Posts Tagged ‘Balanchine’

LeeSaar’s Dancing Tongues

Monday, April 28th, 2014

By Rachel Straus

Toward the end of LeeSaar’s Princess Crocodile, seven female dancers line up, open their red-painted mouths and—like it’s the most mundane thing in the world—wildly wag their tongues at the audience. This culminating act lasts a good minute. It’s oddly fitting, and it becomes the theatrical highlight of the husband-wife team Saar Harari and Lee Sher’s newest work, seen April 10 at the Baryshnikov Arts Center’s Howard Gilman Performance Space.

LeeSaar The Company

In the previous 50 minutes of Princess Crocodile, the dancers juxtapose gracefulness and grotesquery, anger and happiness, feminine wiles and sangfroid—in second-by-second alternations. Consequently, when all of these contrasting, expressive modes fuse in the imperiously aggressive, tongue wagging lineup, it’s a huge relief.

These princess crocodiles seem to be saying, “Fetch me my crown. Or I’ll eat you!”

The lineup felt like the most authentic event in the show, perhaps because the dancers knew that it was silly and straightforward (instead of complex and profound). The wagging underscored the troupe’s strength too: its dancers’ tongues are as limber and expressive as their limbs, and that’s something to talk about.

Princess Crocodile, according to the press release, is about the “contradictions of female identity.” Created in two residencies at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, the choreography is influenced by the movement style Gaga, created by Ohad Naharin. Though the choreographers never danced with Naharin, the artistic director of Batsheva Dance Company, they are friends with him and teach Gaga classes, rooted in improvisatory, sensed perceptions to explore range of movement. Like Naharin, Sher and Harari also set their work to a collage of music, which is also assembled to create juxtapositions. In Princess Crocodile, an excerpt from Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 precedes the song Good Times by Animal House.

The most provocative use of music occurs in the work’s opening. Under a pool of luminous light (designed by Avi Yona Bueno), dancer Hyerin Lee sits on the floor in a swastika position (for dancers it’s called Graham fourth). She sharply gestures in response to the solo violin in the prologue of Stravinsky’s Apollo. For anyone acquainted with Balanchine’s pre-1978 Apollo, its prologue to Stravinsky’s music featured a lone figure: the mortal Leda. She gives birth to her immortal son. When Balanchine cut the Leda role, his Apollo became that much more male centric. It’s no accident that by quoting Leda, Harari and Sher are making a feminist statement. Their decade-long, New York-based troupe has always been all female, and much of their repertoire investigates Western image-making of women. When Lee dances angry and laughs like a madwoman, Balanchine’s disappeared Leda returns to the New York stage.

This feminist approach is admirable, but for all of Princess Crocodile’s good intentions, the dance seems to build rather than dismantle patriarchal presentations of women. LeeSaar dancers aren’t figures of agency who act with definitiveness. They are constantly changing their minds about which direction to travel through space, how to extend their limbs, and to look at the audience. The structure of the vignettes, let alone the sheer number of them, becomes a viewing challenge, particularly because they end ambiguously (such as when two women smell, nuzzle and kiss each other. Is this a lesbian scene? Are they schoolgirls? Are they crocodiles sharing the sun?). The emphasis on ambiguity in Princess Crocodile, and the frontal approach in much of the choreography, brings to mind the stereotype of the fickle woman, unable to decide how a piece of clothing looks on her in a dressing room mirror. So, she looks and looks. This idea is enforced  by Bueno’s set design, which resembles a high-end dressing room, with its opalescent silken curtains. The curtains fall on three sides of the stage. Is the proscenium supposed to be a mirror?

Photo by Julieta Cervantes

Photo by Julieta Cervantes

While Princess Crocodile leaves one wondering what Harari and Sher think they are expressing, there is no doubt that they beautifully develop their dancers. Their off- kilter balances, gravity rich squats, and waving spines are physicalized versions of introspective humming. When Candice Schnurr takes gigantic walks on invisible high heels to the flamenco song Que Sen Ven Desde El Conquero (translation: Just Coming from the Conqueror), she magically embodies a gazelle genetically crossed with a defiant gypsy dancer.

 

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Dark Days: Jeanette Stoner and Dancers

Sunday, March 16th, 2014

By Rachel Straus

In Jeanette Stoner’s eery “Distant Past, Ancient Memories,” which premiered at her loft studio in downtown Manhattan (Jan. 23-26), the choreographer seems to be summoning forth a ghost. As was the case with Martha Graham’s mythologically inspired dances, which drew from Carl Jung’s notion of the collective unconscious, Stoner creates a dreamlike landscape in which her protagonist (Chase Booth) seems to recall his past and witness its unfolding on the stage before him.

Heightened emotional states—particularly pain and terror—unfold through movement tableaus, performed by a chorus of six male dancers who move at a remove from the watchful eye of the bald and muscular Booth, cloaked in black velvet. Drama is achieved not only by Booth’s menacing figure, as he stands like the undead in the velvet drapery which pools around him like a spiral of coagulated blood, but also by the sharp, flood of light created by Zvi Gotheiner. Amos Pinhasi later appears and circles Booth. As Pinhasi does so, Booth slowly crumbles like a vampire brought to light.

While Pinhasi, dressed in contemporary slacks and shirt, remains outside the action, six young men, dressed like Greco-Roman warriors, become embroiled in it: They swim though a dark river, created by the black drapery that once cloaked Booth. Their spear ritual turns into the chaos of war, and then they appear to die. Like Graham’s mythological dances of the 1940s, these characters inhabit a brutal world where their fate seems to be decided by another more powerful.

Stoner, who danced with the abstract, multi-media choreography Alwin Nikolais (who disdained Martha Graham’s story telling style), seems to be pushing farther afield from her former employer’s aesthetic. While her earlier works on the program, such as “Green” (1978) and “Ladder” (2009) are conceptual snapshots, evidenced by the simplicity of the titles and the referential movement describing each title, in “Distant Past” a much larger vision is being formulated. This dramatically intense, new work needs polishing, but it deserves to be developed further and seen again. There is something fearsomely vivid about “Distant Past.”

“Wall,” the other premiere on the program, is like “Distant Past” imbued with a sense of dread. In the brief work, Peter Davis is repelled and attracted to a wall directly to the right and in front of the audience. When he eventually reaches it and slides along its surface, he seems to absorbs it, like a man who has succumbed once again to drink. The tension Davis produces in his body is enhanced by the fact that he moves in silence. This work evokes loneliness. It’s difficult not to read the solo as a choreographer confronting the boundaries of her craft in the space that she lives, works and performs in. Walls can bring a sense of safety, they can house creativity, and they can imprison.

Like many choreographers who have persevered, Stoner has bore witness to many U.S. dance movements: the high drama of Martha Graham, the abstraction of Alwin Nikolais, the anti-virtuosity of Yvonne Rainer, the minimalism of Lucinda Childs, the fusion dancing of Twyla Tharp, and the formalism of Balanchine and Cunningham. Stoner’s work incorporates aspects of each of these movements, but she doesn’t appear to be a direct descendent of any them. Perhaps it’s because her work never entered the mainstream dance world. There is something to be said for being on the outside of the concert dance machine, which grinds many a choreographer up. In “Distant Past, Ancient Memories,” Stoner is drawing on narrative, dream, and the psyche. She is choreographing with a broader stroke and with the maturity of an artist who has witnessed much dance history.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Formalism in U.S. Dance

Tuesday, March 11th, 2014

By Rachel Straus

We are living in the age of the male choreographer, again. Seventeenth and 18th century ballet masters were traditionally male and the acknowledged great names in ballet—Petipa, Fokine, Massine, Balanchine, Ashton, Tudor, MacMillan, Cranko, and now Ratmansky—are all men. Modern dance, on the hand, was until recently the domain of the female choreographer. (Think Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham.) Yet modern dance, which is now called contemporary dance, no longer boasts as many strong female choreographers as it did in its heyday (1910 to 1960). What happened to the predominance of powerful, highly visible female choreographers?

In the United States, there is arguably one major reason for the decline: the continuing reign of the formalist aesthetic. Formalism privileges emotional restraint, emphasis on structure, and a disinterest in social issues. The rise of the formalist aesthetic sprang in large part from the writings of American art critic Clement Greenberg (1909-1994). He argued that a painting should represent its properties: a flat canvas, the inherent expressiveness of pigmentation and, most significantly, the absence of representation. A painting, in other words, should stand for itself, nothing more. This concept, which came to be known as Abstract Expressionism, influenced George Balanchine, via Lincoln Kirstein, and Merce Cunningham, via John Cage. Powerful dance critics like Arlene Croce (who founded Ballet Review in 1965 and who wrote for The New Yorker from 1973 to 1998) championed the formalistic aesthetic—which stood in contradistinction to the narrative, overtly dramatic work of Martha Graham.

But here’s the rub. Just as second wave feminists in the 1960s were sloughing off 2000 years of patriarchal domination, dance became increasingly interested in abstraction. In one of the most defining moments of female liberation, there was no young critically recognized choreographer in the United States exploring the politics of the female dancing body. (Note: 1960s feminist dance makers like Yvonne Rainer and Carol Schneeman didn’t become big names in dance. Rainer went into film and Schneeman became identified as a performance and visual artist.)

Meanwhile ballet maintained the tradition of storytelling, arguably the form that most directly expresses social realities. Yet ballet narratives, as many of us know, champion the status quo: Women on the ballet stage continue to perform age-old stereotypes, such as damsels in distress, virgins and whores, princesses and witches. With this in mind, it’s no wonder that the formal properties of ballet, built upon a codified series of steps, became of greater interest to dancers, choreographers and critics alike. While mime and the program notes reinforced the ballet work’s story, the formal or pure dance sections–with their emphasis on choreo-musical counterpoint, architecture of bodies in space, dynamic coloring, and physical virtuosity–came to be identified as the serious aspect of ballet.

As both feminism and formalism in dance took further hold in the 1960s, the historical project of modern dance, in which individual perspective on society and culture were investigated through movement, lost steam. Ironically, it is Paul Taylor, a former Martha Graham dancer, who has maintained the torch of the modern dance project once steered by American women. His company’s New York season at the former New York State Theater (Mar. 12-30) is offering 22 works; more than half are driven by narrative concepts and make strong social statements.

There is one glaring exception to the argument that there are fewer female non-formalist choreographers receiving the same public recognition as their male counterparts. That exception is the narrative-oriented, socially concerned work of the late Pina Bausch (1940-2009), whose company continues to tour her dances through major cities. Bausch is claimed by some to have a strong connection to American dance because she spent two years in New York, studying at The Juilliard School and performing under Antony Tudor. I would beg to differ about this impact. Bausch’s stint in the U.S. was brief; she returned to Germany in her early 20s and developed her strong, feminist voice in her homeland.

Bausch’s dances employ narrative, but through a collage structure instead of a traditional linear model. Her dances focus on women. Her female perfomers appear again and again in long evening dresses, drawing attention to the notion of women as beautiful objects. In Bausch’s work the “utopian” representation of male-female Eros never comes to fruition, thus defying ballet’s central moment in which the man supports the woman in the Grand Adagio to symbolize gender symbiosis. Instead many of Bausch’s works present strife and violence through interactions between her male and female dancers. Her Rite of Spring (1975) is arguably the most harrowing stage depiction of men and women. The Rite of the ballet’s title is the act of sex. But it isn’t a consensual conjoining; it’s an act of aggression by men against women.

Bausch’s Rite was likely influenced by ballet choreographer Bronislava Nijinska’s Les Noces (1923). The narrative-based work made for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes concerns an arranged marriage in a small village and is set to Stravinsky’s dance cantata of the same name. The most inventive and visually arresting choreographic motif in Nijinska’s ballet is organized around the women’s repetitive stabbing pointe work. It symbolizes, writes dance historian Lynn Garafola, the breaking of the bride’s hymen on her wedding night. Nijinska is rarely identified as a source of inspiration by contemporary ballet choreographers. Considering there are so few female ballet choreographers with international standing working today, maybe it’s not that surprising that Nijinska’s impact on the field has been lost. Most ballet choreographers look to Balanchine and Petipa. Nijinska, however, was less a formalist than a expressionist in the vein of modern dance choreography. Also, many of Nijinska’s works are political in that they explore the sociology of femaleness. There are no major biographies of Nijinska (that however will be remedied by Lynn Garafola soon) and her masterwork Les Noces is rarely performed, except by The Royal Ballet.

Since dance formalism in the U.S. dominates, it’s not surprising that dance narrative, when its not packaged as a fairytale story ballet, is considered a lesser form. Recently choreographer Pam Tanowitz and her pickup company made their Joyce Theater debut (Feb, 4-6). Tanowitz received universal rave reviews. The forty-four year old choreographer does not descend from Graham or Bausch’s aesthetic—just the opposite. Tanowitz has professed a love for Cunningham’s abstract movement language and Balanchine’s formalist approach.

Mentored by former Merce Cunningham principal dancer Viola Farber-Slayton, Tanowitz’s choreography springs from a decidedly non-narrative vision. In Tanowitz’s new work Passagen (seen Feb. 4 at The Joyce), Melissa Toogood (a former Cunningham dancer) and Maggie Cloud forge downstage on the tips of the toes. They leap like daggers, carving space with the greatest precision. Their arms stretched out like planes slicing the horizon. Space appears to be the subject of the work and is heightened by the onstage presence of violinist Pauline Kim Harris, who stands at geometrically key spots (center upstage, mid-stage right, and downstage left) while playing John Zorn’s Passagen for solo violin. Harris’ three-prong physical presence could be mapped on canvas as large dark ink blots. Meanwhile, Toogood and Cloud’s jumps and rhythmic steps can be visualized as colorful pinpoints in space. Greenberg’s impact on Tanowitz’s work reads, to this viewer, loud and clear. Greenberg writes,

“Part of the triumph of modernist poetry is, indeed, to have demonstrated the great extent to which verse can do without explicit meaning and yet not sacrifice anything essential to its effect as art. Here, as before, successful art can be depended upon to explain itself.”

If the word dance stands in for Greenberg’s “modernist poetry,” and if it is essential because its “verse” (movement) doesn’t offer explicit meaning, Tanowitz’s dance and her embrace by critics make perfect sense. The bigger question is how U.S. female choreographers, whose aesthetic is more aligned with Graham and Bausch, and who explore the body as the site of struggle, will fare in today’s formalist U.S.A dance world. My sense is that these choreographers will have a harder road, especially if a discussion about how American dance has narrowed itself into a philosophical aesthetic called formalism is not brought to the fore.

 

 

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Stravinsky Stuff

Thursday, July 4th, 2013

by Sedgwick Clark

The 2012-13 season began at New York City Ballet with a three-program mini-festival of Stravinsky-Balanchine works. It ended last week with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic in a “theatrical reimagining” at Avery Fisher Hall of Stravinsky’s Le Baiser de la fée (The Fairy’s Kiss) and Petrushka. May 29 was the 100th anniversary of the scandalous first performance of Le Sacre du printemps. I took on listening to 49 recordings in a pair of historical collections from Decca and Sony Classical. That took longer than the week I had anticipated, domestic matters and other deadlines being what they are, but the results of my listening sessions—with my new comments in blue—are finally posted in toto below.

Alan Gilbert’s Stravinsky—A Dancer’s Nightmare
In each of his four seasons so far, New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert has ended with a Major Project. First, Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre, then Janáček’s opera The Cunning Little Vixen, and last season a program of works for multiple orchestras at the Park Avenue Armory: Stockhausen’s Gruppen, Boulez’s Rituel, an excerpt from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and Ives’s The Unanswered Question. All daring, to say the least, and all smashing successes with the public and critics.

Everyone’s doing Stravinsky this year due to the centennial of Le Sacre, so Gilbert coupled two ballets for his fourth extravaganza: the rarely performed Le Baiser de la fée (The Fairy’s Kiss) from 1928 and the enormously popular Petrushka (1911).

First, the good part. The musical portion of the program was first-rate. The Philharmonic musicians played beautifully, and Gilbert was at his best. He’s not a ballet conductor, and Baiser’s opening minutes meandered a bit, lacking point and accent. But the music quickly assumed its idiomatic Stravinskian rhythmic profile, and the ending, which in lesser hands can seem overlong, was quite lovely. Le Baiser is Stravinsky’s homage to Tchaikovsky, utilizing many of his lesser-known melodies (mainly piano works). A moment from the Fifth Symphony flashes by, but the only truly familiar piece borrowed for any length of time is Tchaikovsky’s song None but the lonely heart as the climax of the work. As for Petrushka, Gilbert elicited a magnificent performance. But the dance and staging portion of the evening was a perfect example to those who believe that orchestras should stick to orchestral music, for which they were created. Hard on the heels of Gilbert’s distinguished, straightforward concert presentation of Luigi Dallipiccola’s opera Il Prigioniero (6/6), this Stravinsky program, marketed as “A Dancer’s Dream,” was embarrassingly cutesy.

As I’ve admitted before, I’m not knowledgeable about the ballet; I go primarily when the music interests me. But the choreography, by Karole Armitage, struck me (and several others who are balletomanes) as amateurish and the use of New York City Ballet Principal Dancer Sara Mearns as a colossal waste of talent. I was astounded to read Alastair Macaulay in the Times: “The choreography, by Karole Armitage, could only have a limited effect in conditions so cramped, but individual phrases very much along Balanchine lines, beamed out powerfully.”

49 Recordings of Le Sacre du printemps – Finished at Last!

It may seem unnecessary to audition and report on 49 recordings of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) since 38 of them can be obtained only in a single set from Decca and another 10 from the Columbia and RCA catalogues in a set from Sony Classical. But if fellow Stravinskyites relish my Sacre orgy, they might be persuaded to acquire these sets too and have an equally pleasurable wallow. In a day when any professional orchestra can whiz through the piece without blinking, it’s fascinating to hear the oldest recordings and realize how daunting Le Sacre once was. 

My preferred recordings in these sets are listed below, in order of preference.

 Clark’s Top 6
• Columbia Symphony/Igor Stravinsky (1960; 31:35). Sony
• Boston Symphony/Pierre Monteux (1951; 31:25). Sony
• Cleveland Orchestra/Pierre Boulez (1969; 34:34). Sony
• Boston Symphony/Michael Tilson Thomas (1972; 34:00). Decca
• Chicago Symphony/Georg Solti (1974; 32:12). Decca
• Berliner Philharmoniker/Bernard Haitink (1995; 32:48). Philips

Sony Classical’s Centenary Releases of The Rite of Spring  

Igor Stravinsky – Le Sacre du Printemps – 100th Anniversary Collection – 10 Reference Recordings

CD 1

Philadelphia Orchestra/Leopold Stokowski (1929/1930). Shocking! In our day of recorded perfection, it’s difficult to say which of Le Sacre’s first three recordings, is the worst played: Monteux, Stravinsky, or this Stokowski, all recorded within a year of each other. RCA’s 78s are more vivid sonically than this CD or any LP transfer I’ve heard—enough so that a recent spot check revealed the kind of sensuous details that separated him from nearly every conductor of the 20th century, and which I never noticed before. I’m glad Sony included it, but non-collectors may find listening a chore. (32:39)

CD 2

New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra/Igor Stravinsky (1940). A very tight reading. One wishes he would relax a little and invest the music with more expressiveness at times, but the New Yorkers do well by the score, with only occasional imprecision, until they stumble over the rhythmic complexity of the concluding Danse sacrale. Still, it’s a huge improvement over his 1929 Paris recording. The 78s have notably more presence and tonal warmth. The recording date, by the way, is April 29, 1940, not April 4, as the back of the package states. (30:45)

CD 3

Boston Symphony/Pierre Monteux (1951). Monteux conducted the infamous first performance of Le Sacre. He made four recordings, and this is far and away his best. The BSO players seem to be playing on the edge of their seats with commitment, and a few scrappy moments—most in the Danse sacrale—hardly detract from this great, well-recorded performance. (31:35)

CD 4

Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy (1955). Ormandy reportedly maintained that he never conducted Le Sacre. It certainly isn’t his piece. Timpani are muffled throughout, and woodwind details are often obscured by Philly’s glamorous strings. This is its first release on CD, sounding rather dim from what I take to be its LP work tape rather than the master source. Too bad Sony didn’t include Ormandy’s Petrushka Suite from the LP, which is more his style. (29:49)

CD 5

Columbia Symphony/Igor Stravinsky (1960). The composer’s stereo recording of Le Sacre (as well as his 1940 mono recording with the New York Philharmonic-Symphony, which is only 50 seconds shorter) has unrivalled rhythmic accentuation, clarity, and balletic character. There are more exciting, splashily recorded versions, but this performance simply feels “right.” (31:35)

 CD 6

Chicago Symphony/Seiji Ozawa (1968). I was at Ravinia, the CSO’s summer home, for the concert preceding the recording session. It was exciting then and it is now, even if the performance style is somewhat generalized. But it’s superbly played, and a sad reminder of the promise Ozawa had that was never quite fulfilled. He tightens the pace at the end as Monteux did, no less effectively. (32:46) Fireworks from the original LP is included first, as before.

CD 7

Cleveland Orchestra/Pierre Boulez (1969). The French conductor’s 1963 Paris recording was fast, fiery, and on its toes. But he came to feel, he said to me in an interview, that such febrile tempos trivialized the work. This Cleveland performance can seem a bit earthbound at times, but following the score reveals all sorts of details that other conductors gloss over and that Boulez reveals without calling attention to them, such as the three accented trumpet notes on page 31 that so many treat indifferently (but not Ormandy!). The players are at their best, and the recording is the utmost in clarity. (34:34)

CD 8

London Symphony/Leonard Bernstein (1972). The best thing about this Sacre is the faux Rousseau, pop art cover. It’s a surprisingly tepid Sacre from this most un-tepid conductor. Originally recorded for quad by producer John McClure, the wet acoustic obscures much detail. (35:29)

CD 9

Philharmonia Orchestra/Esa-Pekka Salonen (1989). Hopelessly flashy. The slow tempos are very slow, and the fast ones very fast in this absurdly bifurcated Sacre. It’s very exciting but counterproductive to any musical continuity and impossible to dance to. His later DG recording is more traditionally paced. (32:13) A fine Symphony in Three Movements is included from the original CD release.

CD 10

San Francisco Symphony/Michael Tilson Thomas (1996). MTT remains a master of Le Sacre with all the details so often missing in other performances right in place, superbly played and recorded. The Glorification and Evocation sections may seem a bit hasty, but they stir the blood. (34:54)

Stravinsky conducts Le Sacre du Printemps

CD 1

Le Sacre du Printemps (1960). See CD5 above.

Firebird Ballet Suite (revised 1945 version). Columbia Symphony Orchestra/Igor Stravinsky (1967). Stravinsky’s most popular and frequently performed piece is the 1919 Suite from The Firebird ballet. But it was not under copyright and he never made a dime from it. So in 1945 he arranged and reorchestrated a new suite, adding several dances from the complete ballet. Most orchestras continued to perform the 1919 suite, however, because they didn’t have to pay royalties for it. I listened to this “bonus” stereo recording directly after hearing his 1946 recording. What a difference in the expressiveness of his conducting; the music breathes with rubato, affection, and breadth, especially in the horn solo and strings of the Final Hymn, before the brass fanfare of Palace Merrymaking. It’s as if he knew it would be his final recording. And indeed it was. (29:24)

CD 2

Le Sacre du Printemps (1940). See CD2 above.

Firebird Ballet Suite (revised 1945 version). New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra/Igor Stravinsky (1946). This new suite was hot off the presses when Stravinsky recorded it. But some transitions were abrupt—especially jarring between the Berceuse and Final Hymn—and before the score was printed he added three Pantomimes and brief transitional material, totaling about three minutes. It’s good that Sony decided to include these two Firebird suites and allow us to hear a great composer at work. (26:00)

Decca’s Complete Collector’s Edition: Le Sacre du printemps

CD 1

Concertgebouw Orchestra/Eduard van Beinum (1946). The oldest Sacre in this set, it is remarkably well played and conducted. Tempos are similar to the composer’s. It lacks the detail of modern recordings, of course, but it’s full of atmosphere. Timpani mostly inaudible. Fine transfer, with no audible 78 joins. (32:08)

L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Ernest Ansermet (1950). Ansermet was one of Stravinsky’s great early champions, but his recordings are mere curios today. The insufficiencies of his Suisse Romande are all too clear, as are his devitalized interpretations. His 1957 stereo remake is no improvement. (33:56)

CD 2

RIAS Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Ferenc Fricsay (1954). At last a recording of Le Sacre in which the timpani make their proper effect (even if the bass drum is weak)! An excellent performance, if perhaps bit too sane. (33:39)

Minneapolis Symphony/Antal Dorati (1954). A CD first. A driving, dynamic performance with all the crucial instrumental details powerfully captured in their correct acoustical space by Mercury Living Presence’s single mic. The Dance of the Earth and Danse sacrale are incredibly exciting, and the timpanist is on fire. The 1959 stereo remake is faster, seeming frantic and lightweight. (31:18)  

CD 3

Orchestre des cento soli/Rudolf Albert (1956). The sleeper of the set. Decca couldn’t even find a photo of Albert! Well paced and played, it only flags a bit in the last pages of the Danse sacrale, as one imagines the exhausted virgin dancing herself to death would. The few instances of imprecise ensemble are of no concern. The German-born Albert was a contemporary-music exponent, and a few weeks after leading this recording he conducted the world premiere of Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques. (33:37)

Paris Conservatoire Orchestra/Pierre Monteux (1956). There are several pirate Monteux Sacres on the market, but this was his fourth and final studio recording and the only one in stereo, produced by John Culshaw. On paper it looks promising and authentic (French maestro who conducted the work’s first performance, French orchestra, recorded in Paris’s Salle Wagram), but the fact that it was recorded over a nine-day period may indicate that there were extra-musical reasons for the lackluster leadership and lax ensemble. The 1951 Boston on Sony is best. (32:57)

CD 4

L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Ernest Ansermet (1957). (33:52) See CD1.

Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra/Antal Dorati (1959). (29:56) See CD2.

CD 5

Berliner Philharmoniker/Herbert von Karajan (1963). Stravinsky criticized this performance as “a pet savage rather than a real one . . . . There are simply no regions for soul-searching in The Rite of Spring. Berlin’s “sostenuto style is a principal fault,” he continues. “The music is alien to the culture of its performers.” It’s a fascinating performance, with many instrumental felicities, but it’s ultimately a curio, which goes for its 1977 remake as well. (33:48)

London Symphony/Colin Davis (1963). A young man’s Sacre—exciting, athletic, well played for its time. Well recorded. (30:29)

CD 6

Los Angeles Philharmonic/Zubin Mehta (1969). The first “modern” recording from these labels, with obvious multi-miking, deep bass drum, and exaggerated timpani, as if you were onstage. The Danse sacrale is exciting and well played, which characterizes the entire performance. It may not be your ideal seat in the concert hall, but “Wow!” (32:54)

Boston Symphony/Michael Tilson Thomas (1972). Excellent playing and conducting, recorded naturally in Symphony Hall’s gorgeous ambient warmth. If occasional detail is lost, the aura of a genuine concert makes up for it. Tilson Thomas told me soon after the sessions that this was the only recording, including the composer’s own, that followed the metronome marks precisely. Whatever the case, it remains one of the best. (34:00) 

CD 7

London Philharmonic/Bernard Haitink (1973). The low-level volume is not all that needs a boost, despite careful instrumental balances. (34:07)

London Philharmonic/Erich Leinsdorf 1974). Stolidly conducted, with distracting Phase 4 balances. I wonder if Leinsdorf was standing in for another maestro taken ill, as I enjoyed his sumptuous Sacre with the Boston Symphony in fall 1968 at Lincoln Center. (33:26)

CD 8

Vienna Philharmonic/Lorin Maazel (1974). This version was panned for unidiomatic playing by the VPO and Maazel’s eccentricities, but over headphones the playing is mostly accurate and quite beautiful–perhaps not what one wants in a Sacre, but interesting nonetheless. Then there are those 11 fortissimo chords that lead into the Glorification of the Chosen One section, which Maazel has the Viennese play ludicrously slow and meaty, and several other yucky protractions of brass glissandi. Of interest to the curious. His New York Phil performance during his tenure was thankfully less vulgarized. (33:41)

Chicago Symphony/Georg Solti (1974). Superbly played, no eccentricities, closely recorded. Minor imprecisions in the Glorification section prove that the musicians are human, but no matter. This is a mind-blowing Sacre, truly virtuoso, highly recommended. (32:12)

CD 9

London Symphony/Claudio Abbado (1975). A fine performance, powerfully recorded, with plenty of excellent details from the LSO, such as a fast, sinister bass clarinet before the Danse sacrale. But as usual with Abbado, I don’t hear much character in the playing to complement the precision—certainly nothing approaching Solti/Chicago. (33:17)

Concertgebouw Orchestra/Colin Davis (1976). Unlike Davis’s fiery, if not always precise, LSO recording of 13 years before, the plush CGO sonority and reverberant hall cover detail, and the conducting is overly gentlemanly. Very beautiful if that’s what you want. A tape-editing error on LP repeated the four bars after number 192 in the Danse sacrale, but the CD is correct. (34:47)

CD 10

Berliner Philharmoniker/Herbert von Karajan (1977). (34:18) See CD5.

National Youth Orchestra/Simon Rattle (1978). The most memorable live performance of Le Sacre I ever heard was Boulez leading the 145-player National Youth Orchestra of Britain in London in spring 1977. Also on the program was Bartók’s MUSPAC, with 16 double basses and an equal complement of the other strings, and Berg’s Violin Concerto with Itzhak Perlman. Boulez was in ecstasy afterwards, for good reason. Rattle’s is a capable performance marred by a stodgy Glorification of the Chosen One and Danse sacrale. (33:33)

CD 11

Boston Symphony/Seiji Ozawa (1979). His lack of exaggeration is welcome. For instance, he resists the crass distention of the brass glissandi toward the end of Spring Rounds (number 53) that most conductors indulge in. Also positive are the BSO’s excellent playing and the ideally resonant Symphony Hall acoustics. But the vicious attacks in Part 2 are too well-upholstered, and the Danse sacrale flows too smoothly, too predictably, too much like Karajan’s pet savagery. (32:37)

Detroit Symphony/Antal Dorati (1981). The first digital recording in this set. The bass drum will blow you out of the room, and it’s clearly differentiated from the timpani. But it’s rather tired—as much an old man’s performance as his 1953 Mercury one was palpably a young man’s. (33:31)

CD 12

Israel Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein (1982). No room for soul-searching, Lenny. Stick with the Royal Edition CD of the 1958 New York Philharmonic recording. (36:57)

Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal/Charles Dutoit (1984). Warm, glowing sonics, with plenty of space around the instruments. I wish he hadn’t emphasized the brass glissandi at number 53, but there are worse. (35:08)

CD 13

The Cleveland Orchestra/Riccardo Chailly (1985). Less soft-edged than than most of his Stravinsky recordings, and there is certainly no reticence from the battery, but it’s a superficial performance overall. (32:34)

The Cleveland Orchestra/Pierre Boulez (1991). Boulez’s third outing, recorded in the resonant Masonic Auditorium, has a more distant concert-hall balance in the DG tradition. Many details are less clear than on his 1969 Cleveland recording in the Sony box above—some shockingly so, such as the inaudible forte solo horn soon after the Dance of the Earth begins, specifically notated in the score and absolutely clear in the drier Severence Hall acoustic. Timpani, too, are not always as clear on DG in the Danse sacrale. But some may prefer this less detailed Sacre, for it is marginally more expressive and never seems studied, as the 1969 recording does on occasion. (33:15)

CD 14

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Georg Solti (1991). Solti nails many details that other conductors either exaggerate or overlook, but the overall impression of this live recording is less than the sum of its parts. Occasional scrappy moments mar the generally fine ensemble, and the sound is a bit pallid. Moreover, the Danse sacrale plods, with no rhythmic lift. In concert, without competition from such superior versions as Solti’s own Chicago recording, this might not seem so bothersome. (33:55)

The MET Orchestra/James Levine (1992). A brutish Le Sacre. Many percussion details are clear at last, but then the timpani and trombones at the beginning of Ritual of the Rival Tribes are (like several others) not quite together. The Dance of the Earth’s buildup gains in volume but not excitement; compare it with the 1953 Dorati and 1951 Monteux who increase the tempo and raise you off your seat. Likewise, the Danse sacrale is just noisy and percussive.

CD 15

Deutsches Sinfonie-Orchester, Berlin/Vladimir Ashkenazy (1994). Very quiet introduction. Fine timpani playing. But in Part 2, Glorification of the Chosen One is surprisingly tame. Ritual Action of the Ancestors is admirably steady, and the bass clarinet before the Danse sacrale is frightening. But the Danse itself is dogged rather than relentless; there’s no build and terror. Still, it’s worth a listen. (34:29)

Orchestre de Paris/Semyon Bychkov (1995). Unexceptionable, with good details here and there, but nothing to compel relistening. (32:29)

CD 16

Berliner Philharmoniker/Bernard Haitink (1995). The Dutch conductor’s second Sacre is, again, by the letter of the score. But this time he has at hand the peerless Berliners instead of the workmanlike London Philharmonic (see CD7), and all sorts of details reveal themselves by sheer dint of individual instrumental virtuosity and eloquence. Producer Volker Straus seems, as well, to be more liberal with spot mics than 22 years ago, when Philips’s recording philosophy was more a photograph than a sonic creation in itself. This is a superior rendering of what Stravinsky composed. (32:48)

Kirov Orchestra, St. Petersburg/Valery Gergiev (1999). This is touted as a uniquely Russian interpretation in some circles, but I wonder if it’s just uniquely Gergiev, with the usual not-quite-precise Mariinsky playing. It’s certainly quite unlike the composer’s transparent textures and crisp accentuation. The introduction is slow and expressive. The young girls heavily stamp the Augurs of Spring, and the Spring Rounds are ponderous, with grossly exaggerated trombone glissandi. (I wonder if he had Fantasia’s dinosaurs in mind.) The Dance of the Earth is exciting but thick-textured, and Gergiev oddly appears to pull up slightly on the last note. In Part 2, moderate tempos in the Evocation and Ritual Action of the Ancestors and the Danse sacrale are very effective. The timpani playing is unlike any other performance I’ve heard, alternating between loud thwacks and inaudibility, and the final two chords are played after a very long pause. (34:35)

CD 17

Los Angeles Philharmonic/Esa-Pekka Salonen (2006). Unlike his 1989 Sony recording, tempos are traditional. Still, there’s nearly always something in a Salonen performance that pulls me up short and makes me think, “Why the hell did he do that?” At the end of Part 1’s Dance of the Earth he has the horns hold their note longer than the cutoff of the rest of the orchestra. It was all I could do to force myself to listen to the rest of the recording. (32:59)

Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Myung-Whun Chung (2007). A fine performance, often exciting, but unexceptionable, without challenging my favorites.

CD 18

Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela/Gustavo Dudamel (2010). Not only a young conductor’s performance: The engagement of every last Venezuelan instrumentalist is palpable in every note. It may not be the ideal Sacre: For that, get an old man’s performance, the composer’s recording.

Four hands: Bracha Eden, Alexander Tamir (1968). Not bad overall, but there’s little personality to the reading, and of course Le Sacre for four hands—even as transcribed by the composer—is but a study. (34:05)

CD 19

Four hands: Güher and Süher Pekinel (1983). As faceless as Eden and Tamir are, the Pekinel twins are personality personified. But it’s an alien personality, with expressive shading, prim rhythms, and lightweight tone that emphatically do not belong in this piece. (33:22)

Four hands: Vladimir Ashkenazy, Andrei Gavrilov (1990). Of these three four-hand piano transcriptions, this is the one that sounds like a genuine interpretation of the piece, with tempos and textures that one who knows the orchestral version would recognize. Its only drawback is the Danse sacrale, which is played so fast that it seems insubstantial. (33:34)

CD 20 – Bonus CD

Violin Concerto

Samuel Dushkin violin, Lamoureux Concert Orchestra/Igor Stravinsky (1935). To no surprise, Stravinsky’s first recording of his Violin Concerto has the same interpretive parameters as his 1961 recording with Isaac Stern. Also, to no surprise, Stern plays the slow movement with more juice. Both recordings are welcome. (20:59)

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The Seven Deadly Sins at City Ballet

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

By Rachel Straus

New York City Ballet’s new staging of  “The Seven Deadly Sins,” which had its premiere at the company’s spring gala on May 11,  puts Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s dark, sinister “ballet chanté” of 1933 into a new context: a tinsel-town soundstage, complete with unison hoofers in the grand finale. Choreographer Lynn Taylor-Corbett, whose credits include Broadway’s “Swing,” has essentially created a Cliff Notes version of this irony-laced yarn, dragging  principal dancer Wendy Whelan and guest artist Patti Lapone through seven shallow scenes of human transgression and stripping the work of its brooding soul.

In the original 1933 production, choreographed by George Balanchine for Les Ballets 1933, singer Lotte Lenya and dancer Tilly Losch were presented as Anna I and II, yin yang composites of the same woman. The fact that Lenya and Losch bore a striking resemblance to each other, and were about the same age, probably helped Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht’s scenario. It concerns the Annas experiencing seven American cities, encountering seven “deadly” sins, and struggling with each other’s opposite personalities.

When Balanchine revived the work in 1958, he cast the 21-year-old Allegra Kent across from the significantly older Lenya. New York Times dance critic John Martin dubbed the production  “a stunning revival of a minor masterpiece.” But not all critics concurred, though the vision of Kent carried aloft on a human-size plate wearing just lingerie lingered in the mind, says dance writer Deborah Jowitt.

Balanchine was never afraid of being naughty. He also wasn’t afraid of “Seven Deadly” dissapearing after its run. No one filmed the performance. This may say more about what Balanchine thought of his “minor masterpiece” than City Ballet’s capacity to film performances in the 1950s. But this point is conjecture.

Now flash forward 60 years. At a City Ballet studio event, Lynn Taylor-Corbett suggests to Peter Martins that she make a reintepreted revival of “Seven Deadly Sins.” With a penchant for commercially-driven projects, Martins agrees to the venture and to Taylor-Corbett’s casting of the matronly-looking Patty Lapone, who sings like a battle ax, and the bone-thin Wendy Whelan, who dances like a steely wraith. The hope was that the project would bring in new audiences (read Broadway ticket holders). At the gala, I did see Matthew Broderick arm and arm with his wife Sarah Jessica Parker.

Unfortunately, on stage Whelan and Lapone never formed a convincing relationship, twin-like, sisterly, or otherwise. Lapone mostly stood on the sidelines, serving as singing narrator. Whelan danced Taylor-Corbett’s forgettable choreography, becoming a pawn rather than a protagonist in the rapidly unfolding events.

The greatest interest in Taylor-Corbett’s ballet was Beowulf Boritt’s sets of seven cities. In Memphis, where the sin is “Pride,” Whelan flitted about in imitation of Isadora Duncan during an audition for a sleeze-style cabaret. The black and red décor said bordello, as did the lighting by Jason Kantrowitz. In San Francisco, where the sin was “Envy,” Boritt’s backdrop of quaint Victorian row houses against a boundless blue sky was enviable. In Baltimore, where the sin was “Greed,” Boritt created a salon, channelling both Phillipe Starck’s overblown modernism and the Belle Epoque’s love of patterns. From two gargantuan black and white striped, tasseled love seats, Anna’s overfed suitors embarked on a mutually fatal duel.

As for Taylor-Corbett’s choreography, it lacked movement invention or good movement imitation. In Boston, where the sin was “Lust,” Whelan and Craig Hall peformed a romantic pas de deux.  Muscular and in a wife beater, Hall looked like Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan’s film version of “Street Car Named Desire.” He lifted Whelan aloft in shapes and transitions that looked exactly like moments in Christopher Wheeldon’s “After the Rain”—which Whelan and Hall perform frequently.

Following the performance, this reviewer read the Brecht text, which was translated into English by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman. What crystalized from the text, but not from Taylor-Corbett’s production, is that the production hinges on demonstrating the conflict between the Annas: Anna I wants money and power; Anna II wants love and a creative outlet. Also, Anna II allows Anna I to push her around. But only in the last scene of Taylor-Corbett’s work is their conflict delivered without a doubt and Anna II emerges triumphant. As Anna II  (Whelan) collapses in front of her families’ spiffy new home, Anna I (Lapone) walks up the stairs in a mink, looking like a character from “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

The gala’s second half was devoted to Balanchine’s “Vienna Waltzes,” which premiered at the 1977 City Ballet gala.  If you don’t care for the music of Johann Strauss II, Franz Lehar, or Richard Strauss or for watching a carousel vision of dancers waltzing for 46 minutes, this ballet may not be for you. But despite the work’s repetitiousness, “Waltzes” is visual spendor at its finest;  Karinska’s five sets of costumes, ranging from full-skirted 1860s crinoline ball gowns to sleek white silk Roaring Twenties dresses are a fashionista’s delight.

In the pit, Clotilde Otranto energetically conducted such ditties as the “Explosions-Polka” and excerpts from “Der Rosenkavalier.” Principals Maria Korowski, Jennifer Ringer and Megan Fairchild demonstrated their strikingly differing styles through the same steps. That said all City Ballet dancers waltz with a brilliant elegance.

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May Dance in New York City

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

By Rachel Straus

May 1-2

Guggenheim Museum

The popular Works + Process series presents “American Ballet Theatre on to Act II.” Current ABT dancers will perform excerpts from their upcoming Metropolitan Opera House season. ABT alumni will discuss the challenges dancers face in the second act of their careers.  You can watch the event each night at 7:30 via livestream.

May 2

Baryshnikov Arts Center

In the final spring installment of BAC Flicks: Mondays With Merce, two Charles Atlas films of Merce Cunningham’s dances will be projected on widescreen. In “Crises” (1960), elastic cords connect the dancers to each other. Dramatic entanglements ensue. In “Native Green” (1985), John King’s music and William Anastasi’s evoke a scintillating spring. Cunningham scholar Nancy Dalva will speak to former Cunningham dancer Gus Solomons, Jr.

May 3-June 12

The David H. Koch Theater

The opening week of the New York City Ballet’s spring season will showcase 12 of Balanchine’s works, which insiders refer to as “black and white” ballets because the costuming is bare bones. Most often, the women wear black leotards and white tights. The men wear black tights and white t-shirts. The choreography is hardly sparse. Up next will be the May 11 world premiere of Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s “The Seven Deadly Sins,” set to the Kurt Weill score, featuring Patti LuPone and Wendy Whelan as sisters (which will be hard to believe). The final week’s performances are titled “See the Music…” and will highlight NYCB’s musical repertory as performed by its 62-piece orchestra. The June 12 “Dancer’s Choice” performance will feature works handpicked by the company’s dancers. Over the seven-week season, the company will perform 19 works by Jerome Robbins, Susan Stroman, Christopher Wheeldon, NYCB Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins, and George Balanchine.

May 3

The Apollo Theater

This Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater benefit performance will showcase Camille A. Brown’s 2007 solo “Evolution of a Secured Feminine,” which catapulted this complex, hip, young choreographer into the spotlight.

 

May 10-22

The Joyce Theater

The two-week engagement of Cuba’s Danza Contemporanea de Cuba stands out for its offering of three works: The U.S. premiere of “Casi-Casa,” created by the quirky, inventive Swedish choreographer Mats Ek, set to disco, hip-hop, swing and jazz; the world premiere of “Horizonte” by former Ballet Hispanico dancer Pedro Ruiz; and “Demo-N/Crazy,” made by Sydney Dance Company artistic director Rafael Bonachela, which has been said to wow for its athletic partnering and semi nudity.

May 12-14

Cedar Lake Theater

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet will present a new installation created by artistic director Benoit-Swan Pouffer. Part choreographed dance performance and part interactive installation, audience members are invited to move freely through the space where the dancers will be performing.

May 12-15

Dicapo Opera Theatre

Dances Patrelle will present the world premiere of Francis Patrelle’s “Gilbert & Sullivan, The Ballet!” an evening-length work, featuring live music and singers, and inspired by characters drawn from Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas.

May 13

Buttenwieser Hall at 92nd St. Y

The “Fridays at Noon” free series will culminate with informal performances by tap and step dancing virtuosos Marshall Davis, Jr., Andrew Nemr, and their guests. Davis, Jr. performed in Savion Glover’s Tony Award winning “Bring in ‘Da Noise Bring in ‘Da Funk.” Nemr has the credentials too, having performed along side the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Jimmy Heath, Les Paul, Harry Connick and the Lionel Hampton Orchestra.

May 16-June 29

Metropolitan Opera House

American Ballet Theatre will hold its annual seven-week season. The big event will be the New York premiere (June 9) of Alexei Ratmansky’s “Bright Stream.” Also of interest will be two world premieres (May 24-26) by Ratmansky and Christopher Wheeldon, a New York premiere by Benjamin Millepied, and a revival of Antony Tudor’s “Shadowplay.” The full-length ballet offerings will be “Giselle,” “Swan Lake,” “Cinderella,” “Coppelia,” “Don Quixote,” “The Sleeping Beauty,” and “Lady of the Camellias.”

May 20

Ailey Citigroup Theater

“Performing the Border” aspires to blend and build on the grammar of two Indian classical dance forms, Bharata Natyam and Odissi.  David Phoenix Singh, who runs Dakshina Company, a Bharata Natyam and modern dance company, and Nandini Sikand, who directs Sakshi Productions, a neo-classical and contemporary Odissi dance company, will collaborate.

 

May 21

Manhattan streets

This year’s New York City Dance Parade will showcase 65 dance genres. The parade will start on 21st street, move down Broadway, pass through Union Square, and take over University Place, Eighth Street and St. Mark’s. The House, Techno and Disco floats will lead the celebrants to Tompkins Square Park and to DanceFest, which will offer stage and site specific dance performances and free dance lessons. This will not be a sedentary experience.

May 23

Judson Memorial Church

This year’s Movement Research Gala will feature Trisha Brown’s “Set and Reset” (1983) as performed by its original cast of dancers, who have become dance makers in their own right.

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