Anthony_NYC

Bart, what you say really hits home with me. Growing up in the middle of nowhere, I felt like a complete freak because of my obsession with classical music. But on the radio, there were voices talking passionately and knowledgeably about it, and I think I realized too, somewhere in the back of my mind, that there must be other people out there like me, silently listening in their bedrooms, an invisible community. I'm glad that it will continue at least a little while longer in New York. But times change. I have to admit, aside from waking up to WQXR, I never listen to the radio anymore. And while it's fitting to lament the loss of something that was so meaningful to so many of us, it seems something will always come along to fill the void. Nowadays, for me, aside from a few blogs I keep up with, it's largely online forums like this one. And one of the best things about them is that we no longer have to be invisible--if we choose, every single one of us can add your own voice to the community discussion. It turns out there are many, many people out there just as knowledgeable as those radio announcers, and now they don't have to make a career out of it to share their insight and passion. I myself mostly lurk on this and various other sites, but I can't tell you how much I've learned from all of you, and how many performances I've been roused to go out and see that I otherwise would have skipped. Really, it's a fantastic phenomenon for which I'm incredibly grateful. And when I'm here, I sometimes think about a boy in some far-flung place, with no classical radio or local ballet, obsessively logging in to this site over and over each day, spending hours on YouTube, feeding his brain and his soul and--I fervently hope--feeling a little less lonely in the world.

A few names have been mentioned, but I wonder if I could solicit more recommendations for men with beautiful feet. Is what constitutes beautiful feet in men significantly different from women? Also--if it isn't muddying the waters too much--why do you think it is that hyper-extension is not also a phenomenon with men? At least, I've never noticed it (usually the opposite is the problem!). The links to photos and videos have been great, by the way.

Jordan also made a brilliant video called Music Dances: Balanchine Choreographs Stravinsky. It really sheds light on how much more intricate and complex Balanchine's treatment of music is than is even customarily recognized. Thoroughly engrossing. It's available (still only on videocassette) from the Balanchine Foundation.

Ah, that's the Grossvater-Tanz (Grandfather Dance), a traditional tune in Germany that basically serves the same function as "Good Night, Ladies" in America--the last number played at a ball or wedding celebration to send everybody home. (Schumann also uses it at the end of Carnaval.) Papillons was inspired by a masked ball scene in Jean Paul's novel Flegeljahre, and is practically a ballet without dance. In the final section, the right hand plays a repeated A in the treble to represent the ringing of the hour, while in the left hand the rustic tune fades away as the dancers disperse.

This is one of the few ballet videos that Netflix lets you stream to your computer (or TV, if you're set up for that--I recommend getting a Roku box!). It's still not the same thing as owning the DVD, I know, but at least you can get instant gratification any time you need a Farrell fix.

As I was trying to navigate the ever-perplexing NYCB website (where IS the information about the repertoire?), I came across a pronunciation guide. They've recorded people saying the titles to most of the ballets in their repertoire. It's a great idea, but poorly (sometimes amusingly) executed: if NYCB audiences went around trying to pronounce Serenade the way the very proper Frenchwoman does on the site, we'd all sound like a bunch of pretentious twits! (Just try saying Sarabande and Danse in conversation the way she does and see what kind of reaction you get, lol!) Apparently, Italian titles are supposed to be pronounced with a French accent as well. And I'm pretty sure every single German title is flat-out mispronounced. It got me thinking that a decent rule of thumb for American usage might be to approximate the pronunciation of the original language using only sounds intrinsic to American English, and with American stress-rhythms. HARmony-lay-ruh for Harmonielehre, for instance; SerenODD or SerenAYD with a hard America r and our back-of-throat e's. Thoughts? Are there other sites that do this better?

As I recall, Suzanne Farrell says in her autobiography that Balanchine asked her to read Don Q, but she couldn't get through it. I also remember some big name in letters (George Steiner?) admitting somewhere that he couldn't swear to having read absolutely all of it. So I think you're all in good company. (Personally, I've never even tried to read DQ.) dirac, I guess part of my problem getting through Ross's book is that he can sound like a college student trying to prove he's a Writer, with Something Important to Say. He's clearly gifted, but the attitude is exhausting. (He's gotten much better in his column in recent years; though I still miss Andrew Porter every week.)

Well, I've *begun* quite a few books out of a sense of duty, but I almost always finish them. Many past experiences have taught me that if a book has become well established as a classic, sticking with it usually pays off. New books with a lot of buzz are another story. I just couldn't get into Alex Ross's And the Rest Is Noise; but all my friends were talking about it, so I plowed through to the bitter end. It took me so long that by the time I finished, nobody was talking about it anymore!

There's a part of me that loves the fact that the staging hasn't been updated in decades. That way, we respond emotionally to the magic of the *drama* rather than thinking "Wow!" as we watch a bunch of impressive modern stage mechanics. (After decades of almost annual NYCB Nutcracker attendance, I still find myself holding my breath for long stretches from the transformation scene through to the end of the act. I feel like I believe in it as absolutely as any child does.) However, I finally have to admit that I rather wish they would tinker--very, very carefully, because this is holy to many of us!--with the transition to the snow scene. It looks clunky, the Christmas tree hoisted unceremoniously into the flies ("So it was fake after all!"), the gaping hole it leaves behind in the stage, the forest just dropped into place. Fortunately, there is glorious music to lose oneself in, but nevertheless I find it a wee bit difficult to maintain my suspension of disbelief. While I agree the movie of this production is unsatisfactory--with little of the magic it has on stage, it remains almost completely unmoving--at least they did change this one moment for the cameras (not well enough, though). Maybe a scrim with a film projection of some kind? About children playing the leads: Friends of mine who want to get right to the dancing roll their eyes, but I just adore it. Nutcracker is supposed to be for kids, and as everybody with kids knows, having children on stage engages an audience of children like nothing else. Also, part of the fun of seeing Nutcracker live is hearing the children in the audience applauding, laughing, talking excitedly. (This being New York, one can even occasionally hear a wolf whistle when Coffee dances.) Also, in Balanchine's version, putting children in the leads removes any whiff of sentimentality from the production. It's precisely that clear, cool classicism that I find so incredibly moving and that gives this production its enormous staying power, year after year, decade after decade.

When I first moved to New York many years ago, "standing on line" sounded weird to me. Now I find myself saying it, even though in the Internet age it can be confusing: "I'm on line at the bank" sounds exactly the same as "I'm online at the bank." The Starbuck's lingo makes me feel silly, so I'm glad to find I'm not alone in refusing to use it. Other annoyances: "Issue." Apparently, it's rude or politically incorrect to call anything a problem nowadays. "Oh," "Oh yeah," and "Did I mention." As in a restaurant review that spends two paragraphs talking about the decor and service, followed by "Oh yeah, and the food's great, too." "The." Yes, I'm complaining about an article! "Jake Gyllenhaal: the Rolling Stones Interview" (will they never run another?), "Batman: the Movie" (in case you thought you were entering the theater to read a comic book), "NBA: the Store" (what's wrong with "The NBA Store"?). This is pure advertising idiocy, meant to sell us a new incarnation of a popular brand name, and it turns everybody and everything into trademarked merchandise.

Thanks, Kathleen. I totally agree on both points. One reads the piece and wonders, Gee, doesn't he like anything? Or anybody, for that matter? His description of the Aperghis performance makes me sorry I missed that concert; whereas he dismisses it, it seems, because it didn't look and sound like a concert of Brahms piano trios played by performers who are not "showboaters" to a discerning audience of the right people. If he ever picked up a book on performance or reception history, he'd realize performers and audiences haven't really changed much over the couple of centuries that public concerts as we know them have existed. Just like there have always been snobs like him to give classical music a bad reputation. I don't read this columnist. Can anybody tell me what he loves?

Actually, if you watch closely you'll notice that many shots are over Garfield's shoulder. Two professional violinists, one on the fingerboard and one with the bow, kind of slung their arms around the actor from behind, and the camera was positioned so as to give the illusion the arms and hands are Garfield's. Rumor has it the bow arm belonged to none other than Isaac Stern (who plays on the soundtrack).

Well, if it were to be an adaptation of the movie, I would agree that Wuorinen does not seem like a natural fit. But he says it's the original story that interests him. Paul accurately calls Proulx's writing laconic, and I would think it's that economy of means that attracts artists like Wuorinen and Lee--it gives them plenty of room to exercise their own creative imagination and individuality. When you're talking about geniuses the caliber of Wuorinen and Lee, that's a pretty exciting prospect. In this case, I'm guessing Wuorinen will stay closer than Lee did to the spare and unsentimental tone of Proulx, but whatever he does, I'll happily go hoping it surprises me and succeeds on its own terms.

For where, if I may ask? I'm just wondering if she went in pursuit of ballet or some other art, or if she just gave all that up.

Stanley Fish had a more provocative take on this subject a while back in the New York Times. He concludes:

As I recall it (I too cannot remember which book it was in), Rorem wasn't so much chiding Sondheim as expressing surprise that he would farm it out to someone else when it's such a pleasurable part of the compositional process. But of course that's the usual way it's done on Broadway, and at least Sondheim always has the best of the best, especially with Jonathan Tunick. That guy is some sort of genius. I remember reading an interview with Tunick where he talked about how during rehearsals, one day, to Sondheim's surprise, at the crest of "Being Alive" the orchestra suddenly added as counterpoint the melody of "Someone Is Waiting." Tunick's idea (a wonderful, touching one), and he was really worried what Sondheim's reaction would be to this liberty; but in the event, Sondheim came over to him with a "Charlie Brown grin." So I guess that sort of collaboration can have its own rewards.

I remember being shocked to hear that Nureyev was 5'8", I'd certainly have guessed he was taller. They say Nijinsky was only 5'4", and Baryshnikov is 5'7" (I always thought he looked shorter!), Bujones I think was also 5'7" or 5'8"(??). Those are just the ones I remember (or think I remember) numbers for. I'm sure others can list dozens of great dancers under 5'9", which, from my inexpert viewer's perspective, doesn't seem short at all for a ballet dancer.

At least with Strauss and Dukas, it was the creators themselves who made this edict, and presumably for artistic reasons, whether one agrees with them or not. Nowadays, it always seems to be the estate or the copyright holder or some such, and their only concern is making money. Anyway, copyright laws being as impenetrably convoluted as they are, whenever I hear about these cases it always seems to me like the party that prevails only does so because they have cleverer lawyers. The J.K. Rowling case that's been in the news lately is an interesting mix. My personal feeling is she's wrong on this one, though at least she's wrong for the right reasons (charity).

Lucky you to have such a great orchestra in residency! I wonder, did they do the complete Pulcinella, or the suite? (There would be three singers if the former, and I'm wondering who they were.) I hope Villella was in the audience, because I keep wishing he would revive the version of the ballet that Balanchine and Robbins choreographed for him at NYCB. I'd love to hear reminiscences of it if anybody here saw it. On the other hand, I have seen revivals of the original Firebird on several occasions, and while it's always kind of enjoyable, it seems dated now and never lives up to the magic of the score for me. I'll take the Balanchine/Robbins Firebird (to the 1945 suite) any day, which may be as much spectacle as ballet, but I just adore it, with that trippy Chagall decor that seems just the perfect visualization of the music.

You can get a glimpse of Ledger's performance in the upcoming "The Dark Knight" here. I expect he's be brilliant in it.

Ah, but that would take all the color out of the writing, too. How can you resist rushing to the box office when you read: "Nothing so opened the American mind or forged our national character as did the exploration of the American frontier. Western Symphony is a bonanza of frisky fillies and lonesome cowpokes whose rousing, non-stop finale brings the curtain down."

Thanks for asking, dirac. I saw it the weekend before Christmas. A strange choice for a holiday movie, really, but the theater was packed with a decidedly youngish audience that seemed to really enjoy it. Myself, I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either, though I don't see myself rushing to see it again. In its way it's well done. It's got visual style, and the actors are all terrific (as actors). Depp sings in a sort of rock manner, which works better than I might have expected. Bonham Carter really has no voice at all; they should have dubbed her. Sacha Baron Cohen is terrific, and steals every scene he's in. Part of the reason for that is that he gets to play the comedy full out; Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford is also very creepy-funny. Otherwise, much of the humor has been eliminated. Maybe it's just that I hadn't adjusted to the movie's style, but this endless dourness seemed forced. It's sort of like a sullen teenager who feels compelled to subdue normal human cheerfulness because it's just not cool to smile. When "By the Sea" comes around (which delivers the comedy deadpan), the audience seems grateful for a chance to laugh out loud. (By the way, the audience also laughed in some very odd places. The friend I saw it with also commented on this.) The great find of the movie--Ed Sanders as Toby. It's very moving to see a kid who can act and sing like that. The best singer in the cast, in fact! I can understand why some people don't like the stage show, as it's probably Exhibit A for Sondheim's misanthropy, which I do find distasteful. But the whole machinery of it is so fabulously well brought off, and the score is so brilliant, it can be a lot of fun in a good performance. Somehow, in the movie the work seems reduced. I missed the Grand Guignol operatic flourish of it. It's a much bigger experience on the stage. The musical cuts remove a lot of the dramatic momentum that the visual style can't replace. This is especially noticeable towards the end, which right up to the final tableau doesn't really have any impact, unlike the striking final fifteen minutes of the original production, with its ever-increasing ghoulishness, and Sweeney Todd slamming the door in the audience's face. This will make me sound like I'm contradicting myself, but speaking of big: now, I'm a huge admirer of that genius Jonathan Tunick, but in the theater where I saw the movie, the orchestra was just too loud for the voices. As for all the bloodletting everybody comments on, maybe the repetitiveness was supposed to make it over-the-top funny, but for me it just got boring. Couldn't Burton bring some witty variety to it?

I too would love to see the full-length Baiser revived. The score is just so haunting, and the descriptions of it so tantalizing. I've always heard the reason Balanchine finally gave up on it was he was never satisfied with the staging of the final tableau. Maybe with today's technology that could be fixed. I don't believe I ever saw PAMTGG (maybe I blocked it out), but I wouldn't mind seeing a revival. With an artist of Balanchine's caliber, it can be really instructive to see the failures. Without the distracting splendor of a masterpiece, you can sometimes see some of the mechanics you might otherwise take for granted; and the flaws of a poor piece can set the greatness of others into clearer relief.

Actually, dirac, it's completely excusable. For reasons unknown to me, the movie was for years completely unavailable. I'm not sure it was ever even on videocassette. Perhaps somebody here knows the story behind that. Anyway, it is now on DVD, and it is a delight. I especially love the dance numbers Donald O'Connor and Vera-Ellen have, just a joy to watch.

Has anybody ever made a horror ballet? (And I don't mean of the Boris Eifman type.) Could it be done? I would think Frankenstein, zombies, vampires might inspire some interesting new kinds of movement.