Herman Stevens

Tamara Karsavina. Sometimes I have a hard time stopping looking at those pictures. She looks so beautiful.

Clearly you haven't looked at a picture of Carlotta Brianza lately. Your "Kirov Classic style" is, of course, a constantly evolving thing. Lezhnina, for instance, would probably look strange if she returned to Petersburg right now. (At least that's what she told me.) There's every reason to believe this process has been going on as long as the company exists. A 125 years ago the Mariinsky people thought the company would go to the dogs if Virginia Zucchi were to set foot on stage. You are right Sylve's Aurora has a little less porcelain and a little more girl power than you're used to. Would I like every Aurora to be this way? No. Am I glad I saw this Aurora? Yes. What's so good about a strong tradition like the Belle au Bois Dormant tradition it can handle this. Allow me to quote from a public source, i.e. my December 20, 2002 interview with Sylve in the Dutch weekly HP De Tijd (formerly an affiliate of Time magazine), "Dance is my Home": "At age eight I left home [her parents had just divorced] so as to live closer to a school that allowed for ballet training half the day. My grandmère moved along with me, and that's why I was pretty much raised by my grandmother. My teacher [sylvie Maradei] became a kind of surrogate mother to me, and I spent a lot of time at her place. If these two wonderful women had not taken care of me this way I doubt I would have made it. A couple of times I was invited to come to the school of the Paris Opéra, the best school in France. But when I took a look at that building with those hard glass walls I knew I would never be able to survive there, all by myself. I would have been totally on my own."

As I was reading some books about Diaghilev lately I got the feeling too that part of his magic was that he was a quit proficient pianist himself and could read scores easily. Certainly in the early years, before success began to breed more success, as it usually does, that must have been a way to show people he was really into it. <Alexandra: every book contract I have signed has a clause saying changes after proofs are a no no. Those are hugely expensive, and so every publisher of every stripe will want to deter authors from doing that.>

Really? Your book was at a university press, wasn't it, Alexandra? Maybe that's why. I know those people do these kinds of things - blindly assuming your own university or some academic fund will "subvent" those costs. (I.e. it's all funny money.) But really, as far as I have experienced, in trade publishing you're not paying for the images. Indexes I don't know about. But I doubt Ms Daneman had to pay for the index to her Fonteyn bio. It's true everything within the covers is the author's work, but nonetheless some substantial editing can occur, and - I'm keeping my fingers crossed - the author doesn't have to pay for that yet. <Thanks for your PM, Alexandra, I'll get back to you later.>

I don't know what the Telegraph excerpts are - and no doubt they were chosen for sensationalist reasons - but this is 2004. Everybody knows people have sex. You can't have a 500 page biography without discussing sex, even if you're writing a nun's biography. It's been awhile I read the Daneman but some of these comments make me like the book better and better. At the time I was reading the Daneman I was pleased to learn that MF had an interesting and varied sex life. I don't think that's a prurient view. On the other hand I believe there is a well-established tradition for prurience in dance / ballet biographies, from all the speculation about Nureyev's anatomy to Buckle quoting Mme Niinsky about you know what.

Dear Alexandra, pardon my French, but I think you should just get the book. You're obviously curious and eager to have an opinion of it. Well, there is only one way of satisfying those perfectly honorable wishes, and that is to read it for yourself (and a little bit for us too).

Speaking of Gottlieb's review of the MF biography in the NY Review - am I the only one who finds it a little disingenuous to chastize Daneman for mentioning a couple sexual details, saying MF would not have wanted these things aired, and then quoting these details in the NYR?

There was a discussion of the book a while ago by people who had gotten hold of advance review copies. I thought the book was fine. In my view it begins to tell somewhere in the second half, that Daneman is actually more of the McMillan generation than of Fonteyn's generation - obviously so, since she wouldn't be writing the book if she were that old or dead.

I would love to see those Davidsbündlertänze and dozens of other pieces with the original dancers. It's just the weirdest thing that there's this huge archive of original Balanchine tapings that, the way it looks, will never be made accessible for the audience of the 21st century - apparently because of these union regulations. It's a big shame.

Please tell us more when you've seen the whole show. I'm curious.

Well, after all those why-questions I think it is fair to ask you why you were wondering if Makarova and Nurejey ever danced together. What would he have done for her that others didn't?

Most dance books go out of print quickly. However the best way to get a good hardcover copy of the books discussed here is to go to a big used & remaindered books site and do some happy hunting. I'm linking the US site, but there's also a uk affiliate.

Well, a raked stage slopes down ever so slightly towards the auditorium. I could imagine it's one reason why one talks of upstage and downstage. Apparently U.S. stages aren't raked, but Russian stages are. When the NYCB went on its first Cold War tour of the Soviet Union in 1962 dancers were apparently terrified of the raked stages at first, as one can tell from both Villela's and Kent's delightful memoirs. Allegra Kent notes that even the studio floors in the Bolshoi were raked at the same angle as the main stage.

Thanks for the corrections. I hope you don't mind I edited these "into" my post, not to appear smarter than I am, but to avoid incorrect information spreading. One thing that struck me, thinking about this night, is that in both cases (after Apollo and after Serenade the dancers generously applauded these orchestra, perhaps to have something to do while they were standing there on that stupid curtainless stage. And I'm going to contact the people who organize this festival. So they had the bad luck the regular theatre was under reconstruction this year, however, this carelessness about the information about the performers was the same as last year, and I think it really takes away from your pleasure if you're thinking all the time "now, who isthis dancer; what's his name?" I don't want to invoke the dread Respect-word, but that's what it really is about, first towards the performers, but also towards the audience.

Yes, Natalia, thank you! You're quite right. Looking at the photos I guess Irina Zhelonkina was Calliope, last night. I talked about the whole thing this afternoon with some friends, and the general feeling was wonderful dancers like this should not have to perform under these crazy circumstances (unless the pay is enormous and taxfree). On the other hand I am happy I have seen this performance, with this delightful contrast between big-guy Apollo and the Muses who treat him like just another cute little kid. "Oh baby, you wanna lead us?"

Well, on second thoughts, the dancers used the orchestra stage, and the Mariinsky string band and Gergiev ipse sat where the first rows of the auditorium would normally be. So that left only three problems. The Rotterdam Doelen concerthall seats a tiny part of the audience way up behind the stage, for people who either have no money or want to watch the conductor. Last night they could watch the back of the dancers' heads. Second. There were no proper wings. Just two openings at each side covered with black curtains. in Serenade this made for some pretty lacklustre exits and entrances. Third: the stage, not being a dance stage, was really a musical instrument. With four dancers in Apollo this was not a big problem. But in Serenade the patting point shoes sometimes overwhelmed the music. So how about the dancing? Apollo was terrific. Mikhail Lobukhin was a powerful lead, and the three muses, Daria Pavlenko, Sofia Gumerova and Irina Golub were more pixielike than I've ever seen Apollo's muses. I liked that. I would love to see these dancers perform this piece again in better circumstances. Oh, I forgot problem nr 4. No curtain. So when they'd gone up the staircase, the lights went out, and there they were, having to clamber down without breaking a leg and take the applause. So while this was a very good Apollo, I can't help but thinking Serenade lacked both humor and passion. To a large extent it was just dancers doing stuff, doing it admirably, but not in a way that I'll ever remember. I am going to call the Balanchine Police today, and tell 'em the Mariinsky performed Serenade without the brilliantly blue backdrop. It's just not the same. This piece is supposed to take place in some kind of eternal timeless moment. I know Mr B called it "Russian blue" - my association is the unchanging Southern California sky. It doesn't matter. Black just won;t do. A last thing: there was no proper handout identifying the dancers and their parts. The names I mentioned for Apollo are educated guesswork based partly on the list of names in the glossy week program which obviously printed at least six weeks ago, before anybody had a clue who would hop on board the Rotterdam flight. I did notice director Vaziev pacing the hall, but I guess he's just too busy helping his dancers to mind these details (in fact Vaziev was listed as a dancer in the book). Oh, I should add, the orchestral accompaniment was marvelous. There was only one moment when Gergiev stretched out the swoon in Serenade's finale too long, but generally the music was a delight. So, Marc, you were a man of your word and did not go near this festival?

And it's double cd, too. Apparently they were unable to squeeze the special features on a single disc, too. So you get two segments of Peter Wright talking about supervising the rehearsals, with some studio footage, and about mime (I seem to recall there's a bit of mime translation, too) and there's a lengthy segment of Sofiane Sylve both in her Amsterdam home and in Manhattan talking about her life as a dancer. So the only thing I could think of yet is a five-minute exposee of the musical intricacies of the Beauty score.

I have been watching this Sleeping Beauty dvd for about a week now, and I have to say it's one of the best shot big ballet videos I have - right up there with the Royal Ballet Coppélia in the way the action is presented. Sleeping Beauty is obviously a monster to capture with those typical Petipa changes from big ensemble work to solo variations, but generally speaking I can say they have done a marvellous job. The entire Rose Adagio with its two ensemble intermezzos and the powerful solos is captured brilliantly. You will never get to watch Sofiane Sylve as closely and extensively as this, both her dancing and her acting. The Vision Scene is beautifully done. Only now I see how subtly acted Gael Lambiotte's prince is. The Vision is also a case IMO that the Wright production beats the Kirov production* as captured on the Lezhnina video in terms of musicality and emotion. In both cases Lilac is, naturally, not dancing, but in the Wright version her action is clearly that of a magical infinitely benevolent being (wonderfully performed by Sarah Fontaine) saying "not yet, dear prince," whereas Makhalina's a more static force just saying "no". A statue Lilac. Correct me if I'm wrong but neither do I see a whole lot of chemistry between Lezhnina and Ruzimatov - he doesn't seem really surprised he gets to hold her after a while, it happens every night after all - whereas there's some really subtle interplay between Sylve and Lambiotte: her little come-hither glances and his despair of ever getting hold of this er, beauty. The Bluebird pdd is wonderful, too, with Sefton Clark and Sabine Chaland (Lambiotte's gorgeous wife). So, even if you're not going to watch every character dance over and over again for the rest of your life, I think there's plenty material you will return to quite frequently. Starting from Act I the orchestra is marvellous too - beautiful violin solo in the Rose Adagio, great cello solo in the vision, and just great playing overall. * Of course the Kirov has in the meantime changed its Sleeping Beauty production significantly. Perhaps I should also say, as a kind of disclaimer, that I have extensively interviewed both Sylve and Lambiotte in the past; however I am not "with" the company and have no interest in promoting this video other than recommending a thing of beauty.

I think the politicians know exactly what they're doing. With most audiences modern dance is much more popular than classical tutu stuff, which is much more intimidating, and doesn't seem to be "expressing our emotions" as directly and naturally. The Dutch National Ballet does triple bills regularly, with, say, a Balanchine piece, a Paquita and a fresh choreography based on ballet technique. The contemporary piece always gets the ovations. I overheard a patron telling his companion once that it was such a relief you don't have to worry whether all the dancers move in time in contemporary stuff. Well, there you go. Contemporary is much easier on the eye. BTW the Dutch National Ballet employs tons of dancers from France, from Toulouse, from Monte-Carlo, from Nice, from all over the place - enough to keep one Amsterdam cigarette store in business.

Looking for excellence is of course a laudable thing, but the risk of this strategy of concentrating all the talent in one classical ballet company in the entire country is that the public will get no exposure to classical ballet, except for those one or two times in their lives they go to see Swan Lake or Beauty like a sort of tourist thing, and they get to consider classical ballet, point shoes, tutus the whole nine yards as a silly kitsch thing - while contemporary dance is about expressing real feelings etc. Ergo you will lose all kind of support and make yourself extremely vulnerable to political pressure to get with the program and start rolling on the floor with some video projections on the back wall. I think ballet culture will be much safer if there are starters' companies in the nation's perifery too, where you don't get to see the best of the best, perhaps, but you can at least take your kids (not that I have any) to the ballet on a regular basis, see what it's like and have some fun. I don't think you want to take your eight years old to a Pina Bausch sort of thing anyway. I remember I took a friend to see Sleeping Beauty a while ago. She'd been to lots of opera and modern dance. And as a consequence she literally was in shock the first five minutes. It wasn't updated! The dancers were totally serious!

If you're talking about Flemish writers I think Hugo Claus and The Sorrow of Belgium or something along those lines, would be a good start.

The dancing and the music will be just as pretty a year later when you don't even remember what the amount paid turned out to be. I would much rather have everything for free, too, but my guess is some 250 persons directly worked at this dvd, either dancing, playing the music, doing technical things in the theatre and the film studio, so maybe it's not all that expensive.

Hi Mussel, I don't have a copy of the dvd yet. However, the dvd is part of a deal with Dutch public TV (and possibly French and Swiss TV, too), and I saw part of the December 25, 2004 broadcast, before our Xmas social activities got started. This is why I think I know about some of the extra features - and I checked with the company today, and yes, it's Peter Wright himself who's talking about mime on the dvd. Same as on TV, only a little more extensive, probably. How I know about the character of the performance is because Sofiane danced Beauty three times in the December 2004 run, and I saw two of 'em in the theatre, plus half of the live TV broadcast (which was Sofiane's third and last performance in this run). Plus a bunch of rehearsals. I have to confess I thought the second was the best, but that one was taped, too, and perhaps footage was mixed for the dvd.

I recommend you get it. Sofiane danced in Amsterdam for ten years, and though she increasingly was a star principal, it was not like the rest of the company stood / danced in her shadow. In other words, there is lots of great dancing to be seen on this dvd. Gael Lambiotte is a wonderful prince, and I often think back on his Act II. (Lambiotte danced briefly in Boston, but came back to Amsterdam.) This was Sofiane's last set of performances with the Dutch company (though she might do some guesting in the future), and her Aurora was simply amazing. I suspect Marc would say it's not completely idiomatic: Sofiane's Act I Aurora goes from Shy to "I Can't Believe Everybody Loves Me" very fast. In the big Act I diagonal after the Rose Adagio proper she's as much a Beast as a Beauty, really devouring the stage. I haven't been able to watch the old Lezhnina / Kirov video ever since. It's just too cute. (In fairness I should say that Lezhnina was very young at the time of the Kirov shoot; I have seen more substantial Lezhnina Auroras here in Amsterdam.) The one thing with the Peter Wright production is Lilac don't do no dancing. Lilac's Waltz in the Prologue is taken by what Arlene Croce dubbed the Fairy of Surplus, in this case Britt Juleen (from Florida originally) who is a wonderful dancer - though my recollection is she wasn't at her best in this part. One more thing: the orchestra and Florio are great. You'll find they blow the NYCB band out of the water. Better players, better preparation. The extra features include Sofiane in wintry Manhattan, and in her Amsterdam apartment, preparing the final move, and a substantial segment about the mime in this production - I forget whether it's Wright himself talking about it or somebody else. For those who are getting this disc, I'd love to hear your reports.

This German production is problematic, in that in the first Act everybody wears modern suits as if they're having a tea party. The Third act is pretty weird too, with the Queen having a reverse oedipal thing, and some german expressionist dancing in front of a mirror. However. I think Steffi Scherzer is pretty wonderful in the 2nd act. She's very much a sorrowful Odette, fully aware that everything will go to pieces. I like the way she keeps some form of repose in her work. Watch the big pdd and especially her solo variation afterwards, the big sissonnes and the rubato in the big diagonal at the end. And, yes, the lighting is bad. But it's supposed to be that way. The music is predictably gorgeous.