Tiara

Mariinsky Theatre needs new management if this is so. This type of management style is appropriate NOWHERE, and certainly not at the greatest ballet company in the world. There have been just too many instances recently of favouritism, repetitive casting, creative promotions ... everyone accepts that backstage politics exists in every company in the world, but this is just too much. Yuri Fateyev should go.

I think that Shapran is the most complete (female) artist in the competition and would love to see her win! I just wish the Mariinsky could have kept her - terrible loss for them and really Fateyev should have done everything possible within his power to keep her.

I don't understand the Russian myself, but all I do know from a Mariinsky friend is that she left the show on 30th June, yet carried on rehearsing Medora and had her debut performance in this role one week later on 7th July. If she did have a knee injury, then she must have had a miraculous recovery.

It would mean exactly what you would think: you were misinformed by management. Yuri Fateyev wanted you to think other ballerinas in the company were not capable of performing this step, a slur upon them them that is not correct. What his reasons for doing this were, only he knows.

I believe Ksk04 is correct that Mariinsky ballerinas choose not to do the step but I think it is false that they cannot do it. Maybe Paul was given given false information? Every Vaganova graduate can do that step, so every Mariinsky 1st soloist or principal can do it easily, since it is an easy step. I have seen Tereshkina dance Odile often in the past 4 years and she never does it, so I think maybe management deceived Paul? Paul is used to seeing Royal Ballet and Paris Opera ballerinas do that step, but Mariinsky ballerinas do not do it. Mezentseva, Tereshkina, Kunakova and Asylmuratova did not do it. Only Lopatkina seems to do steps that other Mariinsky ballerinas do not use. She has done that step and she enters as Odette with a glissade, but every other Mariinsky ballerina does not enter with glissade and it is not because every other Mariinsky ballerina cannot do a glisaade. It is because they choose not to do it, just like they choose not to do that petit battement step.

The Entrance of the Shades in La Bayadere is one of the great iconic moments in all ballet and certainly one of the greatest scenes ever choreographed for the corps de ballet. It is just so pure and beautiful in its simplicity ... why tamper with artistic and choreographic perfection? It is completely hynotic and mesmerizing as it is, and to see the Mariinsky corps de ballet in it, with their wonderful unity and precision of movement is truly tear-inspiring.

Exactly! I can think of some appropriate proverbs here ... "He who pays the piper calls the tune" or "Never look a gift horse in the mouth."

I agree it's all too easy for talented dancers to stagnate in the murky depths of the Mariinsky ranking system. Another coryphee I like myself is Xenia Ostreikovskaya, just three years younger than Ivanova, and a lovely pure classical ballerina who I think could have progressed further than she did. In the Gergiev/Fateyev regime, it seems the motto is "Life is not Fair," unless a dancer is one of the favoured, privileged few, and then the motto is "I Can Do No Wrong."

And especially sad when as a result the genuinely talented are overlooked.

Thank you for explaining the policy on the placing and discussing of reviews, which I was not sure of. Fortunately I have many performances that I have seen myself that I can discuss, and I do hold very strong views! Despite being English, the Mariinsky is my favourite company, and imo, the best company in the world, and I love to see it whenever I can, but ... some dancers more than others.

I don't quite understand why we may not post links to reviews here? Surely if people are discussing Mariinsky tours they will expect to see reviews of the tours here and may not find them if they are posted elsewhere? It is a shame because there are a number of reviews already online, and it would be much easier imo if we could post links to them and discuss them here. Anyway, although I did not myself go to this performance, a friend of mine did and told me that Oksana Skorik did indeed fail on the 32 fouettes, which are probably the iconic part of Odile, and also that her expressive qualities were very lacking and that there seemed to be no rapport between her and Shklyarov. Since Odette/Odile is such a taxing role I really do not see how she is going to be able to improve over the run of performances. If she had to be cast at all ahead of the many other more deserving ballerinas, then she should have been hidden away in a mid-week matinee performance, and not thrust into the limelight of opening night as a trail-blazer and star turn, which obviously she has failed to be. How many chances does she have to get and fail on before Yuri Fateyev will realize that she is not deserving? It just beggars belief...

Would it be possible for you to post an online link to this interview, please, if there is one, as I would very much like to read it? Or, if you can't post a link, would you even perhaps be able to to type out some of it? It sounds very interesting! Thank you!

To Bayerische Staatsballett, as demi-soloist. http://www.bayerisch...le~ballett.html Good for her; in fine company with Sukorukova, Petina & Chaschegorov, fellow MT alumni!Thanks, bianca. Tiara - you are not alone & I understand your pain, even though I'm still 'in limbo' about a final verdict on her. By Mariinsky standards, her ascent has been at the speed of light: 2nd soloist less than a year ago and now 1st soloist. Perhaps the words of the Mariinsky's 'interim AD' Yuri Fateev may shed light on the reasons for her quick promo: "Opening night we have a very young girl. Her name is Oxana Skorik. She's very talented. She's an absolutely beautiful swan. If you think about the Queen of the Swans, she is absolutely the right person for doing that ballet, because she has beautiful long lines, long legs, long arms, a very long neck, and she looks like a real swan...." Source: 'Essence of Swan' article in Orange County newspaper, Daily Pilot, 27 Sept 2012, author-Heather Youmans. Link- http://articles.dail...ake-swan-lake/2 Skorik's rapid promotion is bad enough, but also what about the First Soloist ballerinas she is depriving of roles? What about Osmolkina, Novikova and Kolegova? Kolegova at least is being given the chance to dance O/O on tour, but what about Osmolkina and Novikova? They are both wonderful ballerinas, both technically and artistically far superior to Oksana Skorik, but neither of them has danced this role recently. Golub is already woefully overlooked. I am very much afraid that Fateyev's favoured Oksana Skorik will go straight to the top of the list for debuts and chances in new ballets, and many wonderful ballerinas are going to be overlooked.

It seems we are all in agreement. Yes, on very rare occasions there may come along a dancer who has such outstanding gifts of interpretation that they transcend technique and physical make-up, and then there is a case for exceptions being made for outstanding artistry, because I believe that artistry can overrule technique. Even in these cases though, there still has to be a certain technical standard reached. Here in Oksana Skorik's case there is no such exception: yes, she is tall and skinny, but personally I do not admire her physique, she is weak technically, unmusical, cannot act and her artistry is in question. She does not make me believe in any of the characters she portrays. The only "magic" connected wth Oksana Skorik, is the inexplicable and unseen reason for her promotion - because there is certainly no visible reason for it. I for one would never pay to see her.

This promotion is terrible news. A First Soloist should not be "hot or cold." Any corps dancer is already a finished product of the Vaganova Academy, and by the time a dancer reaches First Soloist category, every aspect of her technique and interpretation should be beyond reproach - every time. This promotion really is an insult to the wonderful ballerinas now sharing the category with her.

Still cannot believe the Skorik promotion - just ludicrous and an insult to all the other ballerinas with whom she shares the rank of First Soloist.

I am happy for her - Yana Selina is a lovely ballerina who sadly has been overused and confined to dancing minor solo roles - a kind of Fairy of all Trades - instead of being given the more important roles she should have been dancing. Her absence from the company this season will open up a multitude of interesting role possibilities for the younger ballerinas - or at least it should do, if Yuri Fateyev could be relied upon to recognize their talent and cast them appropriately.

Inexplicable why Oksana Skorik is to be given three performances, including opening night, and my commiserations to those unfortunate enough to have purchased tickets for these performances. She is the most junior ballerina of the O/Os and the least representative of pure Mariinsky style: the opening night should have gone to Kondaurova, the only principal on the tour, and the closing night to Kolegova. Oksana Skorik, if she had to be on the tour at all, should have done the matinee performances. Furthermore, to pair Skorik with Shklyarov is just ridiculous - Skorik must be nearly the same height as him and is totally unsuitable for him. With so many talented ballerinas just waiting for the opportunity to be given an O/O debut this is just nonsensical and yet another example of Yuri Fateyev's complete ineptitude in casting.

Even when he was on stage during his dancing career, he didn't have to be a svelte prince to dance his joker roles. He was shortish, plumpish and muscular. Nothing wrong with that as the Joker. The point is that he is following the universal norm for a certain look and 'mold' in his dancers. Sadly, he has elevated (or inherited) a couple of extreme examples in Somova and Skorik, who seem to exist just for their look, rather than talent as artists (although I still refuse to dump Skorik in the same pot as Somova). Tiara, you are joking when you state, above, that Ilya Kuznetsov's face and physique may not be up to par? Kuznetsov is gorgeous! Just because he excels as Von Rothbart or Tybalt doesn't mean that he isn't perfectly capable of dancing Romeo or Siegfried..and he HAS! He was a heavenly-handsome Siegfried when I saw him 12+ yrs ago in that role. He just ended up be the reliable demi-caractere Go-To-Heave-Ho guy, which is unfortunate. :-) I adore Ilya Kuznetsov! As I stated above, he is the greatest dancer-actor at the Mariinsky and, as far as I am concerned, is worthy of and should be dancing every principal role in the repertoire! He is the one of the few dancers at the Mariinsky who has the looks, the physique, the dancing, the acting, the presence and the intelligence to be able to use all his God-given attributes to illuminate every ballet as no-one else can. Does that answer you? :-)

Skinny males are certainly not aesthetically pleasing, and I think most would agree that neither are skinny females. Back in 1989 I went to visit my friend in New York to see the Kirov Sleeping Beauty. During the long curtain calls for Galina Mezentseva, two woman behind me said that they do not like looking at anorexic ballerinas. At that time, the only other Kirov ballerina who enters my mind as being comparably skinny to Mezentseva, was Elena Evteyeva. Now changes in body types would make Mezentseva's skinny appearance be about average, although she had a big bone structure. You could go through every ranking level at Mariinsky today and see many girls even skinnier than Mezentseva. Lopatkina has maybe the most similar body type with her large bone structure and Lopatkina is probably skinnier. If you see these ballerinas backstage at all levels from corps to principals it is shocking - their dresses literally hang off their bodies like there is nothing there. I think most ballet fans around the world do not like looking at anorexic looking ballerinas. However, people at Vaganova and Mariinsky and also some ballet critics and fans in SPB, will look at what the general public would call a skinny ballerina, and call her fat.

How successful are they in achieving this? I often read complaints about a lack of adequate partners. Therefore, one can question the benefits of selection. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, selection is not what it was during communism. Many parents dreamed of their children dancing for the Kirov Ballet and obviously, many children felt the same way. The number of girls auditioning for the school has dropped and the number of boys has dropped substantially. Vaganova does not have as many students, particularly boys to choose from. There are still many girls trying out since many do get rejected, but sometimes, they do not not have enough boys audtioning, to make one full class, let alone two classes.The desire to have tall girls with skinny legs is almost forcing Vaganova to take tall boys, but not enough boys, tall or short, are auditioning. They can weed out the current undesirable, not anorexic, but super talented girls, to invite the talentless, skinny girls with long legs. However, there are not enough boys trying out to allow many rejections. Anyone attending the auditions will verify what I have stated. However, despite this problem, favoring taller girls, requires taller boys and the desire to have skinny boys is producing boys with serious partnering problems and more in need of strong healthy food. Healthy food is much better, but Vaganova does not consider much healthy eating in their diet plans which is basically, the less food eaten, the better it is. For those wondering why fewer girls and boys audition than in Soviet times, the answer is that under communism, there were few jobs that offered what the Kirov Ballet offered. Now there are so many well paying fields in business, that many parents think ballet is not financial rewarding enough.Probably the number of girls desiring to be ballerinas is the same, but more parents are opposed to ballet than during Soviet times. There will always be talented Russian ballet dancers. Look at all the great dancers born around World War II when so many children died, Komleva, Maximova, Sizova, Makarova, Bessmertnova, Sorokina, Soloviev., Nureyev was in another region, Vasiliev, Lavrovsky and Vladimirov. The talent is inside the Russians and Vaganova will continue to produce the wrtold's greatest dancers, but it is not easy now. however, around the time Vaganova died, the war had caused many deaths among the young and probably Vaganova ahd fewer dancers to choose from than today and look who came out in the late 1950s and 1960s. Serious partnering problems are certainly much in evidence at the Mariinsky today, and must be as a result of the male physical type currently required. Amongst the principals, Ivanchenko is tall and thin, but a good partner - but even with this one virtue, he is still irredeemably boring to watch. Korsuntsev too is tall and strong, arguably the best partner at the Mariinsky, a fact that is not lost on his regular partner, Lopatkina. At this year's Raymonda she insisted he partner her despite his being injured, and he had to omit his variation and change the choreography in his coda so as not to have to jump on his bad leg. These two male dancers, now in their late 30s, predominate casting, largely due to their being the right "type". There are so many more talented dancers in the ranks below who should certainly be given many more of their roles.Amongst the 1st soloists Ilya Kuznetsov is a great partner and the best actor-dancer in the Mariinsky yet he is given mainly character roles. Plainly his face or physique just does not fit the mould. Also, Andrei Batalov, the best virtuoso in the company, is never cast in principal roles. He is of average, or just below average, height and strongly built. If one looks at the male dancers who are given dancing opportunities, the vogue for tall and skinny is apparent - Sergeev is an elegant and talented dancer, but too thin to be aesthetically pleasing, and the same goes for Konstantin Zverev. Neither of them is a natural partner. The extremely thin Sarafanov was never a strong partner while at the Mariinsky, and recently while partnering Irina Perren at the Mikhailovsky in Don Quixote, he failed on two two-handed lifts and did not even attempt the one-handed lifts, although a few days later he was successful in all his lifts with the smaller Novikova. And this is at principal level! Lower down the ranks at the Mariinsky the brilliant Filipp Stepin regularly has problems with partnering, as does the up and coming Alexei Popov. Corps de ballet boys regularly have partnering problems. Another unfortunate circumstance is Fateyev's apparent inability to match dancers for size, so average size but slightly built male dancers are paired with ballerinas of the same height, who they have no chance of partnering efficiently. In the end though the whole problem with male dancers at the Mariinsky is a result of Fateyev's policy making. The selection process for boys at the Vaganova needs to be rethought as clearly they are choosing boys who are genetically designed to be thin, and not to carry sufficient muscle to be strong partners. However, the Vaganova is only providing graduate students of the type required by the Mariinsky so it is not to blame. The blame for that failure lies yet again with Yuri Fateyev.

Weight certainly does seem to pose a problem at the Mariinsky at the moment for a number of ballerinas. Tiny Valeria Martinyuk was labelled fat by the St Petersburg ballet critics and recently lost a great deal of weight, to the extent that she now looks far too thin. This resulted in her promotion to 2nd soloist and a variety of new roles for her, but she actually looked perfect before and should have not felt it necessary to adopt this extreme measure. Svetlana Ivanova also has lost a lot of weight, and actually looked shockingly thin recently in her odalisque costume as opposed to healthy and radiant in her Florine with Batalov's Bluebird, that is uploaded on YouTube. It is a disgrace that these two beautiful ballerinas, who both had healthy feminine bodies, felt themselves obliged to lose weight in order to fit in with Fateyev's required physical type. Ivanova in particular is shockingly thin, although when she is wearing a tutu or her body is actually concealed by her costume, she can still look nice. Incidentally, how can Fateyev still be casting her as Amor, a role for a young ballerina? It is an insult to her. Most of the dancers at the Mariinsky know they have to be thin in order to get roles - and a very sad case in point of one who has not been able to do this is Tatiana Tkachenko, who was wonderful in many soloist roles (particularly Diamonds) but has always struggled with her weight. She has not danced a classical pas de deux or been cast in a major solo ever since she put on weight - not that she is fat now, just not skinny. It seems only the skinny will ever progress in Fateyev's Mariinsky. Of course, there have aalways been thin ballerinas - Lopatkina for example was always skinny at Vaganova, unlike fellow students, so this was plainly something in her genes. Maya Dumchenko also, who I saw in Rubies, and as Aurora and Giselle, was always very thin and 168 cm tall, but she was another naturally thin girl. It is just that now, the very thin girls predominate, whereas once there were a variety of different body types to be found within the company. I think the problem comes when dancers are forced to diet below their natural "set point" as this results in a look that is not natural for them. Personally I believe that every dancer has a weight and a look that is best for her, and dancers should not be forced to all be the same, like a row of paperchain ballerinas. Diversity is good, and different physical types bring different qualities to a role. It would be boring if every dancer looked the same! Some dancers, like Stepanova and Marchuk, are feminine in build and it suits them, but others are naturally skinny beanpoles and this look suits them. I believe there should be room for all physical types within the Mariinsky. At the Royal Ballet, this is certainly the case, and we do not have a uniform required look, partly of course, because our ballerinas are of all different nationalities and come from different schools of dance. We do not have the problem either that only dancers of a required type may dance certain roles - tiny Roberta Marquez for example, is less than 5' tall yet can dance Nikiya and Odette-Odile, and Alina Cojocaru is only 5'3" (approx.) We do of course have taller principal dancers, but physical type is not a bar to becoming principal or to being given roles in the way that it seems to be at the Mariinsky. It seems that it is only at the Mariinsky that being tall and thin is more important than being talented. And for this state of affairs only Fateyev is to blame.

I too like the string bean look on some dancers, but generally prefer a more womanly look. I agree that Stepanova is beautiful and her physique is perfect for her. Certainly most of my friends do not like the skinny look and often argue with me about Shirinkina, who I like very much, and criticize her skinny look. The Mariinsky Theatre requirements are obviously very influential on physical type of children recruited to the Vaganova Academy and the result is that the public is forced to see an endless stream of string beans (the preferred height for a Vaganova graduate is 165-170 cm, so this is already above the average height for a woman.) It is a shame when there may be many talented dancers who are denied roles because they do not fit the ballet type favoured by Mariinsky management.

With regard to the general physical type required by Mariinsky management, when Yuri Fateyev came to give a lecture to students at the Washington DC Kirov Academy, he brought with him Maria Shirinkina and Ekaterina Kondaurova. He told the students that the most important thing to be ballet dancer is to be skinny. Obviously what Vaganova Academy in SPB has always been known for - fabulous flowing arms and upper body, plus artists that dance with their soul and have exceptional technique, are not relevant when compared to being skinny. It seems the statement about Yulia Stepanova is true, because Fateyev prefers string beans with no talent to a "true artist" with a womanly body.

I thought this video clip, just uploaded today on YouTube, was particularly appropriate at this point in the discussion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4nQB8RXEJY As everyone knows, in the 1930s, George Balanchine took three unknown young ballerinas, Irina Baranova, Tamara Toumanova and Tatiana Riabouchinska, and made them the stars of his Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. Two of these baby ballerinas were only 12 at the time, and Riabouchinska was 14. They performed a huge variety of roles and were so successful that critics of the day said, "Ballet exists again." In my opinion, in the Mariinsky today there are equally talented ballerinas, who should have been given opportunities at a young age, as soon as they graduated into the company. Both Yulia Stepanova and Oksana Marchuk are phenomenal ballerinas, stars-in-waiting, yet at 22, they are already ten years older than these Ballets Russes ballerinas. It seems that unless she has financial or political backing, or is a "foreign" dancer imported into the company, a ballerina must wait until her mid 20s to get any principal roles. This is a ridiculous state of affairs. The Mariinsky corps de ballet is overflowing with young, talented ballerinas. Yuri Fateyev has it within his power to have his own generation of star Baby Ballerinas, and reaffirm his company's status as the greatest in the world, yet he does not have the vision or inclination or ability to see this. In my opinion, both Stepanova and Marchuk should be promoted, given the roles they deserve straightaway and turned into the stars they should rightfully be.