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March 2, 2006
Paula Citron on Jewels
Presented without comment. I'll let her words speak for themselves.
Which brings us to the problematic Emeralds. While Balanchine does create fetching lyrical movement of consummate grace that emulates the gentle turns, dainty jumps and delicate footwork of the period, his choice of music sinks the dancing. In Rubies and Diamonds, his composers are synonymous with the style. For Emeralds he chose dreary music by Gabriel Fauré that bears no relation to the dance.Hopefully, when the copyright is over, some smart person will go back to the music of Adam, or even Delibes, and reset the choreography over the poignant, melancholy melodies that are so sadly missing from this section.
OK, I will comment. That is the stupidest thing I have ever seen in print about Balanchine. Too bad there isn't a real choreographer out there (James Kudelka, Ms. Citron?) who knew what sort of music that choreography really called for and would boldly go and reset it once all the foolish naysayers and stick-in-the-muds, to say nothing of the choreographer, are dead. After that, maybe we can do something about the boring bits in Ashton or Tudor.
I can't believe her editor wasn't kind enough to strike that paragraph before it hit print.
Posted by Leigh Witchel at March 2, 2006 9:47 PM
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Comments
That's "creativejuice" quality right there.
Posted by: Denise at March 3, 2006 9:28 AM