Manhattnik

That "they'd just be dancers" poster is on a bus-shelter right at the corner of 65th and Broadway, like a deliberate slap in the face to all those hardworking ballet dancers and students who work and live in the immediate vicinity.

I keep on expecting to see it defaced in some appropriate manner, perhaps with the plexiglas covering shattered by a bazooka-launched toe shoe or two. Perhaps someone could apply for a NYSCA grant for that very thing?

I recently noticed someone had stuck a small note on the Lincoln Center ad saying what an insult the ad was to dancers everywhere. I rather like the "improvement" cited in Metropolitan Diary.

I'm glad to hear that Stafford was good in Square Dance. Although she usually hasn't been to my taste (she seems rather bland and without inflection), I have seen flashes, in recent seasons, that she's getting more musical, and more savvy, although there certainly have been setbacks along the way.

I've never quite been able to fathom why Martins would give her Theme, promote her, then cast her sparingly, and shove her back in the corps when he does. Perhaps he was teaching her a Lesson in that straightforward, forthright Danish way. (Why is it that so many dancers vanish after being made soloist there, anyway? Trying to fathom NYCB is like watching a goldfish bowl where all the good stuff happens when the fish are inside the little plastic castle.)

With appropriate coaching and nurturing, I think Stafford could be a very solid, dependable, workhorse of a ballerina; perhaps even more. Given Peter Martins' evident sink-or-swim approach to casting (as described by Wendy Whelan in Marc Haegman's very perceptive interview in the latest Dance View -- you really should subscribe!), it's a good thing for Stafford that Merrill Ashley appears to have taken an interest. Now that Stafford is no longer Martins' flavor-of-the week, perhaps she will be able to find herself as an artist. It seems to have worked for Ansanelli!

I went last week to a program with Appalachian Spring, Errand into the Maze, El Penitente, and Maple Leaf Rag. Talk about going from the sublime to the ridiculous!

I don't have my program with me, but I was struck by how good the company looked; not at all as if they'd come back from a long hiatus, which, indeed, they had! The Revivalist was a little weak, but the rest of the cast was superb. Appalachian Spring is one of the most brilliant and beautiful dances ever made -- what bliss to live somewhere where once can see that and Serenade in the same week!

When each dancer has his or her moment leaning on that fence and staring at, and past us, at the land, the earth, their future (us!), well, it's enough to bring me to tears right then and there.

Errand into the Maze was gorgeous (I should mention that the live orchestra sounded just fantastic!), and it's not hard to look at this and think it's all a cliche -- "we all have our own demons to face, our own internal labyrinths, our own Minotaurs to defeat," and, yet, as made by Graham, the story is endlessly compelling. The heroic woman, stepping akimbo over the rope leading into the strange structure at the heart of the maze, the fearsome yet oddly hobbled Minotaur, whom she seems to invoke with her own fears and doubts, the relentlessly percussive score echoing the terrified throbbing of her heart (or ours): these are just some of the things that make this such a great work of art, and speak of both the enduring human truths behind so many Greek myths, and Graham's gift for distilling and reinventing them.

I'd never seen El Penitente before, but I loved the sweetness, and deadpan humor, of Graham's depiction of what look to be Mexican passion plays.

I'd also never seen Maple Leaf Rag before, and I'm not in a hurry to see it again. Yes, it showed off the glorious flexible backs of the Graham dancer (what happened to the days when ballet dancers had glorious, flexible backs?), but the humor was more embarassing, with the misses vastly outnumbering the hits. Even in Graham's dotage, she had a gift for invention, but there's something a little unsettling about an Old Master parodying the masterpieces of her youth -- and feebly, at that.

I am beyond ecstatic that they're back; God willing they'll be filling larger theaters soon. I remember when they could fill the Met. (OK, Liza Minelli helped...)

The Saturday matinee started out with Thou Swell. I thoroughly enjoyed it -- nothing like some hot chocolate at Starbuck's on a cold winter's day!

After that, In the Night received a fine, if not perfect, performance. Rachel Rutherford swirled and swooned showing her usual strong sense of plastique, matched with an attentive, elegant but slightly subdued Arch Higgins. They were both quite good, but Rutherford can sometimes retreat from her partner into her prettiness, and while Higgins, with his thick dark hair, certainly looked Romantic, if not Byronic, I missed the edgy electric shocks that seemed to pass between Yvonne Borree and Sebastien Marcovici last time I saw this ballet. Rutherford and Higgins made this duet about the blush of youngsters discovering love; with Borree and Marcovici it was a bit darker, more interesting, and, I imagine, closer to what Robbins may have had in mind.

As the second couple, Jennie Somogyi and Peter Boal were just perfect. Here were two strong and beautifully classical dancers portraying a cold, distant, elegant couple, for whom the fires of passion may have cooled, yet aren't immune to careful stoking. Here, when Boal swoops Somogyi into that big, climactic feet-to-the ceiling lift, that literally head-over-heels moment, combined with the little White-Swannish serres Somogyi beats out against one ankle with her other foot, make it clear that this couple knows how to connect, in a big way, when they need to. Boal's refinement made an interesting complement to Somogyi's unique forceful, indeed muscular, lyricism. As it sometimes appears that there's a brilliant adagio dancer hidden in Somogyi's allegro-dancer physique, this duet's implication of their inner worlds of emotion working their way to the outside made this a perfect role for Somogyi. I was also happy to see she seemed more relaxed onstage; her face looked relaxed, animated and less mask-like than it sometimes appears.

By contrast, I remember Maria Kowroski and Charles Askegard made this couple very calm and comfortable with each other from the beginnings. Beautiful indeed (Kowroski's legs seemed to brush the ceiling in that upside-down lift), but without the hints of hidden emotional depths Somogyi and Boal gave us.

I had been looking forward to Wendy Whelan and Jock Soto as the final pair (I look foreward to Whelan in just about anything), and, in one sense, I wasn't disappointed. Whelan and Soto are a truly great partnership -- her unsurpassed lyricism and phrasing grounded, supported and subtly yet powerfully enhanced by Soto's unmatched partnering strength and sensitivity. By the way, Soto appears to have slimmed down a bit, looking sharper than he has in some time. Some of the lifts were awe-inspiring, particularly the swoops over his back, where the orange underdress of Anthony Dowell's brilliant dark (black?) costume for Whelan flashed forth like a little volcanic eruption, or when Soto dragged whelan across the floor, practically yanking her airborne before they vanished into the wings.

What I missed, though, was the sense that Jenifer Ringer and James Fayette gave this couple, of truly fighting and butting heads, or at least having turned fighting and making up into a kind of ritualized game. Although by the evening performance (this was done twice yesterday), Whelan seemed much more elusive and contrary, it did seem that they'd been dancing together for so long, and Soto had the "supportive partner" mindset so engrained, they couldn't overcome their long-steated cooperativeness to make the kind of boiling-over emotional battlefield Ringer and Fayette created.

The evening performance started with a good rendition of Serenade. Much better than the first of the season I saw a couple of weeks ago, but even though the energy level was higher, there were still dutiful stretches, and only occasional flashes of the kind of transcendent abandon I love to see in this ballet. Kyra Nichols was divine as the Waltz Girl -- of all things, the moment when Fayette holds her, supine in a backbend, just above the stage before putting her down and leaving with the Dark Angel (Kowroski) was just heart-stoppingly beatiful -- and Nichols seemed not to move a muscle for those few moments, or was it a few years? Just astonishing. Kowroski does well in this role (that supported arabesque turn has become a bit of a trademark of hers), and Somogyi a powerful and earthy Russian Girl (although I really adore Taylor's elemental wildness here).

Saturday night closed on a sad note, with Nikolaj Hubbe suffering some sort of injury in Jeu de Cartes. He ran onstage for his first entrance, and, clearly, something was wrong from the first moment, as he just kept on running off into the other wing, hobbling lower and lower as it seemed one of his legs just couldn't support him -- leaving the corps girls to dance around a Hubbe-sized hole in the stage.

Perhaps it was just a bad cramp, as he didn't seem to have had a chance to actually do anything which might've caused an injury other than just run on.

I don't know Jeu well enough to say for sure whether Janie Taylor and/or Benjamin Millepied came on to ad-lib a bit at times when Hubbe should've been dancing. I thought perhaps Taylor did, but sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between Martins' choreography and improvisation, isn't it?

Until then it had been a promising performance, with Millepied, strong and aerial, taking over Woetzel's Ace of Spades role, although not quite with Woetzel's unmatcheable bravura and wit. Tewsley made a tolerable debut in Millepied's old role, (Jack of something? I forget) but it looks as if he's still feeling his way into the quirky world of the Balanchine/Martins modern repertory. Taylor was her usualy spunky, danger-high-voltage self.

I hope Hubbe will be back soon!

I don't think anyone is TERRIBLY enthusiastic about what is on stage at the moment, amongst the ladies.

You're always quite free to speak for yourself, Katherine, but this is rather an odd assertion to make at the end of a thread containing scores of posts from people who, for the most part, are quite eloquently expressing that very enthusiasm you find so lacking in "anyone."

Perhaps they don't seem to be "TERRIBLY enthusiastic" because their language is not quite as, ummm, emphatic as yours? I suppose we all have our filters, and if one views a performance, or reads a thread, through glasses tinted rose, or any other color, one may see what one wishes to see (or its absence), but one might might also leave the theater, or the computer screen, with a rather masked and incomplete experience of what actually appeared before one's eyes.

(Have I mentioned lately that Wendy Whelan is a goddess? No? Well she is. And Kyra Nichols is ascending to Heaven night after night at the State Theater, and taking those lucky enough to be in the audience with her. And I'm also rather enjoying Sofiane Sylve's phenomenal high kicks in Western, too.)

A few surprises here. This is rapidly turning into Kyra Nichols' season; wild horses couldn't keep me away from her Chaconne

JANUARY 28 - FEBRUARY 2, 2003

TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 28 AT 7:30PM

Square Dance: BORREE, BOAL

Intermission

Haiku: ASH, KÖRBES, ARTHURS, ORZA, MARCOVICI, HANNA [Moverman]

Intermission

Jeu de Cartes: TAYLOR, TEWSLEY, MILLEPIED, HÜBBE

WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 29 AT 8:00PM

Bach Concerto V: KISTLER, SOTO [Moredock]

Pause

Eight Easy Pieces: KEENAN, FAIRCHILD, MANDRADJIEFF [McDill, Walters]

Pause

Eight More: CARMENA, ULBRICHT, HENDRICKSON

Intermission

Haiku: ASH, KÖRBES, ARTHURS, ORZA, MARCOVICI, HANNA [Moverman]

Intermission

Chaconne: WHELAN, NEAL, EDGE, GOLD, NATANYA, BESKOW, FOWLER, RIGGINS, *PAZCOGUIN, CICCONE, *ZUNGRE, DRONOVA, ABERGEL, GOLBIN, FROMAN, ROBERTSON

THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 30 AT 8:00PM [Fiorato]

Square Dance: *A. STAFFORD, MARTINS

Intermission

Piano Pieces: *MILLEPIED, *SOMOGYI, *ANGLE, *ANSANELLI, *MARCOVICI, *KOWROSKI, *HANNA [Grant]

Intermission

Slaughter on Tenth Avenue: SYLVE+, WOETZEL, FAYETTE, HANNA, FOWLER, SUOZZI, FROMAN, ROBERTSON

FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 31 AT 8:00PM [Kaplow]

Mercurial Manoeuvres: WEESE, ANGLE, MANDRADJIEFF, FAIRCHILD, MILLEPIED [Moverman, Mase]

Intermission

Burleske: KISTLER, ANGLE, TAYLOR, BOAL [Walters]

Pause

Sonatas and Interludes: KOWROSKI, SOTO [Chelton]

Intermission

Chaconne: WHELAN, NEAL, EDGE, GOLD, NATANYA, BESKOW, FOWLER, RIGGINS, PAZCOGUIN, CICCONE, ZUNGRE, DRONOVA, ABERGEL, GOLBIN, FROMAN, ROBERTSON

SATURDAY MATINEE, FEBRUARY 1 AT 2:00PM

Kammermusik No. 2: KOWROSKI, *SYLVE+, ASKEGARD, NEAL [Grant]

Pause

Ballade: *WHELAN, *TEWSLEY [Chelton]

Intermission

Haiku: ASH, KÖRBES, ARTHURS, ORZA, MARCOVICI, HANNA [Moverman]

Intermission

Symphony in C:

1st Mov.: SOMOGYI, MARTINS

2nd Mov.: WHELAN, NEAL

3rd Mov.: TAYLOR, MILLEPIED

4th Mov.: van KIPNIS, HIGGINS

SATURDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 1 AT 8:00PM [Quinn]

Bach Concerto V: KISTLER, SOTO [Moredock]

Pause

Eight Easy Pieces: KEENAN, FAIRCHILD, MANDRADJIEFF [McDill, Walters]

Pause

Eight More: CARMENA, ULBRICHT, HENDRICKSON

Intermission

Piano Pieces: MILLEPIED, SOMOGYI, ANGLE, ANSANELLI, MARCOVICI, KOWROSKI, HANNA [Grant]

Intermission

Chaconne: NICHOLS, MARTINS, EDGE, GOLD, NATANYA, BESKOW, FOWLER, RIGGINS, PAZCOGUIN, CICCONE, ZUNGRE, DRONOVA, ABERGEL, GOLBIN, FROMAN, ROBERTSON

SUNDAY MATINEE, FEBRUARY 2 AT 3:00PM

Kammermusik No. 2: KOWROSKI, SYLVE+, ASKEGARD, NEAL [Grant]

Pause

Ballade: WHELAN, TEWSLEY [Chelton]

Intermission

Piano Pieces: MILLEPIED, SOMOGYI, ANGLE, ANSANELLI, MARCOVICI, KOWROSKI, HANNA [Grant]

Intermission

Jeu de Cartes: TAYLOR, TEWSLEY, MILLEPIED, HÜBBE

I remember being quite impressed with how good Neal was in Apollo, with Farrell's group.

Let's not forget that Nilas Martins also dances Apollo (someone had to say it!). I rather suspect we'll see a Martins Apollo before we see a Tewsley one. Tewsley would certainly make a very pretty Apollo, but given that he danced his Western Symphony solo as if he were doing Bluebird (and a very pretty one at that!), I have some doubt in my mind about his interpretive abilities.

Am I crazy, or would Janie Taylor make a formidable Terpsichore? Yes, she's a wild thing, but her burning intensity could make her quite the embodiment of a mythological archetype.

I am going to sound even crazier, but I think Sebastien Marcovici would be an interesting Apollo. He's matured a lot lately, and he's surprised me more than a few times.

I might as well add my two-cents worth about Wednesday, although it seems that le toute ballet alert was there and has beaten me to the punch.

I thought Arthurs just fine in Raymonda, Ringer as dewey and glistening as one could wish for, Boal elegant and graceful even when he was fudging the pirouettes, and the corps a bit fuzzy around the edges.

In Davidsbundlertanze, Nichols was to die for. Frankly, I much prefer the pairing of Nichols and Askegard here to Von Aroldingen (who was a rather matronly Clara Schumann) and Adam Luders (who always looked as if someone had put pebbles in his ballet shoes).

I can't add to anything that's been said about the other dancers, and I thought Leigh's take on the contradictions between Somogyi's physique and style quite appropriate.

But to get back to Nichols; it's hard to praise her enough. No dancer at the State Theater (and, for all I know, the world) can hold a candle to her exquisite sense of timing, gesture, music. Her last gesture, reaching after Askegard's vanishing Schumann, then, after a seeming eternity, covering her weeping eyes as the curtain descended, will stay with me for a long, long time. Poetry in motion indeed.

As for Western, Somogyi's loosened up nicely in the First movement, although I'd like to see it just a bit wilder -- Somogyi's always, always in control. Nilas is the dance world's Purloined Letter -- right in front of our eyes, yet, somehow, invisible.

Ansanelli was not at her best Wednesday night -- she wasn't as wacky and crazy as she'd been the first two times I saw her in the Second movement. Perhaps she was being cautious with a new partner, or perhaps she was just thinking about the grande (Italian) fouettes in her killer solo (I'll say this for Melissa Hayden -- her version of the solo is a LOT harder than what we see today!). She's not deadpan, but rather quite amazingly alive. I loved her silliness; it's almost as if she was satirizing herself, cranking up her knack for getting happily lost in the moment to new heights. I will admit that perhaps she shouldn't be beaming quite so broadly as she bourrees offstage (it would be nice to see the Ghost of Dance-Hall Girls Past returning to her spectral state), but, as Leigh said, she's so infectuous and genuine it's very hard to quibble. At least for me.

Someone should tell Tewsley he's not dancing Bluebird, for God's sake.

Loved Zelensky's big, booming jumps, and, yes, Kowroski was quite spectacular, although I thought she had some trouble with her fouettes. Nobody's mentioned my favorite moment between the two: in the finale, the third-act couple stands against the lefthand wing as everyone else is dancing wildly away. Usually the man mimes kissing the woman, modestly hiding the action behind his upraised Stetson. Not so with Zelensky, who practically assaulted Kowroski, as he laid a big one right on her lips, then spun her around and bussed her in a big, backwards dip so wild her head looked like it was about to hit the stage. Whew! Judging from the rather amazed look on Kowroski's face after he pulled her upright, I don't think this was quite how they rehearsed it!

I'd like to see him try that with Sylve on Sunday -- she looks like far too tough of a cookie.

I'd just like to add that I heard through the grapevine that the Sunday matinee of Serenade very good, and Kistler with it. Perhaps the Saturday performances were just another instance of NYCB's time-honored tradition of using the first performance of an old ballet in a repertory season as the dress rehearsal.

Perhaps.

I was going to post something about that Saturday matinee when I got A Round Tuit (ever seen one of those?), but it looks like you beat me to it, rk.

I think that had to be just about the most depressing performance of Serenade I've ever seen, even worse than the Kirov's much-anticipated and wholly misguided effort at the Met a few years ago. Just as they've looked far too often lately, the corps was flat: meek, submissive, lifeless. It wasn't all that long ago that the girls in Serenade would thrill with their ferocious appetite for space and movement, like a shark scarfing up chum. Maybe it was a little vulgar sometimes, but it was also awe-inspiring. Even a few years ago I was writing about the breathless rush of City Ballet's Serenade. Now, it's a nice ballet. Pretty. The corps all lines up nicely, nobody goes for broke (except Janie Taylor, God bless her!), nobody tries to stand out.

It used to be that when the corps suddenly materialized in that big circle of pique turns around the stage, it would be one of many, many thrilling moments, something huge and symbolic emerging out of the mists for a moment. Now it's just a bunch of girls doing boring pique turns. Yes, they're all together, but it looked like a classroom exercise from ballet detention. And this wasn't a fluke -- the entire ballet had a dutiful, submissive quality. I pray for this greatest of ballets; I shudder to think that City Ballet might end up destroying, this, of all their masterpieces.

As for Kistler, well, she seems to be continuing on the same path as in Saratoga. She flailed her arms, she emoted, she (let us be kind) fudged the steps. She was indeed moving and luminous in Serenade only a few years ago; now she's a travesty of herself. I look at her stiff, hunched upper back, her low-impact jumps and sketched footwork and the often-pained look on her face and wonder if her performance was as torturous for her as it was for her audience. I rather fear to see her in Farrell's role in Davidsbundlertanze.

Kowroski was cold and flat, athough she's often a stunning Dark Angel. I rather liked Taylor's wildness. At least someone onstage was showing some signs of life! I thought her passionate and slightly scary intensity worked just fine here, as did her heart-stopping stag leaps.

Tombeau de Couperin wasn't much better. It managed to look both sloppy and dutiful at the same time. In the final, "hoedown" section, the guys clapped their hands, then shook hands with their opposite numbers just like they were doing tombe pas de bourree while watching the clock. It should be manic, fun and a little silly. As with Serenade, it was painful to see a masterpiece on its way to the dustbin of history.

Thank God for Kyra Nichols in Pavane. I must confess I didn't notice the instrumental difficulties, as I was too enraptured with Nichol's grace and purity. I remember years ago seeing Patricia McBride dance Pavane, and thinking it was clever but a little cute, affected and, well, silly. Not so with Nichols; it became one of the most moving performances I've seen. I admired Balanchine's tremendous invention; who could imagine that so much could be made of a woman dancing with a length of sheer fabric; I'll never forget when Nichols cradled it like a baby. It's hard not to compare how Nichols and Kistler are handling the twilights of their careers.

Western had its moments. In the first movement, Jennie Somogyi looked more relaxed than she had during her debut, while Nilas was just as pallid. Could there be a less dashing cowpoke imaginable? Alexandra Ansanelli and Albert Evans turned the second-movement's campy adagio into a masterpiece of comic timing. Evans wasn't above milking his precious few moments onstage for all the laughs he could get, and Ansanelli used her loopy yet other-wordly stage demeanor to great effect with moments of deadpan seriousness setting off long stretches of delightful silliness. You could almost hear Ansanelli shouting "Here I am!" during one of her entrances, frantically waving her arm to catch Evans' attention, much as if she were hailing a cab. Between the her two big head-first dives into Evans' arms over the outstretched arms of the corps girls, Ansanelli looked out at the audience for a few moments, totally losing track of everyone else on the stage, as if she were just enraptured with the joy of playing to the audience, or perhaps contemplating some distant galaxy only she could see. This spaceyness made her little catch-up run upstage to Evans' waiting arms (after she figured out where he'd gotten to) all the funnier.

For all of us who'd watched (and watched and watched) the little Internet video clip of Sofiane Sylve doing a heart-stopping fouette/pirouette combination (finishing with ten, yes, ten, pirouettes), her debut in the last movement of Western, which features a few prominent fouettes, was eagerly anticipated. She didn't disappoint, whirling through some very nice triples, but, overall, she still appears to have some of the reticence she showed in her nontheless impressive showings as Sugar Plum (absolutely stunning, space-devouring pique turns in the code of the pas de deux, for instance). She's an impressive specimen: tall, very, very muscular, with strong thighs and calves, and broad shoulders, both tapering to a rather narrow waist (she's not a dainty, curveless, straight-sided sort at all), accentuated by a rather emphatic chin.

She showed off a truly stunning extension during the travelling sequence of grande battements on pointe, with the fouette into the pique arabesque penchee (well, usually it's not much of a panchee). In general, she seemed a bit reserved, especially when compared with Maria Kowroski's over-the-top showgirl of a few nights before. I do think Sylve could fit very nicely into NYCB's repertory. She'd better, as the ranks of able ballerinas are thin indeed. Taylor and Ansanelli aren't strong or versatile enough to carry the repertory on their shoulders, as Whelan once did. Weese is a question mark, Kowroski too specialized. Only Somogyi looks to have the strength and versatility to shore up the repertory, yet Martins has been reluctant to use her as much as he might. It's not surprising that Martins needs to import a ballerina, nor is it surprising that he got one who looks as strong as a tank, with gorgeous training to boot.

Imagine an evil cancerous mutation of Duo Concertant.

"To Savion: Your feet remind me of Rubinstein's hands." Gag me.

it's the first thing every dancer really wants to know about another dancer... Sez who? This just reinforces the idea that dancers are doltishly obsessive, tunnel-visioned fanatics. I'll bet if you took a poll of a dozen or so dancer, real dancers, most of them wouldn't consider feet to be of such overwhelming primacy. Gag me again.

Y'know, I sometimes look back at my days as an Intrepid Dance Reporter in my misspent youth, and cringe at some of the dumb things I asked, or told, people. But this has to be just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard of, or imagined.

Unless you're an investigative reporter in an adversarial situation (clearly not the case here, except that Ms. Smartypants Toni Bentley Wannabee decided to turn it into one), you don't condescend to your subject. You try to help your subject avoid making a fool of himself (although in this interview, there was only one fool, and it wasn't Glover!). If you must correct him, you do so gently.

You ACTUALLY LISTEN to what your subject has to say, and try to help him give shape to his thoughts more clearly. Although it's impossible to walk into an interview without preconceived ideas and a game plan (nothing wrong with doing one's homework), you don't let those get in the way of whatever might actually transpire. Usually your subject is a lot more interesting than you might imagine, if you just shut the hell up and listen. Even if your subject is an arrogant PITA, as she hints of Glover.

You don't showboat. You're not there to impress your subject with how smart, artistic, erudite or accomplished you are. Or your readers, either, unless The Nation has been distributing stupid pills to its subscribers. Or to its editors?

It's not just that Rafferty's offer to play footsie with Glover was inappropriate, self-aggrandizing, condescending and more than a little insulting and perhaps even just plain racist (Would she have asked Nina Anansiashvili to show her her feet? Peter Martins? I'd like to see her try!); it was amazingly unprofessional, and, worse, made for a bad interview, unless she wanted her readers to learn more about her than Glover. And indeed at least one has; although what I've learned about Rafferty probably isn't at all what she intended to convey.

This is what the Nation prefers to Mindy Aloff?

[snip, A.T.]

I never did get caught up on my Nutcracker reviews. Oh well. Sylve is quite something, to put it mildly....

Last night started out with Martins' Symphonic Dances, to something dreadful by Rachmaninoff. Martins responded with something equally dreadful of his own. Imagine the last movement of Brahms - Schoenberg on qualuudes. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the sight of Nikolaj Hubbe once again dancing his heart out in Yet Another Ridiculous Martins Ballet, as he does in Jeu de Cartes or Zakouski. What a waste, I thought. I thought much the same thing while watching Yvonne Borree, but for rather different reasons.

At least this was our first official look at Ask le Cour. I say official, because he'd made some uncredited appearances in Spanish over the previous few weeks, perhaps to get himself acclimated to the State Theater stage out of the glare of publicity. Or something. Tall, lanky, elegant, yet not without a certain endearing rawness. He seemed a bit unsure of himself in places, checking the other men out of the corner of his eye. I do think he'll mature nicely, though -- he certainly has stage presence! I don't think he'll ever be a virtuoso like Woetzal or Peter Martins, but I think he'll do quite well in the repertory.

Next was In G Major. Let's face it. Kyra Nichols is well past her prime. When she appears among the sportive youngsters who gambol about in Jerome Robbins' beachside fantasy to Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major (hence the name), she looks a bit like someone's grandmother or batty maiden aunt come to prove she's still with it, by joining in the frolic. She has no jump or extension left, it seems, and during her perky introductory solo, she seemed so out of place, and out of sorts, I felt like covering my eyes.

And yet. And yet once she started that long adagio with Philip Neal, none of that mattered at all. All the qualities that I've adored in Nichols: her exquisite musicality, delicate phrasing and deeply felt understanding of every facet of her choreography, were there in all their welcome, and greatly missed, abundance. Suddenly every other dancer on the stage seemed, well, crude.

Western Symphony was another Andrea Quinn rush job. Sigh. Jennie Somogyi was just miscast in first movement; she's a big, strong, tough girl, and this role needs someone a bit more glamorous and sexy. And it needs someone who's there a bit more than Nilas Martins, for her partner.

Alexandra Ansanelli made a sensational debut in the second movement with Albert Evans (making the most of one of his few remaining roles. it seems). She's usually rather off in a dream world onstage -- it took only a little exaggeration of this natural loopiness to make a perfect parody ballerina for this bit's overly doomed, romantic encounter. Although she had some trouble with the grand fouettes in that very difficult solo, all else was marked by her usual commitment and fearlessness. I loved how she hurled herself at Evans in those two ferocious, head-first dives into arms.

Maria Kowroski and Damian Woetzal were as I've come to expect in the Fourth (excuse me, Third) movement, with the long-limbed Kowroski looking limber and glamorous indeed in that amazing hat, and appropriately silly and kooky (she is either an ice-princess or the girl next door's nutty little sister). I'm always impressed at how well she handles the fouettes these days -- she doesn't at all have the physique of a natural turner, yet she cranked out some perfectly respectable doubles, even. Woetzal was happy, exuberant, and high-flying, riding an invisible bucking bronco to the rafters.

Sylve was indeed big, strong and refined. I did find her entrance, bourreeing in behind the angels, and much of her solo to be very impressive technically, but with a flat affect, and in many places throughout the act she seemed a bit stiff and ill-at-ease, relying on her beautiful, Russian-style technique to carry her through places where a bit of wit, charm or drama were called for. Perhaps it was opening-night nerves, but she didn't seem to really blossom to me until the coda of the pas de deux, where her space-devouring turns around the stage were a marvel. Suddenly the State Theater looked too small! And, although she didn't have an opportunity to replicate that fouette/pirouette combination from the Internet video clip which has made so many jaws drop, she's clearly a very, very strong turner. I also thought she (and Askegard) handled the jumps to the shoulder-sit better than I'd seen them so far this season (although I won't soon forget Taylor's amazing suicide-leap towards Marcovici anytime soon!).

She works well with Askegard, and I can only imagine the look of sheer delight on his face wasn't entirely characterization. Sylve looks much, much easier to partner than Kowroski: Sylve's tightness and strength, compared to Kowroski's looseness and comparative weakness.

It will be interesting to see how well, or, rather, if, Sylve's very proper and precise European stage manner will blend with NYC's more uninflected and spontaneous style. Certainly the difference in deportment between the ultra-controlled Sylve and the effervescent and quite fearless Ansanelli couldn't have been more marked, although there's no doubt Sylve has much greater technique and polish.

I have been depressed to notice how often too many of the corps girls seem bored out of their minds, or perhaps just exhausted, throughout this Nutcracker run. The ballet's finale has been the rather flat and joyless, not at all the "applause machine" Balanchine built so cleverly so many years ago.

I have been seeing way too many Nuts this season -- I should just make a scorecard or something. I happened to think Ulbricht's Candy Canes were the best, although Gold's can't be faulted except that he should smile a teeny bit more. Although I'm fond of Riggins in many things, it was only the front leg of her gargouillades that impressed; the back leg just sort of trailed behind like an afterthought, and I don't think Riggins even tried to sketch out the little rond de jambe that trailing leg needs to execute -- remember how big Merill Ashley would make both legs' circles in Theme and Variations? Or Gelsey Kirkland?

While the corps didn't exactly cover themselves in glory in Snowflakes, I can't really fault them -- I have to lump last night's performance with too many of the Nutcrackers I've seen which have been mauled by conducting which has been just plain indifferent or downright oblivious. I remember Fiorato just plain ruined Whelan's first Sugar Plum with his rushed tempi. The adagio was all hurry, hurry, hurry, and with Whelan, that lyrical dancer par excellence, you need to give her the time to make each step blossom. (Just like Quinn ruined Whelan's Swan Lake a few years ago, or Boal's first Oberon last Spring.) I don't think Fiorato was even looking at the stage! Compare this with Cleve's sensitive handling of Whelan in Mozartiana last year, where he actually watched her, and slowed down parts of her solos and adagio appropriately. It've very rare these days that one senses that there's much of any partnership between the dancers and the conducter at NYCB.

And last night! Maybe we should all pitch in and buy Andrew Quinn a Tivo so she doesn't have to rush to make it home in time for whatever 10 pm show that seems to be on her mind. Last night's was certainly the most "quick-before-it-melts" Snowflakes I've ever seen, and the Flowers were waltzing under a very high-intensity grow-light indeed. Does Quinn notice how horribly she rushes the dancers? Does she care? Poor Ansanelli, whom I saw in a terrific Dewdrop the second night of the run, never had a chance. You could almost see her realizing at the height of one of her big saute de chats that she'd be late by the time she landed, and that to keep up with Quinn's manic tempi (perhaps she was giving us John Philip Sousa's long-lost Snowflake's March and Mazurka of the Flowers?) she'd just have to make everything smaller, quicker, and, unfortunately, sketchier. This was the Devil's choice too many dancers had to make last night, and I'm frankly rather impressed that the Snowflakes girls held it together as well as they did last night.

After the curtain calls were over and I'd emerged onto the very rainy plaza, I looked at the big clock across the street to see it was still a minute short of 10 pm! Yikes.

Anyway, I will probalby see Sylve again Sunday afternoon, and I'm sure there will be a lot of eyes paying very close attention to her fouettes when she does the last movement of Western Symphony next week.

First (Athletic) Sailor: Corella

Second (Dreamy) Sailor and Pdd: Steifel

Third (Rhumba) Sailor: Carreno (and he really brought the house down)

The guys were indeed great, but I thought the women left a bit to be desired. Kent's girl in purple was too pretty and one-dimensional.

Well, it wasn't a dance performance, and it just came in under the wire a couple of hours before the end of 2002, but my favorite Guilty Pleasure of the year was hearing Dmitri Hvorostovsky at the Metropolitan Opera's New Year's Eve Gala, singing the most over-the-top rendition I've ever heard of "O Sole Mio." At the instrumental interludes between each verse he was grinning like a Cheshire cat, and seemed to be on the verge of cracking himself up at the silliness of it all. If the opera thing doesn't work out, he can always get a job as a singing waiter.

Ah, of course. Simultaneous Peter Martins Festivals in Copenhagen and NYC will make Martins the toast of two continents. Or, rather, the Old and New Worlds. How could I not have seen this coming? I can already feel the Trans-Atlantic excitement building.

But can Peter (M) do Elvis?

Frank Andersen will engage Pierre LaCotte to stage a Galeotti Festival, replacing the scheduled Bournonville Festival.

"We shouldn't forget that Bournonville was only one of many great ballet masters who worked in Denmark, and helped make the Danish ballet what it is today" Andersen will say, in explaining that after Galeotti, the next ballet master to be honored with a Festival will be Flemming Flindt, followed by the Peter Schaufuss Festival.

He wanted to see Gelsey Kirkland as a fairy!

Which one?

I may go there myself, but how's this for Casting from Hell?

A Midsummer Night's Dream: Titania -- Antoinette Sibley; Oberon -- Anthony Dowell

The Dream: Titania -- Melissa Hayden; Oberon -- Edward Villella

Discuss amongst yourselves.....

Well, you beat me to it with Nichols, Dale. There's really no one I can think of who holds a candle to hear now, although I think back when Farrell and Allegra Kent would've. Gelsey Kirkland, when she was on top of her form.

For musical men, I'd put Anthony Dowell at the head of the list. Peter Boal, in the right settings. Malakhov, occasionally.

I feel the same as the others here. I thought Baryshnikov was just fine, musically, but not extraordinarly so.

Dang. I SAW Nureyev dance Oberon; I wish I could remember more about it. I seem to recall a near-miss with Wayne Sleep's Puck during some spins-across-the-stage in the scherzo, but it could just be the afterglow of some long-destroyed brain cell.

A recent real-world example of Casting from Hell had to be ABT's decision to cast Paloma Herrera as -- the Siren in Prodigal Son? What were they thinking? (Note to Kevin McKenzie: Please, please, please revive your revival of Prodigal Son and cast Monique Meunier as the Siren. I promise I'll never say a bad thing about your Swan Lake again. Or even your Nutcracker.)

Many of my memories of inappropriate casting had to do with seeing Nureyev dance roles for which he was either never appropriate, or just too darn old and damaged; a particularly painful Spectre de la Rose with London Festival Ballet is burnt on my retinas, as is his rendition of the dancing-master from Konservatoriat.

Anyway, Alexandra, I'm sure I'll have the seat right next to yours when the Ballet de l'Enfer presents the Flower Festival pas de deux, danced by Suzanne Farrell AND Rudolf Nureyev. Truly a performance to die for.

Can't wait to see if Sylviane is really All That; she's doing Sugar Plum tomorrow night (and Sunday afternoon), and while Balanchine didn't choreograph fouettes for his Sugar Plum, perhaps she'll grace us with them anyway, althought I'd bet not.

If not, she's always doing Third (née Fourth) Movement of Western Symphony next week, and I'm sure there will be a lot of people (like me) waiting quite eagerly for her to get to the fouettes. Wouldn't it be awful if she let everyone down by only finishing with a quadruple?

It's very hard for me to reply to thread like this without veering into one of my favorite topics, "Casting from Hell," so you won't catch me speculating on the ideal woman to share Concerto Barocco with Irina Dvorovenko. No way at all, besides, I don't think we could convince Heather Watts to come out of retirement.

Anyway, I'd like to see Alexandra Ansanelli in Coppelia (and I'll be we will!). I'd also love to see her in Piano Concerto No. 2. Given she's such a fearless turner, she'd probably eat it up.

Janie Taylor in Choleric.

Ashley Bouder in Theme and Variations, Black Swan, Tchai Pas, well, you get the idea.

Daria Pavlenko in anything.

Monique Meunier in something! Well, Swan Lake, even though it means I'd have to see McKenzie's production again. Myrtha. I think her Kitri would be to die for, although I think this year she'd be lucky if Kevin gives her Mercedes.

I remember it used to be that you had to sign up to see stuff days in advance. Now you can just make a request, and usually you can see whatever you like in a matter of minutes (if it's video -- you might need to wait for a film viewer to free up, as they don't have many). While you may only request two hours worth of media at a time, I don't think there's any rule against making a new request when you've finished with your current request.