20 replies to this topic

[silvy]

thanks everybody!!!!! I guess I shall have to leave my tiara out for Henriette or Clemence!!!  


Is there any reference in the libretto to Raymonda's father?  There is no male elderly figure there, right?  Only young men!!!!!


silvy

[R S Edgecombe]

Did Lydia Pashkova write the libretto from scratch, or did she base it on one of her novels? I seem to have read contradictory accounts in this regard, but I'm not sure. And could one of our Russian members (Mikhail, are you reading this?) please give us some idea of her literary reputation in Russia. I have never been able to find her in any reference books I've consulted. Was she a trashy writer like Marie Corelli, or a semi-respectable one like Walter Scott?

[silvy]

About "dream sequence" in Raymonda (or nightmare? - when Abderakman appears)

I am somehow confused as to whose choreography is the variation danced by Raymonda in Boshoi versions on video (Semenyaka and Bessmertnova).  Is it original Petipa? Or is it really Grigorovich's work? Because I know that the music of this solo does not belong to Glazunov's "Raymonda", but to "Scenes de ballet" by the same composer,so I thought maybe someone (not Petipa) might have introduced the change there.

Anyone knows?
silvy

[rg]

doug fullington knows RAYMONDA pretty much inside-out, so, w/ any luck, he'll answer your query. whatever other information that might around regarding the choreography of the dream scene, doug might well know if there was an interpolation from 'scenes de ballet' in petipa's ballet. if not, one we can assume this solo is by other hands. gorsky did a prod. and is credited i believe for select parts of soviet ballet restagings of petipa's production particularly for the pas d'action for raymonda, jean, abder-akhman, and the two demi-couples.
here are some credits for the gorski & grigorovich productions, alas there is no mention in these listings of any interpolations:

Raymonda
Chor: Aleksandr Gorski after Marius Petipa; mus: Aleksandr Glazunov; scen: Konstantin Korovin & Aleksandr Golovin; cos: Konstantin Korovin. First perf: Moscow, Bolshoi Theater, Nov 30, 1908.//Revival: Feb 18, 1918; Oct 12, 1933.

Raymonda
Chor: Yuri Grigorovich after Alexander Gorski and Marius Petipa; mus: Alexander Glazunov; lib: Larissa Pashkova and Marius Petipa revised by Grigorovich; scen & cos: Simon Virsaladze. First perf: Moscow (?), Bolshoi Theater (?), June 29, 1984; Bolshoi Ballet.

[doug]

Yes, the waltz variation that Raymonda dances in the vision scene was interpolated into the 1898 premiere of Raymonda.  The music is indeed from Glazunov's Scenes de ballet and was arranged into a short variation.  In the Raymonda piano score at the Harvard Theatre Collection, the two-violin rehearsal repetiteur of this added variation is inserted as the third variation.  

So, Petipa never choreographed the third variation Glazunov wrote for that scene, but Balanchine choreographed it for Raymonda Variations.  

The Mazurka in Act III was also interpolated from Scenes de ballet.

[silvy]

Thanks Doug!!!

And then, what about the actual choregraphy as danced by the Bolshoi in the videos I mentioned? Is this choreography by Petipa, or by Yuri Grigorovitch????? Do you know?

silvy