FauxPas

As many Ballet Talkers know, the Russian dance was used as a slinky solo for "Mr. Sexy" Rothbart in the current ABT production choregraphed by Kevin McKenzie. Marcelo Gomes really burns in that section in the DVD currently out on the market with Murphy and Corella. I just watched on CUNY the Bolshoi "Swan Lake" from the early 1980's with Yuri Vasyuchev and Alla Mikhalchenko with choreography by Grigorivich. I detested the first and second acts but found myself liking the third act. Each foreign princess has her own little floor show specialty act with her as the star - no more character dancing by couples. The choreography is good and so are the soloists. These national dances are rather fun in this version. Then the Russian dance is done by Odile with a small corps of black swans (with partnering by Von Rothbart and Siegfried a trois) as her own satanic floor show specialty act. The choreography again is pretty good and Odile gets a very grand star entrance that makes her seem more important than just running and dancing a pas de deux. It also directly parallels the second act with Odette. Then we go into the standard Black Swan PDD with the alternate "scary" minor key solo for Odette that Nina Ananiashvili sometimes interpolated into her third act or gala Black Swan PDD. I really liked this interpolation and use of the "Russian Dance". I think this performance is released on DVD on the TDK label.

I might add Elisabeth Platel to my list of favorite "cold" dancers. However, she had a wide repertoire of which I only saw the tiniest fraction. Perhaps she got hotter in modern works or certain pieces she danced in Paris. Another potentially "cool" dancer none of us have seen enough of is Alla Osipenko who danced a wide repertoire and probably gave warm performances few in the West have seen. Bessmertnova actually has an inner quality of spirituality turned inward combined with a kind of totally assured technical mastery that can read as cold but isn't really. You kind of have to look in on her a bit. Is Wendy Whelan a "cool" dancer? I think she is actually a bit of a chameleon. So in reality is Kyra Nichols who is like Cynthia Gregory in that she got warmer as she matured. What about Merrill Ashley? She also got warmer as she matured. I could add the wonderful Martine Van Hamel to this list.

Oh believe me, I have seen Angel many, many times and he is one of my favorites. That is why I am demanding on him. Now he isn't always at his most effective in roles that require maturity or menace (unlike Bocca or Gomes) but he has stretched in the past. I would mention that he was very fine in "The Prodigal Son" at City Center about two or three years ago. His acting was as fine as his dancing. Angel was also fine as Lensky in Cranko's "Onegin" (though Malakhov is just perfect as a sensitive Romantic Russian poet). He also cut up in Kylian's Petite Mort last year to good effect. His Albrecht with Vishneva this Spring was intriguingly spoiled and caddish and showed that he can go to the dark side effectively. It was just this City Center season where everyone was doing different stuff and trying on new parts and styles and Angel was just doing his usual tricks. Because I have seen him do those things many times before, I wasn't as bowled over as others are. However the audience did love him and he danced extremely well. His stardom is now international, hence he isn't always totally at ABT's disposal but I hope next Fall he sets aside some rehearsal time to add new challenges and roles to his repertoire. When I first saw Julio Bocca dance in the early 90's, I thought him the greatest technician out there but not the best actor. Boy, has my opinion changed! Bocca is now such an amazing actor (in Eifman's Russian Hamlet, Iago in Lubovich Othello and so many others) and a total chameleon onstage. I want Angel to develop that kind of range. You can't be a happy jumping boy forever... Faux Pas

I saw Maya Plisetskaya live on the City Center stage in 1995 as part of a 70th birthday gala. She danced the Dying Swan and a section of Bejart's Isadora. The Dying Swan was danced on pointe with firm legs and feet and magical arms that linger in the memory. The bourrees never wobbled. Her interpretation was very idiosyncratic. Her Swan was a tough old bird who was raging against the dying of the light - almost defying death. She can be seen doing the same solo on the DVD "Essential Ballet" during the Red Square outdoor performance section. At 70 she was still a slim, vibrant and glamourous woman who radiated energy and vitality. She supposedly had a partner step on her foot sometime in the early nineties and had some problems after that. I don't know how much she danced after 1995. Faux Pas

I went on Saturday evening, 11/5 for my second performance. The evening started out with "Apollo" with Maxim and Veronika. Maxim was very fine as Apollo, the cool and controlled qualities of his dancing creating an intellectual god interested in form and harmony. A couple of sharp turns and twisting leaps needed more definition but that goes against his naturally long and graceful line. Veronika Part was in wonderful form as Terpsichore. She began her solo with a gorgeous high developee that grazed her ear, Sylvie Guillem style. Veronika also has a strong jump. I noticed that when she danced with the other two muses, her arms were so much more with the music than the other two - she has a lot of musicality. Maxim is a very fine partner and the pas de deux went well with effects that landed successfully. Melanie Hamrick as Calliope showed me for the first time why people think she is a comer. She still is a little soft and tentative in her attack but grace and line were present. She needs to mature though and I think that slow and steady is the best path for her. Michele Wiles is a strong turner and this helped her Polyhymnia start off her solo on the right note. Richard Tanner's staging is quite effective and stylish. The middle portion was two razzle dazzle pas de deux. Angel Corella and Xiomara Reyes did "Tchaikovsky PDD" with a youthful spring and buoyant elan that was very natural to them and perfect for this piece. Xiomara accidently ran into a side leg on exiting stage right and took a spill - the audience applauded when she re-entered uninjured for her next entree. Angel added little jumps on the supporting leg in his turns a la seconde to wild audience enthusiasm (lots of students up in the gallery). Irina and Jose Manuel Carreno did the "Paquita PDD" superbly. As I said, Irina was in top technical form - she has come back from some very severe injuries to both feet, getting back in shape after a pregnancy perhaps was not so arduous for so resilient and determined a performer. She did a solo that I was totally unfamiliar with. I have the "Kirov Classics" DVD with Makhalina and Zelensky and that solo and music are not present in the standard Maryinsky "Paquita Grand Pas". I don't know what ballet it was interpolated from. Jose was in grand form doing his patented pirouettes that slow down and speed up. He and Irina made a fine couple, their extroverted styles meshing well together. The evening ended with the second cast of "The Green Table" - kudos to Anna Markard for setting the ballet so superbly on this company. The audience really was appreciative and receptive to the anti-war message of the piece with innocent civilians dying while the politicians and munition makers play their games and make their money. Isaac Stappas was good as Death but I would have been fascinated to see Hallberg in the role. Strong work by Kenneth Easter as the Young Soldier and Julio Bragado-Young as the Profiteer. Melissa Thomas was moving as the Old Woman. The work is very much of its time (Weimar Republic German Expressionist) in style yet it doesn't seem dated at all. Magnificent images remained with one long after the evening ended. Of course, Kevin McKenzie was a Joffrey dancer before he joined ABT and may have danced in this ballet. Robert Joffrey was very interested in ballet history and reviving lost masterpieces. This cultivating and restoring and reviving landmark 20th century ballets to the contemporary repertory is something that he has taken from the Joffrey of the 1970's and transferred to ABT in the 21st century. I think that this spirit is what has enlivened the City Center season with "Dark Elegies", "The Green Table" and "In the Upper Room" energizing the company and the audiences this month. Audiences were excited not so much by the premieres or even the talented dancers but also by the repertory.

Well, for Veronika Part fans, this season seemed to suggest that management is seeing her as a valuable player at last. A lead role in the first cast of a newly commissioned world premiere "Kaleidoscope" and adding Terpsichore in "Apollo" and the Prelude in "Les Sylphides". Unfortunately, she is slipping back to featured player status next Spring at the Met with just one Wednesday matinee of "Swan Lake" and probably a repeat of her Myrtha in "Giselle". She does get to repeat Terpsichore at the Met with the superb casting of David Hallberg as her Apollo. David Hallberg and Stella Abrera were evidently the best cast in "Afternoon of a Faun" and distinguished themselves in "Les Sylphides" as well. Abrera shone in "In the Upper Room" and Hallberg as Death in "The Green Table". Both added much luster to their reputations with these new assumptions which are in very disparate styles. Hallberg will take on "Apollo" in the Spring and that will show even more of what he has. Welcome back to Erica Cornejo and Irina Dvorovenko both returning in excellent shape after taking time off for recovery from injury and pregnancy respectively. Cornejo shone in "Les Sylphides" and "Rodeo" and Dvorovenko showed that her pregnancy has not dimmed her verve or technical bravura in the "Paquita PDD". Irina's fouttes and pirouettes were as fast, accurate and dazzling as ever. Other valuable players: Adrienne Schulte and Jesus Pastor in "Dark Elegies", Ethan Stiefel and Laura Hidalgo in "In the Upper Room", Jose Manuel Carreno in "Paquita" and Sarah Lane in "Kaleidoscope" and "In the Upper Room". Strangely underused: Angel Corella. Angel just repeated a few showstopper PDD turns in "Le Corsaire" and "Tchaikovsky PDD" - he might have explored the leads in "Afternoon of a Faun", "Apollo" and "Les Sylphides" and done either male role in "Kaleidoscope". Maybe it is scheduling or not enough rehearsal time for him but Ethan Stiefel, Maxim Beloserkovsky and David Hallberg took on these new challenges with good results from what I have heard here. Angel needs to be challenged with new roles in different styles and not fall back on the big smile and the trick jumps and turns. Only then will his artistry grow and he won't regress into just a happy virtuoso dance machine. Faux Pas

Indeed since one of the TBA's is Carlos Acosta who is on the press release as appearing in the Spring Met season but who so far has no assigned roles. Now I missed him last season in the complete "Swan Lake", so a repeat in either Siggy or Bad Rothbart would be in order for me to catch up. Does Acosta do Des Grieux in "Manon" with the Royal Ballet? How about Romeo? Why not Malakhov as Des Grieux as well with Vishneva (his ABT commitments have been getting fewer and fewer...). Irina and Max could be interesting together in "Manon". Irina and Paloma did the last "Cinderella" production - why not this one? Maybe Part could do the Kudelka Cinderella too? How about a new "petite" cast for "Le Corsaire" with Xiomara as Medora, Sarah Lane as Gulnare, Angel as Conrad, Herman Cornejo as Ali, Lopez as Lankendem and Salstein as Birbanto? I wish they had revived "Firebird" rather than "Petroushka" for the Stravinsky triple bill. I too will be going less - Acosta is the key factor here. Faux Pas

This was supposedly choreographed by Lopukhov for Lyubov Egorova around 1903. http://www.for-ballet-lovers-only.com/Beauty2.html

I was there too last night for my first performance of the City Center season. The first ballet was "Kaleidoscope" with Herman Cornejo and Sarah Lane (as the Cowgirl in blue tutu) replacing Gillian and Ethan with Max and Veronika repeating the second couple. First of all, yes it is heavily influenced by Balanchine but it is quite musical and beautifully constructed for someone who is only 26. The corps formations for men showed an original voice emerging. Herman had beautiful batterie but some of his turns were sloppy (for him). Sarah Lane had these slips off of toe to flat feet - with Murphy you would know if it was on purpose, with Lane you weren't sure. The first couple has very step intensive busy choreography that could be streamlined for greater elegance. Sarah Lane reminded me more of an Aurora by way of Theme & Variations and Symphony in C. The music that Max and Veronika dance to is odd - very Satie-like with some jazzy dissonance and spiky chromaticism - really forward-looking composition by Saint-Saens. Max was particularly clean and buoyantly elegant. A friend complained that Veronika's choreography didn't make her look good - I felt that she looked fine but in a different key than what she has done before. My friend also complained that the stage was crowded for the finale with all the principals and corps and that it would look better on a bigger stage. Troy Cook was an excellent baritone soloist for the Kindertotenlieder. One problem with a dance like "Dark Elegies" is that it helps if you have dancers with some maturity and weight. Some of the corps members and soloists looked very young and danced steps without connecting them to an internal state of grief. Julie Kent, Adrienne Schulte and Jesus Pastor stood out for their commitment and Michele Wiles' final exit was deeply moving. "In the Upper Room" had the audience cheering and stomping at the end. If you want to see Gillian Murphy and Stella Abrera stomping around in athletic shoes, this is your chance. Paloma Herrera and Laura Hidalgo had the pointe work to do in red shoes. The cast got increasing naked as the show went on, the men losing their shirts and the women their prison-striped pajama pants. The famous Jennifer Tipton lighting and the pulsating ecstatic Philip Glass music were as narcotizing as ever. Keith Roberts in a black and white tux jacket came out for the final bow. Everyone onstage looked exhausted yet totally exhilirated by performing the piece. The woman next to me mentioned that you could power New York City with all the energy on that stage. Faux Pas

I remember seeing a Twyla Tharp ballet for ABT set in a junkyard where a ballerina played a tire with the pointe shoes sticking out the bottom! (Saw this in Chicago circa 1987) Other memorable costume, the Queen Mother in the Baryshnikov ABT "Swan Lake" on tour in Chicago in 1987 or 1988. Georgina Parkinson wore a hot pink medieval hooker costume with a high pink headress with veils and a long sheath with a slit down the side! Scary Mama!!

What you have to remember in the case of "La Fille Mal Gardée" is that whatever is left of Dauberval's 18th century Bordeaux production is probably limited to some bits of mime and the rough plotline. The music (adapted from French popular airs) and steps are lost to time. There is a chapter on the Maryinsky versions of "Fille" done by Lev Ivanov (alone or with collaborators) in Roland John Wiley's "The Life and Ballets of Lev Ivanov" published by Oxford University Press. "Fille Mal Gardée" was popularized in Russia by the Italian ballerina Virginia Zucchi who danced a version similar to what she did in Berlin. This Zucchi version that was done in Russia in the 1870's and 1880's was largely cribbed from a 1864 version done in Berlin by Paul Taglioni with music by Hertel and then adapted and revised by Ivanov and Petipa in 1885 for various later revivals with Kschessinskaya and Vinogradova. The Ashton version has music by Herold that steals many pages from Rossini. Supposedly the Ballet de Nantes did a (Lacotte style?) "reconstruction" by one Ivo Cramer of what the Dauberval might have looked like in 1789. Anyone see this? Here is a link to a DanceView Times review of the Ashton from which I refreshed my memory as to names and dates: http://www.danceviewtimes.com/2005/Winter/04/fille.htm

Nureyev for one was a great admirer of Dudinskaya and danced with her in the late 1950's in "Laurencia". He said that she had a way of stopping time with her balances and turns. However, I also think that much of what we see in the 1930's and 1940's is a reflection of the time in Soviet Russia. Formalism and classicism were not much in fashion. Therefore prissy and precise (not my view but theirs) formal classicism was a reflection of an earlier and less enlightened time. You had to express passionate emotions and wild attack and if it was sloppy it didn't matter. It was supposed to speak to the masses what the "new" Russia was about on a basic visceral level. Extreme classical correctness was a throwback to the manners and rigid social codes of Czarist Russia. There are many who considered Soloviev to be technically superior to both Nureyev and Baryshnikov technically. One ballerina who tragically has no extant film is Alla Shelest, the conoisseur's ballerina and supreme stylist whose career was blighted by inside politics and rivalries. There is a lovely black and white filmed segment of Sergeyev dancing Romeo with Ulanova in the ballroom pas de deux that was done around 1941 or so that shows him looking young and sleek, no baggy tights or sagging butt back then!

Roland John Wiley includes a translation of the libretto of "La Fille du Pharaon" in his book "A Century of Russian Ballet: Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, 1810-1910" which also includes some eyewitness accounts of the premiere and subsequent revivals with Marie S. Petipa, the choreographer's first wife.

Self-correction: the mention that Pugni's music was played as quadrilles at balls is from Natalia Roslavleva's "Era of the Russian Ballet" in her chapter on Petipa. I have both this and Roland John Wiley's "A Century of Russian Ballet: Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, 1810-1910" and I am reading them concurrently. Vazem doesn't discuss "Fille du Pharaon" in her excepted autobiography in Wiley.

BTW: if Pugni's music for "La Fille du Pharaon" sounds bland and generic, one should remember the circumstances under which it was composed. It was a rush job. Carolina Rosati had a contractual right to a new ballet for her benefit. She wanted Petipa to stage it for her. This miffed the directorate and Arthur St. Leon who considered Petipa a rival and had hindered his progress. The directorate allowed Petipa to stage the work with the proviso that it only take six weeks to stage. There were other ballets and operas being done at the same time but Petipa and Pugni managed to pull the whole thing together in six weeks. Maybe some of it was done beforehand but the music had to be composed and orchestrated probably in a month or less.

Most of the "Corsaire" that has come down to us comes from Petipa's 1898 revival with Legnani and Gerdt. I thought I read that the role of the "Slave" was choreographed for Enrico Cecchetti. Often back then, one dancer would handle the mime and porteur duties and another would do the heavy classical dancing in the pas d'action and set pieces. Note Lev Ivanov and Pavel Gerdt splitting Solor in the 1877 "Bayaderka" and Gerdt and Legat splitting the duties again in the 1900 revival. Note also the pas de deux a trois in the original Ivanov "Swan Lake" Act II with Benno giving a helping hand with Odette. It would not surprise me if something similar was done in 1898 with "Corsaire". I also read that the version we have of the Pas de Deux was set by Vaganova for Dudinskaya and Chabukiani in the early 1930's. I am just reconstructing what I read in other sources which I cannot quote right now.

Roland John Wiley translated a section of Ekaterina Vazem's memoirs in one of his books. The section he extracted mainly concerned Vazem's fights with Petipa during the creation of "La Bayadere" in 1877. However, she also discussed her roles in other Petipa ballets including Aspicia in "La Fille du Pharaon". She mentions that the music of Pugni had no dramatic or local coloring and was often played at balls as accompaniment to social dances. I studied Italian and the proper pronunciation is "Poo-nyee" He came to Russia after a long and successful career in Italy and Paris composing ballet music. The Pas de Quatre score that we hear in various Kirov videos is by Pugni and predates "Fille du Pharaon" by a decade or more. Evidently he died quite poor after he retired from his position as resident composer to the Imperial Ballet.

Actually, Tudor's "Pillar of Fire" calls out for Hollywood casting. Here is my shot at it: Hagar: Agnes Moorehead/young Bette Davis/Geraldine Page or ??? Older Sister: Gale Sondergaard Younger Sister: Ann Blyth Man from the House Opposite: Jeff Chandler Her Friend: George Brent You guys can do better - correct my casting. Now "Fall River Legend" Lizzie Borden: Judy Davis You fill in the rest...

I somehow feel that ABT is reviving "Manon" to provide something for Ferri and Bocca to dance other than "Romeo and Juliet" and "Giselle". I would guess that Julie Kent, Irina and Xiomara will be the other Manons with perhaps Diana Vishneva or Nina Ananiashvili (if she hasn't tacitly retired from ABT) added to the mix. I suspect that Veronika will be stuck with Lescaut's Mistress. She is kind of on the womanly and tall side for the teenage minx Manon anyway. I still would like to see what she would do with it, ditto Marcelo. The Stravinsky Triple Bill is interesting - will they finally scrape together the cash to do the Kudelka "Firebird" that was announced but canceled but still graced their brochure covers with a gorgeous color photo of Nina as the Firebird in a role that she never danced at ABT? (ditto Jose Manuel Carreno as Petruchio in the Cranko "Taming of the Shrew" publicity brochure photos). ABT did revive their old Fokine restaging circa 1991 or 1992 with Susan Jaffe as the Firebird. I wouldn't mind seeing that since I missed it then. Gillian is a natural Firebird and Veronika could be the true inheritor of the Karsavina tradition. The other ballets might include "Rite of Spring" but what would the others be? (The Glen Tetley version of "Rite" with male protagonist is in ABT's rep?) "Apollo" is a sure bet - of course it could be an all-Balanchine evening but that would replicate a typical programming ploy across the plaza. "Stravinsky Violin Concerto" has been in their repertory in the past but what else? "Sylvia" will be nice to see again because the staging badly needed to be cleaned up and refined. The corps looked underrehearsed this past Spring at the Met. It should look better next year when some more coaching can be done and all the details can be cleaned up. If we need a guest artist, I would love ABT to invite Darcey Bussell who according to a friend was the best Sylvia at the Royal Ballet last season. She is also a Manon. Darcey has been seldom-seen in NYC in recent years and probably will wind down her career in the near future. A guest season in NYC would give us a chance to see her in a wide chunk of her repertoire.

Isabel Adjani as Giselle Jean Marais as Albrecht in "Giselle" Merle Oberon as Nikiya with Maria Montez as Gamzatti, Maria Ouspenskaya as the Aya, Turhan Bey as Solor and Victor Jory as the High Brahmin Yvonne de Carlo or Maria Montez as Aspicia in "La Fille du Pharaon" Ingrid Bergman as Odette/Odile Charles Chaplin as Petrouchka James Dean as the Prodigal Son Jennifer Lopez as the Firebird

Actually, there are two Bolshoi "Raymonda" DVD's on the market. Kultur has released on DVD the Lyudmila Semenyaka/Mukhamedhov performance. The video quality, sharpness of image and color quality are much improved from the video release which was dingy and fuzzy. However, there isn't much in the way of indexing to pinpoint all those lovely classical solos. Pretty much they divide it by scenes and acts which can be frustrating since the one of the joys of DVD is improved scene search capability. Semenyaka was still in her prime in the late 1980's when this performance was taped and for my money it is one of the best documents of a great classical ballerina. It is available for about $16.00 on www.deepdiscountdvd.com (but Amazon will kick in some $ for BalletAlert if you use the amazon logo link on their page and order it there).

There are prints of Adele Dumilaitre and Lucien Petipa (or Perrot?) dancing the ballet in the original Paris staging that give a clear idea as to the set and costumes. I think this is a one act extended pas de deux type thing like "Spectre de la Rose". Perrot and Elssler dancing the Castilliana Bolero

I have been reading Roland John Wiley's "Lev Ivanov and His Ballets". In a chapter about Ivanov's support of Stepanof's system of notation there is a mention of this ballet. Evidently sometime in the 1880's Christian Johannson (who danced the painter Alvarez with Fanny Elssler as Florida in the 1840's) taught Perrot's choreography for this dance to Stepanov who notated it in his newly invented system. Then Stepanov revived the ballet from the notes with Students of the Imperial Ballet School. The experiment evidently was a great success all around. Do these notes still survive? I don't think there are in the Harvard Sergeyev collection? Of course a musical score for the ballet and perhaps a repetiteur would help matters. Certainly a Pierre Lacotte and Doug Fullington could reconstruct the whole thing if the materials could be found in the Kirov Music Library archives. Any thoughts on this? Another lost ballet from the Romantic period within our reach!

Hans, you don't have to kill to see the Kolpakova "Sleeping Beauty" again - it is available on a Kultur DVD that was just released a week ago. I happened to have appreciative but very mixed feelings about the Vikharev reconstruction of "Sleeping Beauty". Of course the dancing was lovely and the extra mime did help the story. However the look of the production was very heavy and rather overstuffed and Victorian. The set and costume designers used to work separately and I believe there were even different designers for the sets for different act (one designer specializing in outdoor scenes, etc.). The sets and costumes didn't complement each other very well and were stylistically at odds and the color palette didn't blend. Also all the costumes for the corps were very different in color, decoration (too much decoration) and skirt length. It made you see the corps as disparate clumps of individuals rather than as one unit. I know that great ballet aficionados who saw the original 1890 production (Alexandre Benois, Diaghilev) thought it an amazing gesamkunstwerk - a perfect blending of music, sets, costume design, dancing and acting but the visual evidence from the reconstruction was a bit off-putting. I think more recent productions such as the Diaghilev production (Benois sets that were later used by Sadlers Wells Ballet - am I correct?) are more elegant and appropriate. The production that the Kirov toured in 1986 was rather cheap-looking (I think that is the one that was filmed with Asylmuratova?) but the production on the DVD with Lezhnina is rather more elaborate and better. Is that the Sergeyev production that is touring to California later this year? The current Kirov administration seems to have very mixed feelings about the Vikharev reconstructions but I think they are crucial and should continue. Especially since the Kirov library isn't making the original musical materials and repetiteurs available even to the Bolshoi let alone Western companies, they are the best equipped to do them. Of course there is a lot of Lopukhov and Gorsky reflected in the notes taken by N. Sergeyev at the Harvard Theater Collection let alone individual solos worked up by the dancers themselves with whatever ballet master. However it gets you much closer to the time and the place and the aesthetic of Petipa. Look at the "La Bayadere" - it really doesn't feel complete or finished without that final act with the pas de trois between Solor, Gamzatti and Nikiya. Having all the mime and dancing and crucial props such as the veena (lute) that Nikiya holds in her Betrothal Scene harem-pants solo adds to your understanding of why certain gestures are there and what the dramatic connective tissue is. Any shortening or recension can then be made from the original work. Instead of just reworking and fooling around with another "after Petipa" reworking, one can rework directly from the original and shorten it to coincide with contemporary taste and developments in dance and stagecraft. Whenever I see the Vikharev reconstructions I always say "Well Sergeyev (or Grigorivich or Vaganova or Frederick Ashton or Ninette de Valois or Bourmeister and so on) was very clever to cut all that bric-a-brac and nonsense" but then I find myself missing things from the Vikharev version of the original that suddenly become necessary and essential to the work. One could have the best of both worlds.

I would correct that "better than the original" to probably say "no better than the original" because the Pugni music and the over-the-top Jon Hall/Maria Montez story are common to both. I think that the complaints about campy exoticism, lack of dramatic depth and musical quality would be common to any version using that libretto and score. As for the choreography, I think that Aspicia's role changed with every ballerina who danced it and many famous ones did. Cyril Beaumont in his "Book of the Ballets" has a chapter on "Fille du Pharaon" with description from various balletomanes of the different ballerinas who danced the role. Carolina Rosati was 36 years old, had a bad foot and was closing out her career when she danced it at her farewell benefit in 1862. She evidently was very grand and impressive in her mime but the dancing wasn't what it was during her 1840's heyday in Paris. Henriette D'Or (Viennese of French extraction) played a princess who loved totally with abandon and she had a brilliant allegro technique. Virginia Zucchi could terrify the viewer with her fear at a stage lion that should have made her laugh. Zucchi wasn't young when she danced in St. Petersburg and her technique wasn't on D'Or's or Kschessinskaya's level. Other ballerinas who danced it were Ekaterina Vazem, Marie S. Petipa (wife of M.P.) and Marie M. Petipa (daughter of M.P. who cut all the classical variations). Kschessinskaya had sole ownership of the role after 1900 and her version would have been the one to survive had it been better notated and kept in the repertory. All of these ballerinas had very different looks and body types and techniques. All of them probably danced their own version of the choreography. Petipa probably wasn't afraid to change or replace some things that were too naive or old-fashioned or didn't reflect his development as a choreographer. That is why I wasn't bothered by fouettes in one of Aspicia's variations and Romantic steps in another because the choreography probably was pretty hybrid by the end of the 19th century. However, the piece was meant to entertain and amaze with exoticism, pageantry and melodramatics. It is there. Either you can enjoy that in ballet or you feel it cheapens and degrades what should be a purer aesthetic experience. That is why I think we have this division of opinion about the merits of the work.