dirac

An interview with Met Opera dance director Joe Fritz.

Welcome, Hoodwink! (I like your moniker, BTW.) To pull one out of the cliche bin, it's never too late. You bring a great store of knowledge and experience to your viewing and it's great that you are an opera fan, since the two art forms have often intersected. I look forward to reading your posts.

An appreciation of Trisha Brown, "If We Could Fly," by Marcia B. Siegel in The Hudson Review.

By functional I meant the other animal acts were functioning as part of the show at the time of the company's demise. It was thought that the circus could continue without the elephants, but the decline in ticket sales after they were gone was unexpectedly steep, and the show could not go on, as it were.

All their animal acts were functional save for the elephants, who were retired because unexpected laws kept popping up in individual cities designed to keep the show from going on although Ringling Bros. was consistently successful in the courts. Without the elephants it ain't no circus, at least from the public perspective, apparently, so that proved to be the end. Maybe their time had passed in any case.

Indeed. After Charlottesville the position of the African-American honorees, particularly, shifted from "difficult" into "near-impossible."

True, but we're lucky it's even there. It's the last stand-alone book review in any paper in the country. I can see why the refusal to get personal would annoy a writer for Slate – on the Internet pretty much everything is personal. She wasn’t the liveliest stylist, but she could be interesting to read. I'm not sure this is really about her particular merits or demerits, however. Plainly the idea is to dilute the power of the individual critic and the critics generally. I suppose you could argue that it's not great for one critic to have that much clout, and she'd been around a long time, but at least people knew who she was and knew who she was for her writing. Of course, this might not be happening if the critics weren't already losing power because of the lack of clicks........

Truly, we shall not see her like again: Related. The first article also mentioned that Kakutani was uncomfortable with some of the additional web-based demands now being made on the Times' critics; she does not care for public speaking and was not at ease with stuff like the chatty "25 Best Books/Movies/Whatever" discussions the paper is now asking its writers to do together.

Balletwannabe, thanks for posting. I think perhaps you mean “drug abuse” and not “drug use,” which in and of itself is not necessarily harmful (?) Celebrity status tends to cut both ways, but most prominent and influential people will admit that overall it’s pretty cool to be prominent and influential. There are tradeoffs, and this kind of unwelcome attention, as opposed to the red carpet attention to which the Martins family are accustomed, is one of them.

One offhand remark to a reporter is not proof of denial. Perhaps we are letting speculation get a little out of hand here.

I suggest that any argument that went that way would not be a very good argument. Kistler and Martins aren’t the ones with the drug problem. Ms. Martins isn’t a kid, she’s a 21-year-old college student. Mom and Dad aren’t necessarily responsible for everything that goes wrong in a child’s life and they can’t always fix everything that goes wrong in a child’s life. You’d have a better argument if there was a drug problem at SAB. Talicia Martins has never even been a student there AFAIK.

Pictures from this year's Fantastagorey Day at the Edward Gorey House.

Barbara Cook has died at age 89. I don't doubt she will be glittering and gay in the Great Beyond, and as noted below, she will come equipped with a heavenly voice:

It’s also easier for children of the rich and influential to put this sort of thing behind them and receive the benefit of the doubt from others, if they can succeed in getting it together. (Also to avoid getting caught in the first place.) I see Ms. Martins is not a minor, and so adult criminal penalties may apply. Very true, DC Export.

Let us note that drug use in the ballet world is hardly limited to sons and daughters of Peter Martins. . If Ms. Martins is guilty as charged and these stories are accurate in other respects, I hope she receives appropriate punishment that is not excessively punitive and treatment for her problems. Best wishes to the family in this difficult time.

She would probably say that is a misleading distinction. Farrell and Baryshnikov as dancers helped define the ballet of their era, as performers and in the roles that were made for them. Also consider her audience and format: she was writing reviews on an almost weekly basis for a weekly magazine. Did anyone say they were (?)

It would be most effective if nobody showed up at the White House, but per the NYT article, Richie is an old buddy of Trump's and LL Cool J's view can be summed up as "This isn't about him, it's about me and I'm going to enjoy it."

I doubt that Balanchine will be a figure as remote as Petipa, or even Fokine, any time soon, although I see what you mean.

Croce was worth reading on any form of dance she chose to address. It is true that critics are generally inspired to their best by the best, although often as not readers tend to remember the colorful slaggings. It's certainly time for a new full-length bio of Balanchine. I'm not thrilled that it's Homans, but pauperes non possunt electores esse and maybe she'll surprise me. Thanks for starting the topic, CTballetfan!

The omission of Glass has received a fair bit of comment in recent years, given that he's getting up there in age. Of course, Norman Lear is 95. Thank you for posting the topic and the links, Drew. Kennicott's opinion piece for the Post is generally on target.There is nothing wrong with a mix of popular and high art, but this year in particular is completely lacking in balance. For example, Renee Fleming is retiring from opera (not performing). It would have been a fine year to honor a great American classical star at a time when she is still in wonderful voice.

That's what I remember as well. However, I'm not in the industry and don't know how much some publication dates are informed by optimism. One of the existing threads on the topic is here. I'm sure something's written, or at least the publisher(s) must have been shown something, but who knows. Thanks for the link, pherank.

Respectfully, is there anything you can share that would explain why we shouldn't discount it? That book's been dangled in front of us a long time and not a peep.

Plucked this from Judith Mackrell's review: Where to start.....Shakespeare's Katharina isn't only a scold, and his Petruchio is a swaggering joker as well as a bully, so Maillot is getting credit for adding colors to characters that already had some. (I leave it to those who have seen the ballet to determine if Maillot's Petruchio has a "romantic heart.") It feels embarrassing having to point this out, but it is not cute for Petruchio to hit Katharina even if Maillot sets it up by having her take a swipe at him first and not okay to for him to force himself on her just because she's copped a feel. How did this appear to others who saw the ballet?

So true. A nice pic of Duras and Moreau together. An interview from 2001.

His female dancers, I believe. At least, I don't recall any accounts of him making gifts of Old Spice or Canoe to Edward Villella or Peter Martins. Balanchine's morning class must have smelled....interesting. Whole new can of worms here, Stecyk, but the two industries do resemble each other in that most of the company money is spent on advertising and marketing the product and not on actually making the product.........