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New York City Ballet in Montreal, vols. 1-5


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I’m especially pleased, after having seen all the George Platte Lynes photos, to finally see Magallenes and Moncion in moving pictures. They do not disappoint!

The dancer who blew me away, though, was Patricia Wilde: what a dynamic dancer she was!

Patricia Wilde stood out for me as well - what a force of nature! Serenade is well danced throughout, but Wilde exudes confidence and skill - she has the movements down cold, and yet she still looks thrilled to perform them.

Adams dances with more "concern" if that makes sense. She may have been Balanchine's most favorite muse of all, but she was not emotionally up to the task, if you believe her own comments and those of fellow dancers. Too emotionally frail for the role of 'Muse to Balanchine'.

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... I still haven't seen the L'Clerq documentary, though I have a copy on order. Is the Coppelia pas in the documentary?

There's about a half minute of it, at about an hour and seventeen minutes into the documentary, among some more dance clips following the sections about polio and her later life; the glimpses of her dancing are not quite all in the first half of the film.

What we get of it there is the beginning of the adagio; she wakes up as a life-size doll in a toy shop window (to the "Dawn" music on the VAI DVD, although we can't hear that music in the documentary, we continue to hear Debussy's "Faun" and Barbara Horgan) and then she and Andre Eglevsky (as Franz) begin to dance.

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Thanks, sandik, Jack and macnellie. My copy of the DVD has come. And speaking of the VAI "New York City Ballet in Montreal" series, Joeb Lobenthal, on his blog, reports that Volume 4 is "a humdinger as well!"

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... I thought André Eglevsky was sublime in Coppélia!

Not implying any reservations about his partner?

I found Menotti's music fluent but trashy decades ago, and so I was also disappointed that that Butler ballet was included, maybe instead of something else. I haven't even made myself watch that part yet, because I'm having too much fun watching LeClercq (and Eglevsky!) dancing a new Balanchine ballet (new, in 2014?! amazing!). I think it's well worth the price of the disk.

I mean, a dance new to me, of course, but to many others too: Consulting some of the usual suspects among the cataloguers, I can't find it; the nearest possible reference to it may be a vague one in the Balanchine Foundation catalog:

266. [PAS DE DEUX] Made for Television

Choreography: By George Balanchine.

Note: In the late 1940s or early 1950s, Balanchine choreographed a pas de deux for Tanaquil Le Clercq and Nicholas Magallanes, telecast by CBC Television, Montreal. The ballet had elements of the Coppélia story.

Some of what we have here matches this, some of it doesn't. The date of the broadcast, given as May 13, 1954, is barely within the range of Reynolds' catalog entry.

As the announcer says to us

... The celebrated choreographer, director of the New York City Ballet, George Balanchine, has choreographed especially for The CBC Concert Hour a short ballet inspired by the two principal characters in Coppelia, Swanilda and Franz:

On stage, a toy shop. In the window, a beautiful doll. It's night. A young man, Franz, passes the window, sees the doll and falls in love with her. He breaks in and kisses her. She comes to life.

We have great pleasure now in presenting Tanaquil LeClercq and Andre Eglevsky in this new ballet, based on Coppelia, by George Balanchine.

So it doesn't seem to be an excerpt, but a new pas de deux, including the gist of the central story of the full-length ballet, in eight and a half minutes. (Using music from Acts II and III, I think. Can anyone nail the musical details?)

Edited by Jack Reed
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I was disappointed that Vol. 3 included a work by John Butler, The Unicorn... The work sets my teeth on edge; it never seemed to end. I thought André Eglevsky was sublime in Coppélia!

Yes, too bad there wasn't footage of Loring's Billy the Kid, or an Antony Tudor ballet, if they're going to add something 'historic' and non-Balanchine.

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Those ballets were broadcast in Montreal? I'd be glad to see the list.

Probably not - I was just day dreaming. ;)

I recall reading a listing of the various CBS broadcasts of ballet, but I've forgotten where I found that. The NYCB website mentions things like, "Balanchine's new version of La Valse appears on television, in CBS' first commercial color telecast". And "Balanchine stages a special television version of The Nutcracker for CBS-TV's Playhouse 90 in which he performs the role of Herr Drosselmeyer." But whether any of these tapes survived is unclear. I get the feeling that only the Montreal performances were preserved.

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The list was earlier in this thread. Here it is. These are the CBC, not the CBS releases.

A partial list of NYCB performances on CBC/Radio Canada, compiled from the NYPL Dance Research Collection and from memory.

Unreleased, excluding programming already mentioned in vols 1 + 2 above.

(Except where listed, all films are B&W)

1. Four Temperaments: Carol Sumner, William Weslow, Marnee Morris, Earle Sieveling, Suki Schorer and Ramon Segarra (Theme); Richard Rapp with Kay Mazzo and Bettijane Sills (Phlegmatic); Patricia Wilde and Anthony Blum (Sanguinic); Arthur Mitchell (Melancholic); Patricia Neary (Choleric)

2. Ivesiana: Sara Leland and Francisco Moncion (Central Park after dark); Patricia Neary and Arthur Mitchell (At the inn); ensemble (In the night)

3. Concerto Barocco: Farrell/Morris/Ludlow

4. Apollo: Morris/von Aroldingen/Farrell/Martins

5. Liebeslieder Walzer: Singers: Claire Grenon-Masella, Marcelle Monette, René Lacourse and Claude Letourneau. Dancers: Diana Adams and Bill Carter, Jillana and Conrad Ludlow, Patricia McBride and Jonathan Watts, Violette Verdy and Nicholas Magallanes.

6. Stravinsky at 80 program: (ballet relevant excerpts only)

  • Agon pdd: Patricia McBride and Arthur Mitchell
  • Speech by George Balanchine / discussion of the relationship of music and dance ; introduction to the following excerpts from Apollo (Apollon musagète).
  • Apollo's variation, pas de deux of Apollo and Terpsichore: Jacques d'Amboise and Melissa Hayden
  • Symphonie de psaumes (Symphony of psalms): Patricia McBride and Arthur Mitchell
  • Speech by George Balanchine / discussion of the relationship of music and dance ; introduction to the following excerpts from Apollo (Apollon musagète)
7. Symphony no. 8 in B flat minor, "Unfinished" / composed by Franz Schubert.

  • Pas de deux: Melissa Hayden and Edward Villella
8. Glinkaiana, Divertimento brillante: Patricia McBride and Edward Villella.

9. Le New York City Ballet: Une école, un style, une compagnie, un repertoire (color)

  • Tarantella. Patricia McBride and John Clifford.
  • Movements for piano and orchestra: Kay Mazzo and Anthony Blum.
  • Who cares? Patricia McBride, Marnee Morris, Karin von Aroldingen, Jean Pierre Bonnefous
10. Chaconne, 1977 (Color): Suzanne Farrell, Peter Martins, Renée Estopinal, Elise Flagg, Wilhelmina Frankfurt, Heather Watts, Jean-Pierre Frohlich, Jay Jolley, and members of the New York City Ballet.

Stuff already released:

1. Still Point pdd: d'Amboise/Hayden (color)

2. Afternoon of a Faun: d'Amboise/Le Clercq

3. Les Sylphides pdd: Tallchief/Fernandez

4. Scenes from Act II of Swan Lake: Tallchief/Eglevsky

5. Pas de dix: Tallchief/Eglevsky

6. Apollo: Jillana/Russell/Adams/d'Amboise

(Will amend this list as I refine my keywords and take other people's suggestions :) )

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Likewise, thanks, though this is, as emilienne says, a partial list, I'm still grateful for anyone navigating the NYPL catalog, which seems to be beyond me.

But, who is the choreographer of #7 in emilienne's list? Another item I'm not finding in some of the usual places. (A movement of a symphony suggests Massine to me, rather than Balanchine, but if his company could dance Butler to Menotti, it could dance Massine - or some other choreographer - to Schubert, I suppose.)

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Likewise, thanks, though this is, as emilienne says, a partial list, I'm still grateful for anyone navigating the NYPL catalog, which seems to be beyond me.

But, who is the choreographer of #7 in emilienne's list? Another item I'm not finding in some of the usual places. (A movement of a symphony suggests Massine to me, rather than Balanchine, but if his company could dance Butler to Menotti, it could dance Massine - or some other choreographer - to Schubert, I suppose.)

Jack, for the fastest and most relevant (criteria to be debated), I looked for Balanchine choreography. Unfortunately in this case I didn't parse the lines correctly. It's a ballet sandwiched between two pieces of music. Here is the original entry http://catalog.nypl.org/record=b15071345~S99. The music for the pas de deux is actually by Tchaikovsky, sandwiched between a performance of a Schubert and a Liszt piano concerto, but no further information on what it is. I'll go back and edit my list.

The problem with relying on the NYPL is that my research is limited to whatever they have in their collections. As shown by the Coppélia, sometimes they simply don't have it. In this case, a quick look through the Balanchine biography shows that the Farrell/Morris/von Aroldingen/Martins Apollon (which I had noted as being B&W in the library collection) was filmed in color (which most plausibly also applies to the other pieces from that same L'heure du concert, including Farrell/Morris/Ludlow Concerto Barocco and a McBride/Villella Divertimento Brilliante). Oh, my kingdom for some source films...

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Awesomeness. Probably all in black and white? When was color introduced?

I didn't see this question earlier, but to answer it (general knowledge supplemented with wikipedia), color transmission was introduced in the early 50s (1953). However, most American networks continued to broadcast in black and white, switching over gradually until general consolidation into color transmission in the early 1970s.

In Canada, the CBC first shot in color in 1963, but it wasn't until 1966 that they began to transmit in color and full color service didn't begin until 1974.

Unfortunately, this is where the bottleneck comes in. If CBC has the original tapes, then a substantial number of what I listed will be in color. Sadly, Liebeslieder will not be one of them, being shot in 1961.

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I was disappointed that Vol. 3 included a work by John Butler, The Unicorn... The work sets my teeth on edge; it never seemed to end. I thought André Eglevsky was sublime in Coppélia!

In the minority here, but I'm glad to have something of Butler's available on DVD. He's one of a number of choreographers who were very active and influential at the time, but whose work hasn't really settled in a permanent repertory.

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I was disappointed that Vol. 3 included a work by John Butler, The Unicorn... The work sets my teeth on edge; it never seemed to end. I thought André Eglevsky was sublime in Coppélia!

In the minority here, but I'm glad to have something of Butler's available on DVD. He's one of a number of choreographers who were very active and influential at the time, but whose work hasn't really settled in a permanent repertory.

The piece is 44 or 45 minutes long! The DVD should have been titled Butler in Montreal. I only bought the DVD for Tanaquil Le Clercq in Coppélia.

Not implying any reservations about his partner?

Good catch, Jack. I don't know. Le Clercq is exquisite but I expected something more... I was very happy with her performance in Concerto Barocco.

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