volcanohunter

Then there was Nureyev, who in real life was fond of high boots with pretty big heels. He gave his prince in The Sleeping Beauty an extravagant version of them. In Paris the Prince switches from ballet boots to ballet slippers after his entrance, but to this day at the National Ballet of Canada, the Prince does his first dancing on those substantial heels.

The heel shrunk over the decades, but at the Mikhailovsky Ballet the tradition of heeled shoes for Siegfried persisted for a long time.

This can be seen in the Bolshoi film of Swan Lake from 1957, and it never especially surprised me, since Siegfried's solo dancing didn't come until Act 3.

It boils down to whether dance or music can add an emotional layer that compensates for the loss of so much text. But the tone inevitably changes.

That's a pity. In some countries when a last-minute casting change is announced, the audience applauds, regardless of whether it's happy about the change or not.

About Binet's Dark with Excessive Bright https://national.ballet.ca/Media-Room/News/Just-Announced/Choreographic-Associate-Robert-Binet-Creates-New-I

How did it feel when you first saw videos of “The Pharaoh’s Daughter,” which you and your wife, Tatiana, had worked on for two years? It was really painful. It was a longtime dream of mine to do it. It was a lot of preparatory work. But it’s nothing compared to the war. No one dies. It’s just a ballet. They take a ballet, OK, they take a ballet. They don’t write my name on the production, well, that’s bad. It’s wrong on so many levels. But it’s nothing compared to the real tragedy that is going on every single day. How can you be sure that the Mariinsky used your choreography? The work that I did was very specific. It was a reconstruction from the notations. Its steps, combinations of steps, arm movements, gestures and how the steps are connected to the music. There are parts that are now very different. But they just built it on top of the work that I had done. In the video, I saw moments that couldn’t have been found anywhere else. The dancers worked on these steps for months. It’s in their bodies. [...] Have you had any communication with the Bolshoi or the Mariinsky since you left Russia? Not long ago, the Mariinsky sent a letter from one of the clerks in a production office. They said that they spent money on us, on me and my wife living there, and that we would need to pay back that money — the hotel, the overseas flights. Of course, they perform ballets of mine without my name, and they don’t pay any royalties. So that was an interesting letter. Did you respond? I didn’t. I don’t know what to say. Everything used to be according to contract, but it was so easy for them to break a contract, to deprive an artist of intellectual property.

Do you envision a day when you’ll work again in Russia? I’ve heard that when Nabokov was invited to Germany after World War II, he said, “I won’t go because I don’t want to accidentally shake hands with a murderer.” That resonated. What is your sense of the Russian cultural scene now? It’s getting worse and worse in Russia day by day. In cultural life, they try to pretend that everything is fine, but the repertory shrinks, the best creators leave. Some have chosen to stay. But if you work for a state-supported, important Russian cultural institution, it means that you support Putin and his war, and you’re a tool of propaganda. Some Russian artists say they have no choice but to work for institutions like the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi. Even if they oppose the war, they say, they need the jobs. If you live in Russia, I understand that. But if you come from the West, that’s unacceptable — as unacceptable as for the West to receive people who support Putin. And there are many great amazing artists who still find a way to tour and perform.

Interesting that there is a revival of The Dante Project rather than a run of McGregor's MADDADDAM, which premiered in Toronto in last November as a co-production. I don't think it's McGregor's best work, but without it the ballet season is short on premieres. There is a festival of new works, including another co-production with the National Ballet of Canada, choreographed by Robert Binet, but as yet the details are sparse. Interesting also that the "short Ashton works" will be performed by Sarasota Ballet rather than the home team.

Out of curiosity, I looked at a program from about a year ago from the National Ballet of Canada. The printed version had a general list of which dancers were cast in which roles, but specific casting for each performance was accessible by a QR code. That link is now dead.

Continuing on the subject of playbills, an article on whether to print or not to print, including the disconnect between accessing a digital program and being asked to turn phones off, and how the heck to autograph them. https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/stage/2023/04/23/whats-in-a-page-to-print-theatre-programs-or-deliver-them-digitally-that-is-the-question.html

So Bernstein and Sondheim fit into this on the grounds that...West Side Story is based on a Shakespeare play? Because no British composer ever set a Shakespeare text to music? And, say, Vaughan Williams would be elitist?

Well-lived and beautifully danced indeed. May he rest in peace.

Rostyslav Yanchyshen, a dancer at the Odesa Opera and Ballet Theater, has been killed in battle. From Alexei Ratmansky. https://www.instagram.com/p/CrSZkqKOJh6/ Soprano Oksana Dyka posted that her brother was killed in action. https://www.instagram.com/p/CrOohDrsqQu/ In his youth he had been a champion rower.

Lacroix's designs are beautiful, especially the lithographic quality of the backdrops, although I don't know how well the intricate details of the costumes carry into the hall. I have seen the POB production only on video, so I can't say. https://en.vogue.me/fashion_week/fall-2017-review/christian-lacroix-fashion-accident/

I can believe that kind of perception persists, and Buckingham Palace may not be aware of ROH efforts to cast off an elitist image.

But their folk dances demonstrate that Georgians and Ukrainians didn't need Russians to teach them how to dance. They are among the among the most "dancing" nations in the world. And I would argue that there's a huge difference between the method Balanchine learned while training and what Vaganova unleashed on Soviet ballet. You may remember that a number of years ago Peter Martin's invited one of the major Georgian folkloric ensembles (and honestly, I can no longer recall whether it was Sukhishvili or Rustavi) to appear on a NYCB program, where I think the point was to illustrate that Balanchine's love for speed had an older origin than observing how quickly Parisians or New Yorkers walked. I still think it would be extraordinarily insensitive to say: "We feel awful that your countries have been invaded by Russia, but you see, it's left us deprived of tours by Russian companies, so would you mind performing The Sleeping Beauty in their stead?" First-World Problems.

Balanchine's origins were Georgian. That is the company's unique take on his works. Touring a story ballet with full sets is expensive and a logistical challenge, and there is no guarantee that American audiences would come to see, say, Gorda if the company were to bring it. I think, perhaps, Americans don't understand how offensive this attitude of "import substitution" is to Georgians and Ukrainians, considering that Russian troops are occupying substantial areas of their countries.

If a person is unfamiliar with the plotless, "black and white" aesthetic, Jewels may be a good entry point. I would also vote for program IV: Concerto Barocco, Prodigal Son, Symphony in C.

I may be remembering this incorrectly, but during the lockdown, when ABT and NYCB streamed some long-unseen Live from Lincoln Center performances, it turned out those broadcasts weren't owned by them or by PBS, but by Lincoln Center.

There were plans to move the Vienna State Opera onto the paid My Fidelio platform. As I understand it, the archive is now there, but it's available only in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. (Again, probably a rights thing.) The Vienna State Opera continues to stream, much less frequently than before, generally once a month, free of charge and with a 72-hour viewing window. As it happens, the next stream will be a ballet program. https://play.wiener-staatsoper.at/

Oh golly. An all-Balanchine fall is just scrumptious.

Pickett has choreographed a full-length version of The Crucible for the Scottish Ballet which is coming to Washington in May. I appreciate that a stage play is easier to adapt than a novel. https://www.kennedy-center.org/whats-on/explore-by-genre/ballet/2022-2023/scottish-ballet/ In November the National Ballet of Canada will premiere Pickett's Emma Bovary, though that will be a one-act work and not strictly narrative. https://national.ballet.ca/Productions/Emma-Bovary-Passion

I agree wholeheartedly about Rangwanasha. She has a once-in-a-generation (or two or three) voice.

It still strikes me as unworthy subject matter, but it is likely to be more substantive than the vanity piece Yuri Possokhov made for Svetlana Zakharova. That one received poor reviews when it played in London, and every video I've seen of it made me cringe. I did notice that Lopez Ochoa's ballet was designed by Jérôme Kaplan. Zakharova's costumes were designed by the House of Chanel, and I'm not surprised it isn't involved in a less hagiographic portrayal.