dirac

I’m more struck these days by the guys with their feet up by their ears. I suppose it’s progress, but by me it looks weird.

W’s current issue (the one with Scarlett Johansson on the cover) has a photograph of Baryshnikov circa 1978 in his Don Quixote costume. He’s in profile, pensively puffing away on a cigarette. Not the most flattering shot of him I've ever seen. About a paragraph’s worth of text. (Showbiz Age Discrimination Watch: Three actors are featured in the issue. Johansson, age 19; Sienna Miller (no, you’ve never heard of her; chief claim to fame is being Jude Law’s current squeeze), age 24 or thereabouts; and Denzel Washington, age 50. That aging crone Nicole Kidman better watch her back. )

I agree with all of the above (and I only wish her Balanchine piece had been more like this one). Everyone should read it. It's also nice that this piece follows the previous one so soon. We don't see enough about dance in The New Yorker any more. (I'm not pointing the finger at Acocella, who's entitled to write about whatever interests her -- just expressing a heartfelt wish. )

Thanks. Rachel's comments are interesting and worth checking out. It's nice to see that he's in print again. Assuming that the worst is true, which we don't know for certain, it seems to me that his were at most job-ending infractions, as opposed to career-ending ones.

I'm sorry to hear that, but from the reviews I've read your comments are pretty on target. I missed the show when it came to the Bay Area, but I'm not too sorry, now. Here's John Heilpern's review in the Observer, which includes such lavish praise as "awesomely cloying": http://www.observer.com/pages/theater.asp

I wonder also if Roca simply hadn’t been at the paper long enough to develop a constituency among readers and management that might have protected him from this kind of summary execution. (I think of the case of the columnist Mike Barnicle, late of the Boston Globe, who was eventually dismissed from the paper, but only after years and years of egregious heistings of other people’s work.) And it’s not as if Roca was covering something really important and popular, like sports.

The movie was as I feared it would be, I’m sorry to say. We are presented with a more or less straightforward love story, with the hero’s yen for men presented as an annoying distraction for a pair who truly long for nothing more than home, hearth, and the pitter-patter of little feet. Cole and Linda nuzzle in bed together; there is no corresponding scene with Porter and a man. (We do see Porter and Boris Kochno in the bedroom post-coitum, but Porter is fully clothed and they don’t get too close.) Porter’s male lovers are interchangeable wavy-haired boyos with toothy smiles. Incidentally, balletgoers will be interested to learn that Kochno was a principal dancer for Diaghilev (who makes a couple of cameo appearances) and there is a very brief shot of “Kochno” performing a solo. The movie’s timeline is incoherent; we keep cutting to performers doing Porter’s songs in a way that seems to draw connections between the songs and events in Porter’s life, but the placing of the songs in the film often don’t fit with the actual dates of composition, creating a kind of cognitive dissonance if you’re familiar with the Porter oeuvre. Judd plays Linda with her nose in the air and a distracting permanent smile. Kline is not bad but he’s way too old for the early scenes, and his makeup as the elderly Porter makes him look like Brando in Apocalypse Now. Kline does far too much singing; it reached the point where my heart sank every time he made for the piano. The songs, which should make up for all of the foregoing if performed well, receive highly varying performances, and the production numbers are amateur hour.

It’s very gracious of Alexandra to refer to Doris Kearns Goodwin’s difficulties as “errors in attribution,” but it should be noted that plagiarism is indeed an accurate description of the errors Goodwin committed in her book “The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys.” (I followed these events closely at the time the news broke.) It’s a long involved story, with some interesting complications, but in brief: Inadvertent copying, which is what Goodwin claimed occurred, also constitutes plagiarism and is punishable as such. It isn’t always regarded as being on the same level with deliberate lifting, depending on the circumstances, but it’s still technically plagiarism because the fundamental issue involves not only intent but negligence. (And the “I took all these notes and didn't keep track” defense is, alas, standard among plagiarists of all stripes.) If memory serves, she also explained her borrowing of other writers’ sentences with, “There were footnotes” -- also an unacceptable defense. Nor were Goodwin’s copying problems limited to one work – around the same time, the Los Angeles Times did a pretty devastating follow up piece on Goodwin’s Roosevelt book “No Ordinary Time,” which also had footnote issues. (Goodwin is exceptionally well connected, so some people who wouldn’t ordinarily come to the defense of a writer with this kind of problem tried to argue that she wasn’t really guilty, or only sort of guilty.) Excuse the digression, but it did seem germane. Returning to the topic at hand, I’m sorry for Roca, but it seems to me that the paper did what it had to do. Borrowing from yourself is permissible in some contexts, but what he did here seems clearly unacceptable. It's too bad.

I'm inclined to agree with Drew. The difference in requirements for daily and weekly reviewers have been well rehearsed here, although Drew summarized them very well, so I won't rehash the topic. In Kisselgoff's case, these requirements are exacerbated by holding such a visible and powerful position. She has had to take a lot of heat from others, but I don't think we need to feel sorry for the chief critic of the Times. (I see few if any of the performances Kisselgoff does, so I can only go by what she writes.) Maybe not the world's most exciting writer, but there are worse problems for a critic to have, and she does know a great deal and imparts that information to her readers responsibly.

Let's not forget Oberon and Puck in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Recently, I also saw for this first time his very unusual solo – a moody sarabande, no jumping around-- for the leading man in "Square Dance." Balanchine did make many wonderful roles for men, but his public and some private statements on the subject often make people think otherwise. This isn't entirely a contradiction; he made distinguished roles for men, but for him the locus of classical dance was embodied in women, not in men, and so his primary concerns were elsewhere – and that's very evident in the ballets. There may also have been a hangover from his Diaghilev experience -- he didn't like having to compose to order for Lifar (even though the results, Apollo and Prodigal Son, turned out to be two of the best roles for men ever!). And it should be noted that even the partnering roles aren't just partnering – the chief male roles for men in "Emeralds" and "Diamonds," for example, aren't the equal of the role made for Edward Villella in "Rubies" – but they are very different from one another, and in neither case is the fellow just an anonymous porteur.

On second thought, I might substitute Adams for Kent.

I'm inclined to agree with oberon -- and there's so much more than artistry to think of -- there's time, circumstances, and the many what-ifs that a dancer's career involves. However, top-ten lists do give us an opportunity -- and thank you for the post, GeorgeB fan -- to make a few choices and defend them if need be. Anyway, I second atm711's list (from reading the various histories).

It starts next Tuesday. Also, as one who is still peevish because Ashton didn't get a program to himself, and who would have preferred to see his "Sylvia" instead of That Other Guy's, I register a pedant's protest against calling this the "Ashton program." (And not only does he have to share the program, but with a MacMillan ballet, God save the mark. ) :angry:

I'm not a diehard -- not even on the same coast, actually -- but I cast my nonvote vote for "Raymonda." I hope they bring it West. Also, that "conceived and directed by Holmes and Kevin McKenzie" line seems quite silly to me. I find "conceived by" to be a hopelessly pretentious term anyway, but here it almost suggests that they're taking credit for thinking up "Raymonda."

Drew, a belated thank-you for this. Sometimes one posts chiefly for one's own edification. The Fox sounds divine, and the company sounds promising (the live music is a very encouraging sign, IMO). I think a relatively youthful Lady Capulet makes sense -- if she was married as young as her daughter, she could be only thirty or thereabouts. As for being in love with Tybalt, that's a pet peeve of mine -- it takes the ballet on a completely irrelevant side path at a bad time -- but you can't eliminate it without cutting the score, Prokofiev doesn't give the choreographer much choice at that point. And I don't think "he really dances" is an absurd thing to say, at all. We all know exactly what you mean.

As mentioned, Raines isn't there any more and a number of changes have already taken place since then. I don't imagine the spiking of Lebrecht's article was due to the fell influence of his loathsome minions.

McBride or Makarova weren't pinheads, IMO. A large head can tend to dominate the rest of the figure – Tallchief counted hers as one of her flaws, as I remember – especially on stage. (On the other hand, movie stars often have relatively large heads in proportion to the rest of them, most likely because of film's emphasis on facial features, such as the eyes, for example. Toumanova also had a large head, which looks great in closeup shots, like that one of her by George Platt Lynes – but less well when she's seen in long shot, although she's gorgeous.)

Well, Die Walkure is traditionally the most popular, and it stands up well on its own, so I'd think it would be a good one to suggest to Wagner neophytes.

Makarova/Dowell with the Royal Ballet, for me.

I went to the site and downloaded Plushenko -- thanks, hockeyfan228 -- it's a great site. The glam quotient is always highest among the dance teams, I've noticed. Sounds like you got an eyeful.

I'll stand up for Parsifal --I adore every minute (okay, almost every minute). It could be four hours longer and I'd still be a happy camper.

Ed, I was listening, too. I actually had the opposite reaction to Domingo -- okay, maybe this is a role he should relinquish, but how dare he continue to sound so good (especially considering his monumentally heavy schedule over the years)? He's got nerve. You are correct, though -- the high notes are shot. Voigt was beautiful -- even on my lousy AM reception. I will never be a huge Eaglen fan -- the voice is big, but not gorgeous to me -- but I'm glad she's around to sing Wagner. I heard Behrens back when, but I'm embarrassed to admit I have no recollection of the performance at all.....

hockeyfan228, thanks so much, especially for the "you are there" details. It's very hard to judge some things -- important things like ice coverage -- from television. Weir reminds me not only of Curry, but particularly of Toller Cranston – he has that almost subversive slinkiness in his quality of movement. (His outfit was slightly Toller-ish, too, although Toller would have opted for more decolletage. ) I enjoyed watching him and Lindemann the most, but all the top men were fun to watch save Weiss, even if nobody was quite perfect. I agree with you about Lambiel, too – it's as if his enthusiasm gets the better of him, and he sort of throws himself all over the ice. Some of those landings made me wince. On television, his spins were striking but didn't seem well centered. Old Fashioned, I saw the latter part of the exhibition. Cohen still doesn't overwhelm me – but you're right, this was probably the best exhibition program of hers I've seen. On the other hand, I don't think heavy dramatic music is really right for her in general – she alternates between inappropriate broad smiles and a pained, I've-got-an-Excedrin-headache look when she's trying for emotion. She is getting better, though.

Yes, Farrell's legs were long in proportion to her torso, but not too long by any means – she isn't really an example of the extreme figures I think we're talking about, although she falls into the same general category and certainly provided a model for the type. (And she had visible hips, which added, attractively, to the "plush" silvy mentions – I thought of her the other day when I was watching the Terpsichore of a certain ballerina with skinny, skinny calves and thighs…..)

She had a substantial supporting role in "The Red Shoes" --as Mme. Hermine notes, she played the prima who leaves the company to marry, thus creating an opening for Moira Shearer's heroine. And yes, she looked very chic, too.