Mashinka

Judging by the last two seasons in London, I'd hesitate to call the company 'second rate'. Their leading dancer, Irina Perren is actually very good and stands comparison with most of the featured Kirov girls. Denis Matvienko is undeniably world class and although no longer a regular company member he still guests with the Mikhailovsky. There are by the way, a number of former lower ranking Kirov dancers within the company who also felt they would be happier with St Petersburg's 'second company'. I imagine money was a factor in Sarafanov's decision to move, but he isn't the first to depart and I dare say he won't be the last. Merkuriev and Luboukin do very well at the Bolshoi, proving that jumping ship can be advantageous. The Kirov isn't what it was and had the Mikhailovsky continued down its former classical road, the company could in time have overtaken the Kirov, but the Duato decision probably means a change of direction along a route where classical ballet becomes secondary. Mikhail Messerer was proving an inspired director at the Mikhailovsky, if Gergiev had any sense he would snap him up to replace the sorry 'acting' incumbent.

I'm shocked by this move, I somehow imagined Sarafanov was the company golden boy after his early promotion to the leading roles and never expected him to leave the company. Undoubtedly there is more to this than meets the eye and I dare say acting director Fateev had a hand in whatever forced Sarafanov to make this decision. I wish him well in the new company, he would have been better off under the Mikhailovsky's previous director Messerer though. Won't his talents be rather going to waste under Duato?

Sutherland refers to the ugliness of a version of Trovatore and I can remember a production at Covent Garden some twenty years ago that was visually bizarre with almost all the action taking place on a kind of mountain side with almost no flat surfaces resulting in all but one of the cast unable to keep their feet. They tripped over their swords, cloaks and hems of dresses or just the wretched set: so ugly and ridiculous in concept. I miss the sumptuous productions of the past that drew you into their world with their attention to detail and historical accuracy. Frankly I'm getting tired of the minimalism and anachronisms and downright ugliness that are such a feature of much present day opera going. Before long I'll give up opera going and just buy CD's.

I'm told by opera fans able to compare that opera productions in the US are far more conservative than in Europe. I do my best to avoid the worst stuff by reading the reviews before I book, but for some performances you must book a long way in advance. I think I've mentioned this production on here before, but I still remember the awfulness of a Don Giovanni a few years ago at Glyndebourne (a very major house) that featured a stage filled with excrement and a last act feast where the guests fed on the entrails of a dead horse, literally pulling them from the carcass, to an accompaniment of audience boos and cries of Shame! Sutherland was absolutely right to object, anyone that cares about opera would. As to singers of today being inferior, I don't altogether agree but think the outstanding ones are fewer in number than they were when Sutherland was at her peak.

She really was La Stupenda, a matchless operatic voice. Here is a report from the BBC together with some film: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11517053

Not so much muzzled as just very partisan in this instance, but I agree with your comments re high profile conductors.

Another defender here: I thought it was a thoughtful and in places very poetic production when I saw it in London a few years ago. I can understand traditionalists not liking it, but I found it ingenious in use of music and the dramatic development of the plot worked well too.

Cygnet, Yuri Fateev isn't just confused he is incompetent and it is time for some sort of official explanation as to why Acting Director Fateev hasn't yet been replaced with a director with proven abilities. I hope Ayupova's tenure at the Mikhailovsky is secure as I have heard from a Spanish Ballet fan that Nacho Duato has wrecking tendencies where classical companies are concerned.

I really enjoyed reading this article about poetry and thought I would share it. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/steve-jones/8043205/National-Poetry-Day-unlock-the-mathematical-secrets-of-verse.html

The version I have is by Andrew Mogrelia & Slovak Radio Orchestra and I think it's complete at about 35 - 40 minutes in length.

I must confess that it's in my CD collection too.

Details of the funeral arrangements on the BBC website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11467652 I'm surprised that Kirk Douglas will be one of the pall bearers as I understood he was in very poor health, happily his presence seems to indicate otherwise.

I imagine it is accurate, I've seen dancers move so fast they created a blur. Fastest moving dancers in the past twenty years would probably be Nina Ananiashvili and Nikolai Tsiskaridze: inerestingly, both Georgians. Loved the clip, not one I had seen before, Lavrovsky was stunning but doesn't seem to be remembered much now. He still dances character roles and I saw him on stage only last year. Timofeyeva was never very popular with the UK critics I seem to remember, though I always rather liked her but she did have a rather short neck and high shoulders that make her line less than perfect. In general there was a more uninhibited quality among the Grigorovich era dancers whereas today's bunch are a little more refined.

The Bolshoi is on a roll whereas the Kirov is on the slide.

The UK press has really gone overboard on this story devoting pages and pages of tributes to Tony Curtis this morning, including huge front page pictures in The Times and Guardian, all the more remarkable because today is anything but a slow news day and generally Hollywood stars just get half a page in the arts section on their deaths. I think the extent of the coverage reflects his huge popularity here and the fact that so many people rate Some Like it Hot as the greatest comedy of all time, but of course he spent a good deal of his later career in Britain and is particularly remembered for The Persuaders opposite Roger Moore on TV. I like this photo tribute from The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/8034431/Tony-Curtis-his-life-and-career-in-pictures.html Check out picture 6, sexy or what? Ironically when he was at his most glamorous I was too young to realize what a drop dead gorgeous bloke TC actually was and just admired him for action films such as the Vikings because spectacle and derring-do is what kids like best. In the 1950's he was a real style icon and all the young men had 'Tony Curtis haircuts' including my older brother. It's a cliché but they really don't make 'em like that any more.

A good appreciation in The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/sep/30/tony-curtis-true-hollywood-star Loved Tony Curtis in so many of his roles, at his best in comedy I think, but I have vivid memories of him in Trapeze and The Vikings too. He was great fun on chat shows with a self deprecating sense of humour and heaps more personality than the cut & pastes that Hollywood produces today. I think he should get a Viking funeral, laid to rest on a Viking long-ship set afire by an arrow and sailing into the sunset.

Johnny Depp - yes!!! with Helen Mirren.

Although I've never seen Konstantin Kouzin, I once met his brother Dmitri Kouzin who works as a jazz dancer in Spain. Konstantine and Dmitri are cousins of the former Bolshoi dancers Gediminas and Vitautus Taranda. They seem to be a very talented family.

Back then it was a problem, but would it be considered one today? Somehow I think not and that society looks unfavourably at those relationships where the man is older now, something that wasn't the case in the past. In Last of Cheri, Cheri visits the older Lea who has 'let herself go'; she is fat and grey and preoccupied with food whereas a modern version of Lea would most likely diet, go to the gym and dye her hair, she might also resort to the knife. In her own life Colette got fat but also married a much younger man, probably the happiest of her three marriages too. Since my comments earlier on this thread I have read 'Secrets of the Flesh: a Life of Colette' by Judith Thurman and thoroughly recommend it, Colette was a fascinating woman who led an event packed life.

Actually I did see the La Scala Beauty at Covent Garden: the guest artists were quite nice though. I find it significant that whenever the name of Bolle is mentioned his admirers always seem to refer to his good looks. Those preferring dancing to looks tend not to mention him at all. Somova does seem to be the worst dancer at that level. There were a few ropey (alleged) mistresses of communist chiefs back in the Soviet era, but they weren't that prominent and certainly would never have opened and closed a season at Covent Garden. The Royal Ballet has had a few technical inadequates and still does, particularly among the males. Their worst was Marguerite Porter but she was still better than Somova.

I note that Alina Somova is to appear as a guest artist at La Scala, Milan. http://www.teatroallascala.org/en/stagioni/2010_2011/opera-e-balletto/jewels.html On the face of it this isn't so surprising as I believe her former champion at the Kirov, Makhar Vaziev, is now in charge of the ballet there and presumably seeks to boost his former protégées career. La Scala is perhaps the most famous house for opera in the world and I can't help wondering what her reception would be were she a singer. Now I really can't imagine that house inviting an operatic equivalent of Somova to La Scala to start with, but if by some fluke she were to appear and if we could imagine her dancing skills transformed into musical ability, I imagine the hyper-critical Milanese would boo her off the stage. I would like to ask the question, are ballet fans politer and or they less technically aware then the opera buffs?

That's true, but there are a few brave souls that still keep the faith and I suspect Leonid that you are one yourself. I recommend a CD by William Christie & Les Arts Florissants entitled Musique de Ballet with music by Lully and Rameau, it gives a real taste of the period and they danced allegro rather than legato back then. Jean-Ferry Rebel was I believe a contemporary of Lully's but nowhere near as well known: a pity as the small amount of his music that I've heard is quite impressive though very little of his work seems to have been recorded.

A review from today's Telegraph and the reviewer seems to like it. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/7975546/Venice-Film-Festival-2010-Black-Swan-review.html The story line reminds me of a film called The Piano Teacher: http://www.kino.com/pianoteacher/ This film also featured an adult woman still living with her mother with a habit of self harming. I imagine that Black Swan as an American film is unlikely to be as sexually graphic as The Piano Teacher, but I find it disturbing that women working in areas of the arts far removed from popular culture are depicted as sexually perverted with a subtext that somehow blames their artistic milieu for their psychological problems.

I found this interview long winded and self regarding; compare it with this far more incisive Ismene Brown interview with Clement Crisp in the same series: http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_01/dec01/ismene_b_int_clement_c.htm It struck me as very odd that Macaulay had been watching dance for about thirty years and not seen Revelations. The Alvin Ailey dance company dances infrequently in the UK but in those thirty years he would still have had ample opportunity to see Revelations, a work with which the company always concludes its programmes in Britain. So he is actually saying he has never been bothered to go and see this major company with an international reputation. I actually find that unacceptable in someone who claims to be a major critic of dance.

I've heard from a reliable source of donors being encouraged to sponsor a specific dancer or project only to discover that the cash was spent quite differently. People that have been generous on one occasion are therefore unlikely to be caught out twice. Some years ago I worked for a big charity that received a donation left specifically for the benefit of the staff and instead the money was used to revamp the building's reception area thereby employing a friend of one of the directors. It didn't need any work done as it had already been refurbished thanks to a very famous donor who mostly made his gifts away from the public eye, not surprisingly I am now very cynical about charitable giving.