papeetepatrick

I found about Sontag's Holywood High years from the fake Blackfoot Indian, Jack Marks aka Jamake Highwater, in his book 'Shadow Show', after the facts about his made-up background had taken hold and and he was thrown out of the big Indian associations, with especially damning articles by Hank Adams, which can be found on the net. He was actually a modern dancer and choreographer named Gregory Makropoulous, and lied as well about his age (some 15 years chopped off). Sontag outed him still further in the 90s, as he always wanted to talk about how 'close Susan and I are', and she responded with 'I did know a Jack Marks in high school, but as for the person who calls himself Jamake Highwater and whom I don't know, I wouldn't believe a thing he said!' This was good work on Susan's part, although I think both dirac and Quiggin are bigger fans--I believe more of what she said than 'Highwater', but that does not end up being a large quantity even so. I would not, either because of or despite my lack of enthusiasm for most of her work, include her as part of California literature, although that's as convenient as anywhere else to remind one of Hollywood High, which has murals of Judy Garland and other great scholars who graduated from there. Sontag soon enough became very identified with New York and Paris (living at one point in one of Sartre's apartments), but she hasn't actually written anything of importance about California, has she? unless you include her hierarchy of movie stars in the Notes on Camp. Even Norman Mailer's book 'Marilyn' would tell you a good bit, though, however full of the usual hyperbole. But, in fact, even if 'Highwater' faked being a Blackfoot Indian, changing his story many times, once he was in bad odour with Bill moyers, Mortimer Adler, Columbia University and all the other people he'd fooled, the book I mentioned above does occasionally have some good oblique bits about some figures--concluding with an unbelievably stupid lecture to Salieri, identifyhing as best he could with the Mozart of 'Amadeus' and telling Salieri 'the Music lives on!' How totally tawdry. He's got fairly interesting little flotsam and jetsam about James Leo Herlihy (Midnight Cowboy), whom he probably did know, psosibly even wisely and not too well for all I know. 'highwater' was an extraordinary con artist, I know of no other who got into more elite positions by lying his way into them. Agree on Steinbeck, but surely there are some other important writers from Northern California. Chandler better for atmosphere, and I prefer to MacDonald, but I still like MacDonald too. Edited to add: I definitely needed to include Didion's late husband John Gregory Dunne, whose essay collection from the late 70s 'Quntana and Friends' is first-rate. Also, his novel 'Playland' is quite good. He writes about Torrance and Palos Verdes as well as the industry insider stuff, and although she's considered the better writer usually, and definitely quoted about SoCal (and the rest of CA. as well), he is pretty definitely more in love with the place than she was, and that's worth taking into account.

Quiggin, that's all interesting, just quickly first--I'm glad you brought up Rechy, but dirac was, I believe, referring to Kenneth Anger's two Hollywood Babylon books, which are not fictional but may have suspect facts (they are not nearly all, though--there is plenty about Fatty Arbuckle, Clara Bow and Rudolph Valentino that is just as documentable as his visit to the Tomb of the Unknown Starlet). But if anything is not for children in book form, it is just kept away from them--that is, certainly all the fiction we've thus far mentioned. 'Innocent LA fiction' may be an oxymoron. There's also John Fante, famous for 'Ask the Dust', where you get big doses of old Bunker Hill just as are filmed in the 1955 Mickey Spillane movie 'Kiss Me Deadly', which i recently re-watched and think is brilliant, one of the best of the whole genre. I rather like Rechy's dirty books about gay LA, but strongly doubt GWTW needs any of them. Interesting the things you've said of him, I don't know many facts about him. The books are all strange but have a peculiar lurid beauty from time to time, expecially 'the Coming of the Night.' They document a gay subculture, and that is all they do. The first one interests me in being a kind of document of what Pershing Square used to be, and the nowhere location it now is close to the Civic Center. Yes, 'The Last Tycoon' should be included, I'd momentarily forgotten that, and there are many interesting things about the story conference scenes early on, as well as the 'born in Hollywood' element of Cecilia Brady as opposed to Monroe Stahr that Didion points out in The White Album, in that that description explained what the difference would be for someone born in los Angeles and to whom the fantasy was nothing special--Cecilia grew up with those things that other people find fantasy being the normal things. Oh yes, there is Otto Friedrichs' late-80's 'City of Nets', a marvelous non-fiction 'portrait of Hollywood in the 40s' (this I highly recommend, but had forgotten), and dirac had mentioned Mike Davis, a Marxist who has written some interesting scholarly city studies of Los Angeles, 'City of Quartz' and 'Ecology of Fear', as well as the San Diego one she mentioned, which I've also read. Davis appears to be very authoritative, but his gloomy forecasts ought to always be kept in mind, insofar as the 'certain dire predictions' very often seem not to have happened: The rot about tornadoes appearing frequently and of at least strongly-moderate-wind--but somehow never being recorded in the LA Times--has not worked for me, given that I read these 10 years ago, and still have never read anywhere of a tornado at the Music Center that knocked anything over. Earthquakes in Beverly Hills were supposed to have happened, in any case he knows they still wll. I read a lot of him, and I am not convinced. Love your stories of Musso & Frank's, and find it delicious you lived on Poinsettia Place, which I've walked on in several of my visits there. That part of Hollywood between Western and Highland, but above H'wood Blvd., even if you don't go up into the Hills (there are wonderful places you can even walk to there as well, but not everyone is as intrepid about that; but I love Whitley Heights and Camrose Canyon for old Hollywood architecture), some of those areas along Franklin and Poinsettia Place and up by Runyon Canyon have the odd old 40s picket-fence type house still there, operative, well-maintained, lived-in and looking as if out of films that were set in the Midwest. I was surprised to see these. There's an old Talmadge-sister-owned pile up near Camino Palmero, and the old Nelson House, on which the TV Ozzie and Harriet house was modeled is still in good shape in Hollywood, I believe that is right on Camino Palmero. Chandler somehow reminds me of the nearly-total demolition of the Ambassador Hotel and the rusty-looking hulk of the Coconut Grove that was still there in full wreckage this past Xmas. I wish I had gone a few years ago. They either are or are not going to keep at least only the Coconut Grove as a high school, the reports are by now conflicting. It was strange to see the Coconut Grove for the first time only in this condition, and this is on Wilshire around Catalina, I believe. This, though, is a 'vintage LA' kind of thing, but the Oscars were awarded there at least 6 times, I believe, it's a shame this happened. I can see why you might say 'romantic and banal', but I think these happen side by side in L.A., not simultaneeously, otherwise one gets a banal romanticism, which truly sounds too drear.

You say perfectly the way I feel it, and the way he seemed to define New York in such a special and beautiful way in particular is gone. Now that you mention it, I think that many of the changes that have happened here that bother me almost constitute a post-Leonard Bernstein Manhattan. And it was more than just 'West Side Story'. I don't know the old film 'A King in New York' or what it's about (Chaplin, isn't it?), but that title out of context somehow suits what he was.

We were recently talking about Pennebaker's recording of the original cast album of 'Company'. I haven't been concentrating on shows lately, but finally caught up with the mid-80s DVD of the recording sessions of 'West Side Story', with Bernstein conducting it. This I had never heard on CD somehow (and I hadn't even known the most important thing, that Lenny conducted it), and I can see that this is the way to hear it. It's mostly about Bernstein, but also about Bernstein and TeKanawa. I'm not quite through with it, but the high point is surely 'I Feel Pretty', done in a softer tempo, and Kiri sings it divinely, and you see Lenny singing it silently with her, there he is the owner of the thing. Whatever other flaws in this, they don't really matter: You are seeing 'West Side Story' updated here because he'd never conducted it before. And I had forgotten how unique and thrilling a conductor he always was. How much more I truly love it than Boulez's clipped and sometimes dismissive-of-the-music style, as if attempting to close off rather than open up. And the huge flaw is, I cannot agree with Bernstein on this, IS Carreras. He talks about this show about Spanish-speaking people and yet how he is the only native speaker of Spanish in this opera-star cast, and how making a transition into 'New Yorkese' is hard for him. Yes--he doesn't succeed in this for a single moment. I'm sure people talked about this at the time. He does not have an ear for accents, and all his 'West Side Story' songs would sound fine on a 'Hits of Broadway Album', but not in a recording of the whole score where he is supposed to be Tony, Jet gang member. You can tell he doesn't have this ear because both TeKanawa and Tatania Troyannos (as Anita) do have it; although I don't see Troyannos as an ideal Anita. Kiri follows Lenny's instructions on not being 'too Puerto Rican with the r's' and then she gets it exactly right. There is elocution correction from the engineers on Carrera's 'Somethin's Coming', one of the glories of the score, and Bernstein gets furious, but he is also very impatient with Carreras throughout, while continually restating that using him is this fresh thing to do. I also know Kiri's excellent ability with accents from 'South Pacific', where she does 'Honey Bun', the least beautiful song in the whole show, with a wonderfully precise flat-American-Midwestern accent. I also do not care for his work with Kiri on their South Pacific recording, but it's more the voice that time than the accent being off. Since 'Somewhere' is sung by an offstage voice, Kiri as Maria does not do it on the actual, but Lenny had to hear how she would sound doing it--of course he'd want to. The whole thing is worth it to see the collaboration of these two musical geniuses. Of course, I can't see how anyone wouldn't love Kiri's voice more than anybody else's because I do, and I greatly value the 3 times I heard her in Strauss, Verdi, and Barber live. The same thing happened when Paul McCartney was talking about her voice when she was in his 'Liverpool Oratario'. And Paul Theroux in 'the Happy Isles of Oceania' wrote of listening to cassettes of Kiri's arias deep in the remote and lonely Marquesas Islands. You see what I'd heard about Bernstein's smoking, it's constant; I remember how horrible it seemed when he died. But there's his spaciousness, and you can see much more about 'West Side Story' in some ways because of his presence in it than ever could be possible in a production, and certainly more about the music itself than you get in the movie, although that is quite well-done there orchestra-wise; but Marni Nixon's singing is not in the same league as Kiri's. I had even heard criticism of her on that CD, but I don't know what it could be about. In any case, for the recording, it is Marilyn Horne who does the final 'Somewhere'.

... ... What an admirable way to use one's time! GWTW--Ray's Didion recommendation, of course, with special emphasis on the non-fiction: The early collections of essays 'the White Album' and 'Slouching Toward Bethlehem' and the 2003 'Where I Was From' (this is marvelous) as well as her Hollywood novel 'Play It As It Lays.' All of Raymond Chandler's detective novels are the Holy Grail of the L.A. Noir tradtion. Martinis at Frank & Musso's on Hollywood Blvd. are supposed to be 'pure Raymond Chandler'. Other detective writers of the area (with often changed place names) include Ross McDonald and James Ellroy, for the rough stuff. Kenneth Anger for Hollywood gossip (true type, skip the Jackie Collins stuff--but I imagine I need not enumerate fairly well-known Hollywood lit, of the diva-bio sort: That won't really help you with a vacation or tour, and if you're interested in the old Hollywood houses of stars, go to Benedict Canyon and a guidebook to those will tell you who lived/lives where on Roxbury, and where to drive in Bel Air to catch a glimpse of something Liz or Barbra owned/own, etc.) 'Picturing Los Angeles' by Jon and Nancy Wilkmon is a coffee table book that has wonderful history, in words and photos of the area. I'm delighted to own it, but you'd have to buy it most likely. There are many other histories, though, going back to the 60s that you'll easily find listed. Other guidebooks that I can think of using (and Los Angeles is a city that really needs to be known well before wandering into it as an explorer, although imagine you've been there anyway before), as you do more of the decision-making than it does, compared to cities that didn't put up their Downtowns after they'd put up all the surrounding areas) are Hidden Los Angeles and Southern California. I recall this being the one from which I got the best information, so I'll make only that one recommendation in the guidebook category, since you've already got a bunch of those. As for Santa Barbara, I don't know it in literature much except as a place gone through. It's too prosperous to work well as a fiction location, and is well away from urban blight (Bel Air and Beverly Hills, on the other hand, are always a part of Chandler and other noir things, because they are adjacent to plenty of urban blight). I'm sure there are some things, though, you could find if you want a basic history. Of contemporary Hollywood industry, Bruce Wagner's novels are good, although I find that they sometimes confuse realism with crassness. And they are literarily suspect in that there is a lot of 'intertextuality' with actual Hollywood types, in a smug and condescending way. They are actually very provincial while always posing as cosmopolitan, but they are admirable in their own way, and I've read about 5 of them, including the trilogy. I also remember T. Jefferson Parker's 'Laguna Heat', an 80s detective fiction, that is okay, and reminds me that I've never gotten down to Laguna.

I love his recording with Cecilia Bartoli at Glyndebourne. Have to admit I enjoy her a bit more still than him, although he's wonderful. Discovered the CD when I was trying to find something on the Haydn operas, and she does a phenomenal coloratura turn on the one on the CD--I am convinced the Haydn operas deserve much more attention than they've gotten. Ms. Bartoli is quite irresistible, which most know--the face is always so happy that much is added to the superb musicianship. She is not glamorous like TeKanawa and certain others, but who cares? I can't find a fault with her, and Terfel is wonderful with her. It takes all kinds (as most also know....) Definitely recommend this CD for fans of both singers.

These are marvelous, Helene. The whole trip is one of the most elegant things I've ever heard of, and you have reported on it wonderfully.

I've got tons of recommendations about SoCal, one of my fetishes, so you can tell me if you want any SoCal fiction and more guidebooks, of which I always read many, many for Los Angeles. Because it's the kind of place you need to know more about before going there or you'll be disoriented. You DO need to know those by heart. I liked 'Far from Denmark' as providing some good information. It was useful, and I do tend to remember odd details from it, for some reason.

This may well be true, and I haven't gone into it carefully enough to know why some of it does seem like rubbish. What I've noticed is that with an architect like Gehry, it's compelling at first, then becomes boring or even nauseating. It's almost like there's just too much of it. Well, I thought the whole post was very good. I can't write about these more general sweeping categories very well myself. But it's also important to point out the 'lazy categories', as EAW rightly terms some of them, are sometimes a practical matter. 'Classical music' is accepted as meaning something that some people call 'concert music' covering several centuries of periods (Telemann and Xennakis maybe, even? Yes, I think so...), not just the 'classical period' of the 18th century, as opposed to Chopin and Mahler, etc. The fact that 'neoclassical' is so widely used would therefore mean that only in the most refined matters would it matter that much if they are used somewhat imprecisely, since I've heard plenty of dancers use 'neoclassical' for Balanchine, etc. But can understand the point either way in this case.

Feel totally different about this, to my great surprise. All the things sz said about Somova, in opposition to most, in the early ballets or Petipa and Fokine days and nights seemed to be Somova for me in 'Ballet Imperial.' I couldn't believe it, because I still thinks she looks soggy and numbed (at least with Nytol or Sominex) in those awful Auroro YouTubes. Interesting that you would say you thought Kondaurova was the 'first 21st century Kirov ballerina'. It occurred to me that that is what Somova will be, and I also agree with sz that she will do 'Diamonds.' Since nobody answered my query about Agnes Letestu and whether she became able to do 'Diamonds' or if somebody else also dances it at POB, I will just say that Ms. Letestu is not even there on the POB DVD, and she literally ruins the otherwise fabulous POB Jewels. I can't see 'the big mess' the Somova is accused of making this afternoon, I thought she glittered in a way I thought absolutely impossible--I had been given this ticket as a birthday present last year and then had chosen the particular performance because I wanted to see Vishneva. I realized I would probably hate Somova after what many had said on here and what I had thought of those godawful YouTubes. I was totally disappointed, and therefore startled that I think what it may possibly be is this: The talent is so huge (going along with sz's 'extreme dancer' term), that it does go out of control a lot as it developa. So, yes, as Helene says 'Unless one loves her.' I do, and though even I could see some things that didn't work, she was not unmusical, the high extensions were never distracting, her body is one of the most beautiful ballerina bodies I have ever seen, and it is capable of doing things that other bodies are not doing. She was not mostly messy today IMO, and she glittered enough to blind someone like me had this been something I was prone to. She was sublime in her spring season. Too many grins is the only one of the annoyances posted by many that were way too frequent. That piece doesn't need a cheerleader face for it, but she is A STAR, and will probably become a great Balanchine ballerina instead of Petipa. What was a HUGE MESS was the piano-playing of the concerto, Ludmila Somebody (they announced it, i believe) made absolute mud when she was not playing with the orchestra. Didn't anybody hear this? It was GHASTLY. Because this is a charming Balanchine work and even at the much-maligned NYCB orchestra at least the soloist always sounded like he/she was not about to run out of gas at any moment. I mean, this is one of those times one resents censorship of ordinary four-letter words at the BT. Hideous. I also didn't think the secondary soloist and her two men were very Balanchinian, and there were many male dancers throughout the afternoon I thought lacking in much of the spirit of Balanchine as I had thought I understood it from NYCB. But most of the men did not interest me very much, only Schklyarov. Loved Kondaurova and Tereschkina in 'Serenade', and thought this much better than I'd ever seen it elsewhere. Ms. Tereschkina is what I was glad to see most, I wanted to see one of the ones more in line with traditional Kirov as has been spoken of much here. Also loved Kondaurova in 'Rubies', and also Schklyarov especially. I think someone said something about one of the lead male dancers in 'Rubies' too wiry to get the jazzy americanisms of 'Rubies.' A number of them seemed like they hadn't descended from ABFAB's Patsy's '400 years of potato diet' , or when they had, they weren't really charismatic. Not so, the Schklyarov, who is almost too pulchritudinous for anyone's own good. I didn't even notice Novikova, wondered if she needed another partner, or perhaps my jaded sensibilities just can't see this kind of dancer. I can't say I saw any of the McBride that others are talking about. I never really looked at her though. My other bad taste acc. to BT, Galina Mezentseva, made me do the same thing with Odette/Odile on the video, even though Konstantin Zaklinsky is much prettier than she is. Mezentseva looks just like a Politburo wife when she's not in character, but I never quit looking at her as either Odette or Odile, and I thought I wouldn't like her Odette because the Odile is so brazen. Well, I did. And although Novikova was cute, I looked Mr. Schklyarov the whole time--he's got Nureyev attributes and is fabulous. I sat next to a most wonderful young woman who i've invited to Ballet Talk. She knows tons about ballet, and is a huge fan of Ananiashvili in particular. She wasn't quite as familiar with 'Jewels' as with some other ballets, and we were talking about it--she thought there was a 4th Jewel--Amethysts. We had quite a laugh over that and I told her it was very, very important to come to BT, and that I would be signalling by writing about the missing jewel, the Amethysts. After the POB set for 'Rubies' (and especially for 'Diamonds' too), they all look harlotish after such perfect understatement, not least some of those candy-box effects at NYCB that people do the ooh-ing and ahh-ing about. But THIS--the Kirov has the tackiest 'Rubies' set I've ever seen. It all looks like 14th Street Xmas Style and the backdrop looks like the 3 dollar cloth pictures drawn on cheap black velvet. I couldn't even believe it. I guess it was a great 'Rubies' I saw today, but while I loved Kondaurova, I guess I'd want to see Ms. Novikova with somebody less charismatic. Well, this thread among all i've read at BT within 2 years has by far the most animalism about it. Tribute probably to the excitement that the Kirov causes more than any other company. But all the fast shuttle-trips by Natalia, the constant controversy over Somova, hideous audience conduct (I saw none today that was as bad as much I've been victim of at NYCB), canbelto's audience member from hell (but whose line "Are those programs different, or are you just taking pleasure in reading the same program three times?" is so inane as to be nearly immortal... nysusan's many enthusiastic posts, FauxPas's always sensitive and thoughtful pieces (he can even see what I see in Ms. Mezentseva), Haglund's super-brash statements full of energy. I now have enough material to write 'The Balletomane' from this thread alone!

Very cool, thanks both--I was just over that way, but closed today. Will try for later this week, would have missed otherwise. I probably won't get anything singular, though, since I'd need a crash course in Merce Cunningham to know what's significant most likely.

THAT is hilarious...

It doesn't matter how obvious, the First Act is of such perfection in its structure and inspiration that it is never less than startling (if well sung.) Except for 'Tosca', I don't think he ever writes as beautifully again, and even that does not carry you on as if on a cloud of enchantment from the artists' garret ending up with Musetta's marvelous ability to be vain in an endearing way. And even though 'Tosca' has the musical inspiration, it has not the uncanny perfection. All the characters in 'Boheme' are alive.

I don't understand this at all, unless it has to do with these biographies which I haven't read. How didn't it 'transfer to real life'? How it was shaped and executed and was maybe extremely neurotic is one thing--and in its fashionable promiscuity it does surely fit most definitions of that term after the 70s, when it was still being accommodated and even envied in various vacuous ways--but there was certainly a lot of energy behind it, making it virile. That he had specific tastes and took 'sexual roles not smiled upon by sexual establishments going back to the ancient Greeks' doesn't really change that hyper-enthusiasm and somewhat out-of-control libido, does it? He is well-known to have 'choreographed' and directed many of the episodes, excluding much of the usual spontaneity. As for 'importance of whether the sex was mechanical', it's just as important as any other aspect of the personality that one can get one's hands on. Otherwise, don't focus on the person him/herself, but only on the work. If there is more, it's all fair game at this point, whether or not tasteless (which is up to the discretion of the researcher and/or writer.) There are a few dancers even lesser-known to the general public than Farrell, Fracci and Alonso, about whose sex lives I know something--but don't know all of it. I'd like to (mildly), but will not feel deprived if I don't know it, and don't imagine I'll be running into the people who might know the answer. Actually, there are some here, but I'd never ask them, and imagine the bf's one description made me by the person--'he's Czech'--most likely answered the question satisfactorily enough for me to decide that this is a probability that I may mention to my best friends only. Of the ones mentioned, I've never thought of their sex lives much, although have wondered why, if Paul Mejia was such an important figure in the early 70s soap opera, why he and Farrell divorced. I don't know whether this is top-secret material, nor whether it would appear in an upcoming book that someone mentioned (I doubt it. I don't recall that her book even mentioned what ultimately happened to her father, but it may have.) I thought the sex episodes I read in 'Dancing on my Grave' were of minor interest, and that Gelsey was right to refer to them as 'Modern Romance', in an amusing reference to the old magazine. Sex is definitely the 'other bottom line', so that people either keep it concealed or people find out--whether it's in a book or not doesn't much matter, as far as I am concerned. At least in Nureyev's case, because his was hardly a big secret, nor did he want it to be.

Who else does 'Diamonds' at POB besides Ms. Letestu? I just watched this again, and she seems the weakest casting in the whole video--not high enough energy, speed, and not musical enough (at least in this). Did she get better in the role, because it has a strange superficiality to the performance. Strangest thing is that she doesn't seem to quite be able to keep up with the music toward the end. Is she praised in this role by some? I didn't think she was ever inside it, but rather always detached from it. Not comparing to Farrell either, I've seen it live at NYCB and much better done. I suppose she could have gotten better in the role, gone into it more deeply. Would appreciate hearing about how POB's Diamonds has continued to evolve. Sets a thousand times more crisp and smart than at NYCB and I still love the 'Emeralds' on this one. But also the 'Rubies' is really satisfying.

Listening to more and more Haydn string quartets, all 6 of opus 20, I am convinced that in this form he is no way Mozart's inferior. I think that 'cult of personality' even goes to old and long-dead figures, not just Elvis and Marilyn. These are not just well-crafted either. Haydn on a string quarted is supernal, celestial, inspired, and the half- or no-interest in him is part of that sensibility which seems to need a 'single genius', even though I don't think this has any meaning at all in any of the Arts. This is where the 'cult comfort' comes in, and it's extremely limiting. But Haydn is easily the most ludicrous example of an ignored master. In Western music, he is surely in the top 3, 5, or 10, according to taste. Mozart surpasses him sometimes, as in opera definitely, but not nearly always. His symphonies and chamber music are not always greater. I will be listening to all of the Haydn string quartets in the next couple of weeks, and imagine that the later ones are going to inspire with at least as much complexity and brilliance as these do. The Mozart 'personality cult' actually detracts from Mozart's own genius. If it's not puerile 'drama' to malign Salieri, it's Mozart cults which hate Beethoven. And although Mozart wrote many brilliant piano sonatas, it is the 32 of Beethoven that are the ultimate development of the form by one composer. Dirac--this is off-topic, but since I started with Haydn opera and then mentioned Handel, I had a chance to watch 'Tamerlano', in a lovely performance at the Handel Festival in Halle, his birthplace. The majestic, stirring royal music is there, and then there are these strange (to ears unaccustomed to them) arias, all very long and usually a single couplet repeated ad infinitum for about 10 minutes, about how the heroine will save some potentate from his wickedness, etc. I suppose there is an evolution from Monteverdi opera seria which always seemed (from my limited exposure to it) to be these big numbers like being on a wide plateau, and then somehow jumping to the next one, but I haven't really had time to recall my studies which touched on Monteverdi. In any case. the Asteria is gloriously sung, and the other lead roles are sung quite well, even if not quite that superbly...BUT...I see that while many rednecks can not ever get past tights on the ballet stage and the dread imperialism and oppression of the poor that ballet must surely be partially responsible for (oh Lord, the tedium of some of the Marxists talking about ballet's Nazism), MY problem is: Here we have this beautiful heroine with the glorious soprano and two rivalling love interests. And what are they? a Prince sung by a swish (American definition more than English) countertenor, and a tyrannical Tamerlano, who is a MEZZO-SOPRANO!!! Oh well, I guess Germany and Austria were aswarm with castrati back then, but I just can't get into this sort of thing. I saw about 2/3 of it and then just read the synopsis for the rest. Anyway, what Handel operas have you seen? Have you liked them? I now remember that the first NYCO Handel opera I heard about was 'Julius Caesar'. I don't think I really have a taste for this kind of opera, though. The Haydn I saw, even though less well-known, I much preferred, so I suppose I find Handel opera a rather heavy and unprofitable sort of exoticism, at least from this example. The costumes for 'Tamerlano' were brilliant, though--more Turkish things, but none of the crisp flighty fun of 'Abduction from the Seraglio.' Nobody is going to tell me about 'Mercury?' Okay. I suppose it wasn't that well-received and I don't ever see it on NYCB schedules anymore. Still is the only all-Haydn ballet I've yet found. I'll see if I can find an old review of it. Well, how about this, PNB did it in 2003: Did Sandy McKean, Helene or sandik see it out there? I couldn't copy the excellent paragraph on the piece, but here's the link: http://www.criticaldance.com/reviews/2003/...w_20031106.html

He is all right, and seeing an enormous amount of live performance and knowing the field well in an encyclopedic sense is indeed enough for a critic, which is not especially lofty to begin with. Critics sometimes do show the desire to think of themselves as artists (John Simon was an example of a critic who thought his criticism was art even though it wasn't), since critique does not usually quite manage to reach that realm unless the person also has the aura of illumined theorist or philosopher as well--and I haven't found that the best of these usually do see themselves like that. There are a few writers whose criticism is secondary to their other writing who are artists; non-controversial examples of this are Martin Amis and even Larry McMurtry, whose book about film 'Film-Flam Man' is pervaded by how unimportant he considers it to be by comparison to 'Lonesome Dove' or any of his other real writing. Knowing fields encyclopedically therefore is enough to be an official critic, although it never guarantees taste. I don't like Macauley's taste, but I also don't care if he has the job. It is still going to have some form of 'boosterism' in it, even if it's more refined in his case or less so in his case or some other critic's case. The real issue seems to be the 'role of the critic', and for those involved with the daily business of ballet, it is more important than it is to others. Then, to some ballet lovers, it also appears from these comments to be very important to them. I have been sorry for some firings (Deborah Jowitt, from whom I learned a lot over the years) and glad for others (Lewis Segal). Macauley I do not really like as I did Jowitt, but since I don't personally pay attention to the dance critics much, he is at least not offensive even if I can't stand some of his taste. It's the same with most critics in all fields who are not themselves well-known as writer-artists. We're stuck with people like Ben Brantley and Stephen Holden, and if we are very involved with the art, we learn how to 'read around them'. I can see how Macauley would be a good 'read-around' critic. I find him provocative enough in an acceptable way. Great dancers probably usually don't want to be critics, although I wonder if some might be good ones. In literature, it's still the exception rather than the rule for a real writer to do the review, remembering now Joan Didion's review for NYTBook Review of Mailer's The Executioner's Song, and many things in NYReview of Books, as the famous Mary McCarthy review of 'Pale Fire.' Anyway, if your convinced as well of the supreme importance of your own 'opinion' (however often wrong and in need of correction), the critic, a minor functionary, is not usually a major issue. After all, everybody says stupid things sometimes, and it may even be a good sign if it doesn't happen overtly too often.

Absolutely there is, and I am not quite sure why I cannot stand 'Paquita' even when well-performed and do like 'Don Q' when well-performed (and thinking here of the same company)--they're both Minkus. It may have to do with what LaCotte did, although I have no way of knowing. 'Don Quixote' is boisterous and as broad as possible--but if I get to see my new Belle Aurelie Dupont, I am never complaining...But this PAQUITA!! it is one endless corps boredom after another, punctuated with brilliant male variations--so that I just don't understand how someone who can't stand the way POB 'makes a silk purse out of a sow's ear' (and despite all this unbelievable tedium, POB has the good humour to dance it like it amounted to something important), how he could then start talking about this 'irrestible music.' I mean, isn't 'Coppelia' also broad and simple? And yet I love to see it. It must be that with 'Don Quixote' the Minkus music actually is slightly brought to life it wouldn't otherwise have by an Aurelie or a Nina Ananiashvili. But what I noticed in 'Paquita' was Minkus not at least being redeemed somehow by the choreography it served. You hear Minkus naked--and it is NOT a pretty sight! The thing that I found most objectionable is his attempts to write more reflective, quiet, piano sounds--and yet they still sound deafeningly loud in some sense. Saint-Saens is a pretty good example of someone who can also write these very easily accessible and raucous things, but there is not always a loudness! I don't know how else to explain my annoyance at that score, but I never meant to imply that we needed only late Beethoven. I LOVE good hot dogs! It's the Kirov Balanchine I'll be seeing, so I agree it will be interesting if he doesn't like the Kirov tone on Balanchine too. But the things he's objected to in the Kirov and POB--down to using the exact same term 'point-scoring'--I already don't have sympathy with. There is much in both Kirov and POB today that is most entrancing and magnetic. I also know, both from reports here and having been to a good number of NYCB performances from 2004-Xmas, 2006, that there is much that is still good at NYCB, but I've stopped going--they are in no way magnetic to me in the way that several other companies are. Edited to add: but part of my point that I almost forgot is that, given the joy of 'simple pleasures', why be so intolerant of an audience really getting off on an evening of showy warhorses? I could take that a lot better than the Minkus!

It's damning, but not, I think, because Macaulay doesn't like classical ballet. Bart--there's very little difference in what he says about the Kirov here and what you linked me to in his disparaging of POB's 'point-scoring' campaign (since I'm going to call it that, not seeing it that way myself). That, combined with his 'refreshingly unsophisticated' love of Minkus's organ-grinder claptrap makes him of no interest to me personally; if he has a fondness for this sort of trash, then talking about how a program of virtuoso pieces that brought 'salvo after salvo of audience applause' still is not very convincing in the alarm he experienced upon wondering whether he liked classical ballet or not. It is not as pretentious as Stanley Fish on art, or on the same level of screamy umbrage as Lewis Segal's talk about 'irrelevance'. It is more along the lines of Cleveland Amory's old TV Guide reviews of 'television as a vast wasteland' or people reviewing the Academy Awards ceremonies as if they should be a cohesive artistic whole in themselves. Almost all of these kinds of writings are some form of attempt to identify with something thought 'higher than' all this populism. Probably anyone else doing this job would be about the same, so he's all right with me--I don't read him except in excerpt here. Leigh is right about letting the companies be who they are. After all, 'New York City Ballet at its most ideal point' is over and gone and can never be retrieved. It is very clear that New York City Ballet is not THE star of the ballet world at all any more, and that there are several companies that are better than its current configuration. I'd definitely go see either 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Giselle' at ABT at this point than anything at NYCB; the ABT stars are a thousand times more exciting to me, although ABT is not one of the companies I meant as being 'greater'.

Bart--thanks so much for that most thoughtful response. I read the whole Macauley piece, and I see we agree only on the exquisite set design and the most luscious dresses (one of Ms. Letestu's had so many billowing dimensions to it, it seemed to dance itself). He actually found some of the music 'irresistible', whereas a Minkus 'Mazurka' is not what one tends to think of if one wants to understand the form, as it were. He also characterized the music in general as 'always agreeable.' Yes, until the ear begins to hear all the cornball as a form of noise. And it was interesting that what he was talking about as 'POB style' did occur to me while watching it last night. But I think he is wrong--this incredible French precision is what proves whether something can transcend its exquisite drilling and become free on top of this--and I think this does happen with dancers as great as Aurelie Dupont, who to me is as great as any ballerina in the world today. When it's a silly ballet like 'Paquita', it is still not, IMO, the 'POB style', that is the problem, but rather its perfection of corps excellence actually deconstructs and exposes the tedium of it--because while you are still in the first act and not dying of the tedium, Mr. Martinez's virtuosity is perfectly thrilling. It is never less than extraordinary even when everything seems to repeat itself in the subsequent acts--but it's hard to keep caring. And even though I also recently watched Minkus/Nureyev's POB DVD of 'Don Quixote', I was not bored in the same way, however broad and popular Don Q. is. I think this precision that one sees with POB should be one of the gold standards, against which the 'free spirits' have to prove themselves. So I do not see that as a problem, and I find that I have now got my own set of difficulties with Mr. MacAuley as do other BTers, for perhaps other reasons. But he is also right that the orchestra plays the tacky score superbly: But what this does is make you realize (or at least I hear it this way) just how worthless this score is. In the same way, when I finally saw the Bruhn/Fracci movie of 'Giselle', I was finally able to hear the music played perfectly--but in this case the excellent performance revealed the beauty in the simple Adam music that I had heretofore beeen unable to appreciate, and despite all the directorial pretentious, I was finally able to love 'Giselle.' But my impression thus far of POB (not having seen them live but once and many years ago), as I get to know a lot of their newer performances via DVD, is they are never guilty of the sloppiness that one finds in many other companies. There has always been talk, as long as I remember, way back to the NYCB's Golden Age (from about the mid-60s to mid-80s' I guess, in any case, it definitely is no more), was the occasional or frequent sloppiness of the corps due to having to give too many performances of too many different works in too close a period. While understandable, this was said in a way that made it then seem that the sloppiness you sometimes saw also did not really exist or even served a useful purpose. But after awhile, this weird suspension of criticism of technical laxity is not greeted with sympathetic good humour unless the company remains at a high level of inspiration in the most important creative ways. Next week I'll see my other favourite company at this point in my ballet viewing--the Kirov. NYCB was my favourite when it was still the hottest thing in the world--when Balanchine was alive. At this point, I'd always choose ABT over NYCB (which I never thought I'd live to say), even while skipping 'Swan Lake' and 'Sleeping Beauty'. I'd rather see 'Giselle' at ABT than anything in the current NYCB. Point being: I think this fierce precision is very much the hallmark of most of the finest Gallic things, and why France has long been the most supreme example of an artistic nation. You'll notice MacAuley only concentrates on the things that back up his thesis about the 'POB style' and how LeGris 'no longer danced with spontaneity...' etc.,etc. But who else has come up with a full-length ballet like 'Wuthering Heights', which just from clips alone show a fantastic creativity that is not within what MacAuley seems to want to emphasize. Likewise, glorious and incredibly beautiful Aurelie Dupont in Don Quixote is breathtaking. One wonders if some people need to see obvious messes and mistakes in order to find something 'musical' or 'expressive.' And Parisians are not interested in messes in their various arts. Not only that, but in the Jewels DVD, Marie-Agnes Gillot dances in a way that is not at all mechanical, has a great richness and musicality to it. Sorry about length of this. Of course, I don't think POB took on Paquita to deconstruct it and show how basically ridiculous it is, but in dancing it and playing the vulgar music to near-perfection, they do this anyway. And their 'Coppelia' DVD is just marvelous, so much better-looking in every way than the Royal Ballet's that I had only memories of McBride to compare it to. I mean--'Paquita' is so slight a piece of material, at least when POB dances it you can rouse yourself from nodding off because they dance it so perfectly. And even though there are problems with the Jewels DVD, I can easily imagine that performances of 'Jewels' will come, and may have already, with dancers able to go beyond anything NYCB ever did with 'Emeralds' and maybe even equal 'Rubies' and 'Diamonds'. Okay, so I'm a FAN of 'POB style. Macauley says this: 'The Paris dancers respond to the music without apparently finding any pleasure from, or point in, doing so. They exhibit line, placement and épaulement (shouldering) as if these points of ballet style were matters for point-scoring correctness rather than individual inflection.' One could as easily say he is trying to score points for something himself, but it's also true that this French coolness is not something everyone has a taste for.

'Paquita', easily as boring as any full-length ballet I've ever seen. I'm sure I'd like the piece of it that people have been seeing with Vishneva at CC right now, but this POB DVD seems so perfectly done (someone can tell me if it's not). This made me imagine that this particular ballet may separate the extreme balletomane from the rest of us. POB is one of my two favourite companies, so I'm glad the one time I'll see a full-length 'Paquita' was from them. I don't know whether traditional productions contain only Minkus music, just read that Deldevez wrote the first music for this. Whatever it is, it's loud and coarse even in the waltzes and pseudo-lyrical parts; even when it tries to be piano it's loud and raucous in its coarseness and ugliness. There was all this brilliant male dancing from Jose Martinez, and POB has gorgeous dresses for Letestu, but it's meretricious to me, not charming like 'Coppelia', and not one I could develop a taste for when I 'find the right production' like 'Giselle', which does also have some simple, sweetly affecting music and real feeling in it. The only thing I find as boring as 'Paquita' is 'Mayerling.'

Now that this thread is fairly aged, I see that I still find certain dancers magnificent in certain roles or at certain periods of their careers, and less so in/or at others. I paid no attention to Angel Corella in that 2005 Swan Lake (which doesn't mean I don't think he was good, I just wasn't interested especially in much of anything that was going on), but recently watched the 2000 'Romeo and Juliet' with Alessandra Ferri. Well, there is also a difference in emphasis in 'handsome' and 'gorgeous', and as Romeo Angel Corella is gorgeous. He is easily the most arresting Romeo I've ever seen--because it's a combination of not only the phenomenal dancing, but he's got the right body type for Romeo to have convinced me more than Nureyev, who is too theatrical in a certain sense of the word. I thought Ferri exquisite as Juliet, but except when they were dancing together, I watched him more than I did her. Her dancing seemed to me to be equal to his, but she didn't seem to embody Juliet quite as much as he did Romeo. Along the same lines, some have praised Acosta's looks, and they may be wonderful as well as his dancing, which must be. I have only seen him, though, in the Royal Ballet DVD of 'Coppelia' and do not like him as Franz at all. I thought he was all wrong for that, but then since I first saw this role with Peter Schaufuss, I can't imagine anyone more perfect. Nevertheless, the 70's Afro-Cuban dancer Lazzaro Carreno (whose name I had forgotten and must thank Cristian for) would have, I think, made a Franz I would have loved, because more boyish and playful. So it's not a matter of race and skin colour, i'm sure I'd like Acosta in many other things. I thought he would have been better as Dr. Coppelius. I also like Mathieu Ganio as Franz, I think I must see Franz as something more slender and boyish, not hyper-masculine. There's also a superb-looking animal in the Kylian video of 'les Noces', he's the bigger of the two featured dancers and is the only one dressed in all-white--but I don't know whether this is Joke Zijlstra or Gerald Tibbs.

Tbanks, dirac. I've never seen either in a live performance, but am about to watch 'Tamerlano' as well, which is on DVD. Also, hoping carbro and zerbinetta and other long-time NYCB goers (I wasn't going in the early 90s) will give us some reports on the Taylor-Corbett ballet to Haydn. This will tie in nicely to the new 'Music for Ballets' thread that started just after this one and included some thoughts about Haydn's 'Military Symphony' as possible for ballet music. The Opus 20 Quartets I'm about to listen to as well, these are supposed to be somewhat singular among his great quartets. Yes, I just looked up his wiki, and now I remember why I was interested to hear this group: It was also around this time that Haydn became interested in writing fugues in the Baroque style, and three of the Op. 20 quartets end with such fugues. I have never paid as much attention to some of the important classical period chamber music as I need to now, but Haydn fugues sounds somewhat exotic and I've never thought of it. As for any more DVD's of Haydn operas, I haven't seen any.

I like him best in his most uncharacteristic role, in Orson Welles's 'Touch of Evil', which I think a great masterpiece. This has the most startling cast ever assembled, I sometimes think. Once you've realized Janet Leigh had defined herself superbly well before 'Psycho', and gotten used to Mercedes McCambridge, then Zsa Zsa Gabor pops up. After you've gotten used to Dennis Weaver's bit, you are then introduced to Marlene Dietrich. Not to mention Welles himself being amazingly fat and effective. Heston blends into this strange melange well. His heroic roles interested me only when I was seeing them as a child. He's one of those I can admire, but rarely ever think of again.