Disappointment at the Philharmonic; Delight at Les Ballets de Paris
JAMES, HIBBARD
MUSIC By Hibbard James Disappointment at the Philharmonic; Delight at Les Ballets de Paris Earlier this season, I predicted that the New York Philharmonic would make news I what kind remained to...
...The whole evening is a delight, blending charmingly effective settings, beautiful costumes and faultless dancing in a number of very offbeat numbers...
...Bernstein's initial actions seemed to point to good news...
...Bizet's music is used, but if you expect a close parallel to the opera you're in for a shock (the Habanera, for instance, is danced by Don Jose...
...It still bears all the stigmata of the experimental ballet of the 1930s...
...Bernstein's musical judgment or his control of the orchestra—or both...
...All the ballets are good, but my own two favorites are La Rose des Vents and Carmen...
...Carmen is the real show-piece of the evening, and it is danced to the hilt by Mile...
...Bernstein...
...After this concert, I heard news which made me wonder exactly how much the ailing Philharmonic has changed since the appointment of Bernstein...
...Now I find myself wondering...
...Indeed, as I listened resignedly to its dogged moans and groans, together with its obvious little tricks of dissonance and broken rhythm, I understood why it had not been performed here for 25 years...
...The concerts were quickly sold out by mail order...
...Under Mr...
...A few kind words are in order about the New York appearance of Les Ballets de Paris, starring Jeanmaire and Roland Petit...
...How odd that Cliburn was never asked to reappear after his highly successful debut with the Philharmonic four years ago...
...Bernstein's direction, John Corigliano, the Philharmonic's concertmaster, sawed away like the fiddle player at a village square dance...
...Its management announced that 23-year-old, Texas-born pianist Van Cliburn had been signed to four appearances for next season...
...if it comes to your town, don't miss it...
...Delight at Les Ballets de Paris Earlier this season, I predicted that the New York Philharmonic would make news I what kind remained to be seen I after the appointment of Leonard Bernstein as principal director...
...The latter piece can be pleasant enough if played with a sense of style and tolerant understanding of its rather naive orchestration...
...All of Mr...
...Her dancing seems solidly based on classical training, but the idiom is thoroughly modern...
...But in Icare we have to take the bitter without the sweet in a piece that is a veritable collection of the cliches of modern music...
...With its Picassoesque decor and imaginative costuming, Carmen has a distinct decadent flavor which is at the same time intensely exciting and theatrical...
...Plans are afoot to take Les Ballets de Paris on tour...
...At the same time, I had the uneasy feeling that at least some of the blame has to be shared by Mr...
...Many of the composers of that period were, to be sure, in a kind of revolt against the older classical forms, thus barring the slightest trace of emotion from their compositions...
...Is this a belated recognition of his undoubted talent—or, more likely, a successful attempt to cash in on his international front-page publicity as the winner of a Moscow contest...
...He began with a reading of Prokofiev's Classical Symphony that lost the delightful verve and sparkle of that little masterpiece in an elephantine plodding, and he followed with a performance of the Glazounov Violin Concevto that was little short of a disaster...
...Jeanmaire and M. Petit...
...The first has a score by Milhaud, and is beautifully danced by Ariel Auclerc, an 18-year-old Moroccan girl, in the role of a mermaid condemned to be a waitress in a waterfront cafe...
...The best of them, however, managed to substitute a very real wit that made their music take on the charm of novelty...
...Even George Antheil contributed his bit to the gaiety of nations with pieces like Ballet Mecanique...
...Icare was first performed in France in 1933, and was first conceived of as a ballet suite but later re-done as a strictly orchestral piece...
...I am necessarily unfamiliar with leave, but the faulty playing and dubious interpretation that characterized the rest of the concert made me wonder what has happened to Mr...
...In this connection one almost automatically thinks of such men as Darius Milhaud and Artur Honegger who not only wrote wittily in such pieces as Le Boeuf sur le Toit and Pacific 2.31, but who also had something to say, even if it was little more than a celebration of post-World War I preoccupation with materialism...
...I recently ventured out to hear Bernstein conduct the first American performance of Igor Mar-kevitch's leave, and as a result have my first real doubts about how Bernstein is going to work out with the Philharmonic...
Vol. 41 • May 1958 • No. 18
