Godunov and Bejart

[Helene]

eBay has had physical copies, and they're added periodically.  You have to check to see where they ship, and if they don't ship outside the US (or their country), you can contact the seller, and they might arrange to ship at a different price.

[Meliss]

4 hours ago, Helene said:

What wouldn't sell as well, at least at the beginning of the sale period  were the same ballets with other casts, Baryshnikov's partner with a different partner on another night,  or the same dancers in the rest of the program except for Baryshnikov.

Thank you. I wonder if there were such cases when tickets for performances without Baryshnikov were not sold out.

[Meliss]

3 hours ago, Marta said:

Helene said:  The only way to find a link to a 1979 article is if a library system has made it available online. 

I've seen old issues of Dance  for sale on ebay.com, including the 1981 issue with Godunov on the cover.

Thank you.

3 hours ago, Helene said:

eBay has had physical copies, and they're added periodically.  You have to check to see where they ship, and if they don't ship outside the US (or their country), you can contact the seller, and they might arrange to ship at a different price.

Thank you.

[Meliss]

On 7/9/2024 at 12:37 AM, Drew said:

Kirkland 

https://vk.com/album-11665068_103644826

[Drew]

10 hours ago, Meliss said:

https://vk.com/album-11665068_103644826

This took me to a social media site with a photo of what looks like New York City Ballet's La Sylphide with Joaquin De Luz and Sterling Hyltin. I would have to join the site to see anything else. Were you recommending it for other photos of Kirkland? Anyway, thank you for the suggestion. (Kirkland's sylph was pretty wonderful.)

[Meliss]

10 hours ago, Drew said:

This took me to a social media site with a photo of what looks like New York City Ballet's La Sylphide with Joaquin De Luz and Sterling Hyltin. I would have to join the site to see anything else. Were you recommending it for other photos of Kirkland? Anyway, thank you for the suggestion. (Kirkland's sylph was pretty wonderful.)

There are 336 photos of Kirkland. I thought there could be some of interest for you. 

[Drew]

3 minutes ago, Meliss said:

There are 336 photos of Kirkland. I thought there could be some of interest for you. 

Thank you!!

[volcanohunter]

On 7/8/2024 at 12:50 PM, Drew said:

In New York where Balanchine set much of critical and audience taste, Bejart looked very different than he looked in Europe.

Or in London. Alastair Macaulay has just published an essay about Clement Crisp that includes this famous zinger from the latter:

"Béjart and Stravinsky is one of those fabled partnerships, like Romeo and Goneril, or bacon and strawberries."

 It's long, but I recommend reading the entire piece. The funny bits are very funny.

https://www.alastairmacaulay.com/all-essays/the-inconsistencies-of-the-dance-critic-clement-crisp 

[Meliss]

5 hours ago, Drew said:

Thank you!!

Have you seen this one? 

 

[Meliss]

4 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

Or in London. Alastair Macaulay has just published an essay about Clement Crisp that includes this famous zinger from the latter:

"Béjart and Stravinsky is one of those fabled partnerships, like Romeo and Goneril, or bacon and strawberries."

 It's long, but I recommend reading the entire piece. The funny bits are very funny.

https://www.alastairmacaulay.com/all-essays/the-inconsistencies-of-the-dance-critic-clement-crisp 

"I remarked that the Schéhérazade orgy amounted to little more than slaves feeding grapes to harem wives on divan cushions. One student promptly raised her hand: “Sir, is that really what happens in Schéhérazade? Mr Crisp said they were playing Monopoly! I’ve got it in my notes.” ☺️

“We dedicate this book to the memory of our critic ancestors, the old men on the island of Gaua in the New Hebrides who, according to Curt Sachs, used to stand by with bows and arrows and shoot at every dancer who made a mistake.” ☺️

‘Frankly, my dears, what is modern dance anyway but bad ballet?”

----

"Charles Murland meanwhile tried to get four leading English companies (the Royal at Covent Garden, London Festival Ballet, Ballet Rambert, London Contemporary Dance Theatre) to strike me off their press lists; only with Festival Ballet did he succeed". 

I have never heard of any press lists - what are they for?

----

“I suppose we must be at war with Belgium. How else to explain the vicious attack on the Barbican’s public by the Brussels-based troupe Rosas under the command of Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker on Thursday night? The weapon was de Keersmaeker’s staging of i Said i". ☺️

"More disturbing yet were those occasions when he said one thing and wrote another. There were many examples of this. On one occasion in 1999, Joan Acocella, who admired and liked Clement and was now dance critic to The New Yorker, called me in dismay because she had just seen his FT review of the New York City Ballet performances at which she had recently spoken to him. Crisp’s published review was completely in contradiction to what he had shared with her in conversation".

I suppose he was not the only one who wrote what was expected by "influential people". !!!

But one of the seven “friends”, though always praised in print by Crisp, was at times spoken of by him with scorn. To Mary Clarke and to me, he relished mispronouncing that person’s name – except during a period of a few years in which he was all praise. The late Charles France, assistant to Baryshnikov when the latter was director of American Ballet Theatre in the 1980s, remarked to a critic friend at that time  “In my business, Clement is known as the critic whose reviews anyone can buy if you’re prepared to pay high enough.”

!!!

As for the letter of recommendation, the joke would be funny only if the humorous letter complemented the real one, but the author does not write anything about the real letter.

[Helene]

Can someone help me under stand the “though” in this sentence:

“But Clement - though he privately admitted that the Royal’s decline as a classical company began under MacMillan’s artistic directorship - was one of those who felt that MacMillan led the Royal away from classicism.

I don’t see the contradiction or qualification there.

[ABT Fan]

25 minutes ago, Helene said:

Can someone help me under stand the “though” in this sentence:

“But Clement - though he privately admitted that the Royal’s decline as a classical company began under MacMillan’s artistic directorship - was one of those who felt that MacMillan led the Royal away from classicism.

I don’t see the contradiction or qualification there.

“Though” shouldn’t be there. It’s used incorrectly. Should read “but Clement privately admitted….and was one of those who felt that MacMillan….”. 

[volcanohunter]

5 hours ago, Meliss said:

But one of the seven “friends”, though always praised in print by Crisp, was at times spoken of by him with scorn. To Mary Clarke and to me, he relished mispronouncing that person’s name – except during a period of a few years in which he was all praise. The late Charles France, assistant to Baryshnikov when the latter was director of American Ballet Theatre in the 1980s, remarked to a critic friend at that time  “In my business, Clement is known as the critic whose reviews anyone can buy if you’re prepared to pay high enough.”

Although I don't have the book, I suspect that this is a reference to Grigorovich. When the Bolshoi brought his Sleeping Beauty to London 2013, ordinary ballet-goers were shocked by Crisp's praise of the production, despite the fact that Grigorovich mutilated the music of the fairies' prologue almost to the point of unrecognizability. Some people may have assumed that Crisp had been bribed by the Bolshoi. Macaulay suggests that in print Crisp didn't criticize people with whom he was (overly) friendly. He cites other examples of this when he refers to his reviews of Alicia Markova, when she had passed her prime, or Lyudmila Semenyaka, when she had become extremely mannered.

This pattern was in the direction of positive reviews for ballets or dancers who, perhaps, didn't deserve them. There's no indication that Crisp's negative reviews, of which there were very many, were part of a deliberate agenda.

5 hours ago, Meliss said:

"More disturbing yet were those occasions when he said one thing and wrote another. There were many examples of this. On one occasion in 1999, Joan Acocella, who admired and liked Clement and was now dance critic to The New Yorker, called me in dismay because she had just seen his FT review of the New York City Ballet performances at which she had recently spoken to him. Crisp’s published review was completely in contradiction to what he had shared with her in conversation".

Let's just say that I have also encountered this among a few dance critics, who publish reviews that are less negative than what they said in private conversation. I can even understand this, because I may think that something is atrocious, but if I were to write what I really think, it could be construed as a personal attack.

My aunt, a lifelong opera lover who was very friendly with singers, once remarked that no one deliberately gave a bad performance. By that line of thought, she didn't believe in severe criticism of performers if they were having trouble with intonation or cracked a high note--or that audiences had a right to boo them. (Conductors, directors and designers are fair game.) My mother countered that some performers can be grotesquely self-indulgent, mutilating the music/choreography/text to a reprehensible degree, and in those cases critics are justified in unleashing their wrath. (There were a couple of times when I came very close to booing a ballerina, but the only time I actually did it was in the case of a conductor, who was giving dancers impossible tempos.)

5 hours ago, Meliss said:

As for the letter of recommendation, the joke would be funny only if the humorous letter complemented the real one, but the author does not write anything about the real letter.

The "letter" made me laugh out loud, which was no doubt Macaulay's reaction as well.

Edited July 12 by volcanohunter

[Meliss]

4 hours ago, Helene said:

Can someone help me under stand the “though” in this sentence:

“But Clement - though he privately admitted that the Royal’s decline as a classical company began under MacMillan’s artistic directorship - was one of those who felt that MacMillan led the Royal away from classicism.

I don’t see the contradiction or qualification there.

Your quote just omitted the word "never". The article says:

But Clement - though he privately admitted that the Royal’s decline as a classical company began under MacMillan’s artistic directorship - was never one of those who felt that MacMillan actually led the Royal away from classicism.

[Meliss]

16 minutes ago, volcanohunter said:

There's no indication that Crisp's negative reviews, of which there were very many, were part of a deliberate agenda.

Such things are usually not advertised).

 

23 minutes ago, volcanohunter said:

I have also encountered this among a few dance critics, who publish reviews that are less negative than what they said in private conversation.

It's not exactly the same as  being "completely in contradiction to what he had shared". 

19 minutes ago, volcanohunter said:

Some people may have assumed that Crisp had been bribed by the Bolshoi.

)) Grigorovich didn't have that much currency). Let's solve the riddle again!

29 minutes ago, volcanohunter said:

The "letter" made me laugh out loud, which was no doubt Macaulay's reaction as well.

It was funny, but it seemed to me that Macaulay wanted not so much to laugh as to get a letter of recommendation.

[Helene]

I wonder if that was updated, because I did a cut-and-paste from the article.  Or at least I thought I did after staring at it with questions.

The actual letter of recommendation would have been sent to the people doing the hiring, and it would have been highly unusual and, in most cases, unethical for the recipient to have revealed it to him.  Alternately, he was given the sealed real recommendation, and it would have been unethical for him to have broken the seal.

If that is the one and only real letter, and not a joke, you don't always get what you want when you ask for a review or recommendation.

[volcanohunter]

1 minute ago, Meliss said:

)) Grigorovich didn't have that much currency). Let's solve the riddle again!

I wrote "the Bolshoi," not "Grigorovich."

The most recent Grigorovich production of The Sleeping Beauty was very flawed. As he got older, Grigorovich began shortening some of his ballets and threw out whole swathes of choreography. In the case of Beauty, a lot of the music was simply bludgeoned. The cuts made me scream inwardly. Crisp's praise for the production itself was almost impossible to understand.

6 hours ago, Meliss said:

I have never heard of any press lists - what are they for?

This refers to giving critics free admission to performances they are reviewing. Ballet companies are in the business of selling tickets to cover their expenses, and there are more critics than ballet companies are willing to accommodate with free tickets, particularly in a city such as London with its many newspapers.

[Mashinka]

46 minutes ago, volcanohunter said:

(There were a couple of times when I came very close to booing a ballerina, but the only time I actually did it was in the case of a conductor, who was giving dancers impossible tempos.)

I've booed an incompetent ballet conductor too, but have hesitated when it came to booing  dancers.  Vulgarity and mediocrity seem to be on the rise.  Rather than booing, I'll probably just give up.

[Helene]

3 minutes ago, volcanohunter said:

his refers to giving critics free admission to performances they are reviewing. Ballet companies are in the business of selling tickets to cover their expenses, and there are more critics than ballet companies are willing to accommodate with free tickets, particularly in a city such as London with its many newspapers.

And they often come as a pair.  Macaulay mentioned Crisp going with a rich American friend.

I've been a "plus one," and it's a lot of fun sitting in places that you might never choose, or be able to pay for, on your own.  And often being a lot closer to the stage makes some of the reviews I've seen a bit more understandable, because it doesn't look the same from the Balcony/back of the theater, even the back of the Orchestra.

[volcanohunter]

3 minutes ago, Mashinka said:

Rather than booing, I'll probably just give up.

Yes, when I'm miserable, I simply leave, and when I'm really miserable I won't even wait for a pause, but I try to choose my seat accordingly, so as not to interfere with other viewers.

[Helene]

Since the pandemic, I don't travel, and at McCaw Hall, I only sit in the last row of the top boxes that face the stage.  That row has moveable chairs.  I haven't needed to or felt like leaving in the middle of any of Pacific Northwest Ballet performances, but the upside is that exits would be easy without bothering anyone, if I needed to make one for any reason.

[Meliss]

21 hours ago, volcanohunter said:

This refers to giving critics free admission to performances they are reviewing.

Thank you. In general, this is convenient for theaters - they can only include those critics who are loyal to the theater in these lists

[Helene]

It's a different flavor of manipulation to writing for the state media and having "criticism" reflect the prevailing ideology or you lose, at minimum, your job.

In this case, the influence was only over the entity in which the manipulator was on the Board.

The internet has changed a lot in the US and Canada, where the mainstream media has dropped much of it's dance criticism, and most dance critics write on consolidated critical sites or on their own sites/under their own brand, where the technology only is hosted.  They many also write for publications as well, particularly for magazines and journals.

It is usually a blow to theaters when they aren't written about.  In the case of London at the time, there were four major newspapers publishing dance criticism, so losing one/four through a tiff with a critic wasn't fatal.  In places with one major critic, refusing that critic could be akin to shooting themselves in the foot.

[volcanohunter]

20 minutes ago, Meliss said:

In general, this is convenient for theaters - they can only include those critics who are loyal to the theater in these lists

No ballet company can afford to exclude critics of major newspapers, even when they write critical reviews. A quick look through dance reviews from London or New York will show that they can be harsh. When Béjart's company visited New York it had no choice but to invite critics, even though it had good reason to expect that Kisselgoff at the New York Times and Barnes at the New York Post would write scathing reviews. If they had been excluded, then indeed the company would have been mocked for giving access only to "loyal" critics.

On a recent podcast a couple of ABT principal dancers complained that the company's productions always receive bad reviews from the NYT. Critics from the newspaper will continue to be invited to performances nevertheless.

[Meliss]

In general, ballet criticism is an interesting topic.