Marga

I agree with you, too, Farrell Fan. Shaun O'Brien would have done the part to perfection. I saw him many, many times as Drosselmeyer. I was a big fan of his. I totally forgot about him when I was working on my list!

To Perky: Mimi Paul as Lilac -- YES!!! I always felt she didn't get her due. No wonder she left during the Farrell years. I would have loved to see Mimi Paul as Nikiya, with Suzanne Farrell as Gamzatti. I can just imagine the passion. I also considered Gelsey Kirkland as Princess Florina. I decided not to put her in my list because the last time I saw her onstage was when she was still in the corps. I saw Balanchine as Don Quixote! I agree he would make a good Carabosse. Thanks for that suggestion.

The current thread on NYCB's Sleeping Beauty made me think of those whose dancing I am more familiar with. I don't live in New York anymore and don't get to see NYCB in its present incarnation. But oh!, I can imagine the following, for starters: Aurora: Maria Tallchief Patricia McBride Kay Mazzo Prince Désiré: Jacques d'Amboise Peter Martins Helgi Tomasson Fairies: Lilac -- Diana Adams Tanaquil LeClercq Gloria Govrin Suzanne Farrell Candide -- Allegra Kent Jillana Coulante -- Mimi Paul Sara Leland Breadcrumb -- Violette Verdy Marnee Morris Canary -- Suki Schorer Violente -- Melissa Hayden Patricia Wilde Patricia Neary Marnee Morris Carabosse -- Patricia Wilde Melissa Hayden Gloria Govrin Bluebird: Eddie Villella Arthur Mitchell John Clifford Princess Florina: Suki Schorer Merrill Ashley Red Riding Hood: Carol Sumner Puss in Boots: Deni Lamont White Cat: Susan Hendl Queen: Karin von Aroldingen On to Giselle!

Hans, I happened to find it on Ebay, not too long ago. It may show up again. Ebay has been my only source of ballet videos for the last year and a half. No more shelling out $20 - $40 each for them! Unless, of course, they are rare and otherwise unavailable, and ones that I simply must have!

I own about 100 ballet videos and what my daughter and I have watched most often are Elusive Muse, Dancing for Mr. B, Children of Theatre Street, Backstage at the Kirov, ABT's Le Corsaire, Baryshnikov at Wolf Trap, Reflections of a Dancer (Alexandra Danilova), World's Young Ballet, & Holiday of Ballet. For videos focussing on individual dancers in class, it's Peter Martins: A Dancer, Natalia Makarova In a Class of Her Own, & Fernando Bujones. The "Glories of..." videos contain real gems, as do Essential Ballet, The Magic of the Bolshoi Ballet, Classic Kirov & Kirov Ballet, Mixed Program . Favorite versions of story ballets: Sleeping Beauty (Asylmuratova/Zaklinski) Sleeping Beauty (Sizova/Soloviev) Giselle (Makarova/Baryshnikov) Giselle (Ferri/Murru) Romeo and Juliet (Loudière/Legris) Romeo and Juliet (Ferri/Eagling) Swan Lake (Ulanova) Swan Lake (Mezentseva/Zaklinski) Nutcracker (NYCB) Manon (Penney/Dowell) Don Quixote (Terekhova/Ruzimatov) La Bayadère (Komleva/Terekhova)

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I fell in love with Allegra Kent, then, a few years later, Suzanne Farrell. I sat in thrilled expectation every week (I had subscription tickets for years) waiting for her entrance onstage. Until she left for Béjart, she was my Saturday inspiration. Both of them had magic.

I would love to see Maria Bystrova move up. It's time she was given the chance to show us what she can do. She was so promising as a student. And what lines! Perhaps Malakhov will take her to Berlin if ABT doesn't use her. Michelle Wiles should be taking her place in the upper echelon before too long. She's on track to be a principal dancer. How long are they going to make her wait?

Oooh...I want to be the little ballet barre!

I remember that game! I was not able to purchase it at the time, but was very curious about it. I thought it would always be available, as most things were back then..... A ballet Trivial Pursuit would work very well, too!

Someone has GOT to be the annoying Jester (whom everyone loves to hate) from Swan Lake. I guess I'll have to volunteer! I'll make sure my headpiece has tinkly bells on it so folks will know when I'm coming up behind them, ready to pop myself between any two people engaged in conversation.

Hi Silvy, My daughter's ballet teacher was in the class of Alla Osipenko in St. Petersburg. Osipenko is 71 years old now and I think she is back teaching in Paris. She taught in Connecticut for a few years. Alla Osipenko was a student of Agrippina Vaganova and did indeed become a prima ballerina of the Kirov. She has danced with both Nureyev and Baryshnikov, and with many others in between. However, because of her strong anti-Communist views, she was suppressed, finally fleeing to Paris. Her contemporary, and direct competition, was Irina Kolpakova, who benefitted from not decrying Communism, and rising to stardom within the Soviet system. Osipenko was a brilliant dancer, and, as you note, danced contemporary works in as exemplary a style as she did classical. Many young dancers in the U.S. were lucky enough to have her teach them when she was here.

Yes, I've been to the Lewisohn Stadium. My parents took me there often. I remember listening rapturously to Guiomar Novaes and Van Cliburn and so many others while the summer breezes wafted overheard as if driven by the musical cadences.People who lived in the nearby apartment buildings used to sit on their rooftops and fire escapes enjoying the free entertainment. It was a magical place to a young child.

Thank you, Inga, for your very entertaining post! You tread where I feared to, not wanting to report second-hand gossip, which is how I get my Russian information. And you really gave a thorough picture! Thanks, too, for describing her Giselle, for I was the one who wondered about that. I can tell from the pictures of her in Act II that she is probably the most aggressive Giselle there ever was!

Sarah Kaufman in the Washington Post explains what happened at the Kennedy Center with the costumes:

Here's an interesting article from 2 years ago that gives insight into Volochkova's persona: Volochkova 2001 article And another tabloid-type story from 3 years ago: Volochkova 2000 articleThe article above also alludes to her height: In the "Review and Commentary by Jeannie Szoradi" of the BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) performances of the Vaganova Academy/Kirov on Feb. 28, 1998, 7:30 p.m., there is another height reference: In the article linked to in Alexandra's thread-opener, this line appears: Is that 6 feet on or off pointe? Her frequent partner Ivanchenko is a very tall dancer, so it's hard to tell. And, if you will allow me one more reference: This is from a performance of half a year ago in Washington, reviewed by Sarah Kaufman in the Washington Post. Here's the URL: Volochkova 2003 article I have a hard time picturing her as Giselle, especially given the more than dozen photos of her in the role!

Volochkova is not your typical ballerina. She would thrive in Hollywood, thoroughly partaking and enjoying the celebrity stunts that keep one's name in the news, including plastic surgery, which she knows a little about. She wants more out of life than the usual Bolshoi (or any) ballerina strives for and is busy going about getting it. Ballet is but a stepping-stone for her. A life in ballet is not her goal.

Dmitri Gudanov, principal dancer with the Bolshoi, whose astonishing virtuosity and lyrical dancing I have watched many times, fell out of a jumping/turning sequence during his variation in Nutcracker with my children's school last December. He gave an endearing, sort of shy smile, shrugged his shoulders a little, hurried to his next spot and carried on. His matter-of-fact handling of the misstep was so sweet (another dancer might have reacted with anger and cursing, for example, which would have been visible from the first row where I sat) that his stature as a superior dancer went up several notches as far as the audience was concerned. He showed his human side and it was admirable.

As Ari put it, "it was hard for me to watch her onstage". I tried so hard to like her, for it was no fault of her own that she stuck out like a sore thumb among the sylphlike others and in an angular, not sultry-Govrinish, way. I gained the most respect for her about a decade ago when I read her account in I Remember Balanchine. I wish that, as the young dancer I was, I could have gotten past her physical image. It wasn't only the shape of her body that wasn't pleasing for me to watch in action, it was the way she held and moved her head and how she didn't smile, ever, giving her countenance a chiseled hardness. As her warm personality radiated from her story in the book, I felt terrible for having disliked watching her onstage. I saw her so often and really tried to like her, but just couldn't, and that made me cross with myself. When I see dance photos of her now, I find her striking to look at! In her section of I Remember Balanchine she recalls: "Balanchine was so at ease with me. I never threatened him.....As a child, he had a German nursemaid named Barbara....When Balanchine left Russia, the first country he and his dancers stayed in was Germany. He said that going down the Rhine was the greatest thing because they had been starving in Russia....I think he admired the civilized disciplines of the German people......I'm a "mother" to everyone, even my husband. I have that in me, Mother Nature. Balanchine had that quality, too, always trying to help." I like that image -- von Aroldingen as Mother Nature. It seems perfect. I wish I had known to think of her that way in the 60s when I watched her dance so often. She has nothing but warm words for Balanchine and she and her husband were two of his closest friends at the end of his life. It is refreshing to know that she is yet another Balanchine dancer who had no "issues" with him and has only fond memories of their relationship.

I scrolled through all the posts in this thread and did not find a reference to the movie David Copperfield. I was distractedly watching it last night on TV and there was a charming ballet that was going on which almost no one in 2 adjoining boxes was watching as they were deep in animated conversation! One character was trying to keep her eyes on the ballet, but was continually being talked to by a character (I think it was the young Copperfield) who never once looked toward the stage! The shadows of the dancers were even swirling behind the heads of the actors as they continued ignoring the ballet. I do not know which ballet it was or who the dancers were, but the dancing wasn't t-o-o-o bad!

Children of Theatre Street is just about always available on ebay and usually at a starting bid of $15.00. Angelina Armeiskeya, besides having danced for Colorado Ballet, teaches at the Universal (formerly Kirov) Ballet Academy in Washington. She also taught at least one summer at the Bossov school in Maine. Here's a link to her bio and pic: http://www.kirovacademy.org/admin/artistic_index.html Let me relate an interesting note pertaining to one scene in the film. My daughter's ballet teacher graduated from the Vaganova Institute. She said that boys NEVER went into the girls rooms, so that pillow fight never would have occurred in real life at the school!

Judgement of Paris! I was smiling and chuckling throughout. It was so funny! Good, clean fun, despite the "storyline". I don't think that any of the many children in the audience had the knowledge to realize what the characterizations were. All I heard was a lot of joyful children's laughter when Lorna Geddes did her quasi-Betty Boop bit (and who in the world looks more like Betty Boop?), when Jennifer Fournier walked as if she had gotten off a very big horse after a long, tedious ride (apt 2-tiered meaning here!), and Victoria Bertram swung her feathery boa a little too vigorously. What a great boutique piece! I hardly looked at Ryan Boorne at all as he reacted to the ladies at his little table, I was so intently watching the "girls". These dancers were having a jolly good time acting out their parts, let me tell you, especially Jennifer Fournier, who, as principal, usually dances the romantic ballerina roles. The others -- Lorna Geddes and Victoria Bertram -- are longtime character dancers, having hung up their pointe shoes decades ago. Bravos to NBofC for including this piece in their repertoire!

Oh my goodness! That is sad. No wonder the wording of the notice was the way it was. I thought the reference to "recurrent ankle trouble" meant that she somehow twisted her ankle causing her to lose her footing. Maybe when the announcement was published, the reason for her demise hadn't been made known yet to the public. So, maybe she had a moment of madness brought on by depression, if I may speculate as to what could make her do such a thing...?

I've been looking through my old Dance Magazines and came across a brief account of a ballerina's death that responds to this query. There is a small photo of her dancing with 2 male partners. She looks strong and accomplished with lovely lines. I don't remember ever reading her name or hearing of her, but then, I was only 14 when she died. The notice appeared in the September 1961 issue of Dance Magazine and is but a caption under her picture: From "In The News" on page 53: "TRAGEDY: Maria Fris, 29-year-old ballerina, one of Germany's leading dancers, plunged to death from the stage catwalk of the Hamburg Opera House during May 27 rehearsal of Romeo and Juliet. She had had to withdraw from role of Juliet because of recurrent ankle trouble. Shown here with long-time partner Rainier Kochermann and Paul Herbinger." From her pose in the picture, she looks absolutely beautiful. I'm sure someone here must know of her. Her death must have devastated her admirers. It makes me feel sad! Seeing her photograph makes her real to me. Her death was truly senseless.

Oh no, it wasn't me who dug in the archives! I don't have time for that. I just respond to active threads. If you check page 2 of this thread, you'll see that it was creativejuice who revived the 2 year old thread, then nlkflint and Mark D who responded to it before I did. Just to set things straight! I think it was a good thing to get this thread going again -- look at all the peeves being aired! Like, when those on either side of you lay claim to both armrests, hemming you in with only your lap for your hands.