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"Spartacus" Premiere


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I don't know this version of the ballet. If it's anything like the Bolshoi version, there will be two big male leads and two big female leads, and with that, the inevitable comparisons between them. If they are not cast from strength, it will be obvious. The company has enough depth for multiple, great casts.

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I don't know this version of the ballet. If it's anything like the Bolshoi version, there will be two big male leads and two big female leads, and with that, the inevitable comparisons between them. If they are not cast from strength, it will be obvious. The company has enough depth for multiple, great casts.

Yakobson's was the first choreographer to set Khachaturian's 1954 score for a Leningrad premiere in 1956. Moiseev followed with his version for the Bolshoi in 1958 and Grigorovich followed with his version also for the Bolshoi ten years later. Since all three versions used the same score, the plot and characters were all most likely determined by Khatchaturian but I don't know this for sure

Yakobson didn't use formal ballet techniques in his version and so it remained controversial. According to Plisetskaya, she danced in sandals rather than pointe shoes without using turnout.

I recently saw some clips of Plisetskaya in Yakobson's Spartacus and she was actually barefoot rather than in sandals . She commented that she danced both

Phrygia and Aegina but that interview was rather "free-flowing" and didn't specify if she only did the Yakobson or later danced in the Grigorovich. Also, it was implied that her performances in the Yakobson were in Moscow, implying that the work traveled to Moscow after the Leningrad premiere.

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No actual casting yet, but there is now a listing of who is rehearsing roles for the ballet:

Yulia Makhalina, Viktoria Tereshkina,

Sofia Gumerova, Yekaterina Kondaurova

Danila Korsuntsev, Igor Zelensky,

Alexander Sergeyev, Yuri Smekalov,

Konstantin Zverev, and Vladimir Ponomarev.

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This would be a perfect vehicle for Makhalina, especially in the glamorous 'bad girl' role. The key is that all of the ladies perform in sandals -- no pointe shoes -- so it will not be painful for the dancer. I saw this full ballet danced by Yakobson's Choreographic Miniatures troupe a few years ago and it is a dazzler, even in the pared-down staging that I saw in Egypt. I can only imagine what it will be like on a larger scale, with a full corps de ballet entering the Colisseum-like set.

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