Kirov Ballet, 1964

[Guest Old Board]

It took me awhile to ransack the archives and come up with it, but I still have saved a program from a Sat. evening performance of the Kirov at the Old Met on Sept. 19, 1964. I was 16 at the time. It must have impressed me tremendously, because I still can recall the excitement of the evening. It was one of those "Highlights" programs.

The first offering was "A Distant Planet" which I remember by my note in the margin taken at the time: "tries to be like Balanchine, but doesn't go anywhere" Although it wasn't to my liking, I do have a lasting memory of Natalia Makarova in this that stuck with me - liked her a lot more than the material! Next came Shades from Bayadere - my marginalia read: _WOW_! Kaleria Fedicheva was the Nikiya, and I can still recall her chaine' diagonals! Among the soloists, I apparently liked the girl doing the cabriole variation, Inessa Korneyeva, a whole lot, and also noted that the work got 12 calls.

There were things I out-and-out didn't like. Vainonen's _Nutcracker_ Rose Waltz and the pas de deux a cinq(!) Note: "danced beautifully, but terrible choreographically" That was Irina Kolpakova and Vladilen Semenov, et alii.

Some Miniatures followed - A Gopak by Alexander Pavlovsky, whose barrel turns still stick in my mind, and The Snow Maiden "Cute" "good actress" - Galina Kekisheva, and the first time I had ever seen Corsair pas de deux. This by Fedicheva and Oleg Sokolov. It apparently didn't float my boat, because I noted: "nice and difficult, but so what?" (I did note that Sokolov turned well - nice of me to say when I couldn't do more than a triple). I guess I really didn't enjoy it to the full until I saw it performed with two men instead of just one. It seems to work better that way.

The performance ended with _Prince Igor_, which I liked to no end! Margin: _WHEE_! Noted that Ariya Pestova, as the Polovetzian Girl was "very pretty, for a change" and that Pavlolvsky, who did the Chief "moves out!" I must have had one terrific time at that performance, and I can still feel the excitement from it to this day!

Mel Johnson

[Margot]

October 2nd, 1964! I still have the program. The "Leningrad-Kirov Ballet" came to Montreal , I was 10 years old, and it was my first time to the ballet. My parents took me (God bless them), we were in the third balcony. It was "Sleeping Beauty" and I still remember how impressed I was about the ballerina falling so elegantly after she touched the needle... Alla Sizova was Aurora and, I still can't believe I saw him on stage... Yuri Soloviev was Florimond. Unfortunately I do not remember him. It was later, when I knew a little more about ballet and history that I realised I had seen a dancer of the caliber of Nureyev and Baryshnikov on my first night and did not even realize it! But I must have liked it because it was after that performance that I asked my mother if I could take classes. I was never good at it but I never lost the love...