Helene

Sign me up, bart! (But throw in an optional opera performance at the Liceu, too, please!)

Spanish may not be the primary language of Barcelona, but I've yet to meet a native who doesn't speak Spanish, i.e., has not been able to speak to my Spanish-speaking travel companion in that language. As a Catalunya Nationalist once explained to me, "Spanish is the language of commerce" -- and he didn't mean that in a good way -- much like English is used as a common denominator in many parts of the world.However, were a National company to be located there, the occasional tendency to not understand the Spanish of people from Spain, particularly Madrid, while understanding perfectly the Spanish of a tourist from Argentina or Costa Rica, would have to stop.

According to imdb, the costumes for Million Dollar Mermaid, in which Tallchief's role is listed as "Pavlova," were designed by: Walter Plunkett Helen Rose (musical numbers) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044903/fullcredits Some of Plunkett's other credits include: Kiss Me Kate, Singing in the Rain, Prisoner of Zenda, the men's costumes for Father of the Bride and Annie Get Your Gun, the beaux art ball costumes for An American in Paris, Katherine Hepburn's costumes in Adam's Rib, the 1948 Three Musketeers, and Show Boat. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0687703/ Some of Rose's other credits include: Silk Stockings, High Society, The Merry Widow, The Great Caruso, the women's costumes for Annie Get Your Gun and Father of the Bride (in collaboration with Plunkett), and the 1946 Ziegfeld Follies. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0741423/

Bombardier was one of the companies that Seattle was looking at until the expanded monorail project got killed.Maybe they would have figured out how to make the voltage play the first three notes of "Louie, Louie."

List price on the Melba Recordings website is $26 AUD (plus between $5-$10 AUD to ship to North America). At today's exchange rate, that's between $24-28 USD, with shipping. I know a lot of times on eBay, shipping charges can be costly ($10-$15 USD), but no takers on $.77 USD is hard to imagine. (I've ordered from Melba Recordings directly, and their service was terrific in both cases.)

From the obituary released by The Associated Press:

From the obituary in The Times

November 24, 2006 A review of the Georgian dance company Sukhishvili: Co-founder of Exit Dance Theatre , Fontaine Dubus, has created a modern version of The Nutcracker, The Nutbuster. John Rockwell looks at dance since September and asks Is It Dance? Does It Matter? Roland Mouret designs dresses that double as costumes for the Rambert Dance Company.

I remember that one of the most imposing photos in the ABT souvenir book I got in 1971 (and is long gone) was of one of the principal dancers in The Moor's Pavane. Unfortunately, I don't remember which of the men was in the photo. Marcos Paredes? Royes Fernandez? Bruce Marks?The NYPL Digital Photo Library has 1977 studio shots by Kenn Duncan of Paredes -- and Sallie Wilson -- in the work, and the earliest ABT shots listed are from 1973. The ABT website lists the cast for the 6/27/70 ABT premiere as: Bruce Marks (The Moor), Royes Fernandez (His Friend), Sally Wilson (His Friend's Wife), and Toni Lander (The Moor's Wife). ABT could revive this work, since it's part of their heritage, as are several of the Tudor ballets. I remember finally seeing Jardin aux Lilas in the 80's, with Martine van Hamel as The Older Woman and I thought she was the highlight of the work. The first time I attended a program where this ballet was listed, and it actually wasn't replaced at the last minute, van Hamel broke her foot on her first entrance (later reported in the New York Times), was swept offstage by her partner, and the curtain came down. Perhaps Boal will heed the anniveraries call at PNB. The Company has performed The Moor's Pavane twice in the last decade, the last time being last year, and both Jardin aux Lilacs and Dark Elegies are on the "Active Repertory" list, although I don't think either has been performed in the last 12 years.

kfw, thank you for the heads up -- I didn't even know this book was coming. I better get off the Internet fast -- one of today's topics on an opera list I belong was "singer biography recommendations," and this is the third book order I placed today. (And my credit card is whimpering.)

Read. This. Book. Barbara Milberg Fisher has achieved her goal, to describe the period of a company and a Balanchine that are often flattened in other accounts, and is not about the subject. As the author writes in the opening of her "Acknowledgments" chapter, "A memoir, it turns out, is all about other people." It's so different to read histories of the company that list the tours or mention a performance or a personal happening during one or the other. It's never really sunk in for me that NYCB toured Europe for five months at a time, and Milberg Fisher gives a slice of what it was like for her and the company. It's a beautifully written book with a voice. So wonderful that the odd repeats and inconsistencies -- "Monthuic" vs. "Montheuil" in the chapter describing the "Calalonia Extremes" during the company's 1952 tour of Barcelona, for example -- are more jarring than they would be in an "As told by" autobiography. Not every professor of English can write in an appealing, analytical, clear, and unique voice, but while reading In Balanchine's Company, a little chime went off that I haven't heard since reading the work of another English professor, Norman MacLean. Just under 200 pages, I didn't want it to end. So I was left to search the web for Ms. Milberg Fisher's book on Wallace Stevens. I don't even like poetry. Arlene Croce writes in the "Foreword": Luckily, the woman who led this life appreciated it and has given her appreciation as a gift in the form of this book.

Dear HartfelBallet, Ballet Talk's mission is to discuss ballet issues, music, history, and performances from the point of view of audiences and critics. Our sister site, Ballet Talk for Dancers, is a site dedicated to performers. You will need to register separately to post there, as we don't share registrations. If you'd like to discuss ballet, we'd be happy to hear from you.

That was it. Yikes.

Yes, yes, yes !!!!!

An era is close to its end. I remember when POB toured New York in the 1980's, and Hilaire and Legris were the two young stars of the Company whose performances were as eagerly anticipated as the young Sylvie Guillem's.

I don't remember it in detail, but I do remember it not being particularly subtle.

Not The Tiller in the Fields, especially with the rest of the list. ( )

We need at least two programs if we're going to celebrate the Tudor Centenary Celebration 2008: Dark Elegies Pillar of Fire Lilac Garden For an opening gala, the main pas de deux from The Leaves Are Fading, which Amanda McKerrow could restage based on personal coaching by Tudor.

What I notice out West is that among the younger dancers at PNB, the CPYB-trained dancers like Carrie Imler, Noelani Pantastico, and Kara Zimmerman have the uniformly best sense of drama on stage. While Imler and Pantastico have danced the leads in full-length narrative ballets like Swan Lake, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, and The Sleeping Beauty -- and Imler a mean Le Corsaire pas de trois -- Zimmerman has danced small solos. When she dances a variation in The Sleeping Beauty, for example, we see more than a series of steps beautifully phrased: we also see where she fits into the stage picture's world. Mara Vinson did the same in Aurora's first act variation, and she was trained at the Kirov Academy. There aren't enough PNB dancers who trained there for me to know if this is common to students from KA. But while there are always going to be natural actors and actresses among students trained anywhere, I suspect there is institutional training in which this is emphasized.