Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Mystery Ballet


Recommended Posts

Here is another question I am hoping you can help with:

A friend is trying to find the name a Russian ballet that she saw on Bravo years ago. Here is how she describes it... "In it were prisoners dressed in rags and periodically huge guards would enter who abused and beat them. Then in would leap this charming little creature dressed in a white leotard with a tiny red heart sewn on his chest. I called him Hope. He encouraged the prisoners to dance and free themselves. It was a very dramatic ballet, the guards killed the little fellow but in the end his body was lifted triumphantly after the prisoners freed themselves."

Do any of you know the ballet she is describing?

And thank you for all the generous and interesting responses to our questions you have given over these past months!

Link to comment

indeed, this sounds like o. vinogradov's PETROUCHKA - recorded as a video and subsequently released on DVD as THE MARYINSKY BALLET, a.k.a. KIROV CLASSICS.

credits as follows:

The Maryinsky Ballet, St. Petersburg: mixed bill / co-produced by Danmarks Radio and RM Arts ; produced and directed by Thomas Grimm ; artistic direction by Oleg Vinogradov. West Long Branch, N.J. : Kultur, c1991. (147 min.) : sd., col. Scenic coordinator, Ves Harper ; lighting, Jorgen Johannessen, Tim Hunter.

Danced by the Maryinsky Ballet [Kirov Ballet].

Music performed by the Maryinsky Orchestra, conducted by Viktor Fedotov.

Chopiniana [Les sylphides] (ca. 31 min.) / choreography, Michel Fokine, restaged by Agrippina Vaganova ; music, Frédéric Chopin ; scenery, Mikhail Bocharov ; danced by Altynai Asylmuratova and Konstantin Zaklinsky, with Yelena Pankova (waltz), Anna Polikarpova (prelude), and corps de ballet.

Petrushka (ca. 39 min.) / choreography and libretto, Oleg Vinogradov ; music, Igor Stravinsky ; set and costumes, Irina Press, Vyatislav Okunev ; danced by Sergei Vikharev (Petrushka) and others.

Barber's Adagio (ca. 19 min.) / choreography and costumes, Oleg Vinogradov ; music, Samuel Barber (Adagio for strings) ; danced by Yelena Yevteeva and Eldar Aliev.

Le corsaire pas de deux (ca. 8 min.) / choreography, Marius Petipa ; music, Adolphe Adam, Riccardo Drigo ; danced by Lyubov Kunakova and Faroukh Ruzimatov.

The fairy doll [Die Puppenfee] (ca. 11 min.) / choreography, N[ikolai] and S[ergei] Legat ; music, Josef Bayer ; danced by Larissa Lezhnina, Dmitry Gruzdev, and Yaroslav Fadayev.

Markitenka pas de six [La vivandière pas de six] (ca. 14 min.) / choreography, Arthur Saint-Léon ; music, Cesare Pugni ; danced by Yelena Pankova and Sergei Vikharev with Irina Sitnikova, Alexandra Koltun, Irina Zhelonkina, Olga Melnikova.

Paquita (ca. 32 min.) / choreography, Marius Petipa ; music, L. Minkus ; danced by Yulia Makhalina and Igor Zelensky, with corps de ballet ; pas de trois danced by Yelena Pankova, Irina Sitnikova, Grigory Chicherin ; variations danced by Irina Zhelonika, Lyubov Kunakova, Larissa Lezhnina, Alexandra Koltun, Veronika Ivanova.

Link to comment
KIROV CLASSICS.

Chopiniana [Les sylphides] (ca. 31 min.) / choreography, Michel Fokine, restaged by Agrippina Vaganova ; music, Frédéric Chopin ; scenery, Mikhail Bocharov ; danced by Altynai Asylmuratova and Konstantin Zaklinsky, with Yelena Pankova (waltz), Anna Polikarpova (prelude), and corps de ballet.

Is this the complete Les Sylphides?

Link to comment

this is the 'complete' soviet version of fokine's ballet in a staging linked to vaganova, as you know the ballet was later known as LES SYLPHIDES outside russia - as the history books tell us, fokine tinkered with his ballet time and again once he left russia .

the male solo/mazurka in the kirov's CHOPINIANA is different musically and choreographically from that known in the west, but this video records the ballet, complete, as it has been maintained in soviet and post-soviet russia.

Link to comment

I like this DVD a lot. A good opportunity to see the previous Kirov generation, especially Yelena Pankova, Larissa Lezhnina and Lubov Kunakova (saddled with a tutu best described as 'eccentric') in (mostly) good repertoire: I watch the Paquita a lot in particular. Very strong performances all round.

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...