godots_arrived

Oddly enough, seems it's not just me. Is this reviewer insulting his audience too?: the dancing often had an ‘aren’t I great’ bravura to it. The dancers’ celebrations at the footlights with arms aloft gave a hint of Russian circus to the proceedings.

Full review here: http://seenandheard-international.com/2016/08/plenty-of-flames-but-no-real-fire-from-the-bolshoi-ballet/

More eloquent than my scribbling but I clearly wasn't the only person who reached the conclusions I did.

You can't resist it can you. You have to say "the OTT crowd mugging etc.etc." Just want to cause arguement by ridiculing other people's enjoyment. Have you any social skills at all?

Incidentally, when a curtain starts to go down and a dancer positioned mid-stage goes into a full-on sprint for the front, sliding on his knees under the near fully descended curtain and ending with arms raised in a flourish milking the crowd, I don't really know what else you could call it if not "mugging."  Were you even there on Saturday night? Do you actually know what you're talking about?

You can't resist it can you. You have to say "the OTT crowd mugging etc.etc." Just want to cause arguement by ridiculing other people's enjoyment. Have you any social skills at all?

Oh do grow up. Please. I'm expressing my opinion and qualifying it, not ridiculing other people's enjoyment. Your post is just utterly pathetic, below even contempt. 

I can certainly imagine Lantratov being fantastic in main role

He was a qualified fantastic in my view. His athleticism, musicality and line were outstanding. His partnering was also excellent and at times his sheer muscularity and stage presence were impressive. As a study in technique separated from the narrative ballet itself his performance was riveting. In character terms, well, as I said before he was Russian through and through. I know the OTT crowd mugging and/or visceral self-enjoyment (as you wish to interpret his mannerisms on stage) have won the favour of most here but they just weren't for me. 

Overall, I wouldn't have missed his performance for the world and it has left lasting memories. But as I have said before, somehow I found the parts greater than the sum. To be fair, I am clearly in a minority.

This most likely must be coordinated with the theatre administration. My past experiences indicate that they do not welcome any spontaneous flower throwing and the ushers will pursue anybody entering the theatre with a bouquet of flowers.

There were random buds being launched Alexandrova-ward on Saturday night but they were of the variety that one could smuggle in via one's lapel, thereby passing as a fashion accoutrement (of sorts.) Of course, if enough forum members attend the same performance each could sport a long-stemmed lapel-rose to then be surreptitiously recombined into a bouquet in the downstairs loo at intermission time prior to lift off via the strong arm of Janet at curtain call time.

Thanks for your reply, I am sorry if I have gained the wrong impression of how you would react, you certainly didn't make a very good impression in your earlier posts but my point still stands about how to respond to different opinions. Case in point, the above post about whining and throwing toys from prams - I happen to find that incredibly patronising, we are all adults here and to say that sort of thing, makes you sound holier than thou and those sort of people really gets my goat.  

 

I would prefer it if you refrained from that sort of behaviour in the future - if you would be so kind

Just in case it wasn't clear, the toys and prams comment wasn't aimed at Janet!  They can't afford toys in Liverpool :-) But I think if you read post 57 (both my quoted response (which was humorous and open) and the toy-throwers response to my post (which was petty , unnecessarily vitriolic and histrionic) I think you will see why I said what I did although I do take your point about manners and you quite right!

 

And, of course, Le Corsaire will have a thread all to itself by then!

You'll be pleased to know that I am preparing my dissertation on Byron as we speak :-)

We like to let other teams have a chance.

 

We (and the Canadians (tours en l'air) are taking over the world by stealth.

 

You could do that, or you could stay and offer your opinions without being so offensive and belittling.  Despite what you seem to think we enjoy hearing all sorts of opinions whether we agree with them or not.

That's me told! Thanks for doing it with a measure of grace and humour. I don't react well to whining and the sight of toys being thrown from prams!

For your information, I am greatly looking forward to seeing Le Corsaire on Friday night, it may not be Swan Lake or The Sleeping Beauty and it may have a hodge-potch score but it is a fun ballet that tells a story in the old fashioned Hollywood way and it has great set pieces. I intend to thoroughly enjoy myself. For your information, life is not all about being intellectual, we are allowed to have fun too.

So am I (greatly looking forward to seeing it.)

As for the score, I've never said that a weak score detracts from a ballet. Only that cutting a score in key places, particularly an outstanding one, is unforgivable. Can you imagine an AD putting on a production of Swan Lake but not fancying the white pas de deux and so just removing it? You wouldn't be happy. So why should I be happy for the integral musical conclusion of Tchaikovsky's score being altogether removed? Fine, I care a lot about music but the point stands.

As for the rest of your post, I don't know why you think (as you implicitly do) that I would disagree with any of it. All bang on.  Le Corsaire, however, doesn't have the overt Soviet-period overtones (where art was education and thus intellect was central to construction) that are integrall to FoP so I can swallow it in a somewhat different frame of mind. And, as I said, I am greatly looking forward to it.

But did not have to be so rudely put.

 

Scousers rule the World and we do not need to take employment from anyone we do not choose.

Probably. But attacks often beget knee-jerk defenses and let's not beat about the bush, his response to me was personal. My OP was not.

Jeez, you can't even win the football league anymore let alone rule the world. Wake up. Bill Shankly is dead, woman!

I'm thinking about changing my name to GodotsDeparted and doing just that.

Very droll.  I have not been in the personal security industry but I am a Scouser!

 

 

And BTW your sentence about Les Mis was less obnoxious than the odious comment you aimed at another member - the one I mentioned in the post I quoted.

One was uncalled for, hence he apology. The other was in self-defense!

You're a Scouser and I'm unpopular? You're hired. When do you want to start?

It doesn't read that way to me.  However, people are entitled to their opinions without those opinions being belittled.  You are quite right that your original sentence was offensive but then why have you tried to belittle every point everyone else has made ... that is the way it reads to me.

 

As Sim said in her post, a good perusal of the Forum would show many differing and often contentious opinions, including ones of other performances by the Bolshoi in this season.

 

Why do we always have to look at something from an intellectual point of view to get enjoyment, enlightenment and a broadening of the mind from it?  Apart from my sole visit to the Bolshoi on Thursday evening, last week, for me, was pretty shitty.  I went to the cinema on Sunday afternoon and saw a film that was absolute hokum.  I loved it and it did me the power of good.  What is wrong with that.  OK you may have watched the same film and pulled it apart critically (which is was by professional critics) but should that affect my enjoyment - of course not.  It is just someone else's opinion.

That single sentence was the only place I belittled anyone. I have admitted that it was obnoxious (as you acknowledge) and I have apologised without prompting. I don't see what more I can do. The rest of my thoughts/review I stand by. I merely said "this is what I think and this is why I think it..." No one was belittled.

Yes, how you and I see a performance and respond to it may differ and that's fine. Emotional response is a catholic business.  I don't think it much matters who over-analyses and who doesn't as long as we each know what we like and, in a discussion, can articulate why we've reached the conclusion we have. It's obviously just someone else's opinion. There's no disagreement there.

Have you been in the personal security industry for long, by the way? Perhaps I need a minder more than others on the board. :-)

And I think you owe SPD44 an apology for your finally, thoroughly obnoxious sentence.

Which sentence?

Your post #52 says what value is my opinion if I am not forced to justify it. Disagree by all means but do not expect me me to care one iota what you may think of it.

I think we differ there. I recognise that my knowledge of ballet is not encyclopedic. I write a review to summarise my response to a performance and that is obviously written through the prism of whatever knowledge about ballet/music/the arts that I have. Writing the review, especially a contrary one, was/is somewhat intimidating because I know that on a forum such as this, many people considerably more knowledgable than me are likely to hold opposite views. But if I can't express what I feel, then I'm never going to graduate to a greater understanding or discover why I might be wrong if I just keep my thoughts to myself. So while it's entirely up to you not to care one iota what others think of your reviews, I have to say that I care a great deal which is why I've tried to take the time to respond thoughtfully to everyone who criticised what I wrote. Personally, I think you're missing a trick being so close-minded but that's entirely your right. 

I have to add that I have re-read my original review and cannot see why anyone would have been offended with the exception of one, single line -- the one about Les Mis, which I agree was snotty and unnecessary. Apologies for that. Other than that I qualified every opinion I gave and simply explained why I felt how I felt even though others clearly came to different conclusions. Were I to rewrite the review after the flurry of criticism that has followed I would change nothing other than re-phrasing that aforementioned line, the point of which stands but could have been made less offensively.

If I disagree then I keep it to myself

A number of people wrote positive reviews of Flames of Paris. I went to see it and found that my experience differed from theirs. Does this mean I should keep my thoughts to myself and not post on the board because I disagree with the majority?  This is what you appear to be saying. I think the board WOULD become a fan board if we all kept any contrary thoughts in a homogenised box.

In the same week you may go,and see an Amateur performance .....but all the dancers are giving their all!! And you can pick this up. You could end up enjoying and be moved by the Amateur performance more in the circumstances outlined above. So which one has the more artistic merit? Interesting area I think!!

I wonder if this is because Ballet is a "live" performance Art .....it's very ephemeral. But something has to be communicated which touches the audience.

Yes, great point (and really interesting topic.)  It's a difficult one because I know you are leading me towards concluding that in this example the amateur performance probably has more artistic merit even though technically it's not even close and that appears to be the opposite of what I was arguing earlier. I think I would say that probably neither of these performances was great but the amateur one had the singular advantage of being more enjoyable and there is merit indeed in that. But your point is well made.

One of my lasting ballet memories is Marcia Haydee dancing Tatiana (Onegin) well into her 50s, as I recall.  I doubt she possessed the physical faculties she had in her prime and characterising someone less than half your age would seem to be problematic. But she was spellbinding. To my mind, that was great art, technically perfect or no. Equally, I recall a by then rapidly declining Nureyev in the Lully dances (can't remember the exact name of the piece) at the Met. Arguably, at that point he could no longer dance in what we understand the word to mean (which is why that ballet became more or less his valedictory piece) but I would contend, perhaps for entirely emotional reasons, that his performances somehow remained great.

This is quite an amusing (and not inaccurate) read: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/05/fifa-bad-olympics-gold-medal-sleaze

If you think you can force me to justify my opinions, then you can think again.

 

I will not set you to ignore, you are entitled to correspond on here, just like anyone else is, but I will ignore your insults.

 

I am not interested in your or your families politics and neither is this fan club magazine.

What insults? I have taken the time to respond to criticism. I have done so as thoughtfully as I can. I have tried to explain why I think what I think. I am at a loss as to where these insults are. Either you are VERY think skinned or you're imagining things.

For what it's worth, I think the emotional response to art is more honest than the intellectual.

What is "honesty"? I think if you're going to toss that out there, you need to qualify what you're driving at to some extent. Is this honesty as in "true to yourself" or is it honesty as purely instinctive emotional honesty? Or something else. Pure emotion is, I think, not particularly "honest." It's deeply personal. It tells us more about the viewer, arguably, than it does about the quality of the artwork.

The truth is both are hugely valuable and the one mediates the other. "I love it, but I can still be objective about it."  "I can see it's brilliant, but I didn't really enjoy it" are both valid responses.

Actually the Delacroix was inspired by the revolt of 1830 (as depicted in Les Mis) whereas the events in the Flames of Paris refer to 1789.

But the imagery is clearly drawn from one to the other, regardless of the semantics relating to dates.

Thank you for replying in such detail to my post.

 

Well I did say I might get into deep water as writing on a forum is just NOT the same as actually having a real conversation with someone where any misinterpretations can be sorted out fairly quickly and so on

 

When I mentioned" not wanting to compare Art forms in this way" I was talking about you seeming to .....though maybe not meaning to....rather denigrating audiences who might go to Les Mis!!

 

I was trying to say that when going to see a Company like the Bolshoi ....who are supposed to be a top level Company to go and see ballet .....you may have an enhanced experience both on an emotional and artistic level ( eg being aware you are seeing great Art) or you may not. And likewise you may go to .....what you seemed to be saying but I may be wrong....a lesser theatre art form like Les mis and have an enhanced emotional and artistic experience there.

I wasn't really saying don't compare ANY Art forms .....but this is pretty impossible to do don't you think?

 

Also there is the everyday self to contend with!!

 

You could go and stand in front of a truly great painting by Rembrandt one day and just get nothing and another day you can get drawn in and really connect. It doesn't mean that it wasn't great Art on the day you didn't connect and suddenly was when you did!!

 

Having said that there is of course more than an emotional response involved. After all I could get very emotional about a picture a friends five year old had painted but know it isn't "great art" in the "higher" order of one of Rembrandt's paintings.

Now I'm sure what I've been trying to say is about as clear as mud.

 

Even within just the Ballet World there are some ballets which are more light weight you could say( eg stupid story and definitely not Tchaikovsky level score) but in terms of dancing at least can be truly wonderful. For me for example Don Q is one of these ballets but when danced at the highest level is just such fun!! I don't always want to be reminded of the deeper things or more tragic things of life I just want to see some terrific dancing.

But I do agree with you that usually if I go on for long enough I'm bound to contradict myself!!

I think there is some really interesting stuff here.

On this point: "You could go and stand in front of a truly great painting by Rembrandt one day and just get nothing and another day you can get drawn in and really connect. It doesn't mean that it wasn't great Art on the day you didn't connect and suddenly was when you did!!"

...I absolutely agree with you but would note two things. First, your response to art is as much about you and the experiences that have made you what you are as they are about the art itself. Therefore, it stands to reason that (dangerous ground here, I know) a person less experienced in or knowledgable about the arts will almost inevitably have less refined taste. The purpose of study, after all, is achieve some degree of enlightenment.  Secondly, you hit the nail on the head. You can not appreciate great art on any given day but it is still great. That's because great art can be formally defined (by technique, colour, style, harmony, whatever) regardless of whether an individual, no matter how cultured, responds to it or not. And that was kind of encapsulated in my response to the Flames music. Foot stomping? Yes, Enjoyable? Possibly. Great art? I would say no. To some extent I'd say the same about the choreography, at least in terms of the sum if not the parts. It was stunning if you took various dances in isolation but the development of the narrative wasn't really brought to life by the storyline. For me, anyway.

On this point: Even within just the Ballet World there are some ballets which are more light weight you could say( eg stupid story and definitely not Tchaikovsky level score) but in terms of dancing at least can be truly wonderful.

You are totally right. Hundreds of them spring to mind.  One random example that pops into my head is Tharp's Sinatra Suite which I saw Baryshnikov dance more than once. The music and, for that matter, the choreography are what they are but the sum is wholly greater than the parts. To my mind, anyway.

This point is interesting too: I was trying to say that when going to see a Company like the Bolshoi ....who are supposed to be a top level Company to go and see ballet .....you may have an enhanced experience both on an emotional and artistic level 

Should you have an "enhanced experience" due solely to the reputation of a company? Suppose their standards drop? Would no one want to point out that the emperor was naked because, well, the Bolshoi is the Bolshoi?  The dancing, as I have said many times was magisterial in my view but I responded the way I responded and I do think there were holes to pick in the performances, Boishoi or not.

Thanks for your considered response to my earlier post! 

That's where we differ - if I love a ballet/piece of music or indeed any other art I do it wholeheartedly because it sweeps me away on an emotional journey.

 

If I enjoy something but have the capacity to step back and view it with a critical eye then that's different.

 

I'd be a fairly useless critic because if I was asked to write a critical assessment of my favourite cast dancing Manon or R&J (or even Colm Wilkinson as Jean Valjean in Les Mis) I suspect the result would be garbled mumbling.

Yes, I understand this. My only "but" is that if you limit yourself to immediate emotional response then you risk missing out on a variety of genius. For instance, I don't think any of us would pretend that upon hearing Boulez or Stockhausen (random examples) for the first time that we were swept away on an emotional wave. But with time, analysis and understanding your response to such music can change markedly. Likewise, our responses to Delacroix' Liberty Leading the People (the canvas at the heart of Flames of Paris!) is always going to be pretty immediate. But Jackson Pollock can have a similar effect.  I think we're all swept away by great art, but each according to our own instinctive criteria.

Could be interesting now godots_arrived hope I don't come to feel it was better while I was still waiting for him.

You might as well call me Vladimir :-)

Debate, surely, is healthy for any bulletin board? Who wants to be part of a mutual admiration society and what values your opinions if you're never forced to justify and think about them. That's how you make them stronger, isn't it. Anyway, you can always just put me on ignore!

My long-departed dad was an arch Conservative who spent his entire life reading Tribune and the New Statesman. He believed that immersing yourself in the opposition was the only way to solidify your own views. Well, I grew up into an arch Socialist who, ironically, subscribes to The Spectator! Go figure :-)

As do I, Susan.

As do I, which I not only spelled out but must be pretty clear from my posts. But like anything else, that love is qualified by critical assessment.