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Natalia Osipova


drb

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I don't find Osipova "athletic" -- despite the huge scale on which she dances, I find her like Baryshnikov and Sizova, the Nicholas Brothers, Fred Astaire -- someone who is profoundly classical in the way she moves. It's not muscular dancing -- she's moving her BONES around, it's just phenomenally easy and accurate for her, and she can do more in the space of time she's got than anybody else. Of course Kitri is her entryway -- her energy is outrageous, offscale, she embodies the comic sublime.

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Quote:

“Osipova is still quite young. Artistic development generally comes with maturity.”

Having seen Osipova in all her roles, except Giselle, on stage in the course of several years I was very impressed with the pace of her artistic development. The Vision scene from Don Q. was especially indicative of that. There was a one year gap between her performances of Don Q. which I saw, and her Dulcinea (which does not come so naturally to her as Kitri) acquired greater gentleness, her arms improved, and there was a general impression that she will be able to ‘tackle’ great classical roles quite soon.

Last week I had a chance to see a (non-commercial) DVD of her Moscow “Giselle” and, although it is better not to base judgement on recordings, I was astonished with her fine and profound rendering of this role, her breathtaking weightlessness (as opposed to her earthborn Kitri) and the haunting feeling she left me with by her performance. :speechless-smiley-003:

Quote:

“…Last staging of the Lavrovsky’s "Romeo" dates from 1995 and it was last performed somewhere in 2000. In late 2003 the Bolshoi got the lovely Radu Poklitaru "Romeo and Juliet", which isn't exactly the best version…”

There was between those two a Grigorovich’s production of “Romeo” in 1979 with Bessmertnova and later N.Pavlova and Ananiashvili as Juliet.

Although I personally prefer the Lavrovsky’s ballet it seems to me that the Macmillan’s version will suit Osipova best.

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Quote:

“…Last staging of the Lavrovsky’s "Romeo" dates from 1995 and it was last performed somewhere in 2000. In late 2003 the Bolshoi got the lovely Radu Poklitaru "Romeo and Juliet", which isn't exactly the best version…”

There was between those two a Grigorovich’s production of “Romeo” in 1979 with Bessmertnova and later N.Pavlova and Ananiashvili as Juliet.

Although I personally prefer the Lavrovsky’s ballet it seems to me that the Macmillan’s version will suit Osipova best.

Grigorovich's "Romeo" was abandoned in 1995 and Lavrovsky's old production was revived that year, so it came before the latest revival.

I found Osipova's mad scene in "Giselle" one of the most unsettling I've seen. Her range of emotions within that short amount of time is amazing, juxtaposing extreme tenderness with outbursts of grief and despair in less than a wink.

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I was very impressed with the pace of her artistic development.

Last week I had a chance to see a (non-commercial) DVD of her Moscow “Giselle” and, although it is better not to base judgement on recordings, I was astonished with her fine and profound rendering of this role, her breathtaking weightlessness (as opposed to her earthborn Kitri) and the haunting feeling she left me with by her performance. :bow:

Hello everybody,

I couldn't agree more: I saw her Giselle live in Turin (December 23rd) and it was a stunning performance. :angel_not:

After that I saw the Moscow one and, even if also her debut was very interesting and promising, the improvement in just one month and two shows was really impressive. :angel_not:

I was looking forward her debut as Sylph in the Bournonville/Kobborg Sylphide and now Bolshoi web-site is announcing her name for the first night on Feb 20th! :yahoo: The Russian version of the site is confirming the announced partnership with Lopatin, not sure which one is more up-to-date…in any case: Good luck to Natasha! :flowers:

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I cannot really recall the policy for this board on this, but here's a link to some Sylphide videos: http://www.videobalet.net/

I have never seen any other Sylphide, only Aurelie Dupont on DVD - and of that, only a couple of minutes. I cannot really compare.

But I have to say: Natalia Osipova really surprised me. She is incredibly light, and this role seems perfect for her since she's an effortless jumper. Wonderful. Her arms are exquisite, very soft and floating. I cannot judge much of the emotion, for that I would have needed some "closer" looks - but her gestures were not only with her hands, but with her whole body which accentuates their honesty.

I really don't know what to think of her now - until now, I've always disliked her for her gymnastic aspects, for her plucked eyebrows that are barely still there and for her heavy mascara coat. I've never really taken her seriously. And while I always granted her stable technique I never thought her emotionally mature or talented. The role of Giselle still seems like a complete miscast to me because she put too many modern aspects into it - her technique, I mean - and her interpretation of the mad scene actually made me mad with anger at her for really spoiling it with running around too much and .. ugh.

But La Sylphide? Natalia Osipova - I absolutely agree with you being very, very good for that role.

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Hardly anythnig would get me more excited than the chance to see Osipova as the Sylphide -- she dances from SO DEEP, there'd be no chance to mistake her gift for gymnastic --

But when I go to the link -- thank you thank you, Legwarmer -- what downloads to my computer seems to be incompatible with Windows media player, so I get the music/sound but WMP puts up an abstract light show for visuals. ANybody eolse encountered this problem; anyone have a solution?

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I hope someone can help you with this Paul. I had to download a higher form of Real Player than my computer already had in place. And thank you, legwarmer, for the link.

he dances from SO DEEP, there'd be no chance to mistake her gift for gymnastic.

You are right. The Sylphide clips show that she is real thing, and at a very high level. Every element of her body moves beautifully at the normal speed, but with such clarity. It's a miracle, but somehow you have time to see it all, even think about it all.

What do dance critics call this gift of limpidity?

High point for me: James awakes. Osipova moves away, rises to pointe facing down stage. She s-l-o-w-ly turns her head towards him, eyes lowered. It's shy, seductive .. and miraculous.

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I'm having problems watching thru Real Media, too -- I get a single, still image. I was also directed to CNet to download something called DivX. But I found one clip on YouTube. Then I got an update alert for I-Tunes/Quicktime. Oy vey!

Osipova's efforts to capture the Bournonville spirit are not entirely successful. I found her sauts de basque jarring (not to mention the rushed, high extension). I think it's a matter of overcoming muscle memory. But the weightlessness of her upper body is lovely. I'd love to see how her Sylph develops in the next few years.

It's probably time to reboot and try one or another of my media players and see more of this charming Sylphide.

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Paul, you might want to open Windows Media Player and uncheck the option to make it your default media player. Or if you can't find that option, another way to do it is to open Real Player, or whatever ever else you might have, and make it the default option. Real Player is my default and it allows me to watch embedded videos right there on the page. Good luck!

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I saw Anna micro's clip on Youtube. My Lord, despite ALL the things one could object to, the overall phrasing, and hte incredible lightness of her upper body, and something inherently romantic about her breathing make me love her anyway. No, she doesn't point hte foot she's jumping from, no there's something way wrong with the rhythm of her sauts de basque -- but the parts she HAS applied her imagination to are so important -- the pas de bourrees, and yes, Lord, that soussus, when she turns her head so slowly to look at him, those details matter enormously, and hte overall rhythm and breath-like quality of all the dancing are wonderful.

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I saw Anna micro's clip on Youtube. My Lord, despite ALL the things one could object to, the overall phrasing, and hte incredible lightness of her upper body, and something inherently romantic about her breathing make me love her anyway. No, she doesn't point hte foot she's jumping from, no there's something way wrong with the rhythm of her sauts de basque -- but the parts she HAS applied her imagination to are so important -- the pas de bourrees, and yes, Lord, that soussus, when she turns her head so slowly to look at him, those details matter enormously, and hte overall rhythm and breath-like quality of all the dancing are wonderful.

I think it wasn't perfect, like her Giselle wasn't perfect (perfect in the sense of Natalia Bessmertnova), but....there was something there which shows that she understood the nature of the choreography, it's history, it's meaning, and how to tailor her essence for the role. It was Natalia's sylphide, not "mass produced Sylph that was churned out of a factory", which was nice to see :tomato:

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If you have problems with the videos you probably don't have the divx codec installed (needed to decompress the video's data. Even though the .avi extention of the file may seem familiar not all avis are created equal; avi is just a container format) The people who have no problem with the videos probably had the codec installed during an installation of something else video-related. For example installing some players installs (or replaces a prior installation of) a selection of codecs too.

To install the codec you have several options. A few easy ones: You could go to http://www.divx.com and click on Free Download. After downloading the file, double click to execute. You don't need to install the divx player if you don't wish to, just the codec will suffice.

There was talk in the past (not sure when but more than a couple of years ago) that a version of the divx player had been associated with spy/ad-ware. This has supposedly stopped but one ought to be fully informed to make decisions on such matters.

Alternatively you could install ffdshow which takes care not only of divx but numerous other codecs, usual and unusual. ffdshow is free, open source software that can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net. No player in this case, ffdshow cooperates with windowns media players, winamp etc

For the technophobes and the overly cautious there's yet another alternative. Login to your youtube acccount (or create one if you don't have one). Click on upload to upload the offending video taking care to click Private in "Broadcast options" to set the access to private (so that only you can watch - I imagine you wont want to distribute material of which you don't hold the copyright) Wait for it to upload and then watch.

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This interview is indeed required reading. The original Russian text in the form of a monologue was published on Osipova’s site (all well-versed enough in Russian can go there).

I don’t see much point in comparing Osipova’s debut as Giselle with the autumnal performance of Bessmertnova (great to hear, though, she is considered “perfect†now :thumbsup: ), and moreover she is not a Bournonville dancer, she is a Russian-trained dancer performing Bournonville. Yet what I found amazing about her Giselle and Sylph is that for each ballet she appeared wholly transformed, a totally different creature, and one totally absorbed by the role. It might be called the "method-dancing" approach.

In Sylphide her plasticity had changed again, the mime was detailed and subtle (as for example Paul and Bart noticed in the first eye to eye meeting with James), the emotions were filtered (until her death scene where everything was let loose, apparently as a spontaneous reaction to her James). The performance was full of unforgettable moments, like every encounter with Vyacheslav Lopatin's James, or like in the 2nd act where she catches this (imaginary) butterfly and her whole body seemed to be shivering with the beating of its wings inside the palms of her hands. Combined with the sheer quality of her dancing, the jumps, the ballon, the flow and the effortlessness (which I guess most people now take for granted with Osipova, but it remains no less outstanding), all fine-tuned to the needs of the piece, as a theatre experience I found this pure magic, as a debut a fantastic achievement.

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It was Natalia's sylphide, not "mass produced Sylph that was churned out of a factory", which was nice to see

You make a very good point there ngitanjali, too few dancers seem to think for themselves with regard to interpretation with most following some accepted template for a role. It wasn't always like that.

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Alternatively you could install ffdshow which takes care not only of divx but numerous other codecs, usual and unusual. ffdshow is free, open source software that can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net. No player in this case, ffdshow cooperates with windowns media players, winamp etc

Thanks for the advice chrisk217!

I tried divx and it works but didn't like having to use an extra player so downloaded ffdshow and it is great. The files now open easily with media player or real player. During this exercise I also discovered that real player has a download button so you can download videos straight off of youtube.

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Natalia Osipova's appearance at the April 21, 2008 YAGP Gala at City Center, where she is listed as dancing Flames of Paris with Ivan Vasiliev, is confirmed on her website:

April

...

New York, Youth America Grand Prix Gala 2008 - 21

Bolshoi Theatre, "Le Corsaire", Medora (debut, with Sergei Filin) - 30

Also noteworthy is that her debut (delayed from early January) as Medora is now scheduled for April 30. This is confirmed on the Bolshoi's site (Russian Version). Ivan Vasiliev is listed there in Pas d'Esclave. Since, as may be read in Sergei Filin's thread under Dancers, according to the Moscow Times he retires at the end of April, having him as her Conrad is a singular honor.

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Natalia Osipova's appearance at the April 21, 2008 YAGP Gala at City Center, where she is listed as dancing Flames of Paris with Ivan Vasiliev, is confirmed on her website:
April

...

New York, Youth America Grand Prix Gala 2008 - 21

Bolshoi Theatre, "Le Corsaire", Medora (debut, with Sergei Filin) - 30

Also noteworthy is that her debut (delayed from early January) as Medora is now scheduled for April 30. This is confirmed on the Bolshoi's site (Russian Version). Ivan Vasiliev is listed there in Pas d'Esclave. Since, as may be read in Sergei Filin's thread under Dancers, according to the Moscow Times he retires at the end of April, having him as her Conrad is a singular honor.

Hooray! I can't wait to see her. I wish it was something else (I want to see her JUMP!!) but still it should be fabulous, and its a fantastic variation for him.

Anyone else going to be there? (YAGP gala, not Le Corsaire unfortunately)

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I will not be able to attend however two of my students are participating in the YAGP workshop and will attend the Gala. I have told them that they are to report all details of Natalia's performance to me..... and have been threatened with the punishment of a second year Vaganova class if they don't give me a perfect account! (They're 15 and 17, second year is soooooo slow.)

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