Anthony_NYC

Just the usual tiresome snobbery, but as for the last sentence: Does he mean to imply that art has to "provoke" to be valid?

So I've been waiting to hear how this went. Did anybody watch?

The Baermann piece was for many years attributed to Wagner. If I remember correctly, Taylor knew it wasn't by him but used it anyway because it was on the same LP as the Siegfried Idyll and because he liked the stylistic inconsistency with the Wagner.

I'd have to agree, it wasn't one of Wheeldon's best efforts. But he had to work with (or against) an undistinguished score by Marvin Hamlisch, so it's not all his fault. Actually, undistinguished maybe isn't the right word. It was very accomplished, as you'd expect, but monotonous, and not really very tuneful. I wonder if Wheeldon knows that Stephen Sondheim has expressed keen interest in writing a ballet score. Now THAT could be interesting! Who knows, maybe the only reason Sondheim hasn't written that score yet is that no company or choreographer has approached him about it.

Lol. For goodness' sake, people--they're ORANGE!

Coincidentally, a gaggle of NYCB dancers is featured in a photo for this week's "Fashion" issue of New York Magazine. (They're wearing their Divert. 15 costumes.)

It may be slightly off topic here, but any Croce completist will also want to read her delightful and insightful "Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Book."

Does anybody remember that one-time-only event Kirstein had NYCB do some years back, a kind of processional for the company (unfortunately, to a miserable Mass by Michael Torke)? Martins contrived the movement. The set was a design by Johnson for a church. It seemed to be related to some project, maybe a possible future collaboration with Johnson, that had a lot of personal meaning for Kirstein, but his program note only added to everybody's mystification as to what it all meant. Does anybody know what that was about?

Nobody knows it, but I'm actually the greatest choreographer that ever lived. I just haven't found anybody yet who can execute my sextuple tours en l'air or entrechats dix-huits.

Rockwell writes: "Well, where to begin? Presumably, by 'weight' Ms. Tomalonis means the earth-centered movement of some modern dancers, as opposed to the airiness of ballet. She has a point. But movement and bulk are related. The disconcertingly thin model for ballerinas is relatively new. Look at pictures of dancers in the 19th century, and even into the 20th. And so much for the oft-heard contention that ballet technique provides the best basis to undertake most any kind of dance." I'm feeling rather stupid--I honestly can't make heads or tails of this. How does the last sentence follow from what he says before? And what does it have to do with point Alexandra was making?

I'm truly sorry Quinn's leaving. Before she arrived, the orchestra was just atrocious, sometimes so bad that I wondered how the dancers could recognize their cues. Nowadays, not only the playing much better, but they even play with some style (well, sometimes they do). I've seen T&V countless times at NYCB, and the performance I saw earlier this week conducted by Quinn seemed entirely within the company's tradition with regard to tempo--and it was much, much better played than it used to be. In fact, in the final polonaise her tempo was notably less fast, more controlled and detailed, than Kaplow's--and more exciting as a result. (Kaplow is the real speed demon at NYCB, especially in T&V.) I didn't notice any unusual scrambling among the dancers, and the only thing the wonderful Sylve had trouble with was what most ballerinas have trouble with, the gargouillades.

Rockwell's been pushing the idea that there's not any real value distinction to be made between "art" music (or "serious" music, "formal" music; select your term) and popular music for decades now. It's great that he has eclectic tastes and seems interested in going to lots of different kinds of dance (it certainly hasn't always been true of Times reviewers), but one should enjoy these things separately--the crossover stuff, oh the horror, the horror.

Wiley says the dancers move from audience left to audience right, though whether he gets this information from the choreographic notation or deduces it from the picture is unclear.

A belated addition to this thread. I was recently re-reading Wiley's book about Tchaikovsky's ballets, and was fascinated to come across this this description of the original choreography for the grand pas: "In the last part, a mechanical device is introduced which is referred to ... as a reika. This seems to have been a track or guide along which a small platform travels; placed on the platform, a dancer can be drawn along the reika to give the illusion of gliding across the stage. After breaking the last post of the preceding section, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her prince move to the reika at the rear of the stage. Then they traverse the stage on the reika from the audience's left to its right. This part of the dance is probably that depicted in the celebrated picture of Gerdt as Prince Coqueluche drawing Varvara Nikitina as the Sugar Plum Fairy on the surface of a shawl or cloth, as if by magic" This would make it seem that the trick was another of Balanchine's homages to the choreography he remembered from his childhood. Has anybody seen the "celebrated picture" Wiley refers to? What pose is Nikitina in? I brought this up before, but I would also still love to know about the history of the two versions of the Sugar Plum solo--which came first, who they were made for, etc.

There's still no information on the NYCB website about Wheeldon's new ballet. I'm mainly interested to know what music he's using, if anybody happens to have that information--it affects which program I choose to see it with. (Or does this fall in the realm of gossip if it hasn't been publicly announced by the company?)

Exactly. She's a street-wise New Yorker.

I'd have agreed up until last fall, when I saw a performance at ABT that didn't get a single real laugh, for the first time ever in my experience. Everything seemed just slightly off timing, and the half hour ballet seemed looooong. But you're right, as skillful as the dancers may appear, if the ballet is boring it can't be getting a good performance. As for the men and the woman with the handbag, I don't think PC is the point. The ballet isn't saying this is how young men SHOULD behave, it's saying this is how they DO behave. And it think there *is* a bit of an edge there, a kind of twitching tension (it's there throughout the ballet, finally breaking into a fist fight). It's that real-ness (if that's a word) that makes the ballet, in a good performance, really touching. I don't know, maybe it's a guy thing?

Someone at the school faxed me a flyer, and it says the panel will consist of Charles Joseph (author of the book "Stravinsky & Balanchine"), Arthur Mitchell, Suki Schorer, Robert Biddlecome, and Frederick Zlotkin. The dancers will be from DTH and SAB.

Here's the information from the Manhattan School of Music's website. I thought I'd heard it would be dancers from DTH and SAB, not NYCB--does anybody know for sure? SYMPOSIUM BALANCHINE THE MUSICIAN STRAVINSKY: Excerpts from Violin Concerto ("Two Airs") Excerpts from Agon Featuring a live performance with dancers from the New York City Ballet Charles Joseph moderates a panel discussion beginning at 6 pm in John C. Borden Auditorium Date(s): Thu Nov 4, 2004 Event Time: 5:00 PM Location: John C. Borden Auditorium Manhattan School of Music 120 Claremont Avenue (122 and Broadway) New York, NY 10027 Price: FREE CONCERT; No tickets required Contact: Concert Office 917-493-4428

If you can use an LP, it's currently listed at Academy Records on 18th Street: http://www.academy-records.com/Merchant2/m...uct_Code=104977 (I wanted to send this message to paulofnyc directly but couldn't, so you all have to promise to let him have first crack at it!)

Excellent recommendations, Zerbinetta. My advice too would be: Go. It is a masterpiece, and so at the very least you're sure to find something in it of beauty or interest. But even if you do then decide that this one's not quite your cup of tea, don't let that keep you you from exploring Britten's many other masterpieces.

As you may already know if you've read the plot, it's got a prominent part throughout for a male dancer, so you may want to see it just for that if the choreographer or dancer interests you. (When it was last done here in New York, dance fans flocked to it because Tadzio was danced, beautifully, by Jeffrey Edwards, a real treat.) I love the opera, but agree with dirac that for most people it isn't the best introduction to Britten--that's probably Peter Grimes, Britten's first and still most popular opera. Myself, I wouldn't call the score to Death in Venice thorny, but spare, all in shades of grey, in a haunting, exquisite, and wretchedly depressing way.

Kyra Nichols does what everybody calls the "difficult" version of Sugar Plum's variation in Balanchine's Nutcracker. Can anyone enlighten me as to how the two versions came to be (who they were made for, etc.) and who else has done the difficult version? Anthony

Some years ago when I had to commute into Brooklyn once a week, I took a different Shakespeare play with me each time. In this way I got through the entire canon in less than a year. (I recommend the Arden Shakespeare editions, published, I believe, by Routledge: delightfully perfect paperbacks, and just the right size to slip into a coat pocket.) If Shakespeare's not your bag, I suppose any playwright would do. The nice thing about plays for this purpose is that they read swiftly (not too much text on each page) and they're broken up into acts and scenes, which makes it easy to find a quick stopping point. Diaries or collections of reviews or essays are also good, for a similar reason. Like you, though, I find novels too absorbing and hard to put down.

Farrell gave a talk some ten years ago or so and played extended excerpts from a video (not great quality), giving one to understand that it exists complete somewhere, and wouldn't some of us kill to have it! Presumably, it was also used for the Elusive Music excerpts. She explained that it was recorded with sound, but due to copyright restrictions she couldn't let us hear the music.