Shirabyoshi, on 29 December 2012 - 12:31 PM, said:
Apologies if this is too emotional; but the thread has wandered about a bit already, so I thought it might not be a wholly inappropriate place in which to express certain miseries -- and fears.
As a new ballet fan I had actual physical palpitations when I read, just a short time after my Great Ballet Revelation of 2012, that the Mariinsky would be doing "Swan Lake" in California.
Then I researched the soloists whose names were on the list for the tour.
If I'd been guaranteed a week of *real Mariinsky performances*, I'd have flown out there and gone to every single one, whatever the cost. As it was I stayed home watching YouTube and eating Nutella out of a jar with a spoon in an orgy of bitterness.
Though I've been following this thread with interest, it seems in some ways to be the wrong discussion. One thing I knew without having to be told, one thing that should be obvious even to the meanest intellect (I'm looking at you, Mr Fateyev): if a woman is dancing leading roles with the Mariinsky, at home or abroad, on a big stage or a tiny one, as a regular headliner or as an emergency substitute, the worst thing any balletomane should be able to say about her is: "She's very good, but not really in the style I like." If all the talk is about her technique, even in the context of her not being as weak as she used to be, or having had a surprisingly good night last night, it's... well, I think it's the wrong discussion. We ought to be able to take the soundness of her technique for granted, as something that needn't even be mentioned save in technical discussions, and concentrate instead upon the subtleties of her own individual artistry and what is new or nostalgic about her interpretations.
That this standard can no longer be depended upon in the performances of what ought to be the world's leading ballet company makes me inexpressibly sad. Every fibre of my being cries out that I am meant to be a Mariinsky fan. But where is the Mariinsky? Will I ever actually see it, except by serendipitous chance? Can I depend upon the strength of the school underpinning a resurgence of traditional values in the company, under different management, at an unspecified point in the future? Or am I just... too late?
War is peace, freedom is slavery, Oxana Skorik is a Mariinsky ballerina.
I feel so very, very cheated.
Yes, you have indeed been cheated. We all have. The Mariinsky Theatre still contains the greatest dancers in the world, but unfortunately, these are not given the chance to dance. There are numerous unfair casting practices, many of which were recently mentioned in an open letter from the dancers to Gergiev. The same dancers get given the same roles time after time, while talented ballerinas in the corps and, indeed, at all levels, are ignored. Any person wanting to see true representatives of Mariinsky style can be assured they are still there - but you will often have to look at corps and coryphee level to see them. During the last few years, there have been a stream of talented dancers who have all graduated and gone elsewhere - Smirnova, Shapran, Strelkov, Lebedev - as well as dancers such as Obraztsova and Lobukhin who have left the company, largely because of unfair casting practices. If all of these dancers were still with the company and dancing the roles they should be, then the Mariinsky would be seen in all its true glory. But the fact is that audiences are being cheated as you say, because we are not being given the chance too see the dancers we should be. Oxana Skorik and Keenan Kampa are most unfairly being given the dancing opportunities that many gifted ballerinas such as Stepanova, Batoeva, Nikitina, Vasnetsova and many others should have had years ago. They as well as us are being cheated.
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