124 replies to this topic

[Tiara]

Alymer, on 30 September 2012 - 01:17 AM, said:

In this month's Dancing Times there is a short but interesting inteview with Yuri Fateyev.  The interviewer is Professor Igor Stupnikov whose late wife was a soloist (?) with the Mariinsky and has been close to the company for many years.  Some of the questions are quite tough; "..you have wasted in my opinion the dancers' energy on such short-lived pieces as Benjamin Millepied's Without, Emil Faski's Simple Things and Yuri Smekalov's Bolero." Or ".............rumour has it that (Vaganova Academy ) graduates are not eager to join the Mariinsky", and it seems to me that Fateyev is very defensive and not very convincing in his responses.

Would it be possible for you to post an online link to this interview, please, if there is one,  as I would very much like to read it?  Or, if you can't post a link, would you even perhaps be able to to type out some of it?  It sounds very interesting!  Thank you!

[Natalia]

Unlike Dance Europe, Dancing Times issues do not seem to be available for digital purchase. You either have to wait for the 'slow boat' hard copy to arrive at your home, ordered via this website -
http://www.dancing-times.co.uk/

...or check at a Barnes & Noble store, if you are in the US, although there are fewer and fewer bookstores open nowadays.

If you live in the UK, the hard copy should arrive quickly.

The above website does publish a couple of selected articles from each monthly issue but rarely, if ever, Igor Stupnikov's monthly column about St Petersburg ballet news. Fifteen years ago, the Stupnikov column used to be a primary source for 'news' on StP and the Mariinsky, even if Americans got their issues three months late. How the world has changed, when we can often see key clips from performances at the Mariinsky within hours of curtain going down, thanks to YouTube...or chat with friends 'for free' via Skype about performances just ended. No need to wait for a 'slow boat' to give you 3+-month old news, even though this is bad for traditional sources of news. I wish that Dancing Times would 'get with the program' and publish digitally, to survive.

[Buddy]

Alymer, on 30 September 2012 - 01:17 AM, said:

In this month's Dancing Times there is a short but interesting inteview with Yuri Fateyev.  The interviewer is Professor Igor Stupnikov whose late wife was a soloist (?) with the Mariinsky and has been close to the company for many years.  Some of the questions are quite tough; "..you have wasted in my opinion the dancers' energy on such short-lived pieces as Benjamin Millepied's Without....

I have to say that I saw Benjamin Millepied's Without at this year's Mariinsky Festival and liked it a lot. As I recall it also got a very warm audience response.

[Mashinka]

I've always considered Stupnikov to be a reporting critic rather than one prepared to dig beneath the surface, though to be fair that can be said of nearly all critics now, so if he is asking tough questions about repertoire choices then I imagine even the devoted public of St. Pete's are starting to spot the rot.

[Natalia]

The rot was spotted a long time ago, Mashinka. The long-time local devotees don't spend their hard-earned Rubles on Millepied, Forsythe, et al. Fateev is banking on the 'Kirov Mariinsky' name and mystique to fool non-balletomane tourists. A lot of the recent hirings and promotion decisions -- esp. about "our new first soloist" as is the title of a hot thread on a Russianinternet board -- are also the subject of long-time devotees' ire. It also has not gone unnoticed that Lopatkina is in the midst of a five-week tour of the Baltics and Siberia as a lot of the crap is happening.