2023-2024 Season

[abatt]

Funny that Nadon is the only cast for Tzigane.  Usually they have two casts ready to go.

Green is a good role for Bouder - short role, no partnering involved.  It's usually given to a tall woman, so LaFreniere in that role makes sense.

 

 

[Fernie M]

Is it possible 2nd cast for Errante is following week and Nadon could get cast in Symphony in C?

[matilda]

There are only five performances of the All Balanchine program so I doubt there will be a third Symphony in C cast. There will most likely be a second Errante cast though. 

I have little doubt we'll see Mira in second movement / all of the great ballerina roles soon enough though... how old is she, 22?! Just imagine Diamonds, PC2... 

[choriamb]

7 hours ago, MarzipanShepherdess said:

Ashley Bouder posted on Instagram stories that she'll be returning to the NYCB stage in the green dress role at Dances at a Gathering. She'll be in the 4/27 and 4/28 matinee casts. I'll be out of town but will look forward to hearing the impressions of anyone who catches those performances!

She had a really intelligent, different take on the role the last time that I saw her perform it. I hope that this is a confidence-builder for her.

[choriamb]

6 hours ago, bellawood said:

My thoughts exactly! 

Other interesting debuts:

Nadon/Sanz in Errante -- saw photos on Nadon's Instagram of Suzanne Farrell's coaching, seeing this Tuesday

LaFreniere in Symphony in C 1st movement -- would have thought she would be tapped for 2nd movement (of course I'm dying to see Mira dance 2nd movement)

LaFreniere as green girl in Dances

Mejia in Dances, as brown?

Woodward in Dances as pink -- don't know if she can bring Tiler/Sterling levels to this role

Nadon 2nd movement B-SQ: perfect role for her, can't wait, and with Bolden

Phelan in the Brahms-Schoenberg Rondo and Woodward as the girl in Pink are definitely interesting casting choices.

But it's actually something that I like about the current AD team:  when dancers were siloed into highly technical or non-technical roles under Martins, I felt like there was a bit too much technical slippage at the principal level. When Phelan had her successful Divertimento No 15 a few seasons ago, I felt like it gave her a bit of extra authority in her other ballets, too. And I'm glad that Woodward is getting a chance to develop artistically a bit between this and her La Valse.

It's also interesting how consistently LaFreniere is being cast in von Aroldingen's roles (and the roles that she took over from Verdy). It's the most smart, sophisticated slice of the rep...and I love what she's starting to do with it.

Edited April 11 by choriamb

[volcanohunter]

4 hours ago, Helene said:

I can understand a name switch -- and, given its content, it would be a mockery to call it Roma or Romani -- but why Errante, when Balanchine already created up-to-three works with that name to music by Schubert, the Wanderer? 

According to the Balanchine Catalogue entries:

• 138 - L'Errante 1933 (also called ERRANTE; ALMA ERRANTE; THE WANDERER, performed in Les Ballets 1933)
• 143 - Errante 1935
• 197 - Alma Errante (Errante) 1941 (Performed by Ballet Caravan in rep)

(This link is to the catalogue: it appears to be in a frame and won't go directly to the search results: https://balanchine.org/catalogue-page/catalogue-main-archive/)

 

I hope that the right people were consulted. Obviously words such as drifter, nomad, rambler or vagabond would have been inappropriate. Wayfarer tends to be associated with a Mahler song cycle. It does seem like a mistake to recycle a title Balanchine used for other ballets, even if it's desirable to use a title without negative connotations.

I haven't yet encountered a case of the music being renamed in concert settings. 

[BalanchineFan]

On 4/10/2024 at 10:10 PM, volcanohunter said:

I hope that the right people were consulted. Obviously words such as drifter, nomad, rambler or vagabond would have been inappropriate. Wayfarer tends to be associated with a Mahler song cycle. It does seem like a mistake to recycle a title Balanchine used for other ballets, even if it's desirable to use a title without negative connotations.

I haven't yet encountered a case of the music being renamed in concert settings. 

•  

@Helene

"I can understand a name switch -- and, given its content, it would be a mockery to call it Roma or Romani -- but why Errante, when Balanchine already created up-to-three works with that name to music by Schubert, the Wanderer? 

According to the Balanchine Catalogue entries:

• 138 - L'Errante 1933 (also called ERRANTE; ALMA ERRANTE; THE WANDERER, performed in Les Ballets 1933)
• 143 - Errante 1935
• 197 - Alma Errante (Errante) 1941 (Performed by Ballet Caravan in rep)"

 

Do you think audiences will come to Errante expecting to see choreography from 1941 (or before)? I think it's a safe bet that no one remembers Balanchine's previous ballets with that title, even if someone is of an age to have seen them. The fact that several ballets already had that title also dulls the objections, imo. 

Edited April 12 by BalanchineFan

[Helene]

For people who followed the company for many years, but who might have moved away and aren't following the company very carefully now, they might think that somehow NYCB found a way to revive the older ballet, maybe by discovering a film, or notation, etc.  It wouldn't be the same excitement as a revival of Cotillon, but if I hadn't read about the name change here, and had read it on the schedule with Balanchine as the choreographer, I would have thought it was a revival of the older ballet.

But even for people who know it's a re-branding of a different ballet, of all of the titles they could have chosen, why would they re-use one that is the name of the music to which is it tied, and a piece that was written by a different composer?  They had a wide range of choices, and this one seems really odd to me. 

[On Pointe]

Was it the company that changed Tzigane to Errante,  or was it the Balanchine Trust?  There must have been some discussion   In all the years that I watched this ballet I never connected the title to anything negative.  Of course that doesn't mean that others didn't find it offensive.  A few years back,  Actors Equity changed the name of the iconic robe that is passed from show to show on opening nights for good luck.  "Gypsy Robe" actually referred to ensemble dancers who have the good fortune to go from show to show,  and had nothing to do with the Roma people,  and I was unaware of any complaints,  so maybe there was a bit of overreach on the part of someone.  We were never given the option to put it to a vote,  which was not how Equity operated.  ( I was a long time Councillor for Equity and we deliberated long and hard on far more trivial matters. )  I believe that at least one current NYCB dancer is actually of Roma descent,  so perhaps the change began there.

[volcanohunter]

The Gypsy Robe doesn't refer to an ethnic group. It was used by a group that chose to use the term to describe their profession. No one imposed it from the outside, no outsider took it upon himself to define that group.

Even so, when groups, associations or sports teams have discovered that their chosen name is problematic, they have usually changed it to something else.

Both the music and the choreography of Tzigane use ethnic stereotypes, and they are works by outsiders to the culture, in which case there is always a risk of simplifying, distorting, misrepresenting or caricaturing that culture, no matter how much the creators may admire it.

[NinaFan]

I also find it extremely puzzling that NYCB would choose to rename Tzigane with the exact name of an earlier Balanchine work to yet a different composer.  It can only lead to confusion for ballet aficionados and ballet/classical music historians.  I found a couple of museums that still refer to Errante in their archives, this is one of them….

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1222655/lerrante-set-design-tchelitchev-pavel/

[nanushka]

I really don't think there's going to be widespread confusion about an obscure Balanchine ballet from 1933 (revived and adapted in 1935 and 1941), especially when all it takes is a glance at the more detailed info in any program or on any repertory page to clarify what's what.

Do we even know when this piece was last performed or if its choreography is known by anyone living?

Balanchine himself seems to have been unbothered by the recycling of titles for wholly different works (e.g. Mozartiana — admittedly using the same music, but still), or by changing the name of existing works to suit the tastes (his own or others') of a new time.

[Helene]

If I weren't on the board to hear this news, was planning a trip to NYC, and was going to pick a program based on rep, if I had seen Errante on the program, I would have assumed a historical revival, and would have tried to arrange my schedule to see it.  I realize that I would have been an edge case, however disappointed I'd have been to see it was Tzigane.

I don't see any issue with changing the name of a ballet.  I find it odd that of all the names in the universe, they chose to use the name of another Balanchine ballet that was named for the specific piece of music it was set to.  And they're not Balanchine re-choreographing one of his own works, at least once because no one could remember enough of the old one, and he decided to start from scratch.

[Quiggin]

Balanchine's Schubert L'Errante/Errante is often referred to in ballet literature, most recently in Lynn Garafola's La Nijinska. Croce, for instance, says that the veil between earth and underworld in Orpheus is derived from Tchelitchev's decor in Errante (see NinaFan's V&A link above).

Ballets 1933, the program in which Errante appeared, was an important way station on Balanchine's choreographic journey. Changing Tzigane to Errante messes with the history.

(Am currently reading Grigoriev's Ballets Russes memoir and see that Diaghilev changed Chopiniana, which he didn't like, to Les Sylphides over Fokine's objections. Later in a kind of reversal, he changed Le Astuzie Femminili to Cimarosiana after its composer.)

 

 

Edited April 14 by Quiggin

[maps]

On 4/10/2024 at 5:19 PM, abatt said:

Funny that Nadon is the only cast for Tzigane.  Usually they have two casts ready to go....

Suzanne Farrell programmed Tzigane for her company's last show at the Kennedy Center December 2017, Forever Balanchine.  Two casts and the KC premiere by her company was in 2002.  I'd love to see Peck+Mejia smolder through this.  NYCB did Martins Zakouskie, Tzigane light, in early 2018 at the KC.   6 years later Woodward had her Tch pdd debut.

On 4/10/2024 at 10:10 PM, volcanohunter said:

I hope that the right people were consulted. Obviously words such as drifter, nomad, rambler or vagabond would have been inappropriate. ...

I haven't yet encountered a case of the music being renamed in concert settings. 

My program states "The performances of  Meditation and Tzigane are presented by special arrangement with Suzanne Farrell, copyright holder"   I guess discussions on the renaming were between Suzanne Farrell, NYCB, and the Trust.   1975 Ravel Festival also included Rapsodie Espagnol - anyone remember that?  

Edited April 15 by maps

[abatt]

I would like to see Zakouski again.  I thought it was a good enough  ballet with enjoyable music.  But I doubt that it will ever return to the rep, 

However, I do not picture Tiler Peck as a lead in Tzigane.  Mejia, maybe yes.

Edited April 14 by abatt

[volcanohunter]

It would have been helpful if the world of classical music had taken the initiative and changed the title of Ravel's piece, but as of June 2022 it was still being performed as Tzigane.

If there were a consensus about calling the piece Ravel's Rhapsody for Violin, for example, (since as far as I know Ravel's only official rhapsody is the "espagnole"), that could just as easily work as a ballet title. Perhaps then Ravel's and Balanchine's faux depictions of Romani culture would seem less objectionable because there wouldn't be intimations of authenticity. 

[Quiggin]

3 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

It would have been helpful if the world of classical music had taken the initiative and changed the title of Ravel's piece, but as of June 2022 it was still being performed as Tzigane.

Liszt called his faux-Romani borrowings Hungarian Rhapsodies. Ravel borrowed from this and also from the Romani musical arrangements he heard the Hungarian violinist Jelly d'Aranyi play. There are dozens of opera and classical music pieces from the 18th and 19th centuries with variations of Zingara, Zigeuner, alla Zingarese (Brahms) in the title. Ravel's seem to be the last of the line.

[volcanohunter]

Quasi-ethnography was pervasive in the 19th century, and we tend to turn a blind eye to it because we put it down to the standards of the time. In 1924 Ravel was coming late to the cultural (mis)appropriation game, as was Balanchine in 1975, and Ravel's work, as you explained, was an extension of a composing tradition, rather than being informed by serious ethnomusicology.

I can't help wondering whether people a hundred years from now will cringe at more recent "explorations" by Western composers of percussion from Southeast Asia, for example. 

Trends inevitably change, as in the case of Mozart's use of "Turkish" musical elements.

 

In truth, Mozart's works are only superficially similar to the source.

But with time it's possible to engage these works with greater detachment. A month ago Fazil Say and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta presented a concert that explored Mozart and his influence from various angles, including, of course, this piece:

 

[On Pointe]

What people will cringe over in the future is a popular subject in creative circles,  but I don't think we'll have to wait a hundred years.  I love the musical Hadestown,  but much of its music definitely falls under the "quasi-ethnography" umbrella,  as does Once on This Island,  a show I actively dislike.  The same with The Little Mermaid,  with Calypso songs like Under the Sea and Kiss the Girl.  These are not mediocre songs.  In fact they're brilliant.  But I was surprised by how ambivalent they now make me feel,  because I know that their composers come from privileged white backgrounds far removed from the worlds they seek to portray.  Then I remember the minority actors who get a good payday performing this "inauthentic"  material,  which isn't demeaning on its face.  Imagine a Black actor today singing When I See an Elephant Fly from Dumbo.  A great song,  but oh my God!

 

[volcanohunter]

For my part, the first time I saw a Romani dance from Hungary, performed by a company that strove to present traditional European dances in a more authentic manner--rather than souped-up, audience-facing choreography--one of the thoughts that ran through my mind was that it looked nothing like Balanchine's Tzigane.

Edited April 15 by volcanohunter

[Dale]

On 4/14/2024 at 3:28 PM, maps said:

Suzanne Farrell programmed Tzigane for her company's last show at the Kennedy Center December 2017, Forever Balanchine.  Two casts and the KC premiere by her company was in 2002.  I'd love to see Peck+Mejia smolder through this.  NYCB did Martins Zakouskie, Tzigane light, in early 2018 at the KC.   6 years later Woodward had her Tch pdd debut.

My program states "The performances of  Meditation and Tzigane are presented by special arrangement with Suzanne Farrell, copyright holder"   I guess discussions on the renaming were between Suzanne Farrell, NYCB, and the Trust.   1975 Ravel Festival also included Rapsodie Espagnol - anyone remember that?  

I saw it performed with the Suzanne Farrell Ballet and when it was revived in 1993 for the Balanchine Celebration. Kistler did the lead and Farrell coached her. It did not go well. A few dance critics covered the coaching for that celebration by the former Balanchine dancers. Anita Finkel was one but her story is not online. This feature on Kistler a few years later gives a little hint on how it went: "In this case, the apostolic succession went awry. ''Maybe it was too soon for Suzanne to give over that role, in her theater,'' said Ms. Kistler, who began to feel that everything about herself ''was wrong, down to the color of my tights, and we all have the same color tights -- pink.'' (A month after the Balanchine Celebration, Ms. Farrell, who had been working in strained circumstances, was dismissed by City Ballet. She did not return calls for this article.)"

https://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/27/arts/life-down-on-earth-for-everybody-s-darling.html

Put me down as another who, while I understand the need to change the name, does not like using the name of a different, previous ballet. I would have been OK with "Ravel Violin" and just called it a day. Knowing how Farrell likes portents and signs, I wonder if she didn't like the idea of using the name of an old, very lost Balanchine ballet. 

 

[abatt]

week 2 casting is available on the nycb website 

[KikiRVA]

They’re replacing Tombeau de Couperin with In Creases.  I’m so disappointed to see that.  They canceled it the last time it was programmed, as I recall, so I feel justified in being doubly-disappointed.  As far as I can tell, there is no readily-available recording of it, either.  It makes me worry it will disappear.  It is such a beautiful opportunity for the corps to shine.  

[On Pointe]

On 4/15/2024 at 4:49 AM, volcanohunter said:

For my part, the first time I saw a Romani dance from Hungary, performed by a company that strove to present traditional European dances in a more authentic manner--rather than souped-up, audience-facing choreography--one of the thoughts that ran through my mind was that it looked nothing like Balanchine's Tzigane.

 

What's amazing is how much this authentic Roma dancing resembles Black American "Hambone".  Here's an examp!e:

 

v=PLmySQ5CuY0