The April Opera News has an interesting discussion between Barbara Jepson and four classical "music journalists": Scott Cantrell of the Dallas Morning News, Justin Davidson of Newsday, Anne Midgette, freelancer for the NY Times, and David Patrick Stearns from the Philadelphia Inquirer.

This made me think of how our local newspapers cover and review ballet. What do you think about your own local coverage for your local ballet scene? How would you rate their performance? What would you do if you owned the newspaper?
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Some of the questions raised by Jepson include:
full-time reviewer or local?
general "culture" or specialist in one or more particular performance arts?
how strong is their background?
how much preparation do they do before a performance?
how much space are they given?
is the review giving giving up ground to the advance article?
"Is it the critic's job to get non-opera-goers (or whatever the art) interested in the art form?"
is the very idea of "art" being subsumed in the larger category "arts and ENTERTAINMENT"?
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In South Florida, most of the reviewing is done by freelancers. This includes the big three papers: Miami Herald, Sun-Sentinal (Fort Lauderdale), and Palm Beach Post, all of which have South Florida regional aspirations. (All 3 review Miami City Ballet, which performs in all 3 cities.)

My local paper, the Post used to rely heavily on their classical music freelancer, who seemed to have little feel for ballet and greater fondness for contemporary. Her formula: a little summary of the program, a little history, a description of something she liked and something else that seemed to spoil things for her. Their culture editor seems to try harder and generally does a more informative job.

Space in the Post is strictly limited: about 300 words. They review opening nights, which means nothing appears at all about the other casts This makes no sense for Miami City Ballet (3-4 casts here) -- and is even more detrimental to Palm Beach Opera (2 casts, often quite different). Reviews appear in the Local section, often lost among reports of traffic accidents, neighborhood disputes, or human interest stories.

Considering how large and sophisticated the audience is for the classical arts in Palm Beach County, and the quality of the artists that come to perform here, the Post isn't doing much of a job.

The freelancers I like best work elsewhere: Guillermo Perez for the Herald and Sun-Sentinal; Mark Lynch for the Palm Beach Daily News (the "shiny sheet"); Jordan Levin for the Herald. I only read them on-line, so I don't know their newspaper's over-all approach to ballet in particular and the classical arts in general.

Interesting topic, bart.

I subscribe to the national edition of the NY Times and my town’s paper, so I do not read much of the other two papers that could be called my “local” ones – the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News. (When last I heard, the Chronicle still had not hired a full time dance critic.)



The two aren’t necessarily in opposition, and an arts section that acknowledges that isn’t committing a crime, IMO – as long as it doesn’t mean that fluff invades and takes over, as all too often happens.

I see a pattern in general of older critics getting pushed out of the way in favor of young ones. I could be wrong.

You're right, if ballet reviewing is like classical music. Here are the relevant quotes:
Opera News: "What are editors looking for in terms of qualifications in critics these day?"
Scott Cantrell: "Young and cheap."
Anne Midgett: "I was going to say exactly the same thing."
...
Scott Cantrell: "... I think there is not the valuing of long experience that there used to be in the business. There's a feeling that young people are more flexible and more ready to do the editor's whim. I think there's real ageism in the newspaper business these days."

I don't even bother with my local paper (mistakes galore, no arts coverage) and subscribe to the Washington Post instead. It usually covers dance in the Style section, and in addition to regular articles about contemporary dance, it has devoted a few very large articles to the Washington Ballet union saga. It also gets Sarah Kaufman (with whom I've found I pretty much always agree) to review anything major coming to the Kennedy Center, and of course it also occasionally features our very own Alexandra Tomalonis.

We usually get three reviews of PNB programs: one in the Seattle Times, one in Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and one in Seattle Weekly. There is often a preview article in at least one of the two dailies and a short preview in the Seattle Weekly and in The Stranger, the local alternative newspaper. R.M. Campbell (PI) covers music and dance, and Moira MacDonald (ST) covers dance and film.

The dailies' reviews are run the first weekend, but I'm not sure if the Seattle Weekly's schedule allows that.

The Weekly is published on Wednesdays, but the logistics of printing means that most stories are due the previous week. When I review PNB, which opens on Thursdays, I try to see at least two casts -- I turn in my copy first thing Monday morning. My colleague Roger Downey is reviewing the company this season, and I think he may be trying to get his copy in on Fridays or Saturdays -- I know that some editing goes on over the weekend.

Very few daily papers run anything like overnight reviews now -- for the Seattle dailies, if a show opens on Thursday the earliest a review will run will usually be Saturday. If it opens on Friday, it probably won't run till Monday (the arts section of the Sunday paper is printed much earlier in the week. several years ago they would run some arts coverage in the news section, which went to press on Saturday, but no longer)

Here in New York, daily coverage is primarily in the Times. When music critic John Rockwell was named head dance critic I was sure that dance writing would get even worse than it already was: less expert, and just plain less in total coverage.
Certainly I miss any hint of technical description by Mr. Rockwell, but I definitely don't miss the extreme and predictable bias of the dry old regime. Instead, I find he conveys an authentic enthusiasm for the art, and a willingness to see and give a fair report on just about everything. Also, under his watch the Times seems to have more dance coverage and better guest writers. As an example, Tobi Tobias is a frequent guest writer in the Arts and Leisure section (see today's post by dirac under Writings on Ballet).
So, I'm sorry Mr. Rockwell. And thanks for upgrading the Times dance coverage.

I wonder what people think about the power of the local press to influence (positively or negatively) donor funding as well as ticket sales. There's a recent story about Ohio Ballet --which has just had to cancel the last two programs of the season -- in which some blame is given to the Cleveland Plain Dealer for negative coverage.

Here's a Quote:
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"The community at large has not felt -- nor responded -- to the urgency of Ohio Ballet's dire situation," [Artistic Director Jeffrey Graham} Hughes wrote in a letter to subscribers. "There have been malicious and destructive misrepresentations of what Ohio Ballet has been and is in the press. I feel extremely sad for you, the dancers/staff as well as the funders/individuals who have stood by us."

"In a telephone interview, Hughes cited coverage in The Plain Dealer that he considered biased."
______________________

And here's a LINK to the full article (in the Plain Dealer !).

http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/pla...4340.xml&coll=2

Is it worse to get no coverage or incorrect coverage? I'm willing to assume that Roger Downey, who reviewed PNB's Sleeping Beauty for the Seattle Weekly didn't write the headline Just Right: Ronald Hynd's Sleeping Beauty blends tradition with delight, but he wrote the following intro:



No doubt? I suppose in the sense that there's no doubt that Othello will choke Desdemona to death or that Scrooge won't ruin Christmas in the end, but when a Carabosse shows up in the middle of the christening to curse the infant Aurora to a future death, a curse that can only be mitigated by the Lilac Fairy, and even then that leaves the entire court to the fate of a determined and brave outsider who isn't even born yet, I would call that doubt. And the Lilac Fairy has her work cut out for her: she must make him understand what is behind his yearning lack of completeness, show him a vision of the ideal to inspire him to find her worldly incarnation, and prompt and prompt and prompt some more until he finally finds the girl and kisses her so the LF can wake everyone else up. I would even call that plot and tension. It would be one thing to argue that the content and style has little relevance to a 21st century audience -- a more reasonable argument would be that the exposition might be as alien to the average 21st century audience as a full Mass in Latin, so be prepared, audience -- but to state this as fact is questionable.

But what is really concerning is that Downey claims that there is no moral, which belies the entire context in which the ballet was created. We might not share the conventions or assumptions -- moral or theatrical -- of a 19th century empire and a court that was the audience for the ballet, but to characterize Sleeping Beauty as if it were pure, thoughtless prettiness instead of a ritual that reinforced the audience's deeply conservative moral understanding of itself is neither historically accurate nor edifying for the readership.

That makes me wonder what on earth his qualifications are.

Helene, I guess it's easier to say that there is "no tension," "no moral," or even "no interest" than it is to admit that one is having difficulty accessing these qualities.

I grew up being educated in the tradition that we are very much a part of the history that came before us. You know that this point of view is dead when people don't even try to imagine and recapture what it must have been like to see the classics when they were first performed.



Two thoughts:

a) Reviewers -- especially in smaller cities -- probably don't have lots of direct experience watching multipile interpretations of many of the classics. They have to do a kind of paper research first, and this research often shows in the reviews -- especially when one has just read the exact same article from a list on Google!! How many reviewers have actually seen many different productions of Sleeping Beauty? Not to mention Othello? And how many reviewers really trust their own ability to sit, see, listen, think, absorb, and respond directly to what is on the stage without their notes and cheat sheets?

b) Regarding Lilac Fairy: I wish this character would be enacted on stage as you describe her: a dramatic character whose function in the plot is as pirvotal and as dramatically intresting as Carabosse's. I've read about such performances, but never seen one. And I've seen a few who seem to have not much more motivation or depth than the Bournonville sylphide. When I think aobut it, especially in her relationship to the Prince, this role might require qualities of the Dark Angel in Orpheus as well as Dr. Ruth or Dr. Phil ("grow up, boy").

My observation is that some "critics" seem to feel they have not done their job if they have not been "critical"; and so they publish negative statements about the performance they are reviewing. I would love to see reviews written by someone who loves dance, has some knowledge of the history of the performance, and can then relate what they know to the current performance.

Positive comments intrigue readers. Wish there were more of them in reviews.