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 Everything really is beautiful at the ballet
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| Hudson River at 24th Street. 2:30 PM. Photo: JH. |
March 2, 2010. Yesterday was a brighter sunny day in New York. Spring is three weeks away. Most of the snow on the sidewalks and roads outside the parks is melted. There was a light cool wind on East End Avenue around noontime, but you could wear your overcoat open.
New York Lives. I’m posting these two pictures taken the same day that JH took his magnificent pictures of the Upper West Side and Park at the end of and after the snow. One was taken from inside Archivia the bookstore on Lexington between 72nd and 71st at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
New Yorkers will recognize the building directly ahead as the Tower East which occupies the easternmost plot on Third Avenue between 72nd and 71st Street. The Tower East was built in the early 1960s and it was considered very au courant, with forward thinking wealthy people for tenants. |
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| Looking out the back window of Archivia bookstore towards the Tower East on Third Avenue between 72nd and 71st. |
Not so gorgeous but typical city neighborhood view of the snow at the end of the day last Friday as things were warming up. |
There was a very famous actress who occupied a large apartment there with her husband in the early days of the building. Very famous. The story went around that the lady had to go to the Coast for a television or film job, and on the day of departure she got to the airport only to find that her flight to L.A. had been canceled.
So she turned around and came back home to her lovely new apartment in the brand new Tower East. And when she arrived home, two or three hours later, she found her husband and the father of her children there entertaining an unknown female a few (maybe more) years younger and of incomparable pulchritude.
Said actress was said to have been so livid with rage that she went and got a gun and chased the man of the house down the hall, out into the hallway (and maybe down the fire stair – I’m making that part up), taking a couple of shots at him. Said actress doesn’t live there any more. Hasn’t lived there in years. Oh, they lived presumably happy ever after.
Last night I went over to Lincoln Center to the School of American Ballet’s annual Winter Ball on the Promenade of the David H. Koch Theater. The parties, dinners, galas at Lincoln Center are all special. They usually occur after or during something wonderful. Everyone’s spiffed up for it. The places are set up to look beautiful and partake of the atmosphere of this great cultural complex. Last night was no exception. Cocktails began at 7 and ran till 8.
I arrived late into the cocktail hour. Paul McCartney was leaving, with his girlfriend. I never saw the guy in the flesh before. That connection he made as a performer, he makes on site. He evidently had come for the cocktail reception and was dashing off somewhere with his very pretty girlfriend who sort of looks like she’s watching him “happen” also. It was a pleasure seeing him in exactly the same way all those years of his and the Beatles work enhanced our attitudes. Would that he could do that now, no?
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| Pamela Joyner wearing the Aga Khan's emeralds. |
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There was a big crowd. I went around with my camera. The woman in black with the black hair, someone told me, was a princess. I never found out her name but she looked like a princess and she conducted herself with a kind of royal grace. Was I imagining it? Perhaps; but it fit.
It was crowded which is a good sign. Where the performing arts are concerned, like athletic events, the more the merrier. This year’s success I was told was because of Pamela Joyner who lives here and in San Francisco. Ms. Joyner is a dynamo and a big supporter of the ballet. I introduced myself and took her picture. She was wearing an amazing emerald and diamond necklace. The kind where you want to say: “is that real?” So I did.
She told me the emeralds had originally belonged to an Indian maharajah and were acquired later by the Aga Khan (grandfather of the present Aga Khan). It was later made into a necklace at his request by Claude Arpels. I could be wrong but I think that Ms. Joyner was wearing it for the occasion thanks to Van Cleef and Arpels who was the sponsor of the event.
About eight o’clock guests moved up the staircase to the Promenade. Dinner was scheduled for 8 but there were hundreds of guests and they take awhile to find their tables as well as socialize and visit with friends. It was a goodlooking scene with the women dressed for the occasion and men in black tie. I once asked my late friend Johnny Galliher why a tuxedo seemed to make anyone look good no matter the shape or the age? He replied the obvious: the color black with a dash of white is an elegant uniform and people almost always look good in uniforms. I think last night they felt good too.
It was for the School of American Ballet where they start training and learning as children. I’ve written about the SAB here several times. It is very impressive. Witnessing it you can see what a wonderful education and preparation for life the children/youth get there. They learn to work and focus and commit and self-discipline. Not to mention passion. I always think it’s unfortunate that all children in this country can’t have that kind of education. We’d have more industry in this country if that were so. |
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| The Metropolitan Opera House and the Vivian Beaumont to the right. |
| The David H. Koch Theater, the Met, and Avery Fisher Hall, last night at 10:15 PM. |
Deborah Roberts and Al Roker opened the evening as emcees. Peter Martins spoke as did Marjorie Van Dercook, the SAB Executive Director who told us that this year they raised more than ever before, more than $800,000.
Darci Kistler, the former prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet and wife of its director, Peter Martins, spoke about coming to New York from California as an early teenager to go to the School of American Ballet. George Balanchine was still alive and working then and she trained with him. She reminisced about the facilities which were far more primitive than students have today. She had a full scholarship which pleased her parents. New York soon became everything to her. She excelled so that she was a principal dancer by fifteen or sixteen and a soloist the following year. When she retired for the stage, she joined the staff of the SAB. |
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The highlight of the evening was a performance by the students which took place after dinner and before dessert. There were four pieces on the program — unfortunately I only recognized one number which was “Tea For Two” — and they included the entire student body, the children and the young dancers. After the performances, everybody joined in dancing to the music of DJ David Chang.
I’m not a dance aficionado but I love to watch the dancers. The SAB dancers are especially optimistic to watch because they are in training to provide the immense pleasure the world can receive in the future from watching them. After all, everything really is beautiful at the ballet. |
| John Schumacher, Katherine Brown, Executive Director of the New York City Ballet, Barbara Cirkva Schumacher, and Keith Scott. |
Sara Mearns, Giovanni Villalobos of the NYC Ballet, and Patricia Shiah. |
| Jean Shafiroff and Dawne Marie Grannum. |
Alexandra Lebenthal and Coralie Charriol ... |
| "The Princess" with Coralie Charriol. |
Matthew White. |
Liz Peek and Coco Kopelman. |
| Darci Kistler and Fe Fendi. |
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Stacia Balog, Claudia Ross and Jeanne Lawrence |
| Debra and Jerry Shriver. |
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Marie Nugent Head, Pamela Joyner, and Candice Beinecke. |
| Kevin Christensen, Glen Sargeon, Deepa Pakianathan, and Angelique Griepp. |
Julia Koch. |
Royce Pinkwater and Steve Jacoby. |
| Pamela Joyner and Fe Fendi with friends. |
Barbara and Donald Tober after the dinner. |
David Wasserman, who'd just come from an Irving Berlin tribute at an evening celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Lincoln Center at the Vivian Beaumont. |
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