Ann Williams Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 ....I hope I can be excused because it certainly wouldn't be right under 'Not Dance', as you'll see, A clue in last weekend's Polymath crossword in the FT reads:'Ballet by George Balanchine premiered in 1948' (7 letters.ending in S). Blowed if I can think of it, and I refuse either to Google it or look it up in any of my reference books - I regard that sort of thing as cheating. The answer is probably blindingly obvious, and no doubt nobody here will need to resort to Google etc. to find it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 Orpheus? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoriapage Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ann Williams Posted September 10, 2013 Author Share Posted September 10, 2013 Many thanks, Janet. If Orpheus is a Balanchine ballet (must admit I hadn't heard of it) then that's the answer, but as I haven't got any other letters to confirm this, I'll jfust pencil it in. Any other suggestions? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mallinson Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 Ann you're much too honest and honourable. I've looked in my cheat book, the wonderful Choreography by George Balanchine, and it has to be Orpheus. That book, which catalogues all his works dates from 1982, no author credited, is out of print but can still be picked up cheaply via AbeBooks. An essential for the balletomane's library. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 Many thanks, Janet. If Orpheus is a Balanchine ballet (must admit I hadn't heard of it) then that's the answer, but as I haven't got any other letters to confirm this, I'll jfust pencil it in. Any other suggestions? Ann, BRB performed this seminal work 12 or more years ago and I had the misfortune to sit through it several times. The lead dancer wears a costume that has rubber tubing wrapped around it. The thing I most remember is the wonderful Asier Uriagereka giving a talk to Friends and saying how he had had terrible trouble keeping his rubber in place! As you can imagine the entire room cracked up! This ballet also has the lyre that subsequently became the symbol of NYCB. I didn't look this up anywhere. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangorballetboy Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 This ballet also has the lyre that subsequently became the symbol of NYCB. I didn't look this up anywhere. Doesn't the lyre come from Apollo... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mallinson Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 Oddly enough the page on the NYCB website which talks about their use of the lyre symbol, discusses it in relation to Apollo but has a background image of the Orpheus lyre - that is unless the item shown was the original Apollo instrument, since changed. Also, in the ballet Apollo plays the lute, though in mythology he favours the lyre. The Apollo lyre is a modest little thing, the Orpheus lyre is a much more macho object and looks to be in Noguchi's style. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anjuli_Bai Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 I have found in doing the daily crossword puzzle that the more one knows about ballet the less able one is to think of the correct answer. For instance...... Clue: ballet step Puzzle answer: plié But, - plié is not a "step" - it's a movement (bending) or Clue: ballet step Puzzle answer: arabesque But - arabesque is not a step - it's a pose or Clue: ballet step Puzzle answer: grand jeté But - grand jeté is not a step - it's a jump oh, well...... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ann Williams Posted September 10, 2013 Author Share Posted September 10, 2013 John, thanks for the tip about the Balanchine book - I've spotted it before but thought I knew Balanchine well enough not be need it, but obviously not . I'll order it now. And Janet, you say you had the 'misfortune' to sit through 'Orpheus' several times, not something one would normally say about a Balanchine ballet - was it just the rubber-draped costumes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Wall Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 I agree with Janet, Ann, on Orpheus ... Unlike so much of Balanchine's dazzling rep of 420 ballets .... this piece (Orpheus that is) was very much of its time and now falls (at least for me) sadly flat. For me I'd take a fine rendering of Brahms/Schoenberg or Mozartiana any day ... or oh, so many others ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 Ann - it bored me rigid! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangorballetboy Posted September 10, 2013 Share Posted September 10, 2013 Quite a lot of Balanchine bores me rigid! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zxDaveM Posted September 11, 2013 Share Posted September 11, 2013 I lurrrve very nearly everything I've seen of Balanchine (and some are my favourite pieces), though sounds like I'm lucky not to have caught Orpheus.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Arrowsmith Posted September 18, 2013 Share Posted September 18, 2013 I recall that BRB triple bill - and overhearing some Royal Ballet School students who had been shipped up to Birmingham to see Orpheus <<We've come all this way to see that?>> My own reaction wasn't much different, but strangely, it i sonly Orpheus that I remember from that programme. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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