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I loved van Kipnis' warmth and evident joy in Barocco, but how anyone could profess to cherish the Balanchine legacy and cast Borree in so important a ballet is one of life's great mysteries. Thank you for that description, Ari. I always try to like her, and then she comes out and bobbles a step in under 30 seconds. If she just looked like she was enjoying what she was doing I could half enjoy it with her, despite the stiff carriage. But she never does. I also thought the ballet lacked the original jazzines when it was called for. Roualt's backdrops were about the most beautiful thing onstage all night, but I'm a little tired of Prodigal Son, and perhaps that colored my viewing. I remembered the goons as much weirder, Fayette's fake beard made the guy next to me in row Q laugh out loud, and Kowroski didn't seem commanding enough. I could understand the prodigal's attraction to her, but not why he'd let her dominate him. Woetzel, however, still impressive in his leaps, was a riveting actor. I thought Weese was rather on the bland side -- bland is one word I'd use for the corps all night -- but I couldn't take my eyes off of Bouder, who had a couple of wobbles herself, but kept on plowin'. She had the authority and projected personality I missed in the central role. Watching the rehearsals in the afternoon, I felt that excitement you mentioned yesterday, Alexandra. The actual performances paled, and paled next to what I often see from Suzanne Farrell's troupe. I kept thinking, "can this really be New York City Ballet, that I have to hunt for who to watch, that I sit here umoved?" I look forward to Saturday evening's performance with high hopes anyhow, but to Sunday afternoon's Jewels with some trepidation.

Thanks, everyone. I look forward to seeing NYCB's Emeralds in D.C. in a couple of weeks.

Speaking of "fixing" ballets . . . after reading Verdy's comments about Emeralds in the Costas book, where she speaks of "beautiful, intricate work in it, that has disappeared" because Balanchine was angered by Irving's fast tempos and took it out, I've been meaning to ask if anyone could describe this choreography. And I know she helped stage this ballet for Miami City Ballet. She says she still remembers the lost choreography. Does anyone know, did she really not teach it down there?

Yeah, my wife, but then there's no explaining her sometime. She loves the sunburst image, and doesn't care for the birth scene. I love the sunburst but prefer the full ballet for all the usual reasons. Alexandra, do you remember where the photo of Balanchine as the rose is published?

dirac, I don't think the money should be used as a political weapon, ideally, but as we know, artists often use their art that way, and NEA opponents are just fighting back. (Would you pay to have someone mock you?) I'm sure we agree that City Ballet deserves NEA money. Self-indulgent, self-consciously experimental "artists" whose work would not find an audience were it not for its politics does not, in my opinion, merit public suppport. Of course what's self-indulgent and what's a worthy if failed experiment is a judgment call, but political conservatives can't be faulted for not always deferring to the judgment of liberals. We're talking human nature, and to some degree the self-styled "progressive" arts community has reaped what it's sown. Gioia has brains and taste, as others have observed, and I know we all hope he'll succeed in getting more funding by using it wisely.

With all our talk of the NEA and its relatively new head, I'm sure some people here would enjoy hearing this (legal) mp3 of him speaking and reading. -- Dana Gioia talks about the life and work of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), and reads a poem inspired by the death of his wife, "The Cross of Snow." -- Gioia reads Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Yes, PBS is in sad shape. NPR just received a huge gift from Mrs. Kroc, at least. My point was just that when it comes to publicly funded political art and other programming , the Right may hold the purse strings at the moment, but the Left is pretty much in charge of how the allocated money is actually spent. Three cheers for Scott Simon and Bill Moyers and Garrison Keillor, but until their conservative equivalents (OK, Keillor's in a category by himself) get airtime, the Left's cries about cultural reactionaries shutting them ring a bit hollow to me. That's because both sides are playing hardball.

dirac, I think we all vote sometimes with an eye towards how our money is going to be spent. Again, I'm no friend of the NEA slashers, and I think they're terribly misguided, but I have some degree of sympathy. And I have no interest in fanning partisan flames -- and as I've said, I'm rooting for Gioia anyhow -- but I think if we're talking culture wars here, which I'm afraid we are, fair allocation of resources in one agency relates to fair allocation in another. But I'm not trying to start a fight.

I have no interest in trying to defend the Bush administration, or people who are either consistent or inconsistent in their objection to "big" government. I'm merely saying that you can't expect cultural conservatives to agree to fund work by people openly hostile to them and often of highly questionable aesthetic value. And from the experimental work I see (little nowadays, granted) and hear of, the Finleys and Mapplethorpes and Serrannos ar just the worst ofenders. I can hear an objection here -- we're a democracy and everyone deserves representation. Quite right -- political conservatives (I hold both liberal and conservative views) deserve far better represention on NPR and PBS. Two wrongs don't make a right, and I'm really sorry to see work like Leigh's lack funding, but I think that's a needed perspective.

For what it's worth, I believe it was Clarence Thomas whom I saw at a Renee Fleming/National Symphony Orchestra concert recently. Cultural conservatives, or reactionaries if you will, don't object to funding the arts, or funding experimental work as such, they object to funding work that mocks and assails values they hold dear. Someone correct me in my ignorance if need be, but I could never figure out what Karen Finley needed my money for -- Belgian chocolate? Anyhow . . . go Dana go!

rkoretzky, you were anything but inarticulate. Thanks for your careful observation, which gives me a thrill of beauty as I sit here at home, far from the New York State Theater.

Well, I looked that them again last night and loved them too!

If Stroman is weak on steps, wouldn't Tharp have been the logical choice for a new piece in honor of Balanchine's work on Broadway? She's more expensive, and Stroman has the hotter name at the moment, is that it? Gottlieb's opening paragraph made me want to cheer.

Torture us, why don't you? :sweating: I'd save Apollo, but lay awake at nights wondering if I should have picked 4T's, Agon, or Serenade.

Thanks for the reviews, folks. The partnering was indeed a little rough at times. I thought Sarafanov looked about 16 as a character compared to everyone else, especially with Korsakov (or did Scherbakov have the solo?) onstage. Even his mother was was taller and larger-boned. I couldn't think of him as a prince in Act One, especially with that constant, irritating grin, and rather than watching a story unfold, I found myself studying a performance. But I thought he danced and mimed with real nobility afterwards, and Sologub came alive after the first act as well, where she danced well, didn't seem to have much personality. I'd love to see them do this again in a few years. As the jester, Ivavnov's pirouettes began at high speed and soon went supersonic. I didn't hear a boom, but the audience gasped. Popov was an impressive Rothbart as well. The national dances have always bored me, but the performances last night won me over. Ah, but in 28 years of going to the ballet, this was my first live Swan Lake.

That's exactly what I always hope to read, honest praise and honest criticism. If I've seen the performance or the choreography or dancer/s in question, the chief pleasure of a review for me is to match my opinions with the critic's and perhaps have mine challenged. Of course I'm disappointed if the writer knocks something I loved, but I'm looking to sharpen my own eye and ear and mind, both for the pure intellectual pleasure of it, and so I'll more deeply appreciate the next performance.

I'd been waiting for someone to let it all out. ;) Who commissioned this thing anyhow? Gergiev? He obviously at least OK'ed it. How does a conductor, of all musical people, commission a production so at odds with its music base??

Once upon a time, or so I imagine remembering, people approached a review thinking of the critic as something of an authority. Not that the writer might not be mistaken in ways large or small. But given that the critics's experience of the art form vastly dwarfed that of the average reader, chances are they were better able than said reader to judge the work at hand. Nowadays it seems, we're so taken with confused notions of equality and individuals "truths" that it's bad form to even make an assertion without qualifying it as what it obviously is -- an opinion.

Thanks, Alexandra. I have np interest in seeing this.

I skipped this production because I didn't want to see a dark story danced to Tchaikovsky's music. Now I'm wondering, does The Waltz of the Flowers as it's staged here cohere with the rest of the ballet? It sure doesn't sound like it. Does it make any kind of emotional sense? What sort of set is that danced to? Thanks.

I'd love to see the "Orpheus" Balanchine did for the Met. Also, "Le Chant du Rossignol."

This reminds me of the final SFB performance at the Kennedy Center this year, when a mother and two little kids came in very late, at the start of The Unanswered Question, and marched all the way down front to their seats, with the mother directing the children where to sit in a voice that must have been audible in the entire theater, thereby completely destroying the atmosphere of the ballet. I'm used to unthoughtful patrons, but what in the world was the usher thinking?

For those who've been looking forward to this book, it's out now, and despite the $45 price, the Kennedy Center sold out its copies this past weekend. I found the color in a lot of the photos rather garish, and I didn't buy a copy, but I'll suppose I'll break down eventually and shell out for the essays.

Robert Greskovic writes about Suzanne Farrell Ballet in today's Wall Street Journal. Online, the article is available only to subscribers.

I look forward to Farrell’s Kennedy Center visits so much. Watching her company, such as it is, I see the dancers’ joy, and I see, or imagine I see, the attention to detail, and the musical sensitivity, coherence and vision that her stagings are known for. I don’t always see, or don’t always mind, the technical shortcomings that more practiced eyes notice in some of the younger dancers. If I was disappointed with the first half of this first program this year, it was mostly due to Boal’s absence. Mozartiana -- I’ve always admired Goh’s dancing, naturally, and she struck me as appropriately spiritual in Chaconne last year. But Tuesday night after the Pregheria she gave the impression (and the impression is all I’m talking about) of dancing for us instead of for herself alone. I presume it’s this quality that Alexandra describes as “shy . . . “joy” and Jack calls “playfulness.” From row F – effectively the 3rd row with the orchestra pit in use (hooray!) – I thought of it as understatedly flirtatious. Whatever the case, on Wednesday night she muted it into a more appropriate, and very lovely, quietness and dignity. I don’t know that I’d call it inwardness yet, but she was getting there. After the ballet’s opening movement prayer, the character dance that follows has always somewhat broken the spell for me. In her autobiography Farrell said something about being eager to discover the world of this ballet. To my mind, the two movements were set in different worlds. Ritter’s Gigue made sense to me Tuesday, though, and Redick made me miss Boal less than I thought I would. Still, my favorite rendition of Mozartiana this week was the rehearsal, where from the back of the balcony the choreography struck me as much as the performance. Waltz of the Flowers was a full-fledged delight, frothy like Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux to follow, but with a lot more emotional weight. I’ve seen this live only three times previously, but I don’t remember feeling as much excitement as when Parsley came plowing downstage (downstage?) while the corps parted just in time. With Pickard Wednesday night, the moment was actually suspenseful. Both danced with a beautiful, almost brash confidence and joy, but while Parsley projected a certain self-containment nonetheless, Pickard looked like she’d just received unimaginably good news. She was so aw-shucks –exuberant (OK, what’s the St. Petersburg salon phrase for “aw shucks”?), it took me some time to adjust. I don’t know how much Boal might have energized and emboldened Fournier, but without two completely performers so confident they can almost, as it were, toy with the ballet, there isn’t much point in it, is there? I wonder if Farrell gave it to Fournier to prod her into letting loose, as Balanchine was sometimes known to give dancers parts they weren’t yet suited to. I think it was Alexandra who wondered what Serenade must have looked like in the original costumes. After Tuesday afternoon’s run-through I can report that danced in a motley mishmash of practice clothes and tulle skirts it’s a heart-tugging, spellbinding, deeply romantic ballet. I’ve seen this ballet in the theater a mere 9 times now, counting Tuesday and Wednesday – NYCB, MCB, and the Kirov – and these 3 were by far my favorite performances. Jack has described the wonderful moment when the man lays the Waltz girl down. Mladenov let her down ever so slowly, pausing even, and the orchestra paused with him. For several seconds. I’ll have to watch my tape and listen to Robert Irving’s recording to compare, but . . . whew! In the Elegie, I fell in love with the score all over again. As for the leads, as good as Parsley and Magnicaballi were, Pickard was the heart of the ballet for me. Jack, I can’t really make sense of Pickard’s smile Wednesday either, but I loved it. You may have noticed too that he actually smiled back at her at one point, as they moved through the corps. I’ll bet that tonight’s performance, Boal or no Boal, was even better. In any case, we’re getting snow and sleet here in Virginia, with more predicted. I have matinee tickets for Saturday and Sunday, and I’m calling on all good ballet fans to pray for the weather!