Marc Haegeman

Many thanks for your review, Inga. (Apparently their "Sleeping Beauty" was danced mostly on tours, as they also brought it to Torino, Italy in December 2001).

I put up my interview with Maria Alexandrova from last year, originally published in the Canadian quarterly Dance International. Thanks for visiting!

I guess two essential things have been overlooked in Cojocaru's case. Time and emploi. With the sheer amount and diversity of roles she had to digest in the last couple of years, it was bound to go wrong at some point - no matter how talented she is. They just don't give these people enough time and as soon as they are successful they are thrown in everything, regardless whether they are suited or ready for it, or not.

On March 12 the Bolshoi Ballet will do its share in the Balanchine centennial by presenting its new Balanchine program, including "Agon", "Symphony in C", "Concerto Barocco" and a divertissement with "Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux", "Sylvia Pas de Deux", and "Tarantella". Rehearsals are supervised by John Clifford, Marina Eglevsky, Adam Lüders and Tatiana Terekhova. "Agon" and "Symphony in C" entered the Bolshoi's repertory in 1999.

Thank you, Alexandra, we're not particular. :grinning: Frankly, I don't think this is a good example. Which ballet-lover in his right state of mind would ever go to see this crap? C'mon you know what you're getting. Rave or bad review, you just don't bother - It's a different planet, period.

The following ballets will be premiered by the Mariinsky in March and April. On March 3 there are the three Forsythe works "In the Middle Somewhat Elevated", "Steptext", and "The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude" - two days later this Forsythe evening will open the 4th Mariinsky International Ballet Festival. On April 13 three Balanchine ballets will be premiered: "The Four Temperaments", "La Valse", and "Ballet Imperial".

Thanks, Alexandra. Sorry we missed that memorable event :grinning:

Alymer, it's a Russian company and we know what that means when it comes to advance casting information. :rolleyes: Seriously, names have been changing and will probably continue to do so. Maria Alexandrova was on the list as well, although she won't be in London because she is needed in Moscow. Filin isn't sure either, etc. I don't know exactly why Uvarov's name was dropped, though (Mikhail should know for sure).

Great review, Jean-Luc, a thoroughly interesting read! I have fond memories of Anastasia Yatsenko, too. I didn't see her in "Pharaoh's Daughter", but she was a vibrant Zina in "The Bright Stream", while her Neapolitan dance in "Swan Lake" had a lot of punch as well as the correct plastique. Really an interesting dancer. So now, we are waiting for the final part of the Bolshoi trilogy....

Emploi is always evolving, or rather the interpretation of it, is. And, one might add, there seems to be a rather 'flexible' interpretation of it at the Mariinsky at this moment. There is another point to the issue, I think, which is the lack of lasting partnerships. Dancers at the Mariinsky are sometimes complaining that they are continually coupled with another partner, leaving them very little chance to grow accustomed to each other. Do we still need these partnerships, or is that something which (along with emploi) belongs to the past? What do others think? That said, Sarafanov and Pavlenko have been dancing together before ("Giselle", "La Bayadère" Shades Act), but because of stature and temperament, it didn't really work well.

There is still Lopatkina, Jean-Luc, she is rather "divine" as well, isn't she? :grinning: But you are right, it creates opportunities for the others. And as far as we can see, they do get them. Looking forward to you review of "La Fille".

What do you mean by "too traditional" for Giselle, Catherine? Could you possibly elaborate a bit on this?

Olga Volobueva is a name that comes to mind indeed. She is a Vaganova-trained former Kirov soloist, but is hardly ever seen in anything substantial. A few seasons ago we had talented artists like Irina Zavialova (another Vaganova graduate and in my opinion one of the finest soloists the Kirov had in the early 1990's) and Xiomara Reyes, but nothing was done with them, and not surprisingly they left as soon as a better offer came along. (Zavialova is now a principal with Peter Schaufuss' company, Reyes is a principal with ABT.) And there was another soloist whom I felt was neglected, Nadia Dimitrova, who sadly died last year. Viviane, they did Giselle again in 1999 or so. And guess who was dancing the lead?

In this case I always felt it was. Most of all (and there aren't that many performances) because it deprived us of seeing other (more interesting, or more suitable) dancers in leading roles. Some people I know went that far that they systematically avoided first nights and went to Sunday matinees, in which with a bit of luck, others were cast. :grinning:

Herman, as far as I know Sunal leaves with Denvers. Well, all I can say is that we've seen far too much of her, as she was first cast in almost anything, and she hardly ever delivered the goods. The company will premiere its La Bayadère (staging A-M. Holmes) in a couple of weeks and Sunal will surely dance Nikiya.

That's just the whole issue, Thalictum: they don't or can't devote sufficient rehearsal time for the new ballets. Yes, and it seems Zakharova who was their main ballerina for "Etudes" left for another company as well. :grinning:

Yes, they withdrew from the Awards, but does it mean that someone realizes? In any case they continue just like before. They haven't done anything else than touring in the first half of the season and yet they are planning to prepare 3 Forsythe ballets and 3 new Balanchine ballets. :sweating: Good luck to them!

Thank you, Jean-Luc, for this long and thorough review which was well worth waiting for! I can but wholeheartedly agree with your enthusiasm for this company; they may not be as clean and neat as we would want them to be, but who cares when there is so much going on on stage, such unforced commitment and such relaxed joy of being there. Quite a different atmosphere than with the Mariinsky if you ask me. I wonder how Svetlana Zakharova will develop inside this company. She still looks very different, especially when confronted with genuine Bolshoi graduates like Stepanenko or Gracheva.

Quite a realistic turn of events, I would say, at least where the ballet company is concerned. Although evil tongues in Russia are already suggesting that the real reason for the withdrawal is that they didn’t win anything last year and are afraid to be beaten again. :grinning: Truth is that the ballet company is unable to compete at this moment for the reasons given. And, frankly, if you realize that they would have entered the competition with “Etudes”, “Les Noces” and “Rite of Spring”, ballets they can’t even do properly, they wouldn’t have stood a chance (unless the other competitors were even worse, of course). The Mariinsky policy of relentless touring and simultaneous expansion of the repertory is now clearly turning against itself.

Thanks Viviane and traviata for sharing your reports. Paris is indeed lucky to have seen La Fille du Pharaon - it's a shame they won't bring it to London this summer. Silvy, no they aren't placed according to their rank. It was just a coincidence to find several soloists here together.

I put up a selection of photos from the Bolshoi in class and in rehearsal. Follow this link and enjoy! http://users.skynet.be/ballet-lovers/Classbolshoi.html

Françoise, I suppose you want to say she was pregnant of her son? As you said it, people might get some wrong ideas. Estelle, Moussin's interview appeared in DanceView Summer 2003.

A couple of more French reviews about the Bolshoi in Paris: René Sirvin, online at Imagidanse and Rosita Boisseau in Le Monde. Just a few remarks. Both articles give the impression that "La Fille du Pharaon" was created while Boris Akimov was AD of the Bolshoi. From there on it's a small step to think that the initiative was more or less his. Which it is not correct - it was done under Vasiliev and Fadeyechev. The fact that Rozhdestvensky nearly dumped the ballet while Akimov was director seems to be a completely forgotten 'detail' now. It's also beyond me why Sirvin says that under Vasiliev the Grigorovich ballets were taken out of the repertory. Again, this is not correct. "Swan Lake", "Giselle" and "Legend of Love" disappeared, but all the others were still being performed. And in the case of "Swan Lake" and "Giselle", they disappeared because Vasiliev staged his own versions. Finally, I don't see what's so radically changed about Rothbart's role in Grigorovich's "Swan Lake", slightly revised for the occasion of its return to the Bolshoi in 2001. He always had a variation before the Black Swan and which variations for Siegfried were added? Maybe some of the Moscow people can enlighten us here.

"People had confidence in me and I was invited abroad. When I was nominated étoile they were surprised to find out I wasn’t an étoile yet. For them it wasn’t important. After all they had seen me dance and had invited me on the strength of that, not because I had (or in this case didn’t have yet) the title of étoile of the Paris Opera. There is often a confusion abroad. When I mentioned “première danseuse” in my CV, it was translated as “principal dancer”." (Taken from my interview with Agnès Letestu, Dance View, Summer 2002).

Leigh, she dances the first ballerina in Rubies. She also dances quite a few étoile roles (Nikiya, Gamzatti, Odette-Odile, Kitri, Cinderella, Diamonds etc). Something which she really stressed in her interview for Dance View is that the task of the premiers danseurs is so much more demanding, because they have to dance the repertoire of the premiers danseurs, but they are also expected to dance that of the étoiles. In Moussin's case it is quite true. I always liked her polished plastique and feminine charm, even if as Françoise pointed out, her technique sometimes let her down, especially in recent seasons. Yet I do hope that this is not the reason why she was denied the title of étoile.