Estelle

I've just seen a documentary about Violette Verdy, "Violette and Mr B", by Dominique Delouche. It was released last wednesday in France, but is shown only in one cinema in Paris. Delouche had already made several documentaries about some dancers (Chauvire, Vyroubova, Peretti, Loudières...) I'm afraid it won't stay much on the screen, as we were only two people in the cinema (but it was at 10 PM)- pity, as it is very interesting. It includes interviews of Roland Petit (Verdy had created his "Le Loup" in 1950) and Jean-Pierre Bonnefous, and some footages of Verdy coaching various dancers in some works of Balanchine and Robbins: Elisabeth Maurin in "Emeralds" from "Jewels", Elisabeth Platel and Nicolas Le Riche in "In the Night", Isabelle Guérin in "Dances at a gathering", Lucia Lacarra and Cyril Pierre in "Liebeslieder Walzer", Monique Loudières in "Sonatine" (excerpt from another Delouche documentary filmed in 1991) and Vladimir Malakhov and Margaret Illmann in "Tchaikovsky pas de deux". It is impressive to think that Verdy created so many choreographic masterpieces (and she also premiered "La Source" and "Episodes")... The reharsal scenes are interesting, and Verdy seems to be a charming lady with a lot of humor and joyfulness; she recollects a lot of memories of her work with Balanchine and Robbins. There also are a few excerpts of videos of herself dancing some of the roles she coaches (for example in "Liebeslieder Walzer" with Nicholas Magallanes), but unfortunately the quality of the videos is so poor (it's very fuzzy and often accelerated) that it's even hard to recognize her. Also, I find that such documentaries often are a bit frustrating, because one would like to see also a performance of the ballet itself, and not only the rehearsals... Has any poster of this board seen Verdy perform? I wonder if one could characterize her qualities as a dancer by the roles she premiered- surely she must have been a very elegant dancer with precise feet... Also, what was the rest of the repertory when she was with the NYCB? All the roles above seem to be in tutu ballets rather than leotard ones (except perhaps "Episodes"?), did she also dance some works like "Agon" or "The Four Temperaments"? Also it made me think that if I was an artistic director looking for a theme for a program, a "homage to Verdy" (people don't need to be dead to get homages, don't they?) would be a good idea, with such a great repertory to choose from. If only "Liebeslieder walzer" could enter the POB repertory (the only French company dancing it was the Ballet de Toulouse a few seasons ago)... [ December 22, 2001: Message edited by: Estelle ]

That was one of the main reasons for the change in Nancy (the city of Nancy cut its subsidies). I agree 100%. Also, I think that part of the problems is that most things in France still are very much Paris-centered (even if there has been much progress in the last two decades), and so the changes in regional companies are not taken very seriously- the powers that be seem to think that as long as there is some ballet in Paris, that's the only important point... Also none of the regional companies has had a long, continuous history (even though there had been ballet companies quite early in many cities, after all Dauberval's "Fille mal gardée" had been premiered in Bordeaux in 1789): there have been so many changes of directions and policies, with the work of one director being destroyed by the next one, that it was hard to build anything on such foundations. And most people don't seem to understand that building a company and a repertory takes some time, and not only the three or four years an artistic director often lasts. Also, another reason why ballet probably is more and more foreign to most people is that there is so little of it on television. I've been told that in the 1970s and 1980s, the public television was showing some ballet quite often, but now it is almost unexisting (probably because all TV channels, including public ones, are interested only in audience figures and advertising money). Of course ballet on TV can't be compared with a real performance, but at least the people who see it know that ballet exists, and it can lead them to pay more attention to it (that's what happened to me thanks to a program about Nijinsky)...

Except when it becomes too expensive and only a few people can afford it... And also "elite" seems to be a word which has a lot of different meanings depending on the context (I agree than ballet is, as Mme. Hermine wrote, "not something everyone can do", and that "educated" and "literate" surely aren't bad words, but I don't think that being richer means that you have better artistic tastes...) As liebs wrote, in Europe (or at least in France, since I don't know well about the situation in other European countries), most of the art is funded by the government. There is some private funding, but not much (and especially not much for dance- it seems that the sponsors prefer to support "lasting" things like sculptures or paintings, rather than performing art). There are galas from time to time at the Paris Opera, but I don't know much about them, and I don't think they represent a significant part of the budget (moreover, I think that often they are for charity purposes for other causes). I don't know if ballet is considered as an "elite art form" in France (perhaps because the word "elite" isn't used that much?), it probably depends a lot on whom you're speaking with. But surely it isn't considered as very accessible from a material point of view, as the only big company with a large repertory is in Paris and rarely tours in the other French cities (while taxpayers there pay for it, too)- and surely there are as many people able to appreciate ballet in other French cities than in Paris... Moreover, even if the ticket prices are less high than for other companies like the Royal Ballet or than opera tickets, it still isn't very accessible for most of the population, and the POB administration doesn't make much efforts about it (they often have a "you're not good enough for us" attitude towards potentiel customers that I find quite annoying), unlike many theaters. Then, I think that there are quite a lot of people who consider ballet "not intellectual enough" (often they haven't seen any), but that's another matter. I think that, as it has already been written in other discussions, ballet can't become a "mass art" without losing much of its qualities, but I wonder about the situation in some other countries. For example, I remember reading(in articles in "Ballet 2000") that in Cuba ballet was very popular, and for example that the ballet festival there was a huge event, with sold out tickets, etc. How true is it? And has it implied some negative consequences on the art form? [ December 22, 2001: Message edited by: Estelle ]

Actually, the first performance of "Concerto barocco" I saw was by some students of the Lyon Conservatoire, and there hardly were two students of the same size in the corps de ballet- but I enjoyed the choreography (and the music) so much that I forgot all the little problems...

"Là tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,/ Luxe, calme et volupté"... "Concerto Barocco". [ December 21, 2001: Message edited by: Estelle ]

I agree with Leigh about that article- most of it is very discussable, and also perhaps more likely to make the readers feel negative towards ballet than to promote it: "Ballet is an even more absurd and artificial way to tell a story than opera is", "The music is rarely first-rate, though I will except the Tchaikovsky "big three" from that, and the Enigma Variations, and one or two others." (has he ever heard of Prokofiev? Stravinsky?)... All what he seems to like in ballet is its athletic side... The last paragraph is stupidly jingoistic. Moreover, I don't agree with the "beauty out of nothingness": one of the things I like about ballet is that it stems from a long, respectable tradition, that it has a history, it definitely doesn't come "out of nothingness"...

That sounds sensible to me... It is better to have a repertory well-suited to the dancers and the company's financial means rather than being too ambitious and ending up with half-bad productions... Also there definitely is a difference of repertory between premiers danseurs and etoiles: the premiers danseurs get "big" roles from time to time (Nikyia, Gamzatti, Odette-Odile) but not so often (and for example if I remember correctly they never dance Giselle), but they also dance quite a lot of less big roles, for example the three shades in the last act of "La Bayadere", the pas de trois in "Swan Lake", etc. Also there is a rule saying that the premiere of the work should be danced by the dancer of the highest category for each role (so if an etoile and a premier danseur dance the same role in alternance, the etoile should always dance the premiere), and in general the first cast has more reharsals, is more or less entitled to "keep" the role for the next time it is performed, etc. Also the etoiles can choose their performing dates to some extent, and the premiers danseurs get what remains. So, even if the etoiles officially are "premier danseur etoile", there is quite a difference of status.

Thanks for your reply, Alymer! Well, it's hard to know any opinion of him about the ballet, because in all the interviews he gives he talks only about opera and music... (But perhaps it sometimes is the interviewers' fault, or that of the newspapers: they always ask questions about opera, as if ballet was something with no interest). Do you know what kind of dance he is interested in? I don't know much about the Ballet de Genève, now they seem to be mostly a "contemporary ballet" company, dancing works of Kylian, Naharin, Forsythe, etc. Was it different under Gall's direction? From what was written in the press then, there is no doubt that Dupond's departure was a direct consequence of Gall's arrival... Also it was a few months after the departure of the orchestra director Myung-Whun Chung, which caused quite a lot of debates back then. But do you know who chose Lefèvre? Because she already was there before Dupond's departure: for a while, she was "administrateur de la danse" (Dupond being "directeur de la danse"), then the position of "directeur de la danse" was suppressed, and then Lefèvbre became "directrice de la danse" and there was no "administrateur" any longer. All that was quite strange. By the way, while the position of directeur de la danse is well-known and the chronology is easy to find (Lefèvre- Dupond- Noureev- Hightower- Verdy- Franchetti...), I don't know much about the successive "administrateurs de la danse" and their roles. Probably they're supposed to take care of the administrative side and the directeurs de la danse are interested in the artistic side, but for example, I remember reading that when Jean-Albert Cartier was administrateur in the early 90s, it was him who insisted on re-staging some Ballets Russes works like "Le Tricorne" or "Les Biches". So it seems that they have (or had, since that position seems to have disappeared) an artistic influence too... I know that it is not a fixed number (else promotions would have occurred much earlier), but three female principals is a very low number for such a large company... That's interesting- it still works that way at the Comédie-Française, the actors always are listed by order of seniority, "sociétaires" first and "pensionnaires" second (so that it happens often that the first actor of the list does a very small role, and the main role is listed at the end because it is a young pensionnaire). Perhaps also the company could stop performing until a miracle dancer falls from the sky? I'm kidding. I agree that people shouldn't be promoted just for the sake of numbers (and those that the direction seems to like the best are not among my favorites), but I find that it is worrying that there are fewer and fewer principals. Of course one doesn't find dancers of the caliber of Platel, Guérin, or Loudières every day, but perhaps it is a sign that something has been neglected? Also, it is a bit unfair that some premieres danseuses do dance principal roles all the time (for example nearly all the Esmeraldas recently were premieres danseuses, and also most of the Gamzattis and Nikyias- but perhaps they dance a bit too much, as there are many injuries these days. Will they need to call the sujets and the coryphees to dance the principal roles? ), and yet don't get the recognition for it (for example, in the program notes there are long biographies of the principals and nothing about the premieres danseuses), and still have to dance all the less rewarding traditional roles of premieres danseuses.

I think that Violette Verdy's name was "Guillerm", not "Gueillerm" (it's funny to see that it's almost the same as "Guillem"). Carole Arbo (former POB principal) was in fact Carole Arbonies. Emmanuel Thibault's real name is Emmanuel Conjat. Maurice Béjart was Maurice Berger (he took "Béjart" because it was the maiden name of Molière's wife). Jean Babilée was Jean Gutman (he had to change his name during WWII). Lycette Darsonval (former POB principal) was Alice Perron. Among the "Russified" names, there's also Dame Alicia Markova (Alice Marks).

http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3246--253712-,00.html According to this article by Renaud Machard, the French minister of culture, Catherine Tasca, should annonce on Dec. 10 that Gerard Mortier, former director of the Salzburg festival, should become the successor of Hugues Gall as the next Paris Opera director in 2004. Before that, he should become in 2002 "director délégué" to prepare for the transition. Hugues Gall has been the Paris Opera director since 1995, and will be 64 in 2004 (there is an official age limit of 65). I don't know if the change will have any influence on the dance policy at the Paris Opera. In general, the Paris Opera directors deal mostly with the opera, and the dance policy depends mostly on the director of dance (presently Brigitte Lefevre). However, the director of dance is chosen by the PO director (for example, Patrick Dupond left when Hugues Gall became the director), and there also are some choices involving both the opera and the ballet (for example, which productions take place in Garnier and which take place in Bastille; the financial policy; the advertising...) Also the director is a member of the jury for the annual competition of the corps de ballet. Are the opera fans here familiar with Mr Mortier? Has hehad any involvement with dance? Some other POB news: the annual competition will take place on Dec 28. The available positions will be (I'm not 100% sure that it's official): -two positions of premiere danseuse -zero position of premier danseur -two positions of female sujets -one position of male sujet -one position of female coryphee -one position of male coryphee Those figures seem quite low, especially when considering that sometimes not all the positions are given (for example, last year there were two positions of premiere danseuse but only one dancer was promoted to that category). There already are 7 premieres danseuses in the company (Averty, Rique, Moussin, Fallou, Osta, Gillot, Abbagnato) but two of them (Fallou, Rique) have been absent from the stage for several reasons, and some are likely to get promoted as principals soon. And it must be especially frustrating for the female quadrilles (the lowest category): they are at least 25, and will have to compete for the only position of female coryphee! From what I've been told, the compulsory variations will be from "Suite en blanc" (female sujets), "Etudes" (female coryphees), "The Sleeping Beauty" (female quafrilles), "Paquita" (male coryphees) and "Napoli" (male quadrilles). It is a bit surprising to see "Napoli" in the last, as it hasn't been performed by the company for at least 15 years- if only they could stage some Bournonville for real!

I've found some information thanks to google: he was a gold medalist in the Paris competition in 1996, in the "couple" category (with Yukari Kami). Bizarrely he was listed as French, perhaps he was with the Jeune Ballet de France then?

I remember reading the name of Amilcar Moret Gonzalez in a list of medalists of a ballet competition a few years ago. (Hey, Jeannie, can you read us? )

Yes indeed, from what I've read Violette Verdy was trained by Mme Rousanne (1894-1958), a very famous teacher from Armenia. Koegler's dictionary says that she was trained by Clustine and Volinine, gave very few performances because she started her training too late, and opened her studio in Paris in 1958. The list of her students also included Lycette Darsonval, Serge Peretti, Yves Brieux (himself a famous teacher, who died in the early 1990s), Yvette Chauviré, Youly Algaroff, Alexandre Kalioujny, Peter Van Dyk, Jean Babilée, Roland Petit, and Maurice Béjart (and also, I think, Pierre Lacotte). Surely a very influential teacher! Verdy started her career when she was only 13 with Petit's Ballets des Champs-Elysees, and created his ballet "Le Loup" when she was 20. So she had already had a long career before joining the NYCB when she was 25...

Victoria, you might be interested in knowing that a documentary about Violette Verdy by Dominique Delouche (who has already made many documentaries about dancers like Chauviré, Loudières, Peretti...) will be released in France on Dec 19.

Robert, I've often read the explanation you mention about the nickname "Roi Soleil" coming from the ballet de la Nuit. For example, it is written in the "Ballet de la Nuit" entry of Horst Koegler's Oxford concise dictionary of ballet: "Louis XIV, not yet 15 years old, participated in various roles, culminating in his appearance as the sun, whereafter he was called the Sun King." There are two references: Marie-Francoise Christout in "Le ballet de cour de Louix XIV" (Paris, 1967) and Lincoln Kirstein's "Movement and metaphor" (NY, 1970). Susan Au also mentions it in her "Ballet and modern dance". Ivor Guest mentions the Ballet de la Nuit in his POB history, but doesn't say anything about the "Roi Soleil" name. But the second explanation might be plausible too, as the whole court of Louis XIV was organized aroung him (far more than for his predecessors, I think). There are entries about Louis XIII and Louis XIV in the recent "Dictionnaire de la Danse" published by Larrousse, but they don't say anything about that point. I didn't know before reading itthat Louis XIII had been involved in some ballets too (for example the "Ballet de la delivrance de Renaud" in 1619) and also composed the music for a ballet ("Ballet de la Merlaison") in 1635. I've never heard about the words "Roi Soleil" used for Louis XIII (often called "le Juste", and Louis XIV was also called "le Grand"), but one would need to read texts from that period...

That was not a title, but I remember an amusing quote by Clement Crisp saying something like "The Nutcracker is like the flu, it comes back every winter and there is not much one can do except waiting until it is over"... Wasn't is Buckle who wrote something like "One Nutcracker nearer to death"?

It is very interesting to read all the reviews and various opinions about the Ballet de Cuba. When they came to Paris a few seasons ago (I didn't see them), nearly all the reviews focused on the poor production standards (sets, costumes, music...), and on the repertory choices (works which were danced by the POB during the same season), and included very little about the style of the company. I don't know if all the works which are listed on their repertory page still are danced by the company, but the list is impressive (especially when one considers that it's a rather "recent" company and not especially rich financially). I wonder how they look like in Robbins' "In the Night"... About the productions of "Giselle": if I remember correctly, Alonso's production of "Giselle" was in the POB's repertory in the 1970s, and then in the 1980s there was Mary Skeaping's. The present one (lasting from the early 1990s) is by Patrice Bart and the late Eugene Poliakov, and I don't know what the differences between them are...

Thanks for the explanation about "turkeys"! If I remember correctly, Nureyev did a "Washington Square" for the POB in the mid-80s, but it was not danced again by the company. It was the same for his "Manfred". I've no idea how much critical and public success those works had, but I suspect that they weren't well received. On the other hand, his "Nutcracker" (which I haven't seen) still is in the repertory, and seems to be quite successful with the audience (but well, perhaps it's a bit the same as what rg wrote about "Swan Lake": a "Nutcracker" always sell tickets...) In terms of bad taste and pretension, I remember a Bejart, work supposedly about Pasolini, which was quite something, but it seemed to have an audience.

Just a question from a non-native speaker: does it just mean an especially bad ballet, or does it have to have other characteristics?

Talking about sequels: actually, one of the things that made me feel disappointed about Ek's "Sleeping Beauty" is that he didn't use the second part of the tale, where Aurora is married with Desire but Desire's mother is an evil cannibal witch, Desire is away for some reason and his mother persecutes Aurora and tries to eat her children, etc. Surely there'd be a weird ballet to do about it! Back to Giselle: I wonder if the original ending (with Albrecht marrying Bathilde) was very successful when it was staged? Probably it was suited to the mentalities of the period (with Albrecht marrying someone of his own class) but now it would be perceived as a rather selfish behavior (forgetting Giselle)...

Some other cast changes are announced on the POB web site. It seems that, unfortunately, Marie-Agnes Gillot is injured. On nov 17, she couldn't dance Gamzatti, and the role was danced by Eleonora Abbagnato. Abbagnato will dance all the Gamzattis that Gillot was supposed to dance, so she will perform on Nov 21, 23, 26, 28, and 30 (and will also dance Nikya on Dec 12 and 26). Gillot still is scheduled to dance Nikiya later, let's hope that before then, she will fully recover! She's had a very busy year, dancing in nearly all the productions.

Not really: there often are two parallel series of performances, one in Garnier and one in Bastille, but as far as I know there are now two really separate "groups" in the corps de ballet, it depends on each production. And there often are dancers who dance in both productions in the same period (mostly among the principals, but also among the soloists and demi-soloists). At the end of the season, there sometimes are so many injured people that one wonders if the company actually is big enough! By the way, Kate, your SAB alumni page is very interesting. What are the Wien awards winners? Is it a special award for the "best" SAB students? It must be frustrating for those young dancers to be told they are excellent, yet not to have an opportunity to get an apprenticeship into the company... [ November 16, 2001: Message edited by: Estelle ]

I think that the POB is larger (but I don't remember the exact figure (at least around 120). Perhaps also the Kirov and the Bolshoi? But of course, having large public subsidies help...

A famous example of an artist who wanted his works to die at the same time as him is Franz Kafka, who had asked his friend Max Brod to burn all his manuscripts. Max Brod didn't obey- perhaps not a very faithful gesture, but better for the history of literature... I wonder if Brod actually owned the copyright for Kafka's works, and if what he did really was legal? But the situation for ballet is quite different from that of literature: a text is fixed and doesn't depend on staging and interpretation (though sometimes there are problems of abusive cuts and rewritings by heirs... For example it happened with Rimbaud's correspondance, the first published version of it had been changed by his sister and brother-in-law, in a rather stupid way in general... For example they had changed the sums of money he mentioned because they wanted him to look richer than he actually was! ) so it's less likely to be destroyed. While it is the right of the choreographer to forbid his works to be danced after his death, I think that it'd be a pity if all choreographers did that- and I'd rather see a distorted work that nothing at all. Also the idea that seeing only recent works would be fine disturbs me. Leigh wrote: "Forsythe counters that ballet would be fine, other living choreographers will fill the void." Well, perhaps I've missed something, but it doesn't seem to me that many works as great and lasting as "Giselle" or "Swan lake" have been created in the last few years. Not all artistic periods are equally rich... That's anecdotical, but I couldn't help laughing while reading "Paris Opera Ballet is his favourite outside company."- remembering an interview in a German newspaper one or two years ago where he was extremely negative and scornful about the POB dancers, calling them "soulless robots" for example.

Colin, there have just been some changes in the castings announced on the POB web site. The cast for nov 19 remains the same, except that Fanny Fiat is dancing the third variation instead of Muriel Halle. But the new cast for Nov 21 is: Agnes Letestu (Nikiya), Marie-Agnes Gillot (Gamzatti), Jose Martinez (Solor), Benjamin Pech (golden idol), Yann Bridard (slave), Abbagnato/ Osta/ Fiat (variations). So you'll get to see two very different casts- please let us know about your impressions! Another big change is that Moussin, Bart and Pujol will be dancing on Nov 25 instead of Letestu, Martinez and Gillot. There also are some changes in secondary roles.