papeetepatrick

She's one of the ones I was thinking of when thinking of faces that come alive when painted. I never wanted to admit this, because she's one of my favourite of all performers, but I think it's like that. Not needing the makeup is mostly the province of women with very big, dramatic features, a dramatic look, whatever the profession--like Ingrid Bergman, Vanessa Redgrave, Kiri TeKanawa, or Sophia Loren. Come to think of it, there are plenty of men who could use some make-up offstage as well as on, and some of them do wear it, as we know.

Thanks, Mashinka. Is this story best told in the Kavanagh bio or elsewhere? That episode would interest me. I should add that I do find that among film actors, there seen to have always been more 'pretty women' than men, but that with stage actors 'prettiness' is also not as important, just as in ballet. However, I've looked at BallerinaGallery at some of the new favourites posted this morning, and most of this is too difficult to determine, unless you see the dancers both onstage and off, as dancerboy had described in the 'Most Beautiful Male Dancer' thread. I've only seen Nureyev, Baryshnikov and many of the NYCB dancers offstage (that I know of), and looking at these photos, I see that I find Aurelie Dupont and Sylvie Guillem exquisite in some photos, but don't have any idea how much it has to do with the onstage projection and makeup. I know that most of the NYCB ballerinas are much more beautiful onstage than off, because they give more of what they are there and also some have faces that are plain until painted. For the most part, it is only models that always have that drop-dead look at all times. Sander0, I admit some of this is somewhat superficial, but then many of the best things in life are...

Alla Sizova when young is the most luscious-looking to me. Only one mention I believe in the thread (Hans). In the 'Sleeping Beauty' movie, she was just incredibly pretty. There were some photos with Nureyev, and much as I love Fonteyn, I can imagine what the more animal Sizova would have done partnering Nureyev throughout her career. I was interested to find that ballerinas' bodies are almost all beautiful, or at least reasonably so since in good shape, but that they do not nearly always have faces I find beautiful in the sense of pretty; or rather, not many of them look like models (I don't think threads like this are about 'spiritual beauty', which is always being discussed in talking about the dancing). I don't think that's important so much as there do seem to be more of the men who face-wise do look like models. I watched the rest of Kopolkova's 'Sleeping Beauty' from 1983 tonight, and there were not very good closeups, but I think she was beautiful, too. I think there are also many remarks of dancers 'smiling too much' in various discussions. She smiled more than most (almost every time it was even remotely appropriate), but it's not too loud a smile, so I liked it. Is she beautiful? I thought so from what I could tell in this video. Some others I find beautiful only because they are great dancers, like Nina Ananiashvili or Maya Plisetskaya, whose faces both look fairly average to me; and most ballerinas' faces I find like this.

This sounds exciting, and the story is rather inspiring, since it took so long and managed to emerge against nearly insurmountable odds: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/arts/mus....html?ref=music

Thanks for mentioning it, I enjoyed pretty well the clip of Romeo Plus Juliet, but wouldn't run to see it. Sharp-looking, but not quite romantic. It looked more sparse and small than I want to see this. I wasn't very interested in Peter Martins philosophy about getting the teenagers to do the parts, although they're nicer-looking. I don't mind if Margot Fonteyn did it perfectly and was oldish.

I had watched this earlier, but I think not all of it. I wanted to see Sizova in 'Fountain of Bakshisarai', but the other night watched again and the ones named above are what struck me most. Was watching because people are talking about Kolpikova in new DVD release of 'Raymonda', so I'm also looking at the tape of 'Sleeping Beauty'. I already like her in Rose Adagio for not snatching the roses at the end the way one ballerina does. Beautiful sets at the Kirov for this SB. Only thing I skipped was 'Fountain', which I think I can live without, if even the divine Sizova can bring it to more life than I saw here.

My pleasure, Dirac. Also have watched films of 'Mame' and 'Carmen Jones' and the 50's version of 'Anything Goes', all of which I'll try to find the time to report on later. In the meantime, I'd be interested to hear what you and others think. 'Mame' has bad things in it, but not nearly the disaster I'd expected and heard it to be. The 50s 'Anything Goes' I only got halfway through, not worth it to me. Two new bios on Ethel Merman just came out, haven't read either one of them, but did read Geoffrey Mark's very good one from 2006. Quite a life as well as career, and many surprises in there. Artistically, we owe her for the Styne/Sondheim score of 'Gypsy', as it was only at her insistence that Styne did the music instead of Sondheim. There would never have been the extroverted sound that Styne gives to 'Everything's Comin' up Roses', which is surely one of the great theater songs ever written, and reluctantly I have to admit that, even though Patti Lupone did succeed in selling 'Rose's Turn', nobody but Merman has ever really sung 'Everything's Comin' up Roses'. It's her song even more than 'People' or 'Don't Rain on My Parade' is Streisand's. Sondheim can write an equally exciting electric song like 'Another Hundred People', but it's automatically more introverted and melancholy. I don't think Styne has really been surpassed--the Mark book is very funny and most vulgar in a charming way, and Merman turned out to be very upset that Jule Styne found a more suitable love interest in Sandra Church, who was the original Louise/Gypsy. As for other sightseeing of old musical-comedy landmarks, I found out from Mark's bio that the house Merman lived in with her adoring parents in Astoria is long-gone, as is the street itself.

When I saw them, they weren't nude, but were rolling and/or lolling about in the sand. I didn't care for them at all, although they did make me think of various diseases (not STD's, more leukemia, for some reason.) I'm glad I didn't have to see them nude, although not because I was worried about being distracted. I never find that to be true, and think it always enhances anything. Of course they can, but not in any of these venues we're concentrating on here.

'Better education does little to change this bleak picture.' Nor, apparently, to enforce more punctilious journalism. It's pretty clear that the example given would find only the 'inactives' possibly thinking that 'Britney' might be an area in northwestern France (but even they probably saw some sort of travel journey on PBS or something--then again, they may have only heard the word spoken, not seen it written in its English version), nevermind who painted there. The 'paucivores' would definitely know that 'Britney' is a huge tabloid star, quite as would the 'Univores' and 'Omnivores'. Recent examples given at BT prove some of the Canadians have to rush things through without figuring out the fine points, although I've seen pitiful things in the New York Times as well. I wonder to what group Mr. Goddard thinks he belongs. These new terms won't catch on, you can be sure of that. It's all 'features', whether the 'article' or the 'report', and I don't believe a word of it, especially the part about it 'causing a stir'.

I would like to see some American companies mixing their Nussnackers with other productions too. I wouldn't have thought that the classical discipline would be compromised (sometimes these experiments work, sometimes they don't), and I remember a summer in New York when Haydee and Cragun were dancing, and I saw the Stuttgart maybe 5 or 6 times back then. I saw Haydee do 'La Dame aux Camellias' several times, and remember that English Romeo, Barry Ingham, in their production. I think that they also did the 'Poem of Ecstasy' in the early 70s with Margot Fonteyn. The one with all the Klimt-derived sets. If so, that was the first time I saw the Stuttgart Ballet and that would have been about 8 years before Haydee/Cragun/Cranko, etc. These are wonderful reports, mmded; I didn't know anything about ballet in Dresden and Berlin. Thank you so much!

I'd been thinking the same thing, and although I was already part of BT last Christmas, it was these discussions this year that made me realize how flexible the piece is, a real phenomenon.

When this kind of thing can be afforded it, it probably lasts awhile, is a fashionable thing, but cannot usually resist very long certain traditional ideas people want to see again with the Nutcracker and the other most famous ballets. The only thing I have not liked by Duke Ellington, one of the greatest musicians, is his arrangement of 'the Nutcracker Suite', and I truly detest it. I wouldn't want to hear anyone sing 'Silent Night' in the middle of a Tchaikovsky score either. I don't usually think of myself as a traditionalist either, but if sometimes things sound gimmicky and contrived. The other two you describe I would much prefer, and I imagine there is something very special about seeing a good Nutcracker in a place like Dresden at Christmas.

Yes, there's nothing quite like Faure, and when you get that feeling during something 'drier than a desert and mind-numbingly dull', you know how important he is. I too adore his 'Pelleas et Melisande', and remember a fine concert at Alice Tully Hall by a French orchestra (can't remember who they were, although I should) sometime in 1992; it was so much a part of these players that they brought you into the special world of this piece from the very beginning.

Thanks for pointing that out, ViolinConcerto. I quite dislike the use of a '+' there. Romeo & Juliet can hardly offend viewers who are going to see bodies instead of screens. What will web designers start using next, in their quest to be ever more nerdy-chic?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_cross_buns I was unsure from this entry whether this was a form of white bread. But, according to Julia Child, 'mayo......, like hollandaise, is a process of forcing egg yolks to absorb a fatty substance, oil in this case, and to hold it in thick and creamy suspension.' She's not talking about Miracle Whip, is she? Even I've had homemade mayonnaise. as were several others, but while I'm sorry to hear about Sylve too, much sorrier that Hubbe's leaving. He was the most exciting dancer in the company.

I like the black-and-white well enough, but think 'THE SOLD-OUT SENSATION RETURNS' is hilarious, and also amusing is 'BALANCHINE'S GLITTERING, FULL-LENGTH AUDIENCE FAVORITE'. Sort of 'hard-sell, yet uncommonly exclusive.'

legwarmer--I loved your review and want to see POB very much myself. I hadn't known anything about this 'Nutcracker' and it just sounds gorgeous. But this is probably the company I would most want to see of those I haven't, and I wish I could see a number of their works.

Cristian--thank you for that report. Is the Snowflakes you saw at NYCB very much like the one you saw at MCB? That was the highlight of the performance I saw at NYCB last year--it was simply divine, in an otherwise sometimes satisfying, often unsatisfying performance. The other highlight for me had been the 'Miniature Overture', which had been played with exemplary crispness.

As I mentioned, I have experienced some of those types of scenarios too--I only add this here, not to disagree with you on that point, but to say that those behaviours are equally 'cartoon-like' in the real offices as they are in the films (dirac, I have been chained to desks and told when I could not go to the bathroom, etc., that doesn't make me see any of it as any less cartoon), ads, TV shows, etc., that are shaped by them and that, in turn, shape them when the real office employers and employees work on their images from the trends displayed in a high-profile film like this. That I didn't find the film cathartic as you did, vegansmom, is based on the fact that I find it an extremely poor and coarse film, and am glad dirac mentioned 'Eyes of Laura Mars' in another context, because that is also in my Ten Worst Films List. But the real surprise is that I don't think Meryl Streep was especially outstanding here, and I can think of several actresses who would have done it far more effectively, including some with as highly touted talents and some that don't have them. It probably should have been someone English like Helen Mirren, who could have put more daggers in the voice itself--given that there was nothing but claustrophobia going on, that would have been the secret of the role, I think, and it's possible to do daggers quietly. Glenda Jackson would have been good in it, but it hardly matters. I also think Glenn Close, not one of my great favourites, would have been better at this sort of super-low-brow thing. It needed somebody with a touch of Joan Crawford in 'Best of Everything' maybe. Those early-job scenes with the throwing-the-coat-on-Hathaway's-desk were a disgrace, and they were the ones that reminded me of 'American Psycho.' The film is for me a cartoon more because of its cheap ending than anything else--Diana Ross going back to Chicago to Billy Dee Williams was pure corn, but it worked, I thought, in 'Mahogany'. Anne Hathaway going back to her promoted sous-chef, calling up Emily to get rid of Paris clothes was sickening, and waving at Meryl so Meryl could 'not wave back' as if the Queen in 'Diamonds' (to her 'mere Prince Consort', as some BT have described it) was the worst of all.

It's amusing to finally see something that's passe, that nobody is thinking about any more, especially something that's definitely passe but also relatively recent, but that nearly everybody saw when it came out. I can't even believe they are making such straight Danielle Steel stuff, but about an hour of it at least seemed like 'American Psycho'--all style details. I suppose this was even worse. Never as funny as Morgan Fairchild's old model-agency TV soap 'Paper Dolls', but that ending here with the cellphone in the fountain in Paris was hilarious, a total sell-out in every possible way to purest corn; they stopped just short of redeeming themselves if they would have left it with Streep's 'Don't be silly. Everybody wants to be us'. Then it could have been like an ad for a luxury car. As it was, it was like some sort of love-in to replace all the 'unfeeling' belts and shoes. Did they, I first thought when the ringing cellphone hit the water, just want an abbreviated version of Diana Ross in 'Mahogany' going back to Billy Dee Williams in drab Chicago? These cartoons about New York are quite startling, and surely must be imitated to be a part of forming new behaviour and trends, as in 'Sex in the City'--much of this kind of tough-boss-lady thing was already being done in magazine offices like Metropolitan Home in the 90s and clerical types being chained to desks, which I experienced first-hand, but I still couldn't believe how bad the dialogue was, some of it seemingly lifted from Candice Bergen's part in 'Boston Legal'. 'Mahogany' at least had some nice songs in the background, and Diana Ross was really good in it. 'The Devil Wears Prada' seemed to me to be a TV movie from the 80s or 90s, and I didn't think any of the performances were especially striking, but I couldn't see that there was any material to work with.

Andre--the one other thing I wanted to ask you about was about the pirouettes you found 'missing from Lilit's choreography'. Would this be because of her own abilities at this point? It made me wonder if dancers might often have something that is clearly not as developed as the rest of their technique--at least at an early age like that. Or whether, for some reason I couldn't guess, the choreography was simply consciously chosen to be like this, with 'absence of pirouettes'.

Yes! but I would have forgotten it had you not reminded me! In fact I shouldn't have, given that was strangely hypnotized by it and kept staring at it at intermission, surprised that the figure on the right looked somewhat more risque than it may have meant to (appropriate, of course, for the City of Angels under any circumstances) Thank you for saying so, but I must say that I always enjoy Los Angeles immensely--and somehow this was the most perfect of all of my trips--all eleven of them, ten since Jan., 2001. This is my favourite time of year to go because it's usually chilly at night (this time chilly even in the daytime, with absolutely brilliant clear light after that rain last week with that huge moon in the sky at midday--I mean, you'd think that smog was a mere legend invented by East Coasters...). I'd go again in the spring if it were practical, and did notice that 'The Four Temperaments' and 'Tarantella' (to Gottschaulk; this is a work I'm not familiar with) would be there in the spring and 'Allegro Brillante' by the summer. Is Lilit ready to do something like this? or Elise that you mentioned? That has to have electricity, and although the older dancers were sometimes very fine, Lilit is like some kind of quasar or other unimaginably rare heavenly body--it wasn't even called 'Dewdrop' in this production, but she was a dewdrop, without even trying. something absolutely delicious and outrageously inexpensive is Kobawoo House in Koreatown, where you can get their incredible Bosam, the pork with Chinese Cabbage and the big paper-thin-sliced radishes. The Los Angeles Koreatown is at least 20 times the size of ours by Herald Square, and it was a great pleasure to walk from Western/Wilshire to Vermont/8th Street and then back across Olympic. I am always amused when I ask someone in L.A. if a place is too far to walk, and they always say yes--and it's invariably a matter of 4-7 blocks! I'm just in love with the town.

http://home.nyc.rr.com/jkn/nysonglines/28st.htm Sidwich recently spoke of Tin Pan Alley when we were talking about Irving Berlin, and I found it was a real place, and went there twice. It was quite thrilling to see the old buildings still there, including the one where Gershwin was a song-plugger for the Astaires (at least according to this 'songlines' link), even though I could find no sign that would let one know that 'Sweet Adeline' or any of the others were born there. By now, the block, on W. 28th Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue, is quite derelict, but with a combination of some Garment District and Flower District business. The very oldest of the buildings, where several music businesses operated, look very much as though they won't last that much longer--that they have failed the Historic Landmarks test for some decades now. There's a pretty good CD called 'The Sidewalks of New York' which is all Tin Pan Alley classics, 'In the Good Old Summertime', 'Castle Walk', and the one I most like, Kern's 'They Didn't Believe Me', which is also very effectively used in 'Oh What a Lovely War'. I have the original London cast recording, which I like very much, and it makes me think the show must have been very special on stage; as it is, there is much worthwhile in the film, made in 1969, only a few years later than its modest run in New York. If you look at the link, pull down from 12th avenue, and all these wonderful legendary places are described that still exist as structures, and then were constantly used as models for film musicals with Judy Garland and others trying out songs. I went there about 6 weeks ago, and it's pretty dreary right now, but maybe that kind of ghostly effect is what seeing a place like that is all about.

Yes, that's why I said she needed to be dubbed. I think little of the film of 'Camelot.' That's probably why 'If Ever I Would Leave You' is the one moment in which the film truly becomes transporting. The whole sequence works, and you pull for the illicit lovers, allowing the film to convince you of 'romanticism' even though you get a weird royalty-soft-porn sensation while awaiting the exposure of their treachery by insensitive commoners....on a double level, since Nero and Redgrave were getting to do 'Reality Cinema', being off-screen lovers at the time. All the more reason why I completely fail to understand why people continue to complain about casting 'My Fair Lady' with Audrey Hepburn, considering that that's a marvelous film anyway. Now that you have told us this, the compromises that helped 'Camelot' become, in my opinion, a mostly disastrous project as a film, especially given that it had always been a big mess, make me wonder why people don't talk about how Julie Andrews should have gotten this role she'd originated: By then, she was a huge movie star and would have been immensely commercially viable. Plus, she sang 'Then You May Take Me To the Fair' a little more like Kiri TeKanawa has sung English folksongs than Ms. Redgrave, who may or may not have been thinking about Joan Baez at the time, I don't know. 'Changing the lyrics to accommodate her pacifist tendencies' is not really surprising, given her charisma; nevertheless, I find that repugnant. It is little wonder that, of the big stars in 'Oh, What a Lovely War!' which I enjoy despite all, she comes across the most ridiculous: both Susannah York and Maggie Smith do real work in that film, as does Dirk Bogarde, who is a marvel here. Redgrave is a unique and great artist (her 'Hecuba' at BAM was one of the greatest pieces of acting I've ever seen), but it was really only her presence and beautiful look that were effective in 'Camelot'; a lot of people didn't like her in 'Isadora', doing her own dancing, etc., but that made sense to me, I thought she was just right. She's got a good ear, and is one of the best at really getting her accents, but it's surely no accident that that is her one musical comedy excurstion (I think it is, but could be wrong.)

Thanks, Andre! I knew that couldn't have been right, and I kept mixing up things that weren't like the Balanchine and also because I arrived late. I find all your observations very illuminating and have added to my pleasure in the performance. Corina did dance Arabian Sunday, and Damien Johnson's dancing was impressive there too. They came out into the lobby after most of the audience had vacated the auditorium. I am frankly relieved to find Sharp doing Drosselmeyer, as my misunderstanding didn't allow the wonderful wit of this to quite work. That's one of the few really outrageous ingredients I've ever been able to thoroughly accept in a classical work, i.e., don't too often like modern-dress versions of Shakespeare, modernized 'Pelleas et Melisande', etc. too much. But I like this idea of the 'sharp object' being poked into the old furniture, which is much how this worked. Andre, was the opening set at all evocative of some early 20th century Los Angeles, or was it just a rather conventional Christmas scene, without specific local character? I agree that the costumes looked good, but I still do prefer the NYCB ones.