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CharlieH

Inactive Member
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Posts posted by CharlieH

  1. 17 minutes ago, Buddy said:

    Thanks, Charlie, for this additional information as to the connection of Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Seasons to the Festival’s theme. I didn’t know or even suspect this.

    There is a Dreaminess to all these works, which I like. If only part of Midsummer Night’s Dream is performed, as you suggest, I would guess and hope that it would be the second part with the beautiful duet and the more formal setting. Your idea of having included the entrance of the Shades would have fit perfectly as perhaps the finest statement of a ballet Dreamworld. 

    Do you see any other elements connecting these works — music, structure, story, history, aura….?

    Certainly nature, Buddy. Flora and fauna. The elements.

    It’s curious that, when Petipa himself first revived his Midsummer Dream at the Mariinsky in 1889, it was part of a triple bill of one-act ballets, along with The Enchanted Forest (Lev Ivanov/Drigo) and Caprice of the Butterfly (Petipa/Krotkov). Definite connections there!

  2. 10 hours ago, Buddy said:

    Good find, Charlie. Thank you.

    This is the content as you already posted.

     

    Petipa/Vikharev’s Flora’s Awakening

    Balanchine’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (assume an excerpt) 

    [Konstantin] Keichel’s new (or reconstructed?) choreography  for Glazunov’s The Seasons

    http://www.mezzo.tv/nos-programmes/soiree_hommage_a_marius_petipa_theatre_mariinsky_11032018

     

    Does anyone know who Konstantin Keichel is ?

    "The Seasons" should not be confused with "The Four Seasons" being performed the following week.

    Charlie, it looks like you got something of the Balanchine content that you were hoping for. Balanchine’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and Konstantin Keichel's The Seasons are certainly a deviation from the literal theme of the series, but 'atmospherically' there might prove to be a good connection. 
     

    Buddy, Keichel is new to me. Many of my ballet pals first assumed that this is the same as the 2017 ballet “The Four Seasons” but, no, that one was by a different choreographer to Vivaldi’s score (arr. by Richter). I’m sincerely hoping that Keichel works in the reconstruction/classical mode, although, to the best of my knowledge, the Harvard Notes don’t include Petipa’s Seasons. However, we know the scenario and a lot of the stage action from reviews and other contemporary accounts. There’s enough fodder to allow for a Lacotte-style  imagining of Petipa’s 1900 ballet. One can hope.

    As for Midsummer Dream, there is definitely a Petipa-classical connection, not just because of Balanchine’s new-classical style. Petipa himself created a one-act ballet in 1876 that used much (not all; no Wedding March) of the Mendelssohn, plus new short pieces by Minkus (!).  Alas, the Petipa Dream is not in the Harvard collection but, hey, we have the Balanchine - Petipa’s spiritual son! I’m wondering which portion will be shown in the gala?

    I find it odd that Bayadere’s Shades Entrance isn’t on the program but perhaps the producers think that it’s enough to present the full ballet during the festival.

    I’m so grateful that this program is being telecast, so that at least I’ll be able to eventually see a part of the Petipa celebrations in St-P...through the kindness of friends in Europe with recorders. I’ll be on a cruise soon, for much of this month, but look forward to reports. I do plan to attend the Moscow celebrations and conference in June, so can report back on that. 

  3. 9 hours ago, NAOTMAA said:

    I hope I'm wrong but I have a sad feeling in my gut that tells me no Gergiev conducting equals no filming :(

    The casting of the Tereshkina/Shklyarov performance, with Kondaurova as Lilac and Kolb as Carabosse, on the 8th, seems to have been made with filming in mind so who knows. When do people usually find out if a performance is being filmed or not? I feel like with a week to go we would have already found out.

    They performed it this ballet 10 years and then dropped it without ever releasing a DVD/Blu-ray (other popular ballets still performed have one!). Now with it being revived for the bicentennial (and likely to be dropped again once its over) this will be the very last chance of capturing the whole ballet on celluloid. I really hope they don't throw the chance away otherwise I'd assume their personal hatred for it clouds their judgement.  

    But as I'm sure you know in the "Sacred Stage" documentary they have parts of the Prologue and Rose Adagio (with Zhanna Ayupova) professionally filmed. They also have the whole vision scene (with Zhanna and Anton Korsakov) as a DVD bonus. I've always wondered if that whole performance was actually filmed, for the documentary producers to pick and choose clips with permission, and its now lying somewhere in the Mariinsky vaults gathering dust.

     

     

    You’re absolutely correct, NAOTMAA...and I love your name & understand it. (Wink)  The one hope — and apologies for sounding a bit crass — is that, now, the majority of coaches (ex-stars) of the Soviet ballet, who were so inflamed by Vikharev’s reconstruction, have either retired or passed away. Fewer angry voices may mean a chance that the new-old Sleeping Beauty may be filmed professionally for posterity?

  4. 10 hours ago, NAOTMAA said:

    How wonderful! 

    I've only seen a really bad quality version of it on youtube with Obraztsova and Shklyarov and it still looked beautiful. It will be great to see all the magic in HD! 

    Hopefully a worldwide DVD/Blu-ray release of the gala is in the cards as well. I remember a Sergeev Sleeping Beauty performance aired on Mezzo TV in 2015, with Somova and Shklyarov as Aurora and Desire, but the DVD was a Japanese only special release. I believe a few others were the same. Hopefully this one, considering the occasion, won't be the same. 

    Glad to be the bearer of good news.

    As for the recent Japanese DVD of Sleeping Beauty...the good news is that you may not have missed much, as that is the 1950s Soviet version...the same version that you can see on earlier Kirov DVD releases starring Kolpakova and, later, Lezhnina. The entire world is still waiting for a filming & DVD/BluRay of the magnificent Imperial Tsarist version, as reconstructed by Vikharev.

  5. 10 minutes ago, mnacenani said:

    Have never been able to get Kultura in Istanbul - satcast footprint does not cover Istanbul, and webcast has detected and defeated every VPN I have tried. Would be grateful if any members can suggest what to try.

    The past Kremlin galas by the Vaganova Acad have eventually made it to YouTube but, of course, we can publicize it here if we learn of a way to see it during the telecast. 

    For example, the 2016 telecast is all on YouTube, in 4 stages. Through this, you’ll also see the full 2-hr 2017 telecast in one big file. 

     

  6. Yet more celebration of Petipa’s birthday! The Academy of Russian Ballet (Vaganova Academy) will perform a gala in Moscow’s Kremlin Theater on June 20, in honor of Petipa:

     

    https://m.facebook.com/events/146144772734174?acontext={"ref"%3A"98"%2C"action_history"%3A"null"}&aref=98

    The concert will include guests from other great ballet academies around the world. Ballets on the program include Petipa’s setting of Dance of the Hours for the ballet La Gioconda, among other rarities.

    There’s a good chance that the gala will be telecast by Russia’s Kultura Channel, just as happened with the Vaganova Academy’s two past guest concerts at the Kremlin palace theater (2016 and 2017).

  7. While seeking information on the Mariinsky’s Petipa Gala telecast (March 11) I ran into the good news that Mezzo will air its recent filming of the famous dram-ballet  “The Fountains of Bakhshiserai” starring A. Matvienko, Tereshkina, Parish and Belyakov (March 2):

    Note that the above-cited casting is correct, as it corresponds to that filmed on May 28, 2017.

    http://www.mezzo.tv/nos-programmes/la_fontaine_de_bakhtchisarai_ballet_du_theatre_mariinsky__2017_

     

  8. Just confirmed by Mezzo TV of France: the March11 Petipa 200th gala will be live-telecast! According to Mezzo’s website, the gala will be conducted by Gergiev and is set to include Petipa/Vikharev’s Flora’s Awakening, Balanchine’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (assume an excerpt) and Keichel’s new (or reconstructed?) choreography  for Glazunov’s The Seasons. This is more information than what’s cited in the Mariinsky’s own site. No casting yet provided but we’re promised most of the Mariinsky principals and soloists.

    http://www.mezzo.tv/nos-programmes/soiree_hommage_a_marius_petipa_theatre_mariinsky_11032018

    Since the cameras will be around, is it too much to ask that they also capture the Vikharev Sleeping Beauty for future airing or a DVD release?

    Also on the Petipa-200 front:

    Arte TV (France) will air a new 52-Minutes documentary (by Denis Snegirev):  Marius Petipa: French Master of the Russian Ballet

    http://www.poissonsvolants.com/project/marius-petipa-le-maitre-francais-du-ballet-russe/

    In partnership with the French Institute of Russia, Moscow’s Bakhrushin Museum  presents a major Petipa exhibition from March 7 through June 10.

    https://www.institutfrancais.ru/fr/moscou/exposition-deux-siecles-petipa

    This culminates in a Petipa conference on June 6-8, 2018.

    http://www.gctm.ru/en/2018/01/30/the-exhibition-two-centuries-of-marius-petipa-is-open-in-march-7/

     

     

  9. On 2/15/2018 at 1:34 PM, Buddy said:

    Thanks, Charlie. I've not found any reference to a Vaganova gala in March but I'll keep looking.

    It’s on an advertisement for the program that the academy performed on a recent tour to Switzerland and some other European stops. It’s the program that includes excerpts from Burlaka’s Flora’s Awakening Suite, excerpts from Naiad & Fisherman, etc. The original ad (published in Nov)  for the Feb 2018 Euro tour also mentioned the presentation in StP. I don’t recall the venue - Alexandrinsky? Not the Mariinsky.

    A similar program will be performed in Moscow, in summer, at the Kremlin Theatre.

  10. 22 hours ago, abatt said:

    Yeah, right. How interesting that my (our) three choices for potentially-salvageable Repertory works are the three cited by Stafford:

    Barber Violin

    Fearful Symmetries

    Hallelujah Junction

    Out of 75-plus rep works (all of Peter Martins’ oeuvre beside restagings of 19th-C classics), these three ballets are cited. Slim pickings, in other words. “That’s all, folks!” said Bugs Bunny.

  11. On 2/8/2018 at 7:02 PM, sandik said:

    I understand your point, but I was just so impressed with the comparison -- Martins is in many ways a contemporary version of Lifar, and the rest of his career may indeed follow the same pattern.

    Thanks, Sandik. I just didn’t want folks to think that I was pegging Lifar’s known pro-Nazi feelings to Martins.

  12. 9 hours ago, sandik said:

    Oh, my goodness -- this is so pointy!   In so many ways!

    (I agree that his Sylphide was a lovely production, and The Waltz Project was very much of its moment)

    I mean this more as a sad reflection. Lifar & Martins both led major ballet troupes for many years, both suffered from “a whif of scandal” during their terms (for very different reasons/allegations), and were both highly prolific choreographers, yet a very small percentage of their respective outputs is -in Lifar’s case - still in the rep or - in Martins’ case - in danger of the same fate. 

  13. Drew, Calcium Light Night was surely one of Martins’ earliest hits, if not the first. His La Sylphide is fine since he kept 90% of the Bournonville.

    E Johnson, I have to agree about Reliquary! I’d also “ban” Friandises (where each dancer was seemingly asked to excecute his/her best move at the end!), Ash, Ecstatic Orange, Them Twos, Thou Swell, Jazz...ok, maybe save that one for the Wynton Marsalis score.

  14. I’m opening a thread to continue a discussion about the possible future programming of Martins’ many ballets, created created before and after he took over NYCB’s direction upon the death of Balanchine in 1983. That’s a long time and a lot of ballets!

    My vote for “best ballets” that should remain in the rotating -active rep, because of their musicality & excitement factor:

    Fearful Symmetries

    Hallelujah Junction

    Barber Violin Concerto

     

    In the Petipa vein, I like his Sleeping Beauty and The Magic Flute.

    On the opposite side of the spectrum...what should be retired forever? Hmmm...Ocean’s Kingdom? Red Violin? R+J? How about that Ray Charles gem that was telecast around 1990?

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