Anthony_NYC

Thanks so much, Farrell Fan! I'm going to have to get a tape of it from a friend of mine. I have a theory. Did Farrell's trademark unsmiling coolness--which I adore--originate in part from self-consciousness about her overbite?

I'm upset I was unable to watch. Can somebody tell me what was included in the Farrell section of the television broadcast? Was it just Tallchief and Mitchell who were cut?

I found that movie thoroughly irritating and tedious. The protagonist makes a career out of being a helpless waif--I hate helpless waifs!--and for some reason we're supposed to admire and identify with him. Those who want to make the world believe gay men are all juvenile, irresponsible, and self-centered will find plenty of fodder here. The thing goes on and on and on, too, one pointless episode after another. "Brokeback Mountain," on the other hand, is superb in every department. A genuinely great movie. I don't want to say more about it because it's probably best to see it the first time without knowing too much about it.

The comment from Villella surprised me, with its implicit criticism of Martins, since I was under the impression the two of them were friends (or at least enjoyed a good professional relationship). But I'm very glad he made it. From my own depressing experiences at other organizations, I'd say it's hard to know, even from this lengthy article, what really is going on with the board, though things certainly don't sound good. But one thing is clear: currently, nobody is addressing (*can* address?) such a fundamental problem as the lack of coaching, in Balanchine's company, from Balanchine's own dancers. It breaks my heart.

I'm really enjoying the funny comments about the conundrum of trying to choose between NYCB's and ABT's Swan Lacks. Aside from casting preferences, for me there's one consideration that tips things decidedly in ABT's favor: the orchestra there does better justice to the beautiful score.

La Fosse is GUEST artist?

It was great to see a movie musical where the characters just break into song (unlike, say, Chicago, where they're careful to let you know the numbers are only figments the imagination). And that worked because they avoided a problem that many musical films since the 60's have (Grease, for instance), where the acoustic for the songs is different from that for the dialogue, so that when the characters start to sing, it sounds completely artificial. The movie struck me sort of as Hair meets Fame. I neither loved nor hated the score; some numbers were good, and the performers were all terrific, especially Jesse L. Martin. Given the subject matter and what I'd heard about the stage show, I was surprised how old-fashioned the music was, and the arrangements, the instrumentals behind the singing, were incredibly unimaginative and monotonous, I thought. Also, trying to sing dialogue to a thumping beat--rock recitative, I guess--well, it just never works for me. The score got me thinking though--usually I find distasteful the way in today's musicals characters, instead of simply singing feelings, sing about what their feelings MEAN. (Coming soon to a theatre near you: "I'm OK, You're OK: The Musical.") There was some of that in Rent, but something about rock music (it's tradition of protest and making statements?) makes it a lot less objectionable than I usually find it. The movie had a great look, it created its own world. (That film within the film of flashbacks to good times, though--yuck. Was that actually in the stage show?)

I believe this production is to be shared by the Met, first outing there next year.

That IS a great list. I'd want to add Philadelphia Story, Tootsie, Moonstruck, Six Degrees of Separation (black comedy?), and all of the Marx Brothers movies.

If the object is to scare people, just put me in any role requiring tights.

At least it's not "William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream: The Ballet."

There's a good interview with Cecilia Bartoli in The Guardian. And she makes a wonderful comment that reminded me of this discussion:

From etymonline.com: "Tutu. Ballet skirt, 1910, from Fr. tutu, alteration of cucu, infantile reduplication of cul 'bottom, backside.'" Oh dear.

Sure, but the huge changes in music styles over the years have made crossover today mean something different than it did in the past. "South Pacific" was written for Ezio Pinza. In fact a lot of the old musicals call for what they used to call "legitimate" voices, so opera singers can sound terrific in them. (Neapolitan songs were also written for operatic voices.) Then came the flood: rock, soul, disco, hiphop, etc.--new styles of music that also required a different style of singing. Mostly, opera singers' attempts to do these things are pretty laughable. We don't know what Millo was asked to sing, but I doubt she would object to singing "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" (which was written for Kirsten Flagstad, actually). Would anybody really want to hear her doing "Stayin' Alive" or "Born to Run," or to attempt some gangsta rap? And does anybody want to hear *anybody* singing Lloyd Webber?

I find that pop singers attempting to do opera usually sound ridiculous or even hilarious (Michael Bolton's album of arias, for instance), whereas opera singers doing pop usually just sound awkward and overscaled and unstylish--and boring. I recently caught on TV a bit of Fleming (whom I usually adore) doing "Hello, Young Lovers," and I wondered how her blowsy, charmless rendition could possibly give anybody any pleasure. But I don't know--I mean, it doesn't HURT anybody, so if singers want to try it, why not humor them? Maybe we'll get lucky. There's at least one opera singer I know who was really successful doing jazz, and that was Eileen Farrell. Somehow she had the secret of adapting her voice to the material (with great diction!) but without hiding its huge operatic dimensions. What made her so irresistable was she sounded like she was having the time of her life, whatever she was singing. Whereas if Millo really doesn't want to do this, would she likely be any good at it? So I say good for her for declining.

Exactly. And all of David's body parts do exactly what Michelangelo had in mind. Whereas even the greatest dancer in the world doesn't have absolute control over... It may say more about me than about dance, but when there is nudity on stage I find it hard to pay full attention to anything else.

Sorry. It's The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, kind of the musical equivalent of the Encylopaedia Britannica. The last print edition, in 29 volumes, came out in 2001, but the online edition is updated continually.

Actually, he is listed in the online edition of Grove's, according to which: "In 1823 he contributed to the ballet Il castello di Kenilworth performed at La Scala, but Elerz e Zulmida in 1826 was the first wholly by him." Here's the complete list of his ballets as listed in Grove's. Perf. Milan, La Scala, pubd Milan: Elerz e Zulmida (L. Henry), 6 May 1826 (?1827); Edoardo III, ossia L'assedio di Calais (Henry), 15 Feb 1827, with music by Rossini, Mozart, Meyerbeer (1827); Pellia e Mileto (S. Taglione), 28 May 1827 (1827); Agamennone (G. Galzerani), 1 Sept 1828 (1828, 1832); Adelaide di Francia (Henry), 26 Dec 1829 (1830); Guglielmo Tell (Henry), 19 Feb 1833 (1833); Monsieur de Chalumeaux (Galzerani), 14 Jan 1834 (1834) Perf. London, Her Majesty's, pubd London: Ondine, ou La naïade (J. Perrot, F. Cerrito), 22 June 1843, complete (1844); La Esmeralda (Perrot), 9 March 1844 (London, Milan, 1845); Eoline, ou La dryade (Perrot), 8 March 1845 (1845); Kaya, ou L'amour voyageur (Perrot, J. Weiss), 17 April 1845 (1845); Catarina, ou La fille du bandit (Perrot), 3 March 1846 (1846), as perf. La Scala, 1847, with addl music by G. Bajetti, complete (Milan, 1847); Lalla Rookh, or The Rose of Lahore (Perrot), 11 June 1846, collab. F. David (1846); Le jugement de Pâris (Perrot), 23 July 1846 (1846); Coralia, ou Le chevalier inconstant (P. Taglioni), 16 Feb 1847 (1847); Fiorita et la reine des elfrides (Taglioni), 19 Feb 1848 (1848); Les métamorphoses (Taglioni), 12 March 1850 (1850) Stella, ou Les contrebandiers (A. Saint-Léon), Paris, Opéra, 22 Feb 1850, complete (Paris, 1850) Perf. St Petersburg, Bol'shoy: Voyna zhenshchin [The Women's War, or The Amazons of the 9th Century] (Perrot), 23 Nov 1852, as Wlasta l’amazzone del IX secolo, ossia La guerra delle donne (Milan, ?1855); Faust (Perrot), 14 Feb 1854 (Moscow, n.d.); Doch Faraona [Pharaoh's Daughter] (M. Petipa), 30 Jan 1862, complete (St Petersburg, n.d.); Théolinda l'orpheline, ou Le lutin de la vallée (A. Saint-Léon), 18 Dec 1862, complete (St Petersburg, n.d.); Konyok gorbunyok, ili Tsar-devitsa [The Little Hump-Backed Horse, or the Tsar's Daughter] (Saint-Léon), 15 Dec 1864, complete (St Petersburg, ?1864)

Here's some great news. Tower Records now carries a 9-CD box set of the music for Bournonville's ballets. The store at Lincoln Center has it in stock, but you can also order it on their website.

A lot of entries in NYPL's catalog say "closed" or "permission required." I'm not sure about the former, but for the latter, it usually means you need permission from the company. That used to scare me off, but then I discovered that both NYCB and ABT are extemely accommodating about granting permission. Very easy. Incidentally, I believe NYPL for the Performing Arts also gets tapes of all performances that happen at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It would be great to think that everything at the Joyce is also being filmed.

Various people have made orchestral suites from the opera, the most popular of which is the one by Arthur Rodzinsky--it includes most of the "big moments" in the score, including the famous trio. But at about twenty minutes (as I recall) you probably couldn't tell the whole story using it alone. By the way, it was not Strauss who arranged the familiar First Waltz Sequence from Rosenkavalier. It was done by Otto Singer.

Not every library can, or should, keep every old book they have. The great university libraries, Library of Congress, New York Public, etc., are charged with preserving rare books, and they try to coordinate amongst themselves to cover as many subject areas as possible. Most other libraries don't have the facilities or the money--or the demand--to keep everything. The great thing about the Internet is that the books that get sold off, rare or not, can now find their way so easily into the hands of the people who want them rather than simply getting tossed into the trash.

Is she still in the dance world, or has she moved on to other endeavors?

Can anybody tell me what these two dancers are up to these days?

Bart, this is why you still need your local library. There's a good chance they can give you access to full text archives through one of their online subscriptions. (I have to admit, I don't understand why the NY Times and other periodicals feel the need to charge for this sort of thing.) I'm with you about the importance of browsability. If you're searching for an article online, you'll pretty much get only articles conforming to the narrow scope of your search, and the serendipity factor is largely eliminated. Anyone who has ever done research can probably tell you stories about coming across a valuable article they didn't know existed while they were looking for something else. Paper is still the best way to make this happen. There's also a general education issue. If a student has an actual magazine in hand, after finishing one article he is more likely to read, or at least glance through, a neighboring article he didn't think he had any interest in. Even if he doesn't, without being aware of it he'll notice what's on the coveer, the table of contents, the advertisements, the names of the other authors--you know, the context, what else was in the air at that particular moment, who was writing, and about what--with the possibility that a new interest is sparked serendipitiously, or some tiny piece of information becomes lodged in his brain that helps fill out the constellation of associations in his mind.