leonid17

Many Thanks. Leonid

Has Mr Ndudi joined a ballet company? Does anyone know.

Todays New York Times has a fitting tribute by Anna Kisselgoff.

Everything in this article could easily apply to ballet critics too. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol...icle1961473.ece If you scroll down to readers comments at the end of this article you will see that ballet critics are mentioned.

A most delightful and famous portrait of Auguste Vestris exhibited in the Tate Gallery for some years, has been sold for £54,000 to an unknown buyer( £24,000 over its estimate). The portrait one imagines had been on loan to the Tate.

Does all the music for the pas de deux come from Daniel Auber's "Le dieu et la Bayadere" and if so doen't it make you wonder what the rest of the music is like? ED: For clarication and wider interest. Apologies if this is non u behaviour.

Left to right.

As in good wine after one has smelt the 'nose', savoured the taste and identified the various flavours, the fouettes are the "after taste' before the final statement is made and all is emphatically revealed in expressive discussion.

I love this thread and though it is fun to imagine I wonder how much descriptive material of Romantic choreography exists. I remember reading Ivor Guests descriptions of variations and combinations of steps some 40 odd years ago and thought dancers could'nt execute this today. Ivor Guest throws in tantalising tit bits, I wonder if there is a four course meal in existence?

Thank you Mel, I laughed out loud at your post. If you would like to see some extraordinary photographs of Chabukiani there is a site dedicated to him at http://chabukiani.iatp.ge/albomi.htm Unfortunately for me it is written in the contemporary Georgian script known as mkhedruli ('military'). If you click on the 4th link from the left (or for rabid anti-soviet art readers 3rd from the right) which states ალბომი just below the banner, you will find a portal to many photographs of Chabukiani some which show extraordinary elevation and others in a rather over the top arty pose which were considered artistic rather than effeminate at the time. If you left click on the image you get an enlarged photograph. Chabukiani appears to become the role or his idea of the role in each photograph.

I am not going to argue over the puckishness of Georgians in general (think of Josef Stalin) as I am not an expert, but what I have learnt from studying the "noble" families of Georgia is that they come from different regions and Georgians should not be treated as an homogenous group. There is no doubt that Georgia has produced a number of outstanding dancers in various genre over a long period of time. Names ending "idze"/"adze" may have some relationship to those ending in "illi" as they may come from the same region, but those ending in "iani" may not.

Thank you for this link I might have missed it as I usually on check dance on a Sunday along with obituaries. Leonid in London England

I think the key line, however, is the one innopac quoted that follows: 'It should be the other way around.' Absolutely! I put those two sentences there because they articulate quite effectively a position with which Acosta does NOT personally agree. In this interview, at least, he's in the opposite camp. But like a good debater, he sets up the opposing side in simple terms in order to knock it down. For me Acosta is a most likeable dancer who had the benefit of that most important feature of modern day theatrical(and cinematic) fame, the right publicity to place himself in the media eye. I say media eye and not public eye as he is not really that famous in Britain. Less Famous than Darcey Bussell who herself was not as famous and the media would have you belive. That is to say there are most probably more people who have not heard of Darcey Bussell in the Uk than those who have. For me the work is always the reason to go to a performance although in my younger days I never missed a Beriosova performance and few Fonteyn/Nureyev performances or Maximova/Vasiliev or indeed a host of Kirov dancers. But as I am not a fan(short for fanatic) of the ballet, but an admirer of an art form and I am always expecting to see an outstanding performance of ballets I know well, or not at all. There ae very few dancers I go to see to day because they are dancing unless they are essaying a new role. I think the emphasis on star performers is often necessary to generate audience attendance, I do however not want dancers to dominate performances because of who they are, but instead what they are able to achieve as artists.

Although the legendary Chabukiani was trained initially in Tbilisi by the Italian pedagogue Maria Perini, who also taught the important dancer Yelena Chikvaidze, he was also a pupil of the former St.Petersburg Imperial Theatres pedagogues V.A. Semyenov, V.I. Ponomaryev and Alexander Shirayev and was never a member of the Bolshoi ballet. Tsiskaridze is a charming gentleman off-stage, but completely lacks as I have said before the "beefy panache ' necessary for the role of Jerome. When I see the split jete of Tsiskaridze photo of him in Corsair a 19th century ballet I wince, but not quite as much as when I saw him take a curtain call in arabesque en demi pointe after a "Sleeping Beauty" pas de deux. Something Chabukiani would never have done. To paraphrase John Lydgate in 1440 and Cervantes much later, Comparisons are odious. Chabukiani was a legend and we get a glimpse from film why. As you say he was atypical of Kirov dancers but he was an original in both a Kirov and Bolshoi setting and a product of his background which has never produced a similar male dancer and my retort to the young Vasiliev and the now elderly (in balletic terms) Tsiskaridze as suggested in the role of Jerome is, never send a boy to do a man's job. Chabukiani was successful as Albrecht and Siegried which neither of the young(er) pretenders can claim to have been. ED: for spelling error

Absolutely, Mashinka, with Ivan Vasiliev in the Chabukiani role. I could also picture an Alexandrova/Tsiskaridze casting in those roles. And I seem to recall an interview a couple of years ago with the Bolshoi's top female character dancer, Yulianna Malkhasiants, stating that she wished that she could dance Anissimova's great role (Therese) before retiring. I don't think either of the two men you mention have a hope of recreating the beefy panache of Chabukiani. The Bolshoi can no longer cast Spartacus in the manner of Vasiliev/Mukhamedov or Liepa. Whilst the Boshoi have two very good dancers for prince roles the tough sort of masculinity required for Jerome I believe would elude the current roster. I would hoped to be wrong in this matter and that is why I always go to every performance expecting to be moved, excited or elevated.

I have watched the Chabukiani film a good number of times and I have never found it campy. It reflects a heroic style that was meant to encourage Russian people of a post revolutionary period. This is not a pro Soviet communist statement it is a historical fact. I don't think it portrays any more ideology than an Abel Gance film does and has to be appreciated in its context. The question is surely, is there art present and does it result in excellent performances of the choreographic material? For me the answer is emphatically yes. I do not understand what you mean by the "best " tradition of Soviet ideological approach." Are you an 'expert' in this era of Russian Theatrical history, if so, please offer us a weightier argument. Unashamedly I like to see myself as a connoisseur of ballet and contextualisng all periods of its history can only add to my knowledge, understanding of what followed on from what. I recently discovered a performance of Kondratieva in the pas de deux for Mirielle de Poitier and Mistral from "The Flames of Paris" on youtube. It harks back to a gentler age, less starkly obvious than MacMillan for instance and more romantic. I was stunned because it showed what must have been one the earliest examples of overhead lifts of Soviet choreography(1932) which would remain a feature in ballets at the Bolshoi at least, well into the Grigorovich era. Ratmansky has said he wants to show works by Gorsky, Lavrovsky and Vainonen to show the Bolshoi is not just Grigorich because and because it is part of their company history. I welcome this whole-heartedly. Next year will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the "The Flames of Paris" on the Bolshoi stage and they will also celebrate the centenary of the living legend Marina Semyonova who was the first Mirielle at the Bolshoi in 1933. ED: Spelling and word omission

I wouldn't dream of speaking for her, but Cynthia did make fun of it in one performance. She pretended to smoke and then put out a cigarette during her variation. That, to me, would indicate that she (at least at that time) did not hold the piece in high regard. At the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Sylvie Guillem also sent it up with her hair in a red bob cut.

I would like to see evidence that Kschessinskaya's Odile's variation was fairly simple 20 years before Vaganova's students danced Odette/Odile. There is evidence that the terre a terre technique of the late 19th century was established with formidable execution of multiple pirouettes and fouettes.

Mercurial as a descriptive character adjective, means to me elusive, unable to hold or pin down as when you try to hold Mercury in your hand it always runs off onto the table or floor. However there are other interpretations relating to the god Mercury which start with having the characteristics of eloquence, shrewdness, swiftness and another attribute I would not wish to mention.

Wiley in his "Tchaikovsky's Ballets" gives in translation of the scenario from the First Editions of their librettos which gives an outline of the dances but no clear indication of what music was used when. Elsewhere in the chapter on "Swan Lake", Wiley sketchily discusses the music for Act III. As "Swan Lake" received three production in six years and by the fourth performance additions had been made. Notes in Tchaikovsky's holograph score differs in stage action to that which was published elsewhere. There is no in depth record of what music was performed at the premiere and it has been assumed that Reisinger had generally made a number of cuts to Tchaikovsky's music. Wiley states according to Stepan Ryabov the conductor at the Bolshoi, Sobeschenskaya went to St. Petersburg to get a new pas de deux from Minkus for Reisinger to create. Tchaikovsky objected and using the tempi of Minkus composed music to match the choreography of the new pdd which the ballerina wished to keep. Mel is right to point out that the ballet was not such a failure from its beginnings as had been long believed. In fact "Swan Lake" at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre survived in the repertoire almost twice as long as most ballets of that time. It would be interesting at least, to think there is more information on the first performance of "Swan Lake" to be discovered. ED: For clarification,

The link below will take you to Clement Crisp's review of Ashton's 'Fille' at Paris Opera Ballet and an obituary for Nina Vyroubova http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5581db6e-25ef-11dc...0b5df10621.html EDIT: TO ADD The most I could find on her career is at answers.com

I believe the timbers were laid out in a manner to bond and retain shape rather than for any aesthetic patterning. As they were generally quite worn from use of both the ballet and opera stagings, they ended up a greyish and a distressed fairly pale brown colour. At the front of the stage and over the orchestra pit they ran lengthwise to the proscenium. The stage floor was then laid in lengths of about 3 to 4 foot lengths front to back with a cross-banding about 18 inches wide running from wing to wing. There was of course a number of 'traps' whose outline was discernible if you knew the position of them. The floor which was in situ when the Sadlers Wells Ballet first appeared there in 1946, was possible relaid some 3 or 4 times by 1990 as I remember it being replaced twice between 1960 and 1990. From early photographs, it looks like the timbers may have been shorter in parts. I think in later times there was an appearance of squares but I am not goint to trust my memory as once the stage was used for a number of months the patina changed and all of the timbers melded into one dullish colour. I am sorry to offer a rather boring description of the stage flooring, but then I think there was always something happening on the stage so that the floor seemed to disappear.

Well said Perky.

Bolshoi Theatre? Every source that I have read in English and Russian clearly states the premiere was given at the Maryinsky Theatre.

I have found that Miss Guillem is one of those dancers that divide balletgoers into two distinct groups. She is not alone in this. In the past in London I have found that Nureyev, Baryshnikov,Ruzimatov, Lopatkina, Zakharova, Dowell, Bujones, Kolpakova, Fracci, and others have divided seasoned aficionados in their appreciation of these dancers. Regards Leonid