cubanmiamiboy

On 10/9/2019 at 11:11 AM, Roberta said:

As for the guy's variation...that is anyone and everyone's guess!

I sat again next to Smekalov, and asked him about it. He kept saying that he created the choreography, with a 50/50 "traditional/his own. And he kept mentioning Burlaka as reference. I tried to press him about how "original" was, or if he had based it on notations, or anything that would be a link to a previous variation from the older Petipa catalogue. But he didn't understand, and kept telling me about how he wanted this variation to have a military flavor. I also asked him if the music was Minkus or Drigo, but he said he didn't remember. I will try to ask an orchestra musician about it tomorrow.

57 minutes ago, YouOverThere said:

Did you see any Sleeping Beauty influence?

🤔

BTW...I have the suspicion of the twisting of the story to be, maybe, a bit politically motivated. See...it looks to me as if the new librettist was trying to avoid the whole concept of the French hero vs the bad Spaniards. And yes...they could had just turned d'Hervilly into officer Andres without changing anything else, but then it would had look like an obvious travesty a la ABT's Raymonda. Napoleon and his bloody conquests are not too kindly seen by our modern world's popular anti-imperial views...

And because the whole thing as Paquita being of noble birth, abducted by gypsies, her medallion and hence being able to marry the hero at the end still stays intact.

On 10/10/2019 at 8:16 AM, Roberta said:

You're welcome, annaewgn! May was a standout...great in her lines/poses and adagio. She wasn't totally steady on pointe in all moments, as this is a legato variation, but I have the likes of Kunakova, Pavelenko and Kondaurova as earlier dancers who I saw shine in this variation. May is progressing nicely.

I spent part of last night doing my homework on the provenance of the 2nd variation (the harp variation by Zabel, Le Corsaire), making corrections on my above post. We saw this in the Burlaka-Ratmansky 2007 Corsaire for the Bolshoi - danced by Gulnara within the "Pas des Eventails (Fans)" at the start of A3.

Nagahisa received the biggest applause for her Kalkabrino variation lady night.

Just coming out of the theater. Tonight we had Batoeva and Parish as Paquita/Lucien-(yes...I know the name/character change, but a Paquita in the Grand Pas goes with a Lucien, and from then on). Batoeva was indeed more expressive and engaging than Khoreva, and I was already declaring her a winner...until her fouettes and variation in the Grand Pas. She sort of stumbled on her fouettes, and didn't finish on music or on pointe. Khoreva was definitely better, technically wise. Xander Parish looked strained during his circle of jete cupe en turnant....his face grimacing and all.  The one ballerina that really caught my eye tonight was Renata Shakirova as Carducha. Very promising dancer. 

There have been many problems with the moving backdrops. Last night the jail panels didn't come down at all after several failed attempts, and tonight the black backdrop that conceals the change of scenery-(with the silly moving trees in the front)-wasn't coming down either. A very angry Smekalov-(sitting next to me)- stormed backstage to fix the mess, and shouts could be heard. I asked him afterwards about it and he told me "I'm killing someone. This is NOT high level".

To be continued.

I'm watching all performances all the way until Sunday, but I feel comfortable to say that this is quite a mess. Someone asked me this morning what had I seen, and me best answer was, and I will repeat my answer here. I saw two acts of some boring stuff by an unknown choreographer, much looking like the editing left overs of Esmeralda and DQ, and then I saw Petipa's Paquita Grand Pas.

Maria Khoreva-( my first time seeing her)- felt to me like a completely underwhelming dancer. I was quite distracted by the big size of her pointes compared to how little she is. In all fairness, I have to say that she did great fouettes... clean, not rushed, minimal traveling and she finished them on pointe and on music. 

I understand that this Grand Pas tries to capture the correct variations used by Petipa on his last revival of the work, but I really miss the very two variations I love the most, which pop out here and there in other productions: the Celesta variation from Pavilion d'Armide and the "Harvey variation"-(😈), with the big diagonal of saut de chats. Given that this is the only context in which we get to see this rarities performed, I felt their absence as a miss. Oh well...

More to come. I'll be by the Kennedy bust tonight.🤗

Ok. So I'm here, at intermezzo after Act II and...what a mess. Will elaborate later about this Esmeralda...I mean, Don Quixote...I mean, Paquita.

I'm in! Just arrived in DC. Where is the ballet pack getting together....? By the Kennedy bust....? I'm going tonight.

3 hours ago, Helene said:

In the PNB version, Bathilde seeks out the mourning Albrecht in the woods at the end of the ballet.

I always think of this as the Forgiveness Sandwich.   Depending on the person in the middle, not always an easy place to spend your days.

How interesting. 

Hi Roberta. I really hope there are updates on this, as it is quite a monumental task to touch this important work. If the muses would behave , then they would work to inspire Ratmansky to reconstruct two scenes. One being the "Fugue des Willis", which I have always visualized, and then the very ending "Lever du soleil et arrivee de la cour (Sunrise and the Arrival of the Court)", in which a totally different dramatic turn would had to be employed, with Giselle pardoning Albrecht in front of everyone, including Bathilde, and sort of releasing him to go with her before ascending to the heavens. Bathilde would then be a completely different animal than the short lived imperious princess we all came to know. According to the written sources, in this scene she's seen weeping and trembling, while Abrecht is supposed to get at peace with his fiancee. 

Cool, right....?

My favorite variation is definitely this one at 36:16. I haven't check the different sources that identify the variations. There are so many!-(and they vary from version to version). But I'm very haunted by the music, with the use of the Celesta. I believe this is quite the only instance I've heard this instrument in a ballet variation aside from the uber known Fee Dragee variation of The Nutcracker. Isn't there a story of Tchaikovsky being very mysterious about the use of the instrument in his ballet, for which he wanted to get a first hand grabbing at it, due to being quite a novelty at the time? And if is the case .. is this Paquita variation a pre or post Nutcracker....?

19 hours ago, EricMontreal said:

I have to comment on this.  I am OK with changes for different mediums, etc.  As much as I love Anderson's Little Mermaid, it's so different from the Disney version anyway--an unhappy ending in Disney's version would make zero sense (maybe they could have her commit suicide to a reprise of "Under the Sea" 😉 ).  And, speaking of ballets, have you seen La Esmeralda?  Do you know how Notre Dame de Paris ends?  😉 (Of course it's true that Victor Hugo himself had already written the libretto of an opera based on his work which was a hit, though now forgotten, which similarly had a happy ending.)

Yes...I know the original "La Esmeralda" libretto. Re: "The Little Mermaid", it could be that I grew up not only reading the original fairy tales, but also watching a beautiful Russian cartoon from 1960 that is faithful to Anderson. Disney's version came up in my adulthood, and because it sort of erased the original-(ask around to millennials)- I felt it like a bombastic fake. Same with Swan Lake double suicide. Whole generations of ballet goers, principally in Russia, do not know it. Russian Bayaderes case is different.. more like an omission than a change. 

No Nutcracker. Your friend might get bored during Act I. Any of the other options mentioned here might work better. Symphony in C is definitely the big winner, as the one with the most "classical" choreo, and amazing, easy on the ears "musique dansante"-(if your friend agrees with both Ana Pavlova and myself re ballet music, she will find "Rubies" hard to digest, both music and choreo wise). Valse Fantaisie would also be a delightful intro to the art form. Ballet Imperial I'm not sure. It is beautiful, but can be dense.

1 hour ago, canbelto said:

Here's an early version of what looks like a pancake tutu:

 

That one looks more like a simpler version of the busy powderpuff tutu.

There are definitely tsarist era early versions of our actual "pancake tutu", and they are certainly not soft skirts with crinolines.  Still, I can't really tell how much, if any, wiring is involved on them. They look pretty stiff and crispy.

Kshessinskaya in "Le Talisman"

Legnani and Preobrajenska in Le Corsaire

Pavlova in her signature swan role. Here I think more traces of the complicated pancake tutu form can be seen.

There seems to have been a switch during the turn of the century in Russia in the shape, from the bell shaped skirts with crinolines of Tsarist era to a very high waisted busy version of the powderpuff, seen by the likes of Dudinskaya in her pics of Raymonda or Semionova as Odette. Still...it looks as this early powderpuff versions still don't use the very complicated wired design that makes a completely different skirt, very flat and bouncy.  I don't believe Diaguilev era designs include any of those yet, although a bit of a wiring might had been introduced in the bottom of some skirts, as in Petrouschka's ballerina or Karsavina's Firebird. By the time the troupes of de Basil, Massine and early Balanchine in America, I can see flat tutus already in use.

2 hours ago, canbelto said:

The Trocks is NOT mockery of ballet. Those dancers take their craft very seriously and their pointe work technique is remarkable. What they do is a tribute to ballet, and I don't know how anyone could view otherwise.

 

(OT)

Barocco! 😍😍😍 

One of the best examples of Balanchine's lovely "Ballet is Woman" quote 🤗.

Back to topic now....

6 hours ago, Helene said:

...but it has a different meaning than when it's used for ridicule, however borderline...

Yep.  EXTREMELY borderline, imo...

And yes...it is definitely cultural. Ballet is also taken ultra seriously in my birthplace, so I never quite got comfortable with the whole laughing business...

I believe the key is the introduction of the wiring vs the older usage of multiple crinoline layers under the outer skirt-(a la Raymonda/Coppelia/Paquita reconstructions).

The wiring completely changes the whole concept .

10 hours ago, Helene said:

It was good enough for Gediminas Taranda:

 

Oh no... that's unwatchable to me, Helene. And with THAT piece of music specifically, no...no...😪😪😪

4 hours ago, Balletwannabe said:

I guess it's just a matter of opinion.  I don't think adding comedy to ballet necessarily = mockery.  This is one of my fav's:

 

It is definitely a matter of opinion the obiquitous mockery-(well, I call it mockery anyways, although it might be perceived as mere "comedy" by others, as you state)- of ballet when it wants to be presented for larger audiences as a more "popular" or "approachable" thing. Which is why I have never been to Les Trocks. It really displeases me.

On 8/23/2019 at 6:09 PM, California said:

Here's Copeland on Kimmel:

 

Agh. I HATED that segment. The old tiring mockery of ballet. Same thing...guys in tutu looking ridiculous etc etc..

Watching Tchaikovsky's beautiful score paired with "that" was just tragic 

I saw the film yesterday. Huge dissappointment. It feels like a grander, augmented cinematic version of a gossip History Channel episode. Very unrealistic feeling. The ballet sequences also felt out of place, never masking the fact of being a portray of contemporary dancers doing contemporary movements in period clothing. It was a bit boring, IMO.

20 hours ago, KathyKat said:

While watching (actually re-watching) a favorite YouTube video from 2013 of the Sleeping Beauty fairies with Yulia  Stepanova, Xenia Ostreikovskaya, et. al. , I noticed the different shapes of the tutus or the way hang on each of the dancers. For instance while Stepanova’s tutu had a nice disc or “satellite “ shape, others, particularly the one worn by Tatiana Tiliguzova had what seemed to me an odd droop in front almost to the point of making a saddle shape. Just wondering why this would be. Would this be up to the dancers themselves or the costume personnel?  I see this a lot on different videos and it just seems so strange that some tutus are more symmetrical and others are floppy. Does anyone else find this peculiar or have any possible explanation?

I'm no dancer, but I believe the answer to your question is the tutu's age and shape. The "pancake" tutu's front tends to droop after years of usage, particularly if they are big, low waisted and bouncy. Those other types made of crispy layers of tulle, up high in the ballerina's torso, and so favored by the Soviets back in the days are a totally different story, as well as the bell shaped "new-old" ones we see in the recent reconstructions.

On 8/15/2019 at 10:33 PM, Lena C. said:

Oh wow. That's too bad. When I saw Lendorf at a performance this past spring season, he had said he was working to come back asap. At least some more homegrown dancers will get more opportunities.

Oh Lord...ABT is getting thinner and thinner...😒