Laurent

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The awesome thing about the internet is that you can research.

A great danger of internet is the illusion it gives of acquiring knowledge fast and with little effort.

No one can claim knowledge of the 19th Century ballet without spending hundreds of hours studying the archives and reading through thousands of pages of documents as no one can know much about, for example, the 18th Century France, without devoting to it thousands of hours, studying the sources.

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And I haven't encountered any persuasive arguments in the published responses to Veblen that his notion of "conspicuous consumption" was wholly irrelevant to what was going on in his time.

It doesn't have to be wholly irrelevant. It is enough that it is mostly irrelevant. Especially to the question of why actors playing exotic characters in the 18-th and 19-th century ballets had to be accordingly dressed and wear an appropriate make-up.

Nanushka, being a cultural historian on top of being a ballet expert, I would gladly answer your questions, except that this is a thread on the 2017-2018 season at one of the major ballet companies, not on the social history of France (or Russia). A peripheral issue in Pierre Lacotte's re-creation of one of the 19-th Century ballets overshadowed every other aspect of that production. One of the active participants applied a certain term to the 18th and 19-th century in a way that I found misleading and incorrect, that's all, neither the 18th and 19-th century was about "conspicuous consumption". Perhaps the post war U.S.A. was, maybe the "21-st Century man" is (whatever some participants in the discussion of that peripheral issue put into this term).

8 hours ago, nanushka said:

It's a term that was most prominently used (if not introduced — I'd have to go back and check) by Thorstein Veblen in his 1899 book The Theory of the Leisure Class, so not (at least originally) a modern cliché.

(It may have become a cliché since then, though I don't think I'd describe it in that way. It's more like the jargon of cultural criticism — using "jargon" in its neutral sense.)

In any case, Veblen was most certainly using it to refer to what he, at least, perceived in the world around him in the 19th century. (I'd say there could be 18th-century applications as well.)

I appreciate your comment and would like to point out that Veblen applies it specifically to what he terms "the Theory of the Leisure Class". Neither the 18th, and certainly not the 19th Century was about the "Leisure Class".

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Do you feel the same way about the make-up worn by the children in blackface? Or their choreography? I think they both very clearly draw on racist stereotypes that I can’t just write off as no different from any other kind of character dancing.

Seeing everywhere "race" and "racism" seems to be a particularly American, post 1960-ies, syndrom. I don't see any such issues in French ballets of pre-modern era. Classical mythology, fable and exoticisms (full of local, vivid, color, in order for the audience to be engaged) are a staple of the storylines.

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(It is true that I also don’t care for Ramze’s make-up in the videos I have seen and I can’t say that the loyal slave figure you describe from the story seems unproblematic to me either—though I have to allow the libretto goes back to Petipa and indeed reflects the kinds of heirarchizations one expects in a Petipa ballet, which are here clearly racialized.)

Let us have at least this right: the libretto is by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges, a collaborator of Théophile Gautier in Giselle, and is based on Gautier's Le Roman de la momie. Gautier was a great poet of the Romantic era and is still celebrated as such today. Saint-Georges was a man of many talents, in particular he was an excellent playwright. Nubians were not some "racialized" Blacks, but the people at the southern end of Egypt who were constant partners of Egyptians, sometimes adversaries, sometimes allies or rulers (there were several Nubian pharaons in the history of Egypt). The appearance of the ballet coincides with the construction of the Suez canal.

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Anyway....You have explained why you judge the matter of Ramze’s make-up etc.differently than I do, but are you then comfortable with the children? (And without even starting on the history of little black boy pages etc. as signs of “conspicuous consumption” so to speak in the 18th/19th centuries...)

I don't understand what do you mean here, what "conspicuous consumption … in the 18th/19th centuries" ?!? Another modern, US made cliché applied to a different era, different culture? The 18th and the 19th Centuries were about anything but "consumption" (unless you understand by this a wide-spread menace of dying from consumption, i.e., tuberculosis).

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In a production that is a 21st-century reimagining of Pharaoh’s Daughter, Lacotte’s loyalty to all this imagery—and the Bolshoi’s— seems to me unfortunate.

When the "21-th Century" man becomes, literally, a slave of rigid and limited perception, unable to make basic distinctions, then, indeed, much of the premodern culture, with its enormous riches, may be inaccessible to him, and lots of things in it feel "unfortunate".

One of the best moments I had this season anywhere, Shakirova's sublime execution of the female variation from le pas de deux des paysans (Giselle). It warms the heart to see such a deep understanding of what the classical dance is about.

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I’m surprised Marchenkova hasn’t been promoted as her body of work has been stronger than Zhiganshina’s. But maybe she’s too old for Vaziev

The amount, not the quality. I have had an ample opportunity to observe the company since Vaziev took it over two years ago, and I was positively impressed with Zhiganshina on several occasions.

I am much more scandalized by the majority of opera and ballet productions today that are made to reflect "21st sensibilities", to be concerned by the fact that some self-appointed censors consider Pierre Lacotte and 19th Century ballets "offensive" to those sensibilities.

There is sponsorship and "sponsorship". The way it functions at Mariinsky is different from the examples given for American companies.

No, Pierre Lacotte's La fille de pharaon is not a fantasy "based on". It is a recreation aiming to preserve as much of the feel of the ballets of that period as possible, including lost and forgotten "small steps" (petits pas).

If this diatribe is directed at me, then I would like to point out that I am not Russian. When Political Correctness goes too far, it resembles a form of bolshevism.

If Americans are haunted by some ghosts in their closet, I suppose, it is a problem they must be addressing without imposing it on the rest of the world. A Nubian princess who is, by the way, in no way an "African-American", is supposed to look like a Nubian. La fille de pharaon is a wonderful early example of the grand ballet genre, one of the two genres prevalent in the last third of the 19th Century. I love Lacotte's re-staging for an opportunity to experience that genre by modern day audience, including lovely Pugni's music who was a great master of  ballet scores. Another reason why one should want to see it is that Pierre Lacotte revives some of the lost, and now forgotten, gems of the 1860-70-ies ballerina craft. My three favourite casts are, in the order of performance, Zakharova/Rodkin, Obraztsova/Ovcharenko, Stepanova/Skvortsov.

48 minutes ago, MadameP said:

There are  dancers still in the corps, such as Marchuk and Frolova,, and dancers who are still coryphees - Nikitina, Ivanova, Krasnokutskaya - MANY! - who never had roles at the age of 18 or promotion out of the corps at that young age.  Where are the opportunities for these products of the Vaganova training system?   

Ivanova, an outstanding talent, was given by Vaziev La Sylphide and Aurore parts in her first and second years. A colleague of mine in her review spoke about Ivanova's Aurore in glowing terms.

22 hours ago, MadameP said:

I have seen her also as a shade and as Florine.   I don't want to slap down a young girl at the start of her career, but I can't help wishing both her roles and her promotion had been given to a Vaganova graduate.  Really her promotion is a slap in the face to all of them.    

Whatever one thinks of the system of "sponsorship" which means that some dancers at Mariinsky are given roles and promotion because a wealthy sponsor pays money to Gergiev, in this case the sponsored dancer is truly exceptional.

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Oh can't believe I forgot this. Swan Lake from the Mariinsky with Uliana Lopatkina and Danila Korsuntsev.

Terribly filmed, idiosyncratic performance that doesn't touch me at all.

The season ended with La fille mal gardée and what a treasure it is when danced by l'Opéra. Heymann — beauty, exactness, style and ease, Ould Braham — finesse and grace. Marque and Baulac were not far behind. And what a master Ashton was, every turn of music reflected in a choreographically meaningful, skillfully composed phrase, a ballet composeur, nobody is capable of this today.

Heymann and Ould Braham demonstrated that they are made to dance classics, that their element is classics, and they will be dancing classics, wherever it takes them. They will be dancing with other companies because they have so few opportunities at home. After witnessing recently at Mariinsky a drastic erosion of quality, where ballet after ballet was being performed in a lackluster, sometimes lousy, manner, where today even the corps de ballet can be an embarrassment to that famous stage, it seems to be a miracle that at l'Opéra there are still classical artists who aspire to the highest artistic standards, in spite of the repertoire policies hostile to classics.

Novikova used to be a dancing machine, she is not, however, a paragon of academically pure dance; artistically, I find her often remarkably unappealing, like in her Sleeping Beauty in March.

3 hours ago, Mariangela said:

First; I have seen on Youtube some videos of Aurelie Dupont in the Sleeping Beauty and I liked much. In your opinion, is it worth to buy the DVD? What do you think of her interpretation of Aurora?

Dupont's odd and unhappy relation with ballet classics makes her singularly unsuitable to introduce you to the treasures of classical dance. Unfortunately, her recordings are, literally, everywhere, as she was throughout her career a darling of Brigitte Lefèvre. For example, the only currently commercially available recording of the original Parisian La Sylphide features Dupont, in spite of the fact that it is the least desirable of all that you are likely to see in the internet. I strongly recommend the recording with Ghislaine Thesmar, it was issued on the VHS tape. Similarly, I strongly recommend the recording of the original Parisian Coppélia danced by Charline Giezendanner and other students of École de danse. I also recommend any recordings with Carla Fracci (especially her Giselle with Erik Bruhn). Be aware that only a small portion of commercially issued ballet DVDs are well filmed and have high artistic value. For recordings that do possess very high artistic value, one must turn to the internet. The difficult part for you will be how to identify them in the ocean of information noise.

What I said is not an insider information, it is regularly mentioned at conferences on ballet history and reconstruction. It's been mentioned at two most important conferences devoted to the Marius Petipa Bicentennial.

This is a common knowledge among choreographers and ballet scholars alike, whose interests lie in the area of 19th century ballet.

That's right. It doesn't matter whether he is a pianist, good or bad, whether Gergiev is a conductor, good or bad. It matters that both are "friends of Putin". In the case of Gergiev it has direct consequences for the ballet community in Petersbourg at large, and for the community of ballet scholars and choreographers throughout the world (Gergiev obstinately refuses access to the Musical Library, over which he has total  control, and which is a repository of nearly all essential materials relating to the history of Imperial Ballet, the situation is grotesquely lamentable).

For years Shipulina was considered as the second rank dancer. Her career took up after she married a man closely associated with Gergiev and soon, close to Putin himself. She got promoted to Principal for no particular reason, being one of the most uninspiring dancers I have seen, she got the highest distinction in Arts without dancing a single outstanding big role, now, nearly 39, she is getting two big debuts, one of which I had a chance to observe in detail, she is dancing now whatever and whenever she likes.

On 6/11/2018 at 2:44 PM, Quinten said:

That's good to hear, that her position is secure.  But does she want to stay on? She posts so many photos of herself relaxing in exotic destinations that I thought she might have had enough of the Bolshoi life.  

She certainly can afford expensive escapades to exotic destinations and her position at Bolshoi is more than "secure", it actually shows signs of acceleration after she married a friend of Putin: despite her age (she turns 39 this year), she is now getting debuts in big roles she never before was seen as suitable to dance.

Gorsky produced six versions of Swan Lake, some so experimental that the production of 29 February of 1920 was described by Bakhrushin in his condemning review (preserved only in the private archive of Elisaveta Surits) thus:

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The 2nd and the 4th acts completely lost that deep tone of lyricism that was originally designed and constantly is audible in music of Tchaikovsky. These acts one cannot even call ballet, as they are nothing but a failed transition from ballet to cinema, a pantomime with inserted dance numbers. In the 2nd and the 4th acts one can hardly count 5 dances total !

The ending was not even mentioned in Bakhrushin's review, in view how drastic were the changes introduced by Gorsky into the text of Swan Lake. The Messerer/Dolinskaïa version of 1937 replaced the 4th act in the last Gorsky version with a new one. You can see it in the 1957 recording with Plisetskaïa and Fadeechev. I invite you take a look at the 2nd act, for example, and see how drastic, not to say, shocking, the innovations introduced by Gorsky were.

If by "they" you mean Messerer and Dolinskaïa, then, I presume, they wanted to produce ballet Swan Lake at Bolchoï without being first put on trial as the "enemies of the people", or "Japanese spies", and then murdered by one of the most oppressive state machines in the history of humankind.