🦋 Music I can't identify with
We went to see The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center today, meeting up with our friends from south Jersey who made the trip up, whom we met on our China trip. Most everything about the performance was fun -- being in the lovely New York State Theater, the festive mood, the walk up to the theater featuring really beautiful weather, watching Sylvia and Kimberlee be entranced by the show; but I sort of shook myself midway through the second act and asked, why is this not making any impression on me? Because it was not -- the only thing I could really connect with about the whole show, was watching the girls watch it. I could listen to the instruments and think they sounded very sweet and clear, and watch the dancers and be impressed by their athletic ability; but I got no emotional reaction to it. Does the music have any emotional depth to it? I do not consider myself a good judge of classical music -- but this seemed like fluff to me. Much of it is melodies that I recognize -- from Fantasia, from Muzak, from Sylvia, who is learning "The Nutcracker March" for her orchestra; indeed probably from having seen the whole ballet at some point in the past. Any one of them is pretty on its own. But the melodies just seem like they're strung together without any connecting tissue -- I'm not sure that is my problem with the ballet as a whole but it is one thing that occurred to me while I was watching. I wondered why I wasn't digging the dancing more -- specifically it occurred to me that I had felt really involved in what I was watching, when we went to an acrobatic performance last month, and that the ballet was a similar kind of experience. I guess probably the difference was distance -- the acrobatic troupe was performing in a very small theater, so they were close enough I could really see their faces, whereas the ballerinas just looked like little dolls or something. Update: Some useful information from Ellen, about different versions of the Nutcracker story.
posted evening of Saturday, November 24th, 2007
➳ More posts about Music
➳ More posts about Sylvia
I can relate to what you're saying about the lack of emotional
connection to the music- I wonder if the fact that it is so
overplayed really adds to a feeling of tiredness in hearing it
live. I do think being up in the bleachers has an impact on the
experience. I thought for entertainment value, the second act was
much livelier.
posted morning of November 25th, 2007 by Ellen
Yep, the second act also had most of the immediately recognizable
melodies. Is that set of melodies "The Nutcracker Suite"?
posted afternoon of November 25th, 2007 by Jeremy
I think the problem with the Nutcracker is that the productions are
so old & musty. Every production has the same basic
choreography & the same basic costumes. I think everyone's
bored even the dancers. Someone needs to come in and shake things
up! The music is better by itself when its not weighed down by the
production.
posted evening of November 25th, 2007 by painterofblue
Apparently the OVation network is having a "Battle of the
Nutcrackers" in December, which will feature two traditional
versions, including the Balanchine, and Mark Morris' dance
company's performance - The HArd Nut - set in a suburb in the
60's, and Matthew Bourne's take - he modernizes versions of
classics in a far out way, apparently. So it sounds like people
have tried to shake it up. I will bet money on which one will win
the marathon. Any takers?
posted morning of November 27th, 2007 by ellen
I'm going to see something called The Urban Nutcracker next
week. I remember being terribly disappointed by the sappy narrative
of the ballet when I was a child--I'd had the Hoffman story read
to me and it was much more exciting (though I can't remember it
now; must reread). Still, I love the music.
posted evening of December first, 2007 by martha
it was much more exciting
Yeah, in the introduction to Ralph Manheim's translation of the
Hoffman story, Maurice Sendak (who illustrates it) talks about how
it is a lot more complex than the opera.
posted evening of December first, 2007 by Jeremy
| 
