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Musical Discussions
Topic: The American Nutcracker – the “The Hard Hut”

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Posted by Michaelz on 03-06-2007

I do not know the long term quality of this streaming service, but it works for me now:

http://video.csupomona.edu/LiveOne-245.asx


Posted by Romy the Cat on 03-06-2007

Michael, you are completely running my personal life with the posts like this.  Their program is so damn good that it should be watched all day long - I am not kidding you must NOT post the things like this - it is violent, sadistic and inhumane.

I wonder: do they publish the schedule of their upcoming broadcasts?

Posted by Michaelz on 03-06-2007
They meant it to be surprise, so they never tell their schedule.
Glad you like it.

Posted by Michaelz on 03-06-2007
You got me for a second.  Then I hurried to view the post before the opportunity would disapear, it gave me such a relief.

Posted by Chirag on 03-06-2007
you mean you don't get this on your regular tv programming?  my goodness...

my family in long island with their little digital satellite dish has 2, sometimes 3 versions of classic arts offerings.  it doesnt end when i'm at home!

feeling smugly newyorkish,
chig

Posted by Romy the Cat on 03-07-2007

 Chirag wrote:
you mean you don't get this on your regular tv programming?  my goodness...

my family in long island with their little digital satellite dish has 2, sometimes 3 versions of classic arts offerings.  it doesnt end when i'm at home!

feeling smugly newyorkish,
chig


http://www.classicartsshowcase.org/get.html

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/244071035?ltl=1173271401


Posted by clarkjohnsen on 03-07-2007
In Boston, Comcast used to carry it, until c. 2004. Always it was my default channel.

clark

Posted by Chirag on 03-07-2007
 Romy the Cat wrote:

http://www.classicartsshowcase.org/get.html

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/244071035?ltl=1173271401



Thats terrible...actually, I was under the impression thats what my parents used...in fact, for the additional programming from India, my parents use Dish.

Hopefully it works out soon enough.  With a regular TV antenna, you could probably pick up the numerous channels off the airwaves.  Good luck!

Posted by Michaelz on 03-12-2007

Too bad the other source does not work well lately (classes and blank). I wonder if this one can be good for a little longer and I am not sure what it is:

mms://141.155.201.61/channel3

 


Posted by Romy the Cat on 06-28-2007

http://www.ovationtv.com/music/classical/index.aspx?genre=1&subgenre=14&tab_id=1&subtab_id=14

DIRECTV TO ADD OVATION TV TO NATIONAL ENTERTAINMENT LINEUP

Satellite Launch Targeted for Mid-2007 Nearly Triples Network's Carriage

Los Angeles, CA -- Ovation TV, the only network devoted exclusively to art and art-related programming, has completed a carriage agreement with DIRECTV (NYSE: DTV), the nation's leading satellite television provider, and is targeting a mid-2007 launch on the satellite service. The announcement was made by Charles Segars, CEO of Ovation TV; Ken Solomon, Chairman, Ovation TV; and Dan Fawcett, Executive Vice President, Programming, DIRECTV, Inc.

Ovation TV currently reaches 5.3 million customers and maintains carriage in major arts and cultural markets such as New York City, Chicago, Washington D.C., Tampa/St. Petersburg, Orlando, San Diego, San Antonio and Austin. With the launch on DIRECTV, Ovation TV will expand its distribution nationwide and will be available to DIRECTV's nearly 16 million subscribers.

"This singular agreement with DIRECTV vaults us well past even our own most optimistic projections for 2007," said Segars, who, with Solomon, led and enlisted a group of investors who purchased the network in August 2006. "This is a valuable endorsement of our operating strategy and positions us to fulfill our goal of making the arts accessible to viewers as never before."

Solomon added, "With this agreement Ovation TV has achieved something it has never had - a true national television footprint. We're thrilled that DIRECTV sees Ovation TV as a solution for filling the void in the television landscape for art-related programming and recognizes the importance of this program category in the lives of viewers across the nation."

"We are proud to add Ovation TV's award-winning art and cultural programming to our robust DIRECTV lineup," added Fawcett. "This agreement furthers DIRECTV's commitment to providing our 16 million subscribers with quality family-oriented programming that is both educational and enjoyable."

Ron Garfield, COO, Ovation TV, said "In a short period of time we have been able to firm up carriage with major cable and satellite distributors who see and support the value in our fresh program concept. With DIRECTV we have a very solid base and a national exposure that will give us great momentum with operators and advertisers going into our first full year of operation."

Ovation TV was recently acquired by a group of private investors which includes Arcadia Investment Partners, Corporate Partners II, Hubbard Media Group, Perry Capital and The Weinstein Company. The network is planning to re-launch in mid 2007.

About Ovation TV: Originally launched in 1996, Ovation TV is a cable channel focused on entertaining, inspiring and engaging the artist in all of us. The 24-hour channel is the only television network devoted exclusively to the arts, personal creativity and making the arts more accessible to viewers in their daily lives. The network also showcases the world's greatest artists in music, popular arts, theater, dance, opera, literature, film, visual and fine art, design, photography and architecture. With master distribution agreements in place with major cable operators, Ovation TV plans to aggressively expand its reach via cable, satellite and online platforms. In addition, Ovation TV is forming partnerships with the leading cultural and arts institutions and organizations in the world to gain unique access to the highest caliber cultural and creative program content for its viewers.


Posted by Romy the Cat on 12-03-2007

Classic, Flashy, Naughty: Which Nutcracker Works for You?
 
By EDWARD WYATT
Published: November 26, 2007

From Baryshnikov to Barbie, anyone who has ever spent time on toes, it sometimes seems, has danced “The Nutcracker.”

But whose “Nutcracker” is the best? Ovation TV, one of the few television channels devoted exclusively to culture and the arts, is determined to find out.

Over the next month Ovation will wage the Battle of the Nutcrackers, pitting four well-known interpretations of the classic Tchaikovsky ballet against one another for viewer votes and pride of place in a Christmas Eve marathon, which will be followed by back-to-back Christmas Day repeats of all four versions.

“It will be better than the Yule log,” Kris Slava, senior vice president for programming and production at Ovation, said in an interview, referring to the holiday tradition of televising burning logs in a fireplace accompanied by holiday music, begun in 1966 by WPIX-TV in New York.

The contenders in the inaugural Battle of the Nutcrackers cover a wide range of styles, from the staidly classical to a kaleidoscopic hallucination. In the first category are a 1989 performance by the Bolshoi Ballet, featuring Irek Mukhamedov as the Nutcracker Prince, and the 1993 film “George Balanchine’s ‘The Nutcracker,’” staged by Peter Martins and featuring Darci Kistler as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Macaulay Culkin as the Nutcracker. At the far-out end of the spectrum are “Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker!,” a 2003 performance of the colorful fantasy that begins in a Dickensian orphanage, and “The Hard Nut,” a 1991 piece by the Mark Morris Dance Group, which uses the Tchaikovsky score but transports the setting to 1960s American suburbia.

When the idea of the Battle of the Nutcrackers was first floated about a year ago by a member of the investment group that had recently purchased Ovation, “everyone immediately saw the appeal of being able to compare and contrast different versions,” Mr. Slava said.

“The more you see of any one piece of classical performance,” he said, “whether it is Shakespeare, Eugene O’Neill or ‘The Nutcracker,’ the more you can appreciate each individual performance of it.”

And be honest: Who has not sat through innumerable, if unfortunately not quite forgettable, performances of “The Nutcracker”?

Thankfully for viewers of the “Nutcracker” marathon, these performances are more likely to be at the pleasant end of the scale. Ovation, which is available beyond basic packages as a digital-tier channel in several metropolitan areas, including New York, and nationwide on DirecTV, will begin the battle at 8 p.m. Eastern time on Dec. 2 with three showings of Mr. Bourne’s confectionary dreamscape.

That will be followed on Dec. 3 by performances of the Bolshoi version, which Mr. Slava described as “a dancer’s ‘Nutcracker,’” traditional and devoid of much of the holiday trifle that infuses most American performances. On Dec. 4 comes the Mark Morris “Hard Nut,” which has been loved and loathed for its modernist setting and costumes, which include go-go boots and G.I. Joe knockoffs.

Finally, on Dec. 5, is the Balanchine-Martins staging, narrated by Kevin Kline and featuring several New York City Ballet regulars, including Ms. Kistler, Damian Woetzel and Kyra Nichols.

The performances will be repeated during afternoon hours Dec. 11 to 14, then reversed in order and rebroadcast in the evenings, Dec. 16 to 19. Through the 19th viewers will be able to vote for their favorite at OvationTV.com, which is also planning to feature blogs and commentary on the productions. The people’s choice winner will be shown in repeated performances on Dec. 24, followed by the marathon of all candidates the next day.

The wide range of interpretations leaves Mr. Slava uncertain about which might be the fan favorite. No matter, he added: “I think of this like a Picasso exhibit. You can go around the world and see all of these paintings individually. But it doesn’t have the power or the urgency of seeing them all together, in one place at one time.”

That is in keeping with Ovation’s strategy of expanding televised access to the arts, which have largely disappeared in recent years from broadcast and cable television. Change comes slowly, however, and Ovation is unavailable on cable systems in many major markets, including Los Angeles.

The channel, which began operations in 1996, was acquired last year by a group that included Hubbard Media Group, the Weinstein Company, Perry Capital and Arcadia Investment Partners. It has tripled its distribution in the last year, to about 15 million homes, largely as a result of being added to a premium tier of the DirecTV satellite system. Charles Segars, Ovation’s chief executive, said the company was working to secure further cable access in larger markets and to add video-on-demand and online offerings.

If the Battle of the Nutcrackers goes as planned, Mr. Slava said, he hopes to pit this year’s winner against some other famous performances, perhaps including those by Baryshnikov and Nureyev. He would not promise to include Barbie’s 2001 animated version in the mix, although, he noted, few people are as experienced as she at standing for long periods on their toes.

As a backdrop to Christmas Day, Mr. Slava said, “few things offer the entertainment and comfort of ‘The Nutcracker.’” After a pause, he added, “Unless you are going to an action movie and eating Chinese food.”

But that, of course, is a different classic.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 12-04-2007

 Romy the Cat wrote:
But whose “Nutcracker” is the best? Ovation TV, one of the few television channels devoted exclusively to culture and the arts, is determined to find out.
I am watching how in the “Battle of the Nutcrackers” the Mark Morris production of “The Hard Hut”.

When I turbed it on I was so paralyzed of what I was seeing that it did not even came to me the I need to record it as the things like that never happen twice in life. The “The Hard Hut” is the classic Nutcrackers ballet is reimagined and set in American suburbia in the 1960s. I thought that I have seen everything but I could not imagine the Christmas Eve party in Clara house where Clara’s girlfriends are fighting for position of vibrators and rights to press their crotches against the waiter’s legs. Then the Midnight comes and the mice in uniform of East German Politzai armed with Uzi jump to the stage, attack Clara. The Nutcracker shows up, defeat the mice juts for sake of general entertainment. He less care about Clara and happy that Clara fall asleep and he get engage in homosexuals dancing with a visitor of Clara’s house…. MAMA!!! If it was not the Tchaikovsky music I would hardly knew what is going on.

You have to see those dresses and what entire production. It is so hilariously stupid ands kitschy that it even become hypnotizing to see how deep into patheticssism they would go. The highlight of the “originality” of the production was the decoration of the second act where a huge map was handing above the whole stage and where  during the Spanish dance, Arabian dance, Chinese dance and Russian Dance the lights were flashing indicting what the country-ordinals of the dance are located…

Holly shit!!! I perhaps become too old… Let that Mark Morris to run for US presedelcy…

The Cat

Posted by Romy the Cat on 12-09-2007

 Romy the Cat wrote:
I am watching how in the “Battle of the Nutcrackers” the Mark Morris production of “The Hard Hut”.

When I turbed it on I was so paralyzed of what I was seeing that it did not even came to me the I need to record it as the things like that never happen twice in life. The “The Hard Hut” is the classic Nutcrackers ballet is reimagined and set in American suburbia in the 1960s. I thought that I have seen everything but I could not imagine the Christmas Eve party in Clara house where Clara’s girlfriends are fighting for position of vibrators and rights to press their crotches against the waiter’s legs. Then the Midnight comes and the mice in uniform of East German Politzai armed with Uzi jump to the stage, attack Clara. The Nutcracker shows up, defeat the mice juts for sake of general entertainment. He less care about Clara and happy that Clara fall asleep and he get engage in homosexuals dancing with a visitor of Clara’s house…. MAMA!!! If it was not the Tchaikovsky music I would hardly knew what is going on.

You have to see those dresses and what entire production. It is so hilariously stupid ands kitschy that it even become hypnotizing to see how deep into patheticssism they would go. The highlight of the “originality” of the production was the decoration of the second act where a huge map was handing above the whole stage and where  during the Spanish dance, Arabian dance, Chinese dance and Russian Dance the lights were flashing indicting what the country-ordinals of the dance are located…

Holly shit!!! I perhaps become too old… Let that Mark Morris to run for US presedelcy…

The Cat

I happened to watched today a fragment the “The Hard Hut” again and I descend that this piece of pop American culture should be exposed. The performance took place in Belgium BTW with American director was trying imbed the Nutcracker plot into the memories of his suborn Chicago youth of 60x.
I picked two fragments:

1)    End of the party in Clara’s house

2)    Nutcracker leading his troops (in uniform of G.I. Joe!) in battle with Mice

It is up to you to laugh or to cry but I have to admit that the Tchaikovsky music, while I am watching it, works “differently”. Anyhow each file is about sub 30Meg, do not run it off my server (I have no bandwidth to care it) but down the files and run it of you machines.

http://www.RomyTheCat.com/Video/TheHardHut1.avi

http://www.RomyTheCat.com/Video/TheHardHut2.avi

Rgs, the Cat

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