Ballet
3/21/03
HASHIIGAKI:
Brooklyn Academy of Music - BAM Harvey Theater
This
is not really a ballet. I think it's modern dance combined with a little bit
drama and world music (Japan, American pop, German, etc.)
Quite
interesting...BAM usually have some special performances. A very nice place to
go and enjoy performing art.
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5/4/01
CINDERELLA: AMERICAN
BALLET THEATRE--METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE
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Choreography by Ben
Stevenson
Music by Sergei Prokofiev
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Cinderella is a very famous fairy
tale - that's why the Ballet looks just like a fairy tale. I can't say I
like this program. The music itself is not as strong and as moved as Romeo
and Juliet, which is composed by the same composer, Prokofiev. In
addition, the choreography is not so exciting to watch. But it's a good
number for children.
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5/15/00
DON QUIXOTE: AMERICAN
BALLET THEATRE--METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE
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Choreography after
Marius Petipa and Alexander Gorsky
Music: Ludwig
Minkus
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Mention the words
" Don Quixote", and most people will assume you
are talking about the renowned novel by Miguel de
Cervantes. Published in two parts between 1605 and 1614,
the work has been hailed as a satire on exaggerated
notions of chivalry, an attack on Spanish politics and
religious practices of the time, a powerful story of
idealism misunderstood and crushed by the practical
world, and as a panoramic view of 17th-century Spanish
society. In 1869, Marius Petipa, staged a Don Quixote for
Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre, with music by Ludwig Minkus.
The Petipa-Mikus Don Quixote, restaged two years later in
St. Petersburg and further altered in 1900 by Alexander Gorsky, is the Don Quixote most dance-goers think of when
that title comes up.
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This version is a
little bit different from Mikhail
Baryshnikov's staged version, especially in
Act II, Gypsy Camp. I love Baryshnikov's version better.
I think, till now, nobody can give me the feelings of
excitement and astonishment as he gave me.
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5/9/00
NEW YORK CITY BALLET:
Working Rehearsal
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This is the first
time I watch they setting up the scene. It's fun.
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SLEEPING
BEAUTY
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2/16/00
NEW YORK CITY BALLET:
Working Rehearsal
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Today is a very
special day. The program they rehearsed is the one they
will perform tonight. So it's a costume rehearsal. The
light, the stage design, and the music are all followed
the actual performance. Today's program is the same one I
saw last week, but the feeling is totally different.
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LIEBESLIEDER
WALZER
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For this two-part
ballet of waltzes for piano duet and vocal quartet, set
to poems by Friedrich Daumer and to a poem by Goethe (the
last waltz), the dancers are joined on stage by the
musicians and singers. All are dressed in period ballroom
costumes. During the first set of 18 waltzes the four
couples dance in interweaving combinations in an
intimate, elegantly-appointed ballroom. For these dances,
the women wear dancing slippers. After a brief lowering
of the curtain, the couples return to dance 14 waltzes,
the women wearing ballet dresses and toe shoes. They
leave the stage, return in their original costumes, then
pause to listen to the final waltz set to Goethe's words:
"Now, Muses, enough! You try in vain to portray how
misery and happiness alternate in a loving heart! Within
the stict three-quarter beat personal and romantic
associations between the couples are developed. Of
LIEBESLIEDER WALZER, Balanchine said: "In the first
act, it is the real people who are dancing. In the second
act, its their souls."
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2/11/00
NEW YORK CITY BALLET:
Working Rehearsal
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It's a very special
experience for me. New York City Ballet offers a very
special program for their members - working rehearsal.
Although it's not a costume rehearsal, you still can get
a clear idea about the full-length ballet program. I saw
two programs at that day: Ballo Della Regina and La Vlase. I can hear the dancers and conductors talking on
the stage....really really special....:)
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BALLO
DELLA REGINA
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Music: From the
opera Don Carlos (1867) by Giuseppe Verdi
Choreography by
George Balanchine
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It's a virtuoso set
of variations, comparable to the bel canto style of
opera. It's set to ballet music that was cut from the
original production of Verdi's Don Carlos. Lincoln
Kirstein writes that the Ballet seems to take place in a
grotto, with reference through lighting and costumes to
the original tale of a fisherman's search for the perfect
pearl.
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LIEBESLIEDER
SALZER
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Music: Johannes
Brahms, Liebeslieder, Op.52 (1869) and Neue Liebeslieder,
Op. 65 (1874)
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Choreography by
George Balanchine
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It's a two act
Ballet. The first one, dancers wear the satin high-heel
dance shoes. The second one, they change back to the toe
shoes.
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7/9/99
BALANCHINE EVENING:
KIROV BALLET--METROPOLITAN OPERA
7/3/99
GISELLE: KIROV
BALLET--METROPOLITAN OPERA
6/30/99
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY:
KIROV BALLET--METROPOLITAN OPERA
5/16/99
APOLLO, THE CAGE, FIRE
BIRD: NEW YORK CITY BALLET--NEW YORK STATE THEATER
4/30/99
SWAN LAKE: NEW YORK CITY
BALLET--NEW YORK STATE THEATER
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