Helene

Ashton choregraphed Marguerite and Armand for Fonteyn and Nureyev to music by Liszt, but Val Caniparoli did his version to music by Chopin. Boston Ballet performed it, and it was #4 in the Boston Phoenix's top dance events in 2004. It was also performed by the Tulsa Ballet and Cincinnati Ballet. A 1998 review in the Cincinnati Enquirer concludes, "But basically it's a grown-up story that addresses the conflicts between personal freedom and happiness and social convention. And at its heart, pushed along by romantic Frederic Chopin piano concertos, it is a tragic tale of passionate love and loss." http://www.enquirer.com/editions/1998/09/27/loc_dance27.html

I didn't find that, at least live. (I was about 2/3 up in the house.) I prefer her in slower pieces; she sang Lascia la spina, the only work in the printed program against which her interpretation could be compared to recordings and performances over the last 100+ years, like a prayer. She was terrific in the Giulio Cesare encore, also relatively well known and recorded. As for her stage presence, I saw very little of it. The seats in the Orpheum Theatre are vertebrae crushing and tailbone numbing; a transatlantic flight in the middle seat in coach is more comfortable, and in the OT, there are more of them. Nearly everyone was leaning forward so they could walk afterwards. My impression was based almost entirely on her voice. It was the first time I've heard her live, and I felt I was in the presence of a VOICE.

A lot of American singers started out doing other types of singing before they became interested in opera or in their teens and twenties while they waited for their voices to bloom. Richard Tucker was a cantor; Marilyn Horne had an act with her sister Gloria as a child, and she sang in film -- one performances was as the singing voice for Dorothy Dandridge in Carmen Jones) -- and in pirated recordings as a young adult; Leonard Warren spent years trying to rise from the Radio City Music Hall chorus; Robert Merrill played the Borscht Belt, before being "discovered" and offered a gig with Radio City Music Hall. On the opposite side of the coin, the Georgia Straight (Vancouver, BC) did a short interview with Cecilia Bartoli in anticipation of this afternoon's recital at the Orpheum Theatre. Wrote Bill Richardson, http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=13101 After Leila Getz, the Artistic Director of the Vancouver Recital Society, announced that Bartoli was suffering from a very bad cold that caused her to cancel her Toronto recital, Bartoli proceeded to sing those arias by Handel, Scarlatti, and Caldara, as well as three encores (one from Giulio Cesare) with the agility, sweetness of voice, and preternatural breath control for which she is renowned. Listening to Bartoli was the vocal equivalent of watching a master Chinese calligrapher create a manuscript with a combination of delicacy and strength. Lots of singers can sing Cole Porter. But it is a great privilege that Bartoli is the musician she is, finding neglected works and breathing life into each one of them.

She's listed on the Vancouver Swan Lake tour program roster as "On Leave of Absence." Congratulations to Goh!

I'm afraid Coppelia is not on the roster of the four major companies in England. If your daughter is willing to see an alternative, or maybe gain a new favorite, the Royal Ballet is performing Sylvia this November-December, with music by Delibes, as well as La Fille Mal Gardee and a new production of The Sleeping Beauty, both next spring. English National Ballet is touring with The Sleeping Beauty (Southampton, Bristol, Oxford, Manchester, Liverpool) October-December before returning to London to perform the ballet next January. Royal Birmingham Ballet is also performing The Sleeping Beauty in Birmingham and The Lowry, next January-March, and La Fille Mal Gardee in Birmingham next May. Finally, Northern Ballet Theatre will bring Peter Pan to Bradford at the end of November to December. Royal Ballet London, 19, 22 Nov 2005; 1, 14, 15, 20, 21 Dec 2005 Sylvia choregraphy: Sir Frederick Ashton music: Leo Delibes London, 21 Apr-20 May (exact dates not on website) La Fille Mal Gardee choreography: Sir Frederick Ashton music: Ferdinand Hérold London, 15 May-3 June (exact dates not on website) Sleeping Beauty choregraphy: Sir Peter Wright, after Petipa music: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky Northern Ballet Theatre Bradford, 30 Nov-10 Dec 2005 Peter Pan choreography: David Nixon music: Stephen Warbeck (nominated for an Oscar for his score for Shakespeare in Love http://www.northernballettheatre.co.uk/peterpan.html http://www.bradford-theatres.co.uk/events....&searchmonth=11 Birminham Royal Ballet Birmingham, 11-13 May 2006 La Fille Mal Gardee choreography: Sir Frederick Ashton music: Ferdinand Hérold http://www.brb.org.uk/masque/index.htm?act...k=shows&urn=511 The Lowry, 18-21 Jan 2006 Birmingham, 28 Feb-5 Mar 2006 Sleeping Beauty choregraphy: Sir Peter Wright, after Petipa music: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky http://www.brb.org.uk/masque/index.htm?act...k=shows&urn=120 Birmingham, 8-11, 13-15 Dec 2006 Beauty and the Beast choregraphy: David Bintley music: Glen Buhr http://www.brb.org.uk/masque/index.htm?act...k=shows&urn=499 English National Ballet Southampton, 20-29 Oct 2005 Bristol, 1-5 Nov 2005 Oxford, 9-13 Nov 2005 Manchester, 16-26 Nov 2005 Liverpool, 29-3 Dec 2005 London, 5-21 Jan 2006 The Sleeping Beauty choreography: Kenneth MacMillan, after Petipa music: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

There are also several beautiful photographs of Kirkland in the Dance Magazine article, including the cover photo, one of several taken on the beach near her home in Melbourne, and one of her and her husband, Michael Chernow. Her arms and epaulement in street clothes are stunning.

Is it not Schorer in "The Unanswered Question" excerpt in the PBS Balanchine biography?

Allegrafan, I just realized I was less than 10 rows behind you, in the stage left gallery! I love those seats, but I did like Artifact II more last night from the middle of the house than from the side. The left hand side of the stage got cut off a bit from where I was sitting. The friend who came with me last night also liked Artifact II the best of the program. The audience, though, had giggle fits when the curtain slammed down, up through the fourth time the curtain hit the floor. (It was an unusually enthusiastic audience for a Friday night.) I wasn't able to see where Boal and his son were sitting. Boal did the Q&A with Jordan Pacitti after the performance. He said that his son was waiting patiently just for him just outside the lecture hall. Thank you for your great description of the afternoon. I'll write a bit later contrasting both performances I saw. At the moment I'm trying to get over the grumpiness I feel after having seen Acts III/IV of James Kudelka's Swan Lake in Vancouver this afternoon. (I'm seeing the entire performance tonight.)

When Lew Christensen described touring in Striking a Balance -- I believe it was the tour with Kirstein where they ran out of money and had to come home -- he talked about crawling under the stages to run cables for the show.

I've never seen the DVD, but there is a version of Scheherezade on the "Bolshoi Ballet - Return of the Firebird DVD" (along with Firebird and Petrushka. There's another on the "The Kirov Celebrates Nijinsky / Sheherazade, La Spectre de la Rose, The Polovtsian Dances, The Firebird." They are both available at amazon.com.

I think you may find an answer on our sister site, Ballet Talk for Dancers. www.dancers.invisionzone.com You'll need to register there to post, but I'm sure you'll find a great deal of useful information for your students. Ballet Talk focuses on ballet from the audience point of view, with discussions on performances and ballet news and issues. We hope you'll join some of these discussions.

When I first read this thread, I thought of The Bluffer's Guide to Classical Music, The Bluffer's Guide to Opera, and Anna Russell's Ring. There again, the more you know about the subject, the funnier the points in the guides, while to people new to the art forms got a funny way to approach the subjects. Solor, one of the issues you may have with the Trocks is that you see a lot of great ballet by great dancers on video. Compared to that, the Trocks may seem insulting. For those of us who are lucky to have seen a lot of live ballet over decades, some of it can get woefully close to the Trocks, but without the satire or self-awareness. That said, I only like the Trocks in small doses.