volcanohunter
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A new interview with Vladimir Urin was published today. Some highlights:
Sergei Filin has 70-75% vision in his left eye. Urin is keeping an arms-length attitude about the criminal proceedings, as well as to the matter of Pavel Dmitrichenko's supporters within the theater.
He's deeply sorry the Bolshoi did not hold on to Alexei Ratmansky.
Ivan Vasiliev will continue to appear with the Bolshoi as a guest artist, including as Spartacus. Natalia Osipova is too busy. Svetlana Lunkina remains on unpaid leave.
Despite a couple of guest appearances in the spring, there are no plans to invite Sergei Polunin to join the company. He's not opposed to guest appearances by Stanislavsky dancers at the Bolshoi and vice versa, but not in overlapping repertoire. (I'm guessing this implication of the two companies' comparability will ruffle feathers.)
There are discussions about reviving Yuri Grigorovich's Legend of Love.
He declines to comment on the matter of Nikolai Tsiskaridze returning to the Bolshoi, but considers it improper to reverse decisions made by his predecessor.
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Opera stars make HUGE amounts of money, because of the sales of their recordings.
If Norman Lebrecht is to be believed, classical music hardly sells at all on recordings. Among the all-time top-20 bestselling classical musicians, there are 4 opera singers: Pavarotti, Callas, Domingo and Carreras. The bulk of Domingo's and Carreras' sales come from Three Tenor recordings--and if you recall, those involved in the first concert opted for an upfront fee rather than royalties, leaving Decca to collect the enormous profits. Most of Callas' sales came after her death, so obviously she didn't enjoy the profits either.
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The Royal Opera House, which has the advantage of owning a DVD production company, is also entering the digital download market.
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A Russian news program visited Filin in Aachen, and the subsequent report presented a mixed picture. Filin descibes himself as a "half invalid"; he has no sight in his right eye and what sight he has comes and goes. However he also says that sometimes he can read newspapers without difficulty, and as the report notes, he's able to walk through the town pretty much unaided. Filin is hoping that doctors will give him permission to return to Moscow on September 14.
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Yes, her name is still on the roster, so some hope remains.
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Not on any account could I do that. I have seen 19 performances out of 21 (work prevented me from seeing 2 more) and enjoyed them all. Every single preview and review in the press mentioned the Bolshoi's problems but the dancers didn't disappoint. I enjoyed their powerful exciting performances, some were truly outstanding and unforgettable, 'The Flames of Paris' among them.Wow...what a saga... While watching the troupe in London, I couldn't help but to keep linking the sickness of all this with the moving bodies onstage...
It never crossed my mind either.
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You're correct, Helene. The season after the Met's first cinema broadcasts Empire Theatres started an alternate series that presented primarily Opus Arte productions (ROH, POB, Teatro Real, Liceu, Netherlands Opera). Perhaps there was a loophole involved: the multiplexes in Vancouver, Winnipeg or Toronto showing these performances were not the ones showing the Met in HD, and the Opus Arte performances were all pre-recorded. I was sorry that the series stopped because it endeavored to show as many ballets as operas, and I was unbothered by the fact that the performances weren't live.
A year ago Cineplex did air a couple of operas from the Royal Opera House, but they were pre-recorded 3D films. They may have been sufficiently different from "live in HD" to qualify.
(*NYCB did a few years ago do a live cinema broadcast of Balanchine's The Nutcracker I believe [e.g., other than the commercial cinema release shot some years previous]. I know I saw a screening of the live performance in London and was deeply appreciative ... or am I dreaming .... and merely old ??)
It's very odd that this was not mentioned in the article since it's entirely germane to the subject matter. I would be interested in learning how this turned out for NYCB. My guess is that the American side of things was bungled. The cinema broadcast was followed the next day by a live broadcast on free television, which wouldn't have incentivized going to the movies.
Most of the article is now behind a paywall, but in May Le Monde published a piece on the Bolshoi's cinema screenings which suggested that the enterprise was very successful. The Bolshoi may stream performances for its domestic audience free of charge on You Tube, but the screenings abroad are decidedly made for profit.
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The Russian service of Radio Liberty has published a blog post by Pavel Dmitrichenko, in which he continues to protest his innocence. Perhaps there will be more "letters from prison" forthcoming.
There is absolutely no personal conflict in my case. Unfortunately, I cannot write a great deal about the details of the case and about the situation as a whole since the investigation is ongoing, and it poses a danger to my friends and parents. Thank god, my wife Anzhelina Vorontsova is now out of danger. After numerous threats from the leadership of ballet, she was forced in the interest of her safety to leave the theater.
In order to understand what is going on at the Bolshoi Theater as a whole, it is necessary to lay out a timeline of events, to find the starting point from which everything began. It is necessary to turn attentions to the time when the problems began within the ballet. The departure of Bolshoi stars Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev, two distinguished male principals–Andrei Uvarov and Dmitry Belogolovtsev–resigned, Tsiskaridze was driven out with every kind of reprimand. And the last, catastrophic act of the ballet leadership–the removal of the great ballerina Svetlana Zakharova from the first cast of the ballet Eugene Onegin. It is because the last event that director Anatoly Iksanov lost his position, although he had nothing to do with it.The director always and everywhere repeated, “I will not and do not consider it necessary to intervene in the artistic matters of the troupe.” On the one hand, he may be correct. But, on the other hand, if the ballet management starts to humiliate and insult people, to threaten them with removal from the repertoire, to deprive them of premiums for something said not to their liking, to distribute presidential grants in their own interests (covering themselves with a commission of people who get paid bonuses for it)… When at the initiative of the ballet’s directorship Ruslan Pronin is removed, having previously demanded from him a payment of $100,000 to keep the post of manager of the ballet company! After these conditions were presented and Pronin refused them, he was removed from the theater.
It is worth considering, where does the problem lie, where is the real tumor behind everything that is happening? When I–and I always spoke openly about this in the theater, trying to use legal means (through the union, the Labor Inspection) to resist these actions–am locked up in jail for a crime I did not order and did not organize. And I think it is clear to everyone: a person who has the support of half the theater, who is elected leader of the trade union (instead of Sergei Filin), does not need [to do] such a thing. And those involved in this Truman Show are wonderful actors.
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Yes, in fact people around the world pay $18 (or $20-25) in Canada to see productions from La Scala and the Royal Opera House, and the Bolshoi Opera has long been one of the world's great companies.. They'd also have the advantage of packaging it together with the Bolshoi Ballet in terms of distribution.
I think it has been discussed elsewhere on the board that the Met stipulates that cinemas that show its HD performances cannot show the broadcasts of other opera companies. Since the Met got out of the gate early and established successful ties with many U.S. chains, it is exceedingly difficult for any other opera company to elbow its way in.
Canada has only two movie chains with nationwide reach, and both of them have been showing the Met since the outset, though at present Empire Cinemas shows the Met only in Atlantic Canada, while Cineplex shows it everywhere else. The Cineplex dance series, when it finally got going, was built around the Bolshoi, and was later augmented by the Royal Ballet. But apparently the Royal Opera is off limits because of existing contracts with the Met, and presumably the Canadian market would be equally inaccessible to the Bolshoi Opera. No doubt contracts with the Met would make the bundling of the Bolshoi Ballet and Opera difficult in other countries as well. For example, Pathé Live, the Bolshoi Ballet's primary distributor, is also the French distributor for the Met.
Distribution continues to be a problem for the Royal Opera House in the U.S. When Emerging Pictures announced its fall season, the lineup included the Bolshoi Ballet and La Scala, but the Royal Ballet and Opera, which had been included in more than one preceding season, were conspicuously absent. http://www.emergingpictures.com/2013/08/05/opera-and-ballet-in-cinema-from-emerging-pictures-fall-winter-2013-season-announced/ For now, at least, it appears that U.S. audiences will not get to see the Royal Ballet's forthcoming cinecasts.
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I would also like to hear what ABT has to say about this. I have always been baffled its failure to take advantage of the Met's HD facilities, not to mention an audience with a built-in habit of going to the cinema on Saturday afternoons. I think of my aunt, a fanatical standee in her college years, who so loved going to the Met that when the opera season ended, she would keep right on going to see the visiting ballet companies.
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According to the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, Valery Gergiev has devised a plan for combining the Mariinsky Theater, the Academy of Russian Ballet, the St. Petersburg Conservatory and the Russian Institute of the History of the Arts into a single entity called the National Center of Academic Theatrical and Choreographic Art, with him in charge of everything. Supposedly he is pitching the idea directly to Vladimir Putin rather than to the Ministry of Culture, which recently balked at the idea of making Gergiev director of the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi simultaneously. Both the Mariinsky Theater and the Ministry of Culture are denying the existence of Gergiev's letter, a copy of which Forbes claims to have, though apparently people within the Institute of the History of the Arts are aware of the idea and are adamantly opposed to it.
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Golding is a gorgeous dancer (what jumps!) and very good partner. I'll be hoping he performs in NYC sometime in the near future.
He lived and worked in New York for several years, but Kevin McKenzie didn't do anything with Golding while he had him. Not an unfamiliar tune. The Dutch National Ballet, on the other hand, recognized his potential immediately.
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I would be curious to see Smirnova pair with Ruslan Skvortsov: I loved his Siegfried in London and think that he could be the dancer to draw more emotion out of her.
Yes, certainly. On stage he gives his ballerina heart and soul, and he is very musical. He typically partners the biggest and tallest, but looking over the Bolshoi's archive of cast lists, I see that he has danced full-length ballets with all of the company's primas, from Kaptsova and Obraztsova to Alexandrova, Zakharova and Shipulina.
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Interesting ....... who you think would be a better partner for Smirnova ?
Last summer when they appeared together on the "Big Ballet" television program I thought she and Vladislav Lantratov did well together, so that could be one possibility.
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(This was written at an altitude of 36,000 feet in a state of extreme sleep deprivation, so I beg your indulgence if I’ve forgotten half of what I wanted to write. It’s too long as it is.)
Flames of Paris
Jeanne - Natalia Osipova (16), Ekaterina Shipulina (17m), Ekaterina Krysanova (17e)
Philippe - Ivan Vasiliev (16, 17e), Vladislav Lantratov (17m)
Jérôme - Andrei Merkuriev (16), Denis Savin (17m, 17e)
Adeline - Anastasia Stashkevich (16), Anna Rebetskaya (17m, 17e)
Marquis de Beauregard - Ruslan Skvortsov
Mireille de Poitiers - Kristina Kretova (16, 17e), Anna Tikhomirova (17m)
Antoine Mistral - Artem Ovcharenko (16, 17e), Denis Rodkin (17m)
Jarcasse - Irina Zibrova
Gilbert - Vitaly Biktimirov (16, 17e), Alexander Vodopetov (17m)
Sutler - Anastasia Vinokur
Gaspard - Alexander Petukhov
Lucille - Lyudmila Ermakova
Hunstmen - Batyr Annadurdyev, Yuri Baranov, Karim Abdullin, Evgeny Golovin (16, 17e), Maxim Surov (17m)
King Louis XVI - Denis Medvedev
Marie Antoinette - Elena Bukanova (16, 17e), Olga Tubalova (17m)
Amour - Chinara Alizade (16, 17e), Daria Khokhlova (17m)
Apparition of Rinaldo’s Bride - Yulia Lunkina
Armida’s Friends - Maria Zharkova, Yulia Grebenshchikova, Olga Marchenkova, Angelina Vlashinets (16, 17e), Ana Turazashvili (17m)
Furies - Maria Vinogradova, Anna Okuneva, Yanina Parienko, Viktoria Litvinova, Anna Leonova, Anna Tikhomirova (16, 17e), Xenia Sorokina (17m)
Master of Ceremonies - Alexei Loparevich
Auvergnese - Anna Antropova, Anna Rebetskaya (16), Kristina Karasyova (17m, 17e), Alexander Vodopetov (16, 17e), Vitaly Biktimirov (17m), Anton Savichev (16, 17e), Ivan Alexeyev (17m)
Marseillaise - Igor Tsvirko, Alexei Matrakhov, Maxim Surov
President of the Convention - Alexander Fadeyechev
Jacques-Louis David - Yuri Ostrovskyconductor - Pavel Sorokin
The best way to summarize the opening night of Flames of Paris would be to say “veniit, vidit, vicit,” because it felt a lot like Natalia Osipova’s coronation. With her spark and one-of-a-kind jump, she effectively overshadowed everyone else on stage. I barely even noticed Ivan Vasiliev until the pas de deux. Nevertheless, it was obvious that Osipova and Vasiliev had been away from the Bolshoi for a while, not because they no longer fit in stylistically (they did), but because what was presumably a fairly short rehearsal period was not enough to overcome Osipova’s synchronization problems with Andrei Merkuriev’s Jerome and even Vasiliev’s Philippe. I also have to note that in the Dance of the Basques, it was not Vasiliev and Merkuriev, but rather Vitaly Biktimirov’s dashing captain who put the dance over the top, which certainly helped me understand why Vassily Vainonen had originally given the lead in the piece to a character dancer.
The audience was beside itself during the pas de deux, and when Vasiliev got whoops and hollers during his variation and coda, which included things like triple revolutions in the air and his proclivity for ending sequences of pirouettes very, very slowly, I didn’t mind in the slightest. That’s the nature of the beast.
Nevertheless, Flames of Paris suddenly seemed like a much better ballet the following afternoon when Ekaterina Shipulina and Vladislav Lantratov took over the leads. Instead of being the Vanya and Natasha Show with a few extra bits thrown in, the ballet now came across as an integrated whole.
Given her height, Shipulina is not an obvious ingenue, but she and Denis Savin as Jerome were entirely synchronized, and so was everyone else on stage. I did not find Shipulina to an inferior Jeanne in any way, She is not exactly earthbound, has just as much Bolshoi style and there were many moments when took full advantage of the length of her legs to drive the choreographic point home.
Lantratov can’t do a macho strut anywhere near as plausibly as Vasiliev, but his dancing has greater beauty. He does not have Vasiliev’s bag of tricks in the pas de deux, but frankly Shipulina has the better fouettés. Perhaps because he’d been dealing with an injury during the tour, Lantratov looked visibly pumped up by his own performance of the pas de deux, not quite like the footballer who had just scored a goal, but perhaps like a fan who had just watched his team score. Since Vasiliev is not exactly a model of balletic decorum, I couldn’t blame Lantratov for taking his own liberties.
Lantratov’s Philippe is also a nicer guy. Unlike Vasiliev, he does not crow over those being led to the guillotine, though Vasiliev’s reading gives him a dramatic opportunity when he realizes how much distress his behavior has caused Adeline. I can certainly understand what Vasiliev is trying to do, because otherwise Philippe’s character has no dramatic development to speak of.
Ekaterina Krysanova and Savin did not have the eerie synchronization he had with Shipulina, but they were by far the most convincing pair of siblings. In many ways, Krysanova was the most persuasive heroine. She looked the youngest, her character underwent the most clearly delineated development, and every jump and turn was there. Her variation was also the best of the three, the hops on pointe and rapid turns being most compatible with her technique.
On Friday Andrei Merkuriev as Jerome was largely overshadowed by Osipova, but the following day Denis Savin effectively made him the ballet’s dominant character. Nearly all of Jerome’s choreography is by Ratmansky, and since Savin is a self-described contemporary ballet specialist within the Bolshoi, he was at ease with Ratmansky’s shifts of balance and quirks for hands and feet, all danced with gorgeous flow and, to borrow a modern dance image, a fall-catch-and-suspend dynamic. (Ditto for Shipulina.) He was completely persuasive as a good and innocent teenager, all heart and hope, who endures unbearable tragedy. And Savin’s finale is devastating. At the end of the ballet the stage is crammed with movement and action, but I could see only Savin’s desolation. Having watched the afternoon performance from the seventh row of the orchestra, where every dramatic detail was visible in high resolution, so to speak, I was crushed by his performance and could barely bring myself to applaud when the curtain came down. And then he did it to me a second time in the evening!
Ratmansky has both his heroines change footwear during the course of the ballet. If Jeanne spends most of the ballet in pointe shoes, excepting the scene of character dances in Act 2, during which Osipova and Krysanova wore low-heeled shoes and Shipulina wore boots, Adeline wears heeled shoes for most of the ballet until her duet on pointe with Jerome, which is effectively her only passage of what we’d call “real” ballet dancing.
At the first performance Anastasia Stashkevich was luminous as Adeline, her expansive dancing punctuated by high extensions and deep swooning backbends. All of changing realities of Adeline’s world registered on Stashkevich’s face, and in the end she was stoic in the face of death. Anna Rebetskaya’s dancing was perhaps not as vivid or individual, but her character was delicately drawn, and she was very touching in her interactions with Savin. She and Ruslan Skvortsov looked sufficiently alike to be plausible as a daughter and father, even if she is actually older.
In the absence of Dmitry Gudanov, Skvortsov danced all the performances as the Marquis, though the printed programs would have us believe that he wasn’t scheduled to do any. He was delightfully dastardly, a rapacious predator whose alpha-maleness is expressed through deep, wide strides and dazzling batterie. With merciless, surgical precision he skewered the man of power who abuses it to prey on women. (I’m sure he’s never run across those in the theater.
) Ratmansky has the Marquis observe his rivals, studying their methods and weaknesses, and then outdazzle them choreographically. Even when seemingly paying tribute to the King, the Marquis is really showing him up. Skvortsov’s dancing was especially satisfying because it’s rare to see a six-footer excel at such rapid and intricate footwork, and each performance was stronger and more forceful than the one before.It’s a shame Skvortsov was not able to do at least one performance as Antoine Mistral/Rinaldo because neither Artem Ovcharenko nor Denis Rodkin quite had his droll wit, musicality or grasp of the style. Too often Ovcharenko and his partner Kristina Kretova played fast and loose with the music, while Rodkin needed reminding that he was dancing an enervated Rinaldo and not Conrad. His determination to dance everything as big and as strong as possible negated any chances of conveying the pseudo-Baroque style. As for Rodkin’s potential danseur credentials, he is tall and strong, but in the coda he performed royales rather than entrechats six, and in a spetacular display of ungentlemanliness, he elected to out-jump and out-split Daria Khokhlova’s Amour as they performed what was supposed to be a series of small, rapid flick jetés. In an instant Rodkin managed to negate about three-quarters of the positive impressions he may have made on me during the tour. Evidently his coaching sessions with Nikolai Tsiskaridze did not include lessons on good stage manners. For his part, Ovcharenko did perform entrechats six, but spread out three of them over music that called for four.
As Mireille de Poitiers/Armida, Kristina Kretova showed admirable Baroque port de bras, even while dealing with completely anachronistic elements of choreography, such as pointe shoes. Even though she has extremely flexible feet, Kretova hopped and hopped and hopped on pointe perfectly. She and Yulia Lunkina as the Apparition of the Bride engaged in a Dynasty-worthy struggle over the hapless Rinaldo, and she clearly relished every minute of her melodramatic revenge. At her second performance she perhaps elected to ham it up excessively, but she was charming. In her republican incarnation she was more of a hard sell and less attractive as a result.
Anna Tikhomirova was somewhat less convincing as a period stylist. Her performance was a 21st-century allusion to the style rather than an attempt to recreate it, and this is, after all, Vainonen’s choreography, not Ratmansky’s. (That said, on the basis of her performance I would very much like to see her take a crack at Balanchine’s Chaconne.) Unlike Kretova, her Armida actually seemed to derive sadistic pleasure from destroying Rinaldo. Tikhomirova was the better and more appealing dancer in her second-act duet, her rhythmic accuracy resulting in each of her movements coinciding with the appropriate musical accent. Tikhomirova recognizes that cymbal crashes are there for a reason and uses them.
Both Chinara Alizade and Khokhlova were in fine Amours, Alizade a bit flashier, Khokhlova subtler and charming. Alexei Loparevich as the Master of Ceremonies and Denis Medvedev as Louis XVI were very funny. Medvedev was especially vivid as an alternately cynical, bored, petulant and jealous king.
In Vainonen’s character dances, all those who performed the Auvergnese dance gave it verve and personality, and the Marseillaise trio was bursting with both virtuosity and fun, particularly Igor Tsvirko, who overflows with vitality.
At the final performance there were some end-of-tour “shenanigans,” for example, one of the Marseillaise dancers wore a thick red beard, and the first of the corps of “Mariannes” carried a small French flag.
On the whole I found Ratmansky’s first act more persuasive. The drama flows easily, and the choreography is interesting in its unconventional use of the pas de deux: brother-sister, father-daughter, assailant-victim. In the second act I got the impression that the imperative to preserve as much Vainonen as possible, especially the flashy pas de deux, interfered with the story Ratmansky wanted to tell, and which he had been telling persuasively up to that point.
My honest advice to anyone who’s interested in it is to grab any opportunity to see Osipova and Vasiliev perform the pas de deux in a concert or gala setting. But if you’re going to see the whole ballet, choose a different cast. Overall the theatrical experience will be more satisfying and feel less like a circus. The ballet is also probably best seen from a slightly elevated position. There is a lot of stuff going on around the stage, so the ballet benefits from a panoramic view.
Audience response was very enthusiastic and there were lots of curtain calls, since all three couples would take them in turn, and then come out together before going separately a second time around. Even though I didn’t record an exact tally, my impression is that the greatest number may have taken place at the last performance, during which Vasiliev had worked very hard to sell himself to the London audience, and they ate it up.
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According to a notice posted inside the theater, "due to injury" the Marquis will be danced by Ruslan Skvortsov rather than Dmitry Gudanov. But is Gudanov really injured, or is he performing at the festival in Peralada, as the festival's web site claims?
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Swan Lake, August 15
Odette/Odile: Olga Smirnova
Prince Siegfried: Semyon Chudin
Evil Genius: Artem Belyakov
Jester: Alexei Matrakhov
pas de trois: Kristina Kretova, Anastasia Stashkevich
Dowager: Kristina Karasyova
Tutor: Alexei Loparevich
Master of Ceremonies: Alexander Fadeyechev
Waltz demi-soloists: Anna Okuneva, Anna Rebetskaya, Anna Leonova, Ana Turazashvili, Karim Abdullin, Denis Rodkin, Mikhail Kryuchkov, Yuri Baranov
Cygnets: Svetlana Pavlova, Margarita Shrainer, Anna Voronkova, Yulia Lunkina
Big Swans: Olga Marchenkova, Yulia Grebenshchikova, Ana Turazashvili
Hungarian Bride: Angelina Vlashinets
Russian Bride: Maria Vinogradova
Spanish Bride: Anna Tikhomirova
Neapolitan Bride: Daria Khokhlova
Polish Bride: Yanina Parienko
conductor: Pavel Sorokin
How you feel about Olga Smirnova’s Odette-Odile will probably depend very much on the way you respond to her port de bras. Do you think Odette’s arms ought to be very wing-like, or only occasionally so? Do you find Smirnova’s upper body to be flexible and fluid, or angular and hyperextended? Are you bowled over by her physical expressiveness, or do you find her mannered and exaggerated? For now, Smirnova’s interpretation lies mostly in her upper body, and in doing so, she is working to her strengths because, for one thing, she cannot compete with Alexandrova, Shipulina or Krysanova where jumps and turns are concerned. The hovering balances and slow, smooth descents from pointe are not there yet, and the battu at the end of the ‘white swan’ adage are glossed over. That said, her balance in her variation and the coda was very good; there were no technical slips in these solo passages. For now some of the others things, like the couple of sticky partnering moments that happened in the adage, have yet to be worked out. Matters were not helped by the poor playing of the violin soloist (Dmitri Khakhamov?). Her transformation back into a swan at the end of the act is anticlimactic, perhaps because she already undulates her arms so much that this doesn’t look any different. The applause immediately after the adage and her variation was not especially prolonged, but the audience responded more vociferously during the bows at the end of the act.
Smirnova did not look entirely comfortable as Odile, but she endeavored to dance as big as she could, though this occasionally looked a little awkward and forced in the adage. She got through her variation without difficulty, and despite slipping off pointe on about her third fouetté, she was able to complete the sequence of singles. Again, I’d have to note that the applause following the adage and variations was not as prolonged as it had been the evening before.
She has been paired with him quite a bit, but I do not think Semyon Chudin is the best partner for her. For one thing, she is more musical than he is. Unfortunately, he has a strong tendency toward posing, she exaggerates her port de bras, and together I think they are at risk of getting stuck in their particular exaggerations; mannerisms tend to get worse, not better, over time. A partner with a warmer and more direct style might be better equipped to help her open up emotionally and perhaps dance more freely.
It’s a much simpler part, but I came away most satisfied by the Evil Genius of Artem Belyakov, who danced it big and danced it strong, and that’s what his role really needs. No fuss.
Alexei Matrakhov’s Jester, filling in for Denis Medvedev, was cloying in the extreme, and I wanted to strangle him. (My kingdom for a BB gun!) But the audience reacted very positively.
For the first time the first-act waltz looked ragged in spots, but Kristina Kretova and especially Anastasia Stashkevich were both excellent in the pas de trois.
The cygnet quartet of Svetlana Pavlova, Margarita Shrainer, Yulia Lunkina and Anna Voronkova was unchanged at all five performances that I saw, and it’s entirely possible that they danced all eight Swan Lakes, so for that I give them a deep bow of respect. The corps of swans was as fine as ever, which was obvious from my overhead view from the amphitheater.
Maria Vinogradova tried to inject some spice into the Russian dance, though she was also severely undermined by the solo violinist. Anna Tikhomirova flew higher than ever in the Spanish dance (the trumpets didn’t begin that one well either), and Daria Khokhlova delivered a lovely and musical Neapolitan dance.
Chudin was at his best in the final scene. If earlier in the ballet his soliloquizing had been posey and frustratingly devoid of longing, here he came bursting out as though someone had finally lit a fire under him. I would hope that he could transfer some of that reaching dynamism to earlier scenes. I can’t blame him for not having figured out the ending yet.
There were two curtain calls, first for Smirnova, Chudin and Belyakov, and then a somewhat shorter bow for Smirnova and Chudin. The loudest applause of all was reserved for the orchestra.
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Of course. Thank you.
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The acid reference is unfortunate, but this paints a less malignant picture than I would have feared, especially after Ratmansky referred to said claque as "disgusting." As Drew says, they're "wild (if corrupt) fans." And I can understand where they're coming from, because I often take it upon myself to lead applause during performances. If I'm positioned properly, I'll usually be the one to start applause for the conductor when he or she enters the pit, and during the performance mine is usually the last clapping you hear when the applause dies away, unless the music has already resumed. I'm very sympathetic to the situation of the male dancer during a pas de deux, so I'll try to applaud for as long as possible after the adage in the hopes of helping him to catch his breath before his variation. And if I happen to be more familiar with an opera than others in the audience, I try to applaud in the "correct" places. I can't really do much effective hollering because I'm not very loud.
No one rewards me with free tickets or anything else, and I do the same things irrespective of who's performing, but on some level I understand the instinct of these claquers to support their favorites in this way.
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The Nerina exhibit mentions that she also appeared in films of Firebird and Petrushka, so hopefully these will make their way to DVD as well.
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So, I am not agreed with some professional critics who said "Ekaterina Shipulina is more Soviet siren than American chorus girl."
I don't agree with that characterization either. On the one hand I can see what they're trying to say, because of all the Bolshoi's ballerinas she is the one who most reminds me of the big, unbridled Old School, which I mean as a compliment. But her sensibility is more modern. In certain repertoire I can't help but think of her as a Bolshoi-American hybrid.
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Swan Lake, August 14
Odette/Odile: Ekaterina Shipulina
Prince Siegfried: Ruslan Skvortsov
Evil Genius: Artem Belyakov
Jester: Igor Tsvirko
pas de trois: Kristina Kretova, Anastasia Stashkevich
Dowager: Kristina Karasyova
Tutor: Alexei Loparevich
Master of Ceremonies: Vitaly Biktimirov
Waltz demi-soloists: Yanina Parienko, Anna Leonova, Maria Vinogradova, Ana Turazashvili, Karim Abdullin, Denis Rodkin, Mikhail Kryuchkov, Yuri Baranov
Cygnets: Svetlana Pavlova, Margarita Shrainer, Anna Voronkova, Yulia Lunkina
Big Swans: Olga Marchenkova, Angelina Vlashinets, Yulia Grebenshchikova
Hungarian Bride: Angelina Vlashinets
Russian Bride: Anna Rebetskaya
Spanish Bride: Chinara Alizade
Neapolitan Bride: Anna Tikhomirova
Polish Bride: Anna Okuneva
conductor: Pavel Sorokin
Ekaterina Shipulina and Ruslan Skvortsov make an extremely glamorous pairing. Immediately I could feel my American prejudice for the tall and the fabulous asserting itself. Chronologically speaking, this is probably the Bolshoi partnership of the longest standing, begun in the classrooms of the Moscow Ballet School, which they completed in the same year.
Yuri Grigorovich has been persuaded to allow his Sleeping Beauty to be redesigned, so the Bolshoi really ought to work to get his permission to change the costumes and decors for Swan Lake as well. When the corps de ballet dances the opening waltz as well as they do, it seems almost criminal to dress them in costumes that appear to have been sewn out of camouflage fabric bought at an army surplus store. There was a flawless pas de trois for all concerned, and Igor Tsvirko was also near perfect as the Jester. Because he was acting vigorously, he was perhaps more conspicuous that I would have liked, but I can’t blame the man for trying. So far I think he was the only Jester who managed to catch the flower the first pas de trois soloist threw in his direction.
This was my first look at the Evil Genius of Artem Belyakov, who made his debut in the role this spring. I thought he acquitted himself very well, dancing with a great deal of force and elevation.
Shipulina is an august, expansive Odette. Those who seek Russian grandeur and pliancy need look no further. She took the adage at a slow pace, but was able to sustain it. The first lift of the middle section was a little noisy, but all of the subsequent lifts were remarkably quiet, and while I suspect that a tall dancer like Shipulina may not always be easy to partner, Skvortsov did not let on. In the end the pas de deux was very satisfying. Old Hollywood couldn’t have produced a more splendid pair of lovers. The swans, small and big, who followed were excellent.
Toward the end of her variation Shipulina seemed insecure as she performed the final sequence of turns, and indeed at the end she lost her balance. It occurred to me that she might be fatigued, as she was performing for the third day in a row. But she came back strongly in the coda. It was notable how fiercely her Odette resisted being turned back into a swan at the end of the act. Shipulina and Skvortsov brought real dramatic tension to the scene.
In the Hungarian dance I was pleased with the épaulement of Angelina Vlashinets. Anna Rebetskaya must be the personification of the Sweet Young Russian Thing. Chinara Alizade had style but couldn’t match Anna Tikhomirova for elevation as the Spanish bride, while Tikhomirova took the Neapolitan dance and knocked it out of the park. Anna Okuneva’s jumps looked a little labored in the mazurka.
Shipulina is a natural Odile, so she burst onto the scene and took command of it, not really trying to impersonate Odette. The adage had an up-to-the-minute urgency on both sides. Again, often times Skvortsov seems ready to surrender, but no sooner does Odile begin to impersonate Odette than he feels in his gut what a vulgar fraud she is, and he hesitates once more.
Like Ekaterina Krysanova, Skvortsov does a lot of things the “hard” way. He does not dance through the music, evening out a phrase to make it physically easier to perform. Instead he will descend from a jump and hold the landing until the next musical phrase begins. Shipulina’s solo dancing was stronger than had been at her previous performance, and by the time she got through her perfect single fouettés, it was obvious that she wasn’t suffering from any sort of fatigue. Superb dancing from both from start to finish.
Perhaps once you’ve seen this version enough times you can start to make peace with Grigorovich’s idea of Siegfried’s victimization at the hands of a Cartesian Evil Genius, in which Odette was never real and Siegfried is doomed to end up alone, but nothing worse. Even the swans are no longer swans but rather turbulent waves conjured up by the Evil Genius to separate Odette and Siegfried. Certainly Shipulina, Skvortsov and Belyakov gave it their all to put this across, so the ending was not without drama, and it was not uninvolving, even if it was not catastrophic. Since it turns out he is flexible in these matters, I’ll add that this time Skvortsov’s Siegfried ended by kneeling down slowly on one knee before raising his arms toward the amphitheater as the curtain fell. So he finished each of his three outings in Swan Lake differently.
At the end of the performance there were three curtain calls, the most there have been at the nine Bolshoi performances I’ve attended so far. In truth the audience may not have been clamoring for a third call, but as soon as Shipulina and Skvortsov appeared before the curtain, they were greeted enthusiastically. We’ll see how Smirnova does tonight.
I sat among the well-heeled of the grand tier, who are a stingy bunch, not willing to applaud much of anyone or anything, leaving it to the rest of the hall to do such a vulgar thing. If you’re looking for a fun crowd, I’d sit higher up. Excellent views, though.
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Nerina's Giselle is available on DVD, paired with Markova's Les Sylphides.
http://icartists.co.uk/classics/catalog/dvds/les-sylphides-giselle
At the moment there is an exhibit on Nerina at the Royal Opera House. Costumes and photographs are scattered throughout the theater. Among the things mentioned in the displays is that she was one of the first ballerinas to take television seriously. Apparently many of her colleagues wanted nothing to do with it. This is why we're fortunate to have so many of her roles preserved on film.
Vladimir Urin
in Bolshoi Ballet
Posted
Nope, no word on that yet.