"The Little Humbacked Horse" - Info?

[Solor]

Im looking to purchase a video of this ballet with Vasiliev and Plisetskaya. I just watched a clip on the 'Video Artist International' web page - I could not believe it! I have never seen a film clip of Plisetskaya and I swear my eyes grew 2 times as big as they are! I could not believe it - She was amazing! I must get this video - but first.......

I need info on this ballet. The back of the video case has the music credited to some composer - I thought the music was by Cesare Pugni? It credits the music to a composer named Scherdrin.

What is the history of the Bolshois production of this ballet?

Heres the link to the clip of Plisetskaya - she is a goddess!

http://www.vaimusic.com/VIDEO/DVD_4265_Lit...ckedHorse.shtml

[richard53dog]

Im looking to purchase  a video of this ballet with Vasiliev and Plisetskaya. I just watched a clip on the 'Video Artist International' web page - I could not believe it! I have never seen a film clip of Plisetskaya and I swear my eyes grew 2 times as big as they are! I could not believe it - She was amazing! I must get this video - but first.......

I need info on this ballet. The back of the video case has the music credited to some composer - I thought the music was by Cesare Pugni? It credits the music to a composer named Scherdrin.

What is the history of the Bolshois production of this ballet?

http://www.vaimusic.com/VIDEO/DVD_4265_Lit...ckedHorse.shtml

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Solor

The music is by Rodion Shchedrin/Script and choreography by Radunsky.

I'm not sure, someone else can say whether I'm correct or not, but I believe it's Russian from the Soviet era.

Both Plisetskaya and Vasiliev are very, very charismatic in this, they both filmed beautifully.

Plisetskaya shows off her 32 fouettes in this.

Just be aware that this is a film and most of the first half is more narrative fable than anything else.

Also the special effects......ah, well, they will not impress techno junkies of today.

I find the film very charming and enjoyable, mostly for the two stars, although I must admit I usually skip the first half.

Now maybe someone can fill it the differences with the stage version. Sadly, I came within just a few hours of seeing this on a Bolshoi tour, it was in Montreal and I had to come back to the states. I did catch a Plisetskaya Swan Lake Act 2 and Carmen, but the next night was Little Humbacked Horse and I missed it. This was 1972 or 73.

The film looks to be from around 1961

Richard

[Solor]

so then no music of Pugni???? No part of his music or the old Imperial staging is in this production? The music in the clip I saw sounded very Pugni-Like, but then who knows.....

[carbro]

Rodion Schedrin is Maya Plisetskaya's husband. Not Pugni's contemporary by a long shot, he was composing during the Soviet era and probably still is.

[Mel Johnson]

It's my overall impression, and I certainly could be wrong, that Rodion Schedrin composed the score in sort of the same way that John Lanchbery "composed" Ashton's La Fille Mal Gardée. It certainly doesn't stylistically match his other, original compositions, or his arrangement of Bizet for "Carmen".

[Mashinka]

I'm on shaky ground here as I've never seen a live performance of this work, but I think there is more than one version of this around. I have a made for TV video of LHBH from the 1990's which uses the Shchedrin music, but I think fragments exist of an earlier production (Petipa?) using Pugni.

The extract of the older ballet that I have with the Kirov and Lopatkina on another video is definitely not with music by Shchedrin.

I'm almost certain more than one version exists.

[Hans]

The tape with Plisetskaya appears IMO to have little or nothing to do with Petipa--Richard is right; all the choreography is by Radunsky. There is an old version generally credited to Ivanov, not Petipa, but I don't know if a tape of it exists.

[rg]

the only part(s) of HUMPACKED HORSE by St. Leon in russia that i know of seem to be a 'reconstruction' - i don't know how authentically - of the 'dance of the living frescos - performed at odd intervals by the vaganova academy students - i THINK it may have been shown here in nyc w/ the vaganova students - or did i see it on an odd tape at some point, i'm not recalling precisely here.

otherwise not much from the original stagings surfaces in performance.

i recently got hold of a score from the mid-late 19th c. (a piano reduction for four hands) 124 pp. of music notation. the pub. is dedicated to maria muravyeva, the original tsar-maiden.

here are some of cat. entries from nypl on the work's early russian roots:

Little humpbacked horse - Original title: Konek-gorbunok ili TSar'-dievitsa. Chor: Saint-Léon; mus: Cesare Pugni; lib: Saint-Léon after a tale by Ershov; scen: Andrei Roller, Heinrich Wagner, Matvei Shishkov and Albert Bredov; cos: after Charlemagne. First perf: St. Petersburg, Bolshoi Theater, Dec 3, 1864 (O.S.)//First Moscow perf: Bolshoi Theater, Dec 1, 1866 (O.S.) According to Roslavleva, Era of the Russian ballet, p 73, date was Nov 26, 1866 (O.S.) Scen: Karl Val'ts, F. Shenian, Kakurin, Kukanov, and Shangin.

Little humpbacked horse - Original title: Konek-gorbunok. Chor: Aleksandr Gorski; mus: Cesare Pugni; lib: Gorski and Saint-Léon after a tale by Ershov; scen: Konstantin Korovin and Baron Klodt; cos: Konstantin Korovin; mach: Karl Val'ts. First perf: Moscow, Bolshoi Theater, Nov 25, 1901 (O.S.).//First perf in St. Petersburg, Maryinsky Theater, Dec 16, 1912 (O.S.). Mus: Cesare Pugni and inserted pieces by Asaf'yev, Chaikovskii, Dvorák, Glazunov, Liszt, and Simon.//Revived: Moscow, Experimental Theater, Sept 23, 1928.

Little humpbacked horse - Original title: Konek-gorbunok ili TSar'-dievitsa. Chor: José Mendez after Saint-Léon; mus: Cesare Pugni; lib: Saint-Léon after a tale by Ershov; scen: Anatolii Gel'tser, Pavel Lebedev, Ivan Savitskii and Karl Val'ts. First perf: Moscow, Bolshoi Theater, Dec 26, 1893 (O.S.).

Little humpbacked horse : Original title: Konek-gorbunok ili TSar'-dievitsa. Chor: Marius Petipa after Saint-Léon; mus: Cesare Pugni; lib: Saint-Léon after a tale by Ershov; scen: Konstantin Ivanov, Piotr Lambin, Henrykh Levot and Vasilii Perminov; cos: Evgenii Ponomarev. First perf: St. Petersburg, Maryinsky Theater, Dec 6, 1895 (O.S.)//Perf in France: Paris, Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt, May-June 1911, Grande Saison Russe; under title: Koniok-gorbounok.

lev ivanov danced in one of these versions but didn't have hand in any choreographically, to the best of my knowledge.

[Hans]

That's interesting, rg, thank you for all that information!

All the versions of LHH I've seen have been credited to Ivanov, so it's rather nice to know that fragments such as the Underwater Scene really have their roots in Petipa, and maybe a little St. Léon. Do you happen to know whether St. Léon choreographed LHH for a company in western Europe first or did he choreograph it specifically for Russia?

[Jane Simpson]

The pas de trois known as The Ocean and the Pearls, which the Bolshoi used to do in gala programmes, is from the last act of the LHH, I think - but I've seen it attributed to both Petipa and Gorsky.

[richard53dog]

Thanks to all!

This all makes much more sense to me. As I said I almost saw the stage version

and when I got the DVD of the film, I thought how could this exist as a stage piece.

But Solor, other than the cheesy special effects (i.e. things filmed through a goldfish bowl) and the very dated narrative, the film has some really beautiful sections.

Richard

[rg]

i'm fairly certain - not looking at any ref. works at this moment - that a.st-leon created his ballet esp. for the imp. ballet in st.pete. his work has gone down in russian ballet lore as the 'first' treatment of russian folkloric subj matter on the ballet stage.

also, i think the 'ocean and pearls' which jane rightly points to, is said more often than not to be gorsky's creation. (i'd have to check if the music, drigo, if mem. serves, was included in whatever expanded pugni score petipa used or not.)

in haste, more later.

[Mireille]

I was only video excerpts of the Pugni version with Soloviev dancing the water/river god dance and I believe Kurgapkina in the pearl variation, and it is entirely different from the Schedrin version.

[Hans]

Mireille, do you know if the video of Soloviov is still available?

[Joseph]

Yeah, I think that the music for the "Frescoes" section is Pugni; I have a tape from Vaganova Academy and it sounds very similiar to other Pugni scores. Does the full LHH still get performed today?

[Mireille]

I viewed it in St-Petersburg this winter and am not sure if it was commercially available... maybe Mashinka would know? I'll try to find out where this excerpt came from. It's in black and white and was filmed in a studio.

[Natalia]

Yeah, I think that the music for the "Frescoes" section is Pugni; I have a tape from Vaganova Academy and it sounds very similiar to other Pugni scores. Does the full LHH still get performed today?

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The Petipa-Ivanov-Gorsky LHH used to be a staple of the Vaganova Academy until not too long ago. It was telecast, in condensed version, ca 1989, with then-senior-student Olga Volobuyeva as the Tsar Maiden. It was maintained in the academy's rep by Konstantin Sergeyev/Natalia Dudinskaya & a few other senior coaches. Since the death of Natalia Dudinskaya three years ago, it has not been performed in its entirety in St P, to the best of my knowledge.

As mentioned earlier, the "Frescoes" and "Ocean and Two Pearls" sections are often performed at galas in the former Soviet Union. Too, these pieces are often performed in Washington, DC's Universal Ballet Academy due to that academy's strong link with St Petersburg traditions and teachers.

One of the great set-pieces of this ballet -- Lev Ivanov's Hungarian Czardas to Liszt music -- was revived a couple of years ago at the Mariinsky. I saw it at one of the Mariinsky Int'l Ballet Festivals (2003).

Too, the "Magical Island" scene (the first appearance of the Tsar Maiden & her retinue) was reconstructed for one of the professional Tokyo ballet troupes, a couple of years ago. That, too, has been telecast.

Ah...and let's not forget that the White Pearl variation from the LHH Underwater Scene is included in most productions of the "Paquita Grand Pas" nowadays (ABT, Kirov, POB, etc....Leslie Browne danced it in the famous 'ABT at the Met' video).

Most of today's Russian ballet companies perform LHH to Schedrin's music. Many versions to this music exist, including Igor Belsky's setting for the second ballet troupe of St.P, the Maly-Moussorgsky company. I saw that very 'cute' (Russian folklore-steeped) version a couple of months ago, starring the gorgeous Dudinskaya-trained ballerina, Maria Richter, as the Tsar Maiden.

It's a shame that LHH is usually treated as a children's matinee in Russia & not accorded the seriousness that it deserves, IMO!

Natalia Nabatova

Edited July 29, 2005 by Natalia

[Hans]

As mentioned earlier, the "Frescoes" and "Ocean and Two Pearls" sections are often performed at galas in the former Soviet Union. Too, these pieces are often performed in Washington, DC's Universal Ballet Academy due to that academy's strong link with St Petersburg traditions and teachers.

In fact, UBA performed the Ocean and Pearls Pas de Trois as recently as its Winter Concert in December 2001. They may have performed it more recently, but that's the latest one I've attended.

[Paul Parish]

Solor, my heart goes out to you. To have finally encountered Plisetskaya --even in video!

I've seen this one, too --and loved it, it's adorable. If you liked this, check her out as the Persian slave girl -- in "Prince Igor," was it? My Lord!

I saw her live in about 1973 in Berkeley, CA, where she headed a little group of stars of the Bolshoi. I was sitting in hte balcony and did not much enjoy the evening. Nina Sorokina was doing grand jetes that went nowhere -- now that I think about it, the Zellerbach stage is small, and the Bolshoi stage is large, and Sorokina probably had to cut everything down to fit the room she had.... but she kept throwing that leg up and coming back down in the same place, and I was wretched.

But then Plisetskaya came out in Petit's "Rose Malade," not a great work of art, BUT.... as soon as she started to move, i found myself in a quandary -- what's wrong with me? I can't SEE her. It took me a while to figure out that I was in tears --

Actually, the remarkable thing about that piece was that her movements were incredibly sudden -- her arms seemed to snap, one at a time. It was a pas de deux, and she was lifted, I THINK, from the get-go and probably never put down, but I must say I have no actual memory of he piece except that her arms seemed to break at the elbow and that I was in total emotional uproar and I waited an hour to get her autograph and I told her she broke my heart and she said "Don't break your heart" and signed my book on the centerfold where there was a 2-page picture of her as Carmen and she wrote her name all over her standing leg.

It sound like you haven't seen her Swan lake -- the absolutely greatest Odile I've ever seen....

[Solor]

Natalia -

I have the video "ABT at the Met" and I do not think that Leslie Browne is in this part. The only variation that Ive always wondered about in this staging on this film of "Paquita" Grand pas is the one danced by Susan Jaffe.........it is danced to a harp solo.....is this the variation that your talking about? Or, is it the variation, on the "Maryinsky Ballet" (also titled as "Kirov Classics") video danced by Lyubov Kunakova (different music but also a harp solo). (This variation [the one danced by Kunakova] is also on the "Paquita" / "La Bayadere" CD recording of the Sofia Nat'l Opera Orch. con. by Boris Spassov.)

[Natalia]

Solor, I am most definitely talking about the 'Leslie Browne variation' in the ABT Paquita, on that tape....the one that ends with a series of Italian Fouettes. If you'd ever see the Vaganova Academy telecast-video of the 1989 LHH production, you'll see the 'White Pearl' dancing the exact same steps, to the exact same music.

[Hans]

That sounds as if it would be the first variation performed on the "Kirov Classics" tape--the one that begins with pas jeté, developpé to écarté derrière.

[Natalia]

That's the one, Hans. Every one of the Kirov's Paquita Grand Pas female variations comes from a different ballet., with the exception of Paquita's own "Harp Variation." Some of the so-called "Paquita variations" aren't even Petipa, e.g., the soft "celeste variation" is from Fokine's Pavillon d'Armide.

In the early 1900s, the Paquita Grand Pas used to be the Imperial Ballet's equivalent of the opera world's Fledermaus Act II -- a spot in which guest ballerinas could perform 'tops of the pops' excerpts from other works! Now the modern Kirov-Mariinsky's specific set of variations seems to have jelled but that never was the intention in Petipa's age. The Paquita Grand Pas was meant to include only the leading man & ballerina's variations, in addition to the ensemble segments (as we see in Lacotte's POB reconstruction).

[bart]

Solor, my heart goes out to you. To have finally encountered Plisetskaya --even in video!I saw her live in about 1973 in Berkeley, CA, where she headed a little group of stars of the Bolshoi.   ...  But then Plisetskaya came out in Petit's "Rose Malade," not a great work of art, BUT.... as soon as she started to move, i found myself in a quandary -- what's wrong with me? I can't SEE her. It took me a while to figure out that I was in tears --

I know this is off topic, but just wanted to say -- exactly, Paul. I recall a Swan Lake Act II (or was it just the pas de deux) that produced a very similar response in me, and one that was totally surprising and wonderful since I'd been prepared by Time Magazine to think of her as the "bad" Bolshoi ballerina who had been a stooge for Stalin or something like that, unlike "good" Ulanova. Hard to believe that there was a time when there was actually hostile picketing at Bolshoi performances in the US.

[Hans]

Hm, I remember a long time ago we had a (short) thread called something like Name That Paquita Variation. If I remember correctly, Mel was the only one who answered, and he named the White Pearl variation from LHH and Amor from Don Q, as well as, I think, the pas de trois (what ballet is that from, anyway?). So now the only unaccounted-for variations are the one that begins with the six (or so) grands jetés and the one Solor mentions that Lyubov Kunakova performs on the Kirov Classics tape.

er...This has been an thread-hijacking by Hans, now back to your regularly scheduled LHH discussion....