oberon

The house was substantially full, but it was an unenthusiastic crowd. The dancers expended so much energy only to be greeted with dutiful applause, scarcely enough to bring them before the curtain even once. FEARFUL SYMMETRIES is non-stop dancing. When the dancers first came out, I was somewhat disoriented: people simply cannot move this fast. The ballet was strongly cast with excellent leads (Sylve, Weese, Bouder, Angle, Marcovici, de Luz with Ulbricht leading the trio of boys), a very fine group of demi-solistes, and several of the company's finest corps girls. The only moments of repose are a brief interlude where the leading couples switch partners. All of the principals danced well and Marcovici stood out for his dramatic presence. Feeling anti-social, I avoided the promenade during intermission but I did catch a glimpse of Margaret Tracey as well as several off-duty members of the company. Albert's new ballet, IN A LANDSCAPE, begins with a sleeping Wendy Whelan slowly floating onstage on a low platform. She awakens and in her opening solo displays the characteristic Whelan "angular lyricism"; each movement resonates thru her body. She is then joined by an austere Philip Neal and their pas de deux displays the unmatched elasticity of the Whelan body. Finally, as the music turns dreamy again, she returns to her slumbering position and slowly drifts offstage as the light fades. Wendy seemed somehow softer in appearance, and Philip has become a muscularized, very assured partner. Albert, appearing with his dancers before the curtain, drew the evening's one big cheer. I didn't stay for the Robbins.

This is excellent! Jared has been dancing beautifully since he returned from a prolonged injury lay-off. He strikes a fine balance between lyricism and masculinity, and is an ardent partner. When he replaced Jock Soto in the premiere of Peter's TALA GAISMA, he showed the command of a principal dancer and put his own mark on a role created for someone else. This is well-deserved promotion.

Hyltin's lovely, and reminds me a bit of the young Darci Kistler.

Too much Balanchine!!

Wow, someone actually said something NICE about Yvonne Borree...a rarity at this site. Is Amara Ramasar Amar's twin sister, and why is she dancing with Jenifer Ringer??? Who danced Peter Boal's role in RED ANGELS? It seems that this was just a small ensemble from NYCB, none of the pieces require a large corps. I imagine THOU SWELL was included for Darci...MORGEN, a far lovelier ballet, would have required carting those huge columns to Denmark. Did Janie Taylor dance there at all?

THOU SWELL is among Peter's worst ballets; I'm surprised it stays in the repertoire and surprised he would take it on tour. It's funny to read about a perceived lack of warmth & charm in RED ANGELS...it is not a warm or charming ballet, but an edgy and rather stark piece which I think is brilliant. Mrs. Diamond named it once as her favorite of the many Diamond Project ballets.

I believe the "hype" for the Robbins, at least, is based on 60's language which sounds corny to us today - and the "ballet" is pretty dated. It's really a period piece now. Of all the catalog of Robbins work that NYCB could have revived, why they chose this dud is beyond me. Cage doesn't move me one way or the other but I can attest from my work that he is highly regarded still as a daring creative voice, and especially among musicians. I can see why Albert would want to work with Cage's music again, it turned out pretty well for him in HAIKU. I'm guesing the new piece is on a larger scale, and I'm curious to see how he manages it. A couple seasons ago someone gave me a pair of orchestra seats for one of the NYCB galas; the people seated around me were not the least interested in what was happening onstage - conversations pre-curtain were about everything under the sun except dance or the programme about to commence. People talked or slept thru the ballets, with much whipping out of cell-phones to check for messages. And they couldn't be bothered to applaud the dancers, either sitting on their hands or rushing from their seats as the curtain fell to get to the bar during the breaks. I really find the opening gala sort of pointless; why not just kick off with the first NUTCRACKER the day after Thanksgiving, with maybe some "gala" casting bits: Merrill Ashley & Peter Martins as the Stahlbaums, Baryshnikov as Drosselmeyer...

Well, there are 8 SYMPHONY IN C performances coming up at non-gala prices so hopefully that will attract plenty of ticket buyers. I would imagine that a few of them will have some acceptable dancers taking part. SZ, I mention NYCO as a Lincoln Center constituent company not as a comparison artistically to NYCB, although some people lump them together: NYCO & NYCB are the "people's companies" tending to be more affordable, mainly American in their rosters, and more adventurous in rep than the Met & ABT, which are more "glamourous", more international and have a somewhat more staid image. The reality is, the performing arts in NYC (and, I suppose, in general) are going thru a very rough time in terms of audience building & maintaining. The fact that NYCB is lowering ticket prices for their opening is simply another aspect of this on-going problem. My friend who works in the Met administration says there is great concern there that their dwindling audience may evaporate altogether; as long-time patrons and donors die off there seems to be little interest among younger generations in the art form itself and certainly not in extending any financial assistance.

The end of what? Over-priced galas with women all tarted up while their husbands doze contentedly to the strains of Tchaikovsky & Stravinsky? Good! NYCB's opening night benefit is in the same boat as the Met's. The Opening Night of the Met season used to be THE big night for cultured New Yorkers. This season, even with Terfel, Gheorghiu & Domingo, it didn't sell out and friends of mine were able to get 1/2 price tickets the night of. My point is, it is not NYC Ballet alone that is struggling to keep/build an audience. NYC Opera's gala opening this year, at which Paul Kellogg was honored, had lots of empty seats; a few days later, he announced his retirement. Maybe Peter will make everyone happy by following suit. Do you think if SYMPHONY IN C were on the programme instead of the silly & dated Robbins it would draw a bigger crowd?

NYC Ballet hardly ever sells out...the fact that there is no Balanchine on the programme has little or nothing to do with the size of the audience. Plenty of all-Balanchine nights fail to sell out, or come even close for that matter. In fact, aside from the farewells of Soto & Boal and a couple of SWAN LAKES, I cannot recall a sold out house at NYCB in recent memory. Even NUTCRACKER no longer sells out like it used to. Every time I take my partner to the ballet with me, he scans the house at 7:59 PM and says "So many empty seats!" I don't know where people get the idea that cultural events routinely sell out; the Met Opera is having a horrendous year at the box office: there has been ONE sold out performance so far this season. ONE. Not even Renee Fleming's MANONs sold out. ABT regularly plays to acres of empty seats at the Met; I have no idea how they do in the smaller venue of City Center. NYC Opera plays to middling houses. Eve Queler's OONY used to be a major sell-out; now you can always get tix the night of the performance. The NY Philharmonic's subscriber base is dying off and younger people are not taking up the slack. Of course, one-time-only events like the Barenboim "farewell" or the Ben & Debbie Show (Heppner & Voigt) still stir up the box office, though friends of mine easily got comps to both of those nights. I'm sure there are a few people who are skipping NYCB's opening because of "No Balanchine" but I would not imagine they account for the difference between a sold out or unsold-out house. 99.9% of the time you can get tickets for any performance at the box office 20 minutes before curtain; matinees tend to sell better than evenings but there are always empty seats, no matter what's on the bill.

I cannot recall any performance at NYCB, whether "then or now", that seemed "frenzied" in the least..unless "frenzy" is part of the piece being danced (as one might say of the finale of LA VALSE). Once in a while a conductor will whip up a tempo that seems pretty hectic but the dancers usually cope.

I cannot think of a single performance of the approximately 400 I have attended at NYCB - both during Balanchine's lifetime and after his death - where I would apply Kourlas' description: "...jittery, raw, unpredictable...horrific..." (except maybe THE CAGE, which is all those things!) Usually I see daring, edginess, passion; maybe her sense of things is exaggerated. Punk rock? I hardly think that term applies to elegant people like Darci, Jared Angle, Jenifer Ringer or Antonio Carmena. But I do agree with her that dance is very much alive at NYCB and I suppose that is the real attraction. The rep & dancers at NYCB continue to speak to me while at the (too big) house next door I can't get anything from DON Q or ROMEO & JULIET. I'd rather sit thru a routine mixed-bill at NYCB than see something as faded and irrelevant as ABT's SYLVIA, despite its lovely score and perfectly good dancing. As far as "sloppy and underrehearsed", my diary notes back to the 1970s reflect that this is nothing new. There have always been such evenings, and other nights when things come together pretty nicely. The dancers are human, after all...they were in Balanchine's day and they still are. When they are replaced by "perfect" automatons, I'll stop going.

Twenty+ years after Balanchine's death, and with only two dancers remaining active who were dancing during his lifetime, I would say it is no longer Balanchine's company. It is simply the company that dances more of his works with more frequency than any other company. New York City Ballet is, when you think of it, a very unusual artistic enterprise: founded basically on one man's genius. What other organizations can we compare it to: the Martha Graham Company, perhaps, or the Bayreuth Festival? I find many evenings (most, in fact) at NYCB to have substantial immediacy; I do think the viewer's frame of mind has a great deal to do with how things are perceived; if you go in thinking "Well, this won't be as good as when Karin & Jacques danced it..." you will probably prove yourself correct. If you go often and allow yourself to connect with the present roster of dancers you are more likely to find yourself having a better time.

Carbro, I have often wondered if the "nymph" in Robbins FAUN is a real woman or an invention of the boy's imagination. I suppose it could be taken either way. When I think of her as a real woman, I can imagine her either as virginal and rather unaware of her impact on the man, or she can be played as a more calculating type. Usually I think it depends on the age of the ballerina involved.

Meunier was not cast often in her last couple seasons at NYCB nor was she used any more frequently by ABT during her tenure there. It's easy to understand Korbes going to PNB: Peter Boal was the man who discovered her in Brazil; he was her mentor at NYCB and had her dance with Peter Boal & Co. When it was announced Boal was heading out West, I immediately felt Korbes would go also. Why Ansanelli left NYCB remains the mystery; wanting to dance the classics is fine - but where? She was one of the most popular dancers at NYCB, was given every possible opportunity to dance a huge range of works (POLYPHONIA to COPPELIA and back again), was a frequent muse for Wheeldon. I would say if anyone "had it made" at a ballet company, it was Alexandra at NYCB. In her last season there I felt she was doing her finest dancing ever; now I wonder when I will get to see her dance again.

My impression, in going frequently over 30 years and very frequently in the last seven years, is that the audience enjoys the ballets of both Balanchine and others as much as they ever did. And that there were lacklustre performances during Balanchine's lifetime just as there are today. From my perspective it is not how bad the ballets look now, but how good they still look and - on many nights - we can still find new facets in the music & choregraphy.

I cannot believe, SZ, that you really want people to stop going to NYCB. That is really a very unkind thing to say when all the arts everywhere are struggling to hold onto (to say nothing of expanding) their audience. And this after all of Rhona's efforts to try to keep NYCB alive at SPAC...it's kind of a smack in the face. Honestly, I do not think there are many people in a NYCB audience on any given night who 1) sit there thinking how awful the Balanchine ballets look and 2) don't find ballets by other choreographers to be interesting/beautiful/meaningful. We have to remember that the same handful of people who chronically complain about the state of things at NYCB here at Ballet Talk are a very tiny percentage of the audience. And really, how often do some of these people actually GO to performances? Those who do attend can see that it is not always the Balanchine pieces on the programme these days that win the audience's most heartfelt response. In fact I would imagine that there are lots of people there on any given night who really don't know who choreographed what or whether it was done in the "appropriate" style with all the necessary attention to detail, etc. I would guess many of them would not really know the difference between a Suzanne Farrell-coached performance or one coached by some lesser personage. Does that mean they are unworthy to be watching the performance? Sometimes I think the Balanchine-snob thing is just carried too far. He was, of course, a genius and the ballets are wonderous to watch but he knew that they would look different after he was gone and why should we assume to know more than he did about his own works? I certainly hope we won't have any Mark Morris "ballets" at NYCB...having sat thru many Mark Morris nights at the Pillow, I can't say there was anything memorable about his works. And his recent PLATEE at NYCO was so shallow and gimmicky. The Balanchine ballets are not paintings but living, breathing works. Performances by identical casts in the same work in the same week can vary greatly and always have, even when Mr. B was alive. And here, at twenty years after Mr. B's death, dozens and dozens of dancers have come and gone and with each shift the ballets are going to look different. Is SERENADE ruined now? Then why do so many people still weep at the end of it? Note: I had erroneously attributed SZ's remark about getting the critics involved to Helene...my apologies to Helene. It was a mis-reading on my part. Thank you carbro for the alert.

I believe that the 2 CD set you mention is now only available as part of the boxed set, Fete du Ballet, which includes several of the Bonynge recordings. I think the Tower Records store at B'way and 66th normally has this set as an import and as I recall the price is not bad; also London/Decca label happens to be on sale at the store for 25% off...til the end of the month, I think. They also have an interesting box set of Bournonville Ballets - I think it's 5 or 6 discs. But that label is not on sale

But for me that is the whole appeal of the Balanchine ballets - well, of any ballet for that matter: seeing different dancers in familiar roles. The last thing I want to see is cookie-cutter reproductions of someone else's interpretation. I've heard some pretty amusing stories about ballerinas coaching their old roles; it isn't always about Mr. B...

At least three of the "retired" dancers GeorgeB fan would like to having coaching at NYCB have indeed coached current dancers in their old roles.

Karin von Aroldingen, Merrill Ashley, Sean Lavery, Sara Leland, Susan Hendl, Christine Redpath, Kay Mazzo, and Peter Martins are all Balanchine "experts" and all associated with the company. I see these people there constantly. Of the dancers, Darci & Kyra are still active and still there to pass on Balanchine pointers to whoever wants to observe them. Up until his departure, Peter Boal was teaching at the school. Yes, it would be lovely to have Suzanne Farrell come and wave her magic wand and make everyone dance as if Balanchine were still standing in the wing, but it is unlikely that will happen. Like opera fans who long for the days of Callas and Corelli, what I think people really want is for Farrell, D'Amboise, Patty McBride and Diana Adams to be dancing again. "Such illusions are by their nature sweet." Yes, things could be better at NYCB - or worse. Usually when I go I am thinking how wonderful it is to have the Balanchine ballets, how fresh and meaningful they often look even after repeated viewings, and what an interesting bunch of dancers we have there now.

Kathleen, this is a wonderfully thought-provoking posting and I really enjoyed reading it.

The discussion of whether NYCB remains Balanchine's company has been mulled over here before. Most people agree that it is - in general - the place to see MORE Balanchine works per season than any other company offers but beyond that there is the controversy as to whether the ballets are well-performed these days or not. I think the bigger question is: on a nightly basis, what % of the audience has come because of Balanchine and because it's "Balanchine's company"? How many people on a given ticket line want to be sure they'll see a Balanchine work on the programme they plan to attend? Do people choose their subscription series because it has more Balanchine or because Wednesdays are the most convenient night for them to go? Will people avoid going to the opening night because there is no Balanchine; and if TARANTELLA hadn't been dropped would that make a difference? My feeling is that on a given night there is a large % of the audience who are not particularly concerned about whether they are seeing Balanchine or not. They have come to be entertained and possibly to be enlightened or inspired; if they enjoy themselves, are moved or impressed or forget their troubles for a couple hours, they'll count the evening as a success and, hopefully, come back for more. They might find Balanchine's works especially gratifying without really knowing why. Or they may think AMERICAN IN PARIS is the cat's pajamas. Over the years I have taken or sent many people to the NYCB and the response has been a very wide spectrum of what they find enjoyable, exciting or moving. Balanchine is often appreciated, but so are Robbins, Wheeldon, Martins, Evans, Tanner etc etc.

I have been to countless all-Balanchine performances in the last several seasons and none of them have been anywhere near sold out. Night after night, I sit up in my perch in 4th Ring and feel badly that the house isn't fuller. In fact, in my last seven years of really intensive attendance there, aside from the farewells of Soto and Boal, I can recall very few times that the house was close to a sellout aside from NUTCRACKERs...and even NUT doesn't sell out like it used to. The Stroman piece may sell out, I don't know because I have no interest in seeing it. I do believe some performances of the full-length SWAN LAKE have been very nearly full. Some of the largest crowds I have seen there were for the Eifman MUSAGETE. However, I do think NYCB is doing better than the Met Opera; my friend who works there said last week's ARIADNE AUF NAXOS played to a house that was 43% sold. 43%!! That is really very sad.

Sorry, but I think MORGEN is a gorgeous piece...and I HATED it the first time I saw it: literally sat there thinking "When is this crap going to end?" Later, it was on a programme with two other things that I just HAD to see and so I thought I would go and sit out in the lobby during MORGEN and chat up the ushers. But then I decided to give it another shot and I was simply floored. Normally, I do not like ballets to vocal music, but this - and, curiously, CHICHESTER PSALMS - proved exceptions. The incredible opening passage for Kistler, in which she simply bourees amid the columns, drew me in. The six dancers appear is a series of duets, each of the three women having a pas de deux with each of the three men. The women seem, like the heroine of Strauss's ARABELLA, to be seeking "the right man." At the end, they have each found the person they are meant to be with. The piece affords three of my favorite ballerinas - Kistler, Ringer & Taylor - roles that really accentuate their gifts both as dancers and as women. I have "sent" people to see this ballet and they all came away feeling it was a work of extraordinary beauty. In the coming season I will bring several friends to see it.