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ABT danced it in D.C. in 2005 and 2007. Hallberg was Part's cavalier, and Erica Cornejo was a beautiful Clara, in the 2005 performance I saw. This danceviewtimes review from 2005 says a bit about the production. You can also get some little sense of it in from the White House Children's Christmas Reception in 2005, broadcast by C-Span.

For what it's worth, if I'm worried about losing a post, I always copy it, or cut it and paste it back in again to make sure I've copied it, before posting. It just takes a second, and it's foolproof insurance.

I've never understood this reaction; I wish I did. A grand space promises a grand experience, doesn't it? Surely all these people don't lack curiosity and a hunger for new cultural experiences? Surely in this age when the schools preach self-esteem, they don't fear they can't learn the lingo?

Ah, thanks, Mme. Hermine!

One link led to another this morning and I ran across the website for O'Neal's, the recently closed restaurant across from Lincoln Center which was mentioned in another thread recently. The site has a letter by the owner which includes the news that Peter Martins has accepted the restaurant's famous ballet mural and will display it in the Main Rehearsal Hall in the Koch Theater. There is also a link to images of the restaurant's artwork, though not of the mural.

Speaking of the ending of the ballet, I wonder if Balanchine was familiar with and drew on Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son in the Hermitage.

I agree, Bart, although I think that as is in the story the protest is implied. The fact that the prodigal so little deserves to be welcomed home and welcomed back into the family gives the story it's final drama and its entire point. We are meant to identify with the prodigal, and with the prodigal receive the father's forgiveness. That's true of course. I just think the ending would be stronger dramatically, as opposed to choreographically (is that a word?), if the father didn't stand on ceremony and showed real joy and eagerness in welcoming his son home.

Sorry to be unclear. I'm almost certain he wore no cape.

No, I saw a few Festival performances at the Civic Opera House, but this was during a 2-week NYCB season at the Auditorium Theater.

That unfortunate cape sure doesn't help. Still, he was my first Prodigal, in Chicago in 1979, and I'll never forget him, especially his desperate crawl back to his father.

From an NY Times article on an upcoming Sting performance at the Met :

I do too, but I also wish Balanchine had hewed more closely to the actual parable there, and had had the Father run to meet his son. In terms of the original story and its message that's more dramatic. In terms of choreography, it's hard to imagine a more dramatic ending than what Balanchine has actually given us, and I wonder if that's why he gave us what he did, or if he was working from memory and forgot that detail in the written story. Thanks for mentioning the Doubrovska film, Quiggin. That is a wonderful moment you describe.

It doesn't sound silly at all, duffster. Thanks for posting and providing another perspective.

Huh? My apologies, Bart. The book is very much an as-told-to memoir, in this case, as told to Barry Singer, and much of it reads like unedited transcription. But don't blame Singer. What he he actually reports Gordon as saying is

Reading Lorraine Gordon's memoir "Alive at the Village Vanguard: My Life in and Out of Jazz Time" last night, I ran across a reference to Roger Pryor Dodge, a "dance critic" I'd never heard of. The passage may jog a few memories and provide a little amusement. Ankles? OK, never mind. Judging from what I can find online, I think Gordon is mistaken about the Met, and Dodge's collection is actually in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center. Also, while Dodge danced ballet, vaudeville and jazz himself, as a critic it seems he mostly devoted himself to jazz dancing. He began writing in the 20's and died in 1974. I wonder if anyone has read Dodge's writing, or remembers it from back in the day and can tell us which publication(s) he wrote for.

Isn't this an example of a common phenomenon in character roles now, observable as well, from what I read, in portrayals of Drosselmeyer, Bottom, and the guys and gals in Fancy Free -- a heightening of a character's salient characteristic to the point that the character is flattened out? I'm asking, not asserting.

Bart, Ash-Lawn's free apprentice recitals have always been distinguished by a wide range of material: Barber, Debussy, Finzi, Ravel, Guastavio and Weill this past Wednesday, to texts by Yeats, Hopkins, Shakespeare among others. Ives, Mahler, Strauss, and Bolcom stand out in memory of previous years. These programs consist entirely of songs from the classical and sometimes cabaret literature, never popular arias. But when the company actually has to sell tickets, it goes very conservative. Back when they used to program two operas a season, they put on Copland's "The Tender Land" one year and Floyd Carlisle's "Susannah" another. They must have quit that a decade ago. Don G, Marriage of Figaro, Magic Flute, Boheme, Barber of Seville, Carmen . . . these have all been done at least twice in the 17 years I've been attending. When I interviewed the new director she said she wants to start programming holiday operas for kids, things like Menotti's "Amahl and the Night Visitors" and Britten's "Noyes Fludde" (which the company actually put on for free in a church two years ago), as a way, naturally, of expanding the audience. Already the company advertises at Met HD performances, and sends its apprentices into the elementary schools. It has a guild and a young professionals group. Company members stay with community members for the duration of their time in town. So the company has avid supporters, community involvement, next to no competition from the university, and it does plenty of outreach. I'm not sure what else they can do! As for more challenging musical fare, an annual six-performance chamber music festival with internationally known but not star musicians sells well here, and mixes contemporary with classic compositions. A student performance of Steve Reich's "Music for 18 Musicians" was well attended, but then it was free.

This makes sense. But what if this revision is recorded and then becomes available to othes as a template for future performances? The danger, it seems to me, isn't so much that there will be occasional revisions for practical reasons, but that the revision will become a new gold standard for what others should do. That's what I'm wondering too. Or what if the dancer sets the role on another dancer later -- much later -- and simply forgets that changes were made, or doesn't remember the original steps? I guess what I'm wondering is whether there is evidence that this is happening.

Thank you for the great anecdotes, Marcmomus, and for that excellent point about social networking. Although today in the West, claques are out of fashion, some ABT dancers have official sponsors. And at least one, Veronika Part, has what we might call her own unofficial and self-appointed but professional husband and wife claque team, James Wolcott of Vanity Fair, and Laura Jacobs of Vanity Fair and the New Criterion. (That's probably stretching the definition too far out of shape, because they're unpaid and their admiration is honest and deserved, but they're an interesting case). Here is an unsigned BBC article, The Claque - Art Appreciation Or Pest?.

Thanks for asking, dirac. That recital, and the one that followed this week, drew perhaps a hundred people, enough to overflow the room where they took place, and more than these performances used to attract when they were held on Sunday afternoons. Judging by the number of emails Ash-Lawn sends me, however, and the fact that company members sang for free this afternoon outside the theater, the company is having trouble selling out its 10 modestly priced shows. This despite having a much publicized new director who was a close associate of Placido Domingo, and a theater in the old downtown where many educated and moneyed people live and work.

Wonderful post, atm711. Thank you. Yes, thanks for setting me straight, atm711. I love your last, hopeful line:

My vote goes for Bob Dylan. A lot of people don't care for his voice, but when the spirit moves him he phrases exceptionally well, perhaps even more so in concert than on studio recordings because he's so spontaneous that the arrangements of his songs evolve so much from year to year and even night to night. I once heard him begin "Mr. Tambourine Man" in a then standard version and gradually but dramatically change the rhythm halfway through. Not only his phrasing but the timbre of his voice has fluctuated markedly over the years, not just as age had constricted his range, but of his own choosing. Compare the gravel voice of his early years to the croon of "Lay Lady Lay" and the warmth of the Woodstock years, and the shout of the 1974 tour as documented on "Before the Flood." In the mid-nineties he had yet approach and another sound. Even today, when many old fans like myself think his voice has finally lost its beauty, he's capable some nights of infusing his songs with drama and suspense. As a singer, he's had many lives. As for McCartney, he's still an exciting singer, but a lot of what he wrote when he first left the Beatles was too sweet for my taste. Perhaps his later work is different.

Yes, and Cassius Clay had some harsh words to that effect after those famous photos of the five of them clowning.

Yeah, my grandmother could at least tolerate the lads from Liverpool, as opposed to the Stones, one of whom "has white hair and looks like a girl." What a nice tribute.