DIAMONDS PAS DE DEUX (Ansanelli / Askegard)

I came across this very rough film of Alexandra Ansanelli and Charles Askegard several years ago floating around YouTube, and was taken with what a great DIAMONDS Pas de Deux they did. Later I learned this wasn't with the company, but on some European Gala. The sound was terrible, and the video was very pale and washed-out, but I could still see she had all the right instincts, and I couldn't understand why Martins never cast her in it (or so I was told anyway). I'm not about to compare ballerinas in this, however, to my eyes she is definitely one of the best I've ever seen. Today I removed the sound and replaced it with the audio track from the PBS Farrell / Martins broadcast. It fit perfectly, and possibly for this performance they used it too. I also tried to fix the brightness and color but don't have the equipment (nor training) to do much better. To me this is really "it." Self-effacing with no tacked on drama or emotion. Very simple and elegant port de bras, from them both, (I detest the way some ballerinas now, especially in Europe, do a big exaggerated port de bras before the very first developpe...which now is so high it's vulgar and tacky). Ansanelli is so on the music here it's uncanny, and Askegard is the perfect Cavalier. Not her Prince or lover, but as Balanchine intended, her "protector." Sometimes, and I'm sure thru no fault of their own, many ballerinas approach this role as a "Queen" or worse, as a "Swan Queen." Farrell was very young when Balanchine made this on her, and Jacques d'Amboise, her original partner, was a quite a bit older. To me she was a "Princess" and he her older, almost, chaperone. I was gratified to be told that when Farrell once rehearsed the ballerinas in this a few years ago, she said virtually the same thing I had thought. Hope you enjoy. Took me several hours to get it right. #nycballet #balanchine #ballet #diamonds