papeetepatrick

I don't think it means much beyond just this year's Oscars. Obviously, Shakespeare (and of course more provincial British things like Lonsdale, to take an extreme example) is best if as British as possible, but as a general subject, I don't see a thing in its favour--it's just a feature. Just add 'French actors' to the matter and you have, at least for me, actors who are currently in film today that are a lot more interesting than British ones. They can all do things the others can't, aren't put together for. And who is nominated for the Oscars is not necessarily a reliable guide to who might or might not have done the best work. Also, compare these Oscar nominees to last year's and the year before, and there may be no story. It has to be a smaller domain to make sense to compare. I can see comparing Shakespearean stage actors with the English coming out ahead of anyone else. Comedie Francaise actors are always going to be better at Racine. There are still more great Russian Auroras and Odettes to date than there are American ones. Taken as a whole over the history of cinema, there are likely more great American film actors, because the medium is far more quintessentially American than it is any other nationality, and also the most quintessentially American artistic medium. The article is about Dench, Mirren and O'Toole.

I think Tableau VII is the one I mentioned in the Potential Storylines for Ballets some months back. It's on the video 'Natasha' with Makarova and Denys Ganio. I looked back quickly and saw that I'd thought it was part of a larger work, but I've done no further research. I believe Mel had mentioned it earlier in the thread.

That's not at all convincing, considering that far lesser-known (to current generations) musicals like 'Wonderful Town' are revived. And even the score to 'On the Town' is known to fewer people than at least the title song to 'On a Clear Day.' It does not matter about the book's problems, and drug or alcohol dependency is never an issue in creative matters (except for performers who try to dance drunk), considering that well-written books with no substance and scores of no merit whatever are routinely produced, praised and moneyed. It's a matter of whether there could be a commercially viable way to do it. This is where the matter of the Broadway Star would come in. That will either happen or it will not. The book of 'On a Clear Day' was well-known to be faulty from the beginning, and that didn't stop them from making a dreadful film of it. As for the rest, I've discussed them all I see necessary for now (except to say that reviving The Apple Tree is not to revive a recognizable property in any way; only real enthusiasts know a thing about it, it cannot be compared in that way to The Music Man, etc., so that even a limited run at Roundabout is a more individual act of stardom than anybody doing The Sound of Music ever could be), it's a matter of waiting and seeing if I see anything that makes sense to me. And for me, this will be if there are still composers who can write for a voice that you hardly ever find on Broadway in any decade, especially in this one. Yes, 'old-style Broadway star.' I have a strong feeling there will be some who may come out of the woodwork yet, it's not like they've been over-saturated with 'old-style Broadway stars' in the last 30 years. If there can be a musical comedy star like Chenoweth, which amounts literally to a biological sport at this point, then there is no reason to think composers with a feeling for a more intimate and personal kind of Broadway show cannot also emerge. My guess is that they have been wanting to, and will jump at the opportunity if they can find it. There will always be room for over-produced Theme Parks in the old theaters--at least until they are not big enough, and enough space in Times Square has not been blocking enough views, that, alas, they have to tear down the Winter Garden, the Booth and the Music Box too.

I don't think that's accurate, but we'll see. I know almost nobody from the provinces who doesn't know her from the many episodes of 'West Wing' , the PBS broadcast, and the TV 'Music Man.' And everybody in New York knows who she is; that audience doesn't usually have shows written about it any more, but it definitely exists, just as New Yorkers form the base of the New York City Ballet. The tourist buses already know her from 'Wicked' and many people saw 'Bewitched'. Her fame has been building at a regular pace. A sex chat room I occasionally frequent was full of people (often quite hick too) who knew her from business trips to New York that included 'Wicked.' Anyway, what? she opened 'The Apple Tree', who would have cared about it otherwise? She's also got an instrument incredibly flexible in what it can do, and composers will write for it, if she has to do some smallish things in between, that's not serious. She's going to be in demand. She's going to do another 'Encores' production in May, and the 'Young Frankenstein' will come later. She already did 'On a Clear Day' for Encores, and that could certainly be done on Broadway if 'Company' can ever make it there, with no stars at all. She's got several movies in the works, and the most promising one will be a biopic of Dusty Springfield. Tourist bus people certainly never heard of Stephen Sondheim. [Well, I think that's one opinion. A lot of people who are not Stephen Sondheim would agree that Bernadette Peters is the last true Broadway star Yes, they might, but she's old news. She's one of the few successful performers I've ever seen who was mannered from the very beginning, and who I have found irritating in everything I have seen after 'Dames at Sea.' I recognize that others find her to be an important star, whereas to me she has no star quality at all, and her success always astonished me. But that's not the point for me: Older stars opening shows is not what interests me, even if they can, it's the same thing as all the old legends confessing through song their careers and lives at the big cabarets which survive only because of money from sixty-somethings and older. If you're right that Chenoweth can't do it, then you're right. I think she's got the right mixture of Midwest all-Americanism and slick New York professionalism (she's not corny) to have a chance to be the only one who could organically do something radically new. People like Bebe Neuwirth are still rehashes of the old retro and warmed-over stuff. Are you sure the revival of 'Chicago' was not successful largely because of Ann Reinking doing it again? or at least as much? Kids from all over the country go to 'Annie Camp' so they can be Broadway Babies. Chenowith's ability to be more at home in a piece of musical theater in a real Broadway house instead of having to be just-folks midwestern at a cornball Garrison Keillor gathering at Town Hall may or may not mean something. It's mostly to do with commerce, but as with the rest of capitalism, it is not just money. I hope she is the exception that proves the rule, that's all, because she's a better musician in terms of versatility than all of the ones I've named in the above posts, and who wants yet another example of Baudrillard's 'end of history', i.e., in this case the announcement would read 'the last great Broadway star was Bernadette Peters just before nihilism and Orwellianism set in, finding Broadway senile and moribund, among other things... 'although that doesn't mean I think any of them can't do some things better than she can. I'd probably rather hear Barbara Harris sing 'Hurry It's Lovely Up Here', but Chenoweth would be able to do some of the other songs as well or better. There are, of course, many things she couldn't do that Streisand did, but probably almost anything that Julie Andrews did. Nobody could do what Ethel Merman did, she was so original, one was enough. I'm not saying she's superwoman, I just hope she is. If not, then forget Broadway, it's going to be more of the same old opaque sets passing as musical theater. 'Phantom of the Opera' has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is what is most likely--antique shops with Muzak. Yes, I agree, only some sort of miracle would work. By comparison, ballet seems almost flush with abundant future.

I like refining these things as far as they can go, and I, too, would rather spend 'an evening' with Barbara Cook if it was a matter of strictly solo work, whether cabaret, concert or what-have-you. After seeing how different she is in a show, and how accurate I think sidwich's remarks about how she is not even effective on recordings (and my own experience in seeing her in concert), I really don't care to see Chenoweth in any other venue. I think my overdone sense of excitement is all about that there is a powerful enough Broadway show voice and personality to open some real new shows, with real books and real songs, and inspire creative people to showcase her--quite unlike, say, Glenn Close opening up 'Sunset Boulevard'. What dirac says about the past and other things leading to this kind of showcasing are sound, but all people in theater know how big she is there, and real shows--you know, more than one every 8 years--would be quite acceptable to me. And I'm a pessimist--so I'm even surprised to think that she's actually got the big extroverted chops to open up shows. Karen Akers couldn't open up a single show on Broadway (despite having been in a few), but I'd rather spend time with her at the Algonquin than Chenoweth too.

With all due respect, I was only speaking of Barbara Cook in her youth, when she did 'Candide' and 'Glitter', not her autumnal performances, many about long-lost love affairs, at the Carlyle and elsewhere. I can't quite see how anything about Cook after that period could be compared with Chenoweth--with 2 generations separating them. You can say you prefer any of two people, but how could a young girl have that kind of depth of interpretation? Isn't that somewhat like comparing Suzanne Farrell when she was at her early 80's peak with Alicia Alonso (still dancing then and also much later), who was in her 50s, not really able to still dance any more but happy in her 'stage persona'? In any case, of course Chenoweth is not going to be able to sing with certain kinds of dark feeling that Cook is capable of, but neither can Cook sing 'Glitter and Be Gay' any more, and that never required depth of the sort she has today. I think sidwich and I were talking about Broadway singers, which Chenoweth is and Cook once was, but she's by now one of the great cabaret stars (one of the precious few.)

It could be said to be both, but there's no dearth of new material just because we might decide it's inferior material. Chenoweth could be in some of these trashy products and do something with them, but it's also true that 'Wicked' an original show, put her even more fully on the map. I didn't see it, but Nicole Kidman seeing her in it was the reason she got to play her friend in 'Bewitched.' Also, all the 'Apple Tree' is no masterpiece, it is charming and much of the music is very pretty and you enjoy it while still in the theater. It was nominated for lots of Tonys in 1967, and won some. It's not the usual revival, by any means, and there is a wonderfully refreshing lack of concentration on spectacle. Chenoweth's costumes are hilarious and perfect. These are the guys, by the way, that wrote 'Fiddler on the Roof', so that they are veteran theater guys even if you know the show is mostly a trifle, with the occasional touching moment. This is what I'm also aware of, some of it's strange: She didn't even come across all that well for me in the live concert I saw, nor did the PBS broadcast that Carbro saw in Central Park make a deep impression on me except for vocal technique (sidwich and I have to disagree on the texture of the Chenoweth and Cook voices, although I adore Cook in 'oh Happy We'), and if I am a fan of someone I would usually watch them in anything, which I did not in that TV version of 'The music Man.' (We talked about the Music Man in another thread, I realize now that I think it's a good show, but boring.) However, for whatever reason, she is fantastically at home in a theater and she could be the person who would open up new shows and there would be no dearth of people wanting to write shows especially for her, and cannot already be. I'm sure they are working toward it like mad. Sidwich is right about the 'eccentric persona', and while Barbra Streisand could have opened show after show and enriched Broadway immeasurably, she didn't want to do that with the Hollywood fame she wanted and got--but with an artistic percentage that is surely small compared to what she could have done as a stage star, but...she hated it, so that's that. I hope all of the disadvantages sidwich points out will mean that we have a real star for at least another 10 years--one like in the old days. Even one alone could transform the desert Broadway is. Peters does not have that kind of charisma, and Sondheim was pointing her out as the 'one star' to some degree because they'd worked together a lot. So, yes, there is a dearth of stars too. because there are starring roles in shows all over Broadway, and there are a lot of things open, but there are not any stars with this old kind of dynamism that seems uniquely suited for an old Broadway theater that are still young enough to do it all the time, unless McDonald figures out how to--but you still don't hear about her when you're not paying attention to B'way the way you do Chenoweth. Even if Chenoweth doesn't translate to the other media well, she can use them to advertise for her Broadway career. If she doesn't transform Broadway, whether with new or old shows, I don't think it matters much considering what a wasteland the place has become, nobody is going to. Anything new by Sondheim is not going to be anything all that new. If you see 'Spring Awakening', sidwich, please report. That's the other thing I may go to this season, I doubt I'll see the Redgrave/Didion or the revival of 'Company.'

Here's another I haven't had time to read, I have the book but have also not had time to get to it. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19851 I'm a big fan of Mailer, who means to be infuriating. He can get away with all sorts of gaucheries and vulgarisms and hateful overt conceit, because he comes up with so many things nobody, including oneself, ever seems to think of articulating. I'm almost through with 'Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man' and thoroughly respect it, finding it literally transforming, as do I his much-maligned 'Marilyn'. He's an egomaniac, but so what? What genius isn't, it's just expressed in different forms of crudeness or seeming smoothness, or even false modesty? He can write real fiction and semi-fiction, which a lot of people who have gotten famous for either or both cannot do. I recently read the old 'The Deer Park' and 'An American Dream' and thought they were both brilliant. I'm sure I will read the Hitler book without any interest in what fawning or hating critics think, because I'm happy enough to find all those nuggets of wisdom, of which there are always myriad with Mailer. He should get the Nobel Prize, definitely. I'll mention that I only got through the 1st chapter of the fat new Pynchon novel, but I have not read PynchIn. I remember you posted it, so I got hold of a copy, but I found the writing unbearably and graceless, and it is the first book I've started in many years that I didn't finish--and even before that, I usually got past page 10.

Yes and no. Even more for cabaret, the cabaret stars are known to no one outside the metropolitan areas anymore, and the majority of them are in late middle-age or older. But Chenoweth does inhabit a stage in precisely the same way the old stars did. That is where the relief is. And she does it a lot more than Peters ever did. And she is actually always in demand to open a new Broadway show itself--that's what says it to me. Who else is really doing that? Of course, that opening of one show after the other doesn't mean exactly the same thing as it did in the old days, but it has, incredibly, ended up with the same result. I think we can look forward to seeing her in 3 or 4 more shows in the next few years. Her height may be part of what keeps her back from film. Her tiny stature is not something that would work as well in film, I think. But the way I see it, even though there are fewer old style Hollywood stars as well, it's not nearly so destitute as the Broadway Star. Even if it is only her height that keeps her off major film and TV work, I'll be satisfied. She fills a desperately empty vacuum, and I'd be happy to see her just keep opening new shows, she doesn't need to wasted in those less-rarefied precincts which have dozens that can do the same things; and she might find the money difficult to resist, etc. So that Hollywood may not be what it used to be either, but it's not starving the way the Broadway musical is. I even went there today expecting to find her more or less the same sort of TV transplanted cutie that passes for stage performance these days in musicals. If it's just that voice that made the difference, I'm satisfied. It was the same sensation I got when I saw Anne Reinking do 'Chicago' in 1978, and I've seen nothing of the sort again until today. In serious drama, non-musical things, yes. In musicals, no. By comparison, Mandy Patinkin and Peters were whiny in 'Sunday in the Park', to my mind.

'"An authentic production [of the opera] is a racist production. It has a lot of ideas within it that would be seen in any other circumstances as racist. It is not just a question of the words, it also Puccini's music." So, if it's also a question of Puccini's music, how is this 'specialist' going to cut and paste so we won't hear any coarse 'japanese-isms'? Court music to make for noblesse? Japanese rock music to give the 15-year-old 'agency'? Maybe change the ending, she doesn't even commit suicide. 'Prof Parker said his remarks would be regarded as heresy by some people, but that the popularity of "authentic" productions meant he had to speak out.' Terrible about the popularity of 'authentic' productions (I'm not sure I noticed) as well as the popularity of publicity. "We have become much more sensitive [about racism] and the interpretation of Madama Butterfly is one of those operas that needs to reflect that."' We've only become more sensitive about some racisms, not nearly all, and the racism should be there, it's part of it. You don't solve racism problems 'in our current society' by ethnically cleansing-reversal in old artworks where it is an integral part of understanding what the whole piece is about. That it's bad is completely irrelevant. People have often been bad, and they may still do it. Racism existed in the culture, and therefore it existed in the art. I imagine the percentage of audience members not knowing that beforehand is so miniscule as to be all but invisible. 'One doesn't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but why not acknowledge that the bathwater smells a bit...' Anyone knows that 'the Birth of a Nation' is not only about racism, but it is even racist itself. 'Gone With the Wind' was not Southern-White racist (that's what happened back in the day), it is American-white-racist and Hollywood-white-studio-head racist, both of which sold both it and 'Birth', which were both enormously popular all over the country--and all of this is part of what makes the films what they are. They cannot be understood only as depictions of racism, but as racism-imbedded works themselves, historical documents of their time even when not intended as such. Of course, film is not the issue, but it does have the advantage, as I said before, of not being something you can change the perception of except by commentary and criticism. You do not need to 'acknowledge that the bathwater smells a bit' within the work, because things stink everywhere anyway (it's not like we've got fewer problems of intolerance now than Puccini's Italy did, we've just tended to some of the ones that stared us in the face first), and nobody can miss it in these obvious examples anyway. To insert these things into classic works is a form of re-writing history, not just art. Every Greek tragedy would need to somehow insert that our storied and noble Greeks were slaveowners, since we are by now so sensitive to how bad slaveowning is (are we anyway? of course not; only selected, convenient non-slaveowning). It's hard to see why commentary, proper education in history are not what is needed. Furthermore, that is even already in place. I frankly don't really even know what this professor is talking about.

I don't believe this is possible or even desirable. You can do this only be making what is essentially a new work. A 2007 critique inserted into a monumentally important work from the past might be okay for a kind of performance art thing. Could possibly resemble what was done in last year's film about how you couldn't make a film of 'Tristram Shandy', that movie called just 'Cock and Bull Story', I believe, which I found to be worth very little. Even a failed attempt to make an impossible film of a difficult novel (and 'Tristram Shandy' was for me much more difficult than 'Ulysses' , 'Recherches', or any of the most difficult Faulkner), would have actually proved that it couldn't be done. It's not even been quite a year since I saw 'Cock and Bull Story, and I can remember scarcely a single image from it. That's purely coincidental about that film, what I'll say now. At least with film, if you don't like what stereotypes were being expressed which did derive from the times (even if only that the times would allow you to put them into forms that would not be tolerated today in those very forms), the films can't be tampered with and made into 'new productions.' 'Gone With the Wind' cannot be changed to suit people who don't like it. You can write 'the Wind Done Gone' and swear that it obliterates 'GWTW', and a year later look around and find that nobody still thinks that GWTW had been obliterated. What is being talked about here that is legitimate is educating oneself on history. There are the history books, the books of political history, the books of film and art history that talk about these matters. There can be discussions about the racism, sexism, or any kind of thing that, God forbid, differs from mores in 2007 that polite people observe. But productions of artworks that hold within them an inner critique of the work may hold interest for some, but they are not going to have any effect on people who want to protect treasures essentially as they were written. Treatises, dissertations, truly scholarly articles about these things are another thing, but most of this sort of thing still reminds me of my friend who objected to 'Blow-up', Antionioni's great film, having seen it well over 30 years after it was made for calling the girls 'chicks' in it, in Hemming's photography studio, as if it should be condemned for reflecting language prevalent in the 60s. Updating operas and ballets is not even usually successful except when it is done so subtly that at least the music, text and choreography (if not new) are preserved, but putting in new material 'without cleaning up and not distorting it' is, I think, a contradiction in terms. If wrong, I'll be glad to hear of how such a mangling-without-mangling was done.

What a relief! And to think that it's already 6 years since that NYTMagazine article about Stephen Sondheim by Frank Rich in which Sondheim says there are really no Broadway stars anymore, and that Bernadette Peters is probably the closest thing to there being one. Well, I had seen Ms. Chenowith in a corny but sometimes entertaining radio broadcast you could watch at Town Hall in 2002 where she was with Garrison Keillor and Odetta and some others, and she was perfectly adorable there, but nothing I really kept thinking about other than noting that she could definitely sing way beyond almost any B'way singer I'd ever heard in some ways. Otherwise, saw a TV broadcast in which she sang 'Glitter..' and maybe 5 minutes of a TV production of 'The Music Man' which I thought had those terrible sets one sees in TV productions of musicals, so I got rid of it. But this is something else, and it's just charm all over the place. Ms. Chenowith is funny, pretty, sophisticated, naive, and sings as well as no more than perhaps 5 other ladies in Broadway history have ever sung in various different ways. She can be cutesey in her acting, but it's only one of many tones she has--no offense to Bernadette Peters fans, but I never felt like this extreme doll-like preciosity ever goes away; it was still as much there in the sound of her voice in 'Sunday in the Park with George' as it had been in 'Dames at Sea' (I never thought she really went beyond that in terms of fully realizing something). But Chenoweth's singing at the Roundabout Theater is simply a revelation, far better than I ever heard it before. This tiny woman, barely over 5 feet, has this huge voice and can do everything Barbara Cook could do when young technique-wise and the voice itself is richer. She is in every way at ease, and I can think that only Barbra Streisand, Ethel Merman, Julie Andrews on stage, and in musical films, only also add to those Shirley Jones and Judy Garland to sound this good in a real musical. And this is a wonderful show, full of delight and not overdone like so much of contemporary Broadway. I'd also seen Brian d'Arcy James in a Los Angeles production of 'Irving Berlin's White Christmas', and had noticed he sang well, but that was a most lifeless adaptation of a sweet old movie. You are happy for it so that actors can make some money in between decent gigs. d'Arcy James sounds very good here too, but I wouldn't quite say he's a star. Mark Kudisch as the Snake in the Eden story is sometimes flat in his singing, which you wouldn't notice if the others won't so flawless vocally (there's a song in the 3rd story in Chenoweth is supposed to sing flat, and she does it very well, but this is a different thing; Kudisch sings this Bob Dylanish song at the beginning of the 2nd story, and he's just flat sometimes, it's irritating.) I hadn't been to but a couple of shows in the last couple of decades, having found most of them not interesting enough not to prefer something else. Only real regret is not having seen Keith Carradine in 'Will Rogers Follies' because he sang so wonderfully still in the early 90s. But they really revive this in such a way that you get the feel of an old 'real musical' pre-Webber, yet without having to resort to reminding you that it is an old show that is now a new show. If anything, it proves that this kind of show could still be done, that something has happened to the culture to make it more and more difficult. I didn't know the Bock/Harnick score before, and it is very much the kind of score that worked well in that period but would not be quite called celestial. There is much very pretty and enjoyable music, so that the composer it reminds me of most is Harold Rome and his shows. The scores for 'I Can Get It for You Wholesale', some of the songs in that musical version of 'GWTW' made for Japan and later done in London, ' 'Wish You Were Here,' 'Fanny', 'Pins and Needles', are all good scores, but Rome (nor Bock/Harnick) ever seem to me to quite reach the heights of my heroes like Arlen, Burton Lane, Rodgers,Jule Styne, Bernstein, a few others. But no matter, this a wonderful entertainment and better than any musical production I've seen on Broadway in 30 years. It's partially because it was a good enough show to revive, but that hadn't been (due to vocal demands which Ms. Chenoweth has no trouble with). It's silly but you somehow don't mind that, because Chenoweth just knows how to run the whole material. She's potentially a much bigger Broadway star than Bernadette Peters. There have been some other good ladies in musicals, like Rebecca Luker, but Ms. Chenoweth is easily the best thing I've seen happen in the musical, stage or screen, since at least the 70s. The voice is sometimes literally thrilling to hear. And while she sometimes does echo a memory of Barbara Harris, she's a much more fantastic singer. Her shortness makes it inevitable that she will sometimes be 'cute,' but it is to her credit that she is not 'just cute' nearly all the time. She's got health, energy, talent going for her--and I think you can tell, from this especially, that's she's got brains too.

Talking about racism in old works when such things were the norm amounts to the most ridiculous kind of 'scholarship' imaginable. It's really just ignorant, how is this professor able to hold down any kind of job in the Arts I'd like to know. Wow, someone was racist and not politically correct in the 19th century, so poor audiences members who have never been exposed to any other thinking except that contained in 'Madama Butterfly' may be 'unwitting participants in racism'. Well, if people can get away with writing this sort of rot and still hold jobs, surely 'The Birth of a Nation' must have already been deleted from all Netflix, libraries and video stores, since all audiences will automatically participate and even join the KKK if they see it. This one surely takes the cake for most grotesque opinionette espoused in the last 5 years. One can only be grateful he doesn't pick on the 'feminist issues' and anything else for that matter. And they call this a scholar? Frankly, I think anyone who saw 'The Queen' was trying to raise money so she can get her yacht back and keep whatever taxes she pays secret. I didn't see it, so I must be one of the few truly democratic anti-monarchy people around. What this says to me as that anyone intelligent that takes such pronouncements seriously as even worth arguing over is a willing participant in the death of all serious arts scholarship. Right now I'm off to see 'The Apple Tree', during which I plan to be an unwitting participant in Original Sin, because I think Eve is in it.

Off topic but in response to sander0 and Klavier's remarks about publicity and compensation: 'they rarely employ PR people and seem to be all about their art. When one thinks of these talented people who have studied for decades... perhaps a handful of their names are even known by the general public. We (society) treat artists very poorly for what they give us (general public). That's sad. Equally sad I would imagine is the financial compensation dancers receive. I cannot imagine it being a particularly remunerative occupation. But that is perhaps a subject for another thread. (Has there been one?)' The corps de ballet dancers at NYCB get good pay, at least according to what I googled a while back. Not great, but good. Much better than it was 20 years ago. They deserve it and the soloists deserve big bucks if they can get it. I think they're paid fairly and that sports figures are paid stupidly because that adds to the excitement for the fans. Same with movie stars getting absurd figures for poor work--or even a great singer like Streisand 10 years ago doing the comeback and getting 10 million for a concert. That's just part of the hype. Ballet isn't supposed to have hype and People Magazine stories, and serious dancers know this. Probably dancers at the smaller dance companies don't get paid much, that's more serious, I'm sure. As for the big companies, I can't get worked up about their financial problems. NYCB, ABT or RB is a good life even besides the art. Plenty of even NYCB dancers have had tons of big money, they've got fine houses, etc., and real property: it just wasn't publicized, because that didn't fit the image. ABT stars got even more, and Nureyev and Baryshnikov got more. But all ballet stars have been fairly compensated. It's fine except for the less famous ones, and is the same as it is in all the serious arts. I think all the concern for compensation should be for the obscure ballet and modern dancers, none for those in the big ones, who actually have a very pampered life even if there's a lot of work.

If there are any, I'd like to see some of these dances about sex, of which I am a big fan, but not any ballets, including contemporary, that I can think of. I also like to see the beauty of the human form 'hidden by bulky costuming' as in the last act of 'Sleeping Beauty' when all the court and fairy tale people march in; the Bluebirds near nudity make a nice contrast to all the big costumes, which look good on, say, Elizabeth McGorian. Not necessarily, and it does make sense in myriad other situations. Maybe you have 'seen enough of it in your lifetime', but I haven't and I want to see a lot more. There is always the possibility of eroticism, and there are many contexts in which only the totally nude will do. It just never is ballet, classical or contemporary, as far as I'm concerned. I don't want to see any at all there. That quote from Bart's link interested me, because there is little reason to believe it's anything but publicity. I neither believe nor disbelieve a word of such a claim of 'retaining compositional integrity' while reducing Stravinsky. In addition, it makes it sound as though this particular use of a few instruments was commonplace. Part of my bias about this kind of thing is that I am an absolute diehard fan, literally a worshipper of Duke Ellington, but he did do one thing I utterly abhor: That arrangement of 'The Nutcracker Suite', which I just cannot stand. I'd even rather hear Karoui. However, if someone would choose to use 'Le Sacre du Printemps' in a piece about Jon-Benet Ramsey, which defies credulity as far as I'm concerned, I do suppose it didn't need to recall images of Nijinsky. Better for it to be completely concealed in some little rock piece. I would imagine that some of Julie Atlas Muz's may be able to use nudity, although if there is any in the Jon-Benet piece, I don't think I'd like it. It seems from the website that the nudity is the point. I cannot see how that would work in the case of little Miss Ramsey, because it short-circuits from the tragedy. Her story is not just another 'Naked Lady' story.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/arts/mus...?ref=obituaries I had thought he would be with us forever, and was glad of it. Hard not to find something to love in his work, whether 'Monica, Monica' or 'The Telephone', 'The Medium', or just when there used to be annual broadcasts of 'Amahl and the Night Visitors.' I don't know if he was involved much in ballet, and am putting this up here before I even have time to read the above obituary.

I'd probably agree with this, although I never even thought of the subject. The only thing that interests me in it is really that in classical ballet I don't see how it could ever work, and even this would only be if were a matter of interfering with the movement--which it would. As far as not needing it for 'artistry', that in itself would never constitute an argument outside the particular art. If it did, there would never have been needed painted or sculpted nudes (which I'm sure have been mentioned in this thread, which I hadn't seen till now), nor would Catherine Deneuve nude in her 50's ever have been used in a film or photograph, etc. Along the same lines, but the polar opposite of anything necessary, the Topless Cellist of the 60s was just a gimmick and cannot have meant anything else except that you could not pay any attention to the music no matter what, but much stage, film and performance art work needs nudity. What nudity has been used in contemporary dance I am not very aware of, even if I have seen it (I'm really just not sure.) I wouldn't even object to it in classical ballet if I didn't like the phrase 'the men are already naked enough in the tights and shirt outfit things' and that I don't want to be distracted by the genitals of either sex during it--and there is no way you wouldn't be, because when you are not used to seeing something in certain contexts, you cannot keep your eyes off it even if it's not worth looking at.

I just saw 'A Comedy of Power' on its last day here in the short run it played in one theater, so most will find it on DVD soon--it's not going to get the cineplex bus-and-trucks. It's based on the 'Elf Aquitaine scandal of the 1990s, which exposed extensive corruption in France's giant gas company, then state owned' (quoted from review), and is Claude Chabrol's 2005 film and latest released in the U.S. Isabelle Huppert plays the judge who devotes all her time to the case and, of course, this is one of those determined types who never stops. Nevertheless, it is not nearly as predictable as one keeps thinking it's going to be. For this we have to thank Eric Rohmer and others who, as French who put up the good fight during blistering deliberations over the GATT agreement of the early 90s, made it possible for French cinema to continue to exist as itself. I'm still in disbelief they managed to pull it off. Without it, I don't know whether we would have had last years 'Cache' or even whether some of the films of Techine and Chabrol might have been tainted. In any case, I highly recommend and am glad I saved my movie money for discovering this the day before it disappeared from movie houses even in NYC. Even so, it lasted maybe 3 weeks, and was in a theater seating perhaps 30 people. There were 4 of us who attended this performance, which made it the most pleasant film experience I've had in years--and certainly the most disturbing: I saw 'Ballets Russes' in the same theater about a year ago, and even it had maybe 10 people.. wow.. Ms. Huppert is simply a marvel in this part. I don't see how she could possibly be any more nuanced and pro, but her range is huge.

I think it's just that older people are still the ones going to classical/serious concerts. It would still be the younger ones who champion the newer music most likely, but this is not an age like the 20s and into the 70s at least. A parallel is cabaret, which barely exists anymore, and is supported almost exclusively by people over 60, and most of the big cabaret artists left are in that age group themselves. There's still a reasonable jazz club young people audience, but the current young generations have gone into different forms entirely from what previous generations have done--on the whole. I think it's a tiny minority going to classical concerts, ballet and opera, and I think this mostly from young people I've known in New York, where you might think it would be different (and it probably is, but not in any significant way). I think the older people generally want to hear the tried-and-true more than they want to hear new work anyway, they're just used to attending this sort of thing. Young people want loud clubs, MySpace, and iPods. Movies are the only thing that seem to be equally as popular among all ages in this era. Books are not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/22/arts/dan...?ref=obituaries Shouldn't this be on here? I didn't know about her, but many will. Added later: thanks, I couldn't momentarily find the obituaries sub-forum.

I wouldn't usually be interested in seeing sung things except for 'Liebeslieder', etc., but once in 1971 saw Robert Streicher do a solo piece in some smallish dark Village space to a Steve Reich piece. That stuff was pretty novel then, so the first few times it grabbed me a bit. This piece was the words 'She was a visitor' over and over, and it was very exciting. Well, it wasn't exactly sung in the usual sense, but the words were done so that they became part or even most of the music. He was a true Downtown artist in the best sense and was at ease with it (not always trying to network 'up'), and I saw him again in the mid 80's. He was still doing small spaces, and he also has done painting shows in Chelsea galleries. I wonder what he's up to by now. He was quite wonderful.

Bart--yes, I thought that was what you meant about Baldwin, because it is a very odd evolution at that young an age, especially for men. But I did see that he had changed from glamorous leading man almost over night. It's hard to know whether he really wanted this, or simply adapted to some physical changes, but I found it somewhat unusual. oh, of course, Moreau is amazing and she's really old by now, I think. One of her characters said 'I'm an old bitch' at least 10 years ago--the Old Lady Who Walked in the Sea, something like that. No, I just checked, that was 1991. It's the mouth that you can't mistake even as she gets older and older.

Newman yes, but Baldwin may have 'aged well' but to only 48. Yes, but she can become the very greatest actress in a sense because she is devoting so much time to the stage--always a bit more impressive in some ways. Deneuve is also getting varied roles although she's about 6 years younger and never has been a stage actress; but she's made the most good films in the last 10 years of any 'aging actress' of whom I'm aware--hers aren't caricatures either.

Thought it was nice that Barazza and Kikuchi (both marvelous in 'Babel') were nominated in Best Supporting Actress category. Other than that, I wasn't too interested since they totally ignored the Techine/Deneuve/Depardieu film 'Changing Times'--althought I bet Mark Wahlberg is really good in 'Departed', because he always is. Enjoyed the shot of the Academy President and Selma up there--looked like cover for Los Angeles Magazine (the Movie Issue). However, that's currently got the hilariously witty one of Helen Mirren doing a little ultra-light Frederick's of Hollywood camp, so maybe they can make one of the issues of 'LA's 50 Most Powerful' the next time, except that they might not have quite enough money. Made me think of Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas somehow.

Ravel's 'La Valse' as it's been used by Balanchine and Ashton--including both 'La Valse' and 'Valse Nobles..' is one case where the dance came forth and first to shape my taste for a piece of music. Prokofiev's 'Romeo and Juliet' I did somehow get to know from seeing it danced a good number of times before just hearing it played, and it's one of the few I still would listen to outside the performance. I find the 'Cinderella' music uninteresting precisely because it reminds me of the R & J, but never comes up to that level. I never cared much for the Tchaikovsky 'Romeo and Juliet' till I saw Suzanne Farrell in it either, and also started listening to it after that single performance. Other than that, none of my musical taste has been shaped by any dance, period, although I started liking a lot of dance music as a result of seeing it danced. All the basic Tchaikovsky--Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker (if ever played well)--and even like 'Coppellia' for froufrou and don't even mind Schnietzhoffer for 'La Sylphide' that much. 'Raymonda' too much of the same thing over and over. Love all the Chopin in 'Les Sylphides'. But I wouldn't listen to any of these except the Chopin outside their ballets (maybe a little of 'Swan Lake' cygnets or something, not too seriously though. I take that back: I love the Bluebirds music in SB). Would have been able to go through life fine without ever hearing any Minkus or Adam. Cannot stand anything in 'Giselle' or 'Don Quixote', so never go to these ballets, no matter what stars. Love 'Appalachian Spring' with enormous passion (it's even better when danced, but deinitely stands by itself--in fact all Copland used for dance is beautiful), and some of the DelloJoio, William Schuman and others that Martha Graham used. All the music in 'Jewels' of all 3 composers, but for the music itself, especially the Faure. 'Afternoon of a Faun', of course, and anything by Debussy even if the ballet is bad. 'Le Sacre du Printemps' is fabulous, but I never have seen it (I wonder if anybody can really do it now), 'Petrouchka' is great, etc., along with other Stravinsky. Someone mentioned Ravel's 'Le Tombeau'. I'd love to see it, but it's perfect in itself and doesn't really need anything. I'm afraid that might be 'lily-gilding', but since it's Balanchine I'd still like to see it even so. Won't listen to Philip Glass in any form, have disliked all dance I've seen to it and all recordings I've been bombarded by. The Liszt Sonata is wonderful and is enhanced by Nureyev and Fonteyn in 'M & A', but it's just as good without the dance. Fragments of the Liszt 'Mephisto Waltz' in the MacMillan ballet about the Habsburg rascal sounds dreadful the way it's sped up--enough to make you hate the piece if that's the only place you heard it (even more if you had). 'Davidsbundlertanze' is magnificent if performed well without the Balachine, but I have to say I prefer to see it danced than just heard after getting familiar with the ballet.