Since no one else has reported this - there is now a four part, complete performance of Symphony in C by the Mariinsky on YouTube, with Vishneva, Lopatkina, Dumchenko and Noriadze. Or at least there is until the Balanchine police catch up with it,

Popularlibrary: That was glorious - thanks for the alert, and thanks to Paradiselost89, who posted the clips.

I assume that was Vishneva in the first movement; who was her partner? I wasn't too impressed by his solo, although he seemed better later on, if I got the faces right. Lopatkina was exquisite in the second movement. Does she have the longest legs in the known universe?

Now, if somebody would post Serenade...

Peggy

It seems to be: 1rst Nioradze, 2nd Lopatkina, 3rd Vishneva, 4rth Dumchenko

The 1rst movement guy seems a lot like Victor Baranov who used to dance this part

The music of the 2nd movement is so slow it sounds almost decomposed - that must be a new record slow even by Lopatkina's standards.

Moderator note: In case there was confusion, one of the Moderators made the first post in this thread invisible for a bit because it went against our "only post links to youtube in connection with a discussion" rule. I reinstated it because people had commented on the post. PLEASE feel free to discuss this performance, but please remember that our YouTube policy is quite simple: post links to youtube material ONLY IN CONNECTION WITH AN ONGOING DISCUSSION. We don't want this forum to become a list of "check this out on youtube" posts. Thank you.

Not finding 3rd movement. It seems to be a repeat of 2nd, but maybe I should just watch 2nd through until the end? Perhaps 3rd comes after that?

The reactions I have are more choreographic than Kirov related.

IMO, best performance of Symphony in C I've ever seen. And yes, I've seen NYCB live, and yes, it was a good cast. This is fantastic. My only wish is that Balanchine had the resources to use a larger male corps, as the Maryinsky could deploy theirs to excellent effect.

Thank you Hans. I may look, but choreographically I am left empty.

The Third Movement starts about half-way through the section marked "3."

The long-distance and fuzzy videography make watching this a labor of love. For me, it's marvellous to have the entire ballet available as an aide memoire. Watching it, bits and pieces of past live performances (2004 and 2006) came back to mind and almost to life.

Thanks, popularlibrary, for giving us a Heads Up on this video. Thanks also to Alexandra, for reminding us of the Ballet Talk guidelines for YouTube posting.

That Kirov performance is not my favorite SiC because it's like molasses. My favorite's the Royal Ballet's from the 90s with Yoshida, Bussell, Benjamin, and Bull. I know Leigh hates the RB's take on it, but I can't get over how synergistic the English port de bras and epaulement, as well as their own brand of attack, are with this kind of Balanchine.

Speaking of Kirov videos on YouTube, in relation to the general high regard for Kondaurova in the Kirov's recent NYC residency, there's a bunch of videos of Kondaurova and Tereshkina dancing Forsythe's In the middle somewhat elevated. You have to search for "dance with forsythe". There are two videos, and they also link to Kondaurova's Steptext (incorrectly labeled as something with Bach's cello sonata). The video is very fuzzy, but you can tell who's who. Some of her special movement quality is lost on the video, but you can get an idea of it.

--Andre

The second movement looked a little Allegra Kent-ish to me--very beautiful, but the narrative thrust seems to be lost. It's maybe a string of quotations. And yes, "molassassy."

Part of the slowness or deliberateness may be the Russian style, where every movement seems to reach through a series of plateaus or locks or channels before it finishes. At least with the women in my limited experience--watching the lovely Maria Kotchekova here in San Francisco, and the Kirov here on its last two tours in Sleeping Beauty and Jewels (that Jewels performance was really something). The men, Korsakov, and Konsuntsev and Zelensky always seemed much freer.

Why do companies always smudge--even SF Ballet does--one of the most profound parts of the second movement of Symphony in C, the part where the foot of the ballerina--often a stylus or cursor in Balanchine--is guided to penetrate, and hold there for a beat, the space of the virtual hoop held up by two of the secondary dancers? The Kirov breaks it up and treats it as if it were a bit of court politeness. It becomes modest and inconsequential.

I can't speak to the matter of specific details. But as a matter of overall effect, this is one of the most powerful and emotionally moving Second Movements I remember seeing.

The performance has mystery and weight, and almost a sacramental quality. When the ballerina dances, she gives outward expression to what appears to be a deeply meditative spiritual center. The slow tempo supports a kind of dreaminess. Everyone else is an acolyte, important mainly insofar as they respond to or provide a setting for her.

The only time I have had this feeling was with Farrell, who was mesmerising. I can also imagine Kent having a similar effect.

I am sorry about posting a link without discussion - I was just distracted and in a hurry. Thanks for the responses, and I'll be more careful in the future!

Yes, it's a nice performance of SiC, though with some of the usual disconnects Macaulay noted today in his review of the Mariinsky's Balanchine program at City Center. There are all those little moments when the music gets away and the dancers scramble to catch up, with resulting hiccups in the phrasing, all the slightly too long preparations and the failure to grasp that Balanchine's connections are essential tissue, not stuff to get past on the way to the big steps. And, as AM notes, too much acting, even here, especially in the second movement. Lopatkina is a wonderful, wonderful dancer but she's not Allegra Kent (well, who ever was) who let the choreography works its magic without all those peripheral notes and comments. When UL drops the 'acting' and finds her way into the choreography for its own sake, she will be one of the greatest exponents of this movement ever, but she's not quite there yet, I think.

It reminds me of a comment - and my aging memory has lost the source completely - about Baryshnikov to the effect that he found that if he danced the way Balanchine wanted, he had to go against most of his own Kirov training, and ultimately, would have had to give up the technical grounds that enabled him to dance the Russian classics as he did. If anyone remembers and can identify this I would be grateful.

There is much more Mariinsky Balanchine out there, but not necessarily on YouTube (the copyright watchers for Balanchine are very efficient). There was a complete Concerto Barocco on YouTube recently, but I don't know if it's still there. If you go to Yahoo's videos, however, you will find a complete Serenade as well as a complete Ballet Imperial (Tereshkina) and La Valse (Pavlenko). Each is in four segments, and the thought of trying to post twelve links makes me dizzy, but you can find them easily enough by searching. They were provided by the Mad about Mariinsky site, and have so far not excited the Balanchine Police squad - as far as I know all three ballets have been there since 2006, the year of the performances.

The Serenade does not have a starry cast, but is a little less molasses in tempo than was apparently the case on stage here and I liked it a lot. La Valse is a case of serious culture clash, with everyone acting strenuously while the ballet's impact just drains away. Ballet Imperial if fine if also overacted, and full of the usual technical problems that attend that gut-buster of a ballet. For all of us who can't get to see the Mariinsky live, they are at least some indication of how the relationship with Mr. B is getting on.

I agree with most of what has been said about the 3 allegro movements. Popularlibrary, your image of the "dances scrambling to catch up" because the music has gotten in the way is wonderfully -- or sadly, depending on one's point of view -- accurate.

I'm genuinely confused about the charges of "overacting."

Here are two sets of questions:

1) "Over"-acting as compared to what? It seems to me that a good deal of Balanchine dancing in the 60s and 70s was quite dramatic -- although there was always an effort to avoid extreme facial expressions -- no matter what Balanchine said in some of his interviews. Farrell and Kent are dancers who were especially effective at suggesting a profound inwardness though which and from which their bodies moved. Would it be possible to point to specific examples of Lopatkina's peformance that are merely "peripheral" to the role or which cross over the line into over-acting?

2) In another thread, Leigh talked about criticisms of the Kirov approach to Balanchine from the American (and especially New York City Ballet) perspective. Is the Mariinsky simply "being the Mariinsky" here? Or, again, has it crosssed some sort of line which should never be crossed?

Hans, just for the record, when did you see NYCB do Symphony in C? Thanks.

This is a hard one to put into words without sinking into great clouds of obscurantism, not to say pretension. Oh, well - here goes, anyway. I'll skip Lopatkina, whom I quite like (though Quiggin has already mention the fudging of the dramatic foot movements), and get right on to the big stuff. As compared to what? I would call it the Balanchine base-line - the concepts resulting from his years of creating dancers to dance his ballets, from the founding of the NYCB till his death. You saw the company in those years, and you note so accurately how dramatically they danced. But it came, I think, out of different principles, leading to different results, than the Mariinsky's. It is not that everyone must copy the old NYCB now and forever - that would be a disaster, not to mention impossible. All those companies never taught by Mr. B have to learn his language in their own way and with their own creative insight. Still, it is a language and you can only mess with the grammar, syntax and vocabulary so far before you are speaking, at best, a dialect, and at worst, gibberish. (Well, I told you this would get cloudy.)

To me, it comes down to a few principles I think mattered to Balanchine: emptiness, gesture as poetry, non-explanation. As we all know, Balanchine was a profoundly religious man, and I think there is little doubt that he applied the religious notion of emptying oneself as basic to dancing his work. The Mariinsky, and other companies, tend to look at a role as either becoming someone else or imposing your own personality, putting on all the role-defining feathers, dressing up, conquering the part. Balanchine, on the contrary, wanted his dancers to avoid all those things, to become clear, empty, naked, direct conduits to the music/steps. It is the mystic's notion that the less you have the more you are - that the inwardness you spoke of happens only when the dancer gets out of his/her own way - and out of the choreography's way. He knew that it freed a dancer's true individuality and so did his dancers, who have commented on the phenomenon in books and interviews (please don't make me go look them all up). If dancers give themselves over to the choreography as the music reveals it, become naked to it, they will reveal the role and the work with a fullness that cannot happen when the dancer's ego is trying to manipulate the part. And they will reveal themselves - was there ever a greater collection of individuals than the NYCB's dancers in the 50s, 60s and 70s? No two ever danced the same role the same way.

Balanchine spoke of dancers as "poets of gesture" - as artists who could feel the weight, emphasis, and drama of each moment, each movement. Watch the Mariinsky La Valse to see dancers acting strenuously rather than feeling how to dance the choreography. Pavlenko makes faces, adds pauses, strikes poses and largely fails to capture the role - and remember Pat McBride, whose gesture sprang unadorned from the choreographic texture, from the rhythm and musical color, and suggested innocence with a propulsive undercurrent of corruption that was overwhelming. The Mariinsky dancer doing the death figure behaves (and looks) like Dracula, which is unconvincing and ruins the effect - but remember Francisco Moncion, whose restrained use of gesture and rhythmic tension made him the embodiment of the lure of self-destruction. The Mariinsky over-acts. Balanchine taught his people to be, and to unfurl their dancing from the immediacy of their own presences fusing with the music and the steps. It is a hard lesson to learn, especially in a period that so values sheer acrobatic technical accomplishment, as if it were the same thing as great dancing.

What the Mariinsky, and many other companies, do is explain the role, comment upon it, use pauses, tossed heads, catches of breath, swooning arms and backs, and a whole repertory of tricks to convey - apart from the choreography - what the choreography is supposed to be doing, but the audience is too naive to get without signs, pointers and blackboards, and the choreography, it is understood, could never convey if one just danced it. It comes from insecurity, I suppose, and lack of trust in the work or themselves. It is over-acting, and it is profoundly un-Balanchinian. Wrong tempos are part of this as well - Serenade or the second movement of SiC do not become more profound the more slowly you drag out the music. The dragged-out tempi just become more unneccesary 'explanation', missing the constant ebb and flow of Serenade, and the "moon going across the sky" vision of the Bizet. The Mariinsky do many wonderful things with Balanchine, but they are in the infancy stage with him - they will get there I hope, but not just yet.

Jack, I saw NYCB dance Symphony in C several years ago at NYST and more recently here at the Kennedy Center with Abi Stafford, Wendy Whelan, Sterling Hyltin, and Ashley Bouder.

I think it is interesting to read about dancers not being supposed to act in Balanchine because it appears to me that NYCB does it all the time. During NYCB's latest visit to DC, I actually had to stifle laughter throughout a good bit of the performance as the acting was so overdone, especially in Serenade (which is pretty melodramatic even without added acting). This particular video is not clear enough for me to compare, but generally I find the Maryinsky to be pretty restrained as far as that sort of thing goes.

Excellent post, popularlibrary, especially



I think Darci Kistler says somewhere "You're in love with your partner / you never look at your partner." The pas de deuxs in Balanchine--especially in Stravinsky Violin Concerto--are mostly really dual monologues. That's why I--I know I'm really in the minority on this--find it so hard to watch the Paris Opera Ballet Jewels; it's nuanced out with coy looks and extra gestures and extra elasticity (with the exception of the great solos in Emeralds). Balanchine should be sharp and full of shifting planes. He's a high cubist, by way of Braque of 1911 and Tatlin and Constructivism.

I did enjoy the couple (I couldn't really make out what the corps were doing) in the third movement of the Kirov hand-held Symphony in C, sort of in tandem, Gene Kelly/Fred Astaire-ish for a stretch.

Much thanks, Quiggin! I do find it hard to write about this sort of thing without sinking into babbling obscurity!

As for the POB Jewels, dearly as I love the company I have to agree with you that it's not their happiest hour. Or maybe that's the trouble with it - far too light, bright and sparkling, with very little of the necessary weight or drama.

And for Hans - I'm sorry to say that the current NYCB seems to have traveled light years away from the company as it was under Balanchine's direction. In too many ways, they're no better at dancing Balanchine than the Mariinsky, RB, POB, Bolshoi, etc. - indeed, I think they're worse because they should know better.

Yes, I only started watching NYCB in 1998, so I can only comment on what's been done since then.

This is very beautifully expressed, popularlibrary. Thank you so much for resopnding to my question. Although there are many critics of the way this or that company or dancer does Balanchine, there are few who are willing or able to go so deeply into why this is, for them, the case. You have given me a lot to think about.

From what I've read, Balanchine did indeed strive for "non-explanation" and did believe in the expressive sufficiency of gesture and movement per se, when talking to his dancers and explaining his performance ideal. It seems to me that he also allowed, in practice, dancers to color the role, heightening or subduing certain elements -- always within limits. I simply don't remember people talking all that much about a single, pure Balanchine performance standard, at least not when Balanchine was alive.

My impression of Lopatkina's adagio is that she is definitely "within limits." It's one of those cases in which it's best to agree to disagree. She seems to have reached into the ballet and found a spirituality and serenity that are implicit in the choreography and in the unearthly oboe music. You don't often find that. Farrell achieved a similar effect -- though at a faster tempo, which now seems even more of a miracle than it did at the time.

Can anyone tell me how to access the Ballet Imperial clips on Yahoo. I click, but only get a black screen. Does one have to register to use the site?

Hi Bart: I was having the same problem as you, so I just left the video running and it turns out the 'black' is actually a picture of the curtain, which has not yet gone up! Wait a while, and it's a fairly long time, maybe a quarter of that bar thing at the bottom, and everything will be OK.

Peggy

The time counter is at 9:24 (going backwards) when the curtain rises.

(I edited this response slightly because apparently I can't conjugate verbs late at night!)

There's fragments of a Bolshoi Symphony in C floating about Youtube, focusing primarily on Alexandrova and Tsiskaridze (3'rd movement and finale). It's quite interesting to contrast the articulation of movements and tempi between the two Russian troupes. One does le Palais de Cristal and the other the Great White Abstraction (land ho!) and they could be doing two completely different ballets.

As to the acting - I recently had the pleasure of _finally_ seeing Moncion as Death. He does not act. Instead the sensuousness and brutality of Death emanates from somewhere inside of him. The most successful performers of Balanchine, I've noticed (in my extremely limited experience), have been those who have been able to draw upon aspects of their own personality to resonate within the choreography. You do not have to _be_ McBride or Farrell or Luders, but that aspect of your personality which you draw upon to perform his/her/their roles need to be in some way compatible. Sympathetic vibrations, perhaps?

Also, just wanted to note that the original clip for Mariinsky's Symphony in C is in fact _extremely_ high quality. As in, we can marvel (without squinting) at Irma Nioradze's eyebrows. Youtube has quietly added a higher quality function to most of their recent videos recently - I think all videos within the last 4-6 months or so will stream a higher quality version if you add the following command (without the inverted commas) to the end of your Youtube link: '&fmt=18'. Instead of streaming flash files, Youtube will instead serve up higher quality mp4 files - they're twice as big and two to three times as sharp.

Re-edited again to say that the ParadiseLost version is fact a repost of a lower resolution recording from user ketinoa on Youtube. The _original_ files that ketinoa posted were indeed high quality. The flash reposts are unfortunately just flash. Thank you ParadiseLost, but, alas!

To save people frustration, the Alexandrova-Tsiskaridze clip is no longer on YouTube, which is too bad, because she is simply wonderful there. It was pulled for copyright violation, no doubt, by request of The Trust.

I suspect that the Trust searches not only video websites for unauthorized postings, but probably discussion boards as well, to see if posters have found some that they've missed.

So far, though, they seem to have missed the K-M video.

Thanks much, emilienne, for the &fmt=18 hint.

Best I've EVER liked Nioradze -- in fact , I love her phrasing in this -- eboth first and last movements, and she's dazzling in hte finale.

lopatkina can dance both slow and fast -- I really like her adagio; it has its own integrity, it's her own, and it's wonderful. Rather like Tanny's; her balances are more confident htan either Tanny's or Allegra's. maybe like Toumanova's might have been I love hte way she's moving all the time.... the slow fouettes are REALLY wonderful, and hte big develloppe is magisterial, wonderfully phrased -- and his transition from the one hand to hte other is really beautiful, too. her pivot to arabesque is magnificent and hte penchee is glorious.

Didn't make me cry, like Allegra does, but I love it anyway.

If you think she's cold, check her out in in the Night http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dts4SQbiHdM&fmt=18
and think again.

A couple of weeks ago I typed in Suzanne Farrell on Youtube and much to my delight Afternoon Of A Faun came up with Suzanne partnered by Afshin Mofid. I was going to PM Farrell Fan the news when I returned from an errand a few hours later however by that time it was already gone!
Sorry Lou

OK, I'm a technological butterfingers. I tried adding the code to the end of the YouTube url, to the url for the individual video, and several other less obvious ways. None of them got me a bigger or clearer picture. Please, take pity on the maladroit. Exactly where and when do you add this code? Picture instructions and block printing would be appreciated. Thanks!

I went back and checked on the ParadiseLost clip and it looks like a second generation copy (and here we thought the digital age would get rid of such things!), meaning that unfortunately the clip will not clear up anymore than the way it was originally posted.

However, if you try it on some other clip...(sorry for the gratuitous linking), say...a clip of Lezhnina being coached in Sleeping Beauty by Kolpakova before her debut (here)...compare to the same clip presented in higher quality here. Kolpakova's eyebrows are considerably clearer.

popularlibrary, you are most likely appending the command correctly (remember, add &fmt=18 to the END of your Youtube link), but it really depends on the quality of the clip in question. Most people upload higher quality clips to Youtube than you would think - Youtube then reconverts the clips to a lower quality to save on bandwidth.

Edited to say that Youtube has added a link at the bottom of the video screen to indicate whether you can indeed change between standard and high quality video for a particular clip. The screen icon is orange for standard quality and black for high. HOWEVER, the high quality clips are still nowhere as good as the mp4 clips that you will obtain by appending the command '&fmt=18'.

Excuse me for picking a nit, and I don't mean to contradict your very valid point, but there are significant and obvious differences in the choreography of P de C and S in C -- notably in the second and esp. third mvts. Slower tempi and color coding are not the only distinctions between the two.

While I like the Kirov's costumes qua costumes, they don't produce the intended effect -- the stage full of color as in POB's old production -- or at least as rendered by YouTube. If K-M wanted to use color, they should have gone all the way and not diluted the picture by mixing white with the colors.

Thanks, PeggyR and carbro, for your suggestions re Yahoo. I suspect my problem is bigger than that, however. I've just downloaded an update of AVG and have noticed that I seem to have been given a big more protection from the unexpected than I wanted. Just have to figure out how to get rid of the barriers I don't want and keep those I need.

I found watching Symphony in C several times to be a revelation. I can't wait until the next live performance. I hope I can access Ballet Imperial before it, too, disappears.

Re: the Balanchine police. I wish these people could accept that imperfect videos of the sort posted on YouTube are not likely to replace the purchase of high-qualitiy dvd's (if there WERE many of these for Balanchine) or going to the theater. Ballet lovers use them mostly as we would use sketches of a museum masterpiece. Watching them tends, if anything, to encourage purchase of the real thing. As far as young viewers are concerned, couldn't we just consider them as full-paying audiences of the future and give them a little slack right now. It's almost sickening to think that a young ballet student has the opportunity to watch an infinity of Corsaire pas de deux (many of them dreadful) while not being permitted to see high-level performances of some of the greatest art works of the 20th century.

I agree completely, and then remembered one of the more outrageous sets of Balanchine clips I've seen, which I copied as an Awful Reminder of one reason the Trust keeps a watchful eye. A ballet academy in Cadiz apparently decided, sans any input from the BT, to do a performance of Midsummer Night's Dream. Of course they couldn't do half the steps, so they changed them to something easier, or left them out. There weren't enough boys, so Puck became a girl, and Titania danced in her bower minus her cavalier (they also couldn't afford a shell for her), and there was no act two. It seems to be gone now, but it is as hilariously godawful as you can imagine, which is why I saved it for my own delectation when I get too persnickity about how the major companies are doing Balanchine these days. I expect the academy learned it from the PNW dvd, but complete B-ballets on YouTube might lead to more Unfortunate Episodes like this.

The Trust's concern is not preventing people from seeing the ballets. What they are trying to prevent is unauthorized, inaccurate and substandard stagings. I can't remember whether I read that or Barbara Horgan mentioned it at some event. If they were stingy, the Balanchine videos at the NYPL and other libraries would not be available to anyone who asked.

I think they are correct in protecting (to the best they can) the ballets, but I still wish they'd leave the videos up for those of us who will never stage a ballet beyond the solos in our living rooms.

I believe the Trust (or any copyright holder) also has to make reasonable efforts to protect its property, otherwise they could lose their rights to it if someone challenges them. Sort of like, "You didn't care about those videos then, why do you care now?"

--Andre

A friend emailed me yesterday: "I know YouTube is supposed to be subversive, and
we all expect favorite clips to be removed at any time, so it was
interesting to hear at last night's New Works Festival Symposium on the
"emerging role of technology in communicating dance" how YouTube,
dancer blogs, digital diaries, etc., are going to be essential in
helping a new generation find entry points into the closed, arcane (not
to geeks but to normal people) world of ballet. Is it possible the
"Balanchine police" have already removed the Marinsky Symphony in C
anyway? Nancy Reynolds of the Balanchine Foundation was at last
night's symposium and said Mr B would be in the digital forefront
today."

THe whole symposium is podcast on the SFB website, so to hear what participants actually siad instead of just a precis, go to sfballet.org

Thanks so much, Paul, for pointing out the video of the symposium.

The whole internet is subversive, not just YouTube, but perhaps nothing embodies its subversiveness better than YouTube -- or, when it lasted, the Howard Dean campaign. Was that only four years ago???

Again, I couldn't make the symposium today -- but friends hwho did told me on the subway tonight that Helgi said he's been watching the Mariinsky Symphony in C on Youtube. They may have heard it wrong -- but it should be on the podcast oftoday's

Yes! But the saying "cutting off your nose to spite your face" comes to mind in thinking about the way the Trust exercises its priorities. To prevent unauthorized productions, the Trust supports a kind of cultural amnesia that has the effect of maintaining the general American ignorance of 20th-century ballet. (Just how dangerous is a bad production of Midsummer, anyway? Some legitimate ones are pretty bad, too.) And to address Andre's point--"I believe the Trust (or any copyright holder) also has to make reasonable efforts to protect its property, otherwise they could lose their rights to it if someone challenges them. Sort of like, 'You didn't care about those videos then, why do you care now?'"--a simple solution would be for the Trust/NYPL/Balanchine Foundation/whoever to post the clips themselves, to back up Nancy Reynolds's promise of bringing Balanchine into the Internet age.

As for the Trust's magnanimity in re allowing any Jo Shmo to watch NYCB videos: it costs them nothing to do this and, in fact, would be unethical if they didn't: those video materials are part of our SHARED cultural heritage now, historical materials tended by a PUBLIC library.

This distills a very important point into a few words. This amnesia has an especially harmful effect on lovers of the performing-arts outside the New York City area and on students not at SAB or an equivalent prestige school.

Although it's wonderful that Balanchine performance videos are available at selected, specialist public libraries, this seems to be primarily for scholarly purposes or the use of those within the profession. What I would love to see is a broader public access to filmed performances for the kind of people who buy the tickets, take the classes, and might actually aspire to dance the roles.

The Symphony in C that we are talking about is something projects excitement -- and the sense of great art -- even though it could not possibly substitute for a high-level dvd or a live performance. Even if one considers such slips to be a kind of "Classic Comic Book" version, visually speaking, they can be a marvellous introduction, conveying, however imperfectly, just how thrilling this work can be.

It's Balanchine as a popular maker of brilliant dances who is being lost to a vast potential audience. Ballet professionals and aestheticians will always admire his work. It's the people who don't know Balanchine, who have been told that "Balanchine is good for you" but not had the chance to see why, who are the big losers.

On the side of the Trust there are probably horrendous difficulties getting clearance rights from all the people who were ever involved in the production, even at this late date, it seems.

As far as Symphony in C there seem to be two great accounts of the second movement from Allegra Kent and Conrad Ludlow, in color and another (maybe) in black and white. The big thing is that students are watching the Paris Opera Ballet and Kirov's versions and learning from those, rather from the vintage Balanchine footage. So these version are being transmitted. It's like learning your Haydn through Brahms (though Balanchine himself did prefer Brahms to Haydn)--or something like that.

I just checked the NYPL's research dance catalog again, and yes, it lists nearly 1200 entries for Balanchine media material - mostly films and videos/dvds. You cannot see any of it, though it includes NYCB performances of almost every Balanchine ballet they ever danced, sometimes several versions recorded at different periods, unless you go to the library and get permission. Obviously these films are not for profane and impure eyes such as those of the (ugh) public. Now I love the New York Public Library - I worked in it for years - it's a great institution, but this is a policy which ought to be radically altered. Not only for the dance collection, but also for the music and theater collections, which have equally many hidden treasures.

If it takes working things out with the Balanchine Trust, which seems to have become as overprotective as a hysterical mother hen, then do it. It may take a lot of legal work and hassle, but surely it can be managed. I made a joke about a bad student hash of Midsummer Night's Dream, but with all their vigilance, the BT didn't stop it, and as long as there are not only commercial dvds but all that impossible to detect or deter technology you can get into a theater these days, they aren't going to stop that sort of thing any time soon.

The sane thing to do is get correct versions published, allow dance lovers access to this material - probably on-line - and monitor for more quality and accuracy than copyright. This problem has already hit the music, film and television worlds and they've responded sensibly by providing the material themselves, which satisfies the public while allowing them a measure of quality control. It also provides fabulous publicity and helps increase fandom a thousandfold. If the BT and NYPL don't want that for Balanchine's work, they need their heads examined.

And I have a sorry feeling that pure human laziness will probably do more to prevent major theft and abuse of the system than all the paranoid safeguards in the world.

And territoriality. Thank you popularlibrary--I had a feeling everything was not available to everyone, but didn't know if my feeling was out of date.

I knew that I had not been able to express my response to the Mariinsky's performance of the Bizet 2nd movement very coherently, and that I really needed to see it again as it was done in Mr. B's day. Thanks to a kind friend, I was able to see the Kent-Ludlow performance from 1973, and it crystalized what I was trying to say.

The difference is not merely in the slower Mariinsky tempos, or the opening up of the score's repeats, it is in the entire presentation. If I can sum it up, the Mariinsky is dancing Swan Lake, in a manner that recalls Balanchine's comment that Russia is now the home of the romantic ballet, while Kent and company are dancing a ceremony to a goddess in a way that recalls (if only a little), Pirandello's famous crack "Nietzsche said that the Greeks put up white statues against the black abyss, in order to hide it. I, instead, topple them in order to reveal it." It is pure 'white' classicism at night, in the dark, with the powerful 'casta diva' who reigns over it, and a celebrant who keeps it under some measure of control.

The Mariinsky soften all the steps, tame them, make everything upright and polite. They correct for Balanchine's infelicities - when Lopatkina does the dying fall at the conclusion of the movement, she rounds both arms over her head, with no flourishes, and looks away from her partner at the last moment after looking at him as intently as Odile adoring the Prince. Kent stretches one arm across her partner's shoulder, holding him at bay, looking at him for almost the first time, then looking away until the last second, when she switches her gaze suddenly back to him as she flicks her free arm with great finality. He is not her lover, not her Prince - he is her celebrant, her consort possibly, her priest surely. In the early falls backward into his arms, Lopatkina goes only halfway down, the elegant princess, whereas Kent has Ludlow plunge her almost to the floor, stretching herself out, her hands brushing the stage, never looking at him or giving him attention, allowing herself to be worshipped. The running lifts towards the end - the moon going across the sky - are quick, decorous lifts and much running for the Russians; but Ludlow runs a few steps only with Kent, before sailing her across the stage in great arcs.

The flattening of foot movements has been noted, but not the flattening of accents into a smooth prettiness, especially in the ballerina solo, which Kent does now with sharp stabs of feet and arms, now with playful toying with the music. She lets you see temperament, will and the sense of power and daring that are of her essence; Lopatkina chooses to even it all out and remain a princess in love. Ironically, Lopatkina's partner is a complete cypher - why she is in love with him remains a mystery. Balanchine didn't provide a relationship of that kind here, and the company is at a bit of a loss creating one. Ludlow, on the other hand, is a powerful presence, though never in the least obtrusive. Some of the moments I found most impressive were those when he came up behind Kent, and she made clear that she felt his presence but didn't need to acknowledge it. They do have a relationship, but it isn't a romantic one - he is yet another Balanchine surrogate, not just supporting, but helping create, her freedom and magic.

Now none of this says that the Mariinsky's approach doesn't have its own validity or that Lopatkina doesn't dance magnificently. But for me, the company takes something original and provocative and makes it more conventional than I care for.