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CygneDanois

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  1. Same for me--I don't think I'll ever be able to watch or listen to the Peasant Pas de Deux ever again. It was interesting, though, singing Les Noces--once you know what the words mean, Nijinska's choreography doesn't seem to make much sense at all. I can't say I've known a piece of music and then had to dance to it, though...unless finally dancing the Cavalier in the Nutcracker after listening to that beautiful pas de deux for years and years counts!
  2. I didn't see the new/old production either, but at the Kirov Academy, that 3rd variation is danced at a faster tempo than at other places, and definitely with jumps into ecarte. I wonder how much of that slowness originated with Makarova--I've noticed that on the tape of the Royal Ballet dancing her production, the entire corps dances a beat behind the music in the entrance to the Shades scene (the Kirov dances directly on the beat according to my tapes).
  3. Does anyone have experience with the Dmitri Roudnev CD? I'm having a terrible time trying to find music for a Vaganova class. Also, does anyone know if there are copies available of Mozart's only ballet score? I forget the name right now, but will post it if I remember.
  4. In musical terms, I would say that Mozart was the best ballet composer, but he only wrote one ballet, and it is no longer performed. I voted for Minkus because he provided the music for some of the greatest and most enduring classics: Don Quixote, La Bayadere, and Paquita, among others.
  5. In musical terms, I would say that Mozart was the best ballet composer, but he only wrote one ballet, and it is no longer performed. I voted for Minkus because he provided the music for some of the greatest and most enduring classics: Don Quixote, La Bayadere, and Paquita, among others.
  6. Catherine de Medici, who brought ballet from Italy to France. Marie Taglioni, for popularising pointe work. Pierina Legnani. Catherine the Great.
  7. I recently bought a Nureyev video that includes two pas de deux with Beriosova: Diana & Actaeon and Swan Lake Act III. She looks really lovely--beautiful long limbs, graceful, strong technique. Anyway, I read felursus's reply in "Ballets in Detail" regarding her Giselle and I was wondering if others have memories of her. I definitely want to know more about her--also, if anyone knows of any books or videos (the one I have is "Rudolf Nureyev: His Complete Bell Telephone Hour Performances") that I should check out, let me know.
  8. I always thought Berthe was taking Giselle's hair down so she'd be more comfortable--sort of like loosening her stays (kind of like a corset), only you can't do that onstage, obviously.
  9. This will sound ludicrous in contrast to the huge stars everyone else has seen. Fonteyn and Nureyev are my honorary favorites, since I haven't seen them do Giselle, but I've seen enough of them that I'm fully convinced they would be my favorites, had I seen them. Other than that, Alessandra Ferri, Julie Kent, and Amanda McKerrow (Well, I haven't seen anyone else, really). I've seen Evelyn Hart and Carole Arbo dance an entrancing Act II pas de deux (not together, of course). Now we all know why my conributions to this thread have been so shallow .
  10. Angleterre, as far as I know, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Don Q, La Bayadere, and Raymonda were all choreographed in ballet's classical period, which rather confusingly coincides with music's romantic period. Another strange thing about ballet and classicism is that ballet's classical period occurred after its romantic period, which is why Giselle, Coppelia, and La Sylphide are romantic ballets. I realize that this is not the clearest or most specific information, but it is just a very general answer to your question regarding classical/romantic ballets.
  11. As I recall, it's a peasant pas de cinq--five. I'm pretty sure BalletNut is correct. Of course, if anyone knows differently... [ 04-26-2001: Message edited by: CygneDanois ]
  12. About Odette and employ, does anyone know if Odette was nobility before she came under Baron von Rothbart's spell? I ask because I remembered Alexandra's writing on another thread the comment of a French person that the liberal use of arched backs in Russian ballet is a throwback to folk dancing (this is a paraphrase; my apologies for any inaccuracies). Therefore, if Odette was not nobility, perhaps this is a second, although not necessarily the chief reason for her unusually flexible port de bras/corps. (One could also infer that being turned into a swan during the day gradually chips away at her noble mien, but that doesn't seem very nice to swans, which are very majestic creatures, IMO.) I notice that Odile doesn't seem to use her back the same way Odette does (Odile has one or two attitudes to the back while looking up at the ceiling, but it doesn't appear to me to be a natural position for her--more like something she affects to fool Siegfried).
  13. Correct me if I've misinterpreted this, but I think that in Berthe's mime in Act I, she begins by saying something like, "Out there [ie, in the forest] where the graves are [making the sign of crosses, like tombstones]...." Either the cemetery must be in the forest because of the mime, or the other way round. Or I might not be "reading" the mime correctly. But has anyone else noticed this?
  14. What are the two branches that Myrtha dances with in the beginning of Act II? And those two flowers Giselle throws to Albrecht a little later on. Is there significance in the different types of flowers--calla lilies Albrecht brings to Giselle's grave and the "Easter" lilies Giselle gives to Albrecht and later Myrtha? I was told that Myrtha had a willow wand, but that's obviously wrong, and I think Alexandra wrote in Recent Performances about a myrtle branch... There are tons of flowers in this ballet--the bouquet Hilarion leaves for Giselle, the daisy, smaller white flowers placed by Hilarion on Giselle's grave, Albrecht's lilies, Giselle's lilies, Myrtha's lilies, branches, and wand, Giselle's two white flowers, and in ABT's version, some of the peasants dance with garlands during the grape harvest festival, not to mention Giselle's crown of flowers during the festival. Perrot/Coralli must have loved them!
  15. What I mean is that if Giselle had not been a virgin, she wouldn't have been allowed on the stage of the Paris Opéra in 1840.
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