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Flames of Paris coming to Bolshoi in 2008!


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anin - Sorry to disagreee with you on both counts:

a - Tsiskaridze just danced a high-flying Conrad in the new Bolshoi Corsaire (with the so-called 'Ali variation' going to Conrad in this edition), so he obviously has mended since his most recent surgery.

b - Chabukiani may have danced with the Kirov but was most definitely of the rough-and-tumble Bolshoi style! Perhaps you are thinking of his contemporary, Sergeyev, who was of the more typical "Kirov elegance" mold? Chabukiani was perhaps the most Atypical of Kirov leading men, even more so than Nureyev.

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anin - Sorry to disagreee with you on both counts:

a - Tsiskaridze just danced a high-flying Conrad in the new Bolshoi Corsaire (with the so-called 'Ali variation' going to Conrad in this edition), so he obviously has mended since his most recent surgery.

b - Chabukiani may have danced with the Kirov but was most definitely of the rough-and-tumble Bolshoi style! Perhaps you are thinking of his contemporary, Sergeyev, who was of the more typical "Kirov elegance" mold? Chabukiani was perhaps the most Atypical of Kirov leading men, even more so than Nureyev.

Although the legendary Chabukiani was trained initially in Tbilisi by the Italian pedagogue Maria Perini, who also taught the important dancer Yelena Chikvaidze, he was also a pupil of the former St.Petersburg Imperial Theatres pedagogues V.A. Semyenov, V.I. Ponomaryev and Alexander Shirayev and was never a member of the Bolshoi ballet. Tsiskaridze is a charming gentleman off-stage, but completely lacks as I have said before the "beefy panache ' necessary for the role of Jerome.

When I see the split jete of Tsiskaridze photo of him in Corsair a 19th century ballet I wince, but not quite as much as when I saw him take a curtain call in arabesque en demi pointe after a "Sleeping Beauty" pas de deux. Something Chabukiani would never have done.

To paraphrase John Lydgate in 1440 and Cervantes much later, Comparisons are odious.

Chabukiani was a legend and we get a glimpse from film why. As you say he was atypical of Kirov dancers but he was an original in both a Kirov and Bolshoi setting and a product of his background which has never produced a similar male dancer and my retort to the young Vasiliev and the now elderly (in balletic terms) Tsiskaridze as suggested in the role of Jerome is, never send a boy to do a man's job. Chabukiani was successful as Albrecht and Siegried which neither of the young(er) pretenders can claim to have been.

ED: for spelling error

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....Tsiskaridze ....I saw him take a curtain call in arabesque en demi pointe after a "Sleeping Beauty" pas de deux. Something Chabukiani would never have done.

Uh, don't be so sure, Leonid. Take a look a Chabukiani in the ca-1940 film of Bayadere 'Shades' with Dudinskaya. After his solo, he makes a rather 'faunish' pose with a pirouette before exiting the scene. And I would hardly call some of his personally-designed costumes for concerts 'beefcake' in nature, if you know what I mean. He certainly had his flamboyant, Tsiskaridze-esque side! (wink)

Tsiskaridze's Albrecht was quite fabulous in the late-1990s Vasiliev version, opposite Lunkina. I would hardly write him off as Albrecht. And what about his beefy approach to the male lead in Pharaoh's Daughter?

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It has to be a Georgian thing, puckishness.

I am not going to argue over the puckishness of Georgians in general (think of Josef Stalin) as I am not an expert, but what I have learnt from studying the "noble" families of Georgia is that they come from different regions and Georgians should not be treated as an homogenous group.

There is no doubt that Georgia has produced a number of outstanding dancers in various genre over a long period of time.

Names ending "idze"/"adze" may have some relationship to those ending in "illi" as they may come

from the same region, but those ending in "iani" may not.

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:off topic: But in light of Stalin, what else can you call somebody who sleeps in three different rooms of the same house in one night so people can't find him, and would intentionally lie about his plans for the next day to the same end? Puckish? Or Robert Joffrey?

Thank you Mel, I laughed out loud at your post.

If you would like to see some extraordinary photographs of Chabukiani there is a site dedicated to him at http://chabukiani.iatp.ge/albomi.htm

Unfortunately for me it is written in the contemporary Georgian script known as mkhedruli ('military'). If you click on the 4th link from the left (or for rabid anti-soviet art readers 3rd from the right) which states ალბომი just below the banner, you will find a portal to many photographs of Chabukiani some which show extraordinary elevation and others in a rather over the top arty pose which were considered artistic rather than effeminate at the time. If you left click on the image you get an enlarged photograph. Chabukiani appears to become the role or his idea of the role in each photograph.

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These are great, leonid. Thanks.

:) About Georgian writing, does anyone know whether it reads ----> or <----- ? It is beautiful, looks vaguely Arabic, and a little like Burmese writing that adorned the walls of my favorite bygone restaurant. :(

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These are great, leonid. Thanks.

:) About Georgian writing, does anyone know whether it reads ----> or <----- ? It is beautiful, looks vaguely Arabic, and a little like Burmese writing that adorned the walls of my favorite bygone restaurant. :(

Left to right.

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