“I am tired of the ‘Six.’ I am weary of Erik Satie. I am fed up with Malipiero. The music of Zoltán Kodály has begun to pall on me. I have consigned my Arnold Schoenberg scores to the flames …. ” So, in 1922, Carl Van Vechten, at that time America’s most sophisticated writer on Read More
“I am tired of the ‘Six.’ I am weary of Erik Satie. I am fed up with Malipiero. The music of Zoltán Kodály has begun to pall on me. I have consigned my Arnold Schoenberg scores to the flames …. ” So, in 1922, Carl Van Vechten, at that time America’s most sophisticated writer Read More
A new Giselle? A new Swan Lake? Another day, another dollar. But a new Sleeping Beauty is always an event, and for many reasons. Its score is Tchaikovsky’s greatest, which means ballet’s greatest. Its demands on a ballet company are enormous: huge cast, opulent sets and costumes, a special brand of ballerina, a rigorous and Read More
These past few years, American Ballet Theatre has been spreading its wings, and this past week it soared. The occasion was the company’s new production of Frederick Ashton’s three-act ballet Sylvia, which he created for Margot Fonteyn. The year was 1952, and Fonteyn-three years after her first American triumphs-was at the absolute peak of her Read More
The recent two-week Frederick Ashton celebration at the Met, in honor of his 100th birthday, has been thrilling, moving, illuminating, yet in some ways disappointing. We in America have been on a thin diet of Ashton for many years (even his own company, the Royal Ballet, has been on strict rations). Granted that dancing Ashton Read More
Where is Mark Morris coming from? And where is he heading? These are the questions I ask myself after attending his just completed one-week season at B.A.M. There were two programs, comprising two oldies, two pieces from last year’s season and four works new to New York. That’s a lot to digest in a couple Read More
For two weeks this season, ballet came back to life in New York as something you could love without hesitation or reservation. American Ballet Theatre, after floundering so long in search of plausible repertory, found it where they should have been looking all this time-in Frederick Ashton. By staging so beautifully two of his greatest Read More
We’re in the middle of the City Ballet and American Ballet Theater spring seasons, and although there’s a lot going on of interest, not much of it is taking place at Lincoln Center, unless you count the School of American Ballet’s annual workshop performance at Juilliard. As always, S.A.B. gave us a superb Balanchine staging Read More
