14 posts tagged “new york city ballet”
My advice to those new to the NYCB repertory. Do not attend an evening performance of The Goldberg Variations (or even a matinee), if you are very tired. As the program notes point out, Count Keyserling, "who was troubled with insomnia, asked Bach to write music he could listen to during sleepless nights, and it was Goldberg, a pupil of Bach's, who played the variations for him." It is a very long ballet and, unfortunately, last night I kept fighting a sometimes losing battle to keep from nodding off in spite of some excellent performances (especially from the vets, Wendy Whelan, Maria Kowroski, Philip Neal, and Adam Hendrickson). I knew it probably was a bad idea to go when I have been so very sleep-deprived, but I want to take in as many performances as possible before I have to leave (sniff!). In spite of the fatigue, it still felt good just being there.
I should pick up a recording of Goldberg, now that it has proven its value as a soporific for those occasional insomniac episodes of mine. I wonder if the music must be played live for it to be effective though?
Well, I am glad that I made the effort, for, on the whole, it turned out to be a pleasant evening. Had a relaxing and restorative meal at the old school Flame diner (cup of chicken orzo soup and a turbo omelet for me, in case you're interested). We stopped in at Avery Fisher Hall and picked up some nice seats for the just added January Barbara Cook concert with a gift certificate.
Stepped into the crowded lobby of the State Theater and eventually made our way inside. Paused for a while on the 2nd Ring to gawk at the people on the promenade for any celebrity sightings or fashion disasters (more of the latter, I'd say). Then headed up to the cheap seats, which turned out not to be so bad, considering I'd only remembered to buy them late last week. It felt good to be back "home," and all my jadedness became transformed into a sense of privilege to be there.
The show started a bit late as the moneyed nobodies took there time getting to their seats. First up, was excerpts from the NYCB production of The Sleeping Beauty--Balanchine's version of the Garland Dance (after Petipa) and the Rose Adagio. Megan Fairchild was Aurora and did a good enough job. But I always feel underwhelmed by the Rose Adagio; it's so antithetical to Balanchine's conception of the ballerina. The only part of this production I really care for is the Vision Scene, which might have been more fitting for this occasion (I would have preferred "romantic" rather than "imperial" as a theme, any day). Next Ellen Bar and Sean Suozzi (both good to see on any occasion) introduced a segment from the Opus Jazz film project on which they have been working. I very much like one of the taglines on their site, "a new generation pays tribute to the artists that inspired them." Good for them. The filmed pas de deux from Robbins's NY Export: Opus Jazz (with Craig Hall and Rachel Rutherford) was followed after a weird transition by the very much live Wendy Whelan and Albert Evans in the pas de deux from Christopher Wheeldon's Liturgy. Enough said. They were fabulous, of course. The Wheeldon is a very focused piece, yet it doesn't completely sustain its interest for me all the way through. The first half of the program concluded with the finale from Western Symphony. Maria Kowroski continues to confirm that this is indeed her moment.
The second half, predictably, fizzled somewhat. It was all-Glinka. Conductor Fayçal Karoui very energetically led the orchestra in the overture to Russlan and Ludmilla while an image of Kirstein was projected on the onstage screen. This was followed by the inevitable letdown, the world premiere of Martins's Grazioso. Even if it was intended just as a pièce d'occasion (a concept he doesn't seem to embrace), it was a pretty poor showpiece. It showed off the men a bit, but it gave Ashley Bouder very little to do. Italo-Russo by way of Bournonville? I think I may have given it more thought right there than Martins appeared to have done in putting it together. Talk about phoning it in. The evening ended with a reprise of a rather clumsy attempt at doing a NYCB version of the Paris Opera Ballet's grand défilé, recycled from another occasion.
A fairly quick and painless subway ride back home just in time to catch the final results of DWTS. Jennie and Derek, you wuz robbed!
My nose is a bit runny today, but I'm breathing clearer. Happy Thanksgiving!
I've been feeling physically crappy the past couple of days. Not quite sick enough to stay home (though undoubtedly rest would be of great benefit), but very rough, especially in the mornings. Aside from my standard fatigue, I first began to feel really sick during a meal at a Greek restaurant on Saturday night. The food tasted fine, I think we just ordered too much of it. Also, both myself and a friend across from me were seated right next to the radiator and it was unpleasantly hot throughout dinner. Between the heat and the overindulgence, I felt a wave of nausea while we were sitting around waiting for the check.
I felt a little better when we hit the cold air outside. We stopped in at a deli on the way home and I bought a bottle of ginger ale as a form of insurance. Petting the cute little cat in the deli made me feel even better. Imbibing part of the bottle of ginger ale that evening and the next morning seemed to stave off any additional nausea or major problems.
I still felt pretty seedy in the morning, but I perked up during the day. We went to a program by the American Symphony Orchestra, which I enjoyed, even if the New York Times didn't. My boyfriend had the sniffles and a sore throat.
Still maybe it was something at the restaurant, in which case I feel especially guilty since I suggested the place. I noticed yesterday on his facebook profile that the friend who had accompanied us had been feeling sick on Sunday and stayed home from work yesterday. I should find out how he is. He was closer to a table near by where there was a child coughing ceaselessly. So maybe those were the germs. Or maybe something in the food? My boyfriend's cold has gotten a bit worse. And I certainly feel weird.
My throat doesn't exactly hurt when I swallow, but it feels tight. I also feel extremely thirsty and congested. And alternately hot and, while not exactly chills, a sort of chill-like sensation occasionally.
Unfortunately this condition does not make me anticipate tonight's gala opening of the New York City Ballet winter season as I typically have in the past. I barely had remembered it even before I got sick, so something's off there as well. It's the usual gala excerpts and premieres, which I guess is tenuously conceived as a wrap-up of the yearlong tribute to Lincoln Kirstein. Petipa, Balanchine, Robbins, Martins (he gets the premiere), and Wheeldon are all represented--do we see someone's line of thinking here? To me, the film of Robbins's Opus Export: Jazz is the most interesting element of the program. For Balanchine we get only the 4th movement of Western Symphony, which, much as I love it, has been trotted out at a few too many gala occasions in recent years. The Martins' piece, Grazioso doesn't exactly fill me with dread, but I can pretty much imagine what it will be like without seeing it.
At least it gives me an excuse to miss tonight's results show of Dancing with the Stars. I have a feeling I'm not going to like those results.
Made it to yet another matinee of New York City Ballet yesterday on a muggy afternoon. I usually try to avoid Sunday matinees in particular at the State Theater, but I seem to have gone to a few unexpectedly this season. Progressing slowly across the plaza, through the theater lobby, and up the stairs behind the assembled army of walkers, canes, and wheelchairs, I often feel as if I'm making my way to Lourdes, but I suppose that is apt in this situation, as it most certainly is a form of spiritual consolation I'm most often seeking.
In that sense, Sunday's performance of Robert Schumann's "Davidsbündlertänze” really delivered. I must confess that when I first began going to the ballet regularly I found this piece to be overly long and inscrutable. In more recent years, however, I have grown to appreciate it more and find it extremely moving. I think this came about a few years back, when, in town only briefly on a visit from Seattle, I wound up seeing it about four times in a short space of time. Or maybe it's some sign of maturity?
Yesterday marked the final time I will see Kyra Nichols perform in anything. I can't really assess my feelings accurately, but I'm definitely sad. Although she has not appeared frequently for some time, I've never known a City Ballet without her presence, and the thought of it without her is more than a little unsettling. I will try to do a more proper appreciation some other time when I can think more clearly. Right now I'm bummed out that a prior commitment will prevent me from attending her actual farewell gala, but perhaps it is for the best. Nice to just be able to have seen her give yet another remarkable performance on a thoroughly ordinary afternoon. I'm just too greedy.
Caught an early showing of La Vie en Rose, the new French biopic of Edith Piaf. Impressive performance by Marion Cotillard as Piaf, but the film itself is disjointed, repetitive, predictable, and curiously uninvolving for the most part. She sings, she cries, she drinks, she shoots up, she falls down... It doesn't present us with anything more than: wasn't she a survivor, folks? And it doesn't offer enough of Piaf's music (almost all of the numbers are intercut with other scenes or in some other way truncated) for a sense of the artist to emerge.
My internal jury is still out on Wheeldon's Nightingale and the Rose. Another personal triumph for Wendy Whelan. I liked her solo at the beginning and some of the stuff for the white and yellow roses was interesting. I think I may have been adversely affected by some gossip dished to me a few nights before that Wheeldon didn't like Sheng's music and just threw this together to fulfill his obligations. Given the source, I'm not sure if I completely believe that story or not (I wish people wouldn't tell me these things or that gossip exerted such influence over me), but I didn't care for the music. I certainly did not feel as if the music evoked the mood or aesthetic of the Wilde tale very well and I don't like the little changes Wheeldon has made to the story. I will try to give it another go this season. I am willing to see that program again, but more for one last glimpse of Kyra Nichols in Davidsbündlertänze, than for Nightingale.
Spent some time at the Noguchi Museum yesterday (more in watching the
documentary video) than looking at the sculptures. I wonder what,
if anything, they are planning for the Kirstein Centennial. Come
to think of it, Orpheus would have made a better fit on that program than Jeu de Cartes. The garden at the museum was very serene. I did not see any roses.
Went to bed early last night. Slept soundly until around 2:00 in the morning, then kept waking up periodically because of unmemorable, but bad dreams. Net effect, I probably got as much sleep as I ordinarily do. Still, I feel a bit better today. My nose hasn't been running nearly as much.
Which is a good thing. For tonight I have to go out. The first of my extra "ABT spite" NYCB performances. This evening is a good, but long all-Balanchine program, Serenade, Bugaku, and Union Jack, lamely called "International Balanchine" by the marketing department. OK, is Serenade, Russian or American? Honestly, they could have called it anything, "Balanchine by the Decades" or "Commissioned by Kirstein" and it would have made as much sense. I haven't seen Bugaku in a while (and never without Jock Soto, I think, except maybe at Dance Theatre of Harlem, but I might just be imagining I saw them do it live. Probably just a video), so it should be interesting.
Hope I don't get caught in any downpours.
Day-of-performance discount proved to be not all it was made out to be. I was offered a prime orchestra seat, but it still cost more than I was willing to spend. Wasn't interested at that point in doing either the standing room or nosebleed seats thing, so I left.
In revenge, I scurried across the plaza and bought two pairs of tickets for upcoming NYCB programs for less than the cost of that single discounted ABT ticket. Granted they are only in the fourth ring, but they're not so bad. And you can almost always self-upgrade, if you so desire.
Had a lovely stroll across the park. Despite the rising humidity, it was pretty pleasant--delightful at moments--out of the sun. Stopped briefly by THE CAT'S and headed home early enough to manage to cross a few things (major and minor) off that great psychic to-do list.
Fuck ABT. Perhaps they should perform in Brooklyn.
I was a little worried that I might be overdoing it a bit this weekend, but although the memories are now starting to blur together, each individual event was vivid and memorable. I'll try to write what I can remember.
Took my own advice on Saturday and made a brief visit to the Whitney (also taking advantage of waning days of bf's bank card's free May museum admissions offer). We got to the Summer of Love exhibit before it became too crowded. I found myself mesmerized by a few of the light-and-music installations. As always with art exhibitions, the historic context that is provided can be kind of weird. The fact that the show was organized by the Tate Liverpool made for some strange choices and assertions as well. For example, was V & A Aubrey Beardsley show really as influential on British fashion, etc. as all that? Certainly there was a lot of stuff omitted by the curators. Doubtless it will be a popular exhibit.
Headed downtown to Quantum Leap in the Village for late lunch and arrived to find they still were offering brunch. How could one resist? I had green tea waffles, which also came with eggs and vegan sausage. Idled over beers in the East Village before heading uptown for evening performance of Coram Boy. Even as I purchased the tickets, I hadn't been too much in the mood to take in a play Saturday evening, but the closing of the show had been announced earlier in the week and I did want to catch this production. I think I would have enjoyed it more if we had better seats (we wound up in last row of orchestra). Still, maybe the production was a bit too much about the production. Some pretty nifty stage images indeed, but somehow not quite all that fresh. Also, can we please have a moratorium on "fools of nature" characters (a la Smike)? I suspect I probably would like the book better.
Stopped in to pee at the Marriott Marquis before the show (to avoid lines at theater). Being in a giant hotel with all those tourists milling about also put me in a depressed mood. I didn't feel as if I was in NYC. Had that sinking attending-a-national-conference feeling come over me. Was I depressed because I dislike attending big conferences? Or was I depressed to find I still was in NYC, after all?
Sunday at the ballet. A repeat of all-Tchaikovsky program, with some different casting. The afternoon began with some sadness at the passing of an era (one of Kyra Nichols' last performances, this time, in Mozartiana), but concluded with a slightly optimistic feeling that maybe the future was in good hands (radiant debut of Ashley Bouder in Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2). The first movement of Mozartiana was particularly lovely; Nichols seemed to tire visibly by the end of the ballet (though she was given admirable support by an ardent Philip Neal). Somehow this ballet seems less magical than it used to. Someone who I was talking to a couple of weeks ago, who was looking for a good program to which to bring a recently bereaved friend, remarked that she thought Mozartiana was "too funereal." I never really thought of it that way; (like most of the Tchaikovsky oeuvre) it seemed to have sadness and joyousness in more or less equal measure. But the joyousness seems a bit forced nowadays. Maybe it is the burden of "the last major Balanchine ballet," AND "last major piece done on Farrell" mantle that overhangs it at NYCB. Sometimes Apollo, and definitely Orpheus (though that work has other problems as well) have been marred by that approach as well.
TPC2 got a much better all around performance. Bouder was supremely confident (in a fun way, as opposed to Sofiane Sylve's ever-joyless display of technical aplomb) and Stafford and Reichlen also seemed more relaxed. Here, as in the other Balanchine pieces I have seen this season thus far, the corps performed evenly, but dutifully. Which is not necessarily the kind of energy you want to see here.
Sandwiched in between was Robbins' Piano Pieces. At NYCB, the Robbins repertory definitely seems to be in better shape than Balanchine. Why? More careful rehearsing and/or casting? I felt here, as with Wheeldon's far inferior Carousel (A Dance), that the dancers were genuinely involved and concerned about pleasing whomever it was who rehearsed them in it. Truly compelling performances by the (underused, so far this season) Jennie Somogyi and Jenifer Ringer. Somogyi, who perhaps was the most exciting American ballerina performing until the time of her injury, looks to be in great shape and far less tentative than she appeared last year. Will we ever see her again in as technically demanding a role as TPC2 (which, I only remembered later, was the ballet in which she was injured)? Seeing her again in Piano Pieces, she certainly looked like the same dancer who used to knock out those breathless fouettes as Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Is she physically capable of those kinds of parts anymore? Is she still working her way back slowly? Is management reluctant to cast her frequently? Is she reluctant to perform? These are the types of things we never find out. I hope things work out for her.
Memorial Day I went to my first new release in ages: The Golden Door. I liked it, but I didn't know what to make of the last half hour or so, with its jarring introduction of anachronistic music selections. Second strange experience at Lincoln Plaza cinema in a row. Again, some woman plunked herself down right in front of me about twenty minutes into the film, but left after about ten minutes of fidgeting in her chair. At least this one wasn't pulling out clumps of her own hair.
Uh oh, I am lapsing into one of those slightly manic phases in which I feel that I am racing to meet some impending deadline (real or imaginary) and that I'm thereby about to neglect to do something crucially important in the process.
Not too surprising. I just finished off fulfilling some unpleasant professional obligation. It didn't demand too much of my time or concentration, but since I resented doing it so much, it felt as if it took up way too much of my energy.
Other than that, I had a pretty pleasant weekend. Finally getting back into ballet-going mode now that the R+J fog has lifted. Enjoyed much of Thursday evening's all-Tchaikovsky program at NYCB and the Saturday afternoon performance even more so (especially surprising since it was billed as a kiddie matinee). I have a few thoughts stirring, so perhaps I will do more of an omnibus round-up at some later date, since I really seem to hate writing individual reviews. I already have tickets for this Wednesday's all-Balanchine program and a repeat of the Tchaikovsky bill (different casts) on Sunday.
I also intend to try for the Symphonie Concertante/The Dream program at ABT next week, if I can fit it in to my schedule (ugh, the Mets and ABT both in one season--traitor deluxe!). I'm still on the fence about this year's SAB workshop, but probably will end up going. It's almost always an uplifting affair, but this year's program isn't all that appealing (and the last minute addition of R+J segment doesn't help). The ticket prices also seem to have shot up significantly this year.
I was able to catch an "encore" showing of the Gilmore Girls finale (and avoid spoilers/reviews in advance) last night. Not a bad final episode, given the circumstances. While last season and much of this past season pretty much sucked, it's sad to see it go. The series offered a rare, complex, and somewhat realistic, depiction of mother-daughter relationships and gave employment to a lot of great actresses. I especially hope Kelly Bishop gets another major part in some worthy vehicle. Which reminds me, I should try to rent An Unmarried Woman on DVD. I was thinking about the character played by Kelly Bishop in that film as I was watching Gilda for the first time in ages on TCM a couple of weeks back. I wonder how the Mazursky movie plays today?
Thank heavens this week marks a return to the repertory (more or less as usual) at the New York City Ballet. I really had no interest in ever mentioning the recent production of Romeo + Juliet in this space again, but I just couldn't refrain from commenting on the recent series of articles in The New York Times by Alastair Macaulay on the production.
The NYCB spring season has provided the new Chief Dance Critic with his first real opportunity to make his presence known with New York observers. Macaulay, a long time critic for the Financial Times, was appointed to the position earlier this year after the unlamented John Rockwell stepped down. His selection generated a small buzz of controversy in the dance blogosphere (such as it is) after a protest voiced by Apollinaire Scherr (a former stringer for the Times and current critic for Newsday), whose ill-reasoned expressions of outrage on her blog that a woman wasn't chosen for this plum job (and even more bizarre dismay that some old fuddy-duddy "furriner" was being asked to cover the New York scene), opened her up (justifiably, I would say) to accusations of sour grapes.
I thought Macaulay was a good choice, especially given the dearth of decent critics out there. I haven't read much of his writing, but had been impressed when he subbed for Arlene Croce at The New Yorker way back in the late 1980s, and I have seen a few of his reviews and more scholarly pieces over the years that were uniformly compelling. So it has been interesting to observe him getting his feet wet at the Times.
Moving on to R + J, Macaulay wrote a ho hum preview piece giving an overview of past productions and his personal relationship to the work. His review of the premiere was fairly restrained; trenchant regarding the costumes, but cautiously optimistic that a few tweaks by Martins might improve the choreography. In his second review, which analyzed the qualities of the various casts, Macaulay seemed to have drunk of the Kool-Aid (left in a safe by Anna Kisselgoff?), in which seldom can a discouraging word about the Company or Martins be allowed to be heard on the pages of the Newspaper of Record. I'm sure that the dancers deserved the fulsome praise, but the lingering aftertaste of the piece (which, seemed to imply that, since we have to live with it, we might as well make the best of what this production has to offer), left me feeling a little uneasy (or was that queasy?). His third review, which I only got around to this morning (I was avoiding reading any reviews anywhere in advance of seeing Encores!), however, just plain made me mad.
In his previous review, Macaulay had made some brief commentary about the production registering a possible critique of patriarchal society that, at the time, I felt was being overly generous to Martins' intent. Thought-provoking perhaps, but I really didn't see it. In his latest article, apparently building upon that argument, Macaulay focuses on a jarring moment in the production that regularly appears to elicit gasps from the audience: when Jock Soto as Lord Capulet slaps the disobedient Juliet across the face. After a rather arbitrary and slapdash round-up of works for the stage he cites, in which physical abuse is heaped upon women, Macaulay, fighting off his delicate "hesitation," quite shockingly and gratuitously dredges up Martins' own well-documented incident of physical abuse in a manner which is highly disrespectful to the victim of that violence, Martin's wife, Darci Kistler. I think it is really reaching to see that stage moment (or anything else in the production) as being a public apology to Kistler and atonement to the spirit of Lincoln Kirstein in his centennial year. As justification for his theory, Macaulay cites a passage in Duberman's new biography of Kirstein. Macaulay's account makes it seem as if the notorious domestic abuse episode "nearly lost" Martins his job and that Kirstein would "never speak" to Martins again if he heard of another such incident taking place. Now, I haven't read the book, but it seems to me that Macaulay may be conflating things here somewhat. In the first place, Kirstein alone probably did not have enough influence by 1992 to get Martins dismissed from his job, and, moreover, that stern warning, in this context, sounds like very weak tea indeed. A more interesting question to consider, I think, is what sort of pressure might Kirstein or the NYCB Board have brought to bear on Kistler to remain silent?
At any rate, I think the article was a very distressing and cheap way for Macaulay to try to generate buzz about his column, and, in essence, another form of violence perpetrated upon Kistler. Surely it is her story to tell (or not to tell) as she freely chooses.
