14 replies to this topic

[87Sigfried87]

Normal people go to clubs for new year's eve...i go to theatre:-).What to say about this performance?
First of all it was a mix of the three caikovskijan classics: Nutcracker,Sleeping Beauty,Swan Lake.The expedient was the feast of the third act of Swan Lake.At the ball unsusual guests were invited:Aurore and the Cavaliers performing Rose Adagio,Clara and Nutcracker performing Nutcracker PDD,Bluebird and Florine performing their PDD...mixed with the dances of Swan lake third act and Black Swan PDD.
Very good Marta Romagna performing Rose Adagio,high legs and nice aplombs;Perfect Sutera as Bluebird,Licitra was a strangely sad Fool.Nadja Saidakova as Clara could have been better...I know what she can do on stage and i don't think she gave her best.I've fallen in love with her talking for a while outside the theatre....she is so beautiful and so charming...I couldn't stop staring at her!!!Ronald Savkovic was a good Nutcracker prince,is a very handsome dancer and I think could have done more.Very nice as person anyway.Bolle was the same as always,Semionova as Black Swan was......shocking!so beautiful!!!!very gifted and very good at interpreting the role....better than Zakharova for sure!and the fouettés were perfect and all double.And she's also very beautiful as a woman!!!
At the end there was a toast on stage with all the dancers wishing happy new year to the public with confetti fall.
Some people didn't appreciate the mix of ballets and found it awful and some didn't appreciate also the missing White Swan PDD which was only played by the orchestra with closed curtains...for sure the dancers were very good and we got the occasion to see Savkovic and Saidakova,whom we don't see very much around Italy.I got all the autographs and talked to some of the etoiles:-).

[Mel Johnson]

Sort of a ballet equivalent of the New Year's version of Act II of Die Fledermaus!

[Paul Parish]

Sounds very festive -- an EXCELLENT way to approach midnight on the last day of the year.

Thanks for the report -- I'm coming to LOOK for your reports, dancerboy -- it's really great to hear what's going on at La Scala.

What does "Bolle was ... as ever" mean? How do you feel about him? I can imagine -- the hype is like that around David Beckham; but when I look at him, not having had the chance to become jaded, I find that I like him very much -- he's responsible, an "answerable" dancer; not as spontaneous as I'd like, by any means, but still, there's such honesty in the way he pulls up I find myself admiring him, and grateful. And he's willing to be beautiful -- that's probably no big deal in Europe, but around here we see people still husbanding their glamor, saving it for someone else.

[Farrell Fan]

Cajkovskij? I am mystified by this rendering of the composer's name. Is it Milanese dialect or what?

[volcanohunter]

Farrell Fan, on Jan 1 2008, 03:32 PM, said:

Cajkovskij? I am mystified by this rendering of the composer's name. Is it Milanese dialect or what?

Well why should they spell it the French way, like we do? Wouldn't it make more sense for us to spell it Chaikovskii or Chaykovskiy? What about NYCB's peculiar Franco-German way of spelling it?

[Farrell Fan]

volcanohunter, on Jan 1 2008, 08:45 PM, said:

Farrell Fan, on Jan 1 2008, 03:32 PM, said:

Cajkovskij? I am mystified by this rendering of the composer's name. Is it Milanese dialect or what?

Well why should they spell it the French way, like we do? Wouldn't it make more sense for us to spell it Chaikovskii or Chaykovskiy?

Yes. it would make more sense to spell it either of those two ways, but that doesn't explain "Cajkovskij."

[volcanohunter]

Čajkovskij, if spelled with the "haček" on the C, is the most phonetically correct way of transliterating the name. The Czechs and Slovaks spell it the same way, and it eliminates the frustratingly different ways that the "ch" sound is rendered in Latin-character languages (for example, tch in French, tsch in German, tsj in Dutch and Norwegian, cz in Polish, tj in Danish and Swedish, ch in English and Spanish, cs in Hungarian).

[Helene]

I always thought that "c" before an "a" was a hard "c", but live and learn

Many thanks for your review, dancerboy87.  It is great to hear what's happening at La Scala.

[bart]

Like Helene, I've always assumed that "ca" is a hard sound in Italian.  La Scala's website has it as dancerboy87 spells it, but with the hacek.  A number of other Italian websites I Googled omit the hacek.  

Do Italians simply know that this is how you pronounce the Russian name, regardless of whether or not the "C" has a diacritical mark?  Do Italian keyboards usually have such a letter?

[carbro]

If someone asked me how Italians spell the name, as someone with only a slight acquaintance with the language but (I think) a pretty good grasp of its phonetics, I would have guessed Ciaicovski.    Oh, well.   I don't recall ever seeing a "j" in Italian.  Then again, English speakers haven't agreed on a standardized spelling.  We see it written as Tschaikovsky, Tchaikowsky, and variations of those.

The program sounds like a wonderful, rich, celebratory dance banquet.  Thanks, dancerboy!  Glad you enjoyed it.

[87Sigfried87]

bart, on Jan 2 2008, 01:00 AM, said:

Like Helene, I've always assumed that "ca" is a hard sound in Italian.  La Scala's website has it as dancerboy87 spells it, but with the hacek.  A number of other Italian websites I Googled omit the hacek.  

Do Italians simply know that this is how you pronounce the Russian name, regardless of whether or not the "C" has a diacritical mark?  Do Italian keyboards usually have such a letter?

I don't have hacek on my keyboard sorry....

[87Sigfried87]

Paul Parish, on Jan 1 2008, 08:12 PM, said:

Sounds very festive -- an EXCELLENT way to approach midnight on the last day of the year.

Thanks for the report -- I'm coming to LOOK for your reports, dancerboy -- it's really great to hear what's going on at La Scala.

What does "Bolle was ... as ever" mean? How do you feel about him? I can imagine -- the hype is like that around David Beckham; but when I look at him, not having had the chance to become jaded, I find that I like him very much -- he's responsible, an "answerable" dancer; not as spontaneous as I'd like, by any means, but still, there's such honesty in the way he pulls up I find myself admiring him, and grateful. And he's willing to be beautiful -- that's probably no big deal in Europe, but around here we see people still husbanding their glamor, saving it for someone else.

Bolle.....well....Bolle is deemed to be not very expressive as a dancer.I've seen him in many roles....well,he's expressive only in a few roles,as Jeune homme et la Mort.He tends to put on his prince mask and looks like somebody who's on stage but thinks about what to buy at the supermarket...he's very beautiful and charming,he has a very good technique but he hardly interpretes a role as it is supposed to be done.He has been improving so much since the Swan lake in dvd....but he's not still a good Sigfried.Especially during the PDD he looks like he's thinking about how to catch her and lift her and stop.Anyway he's among my favourite dancers....you can't stop staring at him when he's on stage!

[Mel Johnson]

carbro, on Jan 1 2008, 07:34 PM, said:

I don't recall ever seeing a "j" in Italian.

It's there occasionally, to use as a terminal "i", much as a doctor's prescription will use "xviij" as "18".  It came into use about 900 CE as far as I can make out, via Spanish usage, which became more general throughout Europe.

[volcanohunter]

carbro, on Jan 1 2008, 08:34 PM, said:

I would have guessed Ciaicovski.  

How about Ciaicovschi? Seriously, I didn't mean to suggest that Čajkovskij was a remotely Italian spelling, but rather that this transliteration would gladden the hearts of many Slavic linguistics professors. Not that I'm advocating adopting Čajkovskij, Šostakovič or Čexov in the English-speaking world. Most English-speakers are relatively unfamiliar with diacritical marks and would probably be confused by them. (Not to mention the fact that many computers are poorly equipped to deal with them.) I don't know what the most recent edition has to say about it, but the 14th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style states: "Regardless of the system of transliteration, however, well-known Russian names should be given in the form that has become familiar to English-speaking readers" (9.110) and then proceeds to list Tchaikovsky as an example.

Back on topic. I, too, would like to thank you, dancerboy87, for your review. I very much appreciate having eyes and ears from La Scala on this board.

[bart]

volcanohunter, on Jan 2 2008, 11:15 PM, said:

Back on topic. I, too, would like to thank you, dancerboy87, for your review. I very much appreciate having eyes and ears from La Scala on this board.

Speaking as one of those who got distracted by the Tchaikovsky spelling, I always want to thank you dancerboy87, fdor allowing us to visualize this performance.  I truly wish I had been there.

I also appreciate your comments on Bolle, and I hope that more posters on Ballet Talk will give us their impressions of him.  Based on video and photos, I am very impressed by the way he looks and presents himself in a variety of ballet styles.  But videos don't always suggest the stage presence -- or relative lack of it -- that one sees in real life.  It's good to hear from someone who, like you, had the chance to observe so closely.