djb

Yo, Marianna! Thank you so much. Maybe I should think about a new career. (Actually, I’m already working toward getting into a new career — teaching English to speakers of other languages.)

Well, I'm sad to hear that. I was reading someone's review of Gillian Murphy as Hagar, and the reviewer thought that she gave a one-note performance. Did you see anyone besides Julie Kent in the role?

Well, I think Sallie Wilson was a great dramatic dancer (she was in ABT, for readers who are too young to remember her). Her acting style was very realistic, and to me she was totally believable in this role. I also was very moved by her performance. I'd love to see Julie Kent as Hagar; I was very impressed when I saw her as Giselle.

Can I write in Sally Wilson?

My Internet search indicated that Xiomara is pronounced "sio-MA-ra."

Спасибо, Jorgen!

Why, thank you, Alexandra! When I re-read that post, I realized that the "ieff" ending proposed as a correct pronunciation is still lacking, because the "e" when unstressed is like an "i". So "yif" would be better. So "prah-KO-fyif" would probably be even better. (Now I hope a Russian doesn't inform me that the last vowel is actually a “ë” . . . and it should be pronounced “prah-kah-FYOF” . . . I guess sticking to just putting the stress on the correct syllable is probably good enough!)

I suspect that the name "Fe'dorova" is actually "Fyo'dorova" (see my lengthy post above). I'm not 100% sure, though -- I'd only know for sure if I saw it written in Russian. Any Russians (or more knowledgeable non-Russians) out there who could verify this?

Something the lists showing the accented syllables might not be correctly showing is the pronunciation of syllables with "e" in them. In Russian, there's a letter “ë”, which is pronounced “yo”, and if it occurs in a syllable, that syllable is always stressed. When it’s transliterated into English, it’s usually interpreted as “e.” Vishneva, for example, should be Vish-NYO-va. (I noticed the more correct transliteration in a French forum, and then checked with the Russian program seller when the Kirov was here.) The final vowel sound in Yuri Soloviev’s last name should be “yo”, which is how I’ve sometimes seen it transliterated in recent years. Russian is not completely phonetic — some vowel sounds change depending on whether they’re stressed or unstressed (e.g., an unstressed “o” is pronounced like an unstressed “a” — somewhere between “ah” and “uh”). If a consonant is the last letter in a word, it’s pronounced unvoiced, even if it’s a voiced consonant. For example, all those “-ev” endings should really be pronounced “-ef” (the alternate spelling “Prokofieff” is sometimes seen). There are more rules, but if all these rules were followed in the transliterations, the names might look quite different than the transliterations were used to seeing. It would be handy if everyone were taught the international phonetic alphabet.

From a post sometime in July: Interestingly, when I listened to the same Russian announcer, I heard the stress on the first syllable.

I like the choreography copyright idea, but why not go all the way and make the Boardwalk equivalent be ALL the Petipa (and Petipa/Ivanov) ballets? Park Place could be all of the Balanchine ballets.

In San Francisco, it's on KTMP, which on non-cable TV is channel 32. An irritating habit the station has is cutting off the video in the middle when it's time for a different program. I know the sources of most of the dance excerpts, but occasionally there's something that you can't just order from amazon.com. I saw something I coveted -- some old (early 1950's?) performances by members of a Moiseyev-type troupe. They had so much spirit in those days, and didn't dance just like ballet dancers, as so many of today's folk troupes do. I found the website of the distributor, but couldn't find this performance. I was told that they have a bigger collection that what's listed, and they promised to look for it if I promised to become a member at $40. I agreed to become a member if they actually found the video. But they didn't, and so I didn't.

This was before Pavarotti lost weight, by the way.

I mentioned the ice dancers because I wasn't sure whether Paul had seen pairs. He mentioned a death spiral, but I was not aware that a death spiral is ever done in second position, so I thought he might have been describing something some ice dancers had done.

How about the best legs? My vote goes to Spanish (Catalan) tenor Jaume Aragall y Garriga, whose name was Italianized to Giacomo Aragall for the stage. I was dancing in the San Francisco Opera Ballet in 1974, when Aragall and Sutherland sang Massenet's "Esclarmonde." Aragall had such good legs, they decided to costume him in tights. The makeup guys reported that Pavarotti was miffed that they wouldn't put him in tights, but would let Aragall appear in them.

Paul, to help you (possibly) identify the Russian couple you saw about 10 years ago, here is a link to photos of the Protopopovs, who were at the peak of their competitive years in the late ‘60s, but had (and maybe still have?) a very long exhibition career. Two very popular Russian couples who were competing at that time were Klimova and Ponomarenko and Usova and Platov. Klimova (she of the voluminous red hair) had longer hair in the days before these photos were taken.

Yes, that's the one I was referring to. By the way, silvy, have you seen the photos of Osipenko at ballerinagallery.com?

Somewhere among my videos is Osipenko dancing the "Swan Lake" Act 2 pas de deux. I'll look it up and let you know which video it is, if you're interested.

I'd love to be the Swan in Matthew Bourne's "Swan Lake," but I'm female, so there might be a slight problem with the costume...I'd just have to go the right party, I guess.

I don't feel the need for Hilarion to be inherently repulsive. Maybe he and Giselle just don't have chemistry, and he becomes obnoxious because he just won't take no for an answer. Galina Ulanova as Giselle does a gesture, when she rejects Hilarion, that very clearly shows that she's said no before, and she's getting exasperated with having to say it yet again.

By the way, pleiades, I agree with you about the stilted quality of Vinogradov's choreography. I attribute it to awkward transitions between poses. It looked as if the choreographer had a lot of poses in mind, and broke the feeling of a pose just to get to another pose.

Oops! I didn't see Mel Johnson's reply above before I wrote mine. Obviously there are productions that have been widely seen.

I don't know whether there are any other productions that have been viewed as widely as that Kirov video, but in the early '60s, a member of the San Francisco Ballet choreographed it for a summer choreographer's workshop, on the San Francisco Ballet. I don't know whether he ever set it on any other professional company's, but he has used it for whatever regional company he's been associated with over the years. The name of the ballet is Adagio for Ten and Two and the choreographer is Richard Gibson.

Vergie Derman definitely looked like a model, as you can see on the cover of the Royal Ballet's 20th anniversary souvenir program, shown at seekunique.com. The ballet shown is Ashton's Jazz Calendar, which is based on the poem "Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace, etc." Vergie Derman was Monday's child. That actually was the only ballet I ever saw her in. I guess she was a soloist at that time (ca. 1969-70). She looked very good, nice line and all, but I don't recall much about the choroegraphy. She was supposed to give the impression of a glamorous, high-fashion model, and she did.

Oh, right...the fringed bikini. I saw this performance on a "field trip" when my class spent the weekend in NYC. I remember one of my male friends was very taken with that costume. I kind of wish she hadn't been so bewitching, because that was the only time I saw Arthur Mitchell live; I thought he looked wonderful in the filmd excerpts I saw of him as Puck.