New York City Ballet - Digital Spring - feedback thread

[li tai po]

Dear Bruce and Jeannette

 

I watched Donizetti Variations, a ballet completely unknown to me, before I read your comments.  I was totally knocked out by it - what an exceptionally delicate and beautiful ballet, requiring amazing reserves of technique and stamina by the entire cast.  I say to everyone, don't miss it.

 

Although I am very familiar with the Balanchine warhorses, Serenade, Apollo, Jewels, Symphony in C, The Four Temperaments, I have been bowled over during this season by the diversity of moods and techniques across the Balanchine repertoire.  It has been such a pleasure to encounter less familiar works like Divertimento No. 15, Western Symphony, Allegro Brillante and now Donizetti Variations  It is also a great opportunity to be able to watch the repertoire two or three times over and get to know it better.  Bruce posted Vienna Waltzes here, which led me to discover a frustratingly poor quality clip of Liebeslieder Walzer, bringing back memories of the Royal Ballet performance with the likes of Lesley Collier and Monica Mason.

 

The introductions have been succinct, informative and respectful - a welcome change from the gushing divas who host the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts.

 

As you suggested, Bruce, I have completed the questionnaire on the NYCB website, which hints at the possibility of some kind of internet subscription service in the future.  I hope to be able to follow this company, its repertoire and dancers, on a more regular basis in the future - even though I am unlikely to make the long journey across the pond again.

 

It has been a great pleasure to meet the NYCB dancers twice a week and to get to know them.  I hope some of the dancers in New York are following this thread and are aware how they are making a difference to those of us in lockdown and self-isolating in the UK.

 

 

 

 

 

[Bruce Wall]

Just want to point people - should they be interested - in the direction of the series of interviews that Megan Fairchild is doing on her YouTube channel.  I've been watching them over the weeks and feel she really is becoming adept at that role.  The most recent one is with the exquisite NYCB soloist, Indiana Woodward.  I was both fascinated and delighted by it.  Certainly I was struck how both agreed that the mandated NYCB studies at Fordham, (which is a University but a block away from the Theatre) play such an important role in feeding their artistry.  

 

 

[DanJL]

Thanks Bruce, I'll check those out.

 

On a similar note, Megan Fairchild herself will be in conversation with Leanne Cope on Leanne's Instagram account. Sunday 31st at 3pm.

[alison]

Ashley Bouder was absolutely glorious in Donizetti Variations - and what a lovely chance to see it again after so many years.  The last time I saw it was when London City Ballet performed it back last century at the old Sadler's Wells: I didn't realise back then just how Bournonville-like it was.

[alison]

Do catch the box of delights that is Donizetti Variations if you can before it goes offline tonight - and especially if you like Bournonville  

[Jeannette]

NYCB’s last offering of its present digital season - Contemporary Mix - premiered last night. Uh...

Maybe they should have ended with Donizetti Variations and declared victory? Oh well, we’re grateful for the season, overall. 😇

[nycitybird]

The music of the first few pieces made them unwatchable for me. Loved Runaway and the Times Are Racing and wish they'd shown them in their entirety!

[Bruce Wall]

Like nycitybird, I had mixed feelings about the final NYCB programme in the Digital Spring Season.  Didn't feel Easy was a substantive work by Peck somehow - although I enjoyed the punchline.  Certainly it was lovely to see Indiana Woodward and Unity Phelan - both of whom have grown into such fine artists now - and especially for people to get at least a glimpse of Preston Chamblee - such a fine partner - and the always mesmeric Claire Kretzschmar.  Still I think that Peck has done himself a considerable disservice during this Season by not showing one - or even a segment of one of his - significant 'company-scale' balletic works.  There are, after all, a goodly number.  Maybe he wasn't entirely pleased with any of the recordings he may have been presented with.  Although saying that I'm sure there must be a goodly few with their original casts.  Surely he couldn't argue there.  Perhaps it was just a matter of the nights at hand - or intentions for future planning.    

 

The REAL standout for me here, however, was Taylor Stanley in that riveting - and let's face it - hugely difficult solo from The Runaway, the creation of which he speaks about here.  (It did have the advantage of being right at the opening of the piece - so it didn't suffer from missing a previous context which certainly I felt the Ratmansky did.  Why they didn't let the chaps have their moment(s) in the sun at the end of that section of Voices - ensuring a certain punctuation - really made no sense to me.  Certainly if I hadn't seen it in the theatre I would have been totally bewildered - as fetching as Lauren Lovette was.)  But back (and happily so) to Stanley.  He much like Farrell or Whelan, say, - although a hugely different beast - is a wholly unique artist.  Like it or not when he dances he somehow seems  always to command a different world.  Peck, himself, has taken significant advantage of such.  Stanley consistently seems to lure with the provocation of an almost transcendental soul.  Those cryptic eyes of his at the end - much as in certain moments we were able to capture during his debut in Apollo earlier this Digital Season - were entirely magnetic.  They engross.  His passivity seems somehow always active.  It tempts.  Indeed I have come to find his personal dance ethos entirely prepossessing; almost orphic - and I say that having once thought I mightn't.  For me that - sorry, he - was worth the rest of this particular programme put together.  

 

 

Edited May 30, 2020 by Bruce Wall

[Bruce Wall]

A blast from the past ... Balanchine's A Midsummer's Night Dream danced by NYCB in a live broadcast from 1986 ... 

 

Titania MARIA CALEGARI
Oberon IB ANDERSEN
Puck JEAN-PIERRE FROHLICH
Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons VICTORIA HALL
Theseus, Duke of Athens CORNEL CRABTREE
Titania’s Cavalier JOCK SOTO
Helena, in love with Demetrius STEPHANIE SALAND
Hermia, in love with Lysander JUDITH FUGATE
Lysander, beloved of Hermia KIPLING HOUSTON
Demetrius, suitor of Hermia PETER FRAME
Bottom LAURENCE MATTHEWS
Butterfly KATRINA KILLIAN
Act II Divertissement MERRILL ASHLEY and ADAM LÜDERS

Broadcast on 24th May, 1986, Live from Lincoln Center

Edited May 31, 2020 by Bruce Wall

[Bruce Wall]

Also agree with nycbird that it was great to see Robbie Fairchild - when still in the NYCB fold - in super sync with Justin Peck in his The Times are Racing.  

 

Two more segments from that same have now been shown on IG offering additional peeks at the Peck by, respectively, T. Stanley and T. Peck:-

 

 

[nycitybird]

I was lucky to see it in Copenhagen and it's one of my favourite modern ballets. Love the music and found it joyous and moving. I remember having tears in my eyes as the curtain came down, and I love it when an abstract ballet can do that! 

[Bruce Wall]

A glimpse of the second solo for the singular Mr Stanley in The Runaway can be seen here ... 

 

https://www.nycballet.com/Videos/Ballet-Detail-clips/The-Runaway-Taylor-Stanley-excerpt-Kanye-2.aspx

[Don Q Fan]

A bit late to the party but WOW Donizetti Variations was amazing. Probably now one of my favourite ballets!  I think I watched it 3 or 4 times LOL!

[Bruce Wall]

Know I'v spoken of my disappointment at not seeing any one of Peck's 'company-expansive' balletic pieces - such as he is famed for in the recent Spring NYCB Digital season.  Here is a brief documentary about him which gives access to small segments from just those beasts as performed by NYCB.  If there is to be a Fall digital series of offerings perhaps one of these will be seen.  Certainly I would value such.  
 

 

 

Edited June 3, 2020 by Bruce Wall

[Buddy]

On 27/05/2020 at 01:02, SheilaC said:

Buddy, you ask about Isadora Duncan and also refer to Ashton. Well, as you may be aware,  Ashton saw Duncan and was almost as inspired by her as by Pavolva. He created a solo ballet on Lynn Seymour, 'Five Brahms Waltzes in the manner of Isadora Duncan'. People who had seen Duncan said it evoked her remarkably well.

 

Thanks, Sheila.

 

I read somewhere that Anna Pavlova was also impressed by her. You might enjoy this.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2WIpgVBNok

[Jan McNulty]

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fnycballet%2Fvideos%2F552612658785593%2F&show_text=0&width=560

 

 

(Can't see if this has already been published so doing it possibly again!)

[Bruce Wall]

A change has been announced:

 

Lincoln Center at Home’s June 22 stream of a 1978 Live From Lincoln Center broadcast of New York City Ballet performing George Balanchine and Alexandra Danilov’s full-length production of Coppélia will be replaced with a stream consisting of the third act of Coppélia only, preceded by three highlights from the 2004 Live From Lincoln Center Broadcast of the Balanchine 100 Centennial Celebration: 

• Balanchine’s Brahams-Schoenberg Quartet (fourth movement) with Wendy Whelan and Damian Woetzel; 
• Concerto Barocco with Maria Kowroski, Rachel Rutherford, and James Fayette; 
• “The Man I Love” pas de deux from Who Cares? with Alexandra Ansanelli, Nilas Martins and featuring a special performance of the Gershwin score by Wynton Marsalis. 

The decision was made by New York City Ballet and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts not to show the complete Coppélia after reviewing the footage from the 1978 Live From Lincoln Center broadcast.

 

....

 

Thanks Jan for the reminder about the fine 2020 NYCB premiere you again noted in the item immediately above.  It had indeed been already posted on 25th May at the time of its premiere (on BcoF page three) and you kindly had 'liked' it at the time.  I agree it is a fine piece of work and well worth a second viewing; a wonderful celebration of the ripeness of summer by all five of the NYCB dancer/choreographers.  

 

 

 

Edited June 17, 2020 by Bruce Wall

[capybara]

What's the link to this,please, Bruce?

[Bruce Wall]

1 hour ago, capybara said:

What's the link to this,please, Bruce?

 

It will be here: http://lincolncenter.org/lincoln-center-at-home

[Jeannette]

5 hours ago, Bruce Wall said:

A change has been announced:

 

Lincoln Center at Home’s June 22 stream of a 1978 Live From Lincoln Center broadcast of New York City Ballet performing George Balanchine and Alexandra Danilov’s full-length production of Coppélia will be replaced with a stream consisting of the third act of Coppélia only, preceded by three highlights from the 2004 Live From Lincoln Center Broadcast of the Balanchine 100 Centennial Celebration: 

• Balanchine’s Brahams-Schoenberg Quartet (fourth movement) with Wendy Whelan and Damian Woetzel; 
• Concerto Barocco with Maria Kowroski, Rachel Rutherford, and James Fayette; 
• “The Man I Love” pas de deux from Who Cares? with Alexandra Ansanelli, Nilas Martins and featuring a special performance of the Gershwin score by Wynton Marsalis. 

The decision was made by New York City Ballet and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts not to show the complete Coppélia after reviewing the footage from the 1978 Live From Lincoln Center broadcast.

 

....

 

Thanks Jan for the reminder about the fine 2020 NYCB premiere you again noted in the item immediately above.  It had indeed been already posted on 25th May at the time of its premiere (on BcoF page three) and you kindly had 'liked' it at the time.  I agree it is a fine piece of work and well worth a second viewing; a wonderful celebration of the ripeness of summer by all five of the NYCB dancer/choreographers.  

 

 

 

 

Clarification: only the 2nd mvmt (Largo) of Concerto Barocco was presented in that show. Kowroski and Fayette featured; Rutherford on for just a few seconds.

 

The whole news about the Coppelia film is odd. It seems as if I took care of my Beta tapes better than PBS/Live from LC...and they’ve travelled around the world in trunks, through the years! (My entire collection since transferred to DVD. Wish that I could help but know the no-copy rules.)

[alison]

Are you sure it's a quality issue, Jeannette?

[Jeannette]

1 hour ago, alison said:

Are you sure it's a quality issue, Jeannette?

 

Yeah, right. 🥴 

 

Remember how happy we were when “Dance Week” was announced? Why make the big announcement if “I’s” not dotted and “T’s” not crossed? 

[toursenlair]

7 hours ago, Bruce Wall said:

A change has been announced:

 

Lincoln Center at Home’s June 22 stream of a 1978 Live From Lincoln Center broadcast of New York City Ballet performing George Balanchine and Alexandra Danilov’s full-length production of Coppélia will be replaced with a stream consisting of the third act of Coppélia only, preceded by three highlights from the 2004 Live From Lincoln Center Broadcast of the Balanchine 100 Centennial Celebration: 

• Balanchine’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (fourth movement) with Wendy Whelan and Damian Woetzel; 

 

 

4th movement of Brahms - Schoenberg with Whelan and Woetzel is a worthy tradeoff for anything!! Awesome.

[Jeannette]

2 hours ago, toursenlair said:

4th movement of Brahms - Schoenberg with Whelan and Woetzel is a worthy tradeoff for anything!! Awesome.

 

Not quite the rarity of the full Coppelia 1978 film. The substituted excerpts are from a far note recent show.

[toursenlair]

1 hour ago, Jeannette said:

 

Not quite the rarity of the full Coppelia 1978 film. The substituted excerpts are from a far note recent show.

 

it's a rarity for people who don't live in New York or can't get there regularly

[Jeannette]

It’s a DVD that’s in most collections...that 2003 telecast. That’s what I meant. Compared to the Betamax-recording era (78/84 timeframe).

[DanJL]

Do you know if this DVD is still available Jeanette? The NYCB offerings have inspired me to get hold of any Balanchine DVDs I could find, but I don't think I've come across this performance so far.

[Jeannette]

2 hours ago, DanJL said:

Do you know if this DVD is still available Jeanette? The NYCB offerings have inspired me to get hold of any Balanchine DVDs I could find, but I don't think I've come across this performance so far.

 

Ballet fans recorded it off their TVs, so it’s in most private collections. This particular show (the Balanchine 2003 gala) was a disappointment for most NYCB fans - especially “The Man I Love” number from Who Cares?, as the camera was fixated on trumpeter Wynton Marsalis in the pit, rather than focusing on the dancers...and Marsalis played his own improvised arrangement of the music. So you’re forewarned. 

 

Far from the glory days of ballet broadcasting. Shame that modern audiences won’t get the full Balanchine Coppelia but at least Act III is a gem with the full divertissements. 

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by Jeannette

[DanJL]

Thanks Jeannette, makes sense! I'll look forward to watching the streaming, but suitably forewarned thank you 🙂

[Bruce Wall]

4 hours ago, DanJL said:

Do you know if this DVD is still available Jeanette? The NYCB offerings have inspired me to get hold of any Balanchine DVDs I could find, but I don't think I've come across this performance so far.

 

I wasn't going to mention it here, DanJL, - but since you've expressed such a sincere interest -  I was happy last week to complete a very well constructed survey as an NYCB subscriber (this in addition to the one which had already been publicly offered by NYCB at the tail end of their comprehensive Digital Spring Season which I am especially delighted to hear you enjoyed.) This survey gave even more clear focus to the potential development of an 'on-demand' service for NYCB such as you currently see for New York's Metropolitan Opera or the Vienna State Opera Companies. 

 

NYCB is probably one of the richest Companies in the world in terms of their exhaustive digital balletic library. Since the early-middle 80's a great number of individual performances - certainly all repertory programmes and then each several times over with different casts - have been recorded by more than one camera on each occasion.  Prior to the establishment of the current in-house Media Suite - (instituted when the NY State Theater [the Koch Theater as it is commonly known today] was refashioned in 2010 with its own acute internal vision-mixer facilities) - there were separate tapes of those referenced performances marked as either 'wide shot' and 'mid-shot' for each - and therefore still available for editing.  Those since 2010 will have easier access to that facility given the updated technologies.  The filming of the repertory was/is constantly refreshed.  For decades a great number of these films were lodged in the NYPL at Lincoln Center in the dedicated Jerome Robbins Collection - and were often available for (free) public viewing on site.  In more recent years many of those same have become understandably more restricted in terms of their access.  Also there are there lodged quality films for at least 40 years of SAB graduation programmes.  This is an enormous, thorough and encyclopedic resource - and that doesn't include all the talks, demo-lectures, etc., that have been filmed by/for the NYCB Guild, the Balanchine Trust or the NYCB associated NYPL Programmes themselves over the decades.  (I have keen memories of attending many of those free 'in-sight-like' programmes with legendary NYCB associates who are now sadly no longer with us.  Much more recently the complimentary programmes surrounding the Robbins Centenary were to drool over.)  I, for one, would be delighted if these priceless assets were able to be made available as a vehicle to (a) further support the ongoing glory of NYCB and SAB - as well (b) as a keenly valued educational outlet for the greater world at large, especially for those people who may not have the luxury to be able to attend the live performances and who may be interested in building on their knowledge such as your good self, DanJL.

 

Thanks so for your genuine expression of interest.  It is greatly appreciated.  I know it will serve you well.  Certainly it has done so for me since the 70's.   

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by Bruce Wall

[David]

Fascinating - thank you Bruce. The dearth of commercial recordings by the NYCB and Peter Martin's decision not to tour to the UK has long been a sadness for me and I have found enormous pleasure in their streaming over the past few months, along with that of their performances with other US companies. Over the years I have acquired many of their old dvds including the Balanchine Essays and of course the recent recording of their Paris tour and I am hoping very much that it will not stop there - that under new management they might one day give us another chance with another UK tour. Meanwhile, we can only hope that they will continue to share their incredible archive and I look every day for an announcement of an Autumn Digital Series. They are one of the finest world dance companies and we so need to see them.   

Edited June 18, 2020 by David

[DanJL]

Thank you so much Bruce for passing on this information and for the encouragement to further my experience of Balanchine's work. I have to say it does feel like what I've seen so far is just a small introduction to a wonderfully rich catalogue of ballets. I very much look forward to seeing more!

 

It's great to hear that so many performances have been recorded and that there are thoughts around potentially making some more of them available. I'll gratefully subscribe to anything that results from this.

 

And finally thank you so much for sharing all the links and insights in this thread and others. They have given me much enjoyment during this unusual time.

[toursenlair]

8 hours ago, Jeannette said:

 

it’s in most private collections.

 

 

seriously, how can you possibly know that?
"Most private collections" where?