Ostrich

Can anyone report?

The top item on my "dislike due to repeated exposure" list is Waltz of the Flowers! Not only is it performed every Christmas and at every imaginable gala performance and school production, but nearly every visiting company (including the Boshoi) seems to think we're dying to see it!

Welcome, scherzo! You're lucky to live in a place where you do regularly get to seeing great companies perform! Alas, where I'm from you have to make do with hearsay (which I get on BalletTalk, of course) and pray hard that some famous dancer or company finds themselves at a bit of a loose end and deigns to pay us a flying visit!

Well put. That's exactly what I think - we may complain about the new, "tinkered" productions, but would we truly be happier with the originals? Not that I think this is an excuse to make changes to the classics, but it goes to show what difficulties present-day choreographers and dancers face.

I often wonder if it is really necessarily the productions and performance which is deteriorating, or is it our expectations that are going up?

OK, maybe my example was a bit one-sided - certainly not all arias are slow and sustained, but the fact still remains that few arias exist that are a comfortable pace to dance to. Which is probably why it is a popular practice to cut out the voice entirely and use orchestrated versions for ballet.

I think performing different versions of the classics when guesting presents far less problems to dancers than one would imagine, as in such a situation the dancers surroundings serve as a constant reminder that they are not "at home". The stage, the sets, the costumes, the orchestra, the partner - all this will keep them aware of it and help fix the newly-rehearsed version of the ballet in their minds. They would probably have more difficulties if their home-company suddenly decided to alter aspects of their production, as they are more likely to reflexively revert to what their bodies are used to dancing in their accustomed surroundings.

Did Friedemann Vogel perform at Opera Ganier? He is the only Stuttgart dancer I have seen, but if he is representative of their standard of male dancing, I agree that it is very good indeed.

Thank you, Mireille, that must have been it.

I remember seeing a clip of Lunkina dancing a solo from Hunchbacked Horse in what looked like a full ballet setting and wondered whether the Bolshoi performed it so recently. I can find no other evidence to that effect.

Thanks fo the link, coda! What a magnificent arabesque! Please report on the Grigorovich Gala!

When was Little Hunchbacked Horse last performed by the Bolshoi? And was it ever performed by any other major company?

Is there anyone who saw Nikolai Tsiskaridze's birthday performance on 31st December who can report on the performance? I am pleased to note that he is dancing with Lunkina again - it seemed to me that their partnership was being neglected a bit lately and I think they both look and dance extremely well together. I am sure Lunkina must be an enchanting Masha. I wonder how many dancers perform regularly on their birthdays?

Interesting - thanks for the link, Helene. I had the impression (probably false) that Matvienko is on the short side and Zakharova tall, but maybe that's only an illusion created by Zakharova's long limbs and high extensions. However, i've never seen them together, so I am actually unqualified to judge.

This thread is only for people who live in ballet-starved places or those who happened to see famous dancers in an unusual location! Question: Which famous dancers have you seen in out-of-the-ballet-way, remote or unusual locations? Living in South Africa, which is about as far south of any ballet headquarters as you can get, I have seen: Bolshoi: Andrei Uvarov, Nikolai Tsiskaridze, Nadezda Gracheva, Galina Stepanenko, Maria Allash, Maria Alexandrova, Svetlana Lunkina, Anastasia Goriatcheva, Yuri Klevtsov, Gennady Yanin and Denis Medvedev. Royal Danish: Kenneth Greve, Thomas Lund. British Royal Ballet: Johann Kobborg, Alina Cojocaru. General: Nikolai Hubbe, Rex Harrington (Canada), Irina Kolesnikova(St Petersburg Ballet Theatre), Friedemann Vogel(Stuttgart Ballet).

What a wierd combination.

When did the Bolshoi last perform Little Hunchbacked Horse? I remember once seeing a video clip of Lunkina performing a dance from it in what looked like a full ballet setting, however I can find no other evidence of such a recent performance at the Bolshoi.

Gedeminas Taranda as Sultan Abderakman (Raymonda) and Yulia Malkhasiants in just about everything.

Thank you, JMcN, for reporting on Desire's dancing. I remember her best as a joyful dancer - I remember her first principal role was that of Gerda in Veronica Paeper's Snow Queen, with Cape Town City Ballet. She immediately made her mark as a delightful, musical and expressive young dancer. I'm delighted to hear that she continues to make headway in her career. Please continue reporting on her!

I've always had a secret hankering to seeing ballet on the big screen - preferably in slow motion!

SanderO, as I said, I have seen the South African Ballet Theatre (formerly PACT) perform a work to an opera aria as a self-standing piece, and I also just remembered that when the Royal Danish Ballet gave a combined guest performance with SABT(I think in 2004) they put on an experimental one-act ballet. It was The Little Matchgirl and contained a solo to an opera aria. Neither event was that great a success, however, and I can't remember either the dancers or what aria it was. I think one of the main problems with using opera arias for ballet is that the dancer simply can't hold that arabesque for as long as the singer holds his high C. As a result the choreographer has to choreograph very much "through the music" rather than "to the music" and IMO it takes a very good choreographer to do that successfully without creating what I call a "run on" piece, with too little phrasing, rest and climax. In short, I think ballet works to opera arias will become too "busy" because the dancers simply cannot sustain motion for as long as the singer can sustain his voice, with the result that the dancer has to perform four different steps in the time that the singer holds a single note. Not to mention it being extremely exhausting for the dancers.

SanderO, as regards your question whether choreographers ever do a work to an opera aria alone and not to the whole opera, it certainly has been done by the South African Ballet Theatre. I can't remember what work it was - I think something by Puccini. Using opera arias for classical ballet solos is also quite a popular practice in our local ballet competitions (usually teachers chose an orchestrated version of the aria, but not always). As regards using an opera score as a whole for a ballet, Cape Town City Ballet performs La traviata (Verdi), Carmen (Bizet), Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus - Strauss) and The Merry Widow (Lehar) to the original opera scores (without the singing, of course). Hasn't Roland Petit used part of Tchaikovsky's opera score for his ballet of Pique Dame, recently staged for the Bolshoi?

Thanks, everyone. I wonder whether anyone knows whether I can order a DVD from amazon.com and then play it in South Africa, on my PC. I do have Nero, so I could convert NTSC to PAL, but I don't know about the region code business. I believe South Africa falls under the same region code as Europe.

I know this is a dumb queston, but are there differences in DVD formats the way there are differences in video formats (PAL, NTSC, etc.)?

That's interesting, Haglund's. Can you tell me more about how the Bolshoi and Kirov Opera differ? Can it in any way be compared to the differences in the ballet styles of these two companies, with the Mariinsky historically tending more to classicism and academic correctness and the Bolshoi to drama and expressiveness?