cubanmiamiboy

I'm thrilled!. According to the MCB Web Site, Rolando Sarabia is among the recently updated list of Principal Dancers! . Now, the site doesn't show his picture yet, and also states "biography coming soon", but he's in the list for sure. I also searched in his former company official web site, and his name has been removed, so i guess this is for real. What a wonderful addition would it be. I've been watching Sarabita dancing since he was at the ballet school in Havana, and later when he was with Ballet Nacional de Cuba. He does the best "ronde de jambe" i've ever seen and his "pirouettes" in Don Q. are just out of this world! So, if so, Welcome Sarabita!

According to some writings, prior to the 1895 Petipa/Ivanov/Drigo's modified version, there was a production of the ballet dated february 17 and 22 1894. Now, according to some sources, it was only the 2nd Act, staged by Ivanov, what was presented, while other authors refer to this production as the first one in where Pierina Legnani did the first 32 fouetees ever done in a Swan Lake. Furthermore, some books even refer to her performance in the "Grand Pas of the last Act" and her "great technique in the Grand Pas d'Action of the II Act" , so that would be a discrepancy. My question: DOES ANYBODY KNOWS IF THERE IS ANY FACTUAL EVIDENCE OF WHAT WAS PRESENTED IN THIS PRE 1895 PRODUCTION, AND IF THIS PRODUCTION WAS ONLY OF THE II ACT, WHERE DID LEGNANI PERFORMED THE 32 FOUETEES?, AND THEN IF THIS 1894 PRODUCTION INCLUDED ACT III , AND THE NEW INTERPOLATIONS AND SUBSTITUIONS DIDN'T OCCUR UNTIL JANUARY 1895, WHAT MUSIC DID LEGNANI DANCED TO, THE MINKUS/THAIKOWSKY/PETIPA/SOBESHCHANSKAYA PDD (TPDD) ? MEL...PLEEEASE...

Act IV has always been controversial in every SL stage through the years. I've seen several versions of it, and frankly, for the modern public, way far from the XIX Century Russian one used to a very different and early technique, it's kinda hard to endure a full length IV act in the way Petipa intended. In her version for the Ballet Nacional de Cuba, Alonso has three acts plus a condensed epilogue, which uses some of the '77 music of the last act. According to her account she had observed how in some Havana productions from the past-(Mary Skeaping's)-people wouldn't stand in the theatre for the IV act, giving that the last piece of bravura_(the Black Swan PDD)-was over. The public would just leave during the III intermezzo, so she came out with the idea of a brief ending after the ballroom scene-(without intermezzo, hence kind of forcing the audience to stay)-, in which the backdrops would quickly change in the back, in the dark, while Sigfried would rush his way to the lake to look for Odette-(to the so-called "storm music"). Lights back on, lakeside, Odette/Siegfriend/Rothbart, the fight...and done deal, finito, your hands still warm after the Odile's fouettes clapping while you indulge in the vision of the two lovers reunited in the final apotheosis.

Mmm...tough question. Need some time to think about it...

Hi From company to company, at the Black Swan PDD coda we're used to see Odile's standard 32 fouetees. Then, right after, the most of the stagings set Odile performing a backward series of sautees in a plie,plie,plie/releve/pointe sequence and so on. That was very surprising for me the first time I ever saw it back in Cuba done by a foreign ballerina in a Havana Ballet Festival for which I was used to see instead a series of sautees sur le pointe en arabesque penchee fallowed by balance en attitude derrière and followed by a sequence of pique/chainees to a final climatic fish dive. My question is : Has anybody seen this version? Where does it comes from? Mel?