dirac

It will be interesting to read and hear more reactions to "Sylvia" when it reaches NY. (Speaking for myself, I did not greet this ballet with the hosannas to the highest it received in most quarters, but that's clearly a minority opinion. )

I don't think anyone would dispute the potential usefulness of Gottlieb's advice to MCB, but such a connection is also a potential conflict of interest and one that should be stated upfront. (Which Gottlieb may very well have done. I don't recall seeing anything, but I could have missed it -- unlike the circumstances of his departure from the NYCB board, a fact of which Gottlieb regularly, and appropriately, informs his readership.) As far as "no new reporting" -- I'd note that you don't necessarily find news in Sunday thinkpieces. This piece could also be regarded as offering a countervailing view to that expressed by Jennifer Homans in a similar article from the Sunday Times from awhile ago - I think Rockwell refers to it, although I haven't checked that.

Thank you for the link, drb and thank you, Helene, for posting the topic. It sounds as if Feijoo is considering seriously a possible career transition. From the few reviews I have seen, I don’t think the political divide is quite that pronounced. My general impression is that Andy Garcia, a first time director, may have taken on a little more than he could handle. Here is a link to Peter Rainer's review in The Christian Science Monitor, as a sample. The picture isn’t playing in my area yet, but I will try to go.

Joan Acocella has a piece in the current issue of The New Yorker reviewing the gala, and although she makes many of the same criticisms, she emphasizes that the company’s situation is truly desperate and the choices made should be seen in that context. She goes on to observe:

I haven't seen the "It's Always Fair Weather" DVD yet, but I understand the extras include a solo dance by Michael Kidd, which was cut from the picture, and a Kelly-Charisse duet, also cut. Sounds as if it's well worth checking out.

drb, I just did a terrible thing to your post. I accidentally deleted a huge chunk of it, when all I intended to do was reply! I hit the wrong button. Many, many apologies, and please re-post! :blush:

And go very bad indeed with the wrong combination. It would create two centers of power where before there was only one, and that on the artistic side. You could argue that only one person could do successfully what Balanchine did and that Martins has taken on too much, but that would be a change of enormous significance and potentially a dangerous one.

I have not read this yet, but I’ve reached a point with Homans’ writing where my reflex response is that anything she says that isn't glaringly obvious can’t possibly be right, and if I’m tempted to agree then I need to rethink my position. I say this with regret, and I’m always hoping I’ll be wrong.

Thank you for reviving this thread, glebb! In my limited live viewing experience, I loved Elizabeth Loscavio the one time I saw her in it. She was like a sprig of lilac, the perfect young princess. On video: Sizova.

“The Red Shoes” took off from the Diaghilev/Nijinsky story, yes (and the Balanchine-Farrell saga was a real life variant), but the picture wasn’t a biopic per se.

carbro wrote: Yup. Maybe Charles Laughton. Jose Ferrer, perhaps, if they wanted someone skinnier.

Trailers these days are of such length and detail that in some cases they give the entire picture away. Not to mention that you have to sit through about half a dozen of them. Jacques d’Amboise would have played Jacques d’Amboise in the fifties, no?

chrisk217 writes: All too convincingly. I think Irons is great, but never again do I want to see a picture that requires him to send hangdog looks of desire in the direction of some inappropriate love object. He’s done way too much of that. It's those big spaniel eyes of his, I imagine.

Tobi Tobias’ blog, “Seeing Things,” on ArtsJournal.com, is being revived in a different format, as she describes here . (It sounds as if it will no longer be a blog per se, but a convenient place to find current and past articles.)

I can imagine those lovely extensions. -- Missing Julie in San Francisco

Hmmm....not everyone may regard the spectacle of a sexagenarian boss in aggressive pursuit of a vulnerable teenaged employee as the stuff of Great Romance.

I wouldn’t be too hard on the Tribune writer. It looks as if, judging by the context, that “user” and “non-user” were terms chosen by the survey takers. Infelicitous, but it sounds to me as if they were looking for a broader term than “reader.” bart writes: True. I didn’t think there was any stunning news here, but I did note the paragraph below: Thanks for posting the link, Cliff . Very interesting topic.

Thank you for your comments, SandyMcKean (and bart). True, Beckett is not for everyone (but I wish that articles like the one I linked to would try to avoid the “Beckett! Hey, nobody understands him!” tone). There’s a story I like about the late George Devine of the Royal Court, who was a great champion of Beckett’s work. John Osborne reported him gazing around in satisfaction at a virtually empty house for a Beckett opus and sighing, “This is what I’m here for.”

Dublin celebrates Samuel Beckett's centenary year. Associated Press article by Jill Lawless via The Age.

canbelto writes: I think that's a promising idea, and the picture could be made on a small scale, too. Thanks to Anthony_NYC for starting the topic, and to everyone who's commented so far!

I've noticed that in San Francisco. Even when it's a fabulous mixed bill, the houses tend not to be quite as packed for even the less attractive of the company's evening length offerings. Very often the latter have easily recognizable names -- "Romeo and Juliet," etc. and I have a sense that casual balletgoers sometimes feel that they're getting a "bigger bang for the buck" by seeing a big story ballet.

I like color if it's used well, but it seems to me that it's a dicier business than black-and-white. I loved many of the color photographs in the recent Costas collection, but was disturbed by the garish tint of many of them -- very distracting and unattractive.

Interesting topic, bart. I subscribe to the national edition of the NY Times and my town’s paper, so I do not read much of the other two papers that could be called my “local” ones – the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News. (When last I heard, the Chronicle still had not hired a full time dance critic.) The two aren’t necessarily in opposition, and an arts section that acknowledges that isn’t committing a crime, IMO – as long as it doesn’t mean that fluff invades and takes over, as all too often happens. I see a pattern in general of older critics getting pushed out of the way in favor of young ones. I could be wrong.

I thought that Browne did fine for the purposes of the picture (with the assistance of tactful editing and camera angles) for the benefit of a general audience, although it was a huge loss that Kirkland wasn’t able to play it. I think that contemporary stars could be recruited to play former stars. Difficult but not impossible. Obviously they would not be able to reproduce the older performer's unique style, but under the right circumstances you could cast for looks, body type, stylistic resemblances, and acting ability and get a reasonable approximation -- that is, sufficent plausibility for the needs of willing suspension of disbelief. But for a Balanchine biopic it would be very hard, because you'd need at least half a dozen such performers, not just a few.

You can't have non dancers playing dancers, unfortunately. You can get by with it if the dancing is incidental to the storyline, but it's not an accident that the most successful ballet pictures (The Red Shoes, The Turning Point) had mostly professional classical dancers in the leading roles. Anne Bancroft did play a prima in The Turning Point very well, but an actual middle aged ballerina in the role would have worked even better, IMO.