Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies

 ballet, dance, musical theatre  2 Responses »
Jul 072012
 

Florenz Ziegfeld cre­ated his Fol­lies in 1907, and the suc­cess­ful format con­tin­ued on until 1931. The Ziegfeld Fol­lies were extraordin­ar­ily elab­or­ate revues inspired by the Fol­ies Ber­gères in . While being a high-class Vaudeville vari­ety show, mix­ing com­ics, sing­ers and spe­ci­al­ity dan­cers, it was the Ziegfeld girls that made them a hit. That whiff of sex dis­guised as art presen­ted by beau­ti­ful and often very tal­en­ted young women.

Ziegfeld Girls 05 Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies

There were two tech­niques to cam­ou­flage the near-nudity: tableau vivants which presen­ted the semi-clad girls in non-moving artistic poses jus­ti­fied by the cul­tural ref­er­ences to great paint­ers; and bal­let, where to have women in extremely short tutus doing chaînés around the stage was already the norm. The dance dir­ect­ors (cho­reo­graph­ers were only for ser­i­ous bal­let!) brought a touch of class to revues that were some­times sexy, but never vulgar.

Here are some of the pho­tos of the ‘bal­let’ stars of the Fol­lies, includ­ing the stun­ning Louise Brooks who went on to cinema star­dom, and Cyd Charisse as she appeared in the 1945 Hol­ly­wood movie Ziegfeld Fol­lies.

Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
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  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Pointe shoes and tutus at the Ziegfeld Follies

Spider-Man the Musical’s firm grip sets Broadway record

 musical theatre  No Responses »
Jan 052012
 

spider man poster Spider Man the Musicals firm grip sets Broadway record: Turn Off the Dark, writ­ten by U2’s and The Edge, has taken the highest single-week tak­ings of any show in history.

The musical, which was plagued with prob­lems from its incep­tion, took $2.9m (£1.8m) over nine per­form­ances last week, accord­ing to The Broad­way League. The Edge said it was a “proud day” for every­one who has been involved.

The show, which cost $75m (£48m) to make, is the most expens­ive Broad­way show to be produced.

Bono said,

Things did get chaotic and messy after our pro­du­cer Tony Adams died. But this week’s news has us all giddy again and we are rais­ing our glasses to Tony, to our indefatig­able cast, crew, cre­at­ive — and pro­duc­tion team.”

Co-producer Jeremiah Har­ris admit­ted he and his col­league, fel­low pro­du­cer Michael Cohl, “came into a very dif­fi­cult situ­ation” when they signed up.… [con­tinue reading]

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Interview with Samuel Ramey as he makes his début in his home town

 interview, opera  No Responses »
Oct 062011
 

Samuel Ramey Christian Steiner Interview with Samuel Ramey as he makes his début in his home town, a meat-cutter’s son, came from the high plains of north­w­est Kan­sas. Now he’s per­form­ing at Kan­sas City Opera, his début with the com­pany which turned him down early in his career.

Ramey, who will be 70 next year, talked to the Kan­sas City Star; here are his words:

On his origins

“I think about being a kid grow­ing up in Colby, Kan­sas, and I think about all the places my career has taken me and some­times find it hard to believe.”

On Timur

“I did it a bit in my early years at the Opera in the mid-’70s, then it went out of my rep­er­tory. It’s not a big lead­ing role, but then the Met asked me to do it a few years ago — I think it was in 2007 — and so that’s all. … [con­tinue reading]

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Broadway’s Billy Elliot to close

 musical theatre  No Responses »
Oct 042011
 

The musical “”, win­ner of 10 Tony Awards in 2009 and a hot ticket for much of its run, will close on Janu­ary 8, 2012, after 3 years and 3 months of performances.

The decision to close came after a some­what pre­cip­it­ous decline in ticket sales that accel­er­ated through the late spring and sum­mer amid com­pet­i­tion from new music­als like “The Book of Mor­mon” and “”, hit reviv­als like “Any­thing Goes” and “How to Suc­ceed in Busi­ness Without Really Try­ing”, and “Mem­phis”, the dur­able recip­i­ent of the 2010 Tony for best musical.

“Billy Elliot” was one of the most suc­cess­ful music­als in in recent years, earn­ing back its cap­it­al­iz­a­tion of $18 mil­lion – a high fig­ure for Broad­way – in just 14 months.… [con­tinue reading]

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Broadway’s open-air tribute to New York to remember 9/11

 musical theatre, video  1 Response »
Sep 102011
 

The com­munity came out in full force Fri­day after­noon in to observe the 10th anniversary of the Septem­ber 11 attacks. Per­formers from the music­als “The ,” “Sis­ter Act,” “,” “Mamma Mia!” and more gathered in Times Square to sing the ode to the city, “, ,” by John Kander and Fred Ebb.

… [con­tinue reading]

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Library of Congress is to receive the memorabilia of Broadway actor John Raitt

 musical theatre  No Responses »
Sep 082011
 

The Lib­rary of Con­gress announced Wed­nes­day it will receive a col­lec­tion of and per­sonal mem­or­ab­ilia from the estate of actor John Raitt, who ori­gin­ated the role of Billy Bigelow in the clas­sic “Carou­sel” in 1945.

Raitt, a nat­ive of South­ern Cali­for­nia, also starred in “The Pajama Game” and a few other pro­duc­tions on Broad­way. Prior to hit­ting it big in , Raitt played Curly in the national tour of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!” in 1944.

The Lib­rary of Con­gress said the John Raitt Col­lec­tion includes six dec­ades’ worth of per­sonal scrap­books as well as phở­to­graphs from his private col­lec­tion, annot­ated scripts, orches­tra­tions and per­sonal let­ters. It will become part of the library’s music divi­sion, which houses the col­lec­tions of George and , , Oscar Ham­mer­stein II, Bob Fosse and other stage not­ables.… [con­tinue reading]

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Julie Taymor and Peter Brook: on the same path but in opposite directions

 musical theatre, opera  No Responses »
Jul 252011
 

As ’s pared down charms , that jug­ger­naut of a musical, , ’s ex-project, rolls on, charm­ing few. The con­trast got Los Angeles Times’ Mark Swed thinking:

Flute Spiderman Julie Taymor and Peter Brook: on the same path but in opposite directions

Brook’s return to opera has been mainly to down­scale and refash­ion clas­sics — such as “Car­men,” Debussy’s “Pelléas et Mél­is­ande” and now his “Flute” — into intim­ate drama. Tay­mor, though, has taken the oppos­ite route.

She absorbed Asian influ­ences early and made theater in churches and other small spaces in New York for little money with devoted col­leagues. As she became bet­ter known, she found ways to bring her masks, her sense of ritual, her love of myth­o­logy bril­liantly into the main­stream. Her first major opera pro­duc­tion — Stravinsky’s “Oed­ipus Rex” in 1993 star­ring Jessye Nor­man, with Seiji Ozawa con­duct­ing in Japan — was one of the great mod­ern opera sta­gings.… [con­tinue reading]

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