NYCB Union Jack publicity photo

[rg]

New York City Ballet publicity photo - stamped with a date (of filing at a Chicago newspaper?) of Aug 10 1979 for a performance by the company at the city's Auditorium Theater - showing a sidelong view of the finale? of Scottish and Canadian Guards Regiments? from UNION JACK, with various dancers.

(This is an edit of a previous post mistaken indetifying the regiment(s) and the dancers.)

The comments that follow were posted in response to the initial, mistaken post.

[Moderators should please feel free to delete the whole confused topic. I'm not sure how to do this or I would.]

For the record a NYCB house prog. cast from this period shows that Lopez seen here was in Mazzo's Dress Macdonald Regiment; Caligari also seen here was in Macdonald of Sleat; the lighter plaid tartans of Farrell's R.A.C.F. regiment might be those seen toward the photo's right.

[kfw]

New York City Ballet publicity photo - stamped with a date (of filing at a Chicago newspaper?) of Aug 10 1979 for a performance by the company at the city's Auditorium Theater - showing a sidelong view of Royal Canadian Air Force regiment, 9 women led by Suzanne Farrell, seen at the right hand side of the picture. (L. Lopez & W. Frankfurt can be seen down the line from Farrell.)

NYCB was at the Auditorium Theatre for two weeks in 1979, in April. I don't have the full schedule and they must have danced Union Jack more than once, but my old program shows it was performed on Friday, April 20 along with In G Major and The Four Seasons. I would have thought that was Maria Calegari at the far right of the shot, but for what it's worth, the corps dancers listed in the RCAF section along with Frankfurt are Helene Alexopoulos, Bonita Borne, Judith Fugate, Catherine Morris, Delia Peters, Lisa de Ribere, Majorie Spohn, and Sheryl Ware. Perhaps both Lopez and Calegari were substitutes.

Thanks, rg!

[Mel Johnson]

You know, I don't recall the RCAF segment being in Highland dress. "Union Jack" was an awful muddle of British and Commonwealth service traditions, so much that it was considered somewhat offensive. (I certainly found that aspect to be so), but I don't recall that particular error.

[rg]

re: the identification of the dancer on the right - maybe my sense of this being Farrell is off - i suppose this might be Calegari.

do we know if MC took of over this SF role by '79?

[Helene]

The woman to the far right popped to me as Calegari.

All of the regiments in the first part wore Highland dress.

The first time I saw Calegari lead RCAF/Wrens was in the Winter 1983 season, but I missed the 1979 performances.

[Mel Johnson]

But they are not at that point identified as RCAF. That would have been another offense. This is just a way of sorting dancers on the stage.

[Helene]

But they are not at that point identified as RCAF.

I don't understand. The only way that the dancers are identified by regiment name is in the program. The music is all over the place.

I remember RCAF being clad in a light blue gray tartan and dancing to softish Handel, but the color scheme impression could be my mind playing tricks.

[Mel Johnson]

That's why "Union Jack" is such a mess. RCAF tartan is indeed a blue-and-gray sett. The WORST mess-up came at the final scene, with the Royal Navy semaphoring to "British Grenadiers". It was a marker to me that Balanchine was losing it.

[kfw]

re: the identification of the dancer on the right - maybe my sense of this being Farrell is off - i suppose this might be Calegari.

do we know if MC took of over this SF role by '79?

She's listed that way in the Auditorium Theatre program.

[Helene]

That this is a publicity photo may make all of this irrelevant, but I'm not sure Farrell's regiment was as the front here. I remember from her memoir that Balanchine had taken her to a burlesque show where one of the performers was looking down at the ground, looking bored. Then she lifted her eyes, and captured their attention, and Farrell filed it away for the future. The future was "Union Jack", where she looked to the ground as the lines circled forward and she looked at the ground until she made it to the front, and then looked up.

Again, my memory may be very faulty, because it's been two decades since I've seen the entire ballet, but I thought she was in the middle, at least at some points, and that the regiment in front was the first one on, maybe in green.

I love this ballet, but for me, it's a dead spot between the opening processional march and Macdonald of Sleat.

[carbro]

The woman to the far right popped to me as Calegari.

Without doubt, and I clearly recognize (right to left) Frankfurt, Lopez and Fugate. Beyond that, the photo gets too blurry for my aging eyes. In those days, NYCB program listing of corps dancers was very haphazard (including one full season of Concerto Barocco that listed nine corps dancers, including one who had left the company), so I'm not surprised that the photo caption is confused, but misidentifying the principal?

The first time I saw Calegari lead RCAF/Wrens was in the Winter 1983 season, but I missed the 1979 performances.

As I recall, Calegari was an original corps member of RCAF/WRENS and Farrell's first successor as its leader, but 1979 feels a little early. Each regiment had a leader supported by an ensemble of nine,

so could that be Farrell, as leader, in the center of the line -- at the s-k-o of the watermark?

Damn, I miss Union Jack. I don't hold much hope that we'll be seeing a revival any time soon. Can't you just see Mearns in Farrell's role, Bouder in von Aroldingen's, Tiler Peck in Leland's, Robbie Fairchild in Peter Martins'?