![]() The expanded and relocated orchestra pit (it has been moved forward) has in particular proved a problem to adjust to, with the dancers at times looking like they either have trouble hearing the music on the stage, or seeing the conductor, particularly when variations start in the far upstage corners. Meanwhile the company seems to be struggling to adjust to the technical aspects of its renovated house. The clinching argument is that these are not works, in the last analysis, that City Ballet even does particularly well.Įnsconced in a newly renovated theater, the company has indeed sold tickets, though not until last week's Swan Lake in palpably greater quantity than in prior Winter seasons. ![]() Every other company does these ballets and most do them better. These points are not in the case of NYCB persuasive to me. The contrary arguments are that the "classics" sell tickets (but so does the circus) that the audience loves to see favorite dancers tackle the iconic roles in these ballets (and so why not give them what they want) that performing these ballets develops the dancers (and so why not give them too what they want) and finally that they are good vehicles to introduce a young (in this case a very young, even infantile) audience to the art form. If anything, ballet is in even worse shape in this connection: with The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Beauty, Giselle, increasingly Coppelia (in the Balanchine version - which, rumour has it, is being acquired by a couple of American companies at the moment) and five or six others, we are talking about the same dozen ballets being programmed by every single company.Īnd NYCB in particular posseses a priceless repertory of its own, and one that completely breaks this mold so why neglect it to program in this way? Balanchine's idea of a ballet company was precisely one that rejected this paradigm and I thus can't view with indifference a season that represents a total retreat from, if not surrender of, this point. Virgil Thomson, writing about the repertory of so called "classical" music in the 1960's, used to make the point (in my paraphrase) that "classical music" had become in his time the same fifty works played over and over again by every symphony orchestra in the country, if not the world. Along with Martins' Romeo + Juliet, half of the eight week season has been taken up with them and the effect, as I see it, is to emphasize a negative trend towards reducing the ballet repertory at the major American companies to a few standard and familiar works. The two ballets are in a way distorted images of each other turned inside out.ĭespite this contrast, the current winter season at City Ballet, subtitled "Classics," poses the question of whether and why the company should be programming these works in such concentration. The Vision scene in Beauty is essentially a little Swan Lake in miniature: the prince meets his vision of Aurora in the moonlight in very much the same way that Siegfried will later meet Odette in the othe work it's the happy ending and wedding at the end that makes the difference. The middle act of Swan Lake on the other hand (concluding with the Black Swan pas de deux) gives us exactly the kind of divertissement of classical and national dances as does the wedding that Beauty ends with - except that in Swan Lake the celebration and betrothal go terribly wrong. The striking thing about the two works, however - and the essence of their contrast - is the way each of them actually contains within itself a mini-version of the other. ![]() Sleeping Beauty on the other hand is classical ballet par excellence: the prince gets the girl malign forces are overcome, order is established in the realms, and all ends in a suite of sparkling dances. ![]() Swan Lake on the one hand is a quintessentially romantic ballet as in Giselle or La Sylphide, the hero - yearning for love - enters a forest glade in the moonlight, pursues a supernatural heroine and is either destroyed or at least ends the ballet bereft and alone. With Swan Lake following Sleeping Beauty at New York City Ballet these past three weeks (both in the company's streamlined Peter Martins' versions) the two great Tschaikovsky ballets have made an interesting contrast. If this data is unavailable or inaccurate and you own or represent this business, click here for more information on how you may be able to correct it.By Michael Popkin (copyright 2010 Michael Popkin) VIEW ADDITIONAL DATA Select from over 115 networks below to view available data about this business.
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