Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Robert Gottlieb on Pithoprakta


Recommended Posts

"For the first time in 40 years, New Yorkers could experience a Balanchine ballet called Pithoprakta, re-created (and partly re-imagined) by Suzanne Farrell, on whom it was made back in 1968. The music, by Iannis Xenakis, is hardly of consequence -- but the piece itself, in the direct line of Balanchine's groundbreaking works which leads from Agon and Episodes to Symphony in Three Movements and Kammermusik No. 2 -- is riveting, more challenging, more 'modern' than just about anything anyone has made since. You can see the Farrell outline in every movement and pose the ballerina presents, and if Elisabeth Hollowchuk is no Farrell -- far from it -- you could see through her to infer Balanchine's intentions. Matthew Prescott, in the Arthur Mitchell role, was handicapped by the fact that neither Farrell nor Mitchell could remember the details of his role. The corps managed to convey a convincing jagged, ominous intensity. Thank you, Fall for Dance, for making Pithoprakta available to us once again. Too bad you chose to present it only once, rather than the two performances granted to a number of far less significant works."

Link to comment

Thanks for posting, Farrell Fan. While the Balanchine choreography is obviously the most important matter here, it is more than even usually fascinating to find a major ballet critic THIS ignorant about music. Iannis Xennakis was one of the most important international composers of the second half of the 20th century, and Balanchine was perfectly aware of this (as, I'm sure, is Farrell). No one expects dance critics to know as much about music as they do about dance (or as much about music as dancers themselves do), but this is easily the most pathetic and absurd statement about a major 20th century composer I've ever read by a major dance critic--and even Macauley's love of Minkus is not fatuous in the same sense. I may dislike Minkus, but I can't prove Macauley shouldn't. Fortunately, Gottlieb's words don't matter a whit--I'd still like to see the ballet and almost did last week, but just didn't have time. I'm sure Farrell has done something good with it, although I'd have rather seen it back in 1968, when it was fresh and all of it known to be 'there'. Xennakis is very difficult and highly intellectual music--one doesn't expect someone like Gottlieb to be able to enter into it in even the most superficial way, but that kind of music does not usually find itself dealt with this kind of extreme vapidity, which is a mere supercilious dismissal by somebody about something about which he knows nothing. It's really extremely embarassing. Balanchine even played, or sightread at least, some Xennakis scores at the piano, I am sure he did not do so because he thought it was 'hardly of consequence'.

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...