At his very best, Terrance McNally is able to express on stage the wonderfully uplifting, transportational power of the theater and how it affects the artist (Maria Calas in “Master Class”), as well as the audience (an opera queen in “The Lisbon Traviata”). In McNally’s new play, “Fire and Air,” which opened Thursday at Off Broadway’s Classic Stage Company, Sergei Diaghilev is often both the artist and the audience. At the 1912 world premiere of dancer-choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky’s ballet, “Afternoon of a Faun,” Diaghilev is a spectator but his artistic contributions to the work make him as much a co-artist as...
- 2/2/2018
- by Robert Hofler
- The Wrap
The thing about Pierre Monteux's May 29, 1913 premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, is that it's not just the anniversary of the first time a famous piece was played in public. It's the anniversary of the most famous scandal in music history (and ballet history).
The audience was so violently divided in their opinions of the performance that there was an actual riot; there are widely disparate accounts of the evening, and some say the police removed some audience members, so contentious did things become. The orchestra was bombarded with projectiles, and the audience's vocal disapproval (combined with Rite supporters' vocal disapproval of the anti-Rite faction's demonstrations) drowned out the music often enough that the choreographer, Vaslav Nijinsky, had to spend much of the performance standing in the wings shouting directions to the dancers,...
The audience was so violently divided in their opinions of the performance that there was an actual riot; there are widely disparate accounts of the evening, and some say the police removed some audience members, so contentious did things become. The orchestra was bombarded with projectiles, and the audience's vocal disapproval (combined with Rite supporters' vocal disapproval of the anti-Rite faction's demonstrations) drowned out the music often enough that the choreographer, Vaslav Nijinsky, had to spend much of the performance standing in the wings shouting directions to the dancers,...
- 5/30/2013
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Feb. 28, 2012
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Olive Films
Alan Bates (l.) and George De La Pena star in Nijinsky.
The lives, the loves and the madness of the legendary and mercurial Russian ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky are chronicled in Herbert Ross’s 1980 film Nijinksy.
Portrayed in the film by George De La Pena (One Last Dance), Nijinsky was the most celebrated dancer of the early 20th century. But offstage, he was in turmoil, torn between the beautiful ballerina he married and the domineering mentor he loved.
Alan Bates (The Sum of All Fears) plays Sergei Diaghilev, Nijinsky’s mentor and lover who’s the impresario and founder of Ballets Russes. The increasing tension between these powerful egos, exacerbated by homosexual desire and jealousy, becomes triangular when the young ballerina Romola de Pulsky (Leslie Browne, The Turning Point) tries to draw the mentally unstable Nijinsky away from Diaghilev.
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Olive Films
Alan Bates (l.) and George De La Pena star in Nijinsky.
The lives, the loves and the madness of the legendary and mercurial Russian ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky are chronicled in Herbert Ross’s 1980 film Nijinksy.
Portrayed in the film by George De La Pena (One Last Dance), Nijinsky was the most celebrated dancer of the early 20th century. But offstage, he was in turmoil, torn between the beautiful ballerina he married and the domineering mentor he loved.
Alan Bates (The Sum of All Fears) plays Sergei Diaghilev, Nijinsky’s mentor and lover who’s the impresario and founder of Ballets Russes. The increasing tension between these powerful egos, exacerbated by homosexual desire and jealousy, becomes triangular when the young ballerina Romola de Pulsky (Leslie Browne, The Turning Point) tries to draw the mentally unstable Nijinsky away from Diaghilev.
- 12/1/2011
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
From ballet to contemporary, dance is enjoying a real upsurge. But for poise, power and poignancy, who has the best moves?
Vaslav Nijinsky
Born in 1890, Nijinsky trained at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg, where his amazing virtuosity swiftly became apparent. As the star of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes,his intense characterisations in new-wave ballets like Scheherazade, Carnaval and Petrouchka won him a huge European following. "Nijinsky never once touched the ground, but laughed at our sorrows and passions in mid-air," wrote one spectator. His reputation grew with the choreography of several modernist works, but by his mid-20s he was displaying signs of the schizophrenia which, with brutal prematurity, would end his career.
Josephine Baker
Three-quarters of a century before Beyoncé, there was Josephine Baker, the "Black Pearl" of the Folies Bergères. Born into poverty in 1906, Baker became a chorus dancer in the jazzy vaudeville shows of the Harlem Renaissance before,...
Vaslav Nijinsky
Born in 1890, Nijinsky trained at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg, where his amazing virtuosity swiftly became apparent. As the star of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes,his intense characterisations in new-wave ballets like Scheherazade, Carnaval and Petrouchka won him a huge European following. "Nijinsky never once touched the ground, but laughed at our sorrows and passions in mid-air," wrote one spectator. His reputation grew with the choreography of several modernist works, but by his mid-20s he was displaying signs of the schizophrenia which, with brutal prematurity, would end his career.
Josephine Baker
Three-quarters of a century before Beyoncé, there was Josephine Baker, the "Black Pearl" of the Folies Bergères. Born into poverty in 1906, Baker became a chorus dancer in the jazzy vaudeville shows of the Harlem Renaissance before,...
- 7/31/2010
- by Luke Jennings
- The Guardian - Film News
Whatever you think of Milk, there’s no denying that the Oscar-nominated biopic is putting a long-overdue spotlight on the life of Harvey Milk, allowing much of the mainstream audience to learn about his singular achievements for the very first time.
But why stop there? Now that Milk has proven that stirring gay life stories can appeal to more than just a gay audience, Hollywood should think about making movies about the following legends. We’ll even help them decide which to make first by throwing in a rating of 1-5 Harveys for each story’s eventual Oscar bait-ability. That should help land some big name stars.
Montgomery Clift
Who he was: Gorgeous leading man of the 1950s (From Here to Eternity [1953], A Place in the Sun [1951]) who led a torturously closeted existence in Hollywood. Survived a somewhat disfiguring car accident during the filming of Raintree County (1957) opposite Elizabeth Taylor,...
But why stop there? Now that Milk has proven that stirring gay life stories can appeal to more than just a gay audience, Hollywood should think about making movies about the following legends. We’ll even help them decide which to make first by throwing in a rating of 1-5 Harveys for each story’s eventual Oscar bait-ability. That should help land some big name stars.
Montgomery Clift
Who he was: Gorgeous leading man of the 1950s (From Here to Eternity [1953], A Place in the Sun [1951]) who led a torturously closeted existence in Hollywood. Survived a somewhat disfiguring car accident during the filming of Raintree County (1957) opposite Elizabeth Taylor,...
- 2/5/2009
- by dennis
- The Backlot
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