Mérante

Prof. Gilbert Mayer entered the Ecole de danse in April 1948, and joined the company on 1st April 1951. Yes, it really was the 1st of April. And he is still teaching. This is almost certainly the lengthiest career in the Paris Opera's history. The "world's record" being held, perhaps, by Marina Simionova, who was apparently still teaching until her hundredth birthday. Congratulations are in order!

Were it just "opinions" being expressed, all would be well ... The injuries that ballet dancers can now expect to suffer are appalling. Steel rods in the neck, in the shin-bones, lining torn off the hip-joint, multiple herniated disks, double-hip replacements in one's mid-twenties (Sarah Kora Dayanova, Yannick Bittencourt at the POB - and this is in the public domain, not an indiscretion) ... despite central heating, technical clothing, advanced pointe shoes, better hydration and nutrition, better studio-ventilation and "sports" medecine. and no more cracked floorboards or rusty floor-nails. None of which we benefited from in the 50s and 60s. We are dancing far too turned-out, roughly ten to fifteen degrees more than in the 1950s, we are over-crossing the fifth, articulations are being opened beyond the physiological limit ... Nor was the human leg which weighs a couple of stone, ever meant to be lifted and pressed up against the ear a thousand times a day. And as for the strain Goleizovski-style lifting puts on the men ... Dancers are, in the main, now FINISHED at thirty. Classical dancing is a language. It is spoken through interesting STEPS. That really should be enough for us - rather than watching Christians being thrown to the Lions. In the Cecchetti film referred to her, the woman demonstrating the exercices - Muriel Valtat, former RB First Soloist, was 47 years old. We might all wish to put that in our pipe and smoke it.

Very much in agreement with David's contribution above. Athene Seyler has a wonderful book THE CRAFT OF COMEDY. She explains the differences between Old Comedy, Commedia, and so forth. It''s subtle, but ... that's where the monkey sleeps! Some of the Greats in Old Comedy, Restoration Comedy etc. were broadcast on television in the 50s and early 60s - they've vanished. We need them badly, so that the young can learn The Craft of Comedy - and of Tragedy, while we are, er, at it. German television both East and West broadcast at the same time, excellent versions of the Weimar classics. These have never, ever, been published on DVD. I met someone at Bad something or the other, who had a collection of 3000 videos of those productions and had searched, in vain, for a sponsor to transfer them to DVD. NOW IS THE TIME to re-broadcast these productions - the Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, von Kleist etc. plays.

As JNC as noted, despite this ballet's being effective as theatre, there are a number of major problems with it, 1/ starting with what can indeed be described as a cobbled-together score. A score pulled together by Stolze, who, unlike Tchaikovski, had no real affinity with dance-movement. In particular, he has little handle on how dancers work with gravity (appui, in French) pushing off or into the floor. Hence the skittering, flibberty-jibberty almost manic quality of many scenes. 2/ Neither are matters helped by Cranko's rejection of classical pantomime gesture. As Bournonville explains countless times in his writings, when things get too dramatic in a ballet, SWITCH TO PANTOMIME. And thereby avoid gesticulating with one's full body-weight, thereby descending into the frankly ludicrous. Ludicrous as the scene of the duel with Tatiana and Olga ... Cranko rejected pantomime partly because he, like MacMillan, had been bowled over by the Bolshoi's London tour in the late 50's, with the Goleizovsky-style, extremely dangerous, partnering, of which people like Lepeshinskaya had made their specialty. Ergo, the Mirror pas de deux and final pas de deux in ONEGIN. Instead of a pas de deux with actual steps, we get pas de deux with the woman being thrown about like a sack of potatoes, emoting from a height of 7 and a half foot above the floor. In case anyone would like to know why virtually all male dancers have serious back problems nowadays, look no further. 3/ Yes, we do need to simplify the plot in ballet. There is no way a ballet can deal with the plot-complexities of, er, Coriolanus, or Cymbeline, without sending the entire audience to sleep. However, one wonders how carefully Cranko had actually read Pushkin's work. To say Alexander Pushkin was a dissident and social critic is a cautious understatement. And like Heinrich Heine, he loathed the Romantics. Eugene Onegin as a human being, is the epitome of all that Pushkin despised in the Russian upper classes. The man is a self-seeking cad (reread the opening chapter, as he ghoulishly awaits his Uncle's death ...), remorseless, ignorant (Pushkin is perfectly explicit about his reading habits) and destructive. Whether I would have chosen him as the "hero" of a ballet, is something of a moot point. Here, should the dancers and instructors read Pushkin, they will find themselves faced with irreconciliable views - Cranko versus Pushkin. They've got to make the best of rather a botched job. But, at the end of the day, as theatre it holds water, so let us Thank Heaven for small Mercies.

Lest we forget - the more time people have to spend in the gym merely to SURVIVE, the less time they have to read, attend concerts, museums and generally refresh and work other areas of the mind which - HERE COMES THE BAD NEWS - happen to be intrinsic to the profession of a theatrical artist expected to perform the classics. It gets to the point it's all BODY BODY BODY. These "old-school" dancers were working in the realm of the imagination. Quicksilver. There's a Chinese "dance" troupe touring France at the moment, called Shun Yen I believe. Horrific contorsionism. But most people watching that sort of thing today, will say "WOW they out-ballet the ballet dancers". Quite.

The question of what we call "strength", is relative. Relative to the task. And there is little relation between the efficiency of a muscle, and its visual "size". Japanese Judokas for example, may only be 5 foot 6, weigh 9 stone and look like the classic "I was a 100 lb weakling". While they are TERRIFYING. The more one forces the turnout to get the visual effect of being "very turned out", the more one tends to use the wrong muscles to shore up the increasingly-unstable edifice. Normally, the turnout should be so elastic, that it holds virtually "as of its own volition". A few years back, someone asked why dancers today "no longer have those beautifully-lifted buttocks" of the 1950s. And everyone laughed. Well, it was funny, in a manner of speaking. An accurate observation nonetheless. If the weight be properly distributed over the heels (70% on the heels, 30% mid- and forefoot, as per Cecchetti's thinking) i.e. with the weight coursing UP and DOWN on either side of the plumb line, the floor will "push us upwards", effortlessly - so to speak. The turnout will be coming from inside the body, up from the pelvic floor (excuse my French) and the buttocks will indeed be "lifted"; the whole body including the back SEEN FROM THE BACK will be "turned out". This only works if we avoid over-turning. Whereas, there are two main differences between the way we danced, and the way we force the dance, today: picking up the leg, and over-turning. The moment we begin to over-turn, aiming at today's 175° turnout, we have no option but to over-engage the leg muscles in the front of the thigh, to stop us from tilting backwards, along with a host of other disorders. Again, although the turnout is indeed the Alpha and the Omega of all classical dance systems - it is nonetheless just a facilitator. Not the Reason Why - But the Reason How. As for Zakharova et al., the Russian girls are in the main, nearly six foot tall with very long limbs and a short torso. Selected virtually from birth for unusual ability to turn at the hip, prenatural laxity (an accident waiting to happen) and long flat muscle fibre, we are never told what happens to them at age 50, or what the "kill-rate" so to speak, is. Many of these girls seem to lose up to six centimetres of height as soon as they retire, an indication of severe osteo-arthritis. One would not necessarily wish to promote what is currently referred to as the "Vaganova" School approach to the turnout.

Margaret Porter was very tall, for that time, and that variation is difficult for a tall ballerina. The 19th Century ballerinas were in the main, just over 5 foot tall. However, the differences between 1978 and 2020 are of course, glaring. It starts with Miss Porter creating an excited stir in the room, as she glides unhurriedly downstage. I repeat, unhurriedly. This is not the teenage Aurora rushing on. Luxuriating in the port de bras, Miss Porter then draws herself up to her full height, whereby her fingers seem to brush the uppermost flies. There are three different positions of the head in that port de bras, and she gives full value to each. We move on to the battement à la seconde which despite the downbeat in the score, is taken unstressed, almost as a blur. Each sissonne-arabesque is differently accented. Remembering that the sissonne should look, and feel, like a tiny explosion of the unexpected UP AND AHEAD ! AND AHEAD! It is not a stretching movement! Overall, the in-between steps are much faster, lighter an un-accented. This makes it possible for a tall dancer to play with rubato and keep up with the music - by blurring the in-between steps. The dance is not frontal, but makes full use of all the points on stage. Tutto tondo - 360°. Miss Porter thus avoids the pasted-on, full-frontal Radio City Rockette GRIN. Despite the difficulty of the fouetté-arabesques for such a tall long-limbed dancer (centrifugal force), each stage of the movement is clearly marked - while the final arabesque nonetheless creates a little stir of excitement each time. Over the years, the orchestral tempi are perhaps 15 to 20% slower. This alone would suffice to make dancing the classical roles properly next to impossible. Personally, I believe that the main, if not the only, reason, these Imperial ballets still draw in the crowds is Tchaikovski's scores, which are built to MOVE, and are magnificent. Tamper with the scores by disregarding the correct tempi, and one kills the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs. The major issue we are now facing, as others here have commented, is that today's dancers do cross-training, owing to the dangerous "choreography" if that is the word, they are called upon to perform. They fear injury, and dance hoping to avoid it. Muscle--bound, and trained to dance on the position, rather than on the movement and the in-betweeness of movement. The bad news is that classical dance is not about positions, it is about movement. The positions are there as facilitators of movement. They canalise it. Now if we go back to Margaret Porter in this variation, but this time, watch only the in-between steps ... there may be much to learn.

Title: Josette Amiel triumphs over pointe shoe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmbNTyI2Mm4 As one sees here, Josette Amiel, a wonderful and bizarrely-unknown ballerina these days, is saddled, so to speak, with that epoch's clunky shoes: goose-beak vamp and a very stiff sole, given the jumping she is about to do. HOWEVER, she triumphs ! WHAT a dancer! WHAT technique! There is NOTHING that woman could not do. Nota Bene: in her day, the French school would still use the "sbalzo" (spring) technique in allegro pointe work. Hence that unbelievable lightness. (As for Flemming Flindt ... the word "charisma" might have been invented for the occasion ...)

In reply to Mr. Richard LH: Chloé is the taller, very slender girl in the red bodice, Elizaveta Petrova the smaller, dark-haired and strongly-built girl. I used the French word "dorsal" in error, rather than the English "thoracic" spine - I did mean the thoracic spine. Sorry about that, and sorry for the delay in replying to you.

The issue of injuries is often raised here, without much discussion of WHY. Let us take David Hallberg as a glaring example. Mr. Hallberg is very tall, as hyper-extended and hyper-lax as a woman, and cursed (although others would doubtless say « blessed ») with extremely high and therefore weak and unstable arches. This type of physique is an accident waiting to happen, and in point of fact, such individuals whether man or woman were, a few decades ago, generally discouraged from becoming professionals. In the man, given the circus-tricks now demanded, plus the dangerous and non-stop lifting, a physique like that of Mr. Hallberg cannot hold out. As it happens, owing to what this writer considers the catastrophic turn taken by so-called « technique » and choreography, the profession has become far more dangerous, far more exacting, and far more image-driven (hence the search for the ultra-thin ultra-tall ultra-lax). The « danger factor »has been increased a thousand-fold. A big star like Mr. Hallberg may be lucky enough to find the financing for medical care, thanks to the publicity given the case. What of the dozens who are simply discarded ? An exhaustive list and description of the injuries sustained by professionals in companies allowed to perform « Mayerling » to give but one notorious example, might be thought-provoking. If one wishes to think about it.

Well, for what it's worth, this writer finds the various clips of Miss Naghdi in this role out there on Youtube - which is why I stayed away from the live broadcast - rather unsettling. Leaving aside the manifest weakness in the choreography, and issues with the way the score is being conducted, and played, Miss Naghdi seems to receive a NOW FLING THE LEG UP pr POINT ARM UPWARDS signal every time a third-register note is played. Note - Fling. Note - Fling. Tires the mind. Correct me if I'm wrong, but one imagines Prokofiev did not write this to provide leg-flinging photo-ops. Secondly, must one really think about how one LOOKS when dancing? To say the least, Miss Naghdi is so deliberate a dancer, that she makes Sarah Lamb look utterly spontaneous, indeed, wild. Were dancing about posing, one might just as well go back to early 19th Century stalking about and posing in heavy drapery that was all the rage at the time. HOWEVER, as a friend has noted, forcing a classical troupe to dance so much "contemporary" or whatever it's called, to ear-splitting Acid Rock and generally in flesh-coloured bathing costume and bare legs, blunts the emotions. Because the dancers must protect mind and body from injury in such dangerous choreography, and from being goggled at practically in the all-together. And that in turn blunts the finer points of technique that have little - or nothing - to do with how highly arched one's feet or photogenic some other unfortunate body-part may be ...

This thread really is becoming somewhat desperate. There is next-to-nothing left of the work of Petipa, Perrot, de Saint-Léon ... owing to reckless and/or egotistical tampering by their successors. There is next-to-nothing left of grand technique, people's bodies having been wrecked by hyper-flexibility and hyper-extending. Now, we are supposed to "censor" the old ballets for Flavour of the Month reasons. Folks - it ain't possible to keep up with Flavour of the Month. 'Cus it does wotitssays on the Tin - changes every month. Allow me to add how very White Man's Burden the entire debate is. People in, er, "remote" parts of the Globe, may be somewhat more reluctant than we Pale Faces, to trash 5,000 years' acquaintance with their own artistic traditions - which most emphatically include the utterly ridiculous, the nasty, the gross, and what have you - to conform to some (generally filmed nude) Hollywood starlet's or Champagne Socialist's opinions on Feminism, or whatever the current little frenzy may be. Anyway, we need to cut this out. And possibly develop a sense of humour. Oddly enough, one sees far less concern over McGregor's work, or David Dawson's (Cf. The Grey Area for example), and what it does to performers - and public - (I have a word for this, but it's a Family Website). But we get hot under the collar over an extra rushing about in blackface in a ballet that is by now, nearly 200 years old. It's OF ITS TIME. Get over it. BTW, as a God-fearing Jew, NO, I do NOT go ballistic over Alec Guinness' portrayal of Fagin. Perhaps someone would like to have David Lean's work banned? Dicken's work banned? Or the role of Fagin cut out? Just for starters ...