PeggyR

The original ballet was 28 minutes long. The new film will include every step of the ballet from first to last, but will also have narrative scenes between each movement where the audience will get to know the characters -- the "back story"...

I'm curious how this will work out, especially for a one-act, plotless ballet. It's always been my experience that interpolated narration that wasn't intended in the original can destroy the flow of a work. For those of you who have been lucky enough to see this ballet in the past, what do you think?

I also vote for the Kirov dvd; the only thing I don't like about it is that Terekhova doesn't dance the usual variation in act III.

One I like as well is the Bolshoi one with Nadezhda Pavlova; though I find the way it is filmed odd or even disturbing sometimes, the dancing is excellent.

I've looked for a Don Q dvd with N. Pavlova and can't find anything on Amazon. Is this the full-length ballet or just excerpts?

Hmmmm, it doesn't seem to come up in an Amazon search, does it?

It's a VAI release, here's a link to the VAI page with a full description (including the extra footage with Maya P from a 1964 Bolshoi Don Q)

http://www.vaimusic.com/VIDEO/DVD_4407_DonQuixote.htm

richard53dog: Many thanks for that link; I just placed my order!

I also vote for the Kirov dvd; the only thing I don't like about it is that Terekhova doesn't dance the usual variation in act III.

One I like as well is the Bolshoi one with Nadezhda Pavlova; though I find the way it is filmed odd or even disturbing sometimes, the dancing is excellent.

I've looked for a Don Q dvd with N. Pavlova and can't find anything on Amazon. Is this the full-length ballet or just excerpts?

Hi PeggyR, Nureyev's eye make-up is fine in Don Q. Perhaps you were thinking of the Swan Lake film in which his eye make-up was overdone, ala Soviet-style, I'm told.

Toeprints: You're right, of course and my apologies to Mr. N. In any case, I thought he was unexpectedly funny, which is a big part of the reason I enjoy this performance so much.

Perhaps I am hallucinating, but to my eye he looks a bit like the actor Willem Dafoe.

My first thought was Chet Baker, but you're right, there's a lot of Dafoe too.

How about the remake of The Manchurian Candidate?

I enjoy all of the three mentioned versions: in the ABT, Baryshnikov is wonderful, but Cynthia Harvey strikes me as a rather lady-like Kitri. On the other hand, there aren't a lot of her performances on film, so this is a valuable opportunity to see this exquisite dancer.

You certainly wouldn't go wrong with Terekhova, but overall I have to go along with toeprints and vote for the Nureyev. He's funnier than you might expect (despite the Night of the Living Dead eye makeup) and Lucette Aldous is a lovable and strongly danced Kitri.

Having said that, I have to put in a word for the National Ballet of Cuba version. If you can have only one, this might not be it, but despite some shortcomings, it's worth seeing this legendary company in action. The female dancers in particular may not be to everyone's taste (though I liked Viengsay Valdes as Kitri, many find her too over the top), but I fell hopelessly in love with Romel Frometa's Basil; and wunderkind Tara Domitro does a brief, airborne turn as a gypsy.

4mrdncr: Thanks for your very useful comments; I was very concerned about spending that much money for one weekend and then not being able to see anything.

Peggy

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ABT will be performing Giselle at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Segerstrom Hall, November 3 through 8, 2009.

I could use some advice from ballet goers in the area. Looking at the Segerstrom Hall 'Seat Buddy' (views of the stage from various areas), it's hard to decide where to sit. Usually, I prefer to stay out of the orchestra and sit up higher, but the Tier 1, 2 and 3 seats seem far away and frequently with partial views. Are there any good seats in the tiers? If not, what's the best part of the orchestra (e.g., how close can you sit before the dancers' feet are cut off)?

(Of course, this is all dependent on my 'enablers' actually getting me into an airplane in the first place ...)

Whitney Jensen has joined Boston Ballet. Here's her bio on the company website.

Los Angeles Ballet (Thordal Christensen and Colleen Neary, Artistic Directors) announces its 2009-2010 season.

The Nutcracker

All Balanchine Program

Serenade

Kammermusik No. 2

Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2

New Wave LA

An evening of original works by choreographers based in Southern California

Here's an update on Nicolas Blanc.

SFB Director of Education, Charles Chip McNeal, is currently in Scotland conducting teaching workshops and giving lectures. In his latest blog post Tuesday with Charles on the SFB blog site, he mentions running into Blanc in Glasgow:

...magine my surprise when I came across a familiar face while touring the [scottish Ballet] facility: Nicolas Blanc, former principal dancer with SF Ballet, who has just retired from dancing! Just two weeks ago or so, he was named ballet master for Scottish Ballet, and he now resides in Glasgow.

He'll be missed here, but best of luck to him in his new (and rainy) environment.

Edited to add: I just noticed that this appointment does not yet appear on the Scottish Ballet website, so I may have jumped the gun on posting this; if so, please remove.

...But don't fret about missing it.

Too bad; look at this cast:

Margot also stars Sir Derek Jacobi as choreographer Sir Frederick Ashton; Penelope Wilton as Margot's mother BQ; Lindsay Duncan as Ninette de Valois, founder of The Royal Ballet...

Those three are worth watching in anything, no matter how bad it is.

Many, many, many (this is depressing) years ago, my mother bought tickets for us to hear Arthur Rubinstein. Comes the day of the performance and I still had a bad cough from a long-departed cold. My mother went but made me stay home, not as I assumed out of concern for the health and well-being of her only child ("Oh for heaven's sake, stop being such a baby; you'll live..."), but because she was worried my hacking and wheezing would disturb Rubinstein and/or the audience.

Times have changed, I guess.

Personal Favorite 5

Giselle

La Fille mal Gardee

Swan Lake

Sleeping Beauty

La Bayadere

Most would probably substitue La Fille mal Gardee for Nutcracker or Coppelia.

Only five -- that's a tough one. The problem with Wedgewes' excellent list is that it necessarily leaves out 20th century essentials (don't know if there are any 21st century essentials yet). If you can expand the list to seven, I'd add Balanchine's Four Temperaments, and Tudor's Jardin aux lilas... Or you could substitute Serenade for 4Ts (or keep both; that would be eight)... And then, there's Ashton's Symphonic Variations (that's nine)...

Only five, hmmmm....

Casting has been released:

...

ON A THEME OF PAGANINI

Conductor: Martin West

Piano: Roy Bogas

Frances Chung, Pascal Molat, Taras Domitro

Maria Kochetkova, Davit Karapetyan

SL and SVT speak for themselves but if the listed cast holds, 'On a Theme of Paganini' is definitely on the 'don't miss' list. The ballet itself is pleasant enough without being anything special, but I've seen Chung and Kochetkova in this and they are worth the schlepp down to Stern Grove. Chung could light up a dungeon with her smile (don't worry, she can dance too ) , and Kochetkova's role shows off all her best qualities: intricate, airy, lacy footwork. The ballet is really about the women, but these men should be terrific too.

Looks like a fun afternoon.

What I especially love about Kirkland is how genuinely fragile she seems; in less than two minutes, she completely convinced me that she could die of a broken heart. Quite a contrast to some Giselles who bulldoze their way through Act I like a Teamster. Giselle has to be kind of a pre-Wili in the first act, or the second just won't work. And oh, what I wouldn't give to see that Act II...

Many thanks to all who made this (too brief) video possible (especially to Gelsey, who did the hard part ), and to Paul for the heads up.

Word Wars about tournament scrabble players. All men, all...um ... strange ... weird ... odd ... peculiar ... different ... interesting

Here's an interview with Sansom from September 2002 when he joined the Rambert Dance Company. It sounds like a big part of his job there was fundraising:

And your title is Head of Development, which is is another way of saying fundraising?

Yes. ....

What sort of objectives are you set? Are you principally raising money for specific occasions or programmes, or just getting as much money as you can?

I wouldn't like to describe it as 'getting as much money as we can'. My remit is to raise money for anything and everything that needs to be covered - be it individual productions or general operating costs, which is the hardest money to raise, as there's nothing sexy to attach the donation to. ...

As to being an AD:

Is your ultimate ambition still to be artistic director of a company?

I would love to be, in the right circumstances, but it's not the be-all and end-all for me. I think so long as I'm bringing value to an organisation, I can be happy with that. ...

here now a close-up scan of the photocard...

Thank you, rg. I realize female dancers of the era didn't perform anywhere near the technical level of today, but still, I wouldn't want to spend too much time posing prettily 'en pointe' in those shoes (not to mention the obvious corset).

...when you have only been into ballet for 6 months yet have already spent $1000 dollars on dvds.

Welcome to the club

BTW, I've compared many of the recordings at youtube with the 1962 Nureyev/Tallchief performance in the NBC Bell Telephone series (available on DVD in his series with Erik Bruhn) and I honestly don't think they can touch that. I'd recommend that DVD to anyone just for this duet, in which Nureyev is absolutely great.

Nureyev at 24 has a charm, sleek body (he got a bit heavier later), speed and height which are amazing, IMHO.

The fact that he benefitted from Bruhn's help (which he had to replace on that night)...

I remember when this was first broadcast: I was anxious to see Bruhn and when it was announced that he would not be dancing and the substitute would be this Noorv... Nyerv... Nivry... person, I was so annoyed I wanted to skip the whole thing. Fortunately, my mother pointed out that, after all, he was Russian and you never know, he might not be so bad... I've always thought that Tallchief looked a little uncomfortable (btw, have you seen The Art of Maria Tallchief DVD?), but Nureyev was a revelation at the time. I have since learned to pronounce his name.

Sorry for the digression.

That's a lovely photo.

I'm curious: are those ballet slippers the 'pointe shoes' of the time? Ouch

Margot Fonteyn, a love everlasting.

Absolutely!

Ditto!

I like the new look, but it doesn't display right in the browser I usually use, Opera.

It's a good-looking, user-friendly website, and it looks fine on Safari; however, the website is driving my Symantic Anti-[whatever] crazy. Every time I click on a 2010 season ballet, I get dire warnings of 'possible fraud'. I keep telling Symantic -- It's OK, really, it's OK; they're a ballet company; ballet companies commit bad choreography, not fraud" -- but they just won't listen.

What I'll never forget about Walter Cronkite is his reaction to Kennedy's assassination. At a moment when no one knew for sure what was happening or how to react to it, Cronkite's public and unashamed grief stripped away everything but the essential fact that a human being had been dreadfully murdered. He made it possible for all of us, regardless of political beliefs, to cry with him.

Peace, Mr. Cronkite.