volcanohunter

I certainly never meant to suggest that all American dancers are necessarily poor actors. Obviously ABT does have American principals, as do companies abroad, but for some reason or other they are a minority in companies that are heavy on narrative ballets. I mean, there must be a reason why 72% of ABT's principals, 78% of San Francisco Ballet's principals and 82% of Boston Ballet's principal are not American. (I'll be the first to state that this sample is not scientific.) Perhaps it's because Americans are used to being self-effacing. One thing I do remember about that NYCB broadcast of Swan Lake was part of the conversation between Beverly Sills and Darci Kistler where Sills asked about a hypothetical scenario in which Kistler found herself at odds with a choreographer. Without hesitation Kistler replied that she would defer to the choreographer. Certainly this is not always the case. In a South Bank Show program about Sylvie Guillem it was implied politely by others and more bluntly by herself that she never hit it off with Kenneth MacMillan because she was not willing to defer to him in this way, at least not until he gave her a convincing reason. Perhaps this difference in approach is why American dancers sometimes strike me as having less dramatic teeth. Or maybe Americans are simply less demonstrative by nature. I have definitely seen dancers looking embarrassed in certain works. I've never seen an American look comfortable doing Spectre de la Rose, for example, whereas dancers like Manuel Legris have no inhibitions about that ballet's, um, flowery mannerisms. I've also seen many Sugar Plum Fairies that were less than regal, Kitris that were less than fiery and Giselles who weren't completely heartbreaking. The acting in The Nutcracker is minimal at best, particularly for the adults, so I wouldn't count on that providing good training for a tragedy like Romeo and Juliet. Sure, all Americans are familiar with Romeo and Juliet. But can we honestly say that American actors put Shakespeare's play across as convincingly as their English colleagues? This sort of thing requires specialized training and practice. I don't see how narrative ballet is any different. I'm sorry to sound like a self-hating American!

Sorry to keep discussing this when the intended topic is Romeo & Juliet, but I'm a bit confused. Why not stage Don Q for the NYCB, Mariinsky, NBoC and any number of other interested companies?

Is the problem that Suzanne Farrell holds the rights to Don Quixote? Perhaps the solution for New Yorkers is to head north to see the National Ballet of Canada's production the ballet in the third week of June. I'm guessing it would be an effective way to purge Martins' R&J from their systems. www.ballet.ca/performance.php?0607_season/balanchine

By the way, thanks to Dale, carbro, Mme. Hermine, BalletNut and rg for racking their brains on my behalf.

In case Eifman is thinking about it, I'd suggest a final scene in which the ghost of Kirstein rises from his grave a la "Don Giovanni" to demand the repentance of Peter Martins.

Ooh, now there's an idea. Boris Eifman does the life story of Lincoln Kirstein...

Unfortunately, no. But her style was very authentic, so if I had to venture a guess I'd say it was a NYCB dancer. Has anyone ever seen a film of the ballet performed by another company (other than ABT)? To be honest, I've never seen Lopez's performance from 1984-85. I can't say there was a great resemblance between the mystery dancer and her performance at the 1993 Balanchine Celebration. The dancer looked more like Heléne Alexopoulos if anything, but I don't even know if Alexopoulos performed that particular solo. Still, if Lopez was recorded twice, that tips the scales in her favour.

Perhaps I should provide a bit more context. In about 1992 I remember watching a program on Ukrainian state television about American musical theatre, specifically dancing. Among the clips from film musicals, which were familiar to me, they also included the "Stairway" solo, presumably to illustrate the influence of musical theatre on other forms of dance. (This was a long time ago, so please excuse me if I don't remember the exact details!) Of course I was surprised to see this particular clip because I didn't recognize it either from that 1971 Radio-Canada/CBC program or the later Baryshnikov Dances Balanchine (or whatever it was called) program from PBS. This was a live performance, the dancer was a brunette and, as I mentioned earlier, her epaulement was marvellous. Conceivably, the performance could have come from their own archives. I'm pretty sure that NYCB performed in Kiev during its 1972 tour of the USSR. Perhaps Who Cares? was part of the tour rep. To be honest, the quality of the recording seemed too good to have been made by Soviet TV cameras, but you never know. It does make me wonder whether there aren't other hidden treasures in television archives of the fSU. On the other hand, the recording could have been made during some other tour. Which also makes me wonder about hidden treasures in the archives of, let's say, French, German or Japanese TV.

I'm sure it wasn't Karin von Aroldingen as I've also seen the film of her performing that solo. This was a live performance. Is it possible that the ballet was taped during one of NYCB's tours of Europe?

I wonder if someone can identify another performance of Who Cares? Years ago I remember seeing a fabulous rendition of "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" on television, but I didn't recognize the performance. It wasn't the CBC recording with Karin von Aroldingen, it wasn't the PBS recording with ABT and it couldn't have been the Balanchine Celebration performance with Lourdes Lopez since the recording in question predated it. All I can tell you is that the performance was recorded on stage rather than a TV studio and the dancer had the most marvellous epaulement. Any ideas?

Unlike some, I don't object to the music. There is a particularly wonderful moment in the balcony scene in which Prokofiev manages to convey the idea that "the earth moved" more convincingly than in any other piece of music I've ever heard. I have grave doubts about the ability of most NYCB dancers to put this sort of ballet across dramatically. It's not that I think that American dancers are inherently incapable of acting, it's just that they often don't know how. Years ago I remember reading an interview with Simon Callow in which he was asked whether, as an actor, he found the acting abilities (or lack of them) of singers frustrating to deal with when staging operas. He said that in his experience singers were not hostile to the idea of acting, but most of them had simply never been trained to do it. I don't think it's a coincidence that ABT, whose bread and butter is full-length narrative ballets, has a roster of principals made up predominantly of foreigners. When watching American dancers perform narrative ballets, particularly of the fairy-tale variety, I often get the feeling that they're vaguely embarrassed to be portraying a fairy queen, pirate or bluebird. Europeans and South Americans don't seem to have the same sort of hang-ups. I think it's unreasonable to ask dancers who are usually asked to make the projection of their personalities secondary to the projection of choreography and who are discouraged from "emoting" in plotless ballets to suddenly produce fully realized, flesh-and-blood characters on stage. I have even greater doubts about Martins' ability to choreograph a piece like this. I wouldn't go so far as to say that his production of "Swan Lake" is the worst I've ever seen (I'd give that booby prize to James Kudelka's production for the National Ballet of Canada), but I tried watching it again just the other day and didn't make it past the second act. Sure, there was lots of dancing--too much, I'd say--but there was absolutely no dramatic focus. And what could possibly be gained by presenting a new "Romeo & Juliet" in the same season ABT will be performing its production? I can only see NYCB's ballerinas suffering in comparison with the likes of Alessandra Ferri and Martins suffering in comparison with MacMillan (though personally I prefer the Cranko and Neumeier versions of R&J). I really don't see the point of NYCB transforming itself into a pale imitation of ABT.

I hope you wil share your impressions of the production with us, Azulynn. Those of us far from Paris have to live vicariously through posters like you.

Why?!!! Oh, the horror, the horror of it all...

Thank heavens that ABT recognizes Tudor as an indispensable part of its heritage by reviving his ballets periodically. Perhaps it's a good thing that he choreographed relatively few of them as this makes it easier to keep the majority of them in circulation. It's also a great and wonderful thing that the Royal Ballet respects its Ashton heritage and that the POB makes efforts to preserve the legacy of French choreography. But as Helene has already pointed out, it would be nice if the ballets of Tudor, Ashton, Petit et al. were accessible to audiences beyond New York, London and Paris. Video recordings are a useful stopgap measure, and I'm grateful that TDK is about to release its fourth DVD of Petit ballets. Sadly, the BBC seems to be in less of a hurry to put Ashton to disc. But as for Tudor, there isn't much to be had at present For that matter, Balanchine's presence on video ought to be a whole lot greater given the scale of his output.

Of all the triticum varieties, how clever and witty of you to come up with Polish Wheat given the setting for Coppelia I'm so pleased you approve, leonid!

Perhaps the only way to avoid this transatlantic confusion is to say that Swanilda shakes an ear of triticum turgidum polonicum or some other suitable variety!

Karen Kain worked with Petit frequently in the 1970s and could be inclined to acquire his works for the National Ballet of Canada, but if the cost is prohibitive, that would rule out the possibility and leave the POB as one of the few companies with a budget big enough to accommodate him. Petit made "Kraanerg" for the NBoC in 1969 and the company acquired "Le Loup" the following season, but as near as I can tell, it hasn't performed any Petit since. As for the gap between Petipa and Last Thursday, the NBoC is also a terrible offender against Antony Tudor. Early in its history the company acquired "Lilac Garden," "Gala Performance," "Offenbach in the Underworld" (premiere of the second version) and "Dark Elegies" thanks to the longstanding relationship between Tudor and Celia Franca, who'd begun her career with Ballet Rambert. In the 1960s it added "The Judgment of Paris," in the 1970s - "Fandango," and some of these ballets were revived periodically in the '70s and '80s, but since acquiring "The Leaves Are Fading" in the early '90s, I don't think it's performed any of his ballets. Balanchine seems to be the just about the only choreographer whose currency increased following his death and/or retirement. Since the Ballet National de Marseille isn't going to perpetuate Petit's legacy, he should consider making his ballets more accessible to companies rather than risk their eventual extinction.

I think Kathleen is exactly right. When Americans talks about "wheat" and Britons talk about "corn" they're actually referring to the same thing. Folk traditions tend to be very old, so it's unlikely that a ritual such as shaking the stalk would have incorporated a plant that had been introduced to the European continent just a few centuries earlier. However, if any choreographer got it into his or her head to reset the ballet in, say, Mexico, then it's conceivable that the heroine might even use an ear of maize instead

I'd like to know myself. San Francisco Ballet staged "L'Arlésienne" around 2001(?), but that's the exception rather than the norm. Petit isn't the only European choreographer whose work gets little respect in the English-speaking world. We've been taught to revere formalism rather than theatricality. I think the Petit last brought his company to the United States in about 1990. Between touring becoming too expensive and very little decent performing arts programming on television, is it any wonder he's fallen out of the American consciousness? The Ballet National de Marseille may not be performing his ballets anymore, but on the upside the Paris Opera Ballet seems determined to pick up the slack. It's adding his "Proust" to its repertoire this year and I suspect other Petit ballets will be staged in the future. Many of his ballets are large scale, so certainly not every American company could mount them. And pardon me if this sounds harsh, but few American dancers are really convincing actors, which would also present a problem.

Careful! There are two Galicias in Europe. One is in Spain, the other straddles Poland and Ukraine. It's the second one you're after as Coppelia is most certainly set in central Europe. Galicia, known as Galicja in Polish and Галичина (transliterated as Halychyna) in Ukrainian derives its name from the old town of Halych in western Ukraine. The main city in Western (Polish) Galicia is Kraków (though the city wasn't incorporated into Galicia until the late 18th century); the main city in Eastern (Ukrainian) Galicia is Lviv. "Ballet Land" actually isn't a bad way to describe the setting. The music and costumes in most productions owe at least as much to Hungary as to Poland. The residents of this particular village are equally at home with the mazurka and csardas, so between them Delibes and Saint-Léon created a generalised central Europe. It's not unlike the ridiculous pastiche of Native American culture that MGM presented in Annie Get Your Gun.

taoofpooh, my sister saw Yukichi Hattori in Rubies on Saturday, October 14, and she said he was absolutely fantastic. In particular, she remarked on his speed and expressive hands, and said he completely outshone his partner.

There's also casting for the New Year's Eve performance of Coppelia here.

You should make a point of never sitting too close to the orchestra pit while Valery Gergiev is conducting. He grunts along with the music all performance long.

Some one should have told them that's what box seats are for. I remember attending an opera performance in eastern Europe. It was Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina, so the theater was practically deserted. By the second act, those of us who were seated in the central balcony of the first tier moved to the first few rows. Midway through the act a couple who hadn't been there before came in and sat down in the last row. In no time all sorts of unseemly noises were coming from back there, but I didn't dare turn around to look. I don't know whether it was an illicit tryst, or whether they were just an ordinary middle-aged couple that had sneaked into the theater get some privacy, as in that part of the world it's not at all unusual for several generations to live together in a small apartment. In any event, they weren't able to use a box since that opera house had a practice of locking unoccupied boxes once the performance began. No doubt the theater had previous experience of boxes being used for amorous purposes. A number of years ago I remember watching a documentary series about Covent Garden in which an usher described just such an incident.

Igor Zelensky has been injured. Any word on who wil replace him during the Ottawa run? "Russian dancer hurt in practice for Swan Lake in Ottawa" www.cbc.ca