27 replies to this topic

[Marc Haegeman]

According to our Russian friends from http://forum.balletfriends.ru/ Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev were promoted to principal dancers after the performance of Don Quixote, May 3 in China.
Congratulations to both.

[Helene]

to Ms. Osipova and Mr. Vasiliev!

[Drew]

Happy (and, I should think, expected) news...Congratulations to both. If all goes well, I will see them dance this summer....

[Ray]

Drew, on May 4 2010, 02:25 AM, said:

Happy (and, I should think, expected) news...Congratulations to both. If all goes well, I will see them dance this summer....

I hope that means they'll buy her some new pointe shoes!

[Cygnet]

Congratulations to Osipova and Vasiliev, the Bolshoi's newest Principals !!

[Leigh Witchel]

This is one of those times, though, when one's first reaction is, "They weren't principals?"

[Rosa]

Congratulations to Osipova and Vasiliev!

[Drew]

Leigh Witchel, on May 4 2010, 08:21 PM, said:

This is one of those times, though, when one's first reaction is, "They weren't principals?"

Oh -- that was exactly my reaction, but I could not quite put it into words!

[GeorgeB fan]

Leigh Witchel, on May 4 2010, 08:21 PM, said:

This is one of those times, though, when one's first reaction is, "They weren't principals?"

I was thinking the exact same thing!! LOL

They are two of the most famous dancers in the world today and have been dancing principals roles like FOREVER. I'm happy for both and it's richly deserved but I can't help but think...What took so long??

[kfw]

Leigh Witchel, on May 4 2010, 08:21 PM, said:

This is one of those times, though, when one's first reaction is, "They weren't principals?"

That's for sure. Could the Bolshoi just have taken advantage of their youth and paid them lesser salaries for as long as possible? An article by Laura Jacobs in The New Criterion last fall perhaps offers another explanation.

Quote

While the ABT audience and some of the press were thoroughly wowed by Osipova’s aerodynamics, for me, she frequently bounced right out of the art form. If you were looking for a singing arabesque, a nuance in the shaping of phrases, you looked in vain.

Despite the rush of publicity, Osipova is still an unfinished dancer. She has a sickled right foot. She has scrunchy pointes that have very little power of articulation. More troubling is the lack of expression in her upper body. Though only twenty-three, Osipova has an old face. Please understand, offstage she looks twenty-three. But onstage, so little imaginative energy is resonant in the poitrine, the port de bras, that there’s a lack of affect up there. Her dancing is un-crowned. Perhaps this is why she had to pull faces to show us what Giselle was feeling, and why her mad scene was so disjointed it began to feel static, tedious, mindless in all the wrong ways. I must add, too, that she brought her Bolshoi bag of tricks to the role: bent-legged arabesques that tip the toe up higher; normally straight-legged assemblés that she pulls into pas de chat, knees bent under her skirt to give an illusion of greater height.

[Mashinka]

That final sentence hints at prejudice towards Russians in general, could that prejudice be colouring the entire review?

[leonid]

kfw, on May 5 2010, 09:21 PM, said:

Leigh Witchel, on May 4 2010, 08:21 PM, said:

This is one of those times, though, when one's first reaction is, "They weren't principals?"

That's for sure. Could the Bolshoi just have taken advantage of their youth and paid them lesser salaries for as long as possible? An article by Laura Jacobs in The New Criterion last fall perhaps offers another explanation.

Quote

While the ABT audience and some of the press were thoroughly wowed by Osipova’s aerodynamics, for me, she frequently bounced right out of the art form. If you were looking for a singing arabesque, a nuance in the shaping of phrases, you looked in vain.

Despite the rush of publicity, Osipova is still an unfinished dancer. She has a sickled right foot. She has scrunchy pointes that have very little power of articulation. More troubling is the lack of expression in her upper body. Though only twenty-three, Osipova has an old face. Please understand, offstage she looks twenty-three. But onstage, so little imaginative energy is resonant in the poitrine, the port de bras, that there’s a lack of affect up there. Her dancing is un-crowned. Perhaps this is why she had to pull faces to show us what Giselle was feeling, and why her mad scene was so disjointed it began to feel static, tedious, mindless in all the wrong ways. I must add, too, that she brought her Bolshoi bag of tricks to the role: bent-legged arabesques that tip the toe up higher; normally straight-legged assemblés that she pulls into pas de chat, knees bent under her skirt to give an illusion of greater height.

Two years ago I was less impressed with these young dancer than some. I have since heard good reports about them both.

Of course there have been demi-classical dancers who have been leading Bolshoi dancers in the past but none in the last 40 odd years as small as  the two dancers in question.

Personally I do not like to see dancers cast outside their emploi. This is nothing to do with prejudice, but simply my adherence to what I see as the aesthetics of academic classical ballet.

[atm711]

Quote

While the ABT audience and some of the press were thoroughly wowed by Osipova’s aerodynamics, for me, she frequently bounced right out of the art form. If you were looking for a singing arabesque, a nuance in the shaping of phrases, you looked in vain.

The above quote by Laura Jacobs says it all for me.  I saw Osipova last season in 'Sylphide' and 'Giselle'--both miscasts.  She is a great soubrette and I cannot imagine what her Aurora will look like this season.  (I have chosen to see Cojocaru's performance. )  She might be more successful as Juliet, although I will be seeing Vishneva.

[Helene]

Mashinka, on May 6 2010, 02:06 AM, said:

That final sentence hints at prejudice towards Russians in general, could that prejudice be colouring the entire review?

Laura Jacobs loves Veronika Part; her husband, James Wolcott, does, too, and he's used his "Vanity Fair" space to promote Part and to snark at Alastair Macaulay, who has not been impressed with her.

I don't think the generalization holds; Jacobs just isn't a proponent of circusy dancing, and is up balanchine's alley in disliking facial expressions in lieu of expressing drama through dance shapes.

[kfw]

Mashinka, on May 6 2010, 05:06 AM, said:

That final sentence hints at prejudice towards Russians in general, could that prejudice be colouring the entire review?

Here's Jacobs a couple of years ago on the Kirov: Vaults and Waters

Quote

When I think of the Kirov, I think of vaults. It’s not just the rich history of this company, which reaches back into the eighteenth century and is an inheritance to be reckoned with. It’s the arcing interior spaces that live in company style, the result of a shared technique learned in the Vaganova Academy, and a shared city of imperial raiments. All those golden domes against the moonstone-blue St. Petersburg sky, all those cupolas and colonnades. We see these architectural beauties in the dancing, nowhere more clearly than in Kirov women, in the celestial sphere balanced in their upper bodies, and in the Romanesque windows built into their épaulement. Kirov dancing at its best communicates an intense sensation of line imbued with deep space, a pregnant dimensionality. The company was originally named for a woman, Czar Alexander II’s wife Marie, hence, the Mariinsky Theatre.

The Kirov that came to New York’s City Center this past April was a reduced version of the company we’ve been seeing since the great days of the international tour.

As Helene says, she and her husband love Part, and she has written about her often.