Word: ballets
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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PRIVATE VIEW: INSIDE BARYSHNIKOV'S AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE by John Fraser (Bantam; $30). One season (1986-87) in the life of a great dance company. The text and grainy candid photographs by Eve Arnold beat with life and explode with candor...
Without any debate, Baryshnikov is a performer of artistic genius, but no man is a hero to his corps de ballet. The big morale crisis in Private View involved the casting of the film Dancers, a modern gloss on the classic Giselle. Less than half the troupe's dancers were selected; for the rest, rejection amounted to a devastating appraisal of their entire season. When corps member Julie Kent, 17 and exquisite, won the ingenue role, angry charges of unfairness increased. Fraser notes that when the movie was finished and Kent's disastrous speaking voice squeaked through the land, tempers...
...necessary myth that the artistic director is a one-man band. But of course he has help, and Private View explains clearly how this bulky performing machine keeps going. Fund raiser Larry Lynn tracks Kimberly-Clark for $2,500 worth of free Kleenex. It is ballet mistress Elena Tchernichova who actually produces the"Baryshnikov ballerina." Fraser recognizes and describes the importance of Charles France, Baryshnikov's assistant, to his boss. A brilliant, obsessive fellow, France virtually handed his head, stuffed with dance scholarship and a phenomenal performance memory, to Baryshnikov on a plate. Often his erudition was crucial; a Soviet...
...importance of France is clear in rehearsal photos too, but elsewhere the reader could wish that Fraser and Arnold had checked in more with each other. The pictures show that ballet master David Richardson is part of the inner circle, but he doesn't figure in the text. The tart voice of corps member Ty Granaroli is invigorating, but there is no captioned picture of him. But then, some of the best shots are of dancers with their dogs, hauled along on the lonely tours. And the piles of pointe shoes, grubby, used-up torture instruments. A ballerina...
...Vienna's opera and symphony seasons open with daily performances in September and last until June, while La Scala in Milan runs from December through June. The London theater season offers some of its freshest performances and premieres in the fall and winter, as does the Paris Opera and Ballet...