chrisk217

bart, what's Ang's P&P? Do you mean Sense & Sensibility? dirac, I was thinking the exact same thing. And, come to think of it, wasn't much of Sense and Sensibility an exposision of what Austen perceives as the dangers of untempered sentimentality? What does Marriane get for wandering out on the hills while the rain romantically pours? At first she gets Whilloughby, who goes from dashing romantic hero to callous in about a 100 pages. And then she gets pneumonia and almost dies. By the final chapter, she has learned to moderate her romantic notions and has accepted Colonel Brandon, the somewhat romantically challenged suitor. As for P&P, the Ehle/Firth version was and remains my favorite. The pace may be slow but the cast is pitch perfect, especially Elizabeth, Darcy, Lydia, Jane and the father. Ehle shows the sparkling wit and unusual personality of Elizabeth and you really understand why this haughty man can't get her out of his mind. As for Firth, his secret I think is that, on his slightly blank, brooding face one can project whatever one likes: great depths of feeling, sexual frustration, a tortured past, a poetically dark nature, whatever works Nevertheless, this latest P&P is a pleasant movie. I just wanted to warn the Austenites not to expect to find much of Austen's irony when they go to see it. I might have liked it, had I been forewarned.

I saw Pride and Prejudice yesterday & I respectfully disagree with the general opinion. Beware. If what you appreciate in Austen is the unsparing irony (sharpest at P&P) and the lack of sentimentality, you may not like this movie. The tone is shifted from detached and subtly ironic to warmly romantic and occasionally melodramatic. Elizabeth, perhaps the most spirited & well drawn Austen character, is here squeezed to fit the romantic lead mold. Keira Knightly attempts to portray wit and intelligence mainly by giggling and being radiant. Understandably, she does not succeed. Darcy's big secret is given away instantly (when he sees Elizabeth, he starts!) Individual characters (for example Whickham) are tolerated by the film-makers as long as they do not oppose the predominant romantic theme. This is the kind of movie where people don't generally greet other people, they blurt whatever they have to say without as much as a "Hello" - so urgent is their need for communication. Horses gallop furiously. Storms pour violently. Strangers knock on doors in the middle of the night. Every cliche comes out of the box to pound us on the head with its bathetic predictability. Overall, there is a lack of moderation so completely alien to the emotional climate of Austen's books, as, say, McMillan is to Bournonville. The above are all the more incongruous because P&P is not a "sarcasm-and-detachment-optional" territory. From the narrator's voice to the main characters themselves, much of P&P either presents or comments on these very qualities. I asked around my friends, and most who have read the book in English disliked the adaptation. But, amazingly, it seems to appeal very much to men. The guy I went with almost wept at the end and men around us in the cinema laughed appreciatively throughout the movie. Which probably means that it's an entertaining movie and one of the better romantic comedies. But Jane Austen, it's not!

Yes, it is a miracle. Or maybe, it's the result of filming dance and performance arts consistently. An amazon.co.uk link to start your search: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0009JVOLG/

I watched again the Paris Sylphide yesterday and realised that the only reason I did not include it in my list is that after titles like Bayadere, Don Quixote and Sleeping Beauty I have come to expect excellence from the POB dvds. I forgot to mention it earlier but La Sylphide also has the most excellent video direction & editing I saw this year on a ballet dvd. The director valiantly resists the urge to close up on the beautifull etoiles, you never notice his presence. It's just like a performance. There are shots that last up to a minute. No gratuitous changes of angle. Almost no chopped feet while dancing. Remarkable. Francois Roussilon!!!!

canbelto, the Australian ballet's Coppelia is a very nice 3-act, more or less traditional Coppelia. The dancing is competent to very good & Pavane is a natural Swanilda. Coppelia as a ballet fits well with the Australian ballet's plain and unfussy style of dancing. The production is good, if a bit faded. Nothing exceptional, but very pleasant, nonetheless. I'll probably watch Ivan during the weekend. I have flipped throught it and watched the first solo and the last 15 minutes and my impression is that it will prove interesting to see the clash of the styles. Whether live or on video, the pob always gave me the impression that they would much rather miss the music than miss a step or perform it in less than the correct classical manner. So to see them struggle with Bolshoi-larger-than-life-ness will be fun, maybe even funny. My first impression is that, with the excess toned down a bit, the choreography cannot sustain interest, but I'll get back to you after I've seen the whole dvd. One thing I already know: I missed the lunacy and absolute conviction that Mukhamedov gave this part. The stage production and the dvd are as always close to perfect. There are very helpful titles that explain what you are watching. I had taped the Bolshoi version from tv and I could not figure out what was happening. I remember Giselle with Karen Kain through the mists of time as a memorable Gisellle. I saw it 10(?) years ago on tv. I'd love to see it again. Happy New Year !!!!

silvy, I was also a bit puzzled when i saw it and I found some info in these 2 articles from Anna Kisselgof http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...754C0A961948260 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...agewanted=print Not much, but, hopefully, some ballettalker maybe able to give us more details... Happy new year

The role of the vivandieres (explained by Mel Johnson): http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.p...topic=16494&hl=Happy 2006!!!!

Walboi, my opinion is different from the other responses. I hope I wont confuse you. All the disks you mention are good and what you should buy first is a matter of taste. If you like Balanchine go for the Midsummer Night's Dream. It's a beautiful production. I have not seen the unavaillable recording with Farrel so I enjoyed this very much. If you have seen the Farrel recording perhaps you'll find this pale by comparison. If you like Stravinsky's music go for Firebird/Noces. The choreography in this particular Firebird is the traditional choreography by Fokine. Benjamin is a wild/afraid Firebird like Fonteyn (only not so earthbound). This is the way Karsavina taught it to Fonteyn, and, for me, this is the only way it makes sense musicallly and choreographically. Diana Vishneva is a divine dancer, but IMHO, the idea she has of Firebird does not work. The slower tempi, required to give Vishneva the time to unfold all that lushness, strip the music of the half the magic and the exciting edginess. Nijinska's Les Noces is powerful, uncompromisingly austere & still startling, both in concept and in the choreographical devices used. But (warning) it's not light entertainment and not everyone likes it. The Sleeping Beauty is an interesting performance but I would not buy it as a first or second Sleeping Beauty dvd.

Just a note to clarify that this is a nice performance but nothing exceptional. It's just well directed. By that I mean that it's coherent, you usually don't feel the presence of the director and while it's full of whole stage shots you still get to see the principals enough. It says something about the art of filming dance that these qualities can engender surprise.I would not recommend it though, if you don't have a large collection. There many dvds (some mentioned in this thread) where the dancing is such that it's worth it to suffer through Tarantino-wannabe-editors or cloudy image to see the dance. btw, I often have the feeling that more region1 dvds are available. Go figure...

(posted at the same time with sophia)Joseph, for some mysterious reason there is no DVD of Raymonda either in region 2 or region 1. If you live in Europe you can find a region2/pal release of Sleeping Beauty here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005JI16/ or here: http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005JI16/ There is a POB Bourmeister Swan Lake with Pietragalla and Dupond. You can find it here: http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0007Z47XO/ I have heard somewhere (ballettalk? :rolleyes: ) that this Christmas they are going to film the Nureyev Swan Lake with Letestu. She is not my favorite POB dancer but those in the know say she is a very good Odette.

2005 (region 2/pal) releases: Zakharova in Swan Lake American Ballet Theater in San Fransisco For Tudor's Lilac Garden, but also for the Bujones/Gregory Cygne Noir pdd and Paul Taylor's Airs. The Dream It's far from perfect (Stiefel's preparations are obvious, the couples should work on their acting, the video-director cuts exactly ON the start and stop of the corps with a sadistic precision that destroys the musical effect) But, here is also the best Puck I have ever seen, the superb & wonderfully elevated Herman Cornejo And it's Ashton!!! On DVD!!! A trend that should be encouraged. Etoiles pour l'exemple: Violette at Mr B Miss Verdy's big personality makes this dvd much more than a series of interesting coaching sessions on Robbins and Balanchine choreography. There are also a few historic excerpts of Verdy (low quality and jerky but you get an idea) Another dvd from the same series I liked very much was the one with Nina Vyroubova. Older DVDs I only got to see in 2005: Sleeping Beauty (Dupont/Legris/POB) This is a beautiful and opulent production, magnificently shot, and danced superbly by everyone esp. Legris, Dupont, cats (Pujol and ?) and corps. Dancer's Dream Sleeping Beauty and Dancer's Dream Raymonda: interesting making-of documentaries of the Nureyev productions. They start in St. Petersburg and end in the studios of Paris. There are interviews, old photos, rehearsal and performance excerpts (as an added bonus many excerpts are with Platel ) Royal Ballet (1960): Swan Lake, Firebird, Ondine With Ondine and Firebird I finally got what is so great about Fonteyn. I'm grateful this was filmed. And an honorary mention for great video editing/tv-direction: The Merry Widow with the Australian Ballet. The first viewing of a ballet dvd is usually a traumatic experience; you never know what annoying ways the video-director will devise to create interest in something that already is interesting. Their ingenuity in thus ruinning perfectly fine performances is bountless. But, 10 minutes into this dvd I realised I'm at the hands of an intelligent person and I relaxed. This is SO rare these days: unobtrusive, respectful and very close to watching the actual performance - only from the best possible angle for each scene. A very pleasant surprise.

Just a note to say that it is obvious to western eyes! Even eyes from, say, the south of Europe (if they have seen enough arthouse & martial arts movies). We have debated the matter with my friends and we think it diminishes the pictorial accuracy, which to us was the main draw of the movie (the recreation of the Ghion Geisha world).

I think there should be an "Other" choice. If there was I'd vote "Other" for James in Lacotte's reimagined Sylphide. It's an hour and a half long and he dances at least 45 minutes. Beats, jumps, everything and he's not spared the lifts. Wrong for the period, entertaining for the audience, exhausting for the dancer. I get tired just looking at him

In the film "Markova, la legende" Alicia Markova coaches a POB dancer on the solo. She says she learned the variation from Egorova and that the story she learned is that Princess Florine is in love with the Bluebird and she wants to fly so she can follow him. She also says there is a difference between the bluebird who flies (here she makes large fluttering movements) and Florine who wishes to copy him so that she can fly away (she makes less distinct fluttering movements) The syncopation of the music is supposed to reflect Florine's attempts to fly ("It's all in the music", she says) There is no analysis on fluttering, but her hands flutter while marking some passages... Then Markova comments that this is the style of the variation & that it is becoming lost. There is also a small story about the feathers (mentioned on the other thread). When Diaghilev saw the young Markova in costume he deemed the feathers too vulgar for her and send her out to buy new ones. Bird of Paradise feathers were, apparently, at that time, availlable even in Manchester so she managed to procure some and dance that night. I have a question for Mel: If magic was such a no-no for the Soviets how did Swan Lake survive (apart from the end, of course)? I mean there's a magician and enchanted maidens in it. And what about Sleeping beauty? There is an evil fairy and a spell at the center of the story. Why would they be so particular as to change details in a specific variation and not mind, for example, the swan-arms in swan lake or a girl who sleeps 100 years because of a spell? I don't understand this...

sparklesocks, apart from the DVD you have ( Lacotte's La Sylphide with Dupont and Ganio) you can still maybe find an old VHS of the same choreography with Thesmar and Denard. I think Thesmar is enchanting and fascinating as La Sylphide and better suited to this role than Dupont. Filming does not seem to have been a priority for the Royal Danish Ballet in the last 20 years so, unfortunately, I don't think you'll find a commercially availlable Bournonville Sylphide either in Europe or the US. There was an old laser-disk(?) or vhs(?) version of Bournonville's La Sylphide with the Royal Danish Ballet. Good luck finding it. Maybe on e-bay... If the excerpt you mention is the one with Nureyev and Carla Fracci, I think you can find it on the "I'm a dancer" film.

Helene, sorry, I did not express myself clearly. What I meant to say was that these points are implied by her attitude. She probably hates Nutcracker because she has been overexposed to it and she is bored by it because has no idea how to look at it.

Yes, public media should support the arts. But should they support Nutcracker? I see this piece as a sign that the U.S. over-marketing of Nutcracker as "a holiday tradition" is reaching a saturation point. I'm sure marketing people think they are being very clever. I mean if you're going to have synergy with another event, what's more well publicised or feel good than Christmas, right? Short answer: no. It creates a serious branding problem. The intention of all the Nutcrackers is obviously to fill the theater, pay the bills on the short term and introduce some members of the audience to ballet, so they'll come again. But what happens in the mind of the audience is this: "FACT 1: There are kids on the stage, in the audience and this is a children's story" => "Nutcracker is a kiddie ballet" AND "FACT 2: Nutcracker is the only ballet I know" => "Ballet is for kids". On the long term ballet as a brand is associated with kids. Most of the adult audience will come again only for Nutcracker, therefore creating a vicious cycle where more Nutcrackers have to be performed to survive financially. Another point she makes is that watching mediocre dancers is not that fun for the untrained eye. This is a good point. Contrary to what you'd expect, the less you know about ballet the more unlikely you are to enjoy a bad performance. It takes knowledge to separate the specific performance from the ballet and you must already be interested enough to make the effort to disregard the mess and search for what is beautiful. The funny (and sad) thing is, living in Europe and having seen more than my fair share of gimmicks and novel ideas, not one of the "outrageous" ideas she proposed at the end seemed outrageous to me. Nutcracker with scateboarders? No, but I have seen Coppelia with footballers... and as far as these things go, it was rather good... Perhaps what this commendator needs is Pina Baucsh. A few hours with Pina and she'll learn to appreciate the simple things in life. :blush:

That's actually not true. Most computer DVD drives manufactured in this century are RPC-2 and have region locks. As I mentioned earlier such a dvd drive can usually be switched up to 5 times. Here are 2 short wikipedia articles on DVDs & Regional Lockout. And a quote to prove the point: You can use firmware patches to bypass the region locks but that's really off topic. Where the computer does help is in resolving the NTSC/PAL issue as the PAL (or NTSC) signal is converted to a signal appropriate for your VGA. Sorry for being so

Only if the DVD is not region-coded or if you own a region-free dvd player! Otherwise you need to switch the preset code of your dvd-player and you can only switch between codes up to 5 times.About half the dvds on Amazon.co.uk & Amazon.fr are coded region-2 and most people don't own region-free players. So check the region before ordering. It should say something like "region 0", "zone 0" or "uncoded".

shulie, I think Natalia refers to another DVD by the name of Kirov Classics. Its has Chopiniana with Assylmuratova/Pankova, Markitenka, the Paquita grand pas, the Fairy Doll pdt with Lazhnina etc. The image is good (perhaps it may be lacking only compared to the video tape which I have not seen, not perfect but not horrible either) Anyway, I felt the need to clarify this, as it has really great performances. Can you tell us more about the DVDs you bought? I assume Cinderella was with Komleva.

Zerbinetta is right. It is a pastiche of various pieces - some of them I have found in a Naxos cd of Massenet's orchestral suites. Scenes pittoresques, napolitaines, de fιerie and alsaciennes, if i'm not mistaken (this in case you want to listen to the raw material of the music and not dance to it) The last time I searched for the ballet arrangement, there was no cd, but now there is one with (the usual suspect) Bonynge conducting. Here's a link: http://www.deccaclassics.com/newsandnewrel...002/470525.html btw, I think the video you are referring to is Penney and Dowell.

Natalia, I know what you mean. I recently transferred my vhs tapes, recorded mostly from tv, and the ABT Don Quixote looked better after my home transfer than as a commercial DVD (I'm talking about the region2/PAL dvd, btw) Part of the problem must be that the ABT dvds are DVD-5s and not dual layer (DVD-9) as most commercial DVDs. I imagine they do this because it's cheaper but for dance the resulting bit rate is too low and the image quality suffers. btw, if you scroll down to the technical info, amazon.co.uk sometimes notes if it's a dvd-5. This, usually, is an omen of a mediocre/bad transfer. I have also thought about writing amazon reviews (mainly to warn for video editors with attention deficit disorder but also for bad transfers), but ultimately I think the performances are what matters most. However irritating the DVD, I don't want to turn people away from great performances.

Semen KaplanAlso, I'm not a ballet historian and maybe I'm wrong but the Pavlova photo with the wings may not be Sylphide. Trying to make out the caption (the resolution is low) I think, inside the quotation marks, I read "Giselle" (Жизель) Can you scan the postcard with a better resolution?

The pdd compiled on the "Great Pas de deux" are: 1. Spring Waters (Bylova/Nikonov) 2. Le Corsaire (Fonteyn/Nureyev) 3. Prince of the pagodas (Bussel/Cope) 4. Bourne Swan Lake (Cooper/Ambler) 5. Romeo and Julliet (Ferri/Eagling) 6. Nutcracker (Collier/Dowell) 7. Manon (Penney/Dowell) 8. Swan Lake (black swan) (Makhalina/Zelensky) 9. Month in the Country (Makarova/Dowell) 10. Le Corsaire (Asylmuratova/Neff) 11. Spartacus (Bessmertnova/Muhamedov) 12. Sleeping Beauty (Kolpakova/Berezhnoi) 13. Don Quixote (Baryshnikov/Harvey)

The POB Bayadere is VERY worthwhile. Everything is almost perfect here: the corps, the costumes/sets, the principals, the video editing. Le Corsaire with Kirov has Assylmuratova, Pankova and other great female Kirov dancers. Also Ruzimatov is very good here. The ABT Le Corsaire has the advantage of Corella and Malakhov. The female dancing is not very memorable. Pick your choice. I like the Kirov, because, they don't do it as if it's the silliest thing in the world and, consequently, it does not come off as very silly. Gediminas Taranda dances in Raymonda (Abderahman) and Ivan the Terrible. Also in Golden Age but this is political and maybe not everyone's cup of tea. Other very good videos: * La fille mal gardee (Lesley Collier/RB) * Kirov Classics (aka The Kirov Ballet - St. Petersburg; Assylmuratova in Chopiniana, a good Markitenka, fairy doll pd3, a great Paquita Grand Pas) * Great Pas de Deux (10 pdd, a little bit of everything, so you can check what other videos you might want) * Kirov Sleeping Beauty (Lezhnina/Ruzimatov) * Romeo & Julliet (Ferri/Eagling/RB) Also worth considering: * Giselle with Fracci/Bruhn (warning: horrible editing) * Swan Lake (Makhalina/Zelensky/Kirov) * Paris Dances Diaghilev (Petrushka, Spectre de la Rose, L'apres midi d'un faun, Noces) * Don Quixote (ABT/Baryshnikov/Harvey) * Nureyev's Cinderella (with Guillem)