LA VALSE (1973) (Music: Ravel / Choreo: Balanchine)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ก.ย. 2016
- This is from the 1973 filming of the NYC Ballet in Berlin. The dancers in order of appearance are:
1. Merrill Ashley, Renee Estopinal, Marjorie Spohn
2. Susan Pillare and Bart Cook
3. Susan Hendl and Tracey Bennett,
4. Marnee Morris and Anthony Blum
5. Sara Leland (in white) and Jean Pierre Bonnefoux
and "Death" is Francisco Moncion. - บันเทิง
The exquisite Karinska costumes are so perfect. Nothing compares to a Karinska tutu. The women are so subtle. The men are so elegant. Her sense of design and color for La Valse is absolutely perfect.
Dear John, thank you for all those Balanchin rarities. Some of them i've never seen before and would probably never see without you. I appreciate your generousity. Always.
My pleasure. Mr. Balanchine did all these videos precisely because he wanted them seen.
Thank you. Thank you.....Love it!
My sentiments exactly! 💕
This is so creepy. I’m glad I got to see it though. ❤
What a damn masterpiece
This is one of my favorite Balanchine's ballet. It captivated me right from the beginning
John Clifford--I can't thank you enough for posting this and all the Balanchine videos. Incredibly valuable and moving to me. The performance of "La Valse" is truly heartbreaking. Michael brodsky
So good of you John Clifford to post these historical footages. I saw so many of those performances in those days, and such a shame that not more of dance footage cannot be available over the years because of copyright rules.
Thanks, John Clifford ---- I was there - in the 70s and 80s in New York.....and it's delightful to catch a glimpse of them again!!
Oy! That funky Berlin camera work! Must have driven him (B) crazy! Thank goodness he took over for the Dance in America series!!!
as i devour these rare films, i feel a great debt of gratitude to you for sharing them. many of these dancers i was too young to see perform live, only as teachers. Suzy Pillarre was smoking! a young Frank Moncion! i wonder who would use such extravagant amounts of tulle today? it was haute-couture for dancers. Karinska was amazing with this ’tissu transparent', and Mrs Fugate all the ladies, and men in the costume ‘shop’ as fabulous as any ever!
This feels like it's Balanchine's version of "The Red Shoes" or "Rite of Spring." In all three, the heroine dances to death.
Some people (particularly musicians) not understanding that Balanchine begins his piece using Ravel's VALSE NOBLES et SENTIMENTALES, and his work entitled LA VALSE only begins about half-way through.
OMG, such an amazing piece, but how sad that the last measures are missing. How does it all end choreographically?
diri zhior It ends with the dancers running frantically in the circle as the curtain comes down.
Such fantastic camerawork, too. Can't stop watching this work of genius. Wow
However much I adore Balanchine, I am a layman. But even I can see, from start to finish, the absolute loss of things (gesture, intent, character, musicality - you name it, unfortunately) from this 1973 performance in the more recent NYCB in Paris rendition available on DVD. If all of this is so blatantly apparent to my layman’s eyes, then what the heck is wrong with NYCB’s professional eyes? Sheesh... One hopes the last Balanchine era survivors can get in there and teach, and one has high hopes for Ratmansky’s presence raising the artistic level... Meanwhile, thank God for films such as this❤️
Thank you for posting.
love! thank you so much!
Such a pleasure watching this version after watching the Mariinsky Ballet’s attempt that you posted! 😊
he just really was the greatest!! style.... in everything!!!
I don't think my long comment worked, so I may re-post it if I can get this to. But in the meantime, thanks so much for this, I haven't seen it but once--but that was the most unforgettable performance I ever saw at NYCB--Suzanne Farrell in 1986 just after Joseph Duell's death, and just 2 weeks after she'd done 'Slaughter on 10th Avenue' with him. Your comment on the 'narcissism' made many things clear. So different from the Ashton, even without 'Valses Nobles et Sentimentales', which I always missed.
I've seen other versions of this ...this is the best; oddly the costumes are so much a part of why i think that .does the choreographer plan the costumes also?
Balanchine always worked closely with his designers, especially Barbara Karinska who did these.
Utterly fabulous. Do the new NYCB folks ever watch these?!
Sima Raft I've been told no by current dancers in the company. I would make it mandatory viewing to see what Balanchine himself wanted.
On the NYCB channel I saw one dancer who was dancing symphony in c declare very proudly that she'd never seen it until she danced it. A comment like this makes you speechless, doesn't it?
Sima Raft Yup.
John Clifford Did Anthony Blum and Marnee Morris dance at that concert that was at the Wilshire Ebell around 1973? I know you were there so you would know. Thank you.
Tony did but not Marnee.
I just wanted to add a few more remarks, as this is one of the 2 most important Balanchine ballets for me, and the best performance I saw by Suzanne Farrell, whom I saw many times in the 70s and 80s. It's been so long ago I mostly remembered the drama toward the end (she dies, though, well before the end, I now see, and that's very moving in itself), and not all that very fast movement of the girls in 'Valses Nobles et Sentimentales'; they seem to always be flying. I realized that moment of anguish at NYCB about 2006 when I was telling my closest friend about it, and it finally affected even me, and Farrell says something about 'my last prayer for him' in 'Holding on to the Air'. It inspired a 300-page artbook published in Switzerland in 2011 with my text and the drawings of 2 artists. I've always thought that that particular performance had to have had a lot to do with that. I never thought I'd see it again. Simply glorious, both music--both of which I learned to play in the 00s, at least insofar as 'La Valse' itself can be played on one piano--and Balanchine choreography which somehow seems so different from any of his other many ballets I've seen. How I miss that period of NYCB.
What is the exact symbolism of death in this ballet? Does he come for the lady in white because of her vanity or narcissism? Or merely her attraction to wealth and power.
Who are the dancers?
I just listed them.
Thanks!
I mean, the first three ladies.
I know what you mean I feel the same way. I have watched that over and over.
still i cannot get why she dead.....i mean i know how she dead but what that bad guy is.....i don't know
jw s She died because she was a narcissist and that's why "Death" (the man in black) was able to seduce her.
He is a seducer!