Klavier

As long as she didn't do both at once. . . .

What on earth do any of these children have to do with the story of Romeo and Juliet? (I see in my comments from last night I thought this episode occurred in Act Two; if it's Act One, no real difference.) I'm sure the presence of children is very nice in itself, but unless they somehow illuminate the action of the ballet, even if indirectly, you might as well put Bill Clinton on stage.

In a word: "Wow!" Christoph Willibald von Gluck's austere, once-popular opera, has been revived at the Met after some twenty years in a production conceived by Mark Morris and featuring both members of his own company and from the Met ballet. Gluck's version of the Orpheus legend is a decorous one in which, following the hero's failure to keep his vow not to look back at Eurydice before emerging from Hades, he is nonetheless rewarded for giving it a good try and his lady love is restored. No Thracian Maenads tearing the disconsolate Orpheus limb from limb here. As with other of his takes on various classics (Sylvia, Nutcracker, Four Saints in Three Acts), Morris doesn't play the story entirely "straight" but infuses his own ironic twists on the settings and action. Since Orfeo is not a comedy, he generally doesn't go for laughs, but there are mildly comic moments even in the most tragic scenes, as when Heidi Grant Murphy as the god Amor, makes her first entrance suspended on a harness from the flies and slowly plummets down to earth. Orpheus, well portrayed by the great countertenor David Daniels (the production was first conceived for the late soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson) is dressed in black, slinging a guitar like a modern-day Elvis. But the most surprising twist is how Morris finds for once a real use for the vast expanse of the enormous Met stage. This is very much a choral opera, and Morris together with stage designer Allen Moyer situates the 90-member choral ensemble on a huge, semi-elliptical apparatus in which they sit on three levels like bleachers, virtually filling the rear of the stage floor to ceiling, while the dancers occupy the floor level. Evidently representing the spirits of the dead, each is costumed by Isaac Mizrahi individually as an historic or mythic personage: I saw among others Gandhi, Nefertiti, Napoleon, Elizabeth I, Lincoln, an Old Testament prophet, an Indian chief, and too many more to identify. It was like a takeoff on the old Sergeant Pepper album cover come to life, and whether one "approves" or not (I certainly did), one has to marvel at the sheer audacity of the concept. Soon one learns this huge edifice is really two structures each holding half the chorus, and each part is eventually shifted around the stage in various configurations by some dozen stagehands (who get their own well-deserved bow at the end of the opera). After Orfeo descends to Hades and gains admission to the Elysian Fields, a huge staircase-like apparatus descends from the flies through a trap door to represent the change of setting. Finally the rear wall of the set revolves to the front to represent the way up to earth from Hades. The stage machinery is utterly incredible. But the staging would not be enough to carry the evening were the musical performances not so committed and compelling. Completing the small trio of principals is Maija Kovalevska, a brilliant soprano, and the musical direction is under the ubiquitous James Levine, a conductor whom I have often found stolid and under-nuanced, but who here contributes a surprisingly lively, incisive account of the score. And then there are the dancers, doing typically inventive Morris-y things that I'm sure any of you dance aficionados can describe better than I. The dancers are also strikingly costumed - first in relatively neutral casual wear, then all in white when they play the Blessed Spirits, and finally back on earth in any number of solid colors (blue, green, red, lavender, etc.) - but what a change from the cartoonish solid colors used for NYCB's new Romeo and Juliet. The only drawback is that the Met uses the original, 1762 version of the score without alteration, thus making an evening of about 1 hour and 40 minutes with no intermission. This means some fine music Gluck later added for the 1774 Paris version (where Orfeo becomes a high tenor) is not heard, above all the familiar dance with flute solo that Balanchine used in Chaconne. But given the loss of familiar music, I can't see the grounds for textual purity, especially as many productions incorporate the best of both versions (just as they do with Don Giovanni, Boris Godunov, and other operas that exist in multiple editions). But don't let that deter you. The other three performances are probably sold out, but do what you can to keep an eye for returns, buy at the door, or catch it in an upcoming season. This is one not to miss. And both the chief music critic and the chief dance critic from the Times were as impressed as I was: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/arts/mus....html?ref=music http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/arts/dance/04morr.html

I wanted to like this. I really did. And in parts I did. As most everyone has said, Sterling Hyltin and Rob Fairchild are an entirely appealing pair of young lovers. But Romeo and Juliet is more than a couple of cute kids who fall in love and then die. It's a Shakespearean tragedy, and like other Shakespearean tragedies it depicts human beings caught in a web of their own devising, where their virtues are inseparable from their faults, and where they make tragic choices that eventually lead to their own destruction as well as the destruction of others around them. In truth, I don't know the MacMillan version very well. I have seen it only once, at ABT with David Hallberg and Paloma Herrera (though I just ordered both Ferri/Corella and Ferri/Eagling on DVD). But I know both the Shakespeare play and the Prokofiev score quite well, and I don't think Martins quite measures up to either. Part of the problem is Martins's decision to play the ballet in two acts. This is not just academic: a good intermission point is not just a convenient break for the audience to pee, buy a drink, and shmooze; it should ideally be a point where the action comes to a head, a kind of culmination requiring a respite before the drama continues. As the Times reviewer pointed out, Prokofiev's original 3-act version satisfies these needs by ending its first two acts at the balcony scene and the double murder. Martins, apparently desperate to do the ballet in two acts, places his break before the wedding scene, a relatively low point of dramatic tension. This means a lot of ground has to be covered after the intermission, and Martins further wastes valuable time in Part II by bringing on a quintet of SAB students in a divertissement that does nothing to advance the plot. Shakespeare, on the other hand, though this is an early tragedy in which there are some dramatic flaws, speeds quickly enough to the essence of the tragic action by placing the double murder exactly midway through his play -- thus an ideal intermission point for modern productions, and the creators of West Side Story understood this precisely when they placed the rumble for the Jets and Sharks at the end of their first act. Then there is the Youth Question. The idea of a very young Romeo and Juliet has its appeal, but at least in Shakespeare, Juliet's rapid transformation in particular from an obediently passive child to a glowingly passionate, strong-willed young woman is one of the most striking elements of the play. Even after Romeo's murder of Tybalt, there is no doubt where Juliet's sympathies ultimately lie (Nurse: "Will you speak well of him that killed your cousin?" Juliet: "Shall I speak ill of him who is my husband?"), and unless one can believe in a Juliet who ultimately rejects her beloved nurse ("Ancient damnation! O most wicked fiend!"), one isn't seeing Shakespeare's Juliet. And I don't think Sterling Hyltin quite got there. Casting svelte young Gina Pazgoquin as the Nurse ("ancient damnation" indeed) was ludicrous; this part should have been played by one of the "adults," of whom only Jock Soto stood out as equal to his part. Poor Albert Evans was as misused here as he was when playing Rothbart in Martins's Swan Lake, and Nikolaj Hubbe couldn't do much with Martins's thankless interpretation of Friar Lawrence -- who in Shakespeare is a far more authoritative figure. As for the others, Joaquin deLuz and Daniel Ulbricht were most successful as Tybalt and Mercutio respectively. My feeling about Danny though is that for all his charm, good looks, comedic sense, and technical aplomb, he always does the same thing -- but is that his fault or just the roles he's typecast in? I would really like to know if there's any greater range to him. Would Romeo be out of the question? I never assumed Romeo had to be 6' tall. At least his costume wasn't hopeless, but deLuz was forced to wear a positively ugly yellow thing with black piping that may have gone a long way to explain his character's characteristic anger. The color-coded Montagues and Capulets (green Montagues, red Capulets, or was it green Capulets, red Montagues) simply looked silly; surely a more imaginative, subtle way of differentiating the two clans could have been found. Still, any inadequacies in the costuming were outdone by the set. A unit set was a good idea, but why something so ugly as this grey stone fort? Has Kirkeby never seen any true Italian Renaissance architecture (not to mention true Italian Renaissance clothing)? But even the ugliness of the set couldn't compete with the hideous curtain that was brought down during intermission. I don't want to keep finding fault, especially as Robbie, Sterling, Jock, and Danny did so much to carry the performance as best they could. And Karoui's work in the pit seemed to me exemplary. But as has been pointed out, these are just "elements" in a production that had a lot of holes in it.

Haven't opened my Times yet (er, nytimes.com), but Per Kirkeby deserved every bit of that ripping. Only some of the costumes were passable.

More details from me tomorrow, but yesterday evening I saw the first Romeo and Juliet (though I didn't see Bill Clinton), and tonight I saw the first Orfeo ed Euridice at the Met. Both use a unit set, and both have a good deal of dancing. One is at best all right, with a lot of weak points; the other is one of the most imaginative operatic productions I've seen in years and an absolute triumph for all concerned. In a few words: if you have a choice, go to the Met.

We've had segments on the music, the fencing, the sets, the secondary characters. Do you think we'll get a segment on Romeo and Juliet themselves? And there they both are! two adorable kids.

We've had segments on the music, the fencing, the sets, the secondary characters. Do you think we'll get a segment on Romeo and Juliet themselves?

Nothing in Bizet's score indicates that there should be any increase in tempo in the 4th movement. Whether doing so is an NYCB tradition is another question. But purely in musical terms, I could not object to Karoui's tempi. I did object to the sudden stentando on the last two chords. Keep it in tempo, please. Just out of curiosity, I compared the tempi on a CD (London Symphony under Roberto Benzi, 1965) with those of an NYCB video I have from 1973, and the results are instructive. (Those who would like to bring their stopwatches to compare Karoui's next performance are free to do so.) 1st movement: Benzi: 7:13, half-note = 160-168 NYCB: 8:15, half-note = 136 Notable tempo discrepancy here. 2nd movement: Benzi: 9:10, dotted-quarter = anywhere from 36-44. There's a lot of tempo fluctuation in this reading, getting especially fast in the fugato in the middle. NYCB: 8:48. dotted-quarter = 40 3rd movement: Benzi: 5:57, dotted-half = 120 NYCB: 4:28, dotted-half = 112-116 The tempos are not actually much different, and since minor fluctuations can be expected at any time. Benzi probably takes a repeat the video does not, or that Balanchine did not choreograph. I'm not sure which. 4th movement: Benzi: 6:22, quarter = 136 throughout NYCB: 6:30, quarter = 132 in the first section, then increasing slightly to 140 and remaining there. Or so it seemed. Basically both performances are at the same tempo. Neither CD nor video includes the repeat of the first section (where the first group of girls lines the perimeter of the stage), so Benzi would be 8:52 with the repeat. I think omitting the repeat in this case is a desecration to Balanchine's design, which depends on ever-larger accumulation of people on stage. Subjective perception of tempo, however, is not a very exact thing. Any number of factors can affect one's sense of whether a tempo is fast or slow: the acoustics in the hall, how well the musicians articulate (a sloppy performance will sound too fast, while a well-articulated one at exactly the same tempo will sound just right), how well the dancers seem to be keeping up, the listener's own internal clock, one's memory of a prior performance, etc. Some musicians have (by analogy with perfect pitch) what can be called "perfect tempo"; for example, there are Toscanini performances recorded years apart that apply the same tempi to the second - as well as performances by other musicians (Gergiev!) who seem never to take the same tempo twice. Since I am used to Benzi, as well as a similar tempo for the first movement from other recordings, Karoui's tempo for that movement sounded quite moderate for me.

Just in brief for now, and maybe I'll expand later: a resounding yes to yesterday's opening night. A long but substantial program consisting of 4Ts, Agon, and Bizet, with Pavane thrown in I suppose as a pre-farewell to Kyra Nichols. I could have done without this short piece, which is too fey for my liking, but just about everyone looked strong throughout and all three primary works were mesmerizing. DeLuz lost control for a moment in Bizet:iii and had to put his hand down to balance himself, thus turnng a potential applause-grabbing moment into a slight uh-oh one. I found it especially interesting when observing the Bizet to consider how Balanchine's choreographic choices both mirror and play against the musical structure (perhaps more on this later). As you all know, I'm not enough of a dance person to say anything significant about any of the dancing per se, but I can speak about Karoui and his orchestra, which sounded quite good on the whole. I thought the tempos spot on throughout, and only in parts of Agon (where, most notably in the 3rd iteration of the prelude - before the pas de deux, there was a minor train wreck) did they sound ragged. This week is dedicated to Lincoln Kirstein, and at orchestra level, there are photos of his townhouse in case that's of interest. They're doing 10 Balanchine works associated with him, and as I saw at least three of the best, it was a very satisfying start.

Tuesday for me, and then back next Tuesday for the R+J premiere.

Are they likely to announce casting for the free dress rehearsal? I'm already going on May 1, and so if it's the same performers I'm not likely to stand in line for a ticket (especially as I suppose I'd have to arrive at 7 in the morning to get a seat, and that's kind of hard for someone living on Long Island).

I have seen The Rite of Spring danced just twice - once by the Béjart troupe, maybe 25 years ago (?) on a double bill with Petrouchka, a performance completely blotted from my mind except I remember hating it; and once as part of the triple Stravinsky bill at the Met a few years ago, which I also hated. Petrouchka, on the other hand, at least as interpreted by the wonderful Sascha Radetsky at ABT last season, seemed to me an ideally stageworthy ballet. But like its creator, I much prefer Le Sacre as a concert piece.

Not quite sure what you mean by that. If the music persuades, why concern yourself with the process behind it? Personally, I am a great lover of 20th-century music, and by that I don't necessarily mean the more conservative, "accessible" stuff - some of which is really tripe, IMO. I have a strong love for Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Varèse, Ives, Boulez, Berio, and Carter - just to name some of the top names that come immediately to mind. But anyone who frequents classical music forums will know this question is debated constantly, with heated opinions on all sides.

And so he is!

No doubt there have been many historical and/or literary instances where lovers were forbid by parents or other authority figures from being together. Bronzino's portrait of Lodovico Capponi (1555), hanging in the Frick, is based on an historical incident where this young man fell in love with a girl whom Duke Cosimo Medici intended for one of his own cousins. But the point is what source material Shakespeare used in creating Romeo and Juliet, and all references I know of allude primarily to Arthur Brooke's poem of 1562, which is turn is based on Italian source material from 1554 by one Matteo Bandello. I myself have not seen confirmation that the Gavia story has any direct or indirect bearing on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sources/romeosources.html http://collections.frick.org/Obj782$25010

JULIET Madam, I am here. What is your will? LADY CAPULET This is the matter:--Nurse, give leave awhile, We must talk in secret:--nurse, come back again; I have remember'd me, thou's hear our counsel. Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age. NURSE Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. LADY CAPULET She's not fourteen. NURSE I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,-- And yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four-- She is not fourteen. How long is it now To Lammas-tide? LADY CAPULET A fortnight and odd days. NURSE Even or odd, of all days in the year, Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen.

Gina Pazcoguin as the nurse? Hot, sexy Gina in a part usually played (in every Shakespearean production I've seen) by a heavy, out of breath older woman? The play makes it clear the Nurse had a daughter (now dead) who was born on the same day as Juliet. So the nurse has to be old enough to be Juliet's mother. Well, if you can believe the Capulet parents Darci Kistler and Jock Soto in the clip, they are to think of themselves as 28. This is certainly shaping up to be a very young person's R+J.

Some of this may have been more obvious to me had I seen the movie, or seen the ballet twice, or read a synopsis (which the program failed to supply). I didn't realize she was retelling anything. She just hobbled around the stage, left, and was forgotten for two hours. But if these things are so important, were they made sufficiently clear by the director/choreographer within the unmediated experience of the ballet? They weren't to me.

She's kim many years later. Then why does she appear at the beginning, years before the main action supposedly starts? And what is the point of the earlier Edward? Would anything have been lost if there were no "earlier Edward," or is he simply superfluous?

I suppose I asked for this. Enough of the basic facts of the piece can be found in the reviews cited, as well as Jennifer Dunning's review in the Times. The primary question a production like this raises in my mind is, how much of the original plot of an adapted dance work can an audience reasonably be expected to know? A narrative dance obviously has no dialogue, so unless the story is made clear through the dancing and action, or the audience already knows the story, they could remain in the dark. Perhaps the same complaint could be made of an adaptation like Balanchine's Midsummer Night's Dream, but one can reasonably assume the incidents in a well-known Shakespeare play are familiar to many educated viewers. The same cannot be assumed of Edward Scissorshands. I saw the movie once, but remember little besides the fact that there's a boy with scissors for hands. Duh. Mr. Bourne's E.S. seems to assume intimate familiarity with the movie, which perhaps most of the audience besides me had and therefore enjoyed the ballet far more than I. Example: As Dunning says in the Times, near the start of the ballet, "a dowdily dressed old woman slowly hobbles by, leaning on her cane." But who is this old crone? does she have anything to do with the story, is she just out for a stroll, or is she a theatergoer who can't find her seat and, not wanting to step over the others in her row, has wandered on stage? I have no idea because for almost two hours she is completely absent, but near the end of the "drama," the same old crone hobbles over the stage again, this time holding up a pair of scissors. This must mean something, but what it is I have no idea. Near the start of the piece, there is apparently another Edward, who is buried in the local cemetery because we see his funeral, which of course takes place in the rain, and then a projection across the stage tells us the main action is starting Many Year Later. Who this Edward is, what relation he has to the main Edward, goes by so fast that it is of course left unexplained. Time frame is confusing. The action apparently starts around Halloween, as a figure dressed in a pumpkin suit is seen running back and forth in front of a scrim (scrims are used a lot here, to make the action more mysterious -- as if that was needed). And when the suburban town (in a brilliant stage set) is first shown, there is a family apparently called Upton headed by a father who is apparently running for mayor. (Is Upton of any importance to the action? I don't think so, but he's running for mayor. Why not.) The main crisis in Act Two occurs around Christmas time, when Edward accidentally cuts the face of a boy from the town and incurs the wrath of the entire populace, except the girl he loves, Kim. But in between Election Day and Xmas there is a scene that seems to take place in summer, as we see kids in shorts and swimsuits. Did they have an unseasonably warm November with temperatures in the 80s, did the action take place over more than one year, or did they just stick July in between Thanksgiving and Christmas? Who cares, so long as it lets Bourne put together the first of several incredibly boring, long, uninventive scenes with American kids jitterbugging. The main plot, what there is of it, seems to be that Edward, after having been invented by an inventor who didn't get the hands right, happens on a suburban town, is taken in by a local family, becomes a town favorite who prunes everybody's shrubs and becomes the local barber (giving horrendous haircuts), and then becomes anathematized because (as previously stated) he cuts a boy on the face. Why the town, having taken Edward in, should so suddenly turn on him because of what is obviously an accident, is left unex., etc. As is everything else in this silly piece. Not only are main points of the action like this left unex., but other incidents are developed superfluously. By the end of the first act, Edward is still a town favorite. The opening of the second has another not very funny scene where Edward, a real cutup, becomes the town barber. But all this does is continue the same theme as before, i.e., that Edward can do neat things with his "hands." It does nothing to advance the action or develop the characters. The next scene, which for Dunning is "one of the stage production's funniest and most provocative scenes," struck me both as superfluous (because Edward has already fallen in love with the obligatory pretty young thing, Kim), unfunny, and even tasteless, concluding as it does with the neighborhood nympho apparently having an orgasm on the top of her washing machine. Whoopee. At least that didn't need explaining. I suppose this all could be more tolerable if the dancing were more interesting, or the music not so forgettable. But the action relies heavily on mime, the large ensemble dance scenes seem interminable, and only the two pas-de-deux between Edward and Kim touched me in any way. If any one else has seen this turkey and feels I'm cutting it to shreds too much, by all means respond. But despite the short (2 hour with intermission) playing time, I found most of this production alternately incomprehensible and boring.

Just came home from BAM. Unfortunately Gottlieb was right. What a waste of $80. I hope nobody else here was subjected to this charade. Maybe I'll speak about it in more detail tomorrow. But it's a pretty sad commentary on a ballet when the only thing you can praise are the sets.

Episode 2 on www.suchatragiclovebetweentwoyoungkidsfromveronanyc.com is up, with a piece on the swordfighting and a charming clip of Danny Ulbricht (Mercutio) talking about how hard it is to die. Tastefully, that is. And we have also learned Joaquin de Luz is Tybalt. I'm getting psyched for this. Really a smart marketing tool.

All these nice comments about li'l ole me! thank you, all, and I hope to reply in greater detail when time allows.

Take your cue from Shakespeare's Polonius: "tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited." How many NYCB dancers can you sharp-eyed balletomanes recognize from the little movie clip narrated by Kristin Sloan? I got Kristin Sloan right away.