16 replies to this topic

[nysusan]

Just watched the Pontois clapping variation - she's wonderful!

Here's a question for anyone who's seen the POB version AND the version Nureyev mounted in the 70s for ABT.  Are they similar? I saw several performances of the ABT version but only remember a little.  Just impressions, really, of several dancers but not much about the production itself. I saw some wonderful Raymondas - Gregory, Kirkland, Makarova & van Hamel and strangely enough the ones that stick in my mind are Gregory and van Hamel - extremely regal, authoritative Raymondas. Also Nureyev and Bruhn alternated as de Brienne &Abderman,which was quite a treat!

[FauxPas]

Susan, I didn't see Nureyev production but there was a scathing Arlene Croce review.  She felt that Nureyev took the music and variations away from female characters (I guess Henriette and Clemence) and gave them to Abdelrakhman and Jean de Brienne.  The whole focus of the production was beefing up the male roles at the expense of Raymonda.

Van Hamel's Raymonda is on Youtube and justifies your remembrance.  The "Dancer's Dream - Raymonda" dvd has large sections of Elisabeth Platel as Raymonda and that is my dream POB ballerina for a video recording.