cubanmiamiboy Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 I just got a flyer on the mail. It seems it will be a one-time-only performance. Planning to go, of course... "See the Music, Hear the Dancing" Performance and Benefit Dinner January 29, 2009 7:30 p.m. "Two of America’s great performing arts organizations – Miami City Ballet and The Cleveland Orchestra – join together for one magical evening of music and dance at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center. The program includes George Balanchine’s Symphony in Three Movements with music by Igor Stravinsky and Symphony in C danced to George Bizet’s stirring symphony – and more! Performance is followed by an on-stage Benefit Dinner." Link to comment
bart Posted December 3, 2008 Share Posted December 3, 2008 Thanks, Cristian, for that item. Villella, in his pre-performance talks in West Palm last month, mentioned this and also said that there was the possibility of a 5-year commitment for such performances, if this is successful. It's good to see mutual support and cultural synergy between two major performing arts groups. Does anyone know how the program will be arranged? Will the Cleveland actually move to the pit to play the Stravinsky? Wouldn't that be a marvel! Link to comment
Paul Parish Posted December 4, 2008 Share Posted December 4, 2008 I would NOT miss it -- Cleveland is a GREAT orchestra! and this is wonderful music -- the concert would be worth it if you were blind. I just got a flyer on the mail. It seems it will be a one-time-only performance. Planning to go, of course..."See the Music, Hear the Dancing" Performance and Benefit Dinner January 29, 2009 7:30 p.m. "Two of America’s great performing arts organizations – Miami City Ballet and The Cleveland Orchestra – join together for one magical evening of music and dance at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center. The program includes George Balanchine’s Symphony in Three Movements with music by Igor Stravinsky and Symphony in C danced to George Bizet’s stirring symphony – and more! Performance is followed by an on-stage Benefit Dinner." Link to comment
Jack Reed Posted December 6, 2008 Share Posted December 6, 2008 I recall from one of Villella's recent pre-performances talks in Fort Lauderdale that the Cleveland O. will indeed be in the pit -- I agree, they are certainly one of the very best, if not the best -- and the whole idea makes my jaw drop. Who's conducting? It matters... Link to comment
bart Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 On the Sunday Links forum, dirac has posted a background article by Jordan Levin in the Miami Herald: http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/story/869208.html A lot of the credit for this goes to Dr. Mike Eidson, MCB's chairman of the board, who was inspired by the day Diaghilev had brought together great artists from several fields. Eidson contacted South Florida arts patron Dan Lewis, who worked to bring the Cleveland Orchestra to South Florida in 2007, and broached the idea with Villella. Lewis arranged a meeting with Hanson and Franz Welser-Most, the orchestra's music director. The two had already been talking about possible collaborations in Miami. The first idea was to work with the opera, but Welser-Most turned it down.''Franz's response was that [an opera production] was time-consuming, complicated and expensive, but there was an enormous orchestral repertoire written for the ballet,'' Hanson says. ``And for the orchestra to undertake a staged collaboration in Miami we ought to think about the ballet.'' Balanchine's dances are perfectly suited to this sort of collaboration. His classic 1928 ballet Apollo, set to a Stravinsky score, was the last major work presented by Ballet Russes. Balanchine was famously musical, finding multiple structural parallels and layers of meaning to the scores he chose. For those interested in how programs like this are put together -- and the economic implications in a time of cut-backs and fears for the future -- it's "must" reading. Thanks, dirac! Link to comment
cahill Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 There was a great article on the Cleveland Orchestra and their tours in the Cleveland Plain Dealer Cleveland Orchestra crafts new paths artistically and financially This looks like it will be a great program! Link to comment
cubanmiamiboy Posted January 30, 2009 Author Share Posted January 30, 2009 It was INDEED a great program. Beauty at its best... I'm highly pleased...(which is not that easy sometimes)... Will be back... Link to comment
cahill Posted January 30, 2009 Share Posted January 30, 2009 Waiting to hear your review! Jordan Levin had a review in the Herald today. It looks like the house was sold out! That is great news! Was there any mention in the program about future joint events? Miami City Ballet and the Cleveland Orchestra mesh perfectly Link to comment
bart Posted January 30, 2009 Share Posted January 30, 2009 I'm envious. It's fantastic that the house was sold out. Could this be a template for other ballet companies in towns with major symphony orchestras? Each organization has a following. I hope the symphony loyalists will be tempted to come back for other evenings of ballet, even without the Cleveland. And that MCB fans will return the favor. It's good news that MCB's conductor -- Juan Francisco La Manna -- took the podiuim here. I was wondering whether a ballet conductor would be given the nod. Here's an example from Levin's review that nicely illustrates the idea of "hear the daancing; see the music": When Jennifer Kronenberg and Jeremy Cox danced the central pas de deux in Movements, their curling hands and oddly arched shapes revealed the music's playful, conversational quality -- and their slow rise and fall its yearning. Link to comment
cubanmiamiboy Posted January 31, 2009 Author Share Posted January 31, 2009 I went backstage after the performance just in time to catch Delgado-( )- still wearing her tutu from Symphony in C. Here she is with Katia Carranza. (Will be back...I just have to look for my playbill...which I misplaced, as usual... :blush: ) http://www.flickr.com/photos/26624336@N06/3240384488/ Link to comment
cubanmiamiboy Posted February 1, 2009 Author Share Posted February 1, 2009 Reflections from Symphony in C Wow…all those who predicted that I would love Symphony in C were absolutely on the right track. I think, in my humble opinion, that this “tutu ballet”, with its luxurious beauty, is definitely the grandest throwback I've seen of Balanchine as his days at the Marinsky Theater in St. Petersburg where he grew up and rebelled, but obviously never forgot. Yes, it is plotless, but…isn’t always kind of a love story feeling in this kind of beautiful PDD, like the Second Movement Adagio…? Maybe it is just me, but I did feel a charming, mysterious and fascinating love language going on among the main couple. The other three movements were also beautiful. Mary Carmen Catoya was as precise as ever in the first one-(although for some reason she decided to permeate her performance with her “sad-looking”, using those big expressive eyes. This choice of hers has never been my favorite. Aside from that, she sparkled, never off balance). Second Movement-(my favorite, as I said)-featured Hayan Wu and Carlos Miguel Guerra. I loved Wu this time around, all delicacy and lightness. Her penchee was perfect. I had never seen such an extravagant penchee on pointe. . Third Movement was danced by my new favorite ballerina of the Company…powerful dynamo, radiant, smiley Jeanette Delgado, partnered by Alex Wong, who seems to be getting sharper on his partnering skills. Delgado was something like a ray of light. I can’t really describe the feeling that I had at watching her dancing WITH HER WHOLE BODY: her eyes, her mouth, arms, neck…all of it. For the first time I see a ballerina on this company that reminds me all this Cuban ballerinas that I write about from the past. OK: reality was, she reminded me of a CUBAN TRAINED BALLERINA. Fourth movement was her sister Patricia partnered by Jeremy Cox. Patricia’s dancing follows the same pattern of her sister’s, but a little more subtle, nevertheless wonderful as well. Cox was, as usual, his particular self…a dancer with his own “stuff” going on, a personality of his own…which I love. The Finale was, as someone said, exhilarating. The ovation was rotund in the packed full house. People…I DEFINITELY need to see this again. Link to comment
Sonora Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 I was able to attend one of the City Center performances (Saturday evening) and by happenstance to catch the Cleveland Orchestra/MCB joint appearance - only able to see the second half of the latter, which included a Mendelsohn overture and the Bizet. Of course, the Orchestra was fabulous, every note seeming to pour out of the orchestra pit, and to fill the air with a fullness and warmth that delighted ear and heart. The company, fresh after their splendid New York debut, performed Symphony in C very well. I would think no one interested in the health and preservation of this wonderful ballet, not to mention the rest of the Balanchine repertoire, could possibly fail to appreciate the clarity, freshness, and joy with which it was danced. This is an interpretation (led with particular joie de vivre by Jeanette Delgado) that seems to me the opposite of stagnant and perfunctory, that might, under the best of circumstances, stimulate and recharge other companies' performances of the ballet. Link to comment
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