{"id":14313,"date":"2013-09-20T02:45:51","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T01:45:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=14313"},"modified":"2013-09-20T02:45:51","modified_gmt":"2013-09-20T01:45:51","slug":"balanchine-lynes-and-orpheus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2013\/09\/20\/balanchine-lynes-and-orpheus\/","title":{"rendered":"Balanchine, Lynes and Orpheus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"lynnes3.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The photo above has appeared here before\u2014it’s one of a number of dance photos taken by the great George Platt Lynes\u2014but its subject has (for me at least) always been the source of some confusion. Since I dislike being nagged by petty conundrums I make a cursory search every so often to see if more details might be found. Five years ago all I knew was that the picture appeared in Philip Core\u2019s Camp: The Lie that Tells the Truth<\/em><\/a> (1984) where it was credited as showing dancers from Balanchine\u2019s Icarus<\/em>. Additional confusion was sown by a photo site showing the picture below with a statement that it was a) a Lynes photo (correct), and b) from Balanchine\u2019s Die Fledermaus<\/em> (wrong). No dates were given. The presence of a lyre made Orpheus seem a more likely subject: Balanchine wrote an Orpheus ballet for a Stravinsky score in 1948 but photos of that production showed very different dancers and costumes.<\/p>\n

\"lynnes2.jpg\"<\/p>\n

It turns out that these photos are indeed for a Balanchine ballet on the Orpheus theme, a short-lived production, Orpheus and Eurydice<\/em>, from 1936 based on music from Gluck’s opera. The dancers are Lew Christensen, William Dollar and Daphne Vane. What’s most surprising now is having found a photo that’s almost but not quite the one from the Core book; photos from this session are elusive, with searches hampered by other photos taken by Lynes of Balanchine’s later ballets. There may be more in this series.<\/p>\n

Pinterest<\/a> is a good place to see more of Lynes’ photos which range from fashion shoots and celebrity portraits to moody, and occasionally surreal, homoerotica.<\/p>\n

\"lynes1.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\"lynes2.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\"lynes3.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The end of Orpheus<\/a>
\n\u2022 The recurrent pose 17<\/a>
\n\u2022 George Platt Lynes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The photo above has appeared here before\u2014it’s one of a number of dance photos taken by the great George Platt Lynes\u2014but its subject has (for me at least) always been the source of some confusion. Since I dislike being nagged by petty conundrums I make a cursory search every so often to see if more … Continue reading “Balanchine, Lynes and Orpheus”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,5,12],"tags":[5200,1181,5197,5198,843,291,5199],"class_list":["post-14313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dance","category-gay","category-photography","tag-daphne-vane","tag-george-balanchine","tag-george-platt-lynes","tag-lew-christensen","tag-philip-core","tag-stravinsky","tag-william-dollar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-3IR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}