At least when the New York City Opera was going down the tubes, the New York Times chronicled the financial and artistic troubles early on. Throughout NYCO’s long and painful demise, the Times sought out people who were closely connected to the world of opera for illuminating feedback. They quoted NYCO’s former general director and principal conductor who blamed “inconsistent board leadership” for the company’s failures. They quoted the respected opera and theater director, Francesca Zambello, who spoke of sadness at the "slow demise of what’s so important to us” and "to think that New York City cannot support two companies because of the board’s mishaps is a very depressing fact.” The Times sought out the perspectives of directors of other major opera companies such as William Mason, the general director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago who told the paper, “I have the impression they’re going into this half blind,” and “Boards don’t understand how opera companies work” and “A board’s job is to provide oversight.” The Times observed that “For months hints of trouble have been emerging” in connection with Gerard Mortier’s decision to leave NYCO almost before he got started with it.
There was actual news reporting and fact digging by the Times as NYCO’s internal organs failed one after the other until it wheezed its final breath and slumped over dead. There was a sense that the Times’ reporters understood the importance and impact of NYCO’s lingering death and felt the responsibility to report it.
But for some reason, the Times has not been interested in or has been incapable of reporting the similar downward spiral of American Ballet Theatre with its loss of identity and unique voice, waning commitment to quality classicism, internal troubles, failure to maintain sufficient and competent artistic staff, massive artistic defections, and the Fosamaxic build-up of its crumbling bones through the use of guest artists. Fosamax, as we now know, makes the bones even more brittle and prone to fracture.
ABT began its build-up of guest artists after Julio Bocca retired in 2006. The next internal promotion to the rank of principal did not occur for five years. In 2006, revenues hit $49+ million. Five years later revenues had plummeted to $36 million. Today – seven years into David Koch’s attempted transformation of ABT into a company of nomadic and mostly unimpressive guest artists who dance in front of ABT’s faceless company – ABT’s revenues are in the red hole by a whopping -18%. By contrast, over the same period, New York City Ballet’s revenues have risen by 7-1/2%.
ABT cannot blame the economy for its woes. It can only blame itself. Major talent continues to defect while others just hang on with hope that some sense of meritocracy will magically seep into the corrupt pay to play system at ABT where the preferred currency is media attention.
Unlike the Times’ classical music and opera critics who have practical experience and education in the art forms that they cover, the Times’ critics who write about classical ballet are merely sideline observers with megawatt blowhorns. Their primary mission is to convince readers of their own authority rather than write about performances that occur on stage. They are, at best, good fakes in a world that promotes fake it until you make it. When one of them writes something like First, some facts, that’s the first sign that you are about to read garbage. Usually, it’s no more than the writer trying to assert his faux authority with something like “I saw her in seven roles between 1977 and 1986” barely holding back from giving the reader the exact seven dates, the phases of the moon, and who was standing in the last row of the corps de ballet on those dates.
They have no appreciation of the importance or value of a classical dancer’s turnout, hip placement, arm and hand positions, epaulement, musical phrasing, proper use of head and eyes, proper use of delicacy versus boldness, consistency, quality of finishes, or the purity of a line that is clear and unimpeded by sharp elbows, winged or sickled feet, unattractive or misused profile, or bouncing boobs.
Believe it or not, when a ballerina strikes a pique arabesque the entire body is supposed to arrive in one piece. The boobs are not supposed to come trailing after nor are they supposed to jingle to their own independent musical notes once the dancer arrives at the arabesque. Anything that sticks out from the clear classical line shouldn’t be there – whether it’s a boob or a little finger or a fat pointe shoe box. Things that stick out don’t belong in classical ballet. That’s why the average body shouldn’t be promoted on the classical ballet stage but may function well on another dance stage such as contemporary ballet, broadway, or modern dance.
Nobody wants to pay $100 to sit in a theater and watch an average anything on the classical ballet stage - not an average body, not an average face - certainly not a homely one, not an average ability, not an average anything. We pay money to watch the extraordinary. We pay money to watch elite bodies achieve an aesthetic and artistry that we cannot ever achieve because of what we are not.
But today, dancers who don’t measure up to classical standards try to promote balletic gerrymandering. If they can’t win within the boundaries of the traditional classical district, they seek to relocate the boundaries in a direction that will give them a better chance of winning. They are never really concerned about advancing the art form; their concern is about advancing their own success and not being excluded because they don’t measure up to the requirements of classicism. It’s balletic gerrymandering. Dancers who lack partnering skills or theatrical weight want to take ballet in a new direction that won’t be so dependent on those elements and will allow them a greater opportunity for success. Dancers who cannot achieve the lines of classicism want to believe and be told that it’s not important or that the emphasis of classicism is in some way morally wrong. Choreographers want the respect that comes from working within classicism without actually working within its discipline.
Today, there is more chase for success than chase for artistry. The commitment to classicism is too difficult, too time consuming, and it doesn’t have enough of a pay-off in today’s culture. Worst of all, those who don’t understand it or can’t achieve it want to see it quietly die so that it no longer gets in the way of their own success.