Swan Song

"Swan Lake"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 27, 2009

by Mary Cargill
copyright © 2009 by Mary Cargill

In an ideal world, anyone producing a "Swan Lake" would sign an agreement stating: 1. "Swan Lake" is a German fairy tale set in the Middle Ages; 2. Petipa/Ivanov are better choreographers than anyone else; and 3. Siegfried does not spend the first act auditioning for "Spartacus". But we do not live in an ideal world, and have ABT's somewhat confused and overly hot version, which fortunately does keep the lovely second act and the Black Swan pas de deux more or less intact. So for most of Nina Ananiashvili's actual dancing in her farewell performance, we saw "Swan Lake". And what a swan she is, luminous, shy, regal, and fluid. She was swannier in the lake side scene than many other dancers but never made those rippling arms into a party trick. There was a spontaneity about her dancing, a pure, unmannered style that had not changed since she first appeared in New York with the Bolshoi all those years ago, and there were so many lovely moments. I especially remember her quivering leg movements, as if her heart were beating through her dancing, saying perhaps, just perhaps this time she will be saved. And her despairing arms in the last act, miming "I must die" were shattering. Her Siegfried, Angel Corella, was ardent and involved--he is the only dancer I have seen to actually appear to see the swans fly by during his fussy and lugubrious melancholy first act solo. He has soared higher in the past, and jumped more cleanly, but there is an open-hearted charm in his dancing and a rare generosity of spirit that captures the audience.

Ananiashivli's Odile was, in a way, as subtle as her Odette; she made her a warm-blooded woman who really loved tricking men, and even more dangerous than the traditional cardboard villainess spitting fouettes. Corella didn't have a chance, and his pure joy when he thought he had found Ms. Right shown through his exuberant dancing, making the pas de deux a real story and not just another excuse for jumping. There were other dancers on stage, of course; Simone Messmer stood out in the peasant pas de trois for her fluid arms and elegant carriage. Marcelo Gomes, as the purple pimp, camped it to the hilt, the only way this silly role can really be played.

But the story that night was really the curtain calls, full of flowers and cheers and tears. Every swan presented her with a flower and got a personal hug, each principal gave her a bouquet and a quiet message, and even the conductor presented her with his baton. There were many flowers thrown by the standing, cheering audience, sad to see this lovely, gentle dancer for the last time, but also full of gratitude for a true artist.

Dance Union’s Lawyer Accused of Embezzling

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By SIMON AKAM
Published: July 14, 2009

A longtime union lawyer was arrested and charged on Tuesday with embezzling approximately $150,000 from a union representing dancers and stage managers at American Ballet Theater, federal prosecutors said.

The lawyer, Leonard Leibowitz, 70, is accused of writing checks to himself from the checkbook of the Independent Artists of America.

“If convicted, you would be subject to a term of imprisonment of up to five years,” Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV said in an initial hearing in the federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan.

The Independent Artists of America was formed in 1994 by dancers and stage managers at Ballet Theater, which has an annual spring season at Lincoln Center.

Mr. Leibowitz was known beyond ballet circles. “Lenny was a very important player in the music industry, especially for the orchestras, who trusted him completely,” said Mark J. Weinstein, executive director of the Washington National Opera. “The players always wanted him. He’s a fun person to be around, he was experienced.”

Mr. Weinstein added that during his stint at New York City Opera from 1983 to 1996 he went through “four or five negotiations with, or rather against him.”

The Ballet Theater performers had previously been represented by the American Guild of Musical Artists, but Mr. Leibowitz helped about 80 of them establish their own union. He went on to serve as its lawyer from its inception until 2007, when it merged back into the American Guild.

In 1997 Mr. Leibowitz, claiming financial difficulties, asked a union official for an advance on his retainer, which was initially $24,000 a year, rising later to $42,000. The union official agreed to let him take the money, believing the advance was to be less than $100,000.

From 1997 to 2005 Mr. Leibowitz then wrote checks to himself, his firm and his wife, rather than take his retainer. The checks totaled more than $350,000.

An audit in 2003 by the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards revealed that the advance had exceeded $100,000. The auditors then demanded a formal loan agreement, which Mr. Leibowitz said he would take care of.

In 2007, however, new union leadership learned that the difference between the checks Mr. Leibowitz had written for himself and the amount he was owed was about $150,000.

The reports listing the loan that the union filed to the Department of Labor also included forged signatures, prosecutors said. Court documents state that the union official who originally approved the advance to Mr. Leibowitz later forged signatures at his request.

Mr. Leibowitz did not speak during his appearance in court on Tuesday. Prosecutors said he was charged with one count of embezzlement of union funds.

Afterward, Mr. Leibowitz’s lawyer, Stephen Flamhaft, said, “I think we will be able, after dialogue with the government, to resolve this.”

According to Alan Gordon, the executive director of the American Guild, his union had been seeking a rapprochement with the Ballet Theater dancers and stage managers who had broken away.

“After it became clear that Leibowitz had taken from their treasury, they asked us to represent them,” he said, adding that the guild and the Ballet Theater dancers “would like to see the Department of Justice aggressively prosecute this case.”

Ballet Theater did not return calls for comment.

Danish queen designs costumes for 'royal' ballet

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Denmark's queen says she was inspired by caricatures of royals when she designed costumes for a ballet being staged in Copenhagen's Tivoli Gardens.

Queen Margrethe unveiled the colorful costumes Wednesday for "The Swineherd," a ballet based on a story by Danish fairytale writer Hans Christian Andersen.

She used stark colors — acid green, pink and purple — or large polka dots to give the costumes of the royal characters a cartoonesque touch.

The 69-year-old monarch said she drew inspiration "rather more from outsiders' comments about my world than from my own world."

The fairytale is about a prince who disguises himself as a swineherd to win a princess' heart.

It's the fourth time Margrethe has designed costumes and sets for a stage adaptation of Andersen's work.

The show opens on Thursday.

SF GATE

S.F. Ballet updates
San Francisco Ballet principal dancer Maria Kochetkova will perform at the 12th World Ballet Festival in Tokyo later this month. Along with Danill Simkin, a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre, she will perform "Don Quixote" with the Tokyo Ballet on July 29. Trained at the famed Bolshoi school in Moscow, Kochetkova joined San Francisco Ballet in 2007. Before S.F. Ballet, she was a dancer with the English National Dance Company. Just recently she was the winner in the soloist division of the NBC reality series "Superstars of Dance."


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Anastasia Volochkova, The Coliseum, London

A once-shining star stages her comeback with trashy material

Reviewed by Jenny Gilbert

Sunday, 19 July 2009

She needs acting lessons; she needs advice; she needs some better material, a change of career ... these were just some of the opinions floating about as a bewildered and mildly stunned audience exited the latest showcase for a ballerina known as "the Paris Hilton of Moscow".

An evening of short Russian-made ballets mixed with bleeding chunks from popular opera, presented in an opera house lit and miked as if it were Wembley Arena, Nerve certainly showed its star has just that ... in abundance. "Colourful" hardly begins to describe the career of Anastasia Volochkova. She graduated from Russia's most distinguished ballet school and was presented by the Kirov as its most delectable "baby ballerina", set for greatness.

But the fairy tale turned into a series of tabloid headlines, as Volochkova ran through the roles of oligarch's moll, vociferous TV campaigner, and thorn in the side of the establishment. She was eventually dropped by the Bolshoi, abandoned by the millionaire, and left to revive her career while raising their child alone. Earlier this year, she again came a cropper when sacked by yet another Russian ballet company, this time for daring to stand for mayor in the town set to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. (She didn't win.)

The current show is an attempt to turn those misfortunes to advantage, or so she says: "Nerve is my story ... full of my broken dreams and my eternal hope." There's no denying how hard she works to push that message. The trouble is, almost all of the 10 short ballets she dances are trashily made. At times, you wonder if the star hasn't offered to pay each choreographer on the basis of how many times they can feature her famous half-past-12 extension, the lifted leg grazing her ear, the pointed foot at the very last moment flexing into a right angle. However, repetition turns each ballet into a string of stunts – impressively brought off, for the most part, given that Volochkova is statuesquely built.

Too often, though, the athleticism is ludicrous in its context. A duet from Boris Eifman's Anna Karenina has Volochkova's desperate Anna doing a handstand balanced on Vronsky's bottom as he bends as if to tie his shoelace. The feat of spreading her legs as she does this into perfectly horizontal splits is hopelessly undermined by one's urge to giggle. Likewise when, in a solo set to Puccini's Tosca: the disco remix, she appears with black duct tape stuck across her mouth, and proceeds to writhe on the floor and gesture her distress in frantic sign language. Silenced voice, stifled spirit: poor Anastasia.

Uninvited laughter erupts several times over the two hours, especially during the gravelly spoken links between items (so heavily accented as to be unintelligible). Yet for all the lurid stage design, the frantic swivelling spotlights, the atrocious miking of the operatic excerpts and the horrible piped music, true artistry does occasionally fight through.

The tenor Vassily Efimov is particularly fine, with his pure tone, effortless high notes and ability to summon drama from thin air. Both of Volochkova's leading men, the Bolshoi's heroically brooding Rinat Arifulin and the Mariinsky's Yevgeny Ivanchenko, warranted a spot to themselves. Soprano Natalia Borozdina, whose timbre was massacred by the sound system, deserved better than the stingy single bloom proffered by Volochkova from her bouquet. The first rule of career recovery? Value your friends.