godots_arrived

Since this is "The Random Thread," here's another thing I have been thinking about: When is Swan Lake not Swan Lake? Actually, what I really mean is when does a work of art stop being "genuine," or at least a genuine interpretation of the creator's intentions? The rolling of the ball on this thought was started by the Bolshoi's current Swan Lakes and FoPs, hence the chosen wording -- although I am not suggesting that I don't think either of those performances were not the ballets intended (although whether they are is precisely the point.)

The question is, how much tinkering to the choreography (call it tinkering, revising, updating...as you will) and changing of the narrative (in the case of Swan Lake, the ending in particular) can you do without changing the "golden thread" so much that it starts to diminish what the intended Swan Lake is?  I don't know FoP nearly as well, but someone in the closed thread wrote a lengthy and erudite post suggesting the present version is significantly different to the original. So is it still FoP? Just because the basic story and costumes are approximately the same, is this enough? Is a work of art what the creator intended, or is it what has become with each successive layer of interpretation? And what do we (or you) want to see?

This gets even more interesting with music where at least as many, if not more, liberties are taken with scores, (particularly by certain conductors.) If you take scores literally, most of us will never have heard an authentically played Beethoven Symphony (because virtually no one observes his metronome markings. We play Beethoven considerably more slowly than it is written, perhaps with good reason.) Repeats are sometimes observed and sometimes dropped in many works...should following the composer's instructions be a literal process or is composition and choreography just a rough guide to a creative intent? And if yes, why are some recordings of the same piece as much as 15 minutes different in length (various examples) and some ballets barely recognizable in places to what you expect?

One question is what do we, or what should we expect when we go to see Swan Lake (or anything else)? Should we expect an execution of what the original work is, or an interpretation, or a revision, or an update? And when do the latter three stop being Swan Lake (if they do at all?) If I'd said in my Bolshoi review "well, I enjoyed that but it wasn't Flames of Paris" would that observation have been justified. Might have I have been right? If I'm staging SL, am I allowed to reduce the fouettes by half because that's how I think it should go, or altogether change the ending?

Just wittering but if anyone has any thoughts... 

I don't think that the impressions and opinions posted by forum members are reviews of performances, and neither do they need to be...the majority of posts in 'performances seen' threads are expressing a posters opinion and impressions.

This is an interesting point and raises a question: Whether you're a professional reviewer or an amateur posting here, aren't all reviews by definition simply an expression of the writer's opinion and impressions? If that's the case, and I would contend that it is, then whatever and however you write remains a "review."

To give an example of what I mean, I lacerated the violin soloist for taking liberties with the score in the White Swan Pas de Deux. Was this my impression? Well, yes. But it's also fact. There's a printed score that doesn't have exaggerated vibrato written all over it.

Or was this a review? Well, isn't my impression offered to someone else by definition a review? If I print my opinion you can accept it or reject it, but you consider it more or less as a review to which you have a personal response shaped by your own experience.

This raises another issue: Whether you choose to use the word "review" or not, any commentary on a ballet we've seen tells you not just about the ballet but also about the reviewer. What each of us observes at the same ballet is digested through the prism of personal experience and knowledge and for each of us, that is different. And, inevitably, it shapes our response. The better we come to know reviewers -- or in this case posters on the forum -- the easier it becomes to make sense of their thoughts.

Thanks for the thought-provoking thread.

Not a stage door story but I once persuaded a new girlfriend to go to her first opera (mid-90s, from memory), at the Colosseum, promising I would help guide her through it. Such was my desire (to impress her), it was one of those very rare occasions that I bought expensive stalls tickets. We took our seats, I predictably became engrossed in conversation with her and as the lights dimmed and noise diminished immediately prior to the curtain I took the opportunity to look at my other-side neighbour. It was Mark Morris. Didn't pay much attention to girlfriend for the rest of the evening. Relationship didn't work out either (you won't be surprised to know that I'm much better at offending people than dating them!). But I did have a loverly conversation with Mark.

NYCB ballerina Megan Fairchild answered a question about stage door fans in her Ask Megan! show podcast a while back.

Can be listened to here at the top of the page: http://www.premierdancenetwork.com/ask-megan/page/3/

Nice. I think when all is said and done it boils down to "use your common sense." As a rule to would seem that 95% of performers will be happy to sign/pose for polite audience members 95% of the time. Just have your pen/camera ready, know what you're doing, and do it quickly and politely. I'm rather tempted to stage door hang for the first time after Friday's Corsaire!

James -- fair enough. I agree that I resorted to cliche. While there's a reason cliches exist, your point is taken. Also, I've had enough controversy :-)

Anyway, on another subject and somewhat back to Swan Lake (and FoP,) when I wonder, is a review best written? Immediately after a performance when the experience is still fresh (which is when I wrote my first post about Swan Lake) or a day or two later when, perhaps, the ballet has had a chance to "settle" in the mind? Or even later, after that, by which time your thoughts may have matured. Or perhaps time has misled you into tempering or over-colouring your initial reaction.

I say this with my responses to the Bolshoi season in mind. Ten days or so later, Smirnova's Odette/Odile has grown in my memory and while not mitigating some of my earlier criticisms about the performance as a whole, has made them seem less important in the end. Were I to write the review today, I would probably focus more on her compelling interpretation and execution of the role because, it turns out, a). It really was that good, and b It has (for me) to be the transcendent experience of the run. It really lives in the memory, something I perhaps did not expect it to on the night.

Conversely, my somewhat more negative (although I did love the dancing as a series of "parts") review of FoP would not change five days later. Alexandrova didn't move me that night and this sense has not abated with time. She's a great dancer and her performance was as technically polished as they come but separation has not palliated what I think I saw on the night.

Do others go through this process of evolving thoughts about performances or do you leave the theatre with a fixed and unchanging view of what you've seen? As the end of the Bolshoi run approaches, do you think now as you did then? Should we keep updating review threads over a long period aware that how our thoughts evolve is as interesting and valuable as our first perceptions? Is a really great performance only one that stands the test of time?  All grist for the mill...

As this thread has made an appearance again, I don't think it is out of order to quote this very eloquent contribution from a dance professional (post 51), when I read it initially I really reassessed my attitude to the stage door.  In view of some of the sarcastic comments elsewhere, I'd like others to read it too.  I very much hope Irmgard doesn't mind me doing so.

Great post. Although I don't generally "do stage doors," I have a similar story though musical rather than ballet that I will recount for what it's worth.

I had just seen Solti conducting his Chicago Symphony in Mahler 9 at the Kennedy Center in Washington. DC some years ago. Solti was then, and remains, one of my musical heroes.  Anyway, the Stage Door person was actually an acquaintance of mine at the time so the girlfriend and I thought we'd stop by and say hello to him after leaving the concert hall.

As we stood there chatting to him (and we really had no intention other than that) one of Sir Georg's entourage came out into the foyer and, assuming we were there in the hope of seeing Solti (which hadn't even occurred to us) asked us if we'd like to meet the maestro? Do pigs fly? Obviously, we replied "yes."

We were promptly taken into his (large) dressing where he was seated on a couch, next to a grand piano. He invited us to sit down beside him, tea was served, and he proceeded to interrogate us with regard to our thoughts on the performance, taking interest in our replies. To make various points, he'd go to the piano to underline his explanations of how or why something was interpreted this way or that. We must have been with him for half an hour and we left with his baton as well as autographs. Sadly, those were the days before selfies.

It was a once in a lifetime experience I never have and never will forget.

(I really don't want to make a thing about this, godots_arrived, but there were people at the stage door in black tie. I doubt that the reason for the fracas was that we didn't look posh enough. And I'm not going to get into the 'to stage door or not to stage door' argument, because cavycapers and swanprincess have already responded so eloquently.)

 

Vicky it isn't a big thing. Why do you think this is personal? I couldn't care less about what happens at the stage door. Myself, I don't even go there most of the time. It's simply that someone raised the topic and I threw out a response. That's all. I might be right and I might be wrong in my response/opinion but it's not life and death...it's not even an argument. I only commented further subsequently to clarify what I had meant so I wouldn't be misunderstood...not to defend what I'd said. I don't even feel strongly about stage door protocol myself.

The performance itself. There is a separate thread about going to the stage door.

Thanks, Anna. Well, at least there is one offense on this board that I can't be blamed for :-)

No, you are not out of order. Can everyone try to stick to the topic, please.

Does the topic include the issues at the stage door that someone raised and which has started a sub-discussion or is the topic related only to the performance itself? Please clarify!

Janet - won't reply in detail but I think you're taking my thoughts literally rather than generally. I simply meant that if, somehow, a "class" of people (say, those in first class seats) suddenly and visibly demanded something, they would more likely get it than those in economy class. I also wasn't trying to say everyone at the stage door is an "autograph hunter." I just used that as a convenient catch-all term to cover the general mood.  Anyway, you may be right (about equal treatment.) Opinions are what they are!

To add my impressions, took me a while to regain my senses to write something hopefully moderately coherent. For me Olga Smirnova's Swan Lake was the true revelation of the season. There have been many fine ballerinas sparkling in this role, but no one with her ability to reach down to the deepest levels of my soul to stir up lasting emotions. 

 

At her Swan Lake, as the white act was beginning there was a palpable sensation that the very air in the theater thickened. What an astonishing artistic performance it was! Her white swan was of the vulnerable, quivering kind, a precious fragile bird desperate to free herself from the trap into which cruel fate captured her. I almost wanted to scream out in anguish: "Is there no one here that would protect this dear little creature, protect her from all the evil that is threatening her, give her some comfort, give some hope for calm and deliverance???!!!! How could there be such cruelty in the world, is there really no hope?" And right at that very moment, Odette looked at the Prince, and a glimmer of hope passed across her face. It was faint, unsure hope, but one that she felt to hold so dear, as she felt there would be nothing else ever to save her from her doom.

 

The white adagio to me was one of the most incredible things I have ever seen, a true masterpiece that completely absorbed and enveloped all of me. It was strange: sometimes it felt like an out of body experience, sometimes it felt like I became the Prince standing in front of Odette, infatuated by her image and her story, at other times I felt like my self melted away in this ocean of music and beauty. I forgot that I was in a theater, I forgot that I was in a ballet performance, to me it was no longer dancing, but a beautiful wistful symphony, a sorrowful poem, a tale of unhappy destiny of heart break and sadness. It was as if I was hearing verses accompanying Tchaikovsky's yearning score. At that moment the white swan on stage became a living image of a human soul - incorporeal, yet still so real in its feeling, its longing, its pain. To me it was not a performance, it was an experience that reached out to the deepest layers of my soul as if someone gripped me by my very heart.

 

Her Odile was a sparkling jewel at a high society party, beautiful for the sight to behold, a gorgeous and seductive statuette, full of deception and vice inside. Invoked thoughts of Tolstoy's Helene Kuragina, wonder whether she actually served as the inspiration for the Odile character. Incredible how an artist can create two such different roles within the same performance, separated by a mere 30 minutes!

 

Unlike some other viewers or critics, I thought the finale was powerful and moving, at least the way it was done by the performers that night, as heart wrenching as it was, especially when the Evil Genius brutally murders Odette by snapping her back, it was as if my heart snapped along with it. And as the final applause was raging all around me, I could barely move or breath, overwhelmed by tears and grief, awestruck with the emotional intensity of that performance.

Totally agree with everything (except your thoughts on the finale but my problems with that related to the music -- or lack of it -- rather than the drama.) For me, too, (and as I have said before) Smirnova has also been the revelation of the season. Her swan endures in the memory; it's what I instantly recall when I think back on the last month and I doubt I could have articulated why that is so as well as you have.

I will say, slightly changing the subject, that musical performance of Swan Lake did really pain me. There were problems of intonation in the brass throughout the performance. And the White Swan violin solo was sugar-coated in unnecessary (almost vulgar) vibrato. A swan, surely, is a reflection of icy elegance?...the music speaks for itself and the dance interprets it. Turning the solo into a crude, heart-tugging, crowd-pleasing folk song detracts from the essence of Odile's character and insults the audience by implying they couldn't work it out without an explicit push from the chair. It doesn't enhance it. You don't represent a swan with schmaltz. Well, that's how I saw it anyway.

But Smirnova? Utterly fantastic.

Whilst certainly not wishing to provoke an argument, Godots_arrived, I do disagree with your point about expensive seat holders. On this occasion I was very lucky to recieve Orchestra Stalls tickets as a birthday gift, however frequently watch ballets from stalls circle standing or balcony standing- my point is that regardless of how much money I pay for my ticket, I still support the ROH and deserve to be treated with respect by its staff. And whilst I can appreciate that some people may go to the ballet for the social aspect, I- and no doubt many others- go to broaden our horizons in the ballet world and appreciate the art form, which is primarily the purpose of going to a ballet.

I don't think there's any argument at all that we should be treated equally regardless of what we pay. That was exactly my underlying point too. But that rarely happens. The point I was making is that in any entertainment (and for whatever reasons), the really devoted fans tend to be in the cheap seats. Not always, but as a rule. Whether it's the terraces at football or the amphitheater in the ROH, that's where you find the noise in the former and the impoverished ballet students desperate to see the performance in the latter. And by and large, in either instance, those you find at the stage door waiting to greet the performers an hour after the show/game tend to be drawn from that core of devotees. The wealthier patrons tend to be long gone by midnight.

What I would contend is that if there was suddenly some sort of recognizable upsurge in expensive seat holders seeking autographs, that the ROH would suddenly become more accommodating in the management of the stage door. If your 150 pound seat holders want something, in my view they're more likely to get it than those of us who stand or sit in the slips. I may be wrong, but that is/was my contention.

How anyone can read "sugar daddies" (I know it wasn't you) into my assertion frankly says more about the way their minds work than anything written in my thread. That was a truly pathetic and offensive response.

Here's an instagram photo of Zakarhova signing autographs after Swan Lake last evening.  To me she looks utterly exhausted.  I may be in a minority here, but really, after having given so much in her performance, must she then give more just because people want things from her?  Can't we just let her go home when she's tired, and explain to the kids why this is the right thing to do?n 

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BI5AhOZglcU/?tagged=swanlake

Good God, looking at that photo I'm so glad I wasn't there. I'd still be in recovery now if I had been. 

Amen to that, Cavycapers!

 

Godots_arrived I don't fully understand your point; do you mean that the patrons who paid for top price seats should've been treated better at the stage door? I agree!!

No. I meant that if the stage door was regularly frequented by expensive seat-holders (half of whom are interested in the social occasion rather than the dance) then I suspect the stage door staff would soon improve their social skills. Or be told to.

 I bet the customers in the 150 quid seats who aren't the ones at the stage door at 11pm aren't treated like that.

But who cares if it is planned and repeated? As someone has already said, curtain calls are all part of the performance and add to the audience experience. I for one hope that they dive under the curtain again after Le Corsaire on Thursday.

For Goodness sakes, please read my posts carefully before replying with angry retorts. The OP had written "lexandrova and Lantratov looked at each other as if to say "are we doing this? Yes let's"" and I was merely responding to that by pointing out that the spontaneity he suggested wasn't the case. Nowhere did I say that it mattered that it was planned and repeated. Nowhere did I say that it was wrong to do what they did. I simply replied with a fact in response to a statement. That is all. Please drop it. Thank you.

Alexandrova and Lantratov looked at each other as if to say "are we doing this? Yes let's" and ran hand in hand from the back of the stage through the closing curtains to the front...only just making it but they remained upright and the audience loved it.

The audience did indeed love it. However, as the same stunt was pulled in more than one performance, I doubt it was quite as spontaneous as you imply!

Despite my (severe) reservations about the production as a whole, Smirnova's Odette/Odile has been a highlight of the run for me. Those going tonight (Tuesday) are in for a treat in my view. TBH I am almost tempted to go down to London and linger around the box office in the vague hope that someone shows up with a spare ticket such is my wish to see her again.

 

Next, the question of whether an emotional response is more honest than an intellectual response. In my view, this is a no-brainer. An emotional response is instinctive, an intellectual response depends upon received learning. The intellectual response will be better informed but the emotional response is unquestionably more honest. Great art has to engage the emotions as well as meeting the technical requirements and where performance art is concerned, this is dependent upon the individual performances on the night (and these are also informed by the chemistry between the performers) as much as the music and choreography.

 

However subliminally, there is a suggestion in some of the posts that those whose chief response to an art form is emotional, or those who enjoy ‘inferior’ types of entertainment, may lack the capacity to fully appreciate ‘high art’. I have enjoyed ‘high art’ for decades yet I will happily watch Made in Chelsea with my children or read the Daily Mail for light relief. As a young teenager, I cried just as much watching Barbra Streisand’s Fanny Brice on screen as Rita Hunter’s Leonora on the stage. It is the honesty in the performance that reaches out and touches us and transforms a work of art from something that has objective and intellectual merit into something that we can recognise as great art.

 

So what if Lantratov and Alexandrova mugged for the crowd by ducking under the curtain? You could say the same about the Lantratov/Krysanova ‘rose’ routine at the curtain call for ‘Shrew’. It engages with the audience. It injects life and vitality and humanity. It is what performing is about. People respond.

 

And on that point, Nureyev, whom godots_arrived clearly does appreciate, was a shameless mugger and none the worse for it.

 

Finally, godots_arrived does seem to have apologised repeatedly on this thread. I have no problem with stirring controversy as long as this does not descend into personal attack, and some of the posts were getting close, but hopefully everyone can now move on.

S -- thanks. Your take on emotional vs. learned response was fascinating and the point about received learning was bang on and one I should have made myself. You did what I had hoped would happen all along: I wasn't ever trying to say that my view (or any view) held supremacy...just that a discussion of our different responses to art was interesting and it'd be engaging to hear what people thought. You picked up and covered all the areas I was hoping everyone would dig into. It's a fascinating subject.

With regard to the curtain-ducking episode, your justification is beautifully put and, I think, rather makes me eat my words. You are right. As for my thoughts about Nureyev, you're right about that as well but as I can't come even close to talking objectively about him he's a subject I'll avoid.  I think as I said some time earlier, our response to a performance does tell us a lot not only about the performance but about ourselves, too.

Baiting you. I will leave others to judge. No more,done with you, say what you will.

FAO Mods. Surely an open admission that SPD444 has written multiple posts simply to bait someone they disagree with is against the conditions of membership?

"...abusive...language will not be tolerated"

Further, I note that a number of mods have "liked" these endless unfounded personal attacks which rather calls into question both the integrity of the board and its policing.

Let's sum this up. I posted a review about FoP. One line was condescending. I have admitted that and quickly apologised for it. Those who disagreed with my review and said so I have responded to politely, thoughtfully and carefully almost one-by-one. And mostly in a friendly manner. Yet one person, SPD44, has from the start has not offered a single constructive response to my observations...he has just provided a stream of what amounts to one personally abusive retort after another ending with an admission that he has simply been trolling me.  And this, apparently, is fine. 

Can you explain what is going on here, and if you think the above summation is unfair then let me know why?

 

In DonQ Alexandrova and Lantratov ran under the curtain at the end it was quite a thrill to see as I've never seen that happen before!

If we're going to discuss ballet technique, at the FoP performance it was actually a knee-skid under the curtain from a running start. Was the same choreography used in Don Q, or was yours a full-length run?  :-)

Great post, FLOSS. I think you have managed to capture more or less what I said/felt but without offending anyone or being (unintentionally) patronising. I could not agree with you more and thank you for articulating a number of important points so clearly.

 

I have often thought that critics sometimes see too much and become almost jaded.

 

Yes, I think you're probably -- well, definitely -- right.  Agree there have been some really interesting side discussion though but it has veered significantly from Flames of Paris. I think the line that I've highlighted above is bang on as a discussion point (and I suspect we'd take opposite sides of the debate!) If you'll feed me a bowl of Scouse I'll head north immediately and we can have at it. :-)

With respect, I completely disagree that pure emotion is not particularly honest. Immediate emotional response to art is probably the most honest reaction of all, because it's instinctive. I can vividly remember crying my eyes out, aged 4 or 5, because the music I was listening to was "so sad". It was the Largo from Dvorák's 9th, out of interest, but I had the same reaction to John 19:41 from Jesus Christ Superstar, at the same age.

 

I had the same gut response some 40 years on when Muntagirov performed his first solo as Des Grieux in Manon. It was no less honest a response.

 

Anyway - off topic, for which I apologise. Back to "Flames"....

I actually think we agree with each other completely in the substance of our views. Where we differ is only the words we use to summarise them. What you call "honesty" I simply call a "deeply personal" response but I think we're describing the same thing and we both agree that it's entirely valid.

The only point I was trying to make earlier is that there's a difference between forms of honesty: "personal honesty" -- how something affected me, and "dispassionate/objective honesty" -- where the goal is to assess quality based on various metrics, not emotional response (example: a dancer with poor technique nevertheless reduces you to tears with their performance.)

What I meant to say, and probably didn't do it very well, is that I didn't think "personal honesty" is, on it's own, an adequate means of assessing the quality of a performance. It's a component, yes, but you need both personal and objective responses to really get to the heart of things. "I absolutely loved it" does not equate to "it was a brilliant performance, perfectly executed." It's the difference between "perfect" and "perfect for me."

I will accept that some accuse me of over-intellectualising and that's fair enough but for me while personal emotional response is an important component of enjoyment of the arts, I still want to be able to make dispassionate judgments about what I've seen.

I was there, and I do know, and this has clearly shown me you are a troll, and hope the mods see this. Goodbye.

Once again, a personal insult but you ignore the substance of the post where I explicitly pointed out why I justifiably used the word "mugging." You appear to like baiting me but to intensely dislike objective responses to your taunts. Troll? How do you work that out from my post, or is anyone who expresses a qualified opinion that differs from yours a troll?