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2009 Mariinsky Festival Early Discussion


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I also see that the Fri., March 13 Le Corsaire (repeated multiple times in March '09) will be brand new, so I am almost certain that the Matvienkos will be performing the first night. The old Peter Gusev production that I assumed this would be is being laid to rest. [They DO have a bit of chutzpa in doing this...scheduling a major full-length premiere the night after the Bolshoi will premiere its Coppelia in Moscow...and the night before the premiere of the Mariinsky's Little Humpbacked Horse! I predict that Russian balletomanes from the two cities will be shuttling back-and-forth to take-in all of the ballet premieres during the four-day period. It will be a crazy weekend of full-length classical ballet premieres in the two 'ballet capitals' of Russia.]

You can forget about getting tickets on flights and passenger train trips between Moscow and St. Petersburg on those few days. :)

By the way, I read that Vladimir Shklyarov is practicing for the role of Ivan in the new production of Little Humbacked Horse. He's a natural for the role since he does look a lot like the illustrations of Ivan from the 1964 Soviet-era book of the poem. :)

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Thanks for this, chiapuris!

Also, I see from Diana Vishneva's website that she will be our Giselle on the 21st and will also take part in the closing Gala on the 22nd.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that we finally have a complete Mariinsky Festival schedule exactly one month before its opening...though not yet with confirmed casting within the Mariinsky website. They must still be finalizing details with guests.

Ninth INTERNATIONAL MARIINSKY BALLET FESTIVAL

March 14 - 22, 2009

(subject to change - as of 2-14-09)

14 MARCH - LITTLE HUMPBACKED HORSE (premiere) , 1st cast

music Rodion Schedrin; choreography Alexey Ratmansky

CONDUCTOR: VALERY GERGIEV

15 March - LITTLE HUMPBACKED HORSE repeat, 2nd cast

16 March - VISHNEVA's "BEAUTY IN MOTION"

17 March - DON QUIXOTE

18 March - SWAN LAKE

19 March - ULIANAN LOPATKINA GALA

20 March - BAYADERE, 1940s version

21 March - GISELLE with Vishneva/????

22 March - ALL STARS BALLET GALA

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That is awesome, vrsfanatic. Well, I've made up my mind about that Saturday night. It will be Giselle at the Mariinsky instead of Sleeping Beauty at the Hermitage, as much as I would have loved to have seen Tkachenko's Aurora. Can't be in two places at once...

More Good News!

Woohoo, it's Ashley Bouder and Leonid Sarafanov for Don Quixote:

http://www.mariinsky.ru/en/playbill/playbi...09/3/17/1_1900/

Also, it's Polina Semionova & Igor Zelensky in Bayadere.

Hmmm...I'm afraid that David Hallberg won't make it unless he dances the Swan Lake or takes part in the final gala.

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? An interesting development regarding the March 21st date at the Mariinsky Festival:

According to an interview appearing in the Spanish press yesterday, Angel Corella said he would be dancing in St. Petersburg on March 21st. I can only assume it's the Giselle with Vishneva. Though I don't see it yet on the Mariinsky site linked in the posts above.

Does anyone know more about this?

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It could be that Corrella is going to appear at the festival on the 22nd -- the gala; arriving on the 21st. It's easy to mix-up dates. Gomes is healthy and ready to dance GISELLE with Vishneva on the 21st.

Great news that we'll be seeing Corrella, though. Thanks for this possible news!

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Give some, take some away.......

The Mariinsky website added the cast for the first-night Little Humpbacked Horse:

Tsar Maiden Viktoria Tereshkina

Ivanushka Vladimir Shklyarov

Humpbacked Horse Ilya Petrov

Tsar Andrei Ivanov

(no second night cast yet).

And then took away the dancer's name for Kitri in DQ (TBA) and gave the rest of the DQ casting (including Street Dancer E. Kondaurova).

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Thanks, chiapuris. Great cast for LHH...but, oh...no Ashley Bouder as Kitri? Fiddlesticks! Maybe they're just waiting to see if she can make the trip and dance the role due to health? If not Bouder then who, I wonder. It won't be Alina Somova because she is scheduled to do Lady Dryad.

I also see that the new Little Humpbacked Horse is now down to being "a ballet in two actions" (rather than three).

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I noticed the casting for the first night and it looks like they DID chose the dancers that looked a lot like illustrations from the 1964 publication of the poem in book form. Notice from these drawings how much Ivanushka resembles Vladimir Shklyarov and the Tsar Maiden resembles Viktoria Tereshkina?

(For those who don't know, you can see the illustrations here: http://az.lib.ru/e/ershow_p_p/text_0020.shtml )

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Thanks for posting the charming fairy tale, sacto...and you are 100% correct. I had forgotten that Ivanushka is supposed to be tallish and sandy-brown haired (not a diminutive pale-blonde lad a-la Vladimir Vasiliev) and the Tsar-maiden is supposed to have an exotic black-haired 'Persian look'! Bravo to you...and to the Mariinsky's casting gods. Common sense has finally prevailed. :D Not only that; Schklyarov & Terioshkina are both fabulous dancers.

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It could be that Corrella is going to appear at the festival on the 22nd -- the gala; arriving on the 21st. It's easy to mix-up dates. Gomes is healthy and ready to dance GISELLE with Vishneva on the 21st.

Great news that we'll be seeing Corrella, though. Thanks for this possible news!

Well now the latest news posted on his company website is that Angel Corella is appearing APRIL 11 in a gala for the "Open Dance Festival" (?) in St. Petersburg; not this month's Mariinsky Festival. He will be performing Stanton Welch's "We Got It Good" which was originally choreographed as his solo for the "Kings of Dance" tour.

I sure wish someone could get their schedules straight. Apologies for earlier misinformation. (But don't rely on this either until you see him onstage.)

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Thanks for posting the charming fairy tale, sacto...and you are 100% correct. I had forgotten that Ivanushka is supposed to be tallish and sandy-brown haired (not a diminutive pale-blonde lad a-la Vladimir Vasiliev) and the Tsar-maiden is supposed to have an exotic black-haired 'Persian look'! Bravo to you...and to the Mariinsky's casting gods. Common sense has finally prevailed. :D Not only that; Schklyarov & Terioshkina are both fabulous dancers.

:wink:

I actually looked up a Wikipedia article on the actual poem and got that link for the 1964 print run of the book, complete with the right illustrations! It appears that Alexei Ratmansky must have read this specific print run, that's to be sure. :)

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I noticed the casting for the first night and it looks like they DID chose the dancers that looked a lot like illustrations from the 1964 publication of the poem in book form. Notice from these drawings how much Ivanushka resembles Vladimir Shklyarov and the Tsar Maiden resembles Viktoria Tereshkina?

(For those who don't know, you can see the illustrations here: http://az.lib.ru/e/ershow_p_p/text_0020.shtml )

You can believe what you want, but a choreographer like Ratmansky doesn't choose his dancers because of their resemblance with some drawings in a fairytale book.

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You can believe what you want, but a choreographer like Ratmansky doesn't choose his dancers because of their resemblance with some drawings in a fairytale book.

I would agree with you but that 1964 book edition of the original poem Konyok-Gorbunok is very well-known in Russia, and I'm sure many older Russians know the color drawings from that edition. As such, my view that Ratmansky chose Vladimir Shklyarov to play the role of Ivanushka and Viktoria Tereshkina to play the role of the Tsar Maiden actually makes sense. :)

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You can believe what you want, but a choreographer like Ratmansky doesn't choose his dancers because of their resemblance with some drawings in a fairytale book.

I would agree with you but that 1964 book edition of the original poem Konyok-Gorbunok is very well-known in Russia, and I'm sure many older Russians know the color drawings from that edition. As such, my view that Ratmansky chose Vladimir Shklyarov to play the role of Ivanushka and Viktoria Tereshkina to play the role of the Tsar Maiden actually makes sense. :)

It doesn't make sense at all. Once again: they weren't chosen because of alleged resemblances to drawings in a fairytale book.

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Hey, may we all lighten up a bit, please? :) .I think that it is a happy, wonderful coincidence that the selected dancers just happen to strongly resemble the drawings in the iconic (to Russian kids) fairy-tale book.

Now if that fairy-tale book happened to feature drawings of an uber-flexible, rail-thin gymnast with pointy chin and bleached-blonde hair then we might not be celebrating.

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I actually looked up a Wikipedia article on the actual poem and got that link for the 1964 print run of the book, complete with the right illustrations! It appears that Alexei Ratmansky must have read this specific print run, that\'s to be sure. :)

Your statement seems to me to contain a huge leap of imagination when you say, “must have read...”

I noticed the casting for the first night and it looks like they DID chose the dancers that looked a lot like illustrations from the 1964 publication of the poem in book form. Notice from these drawings how much Ivanushka resembles Vladimir Shklyarov and the Tsar Maiden resembles Viktoria Tereshkina?

The thought that any choreographer would cast dancers due to a likeness to an illustration is I think highly unlikely and it would seem to me that perhaps you have not judged Ratmansky’s considerable talent to characterise roles from his own obviously talented imagination and knowledge. There are many other sources to inspire Ratmansky including the music. The Little Humpbacked Horse is very well known in Russia through books, a famous cartoon film, a feature film and the ballet performance by the Bolshoi Ballet staged by Radunsky that was captured on film (I was fortunate to see this ballet on stage in 1963) which in all probability was known to Ratmansky from his school days when such films were shown to students. I think anyone would have had to seen both Tereshkina and Shklyarov in a wide number of roles on stage to make a judgement as to their abilities to characterise these roles?

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Thanks for posting the charming fairy tale, sacto...and you are 100% correct. I had forgotten that Ivanushka is supposed to be tallish and sandy-brown haired (not a diminutive pale-blonde lad a-la Vladimir Vasiliev) and the Tsar-maiden is supposed to have an exotic black-haired 'Persian look'! Bravo to you...and to the Mariinsky's casting gods. Common sense has finally prevailed. :) Not only that; Schklyarov & Terioshkina are both fabulous dancers.

For that hugely talented legendary dancer without a peer in his own time(and even until today in his best roles) in highly technical demi-character roles to be described as " a diminutive pale-blonde lad a-la Vladimir Vasiliev" indicates I do not know what, as it appears you have quite clearly dismissed him as inferior type to Schklyarov.

In Radunsky's production Vasiliev was perfect casting. Ivanushka as the name quite clearly suggests is a peasant type who in the telling of the original tale would not depicted as a type to be characterised in a ballet as a tall danseur noble and prince like.

I would just add that it is a long time since I last saw any younger female or male dancers of the Maryinsky Ballet that I would describe as "fabulous" which in any case with respect, is a term more suitable to a teen fanzine than in an arena where serious discussion takes place.

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