Herman Stevens

Don't Try This At Home Well, perhaps it's just me, but it's quite tough to think of a great ballet without a death scene of some kind: Sleeping Beauty's Act I Sc ii is one big death scene - so she's only dead for a hundred years, so what? Petrushka is basically about the Moor figuring out how to kill Petrushka, and when he eventually does, there's an ironic operetta death scene for Petrushka. In Esmeralda, as I recall, pretty much everybody has a near-death scene. Swan Lake ends in a shared suicide. Oh, and how about Le Sacre, with the Virgin dancing herself to death?

Glad you enjoyed the program, Mireille. I was a little surprised, reading one or two Canadian reviews, how little the reviewers seemed to care for Van Manen's Schumann Pieces which I would regard as the strongest part of the program. No big deal, but Carmen's choreographer's name is spelled Brandsen rather than "Brenson". He's the HNB's AD, and, boy, do I wish he was on a plane tonight to have a chat with Alexandra Ansanelli right now - there's a big gaping hole in the company where Sofiane Sylve used to be. (But this is just a wish, no speculation.) ooPS: only now I see this is page2 of a thread I hadn't noticed before. Sorry, Cathy, for not responding before. I thought Nathalie Caris's farewell performance (Sym in C 2nd mvt plus the Tristan & Isolde piece) was quite emotional; perhaps it's just that the Eagling / Wagner piece is, in itself, not a terribly emotive piece. However Caris had had such a terrific last lap the past year facing the end. It was heartbreaking to realize this was it.

Almost certainly. His works simply don't stand up to repeated viewings and are unlikely to stand the test of time. With many of his works its a case of 'seen one, seen them all'. They won't stand the test of time because unlike Balanchine Forsythe isn't a true innovator, nor do his works possess the emotional content that draws in an audience. In my case Forsythe's works certainly stand up to repeated viewings, in fact, they get better with repeated viewings because there's so much happeneing at the same time. With different casts you can also see what each dancer puts into his moves, so that's another criterion of good dance: most dancers love the challenges Forsythe throws at them I'm also going to quote Kate B, because she said it so well. It's too bad if Forsythe said stupid things about ballet. It does help though to keep in mind that a lot a creative people like to say stupid things, just for the fun of being provocative. Brahms, for instance, used to talk about his symphonies, in advance, as just a bunch of polkas and waltzes. Which brings me to PR One of the reasons Mozart died "in poverty" is his bad handling of PR - of course PR existed in Mozart's day, it just looks different because the "public" was different. Salieri was a more succesful composer in his life because he handled his connections to the noble patrons and the church better than Mozart did. As soon as the public expands, a generation or two after Mozart, to include all those upper-middle clas families owning a pianoforte of some kind, PR took on a shape that is distinctly familiar to us. Liszt was as savage and sophisticated a master of PR as Madonna and Prince were in our 1980s. Schumann wasn't just a creative genius; he also edited a magazine with reviews of new music, introducing both Chopin and Brahms to the public (and lots of other composers we don't even recognize the names of). Every music publisher at the time had a magazine to promote their artists. And speaking of ballet, where do you think all those lovely pictures of Taglioni and Grisi come from, floating on those tiny little feet? That's 19th century PR material. So, PR is definitely not a twentieth century invention.

Boy, I don't know what's going on at the MET, but either things are really bad, or some people are just too sensitive. Here in Amsterdam people are usually quiet and appreciative, no "waahooo's!" whatsoever, and I love shows with children in the audience. Don't you just love it when kids try to mimick the moves in intermission time? One of my funniest memories is a performance of Petrushka and Les Sylphides. In the intermission after Petrushka I spotted an eight-year old boy clawing the walls in the lobby in an effort to be like Petrushka. Les Sylphides is arguably the world's most boring ballet for kids, and I remember a girl (one of two blonde siblings) who'd had it after the mazurka and turned her back on the show staring at the dark audience for the rest of the piece - quiet as a mouse.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason is not the cost of transferring the material from one medium to the other, but apparently the inability or unwillingness of the artists' agents and their unions to allow this priceless material to become available - and this includes the orchestra. It's a fees and royalties thing. European companies have unions just like US artists do; they are just not that crazy. This is why most ballet dvd's these days are produced by European companies, and I suspect the fact that this PNB dvd was shot in London is because of some legal loophole. Classical music shows the same picture. American orchestras used to be fantastically prolific up to the seventies. The last twenty years very few US orchestras have produced more than a trickle of cd's, and the reason why is these orchestras have become prohibitively expensive. I may very well be wrong in some way, since ABT seems to be able to produce dvd's. I wonder how come. Of course the whole financial structure of these European ballet companies is different. They are largely state funded. Also, these dvd's are often partly underwritten by the various arts TV channels in Britain, France, Switzerland, Germany and what have you - and those are partly state funded, too.

Serge Lifar was Diaghilev's last big star dancer. He wrote about a million dance books, not all of the 100% reliable, particularly when it's about Lifar's relative importance in the general scheme of things. Particularly distressing is the story of Lifar and Boris Kochno fighting over Diaghilev's body, the minute he had died. Speaking of which, Lifar also insisted Nijinsky be reburied in Paris (shipping his body from London) so that eventually Lifar could be buried beside Nijinsky. He had bought the plot in the Montmartre cemetery thirty years in advance. On second thought, however, Lifar preferred to be buried in the Russian cemetery just outside Paris, near Nureyev's grave. On the plus side: he was the Paris Opera Ballet AD from 1930 - 1952. (Balanchine had also been a contender, in which case there would not have been a NYCB etc.)

Swan Lake etc was not created for TV or video tape, so that the audience could watch, rewind and zoom in on the corners of the dancer's mouth, methinks. And about projecting to the last row of the highest balcony, I don't know either. Some modern theaters are just too big. The Mariinsky theatre seats about 1650 people, I believe. So how should Odette look? I think Swan Lake is one of those tragedies where the heroine knows from the beginning she's doomed. (Think Antigone.) Rothbart is in complete control. (Similarly in Beauty Carabosse doesn't stand a chance against Lilac.) So I think she should project a mix of fear, hope but all along the sure knowledge Siegfried is making a big mistake. He can't save her. She's actually trying to save him by indicating to him it's impossible. The girls in these romantic dramas are usually wiser than the men, who are caught up in their silly action-hero fantasies, but are too blind to tell the girls apart. That doesn't mean she should look like she's ate some bad swan food all the time. But IMO just being a nice modest Victorian girl doesn't do it for me either.

"One big surprise for your guests will be the role of Mother Ginger, the beloved figure who takes care of the Bon-Bons in the Land of Sweets. This role has been played in previous years by Lance Armstrong, Tom Kite, Michael Dell, former Texas Governor Ann Richards and current Texas Gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman. Should you be the winning bidder you will decide who will fill the role of Mother Ginger!" One cannot help but notice the absence of another former Texas Governor, currently US prez, on this little list.

In Greek imagery goats, of course, stood for sexual promiscuity, too. As do the ballet cats in some way. So basically both are animals.

And of course the original tutus were longish "floppy" ones, rather than the hard and straight ones that show the entire leg.

If anyone feels like identifying the four women on Boal's right-hand side, in the Times picture, please feel free.

A photo section doesn't have to be prohibitively expensive these days. The real cost issue is whether you're going to sell a sufficient number of copies.

The Ashley memoir is prohibitively expensive indeed, but of course that's not because of her status as a dancer, but because the book is simply very rare, which may well have to do with the number of copies produced at the time. And with the way people tend to hang on to these kinds of books till they drop. I could imagine Farrell's book is getting a new edition because she wasn't just one of the ultimate Balanchine dancers who was very close to Mr B - it's a great story, so to speak - but she's also quite active these days with a eponymous dance company, and there's the video as well. You can sell copies of the Farrell book in the theatre store when her company's performing. These are a bunch of factors that make a new edition of the Farrell book a more viable venture than the Ashley. The market for this kind of book is very circumscribed, especially when you're talking about dancers etc from the past. When deciding on a reprint the publisher has to make an educated guess how many people would really want this book. Maybe 10.000 people already have a copy of the original edition, and only 397 people who missed out on that one because they were too young at the time would now actually go to the bookstore to buy a reprint copy. That's a huge risk for a publisher. So I'd keep my eyes peeled at yard sales and used book stores. One day you might get lucky.

There's also a DVD with the Vivandière pas de six with Alla Sizova. It's one of those fake-live "night of classical ballet" shows with ecstatic applause coming from nowehere. A Kirov speciality. With or without gallon jugs strapped to the dancer's body, I think the Vivandière should definitely be co-sponsored by hip-replacement manufactors. At least the version I know features tons of very hard one-foot landings and very few cushy pliés.

Another T & V question, if Silvy will pardon me. I read somewhere one section of T&V is known among Balanchine dancers by the rather delightful name of Scrambled Eggs, and of course I am curious which part it is. Maybe someone can tell me?

Anyone interested in these matters should really read Balzac's Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions), particularly pertaining the life of the adorable actress Coralie, who obviously did quite a bit of dancing, too, in 1830s Paris. In Coralie's case, too, the whole modern idea of having options never really enters the picture. She's not even hugely talented; she's just vivacious and pretty and she's got one or two powerful backers. The Balzac novel is also an excellent source for understanding the seedy side of the 19th theatre. Pretty much every actress / dancer had one or two wealthy / old protectors who paid for their apartments and upkeep, and in this rather heavy schedule they also had to mix their real lovers, who typically were from the same artistic bohème - actors, musicians, writers, journalists. Please, do yourself a favor, and read Illusions perdues. It's a magnificent, heartbreaking novel.

As far as I know people from regular middle class backgrounds did not train to be in a ballet company et al. Upper-middle class boys and girls learned various forms of social dances and that was it. There were of course amateur theatricals and every vaguely upper-middle class family had a piano and the daughters played and sang. This was however not intended to develop into any kind of serious professional thing. Women graced the home and pleased their husbands and fiancees. I'll happily stand corrected if I'm wrong but in most case people who went into the theatrical arts did so because they came from a family of actors, dancers and what have you. Nijinsky's dad was a dancer; so was Karsavina's dad, wasn't he? Stravinsky's dad was in the Mariinsky orchestra. The fact that these people were extrardinarily talented was just a coincidence, though being in the business from day one sure helps to hone your talent fast. This tradition of a trade used to be very much a given thing in the past. You were part of a subculture, especially in the arts. Think of the old guild unions, too. Social and professional mobility to the degree we know now is a fairly recent thing.

A company can easily have more than one choreographer, as long as they don't openly hate each other. Plurality of input would only be good. Think Balanchine and Robbins, for instance.

My short answer, Drew, would be No. And I think a soloist can be sidelined just as much as a corps dancer. Scratch any dancer and some kind of career frustration will come out. So I generally prefer not to scratch those places, because I think that stuff is really rather uninteresting in its sameness. Golbin doesn't do it either. Perhaps I should look again, but I believe she doesn't ask the typical sob story questions like "what role did you never get to dance even though you want to badly?" and "tell me about your injuries; do they really hurt?" and that mindboggling "what are you going to do when it's all over?" For some weird reason a lot of people love to read / hear about dancers as victims, both of their art and of the powers that be. I don't. It has been my experience, though, that if a dancer wants to dish company dirt for political reasons, he or she is going to do it anyway. It doesn't take any scratching. I tried to get corps dancers to talk on the record was when I was working on a piece on Les Sylphides, for instance. So it wouldn't really have been a big me-interview for them anyway. But I did get a distinct sense they were not just not that eager to get their views in the piece, whereas pretty much every soloist will be happy to give his or her views, and I can only conclude it's an ego thing - the feeling that spot up front is yours. I should ask sometimes. Or perhaps people here have some input? I should add though that corps dancers as a rule have a much heavier rehearsal schedule than soloists. A corps dancer usually has to work in every piece on the program, and soloists just don't. So the latter tend to be more available too.

Indeed, but one does get the feeling (or at least I did) that Karsavina, long-lived as she was, and conveniently located, was a major source for Buckle, and the inevitable payback was that her view on a couple matters should prevail, such as the relentless trashing of Pavlova. I have not the slightest doubt Karsavina was an exceptional woman and artist, but there are times when Buckle's adulation (there's also the In the Wake of Diaghilev volume) gets a little too much. The reader is left no space to make up his own mind. Am I the only one who thinks Buckle pretty much had said his say in Nijinsky? To me his Diaghilev is sort of a rehash of the earlier book.

These are very interesting profiles. I consider those little Q & A's at the tail-end as a kind of hoot. Of course it pays off big time that Golbin really knows the subjects well, and can write about 'em with ease and humor. I'm very much interested in what makes corps dancers tick. The funny thing is I have found over the years that it is much harder to get anything remotely resembling an interview on the record with corps members than with soloists, so much so that I decided it is an ego thing. Obviously NYCB corps members are different; even a New York cab driver has a bigger ego than one in Amsterdam or Paris. Still, I guess the best way to go about this is Golbin's way, working from longtime observation and familiarity rather than a straight sit-down and spill it out interview. So I'm looking forward to the next instalments.

Yes, he's the MC whose wig goes out the window.

Agreeing with Leigh on the subject matter, I hope you don't mind my saying not everybody thinks it's a great idea to put too much exposition material in dialogue form rather than straight prose. Contrary to what people think it's much faster and efficient to just put your research in 'observational' prose. You could let the girl just look and feel the pointe shoes (when she's at the right age) and handle the whle thing in a hundred words, rather than yet another page of dialogue that has very little forward momentum. This is a moment that asks for some kind of intensity. I'd say, check Hemingway's Nick Adams stories about catching trout and lighting fires for a good model on yr first pointe shoes, strange as it may sound. Dialogue is exciting when there is some hidden tension between speaker A and B (not necessarily in the form of WHo's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf-like conflict) rather than just mr A spelling uot the material to mr B, who asks the requisite dumb questions. On the other hand, this is what Plato did, and people are still reading him 2500 years later.

So what does Lilac do in this production? I'm not sure which production this is. Is it Wright's 1980s RB production? In other words - is the no-points Lilac, with an extra fairy dancing the big variation in the prologue in her place? Somehow I think in that case it is a little sad the part is guested from outside the co.

That's lovely. Did she get a lot of laughs? Does she wear a mask in this production, or does she get to show her face? You probably know Tchaikovsky hand-picked the original White Cat, Maria Anderson, after having spotted her in another ballet. So he must have had special feelings for this episode. Maria Anderson later wrote a memoir, and the bit about Tchaikovsky and Petipa discussing Beauty on the stage of the Mariinsky during rehearsals and asking her to step closer so as to be introduced to the composer - just imagine! - is translated in R.J. Wiley's Tchaikovsky's Ballets, p.158-159.