4 replies to this topic

[Ray]

Dance historians working in a remote Siberian outpost of Russia's esteemed National Center for Ballet Research are reported to have uncovered a remarkable document in papers left behind by an imprisoned Ballet dissident from the early Soviet era: the libretto for a lost scene from Swan Lake. Early reports are that it describes an elaborate prelude to the ballet's second act, containing a solo for the so-called "white" swan; its title is being loosely translated as the "hatching variation." Sketches of an ornate, ballerina-sized shell from Fabrege are also allegedly among the cache of documents, but those reports cannot be confirmed by the NCBR's chief investigator, Aprille Füells.

[Marga]

Got me for a few sentences. In fact, until the Fabergé egg, which is used in the National Ballet of Canada's Nutcracker. That's when I said "wait a minute...."!

[bart]

Sorry, Ray. But this has already been staged. I saw it in Petrograd in 1921. The reconstruction, according to my program, was by the German choreographer Watta Krock, a pupil, I believe, of Lev Ivanov..

The egg, far from being created by Faberge, was credited to the Industrial Styrofoam Collective of Novosibirsk.

[ViolinConcerto]

After Christopher Wheeldon's first exposure to Ballet -- seing Ashton's "Fille Mal Guardee" on TV, he fell in love with the chicken dance and got his parents to take him to see more ballet, and then to study.

His first choreography was a "prequel" to Swan Lake, with the birds hatching. There is much about this online. ALSO.....

A costume sketch of canary chicks for the ballet " Trilby" drawn by Viktor Hartmann inspired Mussorgsky's "Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks" section of "Pictures at an Exhibition." First performed at the Bilshoi in 1871. Choreographed by Petipa

http://www.stmoroky....es/hartmann.htm

[Ray]

After Christopher Wheeldon's first exposure to Ballet -- seing Ashton's "Fille Mal Guardee" on TV, he fell in love with the chicken dance and got his parents to take him to see more ballet, and then to study.

His first choreography was a "prequel" to Swan Lake, with the birds hatching. There is much about this online. ALSO.....

A costume sketch of canary chicks for the ballet " Trilby" drawn by Viktor Hartmann inspired Mussorgsky's "Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks" section of "Pictures at an Exhibition." First performed at the Bilshoi in 1871. Choreographed by Petipa

http://www.stmoroky....es/hartmann.htm

Well, I'd like to say that I knew all of this already, but that would be another April Fool's joke. I think my appropriation--er, inspiration--for "the hatching scene from Swan Lake" comes from Woody Allen.