My mother told me that they showed the 1985 ABT in San Francisco program at her retirement home. It went over big.
I said to my mother, “You see how gripping Lilac Garden can be?” She agreed wholeheartedly.
It’s a supreme theatrical, kinetic experience when it’s well performed.
Nowadays it’s hardly performed at all, let alone well performed, and the ways of casting politics make me shudder at what it could look like.
Even when Tudor was alive, there were casting compromises, but some of that could be ameliorated through coaching.
The ballet administrations wonder why there’s no audience. Why not perform emotionally gripping ballets so that they become emotionally gripping?
Not that Tudor’s ballets are traditionally boffo box office, but I remember at the all-Tudor evening ABT performed in 1986, the house–that would be the Met– was packed.
And you know what? The audience, the critics, the art form itself, all deserve some supreme theatrical/kinetic experiences.