Comments on: the practice room

by: petipafan

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 07:51:52 +0000

I searched again, Yvonne also did Goose in February 1992 there was a picture and review by Jennifer Dunning in the NY Times. I did not find any other performances mentioned since ‘92. They performed it several times between ‘75 and ‘90, including with Heather Watts in ‘79 and a bit of trivia, in June 1990, Kay Mazzo’s son Andrew Bellas appeared as “Hop ‘o My Thumb.”

I hope Yvonne does it again in the coming season that would rock.

Dunning in the NY Times on 15 February 1992:

“Jerome Robbins’s “Mother Goose,” presented by the New York City Ballet on Tuesday night at the New YOrk State Theater, is an odd little ballet. It lives up to its subtitle, “Fairy Tales for Dancers,” by taking its mostly young cast through brief dances in which each plays a fairy-tale character on a stage decorated with familiar props, backdrops and elements of sets from other ballets in the company’s repertory. Ravel’s music, from “Ma Mère l’Oye,” is delicately melodic. And the end effect has the elusiveness of a faint, lingering scent of perfume.

The opening, in which a woman reads to dancers sprawling about her on the floor, has a leaden, obligatory tone. But then the stories begin, as the good Fairy saves Princess Florine (”Sleeping Beauty) from death and arranges for a series of fairy-tale dreams to entertain her while she slumbers. The tales of Beauty and the Beast, Hop o’ My Thumb and Laideronnette, Empress of the Pagodas, unfold in abbreviated fashion, then Prince Charming arrives and kisses her into wakefulness and marriage.

Florine was danced by Yvonne Borrée, a charmingly forthright young classicist. In a role debut, Jennifer Ringer, another of the company’s most promising junior dancers, brought a fluting arabesque and lyrical arms to bear on the sweetly self-absorbed Beauty. The appealing cast also included Deborah Wingert as the Good Fairy, Philip Neal as a fretfully sinuous Beast, Nilas Martins as a comically befuddled Prince Charming, Teresa Reyes as Laideronnette, Ben Huys as the Green Serpent, Charles Anderson as the Bad Fairy and Nacy Lassalle as the Storyteller. The children’s roles were vividly performed by Misha Braun, Nicholas Ruane and Andrew Bellas.”

by: sloan

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 03:31:19 +0000

‘91 sounds about right to me, but I really don’t know. I just know that JP (Jean-Pierre Frohlich) is working hard on putting it together since it’s been a very long while since it has been done. It definitely didn’t go while I was gone, but I’ll ask him next time I see him so we can know for sure!

by: Leigh Witchel

Tue, 29 Nov 2005 03:16:16 +0000

It has to have been done later than ‘91, because I’ve seen it exactly once and I swear it was within the last decade.

For the life of me though, I can’t recall the cast. Maybe it was done while you were off, Kristin?

by: sloan

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:27:04 +0000

You’re right! I get confused because the tape we have been watching to piece the ballet back together is from the 80’s with Margaret Tracey dancing beauty. (Hard to try to dance up to!) I don’t know enough about the ballet yet to know what the lead role is or if Yvonne will be dancing it-sorry.

Cool to see the NYTimes clip, thanks!

by: petipafan

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 21:02:06 +0000

Mother Goose … “I think the last time the ballet went was in 1983!” — sloan

Actually, Yvonne Borrée performed the lead in Robbins’s Mother Goose in June 1991 I don’t know if that was the last time NYCB performed it. It was created for a Ravel Festival in 1975.

There was a story about Yvonne’s performance in the NY Times 27 June 1991 with the headline, “Yvonne Borrée Stars in Mother Goose.” It said, “New in the lead role, Yvonne Borrée danced with the clarity, strength and endearing spryness that have come to identify this promising young dancer.”

I expect Yvonne will take the lead again?