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What have we seen live onstage?-(XIX Cent. Ballet Poll)


Which of this ballets have we seen live?  

43 members have voted

  1. 1. What have we seen live...?

    • Giselle
    • La Sylphide-(Bournonville)
    • La Sylphide-(Taglioni/Lacotte's recreation)
    • Grand Pas de Quatre-(Dolin's recreation)
    • La Fille Mal Gardee-(Nijinska/Balachova or any "after Gorsky/Petipa")
    • La Fille Mal Gardee-(Ashton's recreation)
    • Le Conservatoire-(Bournonville)
    • Nappoli-(Bournonville)
    • A Folk Tale-(Bournonville)
    • The Awakening of Flora-(Vikharev's recreation)
  2. 2. What have we seen live...?

    • Don Quixote
    • La Bayadere
    • Raymonda
    • Coppelia
    • Le Corsaire
    • Sylvia-(Ashton's recreation)
    • The Nutcracker
    • Sleeping Beauty
    • Swan Lake-(Full Lenght)
    • Paquita-(Lacotte's Full Lenght recreation)
  3. 3. What have we seen live...?

    • La Esmeralda-(Burlaka's or any other full lenght recreation)
    • Le Talisman-(Paul Chalmer's recreation)
    • The Pharaoh's daughter-(Lacotte's recreation)
    • Ondine-(Lacotte's recreation)
    • La Source-(Bart's recreation)
    • La Peri-(Malakhov's recreation)
    • The Magic Flute-(Peter Martins or Alonso's recreation)
    • La Kermesse in Bruges(Bournonville)
    • Les Millions d'Arlequin-(Alonso's/Lopukhov's/Balanchine's recreations)
    • None of these


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Ok...so this is a project I've been wanting to put in black and white here for a while, so I hope you will take a little time to fill in and contribute. I have make a partial list of the works that some way or another the art form has inherited from the past centuries in an attempt to see how many of them we have been able to see LIVE. As you will see, many of them are still quite popular while some others were in the recent past and have fallen into a dormant state and yet some others are being revived, reconstructed or recreated by contemporary coreographers. I just would like to know how in touch are we nowadays with this type of repertoire. So here they go, in a form of a poll. I will appreciate your contributions.

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In the second group, should we assume you mean only the full-length versions? E.g., several companies have a "Raymonda Variations" (or some such) with excerpts. For a time, ABT only did the second act of Bayadere. PdD from Don Q, Coppelia, Corsaire, etc. are widely performed on their own.

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In the second group, should we assume you mean only the full-length versions? E.g., several companies have a "Raymonda Variations" (or some such) with excerpts. For a time, ABT only did the second act of Bayadere. PdD from Don Q, Coppelia, Corsaire, etc. are widely performed on their own.

Yes...full lenght only, so no Paquita Grand Pas alone, Balanchine's Swan Lake or Raymonda's takes, Aurora's Wedding, Kingdom of Shades or isolated PDD's.

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Balanchine's Coppelia certainly qualifies, as well as his Nutcracker and full lenght Raymonda for the BRdMC. Whereas he chose not to take the remains of Ivanov in his Nut, he honored the original libretto, so I would put it as his recreation of the ballet. Full score and a certain respect for the original libretto are the keys here.

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Balanchine did one full-length "Raymonda" for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, which had its premiere in 1946 in City Center, according to the Balanchine Catalogue,

Note: This version derives from the Petipa original at the Maryinsky as remembered by Balanchine and Danilova, abbreviated and rechoreographed by Balanchine, retaining the Petipa style. The male pas de quatre and the ballerina's variation in Act III (VARIATIONS III and VII of the PAS CLASSIQUE HONGROIS) are particularly close to the Petipa choreography, as set by Danilova. The other female solos in Act III (with the exception of Variation IV, below) are probably close to the Petipa originals as well. Balanchine provided new choreography for several waltzes, and in Act III, the Pas de Trois, Variation VI (male solo), and Variation IV. He and Danilova choreographed the finale together. The original was a full evening's ballet for more than two hundred performers; the Balanchine-Danilova version lasted three-quarters of an evening, omitting much of the Petipa mime, and used the entire Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo company of about forty dancers. Frederic Franklin was scheduled to dance Jean de Brienne on opening night, but was injured. The central pas de deux from the Act III PAS CLASSIQUE HONGROIS, usually called Pas de Deux from Raymonda (and as often credited to Petipa as to Balanchine, who staged the Petipa choreography for Diaghilev in 1925), is frequently performed by a ballerina and cavalier as a concert piece.

In 1955, Balanchine choreographed Pas de Dix [309] for the New York City Ballet, using much of the PAS CLASSIQUE HONGROIS music, but adding a fast finale (coda). The choreography, for the most part new, retained VARIATION III exactly; VARIATION VII (ballerina solo) was retained in essence, although made more brilliant and sultry. In 1973, Balanchine incorporated this version of VARIATION VII into Cortège Hongrois [384], a new work for the New York City Ballet using much of the Pas de Dix music.

In 1961, Balanchine choreographed a completely different work to other selections from the Raymonda score for the New York City Ballet: Valses et Variations [339, retitled Raymonda Variations in 1963].

At the Franklin 95th birthday program at Works and Process at the Guggenheim in 2010, members of ABT II performed excepts from Franklin's staging of "Raymonda." The attribution in the program is "Choreography by Marius Petipa...Staging by Frederic Franklin after Marius Petipa." I don't remember him saying anything about the influence of Balanchine's production as a source of his Petipa; I think if he had, David Vaughn would have mentioned this in his detailed description of the evening for danceviewtimes. He was to be Balanchine's Jean de Brienne in the premiere until he was injured, so he'd know the production well. The excerpts performed at the Guggenheim were the Czardas, and a male and female variation. Unfortunately, I don't remember which variations, although I think the Female Variation was the Act III solo, and Balanchine did original choreography for one male and one female solo, which may have been the ones performed, but there's no indication that Balanchine ever re-choreographed the Czardas.

There maybe people here who saw the Ballet Russe version in NYC. After that, all of the others were one-acters. To have seen the Balanchine three-act version...

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Small question about Fille: I've seen the Ashton version countless times and a version that predated it in Moscow. Did Nijinska have a hand in that earlier Moscow version? I dare say I have a programme, but with all my stacks of dance memorabilia it's not going to be easy to find.

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I would dare to guess that whatever was-(is)-presented in Russia about "Fille" has been somehow derived from the Gorsky/Messerer/Moiseyev/Vinogradov lineage, all of them owning probably big time to the Petipa/Ivanov staging. I think the Nijinska/Balachova branch did not touch Russia, but I could be wrong. Still...if that was a full lenght, then it should be considered in the list, so I will edit the "Nijinska" detail to make it wider so anything that could smell of "after Gorsky" can be counted.

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re: your thread's title.

i suppose at this point it's clear, and perhaps always has been to other members, but when i first saw it i thought it might mean 'live,' the verb, as in to exist in good order, rather than the adjective as in "in performance, from personal experience."

i thus thought the point might be to poll which ballets that one has seen have continued to live well into the future and which ones haven't truly survived as reasonable facsimiles of themselves as the years go by.

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re: your thread's title.

i suppose at this point it's clear, and perhaps always has been to other members, but when i first saw it i thought it might mean 'live,' the verb, as in to exist in good order, rather than the adjective as in "in performance, from personal experience."

i thus thought the point might be to poll which ballets that one has seen have continued to live well into the future and which ones haven't truly survived as reasonable facsimiles of themselves as the years go by.

Oh, this is a very interesting distinction -- I had to think twice for a couple of works that I know only through video. Perhaps we should think about opening an additional discussion.

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re: your thread's title.

i suppose at this point it's clear, and perhaps always has been to other members, but when i first saw it i thought it might mean 'live,' the verb, as in to exist in good order, rather than the adjective as in "in performance, from personal experience."

i thus thought the point might be to poll which ballets that one has seen have continued to live well into the future and which ones haven't truly survived as reasonable facsimiles of themselves as the years go by.

Oh, this is a very interesting distinction -- I had to think twice for a couple of works that I know only through video. Perhaps we should think about opening an additional discussion.

I edited a bit the title of the thread to further clarify it, as I'm certainly looking for the theater experience here.

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Thank you all for your responses and votes so far, and...keep'em coming..! flowers.gif

FYI, the Ballet of ballets keeps winning here with 19 votes...so good for our girl!

Here're some bits of the most rarely seen ones.

La Peri

Le Talisman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv6V_vRMqkw

La Source

Ondine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40qtmRbz9w0

Edited to add:

I also thought about including the Lopukhov version of Les Millions d'Arlequin, but I did not have enough space to do so. I think I will expand Alonso's take to include it too.

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This is an interesting poll. I am shocked to realize I have never seen Don Q live! I am so familiar with it from DVDs, that I almost checked it.

For me that was "Napoli."

I don't know what happened to my folder of PNB programs before 2001, but I found Jack Anderson's review from PNB's 1996 performance of "Paquita" during the company's last tour to City Center:

The company looked into the past with Yelena Vinogradova's production of the divertissements from ''Paquita,'' a Parisian ballet of 1846 that Marius Petipa restaged in St. Petersburg in 1881.

I didn't check this off, because I hadn't seen the Lacotte reconstruction.

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This is an interesting poll. I am shocked to realize I have never seen Don Q live! I am so familiar with it from DVDs, that I almost checked it.

For me that was "Napoli."

I don't know what happened to my folder of PNB programs before 2001, but I found Jack Anderson's review from PNB's 1996 performance of "Paquita" during the company's last tour to City Center:

The company looked into the past with Yelena Vinogradova's production of the divertissements from ''Paquita,'' a Parisian ballet of 1846 that Marius Petipa restaged in St. Petersburg in 1881.

I didn't check this off, because I hadn't seen the Lacotte reconstruction.

I didn't check if off either, but because it was very clearly a set of diverts, without a dramatic arc. They were beautiful, and very exquisitely coached, but it was interesting to see how unusual they seemed in the PNB repertory at the time (this was before Stowell and Russell remodeled their production of Swan Lake and Ronald Hynd staged Sleeping Beauty)

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According to the Balanchine Catalogue:

About the two-act/full-length version that premiered in 1965 it says,

Note: In 1919, as a student, Balanchine danced in Petipa's Les Millions d'Harlequin. Balanchine's production follows the tradition of the commedia dell'arte, in the spirit of Petipa. In Act I, Harlequin outwits his adversaries, and with the help of the Good Fairy wins Colombine's hand. Act II is a celebration of this happy event. The décor was taken from Pollock's toy theaters of London.

Revisions: New York City Ballet: 1966, CARNIVAL NUMBER added to Act I, BALLABILE DES INVITÉS (8 couples) added to Act II; 1973, lengthened version using complete score, with addition of 12 couples, 24 children.

About the earlier Pas de Deux, the Catalogue states:

Note: In 1965, Balanchine choreographed the complete Harlequinade for the New York City Ballet, creating some new choreography to this music for the pas de deux that occurs in Act I. In particular, he completely rechoreographed the male variation. The 1952 piece commences with an entrée, to music used for the Alouette divertissement in Act II in 1965, and concludes with a coda to music used in the finale of Act II in the later ballet.

According to "Repertory in Review," Reynolds wrote (p. 232):

As a boy, Balanchine appeared with other children in Petipa's Harlequinade (which had premiered 10 February 1900, ST. Petersburg); on the ballet's sixty-fifth birthday, he made a version of his own. Balanchine used the same story, followed the action as marked in the score (says Schorer, "where the score says 'Pierrot takes the key,' for example, he is guided by that eactly") and, presumably, caught the spirit, if he did not reproduce all the choreography, of the original. (He has said that this was precisely his intent.)

She notes on p. 233 that, "n 1973, restored some music that he had previously omitted, now using the complete score," and that 32 children replaced the small group of children in the original. The new choreography included a polonaise for the children and a tarantella in Act I, the "cortege des invites."

She quotes Shaun O'Brian (p. 234),

"Incidentally, I remember a version of the ballet Romanov [a contemporary of Balanchine, also Russian-born] staged for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, and there are many similarities, even some of the same steps. Romanov was also remembering things from his childhood. What I mean is that Balanchine has probably reproduced the sense and essential points of the original, while filling in the rest with new material."

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Cristian, you missed Lacotte's recreation of F.Taglioni's L'OMBRE, which spurred several of us 'ballet travelers' to go to Nancy, France, in the mid-90s. I still cannot decide if I preferred Ferri or Pontois, both were so divine, in different ways - Ferri with full power of her technique (and arched feet!) and Pontois' romantic perfume!

Also, don't forget the Bolshoi's affiliated academy's MAGIC FLUTE (chor. Melnikov, to Drigo) 10-11 years ago. That was my first look at N. Osipova, which still a student.

The 'After Gorsky' version of FILLE MAL GARDEE that I've seen live is the staging by Sofia Golovkina, for the Bolshoi's academy (again).

I'd add Bruce Mark's 'recreation-rethinking' of Bournonville's ABDALLAH to the list. This and most Bournonvilles in existence were presented at the 2005 Bournonville Festival. If ever there is another B'ville Fest in Copenhagen, I'd highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to quickly add titles to their bucket list.

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I need more space then..! The system did not allow me to go with more than 3 questions with 10 options each one. I will add Balanchine's Harlequinade to the "Les Millions..." though. It looks as if it is another rightful descendant from its predecessor.

Natasha...I must say you're the only one here who has checked every single one of the ballets! flowers.gif

Giselle, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker are even with the most checks-(26).

Keep'em coming!

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....Natasha...I must say you're the only one here who has checked every single one of the ballets! flowers.gif

....

It's a hobby...but it's turned out to be My Life. Work just pays the bills. smile.png I've specifically gone after 19th-C rarities. Vikharev and Lacotte can be thanked for at least 50% of my joy.

Cristian, many ballet historians in Russia include the final Petipa ballets from the early 20th C as '19th-C ballet.' Hence, Konstantin Sergeyev's very Petipa-esque staging of The Seasons (Glazunov) in 1974, for the Vaganova Academy, should also be added to your list. Harlequinade is defiitely considered 19th-C. Krassovskaya even treats the very early Fokines -- most notably Pavillon d'Armide -- as the 'last gasp' of the 19th-C. Ditto the Legat Bros' Fairy Doll.

Until Kekhman took over the Maly-Mikhailovsky Theater, a very lovely triple bill of Harlequinade, Cavalry's Halt and Paquita Grand Pas used to be performed in that house. (Cav. Halt made a brief return during the Kekhman era during a recent London tour, I realize.)

It's not Russian, French or Danish...but Italy's Excelsior is definitely a window into the 19th-C. It's also in my Pantheon of Great 19-C Works that live on today.

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