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volcanohunter

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Posts posted by volcanohunter

    Amazon DVD Offer

    in Ballet Videos, Films, Broadcast Performances, Photos, and Interviews

    Posted

    What does the back of the box say? If it's region-free and NTSC, it should play on any American or Japanese player. There was a time when Opus Arte produced separate PAL and NTSC versions for different markets, but the Region 0 NTSC format has become standard for them.

    I don't shop at Amazon.co.uk that often because the prices are generally much higher than they are in North America, but once in a while they do offer very deep discounts, and if you're ordering from North America, the VAT is deducted. I've found that if I order five items, the deducted VAT usually covers the shipping costs. If I order six items or more, the discount is even greater, so I end up paying less than the listed price.

    There's always a risk of getting zapped with customs fees on arrival, but it happens to me infrequently.

    Royal Ballet's Giselle

    in Ballet Videos, Films, Broadcast Performances, Photos, and Interviews

    Posted

    Knowledge Network, British Columbia's educational channel, will air the Royal Ballet's Giselle, starring Alina Cojocaru, Johan Kobborg, Marianela Nuñez and Martin Harvey, on Wednesday, February 3, at 9:00 p.m. PT, with a repeat broadcast at 1:00 a.m. PT. Additional Opus Arte titles are set to follow, including Swan Lake and Wayne McGregor's staging of Dido and Aeneas.

    Canada-wide, Knowledge Network airs on ch. 268 on Bell and ch. 354 on Shaw Direct.

    http://www.knowledge...program/giselle

    Bel Air Classiques and Image Entertainment

    in Ballet Videos, Films, Broadcast Performances, Photos, and Interviews

    Posted

    I've been searching for ballet DVD's on Amazon and I noticed that Bel Air Classiques has discontinued most of its DVDs. They were supposed to release a boxed set with three performances of the Bolshoi Ballet but it was discontinued even before it was released.

    The set has probably been delayed rather than discontinued. It happens quite frequently with Bel Air and can be very frustrating when attempting to pre-order a DVD. I wouldn't be surprised if the set were to re-appear on Amazon in a week or two, though perhaps under a different catalogue number.

    A number of titles originally released by Image Entertainment have reappeared on Arthaus Musik. To illustrate with a non-balletic example:

    http://www.amazon.com/Puccini-Madama-Butte.../dp/B00005R5HG/

    http://www.amazon.com/Madama-Butterfly-Yas.../dp/B000GNOTZI/

    Arthaus Musik owns the European distribution rights to the Giselle, Le Corsaire and Sleeping Beauty you mentioned, and I wouldn't be surpised if eventually the company were to issue region-free versions of those ballets in North America. They do seem to be taking their time, though.

    About a year and a half ago Arthaus Musik purchased TDK Music DVD, which had been releasing lots of stuff from the POB and La Scala. Since then, TDK releases have been reduced to a trickle, which is unfortunate, and Arthaus has been re-issuing many TDK titles on the Arthaus label. Perhaps this is slowing down the re-issue of the old Image Entertainment titles.

    http://www.arthaus-musik.com/templates/tyC...n&limit=all

    Ballet in Poland

    in Other European Companies

    Posted

    Maksim Wojtiul has made big progresses since he left Canada.

    I'm very pleased to hear it. I thought he was wonderful, but his situation in Toronto was madness. He was already a principal in Warsaw, but the National Ballet of Canada hired him as a member of the corps de ballet. I remember watching him as Benvolio in Cranko's Romeo and Juliet and thinking: No, no, no, he should be dancing Romeo. He was by far the best male dancer on the stage.

    Retirements

    in New York City Ballet

    Posted

    I'm also very sorry to hear about Philips Neal's retirement. Not only did I never come away from his performances disappointed, I made a point of seeking them out whenever I returned to New York. I always found his dancing extremely satisfying and particularly admired how he combined the classic virtues of the American dancer with an Old World elegance. I wish him the best of luck in his next career. :(

    Royal Opera house Nutcracker question

    in Ballet Videos, Films, Broadcast Performances, Photos, and Interviews

    Posted

    I wish he hadn't!

    She is lovely of course but I think it ruins Act 2. She just sort of hops up and gets involved in everything and it detracts rather than adding to it in my opinion.

    Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm so sorry he did it. Though I think it's actually Wright's fault. It reflects what he did in his production for the BRB.

    A couple of years ago Alastair Macaulay reviewed both the Wright production and the Nureyev production for the POB. Having recently seen films of both with the same casts Macaulay saw, I have to say he was right on the money.

    When Mr. Wright first staged his Covent Garden “Nutcracker” in 1984, his first point of emphasis was to show that the story is about old Drosselmeyer’s efforts to get his beloved nephew back from Nutcracker form. His second was to make at least one part of the ballet into just another love story between the young Nutcracker and little Clara, even though both are supposed to be children. Yet these elements did not obtrude unduly. There was nothing much wrong that he and his designer, Julia Trevelyan Oman, could not have put right. Their original production demonstrated an incomplete but interesting intention to honor much of the 1892 original.

    In 1999, however, Mr. Wright overhauled his own production, giving the Nutcracker and Clara much more to do (they spoil almost every divertissement dance in Act II by trying to join in) and making Drosselmeyer a flamboyant master of ceremonies throughout, with a red-haired assistant who upstages everybody before vanishing. Almost nothing is left that makes “The Nutcracker” different from other ballets, and parts of the story, especially in the party scene, are badly told.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/17/arts/dan...7nutc.html?_r=1

    Erik Bruhn's Swan Lake

    in Swan Lake

    Posted

    He also changed Benno into a female "Friend." You get the feeling that the hero is suffocated by a gaggle of females. Why Bruhn didn't transform the Tutor into a domineering School Marm is beyond me.

    It's been years since I've seen the production, so I may be fuzzy on some of the details. The characters all had generic titles rather than names: Prince, Swan Queen, Black Swan, Black Queen, Prince's Friend. There was a brooding solo for the Prince toward the end of Act 1. Bruhn used Tchaikovsky's oom-pah ending to the White Swan pas de deux, but otherwise the choreography of the adagio was pretty standard. The Black Swan pas de deux was rechoreographed significantly. He used Tchaikovsky's original adagio (the one used in Balanchine's Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux), and for the Black Swan's variation he used the same oboe-themed music as Grigorovich. The Prince's variation and the coda used the usual music and choreography, so the pas de deux was a strange hybrid. The national dances were pretty standard, except for a Neapolitan pas de deux à la Ashton. In the final act the Prince committed suicide on his own, leaving the Swan Queen permanently trapped in her avian body. This struck me as particularly ungallant.

    Somewhere in the CBC archives there is a film of the production, apparently abridged, starring Lois Smith, Bruhn and Celia Franca, but it was made before my time, and the CBC never airs stuff from its archives, so I've only seen clips of it in documentaries about the National Ballet of Canada. The company replaced Bruhn's production with James Kudelka's in 1999, and for all the flaws of Bruhn's version, I think Kudelka's is infinitely worse.

    Nutcracker Grand Pas De Deux

    in Ballets and Choreographers

    Posted

    Here's a shocker: My favorite is Balanchine's, even tho it doesn't have a male variation (which I regret).

    I have to agree. When you compare Balanchine's version with the traditional text as it's performed by English companies, you realize that he wasn't choreographing in a vacuum. Balanchine's pas de deux is like a commentary on the original. A year ago Alastair Macaulay wrote: "Actually, though Balanchine did take considerable liberties with music and scenario, his proves closer to the original 1892 conception than almost any other."

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/arts/dance/01nutc.html

    Here's the other thing I love. Apparently Hanya Holm would say that once a movement was initiated, it would continue in space along its trajectory to infinity. This idea is most clearly visualized in Alwin Nikolais' Tensile Involvement, but I also can't help think of it when watching the intersecting limbs in Balanchine's Nutcracker adagio.

    SFB's Nutcracker at the movies

    in Ballet Videos, Films, Broadcast Performances, Photos, and Interviews

    Posted

    The SFB Nutcracker was broadcast on PBS in Seattle tonight. One second viewing, for me the waltz of the flowers and the grand pas de deux really dragged, although Karapetyan and Kochetkova danced beautifully.

    I watched the same broadcast. This morning the Paris Opera Ballet's performance of Nureyev's production aired for the third time, and in comparison Tomasson's waltz and pas de deux positively gush and flow.

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