bart

Mme. Hermine, according to the obit in the Chicago Tribune, that 1966 Bell Television Hour R&J was her last performance in America. John Butler's choreography for this great dance of awakening love is certainly unique, with almost nothing for poor Romeo to do except support and occasionally lift Juliet.

Also from the Tribune is something relating to her comment about "changing completely" when she began to dance for Balanchine:

Under Balanchine, Tallchief changed physically. Her neck grew longer. She dropped 10 pounds. She took on the deportment of the Russian stylist. Her chest was high, her back straight, her instep arched. "What did I learn? I learned to turn out. How to point my toes properly. Where I belonged. Where to place my body. What muscles had to be developed — every one. Otherwise there was no way I was going to dance his ballets.''

Later, she passed on her Balanchine lessons, "telling my young dancers, 'Strengthen, build the muscles. The arches, they must be right, or the line is not right.'''

http://www.chicagotr...0,3364156.story

Everything you say is true, phrank. I love your phrase, "an entire workshop on the use of the arms."

This is not the sort of number, danced to this sort of music, I ordinarily appreciate. Maybe I am too cynical or addicted to irony.. But Plisetskaya invests the choreography with such sincerity and artistry, that it becomes genuinely moving. At the end, I was startled by way the long, slowly developed "maladie" of the rose turns suddenly to anguish and death.

I also love the way the white background -- and uncomplicated camera work -- allow you the to see every aspect of the movement and body-shaping so clearly.

Wonderful clips. It's remarkable to see Tallchief as someone who was so curious about unfamiliar technique -- so willing to learn, not only from an established ballerina by Moylan but also from a very young LeClercq. That's a very attractive quality in someone who was already an established star.

In the clip posted above in #9, she discusses Firebird, saying that after a while with Balanchine "I had completely changed." The rehearsal clip of the Berceuse gives a hint of the result of that change. The snippet of performance film from 1961, dancing with Michael Maule, shows even more, though we still have a sense of ballerina magnificence in that last gesture. http://danceinteract...f-michael-maule

The Ballet Russe influence is still visible, I think, in both clips As it was with the dancer who followed Tallchief as the most frequent Firebird, Melissa Hayden, from Ballet Theater. Both dancers had grandeur, largeness of scale, even when pleading with the Prince. Gelsey Kirkland's approach with the revised choreography later on -- more fragile, more febrile, more airborne, more "birdlike" -- was at the other extreme of Firebirds. I guess all dancers who have done the role occupy a place somewhere along the spectrum whose poles are Tallchief and Kirkland.

By the way, I've been told that Tallchief was involved in the mid-80s NYCB revival that featured Lourdes Lopez, a superb Firebird,who expressed the qualities of woman and bird in a very satisfying way.

Sorry to double-post, but I just discovered this excerpt from an article by Edwin Denby, 1953. It speaks to the matter of Tallchief as both a Balanchine and a classical dancer.

,,,In spirit, classic artists of the past are present at a serious performance and watch it with attention. And as I see Tallchief dance now in Concerto Barocco, I feel that they invisibly smile at her, they encourage her, they blow her little Italian kisses. They danced steps that were different but they understand what she means to do; her courage night after night is like theirs.

I'm sorry to have been away from Ballet Alert for a few days and thus not able to join this discussion earlier. Tallchief was phasing out of the NYCB when I firsts began attending regularly, so I don't recall details from that period. I especialy regret that I never saw her Firebird. She was still the great name in the company -- still the prima ballerina. I do remember that an appearance by Tallchief in a regular rep evening -- never publicized in advance, if I recall correctly -- was thrilling news indeed.

I guess that I will always think of her name in intimate association with Balanchine's, though she was never what became to be known as a "Balanchine dancer." Drew and others are right to call our attention to the "non-Balanchine" aspects of her career prior to and after NYCB -- her return to the classical rep, her guesting, coaching, and teaching, and her work with her own companies in Chicago.

Thanks, phrank, for that clip of Tallchief and Bruhn in the Don Q pdd. Tallchief never had a partner in Bruhn's league at NYCB. I was touched at how wonderfully he supported her and how she blossomed in his hands and company. I loved the untypical big smile at certain points.

(It was interesting to watch her "Balanchinian" take on the fouettes. 6 or so fouettes -- followed by a transition of quick chainees into a rapid blur of pique pirouettes around the stage.)

It is sad to know that she is no longer with us. But ... she lived. And how she danced.

Welome to Ballet Alert, DanielBenton.

It might also be a good idea to look closely at some of the still photographs of Balanchine at work. -- especially those shot in the studio or on stage by Martha Swope, Steve Caras, and others who understood ballet movement thoroughly. There are photographs of Balanchine demonstrating a step, even just sketching what he wanted, that tell you more about quality of movement and even musicality than one might expect.

Trying out the position you see in the photo -- and extrapolating what you think might have come before and after the photo was shot --can be an interesting experiment. I find that I learn about dance best by "dancing" (moving and imagining the music in my head), no matter how limited my skills.

Marvelous report and analysis. The links, too. Thanks so much, volcanohunter.

P.S. Love the screaming goat. Much more memorable (and deserved) than a "thumbs down."

Birdsall, I missed Friday, but saw the same cast Saturday.

DANCES AT A GATHERING: I am one who thinks that Dances ... is a marvelous and very touching work, when properly done. I loved the dancing -- the best MCB has done with Robbins' choreography, in almost every role. But I missed the dramatic texture of the piece -- wistfulness, nostalgia, thoughtfulness, a strange mixture of joy and sadness -- that makes the conclusion so unforgettable. A few years ago, MCB (especially with its casting of the boy in brown) captured these qualities better.

Dances at a Gathering was set earlier this season by Susan Hendl Ben Huys came in just a week or so ago to add the finishing touches. Philip Neal and Lourdes Lopez, both of whom were coached by Robbins, also had input. At one of the pre-performance talks, Neal commented that "Robbins wouldn't cast dancers who didn't have a very strong sense of self and personality." Right now, a number of the younger performers at MCB haven't reached this point. It's marvelous, however, to see the progress that dancers like Kleber Rebello (Brick and Brown), Renan Cedeiro (Green), Nathalia Arja (Pink), Chase Swatosh (Blue) and Jovani Furlan (an elegant, lighter-than-air Green) have made in only a few seasons. Lopez is giving them lots of opportunities to grow.

Best performance of the weekend for me was Jeanette Delgado's Girl in Pink. She expressed joy without an overwhelming smile -- speed while executing every detail perfectly -- beautiful upper-body expression and (especially) hands. A few years ago this role would have been outside her comfort zone. No longer.

Yellow is one of my favorite roles, combining speed with periods of elegant introspection. Tricia Albertson gave life to both sides of this role. Sara Esty had a more jaunty, can-do take on the character. If Esty was excellent the new kid on the block, (full of energy and optimism) Albertson was the more experienced woman who can still do it all. (Albertson was also a fine Mauve in the second cast.)

Patricia Delgado, back after being out for several programs, was a gorgeous, expressive Mauve.

As for the men: Rebello and Penteado danced beautifully, but did not find the emotional weight that the Boy in Brown needs. The moment when the character kneels and touches his palm to the floor should have been heart-stopping, It was not. Jovani Furlan turned the Boy in Green into a model of elegance, fluidity, and gracious partnering.

A favorite solo of mine is the Girl in Green's, created for Violette Verdy. Robbins apparently wanted Verdy to suggest a great dancer -- a diva -- returning to the studio, or possibly the stage, and recalling her earlier days, often just by marking or suggesting the steps. As Philip Neal remembers it, "she thinks, This is where I did this step. And this is how I moved to the other side of the stage." Callie Manning's was gorgeous to watch. She combined a kind of over-elegance along with great simplicity, which made her later attempts to find a partner among the moody, wandering men deeply sad, though also comical. sometimes Green is played with a kind of jejeune goofiness. That can be amusing. But Manning's Green was actually touching -- especially that final gesture that seems to say --- "What's a girl to do? C'est la vie."

Robbins integrates lifts into his choreography with great ease. You shouldn't be reminded, "This is hard." There were partnering problems -- especially in some rough and awkward llifts -- among the second cast. These disrupted the flow of things. On the whole, the women in the first cast were better served by their partners.

SLAUGHTER ON TENTH AVENUE: -- It's always fun to see this. The last couple of times MCB did it, they had recorded music. The score is so much better with a live orchestra, as the company now has.

The first-cast leads were Kleber Rebello/ Patricia Delgado. Second cast leads: Renan Cedeiro/ Jeanette Delgado. Each had its strengths.

Patricia Delgado has the long legs and the ability to express yearning, passion, Romantic abandon. There are points in which the Hoofer does a sequence of (vaguely) tap steps, and the Striptease Girl follows him, but balletically. Same jazzy spirit; different artistic style. It's a key idea in the choreography, and Patricia captured it very well. At the finale she radiated joy, making it hard to look closely at anyone else on stage.

Jeanette Delgado may lack the long legs, but her Striptease Girl had a sexiness of her own: warmth, love of dancing, empathy with everyone on stage, heart.

Morrosine, the "Premieur Danseur Noble" who opens the ballet, is a parody of some of the more absurd affectations of "Russian" ballet dancers of that day. Didier Bramaz (elegant to a fault) and Reyneris Reyes (whose mirror tells him every day: you are a GOD! and IRRESISTIBLE TO WOMEN) were wonderful.

Piazza is just for Miami, and I'm not sure whether for all performances there. At the Kravis, the "Gangster" was alternated between Renato Penteado and Carlos Guerra. Both looked great. Penteado had some difficulties with his only laugh line ... "I woulda worn my tux.".

Thanks Victoria, Helene, and everyone else who supported the fundraiser. I know how much work this is, and am grateful for what you do. Wishing everyone -- fans, dancers, those who love dancers, etc. -- another great year of talk and information-sharing .

A new play is set to debut n April at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater of Lincoln Center. It deals with the group of Russian emigres working in the U.S. after World War II. The project: a new ballet on the Orpheus legend. At the center of this circle .... George Balanchine.

Nikokai and the Others

It's 1948 and during a spring weekend in Westport, Connecticut a close-knit group of Russian emigres, including choreographer George Balanchine, composer Igor Stravinsky, conductor Serge Koussevitsky, painter/set designer Sergey Sudeikin and composer Nikolai Nabokov, gather to eat, drink and talk.

In Nikolai and the Others playwright Richard Nelson (Some Americans Abroad, Two Shakespearean Actors) imagines the relationships between Balanchine and Stravinsky, their friends, lovers, wives and ex-wives, partners, supporters and dancers (including Maria Tallchief and Nicholas Magallanes), at the time of their historic collaboration on the ballet Orpheus.

David Cromer directs. Michael Cerveris -- who played the title role in Sweeney Todd and John Wilkes Booth in Assassins, on Broadway -- will be Balanchine.

Here's the NY Times piece on the casting. But .... who will be Magallanes and Tallchief?

http://theater.nytim...the-others.html

With this call for an "independent commission," are they also saying, in effect, that they do not trust the ordinary judicial process?

This one is for cubanmiamiboy:

From the Balanchine Foundation:

Ballet is a dance executed by the human soul.

-- Alexander Pushkin

MCB is starting to tease those on their email list, as well as Facebook followers, with tiny bits of information -- in this case, a photo of their "secret project" with Justin Peck. Photo shows Peck partnering Jeanette Delgado, with Kleber Rebello watching and Renan Cedeiro and Sara (I think) Esty in the background.

I was enchanted by the Salzburg Marionette Theater's MagicFlute. The quality of movement was both real and eerily, beautifully, unreal. It took only a a few minutes for me to enter completely into the unique movement world of mariionettes.. But I suspect that watching them perform an extended all-dance classical ballet would probably over-stretch my ability to suspend disbelief.. Here's their Waltz of the Flowers from Nutcracker. Choreography is fairly rudimentary, but the imagery is lovely.

rg, as you know, ALL photos of Verdy are much appreciated by many of us.

Don't recall having seen a shot in which she has long (and very dark) hair.

Also, didn't know that she had an 8-year marriage to Colin Clarke, the son of Kenneth Clarke. (Thank you Mr. Google for that info.)

Thanks, rg. I had never heard of the "Grand Ballet Classique de France. It is stonishing that they did a five-week engagement -- performing 5 big works ballets -- at a theater as big as the Theatre des Champs-Elysees.

Would love to learn more about this company and this dancer. Also, what is Noir et Blanc? Never heard of that either.

Googling Liane Dayde turned up this from British Pathe -- a brief set of answers during an interview, and some performance shots. She's lovely in closeup, like a very young, slightly chubby-cheeked Audrey Hepburn.

http://www.britishpa...deo/liane-dayde

[... after listening to the Parsifal broadcast I already regretted passing on the HD transmission. Reading this thread, I look forward all the more to a possible encore showing, or if that doesn't happen, at least to Met on Demand.

I'm a fan of both the interviews (especially Deborah Voigt's) and the sequences showing the stage hands at work. I've learned a great deal from both.

"The burly, grim-faced Zarutsky, who served seven years in a maximum security prison for beating up someone who later died, tried to cover his face from TV cameras with his tattooed hand when he was led into the courtroom. He made an indecent gesture and uttered an obscene comment to reporters who shouted out questions about his part in the crime."

Something tells me we aren't in The Land of Sweets anymore.

The NY Times article today adds another element to this story: the question of how young ballerinas' careers are pushed (or not), with some of the unanticipated consequences of that.

Parsing Possible Motives in Bolshoi Acid Attack)

Ms. Vorontsova was greeted as a sensation when, at 16, she won her first major dance competition. Valeria Uralskaya, the editor of Ballet magazine in Russia, described her as “a luminous and delicate adolescent.” She said that Mr. Filin and his ballet company had taken pains to smooth the way for her to move from Voronezh to Moscow, where she finished her training, providing her with lodging, a stipend and a spot at the ballet academy, as well as finding a job for her mother.

In a 2010 interview Ms. Vorontsova acknowledged that Mr. Filin had assumed she would dance in his company, and that her decision to move to the Bolshoi had been painful and difficult.

“Sometimes in life you have to make a choice,” she said.

Ms. Uralskaya said that Ms. Vorontsova’s career had leveled off in recent years, probably for several reasons, including injuries and postadolescent weight gain.

Vadim Gayevsky, an eminent Russian ballet scholar, said the tension around Ms. Vorontsova is symptomatic of a broader problem, as artists barely out of their teens expect to shoot to the top of the profession. He said he felt sorry for Ms. Vorontsova because she was being pushed forward so aggressively by the people around her.

“Artists, even the most wonderful ones, must go through a rather long path unless they’re totally brilliant,” he said. “I don’t know her desires. I don’t know her. I know that her husband and teacher desire that she dance ‘Swan Lake’ at 20. Some can do it then, for others it’s too soon.”

“No one ever asks her,” he said. “They decide everything for her.”

This question of pushing dancers too quickly -- and the unrealistic (or unrealized) expectataions this may produce -- might we worth a thread of its own at some point.

I'm intrigued by Symond's use of "morbid" in "morbid grace."

I love O'Hara's "you were always turning into something else." Only a truly interesting dancer --and one capable of a varied repertoire -- provokes a response like that.

Thanks, Quiggin, for bringing back this thread, as well as the poetic spirit you find in several unlikely places.

You give me the chance to respond (QUITE belatedly) to Farrell Fan's 2008 reminder about the book Tributes.

I like Robert Lowell's little poem, written during a visit to New York City Ballet while on a Ford Foundation fellowship to write powetry about .... opera.

My verses cannot comment

on your immortal moment,

or tell you what you mean;

only Balanchine

has the razor edge,

and knows that art of language.

Marianne Moore on "Arthur Mitchell" (1956)

Slim dragon-fly

too rapid for the eye

to cage,

contagious gem of virtuosity

make visible, mentality.

Your jewels of mobility

reveal

and veil

a peacock tail.

Ron Padgett's "Litle Ode to Suzanne Farrell" (1998), which concludes ...

and you

who hover in the air like a disembodied heart

shocked into eternity for the split second the music

turns to face you and you find your face up there

in the dark where we are and a smile on it

There is space here and air and breath, clarity

of perfect tears that beakuty makes us cry to automatically

as you wrap the world around

your finger, then wrap yourself around the world.

And James Merrill, evoking the experience of watching a ballet -- "Farewell Performance" (1995) -- illustrated by the great Steve Caras photo of Balanchine's "Last Bow" (1982). It begins ....

Art. It cures affliction. As lights go down and

Maestro lifts his wand, the unfailing sea chanage

starts within us. Limber alembics once more

make of the common

lot a pure, brief gold.

And concludes:

.... How you would have loved it. We in

turn have risen. Pity and terror done with,

programs furled, lips parted, we jostle forward eager to hail them,

more, to join the troup -- will a friend enroll us

one fine day? Strange, though. For up close their magic

self-destrkucts. Pale, dripping, with downcast eyes they've

seen where it led you.

The latest issue of the Times Llterary Supplement includes a review of a new book by Christina Ezrahi, Swans of the Kremlin: Ballet and Power in Soviet Russia (University of Pittsburgh Press).

The discussion of this book -- which focuses primarily on the 1940s to 1968, and includes the 1956 Bolshoi tour to London, from which Plisetskaya was excluded -- starts about half-way through the article.

http://www.the-tls.c...icle1222095.ece

Has anyone read this? It sounds as if it might be a little specialized for my interests, but the role of cultural politics in the Soviet Union is always fascinating ... so, I'm thinking about it.

This is available on Amazon. If you click the Amazon box at the bottom of the page and order from there, a bit of the purchase price will go to help keep Ballet Alert online.

It has to be admitted that some of the ballets Ezrahi discusses really do sound like turkeys straight off the Soviet battery farm. Native Fields, first produced in 1953, had a classic “boy meets tractor” plot: “Andrei, nephew of the kolkhoz director, loves Galya, a Komosomol girl. He declares his love but has to leave for Moscow to study. A scene follows depicting the study of the kolkhoz against heat and drought . . . . Galia is now the leader of the Komsomol brigade . . . . Andrei decides to put all his knowledge and efforts toward speeding up the construction of the hydroelectric power station”. The ballet’s own wattage was not impressive, and its lights flickered out after just one season.

Any chance for a reconstruction, do you think?

Beautiful. It is a joy to see a young Eglevsky so relaxed -- almost languidly so. Quite different from the performance photos -- inevitably showing tensions -- one usually sees from later on his career.

Another Philpot portrait illustrates Wikipedia's entry on Eglevsky. It is dated 1937, the year Eglevsky left Europe for the U.S. Since Philpot was based in England (his portraits of figures from the arts and society are often reproduced in books about the interwar years in Britain) the costume is probably something from the European rep of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

By the way, I got my subscription renewal in the mail today. That is something new to get it this early. I think the last couple of years I had to call them and ask when I can renew and that was in summer and one time I was put off. With hindsight it makes no sense for subscribers to call them and ask, "When can I renew?" They should be beating down the doors to make sure we do! So this is a change, and it is a positive change.

Birdsall, did you also get the automated call (taped message) from Lourdes Lopez, alerting us that the subscription material was in the mail? I liked the idea. She sounds young, smart, cheerful, and welcoming. A good way to introduce her to those who haven't met or heard her. She's a really good communicator with audiences.