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Article: Dances ... Patrelle.(Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, New York, New York)
- Article from:
- Dance Magazine
- Article date:
- August 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Dance Magazine, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Francis Patrelle is an experienced choreographer, who offers a carefully prepared yearly program in New York City and is also in demand among regional companies. It had been a while since I had seen his work, so I attended his new version of The Firebird with anticipation. Well, we're all entitled to a "big one" (as Mayor Fiorello La Guardia called his own mistakes) now and then, and this was Patrelle's.
Calling his ballet a "passion play," he selected the radiant Russian fairy tale, cherished by no less than Fokine and Balanchine, and wrenched it into an olio about the passion, death, and resurrection of, presumably, Christ, set to Stravinsky's glorious music. His ...