Oberon's Grove

Bunheads

BUNHEADS is Sophie Flack's novel about life in a major New York City-based ballet company; Sophie writes from experience: she spent nine years in the corps de ballet of New York City Ballet. She was gorgeous to behold and I often found my opera glasses pausing on her lovely face as I panned the corps dancers night after night. Movingly, Sophie mentions the 'die-hard fans' in the 5th Ring in her acknowledgements; she says she danced just for us. The feeling was mutual from my point of view. I wish she was still dancing.

But such is life in the corps de ballet: your best friends are also your biggest competitors - both for roles and for the elusive promotion to a soloist position. Everyone wants to be promoted because it means a bigger paycheck, a less strenuous schedule, more chances to get leading roles, and just possibly taking the next step to principal. However, the odds of a promotion are definitely stacked against the hopeful individual dancers. The vast majority will remain in the corps throughout their careers. 

Looking at this from an outsider's perspective, I would think it would be simply thrilling to be chosen to dance in the corps of a major company. How great to live in that milieu, to tote your life around in a bag crammed with smelly, sweat-stained dance togs, battered slippers, Advil, bandages and other first aid accessories, a copy of the rehearsal schedule and a book to read in your free moments. But in reality, it is a 24/7 job of 'running as fast as you can just to stay in place'. The dancers eat, sleep and live ballet, with very little time for doing the things normal young people do. Like dating.

In BUNHEADS, the appeal of the ballerina sorority comes up against the desire (or at least the thought) of having a life 'outside'. Hannah Ward, the book's main character, has met a young man she likes very much but she simply doesn't have time for him. After Hannah gets a weight warning (actually a 'bosom warning') from the boss, and she is passed over for a promotion, she starts to ponder her options.  But she also gets a crack at a major role when she goes on for an injured colleague. The lure of the 'normal' outside world is at odds with the joy she can still derive from dancing.

In the end, she relinquishes her spot on the company roster and looks forward to a life in the 'real world'. Hannah's tale is told with wit and grace, but there's an underlying sadness as well. It's the story of a dream that almost comes true but not quite.  And it is the story of dozens and dozens of dancers who almost make it in the ballet world but end up leaving, either by their own choice or by someone else's decision.

The characters in BUNHEADS are based to an extent on real people working at NYC Ballet. It's fun to try to figure out who is who. There are some wry passages about dating within the Company and the pitfalls of falling for a boy who is gay but who hasn't yet come to terms with himself.

I once asked a dancer-friend of mine why so many dancers become romantically and sexually involved with other dancers; it all seems a bit incestuous. He said the reason is simple: they just don't have time to go out and meet 'normal' people. They get up, take class, rehearse, visit the physical therapist, perform, go home to soak and soothe their aches and pains, wash out their tights, sew their toe shoes, and sleep. The next day they get up and do it all again. If they do chance to meet someone 'real' - as Hannah does in BUNHEADS - that person has to fit into the dancer's routine and to understand the pressures and priorities of the brief career of a ballet professional. Few outside people can accept, let alone cope with, such an unusual way of life.

I hope Sophie Flack will keep writing; I imagine she has many stories to tell.

NYCB NUTCRACKER 2011 #4

Tuesday December 27, 2011 - Above, today's Sugar Plum Fairy at New York City Ballet: Abi Stafford in a Henry Leutwyler photo. Thanks to the Company's new pricing policy, I only got to see four NUTCRACKERs this season as opposed to my usual seven or eight. I simply can't afford to go as often as I would have liked, and the notion of bringing a guest is pretty much a thing of the past.

I'm sure by this point in the holiday season that the dancers and musicians are thoroughly sick of this ballet but they never gave any indication of their NUTZ-fatigue tonight. The house was substantially full despite some gaps of empty seats in the orchestra. To see Abi's Sugar Plum, with Amar Ramasar as her Cavalier, was a big draw for me this evening. And I hadn't see Janie Taylor's Dewdrop in recent seasons so the lineup tonight was especially appealing.

Vincent Paradiso's Drosselmeyer is vigorous, and he looks dapper as a prematurely grey and still youthful 'uncle'. Excellent rapport with the children and guests; Vincent brings some real dancing into his interpretation and animates the entire scene with his lively gestures. Marika Anderson's Frau Stahlbaum has an interestingly high-strung quality; Christian Tworzyanski is her genial spouse. Conductor Ryan McAdams took the soldier's solo at an unusually fast pace but Troy Schumacher nailed it with some virtuoso dancing; Sarah Villwock and Kristen Segin were charming in the commedia dell'arte kissing duet. In the Snow Scene I was smitten with Lauren Lovette's radiant dancing.

Abi Stafford's Sugar Plum Fairy opened the second act with her finely-danced solo; she then greeted the procession of divertissement dancers, led off by Mary Elizabeth Sell and Zachary Catazaro who looked authentically Spanish and danced brightly, with Mary holding one balance to striking effect. She's a dancer deserving of more and more opportunities. Georgina Pazcoguin's sultry glamour as Arabian held the audience in the palm of her hand: "I like her best!" the little boy sitting behind me said aloud as Gina finished her solo; her fantastic combinations in the finale were the frosting on a delicious Pazcoguin cake. Giovanni Villalobos, another dancer we should see more of, was a sprighty Tea and Sean Suozzi's space-filling, theatrically vivid Candy Cane energized the crowd. Ashley Laracey danced the tricky Marzipan solo with total command, polishing off her triple pirouettes to perfection. In the ensuing Waltz of the Flowers, Amanda Hankes and Brittany Pollack danced beautifully, leaving me to ponder which of them has the loveliest smile.

Janie Taylor (Leutwyler image, above) is the most ethereal Dewdrop I've seen; all different ballerina-types have been cast in this role over the years, from majestic goddesses to petite princesses. I love the variety of interpretations, and Janie's stands out. With her high-flying extension and elegant jetes, the ballerina brings a touch of impetuosity to everything she does. The audience seemed very taken with her performance, showering her with applause as she flashed thru the brilliant fouette combination; later, in the finale her swift pirouette-to-arabesque sequence was beautifully timed, then she went flying off in a big, stretched-out leap.

Abi and Amar kept the audience, full of youngsters, in a keenly attentive state with their dancing of the adagio, the grand climax of the Balanchine NUTCRACKER. Here the choreographer shows us the art of classical ballet partnering, echoing the lyric grandeur of the Tchaikovsky score. In this pas de deux, Abi and Amar combined youthful freshness and a sense of courtly manners. Building from one passage to the next, the dancers capitalized on the inherent drama of the duet with its final suspenseful promenade and Abi's sustained balance; Amar then daringly tossed the ballerina into the air before sweeping her into the final dive. The audience ate it up. 

TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 27, 6 PM (Conductor: McAdams)

SUGARPLUM: A. Stafford; CAVALIER: Ramasar; DEWDROP: Taylor; HERR DROSSELMEIER: Paradiso; MARZIPAN: Laracey; HOT CHOCOLATE: Sell, Catazaro; COFFEE: Pazcoguin; TEA: Villalobos; CANDY CANE: Suozzi; MOTHER GINGER: Thew; FLOWERS: Hankes, Pollack; DOLLS: Villwock, Segin; SOLDIER: Schumacher; MOUSE KING: Dieck; DR & FRAU STAHLBAUM: Anderson, Tworzyanski

As we now head into the Winter season at New York City Ballet, many long-time fans of the Company are finding their loyalty tested as they remain fully supportive of the dancers but find the marketing practices of the current regime off-putting. How it will play out remains to be seen.

Rhett & Scarlett

"I want more than kisses from you, Scarlett."

"Why, what do you want Captain Butler?"

"Someday I want to hear you say to me the words you said to Ashley Wilkes: 'I love you!' "

"That's something you'll never hear from me, Rhett Butler, as long as you live!"

Ailey Dances Taylor's ARDEN COURT

Saturday December 24, 2011 matinee - Paul Taylor's ARDEN COURT is one of the 20th century's great dance masterpieces; this season it is being danced by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (photo above by Mark Lennihan) during their season at City Center, the first Taylor work to be performed by the Ailey Company. Looking at my packed December calendar a couple of weeks ago, I realized that today was going to be my one Ailey opportunity of the year, and how fortunate that ARDEN COURT was part of an extremely attractive programme:

Arden Court 
Cry
The Hunt
Revelations

One of the finest dancers on the current scene, Kanji Segawa, joined Ailey earlier this year and Kokyat and I were especially happy to find Kanji dancing a lot this afternoon. Kokyat photographed Kanji (above) dancing with MORPHOSES at the Guggenheim in the Autumn of 2010. His brilliant, buoyant leaps in the men's diagonal entree passage of ARDEN COURT were outstanding, and he flung himself into the non-stop demands of Robert Battle's dark and sexy THE HUNT with characteristic flair. 

Taylor danced by Ailey looks phenomenal. The dancers, in their sleek costumes, are propelled with effortless grace and power thru the demanding combinations, swept along on the vivid and superby danceable music of William Boyce. ARDEN COURT was set on the Ailey Company by one of the all-time great Taylor dancers, Cathy McCann.

Briana Reed (above, photographed by Paul Kolnik) danced the extended three-part Alvin Ailey solo CRY; with her unfettered extension and combination of strength and tenderness, Ms. Reed scored a huge hit with the crowd and was greeted with rockstar ovations, thoroughly deserved.

Robert Battle's powerful all-male ensemble work THE HUNT (above, Eduardo Patino photo) is set to a driven, percussive score by Les Tambours du Bronx. With six men (it seems like more) in long black skirts swirling and sailing thru the air, this work is sexy, ritualistic and mysterious all at once. There are few moments of repose in this martial-arts inspired, combative dance. 

Revelation: Clifton Brown, above, photographed by Kokyat earlier this year in rehearsal with Lar Lubovitch. We've been so fortunate to have been in the studio with Clifton several times in 2011 while he's been working with Lubovitch and with Jessica Lang Dance. Today, in Ailey's classic REVELATIONS Clifton burst onto the stage in Sinner Man and treated us to some simply magnificent dancing. In the finale he was a god-like cavalier, radiating both majesty and warmth. 

Each section of REVELATIONS is set to traditional spirituals and gospel hymns, celebrating congregation and community while sometimes investigating individual journeys of the spirit. One memorable segment is I Wanna Be Ready, superbly danced today by Michael Francis McBride. In the finale, the women appear in marigold-yellow gowns with fans on a sweltering summer afternoon for a jubilant cotillion with their handsome beaus.

I hardly ever have a chance to see the Ailey Company; their season always falls at the busiest time of the year. This afternoon's performance showed them to be on peak form as the Robert Battle era commences with a bang! Such splendid dancers: I need to get to know them better.

'Tis The Season

Above: one of Kokyat's Christmas images.

Happy holidays to everyone, whatever holiday you happen to be celebrating.

At this time of year lots of people who write about dance compile lists of the 'best' things they have seen over the past twelve months. That seems a bit pointless to me and besides, it would take hours to sort things out. Then by default certain works, choreographers and dancers would be left out; everyone in the dance world has been working so hard so let us simply celebrate the art form as a whole, and everybody involved in it.

But of course certain things do linger in the mind: this brief film for CHLOÉ featuring two dancers I love - Janie Taylor and Justin Peck of New York City Ballet - sort of sums up everything dance can be: poetic, spiritual, sensual, breath-taking.

Picasso @ The Frick

Above: Pablo Picasso's Two Women With Hats (1921)

Friday December 23, 2011 - Last week my friend Debbie and I spent a delightful hour at The Frick looking at the exhibit of Picasso's drawings. I couldn't help thinking how much Kokyat would enjoy this collection, which is so beautifully displayed in the small galleries of The Frick's lower level. So this afternoon, after a delicious holiday lunch at LeSteak Bistro on 3rd Avenue, my photographer-friend and I headed to the museum with its restful atrium. I was hoping we would hit a time slot when the galleries were not too crowded, and we were indeed lucky in that regard. One advantage of The Frick is that children under ten years old are not admitted; this eliminates the annoying baby strollers and wailing infants who so often spoil our treks to The Met.

Photography is not allowed at The Frick so we simply devoted our attention to the incredible drawings which provide a lovely panorama of Picasso's works from the period 1890 to 1921. The earliest examples come from the nine-year-old prodigy; by the time he was 15, Picasso created a drawing of his father that is uncanny in its depth and style.

One of my favorite drawings on display was Three Bathers by the Shore (above) which has an exact dating of August 20, 1920. Of course you can find images of many of Picasso's works on the Internet, but nothing compares to standing before these masterworks live and imagining the artist's hands at work in their creation, and to ponder the thousands of other eyes that have beheld them over the span of the century of their existence. 

Above: self-portrait of the artist as a young man. I've always loved reading about the period of time when Pablo Picasso was part of Gerald and Sara Murphy's circle on the French Riviera...the long afternoons on the plage where everyone was a bit in love with Sara. Ah, to have been alive then.

The Picasso exhibit is only at The Frick til January 8th; it is very much worth seeing. If you go - and you should - be sure to watch a showing of two brief films, one about the Frick Collection and the second about the Picasso exhibit, in the museum's music room. Very informative.

Sometime between the day Debbie and I were at The Frick and today, a new space has been opened in the museum: the Portico Gallery. This long, narrow hallway is lined with glass-fronted display cabinets full of delicate porcelains. The far end of the passageway opens onto a small windowed temple-like chamber...

...where Jean-Antoine Houdon's Diana the Huntress (above) presides magnificently. I will return to this small shrine, immediately a favorite Gotham place for reverie, often.

A perfect day with my perfect companion.

The Angel

December 23, 2011 - Today is the birthday of Mathilde Wesendonck (above) who wrote five poems which Richard Wagner set to music in 1857-1858; the cycle became known as the Wesendonck Lieder. At the time, Wagner and his wife Minna lived together in the Asyl, a small cottage on the estate of Otto Wesendonck, Mathilde's husband. It is unclear whether Wagner and Mathilde actually had an intimate physical relationship but the composer certainly was infatuated with her, causing his mentally unstable wife to erupt in jealous fits.

The poems themselves are wistful and dreamlike; their language reflects the emotional intensity of the Romantic style which by that time was highly developed. Wagner called two of the songs in the cycle "studies" for TRISTAN UND ISOLDE: in Träume we hear the roots of the love duet from the opera's second act, and Im Treibhaus uses themes later developed in the prelude to Act 3. The chromatic-harmonic style of TRISTAN suffuses all five songs and creates the musical unity of the cycle.

Wagner initially wrote the songs for female voice and piano alone, but later produced a fully orchestrated version of Träume, which was performed by a chamber orchestra under Mathilde's window on the occasion of her birthday in 1857. The orchestration of the whole cycle was later completed by Felix Mottl, the famed Wagnerian conductor.

Tiana Lemnitz sings the cycle's opening song, Der Engel here.

"An angel came down to me   
on shining wings  
and bore my spirit  heavenward."

HANSEL & GRETEL at The Met

Wednesday December 21, 2011 - The presence of a number of intriguing names in the cast (led by Kate Lindsey, above, as Hansel) drew me back to the Met's dark and not very pleasing production of HANSEL & GRETEL which is playing during the holiday season. It's a far cry from the Met's older production with its fanciful gingerbread house and jolly, green-tongued witch, Rosina Daintymouth. In the current incarnation the characterizations of both the witch and the parents are based on infamous British serial killers. There's little magic to be found visually...

...though a couple of nice images crop up here and there, like the phalanx of chefs (above) who serve a feast to the starving children. But for the most part the production is earthbound and lacking in fantasy.

What drew us to see it again - in addition to the singers - was the music itself (Humperdinck greatly admired Wagner), as well as a conductor new to the Met podium: Robin Tacciati . He provided appealing orchestral textures all evening and his interpretation brimmed over with emotionally satisfying colours. Unfortunately, his first act seemed rushed and he often let the large orchestra overwhelm the voices.

As the two children, Alexandra Kurzak and Kate Lindsey (above) entered fully into the demanding staging of the work which calls for lots of physicality, dancing and mime...and getting plastered from head to toe with foodstuffs from the witch's kitchen. Kate was virtually slathered in pudding and jam, then plentifully dusted with cocoa and powdered sugar. Alexandra staggered around the set with a huge platter of melting chocolate cookies and a bowl of custard. She continues to sing while stuffing various sweets into her mouth. Sticky fingers? Who needs Mick Jagger? 

Despite all the things they are called on to do and eat, both Alexandra and Kate managed to sing very well into the bargain. Alexandra's voice has girlish, lyrical appeal and even though the orchestral volume forced her to push the voice in a couple of spots, her Gretel was very prettily sung, especially in her exquisite vocalizing of the famous prayer. Kate has one of the truly distinctive voices in the opera business these days and her singing is impeccably tailored, warm and clear. As hansel, she is a truly convincing boy onstage, expanding her repertory of trouser roles: her Cherubino and Nicklausse were perfect, her Siebel's coming up, and I'm longing for her Octavian. But she shouldn't spend her whole life in pants, she's far too pretty: so I hope we will have her Rosina and Dorabella soon, and I'd love to see her as Berlioz's Beatrice.

Robert Brubaker, a teriffic Mime in SIEGFRIED at the Met a couple of seasons back, was a huge-voiced and creepy Witch. It's so eerie to hear his voluminous character-tenor sound emanating from the frumpy old biddy in a fat-suit. Robert was superb and, like Kate and Alexandra, simply threw himself into the production's food fantasy. Photo above: Robert Brubaker and Alexandra Kurzak.

As the parents Peter and Gertrude, Dwayne Croft and Michaela Martens (above) excelled. They have authentic Met-size voices and took the waves of sound coming up from the pit in their stride. I've always loved Dwayne Croft's voice since I first heard him as Puccini's Marcello at Glimmerglass many moons ago. He sounded fabulous tonight. Dmitry and I are very fond of Ms. Martens and she sang with power and attractive tone as the desperate mother. If the Met management had any imagination, Michaela would be doing roles like Fricka, Venus, Brangaene and the Berlioz Cassandra here. I could even imagine her as a very fine Sieglinde.

Ashley Emerson (above) was a delicious Dew Fairy, a petite elfin maiden with tiny Sylphide wings. Her singing was bright and light-filled, a perfect wake-up call. She carries on a tradition - both in-house and on recordings - of casting wonderful singers in the opera's two cameo solo roles. Her evening counter-part was the Sandman of Jennifer Johnson Cano who sang very nicely indeed.

The musical pleasures of the evening were offset by the overall drabness of the production. There were lots of empty seats throughout The Met so word must have gotten out that this is not a festive holiday treat with an underlying moral message but rather a grotesque take on a story and score which should be heart-warming but instead leaves us slightly nauseous.

A major failure of stagecraft comes hear the end when the many children who had been under the witch's spell are set free. The director apparently couldn't think of any better way to handle this than to lower the curtain on an empty set and then bring it up again 30 seconds later on a stage filled with two dozen urchins. Then the uplifting melodic benediction launched by Peter as the work comes to an end failed to resonate because there was no context of religiosity anywhere else in the production.

Act I takes place in a desolate kitchen where Hansel and Gretel seem like manic-depressives and where Gertrude is on the verge of committing suicide. The scene in the forest is instead set in a large empty hall with green-leaf wallpaper. It's too dim, and nothing seems to be happening til the old Sandman and  - later - the chefs arrive. The witch's kitchen is drably industrial and she is played like an over-the-top drag version of Julia Child, flingling flour and powdered chocolate all over the place. Candy, pudding and strawberry preserves are smeared on Hansel and Gretel, and Hansel is trussed up for roasting. The scene is vulgar and not funny in the least though it is broadly played. 

The English translation is very Brit-oriented and, thanks largely to the over-enthusiastic conducting, much of it didn't register. I'd like to see the Met dump this production and give us a more attractive, kid-friendly look at this opera. It should cast a Christmastime spell of hope and familial love; instead it only reminds us of the American knack for wasting food while children right here in Gotham don't have enough to eat.

Production photos: Mary Sohl/Metropolitan Opera.

Metropolitan Opera House
December 21, 2011
In English

HANSEL UND GRETEL
Humperdinck

Hansel..................Kate Lindsey
Gretel..................Aleksandra Kurzak
Gertrud.................Michaela Martens
Peter...................Dwayne Croft
Witch...................Robert Brubaker
Sandman.................Jennifer Johnson Cano
Dew Fairy...............Ashley Emerson

Conductor...............Robin Ticciati

The evening ended on a sweet note when I went backstage to see Kate and Ashley; I met both of them when they were in the Lindemann Young Artists Development Program at the Met and I'm very pleased to be following their successful careers. It was also nice to wish happy holidays to Michaela Martens and Dwayne Croft.

Nature XI

Alto Rhapsody: Mildred Miller

Above: Mezzo-soprano Mildred Miller as Cherubino in LE NOZZE DI FIGARO. Photo: Sedge LeBlanc.

Every year ar Christmas approaches I find myself wanting to hear the Alto Rhapsody of Johannes Brahms. I am not quite sure what it is about this unusual and unique vocal/choral work that suggests Christmas to me because the text has nothing to do with Christ's birth. But it is about a Winter journey, and about hope and spiritual refreshment; maybe those are thoughts that should come to mind this time of year.

Brahms wrote this work - I suppose we could call it a cantata - in 1869 as a wedding gift for Julie Schumann, daughter of Robert and Clara Schumann. Brahms is thought to have been in love with Julie. It was first performed privately but in 1870 it was heard by the public for the first time in a concert at Jena where the soloist was Pauline Viardot. (Viardot looms large in my musical imagination; hers is the one voice from out of the past that I most dearly wish I could hear; and how I would love to have met her...her, and Lillian Nordica!).

The Alto Rhapsody begins with a sort of narrative for solo voice in a minor key; it seems a bit bleak, well-suiting the poetic image of a lost soul wandering in the desolation of a lonely landscape. The mood lifts as the chorus joins in, hymnlike and now in major-key mode. The music is tranquil, luminous, joyful in a calm way. The solo voice intones the melody against the choral harmonies - gorgeous - and the piece ends with a sort of benediction that has the effect of an amen.

The Alto Rhapsody is not often performed in concerts these days. For symphony orchestras it means hiring a chorus in addition to the soloist, and for choral societies it's a little difficult to program as it is a bit too short to be half of the bill, and you need to think of something else for your guest soloist to sing during the evening. I've only experienced it once in a concert hall.

Many great singers have recorded the Alto Rhapsody: Kathleen Ferrier, Marian Anderson, Dame Janet Baker, Christa Ludwig, Marilyn Horne. I have Ludwig's lovely rendition, and up til a couple years ago I would often break out Sigrid Onegin's recording. But that magisterial performance is somewhat dampened by the singer's tendency to be ever-so-slighly off-pitch at times. This year I decided I wanted a different recording and so I went to Amazon to peruse the listings and very quickly settled on the SONY recording with mezzo-soprano Mildred Miller, conducted by Bruno Walter. I got it for a bargain price, paired with the same composer's Deutches Requiem.

When I had a bit of free time the other day, I slipped the disc in and found the recording to be just perfect in every regard. The sound is warm, full and plush, Maestro Walter is perfectly in his element, the chorus sounds heavenly and Mildred Miller is a complete delight. She doesn't falsely weight her lower range; her timbre is feminine and not overly-maternal, and she avoids overdoing the angst of the opening passages. 

Mildred Miller sang at The Met for 23 years, making more than 300 appearances. She made her debut as Cherubino in 1951 and went on to sing Suzuki, Nicklausse, Octavian, and the Composer in ARIADNE AUF NAXOS. By the time I encountered her in the 1960s she had settled into a repertoire of 'major-secondary' roles; I loved her as Annina in ROSENKAVALIER and the Second Lady in the Chagall ZAUBERFLOETE. She was my first 'Lene in MEISTERSINGER in 1968, when she signed the cast page of my program: