4 replies to this topic

[cubanmiamiboy]

I was reading some info from various sources on Coppelia, including the following Youtube poster, which I borrowed to cite the origin of the different numbers of Act III.  Now, I just realized that I don't seem to recognize the "War and Discorde" segment in the Bolshoi reconstruction...
Could that be that they left them out for Osipova's performance but they still reconstructed it...?

From the clip I recognize:

1-Introduction
2-Valse des Heures
3-L’Aurore-(our "Down")
4-La Priere-(Our "Prayer")
5-Le Travail-(rechoreographed as the extra female variation that follows the Adage in the PDD).  We can also recognize it as our Franz variation.
5-Could this be "L’Hymne"? ...not sure. (Honestly, according to the costume design and the props in the ballerinas' hands, this looks to me as "Le Travail", but don't mind me...I'm only guessing...
6-Now, HERE it should be "La Discorde et La Guerre"...Where is it...?
7-And HERE there should had followed, originally, "La Paix"- (which was reinserted in the PDD as the Adage... by Petipa? ...not sure )

Grand PDD-(Danse de Fete)

1-Adage-(which turned out to be the original "La Paix" that followed "La Discorde et La Guerre")
2-Extra female variation, originally "Le Travail"- (which originally followed "La Priere", which it is said to had been choreographed back then to the same music of Sylvia's PDD male varaition, now also included as Franz variation almost everywhere, including MCB).
3-Franz Variation. (Music is not by Delibes, but by the French-American composer Ernest Guiraud)
4-Swannilda variation
5-Galope Finale





Any clues, anybody...?

[Birdsall]

The Royal Ballet's version doesn't have La Discorde et la Guerre either. Maybe it was changed early on in the ballet's history and revised. This is a good research question. I read online that Coppelia's success "was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of Paris" (Wikipedia), so maybe after that the ballet was changed to get rid of war elements. Maybe it bothered people so soon after the war, so they changed it up starting during that time, but I do hope someone on Ballet Talk can inform us if he/she knows the answer!

[cubanmiamiboy]

So keeping up with the guessing, if the Discorde/Guerre segment never made it to Petipa's staging, then am I to assume that Balanchine was the one responsible for its revival more than half a century after it was notated...? If so, was he also responsible for any other "lost" fragments...? I've never seen Frankling staging, but I would guess he did not include material that he didn't know from his tenure with the BRdMC.  Enrique Martinez previous ABT staging did not have it-(and his was an "after Alonso" work), neither Alonso has it in Havana.
I'm all for doug, rg Mel or atm711 clues...

[jllaney]

The Royal ballet production with Acosta uses the Discord/Guerre as the male variation in the pas.  Acosta is crazy good in that variation.

[cubanmiamiboy]

cubanmiamiboy, on 31 March 2012 - 12:57 PM, said:

...am I to assume that Balanchine was the one responsible for its revival more than half a century after it was notated...?

Allow me to answer my own question.  There's a pic in Octavio Roca's book of a 15 year old Alicia Alonso dancing with boyfriend Fernando the divertissement in the 1935 Yavorsky-after-Merante staging for Pro Arte Musical, 1935 Havana.  Fernando is wearing what appears to be a golden Roman helmet and is bare chested.  Alicia wears a chiffon Greek-inspired tunic and a golden laurel wreath as a headpiece.