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Thanks, YouOverThere. I certainly intend to see this. I enjoyed the Great Performances documentary "Pavarotti: A Voice for the Ages," which is repeated regularly in my locality. although interest waned once it entered the Years of Schlock. It didn't go into his private life much, which is just as well by me -- egomaniac superstar dumps wife of many decades for his pretty and much-younger assistant, stop the presses. I would hope there was some exploration of what made his voice special.

Thanks for posting, ABT Fan. Sigh. No dancer or choreographer -- again. At least Tilson Thomas is there. Cheers to Ronstadt, whose range is rather wider than the Times piece suggests.

It isn't so much the quality of the score as the style, I'm thinking - particularly the softer parts, which were already kind of sappy when the show was new. A lot would depend on if you're doing it as a period piece or trying to update it (or taking a more stylized approach or going for naturalism).

First look at the cast. Ariana DeBose as Anita.

WSS wasn't exactly searing realism back in the day. I hope Robbins at least gets due credit in the program and credits. Seems to me the score and book are potentially more dated than his choreography and less suited to a modern setting, but I guess they don't want to toss everything since their selling point is the familiar name of the old show.

Thanks for posting this, FPF. I too thought Hansberry's ending was essentially positive, without implying that a picnic lay ahead for the Youngers. From your description it sounds as if this production makes explicit what the author left, if not implicit, at least not spelled out. There is also the matter of inserting non-naturalistic elements into what is a naturalistic play - maybe it will work, maybe it won't - it can be hard to make them look organic to the work.

A passing of the baton:

In literature perhaps, but life is littered with "bad relationships" - and this seems to have been one of them (as well as being, of course, a bad affair:)). Your mention of Ms. Pym and Miss Bates reminds me that Miss Austen refers to Mr. Elton suddenly "making love" to Emma, and I remember my teacher feeling the need to make it clear to class that Mr. Elton was pitching some woo, not jumping Emma's bones. I see the phrase regularly. No doubt people are more likely today to refer to themselves as "being in a relationship," but that doesn't mean that they aren't also having an affair or that calling it an affair necessarily trivializes the, uh, relationship.......

Doesn't imply anything of the sort, AFAIK. Nowadays, it is true, many people are more likely to say "relationship" when in another era they would refer to an "affair." There are also common references tp "brief affairs," "long-running affairs," "on-and-off affairs." An extramarital affair is so-called because one or both of the persons involved are married. In other words, you can say that Finlay and Waterbury "had an affair" or you can say they were "in a relationship." Both would be accurate and neither is necessarily invidious. I imagine people do say "in a relationship" when they want to emphasize the seriousness of the involvement, but historically "affair" can refer to a light or intense relationship.

I am a bit surprised Waterbury's lawyer could not do better than this. "Man convicted of stealing old folks blind and living high on the proceeds provides company gossip," is maybe not a great look. I get that he was with Waterbury and Finlay at the gala, but - sheesh. Of course, if he weren't a thief and a liar he wouldn't have been there in the first place, so I suppose the point is moot.....

He was indicted:

A lot of new stuff has been filed in the Waterbury case recently. This Winston Nguyen seems to be quite the character.

I wouldn’t say professional competition. Zelda wasn’t a career woman in any sense and she never intended to compete with her husband. She was brought up to get married, not go to work. Her ballet studies were undertaken because she wanted to have something of her own and one wonders how/if things might have been different if she had accepted that job offer. Might have been better for both Fitzgeralds. The sense one gets is of a couple almost too close and too alike for their own good – in the jargon of today, “co-dependent.”

That's a wonderful comparison, atm711. I've always loved Fitzgerald.

Obviously Zelda’s talent as a writer did not begin to approach her husband’s, but some of the stories with Scott and Zelda’s joint byline were written by Zelda alone. Zelda’s ballet teacher thought that although her pupil had begun her studies too late to become a really good dancer, with continued application many companies would consider her employable. In fact she received an offer, which she turned down for reasons that are unclear. That doesn’t sound as if she was always reaching for the stars. It’s one of the sadder aspects of Zelda's illness that her attempts to express herself through the arts were thought to be bad for her, when we now know that such attempts can be therapeutically helpful. I can also see it from Scott’s side – here was Zelda producing a publishable first novel from inside the bin while he had to put aside major projects to pump out stories to pay for her care. Still, his position was a little bizarre ("You can't use your life and our marriage for material! Only I can use your life and our marriage for material!")

Bad news, if true, and what sandik reports is believable - why hire a chief dance critic when you're cutting back on dance reviews?

There is audio and I hope she is at least taping her reminiscences. She wouldn’t be the first female star to withdraw from public view because she felt she had lost her looks and didn’t want to be seen.

Many happy returns of the day. That's too bad. I'm sure it would have been a great interview. Especially puzzling because recent photos show a still-lovely lady. Now she is probably too frail, and Osborne, of course, is already gone.

Because no one is clicking on them. The shift away from reviews has been going on for some time. Still, the NYT actually continues to employ dance critics, which is something these days.

Those were the days:

I’m sorry to hear that.

Thanks, Buddy. He sounds like he's channeling his inner Jackson Maine for this one. How is his voice holding up, overall?

The guy never saw a tassel he didn't like, that's for sure. But he loved performers as much as he did scenery. Quite a career, and quite a life, even if his politics were....iffy at best. The Old Vic "Romeo and Juliet" with John Stride and Judi Dench was a real thunderbolt - Kenneth Tynan said, or quoted someone as saying, that young directors all over London were grinding their teeth and wondering why they hadn't thought of it. But Zeffirelli did. I can't say I took anything like that away from the movie, unfortunately. If I had to choose between seeing it or the Taylor-Burton Shrew I might well opt for the latter. I wish I had been there for the Dallas Traviatas with Callas, and the '59 Lucia with Sutherland.

Doesn't sound good, does it? But I'd certainly like to see that archival footage of Nureyev performing with Taylor and Graham at least once, however poor the quality. This new documentary may well be superfluous, but I think it's great that there is such continuing interest in Nureyev and I hope movies like this help keep his name alive with the general public - and Fonteyn's, too, since she was so closely associated with him. Nureyev 's life and career offer juicy material for any filmmaker, even if one would wish for more emphasis on his art and less on his private life.

Thank you, Peg, that's informative. Yes, indeed. The University Press of Florida also published "Henning Kronstam: Portrait of a Danish Dancer" by Alexandra Tomalonis.