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doug

Editorial Advisor
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Everything posted by doug

  1. The IU livestreams are free at https://iumusiclive.music.indiana.edu/#/. The livestream recording will live on the site for a period of time after the performances. I’ve created a page for the IU Bayadère (the ballet is titled Star on the Rise) at https://www.dougfullington.com/star-on-the-rise.
  2. A note on the Stepanov notations: They are unambiguous insofar as the material documented. There is only one way to read the system. Ambiguities lie where material is omitted (often upper body) and sometimes in how the steps fit the music (partiularly in adagio). But a glissade is a glissade, a jeté is a jeté, a ballonné is a ballonné, and so forth. Burlaka set the Bolshoi Corsaire choreography and didn't follow the notated steps. I don't know why, but this is his usual MO. Ratmansky didn't read the notation at that point and was unaware of that. For my work at Bavarian State Ballet, I was a consultant and not a stager. I showed the notated choreography but some of it was subsequently altered, embellished, and revised. For other numbers, I was asked to work with scores that didn't fit the notated choreography. There were multiple goals for the production and revival of choreography was only one among several. That's the frustration of being a consultant and not having the final say.
  3. I don't think the use of blackface in the current Mariinsky production of The Pharaoh's Daughter can be linked to Alexei Ratmansky, who has not been involved with the production since early 2022. I also don't think it is appropriate to suggest that this production is in any way a collaboration between Ratmansky and the current stagers even if the result bears the stamp of both parties.
  4. The "Peasant" pas de deux was performed as a pas de deux at the Paris premiere of Giselle in 1841 by Nathalie Fitzjames and Auguste Mabille according to the published libretto and press notices. The dance was also performed as a pas de deux in the St. Petersburg premiere in 1842. Versions of the pas de deux were notated by Henri Justamant and (in part) by Arthur Saint-Leon in the nineteenth century and by Nikolai Sergeyev (documenting Petipa's production) in the early twentieth century.
  5. I say this on no authority, but my guess is that most of the ballet is Ratmansky's staging (which was based on source material as much as possible) and that Candeloro came in to finish it up or get it on stage. I'll add that I'm shocked that someone from the West chose to do this and that the Mariinsky allowed it (allowed it not because of the war but because Candeloro is not Russian).
  6. Aurora in Petipa's production was 20 years old. In Diaghilev's 1921 production, Aurora's age was changed to 16. I prefer 20 years old and believe it's a more palatable and relatable age for our time.
  7. A note that Hilarion is the captain of the gamekeepers (hunters) and therefore a prominent citizen in the community who works for the Prince of Courlande. The first group of humans featured in Act Two are hunters and the second group (those confronted by the Wilis) are villagers.
  8. The journal uses a particular transliteration system that results in these unusual spellings.
  9. I've published an essay on Pavel Gerdt and the prince variations in the 1890 Sleeping Beauty, 1892 Nutcracker, and 1895 Swan Lake in the latest volume of the online Italian journal Danza e Ricerca. The link will take you to a webpage where you can access an English-language PDF of the essay. Abstract: By the time Tchaikovsky's trio of ballets — Sleeping Beauty (1890), The Nutcracker (1892), and Swan Lake (1895 redaction) — came to be performed in St. Petersburg, first dancer Pavel Gerdt had given up performing danced solos. Gerdt was nevertheless cast as the male lead in these ballets, and his solos were assigned to other dancers, including female soloists, senior girl students of the Theatre School, and a young man who represented a generation that would define a new era of male dancing in ballet. Source material, including choreographic notations made in the Stepanov system, allows for detailed descriptions of these dances. The result of this approach to compensating for Gerdt’s advancing age and physical limitations was a bifurcated collection of premier danseur roles in some of the most enduring works of the era.
  10. Yes, the entire variation is notated. An erasure seems to make one of the middle combinations somewhat unclear because only three bars of steps are notated for a four-bar phrase, but the steps that ARE notated for the combination are clear. Only movements for legs and feet, direction of the hips, and ground plan are documented. No final pose is notated. This is pretty standard for most notated dances that have been preserved.
  11. @volcanohunter, I've been asked this a couple of times in the past two days. The first part of the variation (up until the pas de bourrée couru and temps de fleche) is based on the Stepanov notation (circa 1903, documenting the performance of Lubov Egorova as Henriette), as is the last part (beginning with the piques de cote). The type of turns at the end aren't specified other than four turns on pointe followed by turns (probably chaines) on demi-pointe. No final pose is given.
  12. I'll be involved with PNB's revival of Giselle in February. Although we aren't able to present the symposium we had planned in 2020, Marian Smith and I will join Peter Boal for a public interview before dress rehearsal. Marian and I have written a book (titled Five Ballets from Paris and St. Petersburg) that includes two chapters on Giselle and will be published by Oxford University Press next year. We also are completing a critical edition of the score of Giselle, which will be published by Barenreiter in 2023 in both print and digital versions.
  13. Here's the Joyce link about the engagement and programming: https://www.joyce.org/performances/pacific-northwest-ballet
  14. Yes, this is the same book. I think the Anthem Press page has simply not been updated since the book went into production. The same info has been sent to other online retailers.
  15. The entire book is by Wiley. From what I know, the book is also far longer than 250 pages.
  16. Anne Searcy has written a new book about the Soviet and American tours during the Cold War and the various perceptions in both countries: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/ballet-in-the-cold-war-9780190945107?cc=us&lang=en&
  17. I'm so sorry I didn't know she lived in Washington state, so near to where I live as well as lots of former Balanchine dancers.
  18. There will be pre-show talks before each performance, including tonight. But no post-show tonight or after Sunday, February 9 evening.
  19. The only difference was new designs in 2014. No direct mention of Berthe’s status within the community. Giselle wants to dance and wants her friends to put off work to dance with her. Then Giselle goes into the house with Berthe, and we aren’t given a reason why she doesn’t go and work with the others. (The reason, of course, is that she needs to be around in order to meet Bathilde so the plot can continue.)
  20. The PNB production includes two Act II entrances for groups: Hilarion is the captain of the hunters who are in the woods at the beginning of the act. The Justamant notation suggests this scene has both comedy and pathos. The hunters are a bit like Keystone Cops. Later in the act, after Giselle is initiated, peasants are returning home from a nearby village. They are nearly trapped by the Wilis, who at first appear seductive and then menacing. I believe this scene is the turning point in which we witness the duality of the Wilis (spirits of women communing with nature and spirits of women who kill men). An old man who is with the villagers (he was originally portrayed by a famous comedic actor in Paris) warns them to escape. This latter scene may have been omitted as early as 1848 per Ivor Guest. PNB has included both of the scenes both times the production has been performed (2011 and 2014). I don't think there is any mention of Giselle having a heart condition or being weak in any of the performance source material I've worked with. Her mother worries she will exhaust herself, but there seems to be no compromised health. This change (and the overall weakness and timidity of Giselle) seems to have come around in the 1930s/40s. Still looking into this. The 19th-century Giselle appears to have been strong and possibly somewhat arrogant. She was definitely passionate and reacted very passionately to the realization of Albert's betrayal, so much so that she died.
  21. I’m pleased to announce that Pacific Northwest Ballet and the University of Washington will present a symposium on Giselle on Friday, April 17, 2020. Presenters include Sandra Noll Hammond, Sergey Konaev, Alastair Macaulay, Simon Morrison, Marian Smith, Helena Kopchick Spencer, Roland John Wiley, and me. Adjunct events will be offered on the surrounding days, and Pacific Northwest Ballet will perform Peter Boal’s production of Giselle throughout the weekend. Details can be found here, including a link to a PDF information sheet. - Doug Fullington
  22. Just a note that the Stepanov notations for Bayadere that are held at Harvard don't include any of the action or mime scenes. The Act IV pas d'action coda is also quite short and does not include fouettes for Gamzatti.
  23. Marian Smith writes about this moment in a recent online essay, New Life for Character and Story in Sleeping Beauty, describing the Ratmansky production: "Finally, toward the end of the 'Rose Adagio' and after Aurora has received a new set of roses from the admiring suitors, at the moment of a climactic fortissimo in the side drum and cymbals and a diminished chord—and immediately before she undertakes her last and most difficult set of balances—Aurora joyfully inhales the perfume of the roses and then humbly places them on the floor before her parents. (By contrast, in some productions, without stopping to smell the roses, she flings them toward her parents; the emphasis is on the Princess and her spectacular choreography, excluding the filial respect and tenderness that Ratmansky has chosen to include.)" http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935321.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199935321-e-172
  24. Francia Russell staged Apollo at the Kirov/Maryinsky in 1998. I very much doubt she would have coached the muses to smile. I think she'd die if she knew that had been pinned on her.
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