papeetepatrick

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Ob...alSz457uLFaf6mQ She was one of the greatest. She's another one I can't think of ever doing a bad performance, and her voice had a rich, creamy timbre. How can one not be grateful to Deborah Kerr? There was not another like her. Not only fantastic in 'From Here to Eternity' and 'The King and I', but uncanny in 'The Night of the Iguana' (Ava Gardner, Richard Burton and the others perhaps equally so--I think that's Gardner's best performance too), with her old poet-father, who finally finishes the poem about 'how calmly does the orange branch observe the sky begin to blanch...' or something like that, and she exclaims 'Oh, it's a beautiful poem, Nonno!' But also quite sumptuous as Miss Madrigal in 'The Chalk Garden', with that wonderful scene at the end, when Edith Evans decides to quit torturing her, but adds 'Before I die....I'll FIND OUT!' Put those two together, and you've got a form of theater heaven.

Not even close. Yes, they are. http://www.imdb.com/gallery/granitz/4074/V...iggo&seq=10 http://www.moviemarket.co.uk/Photos/P20005...b6614c8a5599556 http://broadwayworld.com/galleryphoto.cfm?...p;personid=3858 and maybe this one a little bit, has more to be with the expression in the smile, I think: http://www.imdb.com/gallery/granitz/2187/V...iggo&seq=12 Oh well, maybe not. I thought there was something. http://www.kultura.lv/en/persons/29/ I know another dancer who looked maybe more like Viggo when young, but no publicity here.

Viggo Mortensen looks much like Baryshnikov when younger.

There are male starlets today too. Leonardo Di Caprio was a starlet before he became a star. Many of the young TV actors are starlets - I'm showing my age by not being able to think of one off the top of head, but I'm thinking about shows like 'The OC', 'Prison Break', etc. In my day, they would have been Jason Priestley (90210) and Bailey Chase (Party of Five). Technically very true, GWTW, but even in the example you give, there is often a promise that an actor will truly emerge. In the 50s, those ingenues really could not make a transition into adult actorhood most of the time. The most extreme and tragic example was Sandra Dee, who was surely the biggest star/starlet to then be plummeted to oblivion that there ever was. There was a year in which she was the #1 box office star, although it was in her very earliest roles--'Until They Sail', 'A Summer Place', 'Imitation of Life'--before she met Bobby Darin, that she was pure magic. Ann-Margret is one of the few exceptions to really become a big star and serious actress from that period, but she was slightly later and also 4 or 5 years older than Dee. I'm sure there are some other exceptions, but who would know who David Nelson was without Rick Nelson, and who has ever followed Barry Coe's career progress?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...753C1A966958260 Alexandra, do you think it was this company you saw? I saw them in this engagement at the Joyce Theater in 1990, and it was glorious. ViolinConcerto is right about the royal costumes of gold. It was like being at court, and was far superior to the Royal Court of Bhutan I'd seen at Carnegie Hall a few months earlier. An Indian dancer I know talked about yet another Cambodian troupe, but I thought this one was once again based in Phnom Penh and they looked extremely well-funded, so I don't know if they are the same as the ones now at the Joyce. At the time, some of the dancers defected. They were an unusual success for this sort of dance, as I recall, and the 2-week engagement was sold out.

Listening to Pipe Dream, I finally began to realize that I've always thought there was an interesting striking difference in Rodgers of Rodgers & Hammerstein and Rodgers of Rodgers & Hart. Not that it takes any great genius to realize this, and certainly people usually do. But what is it? It's not obvious everywhere, but you can tell what in R & Hart would never be in R & Hammerstein. Obviously the lyrics controlled a lot of what Rodgers came up with melodically and harmonically. In Pipe Dream I noticed it in the first song 'All Kinds of People', which is the only real reason to bring up this score, except that it is always especially strange to hear an undistinguished work by masters of a form. Pipe Dream is primarily a disaster, and the little reading I've also done on it proves something about Hammerstein's tendency to the overly proper and non-racy. Based on Steinbeck's 'Cannery Row', it's banal and so is the score. Not that one expects from Hammerstein anything in the particular realm of excitement as is provided by Hart in 'After one whole quart of brandy, like a daisy I'm awake...with no Bromo-Seltzer handy, I don't even shake.' and 'I'll sing to him.. each spring to him [that always cracks me up about the spring]...and worship the trousers that cling to him...', but they've got a brothel in Pipe Dream and you wouldn't know it. I'm not quite Pauline Kael on this kind of thing, but I'd take the above excerpt anyday from Pal Joey to 'Climb ev'ry Mountain...ford every stream...follow every byway...till you find your dream...' I thought 'All at Once You Love Her' was going to be something familiar, but I think I am confusing it with a Vegas favourite with lyrics something like 'When somebody loves you, it's no good unless they love you.....ALL THE WAY...' which I guess Steve Lawrence and Tony Bennett must have put in their sets. So it isn't. I didn't recognize any song on Pipe Dream, and wouldn't care to see any version of it; I read it's been revived somewhere in 2002. Allegro, mentioned by Mel on Sander0's thread 'Opera about Ballet' due to having Melissa Hayden and other important dancers in it, and DeMille choreography, is another thing. Very beautiful score, whatever the shortcomings of the show, which is inspired by Wilder's 'Our Town'. Sad fate, especially since there was such anticipation of this show after 'Oklahoma!', 'Carousel' and 'State Fair.' Songs like 'So Far', the title song 'Allegro', and 'A Fellow Needs a Girl' are all quite winning tunes. This is a favourite of Sondheim, I believe, and he has also described the disasters that occurred on opening night in terms of injuries, falling into the orchestra pit (Lisa Kirk). Concert version by Encores! in 1994. I've just got the cast recording, which was itself a revival, of 'On Your Toes', with Vera Zorina and Bobby Van, which will get me to some more of the pithy Rodgers and Hart shortly. Also have the 1983 CD coming in. Has anyone seen the film with Zorina, which has the Balanchine but the music only as background? I'd like to see that. A few quick observations on film musicals recently seen: Panama Hattie has Lena Horne worthwhile (as always) in two numbers ('Just One of Those Things', 'The Spring), Ann Sothern trying really hard on 'I've Got My Health So What do I Care?' and just makes you want to hear Ethel do the number. Virginia O'brien is funny in 'Let's Be Buddies', but they've left out 'Make it an Old-Fashioned, Please', although there may be a whiff of it as background music. Silly sailors, Red Skelton, etc., Ann Sothern doing total early Barbie-bimbo or something like that. Some Cole Porter from other shows, and additional music by Roger Edens, Burton Lane, etc. Goldwyn Follies tres necessaire for BTers because of divine Zorina doing Balanchine. Introduces 'Love Walked in' and 'Our Love is Here to Stay', and was Gershwin's last film musical. The Chocolate Soldier is wretched, except when Nelson Eddy and Rise Stevens sing 'My Hero' in numerous reprises, also a snatch of the title song, otherwise not much of the operetta by Oskar Straus is to be found here. I'm going to listen to a recording to see what the rest of this sort of thing sounds like, but this is one of the most boring movies I've ever seen, and no reason to make Ms. Stevens's hair so incredibly unattractive and frumpy. Will watch Maytime in honour of dirac, and the earlier RoseMarie with Eddy/MacDonald. Also have finally got copies of Spring Awakening and Avenue Q to listen to and see what they sound like when you can't see the action. Some things seem okay score-wise when you've got the rest of the show. Some critics like the Broadway The Full Monty (including the score) but I thought it was a big bust just listening to the score alone.

I ought to add, since we've got 'The Best of Everything' up, that I always found Hope Lange lovely from when I first saw her among all the beautiful other starlets in 'Peyton Place'--Diane Varsi, Terry Moore, Barry Coe, David Nelson, Russ Tamblyn (there really were male starlets back then too)--all the way to 'Blue Velvet', where her presence seemed both out-of-place amidst all the Lynchian nightmare and yet reassuring at the same time. Love 'Peyton Place' anyway--one of Lana Turner's best performances, and wonderful theme music, especially when Russ and Diane are above the town looking down at the harbour--reminds me of Sawgatuck River at Westport, Connecticut; Lee Phillips was good, too, but his voice probably aborted his career, but also Mildred Dunnock and Arthur Kennedy. Hope Lange was also beautiful in 'Bus Stop', that irresistible Monroe/Don Murray movie. I suppose Diane Baker was actually good for 'Best of Everything' too, and I wonder if she was a type of the period, perhaps following up on Lee Remick, but certainly without the depth that Remick could have just with her face alone, perhaps more like other lesser lights like Diane McBain and Carol Lynley.

chrisk217--thanks! no, I hadn't. The clips were wonderful, I see that I have unexpectedly fallen in love with this company all of a sudden; they're the only ones I can imagine travelling to see, even if it's not in the immediate offing. I'll watch the YouTubes tomorrow, but the 'Wuthering Heights' was what knocked me out--WILD dancing! The sophistication of the colours, as in Medee's dress, too.

The post/poll on high extensions, much of which was spent in discussions of Sylvie Guillem, was closed, so I thought I'd post this here, having watched the tape of '7 Ballets' by POB, including also 'Petit Pan' with Patrick Dupond. Truly wonderful tape, POB excellent at costuming to approach nakedness, I'll say. But main thing is, I find that I see Ms. Guillem's technique differently according to the work, and in the clip of 'Grand Pas Classique', described below, I have a hard time imagining anyone more ideal: "The choreography for this pas is not the work of Petipa, but rather of the choreographer Victor Gsovsky, created in 1949 for the grat ballerina Yvette Chauvire & the danseur Vladimir Skouratov @ the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris. The 1st US performed was by Cynthia Gregory & Ted Kivitt. The music is by Auber, taken from his 1830 opera-ballet "Le dieu et la bayadère", in which the great Marie Taglioni performed @ the old Paris Opera. Ballet is an artform RIPE with incorrect credits..... " M. Auber's music is mediocre to the point of ultra-pedestrian organ-grinder stuff even by standards of other hokey types, so I just saw this as an ideal place to be as academically perfect and elegant as possible. This is not Aurora, and I was surprised to see that when it's a purely sterile thing like this one, that I even adore Ms. Guillem's outrageous art-nouveau legs, and even more, her feet, that look like some incredible tendrils in vases and lamps shaped like vines. Wow! Yes, I will say that in the right placement, those legs and feet have the capacity to hypnotize. I guess once you can pull off a look that extreme and over-refined, they'll let you do it anywhere, even if it's not appropriate. Here, with this plink-plonky music, you don't have any emotion to speak of at all, so it's athletic perfection made into perfect moving furniture.

This may be acting up today, I've had a hard time getting in either in VNP or TAT.

cygneblanc--after I read some more about 'Wuthering Heights', I thought it sounded pretty striking too. But I was most entranced by some of what I read about Ms. Waltz's 'Romeo and Juliette', and that set is pretty fantastic. I know you said it wasn't your sort of thing (and I can definitely understand tickets being too expensive, as I suffer from this malady sometimes too), but is it Ms. Waltz's work in general that you aren't that interested in? I am seeing, as a result of what you've written and linked to that I most want to see new full-length ballets, not one-act ones. The newer one-act things I've seen at NYCB just don't hold up in a Balanchine house for the most part. And yet the 'going into the future with ballet' means someone as great as or greater than a Balanchine has to come forth, even if this sounds impossible. The companies that are trying to produce great Balanchine are doing something important, but these developments at POB are more vital than the preservation of old masterpieces, IMO. I hope POB keeps up this momentum. I'd be willing to forgive all criticism based on 'unfair parisianism': Centralization as traditionally practised by the French government in funding such as IRCAM is hardly one of the malignancies of the art world. I'd almost wager that it is the concentrated support of POB that may be giving it the power to do these big kinds of works. There's enough excitement of all this 'sharing' with scores of regional companies opening everywhere and previously ballet-deficient Asian nations exploding in enthusiasm and work all of a sudden (I don't know whether some of that has the look of China's recent musical-comedy experiments, all of which, except for 'My Fair Lady' were along theme-park lines, 'Les Miserables', 'Cats', etc..) What isn't nearly so prevalent is the gravity that properly-tyrannized-by-genius institutions alone seem to have always been able to provide.

"As with "Romeo and Juliet," there are quibbles to have with the storytelling. But in its intelligent choices and smooth, beautiful choreography, this "Wuthering Heights" shows how ballet can move into the future — without causing everyone to cringe." That, from the New York Sun, expresses the sensation I've gotten both from the clip and from the articles about all these full-length ballets. There's a sharpness that is not unromantic to them I find very appealing that I haven't been aware of in newer ballets in New York. The 'Wuthering Heights' turns out to sound worthwhile after all. No matter what the reservations expressed about 'Caligula', 'Wuthering Heights' and Waltz's 'Romeo and Juliet', there is clearly something going on at POB that makes me want to see all of these works in a way that has not struck me about any new work I've heard about at NYCB or various other companies. And then there is the well-known orchestral excellence, there was Gergiev mentioned here. These full-length ballets do express and give great hope, whether or not they are failures. What I like, I think, about the stories written about all of them, is that these ballets all sound very ambitious and perhaps gutsy. Many thanks again, cygneblanc. Interview with Waltz is quite worthwhile.

cygneblanc--thanks so much for the report and all those articles which add up to something that I think I'd find most interesting, even though I'd have never imagined someone would think of Vivaldi and Caligula as a combination. The initial vision--Caligula's interest in the theatrical--is a convincing and profound image. Comments on the 'lack of intensity' with which to project madness is the more disturbing criticism. I would like to see it, and the Caligulesque costume didn't seem half wrong to me in the photo. I would have thought they'd have wanted to commission an entirely new score for this, but it still sounds like something far from dead, and that it might be worked some; I don't know how that sort of thing goes, though. The idea that new works do take time to take hold as noted by Lefevre is important, and chiefly, I disagree that this is a bad idea: I think it was an excellent idea. I may also try to look up some articles for 'Wuthering Heights', despite the fact that that seems an uninteresting idea for a ballet to me. I had noticed on the thread I linked to of POB's strange 'touring' habits, including in France one year only Creteuil, I believe. Although some further remarks found them in Australia. I see I would truly love to see this company. Many thanks for taking the trouble to place those excellent links, all of which were worth reading.

Re: CALIGULA by Le Riche of POB, and mentioned by Helene in 'Opera about Ballet' thread. This sounds interesting to me, based on Camus. The threads of POB that mention it do not say anything about the piece, and for some reason 'Add Reply' does not work for me to ask it there . Does anyone know anything about it or have you seen it? Admittedly, this sounds more interesting to me than a full-length 'Wuthering Heights' which they've also got. Review links (including French) would be appreciated. http://www.lemonde.fr/cgi-bin/ACHATS/achet...objet_id=920490 http://faculty.uccb.ns.ca/philosophy/caligula/frontpage.htm The above are links to an extract of Le Riche's ballet 'Caligula' and a website to Camus's play, which now interests me to read.

Re: CALIGULA by Le Riche of POB, and mentioned by Helene above. This sounds interesting to me, based on Camus. The threads of POB that mention it do not say anything about the piece. In the meantime, does anyone know anything about it or have you seen it? Admittedly, this sounds more interesting to me than a full-length 'Wuthering Heights' which they've also got. http://ballettalk.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=24418 When I was looking for 'Caligula' in POB forum, there was talk of two 'opera-ballets' by Estelle, which may, among others, suggest the many hybrids that open up some of these matters. These are Waltz's 'Romeo and Juliet' to the Berlioz, and Pina Bausch's 'Orphee et Eurydice'. I'd like to hear about these as well.

That's good information, Helene, especially to have the full-length ballets all in one place. Now I will try to look up some of those in the archives. Have you seen any of these?

I don't know if there are new dance works that are so ongoing as there were before. But 'audience appetite' is probably correct for opera--rather the lack of it. In any case, an opera about ballet is not by any stretch of the imagination going to be something many people are clamouring for; no way are they even thinking about it. The only such a thing could happen is if some composer wanted it deeply as some labour of love project, and that could happen. It wouldn't have to open at the Met or a big house. I don't see it happening, but then it's also possible to think of shorter operas. If you take 'Liebeslieder Walzer' as a kind of vague model, in which the singers onstage are nevertheless within the context of the ballet, and reverse it--you could have a one-act opera about ballet with the opera as the dominant context and the dancers as the subtext. This sounds possible if any new operas at all are being made. If they aren't, then all talk of new operas is useless; but if they are (and surely they are and I just don't keep up with them, then any subject is game--of course, for failure probably even more likely than success). It's just a matter if there is the creative need by artists to do it. I would think it would not be unappealing for opera audiences, though, as a subject, because many operagoers are also ballet goers, perhaps more in Seattle and London and Paris and Russia than in New York, but artists do tend to continue to surprise me with unexpected subjects that would seem to be quite outmoded and attract no audience at all. I just can't think of the composer. Ned Rorem is too old, but it would need to be someone along those lines, and might well be a European or Russian I ought to know about and don't. The subject would interest me if it were about historical figures if there were some way to make it dramatically viable. Could easily end up like an opera version of 'Mayerling', I'd think, which would be disastrous. Main thing would be to come up with a real story about ballet that is going to interest at least some elite group, and probably make a short opera out of it. Aren't the new works that 'make it' in ballet today mostly short works also?

Yes, it's possible, because everything is always expensive. There aren't going to be many things done like this, but if somebody is inspired they never let the production costs get in their way. In fact, if they think of that at the beginning, they aren't inspired. Things like this can always start more modestly and then grow, just the way off-Broadway things sometimes grow into Broadway productions. The only other way is if something like this is commissioned by someone(s) who has it as a favourite dream-idea and then approaches an established composer. There could easily be something sort of Sondheim done with this sort of idea, but I wouldn't hope so.

http://www.ibdb.com/Show.asp?id=1484 Both are just listed as 'Dancer' here. I've got the CD as well, which has 13 singer/actors on the cover, and neither Hayden nor Barker are there. Must have been a marvelous show, I wonder if anybody goes back far enough to have seen it. I suppose there could also be an opera version of 'The Turning Point' with Kiri TeKanawa and Renee Fleming, and films of real dancers like in the movie. Dreadful idea, methinks. Better to do an opera with Picasso, Diaghilev, Balanchine later an aging Pavlova maybe, real dancers just dancing Nijinsky, young Pavlova, etc.--half-ballet/half-opera. Yeah, that has possibilities. A Ballets Russes opera.

Yes!

Can't wait to see this one, will have it in few days. Just got two of the old lesser-known R & H CDs to listen to--'Allegro' and 'Pipe Dream' and should have 'Me and Juliet' in a week or two. Anyone know these scores? I just looked at the song lists and some sound like familiar titles, but I haven't ever heard anything about these shows, and NYT theatre review archives has none of them written up. IBDb has them all three running between 215-less than 400 performances, which is a flop for R & H, but not the worst for other writers. Will report later, in the mean time, if anyone is familiar with these shows and their history, let us know.

They sure were. What do you think of Cyd's work in 'Black Tights'? I remember liking it, and also Moira Shearer and Zizi Jeanmaire too, but that was before I hit the higher standards of Ballet Talk and tried to remember if what I had seen in days of yore in ballet performances was as good as I once thought. I think I even remember thinking Cyd was the best. So tell me what I need to know on this one. Loved that movie.

Not entirely, unless she didn't see the well-known photo of Nureyev many of us did in the early 70s (I don't know about Nijinsky.). Probably only if they are going to get impeached for it.

Good idea! I love Garland in 'Mack the Black' and Kelly looks as fabulously sensual as he did in anything.

Maybe the pretty-doll-glamour style was somewhat already there, but 'Rosalie', at least, is 1937, and Lana Turner was not known yet. I was actually myself surprised that it is that old (I'd always thought of Powell as a 40s star), but it does remind me in the style of production number of some of those in 'The Great Ziegfeld' one year earlier (the comparison goes no further than big production). Judy Garland definitely often in hideous costumes, as in 'Strike Up the Band'.