cubanmiamiboy

On my way to the opera house..! ;-)

It is a manner of logic. If the seat will stay non occupied, it should not. Great theaters don't allow latecomers-(almost all of them)-, and particularly in the orchestra section-(the MET one of them). When intermezzo comes, I also wait until lights are off at the last minute to make sure the seat remains non occupied. Oh...and also...every time I see an usher approaching me anywhere..."I know where I'm going...thank you!" with a big, polite smile never fails either. At the MET I even know a couple of ushers/ladies that know about it and graciously allow me to stay there-(we even converse). One of them even scans empty seats for me! ;-)

My all time strategy in every single theater/opera house I've ever been in all countries calls for buying cheap tickets-(all the way up, no matter where)-, getting into the theater and waiting quietly on the aisles in the orchestra section while scanning potential empty seats. When the ushers close the doors and it's obvious no one else is getting in, I rapidly go to a non occupied seat usually in the VERY expensive first rows. It never fails. Even if I decide to seat upstairs, I end up moving around to good view spots.

I played the schedule around the free days at MOMA and Jewish Museum. The Russian Tea Room was very nice...although we went just for drinks. Next...Italy!

I played the schedule around the free days at MOMA and Jewish Museum. The Russian Tea Room was very nice...although we went just for drinks. Next...Italy!

And still...there were places I missed due to lack of time, like the Vermeer exhibit at the Frick. I landed in Miami at 3 PM, and was scheduled to work that very night, but I was so exhausted that I called the hospital and cancelled myself. I needed to rest that night. And then,,,one of the VERY best things...NO DRIVING FOR A WHOLE WEEK!! I was in heaven...

Happy New Year everyone and here I am, reporting on my great trip. 12/26. After settling in the east willage I took my mom to see the windows displays of some stores: Bergdorf Goodman, Saks, Bloomingdales, Lord and Taylor. We enjoyed a lot the strolling. It was freezing..! 12/27. We headed for the wonderful Magritte exhibit at MOMA. This was one of the highlights of this trip. We stayed there until the museum closed, and later on had late dinner nearby. 12/28. I called this our "Russian Day". First we devoted half of the day to go see the amazing Chagall exhibit at the Jewish Museum on 92nd St. The place was crowded. but it was worth every minute of line waiting. They cured the exhibit in such way that one could really appreciate the artist's mind changes from the gloomy colors and terryifying subjects of the war period to the colorful loving shades of his works revolving around Bella. I ended up looking at the whole exhibit twice. It was really mesmerizing. After getting out of there we stopped by St. Vladimir Russian Orthodox Cathedral on 97th. I always visit this place when in the city. Love their services and the grand, highly theatrical atmosphere inside, along with the omnipresent incense smell and wonderful a capella traditional chantings. Later on we headed for Carnegie Hall, where we enjoyed a programme by the New York String Orchestra, with Jaime Laredo conducting and pianist Leon Fleisher playing Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 4. After the intermezzo the orchestra played a wonderful rendition of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique". Our Russian Day ended up in high spirits, Russian style with some wine at the Russian Tea Room. 12/29. We headed to the Brooklyn Musem after brunch to see the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit. They filled out the place with interactive mannequins that have projections in their faces giving the impression that they are alive. I saw all those iconic cone bras and corsets from Madonna's "Blonde Ambition" period, along with many other creations for other artists. It was really good. Later on, at 5 PM we went to Radio City Hall for the Rockettes show, which I really loved. I must say I was really impressed with the uniformity of their choreographies, particularly during the "melting" soldiers section. I couldn't help but notice how, just like ballet companies, this is an almost all white troupe. Later on I read online from many sources that this is not coincidential. They have indeed included one or two black performers, but there's a factual history behind this issue, which is still highly debated with much heat in some websites. The other thing that impressed me a lot was the final live Nativity tableaux. Now that even the very Santa Claus is being questioned as politically correct, and that religious displays are almost non existent, and along with the very white corps, the whole thing looked like a thing from another time. My mother got emotional during the Nativity scene...she said she hadn't seen such big religious public displays since those she saw in her pre-Castro time in Cuba. 12/30. Lincoln Center Day. We went to see the Nutcracker at 2 pm and Falstaff at 7:30 pm. I think I will devote a more extensive review to the City Ballet production in its forum, because I did see differences in between this and the MCB staging. Falstaff was wonderful. I really prefer the traditional Zeffirelli over this production, but I must say I didn't dislike it either. James Levine did a terrific job with his musicians-(he got lots of applauses and cheerings from the audience), and among the cast it was the great Blythe who did it for me with her Mistress Quickly. What a great interpretation, both vocally and dramatically. What a funny lady. She had me laughing every time she went onstage. A funny detail...the sequence when Maestri/Falstaff is in his bitter monologue after he's thrown out the kitchen window, a horse's head can be seen eating hay thru a hole in the prop. At one point Falstaff seemed to talk to the horse and then the animal stopped his eating and gave a loud response sound to much amusement of the audience. I had a great time at the opera. 12/31. At 5 pm we attended a marvelous staging of Rachmaninoff' s "Vespers" by the Clarion Choir, as a part of the Twelfh Night Festival held at Trinity Church in Wall Street. I had seen this work before by the Seraphic Fire here in Miami, and loved it inmensly, and this time it was not less. The ensemble was directed by Steven Fox, and I was in heaven with the work's soaring movements that Rachmaninoff so masterfully molded from ancient Kievan and Byzantine chants. Soloists were Virginia Warnken, mezzo, and Oliver Merce, tenor. At 11 PM we were in another church, different denomination. I decided to spent the last hour of the year and the very first one of the new one in a musical setting given by William Trafka, the Organist and Director of Music of St. Bartholomew's Church at 51st. St and Park. He played Elgar, Howells, Bach, Debussy, Langlais and Locklair, and at midnight he gave a beautiful rendition of Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man', with Chris Nappi and Sam Lazzara as percussionists. It was really beautiful to hear this grand sounds right at midnight, in the middle of the sacral silence of the temple. I was really happy with my choice here, instead of the former one of trying to get close to Times Square to see the dropping ball. After the concert everybody wished each other well and a champagne toast was offered. Later on we strolled the area a bit getting into the Waldorf Astoria. 01/01. We attended the 12 PM service at St. Patrick. I was a little dissapointed. There was no music at all, and the church is under a massive renovation. At 7 Pm we went to another offering of the Twelfth Night Festival, this time by the Gotham Chamber Orchestra directed by Neal Gorem. We saw here the French baroque opera "La Descente d'Orphee aux enfers" by Charpentier at St. Paul's Chapel. This was a lovely two acts work for an original cast of ten singers and eight musicians, which was the way they presented it. The opera ends with Orphee's departure with Euridice from the underworld, without the subsequent tragic events of the myth. There seemed to had been a third and four acts, now lost. Nevertheless, I loved the production. This operas are rarelly staged, and I try to catch every chance to see them live. Orphee was protrayed by Daniel Curran and Euridice by Jamilyn Manning-White. 01/02. We departured the city just in time before the snow storm...

Yes Helene..I. want to echo your words of thanks. Ballet Talk has been quite a wonderful cyber companion for me in quite few years.. and of course...THANK TO YOU for so wisely calm down heated discussions at repeated ocassions. I am FREEZING in the city right now, but having a SUPER good time. Happy New Year everyone!!

Just taking off..!!

I think that's just what I like of her characterization..! "Let's forget about the whole children stuff and get down to ballet business.."

I was aware of that before starting this, and that is why I tried first to show them in the John Clifford's page format-(maybe he can show them..? I don't know).

Oh, thanks for that pic, rg.! I had never seen it before. Now more than ever I'm almost sure that Belinskaya's role was a dancing one. I see Legat here in a different costume as the one he wears in the pic with Preobrajenskaya as Coqueluche for Act II. I wonder how they designed his transition from Act I into Act II, libretto wise. Belinskaya also wears a different attire from the sleeping camisole she wears in the said other pic. This is Act II here, right..? And if so...Legat then changed into his other costume to dance with Fee Dragee the Grand Pas..? So the Nutcracker Prince AND Coqueluche were merged into one dancer since Imperial times..? How confusing... Well, maybe Vainonen's scheme is not then that far from the original conception...? Giving that his is the closest in time to the original...

Ditto

They scheduled me to work tonight-(writing from the nurses station right now)-, but I ordered chinese food around midnight. Feliz Navidad!!

I second your thoughts, Paul. I absolutely ADORE this ballet, and I think it is a shame that the younger generations are not getting to know it. Very "diva-like", Taglioni's character NEEDS a well known ballerina within a given territory/company. The mannered/affected style of the piece also needs the right treatment. Otherwise one can tell the inability of a young starlet to show a convincing grand dame demeanor. Alonso, of course, epithomized this. Yes...bless your soul , Glebb.

Yep..that's why I assumed that is supposed to be Opium...and given that he gets sort of "loose" after smoking it...and then sleepy...

https://plus.google.com/+JohnClifford1969/post Try this... I just copied the whole thing character by character. It will direct you to Clifford's page and it there you will see the links to the Youtube videos.

How frustrating...I can't copy/paste..!

I just discovered the few clips on Youtube for the '58 recording of City Ballet's Nutcracker, and wow...what a beauty. I had heard of Mitchell's original variation for the Arabian Dance, but not until now had I seen it. I know that the Imperial production had a male character here, so I loved to see Balanchine's faithful rendition of the past-(I think this is the ONLY time I've seen this variation done by a male....and to be honest, I loved it more than the one he reworked later on). Toward the end Mitchell can be seen smoking a hookah, and right away he seems to get into sort of a trance that eventually makes him go to sleep. Is there a reference to opium by any chance...? Oh, that would be a total horror for modern America I would say... Adams' Sugar Plum variation is just so crispy...the music plays faster and it has in general a way better sense of movement than the slowed down modern renderings. Her flowing costume was also more beautiful than the little mauve number we know-(which I think is a bit poor looking) Kent's Dewdrop was just amazing.

So I woke up at 12:00 and made up my mind to go watch the 1 PM performance, and so I did-(yes..I'm pretty fast! ;-) ) The house was FULL of youngsters, and I'm not particularly patient, so I thought "disaster". But no...considering the huge amounts of little ones, the music could be heard. I took a reflective stand today while watching the performance. I went back in time, and looking at all those kids I thought of how lucky they are that they are being exposed at such early age to this little gem. Growing up in the middle of the cold war in communist Cuba, with Christmas suppressed as a national holiday long before my time, the only taste I had of the yearly celebration was in a very enclosed catholic church environment, where only very few kids attended out of the generalized fear of their parents at being discovered. I still had glimpses of what Christmas used to be in the old regime out of stories from my mother and beautiful mid-century postcards that still survived at home. There was an old Christmas tree hidden, but that too was a no-no as a symbol of the "bad bourgeoisie" /Batista era. So I think it is just wonderful that Christmas can be publicly celebrated. Let's not loose that. One thing I paid attention this time is how well the "Sleeping Beauty" violin cadenza segment fits into the score right before the Battle scene. It is no surprise to find the music theme of the Transformation Scene sketched here, given that it was pulled out by Mr. T out of Beauty and developed more symphonically for "Le Voyage". Balanchine went further and took the whole thing with him and inserted it. Mary Carmen Catoya was the highlight of the production with a VERY strong and lovely Dewdrop. Her pointes seemed to be glued to the floor during turns. She completely stole the show from Albertson's Sugar Plum, very much in the original LeClerq/Tallchief tradition. As usual, Snow and Flowers were just balletic drooling. I'll be seeing the City Ballet production next, so I will be able to compare...

I keep hearing all this complaints about Ratmansky's unwise choreo for the grand pas and, about the idea of "an alternative to NYCB" I can't help but to think how SILLY was that NYC allowed to let go the old surviving PDD, having had this piece such a long tradition of performances in the city by BT and de Basil's-(Markova, Hightower, Alonso, Danilova, Serrano etc...). I really believe a wise idea, as a real alternative to City Ballet, would had been to honor this past by means of recreation or re introduction of some of this old elements-(still lovingly remembered by older NY'rs)-in ABT's Nutcracker.

To make things more complicated, I just read an article in Danceviewtimes-(at this moment my computer is misbehaving and I can't copy/paste stuff)-where there's an account of the Berlin production. Aside from stating that Burlaka did indeed look at the choreographic notations, there are a couple of interesting factors related to Clara and the "ballerina issue" in the Nutcracker. According to the account, apparently Clara the child-(on pointe)-becomes adult Clara at one point-(I assume during the Le Voyage" scene, AKA Transformation Scene), where also the Nutcracker soldier of the battle becomes Prince Coqueluche. This seems to follow Vainonen/Grigorovitch scheme. Then it looks like they both arrive at Konfituremburg where Clara is crowned Fee Dragee and so then we have the main ballet couple appearing as early in the production as in Act I. Act II introduces yet another character...the Queen of Konfituremburg, who is Prince Coqueluche's mother. Now...I don't know if this "new" character for whom the fete is offered-(as she can be seen seated in the background)-is accurate to Vsevolozhsky's libretto, but it seems to resolve the problem of Vainonen's, which lacks a watcher character. I always thought that in the Imperial production Clara and whoever escorted her to Act II were greeted by Fee Dragee and the matryoshka dolls/Nutcracker sisters-(just as with both Wright and Balanchine's stagings). In every single production I've seen Prince Coqueluche doesn't take a big role in the events. In Wright's he's a little more visible, appearing alongside Fee Dragee right before Clara shows up, but in Balanchine's he does not...only showing up for the Grand Pas. WHERE CAN I FIND AN ONLINE TRANSCRIPT OF THE ORIGINAL LIBRETTO..?

Oh, so this was a complete reconstruction then...? Wow...

Lovely! Love this ballet. The group age of the female characters is that of the one I usually identify those of the Nutcracker. That's why I never had a problem with the adults onstage. If one take,for instance, the dancers at MCB, there would be no problem at all making them play young adolescents. They are so tiny in real life..! Now ,with dancers like Part or Gomes..that's a different story.