chrisk217 Posted January 21, 2006 Share Posted January 21, 2006 I have a gift certificate from amazon and I was thinking of using it to buy "The Ballets Russes and Its World" by Lynn Garafola. That is, until I read the reader reviews, some of which talk of errors and misconceptions, and are negative in a quite nasty way: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300061765/ What do the ballettalkers who have read it think? Is this a good book? Link to comment
Leigh Witchel Posted January 21, 2006 Share Posted January 21, 2006 Disclaimer - I'm friendly with Lynn Garafola. Chris, I've seen the book but haven't read it. It's a scholarly work, not a coffee table book, which might account for some of the disappointment, but otherwise those opinions are hard for me to fathom. Link to comment
ViolinConcerto Posted January 21, 2006 Share Posted January 21, 2006 Chris, to me, it is a scholarly book that looks like a coffee table book. It is a series of essays about exactly what the title says, "The Ballets Russes and its World" that is beautifully and thoroughly illustrated. It's not a history, or biography, or the story of the various Ballets Russes companies (like the wonderful film!), nor something you can read straight through, but good for really deeply thought analyses, and historical essays. They are in chronological order, starting with a discussion of Diaghilev's family, going all the way through Lincoln Kirstein. I have found it interesting and useful -- and I have not read more than one essay straight through, but been able to jump from chapter to chapter when I want to research (or just learn about) something. Link to comment
Paul Parish Posted January 21, 2006 Share Posted January 21, 2006 Those reviews are bizarre -- though it IS true that contemporary academic writing, esp that influenced by "critical theory,' is not user-friendly for non-academics -- unnecesssarily hard to understand, annoyingly sesquipedalian, and also often DOES seem to blame those of the past for not having the values of the present. Link to comment
kfw Posted January 21, 2006 Share Posted January 21, 2006 I love the book. But chrisk217, you might also be interested in Garafola's own 1989 book, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes . It was re-issued in 1998. Link to comment
dirac Posted January 23, 2006 Share Posted January 23, 2006 Those online reviews were pretty funny. Tyler Durden, BTW, was the name of the character played by Brad Pitt for Fight Club. I do not recall that ballet history was a primary interest of his. Link to comment
Paul Parish Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 I bet this is an excellent book. I haven't seen it, but it seems like an outgrowth of the catalogue of the HUGE exhibition that Nancy van Norman Baer (who was a friend of mine) put on in one of the fine arts museums of San Francisco in the late 80s. I have that (excellent) catalogue, and it has nearly a dozen essays by some of the same hands as the book you're talking about -- but it's not 400 plus pages. Nancy's show had rooms full of costumes -- almost all of Bakst's for "the Sleeping Princess," wonderful things that Matisse made with cutouts, on and on -- on top of watercolors for costume designs and sets, many many of those -- seems like there was especialy a lot of Goncharova. She'd gotten stuff from everywhere -- I remember a Sargent of Nijinsky. Many pictures from the collection of Serge Lifar. She was a wonderful person, and those exhibitions were incredibly valuable, and she can not be replaced -- there was one specifically about Nijinska, and a fabulous one of Russian constructivism, and another equally fabulous one of the designs for the Ballets Suedois, with a giant maquette of Leger's set and costumes for Creation du Monde (which had giant puppets). The Nijinska show accompanied hte Oakland Ballet's revivals and reconstructions of Nijinska's work, and may have helped encourage -- this is just speculation, but it seems to me likely -- Nijinska's daughter to put together the volume of Nijinska's memoirs that came out around the time Les Noces was revived -- which was part of the intellectual life of the Bay Area. There was some synergy there. What Nancy did had a healthy effect of drawing attention to ballet from the art world and helped establish the place of ballet in the community, at a time when SF Ballet was still trying to consolidate what Richard leBlond was doing to rescue SFB (which had nearly gone under before he was brought in). All this is off the top of my head, I haven't researched it -- but I think it's about right Link to comment
ViolinConcerto Posted January 24, 2006 Share Posted January 24, 2006 I saw that exhibition (I believe at the Palace of Fine Arts) Paul, and it was wonderful. I know that it was shown in at least two places, because I was lucky enough to see it twice (possibly at the Dance Museum in Saratoga, NY the other time). The book does not mention the exhibit however, on the covers, flaps or acknowledgements or introduction, although it does mention the museum of Fine Arts in SF, along with many other soures in the acknowledgements. Link to comment
chrisk217 Posted February 19, 2006 Author Share Posted February 19, 2006 Many thanks to all for helping! I eventually decided to follow kfw's advice. I'll let you know what I think of the book when I read it! Link to comment
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