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Zakharova, pt. 3 When asked about which dancers she considers truly great, Zakharova names Farukh Ruzimatov and expresses regret that he had not been born later and that she hadn't been born sooner. She believes he's in great shape and has found a sort of second wind. She also admires Mikhail Baryshnikov and says that when she watched him on video as a child, she never noticed his ballerina. When asked why she prefers Baryshnikov to Nureyev, Zakharova believes that Baryshnikov is more contemporary and has a charisma, warmth and light that appeal to her. She'd happily watch him standing still. But she also admits that she's seen fewer films of Nureyev. "No doubt it's the same as in figure skating: there is Plushenko, there is Yagudin..." (She declines to say which skater she prefers.) As a child she also idolized Sylvie Guillem. The first time she saw Guillem she couldn't believe that a body could be mastered to such an extent. When asked why Guillem is considered ballerina #1, Zakharova explains that Guillem could do things that no one else could. Zakharova considers Guillem equally incomparable in her current repertoire. If a person has a good body and has command over it, a viewer cannot tear himself away. Asked if she regrets never having had the opportunity to work with Balanchine, Zakharova says yes, because Balanchine loved tall dancers with long arms and legs and good extension. When she joined the Mariinsky Theatre she began dancing Serenade and Apollo soon after. But though she likes dancing Balanchine, she wishes he'd made more story ballets. She also prefers to look forward rather than back and working on new choreography, such as her Revelation solo. Since she'd been dancing the classics for ten years, at this point she finds contemporary works more interesting. The appeal of classical choreography lies in its difficulty and the knowledge that few people can do it. Classical choreography danced cleanly is a victory over one's own self and over the classic. "There is nothing above the classics. A person who dances the classics can, in principle, dance modern. Worse, better, but he can do it. A person who dances only modern can't dance the classics."

Zakharova, pt. 2 Zakharova's first experience working abroad came at age 20 when she was invited to dance Bayadère at the Paris Opera. She was thrilled to work there because the POB's own troupe is very strong and guest artists are invited infrequently. She believes that the spirit of Nureyev is still strong in Paris and that his productions are preserved carefully. She also enjoys working at the New National Theatre in Tokyo, the Met and Covent Garden, but says that the Japanese are the most accommodating, though the audiences are reserved. She believes that success in Japan is determined by a full house rather than loud applause. Among her favourite partners is Roberto Bolle, whom she describes as a genuine Apollo, a beautiful man, a very good partner and a good person, or "bella persona." She says all her partners in Paris have been good, but that she particularly enjoyed dancing Giselle with Laurent Hilaire and Swan Lake with Nicolas Le Riche, even though she'd had only one rehearsal with him before the performance. When asked how much depends on a partner, Zakharova says everything does, physically and emotionally. She has yet to be dropped on stage ("knock wood"). Asked if double work is frightening, she says that her intial pas de deux classes were a bit scarry, but no longer. Much depends on the ballerina herself being helpful, and she believes that good partnering technique is more important than low body weight. She also believes that intelligence can compensate for physical shortcomings.

I suppose the reading knowledge of Russian I was forced to acquire in university is about to become useful. Here is goes. Zakharova, pt. 1 The interview begins with the journalist stating that it had been her dream to become a ballerina but that her family decided it was an unsuitable profession. In Zakharova's case, it was the opposite. Her mother had wanted to dance, but being an only child her family was unwilling to send her away to Kiev to study. The younger Zakharova wasn't especially interested, and while she agreed to audition, she insisted that she'd come home even if accepted. However, when she arrived in Kiev, graduation exams were taking place, and she was so captivated by what she saw that she decided to stay. Soon after her father, a military man, was stationed in Germany, and though the plan was for Zakharova to remain in ballet school, she was homesick and chose to move with her family. In Germany she was enrolled in an ordinary school and felt that she'd made a terrible mistake. Before long Soviet armies began to withdraw from East Germany and she returned to ballet school in Kiev, where she studied for the next six years before completing her last year at the Vaganova school. When asked about the disappointment young dancers face when they realize they'll never get leave the corps, Zakharova notes that her class in Kiev was very close and very strong, but that most of her classmates ultimately didn't pursue a career in dance: some went to drama school, some into business, some had babies. Among her classmates, only Denis Matvienko, with whom she has danced when he has appeared as a guest with the Bolshoi, stuck with a ballet career. When asked about eating disorders, she says they're more common in ballet school than in ballet companies, but that it's a self-defeating behaviour. A dancer who doesn't eat enough doesn't have enough strength to keep up with the program, and that this rather than weight issues is what gets young girls expelled from ballet school. For herself, she doesn't eat, drink or party too much because she needs to feel fit for morning class, but she admits to eating pastries and ice cream and says that she holidays like everyone else. If she goes on vacation feeling especially tired, she rests completely for ten days before attempting any sort of exercises. As for adult beginners, she thinks ballet class is most useful for improving posture.

No doubt it was designed to eliminate favouritism, though no system can ever be perfect.

It's true that proportion is very important to how a dancer is perceived. Woetzel's big head conspires against him. I was simply surprised to read that he is considered tall because at 5'10" Manuel Legris is one of the POB's smaller étoiles. But getting back to the relationship between size and speed. I'm not a physicist either, but looking at carbro's clock analogy I can only point out that the mechanism required to run Big Ben is a whole lot bigger than the one inside a wrist watch. Leigh Witchel's pinwheel analogy illustrates a similar point.

Tall enough to be considered tall. He's partnered such tall ballerinas as Kyra Nichols, Darci Kistler, Monique Meunier and looked just fine partnering them on pointe. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm a big fan of his and always make a point of seeking out his performances when I'm in New York. But he's never struck me as particularly tall. Of course, I speak from the perspective of a 5'9"-tall woman who always had trouble finding sufficiently tall dancing partners. For me a male dancer has to top six feet to qualify as tall. Hallberg, Charles Askegard, Jean-Guillaume Bart and José Martinez are what I'd call tall dancers.

Damian Woetzel is tall?

Today France 2 evening news included a story on Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant's "Push," opening in Paris in a couple of days. Use the menu on the right to skip ahead to the report 28 minutes past the hour. The broadcast will also be available for the next week under Les éditions précédentes. http://jt.france2.fr/20h/ Also, from TF1: Sylvie Guillem : portrait d'une danseuse hors du commun

Absolutely! A high bun can also correct the appearance of an excessively flat head and makes an excellent platform for a tiara.

Would it be fair to say that Bart isn't especially favoured by the POB's management? Has he been stereotyped as a dancer? Is it likely that he will be given an opportunity to choreograph for the company as Belarbi and Le Riche have? Please excuse me if I'm asking obtuse questions, but I'm interested in the observations of people who've had more opportunities to see him than I have. Some injuries really are accidental, but many are a consequence of a structural flaw in a dancer's anatomy, a technical weakness or overexertion. I wonder what sort of injury prevention and treatment programs the theatre has.

I must admit I was taken aback by this sentence. Surely, dancing the princely roles is one of the most important responsibilities a male étoile has. I suppose it hadn't occurred to me that a dancer could love the classical vocabulary and care deeply about the style, but not be especially interested in dancing the big classics himself. It reminds me of a comment Allegra Kent made in the film "Dancing for Mr. B.," something along the lines of "I knew I loved ballet, but I wasn't sure I liked ballets." Perhaps Bart would have been happier at a different company. It is a pity that his health is not as strong as it could be. Age 34 seems too young to begin winding down a dance career. Nicolas Le Riche is the same age and joined the Opéra in the same year and he certainly isn't showing signs of slowing down.

Oops, I'm running a bit late with this one. On 20 December France 2 evening news included a story on the POB's Coppélia, featuring Nolwenn Daniel, Benjamin Pech and José Martinez. It can be accessed for the next few days under "Les éditions précédentes." Then use the menu on the right to skip down toward the end of the broadcast ("Le ballet Coppélia à l'Opéra de Paris"). http://jt.france2.fr/20h/

Actually, allegro variations are anaerobic while slower variations are aerobic, so they can be sustained for a longer period of time. We mammals are aerobic, which is why aerobic fitness can be extended to the point where human beings can complete an Ironman race. But there is relatively little that can be done to improve anaerobic fitness. There is no way that the speeds of a 100m dash, produced in anaerobic conditions, can be sustained over 400m, let alone 800m. If a dance is slow enough for a dancer to be able to breathe properly, he or she could keep going for 20 minutes, though most choreographers don't seem to think it's worth the effort. (And, fortunately, most operatic composers didn't think so either. I mean, does anyone actually enjoy Erwartung?) But if the variation demands more oxygen than a body is capable of taking in at that level of exertion, the muscles will eventually grind to a halt. This is why the dance of the cygnets will never get any easier. (And, incidentally, why ballet class is a lousy way to lose weight.) Gosh, it's been years since I've had cause to regurgitate those old anatomy lectures! Song cycles are a completely different ball of wax. They have a musical and thematic unity. But precisely because audiences are expected to sit still for extended periods of time without the benefit of scene changes and intermissions, cycles have all sorts of variety built it. Each section also tends to be more sustained in a particular tempo and mood, which lends itself more readily to choreographic treatment than arias, which can include fairly radical fluctuations in tempo and dynamics. I suppose most choreographers don't think that stitching together disparate arias into some sort of coherent whole is worth the effort if a beautifully crafted song cycle already exists.

In fact I had been wondering why he doesn't seem to dance the major classical roles anymore. He's younger than Manuel Legris, and yet Legris is still doing full-length Giselles and Bart is not. Do you know why?

Of course not. But there are far more 20-minute arias out there than 20-minute ballet solos. You were asking about ballets choreographed to operatic arias, and thus far we haven't been able to come up with many, so there must be a reason for this. The fact that the average aria is longer than the average variation is an important factor to consider. The fact that song cycles and liturgical works are used far more frequently than vocal operatic music may reflect your point about individual arias not being able to sustain a ballet from either a thematic or musical point of view. It's also possible that choreographers don't believe they can add anything to an aria by setting movement to it, just as Balanchine never choreographed to Beethoven: "Now you could dance Mozart, but Beethoven you can't, unless it's walking. The sound produces [a] certain type of enjoyment, and if anybody moves, you will just disturb and you don't add anything." Of course he also said, "Verdi: from beginning to the end you can dance his opera," yet he only choreographed to music Verdi wrote specifically for ballet. It may simply be that arias and dance aren't that compatible. Perhaps arias don't have sufficient rhythmic consistency or drive to be "danceable."

Perhaps she was exhausted from all those peasant pas de deux she's been dancing.

Geez, now I feel guilty that the opera is being shown in two theatres in Edmonton, Alberta. Very strange planning indeed.

I think this is an extremely important factor to consider. Ballet is frequently an anaerobic activity, not unlike sprinting, which is why the average classical variation rarely exceeds a minute and a half. (Shorter for very fast variations, perhaps a bit longer for adagio variations during which a dancer can actually breathe.) After that the body simply runs out of oxygen. But some arias can go on for 20 minutes. Arias are written with breaks for the singer during which the orchestra plays by itself. It would be difficult to pull off something similar in dance.

I've always said that I'd only consider seeing that opera live if I could listen to the overture then leave to go shopping, have dinner, maybe visit a museum, and come back 5 hours later for the prize song and final chorus. :grinning-smiley-001: Unfortunately, opera houses frown on that casual attendance thing these days.

It's a pity that La Peregrina is almost never performed in context. Don Carlos is a very long opera even with the ballet removed, but it would be nice to see it in its original grand opera form. The opera would still be shorter than Meistersinger! I'm pretty sure that the La Scala video of Vespri siciliani, while performed in Italian, does include the Four Seasons ballet. Like Robbins, Kenneth MacMillan also choreographed a separate ballet to this music. In general I wish more choreographers would follow Balanchine's lead and rescue ballet music discarded from operas.

I would think that the promotions of dancers like Duquenne and Ciaravola would be a source of encouragement for the company's dancers. From what I gather, Duquenne had been a sujet for 13 years, so he must have made several unsucessful attempts at the exam and watched many others leap-frog ahead him. I'm sure it was very discouraging, but he didn't give up. If Duquenne has set some sort of record for being oldest sujet ever promoted to premier danseur, congratulations to him! Perhaps there isn't any one pattern for promotion at the Opéra these days. Ganio became an étoile very early (and so far young Mathias Heymann is speeding along in a similar pattern), Moussin and Romoli were promoted late, and Moreau was named in his late 20s, which has been the more usual pattern. It could be that the system is more sensitive to individual development than it may appear to be on the surface.

I think it's just about the loveliest thing about the production. I believe he used Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony.

The Australian Ballet and National Ballet of Canada productions have been filmed. Of course, when choreographers undertake ballets like Carmen, Fledermaus and Merry Widow, they nearly always have the scores reorchestrated to remove the vocal parts.

Two years ago Margie Gillis choreographed a plotless piece for Alberta Ballet called Rivers Without Bridges set to operatic arias by Handel. I'm sure there are many other examples. As for more literal interpretations, there was that production of Orpheus and Eurydice that Balanchine did at the Met back in 1936 which was very controversial because he consigned the singers to the orchestra pit. Decades later Mark Morris did the same thing with Dido and Aeneas and no one batted an eye.

I have always loved this typical Balanchine movement which is most often described as 'jazzy'. But this movement, for most of us, was our entrance into this world---and it's completely involuntary on the part of the mother. Isn't this a more subtle form of Graham's 'contract and release'? Ooh, I'd have to leave that answer to people who've actually danced Balanchine. Obviously contraction, release and high release are also different ways of placing the spine in relationship to the vertical axis. But I think that in Graham contraction there is an additional emphasis on contracting the upper chest that isn't present in ballet. There is a film of Donna Wood performing "Cry" during which the camera zooms in on the upper third of her body just as she begins a contraction. The first time I saw it, it took my breath away because I hadn't thought it was possible for a sternum to move that much. Her chest looked as though it would collapse on itself. Theoretically, this is what modern dancers aim for in spinal contraction, but in most people the two joints of the breastbone don't move quite as much as Wood's. (In fact, the average person has practically no mobility in those joints.) Ballet shares "high release" in common with modern dance, but while ballet dancers certainly bend forward, I'm not sure contraction of the chest is what they're after.