Archive for January, 2011

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February Dance Happenings in New York City

Monday, January 31st, 2011

By Rachel Straus


February 4 and 5 @ 8:00 p.m.

Miro Magloire’s New Chamber Ballet at City Center

Magloire’s choreographic inspiration is music. Lately, the German-born, composer-choreographer has been inviting emerging dance makers to his evenings at City Center’s studio. The program will include three world premieres: Constantine Baecher’s Sketches Of A Woman Remembering (a trio to music by Debussy), Emery LeCrone’s solo to a violin sonata by Saint-Saens, and another trio by Magloire, which will uncharacteristically be performed in near silence.

 

 

February 7 @ 7 p.m.

BAC Flics: Mondays with Merce

Two films by former Cunningham filmmaker-in-residence Charles Atlas will be screened at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. The first, Sounddance (1975), includes a percussive score by David Tudor. The second, Pond Way (1998), features a pointillist backdrop by Roy Lichtenstein and a Brian Eno score, said to be mesmerizing. Regardless of the sounds, the Cunningham dancers possess a physicality found nowhere else. Think panther meets machine.  

 

 

February 8-13 (curtain times vary)

Ronald K. Brown/Evidence at the Joyce Theater

Brown’s 25th anniversary season will include the world premiere of On Earth Together, set to music by Stevie Wonder (program A only). The Brooklyn-born choreographer grew up performing modern dance, but he found his choreographic voice through Cuban, Caribbean, and West African dance vocabularies. His work is joyous and thoughtful, a rare combination.

 


February 11 and 12 @ 7 p.m.

Dancemopolitan presents Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion and Friends (Joe’s Pub)

Called Heartbreak and Homies, this cabaret-style, laidback Valentine’s day-inspired event should be sweetly sly and definitely silly, thanks to the invited dancers, which include Alex Escalante and Faye Driscoll. Out Magazine recently called Abraham, who will perform, one of New York’s 100 most eligible gay bachelors.

 

 

February 15-20 (curtain times vary)

Buglisi Dance Theatre at the Joyce Theater

Artistic Director Jacqulyn Buglisi made a name performing principal roles with the Martha Graham Dance Company. Her 17-year-old troupe offers highly dramatic dances that feature strong women. Buglisi’s choreography is painterly, occasionally overwrought, but always beautifully performed. For her New York season, she will present two world premieres: Letters of Love on Ripped Paper and Requiem.

 

 

February 22 – March 6 (curtain times vary)

Paul Taylor Dance Company at City Center

In 12 days, the company will unfurl 16 dances by its namesake choreographer. Two works—Phantasmagoria and Three Dubious Memories—are New York premieres. One—Orbs (set to Beethoven’s late string quartets)—is a revival. The tickets for March 1 have been slashed to “Great Depression Special Prices:” $19.29 for all seats normally $25-$150, $5 for all seats normally $10.

 

February 19 @ 2 p.m., 
February 23 @ 7:30 p.m.
, February 25 @ 8 p.m., and 
February 26 @ 8 p.m.

New New York City Ballet work by Benjamin Millepied (David H. Koch Theater)

With a commissioned score by David Lang, who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Millepied’s Plainspoken promises to be a well-attended City Ballet event. The work premiered last summer at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, months before Millepied became renowned as the ballet consultant for Darren Aronofsky’s vampire film Black Swan. Plainspoken, says Millepied, is inspired by the personalities of the dancers who helped realize the ballet.

 

 

February 24 @ 8 p.m.

Paco Pena at Town Hall

Guitar maestro Paco Peña and his Flamenco Dance Company will present their new production Flamenco Vivo, which includes a cast of guitarists, percussionists, vocalists and three male dancers—Ángel Muñoz, Ramón Martinez, and Charo Espino. This should be a Gypsy-style, testosterone-fueled, must-see event. Ole!

 

 

 

February 25 and 26 at 8 p.m. and at 3 p.m. on the 27th

Christopher Williams premiere of “Mumbo-jumbo and Other Works” at 92nd St. Y’s Harkness Dance Festival

As indicated by the title of Williams’ latest work, this dance-theater choreographer isn’t into minimalism. Mumbo-jumbo will reference controversial 19th century juvenile literature, which traffics in xenophobia and racism. It might pack a punch.

 

February 27 and 28 at 7:30 p.m.

Guggenheim Museum’s Works + Process: John Zorn, Donald Byrd, Pam Tamowitz

Choreographers Donald Byrd and Pam Tanowitz each create new works, commissioned by Works & Process, set to the music of composer John Zorn. Byrd, known for his beautiful yet volatile work, will choreograph a piece with his Seattle-based company Spectrum Dance Theater set to Zorn’s ∴ played by pianist Stephen Drury. Tanowitz, known for her unflinchingly postmodern treatment of classical dance, sets a work to Zorn’s Femina, written as a tribute to the rich legacy of women in the arts. (Taken verbatim from Guggenheim website)

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Three for Regie

Friday, January 28th, 2011

By James Jorden

Instead of beating my brains out trying to make sense of the comings and goings in the final act of Simon Boccanegra at the Met (or am I just deluded to find it unlikely that convicted rebels should be marched to their execution through the Doge’s unguarded council chamber?), I thought this week I’d take the lazy blogger’s way out and link to a few other blogs that are carrying on the Regie discussion. (more…)

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DYI Recordings and Commissions

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

by Edna Landau

Welcome to the inaugural installment of “Ask Edna.” It has been heartening to see the immediate response to this new MusicalAmerica.com blog and I thank all those who have already written in with their questions and kind words of praise and enthusiasm. Please note that we welcome your questions not only about the life of a performing artist but also about arts administration and the music industry in general.

Today’s column and the launch of this new venture are dedicated to my late father, Dr. Eric Offenbacher, a dentist by profession who spent the majority of his free time immersed in the music of Mozart. In the thirty years following his retirement, he achieved recognition as one of the world’s foremost Mozart scholars. A strong influence in my pursuit of a career in music, it seems fitting to honor him with Opus 1 of “Ask Edna,” appearing on January 27, Mozart’s birthday.

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Dear Edna:

I think of myself as an adventurous wind player and would like to know how to go about commissioning new music, both for myself and my trio. We are in the very early stages of our careers. Are there any ways to not have to pay a large sum of money?

Dear adventurous wind player:

It is wonderful to know of your interest in commissioning new music. By doing so you will undoubtedly enrich your own life and the life of so many others.

Your best source of information for learning the “nuts and bolts” of commissioning new music is the website of Meet the Composer (www.meetthecomposer.org). Be sure to download “Commissioning Music: A Basic Guide” which includes the cost of various types of commissions and is likely to answer all of your questions. On the website you will also find information about funding sources, but they more typically support individuals and ensembles who are a little further along in their careers.

Many young ambitious performers are finding the answer in kickstarter.com, which is an interactive fundraising site that meshes beautifully with an artist’s social media network. You should definitely explore this route. In addition, you and your ensemble should take careful stock of everyone you know who has a personal interest in seeing you succeed. If you approach a young, not yet well-known composer and ask them to write for you, the fee is likely to be very reasonable and the amount might be rather easily raised through a personal note-writing campaign to those people, perhaps enhanced by a fundraising concert. If you are able to connect with a legally recognized fiscal sponsor, it is possible that individual contributions may be tax-deductible. (I encourage you to visit the website of Fractured Atlas, www.fracturedatlas.org, which explains fiscal sponsorship and the services that organization offers.) If you are successful in securing funding for a commission from an individual patron or small group of patrons, be sure to offer to credit them in your concert programs and ask the composer to credit them in their score of the composition.

Another way to secure new pieces for your ensemble might be to organize a Young Composer Competition. Fifth House Ensemble (www.fifth-house.com) has done this for several years. The grand prize winner receives $500 and a performance on their subscription series in downtown Chicago.

Some composers are willing to write pieces for little or no money in exchange for the prospect of gaining exposure through multiple performances and maybe even a recording (which can be self-produced). With hard work and energetic networking, everyone in such a collaboration stands to benefit. I wish you much luck and hope that your future successes will generate more interesting questions for our readers!

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Dear Edna:

I am a young pianist that has been concertizing for several years. A while back, I produced my first CD to sell at my concerts. It turned out to be very lucrative and also good for promotion, with the cd’s being available for purchase and download on sites like CDbaby.com and iTunes. The only times I wish I had a label is when an interested customer asks what label I record for. Are labels good for anything else these days? And if one were to get a label, is it true that it ends up being very costly for the artists?

Dear Pianist:

I applaud you for having already become a successful entrepreneur with regard to producing your own recording. Having seen the benefits of going that route, I don’t know why you would pay too much heed to an individual asking what label you record for. In such a situation, you should explain (without a hint of defensiveness) that in these times, only a very small number of artists have a relationship with a particular label (artists with significant name recognition) and that you are proud to be producing your own recordings and making more money that way.

There are two areas in which labels can be more effective than your own independent efforts – marketing and distribution. As a young artist, you are probably not a candidate for an association with a “mega-company” but if you think creatively about repertoire and develop a project that might be new to a label such as Naxos, you should remain open to working with them on a one-off basis and taking advantage of their huge network of distribution. You will make little or no money but your name will become better known, thereby enhancing your career profile and potential concert engagements. The best approach might be to develop a discography that is a mix of self-produced recordings and others released on an established reputable label (even if you have to invest some of your own money), according to the nature of the project. Think of a label name that you like for your self-produced recordings and use it consistently. It helps to build up your brand. Today, everyone knows of Canary Classics, founded by Gil Shaham and Oxingale, founded by Matt Haimovitz with Luna Pearl Woolf. Your ultimate goal should be to make every recording distinctive and to evaluate on a case by case basis the best way to bring it to the attention of your fans and the broader public that has yet to discover you. And then, when you are least expecting it, a label may ask to bring you into their family and you will be faced with a very interesting decision!

A Note From Edna
Please submit your questions to askedna@musicalamerica.com. We encourage you to use your real name and e-mail address when submitting your questions in order for them to be addressed in the most meaningful fashion. This information will be kept confidential. I will respond on the website to whatever pseudonym or other identification you designate for that purpose. Please be patient if your question isn’t answered right away. It is my intention to answer a broad variety of questions that I believe could have maximum significance to our readers. All questions will be archived and could be answered at any time.

I look forward to hearing from you soon! — Edna Landau

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Have a Beer Instead

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

They say you should try any new life experience with the exception of incest and English country dancing, and that’s about the best excuse I can come up with for taking up the offer of a blogspot on this esteemed site. Does the world need another blog? Of course not. Feel free to log off and have a beer instead. But if you have any interest in an occasional glimpse at how the classical music world functions in London and the UK, I shall be doing my best to capture it in some shape or form.

The editor asks for something by way of introduction, so here goes. Having left school illegally early aged 15 to do a printing apprenticeship (which left me with an abiding love of typography and the smell of ink) I made the leap into the music business by way of the classical promotion department of Decca Records, then housed on the Albert Embankment with a fine view of Big Ben. (Well, the execs had the fine view; the rest of us watched the trains rolling towards Waterloo at the back.)

Decca was supposed to be a desk job, but with recordings being made just across Old Father Thames at Kingsway Hall and St John’s Smith Square it was not long before I started wangling my way into sessions, interviewing artists, turning pages, doing the kind of job that a 20-something couldn’t quite believe he was actually getting paid for. To have Pavarotti, Sutherland and Caballé belting out Puccini at very close quarters to an otherwise empty hall was the stuff that dreams were made of.

Back at the office, life was enlivened by unbelievably profiligate phone calls from Decca’s New York office, calls that would last for hours—tannoy messages would log the progress as New York made its way from one department to another. It seemed unbelievably exotic in a country that reckoned a three-minute call was just about affordable.

If that told me something about the way things worked in the American music business, there was another eye opener when Decca re-pressed the Solti Ring for the US market. The Ring took up a lot of vinyl, of course, but what captivated me was that for each of the operas, side one was coupled not with side two but with the final side. After a while the penny dropped: you guys played Götterdämmerung on an auto-changer!

That wacky discovery determined me to get across the Atlantic, and although Decca never sent me further than desolate seaside towns to give record recitals, my travel plans fell into place with subsequent jobs. A chance to edit the late lamented Music & Musicians magazine was followed by a spell at the BBC, before I ventured into Rhinegold Towers, where Classical Music magazine is published.

When I first climbed the stairs in the Theatreland building in Shaftesbury Avenue, I had little idea that I would still be tackling them 25 years later. A lot changed along the way. More magazines came along—Opera Now, International Piano, Choir & Organ among them—and while I have been editing Classical Music for 20 of its 35 years, for the last few I have worn an additional hat as managing editor of the whole bang shoot.

Then there was Musical America. I jumped aboard the website on set-up and have been scribbling for it ever since, finding myself volunteered to write for the directory too along the way. Over the years I got to meet up on both sides of the pond with the editors of website and directory, and I have to say, you are in very good hands, readers. Quite apart from their editorial skills, Susan Elliott wins my all-time prize for a sense of humor sharp enough to cut diamonds, and Sedge Clark is one of the most urbane and knowledgeable gentlemen I’ve ever had the pleasure to spend time with.

Visiting Ohai a few years ago I enjoyed meeting two music enthusiasts with 4×4 names—Alan Rich  and Alex Ross—both of them talking enthusiastically about blogging. If it was good enough for them, who am I to turn down the chance now that MusicalAmerica has come knocking?

The editor would like an idea of  what I’ll be writing about. So would I. At a time of deep recession, when Arts Council England has torn up the whole system and got everyone to reapply for funding, it seems a fair bet that arts cuts will be a recurring theme. With the 2012 London Olympics just around the corner there will no doubt be observations to be made about the associated culture programme (though given the state of the London Underground they would be wise to cancel the whole thing even at this late stage). And no doubt the realities of UK musical life will be popping up—it sent out quite a strong message when players from the troubled Scottish Opera orchestra started applying for cleaning jobs.

Beyond that, what pops up here is anyone’s guess. If it turns out to be a load of codswallop, let the editor know. I could always try English country dancing instead.

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Casual Musings on Top 10s and Greatness

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

By Alan Gilbert

I have followed Anthony Tommasini’s recent series in The New York Times on the Top 10 composers with great interest, both because I was curious about what the final list would be, and also because it is reminiscent of one of my favorite parlor games that I have played for years with my fellow “muzoids” (with thanks to Tom Morris for the term). Our rules are slightly different, however: we always limit ourselves to the Top Five, and we work with the premise that each time we return to the exercise, we have to introduce to the list at least one different composer. I like this fluid approach to something that, on at least a superficial level, sounds dogmatic. What becomes important in coming up with a new pantheon each time is an enthusiasm for music itself and, further, for the different criteria we use to measure greatness.

After all, what is “greatness”? I have often allowed myself a non-rigorous definition, i.e., “you know it when you see it.” Admittedly, this immediately presents problems, since it relies on recognition as the determining factor, and throughout the history of music, how many composers can we think of who were not considered to be great until many years had passed? Does this mean that their music was not “great” until long after it was written?

Perhaps time is an important element, though. Many would say that the ability to withstand the test of time is an essential aspect of great art. Further, I guess that I believe that great art often does have the capacity to speak across generations and cultural differences.

I recently spoke about this subject with my good friend Marc Neikrug and, interestingly, he identified the attribute of profound ambition as being necessary for a composer to be truly great. He meant that great composers all share the desire and capacity to say something deep and important about our humanity. Beethoven had this most Shakespearean quality more than any other composer — every note he wrote was infused with an illuminating aspect. Delibes was less great than, say, Debussy, because his music doesn’t achieve or even aspire to true profundity.

I realize that, philosophically, these musings may carry very little weight, but they have been occupying my mind, and I thought I would share them.

(For more information on Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic, visit nyphil.org.)

 


 



 

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The Orchid of New York City Ballet

Monday, January 24th, 2011

By Rachel Straus

If you’re a ballet lover, you know her name.

Sara Mearns.

New York Times senior dance critic Alastair MacAulay recently called her “the greatest American ballerina of our time.” On January 21, she performed in Jerome Robbins’s Dances at a Gathering (1969) and Alexei Ratmansky’s Concerto DSCH (2008) with the New York City Ballet at the David Koch H. Theater.

She was stunning.

But Mearns, 24, doesn’t look like a City Ballet ballerina. Since George Balanchine increasingly promoted female dancers that resembled Twiggy (and his successor Peter Martins followed suit), she is a departure for the company. Zaftig, Mearns is not. Instead her swan neck, wide back, and strong legs endow her with the potential for enormous physical range. She eats up space. She can spiral like a cyclone. She finishes her pirouettes with a plié that is as pliant as melting wax. This dynamic flexibility in addition to her emotional gravitas makes her a powerhouse.

Despite this power, Mearns doesn’t come across as a bruiser—all emotion, no subtlety. Like Greta Garbo or Lauren Bacall, she possesses a proto-feminist confidence. She has a glamour and maturity that recalls the French City Ballet principal dancer Violette Verdy. In an art form modeled on medieval courtship, Mearns consistently embodies queenlyness. Whether she is being propelled aloft or lassoed by her partner, these less-than luxuriant moments look like part of her grand design. These vertiginous thrills seem to embolden her.

In Dances at a Gathering, in which Susan Walters performed 18 Chopin piano pieces, Mearns was given one of the last solos. Like a racecar at the starting gate, the emotional tenor of Mearns’s solo escalated from 0 to 60 rpm. Mearns’s transformation—from statuesque to scythe-like—made me sit back in my seat. In Concerto DSCH, to Dmitri Shostakovich’s 1957 Piano Concerto No. 2, Mearns’s partnering with the emerging, lyrical dancer Tyler Angle was seamless, as though they had been dancing together for years.

The well-constructed program, which began with Balanchine’s Walpurgisacht Ballet (1980), possessed an overarched theme: Community. Balanchine’s community featured mauve-costumed women whose unfurled hair in the ballet’s last section suggested a sisterhood of wild lilacs who had sprung legs. Robbins’s community in Dances felt very American, resembling a group of enlightened youth, pondering their past and future. Ratmansky’s community in DSCH felt unmistakably Soviet. (Think utopian workers on holiday at a merry-go-round). In the last two dances, Mearns’s engagement wasn’t just with her partner and her steps, but with those around her. She may be a queen, but she is no snob. She’s more like an orchid, sprung out of ground normally reserved for less exotic flora.

 

 

 

 

 


* “The ballet is a purely female thing; it is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and man is the gardener.”—George Balanchine


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What Was He Thinking?

Friday, January 21st, 2011

by Cathy Barbash

China’s president Hu Jintao called for increased cultural exchanges during his remarks at yesterday’s luncheon of leaders of American business and foreign-relations organizations in Washington. Though often a step-child at State Visits, culture fared well this time. Hu’s remarks are consistent with recent U.S.-China diplomacy: our countries launched the High Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange during Secretary of State Clinton’s May visit to Beijing. The direct discussions between PRC Ministry of Culture and State Department officials that began there will continue when the second round of High Level Consultations is convened in Washington DC this spring. Once China’s Spring Festival (aka Chinese New Years) is over, preparatory work is sure to begin in earnest at relevant US Embassy and Ministry of Culture offices.

I was also delighted by the all-star jazz line-up for the State Dinner. Some of those artists had previously toured China: Herbie Hancock and Dee Dee Bridgewater played Beijing as recently as last May, Chris Botti as early as 2007, and Randy Brecker back in the late 90’s. Also on hand was Lang Lang, embodiment of the Chinese American Dream and inspiration to countless young Chinese pianists.

However, there is controversy brewing about one of the pieces performed. I’m not sure how I feel about the inclusion of the Chinoiserie that is Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes from Ravel’s Ma mère l’oye, offered as a four-hander by gala-worthy odd-couple Herbie Hancock and Lang Lang. However, brouhaha is sprouting online over Lang Lang’s choice of My Motherland as his solo turn.
http://www.who2.com/blog/2011/01/herbie-hancock-lang-lang-in-chinese-american-rockit-pact.html#

Screamed one blogger, 

“Do you know what Lang Lang is playing? He is playing Anti-America Song Called “My Motherland”!!! Lyrics and music of “My Motherland” was called as “A Big River” is a song written for the Chinese movie Battle on Shangganling Mountain (1956). The song was written for the movie about Korean War in 1950s.”

The blogger quotes the text:

    Great mountains, great rivers and an amazing place
    Every road is flat and wide
    When friends are here, there is fine wine
    But if the jackal comes
    What greets it is the hunting rifle

Another blogger was more sanguine:

“I am totally surprised by his choice …. I guess either Lang Lang doesn’t know the history, or he does not wish to play at White House anymore.

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Mining the Past: A New Giselle, a Restaged Robert Wilson Ballet, and Charles Reinhart

Monday, January 17th, 2011

by Rachel Straus

Finding clues to a lost dance resembles detective work. If you’re the Sherlock Holmes type, dance reconstructions can become obsessively fascinating. On January 9 and 10, the Guggenheim Museum’s popular Works + Process series hosted Pacific Northwest Ballet—Giselle Revisited.

Under the artistic directorship of former New York City Ballet principal Peter Boal, PNB is undertaking a 170-year reconstruction of the French ballet. At the Guggenheim, Boal—alongside dance scholars Doug Fullington and Marian Smith—offered the sold-out crowd a Giselle history-mystery lesson, some mesmerizing mime, and bits of glorious dancing performed by Carrie Imler, Carla Körbes, James Moore, and Seth Orza.

PNB is reconstructing the ballet from a rare 1860s score once used by the ballet’s composer Adolphe Adam. The score includes note-for-note annotations of the mime and dancing. When Giselle scholar Smith got her hands on this score, recently purchased by a Cologne archive, she bent Boal’s ear. His patrons partially funded the reconstruction. PNB’s new-old Giselle will premiere this June in Seattle: Pacific Northwest Ballet Giselle Performances

The best part of the January 10 lecture-demonstration was when the dancers mimed the passages while Smith read descriptions of their action from the score. Given greater understanding of how the narrative details coincide with the musical passages, the dancers mimed with a purpose usually reserved for the ballet’s pure dancing scenes. When James Moore (Hilarion) expressed his concern that Carla Körbes (Giselle) had fallen for a two-faced cad (Loys/Albrecht), his body and face transformed. Moore’s miming is unaffected and intense. In these gestural moments, he stole the show.

What was less convincing was Doug Fullington’s part of the presentation, where he discussed this reconstruction’s use of Stepanov notation. Unlike music scores, notations rarely give the full scope of the choreography. Nicholas Sergeyev, who recorded Russian Imperial Ballet dances from the late 19th and early 20th century, used Stepanov notation. When Sergeyev fled Russia after the 1917 Revolution, he took his Stepanov notation scores (including Giselle) with him.  The Royal Ballet, previously called Sadler’s Wells, became the recipient of Sergeyev’s knowledge.

But here’s the rub. There is much documentation (from RB founder Dame Ninette de Valois and others) about how Sergeyev’s notation and memory possessed major holes.

In light of this information, it was odd that Fullington presented the Stepanov score as something relatively concrete. Boal was more candid. He told the audience that due to the gaps in their reconstruction, they were looking at Giselle productions by the Paris Opera Ballet and others for inspiration.

The evening ended with Act II’s grand pas de deux, a major artistic and technical endeavor for any ballerina. If this Works + Process in any indication, Carla Körbes is going to rise to the occasion in the female lead. From every pore of Körbes’s dancing body radiated the desire to make this Giselle matter.

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Another unearthing from Terpsichore’s past came care of the Martha Graham Dance Company. The 85-year-old troupe is reviving Robert Wilson’s 1995 Snow on the Mesa. The commissioned work—made fours years after Graham’s death and in homage of her life and art—will open the company’s New York season (March 15-20) at the Rose Theater. New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff described Snow on the Mesa as “a must see, with the marvelous Graham company projecting drama to the hilt.” (New York Times 1995 review)

On January 11, two sections of Mesa were performed for an invited group at the company’s cramped Upper East Side headquarters. Wilson, whose only attempt at modern dance making is Mesa, references some of Graham’s enduring interests: developing imperiously sexual female characters, costuming her men in loin cloths, and using set designs (particularly Noguchi’s) as landscapes to depict the subconscious and the forbidden.

Mesa appears to be a lovingly rendered homage. It doesn’t, however, white wash Graham’s leviathan personality, which dominated the stage through her choreography for her heroines (whose roles she initially performed). When dancer Xiaochuan Xie (as Graham) sauntered across a set of low white benches, they became a catwalk, a fitting platform to taunt her male consort, Ben Schultz (as Erick Hawkins).

At the Rose Theater in March, the company will offer four different programs, seven Graham works and a world premiere by Bulareyaung Pagarlava. In the last decade, the troupe underwent a trial by fire (see New York Times coverage of legal battle). In this decade the Martha Graham Company will hopefully be able to focus on their repertory treasure and future.

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Last week included a third spectacle devoted to looking back. On January 14 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, several hundred sat in celebration of the American Dance Festival director Charles Reinhart. Reinhart’s children largely organized his 80th birthday event, which also served as a goodbye ceremony. Reinhart will retire from his 41-year-old post soon. His second-in-command Jodee Nimerichter will take over the reigns of the summer festival, located at Duke University in North Carolina.

Because Reinhart is a dance man, the assumption was that dance performance would be the main event at his celebration.

Though there were performances by Pilobolus, Eiko & Koma, Shen Wei, and Paul Taylor Dance Company, dance was only part of the proceedings. A film about Reinhart, made by his daughter Ariane, started the evening. It was quaint. It was a home movie. In picture after picture, natty Reinhart is captured posing for the camera, with a bravura associated with the modern dance choreographers he championed.

Following the movie, Master of Ceremonies Mark Dendy took center stage. A choreographer known to play the bad boy, Dendy was dressed as Martha Graham (in a gold lame gown). While the movie presented Reinhart as something of a dance prince, Dendy’s snarky remark— “Charles has influenced all the artists of the world”—created a hushed stillness in the theater.

The evening ricocheted between the intimate (Reinhart’s friends and family spoke) and the professional (companies performed, Anna Kisselgoff lectured). Reinhart’s kids are clearly not veteran presenters. Perhaps they should have left the show’s programming up to dad.


 

 

 

 

 


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The better is the enemy of the good

Friday, January 14th, 2011

By James Jorden

Garson Kanin wrote this novel a clef called Smash, a tale of a ruggedly handsome director’s trials in getting ready for Broadway a musical based on the life of a legendary vaudeville star, featuring a difficult young diva in the leading role—well, as you can see, the clef is pretty much a skeleton key, since among Kanin’s many credits was his helming of the original production of Funny Girl starring Barbra Streisand. My dog-eared copy of this sex-and-scandal potboiler disappeared about five moves ago, but I remember there was one line that should be inscribed over the doorway to every rehearsal room in every theater in the world.  (more…)

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Playing Bridge with Tebaldi and Caruso

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

by Sedgwick Clark

Nothing beats vacationing in St. Martin with wife and friends who desire nothing more than just an ordinary nap. Or a vigorous game of bridge! One of our friends is a Bronze Life Master. He’s incredibly patient with the rest of us and would make an ideal teacher. He brought two classy decks of cards put out by the Metropolitan Opera for its centennial production of Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West with Deborah Voigt in the title role. Toscanini conducted the world premiere at the Met in 1910 with Enrico Caruso as the outlaw bandit Dick Johnson. We’ve all seen the famous production photo where a posse is about to string him up, only to have Minnie (Emmy Destinn) save him at the last minute. It’s too big for a bridge card, so the Met puts a posed photo of the great tenor in costume on one deck. On the other is a posed costume shot of Renata Tebaldi as Minnie in 1970. Opera-loving card sharks should hie to the Met Gift Shop posthaste.

Uninterrupted Reading

It’s the only time of the year for me. Several years ago here I was able to finish Richard Osborne’s tome on Herbert von Karajan after months of struggling to find the time in New York. A couple of days ago I finished A Family Affair, the final book of Rex Stout’s 52 Nero Wolfe mysteries (my third traversal of the canon), and now I’m a quarter of the way through John Canarina’s The New York Philharmonic: From Bernstein to Maazel, which I’ll report on presently. At home, Leon Fleisher’s new autobio, written with Anne Midgette, and Alex Ross’s recent compendium of New Yorker essays await. And I’d still like to say something pithy about James M. North’s masterful discographies of New York Philharmonic and Boston Symphony recordings. Soon.

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