Prodigal Son:Dancing for Balanchine in a world of pain and magic

[cubanmiamiboy]

Yesterday i started Eddie's autobriography, which has captivated me right away. I wonder if there's already a thread on this book...? If so, please redirect my post . If not, i would like to hear your experiences on its reading.

[printscess]

Yesterday i started Eddie's autobriography, which has captivatedd me right away. I wonder if there's already a thread on this book...? If so, please redirect my post . If not, i would like to hear your experiences on its reading.

I could not get through the book. As exciting and breathtaking he was as a dancer, I found the book dreadful.

[popularlibrary]

I could not get through the book. As exciting and breathtaking he was as a dancer, I found the book dreadful.

I don't mean to question another member's responses, but - I don't understand. Personally, I think it is one of the best, and in many ways the most revealing, of all the Balanchine dancers' memoirs. It is not only Villella's remarkably perceptive understanding of Balanchine's art and technique, but his finely detailed portrait of the troubled, fruitful, painful relationship with Mr. B that give this autobiography its power. Even if it were poorly written, which I emphatically believe it is not, it would be an essential record of the personal and artistic development of the dancer who was, as Arlene Croce correctly points out, the most important male dancer with whom Balanchine ever collaborated, and for whom he made the most distinctive group of male roles. I just re-read it recently, and was again amazed by Villella's honesty, insight and capacity to analyze both his own art and Balanchine's. It left me with greater respect than ever for both of them.

[dirac]

Even if it were poorly written, which I emphatically believe it is not, it would be an essential record of the personal and artistic development of the dancer who was, , and for whom he made the most distinctive group of male roles.

I agree. I appreciated Villella’s candor about the rewards and difficulties of his relationship with Balanchine, his account of life in the company, and his later struggle with injury. He provides a view that no one else, not even another male NYCB star, could supply. I also enjoyed reading what he had to say about his work with Stanley Williams.

printscess, what was ‘dreadful’ about the book? It’s not perfect by any means, but I wouldn’t say anything that harsh about it. (By asking, I don’t mean to put you on the spot or on the defensive. I really do want to know what you thought.)

as Arlene Croce correctly points out, the most important male dancer with whom Balanchine ever collaborated

"All those girls.....and Edward Villella."

[Farrell Fan]

The only dreadful thing I can think of in connection with this book is the overlong, overwrought subtitle. The book itself was moving and fascinating. I think I"ll have to reread it.

[bart]

I think I"ll have to reread it.

You took the words out of my mouth, Farrell Fan.

Since the start of this thread, I've glanced at some of my underlinings from a previous reading a number of years ago. I have to say that I agree with popularlibrary and dirac. Perhaps those who were less impressed were put off by the strong, sometimes acerbic comments Villella makes about the things he did not like or approve of. In a real sense Villella was both an insider and an outsider in Mr. B's company. He writes about both kinds of experience. There's much in the way of Balanchine wisdom, but there are also a few Balanchine stories that do not reflect well on the Master.

I've had the opportunity to watch Villella's own company closely over the past 7 seasons. I've been able to observe some of the ways that Villella passes down Balanchine technique to his dancers and how he works to imbue them with the Balanchine style, philosophy and spirit. I've heard Villella himself speak to the audience before almost every performance performance. Once or twice, I've been moved almost to tears by the way Villella speaks of "my dancers" (all of them, without apparent favortiism) and by his veneration of Balanchine's art and desire to keep the Balanchinian legacy alive.

[Marga]

A copy of Prodigal Son is always within reach in my house. I have several copies, both soft and hard cover. I've given copies to my mother, with whom I watched him when young, my daughter, who studied one summer at Miami City Ballet (Eddie taught her Thursday class) and others who have shown even a little bit of interest. I grew up loving him. From my front row subscription seat at the State Theater, it was thrilling to see him appear on stage. The first time I saw him at such close range, it was a little jarring to see the veins so prominent on his pale, sinewy, muscled arms. His was a body pared and shaped by ballet to the extent that we could see the battle scars.

The cumbersome title of the book does, nevertheless, inform us of what's inside. Detailed passages abound which describe the pain -- and the magic. That we are teased, before even breaking the spine, with what is about to be revealed to us, is a bit titillating.

Here is a passage (page 210), where Villella tells what it was like to dance the role of the Prodigal as he returns, crawling, to his father:

"

Shaun O'Brien (who usually plays the Father) gently lowers me to the ground. I can hear the applause from the other side of the curtain. The performance has taken its toll on my body: my knees are skinned, my insteps are bleeding, my elbows are bruised, there are welts on my arms, and my back hurts like hell. Usually my toes are bleeding, and dirt from the stage clogs my nose and mouth. I'm covered with grime from head to toe. I'm gasping for air. I have just enough energy to bow."

That's an incidence of pain (and pleasure, too, as he goes on to describe, in the après-danse euphoria).

Now, for a little bit of magic, via Jerome Robbins and Dances at a Gathering (page 218):

Robbins:

"I see something in you no one has used yet," he said, "but the music has to be just right." ..... "When you walk out onstage, you're actually beginning the ballet. You look around. It's as if it's the last time you'll ever dance in this theater, in this space. And this is your home, the place you know. It's familiar, and I don't want to overstate it, but it's almost as if the atom bomb is going to fall. Everything is going to change."

...... Villella:

"In fact, the variation opened

Dances at a Gathering

and was essential in establishing its mood. The curtain rises on an empty stage. .....On my third step, the music starts, and I dance. There was no doubt in my mind once it was completed that Jerry had created what had to be one of the most beautiful solo male variations ever choreographed. I felt so emotional after dancing it that some nights I wanted to go home immediately -- it seemed as if I should leave the theater at once. Often it was hard for me to get back onstage for the rest of the ballet."

Bravo to Larry Kaplan for helping Edward Villella tell his profoundly intimate story.

[printscess]

Even if it were poorly written, which I emphatically believe it is not, it would be an essential record of the personal and artistic development of the dancer who was, , and for whom he made the most distinctive group of male roles.

I agree. I appreciated Villella’s candor about the rewards and difficulties of his relationship with Balanchine, his account of life in the company, and his later struggle with injury. He provides a view that no one else, not even another male NYCB star, could supply. I also enjoyed reading what he had to say about his work with Stanley Williams.

printscess, what was ‘dreadful’ about the book? It’s not perfect by any means, but I wouldn’t say anything that harsh about it. (By asking, I don’t mean to put you on the spot or on the defensive. I really do want to know what you thought.)

as Arlene Croce correctly points out, the most important male dancer with whom Balanchine ever collaborated

"All those girls.....and Edward Villella."

Dirac,

I read it about 6 years ago. I remember that it was so dry. I had to force myself to get through it. I had known a lot about his life before I read the book and thought the book just didn't do him justice, even though he wrote it. My opinion of the book has nothing to do about my opinion of him as a dancer and a trail blazer.

[Memo]

hmm vacation is coming sounds like some good reading material for rainy days.

[bart]

Marga, thanks for your quotataions, which made me return to the book.

Robbins: "I see something in you no one has used yet," he said, "but the music has to be just right."

This is followed by:

Right after that, Robbins picks the music for the piece, a Chopin Mazurka. "I feel that there's a romantic side to you that people don't see because they don't look beyond your pyrotechnical ability, the physical, athletic feats you do, all your jumping and your speed," he said. "I'm going to try to express tihs romantic side in this dance. Tihs variation is very introspective. It's as if you're looking inside of yourself."

It's this "romantic" quality that surprised me when I first saw the Miami dancers 7 years ago. I don't mean "romantic" in the 19th-century sense or in a heart-on-your-sleeve kind of emotionality. Rather, it is connected to a belief in ballet as a theater art in which one must be able to project feeling through movement -- about one's partner, about the music, about the movement itself -- over the footlights and into the hall.

These are precisely qualities which struck me (a teenager with only a little prior experience with ballet) when I began attending performances of Mr. B's company in the late 50s.

[carbro]

I read it about 6 years ago. I remember that it was so dry. I had to force myself to get through it. I had known a lot about his life before I read the book and thought the book just didn't do him justice, even though he wrote it. My opinion of the book has nothing to do about my opinion of him as a dancer and a trail blazer.

I hope you don't feel ganged up on. I don't quite understand your response, but I respect it.

I'm a very slow reader, and I practically zipped through it. I also knew the broad outlines of his life beforehand. I was moved by his willingness to expose his emotional vulnerabilities, and as much as I admire what he's created and developed in Miami, understanding his conflicted relationship to Balanchine, makes it all the more impressive. In many ways MCB is a tribute to his mentor, and whatever resentments may linger, they are beside the point.

[Quiggin]

I just took another peek at it online--I read the whole thing 10 years ago. Though it's about Villella and his craft and his narrative about his struggles with his craft, the book also provides incidental documentary glimpses at the interpersonal relationships backstage. You get to understand a little more about the dynamics about who was cast in what. There are very interesting, not-your-standard portraits of Violet Verdy, Jacques D'Amboise, and Melissa Hayden--and Stanley Williams. There is a sort of dated look at a party Villella is tricked to going to, Otto Preminger/Advise & Consentish, but everything else is fine.

[canbelto]

I'm reading the book and reading it is a bit like being taken to a five-star restaurant and saying, "You can smell but not eat." Villella talks at lengths about his numerous appearances on Firestone, the Ed Sullivan Show, and the Dance in America series. He even mentions that he won an Emmy for a production of "Harlequinade." He also mentions starring in a tv Nutcracker with Patricia McBride. He mentions what a sensation his Oberon solo created. But AFAIK he is adamant that none of this is ever released. As a friend mentioned, the two-part documentary on Balanchine contains not a single clip of him. Neither do any other NYCB-related documentary I've ever seen. While I certainly respect his wishes it's a bit frustrating thinking that clips of his legendary Tchai pdd, Oberon, Prodigal Son, Rubies, et al. are sitting in some vault.

He is not a modest man -- it seemed as if throughout the book he demanded things from Mr. B that no one else dared because he could. Still, an excellent book, and a great look at life inside a ballet company. It's maybe the most vivid account of the politics, intrigues, trials, tribulations, and artistic achievement of the NYCB, of all the "Mr. B and Me" autobiographies I've read. He also describes more vividly than almost any other dancer the rush and joy of performing, combined with the pain.

One thing that does puzzle me is that Villella is repeatedly described by himself as "too short." But he says he's about 5'8" which made him taller than Baryshnikov and about the same size as Nureyev. Certainly not "short short."

[dirac]

No, but short enough. Baryshnikov wasn’t on the scene yet when Villella was rising to prominence, and five-eight is sufficiently short to make life inconvenient for a male danseur – especially in Balanchine’s company.

He is not a modest man -- it seemed as if throughout the book he demanded things from Mr. B that no one else dared because he could.

Well, few stars are modest, although some are better at not letting their egos hang out than others. It’s safe to say that Villella knew he occupied an unique position and it strengthened what appears to be natural nerve and moxie.

Regarding the tapes, I agree that it's a loss for us, but it's also a performer's right. I can understand how some dancers might have reservations.

[bart]

Villella's height worked well with McBride, of course, but also with Kent and Verdy and Kay Mazzo. He also danced occasionally with Hayden. There are a few pages devoted to his late-career partnering with Gelsey Kirkland as well.

I suspect that he projected, on stage, at least an inch or two more in height than he actually had.

He mentions that Farrell on pointe was 6 inches taller than himself.

Villella repeats a couple of times that he took partnering seriously, and had to work very hard at it, and that he liked doing it -- even the less glamourous parts ("I gave the woman freedom and support and allowed the audience to see her without being aware of my labors"). He could probably afford to be self-denying about this, since so many of his ballets were full of attention-grabbing solos as well.

[dirac]

Villella's height worked well with McBride, of course, but also with Kent and Verdy and Kay Mazzo. He also danced occasionally with Hayden. There are a few pages devoted to his late-career partnering with Gelsey Kirkland as well.

True, but his most favored women tended to be on the tall side. Villella couldn’t dance with Suzanne Farrell or one of her chief replacements, Karin von Aroldingen, in most ballets. Kent and Verdy were in and out, and Mazzo wasn’t a factor until Farrell left in ’69. Villella notes that d’Amboise’s position in the company rose as Farrell’s did, and he was bothered by it. (One of the bits of candor about company life that this reader appreciated.) It was fortunate for both Villella and McBride that they were physically and temperamentally so well suited to one another.

Villella repeats a couple of times that he took partnering seriously, and had to work very hard at it, and that he liked doing it

That's right. He also mentions that he wasn't too good at it to begin with and is funny about the excuses the ballerinas would come up with to avoid rehearsing with him.

[bart]

He also mentions that he wasn't too good at it to begin with and is funny about the excuses the ballerinas would come up with to avoid rehearsing with him.

Yes. Especially Verdy! But there was a happy ending there, and he stresses that.

[cubanmiamiboy]

There are a few pages devoted to his late-career partnering with Gelsey Kirkland as well.

Yeah, i remember the thing with the rehearsal in which Kirkland was driving him crazy with her frantically stopping, repeating and over detailing. He had enough of it and just walked off, leaving her in the middle of the rehearsal. They didn't see each other until performance day, where she was lovely and calm, so they danced beautifully.

[bart]

For those who have access to Ballet Chronicles, the collection of B. H. Haggin's reviews, there are some long statements by Villella in tribute to Verdy and his partnership with her. (pp. 75-77) It's amazing how observant he was. How detailed his descriptions are. And how appreciative of the effects she could produce while doing a simple falling-from-pointe or passe.

Here are a couple of examples. Though he's speaking about Verdy, we also learn some interesting -- and, to me, impressive -- things about Villella's desire to learn and his generous willingness to express appreciation to those who taught him:

The most distinctive thing about Verdy is the musical quality she has. It's an extraordinary, complete musical understanding, almost like Balanchine's in the way she came make you see the music. She did that with the first movement of Episodes. I didn't understand the score; but when I watched her I could understand the music and could see what Balanchine was after. Certain lunges didn't make sense -- choreographic sense -- to me when I saw someone else at the rehearsal just lunge and turn, lunge and turn. Then I saw Verdy do them, and I said, "Of course." When she lunged and turned I saw a motivation for the lunge and turn -- both in visual terms and in relation to the music.

... the amazing way Verdy understands a new role and develops it immediately, as soon as it is started. I have to learn the steps and the counts and digest them, and bring something to the role after that; but she brings something to it while she's learning the steps: you can see her doing it. I remember when a dancer was showing her the steps of a role: when Verdy repeated them they weren't just the steps any more, the way she suddenly brought them alive and make things happen and explode.

[papeetepatrick]

I'm reading the book and reading it is a bit like being taken to a five-star restaurant and saying, "You can smell but not eat." Villella talks at lengths about his numerous appearances on Firestone, the Ed Sullivan Show, and the Dance in America series. He even mentions that he won an Emmy for a production of "Harlequinade." He also mentions starring in a tv Nutcracker with Patricia McBride. He mentions what a sensation his Oberon solo created. But AFAIK he is adamant that none of this is ever released.

How are these things determined legally, not releasing? I remember the Nutcracker with McBride as a child, and have looked for it several times. So this is not readily available because he wants none of his old TV performances shown? I thought it was the other way around, as with the problems in using Mozartiana for Elusive Muse, and didn't know performers, just by virtue of being one of several in a work, could determine how they must not be released. Does this mean that any of the dancers in Midsummer Night's Dream could make the decision to close that off from DVD, etc., release? And this means that McBride couldn't therefore decide she wanted that Nutcracker released, since Villella has decided it musn't? Or am I missing something here? That particular Nutcracker I saw several times as a child, and is the main thing among these I'd like to see again, along with Midsummer Night's dream. so Villella appeared with Farrell and Kent at the Walter Reade showing of the MND showing, but wants no commercial release of it? I wonder if that's why we end up with a YouTube of Villella dancing to 'Little Drummer Boy' as sung by Perry Como, which looks like a professional swooped into Ted Mack or Dick Clark to make ballet accessible to the heathen teenagers. It's definitely easy enough to see why he'd want that one buried forever, his own technique notwithstanding.

[carbro]

I took a ballet class that was photographed by The New York Times. Before we entered the studio, we were required to sign a release giving The Times (in advance) the right to publish our images. I don't remember anyone not signing, or whether those who might have were asked to take barre on one side of the studio.

I imagine any of the principal dancers in these things would have had veto power, no matter how much the others desired the release, either for posterity or royalty checks. I wonder how far down the veto power goes. If a horn player hits a wrong note in a solo (shocking, I know, but it has been known to happen), can he withhold a release?

[papeetepatrick]

Carbro, yes, this is the kind of thing I was getting at. As it is, with Drummer Boy and Odd Couple, I guess the supposition must be that there will be few people seeing these little pieces of old schlock, so most bases are covered. All the other dancers were subject to old forms of reproduction as well, and there would be much more of an outcry if all of them had decided to keep almost all of their work invisible. Of course, he could change his mind at some point.

[printscess]

Villella's height worked well with McBride, of course, but also with Kent and Verdy and Kay Mazzo. He also danced occasionally with Hayden. There are a few pages devoted to his late-career partnering with Gelsey Kirkland as well.

I suspect that he projected, on stage, at least an inch or two more in height than he actually had.

He mentions that Farrell on pointe was 6 inches taller than himself.

Villella repeats a couple of times that he took partnering seriously, and had to work very hard at it, and that he liked doing it -- even the less glamourous parts ("I gave the woman freedom and support and allowed the audience to see her without being aware of my labors"). He could probably afford to be self-denying about this, since so many of his ballets were full of attention-grabbing solos as well.

Villella's proportions made him look taller on stage. He also danced big. I think he was one of the original high jumpers.

I recall early in his book he said said that Violet Verdy told him that he was a horrible partner. She probably did him a favor, because he worked very hard and sitting in the audience, he made it seem effortless. To this day, I think that he and McBride had one of the great partnerships in ballet history.

[cubanmiamiboy]

Beautiful the way he describes Prodigal Son. I felt the same sense of possession that i always found in Mme. Alonso when talking about Giselle, Farrell describing DQ or Kirkland The leaves are fading. They are their babies...

[bart]

I recall early in his book he said said that Violet Verdy told him that he was a horrible partner. She probably did him a favor, because he worked very hard and sitting in the audience, he made it seem effortless. To this day, I think that he and McBride had one of the great partnerships in ballet history.

The Villella/McBride partnership certainly is the one I remember. (Most people, too.) It's interesting, however,, how many words Villella devotes to Verdy, especially outside his book, as compared to any other dancer. And how much attention he devoted -- looking, registering, thinking, learning -- at the time.