted as a sort of a Lilac Fairy keeping them apart, charming children's dances, a wonderful vision scene (underneath the Nile), nice peasants doing nice dancing. The story doesn't have much resonance, like the later Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, but it has enough to hang the dancing on. The main problem was the music, which had lots of rhythm, but made me long for Minkus.

As I recall, only one act of Spartacus was performed in NY the last time the Bolshoi was here; it was on a triple bill with the Shades scene and Symphony in C. I have seen the Bolshoi each visit since the mid-1980's, and this is the first time I have seen the full-length version, so in this case, I think the NYTimes is right!

This is getting way off topic, but I would disagree that Petipa's ballets aren't relevant. The revived Kirov Sleeping Beauty showed, to me anyway, so clearly the theme of justice versus mercy, Swan Lake (in the original, anyway), the idea of man at the mercy of a malevolent nature, and the illusion of having a choice. His mini-abstract ballets (all those vision scenes, all those women with garlands, all those ballerinas being handed flowers) seem to be affirmations of the idea that beauty and perfection exist and are worth striving for. Those beautiful corps formations are visual manifestations of the idea of balance and harmony. This may be contrary to the prevailing artistic sentiment, but balance, harmony, and beauty are certainly relevant in any age. As for his actual choreography--I don't think there is much work better or more musical than those wilis, Aurora's solos (how wonderfully he shows the different types of feminity), and Raymonda's clapping solo--it was so good that Balanchine stole it! Yes, I do think that luck does have a lot to do with choreography that lasts, or rather with choreography that gets lost, because what lasts, by and large is good, I would say, thinking of Bournonville. But what is lost, thinking of Ashton (Sylvia is one we know was written off, and it is glorious) is often just as good.

I would love to see Part do the enchanted princess in Fokine's Firebird. That costume is just so lovely, and the music she dances to is even better. And I would love to see her do it with Murphy's Firebird. Hallberg as Apollo. Gomes as anything!

My absolutely favorite guilty pleasure of Scheherezade. I adore it, but then I tend to love any ballet with harem pants (sort of like any movie with the word Shanghai in the title!).

The Bolshoi here in New York only brought about half of their dancers, as I understand, so I don't think it is really fair to judge. I remember liking Filin very very much when the Bolshoi was here last, and he didn't come this time. But I don't think the men they brought are nearly as strong or as interesting as the ones ABT has, and certainly the corps in Spartacus didn't have the conviction or the weight that I remember from the equally bombastic Golden Age in the mid-1980's. But they are selling well, so maybe in the future, the whole company can come!