Herman Stevens

On DVD there's the 2000 [?] production of Balanchine's MND by the Pacific Northwest, filmed in London if memory serves.

I haven't watched it entirely myself yet. It's had mixed reception on this board. You could do a search, mixing Pacific with Dream, I suppose.

I think there's a wonderful artist's credo hidden in the last quote of the piece:

"[Ashton] lived in dread of boring anybody, and I think he had the ability to know exactly how long his ballets should be. So he [...] left you wanting a little bit more."

Hello, Wagner...

(May I grouchily say it's not the most elegantly written piece I have ever seen, what with the RB behemoth occupying the Met "in solitude" etc?)

Herman

It sounds like a very exciting evening, Herman!  Perhaps the audience will be invited to join in and substitute for any errant corps de ballet members who may have gone a-roving.

In that case I might prefer to knock over Apollo when he's still a kid, and have my way with the muses.

(BTW I ran into Ruta Jezerskyte the other day, together with her two lanky sisters, and told her how I and 'a dance writer from the US' had liked her Titania - hope that's allright with you.)

This year's Rotterdam Gergiev Festival will be dedicated to Tchaikosvky, with the Kirov Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic.

There will be two shows with dancers from the Mariinsky, both featuring Serenade and Apollo. Since these shows are on consecutive nights I was wondering whether they will feature the exact same cast, and so I called the Rotterdam organisation. Naturally they had no idea.

The other weird thing is these performances will take place in the regular concert hall (the Doelen). It doth not have a pit, which I why I asked where the orchestra will be.

"On the stage".

So I asked where the dancers would be.

"Oh they are in the auditorium".

I see.

So where's the audience going to be seated?

"Around the the dancing."

I have a feeling some things have not been quite thought out yet - which is not un-gergievesque.

I wouldn't stay up to see either Dubya or Clinton dance, but the Gores were great dancers.

This is a global disease, surely. The new editor of the weekly I review fiction for proposed we'd change our tack and "only do items that are sure to be successful and attract a big audience". So I could only counter by saying, how can we be sure a book / show / whatever is going to be successful in advance? Plus aren't the media able to create and initiate success, by leading rather than following?

I believe he's still mulling this over.

Perky quoting Suzanne Farrell: "He would often close one eye and optically split the body down the center, leaving each half with all the necessary components-head, arm, body, leg, and foot. To him, the lower body was as capable of expression as the upper."

Which is where I guess the pelvis comes in, as an expressive part of the lower half.

Many European (not the mention the Asian) dancers have a problem sticking the pelvis out in Balanchine.

However I have a hard time believing this story about Balanchine shutting one eye to split Suzanne Farell down the middle (vertically). Try it yourself.

It has a title! That's promising.

Exept that Ballet and Balanchine is not a very good title. For one I'd prefer Balanchine and Ballet. And what I'd really want is Balanchine: A Life, in which, obviously, the ballets would be treated extensively. The current title however would indicate a book which perpetuates the notion that Balanchine's life was nothing but making up steps.

Interesting that Dutch reviews don't focus on dancers.  In America, this is one of the (many) divides between ballet and modern dance criticism, probably because so many ballet performances are of repertory with a performance history, and most modern dance concerts are of new work (obviously Graham, Taylor, Cunningham and others are exceptions to this, but even there, you don't get "the exquisite belly, small, taut, and built for contractions......")  I have modern dance friends who .... not complain, exactly, but query why their dancing is never mentioned.

One last thing, and then we should get back to Mr Gottlieb.

In Dutch reviews the first cast soloists are generally mentioned and their performance is usually characterized in one sentence max*; the rest of the piece is about characterizing the entire show. There are no comparisons between the various casts because as far as I can tell critics don't go to different nights. And I certainly don't recall a critic ever mentioning a dancer from the corps he / she particularly liked.

Of course everybody who writes professionally is aware that too many names clog up a paragraph like a kitchen sink. You have to make choices.

Back to Gottlieb. I always read his pieces; I guess everybody does. The balance between great experience and insufferable curmudgeon is usually ok, though I could imagine Mr Martins views this differently.

*without reference to anatomical ideosyncrasies, though, except for the one critic who always refers to Larissa Lezhnina's "robotic smile". :rolleyes:

But I've never known a dancer who didn't read reviews.  I think they have to learn early on to put them in perspective:  if there's something useful, keep it.

I guess I was talking from my own perspective (what else can I do). A lot of dancers at the Dutch National are none too proficient in the Dutch lingo, and so I'm guessing they don't get up in the morning after a premiere to get the papers with the review - apart from the fact Dutch ballet reviews as a rule don't mention too many particular dancers because 1) it might get too complicated for the readers 2) the critics go to one show and that's it. I believe I'm the only one who routinely goes three times or more, and I don't write reviews. (In all fairness I have to add I review fiction and I never read a book twice - no one does.)

"If there's something useful, keep it."

Well, I just have to say if, as an artist, you need a critic to tell you something you don't know, you might as well stop. I say this as a writer. I may be wrong in dance, because there are a couple former dancers who write about dance, so I gladly stand corrected. But nonetheless I feel you shouldn't go and read the paper to find out how you should do your stuff. That way you're making yourself terribly vulnerable to the totally different rules of 400 word journalism.

Which brings up a related question:  Do people think it's a good idea for performers to read reviews?

Hell, no, of course they shouldn't. And I suspect most of them don't. They're much too busy. However the funny thing is, when you get a bad review there will always be people who let you know. They call you on the phone, or e-mail to commiserate over something you weren't even aware of.

This is one of the strangest habits of people. I'm sure cats, dogs and antilopes don't do this; they wouldn't even consider it. As a novelist I have been very fortunate with critics, but with the one or two strangely vicious reviews I have had, it never fails. You don't know they exist, untill someone calls you to say they're mad at reviewer X or Y for you.

When I'm introduced to a dancer I always make a point of saying I write about dance, sometimes, but I don't do reviews etc, so as to make sure they know I'm not with the enemy.

I reported this to a friend who responded that de Leeuw has a twin brother. Perhaps that is whom you saw?

Hi Leigh,

excellent sleuth work! I called DNB staff and indeed Boris DL has a twin brother who happened to be at the Rotterdam opening night. (And I bet Boris pays him to stand in the lobby quaffing drinks, so that people like me think it's Boris. Just kiddink!)

You know, I have seen this a couple of times at this forum - people checking claims and getting closer to the truth. It's a very special thing on the internet, which, alas, thrives on rumor and hearsay.

BTW as I called DNB I also found out my favorite corps dancer, Rosi Soto, will be promoted as of August 1. It's like she's got three brains: one in the usual spot, and one in each foot. She's got the smartest feet in the entire company. I'm so happy for her.

And doesn't Balzac Cousin Bette's cousin have a husband who is keeping a ballerina? Here is a bit of Balzac poached off the internet from "Unconscious Comedians" which touches on some of this.

The middle part of Balzac's wonderful novel Lost Illusions revolves around a lovely actress / dancer (etc) Coralie who is sponsored by a dull old rich man while she has a young attractive lover (the protagonist) at the same time.

It's one of the great source texts about all the wheeling and dealing that went on in the theatre and media world, with actresses getting written up because the rich lover buys a hundred seats, and has them filled with a claque, unread novels getting great reviews just because the publishers says so, etc etc.

Sometimes it seems very little has changed. I don't know of any kept women in the (high) arts, but, yeah, no matter whether you're a man or a woman, exercizing charm at the right time and place is essential to succes.

Duo doesn't look like it does in NYC!  Same steps, completely different feeling.  And that was different from both casts.  Igone de Jongh and Gael Lambiotte were more small-scale, almost cozy and Enrichetta Cavalotti was almost stereotypically Italian with Jahn Magnus Johansen (I loved her though).

The Dream looked in decent shape.  I got Larissa Lezhnina with Boris de Leeuw. [...] I would have liked to see Lezhnina in Theme.

Last night in The Hague I got to see Duo with Enrichetta Cavalotti and Jahn Johansen. It was indeed a totally different experience. The one I reported on earlier was dull, timid and didn't really make it across the lights (it took the scherzo before there was any applause). Cavalotti and Johansen were alive, wild and sizzling. Suddenly the steps were a real dialogue rather than steps. Those long limbs were flying.

The musicians were better too.

And I got Ruta in the Dream. I liked her just as fine as I did Larissa. The big difference was Boris de Leeuw, who brought a real smouldering bad mood to Oberon, which I thought was rather hilarious. Even his make-up was a lot blue-and-greener than Nagy's, last night.

Leigh, Larissa in Theme is obviously great. It's just her kind of material. However, in that case you would not have gotten Cedric, but Tamas Nagy, who was a rather impassive partner, the night I saw them. Besides, I think Yumiko Takeshima is really good, too, in Theme.

Er, perhaps, Marc. Our June calendar is pretty full. Please tell me something more about this Lavrosky Niinsky piece.

Of course it's very daring and original to create a work with this title (:rolleyes:), but if it's just a piece of kitsch ending in the male lead going christ crazy I just might pass.

You're kidding about De Leeuw!  Please tell me you are. . . you've got to hate people who don't need to warm up.  The interview in the theater lobby talked about his coaching with Anthony Dowell for the role (and a picture of him looking very handsome) - I wanted to know more about what he learned from Dowell and when and where he got the coaching.

I'm not kidding. BdL was having a drink in that awful lobby during the second intermission. Brinkmanship?

I'm afraid I cannot tell you about the interview in the theatre. I believe Dowell was at the opening night, but I'm not sure, as I didn't go to the party afterwards.

We've been very busy lately after moving house. I would have tried to contact you before Rotterdam, to see if we could arrange something along the lines of "I'm the guy with the carnation in his fedora", but as it happened I was offline for a full four weeks because of the address change.

De Leeuw and Dowell have been swapping steps before. When Hans van Manen took his Four Schumann Pieces to the DNB, Boris took the man-in-the-middle role which was originally created for Dowell. Recently, though, Gael Lambiotte was first cast in this part.

I'm glad you saw some things you liked, Leigh. Obviously I saw the same Lezhnina / De Leeuw Dream - I remember being a little suprised at seeing De Leeuw in the audience right up to the second interval. He has got to be a fast dresser. I'm hoping to see Jezerskyte in Ashton tomorrow night. She is a very interesting dancer indeed. She does a lot of contemporary stuff - she's regarded as one of Krystof Pastor's muses, and I like it when she takes that I'm-making-it-on-the-spot sensibility to a classical ballet. Her Dutch Sleeping Beauty debut was very impressive, a couple of months ago. I was told she was Lithunia's Woman of the Year in 2003 or 2002. Of course she's the girl on the cover of the program bookie.

Boris de Leeuw's story is he quit dancing for a couple of years, just like that. I believe this is his first season of his second life as a dancer, and it has been rather spotty. He is a very powerful stage personality, though. You just have to watch him. Even at the start of Agon, when you're looking at four identical guys' backs, you cannot help watching De Leeuw's back, and no one else's.

I'm not surprised the NYCB Duo C is quite different from the ones out here; it's after all a piece for two soloists, so it's bound to take on the shape of the particular dancers more than, say, Theme. IMO the first De Jongh / Lambiotte performance wasn't quite on - and I like both dancers a lot (I've written interviews with both). Sometimes it seems like De Jongh is developing panda-like partnering problems. She went from Lambiotte to De Leeuw and now she's back to Lambiotte, but the combo didn't really sparkle that night.

Obviously Duo C a convenient piece between two biggish pieces like Theme and Dream but Duo C does perhaps err a little on Balanchine's "see the music" side, to my taste. Perhaps, however, I should see a NYCB perfomance, to get a better sense of the piece?

Herman

Herman, I'll see both performances in Rotterdam, and then NDT at Den Haag on May 1.  This is my first time seeing DNB, so I am quite excited.

Hi, Leigh. Did you get to go to the shows you mentioned? I'd be interested to hear what you thought of them.

I went to the first DNB night, and enjoyed Theme & Vars immensily. Cedric Ygnace is my favorite DNB dancer for this piece. He gels with his partner (Yumiko Takeshima) in a way that pretty much blurs the he - she roles, particularly during the violin solo, with the his and hers pirouettes.

I recall Susan Hendl, who came over for the rehearsals, was very much taken with Ygnace, too.

I'll be going to another performance come Saturday - same couple.

Well, unintentionally you have persuaded me to get to know those Gershwin tunes a little better so I can identify them now. Or was it the fact that 's Wonderful got stuck in my head?

Leigh, I am hoping you will post extensively about the shows you're going to see in Holland (the NDT, too, obviously). Of course the Rotterdam Schouwburg is not the DNB's home theater. The good thing is it's a little more intimate. The bad thing is it's a plug ugly early eighties structure.

Interesting that McBride looks bigger in the pictures than she apparently is (maybe because Villella whom she's often pictured with is no giant either). IMO she is one of Balanchine's most photogenic dancers. She always looks like having tons of fun.

Thanks for your response, Leigh. I'm sorry I was a little vague and rushed, earlier.

Marisa Lopez did Stairway (and I saw her twice, plus Larissa once). The fouettée &c solo was done by Yumiko Takeshima in the first cast, Enrichetta Cavalotti in the second, and by French demi soloist Charlotte Chapellier in the dress rehearsal (I believe she's 3d cast). I liked Charlotte the best; she's kind of small and lightning fast, while the other two are rather big dancers.* (Also: I really like her as a person.)

Back to Marisa. With slinky I guess I mean that with Marisa 'Stairway' came in one long juicy flow from the hips. Both times she brought down the house. Perhaps you know Marisa from San Francisco? She's whippet thin and ultra-flexible and she's got this great big smile. It was fast, it was happy and it came completely natural (it didn’t with Larissa IMO), even though those steps are all over the place.

So you’re going to the first night in Rotterdam? My guess is Larissa will do Theme again on that night.

*BTW I'm probbly being completely inauthentic here. One and Only was originally by Patricia McBride, wasn't it - and she isn't smallish, is she?

to the best of my knowledge arlene croce's balanchine book is NOT a biography; it's a study of key works, no doubt w/ biographical information but not a biog. per se.

Oh, OK. It makes sense, obviously, that Croce is not writing a biography.

However, in that case I'm going to say again, it is really baffling that there isn't a major, new-generation biography in the works.

If it's really true Mr B is up there with Mozart and Tchaikovsky it's a little awkward that they have new books to show off with every five years or so, and all Mr B's got is a bunch of (fine) memoirs.

Balanchine Centenary highlights for me after a couple of nights:

Larissa Lezhnina in Theme and Variations. This is the quintessence of the material she's made for.

Agon: Igone de Jongh and Boris de Leeuw in a breathtaking pdd. It was like watching Adam and Eve playing with each other in the dark.

The orchestra with Roy Goodman was great in this very tough piece of music.

Who Cares? 'The Man I Love' pdd wit Sabine Chaland and Gael Lambiotte. They are a real-life couple, too, and Gael had told me he was looking forward to doing this. I had to dry my eyes afterwards.

Marisa Lopez in the slinky steps solo (forget which song). Again she's just made for this; Larissa had this solo in the second cast, and her style is too step-defined for this juicy stuff.

Wonderful set by Paul Gallis with a slowly shifting Manhattan skyline, which got applauded every night the curtains opened.

It's Federico Bonelli rather than Frederico. I could imagine being cast that suddenly would make one nervous, and F.B. is quite a coltish dancer. (He used to dance in the Dutch National Ballet.)

I am very fond of the Gergiev recording of Sleeping Beauty, although, again the tempi are a matter of preference.  This recording is certainly energetic in sections.

The Gergiev / Kirov recording of Sleeping Beauty is one of Gergiev's signature bad recordings. I don't know what the sound engineers did to further this bad sound, but it is spectacular. It's like you're listening with a crash helmet around your head.

Musically Gergiev puts a lot of energy into the climaxes. So the Rose Adagio is terrific, and so is the Vision scene and the 3d act PDD, but just like the ballet is not about the principals only, the music isn't just working its way to the 'climaxes'. This misunderstanding is fatal IMO.

I really like the recording by Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian Nat O. Pletnev has also performed Sleeping Beauty on the piano a lot, so he knows the score inside out. (As far as I know Gergiev rarely ever conducts the ballet.)

For studying the steps perhaps the Kirov / Larissa Lezhnina dvd would be good.

Have I ever said this is probably the most gorgeous music on the face of the earth?

Well, isn't that most awkward? Surely every media has done its Balanchine Centenary thing, and then the biography is published after the crest.

I guess one could say kudos to the editor who didn't want to rush publication by six months so as to profit from the Centenary hype, but I sure won't be able to write another Balanchine piece this year. (I did mention the Costas book.)