NYCB program 4/30/83

[Mme. Hermine]

Silvy brought this up in her very interesting topic about her recent lecture on Balanchine. Does anyone have a ballet/cast list for the performance that evening? I was there and I really can't recall!!!!!!

[Mme. Hermine]

going to answer myself here: the press office tells me that in the afternoon the program was Mother Goose, Kammermusik, and Four Seasons, and that in the evening the program was Divertimento No. 15, The Magic Flute and Symphony in C, with the following cast: 1st Movement Calegari and Luders, second movement Farrell and Lavery, third movement Melinda Roy and Daniel Duell and fourth movement Lisa Hess and Joseph Duell!

[Jack Reed]

Mme. Hermine, it appears from your post that the NYCB press office has records of the printed casting and announced cast changes (in Symphony in C, Daniel Duell subbed for Jean-Pierre Frohlich and Lisa Hess subbed for Judith Fugate). I was there, too, and I noted in my program that Peter Martins replaced Sean Lavery unannounced.

In his recent biography of Balanchine, Robert Gottlieb explains: "That evening, Suzanne Farrell went on in Symphony in C. Martins was hardly dancing any longer, most of his time devoted to running the company, but when she asked him to dance with her that night, he readily agreed." (p. 181)

(In Holding on to the Air, Farrell's account is more detailed and, of course, more deeply felt, and may be Gottlieb's source.)

Edited to add the reference to Farrell's book.

[Mme. Hermine]

thanks jack; verrrry interesting! the only ballet i recall was magic flute (david macnaughton?) . they said there were a lot of cast changes that day. does the rest agree?

[Jack Reed]

I noted two subs that afternoon, in The Four Seasons, and that evening, besides the ones we've mentioned, three more in Magic Flute. That's eight altogether, which sems like a high number.

(It was a rough day. I heard that some couldn't dance and some had to, under the circumstances; Gottlieb says Karin von Aroldingen, who had been with Balanchine day after day at the end, was one who had to.)

[Mme. Hermine]

i know that i had a friend in the company that i met on the street, and warned her that the press was camped out in front of the stage door, and she chose to enter another way; her face was all red as it was.

was it david macnaughton in magic flute? i remember seeing him do it, but hadn't recalled it was that particular day.

[Jack Reed]

He was in it that evening, and also 26th April and 3rd May, according to my programs.

[Mme. Hermine]

thank you, jack! i know that was the only one i saw; it was a shall we say lean period for ballet tickets!

[Helene]

The cast lists that I have recorded follow. (Jack, please tell me if the programs say otherwise):

30 April 1993 Matinee

Mother Goose

Lisa Hess, Delia Peters, Christopher Fleming, Judith Fugate, Paul Frame, Jonathan Pessalano (school kid), Jeri Kummery, Michael Puleo, Toni Bentley, Stacey Caddell, Cornell Crabtree, David Otto, Susan Gluck, Roma Sosenko, Espen Giljane, Douglas Hay, Max Blechman (school kid), and I one I can't read (looks like Schane, maybe a school kid?)

Kammermusik #2

von Aroldingen/Lavery

Nichols/Luders

Four Seasons

Winter: Matthews, Peter Frame, Lisa Hess

Spring: Nichols/Daniel Duell

Summer: Saland/Joseph Duell

Fall: Kozlov/Kozlova/Horiuchi

30 April 1983 Evening

Divertimento No. 15

Theme: Victor Castelli/Peter Frame

Var 1: Elyse Borne

Var 2: Lisa Hess

Var 3: Stephanie Saland

Var 4: Lourdes Lopez

Var 5: Sean Lavery

Var 6: Kyra Nichols

Magic Flute

Katrina Killian/David McNaughton

Symphony in C

Calegari/Luders

Farrell/Martins

Melinda Roy/Daniel Duell

Lisa Hess/Joseph Duell

It was Joseph Duell's birthday.

I bought a keychain from the Gift Shop with a replica of a ticket, and it's dated Apr. 29, 1983, the last NYCB performance for which Balanchine was still alive. The seat is Orchestra Left N127. Does anyone know if that was Balanchine's seat (or Kirstein's)?

[kfw]

How were the performances that day? Did the dancers let their emotions show during their bows?

[Mme. Hermine]

i don't remember specifically. i do remember that it was emotional before you even got into the theatre, with the flag at half staff in front of lincoln center.

[Farrell Fan]

I don't know about Balanchine, but Kirstein's seat was A117 in the first ring.

On 4/30/83 my wife and I were at the evening performance of the SAB Workshop. Peter Boal talked about it recently, contrasting the excitement of the young SAB dancers with the grief of the NYCB dancers across the street. I don't remember much about the SAB performance other than the appearance of Kirstein, Martins, Robbins, and Taras before the curtain to announce Mr. B's death.

[Mme. Hermine]

They did the same at the State Theatre, I remember Kirstein saying something like "He's with Stravinsky now."

[Petra]

Who is Lisa Hess? I have never heard of her and most of the other names in the castlist are familiar or at least, vaguely familiar, to me.

[kfw]

Lisa Hess Jones

A native of Amarillo, Texas, Ms. Hess trained with her parents, Neil and Camille Hess.  She also trained with the San Francisco Ballet, Harkness Ballet, School of American Ballet and American Ballet Theatre.  Ms. Hess joined New York City Ballet in 1975 and later became a soloist.  She danced with Nureyev and Friends, was a guest artist with Sydney Ballet in Australia and toured Asia with Stars of the American Ballet.  In 1989, Ms. Hess became involved with the Carlisle Project allowing her to create choreography on professional dancers and for the Northeast Regional Dance Festival and the Southwest Regional Dance Festival.  She has created many pieces for Chamberlain Ballet including Veni Emmanuel, performed at the Dallas Morning News Dance Festival.

Greg Lawrence's Robbins biography lists her among the cast members for "Watermill."

[Petra]

Thanks, kfw.

[Farrell Fan]

Lisa Hess's sister, Alexia Hess, was a member of NYCB at the seme time as Lisa. Back in the day when the NYCB Guild used to sponsor an annual weekend trip to Saratoga, they once had a party around the Holiday Inn pool. Because it was a Sunday afternoon, the dancers' day off, about the only company members who showed up were Roma Sosenko and the Hess sisters. Nice girls.

[carbro]

I also remember that during the following week, there were several unscheduled performances of Divertimento #15, Symphony in C, and if I remember correctly (this is off the top of my head, as all my records were casualties of the Great Paper Purge of 1998), Concerto Barocco, replacing ballets that were upbeat and completely inappropriate during a period of mourning.

[Jack Reed]

hockeyfan228, I wonder if you're working from a poor fax or photocopy; the short word below Max Blechman's name on my program is merely the conjunction and, below which are listed the names of the five corps girls and eight corps boys. But my information corroborates yours, otherwise.

And Orchestra seat N127 was no one's special seat; I sat in M131 myself that evening, and in M127 the evening of 30th April. I sometimes wound up near or next to Lincoln, but that was in the middle of row A in the First Ring, so I thought his seat was 110 or 111, but maybe he ranged around a bit. A117 is at the right aisle, not as good IMO, but one one could slip into easily, like A101-104, which were reserved for company use; Robbins and others would slip into and out of those in the course of an evening, I noticed.

As for Balanchine's "seat", in attending about 300 performances, I think, at the State Theatre during his lifetime, I never saw him sit in the house, although I once saw him en route to, I suppose, the First Ring (to watch Karin in Brahms-Schoenberg); sometimes I had a seat so far to audience right I saw him on the high stool in the second wing on our left (stage right) where he was said to sit (after the first few years or so in the State Theatre).

kfw, you can be sure there were red eyes on stage as there were in the audience; I myself was not in the best shape to judge performance on the 30th, but my notes show that at some subsequent performances as dancers who had been subbed reappeared their performances were okay except for shaky supporting legs and expressions looking like being on the edge of tears.

Mme. Hermine, my memory of what Kirstein said is exactly the same as what Robert Gottlieb says in his recent biography of Balanchine: "I don't have to tell you that Mr. B. is with Mozart and Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky." (And, as Gottlieb goes on, "If any thought could have helped, it would have been that.")

[Mme. Hermine]

Jack I wish my recollection of the evening was clearer. I had moved to New York not long before, and all of these people, and the ballets, and even the atmosphere, were completely new to me!

[Jack Reed]

carbro, the only change like that I can corroborate is the substitution of Concerto Barocco, with Watts, Lavery and Nichols, for Tchaikovsky Pas De Deux, with Watts and Luders, in the Sunday evening performance, but my run of programs ends with Tuesday, 3rd May, and doesn't resume until the 20th. (I recall this change was out of consideration to Luders.) The Magic Flute, Mother Goose, and The Four Seasons were performed on the days after Mr. B's death as previously annouced, appropriate to a period of mourning or not.

(Thinking about all this reminds me of Balanchine's observation that "Americans make too much of death" and his statement that "In Russia, we drank a toast to the guy who died." When I heard much later that some people were thinking of holding a memorial on 30th April, I mentioned this and suggested that 22nd January might be more appropriate, in celebration of his coming to us.)