55 replies to this topic

[Solnishka79]

Natalia, on Jan 28 2008, 10:37 AM, said:

I also vote for Raymonda as the next installment in the annual Kirov-Mariinsky visits to the Kennedy Center. However, let's not get our hopes up too high; the K-M has not toured this production in-full since the 1960s or so. The presents sets are incredibly frail, though the costumes have been refurbished.  The miracle is that they'll be performing Act III at City Center this April.

I have a strong suspicion that we may be getting Don Quixote next year -- huge popular fave of the Kennedy Center, which was last performed by the Bolshoi in the 2006/07 season...and it usually makes an appearance every other year on this stage...and we have yet to see the Kirov version in DC, after all of these years of annual tours.

Also, the Kennedy Center is getting its first complete  Raymonda in 20-odd years next month, when the New National Theater Ballet of Tokyo presents what is, in essence, the Kirov-Mariinsky/Petipa-K. Sergeyev version, with a few little changes. I doubt that the Kennedy Center would program two Raymondas , in same K. Sergeyev version, on consecutive years. But we can dream & hope.

If not Raymonda, then how about Flora's Awakening as part of a triple bill (which would alternate with a full-evening ballet)? This would, in part, make-up for Flora having been promised, then yanked from, the upcoming New York/City Center tour.

I'd like to see Don Q. as I missed the Bolshoi last year. (Sniff-Osipenko). Please no Somova as Kitri...I'd like to see Obraztsova. She's so cute and adorable, I'm sure she'd be a lovely spanish coquette. Flora would also be a nice change from the norm.

[carbro]

Thanks so much to our DC contingent plus visiting posters.  I have so  enjoyed these reports and can hardly wait for the company's visit to City Center.

Natalia, on Jan 28 2008, 10:37 AM, said:

I have a strong suspicion that we may be getting Don Quixote next year -- huge popular fave of the Kennedy Center, which was last performed by the Bolshoi in the 2006/07 season...and it usually makes an appearance every other year on this stage...and we have yet to see the Kirov version in DC, after all of these years of annual tours.

  How could the Kennedy Center bookers have allowed such a lapse?  A year without a Don Q???  Disgraceful!!!  

[Natalia]

Solnishka79, on Jan 28 2008, 01:36 PM, said:

.... Please no Somova as Kitri...I'd like to see Obraztsova. She's so cute and adorable, I'm sure she'd be a lovely spanish coquette. ...

Obraztsova received enormous praise in her debut as Kitri at the Mariinsky a couple of weeks ago, with Vladimir Schklyarov as Basil. So let's all hope for Don Q at the Kennedy Center next year, as it would almost surely mean that Obraztsova/Schklyarov will be among the casts.

Other top Kitris at the Mariinsky at present include Vishneva (recently returned to the role), Novikova & Tereshkina. And, yes, Somova made her debut in the role last summer.

[Azulynn]

Natalia, Alina Somova has actually made her debut as Kitri in 2007 (in the spring/summer, if I'm not mistaken). I think we had a thread referring to it at the time.

[Natalia]

Azulynn, on Jan 28 2008, 03:40 PM, said:

Natalia, Alina Somova has actually made her debut as Kitri in 2007 (in the spring/summer, if I'm not mistaken). I think we had a thread referring to it at the time.

Azulyn, I just caught my own error but thanks for pointing it out nonetheless.  How could I have forgotten? Maybe wishful thinking....

[ngitanjali]

I was just wondering....(and please move this thread around if it's clogging up space)...but those of you who have seen Somova live, knowing what you know about her capabilities and her style of dancing, if the Mariinsky toured with some more modern pieces, especially Forsythe, would Somova fit better into those?  All I have seen is her Rose Adiago    so I don't really know what she's suited for.  

Also, is Makhalina retired?  I've seen bits and pieces of her dancing, and I've just fallen in love with it.  Beautiful extensions AND art!

[Natalia]

Somova is considered a supreme classicist, so is rarely cast in anything outside the Petipa repertoire.    Company management does not cast her in the modern rep, such as Forsythes, where I think she'd fare much better. One of the few non-Petipa roles in her rep is one of the three "theme pdds" in Balanchine's Four Temperaments. She is fabulous in that!

Makhalina remains on the roster but rarely dances. I think that she did one Scheherazade last summer. She was listed in the playbill for the lead in Balanchine's La Valse but I never heard/read the results, so I wonder if she actually performed that night. More  often than not, she appears in galas around St. Petersburg, such as last autumn's Ilya Kuznetsov Evening at the Conservatory (dancing Mata Hari ).  

Nioradze and Ayupova, like Makhalina, remain on the roster but rarely dance in their home theater.

[Solnishka79]

ngitanjali, on Jan 28 2008, 04:10 PM, said:

I was just wondering....(and please move this thread around if it's clogging up space)...but those of you who have seen Somova live, knowing what you know about her capabilities and her style of dancing, if the Mariinsky toured with some more modern pieces, especially Forsythe, would Somova fit better into those?  All I have seen is her Rose Adiago    so I don't really know what she's suited for.  

Also, is Makhalina retired?  I've seen bits and pieces of her dancing, and I've just fallen in love with it.  Beautiful extensions AND art!

Although I thought Somova did perform Nikiya well, I do think that she'd be absolutely wonderful in Forsythe or Balanchine. Maybe even some Roland Petit. She reminds me of a "Balanchine" dancer-super long, super thin, super flexible, with angularity.
She is considered a "classicist"? I shall use my husband's ballet class favorite retort, "If she is classicist, I am tri-angle."
Makhalina is one of my all time favorites and so beautiful. I'd love to see her one last time on tour before she retires. Please, please, please!!

[canbelto]

Alistair Macauley reviews La Bayadere and starts off with these choice words:

Quote

“La Bayadère” is, above all, about transcendence, which is just as well, for there is much to transcend. No matter which production of this full-length ballet you see, at least 60 percent of it is trash.

Here is the review. Maybe he just shouldn't review full-length story ballets, considering his open disdain of, like, all of them.  

[Helene]

In the review, Macaulay writes of the history of the productions of "La Bayadere" and of the changes in the qualify of the corps, both at the Kirov and the Royal Ballet.  He concludes

Quote

But not one person onstage displayed the kind of artistry that seizes the audience and says, “Believe in this.” The Kirov will come to New York City Center in April for three weeks, bringing a range of one-act repertory, ancient and modern, and including the Shades scene. I have loved and been awestruck by this company in the past and await its return with hope that is too strongly mixed with frustration.

[aurora]

Helene, on Jan 29 2008, 06:25 PM, said:

In the review, Macaulay writes of the history of the productions of "La Bayadere" and of the changes in the qualify of the corps, both at the Kirov and the Royal Ballet.  He concludes

Quote

But not one person onstage displayed the kind of artistry that seizes the audience and says, “Believe in this.” The Kirov will come to New York City Center in April for three weeks, bringing a range of one-act repertory, ancient and modern, and including the Shades scene. I have loved and been awestruck by this company in the past and await its return with hope that is too strongly mixed with frustration.

Well since they will only be doing short works in NYC I predict he will like the NYC (on the whole) more than he did Bayadere  

I assume placing bets on such a thing would be against board rules (j/k)

All kidding aside, I found the information on the history of the Bayadere productions and the information on the changing style of the corps dancers really interesting, but once again wished that he could almost have written an article about the ballet as a separate entity from the review. Not that this kind of information doesn't enrich reviews, it does. But when you have 3-4 casts to review and a very limited amount of space to do so in, I'd rather read more indepth discussion of the various dancers and *this* specific production. Comparing it to the previous Kirov Bayadere is all very well, but (I assume because of the limited space) I felt that if you hadn't seen the prior one, you wouldn't really understand the difference, and, that being the case, why bother to mention it at all.

[zerbinetta]

canbelto, on Jan 29 2008, 05:16 PM, said:

Maybe he just shouldn't review full-length story ballets, considering his open disdain of, like, all of them.  

Not so. Macauley is a great admirer of Kenneth MacMillan.

Go figure.

[Hans]

Macaulay gets one thing glaringly wrong:  Solor doesn't smoke opium in the Maryinsky's production.  He falls asleep watching the snake charmer.  Otherwise, I mostly agree with him (but not with his assessment of Tereshkina, one of the most irritatingly mannered ballerinas I've ever seen).

[Kanawha]

Hans, I'm not sure about the week's other Solors but Sunday afternoon's Solor at the KC did take a puff or two off of the old pipe while watching the snake charmer.

[Natalia]

Fadeev definitely puffed from the the hookah on opening night.