Helene

A printed transcript is available at the end.

It's got to be difficult to produce on a final season by the departing co-directors while also trying to eliminate a deficit. Two new productions of one-act ballets is certainly doing the season as cheaply as possible. I think it is a season that is at once marketable, celebratory of Stowell, and a tribute to Russell as stager and teacher with four core Balanchine ballets. Three of the full-lengths are my favorite Stowell ballets Romeo and Juliette, Nutcracker, and Silver Lining); I particularly love R&J with its Tchaikovsky quilt of a score. I also loved Ronald Hynd's The Merry Widow; I think it's a great ballet for drawing character-filled performances as well as wonderful dancing from the Company. Unfortunately, it premiered at PNB during the Dark Years at Mercer Arena, from which audiences fled in droves. It will be like a premiere for much of the audience. In one of her Q&A's, Russell said that they'd wait to see how the rights to Symphony in C pan out in Taras' will, and that, hopefully, there would be a way to re-replace Ballet Imperial with it. I've got my fingers crossed. Now I'm just trying to guess who will be cast as the Prodigal Son and Siren. Wevers comes to mind immediately, and I can imagine Imler and Lallone as Siren. I wished that Firebird was either Balanchine's or Possokhov's version, but there's no other Stowell one-acter for the year, and I am looking forward to Apollo and Tetley's Rite of Spring, and to Gibson's new ballet. I missed the program with Christopher Stowell's Zais, but Lamberena is a great audience favorite and is perfect to anchor a contemporary program. While my dream ending program would have been Liebeslieder Walzer, it's perfectly understandable why Russell and Stowell's final production would be Silver Lining: everyone is on stage singing at the end. What an upbeat way to end the season and two careers.

I'm sorry I wasn't clear: BA did the full-length version. In the SFB and DTH full-lengths I saw this season, there was some walking and moving before the starburst image. In this production, the dancers were already pretty much in place at center stage, so they got to emphasize the position a little more.

I went to Phoenix this past weekend. Due to an airport security snafu -- 2 security lines for 400-500 people early Saturday morning -- I missed my 8am flight, which was a blessing in disguise: the ticket agent took pity on me changed my return flight from Sunday morning to Sunday evening, so instead of seeing one performance each of Ballet Arizona's two Balanchine programs, I got to see a second (complete) performance of Program A and Yen-Li Chen-Zhang's farewell performance. It turned out that the airport was only 15 minutes from Symphony Hall, and by landing at 1:57 pm, I only missed Serenade. Sitting in the lobby waiting for first intermission, I noticed clapping during parts of the ballet I've never heard before. This was true all weekend long in every ballet. For example in the performance of Serenade that I did see, in the first movement when the corps makes a circle and does a series of fast pique turns got a spontaneous ovation, as did the moment toward the beginning of the third movement, where the five women hold hands with their arms overhead in Y shape and stand in soussus. Also in the section in Theme and Variations when the ballerina does developes supported by the corps, there was a round of applause as the corps boureed off. Lot's of ooing and ahing and sighing all around, but I must say that when the older gentleman next to me grabbed his wife's knee during the pas de deux in Prodigal Son, I was very relieved when it was over I cracked up when the woman behind me exclaimed about Astrit Zejnati after he finished a variation, "Did you seeeee those thighs?" And another woman, after seeing Serenade for the first time, told her friend with a clear New York accent, "I have nevah, nevah seen anything that bewteeful! I've seen the Royal Ballet of England, ABT, I saw the premiere of Mayerling, but nevah..." I'd say that the programs went over very, very well with the audiences. Andersen did a number of Q&A's before and after performances over the weekend, and I'll add his comments in this report. Program A was Serenade, Prodigal Son, and Theme and Variations. Andersen said that he originally planned Apollo for this program instead of Program B (Allegro Brilliante, Apollo, and Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, but when he did the logistics, he didn't have the dancers. According to the program bios, there are only eleven men in the Company, although there were names in the corps not on the roster, and I assumed they were from the school. (There was no company roster in the program, nor any notes listing apprentices or thanks to the union for letting the school kids perform.) Two men, Phoenix native and School of Arizona Ballet-trained Michael Cook and former PNB soloist Astrit Zejnati, performed all of the principal male roles except for Serenade in the Balanchine programs, and Apollo followed immediately by Theme would have been a killer. Andersen noted that while Zejnati had an understudy for Apollo, he was so busy rehearsing other ballets that Andersen just shook his head at the thought of the understudy having to dance the ballet. (Andersen couldn't remember if they rehearsed for 4.5 or 5.5 weeks for all six ballets, and most of the non-principals were in four or five of them.) In retrospect, Saturday afternoon's performance of Prodigal Son was a strange place to start; I had a much better sense of the Company from every other ballet. Michael Cook as the Prodigal Son and Vitaly Breusenko and Nikolai Moroz as his servants were outstanding in both performances, but I thought the males corps and Siren Giselle Doepker gave different performances than on Sunday. The difference in the male corps was less marked; on Saturday they were looser and less disciplined. The signature back-to-back scuttering across the stage in plie is like a three-legged race, and they were just that bit off on Saturday to look awkward, and spot on on Sunday to skim across the stage like they were in a video game. What an exuberant bunch, though. They may have been tired by the end of the run, but they were there to dance; this didn't feel like "it's Thursday so it must be Prodigal corps duty. They weren't an anonymous bunch, but vivid, differentiated, and very attentive to their surroundings. If I had to pick only one reason I am ecstatic that I went to Phoenix, it was to see Cook and Zejnati cast in roles in which they shone, but in which they never would have been cast in a large company. (Not what I went for in the first place; I had fallen in love with Natalia Magnicaballi when I saw her dance with Suzanne Farrell Ballet and assumed --correctly as it turns out -- that she'd be featured in these programs.) Cook's Prodigal was superb. It was the journey of a young man, and unlike most Prodigals, a wealthy, sheltered young man, whose yearning to go out in the world was palpable. He was rebellious, it didn't seem like it was out of some Oedipal competition; his character would have been happy enough to have been sent out on the Grand Tour, if his father and sisters would only let him, instead of insisting that "there's no place like home." (Jessica Kusak portrayed quite the goody-goody sister, while Carolyn Reardon was more disapproving. They would have been an interesting pair as Younger and Older sister in Pillar of Fire). Cook is a lean dancer with long, slim legs, with a propensity towards elegance, but also with the uncanny ability to show a dramatic situation physically, not by acting. His signature poses were very strong and "full-voiced." When the Siren rejects him towards the end of the pas de deux, and he sits center stage, the way he wrapped his hands around his legs and contracted, you could see the child who was way out of his depth. After his Prodigal is stripped and abandoned, as he crawls toward the water to drink, his long limbs turn spider-like and almost inhuman. I'm not a great fan of the story -- the xenophobic idea that going out in the world means encountering evil -- and usually the Prodigal is enough of a brat that I'm not absorbed in his story either. But I found Cook's characterization very affecting, and he drew me in. Breusenko and Moroz also showed the devolution of their characters, and their betrayal stung. Andersen said in a Q&A that this year's performances of Prodigal Son were much better than when the Company performed the ballet two years before. Cook was a standout, too, in Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, an elegant Hoofer with wonderful energy and comedic talent. In this ballet he had a ballerina to match him in Natalia Magnicaballi as the Strip Tease Girl. She's a gorgeous woman with legs that never end, and she made the most of the lithe choreography, without every taking herself too seriously. (Did she dance this role with Suzanne Farrell Ballet?) Nikolai Moroz was a fun, over-the-top Morrosine before doing double-duty as a cop, Sergei Perkovskii was a tough, imposing Big Boss, and Larry Grubbs was a Gangster from the movies. (The latter two looked great in their suits.) It was a very spirited performance. On the same program Cook partnered Magnicaballi in Allegro Brilliante, and it was in this dance that Magnicaballi showed her Balanchine chops, with clear, precise footwork, voluptuous phrasing, sweep, and until someone comes up with a better word to describe it, amplitude. She was so live!!! Cook was again elegant. Leading the men I wouldn't say he got lost amidst the energetic, big moving, big jumping demi-soloists, but it was possible for the eye to be seduced by the flash, only to return to his beautiful extension and soft landings. The women were outstanding as well: Kendra Mitchell and Ellen Rath, as in everything they danced all weekend, with Lisbet Companioni and Carolyn Reardon giving their best performances in this ballet. The ballet is so fast with so many direction changes and such tricky partnering, and they made it all look smooth as they rose to the level given by the principals. The entire cast gave a "wow!" performance; this is a terrific ballet for the Company. Andersen staged the full version of Apollo, which made me happy. He said that he learned the role from Balanchine. I really like this version so much better than the full-length one. In the other full-lengths I saw, the dancers walk a bit until they do the starburst image; in this staging they are already there, so it made a bit more of an impression. I was sad when Astrit Zejnati left PNB -- both times -- because he was the type of dancer who always caught my eye, even when he was dressed as a Dervish in The Nutcracker and dancing next to Seth Belliston. He has a European-style elegance and pliancy. (Cook's is a plainer, more American elegance.) I was looking forward to seeing his Apollo, and he lived up to my expectations. In the opening, he wasn't as playful or undeveloped as Rasta Thomas -- Clement Crisp described his "puppyish vivacity," but not in a good way -- or Gonzalo Garcia, which isn't surprising, because playful isn't a word I'd used to describe Andersen's dancing, and I doubt he'd have emphasized this aspect. By contrast, Zejnati's variations were topped by wonder. Andersen said that Apollo was one of the rare ballets where Balanchine described many specific images -- flashing walk sign (hands opening and closing in Apollo's final solo), hunting, soccer kicks -- and that the solo represented Apollo's observations of the world around him. Andersen said that Balanchine wanted to dancers to "be themselves," and Zejnati's interpretation was very much like his dance self: strong, clean, pliant, and elegant. (I wouldn't have guessed from watching him dance that riding motorcycles and horses is his non-dance self!) Zejnati was flanked by three complementary muses, who were among the shorter dancers in the company. (Zejnati is medium tall.) As terrific as Kendra Mitchell was as Calliope -- great energy, presence, and big movement -- I would have been interested in seeing her switched with Lisbet Companioni as Polyhymnia. Companioni danced Polyhymnia small, and the technical demands were a little beyond her. (For example, she didn't do the turns into arabesque plie, but rather a variation in which she landed, switched feet?, and then went into arabesque plie.) I got the impression that she would have been an effective Calliope, and that Mitchell would have dove headlong into Polyhymnia. The second reason I am glad I traveled to Phoenix was for the privilege of seeing Paola Hartley dance. She's a shortish, more compact dancer, a bit like Nichol Hlinka both physically and technically, and while she doesn't have luxurious extension a la Kistler, she's a dynamic, musical dancer who rides the music. Hartley performed the happiest Terpsichore I've ever seen, and she was a delight, both in the dynamics of her solo and in the way she led Apollo on a journey during the pas de deux, in which she was beautifully matched with Zejnati. Companioni really picked it up in the dances after the pas de deux, and the energy of the three women was more closely in synch through the end of the ballet. Zejnati and Hartley were paired very successfully again in Theme and Variations. Again Zejnati displayed his elegance in a more traditionally classical role. Hartley's feet are so fast, yet her adagio work is also beautiful. She also is a balance queen: not someone who holds them to show off, but a dancer who you know is rock solid when the guy lets go of her hand while she's in arabesque a la seconde or switches hands to kneel when she's in arabesque penchee. Zejnati must be a good partner, because I didn't see a single bobble, and Hartley dances full-out, as if she assumes that the guy is going to be there. She was strong and fleet as the Waltz Girl in Serenade, where she danced with abandon, swirling and soaring in her exits, and leaping into Joseph Cavanaugh's arms in the fourth movement. Magnicaballi's Waltz Girl was lovely, but because it's my least favorite part in Serenade, I think she was wasted in it. She danced a wonderful Dark Angel for Farrell; I would have preferred to see her in this role, and Doepker as Waltz Girl. (It's a partnered role, but not a lifting role.) Yen-Li Chen-Zhang's farewell program consisted of a excerpts until the ending Theme and Variations. Chen-Zhang opened with the Act I solo from Giselle, and it was clear why she'll be missed: her dancing was clear, playful, and joyous. A costume change excerpt from Serenade followed -- the first half of the first movement. Since the audience almost always claps there anyway, for a change, it was appropriate Chen-Zhang returned with Vitaly Breusenko to dance the White Swan pas de deux. As beautiful as she danced it, it felt like a sketch without the rest of the swans onstage. An excerpt from Andersen's Amoroso followed, a pas de deux danced by Magnicaballi and Ilir Shtylla. It struck me as generic (modern) ballet: fine generic ballet, but I didn't sense anything particularly striking about it. To end the first part, Chen-Zhang danced Oscar Araiz' Adagietto to a movement of Mahler's Fifth Symphony with her husband, Qisheng Zhang, who retired from the company several years before, but who is obviously in wonderful shape. (They run a ballet school together.) The ballet has four parts to it: the longer first part consists of slow motion partnering where she doesn't touch ground. They showed superb control as she moved into beautiful extended positions -- no quite poses, because she didn't really stop moving -- which were applauded one by one. Unfortunately, the ballet then went to the ground, where they performed rather bad generic choreography. In the third part, they went back to the controlled, slow motion, and in contrast, mostly on the ground; it was as fascinating as the first part. It ended with some more generic movement in parallel. This ballet got the most sustained applause of all. The second part opened with the main pas de deux from The Leaves Are Fading, which Chen-Zhang performed with Michael Cook. The dancing was lovely, but there wasn't much Tudor in it. After a brief pause, the program ended with Chen-Zhang and David Hallberg performing Theme and Variations. I liked Chen-Zhang's performance very much, but I think it was a mistake to have enlisted Hallberg for the role. He was scheduled to dance the role on Saturday afternoon in New York, and while it was poignant to have a dancer trained at the school to partner the reigning and retiring Company ballerina, the partnering was not smooth and didn't show her off to her best advantage. think she would have been better off with a partner who was not in mid-season on the East Coast. In his solos he had more height in his beats and leaps than Zejnati, but he struck me as a below-the-waist dancer; his upper body seemed a bit disjointed. Chen-Zhang was lovely in her solos, but couldn't dance the pas de deux by herself. In a Q&A one of the audience members asked Andersen if he missed dancing. He said that he started young -- training full time at seven -- and that by 17 he was dancing only principal roles. He said that when he retired at 35 -- just a year younger than Chen-Zhang -- he was fulfilled. He said he had no interest in ever going onstage again. He laughed and said he still moves around, "in my decrepit way," and at her curtain call, he jogged onstage to give her flowers and a hug, and then jogged off asap. The audience was going wild, and after the full-cast Theme curtain call, no one else would join her onstage, not even her husband, until her six-year-old daughter brought her a last bouquet of flowers. It was very sweet. Andersen is running the Company on a shoestring. The costumes and scenery for Theme were borrowed from the Boston Ballet, for Slaughter from the Cincinnati Ballet, and for Prodigal Son from the Atlanta Ballet. When someone asked how much the Company had to pay to have stagers come, he said that Susan Hendl helped him stage Serenade, Theme, Slaughter, and Allegro Brilliante for a pittance, out of friendship. An artist he did the sets and costumes for his original ballet, Mosaik, because there was little money for a new production. Because he was a stager for the Balanchine Trust for a number of years, he was able to stage Apollo and to help with Prodigal Son, for which Paul Boos was credited for the staging. (Zippora Karz co-staged Serenade.) One person asked if he was ever going to stage any of the ballets that Balanchine made for him. He said he didn't have the dancers. I could understand that about Davidsbundlertanze, but from what I saw this weekend, I think he has two casts, at least for the women, for Mozartiana. Arizona Ballet has five very strong women who performed the demi-soloist roles in Serenade,Theme, and Allegro Brilliante, and a few women in the corps of the first two ballets who looked like they could join them. I didn't see a weak one among the demi-solo men. While the corps women were stronger in Serenade, where they shared a common energy, than in Theme, where the tutus are non-forgiving, especially for breaks at the waist, it's clear that dancing ballets like Theme will make the dancers stronger. Having been spoiled on NYCB and ABT and PNB and SFB, and even New York Theater Ballet's predecessor, Balletfore, I've never seen a Company in transition, brought, if not from scratch, to a new level. Even though it would be a dream to have Andersen become Artistic Director of PNB, I look forward to seeing this Company again and where he takes them.

According to the National Ballet of Canada email newsletter I just received, And in other news,

According to the page for the fourth movie on imdb.com, the cast that's listed as of today is: Cast (in credits order) Daniel Radcliffe .... Harry Potter Emma Watson .... Hermione Granger Rupert Grint .... Ron Weasley rest of cast listed alphabetically Robbie Coltrane .... Rubeus Hagrid Frances de la Tour .... Madame Maxime Michael Gambon .... Albus Dumbledore Brendan Gleeson .... Mad-Eye Moody Jason Isaacs .... Lucius Malfoy Alan Rickman .... Professor Serveus Snape Maggie Smith .... Professor Minerva McGonagall They always have the caveat that any movie still in production could change, but it's filming now, and it's likely to have leaked if anyone had been replaced. The only person who's listed on the site for the fifth movie is Jason Issacs, who plays Lucius Malfoy. But it hasn't begun production yet.

I think that Tess of the D'Urbervilles would make a terrific three-acter, with a few time tweaks and some plot simplification: Act I, Scene 1: Tess's awful family life, getting sold to her cousin Act I, Scene 2: Tess at cousin's, pas de deux with cousin, Tess escapes him Act II, Scene 1: Tess as milkmaid, Tess meets Angel Clare, Pas de deux with Clare, they become betrothed. Act II, Scene 1: Tess writes confessional letter on day of her wedding, solo, puts it under window, takes it back, marriage processional. Act II, Scene 2: Clare's confession, Tess' confession, Clare's rejection. Act II, Scene 3: Clare's sleepwalking scene, where Tess whispers him out of committing suicide and back to the house. Tess leaves in disgrace. Act III, Scene 1: Tess reduced to potato farming. Tess goes back to cousin. Act III, Scene 2: Clare tracks down Tess at cousin's and repents. Tess kills cousin and runs away with Clare. Act III, Scene 3: Tess and Clare do final pas de deux, before Tess is tracked down for the murder of her cousin and taken away. Jude the Obscure would be much more difficult, since the main characters are depressed and frustrated. I'd put most of Henry James in the "least suitable" category. I still shudder at the few hours of my life I'll never get back from having seen Nureyev's Washington Square.

Besides being the most uniformly dark of the five Harry Potter books to date, the film of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was directed by Alfonso Cuaron, who also directed Y Su Mama Tambien and Great Expectations, while the first two were directed by Chris Columbus, who directed Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire. It's not surprising that the tone and production design are markedly different. Harry's ascent/descent into adolescence was written deliberately into the fifth book, but from the reviews I've read so far, it's one of the main themes of this movie. (Can't stop the actors' physical growth.) BTW, the fourth film is being filmed now for release in 2005, and the announced reason for changing directors to Mike Newell, who directed Four Weddings and a Funeral and Mona Lisa Smile, was that pre-production for this movie conflicted with Cuaron's directing duties for Prisoner of Azkaban. The fifth movie is tentatively scheduled for 2007 according to imdb.com, but I haven't read who the director will be.

Hayden's and d'Amboise's performance of part of Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux was originally broadcast as "New York City Ballet, 1965" on WNET. (The opening adagio was omitted from the broadcast, which started with variations.) From everything I've read and seen of Conrad Ludlow's dancing (on film), he was noted as an exceptional partner, but not a virtuouso, and his persona was the opposite of Michael's description of Cornejo. I wish I could see the film of Verdy and Ludlow, to see what version he danced, since he was one of the originals.

Mine too, both the name and the scent. In Maria Tallchief's autobiography, she describes a scene in which Balanchine bought her L'Heure Bleue, annointed her with it, and kissed her. It became her signature perfume.

In her book Dancing for Balanchine she identifies this friend as Kibbe Fitzpatrick, her future husband: (pp.125-6).She later wrote, (p.127).

I'm looking forward to the day when dance books can be interactive with video and voice clips. Even though I use dance dictionaries to try to understand descriptions of steps and moves, I'm not very good at visualizing then. It would be great if I could click a link when a ballet term were mentioned and see a demonstration. Not to mention being able to see a performance of a piece or section that a writer was discussing, or hearing quotes directly from the dancer's/choreographer's/critic's mouths. Of course there is that age-old question of royalties...

What a great description!

That's exactly it. I thought both had danced on Thursday in the same performance of the Barber. I wish I had seen both performances.

In what season was the Ashley role split in two? The last time I saw Barber Violin Concerto in Feb '94, Ashley was still dancing her entire role, and it was broadcast that way on PBS.

A note on older casts, I saw the ballet a bunch of times between 1983 and 1993, and these are the casts I have listed: Farrell/d'Amboise Farrell/d'Amboise Calegari/Kozlov Kozlova/Crabtree and Kozlov von Aroldingen/Lüders von Aroldingen/Lüders Nichols/Lüders and Proia Farrell/Lüders Watts/Martins Watts/Martins, Joseph Duell, Soto, and LaFosse Mazzo/Andersen Leland/Andersen Saland/Andersen Fugate/Houston and Huys Calegari took Farrell's role in the one performance I saw in which Farrell took von Aroldingen's role, and Proia took Lüders' role in the one performance I saw in which Lüders didn't dance it. I never saw any other dancer in Watts' role, and it's hard for me to envision anyone else in it. Mazzo retired before I saw the ballet performed, and Leland is in the recorded version. I've always loved this ballet.

And a nonstandard interpretation of the role of the Coquette, which was just as fascinating.

According to and article in today's Links section, Patricia Barker is applying for the AD position. Wow. That surprises me because she seems to be rather shy in public, with rather flat expressions, and the AD position is a very public role. There's a big difference between receiving praise and/or criticism -- especially when any remark could be considered a criticism of the boss(es) -- and asking for money, articulating a vision and rallying people behind it. (Russell may be intellectual and logical, but there's visible passion and drive in her single-minded committment to her standards.) But maybe Barker's had more direct contact with Board Members and major donors, and that still waters run deep. After listening to Russell at the second Balanchine on Film Q&A, one thing struck me: even though she seemed exhausted, she never once stammered, lost her train of thought, or said "um," "er," or any of the filler syllables that nearly every one puts in, when not entirely on script. Russell has such verbal discipline, and her answers have substance and weight. So maybe I'm comparing Barker to Russell unfairly.

(Counting to 10 million before responding directly to this )

The Newsweek mini web interview with Morris in today's links section is timely. In part of his answer to the last question he says I saw him about a decade ago in a White Oak piece, in which he danced with Baryshnikov and the striking 6'6"-ish Rob Besserer, and it was Morris I couldn't take my eyes off of. This past January he performed Serenade, and I will be very sad when he stops dancing, regardless of his age or weight. I'm glad he's the boss, though!

It's wonderful to hear these descriptions of Lorna Feijoo as a technical virtuoso. It certainly speaks volumes about her versatility, because the only time I've seen her dance when she was still with Alicia Alonso's company: she was a superb, gentle Giselle.

Even though I knew I was coming to the end and started rationing the pages to keep Kronstam alive that much longer, I forgot that most of the remaining pages were index and bibliography. In about three paragraphs, he was gone! I had to reread that part several times before I actually believed it.

I saw "Masters & Moderns" this afternoon. It was depressing to see how few people were in the theater. I don't think the orchestra of the small, jewel-box Newmark Theater was half full, and there were only about two dozen people in the 1st Balcony (middle level). I was horribly jealous that this program wasn't presented by PNB, so that I could see it another handful of times. I wonder if it was friends and family day, or if Company and school members were in the audience making a lot of noise, to distract from the empty theater. Before the performance, Christopher Stowell came onstage, looking appropriately Pacific Northwest rumpled. He explained that he had chosen the Newmark Theatre over Keller Auditorium for this program because of the "intimate nature" of the ballets and the theater, and because there were "meaty, dramatic roles in the ballets." He announced that the Company has started to list casting a week in advance -- casting is on the OBT "News" page on their website (requires Adobe reader) -- and that showing proof of purchase to any performance, tickets to additional performances are 50% off for the rest of the run. (Ugh, why is Seattle hours away?) He suggested that audience members use the offer to see a different cast. He also mentioned the school performance -- this Tuesday and Wednesday -- and the choreographers on the program: Balanchine (Concerto Barocco), Robbins (Circus Polka), Mosley (When I Close My Eyes), himself (Rose City Waltz), and Lew Christensen (Con Amore). Quite an ambitious program. Stowell has definitely jumped straight into the deep end. I've never seen a Christopher Wheeldon ballet, so I don't know if There Where She Loved was a repeat of his other ballets or an original response to the music, but in all but the second dance, Weill's "Surabaya-Johnny," it felt like the latter. My dislike of the movement was two-fold: the soprano soloist sang it like an opera singer; she sounded shrill and fake to me when she tried for the occasional Lotte Lenya affect, and the tone of the music and dance was unlike any of the other pieces, which were more or less in the same universe. To me, it stuck out like a sore thumb, compared to the three Chopin pieces, Weill's "Nana's Lied," which was sung and choreographed like a Schumann art song, and his "Je Ne T'Aime Pas," which sounded as if Edith Piaf was singing a French art song and looked like the great piano ballet role that Robbins never choreographed for Stephanie Saland. It was a nice stroke of casting, though, to bypass the obvious choice and to have the Chopin pieces sung by rich-voiced mezzo soprano Milagro Vargas, and the Weill pieces sung by bright-voiced soprano Brenda Baker. The first dance, to Chopin's "The Wish," had a women suspended overhead among four men who came and went, which she remained aloft in various shapes for most of the movement. It had an occasional partnering glitch, as did the third dance, Chopin's "Spring." In the first Karl Vakili, a short dancer, was cast with three tall men, and height differential led to a couple of bobbles, as groups of three men passed Tracy Taylor among them. In "Spring" Vakili didn't seem to be quite where Hasstedt was expecting him. I don't think it's a matter of strength; forget about a "V;" Vakili is shaped like a "W." For a shorter man, he has neither fallen nor been pushed into the jester trap. While he has lightness, he also has gravity through the groundedness of his plie. It's nice that he was given "real" partnering roles, even if they weren't a complete success, because he dances with a wonderful balance of drama and lyricism. I think OTB would do well to find him a shorter partner (and not a soubrette). I mention Robbins not because I think Wheeldon is copying Robbins, but because I felt like this ballet inhabits the same world. I found more resonance, inevitability, and satisfaction in There Where She Loved than in Robbins' Chopin piano ballets, from which I've always walked away thinking that there was something missing and/or contrived. I think Wheeldon's ballet built as it went along, and Gavin Larsen's performance in "Je Ne T'Aime Pas" may have been the most dramatic tour de force I've ever seen and for the very quality of stillness that Watermill described so beautifully. She was riveting. Poor Arthur Sultanov looked out of his league as her romantic partner, and he's a dancer whom I've seen have a lot of presence and character. Julia Adam's il nodo was set to Renaissance dances (taped) by various composers, and the tone of the dancing was rather light and mostly social. I wish I could read more of the notes I scribbed in the dark about the ballet. I can't give a movement by movement description, but I'll try to describe those parts I can remember or decypher. The ballet opened with a eight dancers that were in faux "Commedia" costumes -- period-ish and updated -- holding small ropes. (If I remember correctly, mostly in black, white, and grey.) While the first piece didn't quite grab me -- a little too much in unison, maybe -- the second did. After the dancers toss their individual ropes into the orchestra pit, they then picked up a single, long piece of rope from upstage, which they, as a group, tied to form a giant loop. What was striking was how as each dancer in turn danced in and out of the circle they created with the loop, the movement was very controlled, with no fancy rope tricks. They then went from a circle into a square, and while keeping the integrity of the square, the dancers picked up the inventiveness of movement, yet did not become intertwined in the rope. They then repeated the pattern by making what I first expected: a series of complex cat's cradle type configurations, eventually paring down the partipants so that the entire rope was wrapped around one of the women. This is where the only noticeable glitch was; the man in the white Commedia outfit stood downstage center and, blocking the woman, bent over with his butt to the audience and made some awkward adjustments to the rope. I got the impression that this was the intention, but it looked sloppy to me. One part -- I can't remember which, but it was towards the beginning -- ended with an audience nightmare moment: one dancer was pushed off the stage apron! (onto a mattress in the orchestra pit). That the invisible border of the stage was trespassed took me by surprise. On Thursday night I saw 33 Fainting Spells perform a piece called Our Little Sunbeam, so the theme of relationships and the glue that binds them or is missing was still spinning around in my thoughts. In one part of il nodo, there is a pas de deux in which the man's and woman's torsos are tied together with a mangled mess of rope or ribbon. The dance moved fluidly to actual holds and body contact between the dancers, and other times, the woman was held up by the ribbon attached to them both. Maybe because the theme was foremost in my mind it looked to me like a picture of how at any given moment a couple can be together because they are actively engaged with and intensely focused on one another, and a moment later, how they can separate a bit, yet be tied to one another by more delicate, but still binding, attachments. One part had four long scarf-like ties coming from the flys to the stage. The male Commedia figure began as a marionette, but as he was freed from the ties --which were flown up offstage -- he went back and forth between the habitual movements he had done as a marionette to new, freer movement, all the while staying in a relatively confined space, despite no visible barriers to the rest of the stage. The last section had a series of similar hanging scarves and all of the dancers on stage, but I really don't remember much else about it. I attended a seminar this past week in which Seattle Symphony conductor Gerard Schwarz described basic conducting technique to a lay audience. After demonstrating hand movements, he then held a baton in an attentive about-to-start position, and he pointed out how he had to hold the "free" end of the baton with his other hand; otherwise, there would be a perceptible shake, which the orchestra would interpret as a signal to start. Anne Mueller, who danced Duo Concertante had a similar type of extraneous movement; there was a bit of "noise" around the movements in her legs as she went from position to position and shape to shape. I found this distracting. Her arms, too, are rather spiky, and this detracted from the last movement, when the spotlight is on her arms and face. It wasn't a bad or distorted intepretation, but I don't think she showed a lot of strength in this program. (I want PNB to get this ballet for Kaori Nakamura.) This was a wonderful role for Karl Vakili, her partner, who caught the rhythms and shapes beautifully, and who used his lovely arms to great effect, especially in the last movement. His height was a factor here only because I'm use to tall men being cast in the role. Violinist Margaret Bichteler played terrifically, although, to my dismay, she was miked. (When she turned the page, there was a big "crackle" sound.) Carol Rich was a fine partner on piano, as she was in Wheeldon's piece. Facade closed the program. In "Scotch Rhapsody" Anne Mueller looked flawed dancing the same steps as Erika Cole; she had the same "buzz" around her limbs as in Duo Concertante, and she seemed rather sunk in at the waist. [Edited to add: (None of this was noticeable when she danced "There Where She Loves," in a long contemporary dress; she was fluid and lovely in that piece, which may be her core rep. I only realized that it was Mueller when I was logging the cast in my performance list.)] By comparison, Cole's movements were simple and pure, her turnout was lovely, she was beautifully lifted from the waist, and her upper body was soft, free, and here upper and lower body movements were perfectly in proportion to each other. (She struck me as a dancer who could dance Bournonville as well as Ashton.) I was so taken by her that I ignored Kester Cotton in his only role of the afternoon. "Swiss Jodelling Song" was clever and very funny, and Kathi Martuza was crisp, engaging, and generally marvellous in the "Polka" movement. I think the "Foxtrot" was where Facade kind of lost me; I didn't find any of the movement from then on compelling, nor the characters remotely interesting, with the exception of Artur Sultanov's amusingly oily gigolo in "Tango-Pasodouble." Even he couldn't bring me back in entirely, except to be glad it was over. I think I may be sense-of-humor impaired. [Edited to add:] Doug Fullington wrote an article called "Frederic Ashton and Facade" for the program. But the program on the whole was well worth eight hours of train ride to see it, and if I didn't have a day job, I'd gladly do it again. If anyone saw/will see any of Gavin Larsen's performances of Duo Concertante (with Artur Sultanov), I'd appreciate it if you'd post your impressions of it.

I regret the same. Castillo's performances of Eros sound amazing, a high point. I'm afraid that in hoarding vacation days, I was being penny wise and pound foolish, and I missed the Saturday matinee in which he danced

Hockeyfan, firedog, anyone! Is this your sense, too, or no? (Of course, please feel free to disagree.) Balanchine always said that he didn't invent; instead he assembled what G-d had already created. To me it was the choice of movement that Morris assembled that was original, an inspiration, and breathed life into the characters. Sylvia wasn't ballet reinvented in the sense of being ground-breaking or creating a new form, like Four Temperaments did. It was more as if an old form was lovingly reinterpreted.