volcanohunter

Actually, it's not his description. On Facebook Ratmansky made a reference to a "disgusting claque" (klaka), but I think it was mistranslated into French. You can see how there could be confusion between the words cloaque and claque. The Russian word for cesspool is vygrebnaya yama or stochnyy kolodets.

It's a good thing Cote and Ogden are getting the extra practice because they're not yet at the level of their Hamburg counterparts, technically or dramatically. But tonight was just the first performance, and I'm sure that the Hamburg Ballet is very happy to have their services after Anna Polikarpova and Otto Bubenicek fell by the wayside. Alexandre Riabko is a horse, but even he couldn't have managed seven Nijinskys in seven days.

Exactly. And Opus Arte has not yet released a film of MacMillan's version. The Rojo-Acosta performance was released as part of Acosta's 3-DVD deal with Decca.

I certainly never meant to suggest that you hated Tsiskaridze, Helene! Rather, I'm guessing that Tsiskaridze and Volochkova hate Iksanov so much (and vice versa) that they would find suitable glop with which to smear him even if he were descended from the Riurikids and had several Patriarchs of Moscow and All Russia hanging on his family tree.

In a blog post ranting against "the tyrant" Iksanov and the Bolshoi renovation, Anastasia Volochkova also made an issue of the fact that Iksanov's birth name was not Anatoly, son of Gennady, but rather Tahir, son of Gadelzyan. http://volochkova-a.....com/75111.html Of course this can be taken to mean that "he's not one of us." Or perhaps, "The man is fundamentally dishonest. He even lies about his name." Long ago I remember reading an interview with Helena Bonham Carter in which she described overhearing a group of people at a party trashing her. Apparently the final nail in her coffin was: "And her hair isn't even real!" If someone is determined to dislike or hate you, just about anything, even the wigs you wore in period movies, can be used as a cudgel against you.

Which, in my case, already makes me favorably disposed toward it.

Tsiskaridze rejects this charge categorically. In the warring interviews in Snob magazine about which the NYT reported, Tsiskaridze stated that he could not possibly have been behind the publication of the sex photos because one of the women pictured is a fellow Godparent, which in Orthodox practice effectively makes them relatives, but that Iksanov "not being Orthodox" (Iksanov is of Tatar origin) could not understand these things. http://www.snob.ru/m...ine/entry/57151 This may not mean anything, but in this TV report from a few years ago about Tsiskaridze as teacher, there is footage of Yanin taking Tsiskaridze's class. He's the first person you see. I wish the press would be clearer in relating the back story. Yanin is still at the Bolshoi, albeit no longer as company manager.

In a Toronto Star article from January 29 Kevin Pugh was quoted as saying that "he doesn’t know her that well yet but said she seemed 'a little nervous' about giving out her contact details." http://www.thestar.c...rom_russia.html As for the location of her house, that was revealed by the press: "Documents obtained by The Globe and Mail show that, since 2010, they have owned a million-dollar home in Kleinburg, Ont., a wealthy community about an hour’s drive north-west of Toronto." http://www.theglobea...article7937024/

Nikulina had danced the part a few times previously. http://www.bolshoi.r...#20110204190000 http://www.bolshoi.r...#20120303190000 http://www.bolshoi.r...#20130129190000

Smirnova's scheduled Moscow performance of La Bayadère was called off at the last minute. The note from the Bolshoi press office simply stated that Anna Nikulina would be performing the part of Nikiya that evening and that Smirnova's previously announced performance was being cancelled. If she wasn't able to dance the ballet on January 31, I guess it's not surprising that she wasn't able to dance it four days later. You'll find the reference to the cast change dated January 31. http://www.bolshoi.r...press/articles/

A thread on this topic is already running. http://balletalert.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/36700-is-svetlana-lunkina-moving-to-toronto/

In France, at least, the Bolshoi's distributor Pathé Live is going with a repeat of last season's Esmeralda. http://www.pathelive...re-du-printemps

The National Opera of Ukraine, via Facebook and Twitter, has announced that Anastasia & Denis Matvienko have become parents of a daughter named Yelizaveta.

An interview with Lunkina was published today. http://izvestia.ru/news/543784

Maria Prorvich did not appear as advertised, not surprising given that she'd spent the preceding 10 days at her husband's bedside in hospital. Prior to the second act, when describing the forthcoming dances, Katerina Novikova stated that the Manu dance would be performed by Anna Rebetskaya, and the final credits reflected that.

Alexei Fadeyechev runs the ballet company in Rostov-on-Don so even if he paid his father a visit on his birthday, it's entirely likely that he was 600 miles away on the day the TV crew was filming. http://rostovopera.r...-fadeechev.html

Nikolai Fadeyechev, born in Moscow on January 27, 1933, turns 80 today. This television feature made to mark the occasion includes what may be some of the last pre-attack footage of Sergei Filin.

I am reluctant to post this information, but it has appeared in the Russian press in the context of the attack on Sergei Filin http://www.mn.ru/fri.../336129037.html

I found the performance both enjoyable and disappointing. I'm with those who would have preferred to see the Obraztsova-Skvortsov cast. We've already seen his "Sylph," so it would have been rather nice to have his James to complement it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez_DVidVYks My biggest complaint was with the camera work, which was conspicuously worse than in previous relays. Much of the ballet was shot far too close, which meant not only that toes and hands were cut off on occasion, but more importantly, that it was difficult to gauge how dancers were moving through space, much the same way that close-ups of speed skaters give television viewers a very poor idea of just how quickly they're moving. Frankly, when your leads aren't especially photogenic, the close-ups don't do them any favors either. Some important moments in the mime were also missed by the camera. Krysanova's Sylph was certainly airy, but she gusted rather than floated. I also think she generally raises her arms much too high, especially the one that crosses her body. I seem to recall that on the DVD of the POB's Sylphide, Aurelie Dupont related how Pierre Lacotte pointed out to her that the off-the-shoulder design of Romantic dresses would have prevented ballerinas from lifting their arms especially high. Today the sleeves on Sylph costumes tend to be purely symbolic, so this posture is frequently lost. Perhaps because of his build--with his short, bandy legs--Lopatin, a beautiful dancer, tends to jump horizontally rather than vertically, and I found this disconcerting in Bournonville. I was disappointed by his first act solo, primarily because I couldn't make heads or tails of what he was doing musically, but his second-act variations were excellent. Where I think the performance failed was dramatically, and this was primarily the fault of Irina Zibrova as Madge. Lord knows there are countless ways to play the part and make it unforgettable, but for whatever reason she opted for an indistinct "let the audience decide" approach that gutted the drama. The grainy footage of Johan Kobborg's Madge that exists suggests that Moscow has seen much more compelling performances of the part. At the end I also found Lopatin lacking in the dramatic aspect. Perhaps he was hobbled by the fact that he doesn't have experience dancing parts like Albrecht, Solor or Siegfried.There was a giggle from an audience member then the Sylph floated up to the heavens because the wires were all too visible on the movie screen. This was a design flaw that could have been prevented if she didn't have to pass over a patch of open "sky" at an inopportune moment. And I really have to lodge a complaint about the poor quality of Bolshoi wigs. There's nothing remotely unreasonable about a Scottish witch with red, curly hair, but it would have been nice if Zibrova's ringlets didn't look as though they were made of cotton batting. Denis Savin as Gurn was delightful, as always, Anna Rebetskaya was was well cast as Effie, Marianna Ryzhkina's son Klim Yefimov jumped impressively in the pas de six, and Yevgeny Golovin was vivid as one of James' friends. In the second act I was very pleased with Anna Tikhomirova, along with Yulia Lunkina and Chinara Alizade. The Muscovite audience, it has to be said, loved it and kept calling back Krysanova and Lopatin again and again. For me, though, it did nothing to erase memories of the London Festival Ballet telecast with Eva Evdokimova and Peter Schaufuss, a performance that shouldn't be languishing in the BBC vaults.

It's from the inaugural Erik Bruhn Prize in Toronto in 1988. I believe it was the only edition of the competition to be televised by the CBC. Competitors: Royal Danish Ballet - Rose Gad (winner) & Lloyd Riggins - La Sylphide pas de deux; Leaves Are Fading pas de deux Royal Ballet - Viviana Durante & Errol Pickford (winner) - Don Quixote pas de deux; selections from MacMillan's The Four Seasons ABT - Bonnie Moore & Wes Chapman - Sleeping Beauty grand pas de deux; balcony scene from MacMillan's Romeo & Juliet National Ballet of Canada - Martine Lamy & Owen Montague - Black Swan pas de deux (Bruhn redaction); "Balloon Head" solo from Robert Desrosier's Blue Snake, solo from Tetley's The Rite of Spring Jury: Monica Mason, John Taras, Frank Andersen, Valerie Wilder, Lynn Wallis The event was hosted by Glen Tetley and Karen Kain, who had just miscarried, though this was not yet public knowledge. Makarova was part of the entertainment during jury deliberations. A performance of Voluntaries by the National Ballet of Canada was not televised.

Trailer and program description on the Live from Lincoln Center page http://www.pbs.org/programs/live-from-lincoln-center/

From the 'Live from Lincoln Center' Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/LiveFromLC

Found this on my PBS schedule today. http://proweb.myersi...1&air_id=266545

Another video obit from French television http://culturebox.france3.fr/#/opera/37924/le-choregraphe-roland-petit-est--mort-a-87-ans