In spite of the hazardous cement floor, this performance is probably the greatest musically recorded and danced. I saw numerous casts at NYC BALLET including the ones at ABT. After close inspection this undoubtedly pleased Mr Balanchine. It is spin cycle accurate to the pedigree of the choreographed tempos and demands. La Kent is so beautiful, commanding, and Clifford the company movie star Clark Gable looker knew how to play with the tempos, even teasingly holding rock solid arabesque balances without sacrificing a single musical note. No one in the world can dance this like this, the Russians and French and ABT do it their own ways and that's a good thing. It belongs to NYC BALLET. Historical post.
Really stunning! Georges Bizet could have hardly dreamed that his conservatory symphony of his age 17 would be performed for the first time 80 years after he wrote it and then would be danced to by such wonderful people!
this is the most beautiful version of this ballet (at least on YT), everything is gorgeous, dancers, music; choreography, even the staging and tutus and men outfits are so perfect. They deliver that crisp Balanchine spirit !
As lovely a ballet as ever graced the stage. All of it is wonderful, but I must say something special about the passage beginning at 11:06. The sublime dancing here makes one feel fully what heights of unearthly beauty Bizet's music reaches. It brings tears to my eyes. (On another note, hot damn, Mr. Clifford! You sure can dance!)
The ending scene Is so well done!! My favorite, the best i have seen. With all the corps de ballet so esthetically choreographed! AND on a cement floor! Spectacular! Thank you.
Really amazing! Especially knowing it's on a concrete floor! Ugh! John, you are outstanding! Loved watching you in 3rd movement! Who was your partner? Allegra is so lovely, such an incredible dancer. No one else like her. Thanks for posting this perfect rendition of the Balanchine masterpiece!
I like this piece so much, it gets at the excellence of Balenchine’s deep musicality. In this particular performance, I find myself distracted by the girl (second from the right at the beginning of the first movement) who is consistently slightly behind, often misaligned, and regularly making adjustments. Particularly frustrating because otherwise the performance is great throughout. 🤷🏼♂
First Balanchine I've instantly loved but this performance is many yrs old. I'm going to watch Zakharova do it next. Love the white anklets on the boys.
It was a student piece and he copied his teacher Gounod in many details in this work. He never sought a performance of the work and didn't wish for it to be published.
@@grafplaten maybe he didn't thought that this music could become such a beautiful ballet ? ballet was not technically perfect at his time, only a work in progress ..... even Carmen had became a ballet !
the third movement is always where i find other companies begin to fail miserably, where as the 1st and 2nd might be just boring, but comes the third, that's when i start worrying if someone is gonna break an ankle... i have seen quite a few which tempo was too slow so the small jumps are comfortable and clean but they die when the jumps get big, or companies find small dancers so the small jumps are fast enough but the big jumps are not very spectacular, arms and legs just were just not long ..... great recording...
Inane question, maybe, but where were the cameos of von Aroldingen and Bonnefoux in the fourth movement? Or maybe the First Movement couple never had cameos. Though I can't believe my memory of all those NYCB live performances is that defective. Thanks for clarifying. And thanks again for posting this astonishingly beautiful epic poem. Admire your great work in the Third Movement.
@@jcliff26 Thanks for responding--yes, I'd thought that what you describe was in fact the case. Good to know I haven't lost my memory. Thought Marnee Morris was wonderful in movement 4 and couldn't help thinking about her tragically abbreviated career
It's amazing to see a ballet that Balanchine himself supervised from 1973 when he was actively choreographing and holding company class. They are perfect. Who is the dancer in the first part?
@@jcliff26As best as I can recall, when I saw him dance in the 70s his last name was spelled Bonnefous, ending in s, not x. I recall that because I was not sure whether the s was silent in his case. Now I see it with an x, which I know is silent. Do you know if he changed the spelling at some point?
I haven't seen Symphony in C in a while, and it was one of the first ballets I ever saw - and have loved forever. In this wonderful video, the dancers seem to have more energy in performance than I've seen recently, but I could be wrong. It moves - which is a silly thing to say about a ballet since that's what dancing is - but there's a pressing forward, an energy, that I don't remember seeing in a while. Also the costumes are different. The white tutus always glowed but someone added "crystals" to the tutus, which someone must have thought was beautiful - or a marketing device - and it's okay, I guess, but I didn't think that was necessary. It was a treat to watch this. (Did I see Merrill Ashley in there?)
can you tell us who are the dancers. i remember when the curtain went up the audience would always gasp. The lighting and those dancers was exquisite......Just the sheer enjoyment of ballet, no agenda.
1. Karin von Aroldingen and Jean Pierre Bonnefoux 2. Allegra Kent and Conrad Ludlow 3. Sara Leland and John Clifford 4. Marnee Morris and Victor Castelli
I would love to know the process of choreographing this ballet. The enormous cast! Does he have all the dancers in the studio as he is creating? How long are the choreographic sessions. And how long did it take to choreograph? I can't imagine it!
What’s not to like? A perfect display of classical technique that both matches and enhances the music. Dance doesn’t always need to tell a story much the same way a symphony doesn’t. Why is a rose beautiful, or a sunset?
How did I not see this before?! It is just awesome. It can never be repeated. Better film quality than I've seen before too. Can't thank you enough. BTW who is the black ballerina? Deborah Austen? She is so beautiful in her quiet way. Lovely epaulement.
@@jcliff26 What a joyful performance, Mr Clifford! Thanks for this jewel, and a question. How was the re invention process of this ballet? I have seen the POB version, and the are indeed MANY differences, particularly at the end of the second and fourth movements. Do you think that Mr B would had agreed on having his previous version presented today, as POB still does under Le Palais de Cristal name...?
@@jcliff26 Thank you for your answer, Mr Clifford. Although I was thinking not so much about legal but rather into Mr B's artistic vision. Given than some of his works today are presented in more than one form, and in some cases in completely different versions-(as with Valse Fantaisie) or reworked ones-(Apollo, Le Palais de Cristal)- I was curious to know if he was very rigid in how his ultimate vision of his ballets needed to be staged. Or in other words...did he completely discard, artistically speaking, of previous, older versions of his own works.? Thanks!
Allegra...Conrad...Debra...Delia..Hermes....the awful white socks and black shoes combination....Clifford and Sara Leland (John was so great, Sally too) omg Merrill..Bart....Richard...Renee...Victor....Marnee...Stephen Caras...sorry to leave so many out..kinda blurry...cool video
All these names are now legends and I feel So Lucky that I saw most of them in person. I also saw John Clifford's move to Los Angeles when he began a ballet company there and it was so fascinating to watch him mold dancers into people who could dance but not really perform into wonderfully amazing dancers of star quality.
Like you, I saw these wonderful dancers, too, including Jacques D'Amboise, Suzanne Farrell, and Peter Martins. I still have a vivid memory of Karin Von Aroldingen performing Agon. As a young professional in the humanities field and a newly-minted New Yorker from Southeast Asia, I did not earn much but always saved up for season tickets to the NYCB and the Philharmonic. 1972-1976. Have been far away for so long, but when I visited New York last October, 2014, I went to see the All Balanchine matinee. Serenade was the featured performance and I cried over how much I have missed all those years!
