cubanmiamiboy

My fourth Nutcracker had Lauren Fadeley and Jovani Furlan.  He has been a savior for the company's taller ballerinas-(like Fadeley herself or Jordan Long).  Lauren Fadeley is NOT  a lightweight ballerina.  She's tall and plump...in a way one doesn't really see that much nowadays-(think of a young Anastasia Volochkova).  Furlan  was amazing at partnering her.  Those over the shoulder jumps were done spotless.  I was really impressed..

Balanchine's Act I always mesmerizes me, as it constitutes a textbook on social etiquette and learning process for the youth.  This kids are basically mirroring, since their very first encounters, what the adults do.  They do grave salutations...they bow...the boys act with chivalry with the girls...the girls learn how to properly dance with the male adults.  And they get to learn from such early age. They interact along the adults during the party, not being merely relegated to the side.  I bet Balanchine's childhood memories comprised some of what we see in his party scene.  I find it very charming, and I really plan to follow some of this when mi daughter grows up a little more.  I'm a sucker for social etiquette.  😉

Let's jump to act II...to the divertissements...specifically to "Tea".  Do I notice that in ALL the performances the two porcelain dolls were performed by Asian dancers...? Do I see something strange in their costume...? As if unfinished...? I guessed right, as a dancer later on confirmed.  "Tea" has gone politically correct down here also.  The untidy feeling on the dolls mean they don't wear wigs anymore and there's no makeup either.  And their roles have gone to real Asian dancers out of a rejection of cultural appropriation.  No more pointing fingers either.  Verbatim.

To be continued.

On 11/12/2018 at 1:56 PM, Helene said:

I don't see it that way at all:  ballet staging is like a giant game of Telephone, and a lot of changes are made over the years.  There's no reason that dancers who weren't born when Valse Fantasie was choreographed should know more than what has been passed down over half a century, and I don't see him suggesting otherwise.  In fact, one of his constants is that it's critical to have the people who worked with Balanchine coach what Balanchine told them, not that it's the dancers' fault in any way.

I asked on Youtube his opinion on Villella' 1952 staging for MCB and he didn't answer me. I asked him a similar question on his take on the validity of Le Palais de Cristal for POB and he sort of brushed me off with something like "that's an entirely different ballet than Symphony in C" and a few words on performance rights, but not really addressing the issue of choreography, as I wanted. It felt as if he didn't give validity to anything that was out of his personal experience/scope.

Definitely Balanchine because of its adherence to the original libretto, it's meaty group dances of acts I and II-( Snow/Flowers)- and its sharpness and quickness-( we know how lethargic some other versions are..).

Sir Peter Wright's for its old charm and its unsurpassed Imperial ballet- generated Grand Pas full in its four sections format.

I despise the Soviet revisionists takes. Vainonen's at MT with its Fee Dragee pseudo Rose Adagio makes me cringe. Same with Grigorovich ludicrous Grand Pas and those darned candelabras...

The whole deal of Masha/Sugarplum as one is horrid.

23 hours ago, Helene said:

That's how the newish PNB tree in the Falconer re-design for Balanchine's Nutcracker works.  It's also from the fir/pine families and matches the landscape in the film that plays during the overture, so it's tall and narrow, rather than wide, and looks like they could have gone out, found their tree, and had someone cut it down for them.  To me, the unfolding and the slight sway makes it breathe and look more organic.

I agree.  In any case, even without the trap door, we HAD a whole tree during the battle scene.  Now we don't.

Anyhow...going on to the dancing, I must say it was excellent.  They added  more performances this year, and on Sundays they did a double .  So in between Fort Lauderdale and Miami I was able to watch 5 different casts for Sugarplum/Cavalier.  They were Nathalia Arja/Rainer Krenstetter, Jordan Elizabeth Long/Chase Swatosh, Katia Carranza/Renato Panteado, Lauren Fadeley/Jovani Furlan and Jennifer Lauren/Kleber Rebello. 

My favorite couple was Jennifer Lauren/Kleber Rebello.  Lauren is a very feminine, beautiful, glamorous ballerina with a regal demeanor-(I have met her, and can testify that she really owns the term "class").  Her Adagio with Rebello was very dreamy and full of accents.  Rebello is a short dancer, but one that has proven over the years to lift his ballerinas with no sweat.  They really worked their way through the pas in a  truly dreamlike manner.  The coda was fantastic, as Lauren gave us her round of pique turns in a way very few ballerinas do nowadays...meaning that she really covered the whole stage, and to do so without being behind the music her right leg wasn't just placed  on the floor, but she rather elevated it high and finished the step with a small jump on pointe,  looking pretty much as men when they do their jete menages.  It was very impressive.  Rebello was also great during his pirouettes a la second and his jetes menage, although being so short limbed really takes away, visually wise,  a lot of his efforts.  The guy has a very plush landing, and a wonderful ballon.  

Nathalia Arja was MAGNNIFICENT as Dewdrop.  I have had regarded Ashley Bouder as my number one favorite on this role.  That was until Arja danced it.  She has not the most ideal physique...she's very short and thin, her body totally absent of any curves.  But her dancing is spectacular...she really embodies that cliche of "little dancer dancing big".  

To be continued.

I has been a wonderful Nutcracker season down here, dancing wise. i saw 5 performances, each of them with a different Sugarplum/Cavalier cast!  But first things first.  Let's ruminate a bit on the whole digital "new concept" of the production, now in its second year.

How do I start..? Well, with the creator of the production himself. Mr B. If he famously declared that "The Nutcracker IS the tree", then MCB does not has a Nutcraclker. Because the idea of substituting the physical growing tree to  with a digital nemesis halfway thru its growing was a disastrous one.  Lourdes, or whoever gave the green light to such horrendous thing just killed the magic of the whole scene.  Last year I spoke to her and specifically asked her the reasons for having done so.  She mentioned that the old tree was already too old and wobbling...and that because of the absence of a trapdoor, then the tree couldn't grow from inside out as in the State theater.   Well...yeah...there was no trapdoor, but I remember the old production....and the tree GREW, unfolding from the floor all the way up. Yes...maybe the material wasn't as hard as the one in NYCB, or the thing wasn't as luxurious...but it certainly grew all the way, and the whole of the battle scene was seen with the full tree in display.  Now, as I mentioned last year, only a sad lower foliage is what we see as a prop during the scene.  It is unfortunate that such magical moment where people even applaud to the mix of the percussion instruments giving momentum to the end of the growing is gone now.  They really killed this very important moment of the ballet.

The projections during the overture are more pleasant.  They display an angel flying around Nuremberg and they conduct us from outside to the interior of the Silberhaus home.  Then, during the added Sleeping Beauty music scene, more projections come,before Clara enters the room.

Even so...I still find strange the mixing.  It is as if a hybrid between film and ballet.  I predict this production won't survive the test of time.  This digital scenes might look like novelties now, but they will look outdated in 5 years from now. 

MOre to come.

4 hours ago, Barbara said:

Cristian, I believe it's next weekend in NYC. I thought about going but also thought it seemed a bit iffy and what with all the craziness of the season, I decided to pass on it. I hope someone goes and look forward to their report. 

I decided to pass. My instincts about contemporary/ modern dance are usually on point, and after seeing pics and reviews I decided this was not for me. I rarely like anything modern, and even if this might involve pointes-(Vishneva, right...?)- and another chance to see Marcelo, I didn't want to have my last impression of them as an uninteresting one.

The last modern thing I saw I REALLY liked was Appalachian Spring by the Martha Graham company.😶

Has anybody seen this...? I just saw that it will be playing tonight down here...but I don't know...it sounds iffy to me...

On 12/5/2018 at 9:21 PM, Drew said:

An article in English addressing the Putin tattoo, Polunin's texts re Putin, Russia, and Ukraine on Instagram, and a bit (just a bit) of the contexts for them:

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/news/sergei-polunin-putin-tattoo-instagram-russia-ukraine-ballet-hozier-video-a8668126.html

 

A bit OT...but even The Independent uses "principle" instead of "Principal". Is that accepted...? I thought not.  

On 12/2/2018 at 4:06 PM, fondoffouettes said:

Messmer basically says as much in the Ballet Review Q&A. She mentions that the Miami City Ballet dancers socialize outside of work but that she prefers to keep a clear division between her professional and personal life. 

Oh yes...ever since I moved here I started seeing the dancers around...club scene and even at the beach. They look like a tight group of happy youngsters. Never seen Messmer with them...

On 11/23/2018 at 3:42 PM, dirac said:

Many thanks for the good thoughts, cubanmiamiboy.  I hope it was an uneventful night on duty for you.  I was too occupied assisting with side dishes yesterday to post, but I hope everyone had a great turkey day.

(I do not hold with Calvin Trillin that it would be a good idea to make Thanksgiving Spaghetti Carbonara Day. By me a roast turkey is a tasty and relatively simple dish for feeding a large group of people that won't break your pocketbook and that most people at your gathering will like or can at least choke down. You can also find turkeys as small as 8.5 pounds for smaller groups.

 

 

Well, Dirac...lucky me! The unit census was low that night-(historically people don't go to the hospital on holidays)- so they asked me if I wanted to go home as soon as I got there. And of course I gladly said "yes!!". I drove to my best friend's mom's house, where I had been invited. My mom was there too... everyone was delighted that I had been able to join the party, and we ate...PORK!-(😂). (We Cubans find turkey a bit dry...that is..,😏)

Great night it was. 

On 11/13/2018 at 10:51 PM, fondoffouettes said:

So even if you tweak a gesture here and there, it's still an eroticized fantasy of the Middle East. So how do you "fix" a piece whose very concept may be offensive to some? I guess you just do the best you can, and make compromises.  

You do it...the sexuality is toned down or eliminated, the orientalism is toned down or eliminated...so the exoticism of the makeup and even, at some point, elements of the costume-(too revealing...?).

And then the charm is gone and the variation is unrecognizable.

On 11/29/2018 at 11:17 PM, l'histoire said:

Realize I'm several weeks late, but no, I still don't understand what Balanchine's obsession with Farrell with was "bizarre." Bizarre in what way? Balanchine had fallen in love with young ballerinas before, that was nothing new; he'd done a lot of choreography for them, too. Farrell wasn't the first. I'd just like to know why the Farrell/Balanchine affair was "bizarre," when his others - with LeClerq, Tallchief, etc - weren't

I've seen the clips of the vision scene. Watching Balanchine bare himself up there for everyone to see and judge him as a confused, weak, trembling old guy dying of love for a young, unnatainable Suzanne Farrell seems almost like a self flagellation. Extremely bizarre. Or at least in my book.

Aggh.... dreadful.

Wishing you all a blessed, bountiful and warm Thanksgiving with your family and friends.  May God keep providing for good health and fortune. Myself on duty tonight, but we might have a small celebration at the hospital. 🤗😍🤗😍

4 hours ago, Mashinka said:

  For many people imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery.

It can be funny too. I can't tell you how many Americans-( seniors mostly)- have reacted with Desi Arnaz' words and mannerisms to their knowledge of of me being Cuban. They find it funny, and so do I. Of course...I know how "real Cuban or not" such portraits are...but as they are not malicious I can't really be offended. And I'm not.

1 hour ago, canbelto said:

There is a YT clip:

 

Choreo wise, this fragment is all Ponomarev....

3 hours ago, Amy said:

 As explained, Gamzatti dances Dulcinea's variation  . Whether or not it's the variation that Olga Preobrazhenskaya danced in 1900, we can't be sure. Again, this variation is not notated, so Ratmansky stuck to the traditional choreography danced in the west with the Italian fouettes.

Wow. Thanks for the report. I am still confused with Dulcinea's/Gamzatti variation. In DQ Dulcinea does not do Italian fouettes. She does sautes on pointe, sissonnes and a round of chainee turns at the end of her variation. Queen of Dryads does Italian fouettes though....

On 11/8/2018 at 4:58 AM, volcanohunter said:

In the way that La Dame aux camélias is bizarre? 

No...not in a XIX Century way. More like in the way that the gossiping 60's NYC dance world-(and probably many others sitting in the audience at the time)- knew of how bizarre the Balanchine/Farrell afair was.

5 hours ago, Mashinka said:

An ineffectual  last act viewed through a scrim is no substitute for the feast of opulence that the Russians give us, including Vikharev's version.

Well...if to the "last act" you refer to the wedding of Gamzatti, then the Russians might had given us opulence pre Bolshevik era, because the Soviets gave us no act whatsoever. And Vikharev's was buried so early into Oblivion that it can't really count. What the Russians now have is a truncated production, no more..no less. Ratmansky could had corrected the misses and faults of  Ponomarev's Makarova's and Vikharev's. I hope he did.

I haven't seen the ballet, but for what I have read, it was quite art imitating life there, and I find that bizarre.

I firmly believe that, when doing a ballet recon, the choreographer should look at the evolution of the work and not jump into too radical changes that might put the production in jeopardy, to the point of being taken out of the repertoire,  which is what has happened so far with all Vikharev works. Temple destructions are usually hard to achieve. I've seen less that satisfactory ones both in Bayadere and in Opera. If he did not achieve that final properly, then we have a problem. The other important issue is to actually bring the original libretto back..the proper story with the real ending. Fake endings do jeopardize classic works-(perfect example with Andersen's The Little Mermaid, where her original suicide is becoming lost in popular folk culture after Disney's changes. Makarova was the real savior of La Bayadere as she was able to rescue the real finale for the modern audiences. By now NYrs are familiar with the whole story, and might look at the Soviet truncated productions with displeasure. I know I do. Ratmansky could enhance this and more by having access to the real music of the last act. The interpolation Dulcinea's variation I don't think was a wise idea. If the original variation/music is not preserved...why didn't they leave Ponomarev jetes one...? Golden Idol should had stayed.

A few years ago saw a double bill at the Bolshoi that comprised the better known parts  of the score of the ballet followed by the Opera. No inyermezzo. During the Nutcracker music, the stage was open to the audience showing the Iolanta sets. At some point the soprano playing Iolanta got into the stage and kept wandering about during the WHOLE of the ballet score..as if in a dream, her blindness obvious . That poor woman did quite some wandering before the Opera started. It was very awkward to say the least.

10 hours ago, nanushka said:

Right—that's what's "obvious." What I don't see is what makes that "bizarre." That was the claim @l'histoire and I were responding to.

That elderly abuse onstage business that others have referred to...? Isn't that bizarre...?

Where is CharlieH...? I'm dying to read the reports...

On 10/30/2018 at 1:17 PM, nanushka said:

FWIW, my thought was the same as @l'histoire's — i.e. "the obvious" wasn't obvious to me, particularly given the basic gists of the Don Q / Dulcinea relationship and the Balanchine / Farrell relationship.

I can just imagine the inner circle of dancers who knew the whole of the drama between the two seeing such a thing onstage, and I'm sure many of those who have seen the original video, and by now know the details of the platonic affair, have drawn conclusions and parallelisms. I know I would