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NO7

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Everything posted by NO7

  1. I saw Sarah Wilder's Giselle early this month and was utterly moved by her mad scene. Wilder created a touching and lyrical Giselle, while Cojocaru portrayed the role as a hapless little girl who suffered badly from a distress caused by her first true love. Both Wilder and Cojocaru made different (of course!), yet excellent Giselles, IMO. As for Albrecht, I prefered Jonathan Cope to Kobborg who was a little bit off-coloured last Saturday.
  2. Sonja, I'm so green with envy. How was your impression for the production overall, by the way? I myself can't wait to see Zelensky-Zakharova doing the leads in Manon next June in London. Hope Zakharova could improve her acting abilities by then (Am I too dreamy?).
  3. FYI: I just found this in the website. The Kirov will do 7 performances of Giselle and Le Corsaire at the Auditorio Nacional, Mexico City, in May (don't know what dates). This is a very huge venue and 5,000 tickets are expected to be sold in each performance!! The casts announced include Nioradze, Zelensky, Kolb, Zakharova, Makhalina, Ruzimatov, Samodurov, Tarasova, Amosova, Ivanchenko, Kuznetsov, Zhelonkina, and Korsakov.
  4. I've heard that the enthusiasm of the Dutch fans indeed faded out towards the final week. Tickets were not sold out. While some stars concentrate on guesting elsewhere rather than touring with the company, I'm afraid we can't afford to complain about the lack of fine dancers (although it's a true sad story).
  5. Again and again, the scheduled casts turned upside down. Where were other Siegfrieds, Marc? Or the Kirov had only Ivanchenko available in store at that moment?
  6. I've heard from other sources that Zakharova is perfectly fine(?) and indeed prepared to appear in Amsterdam as scheduled. But, in the last minute, she wasn't ready for the role since she hasn't danced Giselle for ages. Could you please clarify me a bit more what is really going on, Marc?
  7. Thanks for your report, Marc. It's sound like this wasn't a memorable performance after all. Was it sold out? What's your impression on the Dutch audience's reaction? Too bad that you didn't enjoy Vishneva's Giselle *at all*. What's happening to original casts then? Please don't say they are all injured! Would it be possible for you to post any reviews from local critics? I'm keen to hear how the Kirov is popular in Amsterdam.
  8. I think the audience seemed to enjoy Act 1 better than Act 2. Everytime the new scene was revealed, the audience applauded. They loved in particular the intermedia 1 in which the guests were filled up like balloons and filed out of the house after licking the boar's head from dinner clear to the bone. Shemyakin who sat in the Tsar Box was greeted by thunderous applause both before and after the performance. I've heard that some stage props had to be scaled down from the originals to fit into stage space. Some props were even manufactured in America!
  9. I'm afraid I don't have any favourable view either. I had a chance to catch only four performances. The highlight of the Festival was no doubt the premiere of the Nutcracker. Alexei Ratmansky was first assigned to stage this new production, but unfortunately his ideas did not get along well with Mikhail Shemyakin, who dominated all the work. With an attempt to revive the spirit of Hoffmann, Shemyakin wanted to liberate from 'saccharine sentimentality' which, as he said, is common in most other productions. He aims to present modern child psychology rather than nostalgia for romantic era ballet. But his approach, I'm afraid, is not in tune with the music and the result is not what he tried hard to acheive. The whole ballet is too symbolic for many children, and perhaps for some adults, to understand its metaphors. This surrealistic and eccentric version is not what i expected to see. I booked a ticket with some hopes that the new production would preserve some classical splendor of the original ballet and be more spectacular than the old version which received bad reviews from the critics in london back in 1996 for its poor choreography and too pinkish design. In this new production Masha is played by one dancer. there is no transformation into a ballerina. Natalia Sologub was very musical. her masha was a playful and passionate girl who is an unloved child. The choreography, I think, is an interesting mix of modern and classical styles. The Nutcracker, danced by the choreographer himself--Kirill Simonov, is not a wooden toy anymore. The ballet focuses on this 'humanised' Nutcracker, but strangely his role was not outstanding enough. I found the opening scene quite a horror, full with bizarre elements such as sausage-people, a human soup tureen, a boar's head, and a captured 'Fly-Person' trapped in the cage. The villains are rats also first introduced in this scene. I was unable to distinguish between the Nutcracker and the rats. Both were under weird masks with very long protruding noses that looked more like mosquitoes. Drosselmeyer danced by Anton Adasinsky was no where in the leaque of avuncular magicians. He is ghostly and perhaps has some kind of neurosis. The Counselor's reception hall where the party took place lacked festive atmosphere. It looked like a slaughterhouse with several stuffed animal heads. the transformation scene had nothing to do with enlarging the Christmas tree. There was only an image of a ball with Nutcracker's face on it and it got bigger after each toss. the Battle scene in the rat Kingdom was a mess, another disappointment. However, when it came to the scene of the Snowstorm, the most and only convincing part, I decided to ignore all terrible things I saw earlier. Snowflakes in this production were represented as malevolent nature, not anymore a mercifil poetic pause on the way to the kingdom of sweet. The background was designed in dark tones with silhouette of bare trees, quite spooky but striking. The corps, dressed in black with white snowflakes sewn and painted all over, and Daria Pavlenko as the Queen, dressed in white with black snowflakes, danced briliantly in such an arousing tempo conducted by Valery gergiev. the performance was indeed the fireworks. However, the second act left me completely cold again. The dancing was not allowed to stand out from a very very bright and colourful backdrop of the kingdom of sweet. I felt as if I was seeing a musical play in West End theatre or a matinee show in Disneyland, not a classical ballet from one of the best companies in the world. All in all, pink is still the kirov's favourite colour. Too bad that in the Divertissements Chinese dance was scrapped. Then we have Spanish Dance, Petrouchkas, Bees Pas de trois, Mother Gigogne and the Pulchinelli, and Eastern Dance (Arabian Dance) in which Pavlanko was dazzling in a seductive glittering green costume. Again, the corps danced beautifully in Waltz of the Flowers. But with that dull and shabby costumes, the Flowers seemed to wilt and their fragrance gone. In the grand pdd, Andrian Fedeev did his best as the prince but it's pity that his role is incredibly small and his solo is very short. The Sugar Plum Fairy in this production is only an onlooker. In the Finale the Prince and Masha stand atop a huge wedding cake decorated with candies and flowers. Most of the audience seemed to be very impressed, counting from numerous curtain calls. But I left the theatre with only the scene of Snowflakes stamped on my mind. Other three performances I saw were a great delight and more impressive than the Nutcracker.
  10. NO7

    Darcey Bussell

    It's good news for Darcey, but not for me. Her R&J next season is the most eagerly awaited event of the year.
  11. Sonja, your effort in getting tickets at ROH indeed deserved a real appreciation! No doubt, many ballet buffs have experienced such nightmare at least once in their lifetime. I first saw the current production of the RB's Swan Lake last month and last Saturday was my second time. Guillem-Cope and Bussell-Bolle made entirely different impressions. But they were all absolutely fantastic.
  12. For me, either Darcey Bussell or Diana Vishneva can make good Scarlett.
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