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International Ballet Festival


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The Mariinsky Trust published the preliminary schedule for the Winter 2003 Festival:

Friday, February 21

UNDINA (première)

Lacotte/Puni

Saturday, February 22

CINDERELLA

Ratmansky/Prokofiev

Sunday, February 23

LA BAYADÈRE (new production)

Petipa/Minkus

Monday, February 24

Guest performance by the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow

LA FILLE MAL GARDÉE

Ashton/Harold

Tuesday, February 25

AN EVENING OF GEORGE BALANCHINE BALLETS

including: Prodigal Son, Apollo

Wednesday, February 26

AN EVENING OF HISTORICAL BALLETS

Thursday, February 27

PRINCESSA PIRLIPAT (world première)

Simonov/Slonimsky

Libretto and Design by Mikhail Chemiakin

SOUNDS OF EMPTY PAGES

Neumeier/Schnittke

LE JEUNNE HOMME ET LA MORT

Petit/Bach

Scenario by Jean Cocteau

Friday, February 28

MANON

MacMillan/Massenet

Saturday, March 1

SWAN LAKE

Petipa/Tchaikovsky

Sunday, March 2

INTERNATIONAL STARS GALA

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i suspect that the staging given here as UNDINA is lacotte's 're-construction' of L'OMBRE from 1993. one NYPLibrary catalogue gives the information below. i believe this is the first time the work is being performed by the kirov:

L'Ombre de Taglioni à Nancy.

Danser. Paris. no. 112, juin 1993, p. 20. ill.

Filippo Taglioni's 1839 ballet, L'Ombre, is revived by Pierre Lacotte for the Ballet de Nancy, with a score by Wilhelm Maurer.

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Let me try to reveal a bit the plans for the new "Ondine" through a brief glance on the history of the ballet.

"Ondine" based on Pugni's score was staged by J.Perrot in 1843 in London for F.Cerito who contributed the choreography as well. In 1851 he mounted a new version of this ballet in St.Petersburg under the title " The Naiad and the Fisherman" with C.Grisi in the role of Ondine. " On July 11/23 of the same year, which was the name day of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, the Gala Performance was given at Peterhof in the open air. On this occasion the ballet was produced by Perrot on a specially-built platform, raised just above the surface of the water , in the lake by the Ozerky Pavilion. The naiads glided to the platform in boats shaped like shells. The natural scenery of the trees, with addition of a few tropical plants, made a charming setting. The weather was fine and a beautiful moon shone down upon the scene" (C.Beaumont. Complete Book of Ballets).

In 1892 the ballet was recreated by M.Petipa, then in 1903 by Shyriaev. The latest staging in Russia took place in 1984 at Kirov and (a suite) at Bolshoi (a version by P.Gusev).

According to Pierre Lacotte his staging will be both in the style of Perrot and Petipa. He does not claim the new ballet to be a reconstruction, since almost nothing remained of the original productions. That will be his own interpretation based on old books, documents and his knowledge of the old ballet styles. Luckily Pugni's score for Perrot's London production survived and was found in the archives. But it differs from the one used in St. Petersburg. Lacotte is going to combine the best pieces from both. He will also work all by himself on the design and costumes, as he already did in "Pharaoh's daughter", staged for Bolshoi in 2000, and it proved to be a spectacular work.

Another remark to the program of the 3-d fest. As far as I know the Bolshoi planned to participate in it with Roland Petit ballets (Passacalia & Pikovaya Dama - La Dame de Pique), instead the program gives "La Fille Mal Gardee".

Those who understand Russian are cordially invited to visit http://forum.balet.ru for the latest news from Bolshoi (and not only from there).

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Thank you for that, Ina (and for your post on Gayaneh the other day). Since most of us, I'm afraid, don't read Russian, I hope you'll stop by and keep us up to date with what's going on in Russia when you have the time. There is a lot of interest here, I can assure you!

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It seems that Pierre Lacotte is very busy with several companies since he left the direction of the Ballet de Nancy. (And what a pity that all the repertory he had built there has been totally forgotten...) I hope that we'll get some reviews of the performances of that festival, what a large repertory! Ina, thanks for the informations about "Undina".

Do you have some information about "Princessa Pirlipat"?

About the Bolshoi and Petit: "Passacaille" will be performed in october by the POB, if I remember correctly it hadn't been danced since its premiere about 7 years ago. I wonder if it is related to the fact that Petit staged it for the Bolshoi recently? I had seen the premiere, and in spite of the presence of Jose Martinez and Agnes Letestu (then only premiers danseurs or sujets), had found it somewhat boring.

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Yes, these sad rumours seem to be very realistic, since they come to Moscow from different sources, all of them reliable. The other sad news (again not official) about the Festival: Malakhov is not coming.

Lopatkina tried to begin class, but all in vain - her foot aches in spite of many medical procedures she has taken. Now she is supposed to be in the US ( invited by Baryshnikov) to be consulted by american doctors. Her eight months child is wonderful and healthy, which is a supreme joy for a devoted mother as Uliyana.

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re. Ondine - yes, I heard that the rehearsals were going rather slowly and I was afraid of this cancellation. Funding sources had a little something to do with it, too...need more rehearsals but WHO to foot the bill? That sort of thing. (Alberto Villars do not grow on trees and even he had a bad year in the stock market, like everyone else...)

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I found some casting information for the first four performances from another website.

21/02 La Bayadere: Diana Vishneva, Elvira Tarasova, Manuel Legris

22/02 Cinderella: Natalia Sologub, Andrey Merkuriev

23/02 La Bayadere: Daria Pavlenko, Ekaterina Osmolkina, Nikolai Tsiskaridze

24/02 Giselle: Alina Cojocaru, Johan Kobborg

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Thanks for the information, Kevin.

We seem to have two threads on this topic; this is the older and shorter of the two, so I'm closing it and ask that any future comments be made on the newer thread:

http://www.balletalert.com/forum/showthrea...=&threadid=9197

I'd also suggest that when the Festival starts, we open a new thread for reports from the Festival. I know Jeannie will be reporting in, and I hope others will as well.

Thanks!

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