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There is no link to it unless you subscribe, but today's Wall Street Journal has a very enthusiastic piece by Terry Teachout on Robert Weiss's Carolina Ballet and a recent all-new, all-Stravinsky program.

I heard singer-songwriter Kate Campbell in concert last night. She was wonderful, but I wouldn't want to see a ballet to her music, or to that of any other folkie I can think of. But Ballet Memphis is doing a "ballet" to some of her songs soon. She'll be singing onstage. Has anyone heard any more details? I suppose it'll be a modern dance piece.

In Repertory in Review Goldner writes that while dancers, especially those dancing the solos, have always loved Divertimento No.15, according to Denby it took ten years to become popular and the dancers themselves "fought to retain it." Hard to imagine, isn't it? That was my new favorite ballet the first time I saw it.

Lincoln Kirstein lived at 128 E. 19th, or 126, or whatever one door west of 130 is. 130 is the number I can just barely make out, with a magnifying glass, on the snapshot I took. I knew he'd lived on East 19th, but no one in the neighborhood seemed to know where and I only discovered it by accident a few months later while on vacation in Massachusets. I'd made arrangements to see few pieces at Harvard's Fogg Museum that weren't then out in the galleries, and one was an Elie Nadelman sculpture. After we viewed them, the curator asked if we'd like to see the papers pertaining to each piece. Well, sure. And there in the Nadelman papers was a letter to Kirstein. Oh happy day!

Lincoln Kirstein lived at 128 E. 19th, or 126, or whatever one door west of 130 is. 130 is the number I can just barely make out, with a magnifying glass, on the snapshot I took. I knew he'd lived on East 19th, but no one in the neighborhood seemed to know where and I only discovered it by accident a few months later while on vacation in Massachusets. I'd made arrangements to see few pieces at Harvard's Fogg Museum that weren't then out in the galleries, and one was an Elie Nadelman sculpture. After we viewed them, the curator asked if we'd like to see the papers pertaining to each piece. Well, sure. And there in the Nadelman papers was a letter to Kirstein. Oh happy day!

I’ve been reading Alexandra’s new book and I’m intrigued by something in the chapter on Apollo. Kronstam remembers that when Balanchine taught the ballet he asked for larger, stage-filling dancing of the sort that Jacques D’Amboise would soon do in the role, but that the choreographer later scaled the movement down for Barishnikov. Kronstam says that Peter Martins and Barbara Horgan would “scream” if they came to Copenhagen and saw it danced in the old way. This puzzles me for a number of reasons. We know that in general Balanchine wanted bigger movements, not smaller ones, especially, if I’m not mistaken, on the large State Theater stage. And Barishnikov, technical whiz that he was, could really cover some ground. So that’s a little strange right there, or maybe I’m not understanding something. In any case, why would Martins want it danced smaller? Balanchine coached him in it before he coached Barishnikov, and Martins, who *is* tall, continued to dance it after Barishnikov left NYCB – certainly the choreographer didn’t go back to Martins and have rescale his performance? In fact, although it appears he wasn’t speaking specifically about size, Alexandra quotes Martins as saying Balanchine never did “tamper” with it. For those who haven’t bought the book, Martins’ and Kronstam’s recollections clash on another point as well -- but I shan’t reveal what it is!

So I take it that so far no one's sporting corporate logos on tights or tutu like on a stock car, right? :rolleyes:

The NY Times had a paragraph or two about Ballet Alert in '98. And if they hadn't, I'd probably still not know about the board.

The NY Times had a paragraph or two about Ballet Alert in '98. And if they hadn't, I'd probably still not know about the board.

Jack and dirac, thanks for the responses, and Jack, thanks especially for your review. For my money (which hasn’t paid for many Tzigane’s), Magnicaballi was sensational last night. A Farewell to Music looked a lot better to me the 2nd time around, although I agree that the angry section, among other sections where the choreography isn’t lyrical, seems more than a little out of place. But I found the lowering and raising of heels beautiful, and the opening and closing grouping and looking up and around reminded me vaguely of Dances at a Gathering. The rest of the program was a foretaste of heaven.

I’ve been wondering about "Variations for Orchestra." The program states that its premiere was on July 2, 1982, while Repertory in Review dates a "Variations" for the same music to March 31, 1966. That piece had a corps, but Farrell has staged a solo. Repertory in Review only goes through '76. So did Balanchine cut the corps parts in '82? And did he redo Farrell's part? The piece reminded me a little of the solo in Tzigane to Stravinsky – not the steps, but the feel -- especially with Pickard's red dress, another change from the '66 version apparently. I love her dancing, but this didn't do much for me, and the shadow, although it was interesting, was distracting. I found myself watching for correspondence and divergence, and I don’t remember the piece as well as I’d like to. On Sunday I think I’ll try to ignore it and just watch what Balanchine actually choreographed. As for Tzigane, I usually enjoy it more for the music than the dancing, at least during the opening solo, but for once, during Jennifer Fournier's performance of the solo as part of the lecture/demonstration, I got caught up its sensuality and detail. Farrell made laugh when she said she wished we could all dance a Balanchine ballet. Me too. Michael Jordan holds basketball camps for anyone with a couple of thousand bucks, or whatever it is, and Farrell can no doubt use more money for her company. But I think I'm too old to learn entrechats. Raymonda Variations put a great big smile on my face from the moment the curtain went up, and almost lived up to my burnished memory of seeing it 12 years ago in Saratoga with Nichols and Woetzel. I’d pay to see Boal in anything, and he and Goh seemed very much at ease with each other, which wasn’t the case with the Scotch Symphony I caught last year. In Who Cares, I thought the corps captured the spirit and the accents much better than the female soloists. But the whole thing was delightful anyhow. I'm so grateful that this company comes here every year now!

I've gotten a kick out of everyone's response to the NYCB brochure photos. The one thing I like about the back cover shot is the lack of make-up. I always think pretty girls are prettier without it, at least offstage. To my mind, offstage NYCB publicity shots have been silly and pretentious for years now, especially ones with the begowned girls in the forest. But the Evans-Taylor shot was the worst. If you're sharing an intimate moment, Janie, what are you looking at us for? I thought that was in lousy taste.

I’ve just started Jeffrey Hart’s “Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe,” a book about how the tension and interplay between Athens and Jerusalem shaped Western culture. Also, I’m finally reading – and laughing my way through -- a “classic” I’ve been meaning to get around to for years, G.K. Chesterton’s “The Man Who Was Thursday.” Sometimes when I’ve had just a minute or two to spare in the midst of other tasks recently I’ve been grabbing Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations,” in a new translation by one Gregory Hays. This was one of those, I-only-meant-to-go-hear-the-reading, not-get-the-book buys. And although I never read mysteries, I did read Stephen L. Carter’s “The Emperor of Ocean Park” this summer, because I’ve enjoyed his non-fiction. It’s 500-some pages long and I got a little tired of it about 2/3 of the way through, but only for a short while.

I notice that Suzanne Farrell Ballet is performing both of these pieces at the Kennedy Center in October, and I've never heard of either one. Are they Bejart's? Who are the composers? What are the ballets like? Thanks!

dirac, thanks for explaining. tempusfugit, I wasn't knocking Balanchine. I don't think going to a strip club is either a good thing, or the worst thing in the world. As for Toni Bentley, I loved "Winter "Season" the first time I read it and I loved it the second time I read it. And I've been meaning to buy "Costumes for Karinska" for years. I just think it's sad that she felt driven to experience such power over men (maybe some archetypal urges ought to be rejected), and to seek it by stripping. I think it's especially sad given that she was already a Balanchine dancer, and as such already had a great deal of sensual power. I myself half fell in love with her just reading "Winter Season."

Bentley's first chapter includes a fascinating anecdote about Balanchine trotting off to a pretentious Paris strip club after City Ballet performances. And she makes an interesting comparison between dancing and stripping. For my money, her own story is sad and -- not to be unkind -- a little pathetic. But she can write!

I've been hoping to hear what Leigh and Alexandra and other longtime City Ballet watchers who were away thought. In enormous, instructive detail! ;) I loved Mercurial Manoevres and the Lynnne Taylor-Corbett piece and was pleasantly surprised at a lot of Jeu de Cartes. But I don't care to see male dancers in red shorts, and that 2nd Martins piece was about the dullest ballet I've ever seen.

It’s amazing what you can find on Ballet Alert sometimes. I spent much of my childhood in Wheaton and a couple of towns bordering it, and that near-nekkid “Trinity” was the very first dance I ever saw. Not that I remember it being that good. Evangelicals are regularly confused with fundamentalists, but while the former may be as theologically conservative and culturally benighted as the latter, they often aren’t. Many evangelicals have wide and educated cultural tastes. Wheaton and Wheaton College are strongholds of evangelicalism, not fundamentalism, and the dancing students had to pledge not to engage in was social. I could be mistaken, but I really don’t think the theatrical was covered. So while I’m sure there are evangelicals who are suspicious of dance, I’ve met legions who aren’t. As for mainline Protestantism being too intellectual for evangelicals, I’m afraid that’s another overly broad statement. Although writers like LaHaye are bestsellers, many evangelicals have no interest in pulp like that or “What Would Jesus Eat” or almost anything else in the ghetto of what the Times aptly called “spiritually correct” bookstores. And while it’s true some evangelicals won’t let their kids read Harry Potter, others, such as Alan Jacobs, a Wheaton College English professor, have praised it. See www.booksandculture.com or www.marshillaudio.org for some “heady” evangelical thinking. So I don’t think evangelicalism as a whole is a threat to concert dance. Finally, on the recommendation of an evangelical, I attended a certain Upper West side church one Sunday morning in 1990. During the social hour after the service someone asked me why I was in town. When I told them I’d come to see NYCB, he mentioned that a couple of its members attended there.

I'm sure a lot of Ballet Alertniks have read it, but here's the link to Richard Cohen's delightful take on the Pavarotti bailout -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2002May13.html

The New Criterion's dance critic, Laura Jacobs, has a piece in this month's issue entitled "Petipaw." www.newcriterion.com/archive/20/mar02/jacobs.htm The link has probably already been posted -- I don't check the links every day -- but it's so beautifully written that I want to be sure.

Thanks, Alexandra. As you can imagine, the "pager" was just the light hitting a jewel on the bodice of Aurora's dress at regular intervals. Perhaps it was only visible from the 2nd balcony. And btw, I'd never sat up there before, and was very pleasantly surprised at how well we could see. I had a hard time with Nioradze's fixed, over-emotive face in Act 1, but she softened it later. I liked her dancing, as I did 2 and a 1/2 years ago in Giselle at the Met. Could you give an example of "old-fashioned"? I've never seen the Trocks, but I gather that they get their laughs not just from the fact that they dance a lot of women's roles, but from the way they over-emphasize (inappropriately pose, almost) and over-emote.

Has the Lilac Fairy always become the Helmet Fairy (the Hard Hat Fairy?) in Act 2? And when did the sleeping Aurora start wearing a flashing pager? Anyhow, I'm easy to please in story ballets -- that was only my 2nd Beauty -- and I loved the corps and most everyone else. So that wasn't Golub as Diamond? We thought Diamond and Silver were especially lovely.

angeltoes, if your library is willing to use interlibrary loan, you might try this URL for the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library system headquartered in Charlottesville. We have ballet videos here. http://jmrl.org/main/main.htm