BW

I'm sure there are those who would recommend both. Perhaps if you read the plots of the two you'll get a better feel? I am sure that there are others on the board who'd be better than I at describing the two ballets. A number of people don't really love ABT's version of Swan Lake, but I've enjoyed it. My vote would be for Giselle, but that's because I haven't seen it often enough, and have seen Swan Lake a bit too often.

I'm sure you'll get some more helpful responses as the day goes on!

American Ballet Theatre is usually the company in NYC who'd be performing Romeo and Juliet, but it appears that it's not on their schedule this Spring. Here is their web page:ABT look under "Performances" and see what they have planned for their Spring run at the Metropolitan Opera House. Perhaps your girl friend might enjoy Giselle instead?

Thanks dirac, and too true about views being aired. I think that my views were really more of a gut reaction than an attempt at discussion, but I do appreciate your encouragement, nevertheless.

Thank you Farrell Fan and dirac, I apologize for my remarks. I do know that she's written other things. I shouldn't have been so abrupt with my comments. Just because I don't care for someone's autobiographical accounts doesn't mean I should discount her writing talents.

Ugh - and I saw that she's reviewed a book for them, too. What is The New York Times coming to?

Michael, you've expressed it so well - thank you. I only wish I were living out in the pacific northwest so I could be there to see it all taking place. NYCB's and, even more so now, SAB's loss is surely PNB's gain.

Amazing, Mel - you do have a way with words.

I read the "book review" in the NT Times a while ago and fairly choked on it all.

Herman has asked who the choreographer might be for the Gruesome Ballet - I think Boris Eifman might do it for the right price. :angelnot:

Ah, it's so good that there's intelligent life here.

I felt as though I were in a vaccuum until I logged on here. Farrell Fan's lament

I'm waiting for the day when some dancer will be sponsored by "Anonymous." Are there any self-effacing rich people left?

And Alexandra's

I think also the auctioning off -- which I'm sure was done in good fun -- has very uncomfortable associations. Slaves dancing for their owners, the Russian serf ballerinas -- at least the Paris Opera dancers who exchanged favors for diamonds had a bit more say in the matter. Does a sponsor have the right to "request" that "his/her" dancer perform at daughter's wedding, son's birthday? What if a sponsor really is after a dancer, and the dancer isn't interested? Not saying that any of this is going on now, but check back in a decade.

sandik, your posts

Sandik  (My sister and I joked that if they had offered sponsorship rights to stalls in the bathrooms we would have been tempted -- one of the sorely needed improvements in the hall were more bathrooms!)… I'm not objecting to naming per se -- it's been a chance for someone who had an idea to help make it happen. There are Rhodes Scholars, Pulitzer, and Nobel Prizes, and many of the recipients of these have been arguably "better" people than the namesakes of their awards. As time passes, the name of the hall often becomes just a name -- "Carnegie" is better known to most of us as a series of libraries and a concert hall than as a ruthless industrialist, and perhaps that was part of his motivation. But at the point in time when the money changes hands it's important that people are very clear about what they're buying...

On the sponsor having a "say" -- that happens already if, for sponsor, you read board member. It is just not quite so public.

Everyone's posts have been worth reading...but it appears as though we're all preaching to the choir here.

The sad fact is that pj, I do believe there have been occasions where a parent has contributed vast sums in order to have their offspring be given a spot.: dry: so, I think that what bothers many of us is the "in your face" nature of all this. Does that mean it's OK if it's done behind closed doors - no. But somehow this gives me the creeps - as did that poor dancer in Atlanta's comments about adjusting his schedule to fit the requests (not sure which word he chose, but I know which one I'd have chosen) of his patroness... and I found those photos of the dancers and their patronesses sickening. Interesting that they did not show a photo of a female dancer with a male patron, don't you think?

As for the young Chinese dancer,

Zhong-Jing Fang, a new ABT corps dancer is sponsored! Leapfrogged over a slew of soloists!

Many thanks Clara76 for pointing me in this direction. I'd posted a link to the article on the BT for Dancers in hopes of engendering some thinking...it's gotten a number of views so let's hope people are really reading the whole article.

Meanwhile, is there anyone here who really does think this is truly a good and wholesome idea?

I can't help but wonder if Wheeldon hadn't called it Swan Lake if that might have made a difference to some? Perhaps then it wouldn't be so upsetting/disturbing?

As I said, I didn't see it and can't make it down this Sunday, but I do hope to see it in September. From reading Kisselgoff's review I thought it sounded interesting and I think I'd enjoy it.

I am so mad at myself for missing this. Thanks to you all for your posts.

I wonder what it's future holds?

Thank you Nanatchka - for that T. H. White book! I've never heard of it, though I did read his Merlin. And, agreed about the reading ages for his books, too.

I'm with your son in re The Harry Potter books - which I've enjoyed as well.

Loved Phillip Pullman's trilogy and his latest "Lyra's Oxford"...although I am not sure that I'd say they were written for children unless they are quite mature - they're really more "young adult" to adult.

Also there is Dune by Frank Herbert... and one of my first favorites was E. R. Eddison who wrote The Worm Ouroboros and Mistress of Mistresses. Again, not for young children - more for the young adult/adult reader. Of course, many would say the same for Alice in Wonderland, really.

The Once in Future King by T. H. White is another great book that I read, I believe, in 8th grade.

If I recall correctly, in Christopher Wheeldon's Carousel the heroine (Ansanelli) is dragged a bit by her beloved (Woetzel), however he uses her arm - not her neck, thankfully.

I remember someone getting very put out by this particularly move, whereas I didn't see it at all as being violent or in anyway against women.

In today's NY Times Jack Anderson wrote this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/02/arts/dance/02ANDE.html

A dance in a real space can be a real adventure," Noémie Lafrance said before a recent rehearsal of her new work, "Noir." She made that remark while sitting in the front seat of an automobile parked in the Delancey and Essex Municipal Parking Garage on the Lower East Side. That's where her work will be danced during its three-week run, which opens Wednesday night.

The audience will watch the show from the same vantage point: seated in parked cars — 25 of them specifically positioned for the production. Six empty spaces have also been reserved for spectators who wish to bring their own cars to the show (but at a higher ticket price)...

Seeing "Noir" through car windows will be like watching a drive-in movie, but with live action. And Brooks Williams's taped score will be heard only through the radios in the cars... She persuaded city authorities to let her use the cavernous garage at Delancey and Essex Streets. A roughly 10,000-square-foot space on Level 5 has been set aside for her audience, cars and cast of 10. The rest of the garage will be open as usual throughout the run of "Noir," which is an attraction of the 2004 Whitney Biennial and a co-production of Ms. Lafrance's own Sens Production organization and the St. Mark's Danspace Project.

Sounds as though it just might be interesting.

For those who like to read and/or write, you might want to check out this article in today's NY Times by Dinitia Smith http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/books/23ZINE.html entitled "A Little Start-Up Entertains, Ones Story at a Time" and the magazine's website is

One Story. I think it looks promising. B)

This afternoon, on WNYC's program Sound Check will be discussing this:Ring Bearers.

There is little that strikes more fear in the hearts of opera novices (and some connoisseurs, for that matter) than Wagner's "Ring of the Nibelungs"—eighteen hours of German mythology requiring a four-night commitment. As the Metropolitan Opera revives Wagner's vast epic starting this Saturday, it's a perfect opportunity to explore why its philosophical themes remain relevant to this day. Host John Schaefer speaks with Philip Kitcher, Columbia University philosophy professor and co-author of Finding an Ending—Reflections on Wagner's Ring. Kitcher will shed some light on how different forms of love, freedom, heroism, authority, and judgment are explored and tested as the cycle unfolds. Also on the show, Brian Kellow, features editor of Opera News magazine, looks at the recent controversy that erupted when soprano Deborah Voigt was fired by London’s Royal Opera House because she was deemed too heavy to sing in the forthcoming production of "Ariadne auf Naxos." How does the opera business approach image-making? Do opera singers have to be large to make a large sound? Tune in and find out.

I believe it's on at 2PM here.

I'll take "the Fifth" on that one.

Where did you find this information? It would be nice if it were on the front page of the papers.

I read this article early this morning and, even not being and opera goer, it made me sad to think that a true voice was being replaced by a more "attractive" body in a black cocktail dress to suit what the marketing group feels will bring in more of an audience.

If this becomes a trend, opera will fall prey to the "Hollywoodization" that has befallen much of the film business and, (gulp) some of what I believe a number of the old guard (and some new guard) of ballet goers feel sometimes turns up on the ballet stage.

Having only really attended one full length opera, I'm not sure if my reactions are really germane to the discussion, but there you go.

I had hesitated posting about Spalding Gray's death, but after yesterdays front page story and all the unofficial tributes to him, for those of us who loved his work at 1pm on WNYC (NPR) on the Leonard Lopate show there will be a replay of an interview with Spalding Gray.

If you're not familiar with his work you really ought to rent or borrow or buy his film version of "Swimming to Cambodia" - it's worth having in your film library.

Here is a link from today's NY Times: Spalding Interrupted

Yup, it won eleven. Best Director, too. :grinning:

P.S. I have to think that just about everyone reads some of their potential books before buying or taking them home from the library.

I remember picking up the book Seabiscuit one day. I'd heard some mention of it, and of course new about the horse...but as soon as I read the first page, I knew for sure I'd picked a winner. :grinning:

oberon, if your method works for you - it makes sense.

I did buy The Girl with The Pearl Earing myself, but it's sitting somewhere and I haven't delved into it yet...but it was the Vermeer lover in me, that prompted my choosing that one. :rolleyes:

Hey, Treefrog maybe we should start a vagansmom's book club and give Oprah a run for her money?

I'm in that minority vagansmom - I would never read the last sentence or anything close to the end of a book.

Nice thread oberon. Hmm, I do browse...sometimes a title catches my eye...often as not I'm an author addict until I've depleted their stash, or my interest, like vagansmom. I, too, check out The Book Review, but lately it seems nothing has caught my eye.

If I'm in a bookstore, where I seem to have spent countless hours in the last two years, while awaiting my ballet dancing daughter's release from class, I will either walk the fiction aisles and pull out titles at random, take a quick look through both the nonfiction and fiction "new releases" or search out books by various authors whose names have had the good luck of remaining in my memory banks...

And I agree that the threads on this forum have been fuel for the fire of reading, as well! :yes:

Tutumaker, did you mean to type "Unless" rather than "Undefined"? I just did a search via Amazon for "Undefined" and didn't come up with anything.

I can completely understand what you're saying vagansmom about the difference one's point of view makes in reading this particular book - Unless. I guess it's really always that way, but for those of us with children who are getting ready to spread their wings and move on, I can see how it would be more poignant. Yet, in the case of this story, so far anyway, I see it as more of a story of loss - loss of control. loss of love, loss of understanding...all of which can resonate even with those of us who still have our offspring at home.

And, Treefrog, I agree I'm liking it better evening by evening.