Manhattnik

Q: Mr. Martins, will this be the season when Janie Taylor and Alexandra Ansanelli become principal dancers?

A: You mean they're not?

Disclaimer: Any attribution, implied or otherwise, in the comments above to any managerial staff of any large metropolitan ballet company are purely of a satirical nature and should not be interpreted as representing a true and accurate representation of such persons relationship with reality, tenuous or otherwise. Even if it were to explain a good many things.

All Purpose Swan Lake Plot Grid.

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Yes, they should, and I really look forward to the day when it happens.

This just came up on the boards fairly recently. There's a film of Komleva and Soloviev doing GPC, which was made in the early Seventies, I think. It's quite amazing, and very different in style than the French ones I've seen, with some choreographic tweaking here and there. What Komleva does with the fouettes in the coda must be seen to be believed, and Soloviev's beats are awe-inspiring. Well, to me they are.

It's available on a compliation called Russian Ballet, the Glorious Tradition, Vol 3 -- it's a sensational video, with many, many wonderful bits:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=video&n=507846

I wouldn't even say that NYCB is doing Swan Lake, but, as was said about something else a long time ago, "it's not Swan Lake but an incredible simulation!"

The last few times I saw ABT do Symphony in C they were far from lethargic; in fact they looked pretty darn good (except for the double sautes de basques in Third, but we've beaten that horse to death). As witnessed in the recent Bayaderes, the much (and deservedly) maligned ABT corps has had an amazing turnaround in the past year or so.

I've heard opinions of SAB that run the gamut; I think, as you've implied, much of what one thinks of SAB's training has to do with one's expectations. SAB trains dancers to do Balanchine's works, or rather Balanchine style as interpreted by Peter Martins. Or (shudder) Peter Martins' style. It's a house school, not a general purpose school. And there's nothing wrong with that; I think they're pretty good at what they do, although it is rather disconcerting to think of how few of NYCB's current principal men actually came from SAB.

Let's see.

Bayadere:

Years ago, when ABT first did Makarova's staging of Bayadere, a dance-critic friend of mine said that Cynthia Gregory was born to dance Gamzatti, but I realize now that's only because we didn't know we'd be gifted with Dvorovenko in a mere couple of decades. Nobody does the Queen of the Ball better, and she makes it very clear that the pas d'Action is "All About Me." Loved it. Stiefel didn't have much to do except partner her and look adoring, but he did get in a few nice jumps. Where are the dead parrots?

The Leaves are Fading:

For a woman who "retired" three or so years ago, McKerrow looks pretty darn good, and this expressive, swoopy stuff let her show off her expressive swoopiness without calling on her to perform anything truly difficult technically. Gardner's muscle also helped. As gorgeous as the Tudor is, I don't think it works as an excerpt, although I like it better than the usually inevitable bedroom pas from Manon (of which we were spared this time around).

Esmeralda pdd:

I remember a couple of years ago getting all excited seeing that Ananiashvili and Bocca were doing to do the Esmeralda pas with ABT, only to discover that they were doing a version by Ben Stevenson. Ugh. This was the real thing, or as close to it as one gets these days. I like Herrera best in these sorts of things, where she can flash those killer legs of hers, smile at the audience and whip off some killer turns, for the most part on the music.

I rather liked Gomes' solos. He's a tall guy with a big, booming jump, framed by soft, pantherish landings. Loved seeing him show off his line while streching out those big, big sisonne's. I've watched for Gomes' alleged "cheating" on double tours ever since Aubri first mentioned it in these forums in a description of Gomes' solo in the Sylvia pas during ABT's City Center run last fall; yes, he does "cheat" some, but so what? Everybody cheats, and given that Gomes is a dancer who "gives good weight" in so many other ways (I find his modest stage demeanor refreshing in this age of over-salesmanship), I'm willing to cut him some slack. Lots of slack. A recent trip through my video library showed me the great Soloviev "cheating" on some mammoth sisonnes en tournant in Grand Pas Classique. Let me burn the cassette!

Hereafter:

Oh, what a novel idea to choreograph something to Carmina Burana! I wish I'd thought of it. I never realized Corella could jump so high, or grow such a scraggle beard. But why the beard? Perhaps those who will actually SEE Hereafter might share. Or not.

Diana and Acteon:

Carreno is rather stupendous here; it almost seems irrelevant who he's dancing with. Or if he dances at all. He could just stand there in that loincloth thingie and let us admire his magnificence. It's almost a bonus that he can actually move (like a god). (I'd say he's unmatched here, except I do have a fondness for Faroukh Ruzimatov's version, where his leapoard-skin undies and kohl-blackened eyes make him look like the illegitimate love-child of Tarzan and Cleopatra.) I just loved the way he'd reach into his bag of audience-pleasing tricks, especially his "ever-slowing-pirouette." And those mammoth barrel turns!

Although one might imagine that someday Murphy might know how to enticingly contrast her rather icy demeanor with Carreno's fire, here she just looked a bit uncomfortable, both with Carreno and on her own. Goddesses don't look uncomfortable, do they? I missed Diana's bow and crescent-moon tiara, but I guess times are hard these days.

Don Q pdd 2 a 4:

I am shocked, shocked that ABT would present us with such an unruly, disrespectful mess. Please, someone get Julio Bocca to a barber -- even Philip Neal's. Oh, the pddaq was pretty silly, too, although I did laugh a few times. More than a few. Bocca was delightfully harried as the cavalier with more ballerinas to partner than hands (I loved the way they stole the show from his turns a la seconde by zipping out of the wings to encircle him with pique turns). Reyes (why IS she a principal?), Tuttle (Broadway's loss is ABT's loss, it seems) and Ananiashvili (damn, can she turn) all looked like they were having fun pulling this old chestnut out of the fire.

Swan Lake Waltz:

Very pretty, although I can only take a bit of McKenzie's flirty, slutty peasant girl hitting on Siegfried. Belotserkovsky once again showed off his legs to die for, scissoring them wide in the many jetes en attitude. Perhaps not the most rousing conclusion to this gala, but it worked for me.

I saw the Harrison thing last year, so no need to see it again. Or once, even.

Donizetti had that all-too-familiar dress-rehearsal look. Although Ringer's charm and Woetzel's flair managed to weather Andrea Quinn's familiar lickety-split conducting, would that the same could be said about the corps, which often seemed to be playing a game of desperate catch-up. It seems Donizetti is one of those "minor" Balanchine works which doesn't merit adequate rehearsals -- at least before the curtain goes up.

Oddly enough, Quinn settled down and delivered a punchy yet measured rendition of Symphony in Three Movements, which was the finest performance of the evening, with Wendy Whelan in strong, even sensational form, along with Jock Soto. Abi Stafford was also measured, but could've used a bit more punchiness, and could take lessons from Whelan, and even Van Kipnis, on how to Cut Loose.

At my first glance in Chaconne of the hatchet-job Kistler's done on her hair, I was reminded of the old Saturday Night Live skit about the interview TV show called "What Were You Thinking?" ("Shelley Long, what were you thinking?"). I'd just noticed how out-of-place a corps girl with very short hair appeared in the beginning of the Elysian Fields section, compared to the others' flowing locks (Carla Korbes was particularly to die for), when, there was Kistler. I'd always thought Kistler's hair was gorgeous, so I just don't get it.

For awhile, Kistler turned Chaconne into a bit of a roller-coaster ride, with some touching moments of passion verging on madness. I overlooked the fudging and mis-cues (Kistler could teach a course on how to make a single pirouette look like a double) and was a bit in awe of her ability to cobble together a mass of ideosyncracies into a coherent performance, at least until the middle of the finale, where she clearly ran out of gas. From then on Kistler just marked most of the steps (the ones she didn't omit).

As for Nilas Martins, I shall be kind and say nothing. Yet.

Traditional except for the happy ending?

Shelkanova was with ABT as recently as 1999 or 2000. She was quite memorable in the lead of Lilac Garden, I thought. I miss her, but it seems McKenzie is more interested in whiz-bang bottle-rockets these days.

Has anyone heard of their US advisor, Selma Djin Koan?

(I swear I'm not making this up!)

Khalfouni did indeed do Giselle with ABT (and Baryshnikov) in the mid-Eighties. I don't think she was a "guest." Rather she'd joined the company as a principal -- not like there's much difference between the two at ABT, sometimes.

I recall being rather underwhelmed by her Giselle at the time.

What danseur would dream of setting foot onstage without his very own Double Tourniquet, the discreet elastic device guaranteed to pull even the floppiest of into a perfect fifth when landing from those pesky jumps?

I guess it would depend on whether she was knocking off a battement or knocking back a martini.

While poking around the NYC Performing Arts Library recently, I found a video from VAI of Great Moments in Russian Ballet (or something like that). For one of these compilation videos, the quality of dancing is amazingly high (glimpses of Maximova in Giselle and Nadezhda Pavlova in Bayadere are both particularly revelatory), but none higher than the early-Seventies video of Komleva and Soloviev doing a somewhat different version of Grand Pas Classique than the Paris Opera one. For me this is some kind of ne plus ultra of bravura technique -- I've never seen anything better (it's filled with jaw-dropping, throwaway technical and stylistidc gems), and doubt I ever shall.

I've sung this song before, but I thought Martine van Hamel was to die for as O or as O.

I'm surprised that a discussion of La Sonnambula has gone on so long here without mention of Nikolaj Hubbe's Poet. He is so magnificently, wildly in love with the idea of being in love, and dangerous, risky love for the unattainable at that, we can see exactly why he's drawn to the toxic Coquette, and even more so to the Sleepwalker, no less a femme fatale for being a femme dormant.

There is a great tradition of ballet heroes who approach romance without thinking with their heads, although whether the deciding organs are their hearts is a matter for unending, and usually amusing, debate.

I went to the opening night. Patrick Corbin danced the leads in all three pieces. I don't know how he does it.

I'm sorry they won't be doing A Field of Grass again during the run. Patrick Corbin's opening solo, smoking something which I imagine isn't meant to represent a cigarette (see the title), well, was just one of the most gorgeous things I've seen in years, evoking what was a very special time for me, those pre-Oil Embargo, pre-disco days of the early Seventies when it really did seem that anything at all was possible, especially if you did remember to inhale.

It's typical of Taylor's bright/dark dichotomy that near the rousing finale of Grass he has Corbin mime, ever so briefly, having a really bad trip, man.

I'm looking forward to Snow White, one of Taylor's cute/nasty specials (although nothing can top Big Bertha in this vein). And Esplanade, well, sometimes one's cup runs over.

It is really scary to think that Taylor's demographics are following those of NYCB's. Perhaps we're not interested in choreographic genius anymore; perhaps we don't deserve it.

I recall reading somewhere that Meunier did Second Movement at an SAB Workshop, but never with the company. I wonder if she's done it on the road wtih ABT; I'd crawl over broken glass to see it.

Korbes does come to mind, but I believe she was injured (the reason Interplay was cancelled). I'd love to see Somogyi try it, but she's so far into Martins' "utility ballerina" doghouse I fear she'll never get the chance. I'm sure Ansanelli would be to die for in the Second Movement, but given that the last time I saw her in Symphony in C (she was doing Third Movement) she twice almost ended up in the orchestra pit after bobbling those tricky turns to the knee in the finale, it's perhaps understandable that Martins has kept her away from this ballet for a bit.

Actually the obvious choice would be Ringer for Second Movement. I can see it now: sweet, dewy, lush, lovely. There, I just saved myself $12.

The problem with Ringer is that once having seen her dance a role in one's mind's eye, it's not really necessary to actually see her dance it in person.

I have to find this article. I didn't want to write about it until I'd read it, but it really does sound like she's writing with the benefit of logic as fuzzy as her opera glasses must be.

It seems as if the Von Aroldingen quote was taken from the context of a rehearsal, not a class. So von Aroldingen wasn't teaching a class, but setting Balanchine's choreography. They're not the same thing; did it ever occur to Rafferty that perhaps a developpe somewhere between en avant and a la seconde was EXACTLY what Balanchine wanted at that point?

Or does she think she knows what Balanchine wanted better than his former dancers, or, it seems, anyone?

Sadly to say, there's a difference between knowing one's limits and demonstrating them.

If Kistler isn't aware of her limits after that Chaconne (based on the reports I've seen), and this Bizet (and let's not forget how badly she struggled in the first Serenade of the season), well, she never will be.

With Whelan and Kowroski in Russia, was there anyone other than Kistler at home who knew Second Movement? If so, who? If not, wouldn't it have been a good opportunity to teach it to a worthy newcomer?

Ooops. Yes, it was Somogyi. Well, there had to be a reason why I liked her so much!

Seriously, that's what I get for writing a review from memory more than a week after the performance. I guess I remembered it was originally supposed to be Stafford and Martins, and just mentally plugged in my remembrance of when I saw Stafford do First Movement not long before.

At least their first names both begin with "S."

I could just delete this thread, fix the review and repost it, but I dish out my lumps, I might as well be able to take them, too.

Sunday, February 24 matinee, NYCB

I know we've all moved into the Carpathians, but hearken back with me, if you would, to last Sunday's City Ballet matinee, whose big draw for me was the last Symphony in C of the season (and, I believe, the ballet is going away for one of those frightening rests to which the company management occasionally treats their "Crown-Jewel" ballets). The program wasn't unaffected by the recent rashes of injuries afflicting the company, necessitating the replacement of Interplay and Valse Fantasie with Christopher Wheeldon's redundantly named "Carousel - A Ballet," (It's a ballet? No, really? Where's the Squad Squad when we need it?) and Fairchild and Ulbricht reprising Tarantella. Considering the unfortunate presentation given Interplay last spring, I really wasn't sorry to miss it. And, while Valse Fantasie is clearly a more substantial ballet than Tarantella, it was hard not to rejoice at another chance to see Ulbricht's joyful bouyancy yet again. There were also cast changes in Symphony in C, but more of that later.

There's lots about Carousel which doesn't work, and, as in his titling of the ballet, Wheeldon shows a great gift for firmly, even proudly, stating the obvious. If one weren't already aware that a carousel moves in a circle, one surely would know this by heart after even a single viewing. And just when you'd think he couldn't have hammered this point into the ground (and our skulls) any more firmly, he has the dancers trot out those little poles, recreating even more emphatically the look of a carousel, with girls posing like pretty little ponies on the shoulders of the guys, all the while holding up those darn barber poles while they're carried liesurely in a circle. I'm beginning to think Wheeldon doesn't know the difference between a coup du theatre and a gimmick. Well, I do, and here's a hint: Chris, for God's sake, lose the poles.

Perhaps Wheeldon felt the challenge of matching the ravishingly beautiful Rodgers tunes (who wouldn't feel like doing something joyously grand to the Carousel Waltz, or over-the-top romantic to "If I Loved You?"), as the ballet is littered with Clever Ideas which accomplish little, rather like an collage of scraps from Balanchine's or Robbins' mental cutting-room floor. Yes, the big, swoopy developrment of a theme by the corps along a stage-spanning diagonal is indeed beautiful and dramatic and powerful, and a favorite of Balanchine's. But Balanchine was ever-so-judicious in its use -- how much would we remember and look forward with gleeful anticipation (well, I do!) to that big diagonal development by the girls in white in Symphony in Three Movements if Balanchine used the device more than once, or, perish the thought, at one of Stravinsky's pounding climaxes rather than at a quiet, even introspective moment? Balanchine was very well aware of the extremes of his palette, and was very careful about when he dragged out the heavy artillery; Wheeldon is too scattershot and indiscriminate.

That's not to say there aren't many beautiful moments in this ballet -- almost as many as those which fall flat, in fact. I'd say this is mostly thanks to Alexandra Ansanelli, but it was Wheeldon who first showed us some of Ansanelli's finest qualities in Polyphonia. Perhaps one could say here Ansanelli returns the favor, as she seems to be bringing more to the ballet than the ballet brings to her. Having said this, there are parts of the long duet between Ansanelli and Millepied which are heartbreakingly beautiful, despite the occasional echoes of ballets of yesteryear ("Look, it's the Pas d'Action from Giselle, no, wait, it's Firebird! Or something by M*cm*ll*n!") and the more-intrusive bits where Wheeldon is just Too Clever for Words, like when Millepied flips himself into a one-handed cartwheel, one-handed because he has to keep his other hand free to delicately take Ansanelli's as he comes down to earth. Well, perhaps it looked great in the studio, but in ballet as in life, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

However, when Wheeldon and Ansanelli are both at their best, the results are unforgettable. The gasp-producing moments when Ansanelli, in her some of her very finest swoons, snaps off a breathtakingly fast double pirouette and then hurls herself forward, prone, into the space which Millepied hasn't yet come close to occupying. Of course, it's a awesome, terrifying moment because if Millipied is even a split-second late, they'll be carrying Ansanelli offstage in a stretcher, but even more because it's a perfect evocation of fragile joys of young love. Ansanelli's committment is complete -- she and Wheeldon show us, ever so graphically, that this young love-struck girl has just discovered the joy of having a love in her life to whom she can give herself completely, and trust completely. She can't imagine a world in which he won't be there to catch her; part of this moment's poignancy is that we in the audience, at least the older and wiser among us, can. Of course having the young girl in love throwing herself at her lover is pretty standard in these sorts of duets, and Wheeldon isn't immune to producing some pedestrian moments, but parts of this duet are so deliciously on the edge it's almost enough to forgive Wheeldon for spinning his wheels, recycling his material, going around in circles, breathing his own exhaust, well, you get the idea.

Tarantella was great fun. Fairchild loosened up a bit from her debut the night before, although she's still got a ways to go. Ulbricht was perhaps not quite as supernaturally airborne as the night before, but still stunning, and still a delight. When he joined the company, I was skeptical about what sort of niche such a short, albeit brilliant, dancer could find for himself at NYCB; clearly he's well on his way to finding one. I just hope Ashley Bouder, with whom Ulbricht is well-matched on many levels, makes a speedy and healthy return to the stage.

Hallelujah Junction is one of Martins' more pleasant ballets, a bit in the manner of such romps as Fearful and Ash. I don't really get the point of the dancers in white vs dancers in black, but it's enjoyable enough watching Martins put his muse, Janie Taylor, through her paces, along with Millepied and Sebastien Marcovici. I don't quite get the Black Unitards vs White Unitards thing, or whether Marcovici (in white) is fighting with Millepied (in black) over Taylor (also in white). It does seem that Martins is rather fond of ballets in which two men appear to compete for the favors of a woman, or two women for a man's, or there's a lot of changing of partners and dancing. Which means i know not what. I do know that it's cruel to Marcovici to make him follow on the heels of Millepied in many brise volees of the not-short-enough "Dueling Bluebirds" section. Millepied is an airborne, bravura-ish dancer; Marcovici, even at his most energetic, is rather stolid and earthbound.

And now we come to Bizet. The last Symphony in C of the season, and for awhile, as I believe it's not being done this Spring. Because Jock Soto was off in Russia doing Rubies with Wendy Whelan and Maria Kowroski, Darci Kistler was scheduled to dance Second Movement with Philip Neal. As one of the most infelicitous bits of miscommunicated partnering I've ever seen occurred between Kistler and Neal a few years back in some infamous Mozartianas during the Tchaikovsky mini-festival of the 50th Anniversary Season (and they've danced together very seldom since then), I imagine Neal breathing a sigh of relief when he was tapped to instead dance the First Movement with Abi Stafford, with Kistler's partnering honors going to Charles Askegard.

The first movement went well enough. I'm getting to the point where I can appreciate Stafford's strengths without being excessively put out by her weaknesses. Perhaps her recent erratic casting has brought her down a notch or two, but she seems less smug and insular and more reponsive to her sourroundings onstage, and even to the music. While Neal was not quite as impressive as he'd been in recent Mozartianas, he moved with his usual grace and managed the double tour to the knee with relative aplomb. I was also struck by Rachel Rutherford in one of her introspective, joyous moods as one of the demis.

I'd heard that Kistler had turned in a really lovely performance the previous time she'd done Symphony in C, so I was hoping for the best, but, alas, it was not to be. If anything, this performance was worse than her embarrassment at the end of the Saratoga season last July. At least when Kistler's partnered by Soto she can benefit from the shamanistic energy with which he seems to imbue the women he partners (at least while he's actually touching them!). Although Askegard is a strong and careful partner, it quickly became all too clear that Kistler's frightening technical deficiencies were at times more than he could handle. A smile is usually never far from Askegard's lips -- he usually looks as if he's genuinely proud of his ability to show off a ballerina, and loves his job. Here, he had the kind of steely, clenched-jaw rictus one imagines on the faces of the Light Brigade while charging the guns at Balaklava, as if he were saying, "The Boss's wife ain't gonna die on my watch. Nosirree Bob!" (Despite the reports of Soto's slamming into the wings at the Mariinsky, I can't help but think he had an easier day than Askegard.)

How sad it was to see glimmers of the beatific Kistler of old quickly extinguished, either by her desperation to recover from the ever-recurring wobbles, bobbles and botches, or, worse, by her indelicate attempts to sell what was once beyond price. The big developpe a la seconde with the brisk fouette to arabesque, was, well, terrifying, finishing with Kistler clutching at Askegard's arm like a drowning man for the last life-belt from the Titanic. She looked as if she was going to get her head to the knee for Big Penchee, or die trying, so I'm glad she made it, although it wasn't pretty. Of her solo work, which was more marking and fudging than actually dancing, well, I couldn't decide for whom it had to be more painful: Kistler, who had to know how horribly she was falling short of what she'd once been, or the audience, who had to watch her fail and fail. But does she care? Even the droopy ribbons on her toe shoes seem to have just given up. Oddly enough, she threw off her multiple pirouettes in the Fourth Movevment very nicely, but then couldn't manage to mark the tricky turn to the knee in the finale, more of a degage with the leg in some odd indeterminate position between her ankle and the wings, with a little pivot on quarter-pointe. Oh, it was so sad. I'd rather see Kistler end her career with a bouquet-filled gala than with the dreadful injury she seems to be courting.

In the Third Movement, Janie Taylor seemed to have caught Kistler's penchant for marking the steps, with some of the lowest jetes I've seen in quite some time (except when I'm looking in the mirror). Perhaps she was injured, or miffed at having to dance two leads in one afternoon. At least Carmena seemed to be there to dance. And in the Fourth Movement, Pascale van Kipnis was about the only ballerina who actually looked happy to be onstage, along with the always elegant but subdued Jason Fowler.

Well, at least the corps looked good.

I don't mean to imply that only short men can dance the role of Franz, but it was choreographed for a shorter (but not short dancer)

Who do you mean? Helgi Tomasson? Freddie Franklin? Eugenie Fiocre?

While I can't speak to how well Askegard performed as Franz, (I won't be seeing him until Saturday night), nor to his capabilities as a "spinner," I've always thought his comic, mid-Western corniness, when he chooses to use it, would make him an excellent Franz (who is, after all, not the sharpest pencil in the box). I've also found Askegard to be one of the best, and most natural, turners in the company.

I believe Peter Martins is 6', and Askegard 6'2" although I could be wrong.

Thank you "more mature" ballet fans for helping to fill in the blanks in my ballet knowledge!!

De nada; after all, what is the Internet for, if not the sharing of knowledge? And the thanks are mutual; I'm sure I'm not the only "mature" fan here who welcomes these opportunities to retrieve from one's fading memory some of those bits of historical minutiae which add so to the charm of this great art form, and which, otherwise, one might simply forget.

Actually, for broadcast on some variety show or other, d'Amboise did make a ballet to the meditation from Thais, for himself and Kent. While I don't think it was ever commercially released, copies of it are Out There. Although the piece is quite trivial, Kent is beyond gorgeous in it.