Helene

That explains why they look so similar. Karz and Kathleen Tracey were similar in looks and build and were often cast in "bookend" roles, like in the first pas de trois in Agon.

I'm glad Dansuer85 brought up "Alice in Wonderland," because I would choose David Del Tredici for the music. I loved his music for "Alice," and I think if he did "Snow White," it wouldn't be too sugery.

Battle's voice is very lovely, but her voice type is not the rarest, and the type of roles written specifically for it are the ones that require voice quality, great technique, and taste. However, in my opinion, these roles don't require great artistry to be effective, as do the more varied characters sung by a Wagnerian/Strauss soprano or the more dramatic Mozart or Verdi roles and the majority of soprano roles written in the 20th century. There are few great lieder singers from her voice type, Elly Ameling being one of the exceptions. I've never thought Battle had much artistic range, which is why it has always surprised me that her ego was tolerated as long as it was.

Most of the out-of-print books that I've bought from Alibris.com are ex-library copies.

Because of copyright issues, we can't allow links to private servers. (Sorry, Giselle05 ).

Welcome to Blogs II: The Blogs Are Back! Over the past few months there have been several special events -- The Bournonville Festival, The Moscow International Ballet Competition -- that made us think that blogs would be a good option to have. So we've reinstated them for Senior Members in good standing. (100 or more posts). What Is a Blog? A blog is an online journal. You can think of it as a combination of a mini message board and a diary. Blogs are a great way to define your own space, as long as the entries and photos follow the guidelines listed below. A seasonal diary, ballet memories, essays, a year of ballet side trips, great stages, competitions, festivals are just some of the possibilities, and a single blog can span different "categories." Blogs are self-moderating as well as being moderated by the Ballet Talk board moderators, and you can decide whether or not you want others to comment on your blog itself or to comment on Ballet Talk. On Ballet Talk, blogs are in a separate "module" that in many ways works like the board itself, and there is a link to Blog at the top of each Ballet Talk page, between "Calendar" and "Ballet Talk for Dancers." There are different types of blog software, some standalone and some part of other software packages like ours, and blogs can look a bit different. Here are some sample dance blogs from other sites: Tobi Tobias' blog on ArtsJournal.com: http://www.artsjournal.com/tobias/ Rachel Howard's blog: http://www.rachelhoward.com/ Before you blog, here are a list of Rules and Policies: 1. Blogs topics are limited to ballet and other arts. That doesn't mean that you can't mention that the day you saw La Bayadere in Paris you visited Notre Dame, or that you saw a wonderful production of The Tempest at the new Opera House in Copenhagen, where the Royal Danish will perform large productions. But a blog shouldn't be a travel log or a cooking blog with a little ballet, film, or sculpture on the side. 2. All of the board policies -- including our policy that all news must be in print or announced officially -- are in force for hosted blogs, and they will be moderated. 3. For links to blogs that are hosted externally, those blogs should follow board rules. This is a handshake agreement, as the moderating team will not read every entry of every external blog listed. However, if we are alerted that the link is to an all-purpose blog, a political blog, an "All the Gossip All the Time" blog, or an attack blog, we will delete the link without notice. >Please remember there are members who are between the ages of 16-18 on this board. 4. You must be a Senior Member in good standing to create a blog on ballet and other arts from the audience point of view. Any other ballet-related topic (teaching, technique) must be pre-approved by a member of the Adminstrator team. You must be a Member in good standing to comment on the blog itself (where the blogger allows comments) or on the Board. 5. All blogs are self moderating, as well as being moderated by Ballet Talk moderators. That means that the blog owner may edit any comment made by another poster on his/her blog, may refuse any comment up front, or may delete any comment from the blog retroactively. >Bloggers may choose to refuse all comments or any comment for any reason, except where a moderator comments on policy. 6. Please note:: If we need to remove a blog because of policy violations, it may disappear without notice, and there is no archive. Please click any of the following links to go to the instructions: How to Set Up and Configure a Blog After First-time Set-up How To Manage Your Hosted Blog (includes posting entries and moderating) How to Notify People of a New Blog Entry How to Goto a Blog To Comment on a Blog (on the blog or board) Additional Options Please click the green link to go to the Ballet Talk Blogs Home Page.

The Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre board decided that to balance next year's budget, they were cutting live music. The orchestra has filed a grievance, saying that this was a forced decision, not a negotiated one.

It's perfectly fine to edit your post. I'm going to send all of the questions to Ms. Holmes via email on 21 August. Please feel free to add more over the next two weeks

Anna-Marie Holmes has graciously agree to answer questions about the production of Le Corsaire she staged for ABT and Boston Ballet. You may post your questions to the following thread until 20 August, and her answers will be published on the same thread. http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=20337

Anna-Marie Holmes has graciously agree to answer questions about the production. You may post your questions to the following thread until 20 August, and her answers will be published on the same thread. http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=20337

Anna Marie Holmes has graciously offered to answer questions about the staging of Le Corsaire she did for Boston Ballet and ABT. If you have a question for Ms. Holmes, you may post it to this thread until 20 August. She will review the questions and send us her responses, which will be posted here. There are some simple guidelines: 1. The questions must be on the topic of the staging and version, including music. 2. No questions about casting, unless they are about whether the version the dancer(s) performed was the correct one. 3. We hope you'll understand that it may not be possible for all questions to be answered. There was a rousing discussion on the ballet in the ABT forum, and we hope you take this opportunity to ask the questions you still have about the production.

I think it depends on the viability and marketing of his current product. When he first went public -- after he had established steam -- he got an IPO lift until the value settled. However, it's fairly clear that the ballet market is rather bearish at the moment, with everyone waiting for a Google choreographer, someone whose IPO price can increase by many factors because of the strength of the product in the post dance boom .bomb environment.

The friend who initiated me into the cult of Squat told me that by the late 70's, it had already been established, and he suspects the origin is in the hippie era.

According to the Dutch National Ballet Calendar, there will be two performances of the "Lines 2" program while you're in Amsterdam: http://www.het-nationale-ballet.nl/index.p...r=2005&month=11 Continuum - Wheeldon Who Cares? - Balanchine Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux -- Balanchine TBA

In the Sylve DVD, she tosses the flowers all over the stage -- like someone voraciously tearing the wrapping paper off the baby shower presents -- making me fear she or someone else was going to trip over them. What a lovely gesture to give out the flowers.

I stopped at the part where it said he was dancing Duo Concertante at the gala on 17 September -- with Louise Nadeau, and I think they'll make a beautiful pair in this ballet -- and went online immediately to buy tickets. The confirmation screen said: Section: unassigned Seats: row 1, seats 22,23. Fearing that this meant the first row of the theater, I called the box office. The gala will be General Admission, and the row and seats on the website are just a "feature" of the ticketing system. Tickets won't be sent until the end of August. (Just in case anyone else plans to order tickets through the website.)

My deeply-ingrained superstitious self thinks that Boal alone coming to Seattle is tempting Fate. When it was announced that Korbes was coming, too, I had to sacrifice all free onstreet parking to Squat, the goddess of parking, just to keep the universe in balance. And now to find out in today's PI that it was through Boal's influence that Jonathan Porretta came to Seattle instead of Miami... Adding Ansanelli to the mix would be too much good fortune in one place.

I've just changed the title to say "INCLUDES SPOILERS." I only put up the original title so that people could read the thread without worry during the first week, but everyone now has had their two weeks to read the book and they are warned In case you didn't read the subtitle, this post contains: T H E B I G S P O I L E R ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Enter only if you want to be surprised or have read the book. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I agree with you -- I didn't find Dumbledore's death as moving as Black's for the very same reason: Black had found a reason to live. There are a lot of theories on the Internet that Dumbledore didn't really die at the end. The big emphasis in magic teaching in this volume was on non-verbal spells. While Snape did say the Avada Kedavra curse, in one of the earlier books, it was explained that the curse only works if the recipient believes it -- kind of like the Evil Eye -- and all of the other victims had their eyes open, but Dumbledore had his closed. One theory goes that Snape was sending a different non-verbal curse, while speaking the Avada Kedavra out loud to be witnessed. Also, all of the portraits of the dead headmasters line the office of the headmaster, and they have their say at will. So even if Dumbledore either died or had some mitigated alternate state -- like the Lilac Fairy's mitigation of Carabosse's curse -- I can't imagine that he'd be silent in his portrait. (That would be a sign of something different having happened.) The trick may be to get Harry to return to Hogwarts, since it isn't clear he'll be returning to school in Book 7. It's amazing how carefully die-hard fans read the books and find clues. I never would have thought of any of this on my own. My own theory of the books is that Snape may turn out to be the heroic character: a flawed and resentful man who is hated -- not always without cause -- mistrusted by both sides, and insulted, but who in spite of this, does the right thing in the end and gets qualified credit for it, like Roger Maris' asterisk.

Erica Cornejo. Thank you, Marga!

The broadcast finally made it to our regular PBS station, and I was able to watch it last night. (It originally aired on one of the HDTV stations.) As mainly a NYCB fan, I've seen relatively few full-length Swan Lakes: ABT's a couple of times, including the Blair version from the early 70's, and the visiting Kirov, Paris Opera Ballet, and Royal Ballet versions. PNB has produced it twice in the last decade, the last time in a new production by Ming Cho Lee, and I've seen about half a dozen tapes. In those performances, I've seen Odette/Odile portrayed by dancers that are not among my favorites, and some ballerinas that I've found rather dry, but I've never seen a characterization and phrasing that I've actively disliked until Murphy's. I don't insist on small, delicate dancers in the roles, and I do understand that there are technicians who make natural Odiles -- Florence Clerc comes to mind -- and whose Odettes aren't as compelling. I actually like big, strong dancers as Odette for several reasons: she isn't just there to portray her own personal tragedy; she's responsible for the entire flock of swans and must be convincing as their protectress, and watching a strong person show vulnerability is, to me, more moving than watching a delicate person be delicate. To my eyes, Murphy's Odette was self-involved and neurotic to the point of distraction. Her phrasing was glottal -- harsh trembling borrees and poses to a dead stop -- instead of legato. I actually wanted Act II to end, so that Odile would appear. (I usually want Swan Lake to end at the end of Act II, so that Odile doesn't appear.) That did provide a link between Odette and Odile and their joint appeal to Siegfried: both were equally high-maintenance. I might have expected that from a version where Siegfried is the central character, what happens onstage is a dream, and where it's all about the narrator -- and chemistry doesn't matter, only the obsession of the main character -- but in this version, Siegfried's centrality is diminished by the expanded roles of Benno and von Rothbart. Without the arc of Odette coming alive from hope and having that hope smashed, I don't see much tragedy, and without that tragedy, there's no point to the missing parts of Act IV, and not much sense in Siegfried joining Odette off the cliff. There is so little ballet that is televised that each rare instance has the potential to be iconic. This may be the only performance seen by tens of thousands of people, and become "What Swan Lake Is." In that sense, despite the "Swamp Thing," I think the emphasis on the men may prove to be a good thing. Soto, for example, said that seeing Villella on TV made him want to dance, and there are such rare opportunities for young boys today. I liked Angel Corella's peformance very much; I thought his facial expressions to be more cinematic than stagey, and that his unmannered and elegant performance -- with enough jumps and turns to make him a "real guy" i.e, athlete -- was an important introduction to male dancing, especially when paired with Cornejo as Benno. Gomes' melodrama was wonderfully controlled. He could give a lesson or two to campy movie villains. I really loved the first act costumes visually, but I agree that they were heavy for the dancing. The maypole, in my opinion, substituted a prop for a lack of invention, and having the aristocrats "slum it" was one degree of dramatic separation more than is necessary, but I did get a visceral thrill out of seeing the circle of jetes as the women held the ribbons. I particularly liked the second woman in the pas de trois, but I couldn't tell from the credits sequence which dancer it was.

That's a great point, brivagook. I wonder how much music would seem better, if we hadn't heard it that extra time that put us over the brink.

In the August/September Pointe magazine, there's an article on Cynthia Gregory called, "What's in a Name? Cynthia Gregory on being a 'ballerina'." It mentions that she will participate in a symposium called "The Ballerina in the 20th Century," which is jointly sponsored by the magazine and the Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts. Ansanelli is listed as one of the participants, along with Cynthia Quinn (MOMIX), Eleanor D'Antuono, and Lourdes Lopez. In the .pdf file that's found on the Nutmeg site, also listed are Emily Patterson (Joffrey), Victoria Mazzerelli, and Terese Capucilli. http://www.nutmegconservatory.org/media/me...e_Ballerina.pdf The symposium is from 2-4pm, and according to the ticket form, the price of $100 ("one low price!") includes the symposium and performance (8pm).

There's a feature on Jim Jarmusch, focusing mainly on Broken Flowers, in today's Washington Post.

I think that wonderful sweeping moments in the beats is one instance of Balanchine's genius in choreographing the Big Melody. The second is in the last movement of Serenade, where the melody is performed by the two groups of corps, and each man partners the corps woman on one side to the beautiful sweeping melody, and she ends in a quiet, resolved fifth position at the end of the phrase, while he goes on to partner the woman on his other side. The third is in Pas de Dix and Cortege (and maybe Raymonda Variations?), where the beautiful adagio is performed by corps couples, not by the principals. Where Theme first grabs me is the section where the female corps dances to the theme with the trembling strings and then form a line downstage, and the principal woman is supported in a series of developes by two corps women, as if the Swans partnered Odette in the White Swan pas de Deux instead of Siegfried.

One of my favorite records was a red vinyl 45 -- it was the young Tagliavini singing "E la solita storia."