GO: American Ballet Theatre's "The Sleeping Beauty"

So remember when I was complaining about New York City Ballet artistic director Peter Martins' "The Sleeping Beauty"--how he didn't make an adequate distinction between the eternal world of the fairies and the temporal world of the court? And how the prince could use some emotional beefing up, and the summarily deleted violin solo could do the job? ("Incredible music!" Balanchine called it, and borrowed it for his rising Christmas tree in "The Nutcracker.") And how story-ballet productions would really benefit from a theater director's expertise in advancing the story? Well, GUESS WHAT?

American Ballet Theatre's new production is doing ALL of those things. The violin solo is back in, to get the prince primed for a princess graced with valor, joy, sincerity, fervor and other fairy gifts; the distinction between the fairy world and the world of the court is a big priority, ABT director and choreographer Kevin McKenzie promises me; and they hired a theater guy to help out (Gelsey Kirkland's husband; she's credited with staging, too).

My guess is that this humongous ballet won't be entirely together until next year, but together enough to be worth watching. Besides, with Gillian Murphy as the good Lilac Fairy, Diana Vishneva as Princess Aurora, Marcelo Gomes or Angel Corella as Prince Florimund, Herman Cornejo as the bluebird, and Kirkland herself as the evil fairy, Carabosse, how could you lose? (They're not all in the same cast, unfortunately. Now, that would be a dream ...)

Though I don't discuss the violin solo or too many of the specifics of the production, here's a feature I did for Newsday on the ballet and how the astounding Kirov ballerina Diana Vishneva thinks of Aurora. Vishneva guests with ABT in the classics each spring.

[Two months later.... a more sober reflection on the ABT "Sleeping Beauty"]

May 18, 2007 9:49 AM | | Comments (0)

Categories:

Leave a comment

Topics on Tap

Apollinaire, Sunday August 24, UPDATED Saturday August 30:  ballet summer roundup and a cat among the books and flowers. Updated 8/30: more on Forsythe and the Romantic ballet 
Daniel Madoff, Wednesday August 27: a nifty new website for touring dancers and their fans
Apollinaire, Thursday August 7:  love of a kitty
Theresa Ruth Howard, Monday, July 28: A glimpse of Alvin Ailey's fifty years, from the inside
Apollinaire, Saturday July 5: Neil Greenberg's surface unconscious
Apollinaire, Wednesday June 11: Premieres by the Bolshoi's Alexei Ratmansky, Twyla Tharp, and Michael Clark--lot o' thoughts
previous

Contributors

Eva Yaa Asantewaa 

has written dance journalism and criticism since 1976, published most notably in Dance Magazine, Soho News, The Village Voice, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Gay City News, and on her own blog, InfiniteBody.

Paul Parish 

is a regular contributor to Danceviewtimes and San Francisco magazine, and has contributed to many other publications. He was a Rhodes Scholar same time as Bill Clinton. He lives and dances in Berkeley.

Me Elsewhere

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by foot in mouth published on May 18, 2007 9:49 AM.

Tonya Plank: Why do my friends clamor for opera, but not ballet? was the previous entry in this blog.

Go: Doug Varone's "Dense Terrain" is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

AJ Ads

Introducing
AJ Arts Blog Ads

Now you can reach the most discerning arts blog readers on the internet. Target individual blogs or topics in the ArtsJournal ad network.

Advertise Here

AJ Blogs

AJBlogCentral | rss

culture
About Last Night
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Artful Manager
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
blog riley
rock culture approximately
CultureGulf
Rebuilding Gulf Culture after Katrina
Dewey21C
Richard Kessler on arts education
diacritical
Douglas McLennan's blog
Flyover
Art from the American Outback
Life's a Pitch
For immediate release: the arts are marketable
Mind the Gap
No genre is the new genre
Rockwell Matters
John Rockwell on the arts
Straight Up |
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude

dance
Foot in Mouth
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Seeing Things
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...

jazz
Jazz Beyond Jazz
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
ListenGood
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Rifftides
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

media
Out There
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Serious Popcorn
Martha Bayles on Film...

classical music
The Future of Classical Music?
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
On the Record
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Overflow
Harvey Sachs on music, and various digressions
PostClassic
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Sandow
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Slipped Disc
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds

publishing
book/daddy
Jerome Weeks on Books
Quick Study
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera

theatre
Drama Queen
Wendy Rosenfield: covering drama, onstage and off
lies like truth
Chloe Veltman on how culture will save the world
Stage Write
Elizabeth Zimmer on time-based art forms

visual
Aesthetic Grounds
Public Art, Public Space
Artopia
John Perreault's art diary
CultureGrrl
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Modern Art Notes
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
Creative Commons License
This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.