Word: mozartiana
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Farrell was a star long before any of her dancers were born. She gave more than 2,000 performances with the New York City Ballet before retiring from the stage in 1989, and in the process inspired such ballets as Balanchine's Diamonds, Chaconne and Mozartiana and Robbins' In Memory of... and won international renown as a ballerina of unique virtuosity, at once lyrical and daring. But even though she has staged Balanchine's works for such companies as the Paris Opera Ballet and St. Petersburg's Kirov Ballet, this is the first time she has taken her own group...
...choreographed the first of two ballets for her, Ballo della Regina. She recalls that the steps were "like loose change in his pocket." Robert Maiorano's book, written with Valerie Brooks, is an attempt to organize and explain those fabulous coins. A former soloist at City Ballet, Maiorano watched Mozartiana (1981), the choreographer's last substantial work, take shape in the rehearsal studio. As an effort to analyze creation, the book is not really successful. Maiorano cannot bring steps to life in words; nor are there photo sequences, such as the ones in Ashley's book, that would illustrate...
Four slightly older girls perform in Mozartiana. They are dressed in black, and at the opening of the ballet they frame Farrell in a mysterious image. The music is Tchaikovsky's setting of a Mozart motet known as the Ave Verum Corpus. The backdrop is the one used throughout the festival, a vaulting of 3,600 translucent tubes, designed by Philip Johnson. (It took 50 men 75 hours to install the 200,000-lb. set.) In Mozartiana, as elsewhere, the play of light on the clear columns gives a spacious harmony to the scene. The tableau is more enigmatic...
...been dancing with awesome virtuosity and lyricism this season, and wanted to try at least one more Mozartiana during the festival. To TIME'S Rosemarie Tauris, she talked about what she was missing. "I'm caught up in the spirit of the festival. I have been talking to Mr. Tchaikovsky, saying, 'Please let me be well enough to dance.' In Mozartiana Mr. B. wanted us to move in a different way. I have never seen these steps before, and the way they are put together is new. The Ave Verum is a piece I used...
With the last strains of the Pathétique, the festival is over. But the shade of Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky will not be satisfied until a healthy Suzanne Farrell dances Mozartiana again. -By Martha Duffy