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2011-2012 Bolshoi Season


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Some details on the 2011-2012 Bolshoi season are found here, from the Bolshoi web:

http://www.bolshoi.ru/en/partners/projects_far-future/

The old theater is supposed to reopen in October, after six years of renovations.

The big ballet premieres next year will include a 'revival' of Yuri Grigorovich's Sleeping Beauty (was it ever out of rep?) in October and the company premieres of three Balanchine ballets on waltz themes: Liebeslieder Walzer, La Valse and Vienna Waltzes (May 2012).

The season will celebrate the 85th birthday of Yuri Grigorovich.

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SB was definitely on this year as I saw a few videos of Maria Alexandrova making her debut (with the Bolshoi, I think she's dance it elsewhere) this past fall. In teensy print at the bottom it says there will be new scenery for the Grigorovich SB - I hope they do some of the costumes while they are at it, from the videos I've seen they are ugly and not worthy showcases of the current capabilities of the Bolshoi costume department.

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Aha! I think I've figured out what's going on with Beauty. The 'new' staging is by Ezio Frigeiro...which most likely means renting the scenery and (hopefully) costumes of the POB production...which are also borrowed occasionally by La Scala. So, it's the same ol' Grigorovich production livened up with the lavish POB designs, with some of the mise en scene tweaked to fit into the new sets.

This isn't quite what I recall Bolshoi AD Yuri Burlaka envisaged during his little chat at the Kennedy Center two years ago, during the run of Corsaires. At that time, he disclosed his future plans, including the revival of Esmeralda (which took place six months later), then went on to state, "For the grand reopening of our theater, I hope to revive the 1899 Gorsky version of Beauty, the first version of that ballet in our theater." It sounds as if Comrade Grogorovich trumped that.

Dale, unless the Vienna Opera Ballet did it -- and I vaguely recall reading some plans of Legris to that effect -- then this would be the first staging of Vienna Waltzes outside the NYCB.

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Dale, unless the Vienna Opera Ballet did it -- and I vaguely recall reading some plans of Legris to that effect -- then this would be the first staging of Vienna Waltzes outside the NYCB.

I don't think Vienna Waltzes is in Wien Staatopera rep. I remember NYCB was prevented from performing VW during its Paris tour because of copy rights issue that the Strauss pieces could not be performed as pure dance outside of North America. NYCB had to subed VW with Tschai Suite #3 the last minute. So I assume Bolshoi sorted out the Strauss copy rights issue?

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I don't think Vienna Waltzes is in Wien Staatopera rep. I remember NYCB was prevented from performing VW during its Paris tour because of copy rights issue that the Strauss pieces could not be performed as pure dance outside of North America. NYCB had to subed VW with Tschai Suite #3 the last minute. So I assume Bolshoi sorted out the Strauss copy rights issue?

Fascinating issue -- I hadn't heard about the NYCB-Paris problem. I just looked at the repertory index on the NYCB page:

http://www.nycballet.com/company/rep.html?rep=212

The music by Johann Strauss and Franz Lehar is 19th century and would be public domain. But it appears the problem might be the 1944 arrangement by Richard Strauss (no relation) of excerpts from Der Rosenkavalier. Although the original R. Strauss opera dates to 1911 (making it public domain), the arrrangement of excerpts would have a separate copyright. Although Strauss died in 1949, his estate could still hold copyright on the arrangement if they properly copyrighted this under the U.S. system then in effect. NYCB could have licensed North American rights from the estate, without thinking that they might want to tour it some day in Europe. It's also possible there are copyrights on uncredited arrangements of the J. Strauss and Lehar sections.

"Tales from the Vienna Woods, Op. 325 (1868), Voices of Spring, Op. 410 (1885), Explosions Polka, Op. 43 (1848) by Johann Strauss, Jr.; Gold and Silver Waltz (1905) by Franz Lehar; first sequence of waltzes from Der Rosenkavalier (arranged 1944) by Richard Strauss"

I'd be very interested in learning more if others know about this problem with Vienna Waltzes. It's possible the Bolshoi has negotiated the necessary rights from the R. Strauss estate.

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Cali, here's the joint NYCB/POB press release regarding the copy rights issue:

New York City Ballet and the Paris Opera have announced that NYCB will perform George Balanchine’s Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 as part of the all-Balanchine program that opens the Company’s upcoming season at the Opera Bastille, replacing the previously announced Vienna Waltzes.

The program will now consist of Balanchine’s Divertimento No. 15, Episodes and Tschaikovsky Suite No.3, and will be performed on Tuesday, September 9, the opening night of the Paris engagement, and again on Thursday, September 11, and the evening performance on Saturday, September 13.

The change in program was required after much negotiation with the estate of Richard Strauss, whose music from Der Rosenkavalier is used in the final movement of Vienna Waltzes. As the estate would not grant European rights for Strauss’ music to be performed with choreography, NYCB and the Paris Opera decided to present another Balanchine work rather than perform an incomplete version of the Balanchine masterpiece Vienna Waltzes without its final movement. Vienna Waltzes has only been performed outside of the United States on one previous occasion, in London in 1978.

So I guess Bolshoi must have secured the European rights. I am curious to know who will do the set and costume for Bolshoi's VW staging.

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. . . The change in program was required after much negotiation with the estate of Richard Strauss, whose music from Der Rosenkavalier is used in the final movement of Vienna Waltzes. As the estate would not grant European rights for Strauss’ music to be performed with choreography, NYCB and the Paris Opera decided to present another Balanchine work rather than perform an incomplete version of the Balanchine masterpiece Vienna Waltzes without its final movement. Vienna Waltzes has only been performed outside of the United States on one previous occasion, in London in 1978.

So I guess Bolshoi must have secured the European rights. I am curious to know who will do the set and costume for Bolshoi's VW staging.

Fascinating -- thanks for that information. Note that this ballet dates to 1977, a time when many programs were presented on PBS without anticipating the potential for those recordings in the VHS/DVD market that exploded in the 1980s and later. As we've discussed on other forums, going back now to get the necessary rights from all involved in that era has been a real nightmare. Perhaps in 1977 NYCB wasn't anticipating the touring possible with greater ease in coming decades.

We know that Balanchine himself was sensitive to copyright issues. E.g., his Firebird uses the Firebird Suite from 1945 as the copyright on the original Firebird had expired and Balanchine wanted Stravinsky to get royalties.

http://www.nycballet.com/company/rep.html?rep=74

I'm also curious about set and costumes. Does NYCB rent out its own for ambitious productions? That seems to be common with smaller companies which can't afford all-new ones of their own.

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