kfw

Scroll down to "Opera troubles" for discussion of PBS' policy on broadcasting opera.

ArtsJournal

There is also a link here to an article on the same subject in Opera News.

My apologies if any of this has already been posted.

I hate the word "blog," but no matter, that's the word this critic uses, and I'm sure there are others here who enjoy his writing. This seems to be hosted by artsjournal.com.

www.terryteachout.com.

I can understand how a dancer would love dancing to all sorts of music, but I still find it strange that Kistler claims not to have favorite ballets. Perhaps she's just being diplomatic. I'd never expect a dancer who loves everything, or loves it all equally, to stand out herself. It sounds like she has no taste, and yet she obviously does.

She telegraphs because she still has to think hard about what she'd doing? And you can read this primarily on her face?

I see I'm not the only one who liked the '93 revival of Haieff Divertimento. Or do you just want to see them try it again? Oh for Ballet Alert back in '93!

Amen, Farrell Fan. Bring her back, and let dancers who danced for Balanchine come in and coach to their heart's content. And pay'em so much that there won't be money left over for new Stroman and Eiffman pieces.

Who wants my tape? (Anyone have any rare Balanchine?)

I tend to read too many things at once. Currently it’s “Homemade Aesthetics,” a collection of essays and talks by the art critic Clement Greenburg, “Understanding Walker Percy” by Linda Hobson, and Austen’s “Mansfield Park.” Too much for me to concentrate on at once. Waiting impatiently at my bedside are Nicholas Wolterstorff’s “Art in Action” and the chapter on "The Symposium" in Allan Bloom’s “Love and Friendship.” And I know I’m going to want to reread Percy’s “Love in the Ruins” and “The Last Gentleman.”

Mark Morris at BAM

http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/21/jun...un03/jacobs.htm

I'm sure there are wonderful things on TV. And just as soon as I get done reading all the Great Books, reading all the great commentaries on them, then reading the original books again, I'm going to find out what those programs are!

Dana Gioia, in an admiring piece published last October --

"Moulin Rogue

Can film-maker Baz Luhrman really make La Bohème sing for a Broadway audience?"

http://www.danagioia.net/essays/eluhrman.htm

Marcia Siegel on Tricia Brown --

http://www.hudsonreview.com/siegelSp03.pdf

Originally posted by citibob [/i]

-- There's a common kind of racism that if you're an ethnic minority that you're supposed to be overwhelmingly interested in "your" culture; but that if you're white, you can partake in any culture you like. The truth is this is a free society, and anyone should be able to follow his or her own interests. -------

No kidding. Nonetheless, because African and African-American culture was so slighted in this country, many African-Americans are all the more drawn to it, from pride as well as affinity. It stands to reason that fewer devote themselves to ballet. As you say, in a free society, anyone should be able to follow his or her own interests.

------- Actually, the reason is a lot simpler. African Americans only make up 12% of the population. So if you're an Afro-centric group that does not appeal to a broader audience, you've already cut your donor base by a whopping 88%. The numbers are actually worse, since most of the really wealthy people in the USA are white. -----

That too, obviously. But the issue was racism in the dance world. Do you call that racism?

------ If you find that there's a difference in ratios in what comes out vs. what goes in, then you have a case for bias. For example, you might notice that 970 girls go in, along with 30 boys. Ten years later, you have 7 young ladies and 3 young men ready to be hired professionally. In this case, it's clear that the system is MUCH more favorable to men than to women. We can make this claim without regard to the relative level of interest in ballet between boys and girls. Because in looking at the kids entering the system, we're already considering boys who for whatever reason expressed interest in ballet. --

But you're assuming the interest will remain the same, from the early days of fun through the long years of great focus and committment. Perhaps it does, but I'd think cultural differences could play a role. How many potential Villella's stick with dance vs. boys from Manhattan? In the same way, a relative lack of community and parental interest and support could be a factor among minorities. I don't know that it is, of course. Perhaps most

African-American kids who take ballet come from families with broad cultural tastes. But I think it's a mistake to simply presume racism. And I don't know why you acknowledge it's an issue and then dismiss it as not relevant. Do you mean that more African-Americans should take an interest? I wish they would, but that's another matter.

---Look, the above arguments seem to be saying "African-Americans just don't care about ballet; there are no interested patrons and no interested donors, so there's nothing we can do." As I've explained in detail, I just don't buy that. Listen to the stories, you will begin to see just how hard it is. --

The arguments contained no such blanket statements of course. I don't some doubt racism does exist in the dance world.

citibob, you make good points about DTH of course, but don't they perform a lot of work with African and African-American influences? And if so, wouldn't they be the first choice of many of the African-American dancers who gravitate to ballet? And surely one reason for the budget disparity is that African-Americans are less likely to love ballet and more likely to lend patronage to art forms with African roots or strong African-American traditions. In a similar vein, how many African-American kids get ballet lessons? How large is the pool really, in this highly competitive art form? Finally, don’t dancers, like most artists, overwhelmingly lean to the political Left?

I've been wondering if immersion in pop culture might explain the director's choices for a performance of Gluck's opera "Orpheus and Eurydice" that I saw Saturday night. She substituted insanity for death and a mental hospital for the underworld, trivializing the story and making nonsense of its most dramatic and moving scene, the one where Orpheus struggles to obey the command not to look back at Eurydice. What other mindset would substitute the banal for the mysterious, go for laughs, trade on hoary clichés about heartless mental hospital staff and crazy people with hearts of gold, and think all that sabotage would help the audience "rediscover truths hidden in the myth"? I know directors have been redoing the classics for a long time, but this was ridiculous. At least the singing and playing held up. Ed Waffle, are you reading? Does anyone have any other theories?

dirac, I'm sure that focus enriches them in ways I don't comprehend. And as I said, there are exceptions like Farrell, and many others on lesser levels.

But what could even Farrell have been with a better education? And -- I don't have her autobiography with me -- didn't Balanchine at least take her to museums? Of course he may be something of an exception himself, given what we know of his leisure pursuits. But at least he had Diaghlev and whatever the Maryinsky gave him, including great musical depth.

And yes, I mentioned that Weese watched all that TV when she was injured. There are good things on the tube, of course, but it isn't the first place you expect lovers of the arts to turn. She didn't say, "I read a lot of great novels I'd never had time for."

Sometimes, like when I read that an injured Miranda Weese spent a lot of time watching television, I wonder how many dancers ballet experience and understand ballet as high art, and how many mainly just enjoy moving their bodies to music. Aren't they too busy -- unless and until they become principals, at least -- with taking classes, rehearsing, and dancing to pursue an education in the arts even if they have the inclination? I may put things too bluntly, and I certainly put them too simply. There are dancers like this giving us rich and accomplished performances. But this tunnel vision has been noted on this board before, in where-are-the-today's-great-dancers-? discussions.

She wrote an autobiography entitled simply "Zorina." I checked amazon trying to recall the title and they also sell a book called "Zorina Balllerina," for kids 4-8. Their sole reviewer writes "Fun book for dance and elephant lovers. The elephants were really trained to dance in a real circus."

In The Weekly Standard --

Music's Greatest Ventriloquist: Robert Craft and his Stravinsky.

by Joseph Epstein

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...02/279boocb.asp

Epstein writes:

"A COMPLICATION ARISES, however, over the question of how much in these printed conversations is pure Stravinsky, how much is Stravinsky put through the filter of Craft, and how much might be Craft alone speaking through Stravinsky. (Craft also wrote longish, quite brilliant letters over the signature of Vera Stravinsky.) . . . People who have elsewhere recorded the composer's speech--see, for example, Paul Horgan in "Encounters with Stravinsky"--will recognize that, however brilliant and amusing he may have been, he was simply not capable of the subtleties of syntax, irony, and wit with which Craft has endowed him."

This reminds me of Kirstein and Balanchine.

I think all Fayette was quoted as saying is that he slams his shoulder against the wall when it goes out. (I think that was Fayette). And the photos must have been shot for the article -- Orza wears a wristwatch.

The article is juvenile, and its author makes a several dubious claims -- men in the company make less money than women? Balanchine is even said to have been an ardent fan of something I've never ever read of him having any interest in. For those who haven't seen Details, I'll spare you the image, because the writer must be (ab)using the word as a metaphor for love-less sex. But perhaps someone can correct me on that.

Kay, I once heard a male dancer complain that he was having trouble talking to women in his ballet company. I think the guy's a principal now -- I'll bet that helped! If the women in NYCB company have any self-respect, Seth and Orza may need a lot of help now too.

In the March 3 issue Diane Rafferty faults the company's technique. Sofiane Sylve has poor alignment; "practically no one can jump anymore;" Schorer advocates the "bad technique" of landing on releve or demi-point; too many men are flapping their hands; too many women have over-developed muscles; first men and now women are overcrossing in fifth position.

This criticism is followed by praise for Boal, Kowroski, Rutherford, Stafford, and Millepied.

Maybe it is tokenism, but fans of a particular troupe are always wondering why this or that dancer isn't used more. How large is the pool of African-American dancers? How many African-American kids take ballet?

I sure don’t claim to have good taste, but I do feel strongly that good and bad taste are true and necessary categories, even though we probably all sometimes assign specific artistic works and aesthetic objects to the wrong category.

Wasn’t it here not too long ago that people were talking about different levels of perception, about the various levels on which one can appreciate a ballet? I imagine we can all agree that some errors of taste come through inexperience. Or, to put it another way, we might say that what’s good taste at a young age or for an inexperienced audience member may be bad taste for an older or more experienced one.

If you’ve never seen “Liebeslieder Walzer” (I’ve only seen it on video), you might think Martins’ “A Schubertiad” is a great ballet. (Or perhaps if you’ve seen more ballet than I have, and know something about waltzing and understand music better than I do, you might think the comparison spurious). Certainly a viewer who doesn’t listen to classical music and saw “A Schubertiad” by a third rate company on his or her first evening at the ballet might think the piece was excellent, not knowing that other ballets and other dancers display much more of the admired qualities. If they’re naturally perceptive – if they have budding good taste – that novice might even see and admire qualities that some experienced viewers were incapable of seeing. Or precisely because they’re new to the ballet they might have been concentrating hard enough to notice things others missed, so that we could say that in loving that ballet they displayed better taste than certain better educated but jaded or naturally less capable viewers.

The first ballets I ever saw were Robert Joffrey’s “Trinity” and Gerald Arpino’s “The Relativity of Icarus.” I doubt if I’d be much taken with either piece today. But while at this late date I still see and put in good perceptual order a great deal less at the ballet than a lot of people here, I was able to see enough that night to move me to go back to the Auditorium Theater on my own, and to develop a love for the ballet. I’m guessing that some of the kids in my humanities class who came away unmoved or unintrigued might have had more inherently better “eyes” than I do, and might today be knowledgeable and tasteful lovers of other arts, but might never have learned to love the dance because they weren’t curious enough to try, to pay close attention.

I remember going to a Bob Marley concert and finally “getting it” about halfway through. I can remember buying all sorts of records of music I wasn’t familiar with because I was excited by a review and wanted to understand, as much as experience, what the reviewer was talking about. In her little book, “On Beauty and Being Just,” Elaine Scarry quotes a passage of Proust in which the author can’t stop staring at a face and declares that he’ll follow its owner wherever she goes. Scarry writes: “This willingness continually to revise one’s own location in order to place oneself in the path of beauty is the basic impulse underlying education. One submits oneself to other minds (teachers) in order to increase the chance that one will be looking in the right direction when a comet makes its sweep through a certain patch of sky” -- not a bad description of one reason I read Ballet Alert. Which in turn makes me buy books like Scarry’s, which in turn . . .

I guess what I’m saying is that I think the best taste, the most discerning taste, the most trustworthy taste, is also wide taste. It doesn’t just love and understand great ballets or piano pieces; it recognizes and adores aesthetic quality in many fields.

And I think that good taste is moral taste. Not that good art has to have a neat little moral, heaven forbid. But I think character will affect taste, beginning in some cases with the kind of art and entertainment we’re drawn to. A person of good character has his or her thoughts and emotions well-ordered. Good art is ordered and proportionate as well, and there’s the link, I think. Not that people of bad character can’t have a taste for good art – obviously, they can. We’re all drawn to the good; we can’t fully lose our taste for it. But I think poor character will compromise our understanding and appreciation, so that we’ll miss the full dimensions of the beautiful, miss its links to the greater good, or fail to appreciate them when we note them. I think again of the Scarry quote above. Good art will lead us further, into inquiry that is intellectual (even when it’s not given the high falutin’ word) as well as aesthetic.

Anyhow, maybe we could kick this discussion into a higher gear and sketch out a few principles with a polite but no holds barred debate over the merits of a particular ballet. I remember people here hating Martins’ Swan Lake, and hating Kevin McKenzie’s. Does anyone love them, and why?

Also, I’ve been reading Bruce Fleming’s essays in Sex, Art, and Audience, many of them first published in Alexandra’s DanceView. I don’t know if he posts here or just lurks, but I’m sure he’d have very useful things to say on this subject. And I’ll bet there are people here who’ve studied aesthetics. So I hope this thread will be continued.

But they probably won't concentrate well enough to learn to appreciate art as art instead of mere entertainment unless they do shut up.

I love it, dirac. Perhaps companies could send out a cavalier (of sorts) too, to stand on the other side of the hapless wobbler, catch her when she's bumped, and unceremoniously drag her off.