Reading and ReReading
Balanchine Variations, by Nancy Goldner
University Press of Florida, 2008 & 2021
Books are selling in this era of the coronavirus quarantine, and University Press of Florida has republished critic Nancy Goldner's 2008 "Balanchine Variations" in which she admires, analyzes and annotates 20 ballets by George Balanchine (1904 - 1983), a colossus among choreographers. Included in the works discussed are two of Balanchine's earliest surviving ones and also some of his last.
Goldner uses description from her memories of performances or from checking films and videos. She even cites suppositions and quotations by others she trusts. She omits no piece of evidence she finds useful. Goldner is alert about Balanchine's preference for re-invention rather than copying the past when working on a revival. Her sense of humor and respect for fact are admirable as she avoids cleverness for its own sake and collecting historical data to appear erudite.
Goldner grew up in New York City where it was possible to see Balanchine ballets as part of her dance education. That wasn't the case anywhere else. I did my initial ballet going in Chicago and didn't get to see Balanchine choreography for quite a while. The first of his pieces that I encountered was Ballet Imperial, as performed by Denham's American troupe, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. I'd been looking forward to seeing it but was gravely disappointed. It was an abstract ballet, i.e. plotless, with a pantomime scene plopped into its middle. Its use of classical motion seemed stiff. I much preferred the complexities of Leonid Massine's symphonic ballets or the sensuality of David Lichine's Cain and Abel, which Colonel de Basil's international Ballet Russe brought us. What wouldn't I give today to see again that pantomime scene which Balanchine later elimiinated when he turned Ballet Imperial into Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto 2!
When the NYC Ballet did get to Chicago it was, first and foremost, as an adjunct to the NYC Opera, doing Balanchine divertissements for various operas. Only afterwards did we get to see this ballet company on its own. Initially the reaction was much like that in Europe after World War II when Balanchine ballets were shown there again after a long while: no drama, cheap costuming and decor, i.e., puritanical, impoverished theater. People were not yet looking at the steps, how they were combined to the music and how they added up into forms. It took time for non-New Yorkers to appreciate Balanchine, but his supporter Lincoln Kirstein was persistent.
Goldner writes about the odd trilogy of Balanchine / Stravinsky ballets - Apollo (a 1928 almost fairytale that deals with the making of art), not that much about the 1947 Orpheus (a ritual concerned with lasting love), and again penetratingly of Agon (about the impossibility of abstraction in ballet). The 1929 ballet Prodigal Son is Balanchine's most dramatic work. The 1962 multiact A Midsummer Night's Dream gives Goldner the chance to compare and contrast Balanchine and his chief rival, Britain's Frederick Ashton, who made a more compact Dream shortly thereafter. Balanchine's 1967 trilogy Jewels (Emeralds, Rubies, Diamonds) has its place. Moreover, there is more: especially works from the 1972 festival for composer Stravinsky. The last choreography discussed is Ballo della Regina to music from Verdi's opera of Schiller's drama Don Carlos. Goldner says that this is a subtle ballet about the glory of dance technique,
The writing throughout the text is elegant. This is not a picture book, but there are black/white photos showing aspects of stretch and stamina, some of the points Goldner makes about the dancing and dancers. Quite a few of the pictures are by Costas. There is a color photo on the front cover of Balanchine demonstrating for virtuoso Mikhail Baryshnikov. On the back cover there is a too toothy, color photo by Nancy Crampton of author Nancy Goldner. Whether you have or haven't a conversational companion when you go to see Balanchine ballets, this book will add good company to your adventure.
copyright 2021 © by George Jackson
