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Laura Jacobs writes about New York City Ballet in the current issue of The New Criterion. Janie Taylor, she says

comes wrapped in her own atmosphere [. . .] Bohemian kooky, like the strange girl in every high school, this wayward blonde can launch herself over the top or lose herself in dream. [. . .] Taylor is unquestionably a younger generation ballerina—if she were on Broadway she’d be doing the Mimi role in Rent. There’s an interior swan dive to her dancing that seems a response to, an escape from, postmodern urban stress. She’s the millennial version of “Midnight in Paris.” One wants to see her in anything.

Jacobs is contrarian on Wendy Whelan: "I respect Whelan’s dancing. It is honest, it is unstinting, it is unlike anyone else’s. But its poetic power is small." When Whelan was fresh out of the School of American Ballet, Jacobs writes,

She was longer limbed than the others, and she had a stratospheric lift in her attitude, made possible by her superb turnout. She worked her technique every second, never lost it, and she looked huge, like the biggest, freshest sunflower in the field. A few seasons later, she was thrilling in Union Jack (the regiment MacDonald of Sleat), thinner, but with a hungry, nether energy. And then she got thinner still, like an Egon Schiele, and lost scale too, as if her tight technical focus, in a kind of warp distortion, was sucking her energy, her projection, inward. She didn’t bring air or atmosphere onstage anymore, only her tightly contained self. She’s the most quotidian ballerina in NYCB history.

canbelto, I agree with your second paragraph, and I have no problem with noting how Tito affected Fonteyn's career. Much more than that -- i.e. ""This is the story of how the most famous dancer that England has ever produced was deceived and betrayed by those closest to her"-- is unseemly, I think. Of course I haven't seen the film and I may be wrong, but it sounds to me like dirt for dirt's sake. If the focus was Tito -- if the subject was Panamanian history, for example -- this level of detail might be appropriate.

Helene, I disagree. Fonteyn put herself before the public as an artist, and only incidental to that did her marriage come under scrutiny, and only in that context, I'll wager, did she try to put a good face on the relationship, just as private citizens usually do in their more limited circles. To tell the story herself in this case, knowing that others will tell it their way, would essentially be an attempt to maintain a degree of privacy by way of control. It would be to say, "this is mine." The press has no ethical right to pry and expose a private citizen, and in her marriage, that's what Fonteyn was. She didn't need to write about Tito for publicity. She probably wrote about him for damage control.

On the other hand, coming at things from the other side of the marriage, I have no trouble with the press exposing Tito, a supposed public servant, as the shady operator and even as the faithless husband he was. Unlike Fonteyn, he exercised political power, so his character, in my opinion, is rightly open to inspection.

canbelto, thank you for correcting me about Hepburn. I meant no disrespect to that admirable woman.

I guess I'm in the camp that I don't want to learn "juicy details" for shock value's sake. I do like to learn about the person behind the persona, though.

I'm in the same camp, but I think government officials making decisions that effect us all can rightly be treated differently than artists whose work we can take or leave as we please. Hepburn chose to speak of her self-abasement. Simone de Beauvior is fair game even though she didn't, in my opinion, because the life she advocated is not entirely what she lived. Fonteyn had no such public intentions.

My two cents.

That is a fantastic image, Farrell Fan.

That's a marvelous shot, but I could do without the bare legs, myself. Although I can understand why others might like them!

In regards to Part's smiles, I remember her Terpsichore with the Kirov at the Met in 1999, when all the muses grinned and smiled. So perhaps that's how she was coached in St. Petersburg.

In China, the budding ballet companies are not at all short of stories, from gods to passionate folktales. For example, the White Snake and they even are taking storylines from traditional Chinese operas!

So are Western or ancient plots running out? Or are story ballets just not the trend anymore?

What a great topic, saritachan.

Some of James Kudelka's comments in this Sunday's NY Times story on ABT's performance of his "Cinderella" seem pertinent. Will retellings of classic ballet stories that amount almost to rewritings catch on? Prokofiev saw Cinderella as a real, then still contemporary person, " feeling, experiencing and moving among us." Kudelka feels the need make her contemporary again. Back when PBS broadcast ABT's "La Corsaire," I remember Alexandra noting that dancers in the accompanying interviews felt the need to nudge, nudge, wink, wink laugh at the story, as if they were embarassed by it. (Pardon the paraphrase, Alexandra). It was as if they weren't able to "suspend disbelief" and fully give themselves to a silly, patriarchal, and racially unelightened story. In this age of postmodern suspicion of narratives, I wonder if some choreogaphers might be likewise disinclined to choreograph new ones.

As to dialogue, I find that bringing along a set of wax earplugs often helps.

Thanks for the laugh. I'm reminded of Merce Cunningham fans purportedly watching his dances while wearing Walkmans. Have you tried a Walkman with, say, the score for "Sounddance"?

Wow, three detailed reviews of the same performance! Thanks a lot, carbo, sz, and Juliet (and drb and Michael and other NYCB reviewers). You savor the performances; I savor your reviews.

The prose, as accurately parodied by Farrell Fan, is pretty painful, though.

Dan Brown's best-selling primer on how not to write an English sentence

GoCoyote!, the ballet is named after Adams' score. It's a safe guess that Adams was referencing William Blake's mention of "fearful symmetry" in his poem, "The Tiger." Helene, the ballet for Nichols and Luders you're thinking of must be "Beethoven Romance." I like that myself, but not "A Schubertiade" the one time I saw it. It seemed to go on foverer.

I don't know if this comment of Mr. Johnson's calls for a guffaw or a discreet Balanchinian sniff: "Because he trained and danced in England before coming here, Wheeldon has a broader frame of reference than most City Ballet alums."

Farrell Fan, that sounds all to the good to me. Balanchine had a broader frame of reference than Balanchine. The broader the background, the potentially richer the work. Wheeldon must be 25-30 years younger than Martins, so perhaps he really will succeed him some day. Would he be a good steward of the Balanchine repertory? We know he can make a mean neo-classical ballet.

Could the reviewer have been thinking about the immortal television team of Stravinsky and Hutch?

Ouch!

This looks like fun -- Ballet of the Elephants.

From the NY Times review by The New Republic's art critic, Jed Perl --

One of the strangest and loveliest high-meets-low moments in American culture dates to 1942, when the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus mounted a ballet for 50 elephants, with music by Igor Stravinsky and choreography by George Balanchine. . . . Now there's a children's book devoted to this uniquely American experiment, and Leda Schubert's deft, incisive way of telling the incredible story will set young minds spinning.

"Ballet of the Elephants" embraces an extraordinary range of lives. There is John Ringling North, one of the owners of the circus; the friends and collaborators Balanchine and Stravinsky, who shared Russian beginnings and early artistic triumphs in Europe, and who both ended up in America; Vera Zorina, the ballerina, who was married for a time to Balanchine; and Modoc, the largest Indian elephant in America.

Helene, yes, the "Yury Posokhov" on the Nina Ananiashvili & International Stars, Vol. 1 DVD is "Yuri Possokhov" of San Francsisco Ballet.

Even though I've only seen the Act II pas de deux (on one of the Nina Aniashvili videos), the Giselle who really sticks in my mind is Rose Gad of the Royal Danish Ballet - I believe she was dancing with Alexander Kolpin?

Katrina, Gad and Kolpin dance a La Syphide pas de deux on that DVD. I remember that as very beautiful, despite a few messy landings on his part. The Giselle excerpt there, which also moved me, is by Irma Nioradze and Yury Posokhov.

Leigh, the Kennedy Center lists an intermission after the Prologue. I'm guessing that the company dictates when those occur (?) and if so you'll be alright at Covent Garden. Good luck!

I take issue with Mr. Scherer's assertion that "Until comparatively recently Shostakovich's quartets were best known through the Soviet recordings by the Beethoven and Borodin quartets, whose members were colleagues and friends of the composer." The Fitzwilliam String Quartet from Cambridge did a highly publicized and award-winning complete recording of the quartets in 1977, not only winning a Gramophone Award for Chamber Music that year for quartets 4 and 12, but also included in the magazine's "100 Greatest Recordings" list.

The Manhattan String Quartet has also recorded and performed the entire cycle, and also to acclaim. Thanks for the link, dirac.

Mike, it's a pleasure to read that Merce has a new fan. You can find another review of those D.C. performances at dancviewtimes. I can't answer your question, but I heard John Cage lecture once and I came with a brand new interest in ambient sound. It's wonderful how Cunningham's choreography can turn high-volume, otherwise grating noise into beautiful music.

Balanchine, Robbins, etc., are great, great choreographers. Prefering the way one company dances them does not imply scorn for other companies' approaches. We are talking here about quite subtle differences, I should think -- compared, for instance, to the various ways Shakespeare is performed.

Of course in quoting you I didn't mean to imply that you were being scornful, bart. And Leigh, I respect your opinion, and your knowledge and experience which are vastly greater than my own. But it seems to me that if the company with the pick of Balanchine dancers and the longest and widest tradition of dancing Balanchine isn't unquestionably dancing his work better than less fortunate companies, something is very wrong.

The company isn't trashing its legacy. It's more like Harvard - it could do better and shouldn't rest on its laurels - and we have an obligation to prod it not to. Still, no amount of best efforts or wishful thinking makes Oberlin into Harvard.

But Leigh, in this case aren't the "Harvard" profs -- Villella, Tomasson, Farrell and Boal, and the coaches they bring in -- teaching at "Oberlin"? What if "Harvard" applicants began applying there instead? Of course I simplify far too greatly, but according to much and perhaps most critical opinion in the last 15 years NYCB is indeed resting on its Balanchine laurels, and has anyone been able to prod Martins and his team into treating it more carefully?

Paul Parish wrote: The Balanchine ballets on the same program looked sharp but pinched by contrast, without follow-through. . . .

Your observation may be a clue to what it is that so many reviewers seem to find in these companies' performances of Balanchine, but claim is sometimes missing at NYCB, despite the undisputed world-class quality of NYCB dancers.

World-class dancers hit or miss in world-class choreography, sharp in usually forgettable choreography. What a legacy. Would that more dancers would take a tip from Korbes and head to the provinces, there to be coached by Balanchine's own dancers, eventually to pass on what they won't learn at City Ballet.

Essays by Laura Jacobs, dance critic for The New Criterion, have been published under the title "Landscape with Moving Figures: A Decade on Dance." Ballet Review editor Francis Mason has this to say on The New Criterion's blog, Armavirumque:

Every person who's been fascinated by a dance performance must read this book. Laura Jacobs of The New Criterion magazine is our best dance critic: with knowledge and wit, she tells us what dances are all about, takes them apart and puts them back together so we understand.

The casting is up!

Tuesday, June 20 at 7:30 p.m.: 2 hrs., 42 min.

La Valse (Ashton/Ravel) – 13 min.

(Ansanelli, McMeekan, Chapman, Makhateli, Pickering, Avis)

Pause – 4 min.

Tanglewood (Marriott/Rorem) – 24 min.

(Benjamin, Nuñez, Harvey)

Intermission – 30 min.

Enigma Variations (Ashton/Elgar) – 34 min.

(Saunders, Yanowsky, Watson, Marquez)

Intermission – 30 min.

Gloria (MacMillan/Poulenc) – 27 min.

(Cojocaru, Soares, Acosta)

Wednesday, June 21 at 7:30 p.m.: 2 hrs., 42 min.

La Valse (Ashton/Ravel) – 13 min.

(Ansanelli, McMeekan, Chapman, Makhateli, Pickering, Avis)

Pause – 4 min.

Tanglewood (Marriott/Rorem) – 24 min.

(Benjamin, Nuñez, Harvey)

Intermission – 30 min.

Enigma Variations (Ashton/Elgar) – 34 min.

(Saunders, Yanowsky, Cervera, Keating)

Intermission – 30 min.

Gloria (MacMillan/Poulenc) – 27 min.

(Lamb, Avis, Watson)

Thursday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m.: 2 hrs., 55 min.

The Sleeping Beauty (Petipa/Tchaikovsky)

Princess Aurora: Cojocaru

Prince Florimund: Kobborg

PROLOGUE – 34 min.

Intermission – 20 min.

ACT ONE – 29 min.

Intermission – 20 min.

ACT TWO – 31 min.

Pause – 1 min.

ACT THREE – 40 min.

Friday, June 23 at 7:30 p.m.: 2 hrs., 55 min.

The Sleeping Beauty (Petipa/Tchaikovsky)

Princess Aurora: Marquez

Prince Florimund: Bonelli

Saturday, June 24 at 1:30 p.m.: 2 hrs., 55 min.

The Sleeping Beauty (Petipa/Tchaikovsky)

Princess Aurora: Lamb

Prince Florimund: Samodurov

Saturday, June 24 at 7:30 p.m.: 2 hrs., 55 min.

The Sleeping Beauty (Petipa/Tchaikovsky)

Princess Aurora: Nuñez

Prince Florimund: Soares

Sunday, June 25 at 1:30 p.m.

The Sleeping Beauty (Petipa/Tchaikovsky)

Princess Aurora: Cojocaru

Prince Florimund: Kobborg

http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/ind...ent&event=BGBSI

Don't forget that this production is headed to Washington, DC's Kennedy Center in mid-June, including an opening night with Cojocaru/Kobborg.

From the Times article Bart linked:

“It was only when all of us had seen what [Makarova] had done that we realised she had given us a production that didn’t feel as if it was ours. It came with a different set of values, both musically and dramatically, and it absolutely wasn’t the Royal Ballet,”

“[Messel's] style of costuming was not to have a harmonious palette; instead, he designed very strong individual costumes. Today’s designers don’t see it like that and I didn’t want the costumes to look quaint.”