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Historically the styles of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky ballet have always differed, causing disagreement and rivalry between the two companies and having watched DVD recordings of the Mariinsky Opera made me wonder whether a corresponding difference of style and opinion exists between these opera companies. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable about opera than I will be able to tell me!

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An interesting topic. I wonder if the difference in style these days is anything more than a difference in money had.

More than a decade ago, our nearly-departed dance critic John Rockwell reviewed some Bolshoi and Kirov opera recordings for the NYTimes and said: "If the Kirov is the shining example of Russian style preserved, the Bolshoi Opera in Moscow is the saddest case of a major Russian company that has for the moment lost its way." I think this comment came before his conversion to crossoverism.

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That's interesting, Haglund's. Can you tell me more about how the Bolshoi and Kirov Opera differ? Can it in any way be compared to the differences in the ballet styles of these two companies, with the Mariinsky historically tending more to classicism and academic correctness and the Bolshoi to drama and expressiveness?

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Can you tell me more about how the Bolshoi and Kirov Opera differ? Can it in any way be compared to the differences in the ballet styles of these two companies, with the Mariinsky historically tending more to classicism and academic correctness and the Bolshoi to drama and expressiveness?

I'm afraid I can't help with that. I haven't seen the Bolshoi Opera in full production in decades - more than just a few. The Kirov Opera is making its rounds with its Ring Cycle, which we will see in NY next summer. My impression is that we will probably see the company at its best at that time. The Bolshoi Opera received quite a bit of press in recent months from Soprano Galina Vishnevskaya's outrage over the modernist production of Eugene Onegin which she called "obscene" and "hooliganism" and "They mutilate and destroy compositions, and invent completely false situations that don’t exist in the original works.”

I wonder if 'Buddy', who follows the two ballet companies so closely, might have a take on this.

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Hi Haglund's,

I don't really follow opera, so I can't help you very much here. I have read on the internet that opera is a passion of Valery Gergiev, the director of the entire Mariinsky Theater. So perhaps as much energy as possible is being devoted to opera at the Mariinsky these days.

If you can get a look at "The Sacred Stage" video, which is a recent documentary about the Mariinsky, you might get a bit more insight. There is an entire section devoted to the Mariinsky singer, Yevgeny Nikitin. Also Valery Gergiev makes some interesting comments about the opera.

The video is also worth viewing for some excellent clips of Zhanna Ayupova dancing The Rose Adagio from Sleeping Beauty. Also if you look at the 'extended' part of the video at the end, you can see her dance most of the dream sequence.

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If you can get a look at "The Sacred Stage" video, which is a recent documentary about the Mariinsky, you might get a bit more insight. There is an entire section devoted to the Mariinsky singer, Yevgeny Nikitin. Also Valery Gergiev makes some interesting comments about the opera.

From Kennedy-Center.org, a scroll to January 22, 2005 for a link to the complete documentary.

Our "Video, Film and Broadcast" forum has a discussion of this work.

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If you can get a look at "The Sacred Stage" video, which is a recent documentary about the Mariinsky, you might get a bit more insight. There is an entire section devoted to the Mariinsky singer, Yevgeny Nikitin. Also Valery Gergiev makes some interesting comments about the opera.
One thing of note about Russia and the Eastern European and Baltic countries and former SSRs is that the major opera houses are repertory houses, and because of years of little contact with the West, had house singers that stayed in their major cities and were the operatic stars of their day. There are very few Western opera houses that still function this way; most of them, like La Scala, Covent Garden, Paris Opera Ballet, Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Australian Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Liceu, etc. utilize guest artists for the major roles, not great house singers that stay primarily in one location.

The segment on Nikitin was fascinating. He likened singing at the Met as a vacation -- one or two roles over several months -- while singing with the Maryinski Opera, he performs different roles every night, some big and some small, and that keeps his voice agile and in shape.

Last March in Moscow, I saw a quite wonderful Eugene Onegin performed by the Bolshoi Opera. It must have been the last production, because there was nothing controversial about it.

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