beck_hen

Hi all. Looks like I had a faulty memory on two counts: it was Graffin and not Bocca with Ferri on that old cover (he's just so in shadow you can barely see his face, so my mind jumped to the more famous partnership), and Askegard was married to Ashley Tuttle and not Sandra Brown! Thanks Giselle05 and carbro.

Some of those photos, by Fabrizio Ferri, appear in a brochure sent to subscribers. I'm eager to get this book—it looks like they are a little more romantic and glamorous than some of the very direct, documentary-style photos we've been seeing. I'm a fan of Rosalie O'Connor but I find Nancy Ellison a bit dry. The cover photo of the book: Gillian Murphy and Ethan Stiefel in Swan Lake costumes, actually submerged in a lake up to the waist, kissing. Very flattering to both of them and a convincingly passionate embrace. I have the souvenir photo book from ten years ago that has Bocca and Ferri on the cover. I've been looking through it again recently. One tidbit I noticed for the first time: Charles Askegard was married to Sandra Brown. I don't know if they're still together, and neither is still at ABT. It's good to have this updated to the next generation. There is not much overlap between company members then and now. Senior corps member Jennifer Alexander was in there, as was corps dancer Maxim Beloserkovsky!

This discussion is beginning to remind me of some books and articles I've read about training doctors (Atul Gawande's Complications is one of these interesting reads). Simply put, young surgeons must take up the scalpel themselves in order to save lives in the future, even if the immediate outcome is less assured. So there must be new Giselles and Juliets and Sirens and Terpsichores and Novices, we all admit, and offer ourselves as their more or less willing victims. I've often noticed I start loving dancers much more once I realize they won't be around indefinitely. Wendy Whelan is a case in point. I wonder sometimes if I am not as interested in watching younger talent develop. But that isn't the case. It's just not much fun if someone skyrockets to the top without warning. You don't get to see them triumph incrementally and feel that you are triumphing with them. New roles may challenge these young dancers, but if they are not brought up correctly they will not cultivate the fan base they deserve. Last year's new sensation is this year's "oh, not her again." And the injury rate really does seem high to me. I don't want dancers to become expendable.

A fun book to read that addresses this topic is Lydia Sokolova's memoir Dancing for Diaghilev (and a good read overall): "All choreographers must agree that there are certain dancers who excel in the particular type of movement they invent. Just as Karsavina and Tchernicheva were essentially Fokine dancers, so I am sure that Lopokova, Idzikovsky, Woizikovsky and myself were most suitable and adaptable to Massine's individual kind of ballet. I have taught the role of the Miller's Wife to Mme Karsavina, to Tchernicheva, Devillier and Dalbaicin, but I could not teach any of them to do all the movements as Massine taught them to me .... I was anyway so essentially a character dancer that other people could not be expected to perform all my contortions .... That is why these perfect ballets, although they are still done, are in a way lost, and when Massine ceased inventing his extraordinary movements for Lydia, Stas, Leon and myself we were lost too, and never did anything so great again." I think it's a shame that people who might excel at this type of movement are not very encouraged—since everyone is supposed to be an all-rounder, there is not a special niche for the character dancer, and off the top of my head I can't think of anyone at ABT who is that now, though I have enjoyed Victor Barbee, Keith Roberts, Ethan Brown, Kathleen Moore and Sandra Brown in those types of parts in the past.

Wow. Ethan Stiefel is stepping up as a strong leader in the ballet community. I only hope we can also enjoy his own performances for a few more years, given the knee problems he has been having (mentioned in press coverage of Kings of the Dance and Benjamin Millepied Company). I wish him the best.

Of course I don't regard costumes as the most important part of the performance, but they certainly influence my enjoyment of a skater. I must completely disagree about Irina Slutskaya's pantsuit, which I found very unflattering, a bit Saturday Night Fever-esque. I think unitards can be flattering on women, but pants with flared legs are distracting and interrupt the line. Many of the skaters need more time in ballet class. Then they would learn how to straighten their working legs in spirals and maintain the height of their legs after releasing catch-foot holds, not to mention cultivate a proper layback position. Sasha Cohen's costumes are the most beautiful and elegant since Nancy Kerrigan's, in my opinion. I prefer her style in skating and costumes to Slutskaya's. Once the announcers pointed out that Slutskaya, like Plushenko, was skating over her music and frontloading all her jumps, she lost me. She is a skater I can admire, particularly in light of her personal troubles, but not like.

Well, I am a youngster who started viewing in the '90s. I have always been waiting for lightning to strike, but until the past few years it didn't, and videos of Assylmuratova and Terekhova were more exciting to me. I remember being very impressed by one of Lesley Collier's last performances of Giselle when I was a young girl. To be fair, I think some extraordinary artists developed in Bocca's generation. But some of the ballerinas only achieved artistic excellence late in their careers. I think Jaffe and McKerrow were the real thing by the end, and Wendy Whelan, whom I had never warmed to, blew me away after she started working with Christopher Wheeldon. Why would it take longer for artistry to develop? I'm not sure, but contemporary choreography isn't often about highlighting the individual. Maybe it's too democratic. Wasn't there a backlash against "relying" on stars? What we really crave is not to convince ourselves of someone's greatness, but to have it seem self-evident. The first time I saw Ashley Bouder, six months ago at the Summerstage in Central Park, I thought she was great. I hadn't had that immediate wow with anyone else. I have only seen Alexandra Ansanelli once, doing Duo Concertant and La Valse with the Suzanne Farrell Ballet last Thanksgiving. She didn't get very good reviews, but she announced herself to me as a ballerina. I prefer "fake" to bland. I think An American an Paris is a very good vehicle for Damian Woetzel—his dancing seems very casual, charming and energetic. I could watch that any day of the week. See him as Siefried and he won't seem special; in Union Jack he definitely is. Maybe that's another problem: everyone can't be good in everything. Over at ABT, I find David Hallberg, Stella Abrera, Marcelo Gomes and Veronika Part compellingly unique (I realize I'm mostly preaching to the choir with those names). And I always find my eye drawn to Yuriko Kajiya. Zeitgeist is crucial. I think ballet was just more prominent in society from the turn of the century through the 1970s. Media attention helped to create stars in the past. I feel that many dancers today could be marketed as stars, but companies don't take that approach. And the right choreography shows dancers at their best. It's fine to have the choreography be the star, but that works better if the choreographer is a genius...

Mike Gunther and koshka, maybe it would be positive to attend, find out what's happening, and express your concerns. Or if you don't want to contribute financially in this situation, you could send an RSVP that explains your reasons for missing the event, and your support for the dancers.

Last year I went to four Giselles: Kent, Vishneva, McKerrow and Reyes. The best, in my view, was Amanda McKerrow's retirement performance with Ethan Stiefel. But Kent and Vishneva were also very good—you wouldn't feel that you'd "missed out" after seeing either of them, though their interpretations are quite different. Kent takes the "classic" approach. Her Giselle is fragile, virginal, and transparent—her inner strength and maturity are revealed through tragedy. Kent's broken-hearted innocence is convincing, but McKerrow's was even more genuine, and there were many finely realized details in the first act worked out between McKerrow and Stiefel. The pairing really does matter. It has become the fashion to play Albrecht as thoughtless but well-meaning. Corella is a heedless, impetuous youth. This may be the right approach for him, but I prefer Stiefel's interpretation of Albrecht. He and McKerrow did not meet as equals: he is obviously more experienced and cynical, and her innocence refreshes his jaded palate. They become equals in the second act through her newfound strength and forgiveness and his deepening emotional understanding and repentance. I found their reading the most dramatic because their characters grew and changed the most. The Reyes/Stiefel pairing could recreate this dynamic. Her Giselle is still a work-in-progress, a little bit generic and muted. Pairing her with Corella didn't work to her advantage (as pairing her with Cornejo often does not) because together they seemed too sunny and childish to bear the weight of the tragedy. She does have the ability to be more than cute though. Her reading of Gulnare in Le Corsaire last year blew me away. Her dancing was perfect and she managed to make dramatic sense of it! She completely overshadowed Julie Kent's Medora, and kept pace with Bocca, Corella and Carreno. So I will probably try her again to see how she develops. I thought Vishneva had a very full-blooded approach to Act I. She plays it a bit like Juliet—a rebellious teenager who can't resist tasting the forbidden fruit. She knows the relationship with Albrecht is problematic but blazes ahead anyway. She loves to dance past her limits; her body and mind literally give out on her in the mad scene. Her second act was my favorite—she was passionate, mournful, and magisterial. I don't mean to make her first act sound completely out of place or tradition, and I am not sure that everyone saw it the way I did. She was John Rockwell's favorite Giselle. She does have the ballerina authority required in spades, which probably helps her in the second act and hurts her in the first. I have already bought a ticket to Vishneva/Malakhov. I have never seen him dance and would like to before he retires. I would like to see Gomes as Albrecht, even though Herrera is not a favorite of mine. I haven't liked Carreno's chemistry with anyone since Susan Jaffe... sigh. Now that was a retirement performance: with Bocca as a rough, insistent Hilarion, the best I've ever seen, and Corella as Wilfrid...

Thanks for summing up last night, carbro and bobbi. I'm mostly in agreement about the performances, although I enjoyed de Luz more. I've just started to attend NYCB often, so almost all of the ballets are new to me. I used to feel sad I had missed the glory days, but now I feel lucky that I see a Balanchine or Robbins "premiere" at every performance. What I enjoy about Balanchine's ballets is that they are so full of commentary and references. I understand the basic classical vocabulary better after seeing his variations on it. Divertimento #15 looked to me like an allegro ballet with adagio arms—so witty and beautiful and interestingly accented. And so difficult. Baiser de la Fee seemed to have a Bournonville look, with twinkling feet and soft arms, and shifting moods of lightness and menace. Union Jack was a demi-caractere ballet, with jigs on pointe! Balanchine's use of pointe work is incredible. Martins' works don't have the same dimension for me. I don't see shifting emotional currents in his ballets; relationships between dancers are not created. Morgen compared most unfavorably in that regard to Robbins' In the Night (though both were danced well). The women weren't swooped aloft, they were flung like sacks of flour. It actually reminded me of the Bolshoi women in Spartacus (pique arabesque in nightgown; fall to the ground). Peck, Ullbricht and all the other dancers in Friandises deserve their triumph. New ballets to new music with talented young dancers is the right idea. But I found this to be very much a youth ballet—amazing physical feats that don't ask ask for any characterization or emotion. It veered off a bit too much into soulless gymnastics for me. It should be enjoyed on its own merits, but it would make me uneasy to think that it summed up the priorities of ballet today. The use of pointe work in it is less interesting than Balanchine's. I felt many of the partnering sections in Friandises could have been done with soft shoes. Martins' timing is also less interesting. Dancers were in unison or the lead couple anticipated the others by a few counts, but then waited in poses until the others caught up. I've seen Balanchine use the same strategies but more inventively. Part of the problem is the use of groups. Postmodern choreography seems to thrive on constantly shifting, disintegrating groups entering and exiting the stage rapidly (effective in Mark Morris' Gong and Tharp's In the Upper Room this fall at City Center with ABT). But much is gained from maintaining more stable groups and shifting their formation, or seeing the same steps done in unison by many people instead of a few. This was evident in Union Jack. Now I understand why many on the board reacted favorably to Peter Quanz's Kaleidoscope for ABT (also known as the lost Jewels section Sapphires). He was engaging with the neoclassical vocabulary in the way he juxtaposed the corps and the principal couples. At the time my reaction was noncommital. I don't have an axe to grind against Peter Martins, who has many responsibilities besides his own choreography, but I prefer Quanz's or Wheeldon's ballets. And on the postmodern side, the Morris and the Tharp were more interesting. Sorry to be a wet blanket, but those were the impresions of a newbie.

Thanks Helene. In addition to the Fonteyn video I've seen Amanda McKerrow in the role, and I didn't feel there was anything lacking in her choice to be sweet and shy. I have been trying to catch Ferri in the role for years but unfortunately she has often been injured. I'm interested in seeing Vishneva perform it since even her Giselle was a bit of a rebel!

I've recently read the Daneman biography of Fonteyn, which made me all the more curious about her unfortunate 'rivals', particularly the Romeo and Juliet episode with Lynn Seymour where Fonteyn and Nureyev premiered the roles created on Seymour and Christopher Gable, depriving them of their big break. I then read Lynn Seymour's autobiography. Do any dancers today follow her conception of the role, where Juliet is strong-willed, passionate and earthy, instead of Fonteyn's more "moonlit" interpretation? It seems like the casting changed how the ballet is performed and perceived, going against the choreographer's original intention to produce a more ribald, shocking work. Has the Seymour performance tradition been lost, or have you seen dancers choosing between Seymour's realism and Fonteyn's romanticism?

Thanks Dale, I'll be there!

I don't know, I feel that for someone living in New York, this isn't the most exciting lineup, since I've had the opportunity to see most of these dancers recently in other contexts. Cojocaru has the wow factor, and there are many other Royal Ballet dancers I would like to see now also, like Tamara Rojo. And wouldn't it be wonderful to see some Kirov favorites who are getting left behind on tours, like Pavlenko or Dumchenko?

An example of an ugly extension: I saw Zakharova in Pharoah's Daughter and she developeed into an arabesque past six o'clock. Because her foot was extremely beveled, I received the strange impression that the entire movement was initiated from her ankle. Both the movement and the final pose should be attractive and in this case neither was. The looseness required for high extensions can give a slackness to the overall dance quality. I didn't dislike Maria Allash or Anna Antonicheva in Spartacus, but in jumping passages I thought they looked like their arms and legs might just fly off. Particularly with the swoopy, always collapsing-to-the-floor choreography and flingy lifts they looked like rag dolls being tossed around. They looked feminine, but lacked attack.

I haven't seen NYCB's version yet, but my understanding is that it's radically streamlined and reworked (by Martins, and not Balanchine, sadly). I am planning to check it out though. The costumes and sets look interesting to me. ABT's version is more traditional, but there too some breaks with tradition have been made, such as the swamp-thing Von Rothbart who appears in the prologue and the second act, and a shortened fourth act. Farrell Fan is quite right that neither of these is "the" Swan Lake. If I were you I would choose based on the dancers. I would like to see Wendy Whelan in the role—a casting that feels odd but right to me in light of her increasing depth and mystery. Gillian Murphy and Veronika Part are definitely worth seeing in the part—the former for her absolutely startling technical brilliance, which makes for a fabulous Odile, and the later for her beautiful arms and intense acting. You'd also have the chance to see the two Cornejos in the pas de trois, Marcelo Gomes as a deliciously evil Von Rothbart, David Hallberg as a sublime Siegfried, the venerable Freddie Franklin as the tutor... Well, you can see where my heart is.

I'm not displeased that the magazine layouts were preserved—as a graphic designer I don't view that as a throwaway—a text file is not the New Yorker magazine. A record of the physical presence of the magazine is part of the "relevant context." It seems shockingly cheap!

I've only seen her in an excerpt from La Sylphide with Rudolf Nureyev, but I find it the final word on all things sylph. It doesn't show off her technique, but she is so light and airy it gives the illusion of floating Taglioni must have shown. How is this accomplished? I think about her performance every time I see Les Sylphides at ABT. No one is very close to it—Riccetto's swift, fluttery bourrees and Abrera's windswept port de bras were highlights for me though.

I've found that, coming from a background where I was a serious student before I was a serious viewer, I focus on individual performances so much that I often miss the choreographic whole. I don't fall into the trap Hans described anymore—after a while technique not animated by artistry becomes boring. The benefit of dance training is definite. I've noticed that I can enhance the enjoyment of a performance for the people I bring if I give them a few details about what the dancers are doing technically and how they compare. Of course, I usually don't stop talking in time, and I become a crashing bore who has to go to the ballet alone because everyone is sick of hearing about it. But I am bringing the family to a performance of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet over Thanksgiving.

In my work for a magazine publisher, I've discovered some things about the business models of print versus web publishing. Right now, print is still subsidizing the web. Print advertisers are the backbone of the traditional business model; however, the money they will pay depends on circulation. As circulation is siphoned away from the print edition to the online version, advertising revenues fall. Meanwhile, internet advertising has not filled the void because it is simply not as effective—people ignore banner ads and click "Skip this ad" during the Flash animations. At least I know I do. There is not a lot of money there. So you must charge for online content—but people are unwilling to pay what the content is really worth and what it costs to produce. Outsourcing production can be introduced as a cost-saving measure. But quality does suffer in this entire process. I love the openness and convenience of the web, but we've been getting a free lunch. If we want to read the New York Times online (as I do every day except Sunday), and if we want it to remain as valuable a resource as it is, we should pay for it. Otherwise, we can rely on amateur information (I don't necessarily employ that term with contempt). I agree that the quality and depth of information on Ballet Talk is incredible, and many times superior to mainstream sources. Other enterprises, like Wikipedia, also show that the biggest threat to publishing may be that people are happy to offer their time and expertise for free. That is an amazing thing. Of course there is more junk than treasure out there. And reading some of the great critics from the heyday of print, you were still getting something more. Deep knowledge, a new way of seeing, context, judgement, love of the art form, wonderful writing. I'm glad we have this forum, but I think it's tragic that people can't get paid to deliver criticism on that level any more (the firing of Tobi Tobias, the skin-deep coverage of the NY Times—I'm glad they do it, but it doesn't provide many new insights for the aficionado).

I wonder if you mean Danny Tidwell... ABTers are aghast that he is off the roster. Oops, not a principal, but a rising star.

Like the Met season, it seems like Kent is all over the place. I am glad to see Abrera in there, and will definitely want to see her and David Hallberg in Faun!

Thanks for asking me for clarification on Tiler Peck's "mannerisms," PetipaFan. To be honest, I was purposefully vague, since I am really not knowledgeable about the Balanchine style; I'm much more familiar with more classical stuff, so a lot of how I respond is in noticing divergences from that. It's hard for me to put my finger on what I didn't like about her. It seemed like her arms, hands, and torso were all over the place. She looked "out there" in a bad way. Maybe that is not a fair assessment and she will grow on me. On the other hand, I quite liked some of the other performers, so I assumed it wasn't merely a stylistic prejudice. In the past, Wendy Whelan wasn't my favorite, but I was proved wrong when I saw her and Jock Soto in Wheeldon's Polyphonia.

Wow. Amazing photos. I think "rapturous" is the word for her performance there and I would kill to see the real thing.

I really enjoyed the Thursday performance. I'm no Balanchine expert; I attend performances of that other ballet company at Lincoln Center far more frequently and when I did learn ballet it was in the Vaganova style. It was a pleasure to see Joaquin de Luz look so charismatic, happy and loose. I admit I was skeptical that NYCB would be the right place for him, but it seems so much more fun and interesting for him there than doing the umpteenth Golden Idol in Bayadere. He was definitely a victim of the typecasting Herman Cornejo is now breaking free of at ABT. Megan Fairchild seemed less secure to me, but I liked her port de bras, which were never fixed but always seemed to breathe through the music. The highlight of the evening for me was Ashley Bouder in Allegro Brillante. I've wanted to fall in love with a young ballerina for a while (and I've seen Murphy, Wiles, Zakharova), but it didn't happen for me until I saw her. She seemed to fling herself passionately into every movement, while remaining completely in control. And she was so fast. I didn't look at anyone else while she was onstage. Can't wait to see more! I agree that the first-half programming was deft; the energy built with each piece and came to a climax in Tarantella. I also agree with bobbi that Danny Ulbricht's performance was an asset rather than a liability—I'm sick of perfunctory, passionless performances, which this most definitely was not. The choreography impressed me; I had forgotten how much more dancing Balanchine packs into a piece than everyone else. Fresh from Grigorovich's Spartacus and Lacotte's Pharoah's Daughter, it was very refreshing and palate-cleansing to see interesting dance formations. I wasn't a big fan of Tiler Peck, who exaggerated some of the Balanchine mannerisms I don't like. I didn't think the second half was programmed as well. The pieces were maybe too diverse and a big disconnect from the first half. Valse Fantasie was a dud except for Ramasar, who was elegant, and A Fool For You is definitely a puff piece. To be honest, most people seemed to enjoy it the most, probably because the music is so appealing. It didn't show off the women well (I never would have had the Bouder epiphany if I'd only seen her in this), but Albert Evans was particularly good in it, I thought, loose-hipped, nonchalant, cool. He and Miranda Weese worked well together throughout (the grown-up partnering of the night).