Talk:Undine (ballet)

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See also: Talk:Ondine (Ashton), Talk:Ondine (Perrot), and Talk:Undine (novella)



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[edit] merge Henze into Ashton

I would suggest merging Ondine (Henze) into Ondine (Sir Frederick Ashton ballet) (and renaming the latter Ondine (Ashton) as "Sir Frederick Ashton ballet" is multiply redundant) on the grounds (1) that the Ashton article is the longer of the two and that Ashton is a bigger cheese in the world of ballet than Henze in music (this is not to disparage Henze, but Ashton is a real big shot.) — Robert Greer 01:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggest merging Ondine (Sir Frederick Ashton ballet) into Ondine (Henze) because Henze is one of the key figures in modern music who can only become more prominent with time. Ashton was just a choreographer and his influence (though notable in his lifetime) is now fading into obscurity. --Kleinzach (talk) 02:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't agree (1) that Ashton "is now fading into obscurity" and would suggest that (2) while Henze is a key figure it is strictly speculation to say that he "can only become more prominent with time." It is also biased to say that "Ashton was just a choreographer" (emphasis added); what would you think if someone wrote, "Henze was just a composer"? Which is — most emphatically — not my opinion. I doubt that we can agree on this and suggest that two seperate articles be retained, though the Ashton ballet article should be renamed more simply Ondine (Ashton). — Robert Greer 20:42, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
The merged article should defiantly be called Ondine (Henze) since ballets are written by composer not choreographers. I don’t know of any other ballet on Wikipedia which is suffixed by the name of the choreographer. If Ondine is a very notable work in Sir Frederick Ashton’s career than a short section could be added to his own page as well. --S.dedalus (talk) 05:24, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
There are MANY ballets on WikiPedia which are suffixed with the choreographers' name; these can be found on disambiguation pages. Dance is in this sense viewed by some a secondary art form, and oddly it is the choreographers, George Balanchine for example, who have shown the greatest respect for composers who do not get the respect they deserve from those who love music but not ballet. I love both, but that said, there are many composers whose music is performed more often at the ballet than in the concert hall, so I have to ask which is the tail and which the dog? What I do not understand is the outright hostility ("defiantly", "a short section" [emphasis added]) some people express to the ballet and why they cannot tolerate independent articles for dance works when they are only too happy to have as many articles as there are compositions for every composer who ever put ink on staff paper. — Robert Greer
P.S. I did not write the Ondine ballet article but am standing to its defense (1) on principle and (2) on the grounds that the person who did seems to've put in more effort than the person who wrote the Ondine (Henze) article. — Robert Greer (talk) 17:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay, so Ondine (Ashton) can be a disambiguation page. The music is still the more permanent art form here. The same music could be rechoreographed an infinite amount of time. I’m not sure what you mean by hostility towards dance. I simply think Ondine (Henze) is the proper title for this page on Wikipedia. --S.dedalus (talk) 04:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
As S.dedalus implies the original work here is the music. The choreography comes second and can be, and will be, redone if the music remains popular. If the choreography is of special interest, then I don't really see why there shouldn't be a separate article about it, providing the two articles are linked and there's no duplication with the main one. Does that seem reasonable? --Kleinzach (talk) 09:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Which came first? The music? Or was the music composed for the ballet? Even composer like Tchaikovsky composed music under the express request of a choreographer, if I recall correctly.

"The same music could be rechoreographed an infinite amount of time"; the statement is true based on the fact that choreographies are not usually performed without music (with the exception of some avant-garde pieces), but if one wants to accept a general principle, I'd like to think that choreographies have merits on their own - that is, they are independent of the ballet they have been created for. But I am not going to try my luck on this topic... Anyways, how does it fare the idea that a ballet is made by two parts: music and choreography? So the page "ondine (ballet)" would include both aspects, and redirects to pages like "ondine (score)" and "ondine (choreography)" which in turn would deal with each separate piece? This would also solve the case where more than one music score (say: ondine by Henze and ondine by Pugni) or choreography exist for a "ballet". This way we could exploit the hyperlink feature of wikipedia over a traditional encyclopedia. A negative side is that it entails a lot more work for the editor, especially in avoiding duplication of information and excessive fragmentation. Gioland71 (talk) 23:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Renaming

I think the article should be merged under the title Ondine (Ashton ballet). The ballet is predominantly attributed to Ashton, in the same way that nearly all ballets are identified by choreographer, not composer. The only other article that is particularly relevant to Ondine would be the one about the original Russian production. Despite the personal opinion of Jmabel, Ashton's ballets are still amongs the most performed in the world and are either in production or licensed by the Royal Opera House to almost every major ballet company in the world, including the Bolshoi. His influence is still very strong outside of the UK, and he is viewed by the ballet community as one of the greatest choreographers of the 20th Century so if his work is now a little outdated, it doesn't mean he deserves any less recognition. Crazy-dancing (talk) 20:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I am no balletomane, but it does not seem to me that "nearly all" ballets are identified by choreographer. Certainly this is true for some, such as Don Quixote, which I had seen danced by two different companies before I could discover that the music had actually been composed by anyone at all (Ludwig Minkus—who?), or Les Sylphides, the music for which was selected from pieces by Chopin not originally intended for dance. But checking around Wikipedia, I find Sleeping Beauty listed neutrally, simply as "Sleeping Beauty (ballet)", but Swan Lake and The Nutcracker under Tchaikovsky, not Marius Petipa, William Christensen, or George Balanchine. Jeux is identified as a composition by Debussy, not as a ballet by Nijinsky, Baiser de la fée and Cinderella do not seem to exist apart from the Stravinsky and Prokofiev scores, and so on. I can see some sense in having one article for the musical composition and another for the choreography or choreographies (this is done for Agon, for example) but insisting on the primacy of one over the other will inevitably lead to the question: how many choreographies have there been that are of such strength that a completely new score can have been written to accompany them?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:26, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Undine

I disagree with both schools of thought that are either pro-Henze or pro-Ashton. I think that both these articles should be merged with that of Undine (novella) which describes the original story. Both ballets are just interpretations of this novella. All three articles are relatively short and by joining them together a really good article could be written on the evolution of the story and its subsequent interpretations with sections on the ballets and opera - similarly to that of articles on Cinderella etc. More information is already give in the Ashton article than in the article on the novella already! Does anyone agree with me? --Cazo3788 (talk) 09:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

When you cite the article on Cinderella, do you mean this one: Cinderella, or this one: Cinderella? (I think you are safe in assuming I do not agree with you.)—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
See Cinderella which has a list of adaptations.--Cazo3788 (talk) 21:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely as it should be: a general Cinderella article, including a list of adaptations, with links to the articles on specific adaptations. How is this supposed to support an argument for merging the Henze and Ashton articles into Undine (novella)?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:54, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
see my more detailed comment at the Ashton ballet. If there is enough material for an article on each, and someone to write them, precedent is that we do just that. (And, of course, general articles on the group of works also.)00:56, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New solution

I've been giving this a great deal of thought and have been working on the Undine (novella) article. Perhaps if the Ondine (ballet) article was renamed Ondine, au la Naiad (its full name) then the Ondine (Henze) and Ondine (Sir Frederick Ashton ballet) could be incorporated into one article named Ondine (ballet). Or something along those lines... It does seem to be ridiculous to have two articles about the same productions - if someone else does new choreography for Ondine with Henze's score then separate articles would be necessary, and vice versa. But at the moment they equal the same thing. --Cazo3788 (talk) 13:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

My apologies - its full name is Ondine, au la Naïade.--Cazo3788 (talk) 13:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
This looks like a mistake to me. Isn't it Ondine, ou La naïade ? (A naiad is a kind of nymph). --Kleinzach (talk) 14:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
You're correct and I've amended the Ondine (ballet) article accordingly. --Cazo3788 (talk) 14:28, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Hmm. Well it's not just one letter . . . though I don't know which French capitalization system the ballet project uses. --Kleinzach (talk) 14:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
My source is the ballet journal Dance Chronicle referenced in Ondine (ballet). --Cazo3788 (talk) 14:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
But is it correct? WP doesn't (I hope!) capitalize at random. --Kleinzach (talk) 23:43, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ondine vs. Undine

Thank you for the improvements to the Undine (novella) article; I did a little on Ondine (Sir Frederick Ashton ballet). Wiki. administrator DGG made a determination in this matter to the effect that these should remain seperate articles, some of which still need to be expanded (thank you again for the work on Undine!) I might add some seealso and for tags to the various pages. — Robert Greer (talk) 14:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)