Tea at Trianon: The Mariinsky in DC

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, February 14, 2014

The Mariinsky in DC

A friend of mine saw this spectacular performance. I chose the following article for the description of the performance, not for the PC diatribe. From the Washington Post:

This ballet was alive with rare clarity and coherence. A kind of magic lit the stage from the first act’s deep autumnal landscape, a magic conjured by timing and breath and a shared aesthetic of grandeur. If these dancers are not to the manner born, they are to the manner trained, and you saw it in the way they heard the Tchaikovsky in the same way and moved cleanly on the same impulses. Prince Siegfried’s drinking companions, his virtuosic trio of friends, the bejeweled ensemble of well-bred young ladies — they all moved in rising and falling crests and interleaving patterns whose musical sensitivity simply astonished.

All of the order, privileged ease and controlled feeling of the court that Siegfried will one day inherit was made plain in the shape and flow of the dancing.

And then he throws it all away.

And we completely understand why.

How could he resist Somova’s Odette? Captive to a magician’s spell, she unspooled a magic of her own. Somova is known — and derided, by some — for her extreme flexibility more than her artistry, but it’s time for a reassessment. First of all, she is blessedly free of affectation: no Gothic dramatics, no face-pulling. Secondly, this whisper-thin, leggy creature who looks like a child has upper-balcony star quality. There is something fascinating and watchable about her, the way Joan Crawford was not a classic beauty but she made you focus on her every move, every minute. (Read more.)