leonid17

Your are correct to say that David Lichine's version of The Prodigal Son " did not do so well" as the Balanchine version, but that does not mean that it was not a successful work. It was well received by critics on three continents. I would absolutely concede that he did not have the talent of Balanchine, but then, he didn't have that group of highly influential good old Harvard boys behind him as Balanchine did to cushion his journey.

If the Royal Ballet continues to ignore a large part of the Ashton repertoire, perhaps the beginning of a solution to Ashton's projected demise lies in the USA. Read on. Yes ! It is Mr Macaulay again. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/arts/dan...3asht.html?_r=1

Apr 11 2006, In the Tcherepnin Le Pavillion D'Armide thread on Apr 11 2006, Phenby wrote the following. "In his twenty years of ballet and opera productions Diaghilev only rejected a commissioned score a handful of times. Tcherepnin heads the list as having produced two such scores. In the early seasons Diaghilev had a secretary/advisor by the name of M. D. Calvocoressi, a young French music critic. Calvocoressi met a young, unknown composer (I forget the name) who had written a ballet score on his own entitled La masque de la mort rouge (The Mask of Red Death after Edgar Allen Poe). Calvocoressi passed the score along to Diaghilev who wasn't interested in the music but found the story an interesting idea for a ballet. Diaghilev approached Stravinsky on the subject but was rejected. So he turned to ... Nikolai Tcherepnin. In 1913, when Tcherepnin composed his ballet, Fokine had been dismissed and Nijinsky was now choreographer of the Ballets Russes. But Nijinsky was very slow and couldn't be counted upon to produce four new ballets every season. So for the 1913 season Adolph Bolm and Boris Romanov, two dancers in the company, were given their first opportunities to choreograph (both went on to long careers as choreographers). Tcherepnin's La masque de la mort rouge was schedualed for the 1914 season, but since Nijinsky was already overextended with preparations for two other ballets, Diaghilev assigned Tcherepnin's ballet to a guest choreographer: Alexander Gorsky. Then the rupture between Nijinsky and Diaghilev occured. As a result, Fokine came back to the Ballets Russes for the 1914 season and took charge of all new choreography. La masque de la mort rouge and Gorsky were scrapped." Sarah Banes in her book Writing Dancing in the Age of Postmodernism however states, “Goleizovsky began work in 1919 on “The Masque of the Red Death” and Eric W. Carlson In his “A Companion to Poe Studies” says that the ballet was given in 1919 at the Moscow Kamerny Theatre.

Thank you Amy Reusch, It was interesting to see the costumes.

I was moved by Quiggin’s post because it reflects a mind that is clearly appreciative of the ART of ballet in an aesthetic manner and I would like to quote some extracts fro his post, “ San Francisco Ballet did a handsome Symphonic Variations several years ago, Anthony Dowell directed it, and you could see its architectural strengths quite clearly. You can see why so much of SV depended on dancers like Margot Fonteyn. But no one holds themselves like that anymore; no one operates out of that lovely reserve. The manner of being in the world of her generation no longer exists. Ashton may be more fragile in that way much more than Balanchine or even Tudor.” Here are twenty reasons for me, why Ashton is a significant choreographer and why his unique style is worth re-capturing for all time through performance:- Façade, Les Patineurs, Les Rendezvous, Symphonic Variations, Scene de Ballet, Cinderella, Illuminations, Daphnis and Chloe, Sylvia, Birthday Offering, La Fille mal Gardee, Le deux Pigeons, Marguerite and Armand, The Dream, Monotones 1, Monotones II, Enigma Variations, A Month in the Country, Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora, Rhapsody. I could have added a few more to this list of ballets less popular, which I personally enjoyed, but only when they had exemplary casts performing them. Helene quite rightly says, “Ashton's works take discipline, modesty, and a certain amount of self-abnegation, as well as a commitment to a style of movement that is Volkova's legacy. “ I would add that it requires serious even subtle artists to make Ashton ballets work and dancers have to absorb the style as Helene says, as well as mastering the sometime trick steps. What makes Ashton a high-art choreographer is that only artists can be truly subtle and speak through choreography in such a way that its language is always resonating at a higher level to that of straight forward virtuosity. His choreography as well, demands of the viewer a different, more subtle reflective, appreciation mode, because for Ashton, ballet is an art and not an entertainment. With Ashton you are not after all going to go hell for leather, as in a virtuoso variation but even at speed, Ashton’s choreography keeps you in the mode of his emotional and psychological world where resolution, as in Symphonic Variations, grows organically out of truly slow opening movements. In this ballet, he takes you into a reflective world of feeling and symbolised relationships in a highly subtle way and then ends with a joyous, life giving, finale. The music has spoken, the dance has echoed and we have experienced a journey in an almost religious atmosphere. Ashton has taken precisely where he wanted to and this is what all great artists achieve. Ashton's refined choreography does not belong to the past and he is of course not alone in this. When there are truly only a handful of masters in this genre of classical ballet, you wonder how this creative artist is becoming lost in the company to which no other choreographer has given so much. I cannot agree with everything Mr Macaulay has said and I am sorry to see his quoting what after all sounds like gossip regarding that distinguished ballet artist Alexander Grant who has contributed more to ballet than any critic has. He reports, “ In 1997, at the Roehampton conference on revivals and reconstructions of ballet, the notator Michele Braban recounted how she had had to spend so long analyzing the differences among various filmed versions of “Fille” that she had finally been required, for sake of economy, simply to record the version currently being danced as the new standard text; this story became more distressing when it emerged that nobody had even given her a copy of Margaret Dale’s definitive film of the original “Fille” production.” Ho Hum. This film is certainly important, but it was shot in a studio and adapted for the small screen with many shots focusing on one aspect of the stage (set) with the loss of other stage actions. So not so definitive after all. Firstly I would say that the RB Company’s and dancers mind set is not the same as it was in 1961 nor are the talents equal to the original cast which I witnessed. The last performance that I saw was a disgrace and that was not production changes it was performance. The corps had no sense of relationship to the work they were dancing and the principals were a long way from the interpretation of either Nadia Nerina or Ann Jenner in the role nor the right kind of period cheekiness of David Blair. Michael Somes, whose strictness and overriding affection for the Ashton repertoire was legendary, finds Mr Macaulay commenting on another distinguished RB artist whose departure in my opinion led to a general decline in the company’s performance of Ashton especially by the corps de ballet. Drew hit the mark when he states, “I tend to think that what would help the Ashton legacy most at this time would be for the Royal Ballet to invest more heavily in dancing his ballets on a regular basis and drawing on the experience of earlier Ashton interpreters who are still around (those who worked with him directly) to help rehearse and coach the ballets.” Only problem is, not everyone can coach or even wants to. One person who does coach is Dame Antoinette Sibley. Mr Macaulay goes on to report, “When dancers of Ashton’s 1952 “Sylvia” say that the 2004 version — reconstructed from a film of a 1963 rehearsal — and its latest revivals feature steps on the downbeat that should be on the upbeat, who will listen?” Having seen the film in question, which if my memory serves me right was silent, the quality was so poor and the speed of the dancing was odd to say the very least and it showed Doreen Wells in the leading role. I am not at all surprised that the revival was questioned. I saw the performances of this 1963 production with Doreen Wells in the lead and in the same production I saw Dame Margot Fonteyn as Silvia partnered by Atillio Labis who caused an absolute stir with his looks, partnering and technique. Roberto Bolle in 2004, created the same response, whilst partnering Darcey Bussell miscast as Sylvia. On the first night of the 2004 revival, overheard in the interval in the Floral Hall between the sipping of champagne could be heard a cacophony of complaints among the older regular audiencel regarding errors of staging and the reproduction of the designs. There are always problems reviving ballets and no one imagines any of the famous reconstructions of this last decade or so resembles their original productions. How can they, when dancing and production values were quite different to recent times and all the ranks of performers then, had reputedly outstanding personalities can we say the same today? I concur with his last statement, “Must we, only 21 years after Ashton’s death, settle for Third Quarto versions of ballets that once made him the toast on both sides of the Atlantic?”

Any thoughts about the article? Or ideas about the situation? Firstly Bart thank you for raising this issue. I have always deferred to my elders who saw legendary dancers at their height and I am going to say that what Mr.Macaulay has touched upon, cannot be evaluated unless you have some experience of the Royal Ballet at its performing apogee. By this I mean a balance of filling the characters dramatically or the style of a role together with the technique to match either the era, or the best of those that had gone before. The tragedy of the Ashton repertoire with the Royal Ballet is threefold and I am going to avoid the ownership of particular ballets which Mr Macaulay has touched upon. Firstly, the sacking, for that is what it was, of Michael Somes, the most difficult, severe, but dedicated protector of the Ashton repertoire, when it should have been the sacking of the less than always first rate choreographer Kenneth MacMillan. I believe when Michael Somes went, so did the “Royal Ballet style” begin to trickle away and neither Anthony Dowell or Antoinette Sibley both Ashton specialists were in a position to save the decline. Secondly, the subsequent appointments of Artistic Directors of the Royal Ballet who have failed Ashton, who WAS and IS, the Royal Ballet plus of course a few ballets by Petipa,Ivanov, Perrot, Fokine, Balanchine, De Valois, Massine, Nijinska, Cranko plus a good number of MacMillan's one act ballets not the overblown later 3 act works whose turgid and torpid moments diminish the impressive scenes that he also created. I will not comment on Alexander Grant's staging’s of "La Fille...", as I believe the Royal Ballet have lost the way with this triumphant Ashton ballet many years ago, with a long series of miscasting or over parting. La Fille mal gardee was the third ballet that I ever saw and from 1961 onwards I saw the original cast at almost every performance (yes it really was that complete a ballet experience) until Nadia Nerina let the company. Thirdly part of the problem and perhaps most importantly, has been the distinct decline in ballet criticism over the last twenty years, with only two or three critics in London waving the flag of their independent and knowledgeable views. I cannot express my disappointment with the Royal Ballet over the last 20 years when publicity, has replaced substance and still failed to sell seats. I have probably paid for 3000 tickets over the years and I sincerely plead that Terpsichore, or whosoever God empowers to descend and to renew this wonderful company who reached triumphant heights in the 1960's and 1970's which have yet to be matched in succeeding years. I have to mention Dame Monica Mason’s remarkable achievement in pulling the Royal Ballet, from the absolute abyss. She is I believe now shackled by the economic situation (check out next seasons repertoire) and seeming pressures of changing the direction of the repertoire from what was once a successful academic classical ballet of the first rank, to now include dance works, far removed from what made and sustained the Royal Ballet’s world status. Only time will tell as to the fate of a favourite company of mine. PS I was grateful to see the comments of Alexandra, Helene and Peggy R.

As far as I can remember only the Royal Ballet kept as many as three of Fokines ballets alive from the 1950's to date. Since the 1980's a Fokine industry has proliferated with his ballets poorly staged compared to those productions I had seen supervised by Tamara Karsavina, Serge Grigoriev, Lubov Tchernicheva, Lydia Sokolova, Nikolai Beriosoff and Dame Alicia Markova. Of course Fokine formalised via Diaghilev the triple bill formula which had hardly existed at the Maryinsky Imperial Ballet until the 20th century. The Royal Danes and the Borovansky Ballet kept at least two ballets alive in the 1950's, Festival Ballet had Les Sylphide and even in Russia it was only this work and the Polovtsian Dances that survived up until recent times. Ashton's influence across the world is due mainly to productions of "La Fille mal Gardee" ably supervised by Alexander Grant a member of the ballets original cast. Two Pigeons is now performed in the USA and Georgia and Les Patineurs has been seen in the USa for some years now. ABT has staged Sylvia and I am sure other posters will tell me there are other Ashton works being performed there. When Ashton ballets have been strongly admired outside London, it has usually been so, when the Royal Ballet have performed them on tour to the USA and elsewhere retaining the correct Ashton style so difficult to achieve. When the Kirov ballet tour, they have often taken a Balanchine repertoire with them. The Royal Ballet have just been performing Jewels and they have had in my time at least, something like 14 Balanchine ballets in their repertoire. and his ballets are peformed in Japan, Australiam a number of other European countrie exhibiting Balanchine's international influence which is possibly greater than Fokine's and seccond only to Petipa and sometimes enjoined with Ivanov. You say, "The ballets he composed for were the results of many artists collaborating under the direction of Diaghilev. Who knows....another composer may have done as well!" Balanchine choreographed nine ballets for Diaghlev and to music by seven different composers. Of those ballets, as far as I know, only Stravinsky's Apollon Musagete and Prokofiev's Le Fils Prodigue have survived. Apollo was recognised as a major diversion away from the past and breaking new ground. Stravinsky's score to this work is widely admired. While for all it distinction and I admire it greatly, Le Fils Prodigue does to me looks a little like a homage to Fokine's methodology. Of course Diaghilev was there with his advisers to oversee Balanchine's productions and this remains a practice to a lesser or greater degree even today. But, as we know Balanchine was a completely original voice established through his Petrograd experience, his music training, nd his sophisticated educated family background and Diaghilev was no choreographer.

It was not just the ballets Stravinsky composed that is important for Balanchine, but the fact that it led to Balanchine's creative impulse being inspired to use Stravinsky's music in total for some 35 works(including reworkings of earlier works.) This I believe makes Stravinsky historically more significant to Balanchine oeuvre than Tchaikovsky although I am not sure how many works Balanchine choreographed to Tchaikovsky but surely not many more than ten. The ballet audiences began to move on from Tchaikovsky a hundred years ago with the advent of Diaghilev. Alongside concert hall and opera house performances, Balanchine probably helped hundreds of thousands of people to know Stravinsky’s music opening them towards appreciation of more modern music. Since then all kinds of ballet and dance companies across the world today offer Stravinsky regularly, as well as what one might have once described as less accessible “avant garde” music far removed from Tchaikovsky. By the time Balanchine created his successful “Mozartiana and “Serenade” ballets to Tchaikovsky’s music, he had already been choreographing for 13 years and possibly already created 50 works including “Ragtime”(There were several later versions) , “Le Chant du Rossignol” and the masterwork “Apollon Musagete” all to Stravinsky’s music. Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky ballet, are for me sublime and uplifting and yes and they were in the past easier on the ear than Stravinsky for some members of ballet audiences. But I would suggest that Balanchine did not choreograph just for a popular audience, but followed his artistic inspiration and Stravinsky was tied deeply to his conceptual process. The thirty five works to his music confirms this. You state, "I think ballet would be exactly where it is now if Stravinsky had never written for it, but not if Tchaikovsky hadn't." Possibly that is the case for ballet in general, but I am not sure it would be true for New York City Ballet or for its repertoires great influence around the world. PS Balanchine had staged revised versions of elements of Tchaikovsky’s ballets in the 1920’s.

Access to past Diaghilev Exhibitions showing costumes and designs From Russia with love http://www.nga.gov.au/russia/ Images by Bakst, Serov, Golovin, Picasso and Gontcharova From 2005 Groningen Festival. http://www.groningermuseum.nl/index.php?id=1260 Vaslav Nijinsky: creating a new artistic era http://www.nypl.org/research/lpa/nijinsky/

Today is the anniversary of Igor Feodorovich Stravinsky's birth. How great do you think his influence was upon ballet and dance? Where do you think ballet and dance might have been without him? Given Stravinsky's absence, how different might George Balanchine’s oeuvre have been if working with other composers active during his lifetime? Link New York Times Obituary http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/on.../bday/0617.html

Regarding Galina Ulanova, it reads to me that you have indulged in hypothetical reasoning, to form an opinion as to why she was transferred to the Bolshoi which cannot as far as I can see, be substantiated by facts. Then you say, “I'd almost think Ulanova because unlike Plisetskaya, Ulanova didn't have a known record of political clashes with Soviet officials, which affected Plisetskaya's career for many years.” If anything, Plisetskaya was a victim of her family history in an oppressively anti-semitic regime. To get things right about ballet history, we all have to go beyond readily available sources. I would also say in the case of the two artists in question, many of the complications of their life history is not readily available and still needs extensive research. Given Plisetskaya’s absolutely unique physicality, dramatic temperament and her approach to roles, she was able to fully obtain a status second only to Ulanova in with the Bolshoi and was of course much younger. Try to get hold of her autobiography and you will see why she might have been deemed possibly unreliable on the basis of her family background. Before she travelled abroad, her status in Russia was that of an extraordinarily celebrated dancer who had been made. People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1951 and People's Artist of the USSR, 1959 when Ulanova was still dancing. Ulanova was loved and admired not just by politicos but by audiences whenever and wherever she danced. When Dame Margot Fonteyn saw Ulanova in 1956 she said, "I cannot even begin to talk about Ulanova’s dancing, it is so marvellous, I am left speechless. It is magic. Now we know what we lack." You say, "Bolshoi Theatre (which was pretty much THE showcase for ballet during the Soviet era)" The Bolshoi Ballet's aesthetic in the Sovet era was different to that of the Kirov Ballet as it tended to generate more communistic themes in its productions and manner of performance than the Kirov. It was based in the city where the government of the country was situate, which always assists any ballet company and more so in their case as it was used as a political doorway into the communist ideals for the audience. IMO the Kirov in general produced more of an artistic approach to their performanes and had less brutalised attacks on Petipa's choreography than the Bolshoi did in the era being discussed. PS Regarding Elizaveta's original question, I have never read in any authoritative source that it was Stalin who ordered Ulanova to the Bolshoi.

I don't know, Leonid, it seems to me that the media is ever on the lookout for new stars to promote. Whether or not it would trust the public to take to ballet dancers for any other reason than athletic prowess is another question. “Whether or not it would trust the public to take to ballet dancers for any other reason than athletic prowess is another question.” Pretty sad if this is the case in which if we have to embrace the exhibition of “athletic prowess” instead of art. It seems the demarcation line that separates art from entertainment is in decline. I see a difference in the artistic expression of physical gifts in Vasilev’s performance as Spartacus, compared to the over physical elaboration of variations in a Petipa ballet. When the latter takes place the art of ballet begins to lose meaning. Ballet can be entertaining in its various levels of expression but we should still be able to see that it is not merely entertainment; it is or traditionally was, on a different level. When the lines between a serious artist and an entertainer get blurred everyone is a loser, but this is what the popular media wants us to embrace. Regarding the public, who are ballets public? I have seen the Royal Opera House promote and gain publicity for a new work on the basis that it employed music from a rock band and on the first night fans of the music came in some numbers. They did not come again so I do not consider them part of the real ballet public that support ballet companies through thick and thin. The media is much more engaged in the commercial manipulation of minor talents than in the past and in some aspects is merely an opportunity to raise the profile of its contributing writers or presenters. In this process we see performers raised to the heights of stardom when once they would have had difficulty in being a supporting act. In England is there is a creeping disease of “I helped…………to become a star” or, “I helped the choreographer………..to be come a success”, among dance journalists? In the past with or without media support dancers achieved stardom by dint of effort and real talent and the media was then, serious independent dance writers recognising the possibility of stardom and without the naked ambition to become a ‘celebrity’ journalist’. It seems I have been guilty of going off topic (In search of the next Balanchine) apologies.

The Martha Graham Dance company calls the repertoire of their founders works “ballets”. The reason “The Rite of Spring” is called a ballet is because that is all what such ‘serious’ dance works in that era of its creation were called. On the Stravinsky score it is described as, “Pictures from Pagan Russia in two parts “, In lists of his oeuvre it is described as a ballet. Most dictionaries give the definition of the word ballet to mean, “a theatrical entertainment in which ballet dancing and music, often with scenery and costumes, combine to tell a story, establish an emotional atmosphere, etc.” or, “Dancing in which conventional poses and steps are combined with light flowing figures (as leaps and turns)” The latter two descriptions fit easily with most peoples understanding of the word. Although I think of “The Rite of Spring” as a dance work, I would because of common usage often describe it as a ballet even though it is a long way distant from “Swan Lake” which definitely is a ballet. The executive summary - "It's ballet if it uses the danse d'ecole (the school vocabulary of ballet) and dancers trained in that." - No argument. "Pointe work doesn't automatically make it ballet." - Geting difficult here. "Absence of turnout makes it not ballet." - What about a story ballet made up of character dances performed by dancers trained in the danse d'ecole? "Good" doesn't make it ballet - nor does "bad" disqualify it." - No Argument

If is difficult enough to discover important choreographers in a lifetime that alone witness the first night of a great work. I have however been fortunate to witness the premieres of works by Ashton, Cranko and MacMillan, although some never hit the mark for me. If we had perhaps forty significant ballet choreographers in the twentieth century things might have been different. Instead we had less than ten. Whilst Petipa in his various guises has become ubiquitous and Ashton and MacMillan and Cranko have moved out of Europe around the globe, Balanchine has not only been imported into companies that have no real personal choreographic status, but also into companies that have a long established repertoire tradition of their own. In more than 45 years watching and waiting, I have seen a good number of choreographers who never really produced more than one or two good ballets and despite fairly continuous employment never revealed any more than their original promise. I have also seen a hundred plus ballets I wished I had never seen but in the process, I have witnessed many that have enriched my life. Ballet in all its guises has been marketed across the world for a hundred years and we live in an age where marketing over substance has created far too many ballet companies without thinking that choreographer’s exhibiting real skill and a personal style are a rare phenomenon. So also, are great peformers and that is why ballet In my opinion can never become ubiquitous at a very high standard. There can never be another Balanchine because the circumstances that enabled his latent talent to arise; only existed in him and the era in which he lived as a young man cannot be replicated. Balanchine came into the Imperial school and the Maryinsky Theatre at a time when attempts were being made to change the tradition. He embraced the putative soviet tradition of expression through music, as inspired by his mentor in actuality, Feodor Lopukhov. Being musically trained at the Petrograd Musical Conservatory (Petipa trained at the Brussels Conservatory of Music) he had an advantage over many budding choreographers. When Balanchine took the NYCB to Russia, it was not just the choreographic skill that gained him admiration, it was also the athleticism of his company a flowering of what early soviet choreographers had tried to achieve but failed, due to conflicting political influences. When he left Russia, little did he know that he would be catapulted into an arena of giants and become one in the process. Lincoln Kirstein tells us that when Balanchine reached western Europe, he had the taste of a young Soviet revolutionary. Balanchine’s first real success was with the “constructionist” ballet “Le Chatte”(1926), where we see him working with the founders of soviet Russian constructivism the Russian brothers, Gabo and Pevsner. In "Apollon Musagete", we find Balanchine looking back and forward with its story telling in a minor key his dancers only echoing the attributes of goddesses and his use of geometric poses far removed from the poetics of Petipa he knew in his youth. In "Le fils Prodigue", we see echoes of the use of the methodlogy that soviet realism had sought to achieve. With Balanchine’s extraordinary musical background he was to find in Stravinsky a creative relationship that was extraordinary if not always straightforward. Balanchine was entirely a man of his own time and events occurred through others that nurtured, protected and enabled him to create in a manner that no other 20th century choreographer has enjoyed. It was also George Balanchine’s destiny to be born into a highly cultured family in a Russia where culture had a great status even when it had to fight to maintain it status in the early revolutionary period. Where Petipa had witnessed the great choreographers of the Romantic period and learnt his craft, Balanchine had Diaghilev to support and encourage his talent from which two great masterworks appeared and the rest is history. Balanchine was blessed by having a number of great dancers at his disposal almost throughout his whole career. Simon G states, “ But in terms of choreography one can argue that great choreography of the 20th century was a Western phenomenon - Balanchine, Ashton, Tudor, Fokine, Lifar, Nijinska, Nijinsky, Macmillan, Cranko - they flourished in the west…” Of course the rest of the world had thejr own very old theatrical cultures, but today, you will find superior dancers from the so called east in almost every major company of Europe and the USA. Fokine, Nijinska, Lifar and Balanchine’s talents were all nurtured in Russia and subsequently in a Russian atmosphere until their talents were established. Ashton, Cranko, Macmillan and of course Ninette de Valois, were inextricably linked to the Russian Ballet and Diaghilev traditions via teachers, performers and being members of the Sadlers Wells and the Royal Ballet as were the founders of ABT and NYCB had teachers of note from a Russian cultural background until fairly recently. "Not a single piece of choreography created behind the Iron Curtain survived or was taken into western reps pre or post glanost." How could “Spartacus” among other soviet ballets, ever be performed by western companies as they lack the numbers required as well as the performing skills that only the Russian companies possess. What western companies perform, “Le Corsaire” and “Don Quixote” in the manner necessary as we in the west have never produced leading dancers of the stature that Russia has produced, that alone character dancers of the calibre found in Russia and its former territories. Nature and circumstances alone create genius and it is not enough to create circumstances. Our societies today appear to militate against waiting to recognise superior talent and the obsession is rather more inclined to the new than with the great. Other great choreographers may arise in the future but all of the elements that existed in the past to recognise and nurture budding talents are today dissipated by giving too many big opportunities to too many minor talents too often. Although I am getting older I am still prepared to wait and with hope that someone choreographically exceptional will appear to astound me and you.

I know that Vecheslova appeared in both the Vaganova productions of Esmeralda in 1935 (revived by Vaganova especially for her)and 1948, but I had thought it was out of the Kirov repertoire for some years earlier. By the time Vecheslova graduated as I understand that there were no Petipa productions left in the Kirov repertoire. Everything was "after Petipa", as the theatre's ideological dramaturg insisted on changes to all of the Petipa repertory which affected choreography as well as the story line. What date do you have that Vecheslova danced Esmeralda other than those dates I have mentioned, as I would like to amend my records?

Thank you for giving such an evocative record of the event.

Esmeralda was first staged at the Bolshoi by Jean Perrot in 1850 using the revised Pugni score and was revived by Mendez in 1890 after Petipa. It was last re-staged at the Bolshoi in 1926 by Tikhomirov with Yekaterina Geltser as Esmeralda and the score revised by Rheinhold Gliere which was to used by the Kirov in their 1935 production staged by Vaganova which was revived in that theatre in 1948. Esmeralda was an extremely popular ballet in the soviet period being staged across that union in something like twenty plus different productions. The Mikhailovsky Ballet production is the latest Russian production I have found and dates from 1981 being called a revival of Petipa's restaging of 1899. There is to be found a filmed recording of excerpts of this Esmeralda production which was staged in part by Tatiana Vecheslova who had appreared in the Vaganova production and although the dancing is variable, one can see the remnants of a Romantic ballet. As you say, the Sergeyev notation of the Petipa production exists which was staged with the Drigo revised score and as Vikharev has been mentioned in respect of this production perhaps it is being referred to.

When the Paris Opera Ballet brought Neumeier's "Dream" to London, I was shocked that there was such a theatrical choreographer around and simply amazed by the performance of the dancing and acting of the company. It was received with extraordinary warmth by a seasoned audience.

Of course you did, when I checked your post I remembered the content. I did want to draw attention to this interesting interview and I add a quote, " I am not going to repeat it exactly. I am going to do it with the eye of the 21st century as we did with Le Corsaire."

Just to agree with Mashinka, for me Gediminas Taranda as Abderakhman was one of the greatest performances I have seen on the ballet stage. Offstage a strikingly handsome figure, exceedingly polite and a great sense of fun disguising the absolute seriousness of the man. Ps Thank you innopac for the link you posted. The interview opens the door slightly, to that fairly dark world in which Russian ballet existed.

In an interview in the June edition of Dancing Times, Yuri Burlaka the recently appointed Artistic Director of the Bolshoi, tells Nadine Meisner that his next project for later this year is “Esmeralda” based on Petipa’s 1899 production.

The Royal Ballet is broadcasting to European cinemas a live performance of “Ondine” on June 3. The cast includes Miyako Yoshida as Ondine and Edward Watson as Palemon. The lucky countries are: UK,Ireland,Spain,Netherlands,Germany,Denmark,Austria http://www.roh.org.uk/cinemas/ondine/index.aspx

When canbelto started this thread he asked two questions, “What do people think of arch enhancers?” and “Are these becoming more and more common among professional dancers?” I first became aware of “arch enhancers” about 12 years ago when in a UPS shop in London where I was waiting to send a package, the person in front of me, a cash customer, was asked to open his package and lo and behold it contained “arch enhancers” and we got into a conversation and he explained he manufactured them and was sending them to a high profile dancer in Europe. It is interesting that a high arched foot is not only aesthetically pleasing in a ballet dancer it is a requirement (in degrees) for the aesthetic an academic classical ballet dancer. To a doctor looking at some dancer’s feet, he would possibly see it as a pathological condition or a deformity known Pes Cavus which literally translates as claw foot. If you read medical papers the condition is something to be treated even operated upon. However Orthopaedic practitioners who have some experience of dancer’s feet or knowledge of the aesthetic would not be do concerned. When you have seen on stage the aesthetically exquisite movement and shapes created by the great dancer Alla Sizova’s feet, nothing less really counts. But lets takes us back to the real world, there is nothing wrong with a reasonably arched foot if everything else required to become an academic dancer is in place. Anna Pavlova had an incredibly high arch, Dame Margot Fonteyn did not, but it did not detract from her performances as the whole body moved with grace combined with a flowing, interpretative line. The idea of arch enhancers goes beyond the reasonably blocked toe show for me and shows something incomplete in dancers that use them. I have go back to the exquisitely expressed statement of Paul Parish, "A high instep makes for thrilling geometry, especially when the knee is bent, in coupes or passes."

Thank you for that interesting information. I also hate noisy shoes especially when a whole corps de ballet clatters. It started with principals in various companies in the late 1960.s and hit various corps de ballets in the 1980's as far as I can recall. Is it the result of over use of the microwave oven?

In today’s links, you will find reference to Lucette Aldous is honoured in Australia: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...5013570,00.html I well remember this dancer “petite” in height (only 5 feet tall) but huge in technical ability and personality. She is probably best known to many today through the film of Don Q made with Nureyev. As good fun as it is, both were past their own technical best by the time it was made. Lucette’s range with Rambert Ballet Company went from Giselle, La Sylphide, to a full length Don Quixote. Famously this diminutive dancer performed the role of the Lilac Fairy for a TV production starring Dame Margot Fonteyn. Miss Aldous moved to the Royal Ballet Touring Company but moved to the Royal Ballet Touring Company where she danced the classics and was Titania to Nureyev’s Oberon debut in Ashton’s “The Dream.” I personally admired her immensely in “Coppelia” and “La Fille mal Gardee”. From the Royal she went to a third successful step in her career when she joined the London Festival Ballet where she danced a wide range of roles. From there she joined the Australian ballet encouraged by Sir Robert Helpmann she starred with Rudolf Nureyev in “Don Quixote” of which they gave 56 performances in a tour of America, which must be some kind of record. It was on this tour that her husband Alan Alder proposed to her and they married in 1972 and have a daughter called Floer. I wondered if any ballettalkers have memories of the “Don Quixote” tour mentioned above.