cubanmiamiboy

I'm ALL for my Cuban, Mr. Levy..! A bit of trivia. Before being in telenovelas he used to be an underwear model... http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/62576487/William+Levy+williamlevyshirtlesskikisanmar.jpg http://celebritynewsandstyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/william-levy-dancing-with-the-stars-season-14.jpg

Edited: Double post.

The film mother/daughter duo was like a photocopy of the 80% of my clientèle back when I was a hairdresser in the Bal Harbour area...

Lichine's tribute to "Giselle" and "La Sylphide"..!

BB...I really didn't get to get a full "visual" idea of the whole thing. It was my first time listening to this opera, so I had to rely on the info given pre-scenes by the commentators, plus I was semi-sleepy in the sand. The music, though, I found beautiful, with all those dark tones and the occasional folk tunes. The solos for the men were particularly attractive.

Reading the multiple responses to my OP-(still surprised, for the amount), once again I wonder what's going on with the AD's nowadays. Why to keep comissioning expensive and forgettable "ballets" which we can't even remember anything about the next day when there are so many good ones from the past repertoire just waiting to be revived for the general pleasure...? Why all the neglect to Tudor, Fokine, de Mille, Massine, Lifar and so on...? There are certainly people still around who remembers their "lost" works, so WHY the hesitance...? Sometimes I wonder what will happen with the Cuban repertoire once Alonso is no longer there...

I'm with you 100 %. The Miami Beach library is full of homeless, who only need to have a newspaper in their hands for them to be permited to stay. The kids are all in the computers playing games, and the environment in general is far from what I remember as the quiet, sacred institution I knew from my teenage years. I don't even go any longer to read there...I prefer to do it at the beach.

Oh, I had a GORGEUS mullet when I was a teen...! Front part with hairspray and everything... but back to Le Corsair...

Once again I admit my complete envy to you for having been able to see al those stars that I have so much read and admired-(if in a platonic way).. (So Alonso was in the classical PDD...? THAT I didn't know...(I knew she had danced the ballet, but never knew which role...!)

Did anyone listen to the MET's live broadcast yesterday of Mussorgsky's "Khovanshchina" ?. I listened to the whole thing while baking myself at the beach, and loved its superb musical score, as well the historical setting. The plot of Khovanshchina deals with eternal themes of a power struggle. Ivan Khovansky is the head of the Russian guardsmen, the Streltsy, who are allied with the Old Believers, the breakaway, reactionary sect that prefers life the way it used to be. They oppose the artistocratic Boyars and the reforms that are looming under the future Tsar. Among the cast, I really liked Ukrainian bass Anatoli Kotscherga as Ivan Khovansky, the leader of a conspiracy against Peter the Great and Mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina as Marfa, a fortune-telling member of the Old Believers. Looking forward to get me a DVD of the opera now..!

Ok, "Raymonda lover"...pop quizz...do you identify that very role and moment in that particular ballet in Dudinskaya's photo...?

Graduation Ball is a lovely ballet, but you can't do it if you don't have ballerinas able to do those fouettes, for which is the very essence of those fragments...the technical fireworks of the merry youth. If you don't have that, the ballet looses its whole allure. The ballet is "light" in content, but the whole opposite on the technical side, so because you won't be able to focus too much on the "story"-(is there any, after all...? )-it becomes all charm and TECHNIQUE. The two ballerinas duet was specially interesting. Alonso used to cast two ballerinas that were very close in technique and with a different fan base, so the whole thing became very real. I remember vaguely having a very young Lorna Feijoo and Alyhaidee Carreno on those, and there was FIRE on the air. It would be interesting, for instance, to see how could that be done over here, for example, if Mary Carmen Catoya could be presented side by side with Jeannette Delgado in the fouettes competitions....I would LOVE that...!!

http://www.guardian....07/jan/14/dance Who wrote the music? Just as carbro notes, the music also sounds to me like an interpolation, but the clip I posted claims it to be by Adam.. If anything, it seems it never made it to the Stepanov notations.

Ballet Etudes, the little company for which recently retired Cuban ballerina Dagmar Moradillos is its Ballet Mistress, will present a Cuban company staple, Lichine's "Graduation Ball". I have fond memories of this beautiful ,light ballet, and I'm glad that Miss Moradillos keeps staging all those jewels she learned from back home. In the same program, "Munecos"-("Dolls")-by Alberto Mendez, another Cuban classic, which reinvents the story of the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the ballerina, which in this case is a typical Cuban rag doll, with a very moving twist. I wish I could go and revisit those, but I'm working that night...

Oh, my pleasure, BB. You know...in this ballet board I'm all about Alonso, but Remola is right there too. I really mourn the fact-(on my convenience, of course, not hers)-that she exiled herself when I was just a kid...I never got to see her in person...only on TV. re: the circus act, I will for once declare myself a great LOVER of the art form. I go every year with lots of excitement to the Barnum Bailey when they tour here, and always found, since I was a kid, the women on the horses beautifu, with all their glitter and everythingl! Now the "trend" is "the more austere the better". Thank God we're seeing the return of the big ballet spectacles/reconstructions. The day that ballet and opera looses for good that historic flirting with the other art form, then a HUGE loss will occur... Amen. More on Miss Remola-(starting with the ubber-colored "Una voce poco fa" )

I have mixed feelings, Ksk01, about those "new-old" tutus they're using for the reconstructions. Sometimes they're H-U-G-E-(as those used in Raymonda)-and they tend to get very droppy in the front, thus partially blocking sometimes the whole leg of the ballerina from her knees up. I much prefer those "rose" types of tutus seen by mid-century dancers-(like this one worn by Mme. Makarova)-, which are very high, to waist level, vs. the reconstructed hip level ones used nowadays-(as seen here by Novikova)-and by the XIX dancers-(Vaganova here). With the sort ones you can see the whole leg...(sometimes, I admit, they were so high you could see the ruffled underpants of the ballerina.. ) I think I like it to be somewhere in between the two extremes you showed in the pictures. I like to see the whole leg but not quite as short as in the Makarova picture you showed us! I don't mind being big, as long as they're high. I like this one worn by Mme. Dudinskaya.

Of course we had our own extravagant divas. Miss Maria Remola was probably our most beloved one. Although she would eventually become an exiled herself, i still remember as a kid her ultra human stratospheric registry. Her concerts were a display of coloratura, in which her audience was to expect the unexpected...sort of in paralel with Viengsay Valdes' balances, she would stop the orchestra to do all those crazy things. She wasn't shy to do it all and she loved to please her audience. Salud, salud, salud, Miss Remola! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUV-raT5vJo&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLD602879883C1DE67

Thanks a lot, carbro, for the info. I got interested after reading a picture caption in Octavio Roca's book "Cuban ballet". The photograph shows Alicia Alonso, Royes Fernandez and Mary Skeaping, and the caption reads: "Alicia Alonso and Royes Fernandez with Mary Skeaping backstage in Havana. Skeaping, who was in the National Ballet faculty, was reponsible for adding the long-lost "Fugue des Willis" to Act II of Giselle in the 50's"

I have mixed feelings, Ksk01, about those "new-old" tutus they're using for the reconstructions. Sometimes they're H-U-G-E-(as those used in Raymonda)-and they tend to get very droppy in the front, thus partially blocking sometimes the whole leg of the ballerina from her knees up. I much prefer those "rose" types of tutus seen by mid-century dancers-(like this one worn by Mme. Makarova)-, which are very high, to waist level, vs. the reconstructed hip level ones used nowadays-(as seen here by Novikova)-and by the XIX dancers-(Vaganova here). With the sort ones you can see the whole leg...(sometimes, I admit, they were so high you could see the ruffled underpants of the ballerina.. )

I've only seen the Cuban version, which has an interesting story. Alicia Alonso staged it first in 1948 based on two sources. One of them was her own recollections of the shortened version she danced in Havana in 1935-(just two years after N. Sergueyev first staging in London's Saddler's Wells)- and staged by her Russian ballet professor Nikolai Yavorski, which was based on what he recalled back home from the Merante St. Petersburg staging. The other source was what she learned from both the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo's 1938 staging-(premiered by Danilova/Panaieff) AND Ballet Theater's 1942 Semenoff-after-Merante staging-(premiered by Baronova/Dolin). The 1948 Havana premiere had Alonso/Youskevitch in the leads. Later on, in 1957, she re-staged it again for a performance at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, where she danced the lead with Andre Eglevsky. From then on, the Cuban Coppelia has remained, just as all her other imported mid-century stagings, untouchable. I can't wait to see what Miami has to offer. It could be very interesting to see if there's any common points with Alonso's if they decide to honor either Franklin's or Danilova's past stagings. Will report... Here are two of my best EVER Swanildas...our Cuban darling, AKA "steely pointes" Miss Charin and our very "Queen of Accents", Miss Lorna Feijoo. Swanilda's Act III tutu is the very short, white number with fluffy shoulders/arms pieces which, along with the white headpiece, looks very much like those pics of Danilova I've seen. Then we have Act I PDD with Yolanda Correa as Swanilda and a very young Rolando Sarabia, back when he was FIRE in Havana. Encore presentation by Mme. Alonso as Coppelia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtmJB2G2Grg&feature=related Ediited to add: I just realize that all the dancers on those clips, except Alonso, are exiled...

The misterious-(and always cut off)- "Fugue des Willis"...

That diagonal is just not a part of MOST stagings. I don't know the MCB dancers and maybe you are right and they cant do it. I know it is very critical to you for a giselle. But for many people and many stagings it is not. I don't know if the omission of it is due to lack of technical proficiancy, and really I think it is a staging choice. You can hate that choice but i don't think its fair to chalk it up to lack of ability in the dancers. I'm sure ABT for ex. has had dancers who COULD do it. I KNOW that osipova could, but she doesn't. Here's a performance of Ferri in 1998, in Havana. As we can see, she decides to change some standard steps .

I've only seen the Cuban version, which has an interesting story. Alonso staged it first in 1948 based on two sources. One of them was her own recollections of the shortened version she danced in Havana in 1935-(just two years after the Sergueyev first staging in London's Saddler's Wells)- and staged by her Russian ballet professor Nikolai Yavorski, which was based on what he recalled back home from the Merante St. Petersburg staging. The other source was what she learned from both the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo's 1938 staging-(premiered by Danilova/Panaieff) AND Ballet Theater's 1942 Semenoff-after-Merante staging-(premiered by Baronova/Dolin). The 1948 Havana premiere had Alonso/Youskevitch in the leads. Later on she re-staged it again for a performance at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, where she danced the lead with Andre Eglevsky. From then on, the Cuban Coppelia has remained, just as all her other imported mid-century stagings, untouchable. I can't wait to see what Miami has to offer. It could be very interesting to see if there's any common points with Alonso's if they decide to honor either Franklin's or Danilova's past stagings. Will report...

In the Cuban version the men bring a big wheeled artifact where Giselle stands as the Queen of Harvest. It is even more dangerous, for which the thing sometimes bounces to one side. There were issues with the veils in the Miamian staging. All the Willis were wearing veils onstage, and they were pulled at the same time. A couple of times a veil stayed onstage. One time one brave Willi kicked it to the wing with supreme elegance. Another time another took it and sort of played with it on the air before throwing it out of sight. Kronenberg wasn't wearing a veil where she got out of her grave. All the other Giselles were. During Jeanette's debut Myrtha's branch didn't brake on her hand. Another thing I noticed on ALL performances was that Giselle was easily seen getting to the grave spot bending over before her initiation, despise the Willis being placed strategically in front of it, so the magic of the moment was sort of broken. THE MUSIC AND ORCHESTRATION. One thing that kept bothering me during the whole production was the orchestration. It was too muffled, lacking brass grandeur and accents , particularly during the Mad Scene. Also, there were too many musical cuts-(from my Cuban standpoint). The scene of the dice players before Myrtha's appearance was there-(nice touch to see restored), but the music that I'm familiar with belonging to this moment was missing. The music I refer is sort of like a march-(in a mayor key, if I remember correctly...?)-, and AFTER that's when the men get scared away following the 12 o'clock bell sounds. Hilarion's death's music was heavily reduced, and ditto with the fanfarres and music of the approaching hunting party. As I said earlier, it was very nice to hear the fast ending of the original music, instead of Pavlova's slow arrangement, and Panteado was the only one that ran madly around the stage before collapsing on the floor when the curtain dropped-(I remember the Cuban men pulling out some very fast series of chainee turns before collapsing ON TOP of the grave). The music of the overture lacked some repetitions I remember, and Albrecht's entrance wasn't done to the music I was used to-( a repetition of the slow intro of the overture)-but instead was done to the music that goes in the Cuban version to Albrecht mischievously jumping our of his cottage changed into Loys-(a scene that NEVER happened here in Miami...a huge mishap). To be continued...

Agree with all you've said, BB. Beautifully danced, and joyful/dramatic when needed. Lovely. To: whom may it might concern... NO BOUQUET OF FLOWERS FOR A YOUNG DEBUTANTE IN GISELLE..?!?! SHAMEFUL!!! So here are mine, Miss Delgado! (No more for there're only 5 emoticons allowed per post...)