dirac

Hello, vagansmom, and thank you for posting. I've heard of McCann and his Nureyev novel but have not read it or any of his other works. I'm sure someone here must have dipped into it???

Many thanks for the reports, everyone. Not that I dont trust y'all, but I have been burned so many times by proclamations of "Woody's back!" that I no longer risk ten dollars on a theater ticket. I do catch them on cable and there's never been a time when I've said, Darn, I should have seen that one. (I used to go out to see his movies every year. They were usually at least as interesting as anything else at the multiplex. But I gave up after "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion." The last time was when somebody talked me into trying "Match Point.")

Certainly I'd rather see gowns by Charles James in their natural habitat in Vogue than hanging dismally on a dummy in a museum.

Thanks, Mickey, for being willing to speak up and disagree. I'm sorry you had such a bad experience, YouOverThere, but thanks to you also for writing in to tell us about it. I was not the biggest fan of the Billy Elliot movie, but it had some good things in it. My experience with most, not all, cinema-to-stage translations is that the good things in the film tend to get messed up or lost entirely because they can't be reproduced live in a theater and the adaptation can rarely provide anything as successful in their place. I would think this would be true of Billy Elliot, since the urban milieu plays an important role in the film, at least as I recall it. Is there anyone else who saw both versions and can comment?

The rash of designer exhibits in museums has been a subject of lively debate, ksk04. Well informed and reasonable people disagree on the matter and your view has its advocates. My own view is that this isn’t really what museums should be doing. It’s better to fill open space with Balenciaga rather than with bad art, if that’s the alternative, but I don’t think anyone is arguing about the prime motivations behind most of these shows: They’re popular and the museums have lots of space to fill. Not to mention the money trail - the Met put on a Chanel exhibition with money from…..Chanel (the house, that is). This exhibition sounds fine to me, but if you ask me if the Guggenheim should be awarding space to Armani, which it has done, I'm going to say no. "Wimmenfolk" was intended as a bit of flippancy, not meant to distract from the point, which was that these shows are particularly appealing to women and women are great and loyal museumgoers. My apologies if it was objectionable.

Thank you so much for the heads up, CM. I didn't know.

I find Manhattan's New Yorkness to be overblown, somewhat like the overstated orchestrations used for the Gershwin soundtrack - despite Allen's genuine passion for the city. Odd movie, especially in retrospect after the Soon-Yi scandal. "On the Waterfront" is a good choice, Quiggin. I also think of a more recent movie, "In America." The director Joan Micklin Silver holds the interesting distinction of making a very good and beautifully detailed New York movie, "Hester Street," and following up later with a hopelessly meretricious one, "Crossing Delancey." I also like the Little Italy of The Godfather, Part II, although it's not a New York picture.

I don't approve of using museum space to show somebody's old clothes, but if any designer justified such use it would certainly be Balenciaga, some of whose gowns are like beautiful sculpture. I understand why they happen - these displays are popular and bring in lots of wimmenfolk, who constitute the majority of museumgoers, but they are not what proper art museums are for. The price tags are certainly outrageous, but the women who buy them can pay and indeed jacking up the price is part of the allure.

Congratulations to both of them. Does anyone have the special DVD package? Is it worth acquiring?

Well, you might try DanceView and danceviewtimes.......

Thanks for the link, Ed. There are so many New York movies. It might be hard to compile one list that wouldn't be too unwieldy. The link you provided lists some of the best known such films. There is a distinction between “set in New York City” and “shot in New York City.” Probably the movie most successful at evoking the city atmosphere while not actually shooting there is “The Clock” directed by Vincente Minnelli, with Judy Garland and Robert Walker. I also like “The Pope of Greenwich Village” – very enjoyable “city” movie with great performances.

Gunnar Fischer, RIP. He lived to be a ripe old 100.

A belated thanks for these wonderful links. Sergeyev...oh, dear.

I guess this was inevitable but the NYCO board voted today to leave Lincoln Center. The situation seems very bleak but I'm hoping the company can be salvaged. Here's an AP report on today's decision: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110521/ap_en_ot/us_music_nyc_opera Hard to know what to say apart from this is very bad indeed. Just a crying shame.

I intended a jocular reference to your earlier request to revert to the topic of actual reviews of the performances. Sorry for the confusion.

I'd like to thank Jane for linking to the old 'new Napoli' thread, which I'd forgotten about. I also wanted to pluck out this quote from Alexandra from the old thread, because it expresses in a much more elegant and well-informed way what I was trying to get at earlier and it's worth including here for its own sake IMO. (Sorry, Natalia. Just close your eyes and pretend this post isn't here. )

Dirac, I think in this case you can assume that the ROH is catering directly to its core subscribers/individuals. In the UK we have several Dowager Marchionesses, which is a title in itself. So when the current Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury, Bute, Queensbury, Lansdowne etc etc etc books her tickets online (or has some flunky do it for her) she'll get a lil frisson of delight to see that the ROH subscriptions department has catered precisely to her title. Now that's customer service. Thanks. But I believe "Dowager" also applies as a title in itself to others? There's a Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, for example, although I don't recall that she's much of a balletgoer. Why marchionesses and not duchesses? Unless you mean by core subscribers exactly that - individuals whose names are on the list. My apologies if I'm being dense.

She has courtiers for all her online shopping. Go ahead, Leigh. Make the joke. You know you want to.... I'm also puzzled by some omissions. Why are Dowager Marchionesses the only Dowagers listed? Surely there must be other titled widows of a certain age who go to the ballet. (Speaking of "come the revolution," Simon, am I wrong or didn't you already have one? Charles I lost his head, I believe? And then you invited all those titled unemployables back again. Somewhat neutered, of course, but still.)

On second thought, I may just go the whole hog and pick "Queen." Great topic, Kathleen.

Not unless they add "Tovarich" or "Citoyen" ... Salud, Camarada! In the meantime, I think I'd like to be Very Reverend. Plain old Reverend just doesn't cut it.

The context of 'A Folk Tale' is already fantastic. I don't believe in miracles, period. If you want to construct a secular framework for miraculous occurrences that's fine, but how does that justify messing with Bournonville's? We accept all kinds of magical occurrences as part of ballet stories.

The "Christian element" bugs Alastair Macaulay, too, and he's glad to be shot of it: If Ove was rescued by a fairy waving a magic wand, would Macaulay be bothered by that? How does stripping an overtly Christian story of its Christian elements help the work? Sanitizing old works of qualities that might make modern audiences uncomfortable is nothing new, of course.

Thanks for posting the article, Mashinka. Some great responses, as cubanmiamiboy noted. I hope we get a few of our own in this space.

Jowitt will not be doing regular reviews, but she will still be writing for the paper. The Voice has been struggling in the wake of the Internet revolution, like many print publications, and like most of those publications with the exception of the NY Times it has cut back drastically on dance coverage. (New York magazine dropped its regular dance reviewing entirely.) It is hard to know what to think about this situation since so often in these matters there are other things going on behind the scenes that aren’t part of the official explanations from either side. Jowitt has been at the Voice for forty years, an excellent run for any critic, and often writers choose to move on for their own reasons after such a length of time. Obviously that isn’t true in this case, but a changing of the guard when a new(er) editor comes in is also common. Personal chemistry comes in play, and different views of where the publication is going. Which is not to say that the difference of opinion expressed here isn’t genuine. It seems to me that both sides have a point. Jowitt is a fine writer who can’t be expected to change her approach at this late date. Her style has some wonderful qualities and I find it’s generally possible to suss out when she really doesn’t like something. I don’t see that her approach is necessarily superior to someone who comes out forthrightly to say “ it stinks.” (I understand that Clement Crisp’s willingness to be tart and vivid in such cases has helped him cling to his perch.) The critics in smaller media markets face a different set of issues. A New York critic can be sharp in the knowledge that there are a few other voices out there who will be listened to and may disagree, but most cities have only one paper and its critic is the only game in town save for what gets on the Internet. So the stakes are much higher. One would never condone outright mindless boosterism, but I would certainly see a need to be more careful, avoid harshness unless the need is very great, and provide encouragement when possible where local arts associations are concerned, while honoring the obligation to be honest to one's readers. Not an easy task.

The latest Ballet Review has an item on this new edition by Marvin Hoshino. He notes that the Edwin Denby essay included in the volume has not been reprinted elsewhere.