From yesterday's links:

Andre Prokovsky is staging his ballet "The Great Gatsby" for Tulsa Ballet:

http://www.tulsaworld.com/entertainment/ar...8_H1_hJazz23352

QUOTE
"Andre Prokovsky doesn't mind that most people already know the stories his ballets tell.
If anything, using a story as well known as "The Great Gatsby" as the source for a ballet makes the process of telling a story through movement easier."

Caveat: my very subjective opinons, based on personal experience, follow. They are my own views and in no way represent the views of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.

I was part of the first incarnation of this expensive fiasco in 1987, which Pittsuburgh Ballet Theatre premiered as part of the opening celebrations for the newly renovated Benedum Theater. Mr. Prokovsky was, in my opinon, an incompetent choreographer. The "American Dream" scene was a joke; it ended with Daisy, dressed as the Statue of Liberty, perched on Gatsby's shoulder, torch aloft. (During rehearsals for it, he once looked at the 18 of us and said, "Make a star shape." Being good do-be dancers, we did it, somehow.) Most of us had more than a dozen costume changes; in that scene, I was a tap-dancing cowboy just kind of jamming up there on stage next to the tapping Salvation Army nurse . No matter that some of us knew more tap steps than others (he did not provide any). That experience went straight into my Big Book of Bad Ballet Stories (subsection "Reasons to Retire"), providing me with countless hours of mirth in my post-dancing dotage. Too bad it cost PBT over $1 mil. Later, PBT ended up replacing Prokovsky's choreography Bruce Wells's; they found the rights to the original Gunther Schuller score to be too expensive and replaced the music too.

Kenneth MacMillan's Isadora: there was a hideous rumour a couple of years ago that it was going to be revived. Mercifully the rumours proved false.

Very good topic, Ray. I'm sure there are many other good suggestions out there.

Any recent ballet by Helgi Tomasson. No, they're not atrocities and you can sit through them, but they've been uninspired to the point of pain.



It must have been something. (And I have difficulty seeing Merle Park in the role.) How did he deal with the fatal accident, BTW?

The Kirov-Mariinsky's The Golden Age from summer 2006. A lot of talented people worked really hard to create a huge-scaled three-act ballet in a ridiculously short time, to meet the demands of a forceful director-conductor. By Jove, there WILL be a ballet in time for the London tour! I can't even blame the choreographer.

ABT's The Pied Piper

I'm making note of these Some enterprising artistic director is undoubtedly writing these down on his Wish List of Rare Ballets as you reads this!!!

Some years ago Boston Ballet did an execrable piece of something which went on forever and gave one a migraine headache and all I can remember other than terrible music, nonexistent choreography and awful sets and costumes is that it was about bees.

"Beehive" by choreographer Jim Self.

This may be somewhat off-topic but can someone tell me what was so disastrous about MacMillan's Isadora? (I've always wondered why he tackled the subject when Limon and Ashton had already made well-received dances on the same subject.)

Then there's Balanchine's "Opus 34". Schoenberg's "Music for the Cinema". There's a lost Balanchine that can STAY lost.

well my vote for the Balanchine That Should Go Away is Persephone. Shudder.

I feel compelled, however, to mention that even the Best Of Them can produce clunkers, and that mentioning someone's name in connection with a Bad Ballet does not mean that this person cannot produce a Good Ballet more often than not.

But I'm soooo curious!

I'm also interested in expensive failures, and what they say about the choreographers/companies that produce (or revive!) them.

Definitely Jerome Bel's "Véronique Doisneau" sould be left into oblivion...(saw some of ir recently...Oh, God.. )

My vote goes for a very dull 1993 ballet that was already revived in 1999, Peter Martins' collaboration with Wynton Marsalis, "Jazz (Six Syncopated Movements)." I wouldn't rush to see his "Reliquary" again either.

Sorry, but I am going to disagree strongly here with what seems a universal opinion on BT. I like this piece on so many levels: formal, because it makes us pay attention to parts of the structure of a dance that occur while Le Grand Star is performing (this kind of taking apart is something music has done for years, btw); emotional, b/c it makes us consider the life of a corps dancer--who in the French system is fixed in status. I think we have more than enough opportunities to watch soloists do their thing in ways that raise our pulse; it's poignant and revealing to have a corps dancer's role--and life--explicated in a way that makes us think.

No need to apologize, Ray. Without disagreement -- of the courteous kind -- we wouldn't have much discussion.

Ray, I've also liked what I have read about this idea. of course, it is possible that it's an idea that comes across better on paper than in reality, like so many concept pieaces. One reviewer felt that it was worth doing, but possibly not on a big opera house stage.

Has anyone else seen it? Has it travelled? Does the title change depending on who is doing the dancing?

I agree on both counts, pmeja. In fact, I tend to believe that it is the most successfully creative artists who, when they fail, leave the most resounding clunkers. Part of it may be due to our elevated expectations ("Can this mess be from the same man who gave us Concerto Barocco ???"), but also because these artists go further out on a limb.

I wonder whether the BTers of a hundred years hence will dig up this thread in bewilderment, recalling the ecstasy that surrounded the mounting of Balanchine's "lost" Persephone.

I think 'Fountain of Bakshisarai' could be 'gently laid by', as some of the New Age things say. If the mere presence of Sizova in something won't transform it, it probably is hopeless, isn't it? Oh well, some people may like that androgynous character that I haven't had the patience to figure out yet (and won't, but somebody can tell me.)

I wonder if maybe it never is done anyway.

sigh; i was *so* hoping for a revival of PAMTGG...

How about any ballets with any 80s rock music? Why do we continue to perform them in the 21st century?

Because the 80's are vintage now!! (and hence chic, isn't...?)

(But would they have to change the name to include Met Life?)

You have convinced me that they need to revive this. I used to work occasionally for United Media (Peanuts/Schultz, etc.) in the period when the PanAm Building was turning into MetLife. I so loved the logo at the top of the building, and even the building itself (which everybody else hated), that I suffered Proustian pain when they changed the PanAm sign--and for several years I would always get upset when I'd see all that early 60s-style zingy jet-set stuff having been changed into a deathful horror. I even had an argument with my boss that it was STILL the PanAm Building! I later found they'd shipped the sign to Florida, where I think it is in some sort of weirdish little museum.

But I now am the only person who wants to see PAMTGG revived, because I never saw it, and it would make the city a better place to live in again...

Me too.




I smell a big sponsorship opportunity here.

sounds like we're building a great list of repertory for the Bad Ballet Company..

Add Dracula and you have a season! I'm surprised that no company has contacted us yet to plan next season's programs for them. Umbrella title: "Lost Masterpieces".

There's an operative word contained in the sentence immediately preceding this one.

One of the dancers in the cast of PAMTGG told me that at the last performance Mr. Balanchine told the cast to wear whatever they wanted to wear.

Sadly, I think many ballet companies are already compiling and implementing their own bad rep lists, w/o any help from us. The pdd of Ignorance + Arrogance is a popular first choice among ballet company ADs, EDs, boards, and a few stars.

And BTW the eponymous Veronique Doisneau does change name to match its performer.

It was something: Dame Merle Park was miscast as Isadora Duncan. I think Lynn Seymour would have been the best choice; but Ashton had already created a minor one act gem for her called "Dances in the Manner of Isadora Duncan" a few years earlier. MacMillan's full-length "Isadora" would have been an inferior 're-dux' for her. She had already scored a major triumph as the original Mary Vetsera in his (then) most recent full-evening work, "Mayerling" (1978). MacMillan might've wished to 'share the joy' by creating a full-length on Park for a change, but this was the wrong subject. Sibley created "Manon" (1974), although the role was created on Jennifer Penney due to Sibley's illness at the time, and Seymour created "Anastasia" (1971). Seymour at that point, had three full-lengths created for her: Mary, Anastasia and Juliet > if you count "Romeo & Juliet" (1965), in which Fonteyn got the premiers in London and New York. Seymour left the Royal in 1980 to direct the Bavarian State Opera Ballet in Munich. She returned for a short period in 1981 when this ballet was being choreographed, then she retired.


Park was laid out on the back seat of a Bugatti convertible onstage,
with the driver's side door wide open. I vaguely recall that she was
wearing a suit, with a matching cape and wide hat, complete with cigarette
and cigarette holder. What I can't remember is how the 'dance' got to that point.

Has it ever been performed by someone else ? I haven't heard about it being performed at the POB since the season it was premiered (it was Ms Doisneau's last season before her retirement...) And probably some parts of the content would have been to be modified to suit another performer's career/ thoughts (not that I'm looking forward to seeing it again- I found some parts a bit amusing, but to me it was really anecdotical, and easily forgotten...)

I'd like to pose a side question to this -

Instead of ballets that should not be revived because they aren't good enough, does anyone feel there are ballets that are so dated/have outlived their purpose that they no longer merit revival at all?

Papeetepatrick - I was in SF window shopping last weekend. The stores on the Castro have retro PanAm bags in them - even odder, the whole street was being retro-fitted with signage to look sort-of as it did in 1979 for the filming of a biopic on Harvey Milk. Homes in SF were priced to sell at $60K, gas was 0.65 a gallon for regular.

Well how about something like "A Tragedy of Fashion"? (although didn't someone try that?) Other than its value as a curiosity by Ashton, why bother?

(How bizarre that must have been in San Francisco!)

So did you buy a house?

Thank you, Leigh, I'm glad standards are being upheld for those of us who can't update without pain . I became so well-known for weird attachment to the PanAm logos that an old lady friend found 2 old PanAm blankets of the sort used on the planes--at an Eglise de St. Bernard rummage sale on 14th Street.

PAMTGG (speaking slightly more seriously) sounds like one of those that are too dated. I think 'Glass Pieces' is already very dated, and I wouldn't see it again. At the risk of bordering on rudeness, hasn't 'Friandises' already evaporated, in any case I rather doubt it's constantly on people's minds as something they eagerly anticipate, being soooooo 2005 as it is...

I'd put Bolender's Souvenirs in that category. And I think NYCB has dumped Balanchine's one-act Swan Lake there as well.

Perhaps we can also amend Leigh's classification to include ballets that posterity seems to have doomed to oblivion, at least in terms of inspiring major revivals. Balanchine's Pas de Dix comes to mind, as well as his older versions of Valse Fantasie. And what's happened to Allegro Brillante?

Of course all of this depends on what your sense of "purpose" is (i.e., challenges/showcases dancers, promotes a company's or a choreographer's artistic vision, speaks to someone's aesthetic hunger, etc.), or if "dated" carries a negative connotation for you. To me, for instance, Les Patineurs feels incredibly dated and pursues no aesthetic purpose--I can't imagine the gain it confers on any company performing it. I'm sure others feel differently!

While doing some research on Bourree Fantasque prior to the upcoming Miami performances, I came across the following comment by Arlene Croce regarding an NYCB revival in 1993:
I hope she's not right about this particular scene "not working anymore." However, I've noticed that certain kinds of humor often do not travel well across the generations.

Perhaps with the advent of two comedians of the calibre of Leclerq and Robbins, the first movement of Bourree F MIGHT work again.

I was just reading last week about how awful Aurora's Wedding was in Miami, and the critic for the Herald went so far as to say that that ballet was dead -- sounds like a terrible performance, with from other accounts I read a very bad performance of the music. Well, bad performances of Sleeping Beauty are unbelievably ghastly because of how beautiful a great one can be -- this is the absolute test of lack of imagination. We recently saw ABT's Paloma Herrera and 4 cavaliers in unlikely garments do the Rose Adagio in such a deadly way I could not believe how much I hated it -- but it was the personnel and the direction that killed it, but that doesn't mean Sleeping Beauty is over with.

Well, I vote for a Dracula festival, with all the versions in rotating rep.

This could run alongside a modern dance project I've always wanted to see, called "Everyone's Dances with Chairs, All Performed at Once"

I think perhaps there's a subsection of this side question -- ballets that need to take a break and come back after they've shifted from "dated" to "retro" (or whatever titles are appropriate at the time)

For ages "Western Symphony" made me cringe, the cultural cliches grated on my sensibilities like chalk on a blackboard. But the last couple of times I've seen it, in the Pacific Northwest Ballet staging, I've been able to get beyond the stereotypes (and the pastiche score) to appreciate the wit and facility of the choreography.

But then, I still love Patineurs in all its coy glory.

Can we have that along with my "Dances that Begin and/or End On the Floor" festival?

I would add Balanchine's Alma Mater (1935) and Concerto For Jazz Band And Orchestra (1971), two ballets that seem to be very much of their time and should probably stay there permanently. Another Balanchine that might fall into this catagory is Tyl Ulenspiegel (1951). It's probably dated too, but it looks so darn interesting and Jerome Robbins as the title character has mentioned that he got some of the best notices of his dancing career from this ballet.

I agree, Sandi--with certain ballets, familiarity breeds a kind of contempt that might just signal a siesta time, either for the performer or the viewer (i.e., my feelings about Nutcracker upon retiring--"good riddance!"--have softened considerably). And I do love things retro!

Maybe a good additional category would be ballets that aren't "timeless," perhaps, but have a kind of retro charm. Lander's Etudes? Kilian's Sinfonietta? Stars and Stripes? This category would be distinct from the let's-revive-it-b/c-it's-so-whacky category: PAMTGG, etc.

Interesting idea, though I wouldn't have put Etudes in that category.

My feeling is that there is no ballet so bad that the right company can't make it interesting -- kinda like "Springtime for Hitler," the right artists can sometimes find the tone that makes it work. I've certainly seen ballets -- Fall River Legend, for example -- performed by the home company (ABT) as if "this old thing is just too embarrassing, I can't believe I have to go out here and do that" -- just after having seen it perfoirmed by the Oakland Ballet (I know, I harp on this theme too much, but it's the truth) as if they had no idea it was old-hat and they ALL knew people who came from families seething with hostitlity and they really sank their teeth into it and Summer Lee Rhatigan made Lizzie into a GREAT role, and hte performance melted the walls it was so disturbing and upsetting and fantastically realized.

Similarly, when San Francisco Ballet did Jinx, which was choreographed by SFB director Lew Christensen and is probably his masterpiece, they all looked too light -- especially the women -- too supple, young, and gifted -- to create the Fellini-esque mood of a down-at-heels circus of quietly-desperate performers that Stravinsky's music SO ably supports -- but the OAKLAND Ballet made it riveting. They had the weight, the timing, the emotional depth, the chunkier bodies, and the tradition of character-dancing it took to make the whippings look violent.

So much of what's lost is style, phrasing, posture -- if the style could be somehow revived, even the most dated ballet could suddenly look like a window onto a strange but fascinating world.

After 9/11, Joanne Woodward decided to stage the VERY old-fashioned play Our Town -- with Paul Newman as hte stage manager and a fantastic supporting cast. It was filmed for PBS (I guess) and broadcast -- anyway, it's out on DVD and rentable, andmy God! that'll take you back. It's wonderful. Check it out.

Excellent--contested categories are always more interesting!

I meant to respond to this earlier. This could be quite an epic, as it seems I'm seeing new dances with chairs all the time!We could even expaaaaand it to include famous sitters in ballet: Lizzie Borden's mother at the end of Fall River Legend? The kids in Nutcracker Act 2? Coppelia (can't remember if she's sitting, actually...)? The King and Queen in so many ballets? And isn't there a character in The Concert who sits without a chair (now that's deep).

Helgi Tomasson choreographed a solo for Evelyn Cisneros, wearing a red dress and a black shawl, and with a chair, called Confidencias.

of course then we could add a ballet i saw once by karole armitage, on the life of michael millken, where an entire office of people danced with their chairs..

What do you all think of ballets that were choreographed specifically for a Very Special Occasion? For instance, Ashton's Birthday Offering. Or Balanchine's Cortege Hongrois, which was intended as a farewell valentine to Melissa Hayden. The original ballet had an elaborate flower procession, concluding with Balanchine himself bringing out a bouquet for Hayden.
I think the appeal of these Very Special Occasion ballets tends to dilute when it's no longer that Very Special Occasion. Just my opinion, of course.