innopac

A professional trombone player playing for the ballet for the first time commented to me how challenging it was for musicians because of the varying tempi. For one ballerina the same passage would have a different tempo and perhaps a longer rubato or hold than for another ballerina. This could be due to the dancer's skill and/or interpretation. And if there are 3 or 4 different casts during a season there is quite a bit of variation in the performances -- unlike during a normal concert season.

This is puzzling - perhaps there were different stagings of the final scenes for release in different countries. I was just lent a video of Ek's Giselle with Ana Laguna as Giselle. And on this copy Albrecht is totally naked while lying on the stage, rolling on the stage, dancing back to the audience and then standing at the end full frontal towards the audience. At first I thought this was necessary to show his vulnerability. But his vulnerability could have instead been expressed choreographically. In response to dirac's post... personally I wasn't shocked by nudity. I did find some of the choreography in this Giselle confronting. But the nudity wasn't. The nudity actually took me out of the ballet because I found it distracting. It is hard to explain but I feel that the power underlying ballet/dance is a universality of expression and my feeling is that nudity brings the expression down to the individual. It is interesting though that we accept nudity in paintings and sculpture and not in ballet.

"One of the hard things about dancing -- particularly in classical ballets -- is that the performance doesn't just depend on us, the dancers. Conductors especially can affect us because they determine the speed of the music, and if they hear it differently from us it can throw our whole performance. When we have a conductor like Victor Fedotov guesting from the Kirov it's a great luxury because he takes his speeds from the dancers, unlike many conductors over here who don't adjust their tempi at all -- they play the music as they would a concert score. In Russia dancers seem to wield more power though, so conductors like Fedotov will speed up or slow down the orchestra to suit the dancing. When we work with him it's wonderful to get so much attention, but it can be unnerving. At first I couldn't get used to the way he'd virtually stop the orchestra whenever I took a balance, and wait for me to come down before he started up again. Because I'm so used to having to keep time with the orchestra I kept on balancing longer and longer as he slowed down, and both the music and I nearly ground to a halt." from Life in Dance by Darcey Bussell. 1998. page 66

Does a sprung floor cut down on the noise made by point shoes?

Thanks Carbro. I will check it out. The children who had been chosen in the documentary came from different backgrounds. My assumption from the documentary is that they wouldn't have been paying students but I may be wrong. The program sounded like an experiment and it would be interesting to know what happened to the children.

Last night I watched The Europeans and on the dvd was a short documentary called Sweet Sounds (1976) about a music program for gifted 5 year olds at the Mannes College of Music in Manhattan. Does anyone know what happened to those children and if that program continued?

Deldevez is the spelling given in The New Grove, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie, 2001.

In "Diaghilev's Legacy" published in the National Library of Australia News Lee Christofis previews the Ballets Russes in Australia symposium being held in Adelaide in two months time. "To be held at the Elder Conservatorium and Adelaide Festival Centre during The Australian Ballet’s season in Adelaide, the Ballets Russes Symposium has been designed as a series of presentations by three international Ballets Russes experts and panel discussions by leading Australian artists involved in the creation of ballets." The three international guests are Bob Lockyer, Stephanie Jordan and Lynn Garafola. Irina Baronova, Anna Volkova and Valrene Tweedie will also speak about their careers.

Thanks for the advice chrisk217! I tried divx and it works but didn't like having to use an extra player so downloaded ffdshow and it is great. The files now open easily with media player or real player. During this exercise I also discovered that real player has a download button so you can download videos straight off of youtube.

Thank you, Rosa, for your post. I have been thinking of putting it on my wish list.

Henning Kronstam: "At times when I am tired or uninspired, I always go and watch the children." from the section on the development of the company in Henning Kronstam: Portrait of a Danish Dancer by Alexandra Tomalonis. page 385

What does this mean in practical terms? Would you use the word "acquire" if a company planned to perform a ballet only for one season? Who is the copyright owner of a ballet? For example if a company brings in a choreographer to create a new ballet, in general is the copyright for that ballet owned by the company?

This quote from an interview done in 1977 says so much about Kronstam, the man as well as the dancer. And those two sentences of his made reading about his final years all the more poignant. After all he had given where was the compassion he needed in those last few years? "Ninka's final question was, "What is the result of, so far, thirty-four hard and good years in ballet?" Few would have predicted Kronstam's answer: 'In the end it is probably that you have been good to the people around you--that you have had compassion. An the times when you didn't, that is actually what has been the hardest....'" page 176 of Henning Kronstam

Does anyone know if Henning Kronstam was involved with the filming of this particular production?

Thank you very much, RG.

Has anyone seen this ballet? Live, on dvd, or video? Has anyone enjoyed it? Could you tell me who the dancers are in this performance? On Amazon they only list Mette Hønningen. I was wondering who dances the roles of the Guardian and the Lover?

New Talents Shine in 'Nutcracker' Spotlight by Sharon McDaniel 3 December 2007 The Palm Beach Post "An extra gesture here, a more precise step: Little things make a difference. That's especially true with the holiday favorite, George Balanchine's The Nutcracker. And lots of points differed Saturday afternoon - improvements mostly - from the last time I saw Miami City Ballet in "their" work, inherited through Artistic Director Edward Villella." "Yet the presence of Rolando Sarabia, a new principal beautifully cast as the Godfather Drosselmeier, drew you right into the party action. Vicariously, you became the gracious, mysterious yet comedic character who gave the most delightful gifts."

I bought this book because I was curious about the Royal Danish Ballet. But I never anticipated what a pleasure it would be to read. It is a wonderful biography! Thank you.

Henning Kronstam: "I did Sonnambula for twenty years. Then you really get into the role, and you really know what it's all about. But now, with five performances, maybe with two casts, I think it's mad. The audience gets cheated and the dancers get cheated because they never get the feeling of owning the roles." from Henning Kronstam: Portrait of a Danish Dancer by Alexandra Tomalonis. page 145

The following Archive might lead you to more information and might be willing to forward a letter to a family member. There are contact details for the archive including an email address. "Ludmila Mlada/Ludi Horenstein Archive: Scrapbooks, photographs, music scores, and vinyl records of an English dancer who danced with the Ballets Jooss and studied with Sigurd Leeder. Accession listing available to view at the NRCD." Also there was an obituary in The Dancing Times: Obituary: Ludmila Mlada, Sheila McCarthy, Ronald Emblem The Dancing Times, 2004, vol. 94, no. 1122, pg. 67

Here is another story of a leap gone wrong -- again during Tosca. (Tosca, City Centre, New York, 1960) And perhaps a warning to Divas that they should be kind to theatre staff! Whereas most such disasters depend on some element of misunderstanding and incompetence among the stage-management, this catastrophe is -- delightfully -- due entirely to ill-will, in this case between the stage staff and the soprano. With diabolical cunning they permitted her, after several stormy rehearsals, to complete her first performance without mishap until the very last moment, when Tosca throws herself off the battlements of the Castel Sant'Angelo. What normally happens is that on her cry 'Scarpia, davanti a Dio' she hurls herself off and lands on a mattress four feet below (who but Callas has ever looked totally convincing at that moment? -- Her out-stretched hands haunt the memory). But in this case it was not Callas but a large young American who landed not on a mattress, but -- perish the thought -- on a trampoline. It is said that she came up fifteen times before the curtain fell -- sometimes upside down, then the right way up -- now laughing in delirious glee, now screaming with rage... Great Operatic Disasters by Hugh Vickers. page 12

Thank you for clarifying for me their relationship, Alexandra. It just seemed strange there is no mention of Kronstam, at least as far as I can see so far.

I am puzzled why Henning Kronstam is not mentioned in the index of this book. Bruhn, Nureyev and Kronstam attended Volkova's classes etc -- surely Nureyev and Kronstam would have known each other at least on a professional level? I am wondering how they saw each other... if they had respect for each other... or if their approaches to ballet were too different.

Tom Cruise's Scientology video is now on youtube and Gawker.

Thank you Paul. The fragment I found on the web, after your post, has made me want to see more. It reminded me of The Judas Tree.