cubanmiamiboy

Here, Bridsall...a clip that I watch very often with the divina Miss Kolpakova as Raymonda and Vladilem Semenof as de Brienne. They really look like beautiful porcelain figurines...

My favorite moment in Raymonda is the Adagio frm the final act Grand Pas. I've had the hunting oboe melody for days and days after watching it...!

Oh, I meant the real world during the ballet. I haven't watched the Bolshoi DVD for a while, but I think the White Lady is presented in the ballet just as a sculpture during the non-dream scenes-("real world" in my conception)-and only comes to life during Raymonda's onirism-(unlike Giselle or Myrtha, which even being ghosts can be seen by mortals while awake)

Oh, so then she is both an sculpture and a ghost..! (although she never really materializes in the real world, for which her appearance only occurs in Raymonda's head during her dream, right...?)

That's the effect of the year around sunny, hot days and salty water of the beach..!! Congrats, MCB... Cristian, the temperature/humidity index along the So. Fla. coast has been in the 100's recently. Not a source of "energy" for ME, at least. But, then, I don't actually live on Miami Beach, so I may be missing the key ingredient. AND I'm a good deal older than the MCB dancers. So, who knows? Oh, it is GORGEOUS here today-(and for a little "gossiping around town", me being a permanent staple at the beach during my days off, I've spotted some dancers indulging there sometimes... )

Me too bart..! "In the night" gets a little too slow for my taste, I must confess-(still easier for me to "get" than "Dances..."). About "Ballet Imperial", I wish Villella would had chosen the tutu-ed 41-73 version instead of the reworking...

That's the effect of the year around sunny, hot days and salty water of the beach..!! Congrats, MCB...

Just when one thought that excitement, personality and risk taken performers are vintage ballet points, here come Natasha and Ivan to remind us that there's still hope...!

Isn't she an sculputre...?

I agree with Paul about Raymonda's plot being more comprehensible than others, including Corsaire-(which can get very confusing, and even Gulnare's character one is not totally sure what's exactly going on with her, as she's not really Medora's constant companion or best friend...she completely looks like a filler). I also agree that Grigorovitch version is by far the best in terms of libretto. His decision to present Jean de Brienne in the first act is a perfect idea, and one that solves more or less all the usual confusions. I have the DVD with Bessmertnova, and is one of my favorites. The dream scene is straighforward...one always know that this is Raymonda's dream-(including Abderrakhan's appearance)-and not like in other versions where this is not very clear. In Grigorovitch staging the White Lady is there, but I suspect that she originally had more stage time-(right now I'm laughing because in the Trocks version they mock the libretto's general confusion and at some point everybody is on the stage panicking and running all over chasing each other with no apparent reason, the White Lady among then...looking very confused and running too with her huge conical hat ... )

"We won't go to waste time in Miami..." Mme. Alonso http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKh8lWiZrOE&feature=feedlik

So try to make it to Vikharev's upcoming reconstruction at Alla Scala...! Now, THAT will be worth a trip... http://www.teatroallascala.org/en/season/opera-ballet/2010-2011/raymonda_cnt_15362.html

You picked up quite a hard one to do the "counting" my friend...! (I feel that Raymonda is still "covered" with a veil to the western eye that only the Russians have been able to lift). Anyway...I have tried in the past to to that too...comparing numbers, placing interpolations, trying to figure out what goes where in certain ballets, and the more I dig the more confusing it turns out to be...! I remember opening a thread a while ago on an interpolated PDD for Giselle Act I-(no longer danced), and at the end it went nowhere. Same with the Fedorova's staging of the Nutcracker PDD in a different thread, which I remember even Major Mel mentioned he knew of that particular variation from a Russian teacher of him linked I believed to the Imperial times. Anyway...keep the digging. It is certainly fun right...?

Just a little beautiful clip of pics of the "divine Olga"-(As Dame Markova called her)

Hey...let's share impressions on Villella's troupe...!

Ah...I noticed that Desire is not wearing his curled wig for the last act...(somewhere along the pages on the book written on the reconstruction I read that this wig had been a not too desirable item for the male dancer during the first performances of this staging...) P.S I loved the wolf toasting with Lilac...!

How was it...?

I wonder if Mme. will ever talk about either her sister's Cuca or her first son in law stories-(both persecuted for being radically against the Castro regime, the first one having to hide and run away from the island and the second one shot during the first firing squads waves). I would also like to see if she will be asked about her former partenaire Jorge Esquivel, which I think has been her most painful defection ever in the history of the Cuban company...

I'm glad I found an echoing posting regarding the effectiveness of presenting some ballets in a continuous , non stopping cycle, so the final result after many years is a knowledgeable audience that's able to challenge the dancers into tuning their performance to perfection. Sometimes when I see those expensive "revivals" done here and there I can't really see the sense of it when then the work doesn't get to be repeated. Also-(and to support the loud cries for the disappearance of Tudor's works)-I think it is really a crime that whole generations of dancers and audience members are getting more and more aliens to the very basis of the art...namely "Giselle", "La Sylphide", "Coppelia", "La Fille Mal Gardee", "Sleeping Beauty", "Swan Lake" or "La Bayadere". For instance...from the given list...in which ballets will I ever be able to see Jeannette Delgado dance, or which of this ballets will she be able to offer to her newly list of fans...? No more that one or two, and probably with many years in between...IF she gets to dance in them ever again. Going back to the Tudor issue...I'm glad that all the rules and regulations of the Powers that Be and Trusts and Licensing Comittees and the like are not being followed by Alonso's company, for which this way she's been able to maintain an AGGRESSIVE educational system for her audience AND dancers in works like Dollar's "Le Combat", Tudor's "Lilac Garden", Balanchine's "T&V" or his older version of "Apollo", Robbins' "Fancy Free" and even more important...the classics. Just as an example...there hasn't been ONE YEAR since the creation of the company in 1948 in which Giselle hasn't been presented. The ultimate result...? The dancers know that there's no way to trick the audience, who by now know the choreography like the palms of their hands, so they better work their rear ends off up until perfection. Eventually this bilateral feeding process has amazing, beautiful results for both sides.

Oh, Lecuona is DIVINE, Helene! He created some of the most beautiful Cuban music ever. He's such a venerated name within the island that even having been among the first ones to go into exile and even stating in his testament that under no circumstances would it be permited for his remains to be taken back to the island while the country continued to be ruled under Communism, it was completely impossible for the government to silence his ouvre. He's a real national treasure. Lecuona's "Cuban Rapsody" Lecuona's "Tengo un nuevo amor" with Maria de los Angeles Santana Lecuona's Romanza from his Zarzuela "Maria la O" with Eglise Gutierrez

Back in the 30's and 40's Cuba was a very reach soil for the development of the lyric genre "zarzuela". Some of its most famous composers were Gonzalo Roig, Ernesto Lecuona and Rodrigo Prats. The Cuban zarzuelas usually had in its center a racially mixed female heroine usually in the middle of big turmoils regarding the complex situation of racially mixed, forbidden love affairs during the slavery ridden XIX Century Cuban society. One of the most beautiful of this works is Gonzalo Roig's 1932 Cecilia Valdes. This is a two acts zarzuela with libretto by Agustin Rodríguez and José Sánchez-Arcilla, based on the 1839 novel "Cecilia Valdés o la Loma del Angel" by Cirilo Villaverde. The storyline is, as usual, about forbidden love, racial issues, revenge and murder in the colonial Cuban society of the early XIX century. After a long hiatus Cecilia Valdes proudly comes back to the Cubans in Miami in a major revival by Sociedad Pro Arte Gratelli, a group of hard working opera singers who since the very early exile days of the 60's have been tirelessly working to preserve the best of our lyric traditions. I, of course, will be there and will report back. BRAVO! Cecilia Valdes by Gonzalo Roig-(by Alina Sanchez) Amalia Batista by Rodrigo Prats-(Maite Milian) Rosa La China by Ernesto Lecuona-( Hortensia Coalla) Maria Belen Chacon by Rodrigo Prats-(Anzeina Lopez)

Just as the Mariinsky Ballet is preparing to offer their rendering of the Ratmansky/RadunskyShchedrin's staging, I thought it would be interesting to look at some clips of Burlaka's view of the Imperial production. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfgAofD_vJs&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1iYSmNhZgQ&feature=related Plus a couple of clips from another staging of the old production by the Vaganova students in 1989. Dance of the Animated Frescoes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D12P4v6Kw20&feature=related Enchanted Isle of the Tsar Maiden http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5TUkEG1MR8&feature=related

She's always engaging, even when the film is not. I'm on the same boat of those who would go see the film just because she's on it.