Helene

I'm going to sound even more like an old fogey: the contract on the ticket is that management can change the cast or program at will, and that one should be happy with what one gets. As annoying as it is to look forward to a performer or ballet only to get "stuck" with a substitution -- usually one's worst nightmare, especially if one is in a bad mood -- that's the fine print, and in ballet, where injuries aren't rare, it has to be part of the contingency. (And often part of my Plan B.)

I'm also more of the old NYCB watcher school: I don't expect clean lines, first performances to be fully cooked, or dancers to be quite ready for their roles. I like watching most dancers tackle roles in which they aren't quite comfortable and watching them grow into the part. (Not when they look miserable, though, which happens occasionally.) I even like casting against type, even when its not successful, and of casting younger dancers in major roles, instead of giving two performances to each of the three predictable principals.

In over 30 years -- apart from a pathetic local Nutcracker I saw as an eight-year-old -- I've only seen three performances in which a dancer was so badly cast that he didn't redeem himself at some part in the ballet, and two of these were the same dancer way beyond his prime. Luckily for the third the New York Times critic was much kinder than the two women who sat in front of me on the 65th Street crosstown bus.

That said, I understand why ballet company directors would be concerned about the couple-of-times-a-year ballet-goer who will not come back if a ballet opening isn't perfect, especially since the trend is away from subscriptions.

She is just stunning in that red dress (first photo).

In another of Arlene Croce's reviews from 1977 (21 Mar), she wrote in the context of noting "Balanchine's tinkerings" since the last performances of Serenade,

The three female principals in the Elegy now go through it with their hair hanging loose, which may be the way it was done once upon a time but looks out of place today.  The sisterhood of the corps in Serenade, which has expanded through the years as Balanchine expanded the choreography, is in its anonymity one of the most moving images we have in all ballet, and th three new heads of hair in the last movement violate the image.

Quoted from Afterimages.

In the parent thread of this one the loose hair theme was much discussed. Croce suggests that for a long time, the hair stayed up.

It's not the bobbleheads themselves I have a problem with. I just look at the Seattle Mariners' schedule, and there are months were almost every day there is a promotion of some sort -- MasterCard Cap Night, Ichiro Bobblehead Night, Fred Meyer Towel Night, etc. Which is great if a series of sponsors manufacture and ship at no cost, but I'd hate to see the day that the only way to get people to see ballet is by giving something away at the door, if the ballet companies have to shoulder the expense themselves.

I'm glad I can buy one and subsidize the free ones (And one small child is now safe...)

Is there a "kvelling" icon? I'm kvelling from reading these posts!

I guess my question is really when the "old" is replaced by the "new," how much damage is done so that the "old" can't be recaptured?

I think that sometimes "old" art gets replaced by "new" when the training for and dancing to the "new" art changes the technique or impetus, and the "old" art can't be danced the same way.

Thinking pessimistically, I've read endless references to the change of training during MacMillan's rule at Royal Ballet, and how dancers trained to do his ballets could no longer dance Ashton properly. I also compare a lot of NYCB performances I've seen since Martins took over, where there is sharp technique, but where the movement impetus doesn't seem to be universally grounded, to the performances I recently saw of Suzanne Farrell Ballet. I wouldn't go so far as to call them a troupe of random pick-up dancers, but they gave me a sense of dancing from the root that I rarely see at NYCB, especially now when my visits to NYC are limited to 3-4 times a year, and I can't compare several performances.

I'm not sure how many differences are based in conflicting approaches as well. For example, when NYCB performed Bournonville Divertissements, coached by Stanley Williams, are the dancers unable to grasp the Bournonville style and technique -- certainly RDB men have joined NYCB and picked up Balanchine technique like sponges -- or are they trained to dance it like another performance of Balanchine? I'm thinking of Arlene Croce's review from 21 Feb 77:

McBride's troubles in Bournonville are purely technical.  Her turnout is not great, and this dims her croise positions and deprives the extended leg of the arrowy sharpness it should have.  She lacks ballon, an essential element in Bournonville.

and

And there is nothing for her to do with the period coquette manners of the piece but guy them.  Still, every effect that is wrong for the piece is right for her, and strangely interesting.  It's Farrellized Bournonville--an independent show within a show.

Croce seems to suggest "both."

(These quotes are from Afterimages.)

I also wonder if dancers have the technique or disinclination or direction to perform Cechetti-based ballet with the proper "square" alignment; for example, is it impossible to perform a square arabesque without opening the hip, and without the energy and attack that's standard now?

In this week's The New Yorker (8 Dec 03) dance critic Joan Acocella reviews Joyce scholar Carol Loeb Shloss' book, "Lucia Joyce" To Dance in the Wake," a biography of James Joyce's daughter. Most of the dance Shloss talks about in the book is modern: studies at Dalcroze Institute and with Isadora Duncan's older brother, Raymond; professional appearances with a small troupe; the author's contention that Lucia's dancing was the inspiration for the themes in Finnegan's Wake.

However, Acocella also mentions that Lucia Joyce, at the age of 22, began to study ballet seriously with Lubov Egorova, for six hours a day, and that her failure at it caused her to give up dance. It was very interesting to read Acocella's dissection of the dance history in the book. For example, the author implies that a diary entry by one of Joyce's friends was a description of one of Lucia Joyce's performances, while Acocella identifies it as a description of Balanchine's Prodigal Son !

The links to individual reviews expire each week -- this one probably on 8 Dec -- but to find the complete review, go to The New Yorker website, and from the left menu scroll over "THE CRITICS" and select "BOOKS."

What would you have wished for in a Balanchine/Martins triple-bill, if you could have chosen:

1) Among what's currently in the rep?

2) Among all ballets?

That's terrific that they'll be able to expand their season. It would be great if a lot more dancers were given the opportunity to learn and to perform new roles

In the 1 December issue of The New Yorker on page 19 in the "DANCE" section, the first entry was for "NEW YORK CITY BALLET" and the listing was for The Nutcracker. Here's a quote:

Best bets: the Friday-night [28 Nov]  and Sunday matinee [30 Nov] performances at which Maria Kowroski and Charles Askegard are the Sugarplum Fairy and her Cavalier, Jennie Somogyi is Dewdrop, and Robert La Fosse is Drosselmeyer.

I don't see this quartet together on the cast list from 1 December through the 14 December performances.

Assuming everyone is healthy, the top two spots are generally conceded to Kwan and Cohen, although there's plenty of debate as to the order in which they will finish this year. The fight is expected to be for third place and the third spot on the World team, between Jenny Kirk, AP McDonough, and Ye Bin Mok, with Beatrisa Liang, Angela Nikodinov, and Amber Corwin as dark horse candidates.

2005 US Nationals will be held in Portland, OR

I didn't know that they were for sale -- I thought they were a Marketing ploy to sell tickets. (And I thought I'd have to mug a small child in the Ladies' Room to get one.)

It was Taub's closing line,

Finally, I'd like to thank Jonathan Stafford for not taking our attention away from the nicely drilled Polichinelles by turning his Mother Ginger into the sort of Divine-meets-Harvey-Fierstein horror with which we've become all too familiar in recent years.

that made me nearly fall off of my chair laughing

As for the competitions, I'm ready to declare a moratorium on all "Swan Lake" programs for a minimum of five years......

We'd have to include "Carmen," "Don Quixote," and "Spartacus," "Concerto de Arunjuez," "Malaguena," and Rachmaninov's "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" and 2nd Piano Concerto in the moratorium as well. Otherwise, all of the swans will just migrate to that music. With Shen/Zhao joining Petrova/Tikhonov (Short Program '02) using the Act II pas de deux from The Nutcracker, we many need a preemptive ban.

(Off topic, there's a beautiful photo of Yamaguchi and her new daughter Keara in this week's People Magazine.)

I just read an AP article about the naming of a new opera house in Copenhagen that is being built across from the downtown Royal Palace. It's scheduled to open in spring 2005. It was just named (in translation) "The Opera -- Copenhagen."

Will RDB move to the new house, too, or will the Company remain at the Royal Theater? If RDB stays in the Royal Theater, will this mean an expanded season for the Company?

My favorite essay of Denby's was the one on Balanchine's Nutcracker. He described how a mother at the performance said something like, "oh, look, she's lost her shoe" at the end of Act I, and her daughter replied that Marie lost it when she threw it at the Mouse King to save the Nutcracker. I don't remember Denby's exact comment, but it was something like, "she saw, and she understood." Which always seemed to me to sum up Denby. At my best, I could say, "he wrote, and I finally understood."

According to an AP article published on andante.com, the Metropolitan Opera is taking a 2.5 week performance break in January 2005, thus pushing out its season to 22 May; this will affect ABT's Spring '05 schedule:

"They're concerned because it puts them into the week after the Fourth of July in 2004–05 and 2005–06," [Met general manager Joseph] Volpe said. "I said, 'Let's try and let's see what happens. A lot has changed since the Lincoln Center Festival has been created.' "

Helene, can you describe the conditions under which you saw them? Were you at the Spanish Riding School?

I'm sorry -- I just saw your question. Treefrog describes the Spanish Riding School perfectly. It is a very intimate arena. The galleries aren't that high over the "rink," and the riders take many of the laps relatively close to the walls, so that they are pretty close to the spectators. But even when they rode down the middle they were still pretty close, and you could see the horses feet very clearly. I don't remember much more than natural light. It wasn't really packed for daily practice -- I assume because there wasn't any jumping, just dressage -- so I was able to sit in the front row each time. If I remember correctly, there weren't many rows behind me.

During a trip to Vienna as a college student, I couldn't get tickets for the show itself, but for a couple of dollars, I was able to attend the dressage drills in the mornings. It was amazing to see what intricate and accurate steps and patterns they could do.

Today's first "link" was a review of the Four Temperaments/Polyphonia/Sinfonetta triple bill performed by the Royal Ballet, and Eva Natanya was mentioned in the second-to-last paragraph:

"The Four Temperaments, with two casts (matinee and evening), looked more variable. I thought the matinee cast had the edge, from the opening Theme of an Apollo-like Thiago Soares and Eva Natanya, through Kevin Thomas's touching Melancholic, the brilliantly complicit Sanguinic of Jaimie Tapper and Inaku Urlezaga, to the interestingly mannered Ivan Putrov as Phlegmatic."

(Edited to correct typo)

The two ballets that I disliked most the first time I saw them, but came to love are strangely related.

When I was in Jr. High and early High School, my best friend loved the ballet. Her father was happy to drive us to Lincoln Center, drop us off, go crosstown, and work in his lab for a couple of hours before picking us up. Since she was related to the "wheels," when choosing performances, we followed her two strict rules: 1. Makarova was better than Fracci, so we went to performances with Makarova, and shunned those with Fracci, even though this meant we never saw Fracci's constant partner Erik Bruhn and 2. Because she was unable to guess which night Fonteyn and Nureyev were to perform with the Royal Ballet (and probably was "stuck" with Seymour or Beriosova, poor girl), we could never buy tickets where the casts weren't announced well in advance, in a full page ad in The New York Times. Hence, no City Ballet, and if ABT performed Balanchine in the early '70's, we never went.

In my junior year of high school, after my friend moved back to Japan, I went to a summer program, where the directors decided -- rightly -- to expose the group to some culture, but -- wrongly -- decided that the boys would be bored by the ABT triple bill. (Hello -- girls in tights?) So off to Philharmonic Hall we went. It turned out that this was the Saturday night in July '74 when Baryshnikov made his debut in Giselle, and it was 15 years before I could hear Bach's 5th Brandenburg Concerto without feeling a pit in my stomach. I'm not really certain what was on the original triple bill, but I remember this as the first time I missed Jardin aux Lilacs.

I did my post-college pilgrimage to the Boston area, where I was a Marketing Director's dream -- someone who heard an advertisement for the Boston Ballet, and because of the theme from La Sonnambula playing in the background, bought a ticket. Just on that turn of music, I had great expectations. But I turned into the Marketing Director's nightmare: I hated La Sonnambula, I hated the Bruce Wells piece to music by Ginastera, and I thought the classical showpiece (can't remember which) badly performed.

In the meantime, I had missed Jardin aux Lilacs twice more, once when it was dropped from the program, another time because my bus from Boston was very late. When I moved back to New York, I bought tickets to an ABT triple bill. Finally I was going to see Jardin aux Lilacs. Martine van Hamel came onstage, danced a little, and suddenly, her partner was carrying her into the wings in his arms. At first I thought, "how atmospheric," but then the stage was empty with the music playing, and the curtain came down. I read in the paper the next day that van Hamel had broken her foot on stage.

There was an intermission, and the curtain rose on Bouree Fantastique. After some cast switching Harriet Clark stepped into Tanaquil LeClerq's role, and she was witty and delightful, like champagne. By the end of the ballet, I was in love with Balanchine's choreography -- probably the biggest DUH of my life. I started attending NYCB constantly, waited years for La Sonnambula to be revived, and I've loved it ever since.

Jardin aux Lilacs was harder, because by the time I saw it, and with Pillar of Fire being one of my favorites, my expectations were so high, that I was bound to be let down. It took two more tries for me to appreciate the ballet, but now I look forward to it.

I keep trying to like Giselle, but I like neither the music nor the characters and don't love the style. So I see the ballet only if there's an angle: Dance Theater of Harlem's Bayou version, the Alonso-coached National Ballet of Cuba, ABT, because I was starved to see the company, and that's the only thing they brought to Seattle. I guess I don't hate it as much as I used to, because I do keep going. Not exactly a conversion.

I really did like Peter Martins A Shubertiade only after the third time I saw it in one week. Whether I like Dances at a Gathering depends on whether I found it a bore the last time (then I'm pleasantly surprised) or surprisingly good the last time (then I'm bored.) But seeing it so many times made me appreciate Jerry Zimmerman as a great Chopin interpreter.

I just received an email from PNB to announce the following marketing offers besides the standard discounts for low-demand Nutcracker performances:

*For $100 per ticket for most Nutcracker performances, up to two people can sit in the orchestra pit

*A new restaurant is opening, and for $20, patrons get entree samples and drinks, with proceeds going to the ballet. (It's on a Sunday night, when many Seattle restaurants are closed or hosting private parties.)

*A local TV host and his wife will play the grandparents in one Nutcracker performance

*Before two Nutcracker performances the first 1,000 children will receive Nutcracker bobbleheads

*Using the PNB link to amazon, PNB earns 5% of purchases.

Yikes, bobbleheads.

Wasn't this supposed to be one of the retroactive ironies of the movie The Turning Point, where Adelaide -- supposedly the Lucia Chase character -- asks Anne Bancroft's character to coach Lesley Browne's character in one of the major ballets (Sleeping Beauty maybe?), and then comments something about everyone getting old and having to move on?

Correction to my earlier post: On Friday night, Mladenov danced the waltz and Ritter danced the Elegy guy. On Saturday night, Ritter danced the waltz and Du danced the Elegy guy.