• Jorma Elo showed his first evening length ballet in despite ten years as a a choreographer including seven years as resident for the Boston ballet. One certainly has to wait a long time for one's chance in the modern ballet world.
• Gyula Harangozó saw the last premiere of his five year tenure as director of Dasballett of the Vienna Staatsoper and Volksoper

How was the ballet?

In the first act, Elo found himself too wound up in the plot intrigues of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. Oberon, Titania, Theseus, Hippoylyta, Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius, Helena: there's almost too many love intrigues to keep track of even in dramatic theatre, let alone ballet. That's before bringing in the company of players to whom Elo gave the stage, not just Bottom. Not to mention Puck.

The consequence of so many bodies on stage and so many stories to unravel was excessive pantomime. A leading figure of Vienna ballet aptly applied the word old-fashioned to describe the effect.

In the 19th century, it made sense to have so much nodding and poking and face pulling to try to tell the story. In this century, first Les Ballets Russes of Diaghilev and later Roland Petit and Juri Grigorovich managed to shake off the shackles of pantomime for direct expression of the story in dance. George Balanchine and Jiří Kylián took it a step further and removed linear story as a requirement for evening length dance. It is a strange feeling to go back to the wagging heads and clutched bosoms and gesticulating hands in a new ballet.

The costumes added to this baroque feel. So much gold and detail and filaments. If the goal was to create a gilded Shakespeare of the 18th century, San Francisco designer Sandra Woodall was very successful. But together with the pantomime, the look was very dated, like something out of the 1950's. While the ballet was created for Vienna, but there is no reason to add more gilded chocolate boxes than we already have.

The music is one of the principal delights of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The score is taken from the works of Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, principally a score of 1843. In the middle of the splendid string works, a woman's choir of about a dozen is called to crowd into the left of the orchestra pit. Simina Ivan and Lydia Rathkolb made excellent lyric work of their songs. One could attend A Midsummer Night's Dream with eyes closed for the music alone. Fortunately that is not necessary in this presentation.

Among the dancers there was little to criticize. Vladimir Shishov shook off his rehearsal doldrums and gave himself quite enthusiastically to his work, his elven locks and pointy features doing him no small good as the Fairie King. Mihail Sosnovschi is in incredible form, muscular from head to toe. With his fierce dancing in the role, he is a Puck more to fear than to amuse. Wolfgang Grascher was a regal Duke of Athens. Every ballet theater should have such a movie matinee patrician. Probably a bit dull for Grascher himself after the dance exploits of his long career but excellent for the production.

Midsummernight's Dream, 2010

Mihail Sosnovschi (Puck) & Elevinnen
Copyright: Das Ballett der Wiener Staatsoper und Volksoper/Axel Zeininger

Roman Lazik was an obliging Lysander. He is far better as a comic lover than a prince: his moderate athletic skills and smaller presence go unremarked. As Lysander, he is a delight to behold, light of step and countenance. András Lukács took the opportunity as Demetrius to show off his considerable caricature and grotesque talents. Levity followed his every appearance.

The theatre company was a splendid group of character dancers, led by Gabor Oberegger as Bottom. Thomas Mayerhofer, Dan Datcu, Christoph Wenzel, Richard Szabó and the striking gaunt Alexis Forabosco made the most of their opportunity for group standup comedy. I'm not sure if it added much to the ballet but in itself they were a lot of fun. At one point, Oberegger valiantly sings a love song to Titania in bed. Spoken word and song are unusual demands on a ballet dancer and Oberegger came across as a musical veteran.

Among the women, Nina Poláková shone most brightly, in her role as Helena, curiously outdoing both the Russians, Olga Esina and Karina Sarkissova. Poláková was smooth and swift, with fluid grand battements. Her performance as the rejected lover revealed a touching vulnerability. Karina Sarkissova was also quick and determined, if a little cold for my taste in her role as Hermia. She had ample opportunity to show off her considerable technical skills to which she availed herself. There was little to criticize in her brash work but little to love. One day I hope to see Karina Sarkissova dance a little more softly and with more feeling.

Midsummernight's Dream, 2010

Mihail Sosnovschi (Puck), Roman Lazik (Lysander), Karina Sarkissova (Hermia),
Nina Poláková (Helena), András Lukács (Demetrius)

Copyright: Das Ballett der Wiener Staatsoper und Volksoper/Axel Zeininger

Olga Esina as Titania is a special problem. She is a magnificent ballerina, perhaps the most physically gifted and most beautiful dancer ever to grace the Staatsoper stage. But with great gifts come great responsibilities and it seemed to me that Esina never moved at more than seventy per cent capability through the evening. She still could do little harm but with a little more effort she could do so much more. Watching Esina dance is an exercise in frustration. She is the best in the company but could be so much more. This abstraction from her work gave Poláková the chance to steal the the spotlight as Helena. In Elo's A Midsummer Night's Dream should belong unequivocally to Titania.

Midsummernight's Dream, 2010

Olga Esina (Titania), Gabor Oberegger (Zettel)
Copyright: Das Ballett der Wiener Staatsoper und Volksoper/Axel Zeininger

What is the remedy? In my opinion, direct one on one coaching for Esina with a strict Russian coach. It wouldn't cost all that much to bring one of the best in from St Petersburg (they don't earn much in the Vaganova Academy) for three years to see if she can make Esina into the international prima which she should be, rather than a splendidly gifted provincial.

Gyula Harangozó might do this as Esina is his personal gift to Vienna, but I'm not at all sure the new director, Manuel Legris will grasp the issue soon enough to bring quick remedy. Perhaps I'm not optimistic enough. Legris has brought Paris's Etoile system to Vienna and of the female soloists he has promoted just Maria Yakovleva and Olga Esina to Etoile so he does understand Esina's importance to Staatsoper ballet. While improving her steps, her director might order her some special dramatic lessons as well. It's not that Esina doesn't have strage presence, it's that it's neither harnessed nor controlled. Ideally, the right Russian ballerina coach could teach her both.

On a lighter note, whoever did Esina's hair and makeup for Titania deserves to be sent back to finishing school. Esina looked so much better in rehearsal when she put up her own splendid blonde hair herself with casual cascading locks. The hairdresser managed to strap her head under a jewelled helmet that made her look more like an evil sorceress than a good fairy.

Midsummernight's Dream, 2010

Olga Esina (Titania) & Ensemble
Copyright: Das Ballett der Wiener Staatsoper und Volksoper/Axel Zeininger

For all of these caveats about the confusion and pantomime of the first act of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the second act was genuinely splendid. Elo finally puts the story behind him and allows his choreographic imagination to take flight. The second act quickly becomes a marriage celebration with pairs followed by corps movements, by two pairs, by long pas de deux, with more group movements.

The different pieces cascade by without respite in a regale of dancing. The closest comparison I can find in George Balanchine's Jewels. A Midsummer Night's Dream offers the same varied but coherent variations. So the evening ends on a high note.

Both Iliana Chivarova and Oxana Kiyanenko lead the corps-de-ballet most valiantly in Elo's grand dances against Bartholody's famous Wedding March.

The second cast promises to be very capable as well, with Kirill Kourlaev as Oberon, Irina Tsymbal (sadly in her last season in Staatsoper, with every year comes more emotional nuance in her dancing) at Titania and with Maria Yakovleva as Hermia.

Despite the rather old-fashioned and too elaborate first act, A Midsummer Night's Dream is a splendid concotion of music and movement and light. Gyula Harangozó can be very proud of the company he is leaving at Staatsoper and of the final piece he has added to their repertoire. With the ice broken Jorma Elo will get more chances at full length ballet. It will be interesting to see whether he ever gets lost in pantomime again as in the first act or manages to communicate his meaning in dance as in the second act henceforth.

Ioan Holender Opernball with Desirée Treichl-Stürgkh

To my astonishment, there was not a single image of ballet in the book. Ballet premiers are relegated to a two page list in the back.

I had heard of Holender's contempt for ballet but to just cut ballet out entirely from his commemorative goodbye album is a step too far.

While opera can be a magnificent art, most often it is tedious, filled with bombastic emotions of oversized egos.

Ballet on the other hand is the springtime, it is mortality in flight, it is delicate flutters of the soul made flesh.

The weak point in ballet is the music, which too often was primitively written for dance. Later that changed with Profkofiev and Stravinsky's ballet scores like Romeo and Juliet, Firebird and Rites of Spring.

Holender's Close Up was not even written by the author. He assented to five interviews about his time at Staatsoper where he answered the interviewer's questions about his work. The lazy man's way to writing a book.

In this case it works. Holender manages to come across as his irascible, irritable and bombastic self. The interviewer has edited the answers down to the essential so if you want to learn more about Holdender's methods, it's all there. He covers talent scouting, relationships with conductors when developing new talent.

I remember telling Muti about Angelika Kirschlager the first time. Muti didn't know her and therefore didn't want here. They all want the singers they already know. So you also have to fight with conductors and stage directors to convince them. And that is not an easy thing to do, believe me. (p. 455)

Axel Zeninger's photos as whole are excellent. As a stage photographer it's interesting to observe the changes in technology. In 1999, the early digital pictures have noisy shadows and are a little bit blurry due to long exposure times for instance in Don Giovanni, pp. 202-203). In 2009, the pictures are all sharp, as Nikon's high ISO actually works and one can shoot at 1/400 second and not at 1/30 second. But you can see what a blessing high ISO digital photography is by wandering through the photos from 1993 and 1994, such as Umberto Giordano's Fedora on pp. 84-85 or Richard Wagner's Ring on pp. 48-49.

In addition to the photographs and Holdender's insights, the program for each opera premier is included and reproduced at life size. Much nicer than a stack of programs in the corner of a shelf (as I have).

Closeup: 118 Premieren Wiener Staatsoper is recommended for Staatsoper, Holender and opera fans. It's an excellent idea to have a bound and visual summary of the Holender years, especially as it's well printed by Edition Lammerhuber. Alas there's nothing to recommend it to amateurs of ballet. Given Mr. Holender's contempt for ballet, I can't say I'm sad to see him go.

As I know more and more people from the opera again (in Moscow I spent a lot of time with opera singers and a fair amount of time at the Russian operas, but not the Italians) and I live in Vienna, I might very well read it myself to see what it is I'm missing out on.

Somehow with Astrid we ended up somewhere in the galleries. It was more a feeling of alienation and awe. Something Shakespearian with much murder. Theatre in a language one doesn't speak is rarely a winning hand so I was loathe to make any judgement. We also attended a number of charming small pieces in the Casino at Schwarzenbergplatz, far more successful.

But this time for Trilogie des Wiedersehens Radoslava and I were in the second row of the main stage.

Comfortable and close enough to make a clear judgement.

Trilogie des Wiedersehens is set in real time at an art exhibit organized by Moritz. It seems that the whole town is there, from the doctor, to the printer, to the local writer. All the woman are there too in minidresses and pantsuits.

Trilogie des Wiedersehens, 2009

The whole town is there.
Photo by Reinhard Werner, Burgtheater.

Wonderfully enough there is a cast of sixteen in the Trilogie des Wiedersehens. Almost invariably, a play with a large cast will win my heart or at least my respect. A large cast gives the director so much richer a canvas to work with.

The setting is the 1970's so many of the actors are wearing outrageous wigs, which sadly look like wigs. I don't remember seeing my parents or their friends parading around in wigs in the 70's so we are already started on a bad hair day.

I also don't remember people screaming all the time in the 70's or necessarily understand why they would be having sex in washrooms with people they don't like. The second part is more credible.

The whole piece is made up of little conversational vignettes. The stage turns back and forth between the main exhibition hall with the food and drink and a little frequented back corridor nominally watched by a guard.

In each little vignette, more information comes to the surface about the past relationships and internal angst of each character. At first we devoured these cryptic exchanges seeking to make sense of the whole. As the characters screamed more and more we lost interest.

Trilogie des Wiedersehens, 2009

The whole piece is made up of little conversational vignettes.
Photo by Reinhard Werner, Burgtheater.

The mortally slow pace between vignettes didn't help. I don't know if the director was trying to show us that the seventies were indeed a slower time, but certainly to the people living in the seventies they didn't perceive time as slow but it certainly appeared that way to us with twenty to thirty seconds between one vignette ending and another one starting.

Now both of us are busy people active in the economic sphere of life. Perhaps certain Austrians, students or bureaucrats would find the pace relaxingly realistic. But the slow pace distracted both of us from being able to enter into the piece.

It didn't help that the characters were all dull and rather pathetic. None of them could be described as aspirational. And it seemed each actor was hellbent on mocking his or her own subject. A single exception: Juergen Maurer as the doctor was serious and persuasive. His role was near inconsequential but you felt that if Maurer had more to say, the play might actually go somewhere.

Portently he tells his shrill wife "Your low self esteem doesn't allow anyone to say anything kind to you."

Instead we listened mainly to the incessant rants and shrieking of Susanne (Regina Fritsch) and Elfriede (Sabine Haupt). In the end, the characters were dull and hysterical, invoking little sympathy, whether via screaming or drunkeness or their inability to eat a sandwich without spilling cream all over themselves.

Trilogie des Wiedersehens, 2009

Instead we listened mainly to the incessant rants and shrieking.
Photo by Reinhard Werner, Burgtheater.

In short drunken idiots leading hideous lives.

The first act ends with all of the actors naked on stage standing in a posed group (carefully arranged to reduce pruriency to a minimum). The stage rotatates out again bringing them all to center and the lights drop.

The significance? That we are metaphorically naked before our friends and family. I don't think I've seen anything at Bürgtheater which didn't include nudity on stage. I love nudity on stage - it's a great way to force a reaction. But here, nothing.

Strangely, the Austrian reviews of Trilogie des Wiedersehens are quite good. Perhaps we missed the humour. But having spent over one and a half hours with the crowd on stage, neither Radoslava nor I had any wish to spend any more time with them.

We left at the half, relieved to be spared more of the shrieking and base accusations.

In terms of the stagecraft, the set and the lighting were of a high level. The costumes were acceptable but kitschy and exaggerated, a grotesque. The acting was the same.

The one particularly clever piece of stagecraft is during the scenes in the main exhibition hall with the full cast present, the director contrives to have all of the conversational groups nod at one another as if the other were speaking. The actors each took a particular tick (a nod or a roll of the eyes) to the limit. Very droll and reminded me exactly of the sometimes surreal effect of being at a party: everyone feigning to listen to everyone else.

The Viennese worship their Bürgtheater (the second or third best stage in the German speaking lands according to the Viennese). Based on what we saw Sunday, they are nowhere near the Royal Shakespeare Company. Frankly I'd expect more engagement and conviction from a RADA graduation class. In grotesque, the top Moscow theatres would leave these lost souls wandering in limbo. They outplayed most of what you'd see in Toronto, which would be similarly emotionally vacant but even less persuasive.

This is not my last trip to Bürgtheater this year. I'll give them another couple of chances to change my mind but Trilogie des Wiedersehens was not a good start. Surprising as with a huge ensemble cast and complicated relationships, it caters exactly to my taste.

Performance seen 15 September 2009.

Photos from Bürgtheater official publicity photos.

Juliet Berto as Frederique, Jacques Doniol Valcroze at Etienne:
Life is just a giant chess game but for keeps

The problem with the film Out 1: Spectre is that it is all on the spot improvisation. If you've ever done much improvisation, you know that even when it goes well it usually takes some time longer to develop. There is a lot of going in circles to get the plane off the ground. Spectre One documents those circles. For the twenty five minutes of successful drama you are forced to sit through four and a half hours of film, three hours of which are actors warming up to their subject and another half hour just extraneous long shots.

Perhaps most interesting as a social document if we trust the director to accurately document avant garde theatre practice and mœurs of the time. Some contemporary French critics did praise the sociological side at the time, so let's presume that the clothing and behaviour is correct. In that case, it is astonishing how much people smoked and drank in that time. They didn’t take it easy on the coffee either.

Out 1: Spectre ostensibly treats Balzac's Thirteen: thirteen who consider themselves above society and who are willing to cooperate to break any laws to get what they want.

The Fat Director (Michel Lonsdale as Thomas) is one of the most irritating personalities to ever grace the silver screen. He has a huge head, a great big rump, tiny shoulders, persistently dirty hair. Throughout the film, he pontificates with his mouth full of nuts or sandwiches or booze or cigarettes. He manages to put his oily hands on every attractive woman crossing the screen. Partcularly incredible is when he sits on the bed stroking his ex-mistress Sarah, while his current mistress sits on the floor, even bringing water to Sarah at his request.

Very amusing is the scene where he shares an apartment by the seaside with the most beautiful actress of his troupe and a bearded youth. The relationship isn't sorted out clearly but it looks like this Dionysian young acolytes are sharing the same bed with old Satyr. What Michel Lonsdale is doing to merit this very special treatment is difficult to fathom. His carnal facility must rival the gourmandise of his eating - a hideous image but at least one level on which one can engage with Spectre One - distaste for a personnage so strong that you can taste it. He seems to have built a cult of personality within the group.

The most engaging actor is Juliet Berto in her role as seductress/thief/blackmailer. The different tricks she plays to part foolish men and their money are entrancing for a man. Have you ever been a dupe to a broad on the make? Watch her performance and you know you have been. Her most formidable adversary is Etienne (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze) who is one of the conspiratorial ringleaders. His gravelly voice and polite strength were incredibly impressive. Apart from a single scene at the end where he and Michel Lonsdaleare talking around the conspiracy, Doniol-Valcroze's improvisation is the most fluent and convincing. You know that he's dealt with any number of duplicitous women and is not phased by them in the least.

Jean Loud seems to be lost here. He is the glue binding all the different parts of the film together with this investigation of the thirteen.

My favorite director Eric Rohmer appears briefly in a cameo as a university professor discussing Balzac. Not a particularly convincing performance but an amusing enough inside joke. It's amazing how old Rohmer was even back in 1972. Astonishing that he is still making movies. Eric Rohmer gave up on automobiles in his thirties and since then cycles everywhere (I am not sure that is presently true granted his age). Rohmer made the decision to abandon automobiles for environmental reasons. Hopefully, cycling/car abandonment has a very positive effect on my own long term vitality and productivity.

But in the end Out 1: Spectre disappoints. So much time for so little.

The image is also hideous. I don't know what the original print looked like but what's left in the can is a washed out pink and orange mess. You can hardly see the colours. The visual inadequacy of the material in this case is a substantial problem. Out 1: Spectre is most successful as a social document. In a social document, one wants to be able to clearly see the clothing and design, to taste and feel the surroundings.

So somebody saved some money with inadequate development facilities. No wonder they were worried about cost issues with dozens of hours of footage to tie together.

Curiously enough, the full Out 1 times in at twelve hours and forty minutes. It was supposed to be a miniseries for French television. TF1 refused to air it. Jacques Rivette didn't want to see his work thrown away so he edited it down to the 225 minute version we saw. Apparently, the longer version makes more sense. I don't have twelve more hours of my life to find out.

Timing in at 246 minutes and even longer, La Maman et la Putaine is otherwise the inverse of Out 1: Spectre. There are only three core characters. The action takes place in a minimum of settings (Café aux Deux Magots, a street by the Pantheon, a dormitory room and a filthy apartment).

All the three characters do is talk and drink. But the relationship lives its own life. Every moment is absorbing as you sink further and further into their psychosis and realise that despite their connection, a trainwreck is up ahead.

Most people are familiar with Jean-Pierre Léaud flippant work in Truffaut's film as his own alter ego Antoin Doinel. Later in life Léaud slummed with half hearted efforts at acting. But here in La Maman et la Putaine, he is entirely persuasive as the café wastrel pocket philosopher. The line between life and cinema seems to disappear entirely.

While the text seems absolutely natural, it is in fact tightly scripted. None of the improvisational excesses of Spectre One. The difference in quality between these two similarly dialogue driven films from the same epoch with many of the same concerns should be a case study in the dangers of improvisation in the feature film format. A tight script makes all the difference between inspired and boring.

Both Bernadette Lafont and Françoise Lebrun are brilliant as Léaud's companions in their ménage à trois.

Jean Eustache made few feature films in his relatively short life (43 years), committing suicide.

The one trait the two films have in common are the prodigous quantities of alcohol, coffee and cigarettes consumed.

No wonder most Parisians in their forties look a damn wreck.

References

It can be hard to find good information about Out 1: Spectre so here are some references to help.

Detailed plot entry at Wikipedia.
Jonathan Rosenbaum review with pics
A rather weak IMDB entry

Draft originally written in April 2009

Much of the story seemed to be adaptations of Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenenant novels. In just one example, the Mord'Sith seem a near clone of the Bloodguard but with breasts.

Which set me to asking myself whatever happened to a film version of Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenenant Trilogies (there's three of them)? The Thomas Convenant novels are fantasy for grown-ups dealing with issues such as acceptance and exclusion via physical metaphors like lepresy. The sex lives are also very complex, exploring the breakdown of the physical elements of love over time.

Despite some heavy hitters signing up to develop such a film, no studio signed off on it. Here are Stephen R. Donaldson's own notes on the subject.

"Covenant" film news: it's over. The producers who optioned "Lord Foul's Bane" have tried everything they could think of, without success. Now their option has expired, and they have declined to renew it. Bury it now, folks, 'cause it's dead. 1/29/07

---

Possible "Lord Foul's Bane" film: bad news. It doesn't look good. So far, the project has been rejected by Fox, Sony, and Dreamworks. "Too dark." "Too much like LOTR." The prospective producers have decided to change their tactics. They are now hoping to get a reputable director "on board." If they succeed, this may increase the project's credibility.

I'll post more news when I have some. 2005

---

This past week, "The Hollywood Reporter" announced that "Covenant" is coming to the big screen. This is both premature and misleading. Here are the facts to date.

The production team of Mark Gordon ("Saving Private Ryan") and Peter Winther ("Independence Day") is quite serious about wanting to make a "Covenant" film. "Revelstone Development" has a design in place and a screenwriter on board (John Orloff, "Band of Brothers"). What Gordon and Winther do *not* have is a studio (i.e. money); and without a studio little or nothing is likely to happen. Since Hollywood basically shuts down in December, Gordon and Winther plan to start approaching studios in January.

I would like to emphasize that I have no control over any aspect of this process. After all, the film rights are held by Ballantine Books, not by me. I've met Winther and Orloff, and I'm convinced that their respect for and excitement about "Covenant" is genuine: for that reason, I'm starting to get excited myself. And I have no doubt that Revelstone Development will consult with me from time to time, and will take whatever I have to say seriously. But I have no actual power here. Nor do I want any. In fact, I've refused every offer to give me any power. I love movies; I hope a "Covenant" movie (or several) will be made; I hope it will be good; and I hope it will be successful. But I'm simply not qualified, either by experience or by personality, to make the kinds of decisions--and compromises--which are essential to film-making. And I have my own work to do, work which pretty much consumes all of my creative energy. So I'm rooting hard for Revelstone Development; and if Gordon, Winther, and Orloff ever want my opinion, I'll give it to them. But really this is all out of my hands.

More news as it develops....

P.S. I'm just guessing here; but I suspect that peculiar references to "Saturn" in "The Hollywood Reporter" are a confused conflation of "Satan" and "Sauron." I can't think of any other explanation.

As it happens, Russell Crowe has decided NOT to take on the role of Thomas Covenant, no doubt (drum-roll, please) because he considered it too taxing. Imagine my surprise. As you may know, money people typically commit to a movie, not because they like the project, but because a "bankable" star has agreed to participate. Therefore the "Covenant" film remains purely hypothetical.

I'm amazed that the Thomas Convenant series has never been made into a motion picture considering how far near the bottom of the barrel Hollywood scraped for its Lord of the Rings lookalikes in the boom years. Or that it hasn't been picked up for a television series.

Too sophisticated?

Ann McAffrey's Dragon series made it to the big screen on a large scale. Even latecomer to the screen Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea trilogy made it Sci Fi channel in 2004. Surely somebody has to get around to the Thomas Covenant Chronicles eventually even if they end up simplifying and whitewashing some of the darker elements.

I bought the Chiaroscuro CD while I was there. Surprisingly the CD is just a shadow of how Fresu and Towner play live together. This is one rare occasion where the live performance clearly outranks what the musicians can do in the studio. I guess you had to be there.

Porgy & Bess artistic director Christoph Huber was very animated after the show as well. It was one of the top five concerts I've ever attended there in five years.

Paolo Fresu on trumpet

Paolo Fresu on trumpet

Paolo Fresu on trumpet

Ralph Towner

Paolo Fresu on horn

Paolo Fresu on horn

All photos Alec Kinnear. Porgy and Bess, Vienna, 22 Febuary 2010.

How does Staatsoper handle this middle of the road Romeo from 1962? With relative aplomb. The orchestra did seem a little undermanned or thin for Prokofiev's magnificent score in comparison to performances I've heard in Moscow and St Petersburg.

On the dance front after two years of Harangozo's whip hand, the corps de ballet handles their part without a false step. Standardising on the Russian norm has left a very svelte and elegant corps.

Rafaella Sant'Anna, Ketevan Papava and Liudmila Trayan are all fun as the Montague good time girls. Thomas Mayerhofer and Alexandra Kontrus were fine as the Capulet parents but not extraordinarily stately. Still when Alexandra Kontrus is carried away with her son Tybald one's heart breaks for the bereaved mother.

That's the pity of Romeo and Juliet, it always ends in tears, no mattter how playful Mercutio or how sweet Romeo. Juliet's brother Tybald must kill Mercutio and then Romeo must murder his brother in law. That events go downhill from there is no surprise. Manslaughter and murder rarely ends well.

Denys Cherevchenko as Mercutio relishes his moments in the spotlight and has the legs to take advantage of free flowing part. On the other side, Kyrill Kourlaev as Tybalt is intent on protecting his sister and totally humourless. Kourlaev is anything but grim in real life, so he's up to his usual fine acting. Mortally injured Kourlaev throws himself down on the stage and rolls across in his death throes. I saw at least three solid bruises in just a single evening and he had two performances in three days. Method to the end.  Dramatic ballet at its best.

Roman Lazik is less convincing as Romeo. Lazik is the typical leading dancer with long, long legs and an open face. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to be doing much with his natural gifts and relies on facile charm throughout the evening. He never seems especially ardent. One has difficulty imagining why Juliet would cross her entire family for the sake of such a diffident fellow.

Alexandra Tcacenco as Paris doesn't come off any better on the other side. He doesn't seem to be really taken with Juliet nor nearly jealous enough. The only one really looking out for Juliet is her brother.

Despite Lazik's weak pitch for her heart, Irina Tsymbal does manage to capture the impetuousness passion of first love. She glides across the stage and melts our tired hearts with the sweet flutter of her arms and her toes.

I would be intrigued to see something more experimental done with the male roles here. Kourlaev doesn't have the sweet looks of a typical leading man, but rather the menacing features of a Rothbart or Crassius. But there is no reason not to cast him against external type and see how he does. Based on how he's handled everything offered to him to date, it would likely be very well.

If they could find a petite enough Juliet, even Cherevychko might be a fun Romeo. But first he'd have to promise to act and not try to dazzle us with circus jumps. In any case, Lazik is on the cusp of being a little bit too old to convincingly portray Romeo and Staatsoper Ballet will have to work on finding alternative leading men.

Overall the Wiener Staatsoper Romeo and Julie is well worth a glance if you'd like to see a good if not scintillating version of Cranko's classic. If you hit the right cast, the evening may well be splendid.

Tanz Company Gervasi Geckos Kenia Bernai Gonzales Leoni Wahl

And so it is with Geckos.

Here we meet in the rehearsal hall on Laxenburgerstrasse. The ceilings are a bit lower than in a full theatre, the seating more limited. But no matter, Markus Schwarz's light makes the space bigger, pouring light through blinds set up between a side room and the main rehearsal space.

Leoni Wahl Salvatore la Ferla

The décor is a single red armchair which serves as a place for lovers to sit together, for one lover to miss the absent one and for another as a cliff from which she considers self-destruction.

Tanz Company Gervasi Geckos Leoni Wahl psychological tightrope

Gervasi is working with three dancers here, all excellent. The long and handsome Italian Salvatore la Ferla, the compact Kenia Bernai Gonzales and longtime muse Leoni Wahl.

All three begin pinned up against a wall in a very peculiar way.

Kenia Bernai Gonzales Leoni Wahl Salvatore la Ferla against the wall

The threesome binds and parts into two couples in a complicated relationship which never fully clarifies itself. What is apparent is that gradually Leoni Wahl's character drifts into solitude.

Tanz Company Gervasi Geckos Kenia Bernai Gonzales Leoni Wahl 2

Throughout these divagation of the relationship, the dancers express their feelings for one another or their feelings alone through steps and movement.

Tanz Company Gervasi Geckos Leoni Wahl

Each dancer is on a trajectory of his or her own which leads to a somewhat symphonic emotional impression.

Tanz Company Gervasi Geckos Kenia Bernai Gonzales in motion

Geckos lasts an hour but it feels like half an hour, as one just sits back and lets the steps and the emotion of the dancers take over. The sophisticated atmospheric track from Albert Castello helps. While the atmospheric soundspace is neither melodic enough nor innovative enough to make the listener want to take it home, within the space and context it is excellent.

Kenia Bernai Gonzales Leoni Wahl Salvatore la Ferla

Despite these strong points, Geckos has several weak points. One feels that Gervasi could intervene more forcefully with his dancers. For instance, Leoni Wahl's steps, while absorbing, are another variation on what Gervasi regulars have seen for many years.

Leoni Wahl Geckos Elio Gervasi

As brilliant and energetic a dancer as Wahl is one feels that her movment is becoming too self-referential.

One sometimes wishes that rather than developing the dancers own expression again, Gervasi would impose his own order on them. In line with a desire for greater specificity, I felt that the libretto could be more developed: more precise emotional moments in a story more deliberately told. But a clearer storyline is not as important as a clear choreographic vision.

For the moment, it would do no harm if for a few pieces, Gervasi and Wahl's shared exploration of movement yielded to a clear and trenchant choreographic language.

All photos by Alec Kinnear © Elio Gervasi, the artists and Alec Kinnear. More Gervasi Geckos photos here.

Kaffeesiederball 2010 Nokia N97 Mini high ISO 01

The Kaffeesiederball together with the Opernball are Vienna's two best balls. It's a very close call which is better. I'd say the Kaffeesiederball with its 15 live orchestras is more fun, while the Opernball is more glamourous. But the Opernball is fun too, and Kaffeesiederball has glam aplenty. The contrast between both and banal balls like the Artztball (Physicians' Ball) are striking.

Kaffeesiederball 2010 Nokia N97 Mini high ISO 02

Usually I have some great shots of the Kaffeesiederball but due to an arm strain back at the Austrian Fashion Week which turned into RSI, I'm off the main camera with full lens setup except for special occasions. Quite nice as it means that I can enjoy evenings without trying to capture fleeing time through a lens. Just for fun for a few minutes in the middle of the evening I pulled out the Nokia N97 mini and tried some snaps with it. Definitely not a low-light camera, but I can see that if one caps ISO at 400, the pictures are not at all bad.

The shot of the singer is at ISO 387, while all the others are at 800. Colour correction done in Aperture 3. Aperture 3 had no problem at all dealing with the jpegs and it was great to have Aperture level light and colour correction tools available to get the most of these small noisy photos.

Nokia 97 Mini external daylight pictures are great, btw. The N97 Mini has a much better camera than the iPhone and can definitely replace a standard point and shoot as one's spur of the moment on the road camera.

Kaffeesiederball 2010 Nokia N97 Mini high ISO 03

Kaffeesiederball 2010 Nokia N97 Mini high ISO 04

Kaffeesiederball 2010 Nokia N97 Mini high ISO 06

Kaffeesiederball 2010 Nokia N97 Mini high ISO 05

Daylight Photos from the Nokia N97 Mini

Nokia N97 daylight normal ISO: heavy machinery ripping
apart the last remnants of Südbahnhof. Ironically this building
is only about ten years old. Humans building, discarding, wasting.
All at great expense to ourselves and nature.

If you'd like to see just how good the 4 MP Nokia N97 Mini camera is in comparison to the 2 MP iPhone or other normal cellphone camera, just download the full size version of the last photo. Amazing. I haven't provided the full size versions for the Kaffeesiederball photos as they just don't stand up to scrutiny at higher res.

But when the first great Aperture-Lightroom wars broke out a few years ago, I found myself seduced by the great workflow in Aperture. You are always grading your images and can always improve them with a quick flick of a switch. I also had a terrible experience with trying to move a Lightroom library which flat out died on me. Aperture libraries were  more easily portable. I never cared for either Apple or Adobe's attempts to get me to keep my images in their internal proprietary folders. Both companies quickly realised that photographers didn't want their images locked away somewhere and so lightened up on the ingesting techniques.

So after losing ratings on a few thousand images in Lightroom, I ended up using Aperture and really enjoying the interface which was very similar to Final Cut Pro. Still almost every edit session I used Aperture I would be frustrated by the absence of curves. Sure I found ways to work around no curves by getting very good at manipulating Apple's excellent exposure and enhance features. One could get very close to curves by working with exposure, black point and contrast. In an extreme case, I could always take an excursion to Photoshop.

But the absence of curves was always a wrench in speed and precision of editing. Curves are the single holy grail of subtle and powerful colour and tone editing. Just set your white balance and start working on your curves. By the time curves are set right, there should be very little left to do in a photograph, as long as you are staying in the realistic category.

Adobe knows the importance of curves too, which is why Adobe Photoshop Elements didn't include curves at all until the latest version and why even now curves in PS Elements are crippled. Curves cannot be applied as an adjustment layer (i.e. non-reversible) like Levels, nor do you have direct control over the S curve. At $700 for Photoshop with $300 updates almost every year, working curves are a very expensive proposition with Adobe.

With Curves now in Aperture, there is a pro level alternative to Adobe and the Photoshop world. You can do all your development in Aperture and only need resort to a bitmap editor for minor tweaks. Workflow is much faster with non-destructive curves built right into Aperture.

Time for some show and tell. Here's a couple of sample images to show you just how much curves can do for you.

Version one: developed using the Aperture 2's Exposure and Enhance. Lots of issues with digital noise due to pushing too hard. I ended up having to make the left side of the picture too hot to get enough light on the dancer's face.

aperture 2 no curves no dodge:
(dancers Salvatore La Ferla, Leoni Wahl, Kenia Bernal Gonzales
in choreographer Elio Gervasi's Geckos, November 2009)

This picture has an exciting look but the middle dancer's face is much too dark and there is a lot of noise on the wall in the other dancer's shadow. The male dancer's pants end up becoming the center of interest.

aperture 3 with curves dodge

In Aperture 3, with a quick non-destructive dodge and burn, I am able to brighten the middle dancer's face and cool off the male dancer's pants. The curves allow me to improve contrast without turning the photo cartoony or generating large patches of image noise.

Apple Aperture Exposure Enhance

Curiously, the first result required a lot more tinkering. There are eight separate variables in play in the Exposure and Enhance panels to get close to the single intuitive panel of Curves.

Apple Aperture Curves

Here's another example. In this case the first image is the unprocessed RAW image (just use the M button for Master to see it). The second image is modified only with curves. Well not quite, I liked what I was seeing so I cheated a bit and added a quick vignette and burned the sky out behind the model to keep the center of focus on her eyes.

Canon 5D image unprocessed Apple Aperture

The unprocessed photo is attractive enough but pale and bled out. The sky is too bright and there is too much to distract from the model's face. Her eyes and skin don't have as much pop as one would wish.

Image after curves Apple Aperture

Here's how simple that fantastic effect in curves is, with just a big of vignette and burn to improve the core enriching contrast from curves.

Curves Vignette Burn Apple Aperture

How was performance in Aperture 3 on a Macbook Pro 17" 2.5 GHz with Nvidia 8600 512MB graphics card on a 30" monitor?

My photos were on an external FireWire 800 drive with the library kept on an internal 7200 RPM drive with 300 GB of free space. My library includes about 13,000 images and is 50 GB by itself, i.e. mid-size.

• Throughout the import and upgrade process, terrible.
• With full-size previews on, terrible.
• With previews and the absolutely foolish Faces function* completely turned off (generated once at project import), great.

Apparently people who have the integrated graphics chips like the 9400 are suffering now. Typical Apple marketing tricks - stay away from the low end computers if you want to use their pro apps. If you want to save money buy the previous generation high end at end of line, as they will have to support the flagship computers for a few generations (those computers belong to their best customers).

Apple's Aperture 3 can turbocharge your turnaround as you can get much better images much faster with curves than any other control. Unlike Adobe, pricing as usual with Apple software is very reasonable. $200 to join the game, $100 to continue if you've already been playing.

Additional Resources

For another take on Curves for natural light photographs and the new tools in Aperture be sure to watch Apple's video interview with Chase Jarvis.

* Faces is a junky gadget and should not be included or even turned on. Most pictures do not show a face full front-on. And if you can't recognise the faces in your own pictures, your problems are more serious than not having the latest version of Aperture. Time to see a senility doctor.