Swanilda8

A new article appeared on David Hallberg in Russian Vogue, titled "New Muscovite" :

http://www.vogue.ru/magazine/articles/Novyy_moskvich/

It's a relatively interesting interview, discussing how Hallberg was scared of the way he would be treated at the Bolshoi following the attack on Filin, but that he's found it welcoming again. He talks about how much more hierarchical things are at the Bolshoi than in the US. Also discusses his interest in fashion and friendship with model Daria Strokous. Plus, some great pictures of him.

BAM is a pretty small venue, so front of the balcony should put you quite close to the stage. I sat about halfway back in the balcony and felt I could see everything well.

Just in time for the end of Britten Year! I personally am excited about the prospect of hearing the Britten version of Les Sylphides, but I can hardly imagine that even hard-core Britten fans would be that interested in a newly rediscovered arrangement of his. Unless it's a really spectacular arrangement. Or they already like ballet (like me).

I just got the Night of Stars program ad in the mail. I'm so excited about this event! It's going to be a free event out on Boston Common on Saturday, September 21. They have more information on the programming than I've seen for it before:

Balanchine Serenade

Balanchine Symphony in Three Movements

Jorma Elo Plan to B

excerpts from Don Quixote and La Bayadère

excerpt from Christopher Bruce's Rooster

I'm looking forward to all of this except Rooster, which I didn't like at all when they performed it in its entirety. Some of Elo's work hasn't thrilled me, but Plan to B got such good reviews in London, I'm hopeful about it.

I agree with pretty much everything that's been said. It seems like a good way to get donor money in. And as for allowing too much donor input on personnel - I assume that very wealthy donors do have input in the company, whether or not they're officially 'sponsoring' a dancer. Though I also think having an 'auction' is just really creepy.

In a somewhat frivolous side tangent, there was an episode of Gilmore Girls, 'Blame Booze and Melville' in which Mrs. Gilmore sponsors a dancer in their local company.

I'm a little confused by this. My former employer hired some foreign citizens periodically and it's true that getting the right kind of visa is treacherous and time-consuming (especially after 9/11), but the employer as an institution was the sponsor. Wouldn't SFB be the sponsor for the right kind of visa to work in the U.S.? Is there a new requirement that they also now find an individual to "sponsor" them for visa purposes?

I can't imagine that this type of 'sponsoring' is actually related to visa sponsoring, which is a complicated process that involves the employer. Actually, are we sure that all three dancers are non-US citizens?

In any case, since so many dancers in the US are from other countries, I would imagine that it's just chance that the three dancers in this case happen to be.

It's pretty common these days with symphony orchestras to have sponsored positions - so the principal musicians in every section are 'sponsored' by someone who has donated lots of money. I've seen it pop up with some ballet companies (I think Boston Ballet has a couple of sponsored positions) but I agree it's more awkward in a system where you're funding a person not a position. With the orchestra, it's clear that the first flute player is sponsored and if they quit, the next first flute player will still be sponsored. With ballet, there's no way of doing it other than just sponsoring a particular dancer.

Posted on Nowness, a new film about Polunin, narrated entirely using clips from his own interviews, with footage of him in Moscow.

http://www.nowness.com/day/2013/8/22/sergei-polunin-the-fragile-balance

Let me know and we'll get together.

Excellent - I'll let you know when I'm on my way to Canada

I suspect indeed that McKie will be Onegin and Lunkina Odette-Odile. I wouldn't be surprised if McKie did a Swan Lake or two as well. Are you coming to Toronto or seeing NBOC on tour?

I'll be coming to Toronto in person. I'm not sure when yet, so I don't know what I'll be seeing.

Exciting news! I'm looking forward to seeing National Ballet of Canada for the first time ever this year - and while I'd love to see the locals, it's a cherry on the sundae to get a glance of Lunkina or McKie.

Presumably McKie will be performing in Onegin and Lunkina in Swan Lake (among other things? fingers crossed). Are there any other ballets in the season that the two of them are known for?

Does anyone know of an available recording of either the Moiseyev or the Jacobson production of Spartacus? Could be DVD, VHS, film reels. I'm interested in excerpts from the ballet as well as the entire work.

if mem. serves, this question has been discussed elsewhere on this site over time, perhaps more than once.

my hunch, in brief here and as stated previously, is that The Black Swan moniker was more or less devised around 1941 for THE MAGIC SWAN, w/ choreography by Alexandra Fedorova-Fokine, as a way for Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo to distinguish its presentation of the ballroom scene from SWAN LAKE as a stand alone ballet (see NYPL cat. listing below) from the ubiquitous "White Swan" pas de deux then a fixture of touring ballet companies.

Tho' the designs were credited to Dunkel, i suspect Karinska, who was responsible, if mem. serves, for building the costumes, may have had a strong hand in dressing Odile in glittering black.

(elsewhere on this site are some scans of photos posted by me of Toumanova and Youskevitch in their MAGIC SWAN costuming, black and white photos, to be sure, but still documents of the designs' actual black palette.)

it's possible that previous Odiles were dressed in black but that evidence isn't readily available.

certainly for the 1940 I WAS AN ADVENTURESS Balanchine did a SWAN LAKE number where Zorina was dressed in black, with black tights and toeshoes as well as tutu (unlike Vaes's scheme for the current NYCB swan maidens), but his swan maidens here were in white. unless one can find hard facts in the Balanchine archive or Hollywood records, it's hard to say who decided on this "odd" scheme for the movie. maybe it was simply a visual choice, aimed at making Zorina stand out strikingly in rich black and white film.

to say that Balanchine "put the swans, except Odette, into black" (as stated above) is quite inaccurate; Martins and possibly Kirstein did this.

again, elsewhere on this site, there are scans of Zorina as Balanchine's black-costumed swan queen from ADVENTURESS.

Thanks, rg! As always, your photos are some of the best references I've seen. For those who weren't involved in those other conversations, I've dregged them out of the archives - here you provided a photo of Toumanova as Odile

http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/26840-toumanovas-odile/

And another of her with Youskevitch

http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/26546-the-magic-swan/

And here's the I WAS AN ADVENTURESS picture:

http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/33535-i-was-an-adventuress-publicity-photo/?hl=%2Bzorina+%2Badventuress

This afternoon, I looked at my Swan Lake program from the Bolshoi, which includes a lot of photos of the past Bolshoi productions, and there are pictures of Ulanova in the 1937 production in an outfit that looks like the black swan (strongly resembles the costume that Plisetskaya wore in her famous 1950s performances - black tutu, big black feather headdress). However, in the press clippings I have regarding the ballet's 1941 restaging (probably similar to 1937 but done in exile in a different city), Odile is referred to as the Evil Genius's "earthy, seductive" daughter but never as a swan. So, while the title 'Black Swan' clearly originates in the US during the Toumanova productions mentioned above, the black tutu outfit may have been first designed in Russia. Perhaps, we could infer the following timeline - this is just speculation:

1937 the Bolshoi dresses Odile in black with some fancy feathers for aesthetic effect

1937-1940 someone from the US sees this production and likes it (problems - world war II?)

1940 - Balanchine uses black costume for Adventuress

1941- Toumanova uses black costume for Magic Swan

1944-45 - as rg and atm have posted in the Toumanova thread, during publicity for the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, someone gets the idea to rename this the 'Black Swan' pas de deux

Of course, it might equally be possible that at similar times the Bolshoi designers (Sergei Samokhvalov and Leonid Fedorov) and Karinska independently had the same idea to dress Odile in black - after all, given that Odette's identifying feature is a white tutu, it isn't that far an artistic jump to make.

I wanted to include the picture of Ulanova from the program and the Russian press clipping (from October 2, 1943 Literature and Art), but I can't figure out how to do attachments here.

According to Doug Fullington in this video (http://youtu.be/6xpOVN3cfGc?t=28m50s), Odile wasn't referred to as the black swan until the 1940s. Up until that point she was known as a sorceress/Rothbart's daughter. Fullington also cites some earlier productions in which she wore colored costumes. So I'm guessing that she started wearing black in the 1940s as well. 1942 is the earliest picture I have of Odile in the black swan outfit in the Soviet Union (in the Bolshoi's new production), but I don't have nearly as good records for the US or Europe, so I don't know when it would have started there.

And here's ep 2 cut down to about 12min

I'm loving the edited versions. Please keep them coming, EvilNinja!

Thanks for all the encouragement everyone!

Jayne, thanks for the compliment. I realize that MCB has funding issues and that they are struggling to maintain an orchestra. Overall, they're one of my favorite companies, and I'm hoping that this year I'll be in Miami in January to review a program that isn't the Nutcracker. (I also hope to get to Seattle one of these days, but that's a little more out of my general routes). One of the things I've been struggling with is how to honestly review companies that are in such different financial and political straits. Back in the US now, I live about a five minute walk from the Jose Matteo Ballet Theatre, a respectable local company that performs in a church, but I'm not always sure how to review that in the same place I review the Bolshoi, which is supported by hundreds of millions of dollars of government investment. I imagine that this question will keep haunting me for as long as I have a blog.

And here's to all the ballet companies finding $2 million to keep their live music!

I recently spent six months living in Moscow, prior to which I had already lived in the city for two months the previous summer. When I first arrived, I was very confused about how to attend the Bolshoi - finding tickets, finding the theater itself, which seats were the best, all seemed disorienting. My first month of living without my student pass, I couldn't get tickets at all! Since then, I've gotten to know a lot about how to navigate the waters and I've assembled this information in one post on my blog:

http://itinerantballetomane.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-guide-to-bolshoi-for-first-time.html

I've directed my comments at English-speaking tourists. There are probably still lots of things I don't know, particularly about ways of buying cheaper tickets, so if anyone wants to add those to the comments on my site, I'd appreciate it - or if you prefer to post them here, I'll edit the blog to include your info.

I hope this helps anyone traveling to Moscow - I know seeing the Bolshoi in its home is a special experience, and I'd love to be of service to any fellow balletomanes.

Yes, the fugue is by Adam and part of the original Giselle score. I believe Marian Smith explains in her book that, at least in 19th-century theater, a fugue symbolized something sinister and evil. Adam also included a fugue in Le Corsaire to depict the mutinous disagreement between Conrad and Birbanto.

"[skeaping]-also included the controversial fugue in Act II - she regarded the narrative during the fugue as central to the ballet’s conflict between the supernatural and the religious. At this point in the ballet, Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis, sends wave after wave of wilis (a species of vampire women who died having been jilted by faithless lovers) to lure Albrecht from the safety of the cross on Giselle's grave."

http://www.ballet.co...enb_giselle.htm

Fugues were considered one of the most 'scientific' or 'learned' styles of composition and often represent science or knowledge, so I wonder if the evil thing in this case is supernatural/unholy knowledge, a la Faust. I'm not sure I can make an entirely logical connection there - just something creepy to the 19th century mind about young girls who suddenly possess the secrets of the grave.

In any case, thanks so much for sharing this music! I've never heard it used onstage and I think it's a shame. Certainly I could imagine a contemporary choreographer making something out of the fugal voice relations and the Wilis surrounding Albrecht.

Beautiful photos, thank you!

Apparently Joan of Arc was choreographed by Burmeister as well, according to http://www.belcanto.ru/ballet_giovanna.html

As in Soviet productions, Martins also gives Siegfried a peppy court-jester sidekick and his is the only Swan Lake Jester I have ever really found interesting and even, at moments, liked, because he seems there to comment on or reflect some of the emotions of the ballet not just to jump a lot.

For me ABT's current version (which, in many ways, I despise) is only more tolerable--and hardly that--because the very pretty and traditional sets and costumes work so well with the music whereas Martins' and Kirkeby's austere modernizing seems to fight against it. BUT--and for me it's a big but--I consider Martins' failure to be an intelligent one: I don't despise what he has done even if I don't really buy it either.

I agree with Drew on this - it's not a great production, but there are some interesting things about it. I really liked the use of the jester in this one - he's almost a foil to the Prince in some sections.

BUT (and to me this is a big but) - you've only seen three ballets and one of them is Swan Lake - I'd recommend you pick something else from NYCB's excellent fall programs. This isn't likely to be the Swan Lake you've always wanted to see, and there are lots better ballets to chose from.

Great article. This explains a lot about the applause at the Bolshoi - which can go on for a while and have lots of 'bravos!' (often coming from the same section of the theater every time). It doesn't seem to be a problem to me as long as they're not disruptive. I wish I could have been part of the claque - Bolshoi tickets are crazy expensive.

It's August, which means I'm spending the whole month writing up or editing syllabi for the classes I teach. Every time this roles around, I dream about the day that I can teach a ballet history class. So, I wanted to ask the forum: if you could design a ballet history class for college students, any class you wanted, what would your syllabus look like?

My more prosaic idea is 20th century choreographers - starting with Fokine and Gorsky, then Tudor, Ashton, Balanchine (at least a week!), Lavrovsky, Robbins, de Mille, Grigorovich, Neumeier, Cranko, Kylian, MacMillan (that was slightly out of order, but oh well). Perhaps more interesting but harder to structure is Ballet and Power - starting with Louis XIV and tracing the relationship of ballet to political and economic power.

I hope I'm not the only one nerdy enough to daydream about this.

Thanks!

I think Smirnova is a wonderful dancer - beautiful line and musicality.

I also really love Kondratieva, and so I enjoy that every time there's a feature on Smirnova, there's an interview with her coach!

Did I miss anything? I haven't heard much about Lost Illusion, Bolt (both Bolshoi) and R&J (Toronto Ballet). So he's got a pretty good track record in terms of full-length staging. If he was to stage one of the Petipa classics, I hope he'd follow the paths of Corsaire and Don Q.

As others have stated, Ratmansky's Corsaire is extraordinarily faithful to the Petipa version - probably more faithful than most other productions around. I'd add that for the two ballets where he's really invented his own choreography wholesale (Nutcracker and Cinderella) there is no canonical version available. (I happen to really love both productions anyway - although I seem to be the only person who feels that way about his Cinderella). Anyways, I think we could count on him preserving the Petipa and Ivanov choreography in SL and SB. I for one would love to see him revamp SL, mostly because I've yet to see a production anywhere that satisfies me and I want to see him give it a go, whereas there are lots of excellent SB productions at other companies.

Why does the company keep milking applauses? After the last curtain call for the whole troupe onstage was over, the whole house gradually stopped applauding altogether, and still they opened the curtain for individual bowing. I think this should only happen if the house is being insistent, and tonight it was not the case, so the moment looked sort of awkward. But then, when they started bowing individually, the wonderful British audience responded with gusto. Lovely manners, I'd say-(which I should extend to the WHOLE of the people over here, so allow me to say this in capitals...

Thank you, cubanmiamiboy and volcanohunter for the detailed reviews. It's exciting to feel like we're all a part of the action. I'm glad you both liked Shipulina, who is one of my favorite dancers in the company. I've never seen their Sleeping Beauty live, so I have no opinions on the marble floor, but they have a number of similar floor coverings for different productions and I agree that they can become distracting.

As for the bows, I imagine that they're just used to a Russian audience, who wouldn't dream of ending the applause before at least two to three sets of individual bows, after which a small group of devotees usually makes them come back out even more times (I've never stayed until the end because it goes on so long). I can see how it would seem self-aggrandizing to a different audience, but I don't think it was meant that way. It's good to hear that London (my favorite ballet city in the world) responded politely.