CITY BALLET today....

[oberon]

All of the discussion of MUSAGETE has set me to wondering, is NYCB still Balanchine's company? Or is it simply a ballet company which performs lots of his ballets?

I always think of it as Balanchine's house, and like programmes with at least one Balanchine work included. And I can sit thru plenty of all-Balanchine evenings and be happy as a lark.

But what about newer audiences? People who have only been going a few seasons, or are just starting to go? Do they think of it as a night of entertainment or as a trip to the Balanchine shrine? Do they know Balanchine's story, his connections to Diaghilev, to Stravinsky? His wives? His muse? Do you need to know all of this to enjoy his ballets?

In the past couple of years, I have gotten tickets for one of my younger colleagues and his girlfriend...they have been 4 times, seeing mixed programmes. I have told him a little about Balanchine, but he's not that interested in "history". His favorite piece so far was Wheeldon's CAROUSEL, and he loved Peter's JEU DES CARTES and is smitten with Janie Taylor...understandably. He thought B-S Q was "pretty". And he wants to go again and again, he keeps asking me about various pieces in the repertoire. He wanted to see FIREBIRD last week as he loves Chagall. He went, and loved it. So, here's someone to whom Balanchine essentially means very little yet he is very enthusiastic about the company and getting hooked on it.

[Kathleen O'Connell]

Perhaps NYCB is to Balanchine as Chanel is to Coco Chanel. Everyone connected with the enterprise remembers the founder with reverance, and the founding aesthetic (pace Robert Gottlieb) still informs the output to a greater or lesser degree, but it's not quite the same house nonetheless. And if you put one of Mme Chanel's original designs on one of today's fashion models, it wouldn't look the same -- the model would at the very least carry herself differently -- but it would still be a fabulous dress.

[Drew]

I have had one similar experience with a friend of mine talking about how much he loved Ulysses Dove's Red Angels and mentioning, in passing, having to sit through the 'boring' Concerto Barocco. Of course, it is very possible that he saw a boring performance of Concerto Barocco. I can't help but add in response to Oberon's examples that more than a few passionate admirers of Balanchine think of Brahms Schoenberg Quartet as less than top tier Balanchine (as, indeed, mostly "pretty") and Balanchine's Firebird as interesting primarily for the Chagall designs. That is, I don't think piety towards all things Balanchine is realistically to be expected and not even desired--in the days when it was "his" company and his heritage seemed less at risk, many of us were, I think, a little less pious than we have become.

But as far as the more general question...I guess I would say the company is not and could not still be "his" but is still very much shaped by his role in its history. The director and others still connected with the company provide a direct link to his example. (Yes, one wishes even more of those links were being maintained, but the point is that some still are.) The repertory is still dominated by his ballets, even when they are unevenly maintained. Indeed, from the point of view of repertory the company is far more Balanchine's company than, say, the Royal Ballet is Ashton's company. (Maybe this summer's Ashton season at the Met will prove me wrong, but I doubt it...)

Moreover an interpretation of Balanchine's aesthetic still clearly motivates most of the choreography that the company presents. That is: the Petipa-Ivanov heritage given a stripped-down modernized look, the constant presentation of new work -- mostly one act, plotless, and using the classical ballet vocabulary as well as substantive and even, occasionally, commissioned scores. Some other companies do these things, but not so consistently or ambitously. Now, the interpretation of Balanchine's aesthetic being applied may miss a lot of what's important in Balanchine; it may indeed distort or misinterpret what he does with classical vocabulary. The disconnected sequences of Episodes or extended classical silhouettes of Four Temperaments may inspire some Diamond project works, but much of the innter structure and logic seems to have been lost. But the way the company operates is still recognizably an attempt to continue a version of the Balanchine aesthetic in some form.

That said, I suppose the commissions form Stroman and Eifman may come close to contradicting what I just wrote. I haven't seen the works, but Stroman is not a classical choreographer and Eifman's aesthetic is, by all reports, about as distant from Balanchine's as its possible to be (both in the company's current version of "Balanchine's" which may well be incomplete and in a more capacious understanding of Balanchine that recalls, for example, the company's collaborations with Tudor and Ashton.).

for the rest, I don't think it's terribly important that audiences know the company's or Balanchine's history. I guess a company should always have a core audience that is passionate and knowledgeable, but if that's its only audience, the company probably isn't doing great business. One concern is that the box office for works at odds with NYCB's heritage will ultimately influence the company to change that heritage ... I actually think Martins will always offer something of a stay against that happening, though perhaps not as much as most of us would like...

Anyway, this is just thinking out loud, so it's a bit formless. The performances I saw of Balanchine this season were, for the most part, excellent and that, at least, I'm happy about.

[tortis]

Is there a problem in that Peter Martins tries to preserve himself rather than do the best for the ballet company? For example, he would not allow Suzanne Farrell to be a co-director of the company.

Why does she have her own ballet now, why is she not operating within NYCB? She seems to be much more competent than Martins in staging the Balanchine works. It makes me sad that people like her are excluded.

[GeorgeB fan]

To me NYCB still very much belongs to Balanchine. His ballets still dominate the company more then any other choreographer. I'm more worried about Jerome Robbins. It seems to me we are seeing the same ballets of his over and over again. Where's Other Dances, The Goldberg Variations, In Memory of.... (which I understand some people think was created in memory of Balanchine), Brandenburgs, Les Noces and other ballets his created that hasn't been danced by the company in a long while.

I've also talked to some people who thinks that Robbins ballets are not being as well preserve as they should be. I don't know if that is completely true, but I do know that in that moment in Dances at a Gathering when the men are throwing the ladies in the air with one man catching them it's not perform with the same abandonment or sense of danger as it was when Robbins was alive.

Sometimes I strongly believe Robbins is becoming an after thought with the company. I notice in the repertory notes that are handled out in the lobby, that Balanchine's and Martins' ballets are given a little background history but Robbins ballets are not. Robbins could have written some where that he wish to have no description of his ballets, if thats true I stand corrected. But it does seem to me that when it comes to importance in the company Balanchine is first, Martins come second and Robbins is not only third, but is becoming a very distance third.

[Balanchinomane]

Yes, Jerome Robbins requested no program notes be included.

That was always the case and after his death the Company

continues to respect his wishes. He wanted his ballets to be

viewed at face value with no preconceived ideas.

NYCB is still Balanchine's Company and will be as long as the former

members and associates are involved with the School and the

Company. Many of the current dancers were inspired by seeing

performances and videos of his work and as they end their stage

careers may decide to stay on. So as long as there is a theater

to showcase his works and hopefully Robbins, and a receptive

audience, this is still his house. As his works continue to be

staged all over the world, his legacy will continue.

[oberon]

Yes, there has been a decline in the Robbins area at NYCB, but I believe an anniversary is coming up and several works are to be revived then. While I enjoy some Robbins ballets, I do not think he is on a level with Balanchine as a choreographer and I am not sure how many of his works will continue to be performed as the decades pass.

The change in the "tossing of the girl" in GATHERING was discussed here a few months ago. It started at a performance I attended where there was a very serious faux pas at this moment in the ballet. At the next performance it had been changed and I have never seen it restored to its the original state. Perhaps it will be in future. It was suggested that, rather than alter the steps, more rehearsal should have been devoted to perfecting the passage...but the dancer who made the error was an old GATHERING hand...he never danced the ballet again. All the rehearsal and experience in the world won't erase a major flaw in performance. Just ask Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

Isn't Jean-Pierre Frohlich sort of the Robbins authority at NYCB now? He must have felt that the alteration was acceptable...for the safety of the ballerina.

[Farrell Fan]

Robbins's "In Memory Of..." was originally danced by Suzanne Farrell, Adam Luders, and Joe Duell. Farrell's role, together with the ellipsis in the title, suggested an homage to Balanchine, although the choreographer didn't acknowledge it. The Berg violin concerto was originally composed in memory of a young family friend. In the ballet, it is the Farrell character who is claimed by Luders's death figure. She is transported to a sort of ballet heaven where she is reunited with her boyfriend Duell and is escorted off by him and Luders. I always found the ballet extremely poignant because I regarded it as Robbins's memorial to Balanchine. Farrell called it "a ballet of welcome substance."

I don't regard the more conservative catches in "Dances at a Gathering" as a deterioration of the Robbins repertory as much as a general tendency toward less risk-taking on the part of NYCB. For balletgoers with long memories, this phenomenon can be clearly seen in Balanchine's "Scotch Symphony" where the throws of the ballerina have been eliminated.

[carbro]

Also, in the Third Movement of Symphony in C, where Balanchine used to like the fellow to toss the gal in what is now the sissone lift. Weren't the lifts into swoons in the Second Movement of Brahms-Schoenberg originally tosses, too?

Where's Conrad Ludlow when you really need him?

[dancelyssa]

If you would read Farrell's Holding On To The Air, she explains in the preface that Martins questioned her ability to teach and thus fired her. I believe this came from Martins feeling threatened by Farrell, who was so much more associated with balanchine than himself, and who people liked more than himself. Maybe Martins felt he would be overshadowed by Suzanne.