dirac

Farrell was never a Giselle for anybody (nor does she ever seem to have had a yen for it). She did do the evening-length "Swan Lake" for the National Ballet of Canada, and she performed Mejia's "Cinderella." She was Juliet for Bejart. That's all I can think of, offhand. And of course if the timing had been right and the money available, she might have been Balanchine's Aurora. Today's ballerinas also have more styles from which to choose (and given the varied repertory of many companies now, they may not have much choice, although most seem eager to experiment). Was Dudinskaya a Giselle? I think of her as being a little too powerful for the role, but you never know.

Funny - "Glass Pieces" passed through my mind as I was watching (I was also there yesterday and "Symphony" was thrilling) and then passed right out again, so thank you for posting your thoughts. To my knowledge, no, the parallel has not been written about, but you're definitely on to something. I can't say that I get any special "war" vibe from "Symphony in Three Movements," however....

I had the impression that Nureyev was the fatal one, myself.... The stuff about Tallchief's love life is not new. (I'd question whether the Balanchine-Tallchief union was entirely sexless, though.) But then I'm always curious about how successful women negotiate the shoals of male-female relations. Allegra Kent reports an exchange with Tallchief in her book which might sum up the matter. Kent is coping with Bert issues and Tallchief tells her, "Husbands come and go. Your dancing is what's important." (From memory.)

It's actually Joan Acocella's take, not Croce's (and since New Yorker profiles are a well-known genre unto themselves, I guess it should be noted it's not a profile, but an obit). Sorry, Neryssa. Not to take this topic off topic, but I also noted Acocella's side remark on Farrell, and I think it is true only in part, or at least not without a lot of qualification. It's quite true that Farrell's peak years were a boom time in dance criticism as well as dance, and she benefited by her position as the last and longest lasting of the muses, but there were observers like Robert Garis who saw decades of Balanchine dancers and still revered Farrell, and Farrell's influence extends beyond that as well. As I noted upthread, Tallchief has a strong argument for being the Greatest Muse of All, and that particular debate can't ever be settled, but Farrell has more going for her than good timing. (Acocella knows all this as well as anyone, of course, and she does add her own qualification with "partly.")

I think of people like Holly Howard, too, a dancer and ex-girlfriend of Balanchine's who was never interviewed in depth as far as I know. And some who have spoken were often not especially candid.

Another tidbit from mussel's link.

Thanks, Quiggin. Much the same thing was said about Peter Cook. He was always "on," tended to dominate whichever proceedings in which he was participating, was a superb talk show guest but a poor talk show host, and was sometimes hard put for the punch line. And like Winters big-league stardom escaped him, although he did score an historic success with Beyond the Fringe and for a time established a successful partnership with Dudley Moore. (Winters could have used a Dudley Moore; not a competitor but a complement, contrast, and appreciative audience.) I can’t say that most of Bruce’s material has aged particularly well for me; his best bits are still great but I don’t think of him as being in the same class of funny, more of a brilliant yakker. But he had other fish to fry entirely.

Jack Reed: He's not the first I've run across, either. I just didn't know he was a knitter. Certainly Davis was never afraid to express an opinion, even if he alienated others at times. Very much an independent spirit, like Berlioz, a favorite of his.

An appreciation by Robin Williams.

Thank you for posting this sad news, mussel. He was fun to watch and listen to. I didn't know Davis was a knitting man:

Hello, vagansmom, good to hear from you. I started out with Anna Karenina, too, probably because I'd seen one of the movie or television versions first. I tend to be in favor of reading the book before seeing the movie, since even bad movies have a way of imposing their images in your mind's eye, but it's not always possible.

Certainly physically she didn't have what we think of as the Balanchine "look." But I'd say you could make a case for Tallchief as the ultimate Balanchine dancer (not that you can ever settle that particular argument). As Melissa Hayden told Robert Tracy:

The documentary "Dancing for Mr. B.: Six Balanchine Ballerinas" includes a magical clip of Tallchief's Berceuse from Firebird - apparently shot in a broom closet, but she truly casts a spell.

Thank you for bringing back this topic, pherank. I certainly didn't mean to suggest the book could be read in three hours, only that my time might have been better spent that way. Lean emphasizes the love story and straightforward narrative, partially a matter of where his strengths lie as a filmmaker and also the requirements of classical movie storytelling. I will say that despite its obvious flaws it looks better in retrospect - for better and usually for worse they don't make them like that any more. (Julie Christie is indeed good and I thought Rod Steiger was pretty astounding. The moist-eyed Sharif was Lean's second choice after Peter O'Toole turned him down. I think in his review John Simon suggested the Navy should use Sharif as an icebreaker.) I had read that the film wasn't close to the spirit of the book, and your description of the novel makes me want to pick it up pronto, although perhaps not in the translation sliced and diced in the Guardian article you thoughtfully provided. Do you recommend any particular translation?

I thought of that review, too, vipa, and I think you're right. It was written after Farrell's return to the company and collected in "Afterimages" (don't know if it's also part of the Croce collection edited by Cornfield). She was never afraid of bold assertions.

Ah, but would she have wanted something more? ;) That their lives, and careers, were intertwined, I think is obvious to us all. My sore point was just in the NY Times labeling. This person's life has ended, and who were they? A "Balanchine ballerina". Not a bad thing at all, but it doesn't explain why she needs to be mentioned on the front page of the Times. In your words, "Tallchief was the cornerstone of Balanchine’s young company". So of course there's more to the story than just Balanchine's contribution. I see this type of headline in the arts press everyday: people being identified according to their relation to Balanchine, or Diaghilev. The practice is lazy and superficial, imo, and it just makes gods out of B and D but doesn't actually do so much for everyone else involved in the art. I guess I don't necessarily see it as laziness, or an insult to Tallchief's achievement; it seems reasonable to me to refer to Tallchief as a muse to Balanchine. A nice quote from d'Amboise in the NYT obit below, echoing what you said earlier:

Oh, definitely, especially his "character" comedy.

Croce did say the only male choreographer, although of course Tudor was also a man. I am not a dancer but for what my opinion is worth I think she meant that the great breadth, variety, and complexity of Balanchine's female roles has no parallel among his peers, and that he had a special ability to show women in the fullness of their humanity and not as one variety or other of feminine archetype or stereotype. Arguable but defensible. I look forward to reading other views. Thank you, DanielBenton, for starting the topic, and welcome to the board!

Hmmm...food for thought there, sandik. I think I see what you're getting at, but doesn't a "serious" actor like James Dean exemplify his era as much as Sid Caesar (or perhaps Milton Berle is a better example, a comic who was huge at the time but whose work hasn't endured). The great improvisers like Winters, the late Peter Cook, and Robin Williams create their own universes in a way.

Respectfully, pherank, Tallchief was the cornerstone of Balanchine’s young company, which company became one of the greatest in the world if not the greatest, and one of his wives. It’s unsurprising that she should be identified as his ballerina and I don’t think Tallchief would have expected anything else. That is the fate of the muse, for better and worse. Tallchief would also be the first to say that she was transformed by Balanchine’s training. This doesn’t take away from Tallchief’s own personality and gifts. No question she was on the rise in the Ballets Russes, and she might have become America’s first prima without Balanchine. She might also have become an artist as well as a star without Balanchine, but certainly a different one. And Tallchief is also part of ballet history not only because of her status as America’s first international ballet star but because qualities unique to her inspired Balanchine to create a series of classic ballerina roles – not only the new ones made on Tallchief but his recreations of canonical ballerina roles such as those in Swan Lake and Nutcracker just for her. That’s a tribute to Tallchief, not a denigration. Certainly other aspects of her career shouldn’t be neglected, though, and I think the obits so far could have spent more time on her years as an artistic director. I guess calling the Tall Chiefs an oil family is misleading in that they weren’t Rockefellers, but I think it was just a quick way of indicating where their money came from.

Agreed on both counts. I'm not entirely thrilled that it's Homans undertaking the project, but it's good that someone is doing so and I'm sure she will present an honorable effort. As today's obituaries show, those who were present at the creation are gone or going. Julie Kavanagh got to a lot of people for her Ashton biography just in time. Balanchine's is a different case from Ashton's in that so many people who worked with him have written or talked about him, but there are still many gaps to be filled and of course some that can never be filled - we never did hear enough from Diana Adams, for example..... Thanks for the news, Ray. Taper's book is indispensable, but it began as a magazine profile and shows it.

Thursday was not a good day. Jonathan Winters, a comedian of great originality, is dead at 87. Video clips. For cable subscribers, The Tonight Show bit with the stick was shown on one of Showtime's "Inside Comedy" episodes with Winters and Robin Williams from last year, which has a very good interview with Winters.

Try telling that to immigration. But they're Cubans, so in practice I don't think it matters what they say. It doesn't surprise me that that some in Miami are displeased with their candor, but I quite like it.

Thanks, California. Sounds like a combination that'll leave 'em laughing. I wonder which one has the title role (joke)?

Thanks, abatt.