46 replies to this topic

[silvy]

I wonder if there are other commercially available videos of Paquita other than Kirov's (starring Makhalina and Zelensky) and ABT's (starring Cynthia Gregory and Fernando Bujones).

In particular, I would very much like to see the other variations that are in the score (I heard it online on www.christopherseminars.com), which do not appear in either of these 2 videos.

thanks
silvy

[Estelle]

A video of "Paquita" was filmed at the Paris Opera one or two seasons ago (with Agnès Letestu and José Martinez, if I remember correctly), and was shown recently on a French cable channel, but I don't know if it is commercially available (I think it isn't so far, but perhaps will be later).

[su-lian]

No, it's not yet available commercially, that's why I didn't talk about it. I hope it will be soon. Probably next year?...Keep your fingers crossed. Although, that said, the dancing was very good, but the filming was quite bad.

[su-lian]

In fact, I checked and this video was recorded this year (january 2003). But I'm sorry to say that as far as I know, it's not available, probably because it's so recent.

[vanniai]

hi! I have noticed in a Marynski Ballet video (I think, Im not sure) that there is a variation in Paquita with the same music as the variation of the cupid in Don Q (ABt version)... Does anybody know who is the choreographer and why they used the same music? Im not sure from whom is the original piece, from don q or paquita
Vannia

[Françoise]

Paquita Grand pas was a divertissement created to show all the principal ballerinas and their qualities, they choose variation where they are brilliant and it's for that we have Cupid variation in Paquita, but the original one is in Don Quixote.
I don't know from which other ballets are the variation against.
In all the complete version of Paquita Grand pas you have the Cupid variation, it seems that is the case in ABT version but in POB, you have it too it's sure that we had also Vinogradov's version :rolleyes: !!!!.

[Jean-Luc]

As Francoise said above, all the Paquita's variations are from other ballets. For instance, the first one (in Kirov or ABT production), is from The Little Humpbacked Horse (music by Pugni). The Prima Ballerina's variation uses the music of La Sylphide (music by Pugni, choreographed by Petipa, revised for Paquita). The "true" Paquita's variation is the third one in the ABT video (Cynthia Harvey) with Grands jetes at the beginning.
Anyway, the Bolchoï production is quite different : there are some other variations, and there is an orchestral arrangement of the music score.
About the reconstruction by Lacotte for Paris Opera Ballet, the Grand Pas is danced without all the variations, because they were added for a special gala occasion and not during a whole Paquita's performance (birthday of Catherine II if I remember correctly). Only the two soloists dance their variation.

Edited by Jean-Luc, 16 August 2003 - 04:01 AM.

[R S Edgecombe]

Jean-Luc, many thanks for this post, which I find VERY interesting. I am going to play my tape of the Paquita grand pas immediately so as to identify the Little Hunchbacked Horse variation. I shall post again if I am wrong, but I am pretty certain that the prima ballerina in the Kirov version dances a variation to music much later than the 1830s--later even than Minkus, as I remember thinking. Could you clarify what you mean by the Sylphide variation to music by PUGNI? Was this an insertion into the Schneitzhoeffer score? I wasn't aware that Petipa had mounted a version of La Sylphide, and am highly intrigued. By the way, I have seen Plisetskaya dance a variation from Little HH that looks very C19, even though the music is by her husband. Do you happen to know if this possibly the original Saint-Leon choreography, grafted on to Schedrin's score?

[R S Edgecombe]

Jean-Luc, I have just watched my Kirov Paquita tape, and I am fairly sure (about 80%) that the first variation (the one that follows the coda of the pas de trois) was set by Petipa to music by Minkus, and not by Saint-Leon to music by Pugni. To be sure, can you confirm that the variation is a waltz, and that it begins with a developpe a la seconde sur la pointe, followed by a jete de cote en face, and that it has a passage of grands fouettes en tournant toward the end? And my prima ballerina dances her variation to a particularly nauseating slow gavotte for harp solo (written by somebody like Lincke or Krein), which begins, after some preliminary positioning into epaule with a sous-sus, entrechat huit and attitude derriere. That rather thrilling variation that you describe as the true one precedes it in my tape. If my description of the "Pugni" variation doesn't tally with yours, and if it's not to much trouble, could you please tell me the time signature, and list the first three steps? I might be able to find it somewhere in the fruit salad! Thanks so much!

[rg]

it was i believe alastair macaulay who pointed out that in all likelihood it was m.f.kschessinska who started the tradition of so many 'party' variations in the 'grand pas classique' from paquita.
i know that current kirov/maryinsky tradition includes a variation which asylmuratova may do on one of these tapes - i don't have my cassettes handy to check - in any case it's often danced there in an emerald-green-trimmed tutu - and was taught to asylmuratova by her teacher e.evteyeva, in any case the dance is by fokine, the music by tcherepnine, and the variation comes from 'pavillon d'armide' (and to confirm its provenance this same variation was staged by alexandra danilova when she staged a version of the 'pavillon' pas de trois for school of american ballet in i-forget-just-when.)
when i spoke w/ nikita dolgushin, whose version of the grand pas for the maly theater was telecast in britain in the late '70s, he noted that the variants in his staging, which is simililar at times and different at others from the kirov staging - which i believe long had credit to natalia dudinskaya - came to him in good measure from moscow, specifically from advice given him by elizaveta gerdt (pavel's daughter and a favorite dancer in her day of georgi balanchivadze).
all you balletalerters w/ keen ears and finer musical memories than mine will be able to discuss all these variants for tempo, type, etc.
i'd not heard of one of the variations being famously taken from 'humpbacked horse' tho' why not? as i say, alastair macaulay pointed out that m.f.kschessinska noted somewhere, likely in her memoirs, how she invited her ballerina friends to dance in her grand pas classique from paquita and to do so bybringing with them their favorite variations. the tradition seems to have held and evolved ever since.
yes, the vari. we think of today as cupid's from DonQuixote is regularly in this suite. when the kirov did their version of 'paquita grand pas' here in the 1980s when the leading ballerinas alternated performances, they would change their tutu colors - white for the main ballerina - but not their variations, which they were known to dance when they were in a cast led by another ballerina. i recall, for example, that lubov kunakova would do the lead and then one of the soloist ballerinas: when she danced her variation as the lead she'd be in the white tutu, when she was not the lead she wore whatever color was relegated to her role, but in both cases she'd dance HER variation.
i hope i'm making a little bit of sense here: i've just come from 24hrs. sans electricityand 48 sans DSL. so i'm discombobulated more than usual.

[R S Edgecombe]

RG, your post is wholly lucid--far more so than any I could have offered after the ordeal you and your fellow East-Coasters have just endured. It's a pity this discussion has split off from the Paquita one in Ballets, because I drew attention to the Tcherepnin solo in that. In my tape it's danced by Larissa L. I am nothing short of stunned to learn that Fokine was the choreographer, having speculated there that it might have been by Lopokov. Fokine could Petipize with the best of them, it seems. And indeed Alastair Macaulay said in a DT review that the ballet from Ruslan and Lyudmila that F is said to have choreographed was also very pre-Isadora and classical tutu.

[Mel Johnson]

A word about the R & L ballet credited to Fokine. No men. I believe that the year of its debut was 1916, and the Mariinsky company was sadly depleted of men of any sort, most having been drafted to serve on the Austro-Turco-German front. No matter who choreographed it, it looks like it was set in a "neo" style for that year, to please audiences who wanted their ballet old-fashioned and comfy.

[rg]

RSE: i've just keyboarded the following by picking thru this volume i was given from russia on the paquita grand pas classique. i trust some of it will be redundant to what you point out was a separate thread on paquita the ballet vs. paquita on video. but so be it. here's what gleaned w/my primitive reading of cyrillic:

BOLSHOI KASSICHESKOIE PA IZ BALETA ‘PAKHITA’ (2000)
14 Variations and pas de trois
*Variation 1 (3/4) – Riccardo Drigo
*Variation 2 (2/4) – Aleksei Papkov
*Variation 3 (2/4) – Riccardo Drigo [the note here says, as stated earlier on this thread that this music is from the ballet ‘SYLFIDA’ (1892) – when yes, indeed Petipa staged the ballet to Schneitzhoeffer with additional music by Drigo – the variation is further defined as that composed for V. Nikitina, Petipa’s first-cast sylph]
*Variation 4 (4/4) – Edouard Tsabel
*Variation 5 (3/4) – Aloishus Ludwig Minkus [a note says this variation is from another 1892 ballet: NAIAD AND FISHERMAN and that the variation was composed for A. Johansson]
*Variation 6 (4/4) - Riccardo Drigo
*Variation 7 (6/8) - Aloishus Ludwig Minkus
*Variation 8 (3/4) - Aloishus Ludwig Minkus [a note indicates that this variation dates from 1881 and was composed and choreographed especially for Ekaterina Vazem]
*Variation 9 (3/4) - Riccardo Drigo
*Variation 10 (3/4) – Yuli Gerber
*Variation 11 (3/4) - Aloishus Ludwig Minkus
*Variation 12 (3/4) [with a note of a change(?) to 4/4] - Riccardo Drigo
[there would seem at this point in the book to be an alternate(?) variation, making 13, but to the same(?) music as 12]
[there is also some music here for a 14th variation, specially noted as being by Drigo and from ‘Paquita’ tho’ I think there is no specified choreographic text to go with it]
Pas de Trois – has musical credit to both Minkus and Edouard Marie Ernest Delvedez: NB in the music portion of the book Delvedez’s name is attached to both female variations along w/ Minkus’s, as I read it)
*Woman’s variation No. 1 (4/4) - Aloishus Ludwig Minkus
*Woman’s variations No. 2 (6/8) - Aloishus Ludwig Minkus
*Man’s Variation (4/4) – Adolf Charl Adan[sic] – from, if I’m getting the gist correctly: DIABLE A QUATRE
the individual illustrations include, in addition to a headshot of the editor(?)/author - German Prib'lov, pictures of: Minkus, Petipa, Vazem, Kshessinskaya, children from the 'polonaise and mazurka,' Karsavina,Vaganova, E.Gerdt, E.Vil' and P.Vladimirov (in the Pas de Trois), N. Legat, S. Legat, M. Fokine, Nijinsky, Adan[sic], Pugni and Drigo.
the kind courier who brought me mycopy said it wasn't published in 2000 as scheduled because of a shortage of paper; i believe it finally came out in 2001.

[Mel Johnson]

A word about Minkus' name - Aloishus is just a Russianized Aloysius, which is Latin for "Louis". Ludwig is German for "Louis". I pity the poor guys who got named "Ludwig Alois" because they are "Louie Louie" - Somebody should write a song about that. Oh, they have? Nevermind.

And yes, "Le Diable à Quatre" was a very popular ballet by Adam. Petipa staged a revival of it in St. Petersburg, (he retitled it "The Wilful Wife") and used it to make the debut of the character Mother Ginger for the Russian audience.

[R S Edgecombe]

RG--a HUGE thank you. So much to digest here and match against my tape. I am already having doubts that the Kirov will tally, though, because the Fokine variation doesn't appear on your list. But I am pretty sure that the variation I mentioned above as starting with a developpe a la seconde is the one to the Drigo waltz. Although I didn't say so in my post, I did have faint doubts about the Minkus authorship, but these faded in the context of a conviction that it definitely wasn't Pugni. It must be early Drigo. He became very distinctively (and somewhat repulsively, in my opinion) himself in the 90s. I shall post again when I have had time to sort out all this info.

Mel, a big thank you too for the fascinating info on R&L and Diable a 4. Where do the two of you get all your material? I'm still stuck with Roslavleva!