BAm BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC THE HAMBURG BALLET PROGRAM III, IV, V IACCEPT THE CHALLENGE! I BOA Hon. Hon. ~th Leon: TAKE YOUR PLACE IN HISTORY AT BAM Paul l Hono ENDOW A SEAT IN THE OPERA HOUSE Neil l Ch: Rita I I. Sta CNI is the time, and now is your opportunity to OII CN! ing the tragic fire in 1903 that destroyed Arne Fran~ participate in BAM's future in a permanent way, the Academy's original structure on Montague Vice • N so that the BAM legacy can continue to meet FStreet, a "Committee of One Hundred" formed Harvt and shape the cultural challenges ahead. to raise $1,000,000 to erect a new, modem home for &< You can endow a seat in the Academy's magnificent Eli1.al the Academy on Lafayette Avenue. Hcnr: Opera House by making a special gift to the BAM The grand gala opening of the new Academy took Warn CHALLENGE FUND, which has been established to place on November 14, 1908. On that glittering evening, Chari achieve the $1.8 million goal in matching funds the Metropolitan Opera Company presented Gounod's Mall< Harol required by the National Endowment for the ArtS Faust in the Opera House with cast led by Geraldine Mich Challenge Grant awarded to BAM. The Academy's Farrar and Enrico Caruso. Davie challenge is to raise these funds For over 75 years BAM's Opera Sidne through new and increased contri­ House has been the setting for Roy 1 Euge• butions by June 30, 1987. scores of remarkable perfor­ Bruct An engraved plaque with your . mances. The roster of artists, La uri· name, or a name you wish to com­ companies and luminaries that E""IY Richa memorate, will be affixed to a seat have filled its stage are breath­ Mrs. in the area of the Opera House you taking: Anna Pavlova, Sarah Willi• designate through the level of your Bernhardt, H.G. Wells, Sergei Curti: contribution. Seat endCN~ment con­ Rachmaninoff, Fritz Kreisler, John OFFI Harvt tribution levels range from $500- McCormack, Amelia Earhart, Presic $1500 in the orchestra, $500-$1000 George Gershwin, Admiral Byrd, Ext in the mezzanine, and $250-$500 Woodrow Wilson, Paul Robeson, Juditt Vic in the balcony. Your gift to the BAM Ruth St. Denis, Vladimir HorCN~itz, Get CHALLENGE FUND may be Martha Graham, Franklin D. Richa paid in full or in multi-year pay­ Roosevelt, Enzio Pinza, Marian Vic ments through June 30, 1987. All Anderson, Benny Goodman, Louis Karer Vic gifts to the BAM CHALLENGE Armstrong, Jose Greco, Merce &I FUND are tax-deductible to the Cunningham, Rudolf Nureyev, John extent allowed by law. Renata Tebaldi, Cab Calloway, for The successful outcome of this Twyla Tharp, the Royal EXEI ADM special appeal will secure BAM's Shakespeare Company, Robert Robel financial future by creating the first Wilson, the Comedic Francaise, &I cash reserve in the Academy's 125- Philip Glass, and Pina Bausch- to Elai"' year history. A cash reserve means name but a few. Ass Sally that BAM can proceed confi ­ The jewel of the Academy's Get dently with long range planning and structure, the Opera House is Walle realize its various artistic initiatives, unsurpassed in accoustical design. Mary community-related acti vities and educational programs. It seats 2100 and incorporates a standard proscenium, FINA Jack < A cash reserve also prepares the way for the creation stage, orchestra pit and auditorium. Recent renovation Ma of a permanent endCN~ment in the future. has renewed the beauty of the Opera House in the spirit Karen R>r more information about endCN~ing a seat in BAM's and manner of the original architectural design. The Pearl Judith historic Opera House, or about other ways you can give repainted interior illuminates the detailed Cot to the BAM CHALLENGE FUND, call Mr. Denis Azaro nco-renaissance ornamentation that gives a sense of Marc at (718) 636-4138, or write to: BAM CHALLENGE intimacy to the theater. The installation of a PLAI' FUND, Planning Office, Brooklyn Academy of Music, hydraulic orchestra pit lift will complete the DE VI Denis 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217. renovation. Ass Dir Ninet Co• Amy Di11 ITHE BAM CHALLENGE FUNDI Kate I Spe MAHL ER"S THIRD SYM PHONY. choreographed by John Neumeier. JOHN NEUMEIER AND THE HAMBURG BALLET by John Percival Looking back over John Neumeier's first ten years The obsession has been there as long as he can re­ with the Hamburg Ballet, I see the events as a love member; right from the time when, as a four-year-old story-the story of one man's love affair with the art boy in Milwaukee, he was taken by his mother to see he serves. That, I believe, is the link that binds together a film with dancing in it. He wanted then to dance him­ what could otherwise seem the disparate strands in the self, and at the age of eight he managed to convince course of events over a decade of multifarious activity. his somewhat incredulous parents· to let him take Neumeier's home offers a clue to his nature. The walls classes; first in tap, to which he soon added acrobatic are lined with books. Not only books about dance, of dancing, and then eventually ballet, followed later still course. A choreographer needs a range of other interests by some experience of modem dance. So by the age too; and besides, this is a man who studied English liter­ of twenty, he had made his first choreography, for plays ature at college, who was much concerned at one time and for performance to poetry, he had worked with a with the dramatic theater, and was so seriously involved company directed by the modem dancer Sybil Shearer, in painting that he might as readily have made his career and he had acquired a grounding in the theater, liter­ in that activity. But among those rows of volumes, assid­ ature, and visual art. That was when he came to Europe uously assembled over the years, is an unusually com­ for further study, at the Royal Ballet School in London prehensive collection o(books on dance: its creators, (which opened the door to his first professional en­ practitioners, developments, theories and achievements. gagement, when Ray Barra saw him rehearsing for a Objets d'art and memorabilia serve as further evidence school performance-and recommended him, on account that, for Neumeier, dance is more than a career, it is of the temperament he showed, to John Cranko) and an obsession. also privately in Copenhagen with Vera Volkova, whose 3 teaching and, even more, whose conversation opened whlch crowned hls second year in office. That Nijinsk:y Mr. his eyes to the possibilities of the classical dance. Gala, and its successors, also reflected another vital Mr. aspect of Neumeier's work- the wish to share his & Neumeier served his apprenticeship under Cranko knowledge and enthusiasm with others. From the time Mr. at Stuttgart, as dancer, as designer, as choreographer Dr. of his arrival in Hamburg, that had led him to institute '·' Mr. for the Young Choreographers programs of the Noverre the informal workshop presentations in which he ex­ Mr. Society. From the first, a complete visual statement was plained and analysed aspects of current and forthcoming Mr. Dr. important to him, so instead of borrowing costumes productions to attentive audiences who thronged the from the theater wardrobe, as most of the aspirants md, Mr. Staatsoper in the mornings. In doing so, Neumeier not M s. he managed to have his own designs made up. Thus only educated his audiences but won their good will. Mr. he progressed to hls days as a journeyman choreog­ & rapher making ballets for Stuttgart, for the Harkness Besides, the Ballet Festival had begun with another Mr. Mr. Ballet, for the Scottish Ballet, and then taking charge major creation: Neumeier's ambitious ballet to Mahler's ( of the ballet at Frankfurt am Main, where he began to Third Symphony. In this and later treatments of his Mr. acquire the other skills of a ballet director: construct­ Fourth Symphony (originally for the Royal Ballet) c ing programs, building a repertory, developing dancers and his First and Tenth (first for Bejart's Ballet of the Ms Mr as individuals and as a team. Twentieth Century) as Lieb' und Leid und !#?It und ( Traum, Neumeier took up the challenge set by Massine Ms This background was important, since nobody can four decades earlier of making a balletic treatment of Mr take on the complex and demanding responsibilities Mr symphonic works. Massine's solution had been to create Mr of directing a company like the Hamburg Ballet with­ a dramatic theme in parallel with the music; Balanchlne Mr out first developing his skills. John Neumeier was still had indicated an alternative route, free of any plot and Reo a young man of thirty-one when he arrived at the following only the music's structure. Neumeier's ap­ I Staatsoper, but he had required experience and formed Mr proach lay somewhere between the two, with strong Mr his ideas; he was ready to become a master ofhls craft. emotional implications to his choreography but no Mr He had also made an important discovery about him­ explicit narrative. In this, he was not completely on his Mr Mr self; that, although his lifetime's ambition had been to own; Kenneth MacMillan-had adopted a somewhat dance, the opportunities of creation-not just ballets, I similar method, for instance, in his Mahler Song oft he M1 but building up a company- were so rewarding that he Earth and his Shostakovich Symphony.