critique in NY Newsday

[ViolinConcerto]

The only performance I've seen as yet at NYCB began with M/M, and I felt it was very weak and listless. I'll be seeing it again next week, and hope the dancers have recovered from the very strenuous rehearsal and performance schedule (Swan Lake, of course) that may have detracted from concentration and energy.

Here is the beginning (and link to) a thoughtful critique:

DANCE REVIEW --- NYC Ballet has a Balanchine dilemma

  BY APOLLINAIRE SCHERR

SPECIAL TO NEWSDAY

January 19, 2006

In the companion pieces "Monumentum Pro Gesualdo" and "Movements for Piano and Orchestra," both set to Stravinsky, the dancers conjure all manner of creature and thing: Apollo's Muses, spellbound trees, a sorority of icy witches and mechanical birds of prey.

Here is the link: http://www.nynewsday.com/entertainment/sta...dance-headlines

[Michael]

My thought is that Darci Kistler is just scary in this ballet. If we tried it without her we might just see what it looks like. Maybe try to sit well upstairs for this.

[Juliet]

I agree, and it is the obvious solution. No critic is going to suggest this, in print at least, however. They'd never get another callback from the press office, let alone tickets....this critic went as far to suggest casting changes as possible, but it will never happen, despite this gentle hint.

[ViolinConcerto]

All true. I seem to recall that in some seasons she has only done one of the "M's" which offered some respite. But in the performance I saw, IMO, the corps was just more ragged than I'd ever seen.

My memory being what it is, I can't recall if Maria ("Legs" Korowski, to quote from another thread) has ever done this. If not, WHY NOT?

[oberon]

Darci Kistler is miscast in M/M but I would not say she is scary. Darci is a warm & lyrical dancer and quite refined. She is also not the type of dancer you want to see being held upside-down. The part calls for a colder, more aloof type. It used to be the property of the divine Helene Alexopoulos who was "just what the doctor ordered" for this ballet. Kowroski has done it superbly and I imagine if she weren't recuperating we might be seeing her in the present revival. If I was in charge of casting at NYCB, I would probably assign it to either Wendy or Teresa Reichlen. Or Rebecca Krohn ...

[kfw]

Folks, are you saying that Kistler is miscast in Monumentum, or just in Movements? I can imagine her in the first, but definitely not in the second. However, I may be seeing her for myself in six weeks, if Kowroski's not back. I have fond memories of Alexopoulos in these ballets, and even fonder ones of Calegari.

[Leigh Witchel]

It was Kistler's for many years, but Alexopoulos also did it. Kowroski has done it as well for several seasons, and would probably be doing it were she not out. Monumentum particularly takes a great deal of rehearsal to put a new dancer in; the company may not have been able to find the time. So at this point, there's basically only one cast for the ballet (that I know of).

Monumentum/Movements doesn't need a cold and aloof dancer, that's neither Kistler, nor Calegari, nor Kowroski and it wasn't a defining role for Alexopoulos. It takes a ballerina with a glowing inner life to do Monumentum. The natural for it would have been Körbes, but alas . . . Both ballets were made on Diana Adams but the type was defined by Farrell - Adams nailed Monumentum when she told Farrell that she had to be "like a lamb". Farrell herself described the energy in Movements when she coached it and went up to the dancers and did what d'Amboise did before the curtain rose - he hissed like a huge cat. You need a dancer who can show the spiritual serenity of the first but the energy of the second. It's just my preference but if the same ballerina is doing both parts (not always done, but usually) cast for Monumentum over Movements. Kistler used to be just gorgeous in this, and it's a rarer quality.

I find Kistler at this point hard to watch in it, not because she's so awful but because I saw her when she was so much more on form. It's like Merrill Ashley towards the end; you'd rather remember them as they were. Kistler in Monumentum does look much better from the fourth ring, though.

[Helene]

Both ballets were made on Diana Adams but the type was defined by Farrell - Adams nailed Monumentum when she told Farrell that she had to be "like a lamb". 

Would you please elaborate on this? Chronologically, it doesn't make sense to me, since Farrell wasn't overtly on Balanchine's radar at the time these ballets were choregraphed. From all descriptions of the principals involved in Movements, Balanchine, who was known not to have alternate casts when he was creating a ballet, was distraught when Diana Adams had to pull out due to pregnancy, and was planning to drop it from the schedule until d'Amboise suggested Farrell, and Balanchine distractedly agreed, with little enthusiasm.

Do you think he had already turned the stylistic corner and was choregraphing ballets for Adams with a counter-type to her in mind?

[Leigh Witchel]

All the facts you wrote are as I know them as well, Helene. I don't think it was planned on Balanchine's part. I believe that M/M was one of the roles Farrell redefined in the 60's when she assumed the roles (along with Concerto Barocco). The ballets were put together to be performed as we know them (if I recall correctly) in '65. By that point Farrell was doing both.

[carbro]

I don't know if you could call Farrell a "counter-type" to Adams. I think it is likely that with Adams, Balanchine was refining and redefining a new style. Adams wasn't around much longer, and Farrell had captured B'chine's imagination and heart. She may have come around at just the right time to help B in this exploration. Interesting (and challenging!) to contemplate what Farrell might have become in B'chine's hands had Adams not preceded her.

Editing to add:

Kistler can be seen, in a way, as a "counter-type" to Farrell, and yet it's Farrell's rep which has served her best, and vice versa.

[Leigh Witchel]

I think that has everything to do with "glowing inner life" - Carbro. Totally different types, but Kistler and Farrell are intimately linked in the fantasy they could project onstage.

[Helene]

I call Farrell a counter-type to Adams, because apart from both having sublime musicality, which applies to a number of dancers, like Verdy, I find their technical approach and their physical look to be quite different.

[Leigh Witchel]

Complete conjecture on my part, but in Balanchine's head, the link between Farrell and Adams might have been as simple as "muse".

[carbro]

What? As if my scenario isn't conjecture -- or less? :blush:

[Paul Parish]

Well, wasn't it Balanchine himself who told Suzanne that Adams was her "Guar-DIANA angel"? There are LOTS of links between them, if not of body type or performance style, but of some kind of artistic essence....

I haven't got time to check this, but didn't Adams discover Suzanne in Cincinatti and offer her the scholarship to SAB, without which the Fickers wouldn't have moved to New York....

By the way, I think that Apollinaire Scherr is a very perceptive critic -- she's got guts, that's for sure, and she has INSIGHT. If I don't agree with her, I'm never offended as I am by (say) John Rockwell.... Even when she makes mistakes, they're the kind Denby or Croce made, not the kind Rockwell makes.

[drb]

Yes, Diana Adams is the one who discovered Suzanne Farrell. You can read about it, and actually see and hear Suzanne describe the event here:

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/far0int-4

Ms. Farrell had seen Ms. Adams dance a couple of months prior, identified with her because of their comparable heights, and brought her program to the audition to get Diana's autograph. She also tells the M/M story on the same page.

[Helene]

I haven't got time to check this, but didn't Adams discover Suzanne in Cincinatti and offer her the scholarship to SAB, without which the Fickers wouldn't have moved to New York....

Diana Adams did discover Farrell in Cincinnati. This was before the big Ford Foundation grant and increasingly formal audition process. Farrell's mother packed up the car and took the kids to NYC, where, according to Farrell's memoir, they got a one room apartment at the Ansonia. But Farrell still needed to audition, which she did for Balanchine on her birthday.

Farrell read part of the letter in which Balanchine refers to Adams as her "GuarDIANA" angel in Elusive Muse. By then she was his muse, having "just been born" in Movements for Orchestra. He seemed to like to keep his muses, past and present, together; Farrell describes in Holding onto Air playing cards with Adams and LeClerq.

[Michael]

By the way, I think that Apollinaire Scherr is a very perceptive critic -- she's got guts, that's for sure, and she has INSIGHT.

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And the point she made was quite correct. Darci has lost the ability to carry her arabesque into her back -- It's a serious serious handicap for this role and for a lot of others. It was very difficult in Orpheus last year too -- where, like Monumentum/Movements, she was given every single performance (and there with Nilas Martins; thankfully, no one has had the idea to put him into Monumentum).