Marc Haegeman

Again, art076, Pavlenko herself didn't chose at the last minute to guest with The Royal Ballet in London. The management of the Royal Ballet invited her to replace another guest who turned out to be unavailable. It's once more a reminder of how unreliable these preliminary casts are. It's not the dancers doing. Of course, as you'll understand, such an invitation was an offer she couldn't possibly refuse...

It would be great that dancers, be they principals of the Mariinsky, were able to choose when and where to perform before their numerous admirers. Regret it or not but this is still not the case. I understand your disappointment, art076, but could you please keep in mind that Pavlenko hasn't "ditched" or "skipped" anything. And disappearing in a mysterious matter from preliminary cast lists isn't really her forte either. If she is not appearing again in California, than that's entirely due to the decision of her director and/or the tour impresario. Enjoy the Mariinsky!

It's the school which doesn't "produce" them, Mashinka. The company can't groom any top male dancers if the basic potential isn't there. But Ratmansky has high hopes in Ivan Vasiliev. And with that name, he'd better be good

Merkuriev only officially joined the Bolshoi in August. He wasn't in London. Shpilevsky danced among others Espada, Rothbart and Symphony in C in London.

Both are members of the Bolshoi now (as leading soloists, what is just below principal).

That’s absolutely right. F of B was danced by the Kirov at the Coliseum a few years back with Guillem and Asylmuratova alternating in the role of Zarema. Interestingly Guillem seems to have specifically asked to dance the role and was resplendent in a fantastic red robe specially designed for her. Perhaps Asylmuratova was cast as Zarema because of her ethnic background but I thought her wasted in the role, as surely she would have been better suited by temperament to the role of Maria. As far as I know, no western company has staged this ballet, but it went down well in London. Dancers and audiences often have opposite views when it comes to casting, yet in this case I entirely join the side of Asylmuratova in her choice to dance Zarema. Judging by that one matinee performance she gave in London in 1995 (all the other 4 or 5 were danced by Makhalina/Guillem), the role could easily have been created on her (dancing Maria at that point of her career would have been a miscast, much more than it was in Makhalina's case). It was simply one of the most emotionally profound interpretations of Zarema I ever saw, and definitely the best performance Asylmuratova gave during this busy London season. Other Zarema’s seemed all of the sudden rather one-dimensional compared to what Asylmuratova had in store, exploring the character to the bone (do you remember that scream when she fell down exhausted at the end of the 2nd Act?) and giving perfect meaning to the notion of “dram-ballet”. The audience in the Coliseum was screaming at the top of their lungs and this remains one of my all-time favourite performances. If that’s wasted, then I’m all for seeing wasted dancers. rg, as far as I remember Guillem was coached by Asylmuratova for the role of Zarema. She danced it with the Kirov in 1994 in Paris, then the following year in London, each time opposite Makhalina (whom many considered miscast back then) as Maria.

For my money, Osipova was the revelation of this Bolshoi tour, pure and simple. Her debut in Pharaoh's Daughter was excellent; her Don Quixote was nothing short of astonishing. I recently added a small gallery of studio shots.

Roland Petit used the complete symphony, unfortunately in different order, for his reworking of The Queen of Spades for the Bolshoi. It was recently shown in London.

I like your cynical remarks, Natalia

Objections about casting set aside (and Helene is right to point them out, even if I still prefer the French filtering of Balanchine to many others), I find this in many ways quite an exemplary ballet DVD release. The performance itself is augmented by a 58 minutes documentary bonus, more rewarding than its title "George Balanchine Forever" might suggest at first sight. It has interviews with the Parisian soloists featuring in the performance (interesting in itself as it concerns a generation who knows Balanchine only from books and teaching), dance director Brigitte Lefèvre, Barbara Horgan, and designer Christian Lacroix. There is also a 26-page booklet with photos and with solid liner notes (even if I wouldn't call Balanchine "son of a famous composer"). It even has all the names of the dancers appearing in the performance. OK, they are given in alphabetical order, étoiles mixed with premier danseurs, but hey, how many ballet DVD's have the whole corps de ballet listed? I thought the filming better than on many other recent ballet DVD's. Surely, there is always something that gets lost in the multi-camera editing, but when there would be just one camera filming the whole stage people would complain they can't see the faces. What's more worrying however is the definition quality of the image, blurry in movements (it seems it was produced for TV?) Yet as a document on the POB dancing Balanchine, in my view, a superb release that no ballet lover should miss.

I think we should make a clear distinction between clips and fragments of performances which appear on internet sites, and commercially available products. Ballet clips are posted in tons nowadays on the internet, usually taken from TV-broadcasts or amateur video, but that doesn't mean that this footage has been released for mainstream DVD.

Frankly atm711, I don't see any reason why you should not embark on it, if you are happy with the results, but you only need to remember that you are not using the perfect, lifetime-lasting, troublefree medium. And make sure to use DVD-recordables, not the rewritables. The idea of a double copy is a sound one, if only you check the results after you burned them, and do repeat that check-up every year or so to see if all the information is still there. And after a few years you should consider making a new copy (something which, I'll be the first to admit, nobody ever does...)

Unfortunately, there isn't. The only commercially available recording with Alexandrova is "The Pharaoh's Daughter" with Zakharova and Filin on Bel Air Classiques.

There also seems to be a huge difference in quality of the DVD-R family - depending of the country where they were fabricated, the label that issues them, the color of the disc, the format DVD-R or +R or DVD-RW or DVD-RW.... There isn't a general rule to guarantee the so-called "lifelong enjoyment", but best is to stick to the big labels and to avoid cheap outlet spindles of the next supermarket or coffee brand. Problem is that these mainstream optical discs are presented as long-term storage devices while in fact they are only suitable for temporary viewing. Some national TV archives store their film material on servers or digital tape, and use DVD's only for viewing purposes. Moreover, to complicate matters further, the lifetime of the DVD-R's is allegedly variable depending of whether they've been burned with a stand-alone DVD-recorder, or with a computer (again depending of the burning software, the burner etc). As Richard already mentioned, if we can take CD-R's as an example than we might be in trouble with DVD-R's burned with the computer. I too have CD-R's of hardly five years old which are already deteriorated to the point of becoming unplayable: no scratches or dirt or anything (and they were perfectly allright in the beginning) just plain and simple deterioration of the material (I guess we could call it sort of "precocious metal fatigue"…) Also a good rule seems to be not to write on your DVD-R’s (even with those specially created pens…) and avoid labelling them on the surface (the glue will disintegrate with time as well and destroy the information…). Copyright protected tapes is only a minor issue, it seems…

As for the Russian versions, there is a film (not a live performance) of the Rostislav Zakharov production danced by the Bolshoi with Raissa Struchkova as Cinderella and Gennady Lediakh as the Prince, dating from the early 1960's. And from the Kirov there is a film (again, not a live performance) of the Konstantin Sergeyev production with Gabriella Komleva and Marat Daukaev from the seventies. Both are highly recommendable if you are fond of Soviet ballet, and you don't want your Ugly Sisters danced by men. :grinning-smiley-001: Performance-wise you won't find any better, simply because it's all there is of the Russian versions. Footage and sound quality is "historical" with lots of special effects thrown in which were already dated when these films were first published. On another level, these films are interesting because they feature two great Russian ballerinas of the day, of whom there isn't much material available.

I actually just purchased the only recording of the complete "Gayane" (I think its the only one?) . It also contains the suite from Spartacus. I dont know of any recording though that contains all three of the suites from Gayane. Heres a link to the complete CD on amazon - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007INY2...5Fencoding=UTF8 There used to be a more idiomatic and complete recording of Gayaneh on Russian Disc, by the USSR Radio and TV Large Symphony Orchestra under Djansug Kakhidze from the lates 1970's - probably no longer available. If you want a good sounding and thrillingly played selection of highlights from the ballet (coupled with Spartacus) I would advise Evgeni Svetlanov and the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra on Le Chant du Monde label.

Darn, I had hoped they would have brought old Bill himself in. Seriously, three casts are working on Gelber's Golden Age: Pavlenko and Sergeyev; Tereshkina and Yachmennikov; Golub and Lobukhin . Any guesses who will do the premiere?

Thanks, Dale. That is right after their appearances in Ottawa and Chicago. All links on For Ballet Lovers Only

So, is it safe to say that you are giving her two thumbs up? Is this based on video-watching or live experience? The use of the word "cultivate" is highly unfortunate within Mariinsky context, considering what happens with most of their talents, (take even Vishneva), after a few years.

Right on. I couldn't have expressed it better, canbelto. :grinning-smiley-001:

Since this is wild guessing why not the designer Chemyakin? :grinning-smiley-001:

Well I have seen Vishneva both live and on video in many different roles and she has been convincing in all of them. So in my book, she's diverse. I think we're really arguing about Vishneva as a dancer. Obviously you don't find her convincing so you don't find her diverse, while I've found her convincing in all her roles, so I think she's diverse. It's a matter of opinion. But I think Vishneva's invitations from ballet companies all over the world to dance a variety of roles, with both critical and popular success speaks for itself. That's not my point. Why must the observation that one finds someone not diverse (in the sense of versatile) be interpreted as a negative judgement? It's not. I find Vishneva tremendously convincing in Forsythe and in some of the Balanchine, but a lot less so in many of the great classics she attacks with basically the same uniform treatment. It's more about what you expect to see in a dancer and the role he or she interprets, also in comparison what others do or have done before with these roles. In fact I find her anything but a diverse dancer, as her roles often look very much alike. But she is absolutely fantastic in a few. For the remainder (and no disrespect is meant by this) it seems that she is the representative of a style and manner which easily pleases the crowds of today, although I never believed either that being invited all around is necessarily synonymous for being a great artist. If that would be so then Lopatkina would be one of the worst and least respected dancers in the world, because she hardly ever guests abroad.

It's because she has danced a great many ballets, all different styles, and has had successes in all of them. From Balanchine to Forsythe to Petit to most of the classical roles. Aurora, Giselle, Nikya, Romeo and Juliet, now Swan Lake. That's my definition of a diverse ballerina. Sure, in my definition you also need to be convincing in all. You can dance the whole repertory but turn it in the same show all over - that's not what I call being diverse.

Just for the record, part of the reason why Pavlenko hasn't been dancing much, and not at all in the last months, is that she has been plagued by a serious knee injury - at least since 2002. Frankly, I don't see why Vishneva is still called a "diverse" ballerina - it's not because one tries a number of diverse styles and emplois that we can speak of a diverse artist.

That's very wise, Natalia!