Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×
Support Ballet Alert! Year Round through the Amazon Affiliates Program by Clicking Here to Order from Amazon.com

cubanmiamiboy

Senior Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    6,660

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Posts posted by cubanmiamiboy

    Swan Lake 02/20

    in New York City Ballet

    Posted

    And why..oh why..did Martins went away with the Two Big Swans dance, giving its valse-( and tweaking it)- to a most generic variation for Siegfried ..?!?!

    I can't get over all the insanity with this production, and excuse me all those who love but I'll keep ranting.

    Swan Lake 02/20

    in New York City Ballet

    Posted · Edited by cubanmiamiboy

    41 minutes ago, Leah said:

    The male variation music seems to be the most commonly used- the Burmeister La Scala production also uses it along with the “alternative” music for the pas de deux.

    The best way to compare is by playing the Charles Dutoit 77 version, with the original ballroom pas, the pas de six for Siegfried and the princesses. The so called "Tchai pas" is also included in the Dutoit, but we must remember it  was added after the premiere on request of the ballerina Shobeshanskaya with Petipa supplying the choreography.  Then you can listen to the Fedotov, which includes all the cuts, additions and tweaking Petipa and Drigo did in 95. I happened to like better the 77 score, particularly for act IV, sans the Valse Bluette or Un poco di Chopin and the great "stormy music" for act IV that is usually present in all versions now, but also deleted by Petipa for the 95 premiere.

    Swan Lake 02/20

    in New York City Ballet

    Posted

    The fouettenometer report:

    Bouder was brilliantly doing the fouettes, with great speed and intertwining double pirouettes with her arms up, but...she stopped short of some 28/29. Unlike Mearns, she did not fill up the rest of the music...she just stood and Furlan started his pirouettes right away. In this production, as there is no stopping to applaud the fouettes, the miss is not as obvious as other companies where ballerinas have to bravely bow even if said section was a disaster. 

    I loved Bouder nonetheless. 

    "Lever du Soleil et Arrivee de la Cour"

    in Giselle

    Posted

    On 1/30/2020 at 2:56 PM, FauxPas said:

    Hello everyone, I found online this Cambridge Scholars introduction to reprints of the scores of Giselle, La Sylphide and Le Corsaire.  There is a long explanatory introduction about the changes to the score over the years with music added by Bergmuller, Minkus and in the case of the Act II finale - Boris Asafiev.  The notes are by Robert Ignatius Letellier and reflect his research:
    https://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/58856

    "No. 16 In connection with the changes to the end of the ballet (the removal of the appearance of Bathilde, the
    hunters and the courtiers after Giselle’s disappearance), in 1913-14 a new variation of the music of the finale
    was composed by B. Afanasiev, which is performed in the theatres of our country to this day. Because of the
    major difference in the number of bars the composer’s finale is printed separately (Appendix I)."

    "3) Boris Vladimirovich Asafiev (1884-1949)
    Asafiev provided a variant of the final bars of the ballet for Russian productions in 1913-14. This allows the
    ballet to end quietly, instead of the vigorous closing bars that follow on Albrecht’s collapse in the original score.
    The Asafiev version is now included as an alternative in published versions of the score (as in the arrangement
    by Henri Busser and the Pas de Deux edited by Daniel Stirn). In the Russian version it is given as the preferred
    ending, with the original conclusion somewhat incongruously provided as the first appendix. The Asafiev
    conclusion is by no means typically used in most productions."

    I do remember well the late Mel Johnson commenting that this finale was done for Ana Pavlova's debut in the role. Or maybe it wasn't a debut, but certainly she was there.

    Swan Lake 02/20

    in New York City Ballet

    Posted

    45 minutes ago, Leah said:

    Are you seeing Bouder tonight? Of all the O/Os she's probably the most adept at fouettés now that Peck is injured. I am very surprised that Mearns didn't do as well, she's not the greatest technician but she usually has a lot of power.

    Of course I'm going. She is my favorite City Ballet ballerina!🥰

    Swan Lake 02/20

    in New York City Ballet

    Posted

    Reichlen was cautious. There was not a lot of drama in her Odette, nor seductive power in her Odile. It was obvious she was carefully going through the choreography, but there was no nervousness either. 

    She chose single fouettes intertwined with double pirouettes two to one. They were not fast but she did complete the whole of the music, which seems to be a task nowadays .

    Swan Lake 02/20

    in New York City Ballet

    Posted · Edited by cubanmiamiboy

    1 hour ago, Emma said:

    From my understanding, the Lakeside scenes are adapted from Balanchine's one act version.  Has there been further changes from that?

    Not only in the lakeside scenes, but overall everywhere. For example...right after the Black Swan pdd, what follows on the 95 score-( which is tweaked from the 77)- is an incidental music passage to clarinet, in which Von Rothbart engages Siegfried in a mime to make him swear eternal love to Odile. When he does that, the music then falls into a variant of the ballet leit motif in a fast, sinister form with brass instruments while the charade unveils. Here that whole passage before the brass is eliminated, and for some reason that's beyond me, Martins chooses to play...THE WHOLE MAZURKA IN ITS PLACE..!! So then you see Rothbart and Odile on one side and the Queen and Siegfried on the other trying their best to stretch a dialogue that is supposed to be quite shorter. The endless mazurka plays while the only thing happening is Rothbart telling Odile "We fooled him" on one side and Siegfried telling his mom "I will marry her" on the other. And it takes forever....

    Swan Lake 02/20

    in New York City Ballet

    Posted

    I'm watching Reichlen now. Intermezzo from Act 1. I sat on the first balcony right purposely to see her face in the love duet.  She obviously wanted "anguish" to be her pointer.

    They're really tweaking with the score. Many da capos are eliminated, and whole bars of music are gone.

    Swan Lake 02/20

    in New York City Ballet

    Posted

    1 hour ago, nanushka said:

    But how was the dancing last night?

    I was quite shocked to the whole lackluster of the production in act I scene I to really appreciate the dancing to its fullest. But I noticed something. What is being told as "speed" sometimes translates better in this production as "rushed"...what is meant to be "streamlined" looks in fact naked and pointless. I'm talking about the garden scene particularly. The pas de trois was there...but it was as if it wasn't.  The costumes didn't give an idea of who they are and why are they there. In some productions they are three villagers, in some others is Benno with two courtesans. Here it was just three dancers trying to dance and jump as fast and high as they could. The whole feeling of the dancing comes out pretty much as what we see in Nureyev or Grigorovitch choreos...fill, fill, fill with steps every bar of music as much as you possibly can.

    We had Mearns last night. The whole of her performance was of an overall coldness. I didn't notice any rapport at all with her Siegfried, Gillaume Cote. The Love Duet was anything but lovable. Very technical and all, bit there was no love there. Her Odile was also cold. I don't think I saw her smile at all during the whole ballet. She did single fouettes and after the 26th she started traveling and losing control and she stopped at 28, finishing the rest of the music with chainee turns.

    Swan Lake 02/20

    in New York City Ballet

    Posted · Edited by cubanmiamiboy

    Oh...and those doors in the drawing room act !-( because I saw no ballroom). Is that how guests get into a place when the court is there....by pushing and slamming wide open the doors ...? I felt sorry for the two footmen that are placed on the wall right where the external doors on each side end up after being pushed several times. They have to wait for the damn doors to hit their face before diligently close them while the dancing is going on. 

    And why was the queen seated in a 1980 tv/entertainment/bookshelf module...?

    Swan Lake 02/20

    in New York City Ballet

    Posted · Edited by cubanmiamiboy

    Intermezzo.

    Act I scene I ought to be the ugliest thing I have ever witnessed, Swan Lake wise. What on earth was PM thinking..?!? This is almost an insult to the Imperial past of this work, and I can't imagine anybody, including Balanchine himself, who would had approved of such monstrosity of a production. Choreography wise is just another try out at a Balanchinesque act, which is very similar to what one can see in John Clifford's choreos for his defunct L.A ballet. They definitely try and try, but the result is just that...a pseudo Balanchine try out. To me the whole "garden" scene could had been done sans corps, as a mere group of abstract variations, because that's what it basically looked like.

    And I thought the Soviet jesters were annoying!! This hyperactive guy in that horrendous costume and bathing cap was just the tip of the iceberg. And the nerve to sort of simulate the second male variation from T&V..!!😠

    More thoughts to come ...I need to recover.

    Swan Lake 02/20

    in New York City Ballet

    Posted · Edited by cubanmiamiboy

    I have treated patients post op after those surgeries. They're grueling...and the recovery part is just long and hard.  Many people are able to live many years avoiding the surgery, but there's a point in which is either surgery or days without not even able to get out of bed.

    Her experience addd to the list of those dancers who have dealt with horrible injuries, and still had kept fighting  with all their means to keep doing what they love the most. From the top of my head I remembered the biographies of Villella and his knees, Farrell and her hip and Alonso with her detached retina and blindness. They all were so resilient....

    Alexei Ratmansky's Giselle

    in Bolshoi Ballet

    Posted · Edited by cubanmiamiboy

    18 hours ago, maps said:

    I see similarities to Cuba for willis and Myrtha and the concept of the Albrecht diagonal - no entrechats or brises.   

     

    Definitely. And remember the Cuban version comes from a very old link to those first Giselles in London in the 1930's.  Dolin himself kept revisiting and retouching the production and personally rehearsing Alonso herself for important performances up to 1980, when Vasiliev went to Havana to dance with her. And Mary Skeaping staged her own version in Havana in the 1950's. Much of her input was erased by Dolin later on, but some stuff stayed. She even staged the Fugue Des Willis back then, but it did not survived after Dolin took over.

    There are definitely many aspects I was very familiar with from Alonso/Dolin version.

    1- The elbow bending/arm covering of the Willis face while running.

    2- Berthe's mime 

    3- The fast music ending. When I heard for the first time the for-Pavlova rearranging of the finale with the slow music-( first time I saw Giselle at the MET back in 2001)- I was puzzled.

    4- The initial choreo for the "Gallop", in act I. Wrist bending for the girls.

    5- The Willis turning their back and rejecting Giselle and Albrecht after Myrtha's branch breaks when she tries to curse them next to the cross.

×
×
  • Create New...