Helene

In Serenade, Balanchine first deleted a movement, the last ("Scherzo a la Russe.") He then added it in as the third movement of the ballet. In Scotch Symphony, he deleted the first movement. He moved around the movements in Mozartiana; the score is "Gigue," "Menuet," "Pregheria" and "Theme and Variations," while the ballet puts the "Pregheria" first, at least in the 1980 version. Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3 has five movements, and I'm fairly certain the first movement was cut for Diamonds. Square Dance uses the first movement only from Vivaldi's Concerto Grosso in B minor, Op. 3 no. 10, the complete Vivaldi Concerto Grosso in E major, Op. 3, no. 12, and the complete "Suite for Strings," after the Sarabanda was added back in when Balanchine created a solo to the movement for Bart Cook. Concerto Barocco uses all three movements of Bach's "Concerto in D minor for Two Violins, B.W.V. 1043." Paul Taylor cut the first movement for Esplanade, which opens with the complete Violin Concerto in E Major BWV 1042.

Welcome to Ballet Talk, ~Mimi~. We don't have a lot of activity on this forum, but hopefully your questions will remind someone who has seen the Company to post. Please take a moment to introduce yourself on our Welcome Forum by clicking "New Topic" in the upper right hand corner of the page.

Roach, In summer 2004, we attempted a new feature, based on the book club concept, to watch a video and have a multi-layered discussion about it. The ballet was Ashton's Cinderella. We were only partially successful, but there are some great responses. I was having trouble finding it until today (I was searching for a thread), only to find that it was a sub-forum of the Ballet Forum, right on the home page. The link to the threads in the forum is: http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showforum=144 There are a couple of posts and threads that I think you will find particularly interesting: In the thread Ashton's Cinderella, among the links are to lists of productions of Cinderella and info on the original production in Moscow. #7 - Compare other Cinderellas to Ashton's. But there are good responses in all of the threads.

That's it, the nail on the head. Fearful Symmetries reminds me of an exercise class, a complete contrast for me to a work like in the middle, somewhat elevated, which if it didn't have a story, at least had an arc. Thank you, kfw! A Schubertiade needed serious editing (one third to one half excised), but it had the core of a great ballet, with the pas de trois, a very nice developmental role for Nichol Hlinka, and a killer role for Nichols.

My take on the ballet, whose premier I saw in 1990, was a personal one: I thought that Merrill Ashley, the woman in one of the three couples, was made to look diminished in the style of Heather Watts, who danced in the second couple. The propulsion in the ballet seemed random to me, and I never felt a randomness to the violence in NYC. ('Going postal' -- yes. The legacy of mentally ill homeless people who had been released wholesale from state instititutions -- yes. Turf wars -- yes.) It was the work in which I saw Margaret Tracey (third couple) fling herself around the stage, and came up with my basic formula for new works: Is it worth the risk of injury to dance this piece, and in the case of Fearful Symmetries, my answer was "no." PNB performed this work in 2001 and 2003, and I saw two widely divergent casts: Nadeau/Apple/Nakamura in 2001 and Imler/Lallone/Ostergren in 2003. There were still remnants of Wattsisms, although the dancers gave very individual takes, and neither Apple nor Lallone was prone to the type of mannerisms that Watts had in this genre. The work has a lot of energy, and there are lots of attractive bodies dancing it, but my answer remains the same. To me, however accomplished, it's program filler. I actually like two of his "pleasant" works the best: A Schubertiade and the small work for violin and piano sonata he did for Kyra Nichols and Adam Lüders that was televised with Ecstatic Orange, Barber Violin Concerto, Valse Triste, and possibly another piece. Both because they gave superb roles for Kyra Nichols, but also because they went against Martins' grain and had a clarity that many of the other early and middle period leotard works didn't.

The Ashton version with Sibley and Dowell has Ashton and Robert Helpmann as the stepsisters. Helpmann's superbly detailed and malevolent characterization, and Ashton's reactions as a beaten accomplice are perfect reflections of the music, which runs counter to a fairy tale setting. (In the Fonteyn, there's sappy period music accompanying the credits, and it is the strangest juxtaposition to hear it against the "Music by Sergei Prokovieff" credit, but that entire special adaptation is Disneyfied, the Disney of that earlier period.) They don't even need to be present for their oppressiveness to be felt. The fairies are Georgina Parkinson as the Fairy Godmother, Jennifer Penney as Spring, Vyvyan Lorrayne as Summer, Ann Jenner as Autumn, and Deanne Bergsma as Winter. Alexander Grant is the jester (as well as in the Fonteyn version), and Derek Rencher and Wayne Sleep are the stepsister's suitors. I thought the camera work was very well done in this live version released on Kultur. The Fonteyn/Somes version was adapted for TV by Ashton: there are narration and fanciful effects, which, unfortunately, make it difficult to see all of the dancing mainly because of the use of light costumes and tights on a light background. However, the Summer of Elaine Fifield and the Winter of Svetlana Beriosova are sublime, even if it's frustrating trying to see Fifield against a light background. It was as if she was two-dimensional line drawing that broke through to a third dimension. The stepsisters in this version are Ashton and MacMillan. MacMillan isn't as powerful as Helpmann, but that could have been a deliberate choice in a studio version with studio sets. I really like Fonteyn as an actress in this. Somes comes off as a bit of a doofus, especially at the end, but he's so physically imposing, that it's gratifying to see him push MacMillan out of the way to try the slipper on Fonteyn. It's not really a ballet, per se, although there was dancing. Perhaps more like a pantomime? The whole concept was very creative and enchanting; even if it looks old-fashioned, it has emotional resonance, if you put aside contemporary eyes. I just wish the lighting were better. This is a VAI DVD. (The commercials in the bonus section are a hoot.)

I saw a performance of La Valse with Farrell and Adam Lüders on 21 February 1986, just five days after Duell's suicide. There may have been other performances that week. I think the Company was in a heightened state of dancing during the last two weeks of the Winter 1986 season. The night Duell died, he was to have danced in Goldberg Variations, but the program was changed to A Midsummer Night's Dream. But not every program in which he had been cast recently or was expected to be cast was changed, and other dancers had to step into those roles or assume all performances of them, which much have been wrenching. I also saw two performances of Slaughter with Farrell and Duell in the two-three weeks before Duell died, on 28 January and the 2 February 1986. I can still hear him scream out "One more time!" Diane Chilgren is a Company Pianist at Pacific Northwest Ballet. We are privileged to hear her play often. Here is a link to the Music Staff page on their website: http://www.pnb.org/company/musstaff.html There was a pirated film of La Valse with LeClerq and no soundtrack. In one of several programs called "Balanchine on Film" in celebration of the Balanchine Centennial, Diane Chilgren spoke about how she created a score to the film, which was then shown. I wrote up a summary of the program at the following link, which may interest you. http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...ndpost&p=135506 Francia Russell staged La Valse for PNB using the version with which she was familiar during her tenure with NYCB. Were there musical changes, Ms. Chilgren would likely have experience both with this version and at least some subsequent versions at NYCB. I must have an anomaly in my performance diary, though, because I not only show Farrell's performance of Mozartiana in the Dancer's Emergency Benefit on 23 February 1986, but three performances in the Spring Season of 1986, on the 3rd, 8th, and 18th of June. I must have logged the year incorrectly.

It was in yesterday's links. Here's the direct link: http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ledger/ind...4320.xml&coll=1

In the US, today is Mothers' Day. Happy Mothers' Day to all of the people who have fulfilled that role in our lives and to the caretakers of mothers who are infirm.

There are deaf dance companies, in which the dancers feel the vibrations of the music through the floor, and I would imagine this would show that there are deaf people who are interested in watching dance. There are certainly music fans among the deaf community, if the presence of ASL interpreters are any indication. Maya Angelou spoke in Seattle the other night at the Paramount Theater, preceeded by three singers and a keyboard player. I watched the difference between the way the ASL interpreter signed the spoken intros and pre-music banter, and the songs themselves. The phrasing was completely different and song-like. The same happened when Maya Angelou herself sang, intermittently throughout her speech. As Angelou recited poetry throughout, the signing reflected the cadence and meter of the poetry. I think it would be difficult to sign the orchestra when the dancing is happening, though, without distracting from the dancers. A number of opera singers have complained that audiences are too busy reading supertitles (or "Met" titles in the back of the chair directly in front) instead of watching the stage. Seattle Opera tries to get the gist, rather than word-for-word translations, so that the audience can skim the general meaning, and then look back to the stage. It's hard to imagine this happening for dance, where the graphical representation would need constant watching, particularly in a orchestral piece. (A piece to the Beach Boys, for example, would need just a metronome-like set at the beginning of each piece.) Perhaps hand-held devices could be created (or the "Met" title screens calibrated to do so) to use light and color pulses that would need only to be scanned, or to amplify the music so that it could be transmitted manually, without distracting from the stage itself.

NYCB started out as a small group of people who were mainly dedicated to Balanchine, as an outgrowth of other small groups, the school, and from Maria Tallchief's own description, a marriage (or two). It was nomadic until being made the official ballet company of City Center, and then given a building in the new Lincoln Center. Balanchine, who was interested in anything that happened in a theater -- music, costumes, lighting, tiaras -- was less interested in the administrative side. As others have pointed out on the Rockwell thread, he had Lincoln Kirstein, Betty Cage, and Barbara Horgan, who were personally loyal to him and his vision. Kirstein was able to bring in Robert Gottlieb to take on the logistically challenge of creating sixteen weeks of repertory programs. Balanchine also had the friendship and loyalty of a hand-picked faculty and staff, and the mentorship of Stravinsky to fuel his creativity. The situation at NYCB is quite different, and I don't think a choreographer can slot into the same roles, without a contingent like Balanchine's. To run an institution requires two kinds of abilities: on the one hand, the people skills and commitment to the growth of people, which, hopefully, the choreographer has, or s/he's an unlikely candidate for being mentioned, and on the other, those specific to the administrative and fundraising realm. As well as ability, it takes will. That's why I think it's a logical jump from "great choreographer who knows the company intimately" to "he should run the whole thing." I'd be interested in reading an analysis of whether Wheeldon would be appropriate for this role (now and/or in the future) based on the range of abilities needed to fulfill it.

And we won't for his own sake. Mr. Gelber was kind enough to identify himself and speak to us in the midst of a schedule that would fell most mortals. We need to let him do his work without outside distractions.

(I'm sorry you were frustrated, but you this into making my day!)

My fault. My alter ego who does not read carefully was at work this morning. Will now proceed to undo the damage. The thread is now back in Ballet History and Music, where it belongs.

That's great news about your documentary, 32tendu. I look forward to seeing it, and I'm glad it will be available on DVD. (If everything on Public TV was...)

Last night I watched Heinz Spoerli's La Fille Mal Gardee, filmed in the WDR studios in Cologne in 1986. It was performed by Valentina Kozlova (Lise), Chris Jensen (Colas), Otto Ris (Lise's Mother), Heinz Spoerli (Alain's Father), and Martin Schläpfer (Alain), with the Basler Ballet of Basel. John Lanchberry conducted the Wiener Symphoniker. I'm of two minds on this ballet: on the one hand, I'm happy that Spoerli created a ballet without gimmick, and one that has some very skilled choreography, including a lovely moment where Lisa tosses a ribbon in the air and Colas catches it mid jete, but on the other hand, I found it alternately dozeworthy and annoying. In this ballet, Lise is a hormone-addled young girl, unwilling to help with the most basic task, and relentlessly pursuing Colas. This gets old after about the fifth time. (I almost felt sorry for the Mother, which I never do in the Ashton.) Despite Kozlova's best efforts, I found nothing at all charming about Lise, not even when she, not having known that Colas was in the room, mimed (briefly) her planned future for them, and realized that he's seen this. Several seconds of embarrassment, and easily forgotten. By contrast the actual dancing between Lise and Colas was a model of propriety, even when they were alone. I'm not sure if the choreography was too contained, or if it was the size of the studio, and a sense of shallowness of the stage made it appear this way, but Kozlova looked like she was bristling against constraints. I also think it's tricky to stage a lighthearted ballet about airheads with dancers who look like thirty-somethings. (I had the same objection to Michael Coleman in the Royal Ballet video.) I know names are needed to sell DVD's, and it might have worked on stage, but not as much with the studio lighting and the cameras that could be planted up front and center. I would love to have seen a DVD where Kozlova and Jensen dance a grown-up ballet. Normally I'd just put this in the "miss" category and in the donation box for the semi-yearly library sales, but this DVD has proven to be the most expensive DVD I've purchased for, I clicked on the "Bonus" link, which consisted of advertisement for more DGG DVD's. Again normally I would have skipped this section, but I was desperate for some dancing meat, and thought there might be some Fonteyn and Nureyev on the "DGG on DVD" trailer. Instead, it was a montage of about 15 opera DVD's, and I now have a list of all music purchases for the rest of the year. Sneaky devils.