1975 opening night review for Chaconne, Steadfast Tin Soldier

[KayDenmark]

The New York Times posted this PDF of a page from its 1975 arts section as part of a tribute to CBGBs, which is covered at the bottom of the page.

At the top, however, you can see Clive Barnes' review of a double Balanchine premiere - Chaconne and the Steadfast Tin Soldier.

Look how much ink the latter gets - and I'd hazard to say it is the one is performed more often today.

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/arts/20061016_CLUB.pdf

[carbro]

Thanks for finding and posting, Kay.

Look how much ink the latter gets - and I'd hazard to say it is the one is performed more often today.

It doesn't seem so to me -- at least not at NYCB. Nor am I particularly bothered by Barnes' near dismissal of Steadfast.

The page also has a review of Carla Fracci, Ivan Nagy and Erik Bruhn in ABT's La Sylphide. And coincidentally, John Rockwell just happens to be the author of the CBGB article.

[bart]

AND an article on the Bolshoi's Romeo and Juliet. All on one page. Those were the days for ballet journalism!!!

The Bolshoi article mentions that the performance was to be filmed by West German television, and that Mary Tyler Moore would be hosting the American presentation on CBS-TV. Has anyone seen this program?

[rg]

i reviewed this telecast for soho weekly news at the time. i'm fairly certain the filming made it to commercial video - natalia besmertnova and mikhail lavrovsky were the leads - and at one point kultur? had it on the market.

i don't think the nypl dance coll. has a copy listed but i may have searched inaccurately.

one can always hope that such discontinued releases will be re-released on DVD.

if i find more data i'll re-post.

for sure, tho' the mary tyler moore intro. etc. was not included in the commerical telecast.

AND an article on the Bolshoi's Romeo and Juliet. All on one page. Those were the days for ballet journalism!!!

The Bolshoi article mentions that the performance was to be filmed by West German television, and that Mary Tyler Moore would be hosting the American presentation on CBS-TV. Has anyone seen this program?

[Petra]

The page also includes an ad for the last 4 days of Nureyev's Don Quixote at the Cinema Studio. Those were the days for ballet journalism because those were the days for ballet!

[Farrell Fan]

I wish I could see well enough to read some of the stuff on this page. After considerable strain I think I saw that in Chaconne Suzanne and Peter danced like "dead leaves." That can't be right, can it?

[bart]

I wish I could see well enough to read some of the stuff on this page. After considerable strain I think I saw that in Chaconne Suzanne and Peter danced like "dead leaves." That can't be right, can it?

It's even worse: "dead LOVERS." But, in the context, this is meant to be extremely positive:

At the heart of this gleamingly white "Chaconne"are a number of duets (2 major ones) for Suzanne Farrell and Peter Martins. It is difficult to believe that these were not specially created for the dancers, and obviously they must have been considerably adapted. These two wonderful dancers have no air of wearing secondhand clothes; they are so natural and unaffected. They both go through the ballet as gravely as dead lovers in an exultant memoral ritual to the past.

[richard53dog]

It's even worse: "dead LOVERS." But, in the context, this is meant to be extremely positive:

At the heart of this gleamingly white "Chaconne"are a number of duets (2 major ones) for Suzanne Farrell and Peter Martins. . They both go through the ballet as gravely as dead lovers in an exultant memoral ritual to the past.

Perhaps "ghosts of dead lovers" would have been less grating? Barnes must have been working on a very tight deadline. Infelicities like "ritual to" are not usually in his repertoire.

Balanchine may have been giving a nod backward to his stagings of Gluck's Orfeo. The music used here is from the Elysian Fields scene, the Dance of the Blessed Spirits. So at least, dead lovers would not be out of place here in Gluck's idea of a celestial space. And yeah, I think "ghosts of lovers" or "spirits of dead lovers"

would be more poetic. But as you note, Barnes may have been rushed

[Klavier]

I wish I could see well enough to read some of the stuff on this page. After considerable strain I think I saw that in Chaconne Suzanne and Peter danced like "dead leaves." That can't be right, can it?

If you are viewing the page (as is most likely) through Adobe Acrobat Reader, you should see a control at the top of the display that lets you enlarge the PDF image to any percentage you like.