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Thanks for the link, LadyRosa. I have my order in but I see that the DVD is only 62 minutes long. When I've seen this ballet it has been paired with another work. But 62 minutes sounds too short to me. RDB-watchers, doesn't it sound like the ballet has been cut?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Using the quotes function here can be tricky. I didn't quote that sentence from Alexandra's review, but I'm glad you did. I was thinking again today about Reyes' artistry. Her Juliet went from a pretty girl to a beautiful woman, as if she'd been ennobled by the character that love and suffering can produce. As Ginny said, it was a performance to cherish.

Thanks everyone for your reviews, and especially to Ginny for your rave about what I'm going to rave about. Romeo and Juliet is a ballet I had only seen on video, but with its paucity of dancing roles for women and its paucity of classical dancing as opposed to swordfights and milling crowds, it didn't much interest me. But I thought I'd give this production a try just to see Reyes and Carreno, and their performance Saturday afternoon affected me so strongly that I bought tickets for the evening as well. As it turned out, while it was a treat to see the artistry of Frederic Franklin that night, the afternoon cast was on the whole more accomplished, beginning with the well-matched leads, whose passion and joy and then grief could not have been more convincing. Carreno didn’t have quite the ease in his dancing of years past, but with his noble bearing and apparent good nature he was a charming son of a lord, bemused and just a bit above it all until he met Juliet. Reyes was every bit as lovely in her shapes as I’ve expected, but what really thrilled me was the depth of her emotion combined with the remarkably detailed quality of her acting. I was just amazed at what I was seeing. I know at least one critic complains that Reyes plays up her natural cuteness when it’s inappropriate to the role. She was darling when cute was called for here, in her first scene as Juliet plays with her nurse, but she deepened the character considerably at the ball, and darkened her as she was forced to dance with Paris. To see, for example, the play of fear and anguish and disgust in Juliet’s face and body as she was forced to dance with Paris, was to see great acting. It seemed like the whole cast had their roles thoroughly thought out and internalized. Sascha Radetsky was a forceful, incisive Tybalt, and Carlos Lopez made Mercutio’s death throes –- the shock and horror, the fleeting bravado, the last gasp stumblings -- all the more sickening and heart-rending with his nuance and detail. I’m surprised that MacMillan’s choreography gives Lady Capulet a stronger emotional response to her nephew Tybalt’s death than to her daughter Juliet’s. Abrera and later Part were each very fine in the role, but with Part perhaps more detailed, but I thought Abrera was more effective in mourning Tybalt’s death. Whereas Part’s acting there was naturalistic, and for once to my mind not entirely convincing, Abrera’s was outsized and expressionistic; her face turned into a mask, into a silent scream. Sasha Dmochowski was the most amusing of the very busy and very fine harlots. A couple of things I found odd: The images on the chapel walls looked like Eastern Orthodox icons, not Italian Catholic frescoes, and Prokofiev’s score, which I love, doesn’t register Romeo’s emotion when he receives Juliet’s letter in which she agrees to marriage. In any case, having enjoyed this ballet so unexpectedly much, I may have to break down and go see Don Quixote or La Corsaire!

YouOverThere, I enjoyed your post and I look forward to reading your reactions to what you see as you keep going to the ballet. I've been going to the ballet for over 30 years (with about 5 years off) and I'm still not terribly knowledgeable about step names, but I've never heard of a "foite." Is that an alternate word for fouettes? If there is no such step, they ought to invent or rename one, and meanwhile, thanks for the laugh, because the word is so fitting! You also made me smile about the modern dance performances that were agony for you to sit through. I enjoy some modern dance choreography very much, but I remember once closing my eyes and bowing my head during a modern piece that followed the Balanchine classic "Agon." Other posters here have confessed to sitting out certain ballets in the theater lobby, and no less a balletomane than Edward Gorey, rumored to have attended every single New York City Ballet performance for many years, sometimes did the same. What is it about something we love that, twisted just the wrong way, turns into something we can't stand?

From what I see and read of her, she's too classy to need an attitude. As for the Pointe magazine photo, I'm glad some people like it, but I don't think it flatters her, or would flatter a good many of the likewise attractive company dancers. A ripply gown like that needs a curvaceous body. In my humble opinion, that is.

I'm curious about the dance reviews that Elaine de Kooning wrote, apparently at the encouragement of her friend Edwin Denby. Most of these went unpublished at the time, but some appeared in The New York Herald Tribune, where Denby could be read. Does anyone know if any of these short pieces have been republished? Is there anyone here who remembers reading them and can offer details?

carbro, I think you put your finger on it, except that I'd say that the tradition isn't elitist ("we're better than you") but, rather, has elite roots, i.e., in its origins only the elite could even experience it. But it's not Schoenberg. It's an art form and a tradition that people of all classes and backgrounds can potentially enjoy, and whether that's for the beautiful music or the beautiful bodies or the breathtakingly athletic movement, there is something to appeal to everyone. Still, practically speaking, the handsome men in tights do pose a problem for many men in that the tights and the ballet vocabulary read, at first sight, as effeminate. To such men, "pretty girls in leotards" is just my line -- don't you like pretty girls; don't you love to watch them move?

Not me (sniff, and come to think of it, in all mock elitist silliness, a sniff that sounds just like Balanchine's). I'll be watching the Ballet Russes movie. (And taping the game!) Stiff tutus, classical music and by-the-book classical movement = boring, stuffy or elitist? Are there really many people who would be attracted to the ballet under any circumstances who make so facile an equation? If so, I wonder if the blame doesn't lie in part on both sides of the culture war divide, with those who equate any distinctions of merit in regards to culture with bigotry, and with those who turn their noses up at any critique of populist aesthetics.

Bart, for me it’s a question of priority. Of course the classics wouldn't be classic if they didn't reward repeated viewings in, well, classic form, not to mention revealing new facets with new casts. In D.C., where I usually go to catch performances, even the most popular full-lengths like Swan Lake and Giselle come around once or twice a year at most, and travel time may keep me from seeing more than one performance a run. So you know, if I can only get to an old, distinguished 5-star restaurant once in a while, I don't want the kitchen's latest experiment, I want their classic dish. Anyhow, dancer or the dance? Novelty aside, it’s a toss-up. When it comes to those traditional full-length "classics," I'm choosy when it comes to lesser troupes, because I don't know the quality of the choreography ahead of time. But I'll go see even a regional company if they're doing a ballet I love or have always wanted to see, one which I know will have been staged by the choreographer or someone loyal to his work. On the other hand, I'd go see Part or Vishneva, or just recently Boal, in anything.

And even nearer to Tanglewood and to that delightful little museum, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.

We did have a related thread once, and I believe Alexandra put up a poll. I can't remember the exact wording, but the general question was about whether the biggest draw for us as individuals is the dancer or the particular dance. Perhaps someone else can remember where that thread is. I don't have time to search for it any longer at the moment.

I would have enjoyed reading more of Whelan's feelings about Balanchine and about specific ballets. And the writer does try too hard at times: that bit in the very first sentence about "virtuoso motions of the soul" strikes me as overwrought and pretentious. But overall I think the article is an unexpected gift, a portrait that's warm and illuminating, touching and amusing. Now I can't wait to see "Klavier."

I've just ordered a copy, and chrisk217, let me add my thanks! Incredibly, my little JWIN DVD player that I received for free from my credit card company plays both PAL and NTSC formatted discs. But also, anyone with a DVD drive in a laptop might want to try a PAL disc there. I have only one such disc, but my 3 year old Inspiron 8200 plays it just fine.

I love the book. But chrisk217, you might also be interested in Garafola's own 1989 book, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes . It was re-issued in 1998.

Today's NY Times has a piece by Anna Kisselgoff on Moiseyev -- A Visionary of Balletic Folk Dance Turns 100.

LOL. I saw it in '99, having left my seat for ABT at the Met to see NYCB's final ballet of the evening, which as originally scheduled was Theme and Variations. On and on and on this poor substitute went, and pretty soon I could barely focus.

Folks, are you saying that Kistler is miscast in Monumentum, or just in Movements? I can imagine her in the first, but definitely not in the second. However, I may be seeing her for myself in six weeks, if Kowroski's not back. I have fond memories of Alexopoulos in these ballets, and even fonder ones of Calegari.

I'm sorry I won't be seeing this production, but one thing struck me as strange in Kaufman's review: A Bird of a Different Feather. This Swan Lake is "a man's world," she says, with men holding the spotlight. But Bourne's version is obviously homoerotic, but while I haven't seen the production, to me nothing Kaufman goes on to say lends credence to that description for Kudelka's work. There is only the fact that Siegried's indecision leaves open the possibility that he's not attracted to women. But even that only gives us a fresh plausible perspective on the the leading male character. Is the choreography homoerotic, I wonder, or does the way the story is told just de-emphasize Odette's plight and play up the Prince's?

Thank you, everyone, for your responses. drb, I love your "Legs Kowroski," and not just because it's fitting. What we need around here is a good thread on mobster ballerinas.

Lloyd Schwartz's nearly 8-minute long (nice!) review is online here.

In today's NY Times review For Odette and Odile, Workouts by the Young and the New, Jennifer Dunning writes I'm interested in the opinions of NYCB watchers, old and new. Do you agree? Without rehashing the old debate about the current state of NYCB technique and artistry, if you do agree, when did the change occur and what accounts for it? If Dunning is saying that the company's port de bras, more often faulted that praised during Balanchine's days, now draw the eye more often than its attack, is this related to Martins' apparent preference for more careful dancing as opposed to Balanchine's partiality towards dancers who danced with abandon?

That will be very easy to keep in mind. Thank you, Herman.

There is no shortage of beauties among her fellow dancers on the Ballets Russe film site. I've just discovered Rochelle Zide. Grace, does Baranova say why her husband made such an unreasonable demand? Jealousy and insecurity?

Solor, I don't know about The Dancing Times, but Ballet Review has published articles that touch of the Kirov's reconstructions of Beauty in their Winter 1999, Spring 2000, and Spring 2005 issues. You might also search DanceView Times.

Thanks, Leigh. Casting is just what I'm waiting for.