Anthony_NYC

Re: Rosemary's Baby. I wonder how effective the choice of building would have been had it been filmed after they cleaned the Dakota's facade. What had been dark and foreboding from nearly a century of urban soot, since has been shown to be a yellowish ecru, and not so scary but for the recollection that it had been the setting for that film and also, later, the site of John Lennon's terrible murder.

By chance, today's NY Times has a brief article about the Dakota's ghosts, together with a picture of the cleaned up facade.

The composer's brief program note for "From Here On Out" mentions Bach as an inspiration, but says nothing about the clear reference to the opening of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique at the beginning of the piece. I'm still scratching my head over it. Does anybody have any idea what connection the composer was trying to make? (Was it just, This is a ballet score so let's throw in some Tchaikovsky for good luck?)

This discussion has set me wondering: How does one distinguish a horror movie from a thriller? When I was a kid, everything terrified me, even Popeye cartoons (Bluto!); but now, the movies that get to me probably all fall into the thriller genre (most recently, for instance, "Zodiac" really gave me the creeps); ghosts and ghouls just don't do anything for me.

Just listened once to 'Spring Awakening', but what was described as 'rock score' is definitely not hard rock in any sense. Much very pretty stuff, although the first impression is that it's not so struggling for attention by loudness, but that it's more interesting and has much more poetic lyrics than 'Light in the Piazza', which is at least not screamy and throwing out magic-mountain vapours in your face every few seconds. Songs like 'The Word of Your Body' and 'The Song of Purple Summer' are euphonious, but almost all of it is very pleasant; if anything, a song or two with a little more energy wouldn't be unwelcome here, but much better this than 'Wicked'. 'The B**** of Living' is even intelligent, and is the first time I've heard a Broadway show seriously try to let itself be mediated by times which have heavy and recurring strains of nihilism in them. Anybody see it yet? I'd think many of these songs would be quite enhanced by live performance, which is not nearly always the case. I'll say more after another listen, but this was hopeful.

My recommendation: Go see it--it's been around long enough that discounts or TKTS tix must be easily available. Stories of teenage angst are not a huge draw for me (I had my share, thank you very much), but in this one the young performers are just so appealing, and the score is very enjoyable--as you suggest, for rock it's very retro, and live in the theater it is delightfully not-over-amplified. Plus, there's choreography by Bill T. Jones. I don't know if you saw Jonathan Franzen's recent criticism of it somewhere or other (New York Magazine?), where he complains, probably justifiably, that it waters down the Wedekind play (his own translation was recently published). Who cares? Take it on its own terms and enjoy.

One of the obituaries mentioned that Deborah Kerr came to the theater from classical dance. It even mentioned that she danced in the corps de ballet as a teenager at the Sadler's-Wells in "Prometheus". By her twenties though she had switched to spoken theater and film.

Interesting...

It is. I wonder how much her ballet background had to do with her beautiful poise and musicality. When she lip-syncs to Marni Nixon's voice in "The King in I" and "An Affair to Remember," her carriage, the lift of the head, the exact timing of a step forward or a move away from the camera--it's exactly right, simply perfect, as if the sounds of the music were emanating right out of her as well as the emotions. She may have tired of playing prim Englishwomen (personally, I don't think prim is the right word), but I never tire of watching her in those roles.

(By the way, papeetepatrick, I have to say I adore Hepburn in "Summertime," for me one of her most touching performances.)

From the article:

On that note last December at La Scala — a somewhat strained one — he heard boos and hisses from a few spectators in a country where opera at times is treated like a blood sport. He walked off the stage, and the theater brought in a replacement, who sang in jeans.

Alagna later explained: "I'm a Sicilian, I'm a bit hot-blooded."

Had he only said that and left it at that when it happened, the public would have found him adorable.

You can watch the trailer here.

Minkus, Delibes, and Adolphe Adam. The dearth of information in any language is hard to understand.

“One for My Baby (and One More for the Road”).

One of the greatest songs by Arlen, my personal favourite of all Broadway composers. I want to see 'The Sky's the Limit' now.

Ah, so you haven't seen it yet... You're in for a treat. Astaire does a smashing solo to that great song. You'll never forget it.

I haven't seen Funny Face for many years, so the song list for that indicates Audrey Hepburn sang it.

She did, charmingly. You should see it again - it's overrated IMO, but Hepburn is very appealing and the movie looks great. I understand that a special edition 50th anniversary DVD has just come out, don't know what's on it.

Previously, I had seen the movie only on a washed-out videocassette and an only slightly improved DVD release. The new DVD edition looks really terrific--quite eye-opening for me. It's a charming and enjoyable movie, but I agree, dirac, that it's probably overrated, partly because Astaire does so little dancing. (I've never understood why a movie that makes such a point of its Paris setting features Astaire doing an elaborate Spanish solo. Not one of his best numbers, in any event.) So we've already had at least two DVD editions of a minor (dance-wise) Astaire effort. How I wish all those other Fred Astaire movies would finally get released on DVD. I know that "Damsel in Distress" and "The Sky's the Limit" aren't great movies, but they've got major Astaire solos in them.

I meant to add--comparing Lowe-Porter and Woods as translators of Mann, they both have their good and bad points. Woods had a much better overall style and is more readable, and his Buddenbrooks in particular is superb; Lowe-Porter, less literal, is however sometimes better at translating dialects (a tricky business), for instance. (The Woods translation of Dr. Faustus, on the other hand, is a disaster.)

I have to agree about Vonnegut! I used to love him long ago, and remember once sitting up all night reading Slaughterhouse Five cover to cover. I re-read that book last year and--well, I just don't get it anymore. On the other hand, a sadistic eight-grade teacher gave us Moby Dick as summer reading, believe it or not. Probably shut down any interest in literature in hundreds of young minds. Many years later I gave it another try, and of course as an adult it's a completely different experience, overwhelming in the good way.

When it comes to books translated into English, I still find myself re-reading the version I know already rather than try a new, probably better, one, especially if it's a book I remember from when I was very young. Pure sentimentality, of course, but that's part of the pleasure for me.

4. of or pertaining to the god Mercury.

Or one of those Greek gods. Does it really matter which?

LOL. I always suspect that papers like the NY Post have software that automatically attaches a random adjective to any public figure's name in the event the reporter forgot one.

After sitting through many such productions, I realize that the ones I object to tend to fall into three groups:

1. Productions that presume that we in the audience are too dull to understand the piece unless the director explains it all for us. The Met's current production of "Jenufa" has a huge boulder in the middle of the stage to represent moral oppression. It's about as subtle as, well, a huge boulder in the middle of the stage.
   
2. Productions that take a condescending attitute towards the opera or its characters. The Met's recent production of "La Juive," an opera well worth returning to the repertoire, was ruined by the director's sneering tone of "Oh, look at these horrid little Christians. We're better than THEM, aren't we?"
   
3. The worst sin of all--productions that are unmusical. This can include ones that are just plain ugly, when the music is not, like the recently replaced Met production of "Faust," almost comically hideous to look at.
   

I think Peter Sellars is one of the most successful of the updaters. He is always musical, and he has a knack for getting terrific performances from the singers. Also, the Appia-inspired ones, where less is more and the music is paramount, can be very effective.

Most of the time, though, I have to admit I find these productions just tiresome. Charm is one of the most important elements in any score by Gounod, but I think a lot of director's equate charm with frivolity, so they have to change things to make it (and therefore them) look profound and intellectually challenging.

New York's major ballet companies don't seem to be as interested in these kind of productions as European companies.

I just wanted to mention a strange and funny thing that happened when I was there Wednesday night. Just before the performance began, the woman in front of me inserted foam earplugs in her ears, and didn't take them out again until the opera was over. I guess she's a dance fan, but not an opera one!

I see TCM is re-running their hour-long interview with Hutton tonight at 7:00. I remember being touched by it. She came off as a good soul haunted by personal and emotional problems. And lonely. It was especially moving hearing her talk about her estrangement from her children.

Some of Nightingale's examples are perplexing. For instance, I find McNally wretchedly sentimental and superficial ("Love! Valour! Compassion!," which he singles out for praise, is especially bad in this regard); and so, on the other hand, are pretty much all the British musicals I've seen, along with many of today's American musicals, which seem factory-produced with the tourist class in mind. (The old classics are another matter.)

When it comes to culture in general, having spent a lot of time on both sides of the Atlantic, I still think the difference really is just the old dichotomy, American optimism vs. British pessimism. Each side can have difficulty adjusting to the other's mindset, but it's worth making the effort, and I think the best audiences do that.

Well, I understand McNulty's feelings. There is a lot of pleasure to be had from the kind of acting that emphasizes voice. I do miss the theatrical way of speaking that some American movie actors used to cultivate (happily, I still hear it on New York stages), but it really would be out of place in most American movies, which started out as a purely visual art form and continue to be as much visual as vocal. I think Hollywood also discovered early on the mysteriously compelling power of star quality, which often doesn't have anything to do with either voice or looks.

Dirac, you should catch "Little Miss Sunshine." Any movie with Toni Collette is worth seeing, and I think Greg Kinnear is a much better actor than people give him credit for. I'm kind of surprised it's up for Best Picture--it's not THAT good--but it's a fun little comedy.

I just saw "The Lives of Others" this past weekend, and enjoyed the really touching performances from the leads, especially Martina Gedeck's. Like Old Fashioned said, it's a good character study, and also just an interesting look at the East German way of life. (I saw it with two friends who grew up there.) In my case the theater was sold out, and it received lots of applause at the end. I wish the final "the fabric of our lives" portion had been cut, but good old hard-line tragedies just aren't the fashion nowadays, I guess.

Another, even more vulgar distortion of the composer's intent. As written, Mimi soars from high A to high C, and Rodolfo from F (not very high for a tenor) down to E. Both pianissimo! More often than not, what one hears is a fortissimo belt-fest for both singers in unison, completely destroying the poetry of that ending.

Bless you for saying that. I don't recall *ever* hearing it sung as written on stage, only on recordings. It's so much more touching.

It's a good subject to write about, but he wants directors to emphasize this in productions? I'm having horrible premonitions of politically correct versions of Butterfly, Turandot, Trovatore, Ballo, Aida, Otello, Entführung, Zauberflöte, Carmen...where will it stop? And we haven't even gotten to the ballets!

This kind of facile blather passing itself off as critical analysis just drives me around the bend -- it reduces art to a by-product of biography.

And what mastery it is--of continual off-center balances maintained with light support or no support at all, of divergently shaped steps unthinkably combined in the same phrase, of invisible transitions between steps and delicate shifts of weight in poses that reveal new and sweeter harmonies of proportion no matter how wide or how subtle the contrast. Your eye gorges on her variety, your heart stops at the brink of every precipice. She, however, sails calmly out into space and returns as if the danger did not exist. Farrell's style in Diamonds (and in the third act of Don Quixote) is based on risk; she is almost always off balanced and always secure. her confidence in moments of great risk gives her the leeway to suggest what no ballerina has suggested before her--that she can sustain herself, that she can go it alone. Unlike Cynthia Gregory, and many ballerinas less distinguished than Gregory, who perfect held balances, Farrell perfects the act of balance/imbalance as a constant feature of dancing. It is not equilibrium as stasis, it is equilibrium as continuity that she excels in. Although as in her Diamonds performance, she can take a piqué arabesque and stand unaided, she's capable of much more; her conquests are really up there where the richer hazards are. In the Scherzo, going at high speed, she several times takes piqué arabesque, swings into second position and back into arabesque, uncoiling a halfturn that, because of the sudden force of the swing, seems like a complete one. In the finale, her partner ... is only there to stop her. She slips like a fish through his hands. She doesn't stop, doesn't wait, doesn't depend, and she can't fall. She's like someone who has learned to breathe thin air.

Of course, the autonomy of the ballerina is an illusion, but Farrell's is the extremest form of this illusion we have yet seen, and it makes Diamonds a riveting spectacle about the freest woman alive.

What others call reverential, I call poetic. If somebody can show how Farrell's or Balanchine's personal psychological cracks, or any other biographical details, illuminate the metaphor of dance farther than this, fine. I think that's what certain writers feel they're doing when they get into hack psychological biography ("Looky what I can show you! Aren't I clever?"). But even if the technical details Croce has written about could be proved factually wrong, I will still passionately believe in her masterly analysis of it. The myth is what's meaningful, and I will embrace anything that enhances it for me. I don't give a hang about the rest.

I apologize that this has little to do with the review under discussion. It just depresses me that a reality TV mentality nowadays wants to dislodge the basic human need some of us have to waft great art up high, beyond reason even. Yes, I revere it. So shoot me.

I always love bringing friends to NYCB who have never been, but lately it's been hard to find a good program. This spring, it looks like I'll be dragging every distant acquaintance along!

I finally got to it last night--it was sold out the previous two weekends--and enjoyed it quite a lot. The acting from the men and the singing from the women are just sensational and well worth the price of admission. Eddie Murphy won new respect from me--he's terrific. Beyonce Knowles is a better singer than actor (though her acting isn't bad), and the camera loves her. The movie is done with a lot of verve--costumes, sets, lighting, choreography are all bigger than life in a really fun, escapist way, and work together beautifullly with the somewhat stagey dialogue and fearlessly over-the-top performances. (This is a movie made to be seen on the big screen, and with an audience.) The energy level is high throughout. There aren't many quiet moments, but I was touched by occasional brief shots of Jamie Foxx or Danny Glover just listening with real, honest enjoyment to their women sing.

The biggest drawback to the movie as a musical is that the songs themselves are imitation R&B, not as good or as thrilling as the real thing can be. The performances overcome that to a large degree. Frustratingly, however, during many of the numbers the director cuts to bits of dialogue or other scenes that are supposed to advance the plot, thus relegating the movie's main event to background music. What's the deal? When he does let a number go from beginning to end, gives it a chance to build and us a chance to lose ourselves in it, the audience breaks out in cheers. Throughout, there was too much MTV-style editing for my taste, but I guess that's the style nowadays. (Afterwards, talking about Hudson's big number, the friend I saw the movie with reminded me of the end of "Funny Girl," where the director, trusting the power of his star, simply trains the camera on Streisand and let's her deliver.)

All in all, not a great movie, but a good one. I would love to see these performers get another chance at a movie musical.

Kistler did Tzigane at NYCB maybe ten years ago. Much as I love her, I didn't think she was a success in the role, even though she was coached (I understand) by Farrell. Then again, she didn't really have time to grow into it--it lasted, if I'm not mistaken, just one season.

I also haven't seen Ballade at NYCB for ages. I think Weese did it a couple times, but I'm worried it will become a lost ballet.