papeetepatrick

Charles Boyer would have been fine with me doing two movies with Garbo. Like Gable and Ina Claire (and Gilbert in an idiosyncratic personal way), he knew how to be on her level. Yes, he could even be wooden and vain, that's okay. Just needs to be dashing and somewhat sensitive. Definitely the thought of Leslie Howard in the part makes one nearly retch.

I didn't find him strong, but not quite weak either. I don't think he's ever bad, just also never interesting. If he had been, it would be a great film, and I guess I think it stops just short of that.

Makes me wonder if she invented the term for 'Lithuanian' for Lesbian. I don't think so, though, because around 2004 I read this book 'Cherry Grove', which was a history (well, I know that's pretty arcane, but it was interesting), and they were talking about this usage. I don't think I recall Johnston's name ever coming up, although I imagine it should have (maybe did, I just can't remember). I think it was after that that I read Susan Sontag's interview with Baryshnikov about his new arts center, and she brought up something about a hypothetical 'Lithuanian play'. I thought later she and he might have been in on using it for 'Lesbian', although I shouldn't imagine that there aren't Lithuanian literatures, just because I know nothing of it. Johnston did lots of inventive word things, and it's something I see some people doing right now--usually pretty smart ones have these inventions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/business/media/22beber.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries I didn't know about Ms. Beber, who was quite obviously an advertising genius, which is not something I'd ordinarily say. But those ads which ran all the way up to Leona's incarceration were quite extraordinary, weirdly exotic, this 'the only hotel in the world where the Queen holds court', which made Leona a kind of sex symbol in her 60s and 70s (not that it always worked, of course, and not too difficult to see why). There was a TV movie with Suzanne Pleshette which was made just before Helmsley's imprisonment which caught very little of the strangeness of this difficult character, but there was one moment, at a hotel opening, when Suzanne and her 'Harry' broke into a dance which was almost exactly out of one of the Helmsley Palace ads. I found this obit very full of colour and sensation, and the interview Beber had with Mrs. Helmsley is so suffocating you get the full picture of someone almost totally artificial: "Before meeting Mrs. Helmsley, Ms. Beber said, she was told to follow Disraelis advice on talking to Queen Victoria: When it comes to flattery, lay it on with a trowel. So she did. In the midst of Ms. Bebers assiduously obsequious interview, Mrs. Helmsley complained about flimsy towels and commiserated with a former guest by phone about a noisy air-conditioner. Inspiration struck: Queen Leona ruled her kingdom with an iron fist to benefit guests." Commiserated with a former guest by phone about a noisy AC? Now that's about as over-the-top as you can get. At first it was difficult to imagine Mrs. Helmsley en pointe, but I think there are plenty of Nina Ananiashvili lookalikes that might be able to do this--tall, svelte angelic types and legendary muses need not apply. I think this offers one easily accessed tableau after another, and the best fictional heroes and heroines are not necessarily sympathetic. Leona definitely is not, and she wasn't worried about it. I do think Ms. Beber is Pluck Incarnate though, and I was glad to hear of her. What it reminds me of is 'Mayerling' most immediately, but it would be much better than that. Even a bit of delicacy wouldn't hurt, there's enough viciousness already built-in, so that lightening it up would hardly even show.

This is so strange to hear about, and that she was 81! I hadn't heard a word about her for decades, and I do remember those years of the early 70s when she wrote in the Voice every week--I read every single thing she wrote. I never had read such wild ramblings, and they were thrilling. I guess she had read 'Naked Lunch', but I hadn't.

Yannis, your description of images in 'Susan Lennox' is stupendous. I finally find someone who loves this film the way I do. I agree it's totally underrated. All the details you've chosen to emphasize do, in fact, offer a kind of 'way to look at' this film. But the whole film is exotic, it has an atmosphere all its own, and that cabin is another world, just as the diner in the original of 'Postman Always Lives Twice' has an other-worldly atmosphere. Great writing, monsieur.

Oh please, even if she's not perfect, it shows the direction she needs to go in. She's one of the few beautiful women in modern Hollywood, and we need more films about courtesans--no matter what I said yesterday: They have to finally get it right! I actually don't think she's all that impressive in many things, which is why I was glad to see her finally get a decent part after so many years. Great in 'The Fabulous Baker Boys' and stupendous in 'Scarface', but she usually has gotten pretty silly things. It's the 'sullen entitlement' that is necessary, and that he cannot pull off. He looks like somebody auditioning for a Versace spot (or whatever kind.) Oh my god, yes, that was truly awful, all of it. She did the best she could, given that she really goes for a more butch-macho type, so that's where it really went south to high-school. Of course, she would have been perfect in this, and knows all about how it's supposed to be done, better than Jeanne Moreau even would have been if younger. And dirac compares this to 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses', with Lea and Merteuil, but Deneuve is a much greater Merteuil in the 2003 miniseries from France than Glenn Close is in the Frears, and she just knows how to be impassive, no matter what kind of full-blown French cocotte she's doing (meaning either the pleasant type like Lea, or the evil one like Merteuil). I've recommended that miniseries over and over (also has Rupert Everett and Natassia Kinski and yes, DANIELLE DARRIEUX in it). Pfeiffer more of a natural in the ingenue roles, but she's over 50 now, and trash like 'One Fine Day' with George Clooney is going to go to the last youthful years of Ms. Jolie, I guess. Helene, you have proved to me that I am in some basic ways not a serious person in any way. Your envisioned casting is nearly inadmissible! Yes, I want a 'film courtesan' to be beautiful. Otherwise, they should have made this with maybe Giulietta Massina or Ana Magnani. I am a victim of capitalist commodity fetishism theory, I guess, and I don't want one like they used to look back then. Wouldn't the sky be the limit? You could even cast Galina Mezentseva in the part... Thanks for the comments, all. I enjoyed all of them.

I definitely agree, having had 5 years experience with 18 years difference myself. If I didn't look back and think it was a worthy endeavour (after all, that's where I got my introduction to how to appreciate ABT when you were basically a NYCB type), I would think having thought she was 10 years younger is by far the most serious error I've ever made, except then I thought 'isn't that interesting?' which many would find even stupider. All these differences with an older woman, 18-25, I've put here, are a real generational difference, and they always have to do with some obvious superficials that you overlook reality for. Mainly, in a real-life version of this, you start arguing about time scheduling all the time, and the younger wants the older to quit going into bourgeois mode when she feels like it. And that's like Didion's old piece on the musicians at her Franklin House party: The musicians would never look at matters of time in a strict enough way. This amused me, because I usually feel kindred about nearly everything I read of and by her; but here, I was like those musicians that didn't want to go home 'on time'--that's too prosaic, we think. That's probably the main thing we don't agree with, and it might have to do with knowing Colette's work better than I do. I like all that luxuriant decadence, all the sense of a confection and lots of fripperies (aided and abetted by Ms. Bates). When I think of it, I believe I've taken out 'Cheri' and 'Gigi' several times, and never read past the first couple of pages. I'm not sure why, because I like the whole idea of COLETTE. It's not like anybody else has ever BEEN Colette! Okay, I think I ought to read it, that's what this has convinced me of.

The main thing I noticed upon watching Cojocaru right after the 2007 Somova is that Somova has no crispness there. (I was about to leave out all crispness, but later...). It's just too laid-back, for lack of a better way to put it. That Vishneva clip is glorious, and Somova's I watched second, it comes across as vapid (and more, but I won't say more). But I said 'leaves out all crispness there...' because I was surprised at this miore recent clip of Somova's Aurora. The entrance has many arresting moments in it, in which her slight freakishness comes across as being able to inhabit itself, as it were. And even the 'balances' were better, and their eccentricity wasn't unappealing. I was surprised, believe me--but there was a sense that she can do some things uniquely, even--but she never comes across as an especially intelligent dancer. That's maybe the worst of some of it--whereas Vishneva's artistic intelligence as Nikya is quite breathtaking (I wasn't expecting anything quite like that even thought I liked her the one time I've seen her in person.)

glad you brought it up: "The ballet has since influenced modern interpretations of Odette in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and has inspired non-traditional interpretations and various adaptations." I had never even thought about the date of 'Dying Swan', which comes 30 years after 'Swan Lake'. Would be curious if they'd ever been combined, with the two composers and the two choreographers. I'm sure someone knows. Sounds bizarre, though.

haha Cristian, yes, but you do have to go there to know 'how it is hot there'. I became aware of this when I went to Switzerland in 1997, after knowing about their highest standard living. But when you go there, you get all these other dimensions, like how they've provided for their citizens already in a way that American politicians always only promise in their re-election campaigns. And this was something that was very different in the direct experiencing of this generalized prosperity from merely knowing 'it's like that'. I understand the disappointment that happens with reproduced performance, even though we're glad to have it for the most part. But you're also right...because, ultimately, the recorded and taped things have become more and more what is imprinted on most minds. In every field too: I was thinking just now of how I've never seen the B'way show 'South Pacific' on stage, but I consider that I know everything important about it from the film. I don't, btw, think that it therefore follows that I know all about Ms. Somova, only that that Rose Adagio and her awful balances, if they can even be called that, were definitely awful 3 years ago, and most people still find her an anomaly. I'm sure her nearly inexplicable superstardom--well, maybe it's not quite that--is very significant in a broader cultural way.

Back then it was a problem, but would it be considered one today? Somehow I think not and that society looks unfavourably at those relationships where the man is older now, something that wasn't the case in the past. It's not a problem now whether or not the man or woman is older, just because a few opinions on a very provincial (if urbane and sophisticated) level have changed--meaning that when we talk about mores, we don't include the other 95% of the world (Susan Sontag's 'breathtaking provincialism' about the people who don't have online access is along these lines: And there are people with 'too much internet' who think the lives of those without don't even matter, as if those who 'live on the internet' were living...in 1995, there was even PONI, or 'persons of no importance', which internet nerds used to refer to people without internet; that included me at the time*). For one thing, it doesn't matter if the relationship is permananent, if you go ahead and move it up to the present time. Because if you do, you'll get all those things, the dieting, the different body-image, and so forth, so it's not comparable. So people are very often not even aiming for permanence in relationships (or at least not in nearly all of them, and they're more relaxed with the 'different sorts of relationships' they have). Yes, a modern-day courtesan would look more like Michelle Pfeiffer, incredibly pretty and 'well-preserved', not too buxom and well-padded, as has often been the mode (anorexia has been discussed on some boards I've read recently, and that's almost always a symptom of privileged classes, as opposed to obesity, which is never a desired goal like thinness). So you probably couldn't get much of an authentic film of the Colette, although I still think this is a very good, though not great, film, the chief problem is that Rupert Friend is simply not gorgeous enough. There's an always-unemployed and not very talented actor who lives a few blocks down from me who would be perfect for the part, and who even lives it, albeit permanentely, with his psychiatrist-wife who is 20 years older than he is. One of his few B'way appearances was as 'Beautiful Young Man'. Once the wife started talking to me, a total stranger, at the supermarket, coming out with things like 'My husband isn't making enough money...' I couldn't even believe it. I guess that's a modern-day version of it; although I never see him any more, I did see her recently--maybe it wasn't permanent after all. He used to dress up in very artful clothes that were somewhat Belle Epoch, and they always promenaded with their Samoyads, one of which was named 'Chauncey'. OTOH, there really is no reason to make a film of this sort anymore, which is why I'm surprised it was even as good as it is, and there's lots of charm in it for me. I doubt that these kinds of romances have been well-made since Garbo's versions of older-woman/younger-man films. It reminds me a bit of 'The Europeans', which was not very good IMO with Lee Remick (here is an American who spent too much time in Paris, etc., and comes back, as I recall, but it's been a long time since I saw it), and then there is the Wharton 'House of Mirth', which has some similarities, even though not set in Paris. Proustian courtesans have appeared on film as in 'Swann in Love', which is better than any of these, I'd say, although it was poorly-received. As for older men marrying younger women, yes, talk against that goes on more than it used to, but it's still within the small 'cutting-edge' of PLU, we of the urbanity and we of the readerships and high thoughts. I don't think it's had much effect on what actually happens, esp. when money is involved--rich men get young women all the time as wives. After having read scores of new Auchincloss stories and novels since Dirac first linked that article back in the winter, one thing is always constant: in Old New York, 'fallen women' went to Paris. And that didn't mean they'd always be accepted there, but sometimes they would be. There are now courtesans of the Lea sort in New York and other big cities (although with a distinctly American flavour, more hard-as-nails and less romantic than the French counterparts), and it's not quite as limited to class, although it's pretty rare outside metropolitan areas. The old 40s singer Margaret Whiting, is still alive, in her 80s, and she married some 20 years ago the porno star Jack Wrangler, who died last year. He was 20 years younger than she was, and they were oddly suited for each other, and charming and pleasant to be around, both of 'good Beverly Hills stock'. *Edited to add: http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/movies/24nyffsocial.html?hp I suppose this is what can make a good film, it's not archaic, but depressing enough just reading about it. In this, those 'private things' as in 'Cheri' and many other places, are shows to be by now a kind of dream.

Yes, that's exactly what it is, and her Rose Adagio is perfectly abhorrent. The weird mantis-like body would be wonderful if she could get it to coordinate--maybe that wasn't required so much in 'Ballet Imperial', which caught me off guard when I liked it, because all I'd seen were those clips that look so strangely out-of-control. And I think it's her BLACK Swan that is one of the greatest--this combination of creaminess and utter viciousness and vacuity, she luxuriates in it--she's plain wicked, and probably really is!

I thought these were interesting too, and it does seem to give insight into Danish perception that I hadn't even remembered to associate much with this Swan Lake when I saw it last winter. I literally tend to forget that Peter Martins is esp. Danish, he's been with NYCB so long; while Hubbe's Danishness is always apparent. The 'paddling arms like swaying seagrass' is hilarious, whether or not it's accurate about the choreography or even a proper translation. The more I discover about the unique tradition of ballet in Denmark the more I find it very special--but I'm surprised every time that I do find it so. I guess because it's so unexpected that it would have developed there to such a refined degree, when it didn't in other countries, including a number which are far more powerful politically. It is as if some extraordinary miraculous accidental thing happened--and early on too. So that, in reading these, although I wasn't crazy about the production, it's the one that liked the production quite energetically that is the one that introduces us to a way of seeing that we aren't used to.

But in the past Odiles have substituted turns for the fouettes and still presented Odile. Balanchine cut not only his own choreography but Stravinsky's music, and his truncated Apollo was not the best Apollo but it was still recognizably Apollo. Giselle has been altered over the years. I'm not disagreeing with you, exactly - the choreography is the text - but the text can and has been changed. It's a question of what you can change without violating the ballet's essence. I may have misunderstood the beginning of this thread, I thought Mel was responding to Sander0's saying the music and libretto were sacrosanct in opera (THE Text), whereas the choreography was sacrosanct in ballet and other serious dance (THE Text). The 'staging' includes other things elements than the choreography, doesn't it? which could therefore change as in opera, but the traditions would have to be researched to see how they compare, rather, to what degree 'staging' changes, esp. in the 20th century. And there is even this musical flexibility in opera, which Richard has given examples of--almost like the way Rubens painted over earlier artists works, including fine ones. In some ways, opera and ballet are more alike than I had thought: Nobody ever changed a Beethoven symphony's notes, a Schubert or Schumann quartet, or really any concert music except in transcriptions for piano, or other arrangements (and cadenzas to concertos, of course); and these tend to try to sound as much like the orchestral original as possible. A pianist playing 'Menuet Antique' will usually decide there is no way it will sound quite as luscious as it does in Ravel's orchestration, but the more he tries, the richer the performance (as Jean-Yves Thibaudet's recordings of Ravel prove in several pieces.) Oh well, I take that back. I imagine pianists and violinists of the 19th century did change the scores to suit their virtuosities fairly freely, even though the original would always be clear as a basic 'text'. (Not referring to things like Liszt's 'Reminiscence de Norma', but rather Beethoven Sonatas even, during some of those Romantic periods.)

Thanks for posting, leonid. I just looked at the filmography from your second link, and I had seen more of the films from the last 20 years than I realized, in that I didn't know they were his. Four were Huppert, whose persona I ultimately don't much care for, although she's a fine actress. 'La Ceremonie' is very good with Sandrine Bonnard (she's also wonderful in 'Est-Ouest', which has amazing Stalinist atmosphere, but that's not Chabrol, Deneuve is also in that as a flamboyant actress who helps her escape), and 'Merci pour le Chocolat' is searingly powerful because of the Huppert character and all that beautiful pianism, although it's seriously flawed. This is filmed in Lausanne, and one of my best friends who lives there told me about the period when the film crew was doing location work there--this character is quite horrifying. There's another from 2007 or so, I'll look it up...yes, 'L'ivresse du Pouvoir', this had Ms. Huppert as well, doing her 'all-business', clipped performance as usual. I just noticed that in the same period as 'La Ceremonie' was Christian Vincent's 'La Separation', with Huppert and Daniel Auteuil, which I found more powerful. The 'Madame Bovary' was good, although Hupperts' mechanical quality is evident there too. Chabrol made some fine films, although I don't quite love any of them the way I love almost any of Techine's, and a few of Truffaut's.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/11/opinion/11sat1.html The lead editorial is very good on this, and has the names of some of the architects, who've changed over the years--Michael Arad's memorial with the two 30-foot pools where the two towers stood; and Fumihiko Maki's skyscraper, which is one of Silverstein's, and Santiago Calatrava's 'elegant PATH station'. There's some description of the memorial, I'm not sure that I picked out that site when I was there, but Bloomberg has promised it for 2011, and it looks likely. Most of the credit for finally getting the site moving is given to Mayor Bloomberg and the Port Authority. The mosque controversy is mentioned, of course, but that's not the point of this post, nor the only emphasis of the editorial. The article says that the tallest skyscraper is a third of the way up: That would be One World Trade.

I'd walked down to Ground Zero about April and several of the structures were well into the process of sprouting up, with 1 World Trade about half of what is written for July in wiki below. Yesterday, going down 6th Avenue, I saw that it really was filling in the space left empty by the terrorist attacks 9 years ago, and by the time I got upstairs to my 5th floor apt., I was even able to see 2 storeys or so going up to the sky: You can't see from my place the surrounding WorldFinancial Center buildings which were not destroyed, like Amex and Merrill Lynch --or what used to be Merrill Lynch, may still be--and never could, so this was pretty exciting to me. Here's what wiki says about the progress of the building: "As of July 2010, 1 WTC's steel superstructure is 340 feet above ground and is on floor 32 and concrete installation is on floors 26 and 27. As of September 10th 2010, One World Trade Center has risen to 38 stories, becoming part of the skyline of New York." Here's the whole wiki entry if you want to know more about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_World_Trade_Center As I mentioned in another thread recently, 7 World Trade Center was completed in 2006: "The name "7 World Trade Center" has referred to two buildings: the original structure, completed in 1987, and the current structure. The original building was destroyed on September 11, 2001, and replaced with the new 7 World Trade Center, which opened in 2006. Both buildings were developed by Larry Silverstein, who holds a ground lease for the site from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey." With these facts in mind, it is particularly disconcerting that Frank Rich would have written the following in his Aug. 22 op-ed in the NYTimes: "Though many of these ground-zero watchdogs partied at the 2004 G.O.P. convention in New York exploiting 9/11, none of them protested that a fellow Republican, the former New York governor George Pataki, so bollixed up the management of the World Trade Center site that nine years on it still lacks any finished buildings, let alone a permanent memorial." I am especially disappointed in such sloppiness, by himself, a New Yorker, and editors who could possibly let such common knowledge pass for rhetorical purposes--because I tend to be mostly on his side of political and social issues, usually think he's got the right idea on most things. This is the kind of thing he usually accuses the other side of 'covering over', and I usually think he's right about that. But to read this without knowing, you would not have any idea that the, indeed long stalemate with Silverstein, Liebeskind, et alia, had really been broken. I already mentioned that it's unbelievable that he would have said that 'it still lacks any finished buildings', but that it's also so misleading about the rapid clip at which 1 World Trade (a much more important building than 7 World Trade) is going up, seems even worse. During this decade, it really seemed as though nothing would ever happen there, that they'd just fight forever. But I do seem to be losing faith in the New York Times, at long last--if they can allow this, then anybody can. Okay, I'll probably get down there to get another look in a few days. Any other New Yorkers visited the site, keeping up with the movements, etc.?

There was a discussion--maybe 10 years ago?--of Stephen Sondheim and Ned Rorem, in which the matter of 'changing the music' came up. This is somewhat related, because Rorem was pointing out that in the classical tradition from which his works come, once something is written, it is emblazoned in steel, you don't play with the notes, at least; and this is not the case with Sondheim's show music, no matter how one may enshrine and admire it over some other B'way composers (I don't, with a couple of exceptions, but some do.) There are interpretations by Barbra Streisand and Barbara Cook and Julie Andrews and Karen Akers of Sondheim songs and they can do pretty much what they want, in stretching out things, leaving out verses--and according to what their venue is, which is much more various than with art-song. It's informal by comparison. This is not true of any song Rorem has written, nor of any of his opera music, such as 'Miss Julie' or the others (I think the songs are much more frequently heard, but it's the same rule, you sing them as written, you don't ever here talk about 'great arrangements', etc., as in the old days of Peter Matz's arrangements for early Streisand records. Ballet music is not an exact parallel, of course. If you do the Lilac Fairy Music, you might cut it out at certain places or maybe you'd hear some at a different place from what is ordinarily heard, or maybe one leaves out the Jewel Fairy in Act III (I'm just guessing, I imagine it's been done), but you never play a different version of that from Tchaikovsky's score. So in that way, ballet music and opera music are the same--you don't alter the scores substantially except by cutting them or placing them in different parts of the scene or act (or using it in another ballet, in a few cases.) But you don't get 're-orchestrations' or ballet or opera music, whereas anything goes with B'way music, just as it does with pop standards of any kind or rock, etc.,

I had never been quite conscious that I felt this myself. Very good point.

This allows an important point to be made: No matter how important the music to a ballet (or any serious dance, or not-so-serious dance for that matter), it is not quite as important as it is to an opera, where the music is the most important element, even if not quite so 'purely' as in a violin concerto or symphony, or even lieder, where the visual and theatrical aspects are not so important or even are unimportant. There are always discussions here of the way ballet music, I remember esp. Sleeping Beauty, and looked at the old Russian scores myself a few years ago, is changed and things added, e.g., Canary, Lilac appearing as interlude sometime maybe, etc....sometimes you'll see the Russian dancers from Nutcracker in Sleeping Beauty with that same music, there can be some fooling around. The music is decidedly secondary to the choreography, even in Balanchine, when it's revered. You can do a cut here and there (I believe Mel and others know a lot about how it's done in different scores, not just SB, but R & J and many others, even 'La Valse' may have been altered in different choreographers' versions, at least 'Valses Nobles..' but not sure about that. There can be minor alterations in opera, esp. when it comes to spinto and tenor showpieces, they can do what they (and there occasionally extravagant tastes) want, but a 'real Wagner production' can't change the music and libretto too substantially, albeit some changes, in quite the same way as there are cuts in Shakespeare in the film version of Hamlet (I believe somebody was recently talking about this), or you just don't have the basic body of the piece. It doesn't occur in any particular order, but the story would be first the choreographer's, not the composer's. The composer, as far as I know, would never have the story of a dance in mind that wasn't given to him by the choreographer. It doesn't really 'make sense' for a contemporary choreographer to do 'visuals and dance over' certain scores except as parody (Mats Eck w/SB maybe), or rather, it's not really practical: Even P. Martins's SB is largely lifted. But other music, as 'La Valse', since I already mentioned it, of course--Balanchine, Ashton, and MacMillan have all done this, with very different results (I assume: I have never seen the MacMillan, although Jane Simpson mentioned it here once, I've never heard anything about it). Any choreographer could use almost any score, but it wouldn't be practical to do a whole evening-length ballet on the Swan Lake music, and only on rare occasions, as Balanchine's Swan Lake, can you have a special one-act version that will be accepted. There are lots of variations on these ideas, but the basic matter is that opera music is more 'the music is the sacred thing' than it ever is to quite that degree in dance, although arguably canonized things like Tchaikovsky/Petipa and other things like 'Appalachian Spring', which is subtitled 'Ballet for Martha'. It's also true that, while most of us want to see ballet danced to music, there's no such thing as an 'unsung opera' or 'opera without music', unless John Cage types came up with a novelty gimmick for performance art or something.

Peter Martins's Swan Lake, too numerous to even know where to start.

No worse than Nureyev, and that's one that's so obvious you don't know how they could have missed it. He's not only a serious classical ballet dancer, but he's also one of the few ballet dancers that many Americans really knew about. And he's at least as 'American culture' as Baryshnikov and Balanchine--or, even if identified more with RB, maybe not quite to some, at least as much as McCartney and Lloyd Webber, unless you consider the $$$$$$$$$$$ the latter has brought in to B'way houses. But maybe RB and POB made it seem like he hadn't lived in the U.S. and danced here all the time all those years. Surely, Nureyev, more than anybody, made Americans more aware of ballet than anybody else, just by television appearances alone. And he did live in New York whenever he could, keeping an apt. at the Dakota from sometime in the 80s until his death.

You have a point about Thomson, but then that was back in '83, when if I'm not mistaken there was a larger audience for classical music. I'm thinking in particular of television audience members who would have seen Bernstein lecture on TV. As for Carter's early influences, I doubt casual listeners would find Hindemith or even most Stravinsky easy on the ears. I think there are much easier points of access for Balanchine and Farrell (she chose an excerpt from Divertimento #15). Likewise for Bernstein and Copland, and for their bodies of work as a whole. It has nothing to do with 'easy on the ears', or 'casual listeners' unless this is just supposed to be some little People's Choice Award crap. It's not just for 'television viewers', and classical music audiences have not declined anyway--at least no more substantially than ballet and serious dance and general. And 'bodies of work as a whole' means absolutely nothing here, since they choose something that is accessible enough. Kathleen gave a recent piece that was accessible enough--written for Pierre-Laurent Aimard, that would be effective, and I played the Piano Sonata from way back myself. 'Divertimento #15' is not something 'casual viewers' care to see, with these criteria, there is no room for anything of classical ballet if not also for classical music. I already put up Rich's thing about how this was not supposed to be for 'show business', but rather for the other performing arts, and if that's so, the last thing that should be a criterion is whether all of it is accessible. Nobody outside the ballet world knows a thing about Suzanne Farrell Ballet, and few ever saw her dance way back when, what? by watching 'Choreography by Balanchine?' It was written about at the time of the award she got (2006) that nobody in the general public even knew who Suzanne Farrell was, and they don't. Should that mean she shouldn't have gotten the award? Of course not. She should have gotten it. But don't agree with me that 'there is no excuse' if you also give me all the reasons why Carter doesn't have 'easier points of access' as do Balanchine and Copland. Actually, Virgil Thomson's movie scores (one won a Pulitzer Prize) are very accessible, and he certainly deserved one too. If that's all the Kennedy Center Honours are about, then they are even more of a laughingstock than Rich said. When Suzanne got it, there were other big names, as dirac suggested, to 'cushion it out'. Tharp was, I believe, two years ago, 2008. Yes, just checked. There was no dancer or choreography honoured in 2009. Ann Reinking ought to get one, IMO. Plus, here is the original quote: "Carter's earlier works are influenced by Stravinsky, Harris, Copland, and Hindemith, and are mainly neoclassical in aesthetic". When making your case about Carter's difficulty of accessibility, you talked about Copland as BEING accessible, and singled out Hindemith and Stravinsky as being not 'easy on the ears' for 'casual listeners'. And Roy Harris's 3rd Symphony is well-known to be easy even for the 'contemporary music for dummies' set.

Egregious indeed - are they waiting for him to turn 101? It would be nice if accessibility and the television broadcast weren't factors in the selection, but I imagine they think his music is far too difficult for a CBS prime time broadcast. I doubt that: "Carter's earlier works are influenced by Stravinsky, Harris, Copland, and Hindemith, and are mainly neoclassical in aesthetic", from his wikipedia entry. If they had to, they could use an earlier work which wouldn't be too difficult. If he's too difficult, then Suzanne Farrell, Bill T. Jones, and Balanchine (except for Nutcracker) are all too difficult, Virgil Thomson was mostly too difficult (or not appealing), and although Leonard Bernstein is more famous for 'West Side Story', he also wrote much music that is much too complex for a 'pop television broadcast', as did Copland. There is no real excuse. And Kathleen is right: When he turns 101 in December, will they deign to decide it's time? Oprah's book club stuff doesn't have anything to do with it. She is a fine actress, even though she didn't want to do much, but as a producer of some major shows, she's not up there with Harold Prince, but since he won it, maybe that's part of the perf. arts criteria. In any case, in the Wiki entry on the awards themselves, Frank Rich calls it the Kennedy City Dishonours. I didn't think it was all that bad by now, but he does point out that it's for the 'performing arts', not pop stuff primarily, and some of the Hollywood types seem every bit as 'pure fluff' as Oprah, even though I agree about the 'medical quackery',. But a lot of movie stars are into that stuff too. She did produce 'The Color Purple' musical on B'way (and probably some others), I didn't think much of the score, but that's still the performing arts, and so are those TV movies with Halle Berry going to Martha's Vineyard, etc., if one considers TV shows to be 'arts'. I'm no fan of Oprah, but I don't see as much difference in Johnny Carson getting such an award from her getting it as others do. I could also say something about the ones that have been overlooked, but since it's only 5, that's not really a legitimate complaint. What next? Honour Alan Mencken? Yes, I think that's what they'll do. Here's what Rich said in 1995: "Perhaps the Kennedy Center Honors should just be laughed off as Washington's own philistine answer to Hollywood's Golden Globes, and let it go at that. But in a country that honors culture so rarely, this annual presentation of lifetime achievement awards is by default a big deal. It's the only national event celebrating the performing arts as distinct from show business. Yet it has fallen so far in esteem even within the arts community that A-list performers are more likely to show up on the Honors' various committee lists than on stage or even in the audience at the gala." Actually, they do anything but make it distinct from show business, but if anything, Harold Prince and Stephen Sondheim are show business, and Steve Martin is show business, and all the Hollywood stars they've honoured are show business. He was right to compare it to the Golden Globes.